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So my old boss Ralph has been processing a bunch of comics magazines, including those two Atlas/Seaboard magazines I mentioned a couple of weeks back. Well, I finally got my hands on those two items, which I’ll probably talk about in the near future, but before that, let me discuss something else I acquired from Ralph at the same time…The Captain Kentucky Collection Volume 1 (1981) by Don Rosa:
And here’s the back cover:
…as well as a closer look at those pics ‘n’ captions, since they don’t show up too well in that scan:
I’ve written a few times before about how I first found the work of Don Rosa in the Comic Reader ‘zine, where they were reprinting his Captain Kentucky comic strips. I thought they were pretty great, and I always kept a lookout for any more work by Mr. Rosa, which brought me to his Don Rosa’s Comics & Stories magazines, and, eventually, to his official Disney debut in Uncle Scrooge #219. (And that of course sent me on a journey rediscovering the work of Carl Barks, but that’s a story for another time.)
Anyway, I didn’t really need this, as such. I own this 2001 hardcover which reprints every CK strip:
…but it doesn’t have that great cover from the ’81 magazine, and there’s an introduction in the mag that isn’t in the hardcover. Plus, there’s those two great photos I have scanned above. The magazine also has an index to “People Offended” and “Places Destroyed” which I thought was funny, and unique to this publication…but it turns out the hardcover also that this index, expanded to the strip’s full run and not just the first 50 installments, which I didn’t recall.
For the most part, I try not to repurchase (or “double-dip” on) things I already own, says the guy with about fifteen different versions of House of Secrets #92. But there are always exceptions, and I remember really wanting this CK mag when I first heard about back in the ’80s, but thinking I missed the window of opportunity to get one and that I’d just have to piece together the run in the Comic Reader. Having that hardcover should have been enough, but finally seeing the mag in person while digging through Ralph’s boxes sort of rekindled that collecting desire. Even though at the time when I first saw it, I said “ah, I’ve got all those strips, I don’t need it” — but sure enough, a couple of days later I was on the phone with Ralph, telling him “sigh, okay, hold that Captain Kentucky ‘zine for me, too.”
And now, here it is, in my hands. Another weird old hole in the collection, filled. Like I said, I didn’t need to own this, but I sure am happy to finally have it.
…Aaaaand welcome back to Mike Goes Over Your 2016 Predictions at Excruciating Length, but if you’re just joining us, parts One and Two of this Predictapalooza may be found at the links attached to the words “one” and “two” that you just read. Also, if you want to chip in with your comic industry predictions for 2017, here is where you’d want to go.
• • •
googum googums:
“1. When Marvel’s ream of new titles aren’t all immediate million-sellers, a lot of them get cancelled. But the criteria for what gets cancelled and when is going to seem completely arbitrary. One critical darling gets cut, while another with worse sales goes on; and so forth. Feelings are hurt.”
Marvel’s cycles of relaunches and cancellations seem to have been just business as usual, though it appeared the ending of the Squadron Surpeme spinoff Nighthawk got a lot of attention. I suspect we’ll be seeing a lot more cut-short runs in the near future, based on how some of the newer launches have been doing.
“2. After doubling-down on Batman doesn’t immediately yield huge profits, DC is forced to go further down its list of properties to reboot. House of Mystery, Kamandi, and Sgt. Rock are all brought back; with varying levels of success.”
You were close on Kamandi, which is coming back in a month or two…though not really a “reboot” so much as a gimmick “round-robin” series, which still looks like fun anyway. I mean, in a wider sense, DC did sorta reboot everything mid-way through the year, but there wasn’t really any chance-taking with most of the books, as far as properties go. I mean, the most oddball book of the bunch is Hellblazer, really.
“3. Batman v. Superman might do well in theaters, but not as well in the action figure aisles. With a glut of ‘Batfleck,’ it lingers on shelves and causes future superhero figure lines to be cut back.”
I haven’t noticed any scaling back of the action figure business in the wake of BvS, but we’ll see what they do for Wonder Woman. If anything, I’m seeing an upswing in solicitations for the high-end figures…the $50 to $100 ones in the fancy boxes with too many extra hands or heads. That’s in addition to continuing offers for the standard-issue figures, so it’s not as if they’ve backed off from general interest figures in favor of boutique collectibles. …To be honest, I haven’t been in a store’s toy aisle in quite a while, so I don’t know what’s warming the pegs.
• • •
Anthony hops in with
“1. Flash/Arrow universe will NOT crossover with Gotham or Supergirl”
Not with Gotham, but definitely with Supergirl. Twice, even!
“2. Marvel glosses over Miles Morales being in the 616”
He has an ongoing, and he was part of the Civil War II event, so Marvel hasn’t started ignoring him yet!
“3. Godzilla Resurgence doesn’t get released in America”
Had to Wiki it up, but it looks like it had a limited release and did manage to make a not-insignificant amount of cash. Not bad for an old radioactive monster.
• • •
PTOR conjures up
“The Dazzling Dystopian Disney/Marvel Mighty Marching Merchandising Machine for the Benedict Cumberbatch Doctor Strange movie will CRUSH me under its brobdingnagian weight, and I’ll be selling off internal organs in a vain attempt to keep up.”
Whether he was crushed beneath said Doctor Strange merchandise, I don’t know…can one of you guys swing by his sanctum and check up on PTOR? Anyway, there was a lot of Strange merch, because 1) it’s Marvel, and 2) it’s Disney, so that should come as a surprise to nobody. But really, all you need is an Eye of Agamotto replica pendant. And maybe the cape.
• • •
David Alexander McDonald tries to do me in with
“1) DC. Dan DiDio remains in place. Geoff Johns, surprisingly, doesn’t get sucked into Hollywood yet again. On the comics front, nobody can make up their mind what they’re doing any more because everything seems to be falling down and failing, even The Dark Knight III, which collapses under its own weight of hubris as it bangs on. Grant Morrison’s Wonder Woman Earth-One becomes the focus of increasing amounts of hate, until DC pulls the book and issues an apology for daring to take the character back to her roots. The DC Multiverse ends up confusing everybody because one faction wants to run with ‘anything goes!’ while another faction is terrified by the financial hits DC took in 2015 and wants to contract the whole damn thing back to core books.
“The dregs of the New 52 finally stagger to issue #52 and DC reconfigures all over again, without actually bothering to reboot. Due to the stress of all of this, in October Dan DiDio grows hair.
“Batman v Superman comes out, staggers, and dies, continuing Warner Bros’ disastrous streak, but Suicide Squad makes it. Heads roll at Warner Bros, and rumours of strange things being done to the Wonder Woman film emerge from the darkest corners of gossipville.
“The TV front continues to cook along. The end of Flash season 2 kills Harrison Wells off again (nobly), redeems Jay Garrick, and makes it clear that there’s more than two universes to play in, enabling a possible Supergirl crossover (that everyone will deny can ever happen, until it does.) Legends Of Tomorrow will sneak Booster Gold in. Now on a mad streak, the Berlantiverse will bring back John Constantine once again, on the way to launching him into a fourth DCCW series, this time DC’S HOUSE OF SECRETS.”
So, that’s prediction #1, eh? Geez louise. Well…Dan and Geoff, still around. DKIII is actually still selling very well for me, despite delays and adding a ninth issue. WW Earth-1 is still around, and people seemed to like it. Folks seem okay with the multiverse shenanigans. Don’t know if anyone was “terrified,” but DC did reconfigure without exactly rebooting, so good call there. Dan’s head remains bald and beautiful.
NEW PARAGRAPH. BvS and Squad both did fine, if not the billion point five everyone expects superhero movies to make now. Haven’t heard anything odd about the WW movie, and heads could be rolling at the WB, but when aren’t they at any major media company?
THIRD PARAGRAPH FOR PREDICTION ONE, DAVID: They did replace Wells with another Wells, and I hope they serve up a new Wells every year. Jay Garrick was redeemed, but probably not in the way you were expecting, and yes indeedy we have the DC Multiverse on people’s televisions, somehow (including that Supergirl crossover!). Booster Gold apparently does have something in the works, but not tied to the other shows. Constantine ain’t back on TV, though the actor from the TV show will reprise the character for the animated Justice League Dark movie. I’d love a House of Mystery show, however.
“2) Giant-Size Man-Thing. Er, Marvel. Marvel’s All New, All Different not-a-reboot (honest) will run into major issues because of the Perlmutter decision to screw with the Fantastic Four and the X-Men and promote the Inhumans. Editorial will try to push more graphic novels out, and more omnibuses. There will be mass confusion.
“On the film front, Deadpool will do okay, X-Men: Apocalypse will not. Captain America: Civil War will fall a bit short of expectation financially, but this again won’t be superhero fatigue but ongoing cinema trends. Doctor Strange will do okay, if not gangbusters, although production will be fraught due to a very tight time frame.
“Marvel TV…will see Jessica Jones given a second season, Luke Cage being a huge hit, Daredevil officially getting season 3, and all of the shadows around Iron Fist being blown away as though punched by a fist that’s become like unto iron! Um, anyway. Agents Of SHIELD will get a fourth season, and inexplicably have a story that gives us Man-Thing in time for the Doctor Strange movie. Agent Carter will get a third season as well, this time with twelve episodes. Other mooted Marvel TV shows will fade quietly away again, both MCU and otherwise. There will be a big foofawraw as Fox, in desperation, attempts a Fantastic Four TV show, having drowned the FF sequel in the bathtub.”
Well, FF is still out of the picture, and the confusing X-Men promotion will actually be this year, 2017. Nobody gets the huge Inhumans push, though their comics are doing…okay, mostly. Marvel’s graphic novel program is still pretty much business as usual, and folks seem to be taking it in stride.
Deadpool way exceeded expectations, while Apocalypse did okay but not as well as people hoped. Civil War and Doctor Strange both did extremely well. People still like their superhero flicks!
Jessica Jones was indeed renewed, Luke Cage went over well, Daredevil was also renewed, and I don’t know how Iron Fist will do, and in fact I’m not quite sure what your prediction means! Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. did get a fourth season, but we’ll see if a fifth is in the offing. …Ooh, too bad about Agent Carter, though. And oddly enough, Fox is attempting an X-Men tie-in show, but that doesn’t start ’til next month.
“3) At some point during the year I will contact the Mikester and buy something from him. Why will this happen? Because. Mike’s one of the good guys, has been generous with his time and words, and deserves our support. SO SAY WE ALL (c’mon, you poozers, SPEAK UP!)”
LISTEN TO THIS VERY WISE, IF VERBOSE, MAN.
• • •
Jer sez
“1) The big events this year will revolve around movies. Batman v. Superman, Captain America, and Doctor Strange will all do well. Audiences will respond to Suicide Squad with a baffled WTF, though it will probably do well financially. None of these movies will do much for comics except that we might have a shot at finally getting all of the original run of Suicide Squad into print.”
Well, a movie called Civil War certainly played a part in getting a Civil War II on the stands. And I think you called it on Suicide Squad, though some people did react well to certain aspects of it (like Harley Quinn). And yes, the classic Suicide Squad is coming out in trade!
“2) On the TV front – Legends of Tomorrow on the CW will do reasonably well, but not better than the Flash. Supergirl will probably get picked up for a second season, but if it doesn’t it’ll move to CW. It’s a coin toss as to whether Agents of SHIELD gets a fourth season or not, but I’ll go ahead and say that it gets the axe but ABC puts together a different Marvel show to fill the timeslot. DC will fumble the ball with the Legends of Tomorrow comic book to the surprise of no comics fans, but to the bafflement of fans of the TV show looking for tie-ins.”
A quick look at some articles on the matter noted that Legends of Tomorrow didn’t do all that great, though its ratings doubled during the “Invasion” crossover. And as noted already, Supergirl did move to the CW, and S.H.I.E.L.D. got its fourth season. And while I liked DC’s Legends of Tomorrow comic, it definitely wasn’t the TV show, though it’s not like I had anyone asking for a specific tie-in for it anyway.
“3) On the comics front – no big events this year and the great jumping off point for old readers that both of the Big Two gave to readers last year means that there will be lots of handwringing and gloom-n-doom analysis and we’ll get dozens of articles all year about the decline of the Direct Market.”
We did get big events from DC and Marvel, which did fine and didn’t cause an attrition of readers, that I noticed, though DC’s Rebirth numbers are beginning to normalize, and a lot of Marvel’s post-CWII relaunches are landing with a big “thud.” There’s always “the end of comics” market analysis talk, but some of these flops ain’t helpin’.
• • •
Interstate Shogun hits the road with
“1. With the reprinting of Master of Kung Fu in Omnibus editions becoming a big hit for Marvel, a new ongoing series will once again be tried. That’ll be the good news. The bad news? Kaare Andrews will write and draw it.”
No new ongoing, which just slightly surprises me. With eveything else Marvel is throwing at the wall, I mean, why not?
“2. With the success of Dark Knight III, and with DC looking for anything that will sell, another series will be announced, Dark Knight IV: Dark City. In this one, a beaten down Bruce Wayne travels to Russia to box a heavyweight contender with spiky blond hair. Along the way, Bruce also tracks down a serial killer with a taste for hookers. He even takes one bowling to try to lure the killer out. Great family fun for all!”
Well, in all seriousness, there seems as if there will be a Dark Knight IV, which was announced in 2015. Of course, if it’s out by 2018, I’ll be shocked.
“3. The new Miracleman material will finally come out in 2016 and it won’t seem like such a big deal. Miracleman will be subverted into the 616 with little fanfare and become buddies with the Sentry.”
No new MM stuff out yet, but they longer they wait, the less anyone’s going to care. I mean, I’ll care, becaues I’ve been waiting for the continuation of that story for decades, so what’s a few more months/years?
• • •
Back on Monday for more! And give me
your 2017 predictions!
So ye olde Google Alerts pulled up this article about the recent Heritage Art Auction, and yeah, a Frazetta painting brought in a lot of dough, and sure, an Action Comics #1 sold for whatever, but what you’re here for is Swamp Thing news!
Bernie Wrightson’s original art for the cover for the first issue of the classic Swamp Thing series, published in 1972, went for over $191,000:
…and Wrightson’s wraparound cover for DC Special Series #2 (1977) went for the relative bargain price of just under $66,000:
What sort of surprised me is that these pieces were still out there, trading around on the market. It makes me wonder where all the Swamp Thing original art from House of Secrets #92 might be. Hey, if you see the original art for this cover pop up on eBay for, like, $100, maybe even $150, let me know, okay?
Speaking of original art, Twitter pal Jason pointed out this Amazon listing for the very-forthcoming Swamp Thing Bronze Age Omnibus due on in 2017. The listing notes that it includes House of Secrets #92 and Swamp Thing issues #1 through 25. As all true Swampheads know, the original series only published through #24, which has me wondering if the omnibus is going to include those unpublished pages from #25 that turned up in the original art marketplace a few years back. That would be nice, particularly if they were able to find other pages from the issue, if they exist.
It could just be a typo, though Twitter pal Christopher notes that the same information turns up elsewhere. That could just mean the typo’s in whatever press release got sent around to everyone, though. Wouldn’t be the first time a Swamp Thing #25 got typo-ed into existence…the Overstreet Price Guide mistakenly had it in their listings for a few years.
Anyway, it’s not like I’m not going to get one for myself, regardless. Can’t pass up my, what, fifteenth, sixteenth reprint of House of Secrets #92? Oh, and it’ll be nice to have the rest of the the Nestor Redondo-illustrated issues on good paper, after only getting three of them reprinted in that Roots of the Swamp Thing book from a while back. And speaking of that, the theoretical Roots of the Swamp Thing Vol. 2 that I wrote about a couple of years ago seems to still be a shadow of a whim of a dream, judging by this Amazon listing with no potential arrival date noted. If that even means anything. I have no idea. You should probably ask someone who knows something about comic books.
But regardless, thassa lotta Swamp Thing heading our way in our format or another. Now let’s hope this book sells well so we can get a second omnibus with all those Challengers of the Unknown and Super Friends and other Swampy appearances under one cover. And maybe that second installment of the Patchwork Man story that only appeared overseas, too. That’ll save me a trip to Sweden, at least.
A bunch of you told me this was coming, and here it is, now in my possession, the 1:10 ratio variant cover for
Super Secret Crisis Wars #2, which was inspired by the cover for
House of Secrets #92 (the first appearance of Swamp Thing, of course).
This cover is by Andy Suriano, who notes next to his signature that the image is “After (Bernie) Wrightson” and that it’s “For Weezie!!” — AKA Louise Simonson, the writer of Super Secret Crisis Wars, and, oh, by the way, was also the model for the woman on the cover of that original House of Secrets #92.
Suriano might as well have added “Buy This, Mike Sterling” next to his signature as well. This also makes the second Powerpuff Girls-related Swamp Thing parody that I own (the first being the first issue of their IDW series).
In other ridiculous comic news…well, I wasn’t going to buy Injustice: Gods Among Us for the Xbox 360 at $59.99 or whatever the price point was, but I noticed that it recently was available in the Xbox store as a $7.99 download, so, you know, what the heck, I can probably get eight bucks of entertainment out of it. And to be frank, I liked it a lot more playing the full game than I did when I played the demo way back when. Getting the actual “story,” such as it is, and the cut scenes setting up the battles actually does help quite a bit in fleshing this game out into more than just a punch-em-up. Not much more, granted, but I’m having some fun with it. Plus, I’m trying to actually use the special fighting moves each character has, rather than my usual “push every button on the controller in a panic” strategy in dealing with games like these. I’m mostly successful.
This last Wednesday was the rare Mike-less Wednesday at the shop, as I ended up being stuck at home all day waiting for a locksmith to come and repair the lock on my front door…well, not all day, but by the time everything was done, there wasn’t any point in making the drive to work. Hopefully I won’t return on Thursday to find smoking ruins and “MIKE MUST DIE” painted in blood on one of the remaining walls, because I wasn’t thrilled the last time that happened. Alas, the lock problems were a special morning surprise, and not anything I planned for, so I had precious little work to do at home whilst I waited for the Friendly Neighborhood Locksmith to make his way to me. A little eBaying, a little store website maintenance (i.e. getting the store website back up because someone screwed up somewhere…not saying it was me, but…um, it was me)…
…and a little catching up on reading this week’s new comics over lunch. My fifteen minutes are almost up here, so let me just throw out the fact that I really enjoyed the Red Lanterns Annual. In fact, the Red Lanterns title in general is a lot of fun. I was skeptical as anyone on the Tumbling-Twitter-Journals about this when it was announced, that the world surely didn’t need a comic about the Red Lanterns, of all things, and who are, well, kinda gross when you get right down to it. But there’s always something interesting going on in the title, and this recent annual was stuffed with all kinds of crazy events and twists and turns, and personality conflicts mixed with the occasional grudging friendships are entertaining to read. I certainly like this comic more than the Green Lantern titles, which aren’t bad as such…just seem a bit staid compared to their more crimson-hued cousin.
Sinestro is good, too. Must be something about Green Lantern villains/antagonists that make for compelling reading. …Where’s my Myrwhydden series?
So here’s this weird thing, released in conjunction with DC’s fiftieth anniversary in 1985, which, as the title promises, lists fifty people/licensees/products responsible for the company’s success and endurance. This would include the business people who started and / or ran the company:
…and the creative types who created the characters and produced the high-profile projects:
There are also entries dedicated to studios producing the films (like Fleischer Studios and Hanna-Barbara), actors who portrayed the characters (including Lynda Carter and Best Batman
Adam West), the World Color Press, and of course, a page devoted to Superman Peanut Butter:
…which may seem a little silly at first, but that sure helped to keep Superman in the minds of kids. It’s no crazier than
Donald Duck Orange Juice.
The entries for Bob Kane and Bill Finger are interesting for what they say and don’t say, as noted here by Boys of Steel author Marc Nobleman.
Alan Moore doesn’t rate a mention, having only worked on Swamp Thing for a year or so at that point, and the endless piggybacking of his work was still in DC’s future. Helen Slater gets a page, having portrayed Supergirl in the big-budget film flop from the previous year, which seems odd on the face of it. However, she made a good Supergirl, even if the movie itself wasn’t, and it remains, then as now, the only big-screen adaptation starring one of DC’s heroines. (EDIT: I mean, aside from that other one.)
One of the neat things about this booklet were the caricatures, credited to Steven Petruccio, of some of the personalities involved, illustrating various aspects of that person’s involvement in Making DC Great. You can see examples above in that scan of the M.C. Gaines entry.
Bookending the publication are some color cover images of DC’s major publications with brief notes as to why they’re important, such as indicating that issue of New Fun from 1935 was DC’s first comic book. (House of Secrets #92 is among those covers, making this yet another Swamp Thing appearance, kinda sorta, I had to own.) Along with those pics are quotes from notable folks occasionally about DC but mostly just about comics in general, from some diverse personalities as movie critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, underground comix legend Richard Corben, the Muppets’ Jim Henson, Stephen King, and Stan Lee.
I’m not even sure why I bought this at the time, beyond it catching my eye as the oddball release that is was, and perhaps appealing to my budding interest in the history of the medium. Plus, it felt sort of fanzine-y, and I do so love ‘zines.
A couple more comments on this: I may have inadvertently stole my “Suddenly, [X] Years Later” gag from that cover. And, if DC were to put this out today, surely it would be Fifty-Two Who Made DC Great!
So they found a way to get me to buy those Robot Chicken photo-cover gag variants…GUESS HOW:
This, I realize, comes as a surprise to no one.
On a related note, I had a brief interchange with fellow Swamp Thing fan John regarding the possibility of the existence of color variations of House of Secrets #92, Swamp Thing’s first appearance. It seems that when I’ve posted panels from that original story in the past, Swamp Thing’s eyes were colored red:
…but when John got his own copy of HOS #92, the eyes were colored white-ish:
He wondered why there was an apparent difference between his copy of HOS92 and my own, if perhaps there was another print run of the original where the coloring was altered, purposefully or accidentally. And that had me wondering, too. Mostly along the lines of “how in God’s name am I going to track down this kind of variant for my own collection?”
Well, after a small amount of digging, actually it turns out my scans have been from one of the handful of reprints I have of that story, since I didn’t want to subject my own original House of Secrets #92 to the tender mercies of the flatbed scanner. In those reprints, the eyes have been recolored red from the original version’s white, which is a detail I hadn’t realized had been changed. So, no weird color variations in that original release of House of Secrets #92, I’m afraid. Sorry, price guides and eBay!
Also, I’d be lying if I said that didn’t come as some small bit of relief. Calling store to store asking them to check Swamp Thing’s eye coloring on their copies of House of Secrets #92…I’m not sure the human ear could endure that many hang-ups.
So Tom Spurgeon had a Five-for-Friday call for entries recently, asking folks to “Name A Character Or Characters Or Title And Then Name Four Iconic Visually-Driven Single Moments For Your Choice.” I saw that in my feed-reader and was well on my way to gathering some choice Swamp Thing panels, when I realized I’d missed the deadline. Ah, well…you can read other folks’ entries over at Tom’s site (which as I write this is experiencing some technical difficulties, but should be up again soon), but I thought I’d share a few of the panels I was thinking about.
First one that came to mind was this one from Swamp Thing #1 (1972), which I’ve featured on the site before:
…And then there’s
this, though there are lots of versions of that panel to choose from!
And there was this panel from issue #7 from that first series, which maybe isn’t an “iconic” pic that immediately comes to mind when one thinks about “Swamp Thing,” but it’s Swampy in an overcoat slapping Batman around, and that’s always great:
The next panels I thought of were a pair of splashes that are in fact connected plot-wise. In Alan Moore’s first story arc, Swamp Thing finds out he was never actually a human being, but a plant “infected” by Alec Holland’s memories. Traumatized by the revelation, he collapses in some Louisiana marshland and lets himself take root, resulting in this startling image from
Swamp Thing #22 (1984):
I remember showing this page to…hmm, someone, can’t recall who, but that person couldn’t tell that was Swamp Thing beneath all that overgrowth. I had to sort of trace my hand along the image…”there’s his head…see his arm, there?” …
The follow-up to this in the next issue, when Swamp Thing finally snaps out of it and uproots himself in time to come to Abby’s rescue:
Such a great, detailed image by Steve Bissette and John Totleben. When Bissette and Totleben first came onto the book a few months prior, Swamp Thing began his visual transition from a generally smooth-ish skinned monster with his plant-like nature represented by twisted roots covering his body, into a creature that actually sort of
looked like it was comprised of plantlife. It was this particular storyline, though, that finally brought us a Swamp Thing that really looked like a big ol’ walking swamp.
Another panel I considered was this one, from the very first Swamp Thing story in House of Secrets #92 (1971), where the Swamp Thing stares sorrowfully down at his wrist, wondering if his golden bracelet is still buried there:
…but I decided I would more likely go with the wordless panel immediately following, which feels much more despairing:
Here are the two panels, together as printed:
…And I could keep going even farther beyond Tom’s four-panel limit, but I’m sure he’s not quite ready to start curating “Fifty for Friday” posts. A few years back, I made a list of my
favorite Scary Swamp Thing Moments, and I’m sure there’s more than one iconic Swampy image located therein.
However, I’m pretty sure this remains the definitive image of Swamp Thing for most people in the world.
This is obviously not comprehensive, and I suppose if I’d been able to meet the deadline, I would have pondered it a little longer and thinned down the selection to an actual four-image submission, but I wanted to pass along the first few candidates that popped into my head. I’m sure some of you out there have a specific single Swamp Thing panel that sums up the character for you, and please feel free to share in the comments.
images from Millennium Edition: House of Secrets #92 (May 2000), reprinted from, House of Secrets #92 (June/July 1971) by Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson; Swamp Thing #1 (October/November 1972) by Wein and Wrightson; Swamp Thing #7 (November/December 1973) by Wein and Wrightson; Saga of the Swamp Thing #22 (March 1984) by Alan Moore, Steve Bissette and John Totleben; Saga of the Swamp Thing #23 (April 1984) by Moore, Bissette and Totleben
So I finally picked up for myself that Firestorm The Nuclear Man trade paperback DC Comics released several months ago. Normally, I don’t tend to buy reprints of material I already own (my…um, dozen or so versions of House of Secrets #92 notwithstanding), but I was in the mood to read a little somethin’ archival, and Firestorm is one of my favorite superhero series, and the trade’s cover is pretty sharp-looking, and I’d like to have these stories printed on nice white paper.
It’s fun stuff, a little rough around the edges and maybe trying a little too hard to push the Spider-Man formula of “put-upon high schooler is also an awesome superhero,” but still an entertaining read that has aged reasonably well. With a new Firestorm series heading our way this week, it’s nice to look back at where the character began.
For instance, I’d forgotten just how callous Ronnie Raymond (one half of Firestorm’s alter egos) was to Professor Martin Stein (the other half). When merged together as Firestorm, Stein was the disembodied voice who advised Ronnie, who was in control of their physical form. However, when the two would split apart into their civilian identities, Stein wouldn’t remember his time as part of Firestorm, attributing his time-loss to blackouts and such. And, of course, this leads to all kinds of personal and professional problems for Stein, which Ronnie just kind of brushes off with an “ah, well…it sure is great to be a superhero!”
I know this is eventually resolved…in the second Firestorm series from the 1980s, Stein is aware of his dual life, but…I don’t recall exactly when or how this is resolved. It used to be I had these comics pretty much memorized, but it’s finally to the point where it’s been so long since I’ve last read them, they’re almost like new to me again. At least, in terms of specific plot points, since, as I described, I remember general things about the series and characters. Anyway, I thought that was a neat twist for a superhero…not just having two different people squeezed together to form one hero, but by having one of them not remember his superhero life, and the other not have enough of sense of responsibility to realize what he’s doing to his “partner.”
The other aspect of this series that I enjoy is the reversal of the typical “jock versus nerd” conflict, where Raymond (a member of the school’s basketball team) is constantly harassed by Cliff Carmichael, the school brain. I’ve written about Cliff before, and…man, I kinda miss that particular conflict. I seem to recall a time or two where Cliff and Ronnie actually, if briefly, get along, which was a nice touch, adding a little extra dimension to the typical high-school rivalry proceedings. But, like I said in that previous post, Cliff ends up becoming a supervillain or something and it always struck me as an unsatisfying closure to what was a (relatively-speaking) normal adversarial relationship.
But, back to specifically discussing this trade paperback: it also includes a story intended for the original series but never published, save for the copyright-establishing-but-not-intended-for-general-distribution Cancelled Comic Cavalcade. Or, as the trade’s back cover would have it:
Sigh.
Anyway, the story is presented in black and white, and features plot elements that, if my aging and increasingly unreliable memory serves me, were repurposed into the Firestorm back-ups that ran in Flash. (Some of the back-ups are reprinted in this book as well, but not the ones I’m thinking of, it seems.)
Also, the “next issue” blurb at the end of the sorta-unpublished issue #6 promises the appearance of “The Reptile Man.” I was going to say the Reptile Man never did appear, but a quick Googling pulls up this Firestorm Fan Page, which (along with a couple of Al Milgrom’s pages for #7) links to an audio interview with Firestorm cocreator Gerry Conway and states the Reptile Man eventually became Batman villain Killer Croc. Huh. (Also, I would have sworn on a copy of DC Comics’ The Bible treasury edition that Killer Croc predated Firestorm…but nope, first appeared in ’83.)
So that’s a lot of words just to say “I like Firestorm,” but hey, I do. And I’m hoping I’ll enjoy this new series as well. And with any luck we’ll see more Firestorm paperbacks…I think some of Pat Broderick’s best work was on those early issues of Firestorm’s 1980s revival, and I’d like to see that art on paper that isn’t thirty-year-old decaying newsprint, for the sake of my forty-two-year-old decaying eyesight.
The fellow with one of the greatest handles ever, Professor Booty, asks in the comments to yesterday’s post
“I own exactly 0 Swamp Thing comics. I became quite interested in the character through your blog, but I don’t wanna read all that current stuff – I’d much rather grab some tradepaperbacks or other collected back issues. What would you recommend? I’m all for the (pretty) easily available & quintessential Swamp Thing stuff to get me going.”
The best two books to start with are these:
Roots of the Swamp Thing: this is available in hardcover right now, and in softcover in a few months (it’s only a $10 difference…get the hardcover!). This reprints the original House of Secrets short, and the first thirteen issues of the original series, which comprises all the stories written by ST cocreator Len Wein, the ten issues drawn by the other cocreator Bernie Wrightson, and three issues drawn by Nestor Redondo. The overall story arc comes to an end of sorts, with a nice send-off by Wein in the last chapter that harkens back to the House of Secrets debut. But this will show you how it all started, and what the status quo of the character is…
…so that when it’s totally blown apart in the second book I’m recommending, Saga of the Swamp Thing hardcover volume one, you feel its full impact. I’m recommending the hardcover versus the softcover edition because 1) the hardcover includes issue #20 of Saga of the Swamp Thing, which is Alan Moore’s first issue but not reprinted prior to this. It was seen more as an end to the previous storyline and not a suitable beginning to a trade paperback, which was crazy talk, frankly; and 2) there was a production issue with a caption being dropped off from the end of issue #24 (“…And meet the sun”) in prior reprintings, which is now fixed in the hardcover. (I think it wasn’t there in earlier printings of the hardcover, so you may want to check.) EDIT 8/21: I totally lied…it’s fixed in the recent edition of the paperback but the Saga of hardcover is still missing the caption. Sorry, my memory is apparently…um, something.
Ideally, if you can get your hands on issues #16 – #19 of Saga of the Swamp Thing, which have never been reprinted in trade form (as far as I know, at least in the U.S.), you probably should. These are the issues that reintroduce Swamp Thing’s arch-nemesis Arcane, and also bring aboard the art team of Steve Bissette and John Totleben, who are as responsible for Swampy’s later success and critical acclaim as Moore was. It is this Arcane story that Saga #20 was the epilog for. (You can probably skip #18, which reprinted issue #10 of the original series, but still had a new framing sequence by the new crew.)
And that’s not just for Professor Booty. I expect all of you reading this right now to rush out and buy these. I want your book reports on my desk by Monday.
In other Swamp Thing news:
- Also pointed out in yesterday’s comments by Professor Booty is this contribution to the “DC Fifty-Too” project (where artists create their own covers for theoretically-relaunched DC #1s). …I’m trying to think if Swamp Thing and the Creeper ever met, or were even in the same panel (like in a Crisis tie-in) or on the same cover or something, at some point. Up way too late and am way too tired to think of any right now, but one of you smart people out there will remind me if such a thing exists.
- Chris sent me a note pointing me in the direction of this swell sketch of…Man-Thing? Well, it’s not Swamp Thing, but it’ll do, it’ll do.
Fantasy and comics artist Jeffrey Catherine Jones has passed away, and my condolences to her friends and family. Tom Spurgeon has an extensive obituary that you should read.
Jones, by the way, was one of the uncredited art assistants who helped Bernie Wrightson beat the deadline on that original Swamp Thing story in House of Secrets #92. You can read more about that in this interview with Wrightson.
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In other news:
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