As each new superhero gets his showcase in Marvel movies, we’re getting more and more lesser known characters pulled from the history of Marvel Comics to meet on the big screen. As we stray away from the actual superhero headliners, the obscure come to the fore. Probably the best of the darker, horror comics can be found in DC Comics, members of Justice League Dark, in recent years including Constantine, Swamp Thing, Zatanna, Deadman, Madame Xanadu, and Shade. But it’s the feel of JLD you’ll find in Brendan Daneen’s Morbius, The Living Vampire: Blood Ties, a new novel in the Titan Books library of novel adaptations of Marvel Comics. Taking place after the origin story of Marvel’s take on a “bat-man,” to be adapted in the pandemic-delayed, big-screen debut of Marvel’s latest monstrosity Morbius starring Jared Leto, this story gives an accounting of that “living vampire” first created 50 years ago in the pages of Spider-Man comics by Roy Thomas and Gil Kane.
Let’s take a trip back 33 years ago to a galaxy not all that far away. It was my very first issue of the only comic book I ever subscribed to. It was the end of the school year in 1986 and at last I took the plunge to send in a check to start getting a comic in the mail. My first issue? Star Wars #107, which contained a note from Marvel Comics stating that this was to be the final issue and I was going to be sent something instead going forward from a new universe of comics Marvel was starting called… New Universe. In the days before the Internet or anyone to call to say “what?” I was then sent eleven monthly issues of Star Brand. Not quite Star Wars, each issue reminded me of what I was not getting. I was a fan of the Star Wars comic book (issued as Star Wars Weekly in the UK) since receiving my first ever comic as a giveaway when my mom took me to my local library’s Star Wars Day right before Christmas 1977. The series would introduce me to a roster of creators (many I’d later meet in person) including Roy Thomas, Howard Chaykin, Steve Leialoha, Rick Hoberg, Archie Goodwin, Donald F. Glut, Carmine Infantino, Gil Kane, John Byrne, Michael Golden, Chris Claremont, Herb Trimpe, Al Williamson, Tom Palmer, David Michelinie, Klaus Janson, Ann Nocenti, Jan Duursema, Bill Sienkiewicz, and Walt Simonson. I read every issue up to Issue #107.
The big surprise? That original Star Wars series became everyone’s first encounter with the word BORG. It’s probably the first ever use of those four letters to describe a cybernetic organism, and it was spoken by none other than Luke Skywalker in reference to Valance, The Hunter way back in 1978. We would learn Valance was a borg who killed borgs, and he became an inaugural inductee here at borg in our borg Hall of Fame, and part of my opening dialogue with borg readers eight years ago here. This year, through the miracle of an idea worthy of a light bulb floating over your head, Marvel Comics introduced for its ongoing 80th anniversary celebration something I’ve never seen done before: a single, new, numbered issue continuing a series canceled as far back as 33 years ago. The issue is Star Wars, Issue #108–it’s fantastic and available at local comic shops everywhere now.
Providing a chapter by chapter sequel not to Issue #107 of the vintage series, but to the Issue #50 story “Crimson Forever,” Matthew Rosenberg is the writer on the new Issue #108 titled “Forever Crimson,” and along with Valance we again meet some of our favorite characters of the entire Star Wars universe who we haven’t seen in decades: the villainous Domina Tagge (remember Baron Tagge?), the stylin’ Amaiza Foxtrain, the memorable telepathic hoojib and the red Zeltrons, and best of all, Jaxxon the bounty hunter rabbit, who we last saw on a special variant edition copy of Marvel’s reboot Star Wars, Issue #1. Plus all the stars of the series we all know and love. As for the artists, Jan Duursema returns to the series for this one-shot issue, along with Giuseppe Camuncoli, Cam Smith, Andrea Broccardo, Kerry Gammill, Ze Carlos, Stefano Landini, Luke Ross, and Leonard Kirk, with colors by Chris Sotomayor, and lettering by Clayton Cowles. The result is everything you could want in a Star Wars comic. It’s the kind of purely fun story that would make a great monthly even today. If only they continued this story in an ongoing series!
Twice before comic book creators have tried to resurrect the popular 1967-68 Patrick McGoohan television series. The first was created by comic book giants Jack Kirby and Gil Kane in the 1970s. In an odd twist as strange as the series itself, the Kirby/Kane comics never made it to publication. Lucky for fans of these creators and fans of the show, the 1970s story will be available later this year as The Prisoner: The Original Art Edition, including Kirby’s first issue, 18 pages of Kane’s artwork, and a contemporary follow-up story by Steve Engelhart that would have continued the series. It’s available for pre-order now here at Amazon or from your local comic book store. A second attempt at a comeback came in 1988-89 with the prestige format DC Comics mini-series The Prisoner: Shattered Visage. With powerful artwork full of symbolism from Mister X creator Dean Motter and co-written with Mark Askwith, the series raised more questions, and was reprinted in a trade edition that is still available (here).
Today a new beginning is coming to comic book shops with Titan Comics next continuation of the series, 50 years after the series wrapped. Written by Peter Milligan (X-Statix, The Mummy) and illustrated by Colin Lorimer (The Hunt, Harvest), with colors by Joana LaFluente and lettering by Simon Bowland, The Prisoner: The Uncertainty Machine introduces a new Number Six to the Village. It’s a cool, stylish re-introduction to the strange world from the original TV series. Milligan engages readers from the initial action sequence, and Lorimer’s re-creation of the Village is a perfect homage for fans of the original and the real-life location in Wales where the show was filmed, Portmeirion. This Number Six’s partner was taken while both were on assignment with MI5. Can Number Six confront Number One, rescue his partner and find his way to become the second agent to ever leave the Village, and the first to leave with his mind intact?
Here is a preview of Issue #1 of The Prisoner: The Uncertainty Machine, courtesy of the publisher, with six covers and two exclusives (one from Diamond/Vice Press/Chris Weston, and one from Big Finish), including a Kirby original (also seen in the forthcoming The Prisoner: The Original Art Edition), and a Michael Allred cover. We also added a first look at later covers from the series:
If you only could choose one book to represent the potential–maybe even the highest form–of the comic book medium, a new book hitting the stands today may be on your short list. IDW Publishing is releasing a stunning anthology of the history of the Holocaust as seen in comic books of the past, presented with an introduction and afterword by Stan Lee, the creator who broke more stereotypes in his stories than anyone in comic books’ first century. In We Spoke Out: Comic Books and the Holocaust, artist Neal Adams, who changed the way comic book stories were told in the early 1970s with his Green Lantern/Green Arrow and Batman series, Holocaust scholar Rafael Medoff, and comics historian Craig Yoe have compiled what is arguably the most noble use of comic books–educating kids in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s on a subject of history virtually ignored in mainstream circles. Along with Congressman John Lewis’s March series about the civil rights movement, We Spoke Out: Comic Books and the Holocaust should be in every library and taught in every history class.
My high school history teacher was astonished to learn none of us knew the details of Watergate–we were only infants at the time–and I recall the realization he saw of what he and his peers were not teaching. This weekend my eighteen-year-old nephew mentioned watching the footage of 9-11 in school this year for the first time. In the 1980s only the last paragraph of the last chapter of our World History textbooks discussed the Holocaust, yet we at least spent a week talking about the subject. But not until the 1990s was the Holocaust taught in most of American school systems. Even today only 35 states require education in the subject in school curriculums. Certainly the most important lessons in history can be taught with its study, and in that light We Spoke Out should serve as a wake-up call to everyone, citizens, educators, and leaders. Oddly enough, for generations of American kids, the only place they learned about the murder of six million Jews, the stories of concentration camps, of the atrocities committed by Hitler and his Nazis, was in the comics pages.
The stories in the anthology present the atrocities of World War II without the overdone blood and gore of many 1950s “horror” comics. In an April 1955 story from Impact Issue #1 we meet a Jewish man post-War still haunted by his memories in what would now be called PTSD. In the pages of December 1951’s Frontline Combat, Issue #3 story the then-lauded Nazi general Rommel is dressed down, revealing the villainous truths of his leadership in the face of contemporary efforts to re-invent Rommel as a military hero. Based on the real-life Nazi Ilse Koch, in a story from Beware! Terror Tales, Issue #4, we are reminded of the vilest of humans who made household goods from the tattooed skin of captured Jews–a real-life horror some may think is only the stuff of fiction from Silence of the Lambs. Among these stories ripped from real life, Adams, Medoff, and Yoe fill in the blanks of time with historical context, including details of what the stories leave out.
The most rewarding and epic read of all the new Black Panther movie tie-ins is Marvel’s Black Panther: The Illustrated History of a King–The Complete Comics Chronology from Insight Editions, an enormous over-sized look at the history of the superhero in Marvel Comics. Author Dennis Culver recounts the character from its origin up to the new film, including descriptions of the superhero’s classic story arcs, with full-sized reproductions of cover art, full-page copies of key pages, and even some larger-than-life panels and splash page art.
Culver’s history of the character doesn’t miss a beat or classic creator reference. Created by Stan Lee himself as the first black superhero, drawn by Jack Kirby and Joe Sinnott and first appearing in the pages of Fantastic Four. He became an adversary of the team and would return facing off against Captain America in Tales of Suspense and then the Captain America monthly. What may surprise those only familiar with the film is that with only some minor tweaks to the character, the origin story is as reflected in the new film: T’Challa is king of Wakanda, who must face an arch-enemy named Klaw who has stolen some of the rare substance called vibranium. Roy Thomas, John Buscema, and Vince Colletta would take over creative duties as Black Panther joined the pages of The Avengers, with other creators working on the books including Herb Trimpe, Frank Giacoia, Bob Brown, and Ron Wilson. Don McGregor would write Black Panther into the pages of Jungle Action with a huge roster of artists including Rich Buckler, Gil Kane, Billy Graham, Klaus Janson, P. Craig Russell, and Bob McLeod. This would also be the introduction of the villain Erik Killmonger in the lauded “Panther’s Rage” story arc. The movie got this right as well, with Killmonger taking over and throwing Black Panther to his near-death over Warrior Falls. Some call this story arc the first of the mature, graphic novel stories that would later usher in books like Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns.
Jack Kirby would write and illustrate Black Panther in his own solo title finally in January 1977. A decade later Ed Hannigan would bring back the hero (after Kirby’s title wound down) in the pages of The Defenders, with Black Panther facing Namor the Sub-Mariner (who would clash with each other over the next two decades). T’Challa had appearances in Marvel Team-Up, two limited series, and Marvel Comics Presents–including a run with Gene Colan and Denys Cowan art–in the 1980s and early 1990s. As the millenium closed, Christopher Priest would write a new update to the character, inserting more humor into the stories, followed by stories from creator Reginald Hudlin and art by John Romita, Jr.–with a return of Klaus Janson, all under the Marvel Knights banner. This series would bring in characters Everett Ross and T’Challa’s sister Shuri, who would appear in the film, and love interest Storm from the X-Men. From there the character was subsumed into myriad Marvel crossovers with the rest of the publisher’s pantheon of heroes, including Civil War, Secret Invasion, and more recent series.
Ten years after Return of the Jedi, Topps trading cards editor and writer Gary Gerani was tasked once again to meet fan demand for more Star Wars trading cards. Many years before he would create photo cards for a new trilogy of prequels, he would team up with Lucasfilm’s Steve Sansweet to showcase Star Wars as interpreted by some of the best artists that contributed to the films or would re-imagine the “Star Wars Galaxy” in their own styles.
The three resulting trading card series have been released in the 2016 addition to Abrams ComicArts successful hardbound series featured here previously at borg.com. Star Wars Galaxy: The Original Topps Trading Card Series includes the works of more than 170 artists in more than 200 card reproductions, plus commentary by Gerani and an afterword by notable poster artist Drew Struzan. Unlike the prior volumes in the series, only the obverse image from the cards, which featured the artwork, is included.
You’ll find an incredible array of imagery by a surprising combination of artists, including rare images you will have seen only if you collected the original cards. So you’ll find the work of Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Ralph McQuarrie, Moebius, Drew Struzan, Dave Dorman, Al Williamson, Howard Chaykin, Mike Grell, John Eaves, Mike Zeck, George Perez, Jim Starlin, Dave Stevens, Walter Simonson, Gene Colan, Rich Buckler, Bill Sienkiewicz, Mark Schultz, P. Craig Russell, Dave Gibbons, Sergio Aragones, Boris Vallejo, Charles Vess, and Gil Kane.
The volume includes the entire run of portraits created for Star Wars Galaxy specifically for the Topps cards by Joseph Smith–the original art was later bought by George Lucas for his personal collection.
Derived from a licensed Japanese line of toys called the Micromen, which themselves were small-sized versions of a 12-inch action figure called Henshin Cyborg, Micronauts toys took America by storm in the late 1970s. A Microverse of humanoids, borgs, and robotoids, a civilization of 3.75-inch retro-Kenner sized action figures, ships, and accessories from the Mego toy company before there were Kenner action figures, were loved by a generation of kids. That is, before Kenner drove Mego out of the market.
But not before Micronauts became two classic Marvel comic book series. Featuring stories by Bill Mantlo and art by Michael Golden, over time the series would include art by the likes of plenty of comic book greats: Howard Chaykin, Steve Ditko, Rich Buckler, Pat Broderick, Val Mayerik, Keith Giffen, Greg LaRocque, Gil Kane, Luke McDonnell, Mike Vosburg, Jackson Butch Guice and Kelley Jones. Micronauts and their characters would be woven into the rest of the Marvel Universe in other series, interacting with Star-Lord from Guardians of the Galaxy, the Wasp, Doctor Doom and the Fantastic Four, Nightcrawler, Alpha Flight, Cable, the X-Men, and Thanos. As recently as last year its Microverse concept was included in the screenplay for the Ant-Man movie, renamed the Quantum Realm for the final cut of the film.
Uncanny X-Men writer Cullen Bunn will be scripting the series with artwork by David Baldeón. Check out six covers offered for issue #1 (above and below) drawn by Baldéon, J.H. Williams III, Butch Guice, Gabriel Rodriguez, and Michael Golden. The sixth cover features the classic action figure of Baron Karza. If you think he looks like a copy of Darth Vader, think again. Karza was created before Star Wars was released.
