Leather Fetish

I’m currently in the process on working on a fairly epic series with Marvel.com video whiz Rich “The Dragon” Herrera that should hopefully be up in the next couple weeks on the site in time for the 600th issue of Fantastic Four. Without giving away the game, we’ve got about three hours or so of footage interviewing Tom Brevoort about the history of the FF from start to finish with plenty of anecdotes and neat facts along the way. It was basically like taking a master class in Marvel from a gent very qualified teach it and one of the cooler experiences I’ve had in a very cool career.

One of my favorite bits from the whole thing, oddly enough, was when we got to the 90’s and Tom spent a substantial spot of time talking about the period where the Fantastic Four got leather jackets and specifically that The Human Torch had a leather jacket (“Was he cold? He’s on fire!”). Tom of course acknowledged that the folks working on the book at the time, Tom DeFalco and Paul Ryan, were just going with the general trend in the industry at the time, but as those were the comics coming out when I was a kid and I was part of the audience who more or less said “we would like to see The Human Torch in a leather jacket,” it got me thinking (again).

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again (right now, in fact): If you wanted your comic book character to look cool in the 90’s, you gave them a leather jacket with option of earring, ponytail and possible razor stubble. But did “looking cool” actually translate to “being cool”? Heck, did it even look cool? Let’s examine…

FANTASTIC FOUR
Y’know, from a functional standpoint (if not a fashion one), leather jackets really aren’t that out of place on the Fantastic Four. After all, they’re more explorers than super heroes at heart, so it does make a degree of sense they’d want plenty of pockets to carry around gear for wherever they’re headed and whatever they’ll encounter so they can always be prepared (and also stay warm, I suppose). Although Tom is right that a jacket offers very little use to the Torch, since he’s got built in weaponry and it would take excess time to treat anything he’s going to be carrying around or picking up in asbestos or whatever. And The Thing would never actually use anything but his fists so long as those are handy, plus he’ll tear through those suckers frequently enough to make the Hulk’s purple pants budget look frugal. And a jacket would actually hinder The Invisible Woman since at least part of her power hinges on not being noticed, which becomes more difficult with something making noise, causing wind resistance, etc. Ok, so maybe Mister Fantastic could wear a leather jacket from a functional standpoint.

WONDER WOMAN
Covered this recently, but the answer is no, Wonder Woman should not wear a leather jacket (in my opinion). Her gear is more than just a costume, it’s a uniform; the honor guard of a proud people symbolizing their greatest champion yada yada yada. You can alter it slightly (as has been done currently), but in story there’s a certain level of prestige and heritage that’s integral to Diana’s character, while on a real world level Wonder Woman has one the most recognizable costumes in comics and you shouldn’t be covering that up with a leather jacket (or bike shorts). To be fair, there was a very valid story reason why she wore what she wore—she wasn’t Wonder Woman anymore so keeping the garb would be disrespectful to her mother and her people—plus it was only ever designed to be a short term gig, but Diana should never be a slave to fashion trends.

THE X-MEN
X-Men and leather go together like peanut butter and jelly; it’s a beautiful and symbiotic relationship. In the 80’s, you had Mohawk Storm’s gear, in the 90’s you had the brown jackets that carried over from the comics to the animated series, and this century you had the black and yellow (and white) gear Frank Quitely introduced. It’s my belief that the reason the X-Men floundered commercially in the 60’s and early 70’s was not due to lack of Wolverine, but because they were hung up on spandex. Also, Gambit would probably curl up in the fetal position and weep if you took his duster away from him, and that’s a story nobody wants to see (unless Mike Carey has a really good angle on it, maybe).

SUPERBOY
A thousand times yes. That Superboy to this day is not sporting a leather jacket, an earring, John Lennon sunglasses and a fade cut is a crime against fashion. And since he was supposed to be not that much older than me when he was introduced, it made total sense he would emulate the same looks I did (particularly when his genetic role model had a mullet). I only wish his aesthetic dynamic had stopped aging along with his physical body.

THE AVENGERS
No.

THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES
There are aspects of the Five Years Later run of Legion of Super-Heroes that I enjoy, but on the whole, making the best bright and shiny future in comics into the typical dystopian fare was a misstep. It felt wrong all the way to the way the characters dressed, since colorful attire with potent symbolism was central to the “carrying on for the greatest heroes ever” Legion conceit while the drab gear the FYL crew wore signaled how out of place they were. Only Ultra Boy and Timber Wolf are street enough to rock leather jackets (Karate Kid could if he wanted to, but he would never want to).

CAPTAIN AMERICA
What I said about Wonder Woman, probably magnified. Cap is literally draped in the American flag; play that all out, or don’t play it at all. Covering up the symbol he’s proud/brazen enough to wear in that manner is not Steve Rogers at all. He’s also all about grace and agility, so all that extra weight is no good (again, there was a reasonable story reason, and the character was actually against the change, but it was still not so hot).

NIGHTWING
Actually never wore a leather jacket, but he made a disco collar and mullet reasonably cool well past their respective expiration dates, so if anybody is gonna bring it back, Dick Grayson is the man. Also: pixie boots.

The Definitives: The Silver Surfer

The Silver Surfer occupies an interesting place in the broad spectrum of classic characters created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby during their landmark run on Fantastic Four. Like the Inhumans, he’s an exotic character who makes for an impactful guest star. However, like The Black Panther, he’s also a figure with depth and an intriguing background who can sustain his own mythology to a degree. It’s tempting to write him off as somebody who works better weaving in and out of series starring other folks and existing on the fringe of the Marvel Universe—and he’s not in lousy company in this regard when it comes to many of the Lee/Kirby inventions from said FF stint—but he’s got quite a few quality stories centered around him as the protagonist.

I met the Surfer during his 90’s solo series, so for me, he was a cosmic hero first and foremost and I wouldn’t learn about his earthbound years or even the sacrificial first appearance that defined him until much later. It speaks to his versatility that he can succeed in either environment; however, it’s also perhaps a commentary on his limitations that he gets shuffled back and forth between Earth and space, between opposing Galactus and serving him, as he gets into a rut if his dynamic doesn’t get changed up every now and again.

At his best, the Surfer is a hero, an enigma, a warrior, a philosopher, a savior, a harbinger of doom and more. Here are some stories that showcase his various sides.

The Galactus Trilogy (FANTASTIC FOUR v1 #48-50)
Few characters whose first appearance is not also their origin are so vitally linked to that story as The Silver Surfer. The Galactus Trilogy is a classic for many reasons, but setting up the Surfer as a different kind of Marvel hero with a compelling mystique about him is one of the chief among those. He makes his debut as a menacing alien heavy that embodies the idea of “the other” and ends the story as a hugely sympathetic underdog we wish we could be more like. The Surfer’s discovery of humanity, his empathy, and his transformation underscore the big action and amazing art, tying a “when we’re at our best, we’re worth saving” moral to the story.

SILVER SURFER v1
Not to cross brands here, but the Surfer’s initial 18-issue series from the 70’s, written by Stan Lee and illustrated largely by John Buscema, really is the character’s most essential tales. Out the gate, we get the origin of our hero, how Norrin Radd became The Silver Surfer, sacrificing love and a big chunk of his own morality in order to serve the greater good; that the character went years with this motivation for his actions in his first appearance as a question mark is pretty wild. That opening salvo is followed up by an exploration of both the Surfer’s exile on Earth as well as his past on Zenn-La, including the introduction of Shalla Bal to create one of Marvel’s most unsung (literally) star-crossed romances. You also get the genesis of Mephisto, that legendary first Surfer-Thor brawl with stellar Buscema art, and other classic stuff. Sometimes Lee hits the angle of the Surfer not understanding humanity’s violent ways a little too hard and too often, but when it scores it scores big.

SILVER SURFER v2 by Steve Englehart
The Surfer series that ran through the late 80’s and into the 90’s had him off of Earth and back soaring through the spaceways. I started reading regularly during Ron Marz’s tenure as writer, which had some cool stuff, and I just missed a Jim Starlin run I’ve always wanted to get around to, but the stuff that sticks with me is Steve Englehart’s work at the start. I definitely recall distinctly the period where the Surfer was entering into an awkward romance with Nova (the chick, not the real one), trying to quell intergalactic wars between the Kree and Skrulls, and dressing up as a pirate to go undercover among a crew of lizard people. It was weird, it was wild and it was ambitious—it was everything stories about a shiny demigod riding through space on a surfboard needed to be and presented a nice counterpoint to the claustrophobic 70’s stories where the Surfer couldn’t venture outside his earthly prison. Slick art from the late Marshall Rogers didn’t hurt either.

SILVER SURFER: REQUIEM
I’ve got a whole entry on this underrated beauty.

“On the Last Day” (NOVA v4 #13-15)
During the first Annihilation, Keith Giffen made the bold move to put the Surfer back as Galactus’ herald for the first time since his introduction (I think, please correct me if I’m wrong) and this was, to my opinion, the story that best played off that change in status quo. The premise is pretty simple: The Surfer leads Galactus to an inhabited planet and warns the folks living there to evacuate, Nova wants to save said planet from being eaten, Nova and the Surfer fight. There’s another plot about a body-possessing serial killer, but for me that good stuff is writers Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning digging into the psyche of the Surfer when he is not turning on Galactus to save the little people. They do a nice job showing the nuances of the character in part not caring because his value system has again been dulled, but also retaining a shred of that compassion and wavering the slightest bit in his duty. The Nova vs Surfer battle is great as the kind of underdog story I dig—Nova is nowhere near Surfer’s league—and because Wellinton Alves does wonderful work depicting it, but the moral debate and contemplation over the greatest good is the meaty stuff, really showing how complex The Silver Surfer is.

Fantastic Four: The Animated Series
The FF side of the Marvel Action Hour from the mid-90’s had very little going for it aside from a hilarious theme song and Brian Austin Green rapping as The Human Torch, but a pretty spot-on adaptation of the Galactus Trilogy is one of the series’ few treats. The animation is not pretty, but the folks responsible for the show do a very nice job with the story, and this was in fact the first place I experienced it in any fashion, so that’s certainly something worth noting.

First Impressions: Fantastic Four

My first memory of the Fantastic Four is The Human Torch; not Johnny Storm, mind you, but The Human Torch; and to be fair, not really of the Fantastic Four.

The same way I knew The Flash and Iron Man without actually knowing who they were as a kid, I knew The Human Torch. I had no concept of who was under those flames and certainly no idea that he was part of something called the Fantastic Four, but I recognized—and dug—that a guy colored red with little black lines running up and down him and underwear you could still see underneath meant he was on fire and a super hero (even though just about every artist since the late 90’s has gone over to depicting a slightly more “realistic” version of the Torch’s flamed on form, in my mind the black lines and yellow eyes ala Kirby will always be what I default to).

Truth be told, I’m even less sure than usual how I came to know The Human Torch. Usually my gut goes with thinking I must have watched a cartoon and picked it up, but the Torch was infamously left out of the late 70’s animated series because the powers that be thought young viewers might light themselves on fire and was replaced by H.E.R.B.I.E. I know I watched the 90’s FF portion of the Marvel Action Hour, but I definitely was drawing the Torch before I was 12. Maybe I saw a toy or a t-shirt? Not sure, but regardless, I knew who The Human Torch was before I knew who or what the Fantastic Four were.

Sometime later, still before I read my first FF comic but also definitely aware I became aware of The Human Torch, The Thing came on my radar. Again, I’m not quite sure how it happened, but certainly Marvel characters were licensed all over the place dating back to when I was a kid, so it’s not unlikely I saw a lunchbox or whatever and the two most visually striking characters jumped out at me while the others receded into the background; honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised to find that my established childhood fascination with the colors red and yellow—it wasn’t a coincidence Flash and Iron Man were my earlier examples—drew my eye first to the Torch, but surely the big dude with the dinosaur head made of rocks proved an irresistible lure to my young eyes.

I got my first Fantastic Four comic in a grab bag from the grocery store in 1988. I was six years old and it was issue #314, written by Steve Englehart, drawn by Keith Pollard, sporting a cover from Ron Frenz and edited by my recently-retired former co-worker Ralph Macchio. Belasco was the bad guy and the blurb next to him on front reading “From the pages of the X-Men” no doubt increased my excitement to read the book. I don’t remember much about the story other than that the FF were fighting demons, the sky was on fire at some point and a blind lady who was married to The Human Torch was really worried about him.

Oh, and the roster of the Fantastic Four was The Thing, The Human Torch, Ms. Marvel in her “She-Thing” incarnation and, of course…Crystal.

Again, recall that The Thing and The Human Torch were the only FF characters I knew; I had some vague idea that there was supposed to be a stretchy guy and a girl on the team, but I assumed Crystal was the girl and maybe I made the stretchy guy up or he was actually on the Justice League. It seemed odd to me that there was a female Thing, but I didn’t know any better so I assumed she had always been there; likewise, The Thing being extra mutated didn’t faze me because I was at least familiar with the concept of new costumes.

As far as I knew, The Thing, The Human Torch, Ms. Marvel and Crystal had been the Fantastic Four for over 300 issues.

Like some sort of crazy therapy hypnosis session, I do believe writing this blog entry has helped me recall exactly when my hatred for Crystal began. Like I said, there’s a scene in this issue where Alicia Masters—Johnny’s blind wife whose name I did not know at the time—is freaking out with the rest of the world’s population because the sky is on fire and she’s worried about her husband. On the flipside, the Torch keeps saying how worried he is about his wife since they’re underground fighting demons and he doesn’t know what’s happened to her. In the midst of this, Crystal keeps hitting on Johnny and wanting to talk about why he won’t get with her despite him repeatedly telling her to knock it off.

At six years old, with no knowledge of continuity or that Crystal had a husband of her own she was mistreating or a kid she had ditched to chase after her old boyfriend, I understood enough about the basic dynamics of marriage to know that this bimbo was bad news. I was a really smart kid.

Looking back, while I would gradually track down further issues of comics my dad would randomly bring me home in grab bags like X-Men and Spider-Man, it would be years before I ever got into reading Fantastic Four, and I think I now know why. While I’m sure there were merits to this particular version of the book, to a kid, all I saw was a super hero team with nothing to set it apart other than a reduced roster. Why would I want to read about only four characters when I could instead pick up Avengers or Justice League and see many more? Besides, two strong ugly characters seemed redundant and I didn’t understand Crystal’s powers.

It really goes to show how intrinsic to the value of the Fantastic Four that family dynamic is. I’ve since gone back and read the really good FF stuff—Lee/Kirby, Byrne, Waid/Wieringo, etc.—and gained a whole new appreciation for it as an adult because it’s so different. The banter, heightened emotions and genuine affection the core characters trade or feel for one another puts the FF on a level apart from all those other teams. Even now, while the Torch may be gone and the Four have become the Future Foundation with Spider-Man and a half dozen kids in tow, that feeling of family and casual closeness as opposed to the professionalism of the Justice League or office politics of the Avengers gives FF its own identity I couldn’t see from my first Fantastic Four experience.

As a bit of a postscript, I finally gave Fantastic four another shot around 1994 when the new cartoon was rapping its way into my heart thanks to Brian Austin Green. The Thing was sporting a mask, The Invisible Woman wore a bathing suit, and Mr. Fantastic was dead, replaced alternately by Namor and the Scot Lang version of Ant-Man. So while I considered myself a pretty hardcore Marvel fan by the mid 90’s, I still had no idea who Reed Richards was.

Underrated/Overlooked: 1602: Fantastick Four

Neil Gaiman’s 1602 and the sequels it spawned are stories that involve incredible occurrences and unearthly shows of power taking place in a time ill-equipped to explain them as anything other than witchcraft, but when you got down to it, they were really about seeing which enduring Marvel figures could swim rather than sink on the strength of character alone.

1602 focuses on the Marvel pantheon of the Silver Age, a group whose collective origins generally came from atomic experimentation gone awry and other radioactive catastrophes we’d probably dismiss as hokey were they used as start points today, but at the time both fit into the tropes of popular science fiction and reacted to the general populace’s fears when it came to nuclear Armageddon and the like. In 1963, getting bit by an irradiated spider or caught in a gamma blast played on real world anxiety while also fitting into a fictional tapestry that somehow projected reason into the most unlikely of places.

Take those same origins and try to apply them in 2003 to a 17th century setting and you start to strain. However—and this is my take, as there is no deeper evidence so far as I know—Gaiman wasn’t trying to validate the timelessness of Marvel origins, but rather that that personas created alongside the super powers could stand any test even when relocated across the decades one way and centuries the other.

My prime example would be that Daredevil’s genesis does not travel well into the world of 1602—rather than being blinded by radioactive isotopes, he touches strange green goop in a cave to get his super senses—but the swashbuckling spirit of the character tempered by tragedy and laughing in the face of danger made the sightless Irish troubadour Matt Murdock maybe my favorite character in the series.

While Gaiman only just got to the Fantastic Four in his first story, Peter David would dig in three years later with Marvel 1602: Fantastick Four and show the First Family to be perhaps the most adaptable of all the Marvels.

The Fantastic Four are one of the best examples of character over powers in comic book history. By the time the FF was born in 1961, their abilities—super strength, flame, invisibility, stretching—had all been done and even their explorers of the fantastic deal had been done to an extent by the Challengers of the Unknown, but the personalities and rapport Stan and Jack bestowed upon Reed, Sue, Johnny and Ben was the heart of what made them great, helped revolutionize comics and propelled their adventures to dizzying heights of awesome.

In Fantastick Four, David zigs where Gaiman zagged as far as exaggerating the bold and heroic qualities of 1602 over the dour skullduggery of Nicholas Fury and his lot. Where 1602 was a period drama, FF is in many ways equal parts comedy and adventure, both of which PAD is expert in. Gaiman had the Four trapped in a dungeon for most of his series and foreshadowed their arrival on the scene to perfect effect; David has them out in the world and enjoying what it has to offer.

Each individual has their persona tweaked just enough to puff them up to fit the stage: Reed is even more oblivious to anything save discovery, Susan is reflectively more dogged in her pursuit of his attention, Johnny’s romantic nature bubbles over to recklessness and Ben’s propensity for drama takes him down a different and interesting path as a performer in the troupe of William Shakespeare—who figures prominently in this tale, by the way. In a time where bizarre and outrageous occurrences have sprung up like wildfire seemingly overnight, there’s no better way to explore the altered landscape than alongside the Fantastick Four.

And of course if ever a character was suited to take his rightful place in a 17th century pumped full of pomp and pageantry on the super level, it’s Doctor Doom. The not-so-good Doctor was handsome—that was even his nickname—throughout Gaiman’s 1602, taunting the captive quartet and cavorting with The Black Widow, but here he’s wearing the iron mask and speaking in all his third person glory. I’m always entertained by reading a good Doom-as-pompous-royal story regardless of the chronal backdrop, but in an age where kings and queens really did rule, David’s take shines the perfect storm of regality, arrogance, and absurd overconfidence.

I could talk about the characters all day—I haven’t even gotten to the clever weaving in of the Frightful Four (the Four Who Are Frightful) and their powers or why an even more detached than usual Namor (Numenor) fits the period nearly as well as Doom—but the story is a hoot as well.

Doom captures Ben’s buddy Shakespeare, so the Four take off in hot pursuit of the villain’s flying pirate ship in their own flying pirate ship. The Doctor has hired the Frightful Four to take him to the edge of the world and wants the Bard along to tell tale of his triumph. Johnny absconds with Doris Evans—yes, there’s a 1602 analogue of Dorrie Evans and she’s awesome—pulling her along on the journey against her will so she doesn’t marry Wyatt Wingfoot. I thought the ultimate destination was Attilan—and I daresay PAD makes a game of playing it that way—but it’s actually Atlantis—or what passes for 1602 Atlantis—where fights with sea monsters, palace intrigue and much more ensue.

Pascal Alixe’s art is as beautiful as it has ever been on this book. He’s a master of capturing facial expressions, portraying texture and setting scenes that need to be larger than life, such as the aforementioned flying pirate ship vs sea monster kerfuffle. I love his Thing and his Human Torch, but c’mon, those are the easy ones; that I love his Sandman and Medusa speaks more to how much work he puts in.

Again, I could go on, but I’d just spoil the whole book. I could mention the Shakespeare-Doris Evans dynamic; I could expound more on how the Four Who Are Frightful’s “powers” work and how Peter David really gets The Wizard; I could tease the Black Widow’s fate; I could mention that amidst the fun, the jokes and the wonder, there’s a genuinely heart-wrenching storyline for Johnny that winds up ending the story.

I could, but instead I’ll just say 1602: Fantastick Four is a wonderfully buoyant little tale with smart flourishes, dynamite art and the wit you’d expect from something written by Peter David.

I’ll also note that while I’ve observed 1602 to be an acquired taste—I’ve obviously acquired it—you should really not stop with just the original, as you’re missing out on truly underrated and overlooked work by Greg Pak, Jeff Parker and a host of brilliant artists.

The Enigma of Adam Warlock

I’ve finally been experiencing the pleasure of reading the full Stan Lee/Jack Kirby run on Fantastic Four via the most recent re-issues of the softcover Marvel Masterworks series and though the last few volumes have brought such seminal stuff as the debuts of Galactus and The Black Panther not to mention the classic “This Man…This Monster!” Coming up next, I’ve got the first appearances of Blastaar and Ronan to look forward to, but most significantly for me, the introduction of Adam Warlock. For as long as I can remember, I’ve had questions about Adam Warlock that I’ve never been able to find answers to—admittedly I haven’t looked too hard or I would have read the Jim Starlin stories by now—and hope that perhaps by starting from the beginning, I’ll understand this character and his evolution a bit better.

Characters undergoing wild transformations in comics aren’t unheard of; in fact it’s more or less business as usual at this point. The landscape of modern comics—the super hero genre especially—is littered with figures who bear little resemblance to their original incarnations. Still, Adam Warlock’s four decade-long journey from artificial man to mystical space hero with a significant detour to cosmic messiah and fairly unveiled Christ allegory along the way is pretty unique.

The character that would become Adam Warlock debuted in 1967’s Fantastic Four #66 as Him, an artificial man created by the Enclave to be the peak of humanity. He was more a handsome gold-skinned Frankenstein than anything resembling what he would become, but relevant to this examination, he was a character firmly rooted in science—the Enclave were criminal scientists—and thus right at home in the sci-fi adventures of the FF. Him would resurface a few more times—and Her would be introduced—but he never caught on the way many other Lee/Kirby creations did.

In 1972, Roy Thomas and Gil Kane got a hold of Him and reinvented him as Adam Warlock, introducing what would become his familiar visual cues of a yellow thunderbolt emblem with red and gold gladiator flourishes as a costume. According to an old issue of Back Issue—via Wikipedia—Thomas fully intended to do a super hero version of Jesus Christ, having recently become a fan of Jesus Chris Superstar; Him had some pedigree but little baggage or history, so he made as much sense as existing character. Thomas had the High Evolutionary stand in for a higher power and evolve Adam to godhood, then dropped him on the newly-created Counter-Earth where he served as savior to its people, protecting them from the Man-Beast—a rogue High Evolutionary creation serving as the Lucifer figure—and eventually their creator—the Evolutionary again—who toyed with wiping them out.

Warlock began waxing philosophical not unlike his cosmic contemporary The Silver Surfer, but not about his plight in being trapped on Earth, rather the pressures placed on him by his power and the expectations of those he protected.

The Thomas-written Warlock saga only ran eight issues, but Jim Starlin would pick up the character not long after, writing and drawing a new story that took his messianic routine to the stars. Starlin pumped up the cosmic soap opera by introducing The Magus, Warlock’s evil alternate from a possible future, and weaving in dimension jumping and time travel as well as the established Thanos, but also continued to explore the character as more than just another super-powered bruiser, asking questions about destiny, the corruptive nature of power and what role even a supposed savior had in shaping who he would become. With Magus, Starlin also was not afraid to posit that this might not be the typical “evil twin” scenario comics fans knew well and that instead Adam may indeed by mentally ill and possessing multiple personalities. The Starlin Warlock is—from what I’ve heard—trippy, expansive, of the era and possibly the most well-regarded material that has been produced featuring the character.

This era of Adam Warlock concluded in 1977 with a three-part crossover through Marvel Team-Up, Avengers and Marvel Two-In-One that saw the character give his life to thwart a scheme by Thanos.

Adam Warlock would return 14 years later as part of the crossover event The Infinity Gauntlet, and it was around this time I would be first introduced to the character. In a story written by Starlin, Thanos, recently resurrected himself, gets a hold of the combined Infinity Gems, which grants him near omnipotence, and Warlock along with his allies Pip and Gamora are brought back from a limbo-type existence within the Soul Gem to thwart him. The good guys win and Adam actually gets the Infinity Gems himself for a moment, but they are ultimately split up amongst his chosen Infinity Watch, and they go off into their own ongoing series.

Each of the next two summers—1992 and 1993—would feature another “Infinity” event penned by Starlin, in which Warlock and Thanos would be major players and nearly every Marvel title and character would become involved. In Infinity War, the forgotten Magus gains his own existence out of Warlock’s passing wish to excise himself of all good and evil during his brief time holding the Gauntlet, and creates an army of evil twins of Marvel heroes—fun fact: this is where the Spider-Man character Doppelganger, featured in Maximum Carnage and more recently the Carnage mini by Zeb Wells and Clayton Crain, originated—so that he can try and assemble the Gems. The next year, in Infinity Crusade, Warlock’s “good” side, the Goddess, takes advantage of various heroes’ faith to brainwash them and create a super hero civil war over a decade early while trying to “cleanse” the universe by destroying it.

I vividly recall reading Infinity Crusade with my best buddy Matt Corley when I was 11 years old; when I spotted a few issues of Infinity War not long after, I snatched those up as well. It would be a while yet before I found Infinity Gauntlet in trade and got the full saga (and of course years later I’d pick up Infinity Abyss and Marvel Universe: The End, but those may be stories for another time). I was a kid, so the slam dunk concepts of bad guy duplicates and hero vs hero grabbed me pretty easily—they still would/do—but I always found myself a bit mystified at what exactly was the deal with Adam Warlock. I mean, these were huge Marvel stories that touched every single comic and featured more or less every single character available, but guys like Spider-Man, Wolverine, Iron Man and Captain America were more or less supporting characters—if that—while this orange-skinned dude with a shiny green thing on his forehead was front and center. Surely he was the most important character in the Marvel Universe, right? So why had I never heard of him?

As I mentioned in my post about Thor: Blood and Thunder, there were in fact two Warlock series—Warlock & the Infinity Watch and The Warlock Chronicles—running concurrently in the mid-90’s. At the time, I was curious about this because, again, I really had no sense of who Adam Warlock was, but at the same time, he was starring in more books than Daredevil or The Hulk. Looking back now, it’s interesting and a bit bizarre to think that Warlock, who was such a quirky, boundary-pushing figure in the 70’s would morph into the central figure of some of the most prominent projects on Marvel’s radar 20 years later—and they were written by the same guy! Adam Warlock had gone from being on the fringe of the Marvel Universe, relegated to Counter-Earth or deep space so Thomas and Starlin could dig into the idea of Jesus as a super hero without attracting too much attention, to being right in the thick of things, living on Monster Island, showing up in prominent books and ordering the A-list heroes around in the center of crossovers. If you give the Infinity trilogy and early issues of Infinity Watch a solid read, Starlin is certainly still delving into larger issues of duality, religion and the heart of what makes good and what makes evil, but he’s also writing very commercial comic books, something I can’t imagine he ever thought he’d be doing with Adam Warlock when he plucked him out of limbo decades earlier.

Adam Warlock’s 90’s glory days crashed around the same time the rest of the comic industry’s did. His books were cancelled, he was shipped over to the Ultraverse for a quick crossover/reimagining, then slipped into limbo by the end of the decade. He’d be gone a good six years or so before popping back up in the aforementioned Infinity Abyss and Marvel Universe: The End minis, both written as well as drawn by Starlin, where his primary role is to play counterpoint to Thanos, who has once again gained ultimate power and is waffling on whether or not to embrace his nihilistic tendencies or not.

The most recent Warlock resurrection came about in 2007 with Annihilation: Conquest, and I was actually at Marvel for this one. This time, Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning brought the character back—Bill Rosemann told me at the time that he was “one of the last missing pieces of the cosmic puzzle”—bringing things somewhat full circle—if you discount the Him years—with the High Evolutionary being involved and Warlock again being touted as a universal savior whose form is sought by Ultron as a host body. DnA made Adam part of their Guardians of the Galaxy series where he served as one of the team’s many wildcards, in part due to the schizophrenic nature that had long been a part of the character’s makeup and also because he had new mystic-based powers that moved him closer to fitting the Warlock name. This incarnation lasted a couple years before Adam fulfilled his seeming long ago destiny, finally becoming The Magus and getting taken down by his old teammates and later by an evil alternate version of Captain Marvel.

Going back to the beginning, I’m very much looking forward to the next volume of Marvel Masterworks: Fantastic Four—coming this November—to see the genesis of a character who would be Frankenstein, Jesus, a cosmic explorer, the center of the 90’s Marvel Universe, Thanos’ confidante and an outer space magic man; even for comic that’s a pretty wild resume and I’d like to read it all the way through.

The Many Loves of The Human Torch

Two months removed from the death of The Human Torch and a month and a half after Valentine’s Day, I’m riding the zeitgeist as I always do and writing a post about Johnny Storm’s various girlfriends and shape shifting alien wives.

Many good super hero comics have a strong soap opera element. From the Superman-Lois Lane-Clark Kent triangle to the Melrose Place-like shenanigans of the early 90’s X-Men, love and lust between these attractive folks in spandex can be as crucial to keeping things fresh and building an acclaimed run as your central mystery or monthly action scene.

As with many things, 60’s Marvel pioneered a lot of the soapier elements in comics—or to be fair polished them up, since the aforementioned Superman stuff was going before and the Legion of Super-Heroes had to have been at least holding hands and trading flight rings—with Peter Parker’s pursuit of Betty Brant in Amazing Spider-Man, Bruce Banner’s Quasimodo-like yearning for Betty Ross in Incredible Hulk, the shy courtship between Cyclops and Marvel Girl and so on. But nowhere was the interpersonal as important as Fantastic Four.

The personal dynamic amongst the FF has always been at the forefront of their stories, just as much as their villains or the wild locations they visit. However, it’s not like any other super team because it’s not a group of peers hanging out and waiting to couple off, it’s a family; to go back to my favorite analogy-generator already used once in this very post, if the other teams are Melrose Place, Fantastic Four is The Waltons. Romance played a role, but paternal, fraternal, maternal and whatever means the sister version (saternal?) bonds came first.

Reed and Sue Richards are the longstanding royal couple of the Marvel Universe; they’re Billy and Alison if things had worked out (three Melrose Place references in five paragraphs—I’m rolling!). Theirs is a mature and sweet but ultimately kinda boring love. And The Thing is an awesome character, one of the best, but part of his whole deal is that no girl is ever going to get with him unless she’s blind and has a kink for clay already established.

Which leaves us—or left us—with The Torch.

For 50 years, Johnny Storm had to shoulder the burden of being the single guy bringing any and all romantic intrigue to Fantastic Four (because Sue was never really going to swim off with Namor). He played every role from love struck teenager to swarthy playboy to even over-his-head newlywed. Every time a new creative team came onboard or a direction shift was made, invariably, Johnny got a new girlfriend—and what a group.

Let’s talk about a few.

DORRIE EVANS
The Human Torch’s mostly anonymous teenage girlfriend who came more or less pre-packaged with the series and then stuck around predominantly off-camera for the first 50 issues or so. For real, the best ever appearance of Dorrie Evans is Amazing Spider-Man #21, in which she has more lines then every issue of FF she showed up in combined—and is named Doris for some reason—and spends the story trying to use bookish Peter Parker to make Johnny jealous but also kinda falls for him (as I recall). It’s the most personality Dorrie ever displayed, much of it the usual Silver Age girlfriend “make the hero jealous” routine, but she also came across as kind of sweet at time and perhaps would have been perfect for Peter. I also love that when Stan Lee had to name his young male lead’s love interest he went with “Dorrie”—was that name more common in the 60’s?

CRYSTAL
I would hope at this point my loathing for Crystal is well-known or I’m really not doing my job here. She is in all likelihood my least favorite comic book character ever, with only Sardath giving her a run for her money—and that idiot got taken out again in the new issue of R.E.B.E.L.S.! But I digress. That aside, the Romeo & Juliet romance of The Torch and Crystal is one of the classics and even I kinda dig it. The funny thing is, finally having recently gotten around to reading the original stories in Masterworks form recently, the whole thing comes out of nowhere entirely; one issue Johnny is sort of pining after Crystal’s older sister Medusa (and maybe still dating Dorrie?), then the next he’s madly in love with Crystal—and likewise—and then the next they’ve got an unbreakable barrier between them and it’s heartbreaking. It’s one of those stories that are really great and emotional as long as you just look the other way on its origins and how quickly the dial got turned up to 11, but that’s the simultaneous beauty and absurdity of Silver Age comics. Of course Crystal broke Johnny’s heart because she’s an awful, awful shrew, but it was nice while it lasted.

FRANKIE RAYE
I’ve got a weird soft spot for Frankie Raye, despite the fact she co-opted the Nova codename for a couple decades. Her back story is nutty—she’s the stepdaughter of the guy who created the original Human Torch, got fire powers from a lab accident, and then was given amnesia, an invisible golden swimsuit that blocked her abilities and subtle pyrophobia by her stepdad via hypnosis—and she was actually a bit out of Johnny’s league and didn’t seem to realize it. More than that, though, I love the John Byrne story where she more or less became Galactus’ willing herald because it would save Earth but also because she just thought it would be fun to see outer space; she again broke Johnny’s heart, but doing so by getting cosmic powers from an immortal planet eating space god is a pretty clever and unique breakup strategy.

ALICIA MASTERS
Midway through his awesome FF run, with The Thing out of the picture, John Byrne decided to experiment with mixing things up a bit and not only moved She-Hulk in as a new member of the team, but also hooked up Johnny with Ben’s longtime love interest, Alicia Masters. I was initially intrigued by the pairing, but ultimately, like I believe most fans, didn’t think it worked. A lot of interesting but somewhat ham-fisted of Johnny noticing that Alicia is actually somewhat close to his age and stuff. After Byrne left, Roger Stern ended up marrying the couple, which really didn’t seem to work, as it altered the dynamic I talked about at the beginning of this post and took Johnny out of play as the FF’s single guy. Eventually the folks working on the book came to see it was an odd fit as well—though not for awhile—which brings us to…

LYJA
…it wasn’t Alicia after all, it was a Skrull! Lyja had a lot of potential as a character and as a love interest for Johnny, but I don’t think she or their relationship ever really got a fair shake since she was created as a solution for a situation rather than a new idea. Her alienation from her own race and the way she somewhat put her warrior nature in check because of how much she cared for Johnny and on the flipside his having to work through such ultimate betrayal as getting married under totally false circumstances but realizing he did love this woman is all good story fodder, but the whole thing came along at an unstable time for the book and the characters, so it never came to fruition as it may have during another period. I did like Lyja’s brief return during Secret Invasion, as she deserved to tell off Johnny for forgetting about her, but I also like that they still couldn’t quite resist one another.

NAMORITA
The Nova-Namorita fan in me of course despises this pairing, but aside from that, I kind of love it. It’s so perfect on so many gimmicky levels: the mini-Namor/Sue thing, the fire/water thing, that they’re both just outgoing party hard characters who know how attractive they are. This is another one that never got enough play and it’s too bad she’s gone (and presumably the Namorita who turned up during War of Kings was plucked from before her dating Johnny days); they’d be a fun occasional hookup.

ULTIMATE FIRESTAR
Even in the Ultimate Universe, Johnny is a mack daddy who can’t win. Crystal ditched him even harder over there, and just when he seemed to have a good thing going with Liz Allen, she burst into flames and went off to hang with the X-Men. I’d like to see this one revisited. Somebody get me Brian Bendis…

Cruel Summer: Super-Skrull

The Skrulls, introduced in only the second issue of Fantastic Four way back when, exemplified one thing differentiated FF from so many of the standard super hero series to come and also made it the perfect bridge from the 50’s era of genre fiction to the true Silver Age: they were a science fiction concept that would have been right at home in Strange Tales or Tales to Astonish five years earlier, but they would end up being great foils for the tights and domino mask crowd well into the present. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby weren’t exactly riding a wave of high concept with the Skrulls as they were full-on “Invasion of the Bodysnatchers” knock-offs; the types of shape-shifting sinister extraterrestrials you’d find any weekend at the local drive-in.

That, however, is what makes the Super-Skrull so cool.

Kl’rt, the Super-Skrull, made his debut in Fantastic Four #18. He was the Skrulls’ greatest warrior, and as a result, selected to undergo genetic manipulation that gifted him with all the powers of the hated FF in addition to his own natural shape-shifting abilities. In fact, not only could he do all the stuff his foes did, Skrull science made him just that much better than them in each category. This was truly a villain worthy of the World’s Greatest Comic and seemingly an unstoppable ass-kicker.

The FF still won, of course, but only after getting thrashed pretty soundly and Reed Richards basically cheating by figuring out Super-Skrull was getting his powers augmented by a low-orbiting satellite and jamming the frequency; they couldn’t beat him, but they outsmarted him and his dummy superiors.

Super-Skrull has always had a fierce look, courtesy of Kirby. The Skrulls look freakier than your run-of-the-mill bad guy aliens to begin with, but pasting one of those ugly mugs on a body that can do everything the FF does is just a no-brainer when it comes to rad designs. For all the crazy cool neo-Super-Skrull designs that Leinil Francis Yu and other churned out during Secret Invasion—and oh how fun that must have been—I think the original still stands out; there’s something about that rocky Thing arm on fire and/or stretching that’s undeniably neat (I think the biggest challenge any artist faces when drawing Super-Skrull is feeling like they need to somehow incorporate the Invisible Woman’s less visually cool powers in).

Of course after an awesome first appearance, the problem with Super-Skrull became obvious: how can a guy this cool keep losing to everybody? I mean, if the Fantastic Four themselves are one of Marvel’s premiere teams and able to thwart off such tremendous threats from Doctor Doom to Galactus, how come a guy who can do everything they can do better than them and also change shape and also has super hypnosis (by the by) loses to Spider-Man, Ms. Marvel and Iron Fist? Mister Fantastic’s ol’ “block the satellite” trick became a tired deus ex machina and a villain who should have been ferocious dropped sadly into the same category as the Rhino or Abomination in terms of being the dude heroes beat on when they needed to establish bonafides before fighting true big league baddies.

It would take 43 years before somebody came up with e idea that Super-Skrull could actually make a pretty decent hero—or at least anti-hero. Keith Giffen, Andy Schmidt and the other great minds behind the 2006 Annihilation event hit on this notion and tasked Javier Grillo-Marxuach with crafting a four-issue limited series working Kl’rt into the proceedings.

In Annihilation: Super-Skrull, Grillo-Marxuach stays quite faithful to the established characterization of Kl’rt from all his previous appearances, he just casts him on the side of angels in this particular adventure, and in the process demonstrates that he was never so much a villain in the classic sense as a proud and dedicated warrior who happened to be working for the guys fighting our heroes. Super-Skrull remains ornery and arrogant throughout the series—he alienates his key ally, a young Skrull who hero worships him, just by being a jerk, and drives him over to the bad guys’ camp—but he also possesses many qualities we’d number as virtuous, such as his determination and even selflessness when it comes time to make a huge sacrifice in order to stop Annihilus from advancing on the Skrull homeworld. Even Reed Richards himself, whom Kl’rt reluctantly turns to for help in his mission, muses on how it really is the circumstances that shape our opinion of a being like the Super-Skrull.

For his part, Kl’rt of course does not care how he’s ultimately viewed so long as the job gets done. To borrow from pro wrestling, he’s “Stone Cold” Steve Austin: he could care less whether or not the fans cheer him so long as he wins the World title, and in having this attitude, he just becomes more popular.

Annihilation and its sequels have done wonder for Super-Skrull as they have mostly been war stories at their heart, and Kl’rt is a soldier. He did fine as a cackling super villain for a bit, but as I mentioned, it got played out and he was being used more to put other characters over than for his own virtues. His dedication to the Skrull Empire and willingness to do whatever it takes to see it prevail plays way better in a story where they’re part of a coalition battling Annihilus or the Phalanx than it does when he’s trying to conquer Earth through Hollywood or something; it renders him a far more three-dimensional character. Likewise the war-time camaraderie he has formed with guys like Nova and Star-Lord allows him to display a more relaxed side of his persona that makes him more appealing.

For me, aside from the look and the powers and the other stuff Super-Skrull has going for him, I’ve always just enjoyed that he often seems like the sole tough guy in a room full of weasels. The Skrulls are all about subterfuge and these long-form infiltration plans like Secret Invasion; Super-Skrull is their greatest champion, yet he’d prefer to walk right up to you and punch you in the face. He could be disguised as your wife or best friend, and yes, he does use those powers on occasions, but more often than not, he’s content to be an inconspicuous green monster that can still kick your ass because he’s a bad, bad man.

If they made a movie of Annihilation or about the Skrulls, you’d need to get a guy from The Expendables to play Super-Skrull, and there’s not much higher compliment I can offer than that.

Art Attack: June 2010's coolest covers

Well, most comic companies released their June solicits two weeks ago, but it's never too late to enjoy some gorgeous cover art! And boy are there a LOT of pretty covers headed our way this summer, so check these out...

ABE SAPIEN: THE ABYSSAL PLAIN #1 by Dave Johnson

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN PRESENTS: BLACK CAT #1 by Amanda Conner

ASTRO CITY: SILVER AGENT #1 by Alex Ross

AVENGERS: THE ORIGIN #3 by Phil Noto

BOOSTER GOLD #33 by Kevin Maguire

BUZZARD #1 by Eric Powell

COWBOY NINJA VIKING #7 by Riley Rossmo

DAREDEVIL #507 by Paolo Rivera

DC UNIVERSE LEGACIES #2 by Andy & Joe Kubert

DEADPOOL: WADE WILSON'S WAR #1 by Jason Pearson

FANTASTIC FOUR #580 by Alan Davis

FANTASTIC FOUR IN...ATAQUE DEL M.O.D.O.K. #1 by Juan Doe

GODLAND #34 by Tom Scioli

GREEN ARROW #1 by Mauro Cascioli

INCREDIBLE HULK #610 by John Romita Jr.

JUSTICE LEAGUE: GENERATION LOST #3 by Tony Harris

LOCKJAW AND THE PET AVENGERS #4 by Ig Guarra

META 4 #1 by Ted McKeever

PETER PARKER #4 by Brendan McCarthy

R.E.B.E.L.S. #17 by Kalman Andrasofsky

S.H.I.E.L.D. #2 by Gerard Parel

SERENITY: FLOAT OUT #1 by Jo Chen

THE JOKER'S ASYLUM: CLAYFACE #1 by Kelley Jones

THE THANOS IMPERATIVE #2 by Aleksi Briclot

THE WALKING DEAD #74 by Charlie Adlard

THOR #611 by Pasqual Ferry

TINY TITANS #29 by Art Baltazar

WOLVERINE: WEAPON X #14 by Ron Garney

X-FORCE #28 by David Finch

ZATANNA #2 by Stephane Roux