Realizing I’ve done a bunch of these now, I thought I’d put links to them all in one place to make it easier to read through them. (That’s probably more for my reference than anything else, but I’d love for anyone else to read them and share their own experiences about the shops they grew up with, or these particular shops if you happened to also buy comics there.)
It took only a few weeks on my first job before I did my first professional writing about comics. It was an article titled “Comic book enterprises take off,” and it appeared in the Feb. 15, 1992, edition of Sundial, which was the Arizona Daily Sun’s weekly entertainment section and TV listings.
This was pretty impressive, given I started the job less than a month before.
The article was about John Helmer, who opened a comic shop Beyond Comic Books at 10 S. San Francisco St. in Flagstaff. (If you’re out there reading this, John, hi!) At the time, this was the only comic shop in Flagstaff, though a few bookstores did carry some comics.
The article let me sound off on what was going on in comics. Remember, this was February 1992. Image had not yet put out any comics, though the initiative had been announced. I got in some mentions of mature reader comics like Hellblazer and The Sandman, manga like Akira, and the super-hot artists of the day like Todd McFarlane, Rob Liefeld, and Jim Lee that would soon launch Image Comics.
You can see those newspaper pages here, and you should be able to read them, if you like. Any faults in the copy or errors are entirely my own.
Skip ahead to the autumn of 1992, when there was one comics event everyone was talking about: the death of Superman.
I was not reading Superman at the time. I read Batman titles, Justice League titles and what would become Vertigo titles, but not Superman.
For those who don’t know where Superman was at the time: John Byrne relaunched Superman after Crisis on Infinite Earths reset the DC Universe. The Man of Steel six-issue series in 1986 led into a new Superman #1, while the original Superman series continued as The Adventures of Superman, and Action Comics became a Superman team-up title.
Superman’s 50th anniversary in 1988 got a lot of mainstream attention. There was a TV special hosted by Dana Carvey that featured a brief interview with Byrne. You can find it as a bonus feature on DVD or Blu-ray sets of the Superman movies, or here on YouTube:
Time magazine published a Byrne Superman cover for a story on the anniversary.
However, Byrne soon left and the Superman series continued uninterupted. Stories would begin in one title, continue in the next title, and conclude in the other. The effect was an almost-weekly comic.
This cadence was interrupted by a brief experiment called Action Comics Weekly. The series turned into a weekly 48-page anthology starring a variety of DC characters such as Green Lantern, Blackhawk, and Secret Six. A center-spread newspaper-style Superman strip was drawn by Curt Swan. The series didn’t even make it a year, running from issues 601-642, before reverting to a regular monthly comic format with art and story for several months by the late, great George Perez.
Around this time, Clark revealed his secret identity to Lois Lane. Shortly thereafter, they became engaged. In 1991, the titles adopted the triangle numbering that helped readers know the reading order of the three titles. A fourth title, Superman: The Man of Steel, was added to the schedule, bringing over writer Louise Simonson and artist Jon Bogdanove from Marvel.
On television, the series Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman was a hit. And this conflicted with DC’s plans for Lois and Clark to marry in 1992. The TV show’s producers didn’t want conflicting stories, as Lois and Clark were not engaged on the show, which depended on the will-they-or-won’t-they tension.
With DC’s plans made moot by the series, a random suggestion for what to do instead came up: Let’s kill him! This somehow struck a nerve and the story began to develop, leading up to Superman #75, in which the Man of Steel would meet his final match.
The story hit the news and caught on, at least in part because this was in the midst of the speculator age. By autumn 1992, Image Comics had sparked a huge wave of interest — in both the stories and the in value these comic books might have. People bought multiple copies of everything Image, confident these books would one day be so valuable that selling them would put kids not yet born through college or fund lavish retirement plans abroad.
This was always silly, but there was real FOMO. No one wanted to miss the one issue that did take off, that would be worth real cash or an issue you really wanted for your collection, so the illusion kept everyone going for at least another year.
This angle helped sell the story to the media. People who hadn’t read or bought a comic in years wanted a copy of Superman #75, either because it was historic — DC was promising Superman wasn’t coming back — or because they thought it would be worth money.
DC amped up the stakes by planning a regular comic book version and a $2.50 deluxe version that would be shipped with a special cover, polybagged with a trading card, a full-size poster, a Daily Planet obit for Superman, a small sheet of stamps, and a black armband ribbon with a red Superman logo (no blood). Both versions featured a great three-page fold-out of the final moment when Superman died.
I was discussing all this with a colleague at the Arizona Daily Sun in Flagstaff who also liked comics. Sundial mostly focused on local arts and entertainment, but my friend said comics were entertainment, too, and if I wanted to do an article on this, I should. Thanks, Adam!
So, I called DC Comics in New York and asked for the PR department. I was connected with Martha Thomases, who handled PR at the time for DC, and she was kind enough to send me a package with press releases, a few of the comics that led into the Death of Superman storyline, and a copy of The Greatest Superman Stories Ever Told trade paperback.
I asked her if I could speak to editor Mike Carlin or any of the writers or artists on the comics, but she said they were unavailable because they were working on the stories that would come after the Death of Superman.
I went back to Beyond Comics and John Helmer. A friend of his who helped around at the shop was a student at NAU and connected to the owners of Atomic Comics in Mesa, Arizona. He had a lot to say as well, but didn’t want to be included in the article. He showed me some Golden Age Superman comics and was very up to date on comics history. He talked a lot about how great it was to go to San Diego Comic Con and meet all the creators.
I finally sat down to start cranking out the story, and it came quickly and fairly easily. I used the resources I had, which included “The Comic-Book Heroes,” as well as a few other bits and pieces I was able to find at the public and NAU libraries.
It turned out extremely long — more than 2,300 words! — and took up two full tabloid pages in Sundial, plus a jump. I had a couple other editors take a look at it and make suggestions and fix any typos or grammar errors I had made. (We worked on a now-archaic computer typesetting system that had orange monotype displays. They were not easy to read or work on.)
Re-reading this article after so many years, I think the first section covering the news part of the death of Superman is solid. The history stuff is disorganized and I got a few things wrong — though not intentionally. This was before the internet, so checking facts on something like comics history was not as easy as it is now. Any errors in the story are, again, my own.
I had decided to put the story on the cover of Sundial, which lead to a rather unpleasant confrontation. There was a woman, whose name I forget, who ran a very small dance company in Flagstaff. We had always covered their events and previous editors in my position had put those stories on the cover. This was a small town, remember, and there often was a bit of a struggle to find engaging local entertainment stories beyond whichever C-list country band was swinging through town that week. She expected her event would be featured on the cover and handed me what she wanted to be used as the image. I told her that the story would run in the issue but that the cover would be the death of Superman. She threw what I can only describe as a fit in the front office waiting area. It was my decision and I took it, waiting for her to finish and walk out. My friends in the newsroom tried to save me by poking a head out and saying I had an important call. But I stuck with my decision and let her run with her anger until she left, disappointed. You can’t make everyone happy.
The day Superman #75 came out, I headed to John’s shop at lunchtime to pick one up. Several people in the newsroom asked me to get a copy for them, if I could. When I got there, John was very effusive about the article and had a lot of nice things to say. He had already sold out of Superman #75, but he had set aside a copy of the deluxe version for me.
The frenzy that surrounded this release was incredible. The strangest story I heard was from a friend who worked at the local Hastings, which was a chain that sold books, music, videos, appliances, and had a comic book section. A friend who worked there had told me that one of the managers was a comics fan and really was trying to grow the comics section of the store. However, the store’s shipment of Superman #75 never arrived and the boxes containing them were never recovered or accounted for by the shipper or the store.
The best part of all this was that I was now on the press list for DC Comics. I began receiving press kits and releases, as well as press copies of some projects. This led to me doing a few more articles about comics in general and DC in particular at the Sun.
Inspired by my Flagstaff comics friends, I made plans to attend San Diego Comic-Con in 1993. At the DC booth, I ran into Martha Thomases who was happy to see me. She told me I had just missed a press conference on the return of Superman and gave me a press kit on it that included an advance copy of the collector’s edition of Superman #82 with the chromium cover, and the foil cover for Adventures of Superman #505.
DC had ongoing signings at the convention for Superman and Batman creators, and I managed to hit both. I walked away with a 1st print newsstand copy of Superman #75 and a Superman poster signed by Dan Jurgens, Denis Rodier, Glenn Whitmore, and Barry Kitson. Hot stuff!
The Superman titles of this era deserve a closer look. With four titles making Superman an essentially weekly comic book — and a damn entertaining one — is an underrated achievement. Ultimately, comics are entertainment — and the run of Superman comics from 1986 through the Triangle Era and well into the 21st century is as consistent and entertaining a run of comic books as has ever been published anywhere.
Youngblood #100 (May 2026) Cover C Art by Rob Liefeld
Confusion is the word that best describes reading a Youngblood comic, but in the end, there’s not much to really be confused about. Rob Liefeld’s Youngblood is a pure and undiluted distillation of all the good and the bad parts of the superhero comic book reading experience. Even when there are more of the latter, the former can make up for it — sometimes.
I guess you’d say I’m both a Rob Liefeld fan and a critic. Fan because somehow I’m still interested more than 30 years and 100 issues after the book started, and a critic because, well, I read it.
It’s now been a week since I bought and read Youngblood #100. (It was cover C, the only copy left at Comic Bug in Culver City when I stopped by on my way home from work.) I’m still trying to make sense of it. The story both makes sense and doesn’t. There’s almost no dialogue — just a narration with a tone that’s best described as a mix of awestruck patriotic cliches about how amazing Youngblood is, how hard they fight for our freedoms, and how dedicated they are to their goal of defending the American way. It has to narrate this because none of it’s clear from the plot or any of the issues leading up to this moment.
It’s enough to make a reader sigh in frustration.
Let’s start with the good stuff. Liefeld has a distinctive art style that captures a feeling young boys (and the middle-age men they grow into) identify with. It taps into the frustrations many boys have when they’re just at the cusp of adolescence, when maturity is something they know about but don’t yet understand. All you can see are the limits. You realize girls are cool, but you’re nowhere near ready for a real relationship. You know, there are a lot of cool things you want to do that you can’t do yet. Drive a car, for example. Stay out late with your friends and party — even when that pretty much only means eating chips, playing games, and watching movies meant for older audiences.
Part of this is the, yes, extreme nature of the violence and action. Every sequence is described with superlatives. It’s! The! Most! Important! Fight! Ever! The heroes and villains are also more extreme in their methods than traditional superheroes. Chapel, for example, is armed to the gills and has no qualms about mowing down bad guys or slicing their throats or bashing their heads in. In Youngblood’s world, the objective is that important, and the villains’ goals and actions are extreme enough to justify that kind of response.
It also draws unapologetically and unironically from the superhero comics that most influenced Liefeld as a kid. This would be the late 1970s and early 1980s Marvel and DC books. Liefeld made it clear he loved the Avengers, X-Men, and Teen Titans of that era, and the influence is transparent — sometimes to the point of embarassment.
But here’s where it starts to turn sour. It’s too transparent an influence. It’s not different enough from the influences to be something that stands on its own. This is where we get a Namor clone named Roman. (Spell it backwards.) Or jets that look almost exactly like the old Avengers Quinjets. Or a Youngblood “Y” symbol that looks exactly like the “X” symbol from X-Men, just missing one “leg.”
While Liefeld does have these energetic aspects and a POV that fans can relate to, he lacks the storytelling craft to provide his interests with a coherent framework. Reading the issues leading up to Youngblood #100, the story veered from the team stopping a bad guy named Xerxes on a super yacht to some kind of time travel story connected to the crucifixion of Jesus, to large cosmic figures that resemble Marvel’s Celestials invading Earth and holding everyone captive for a year and a half, etc. All these elements feel ripped off from other comics, and they’re not differentiated enough to even qualify as homage.
This kind of thing was much easier to take when Youngblood launched back in 1992. Liefeld was 24 when the book launched, and while he’d been an artist for a few years, he’d only started writing comics professionally the year before. Many comics, like TV shows, take some time to find their footing. In 1992, it was more forgivable to hope that Liefeld would learn some craft as he went, and the book would get better. The problem is that it hasn’t happened. I can’t tell if Liefeld’s limited by his taste or his ability, but reading Youngblood #1 and #100 doesn’t show much evolution in the art or storytelling ability of its creator.
Youngblood #1 (April 1992)
Despite all this, Liefeld remains a comic book success story. He’s got a rabid fan following, a successful podcast, and appears to do good business selling autographs, artwork, and variant comics. His fans love him. I joined an official Liefeld fan group on Facebook, and it’s been full of folks excitedly posting pics of their collection and the variant covers they bought for #100. Good for them.
But it’s difficult to reconcile Liefeld’s continued success and popularity with this track record. And it’s not just his creative track record. Liefeld’s business career is probably even more controversial. All the Image Comics founders were guilty of shipping comics late — sometimes very, very late. But there was more going on with Extreme Studios, which was Liefeld’s studio within Image. When sales no longer supported the exorbitant page rates for neophyte artists who fit the Extreme mold, a second studio called Maximum Press appeared. This riled the other Image partners, and Liefeld was fired or quit, depending on who’s telling the story.
His return to Marvel for the Heroes Reborn project was cut short, despite good sales on his early issues, because of conflicts with management and an inability to meet deadlines. The number of Liefeld projects that lasted only one or two or six issues, if we were lucky, before vanishing with their storylines unfinished grew and grew.
He had some success with Awesome Comics, in no small part because he managed to get Alan Moore to write a bunch of books. This ended as soon as the large weekly payments to Moore stopped and Awesome vanished.
Liefeld even sold his rights to Youngblood in the late 1990s, leading him to disavow those characters for a time. He occasionally would be lured back to Marvel to work on characters he created for them, like Cable and Deadpool. Or to DC for Hawk and Dove in The New 52. All short-lived. And his attempt to create a new character for Marvel, Major X, washed out spectacularly.
Of course, none of this — or at least very little of this — is Liefeld’s fault, according to him. He was lied to. He was sabotaged. The squares didn’t understand his vision. He had no promotional or editorial support. Some of which may be true, but the pattern over a long stretch of time becomes increasingly difficult to discount.
Still, Rob has fans. I’m one. I’ll probably check out the next issue. I just wish the potential could be realized — even just once.
Youngblood #100 (May 2026) Cover A Art by Rob Liefeld
My final semester of university was by far the best. I had found a place I could belong at the Arizona Daily Wildcat. I could do the job, I had friends with similar interests, and the days were full of interesting challenges.
I graduated in December 1991 and enjoyed the holiday break with my family and my friends. I ran into another journalism student on New Year’s Day 1992 who had just landed a job as a reporter at a small-town newspaper. And I was jealous. I had more experience, a better resume, etc. So I applied myself to finding a job rather seriously. In retrospect, the amazing part is I succeeded rather quickly.
Within a month of graduating, I had landed a job at the Arizona Daily Sun in Flagstaff as the special sections and entertainment editor. The pay wasn’t great, but it was a step in the door and an exciting opportunity. Most of the staff at the Sun were working their first or maybe second job out of college, so in some ways it was almost a continuation of the Daily Wildcat. I moved into a house with some of my co-workers — we’re still friends to this day — and I started work.
Comics had not been my top priority during these months. I still had picked up the Claremont-less X-Men, but not much else. It took me until maybe March of 1992 before I was settled enough to get back into comics.
As with many of us, Wizard was at fault. I was at Bookman’s in Flagstaff and spotted a copy of Wizard #7 on the racks, bought it, and enjoyed it. Boy, did I hate the editing. Typos galore in those early issues. It took a long time for Wizard to get up to speed in this department. What it did have was attitude. And for all the faults of its monthly price guide and hyping of hot books, it did have its finger on the pulse of what was going on. And there was a lot going on.
Wizard: The Comics Magazine #7 (March 1992)
Image Comics was founded in February 1992. I ordered a couple copies of Youngblood #1 by mail because there was no comic shop at that time in Flagstaff, aside from Bookman’s, which had a spotty selection of new comics. It was late, so it took a few more months than expected to show up, and when it did it was underwhelming from a story perspective.
There’s no doubt Rob Liefeld’s art had energy. His characters had an edge to them that the established superheroes of Marvel and DC lacked. Youngblood reflected the bro culture of the early 1990s. These heroes had money, and good looks, and girls. Young men liked that. This was something they could aspire to more easily than ridding the world of crime, fighting for truth or justice, or eradicating prejudice.
But lacking a larger message or purpose meant Youngblood and its many imitators were disposable. The art was cool, but there was too little behind it to hold your attention. Plus, Image books were insanely late. More on that soon.
Marvel and DC made Image Comics possible. Marvel shoulders a bit more of the blame because it was all about the money under the ownership of Ronald Perelman. The change from the free-for-all of the 1970s and the professional passion of the early 1980s gave way to greed. Whoever could make Marvel the most money was in, and everyone else was out. And even if you were in, nobody was going to listen to you or treat you as anything but expendable. It must have been miserable for the folks who were there in the heyday of the 1980s when creator pay and freedom were relatively high in comics.
Make no mistake, Image was the biggest thing to happen to comics since the direct market. Despite not being a good read, Youngblood #1 sold more than million copies. It was followed by Spawn, which got out two issues before the second issue of Youngblood. Savage Dragon was next, followed by Shadowhawk and Brigade, which would have two issues out before Youngblood #3, WildCATs and CyberForce.
The visual energy Liefeld, Todd McFarlane, Erik Larson, Jim Valentino, Jim Lee and Marc Silvestri brought to these books is undeniably exciting. Fans eagerly awaited the next issue and, thanks in large part to Wizard’s breathless coverage of these books and their collectible value, speculators did as well. The crossover between readers or fans and speculators was quite high. Many fans routinely bought multiple copies of any new Image Comic – one to read, the rest to save. The true speculators, who bought entire cases of a new Image book to hold and flip once it had sold out, were more rare but definitely there.
Creatively, the first issues of these books were great to look at and their shortcomings on the writing side were forgivable. These artists were new to writing, and many comic book series took some time to find their creative footing. The frustrations only arose once the wait for the books was not rewarded by improvements.
Even more frustrating as a fan was watching the Image artists behave like superstars while their fans waited for the next issue. They appeared at conventions, did store signings, sat for interviews with the comics industry press and mainstream media, and announced exciting new projects. But those books took months to arrive, and disappointed when they did. And in these interviews the artists rarely addressed the elephant in the room: Where were the books? Making comics is a time-consuming activity, and it’s even more so when you’re not divvying up the labor. One person plotting, penciling, scripting and inking a comic takes a lot longer than having one person on each of those jobs. It’s quicker when the penciler receives a script, draws the issue to hand off and then can start penciling the next one. That’s how books can meet a monthly schedule. The exceptions, such as Dave Sim on Cerebus, do so because of the personal dedication. Sim did interviews and conventions, but his primary job was to stay home and create Cerebus, which he did despite the apparent impact it had on his mental health.
The fervor for Image was intense. Anywhere I saw them for sale, I was tempted to buy them. I picked up a number of Image titles at Amazing XX in Flagstaff, others at AAA Best, and even others at shops around Phoenix such as All About Books & Comics and Atomic Comics. I even remember seeing copies of Shadowhawk #1 without the embossed foil cover on the newsstand at a 7-11 in Flagstaff.
What was going on at Marvel and DC? Well, artists and writers came and went. Folks like Roger Stern, Louise Simonson and Jon Bogdanove went to DC, while other talents like Steve Englehart, Bob Layton and Steve Ditko landed at Valiant. Jim Starlin returned to Marvel to write Silver Surfer, while Byrne was back on She-Hulk. Peter David was reliable on Hulk, while Batman continued to ride the wave of popularity that started with the 1989 movie and was heading for the sequel and an animated series.
And this is where Valiant comes in. Early Wizards were all about Image, but they also were into Valiant. Rumor has it that powers at Wizard were heavily invested in Valiant comics and promoted them so they could make money. But that really didn’t matter because Valiant filled a very different niche in the market. That niche was delivering entertaining, interesting stories that shipped on time – what everyone wanted from Image Comics, minus only the splashy artwork.
By spring of 1992, a small comic shop had opened in Flagstaff. It was in a hollowed out building on Beaver Street and lacked racks for new comics, some of which were stacked on the floor. My first Valiants were Magnus Robot Fighter #12, Solar #8 and Harbinger #5 and 6.
Magnus Robot Fighter #12 (May 1992)Solar, Man of the Atom #8 (April 1992)Harbinger #5 (May 1992)Harbinger #6 (June 1992)
My search for back issues led me back to Phoenix, where I landed at Ken Strack’s AAA Best Comics. Still located on Seventh Street, Ken was happy to set me up with a pull list that included discounts on all pre-orders, and I was back in the game. I was visiting Phoenix about once a month, so I was picking up a rather large pile of books that I would work my way through and finished by the time my next trip came around.
John Byrne’s Next Men #1 (Feb. 1992)Dark Horse Presents #51 (June 1991)Grendel: War Child #1 (Aug. 1992)
Everyone talks about 1986 as the most pivotal year in comic books. But 1992 has to be a close second. Not only were Image and Valiant exploding on the scene, but comics in general were booming. Dark Horse had been around for a while, but achieved a new level of mainstream success with projects like John Byrne’s Next Men, Frank Miller’s Sin City and Grendel: War Child. Malibu got a huge influx of cash as the early service publisher for Image. DC’s proto-Vertigo line was building prestige with The Sandman, Hellblazer and Swamp Thing. Understanding Comics was published. Maus won a Pulitzer. Indie and self-published titles such as Cerebus, Bone and Strangers in Paradise were making waves and people were paying attention.
The Sandman #23 (Feb. 1991)Hellblazer #40 (April 1991)Understanding Comics
For the first time that I remember, conventions started to crop up in Arizona. One was held at a hotel in downtown Phoenix that featured as guest Dave Sim of Cerebus, James Owen of Starchild, and Martin Wagner of Hepcats. I bought and read the first volume of Cerebus, which I have signed with a sketch from Sim, and the first issues of Starchild, also signed. I wasn’t interested in Hepcats for some reason. I also was able to fill in my Valiant collection right around the time Unity began.
Cerebus #161 (Aug. 1992)Starchild #1 (1992)
Valiant was a bit of a revelation. They honestly didn’t look like much, but once you cracked open the books and read them, they grabbed you. Especially in the early days, Valiant had the advantage of story. Each issue told a complete tale, even when it was continuing. The Valiant Universe was grounded in reality in a way that Marvel and DC had not, and it made for compelling reading. It also was still small enough that you could collect the back issues and get the entire story, which was important as Unity approached.
Unity was heavily promoted in the summer of 1992. It was a crossover, sure, but it also was offering a free zero issue with a cover from Barry Windsor-Smith. I was unfamiliar with the Gold Key characters Valiant was using, but fans who were spoke well of the updated versions of Magnus Robot Fighter and Solar: Man of the Atom. Valiant also made waves in the collecting side of things, first with the coupon-clipping giveaway campaigns for zero issues of Magnus and Harbinger, as well as the gold editions of books like Archer & Armstrong. The covers for the first month of Unity books were by Frank Miller, with the second month’s covers by Walter Simonson. And Valiant had a true breakout star artist in David Lapham, who progressed from novice to pro in the span of a few issues of Harbinger.
Repeating the drama of the previous summer, when Claremont left X-Men, news spread that Shooter was out at Valiant. I remember checking the Valiant books that shipped after this news broke, and it took a couple months for the company to address it. What exactly happened was difficult to know at the time, but Shooter made it clear later on in convincing accounts that it was the greed of his former partners that lead to his ouster. As a fan, seeing that Winds0r-Smith was sticking around in some kind of official capacity was encouraging, but the excitement quickly faded and soon he was gone. Valiant was a shell of its former self and I soon dropped their books – there was an avalanche of new material being advertised for 1993 and dollars would need to be spent judiciously.
Before that, however, came my first work-life crossover with comics. All it took was for the Man of Steel himself to bite the bullet.
I was lucky to start my teenage immersion in Marvel Comics in 1985 because it was a golden age of reference material. The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Deluxe Edition delivered 64 pages a month of in-depth encyclopedia-style reference on every then-important Marvel character. However, I owe most of my understanding of the early days of the Marvel Universe to The Marvel Saga.
Cover art to The Marvel Saga #1 (Dec. 1985), by Ron Frenz and Bob Layton.
For those new to this series, The Marvel Saga is a chronological retelling of the history of the Marvel Universe. Instead of hiring a writer and artist to turn those stories into a new comic book, researcher and writer Peter Sanderson tied it all together using excerpts from the original comics and new text. This could be anything from a single panel to a multipage sequence. The effect is like a comic book documentary that also shows off all the great artwork Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, et. al, created for early Marvel.
The Marvel Saga #1 sets a distinctive and ambitious tone. It starts with five pages of original art by Ron Frenz and Al Milgrom to set the stage for the debut of the Fantastic Four. It begins with Galactus, the only survivor of the universe that existed before ours, and quickly moves into such cosmic aspects as the Watchers, the Kree, the Skrulls, and the Celestials. There’s a good summary of the origins of superpowered humans, highlighting the roles played by the Eternals, the Deviants, the Inhumans, and the Atlanteans. Especially fun is a panel of a sword-wielding barbarian, who is not named, but I suspect his name rhymes with Zonan. Similar panels show off the Black Knight in Arthurian times, the Marvel Western heroes, and the early World War I and II superheroes.
Then the cast is introduced in two pages establishing the status quo at the time ofFantastic Four #1: Captain America’s frozen in ice, Namor has amnesia, Tony Stark is a playboy weapons manufacturer, Bruce Banner is working on the gamma bomb, Hank Pym is experimenting with ants, Don Blake considers a trip to Norway, Charles Xavier teaches young Jean Grey to control her mutant powers, Stephen Strange is a hotshot surgeon, and, finally, Peter Parker is a happy science student living with his Uncle Ben and Aunt May..
But before we get to the events of Fantastic Four #1, we’re introduced to the friendship between Reed Richards and Ben Grimm, and a glimpse of Reed and Sue Storm meeting Gormuu in a then-recent story by John Byrne.
We then get five pages straight out of Fantastic Four #1 showing the doomed rocket flight that gives them their powers. Moving chronologically, it then goes back to the first part of that issue, where Reed calls the group together, then moves to their confrontation with the Mole Man.
It’s all well-edited and put together. The reader gets the highlights and most relevant moments from the story. And it’s all done on newsprint, so it looks more like the original comics than the deluxe reprints that would soon become the norm. (In 1985, Marvel had published only a couple of trade paperback collections, and the regular reprinting of classic tales in the Marvel Masterworks hardcover series was more than two years away.)
And then, The Marvel Saga #1 shifts gears again, this time to the backup stories from Alpha Flight #2 and #3, in which Canadian scientist James MacDonald Hudson finds his exploratory cyber suit is to be sold to the U.S. military. He destroys the plans and steals the helmet required to use the suit. Young Heather McNeil, a secretary at the company Hudson worked for, brings him some groceries and sees the helmet. She manages to find her way to government contacts — including, eventually, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau — who brings James Hudson in to head up Department H and eventually form and lead Alpha Flight as Guardian.
What really got me when I read this issue was that the Hudson story took place in my hometown of Edmonton. That makes Edmonton the first real-life city mentioned in this history of the Marvel Universe. Kinda cool.
From there, The Marvel Saga #1 recaps the origin and first adventure of Dr. Henry Pym from Tales to Astonish #27, then gets started on the Fantastic Four’s first meeting with the Skrulls in Fantastic Four #2.
All in 32 newsprint pages, no ads, intro and full credits on the inside front cover, and original cover reproductions on the inside back cover. This cost $1; $1.25 in Canada.
What may sound strange about a comic edited together from such disparate sources is that it’s a blast to read. Marvel Saga shines in this early era, where there’s only a handful of threads to choose from and weave into a whole.
Marvel Saga ran 25 issues, climaxing with the arrival of Galactus and Silver Surfer in Fantastic Four #48-50. It’s the kind of thing I wish Marvel would keep available in some way for new fans who want to get a handle on the origins of the Marvel Universe. The recent cheap reprinted stories in the Origins of Marvel Comics and Son of Origins of Marvel Comics are as close as possible. However, reading those first issues doesn’t thread things together in quite the same way, and they don’t connect the early days of Marvel to more recent characters. I hope Marvel revisits and updates this idea sometime soon.
It was a longer wait than expected for Star Brand #7, as the series is demoted without notice to bimonthly publication. I say demoted because most of the other books Marvel demoted to bimonthly status at the time turned out to be on their final legs — see Dazzler, The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones, and Star Wars. Roy Thomas steps in to script this issue over Shooter’s plot, and Art Nichols comes on as John Romita Jr.’s inker. Stuck in space, Ken finally notices one star brighter than the rest and realizes it’s the sun. Finding Earth, he goes to his apartment, makes a call, and finds out Deb is in the hospital. Barb finally completely kicks out Ken, who’s finding messages from the Old Man — not dead yet! — demanding back the Star Brand. Ken struggles to find him, eventually using Deb as bait. They have a big rematch and Ken appears to fry him for good — there’s a body this time. Everything settled, he goes back to Deb at the hospital for a happy ending? This was Shooter’s last issue — he’d soon be out as editor in chief at Marvel. Star Brand would enter a kind of creative limbo until issue #11, when John Byrne takes over as writer and artist and begins to completely dismantle everything Shooter built.
Ken struggles to do better. His eye wanders at work, where he gets a shot at a sales job. He goes to meet Duck at Denny’s when the Old Man returns and joins them. He says he’s here to warn Ken and they’ll talk later. At home, Laurie acts out, and Barb tries to seduce Ken. Before he can join her in bed, the Old Man shows up with Duck, who’s now in love with him. Ken thinks he’s bamboozled her somehow. Ken doesn’t believe his ears when the Old Man tells him the Star Brand is a weapon, and Ken’s supposed to use it to decide a battle on the far side of the universe. Barb comes down and doesn’t take well to seeing Debbie. The Old Man releases Deb, who later calls and begs to speak to Ken. Barb tells her off and Ken goes to save her, getting in a big fight with the Old Man that goes into space and ends with Ken melting his face off. Once again, Ken’s lost — he can’t see Earth and so doesn’t know how to get home. Rick Bryant joins the creative team, inking some of the later fight pages. His line’s a bit stronger than Williamson’s, but it’s still a nice looking book. There have been no letters columns to date in this series, which is strange for this era at Marvel. There’s no way to see what other readers think of the book, or to announce any creative changes in the book — of which there soon will be many.
Here’s where Ken Connell tries to do better. It’s his birthday, and Debbie the Duck shows up at his door to surprise him birthday sex. Then she hides out in his car for two hours when his parents and pals (including Barb) throw a surprise birthday bash. Even Ken is getting creeped out by how the Duck lets him use her. He decides to observe the mystery woman and her accomplices, following them back to a student residence. He finds guns in their car, exposes them, and calls the police. He then flies to Libya and destroys a military base all on his own. This sequence is pretty cool — no dialog or captions for two pages, just Ken blowing stuff up. He then tries to make up with Barb, which goes well, and break up with Debbie, which does not. The Duck makes like she’ll kill herself if she can’t see Kenny, so he backs off a bit. He then goes to Barbs and plans to tell her about the Star Brand, but thinks twice after her daughter Laurie acts out again. Again, this reminds me of something that might have been tried — and maybe even work — as a superhero TV series in 1986. But as a comic, even the Romita Jr.-Williamson artwork can’t make this feel dramatic or interesting enough to really work.
John Romita Jr. and Al Williamson return as the art team, which at least gives this issue a nice look. Most of this one is about Ken being a jerk and how he deals with the fallout of being a jerk. Myron elicits a three-page recap of the story so far, then tells Ken the whole story sounds fake. Ken uses his powers to cut corners at work and continues to fool around with Duck — only this time Barb catches him and walks out. Ken mopes and mopes for a few pages until he encounters a strange trio of seemingly super-powered people who use their powers to steal food from a grocery and hide out in the wood. One of them beats up Ken real good, so he goes home to work out and start a journal in a vain attempt to do better.
Alex Saviuk and Vince Colletta step in to draw this third issue, so this issue lacks the slick look of the previous issues. Ken Connell in particular looks less interesting and more convincing as the jerk he is. This issue, he lusts after Barb’s teenage babysitter, then goes on a date with Barb but ditches her before he gets laid to take care of a superhero problem. In the Being a Superhero is Hard Department, Ken goes to the moon and vaporizes a mountain on the dark side like no one is going to notice that. He also rips up a couple of Soviet fighters bombing Afghan troops before heading home to bang Debbie the Duck — again. He also notices a classified ad in the newspaper seeking a meeting with the “Flying Man.” Of course, he walks right into the trap — it’s a woman (hot, of course) who says her boyfriend will hurt her if she doesn’t get some info from him. He takes off, and returns after leaving Barb alone in bed to find her apparently beaten up — but it’s faked. The mystery woman and her pals trick him into using his powers to rip open a car door and deflect bullets. They also see his face. Feeling like a dimwit, he goes home to Debbie the Duck. The formula’s already wearing thin, with little of interest happening this issue to excite anyone to come back for another issue.
Jim Shooter’s concept for the New Universe as a realistic take on superheroes is on full display, exposing its strengths and its flaws. Ken Connell’s heroic journey shows he’s very powerful indeed, but not very smart. He doesn’t need to breathe in space and can survive a nuclear blast, but he needs help to find his way home to Pittsburgh. He also continues to be a creep to both Barb and Debbie the Duck, and runs into an ex-girlfriend who chastises him for fleeing any sort of responsibility. John Romita Jr. and Al Williamson make this all look slick and realistic to the point of being boring. But all this sets up Ken to try to do better by helping get a little boy out of a well — he’s upstaged when Spitfire and the Troubleshooters get the boy out first — and rescuing hostages held on a cruise ship by “Moslem terrorists.” Ken does little to help the hostages, who are rescued by presumably American commandoes, but he does slam the ticking nuke into the ocean floor and somehow muffle the blast without it hurting him or his suit and with no lingering radiation. This is the hardest pill to swallow in this issue — it’s really easy to believe Ken’s a jerk.
