DC in the 80s interviews editor Dave Manak

We at DC in the 80s LOVE interviewing editors who worked at DC comics during the 1980s. Often, editors know the 'inside scoop' of what was going on behind-the-scenes and can share interesting anecdotes of working with certain comic pros or amusing stories about what was happening in the editorial meetings. Editors are the unsung heroes of the comic book industry -- they were the glue that kept our favorite books published on time and coordinated with the writer(s), artist(s), letterer(s) and everyone else on the creative team (that I'm drawing a blank on) by keeping everything from going off the rails. Next time you meet an editor of one your favorite books, tell him how much you appreciated his work.

Today we are lucky enough to interview Dave Manak.

Dave Manak in DC offices (circa early 1980s)

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Justin: Welcome, Dave. Tell us a bit about your editorial time at DC comics during the eighties.

Dave: I worked on the editorial staff at DC for approximately three years from 1981 through 1983.

I edited DC’s Mystery line: Ghosts, Unexpected, House of Mystery and Green Lantern for about one year. Then I moved over to work in our Special Projects department led by my mentor and friend, Joe Orlando for my last two years on staff. There I worked on projects for various companies like Atari, Mattel, Kenner and The White House (Yes, THAT White House!) to name a few. I’ll talk more about that in time, but first let me tell you how I got to 1981.

Justin: Your career follows an interesting trajectory -- your first work (that I'm aware of) was as an artist for DC's Plop! magazine in the seventies. Plop! was kind of like DC's answer to MAD magazine. (Marvel had CRAZY magazine). I have your first artistic work cited here as 1974's Plop! #7:

Dave: Sometime in 1971, as a young guy living in Southeast PA with no contact with anyone in the comic book industry I sent a sheet of drawings of my best versions of superheroes to Joe Kubert at DC (National Periodical Publications at the time). I sent it to Joe because of my love for his art in SGT ROCK, particularly ENEMY ACE. To my shocked delight I got a letter back asking me if I’d like to visit him in NYC at the DC offices and BOOM! I was on my way to the Big City.

After a bunch of visits showing Joe new samples each time I showed him some humor cartooning I did and he introduced me to Joe Orlando, who was already famous from his time at MAD Magazine, and that was the meeting that would set things in motion. In about a year I moved to NYC and started doing some freelance production work at DC to pay the rent and sold my first single panel cartoon to DC appearing in Plop! # 6, Joe Orlando’s brainchild. Then it wasn’t long before I was penciling and inking stories for Plop!, and I became good friends with Orlando after that. Maybe he saw something of himself when he was just starting out in me. I don’t know... but I do know that for the next almost thirty years that I knew him, we had a BLAST! Oh, and that’s when I met my DC best bud: Andy Helfer. He was Joe Orlando’s assistant (or something --I’m not sure what... ha ha) but we had a lot of fun in those days. Andy went on to become a great writer and editor at DC.

cover of Plop! #24 (1976) by illustrated by Dave Manak

Dave: Joe Orlando was editor of the DC’s Mystery comics line and had mystery inventory scripts that they couldn’t use, so the two of us would sit in Joe Orlando’s office rewriting some of them and turning them into humor stories for Plop! (I think that’s how I learned how to write comics. Besides, I was a huge movies buff and was always writing screenplays in my head.) During that time I met Sergio Aragones who was the premiere artist for Plop! and, of course, a major MAD Magazine contributor. At that time the DC offices were a pretty loose place where freelance artists and writers would wander in and out freely. One could talk in the open artists bullpen area between the editorial offices really as long as you liked catching up on stuff with fellow creators, some seasoned pros and some relatively new, like me. 

Although my style was a bit "Sergio-esque", I wasn’t trying to imitate him -- although he was an influence. I got it mostly because I liked the cartoonist Charles Rodriguez who did single panel gags and work for National Lampoon. My time at Plop! was pretty much a dream come true. I played around with my art style during the seventies mainly because I worked on so many individual pieces and could. Anyway, after a few years Sergio and Joe Orlando urged me to submit some ideas to MAD Magazine. I did and sold a few cover ideas to them and some gags that Don Martin drew. WHAT A THRILL! All of the rejected ideas -- and there were quite a few, let me tell you -- I tramped over to Marvel’s CRAZY Magazine and pitched them to then editor Larry Hama. He liked them and I had an extra gig drawing them myself. Of course, an artist or writer couldn't use their own name if they sold to MAD Magazine and then sold the rejects to a competitor, so, I’m not sure how many fans know that I used the name KOVACS for that work at CRAZY.

Marvel's CRAZY magazine #41 (1978)

Dave: Also, a shout out to Paul Levitz, here. He began as Joe Orlando’s assistant editor around the same time as I showed up. We both learned how to be comic book people from Joe. And Paul, of course, became a major creator and leader that made DC the company that it is today.

I also have to mention the arrival of Jenette Kahn in 1976 as Publisher. She became president in 1981 and brought a new feeling of creativity and sophistication to comics into the eighties and nineties.

Justin: So, the next BIG move after that was becoming editor on 4 ongoing DC titles in 1981: 3 Mystery anthology titles (Ghosts, Secrets of Haunted House, and Unexpected) and 1 regular title (Green Lantern). [One of these things is not like the others -- more on that later.] How did you make the jump to editorial?

Dave: Well, that brings us to 1981. Joe Orlando asked me to have lunch with him and Dick Giordano. I had no idea what for. There they asked me if I’d be interested in becoming an editor as well as Dick’s assistant editor. Dick was then DC’s managing editor, but he was still editing the Batman titles. I’d really never thought about that line of work, but after a few days I got back to them and Manak was an editor!

I had the Mystery line of books and Green Lantern. And since the Mystery books were all-new stories, each issue I got to work with talents the likes of: Keith Giffen, Robert Kanigher, Mark Texeira, Gary Cohn, Dan Mishkin, Paul Levitz, Paris Cullins, Steve Ditko, Tony DeZuniga, Jack C Harris, Bob Rozakis, Steve Skeates, Trevor Von Eden, Steven Bissette, Paul Kupperberg, Joey Cavalieri, Greg LaRocque, Ernie Colon, Pat Broderick, Andrew Helfer, Gerry Conway, Mike Zeck, Mark Silvestri... I’d gotten to know most of these people simply by hanging out at the DC offices in the seventies -- it really was a community of freelance writers and artists, so it was easy to work with them. I got along great with everyone and I have to mention Bob Kanigher. At the time I really didn’t know what a volume of work he’d done in comics. He didn’t really talk about comics much to me but, more, as I remember about the scar he had on his cheek from a fencing match or fanciful goings on and escapades in Europe. True? Made up? Probably, but who cares? It’s a precious memory, nonetheless.

One of the things I found very cool was personally doing layout sketches for the Mystery covers and getting great artists like my old pal, Joe Kubert to do them. He loved it! Ernie Colon did some, too.

Justin: Being an editor of a title seems to require a different type of skill set than being a writer or artist on a book. How did you find the transition? What were some key take-aways from your experience? As far as you were concerned, what was your content strategy for the anthology books?

Dave: As a new editor I certainly was in the best of worlds. After all, I shared an office with Dick Giordano. What more could a novice ask for? The way I personally approached editing was pretty basic. Make sure the story had a beginning, middle and end (or cliffhanger) and to make sure it wasn’t DULL. I pretty much learned this from watching Twilight Zone episodes as a kid. As far as I'm concerned, that’s the best storytelling format for any comic book story or series... and it’s exactly what I used when I went on to do a pretty large amount of writing for Marvel’s STAR Comics.

Justin: You edited Green Lantern from issues #145 - 155 (1981 - 1982). I always liked your run of Green Lantern -- we saw a lot of his classic rogues appear (ex: Goldface, Black Hand, etc...), we saw Hal receive more characterization, the Adam Strange back-ups were dropped for Green Lantern Corps back-ups (written by Paul Kupperberg) which ultimately led to the GLC making more appearances in the regular stories, and your run more or less ended with Hal going on more sci-fi adventures (as opposed to simply protecting earth). We liked this run so much that we reviewed it several years ago. I've got to ask: Marv Wolfman was the writer during the majority of your run (issues 145 - 153) -- how much of your Green Lantern run was yours and how much was Marv? Was it a 50/50 split?

Dave: Editing Green Lantern was great!... with writers like Marv Wolfman and Paul Kupperberg, and an artist like Joe Staton, I was the one learning how to do a main-line comic from great talents like them. When a book has great talents working on it who respect the material, it’s not hard to do. I offered suggestions and that was about it.

Green Lantern #154 (1982) - cover by Gil Kane

Justin: One story I seem to recall [writer] Dan Mishkin telling me is that Blue Devil and Amethyst were originally created so that the Mystery anthology titles could have 'recurring characters' to increase readership. I believe the idea was pitched to you, which you liked, but senior management decided Blue Devil and Amethyst should have their own titles. Am I getting the story right?

Dave: Both Dan and Gary are great writers on their own, but back in 1981 they were a writing team and the Mystery books were basically try-out books for new artists and writers. The team presented the story ideas Blue Devil and Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld. I took them to Joe Orlando saying I thought they would make great new titles. Joe took them to the powers that be, and... Guess what? Those titles were born. Actually, I was in on the initial development: working with Dan and Gary writing, and Paris Cullins (on Blue Devil) and Ernie Colon (on Amethyst) as artists.

Justin: So, as I recall, the 3 Mystery anthology books all concluded in 1982. We know that around this time anthology books were falling out of flavor with comic fans as they wanted lengthier stories and consistent characters. How did this lead into your next transition?

Dave: Being an editor was fun but the Mystery line was soon going to be gone, and it’s not that I couldn’t have continued with the superhero books -- that’s what DC wanted me to do -- but I wanted to make a change.

The Special Projects Department was created to deal with the creative side of licensing; making custom comics for companies with their characters or DC properties. Joe Orlando was put in charge there and I wanted to work with him. So for the next two years that's what I did...

...but first I’d like to apologize to the writers and artists who I don’t mention here -- either my almost-forty-year-old memory doesn’t hold it anymore or I don’t have the info at hand.

Joe Orlando (circa early-to-mid 1980s)

Dave: So, working in Special Projects was an absolute whirlwind! Most of the time we had more than one project going at a time, but had to treat each as if they were the only one. Under Orlando’s leadership we did it. Joe Orlando picked most of the talent, and other times we’d have meetings to decide who would be good for what.

One of the first things we did was put together the Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew preview as a 16-page insert in 1982's New Teen Titans #16. I got to work with Roy Thomas and Scott Shaw on that. I didn’t know them before that, but they were as nice as could be and it was fun.

Dave: Then there was Atari, Mattel, Kenner and the White House and others during my two years.

For Atari and Mattel it was custom comics, for Kenner it was the Super Powers Collection (a DC-owned property) and The White House was the New Teen Titans 3-part mini-series for the government’s drug awareness program.

From what I recall, the Atari comics were pretty much based entirely on the video games with some character reference about the characters in the games and maybe a brief synopsis. I know that Dick Giordano was in charge of the biggie, Atari Force. I handled several, but my stand out memory is that Gil Kane did one of my books. It was the first time we’d met and I was in awe, for sure. I also did the art for one of them -- DIG DUG! Unfortunately, I never saw a printed version.

Then came Mattel. The property was 'Masters of The Universe' and the main character was... 'He-Man'...SCREEEECH! He-Man? Yes. And we soon found out what an iconic character He-Man would become -- with the help of DC’s mini-comics, of course! LOL. These seven comics were written by Gary Cohn and penciled by Mark Texeira. Action figures of The Masters of The Universe were already being sold, but Mattel chose DC to give them a bit of history and place them in our universe. This was also greatly enhanced by the Masters of The Universe 16-page preview insert which appeared in several DC comics in 1982, and was followed by a DC comics limited-series all written by Paul Kupperberg and penciled by George Tuska. What a team!

Masters of The Universe 16-page preview insert that was published in 1982

Dave: One funny thing: companies often send toys to people they work with in gratitude for a job well done. I was the point person for the project on the phone with Mattel at every step. Well, this huge box shows up next to my desk addressed to me. Hmmm? From Mattel. It turned out to be a full-sized Castle Greyskull with some Masters of The Universe action figures! I thanked Mattel for their kindness and since I wasn’t a toy collector I gave it to Joe Orlando, who had young kids just the right age then. I was a big hit with them for sure!

Justin: This is interesting... Mattel was obviously impressed with DC's work on the Masters of The Universe franchise, so why didn't Mattel just continue with DC and turn the Kupperberg mini-series into an ongoing series? It would seem like Mattel just decided to do their 'own thing' after those 7 DC mini-comics, and start producing their own mini-comics 'in-house' -- eventually handing the license over to Marvel's STAR comics in 1986? 

Dave: I don't know why DC didn't continue with a MOTU regular comic. Maybe they wanted to go beyond the initial contract with Mattel and couldn't come to an agreement. In retrospect, that's probably what happened.

Kenner’s Super Powers Collection featured DC action figures with a 'trick movement' built into them -- for example, slightly squeeze the legs together and the arms go up, etc. Joe Orlando did most of the actual design work on the characters, and then it was just a matter of approving the prototypes and so on. I got to meet comic book legend and god, Jack Kirby, when he dropped by Joe’s office. Kirby did some design work on some characters he created for DC’s New Gods comics with Darkseid being the headliner.

House ad for Kenner's new Super Powers Collection action figures. Collect 'em all!

Justin: I wasn't aware you were involved in the Kenners Super Powers Collection! I LOVED that toy line! Were you involved in producing the mini-comics packaged with the Kenner figures, as well? Why was the Kenners Super Powers Collection toy line discontinued? It seemed as if they had a few more waves of figures planned (ex: Blue Devil, Vigilante, Manhunter, Wonder Twins, various Legion of Super-Hero characters, Man-Bat, a few made-up characters) [editor's note: you can read all about the history of the Super Powers Collection on this fantastic fan-site: http://kennersuperpowers.com/]

Dave: As far as the SUPER POWERS COLLECTION goes... Joe Orlando did most of the assigning and reviewing of the finishes because Kenner was such an important client. I think sales just weren't large enough for it to continue.

The New Teen Titans Drug awareness mini-series: these were three New Teen Titans comics done in cooperation with the President and Nancy Reagan’s Drug Awareness Program and were co-sponsored by Keebler, the American Soft Drink Industry and IBM.

Once again, it was a sheer pleasure working with Teen Titans' team [Marv] Wolfman and [George] Perez. George was an absolute joy to work with, also. I got to visit The White House and, on the whole, I’m very proud of the finished project. I guess how much real good it did will never be known, but if it had some impact on it’s readers I’d count that as a success.

The New Teen Titans Drug Awareness special #1 (1983)

Dave: Well, that kind of wraps this up. Next would be my Marvel work and meeting my cartooning best bud, Michael Gallagher, and then back to DC for Looney Tunes Magazine and MAD Magazine again, and then to Sonic the Hedgehog at Archie comics. I know I left some people out during my years at DC -- editors and peers who had an impact on my career and life -- but I hope you know that all of you guys will stay in my hearts! Hmm... maybe I’m the next Doctor.

MAD magazine #342 (1996). Art by Dave Manak (as 'M&e')

Justin: Thank you for sitting with us today, Dave!

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If you have any additional question for Dave Manak, send them our way and maybe we'll be able to get answers for you. No absurd questions, thanks!

Mark Belkin interviews Joe Staton

Joe Staton is not only a legend in the comics industry, he is also one of the nicest human beings you will ever meet. It is always a pleasure to speak with him about his past, what he is doing presently, and what he is going to be working on in the future. And if you’re lucky enough to meet his wonderful wife, Hilarie, then you are twice as lucky to meet two of the nicest people on the comics circuit today.

His list of work for DC is massive. Batman, Green Lantern, All-Star Comics, Justice Society, Huntress, World’s Finest, Millennium, Power Girl, and so much more. Originally from North Carolina, Joe has made New York his home state for more than 30 years, and can be found at conventions all around the country. We were lucky enough to speak to Joe at a convention recently.

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Mark: Thank you, Joe, for joining us today.  First question -- how did you meet up with Steve Englehart and end up working together on Green Lantern? 

Joe: Basically, he was assigned as the writer for Green Lantern. I had come back to DC from First comics. The plan when I came back was that Len Wein would be writing and editing Green Lantern. Somehow -- by the time I got back -- Len was gone and Andy Helfer was editing, and I guess Andy had assigned Steve writing duties. 

Mark: When I spoke with J.M. DeMatteis, he said that Andy was very influential on his Justice League run. Was Andy very influential on your run with Green Lantern? Was he a 'hands on' editor? 

Joe: Um... yes, and sometimes a bit more 'hands on' than Steve would've preferred. Steve had lots of good ideas, and Andy had some ideas of his own.

Mark: Steve was a very rebellious soul from my understanding...

Joe: Well, an independent soul, yes.

Panel from The Green Lantern Corps #201 (1986)

Mark: So you got to work on Green Lantern -- and I know one of the big things to come out of your run was Guy Gardner. Defining the 'bowl cut' for generations. How did that come about? What was your mindset in drawing Guy Gardner?

Joe: Steve was setting up a whole new approach to the [Green Lantern] Corps, and Guy had been almost entirely written out [of the mythos] -- he really didn't exist anymore. So basically, Steve developed a whole new Guy Gardner character based on that name and just that position in the corps. His idea was -- certainly in contrast to Hal [Jordan] who was such a good guy and such a stable character -- Guy would be a real contrast.

I picked up on what Steve was doing with it, and the way we'd brought Guy back is that he was in this intensive care facility -- he was pretty much brain-dead. When he came back, he had been in custodial care -- and my idea was that the crew (the people who worked at this facility) would basically come around a give him a bowl cut, like, once a month. And when he came out of his coma it's his haircut and he just stuck with it. It's an institutional look.  

Mark: It is. I heard they're making a Green Lantern Corps movie, and I know for a fact, that they will probably use the bowl cut. So a whole new generation of people will get exposed to that idea.

Joe: <laughs> ...the idea of ugly haircuts...

Can you make out the bowl cut in this silhouette?

Mark: So you got to illustrate the death of Earth-Two Batman in 1979's Adventure Comics v1 #462. How was it getting that? Because that was a pretty consequential story to be given. Did anyone talk to you about that at the time? Was there a huge "Oh my god, I can't believe this!" type-of-thing?

Joe: As I understand it, Joe Orlando was the editor, and this was to be Joe's last issue. Paul Levitz wanted Joe to go out with something consequential, so that how he got to the 'death of Batman' story. The weird thing there was that Mike Barr was the assistant editor, and when the script came to him he was horrified and Mike was, y'know, really trying to stop the whole thing. People realized this was something consequential, and then there were *other* people who thought that Batman should ONLY be killed by the Joker.... so, y'know, there were different ideas there.

From the brilliant Brave and the Bold #197. Also, about

 death and Earth-Two Batman.

Mark: Moving a little bit forward, you and Steve Englehart worked on Millennium -- which was the big cross-over series from the tail-end of 1987. How did that get handed to you guys? What was the thinking/reasoning?

Joe: Yeah, well, I know that Steve had a lot of new age ideas he wanted to work out. So, he was brought in, and he had a lot worked out. Andy [Helfer] was editing again, and Andy was always good at bringing in people from England, or Japan, or whatever... and his original plan was for Ian Gibson -- the English artist -- to do the art on Millennium. BEFORE scanning or e-mailing, before all THAT, it was FedEx ... international FedEx. But it quickly became apparent that really wasn't going to work on the very tight schedule that the book had. So, I think the book was 3 weeks late at the point I was brought into it. I wasn't scheduled to do it, I had no idea that I would be doing it. So, I was just kind of thrown into it. And Ian was told that okay well he's not doing the WHOLE job anymore, but he's still inking it. So he did stick around for the inking. I certainly would've understood if he decided not to, but he stuck with it.

Since the book was so late -- and it was at a time that there were a lot of changes going into the DC books (a lot of costumes were changing and different things) -- basically I penciled with what information I had, Ian inked with what he had, and then the whole thing came back to the production department who kind of re-drew things on the fly trying to make everybody's costume look right before it went out. 

And then there was a lot of political intrigue going on at DC at the time -- both internal politics and actual political politics. Steve [Englehart] was very left-wing in his politics and he wanted to make a lot of anti-fascist statements. I kind of share Steve's politics, so it didn't bother me. But Jenette [Kahn] leaned on Andy [Helfer] to lean on Steve, so Steve wasn't allowed to come up with the ending he had planned for Millennium. It's amazing we got it done at all.

A comic called Focus that focused on the comic crossover Millennium. Say that 5 times quick.

Mark:...and that moved onto 1988's The New Guardians series -- which you pencilled -- and that series sort of hung around for a little while. Was that series also affected by politics as well at the time?

Joe: Oh yeah. Since the whole ending [to Millennium] would've been different, and the spin-offs would've been different -- the New Guardians was kind of coming up with a spin-off book on the fly.  [laughs] That was another weird one because there were so many ethnic and political characters... and I'm fond of caricature -- like, I can't help it -- and I was REALLY worried that some of my characters were going to be offensive whether or not I wanted them to be. So, I worked with that as best as I could. It's amazing any books ever got put out.

Mark: I'd love to expand on that at some point. Before we finish up... retaining the rights to E-Man... was that always an issue? Was that an issue with First Comics (because you had to gone First Comics)? Was it an easy early-80s creator owned? Or was it difficult? What kind of difficulties did you have with that over the years?

Joe: Well, First [Comics] got the rights from Charlton [Comics], and the idea was that I'd pay First back from my royalties/income to cover their expenses, and eventually E-Man would come to me. Over the years various papers were slipped my way to sign, so the deal I wound up didn't exactly add up to what I was counting on from First. So, I ALMOST own E-Man but some of the earlier material is controlled by the remains of First.

Mark: And what happens with those remains? Who's in charge of those? Do you think those will ever be re- printed?

Joe: It's a possibility. We'll keep on trying to figure that out.

Mark: Thank you for sitting with us today, Mr Staton.

E-Man: the shape-changing superhero!

Joe Staton has been working on the national Dick Tracy comic strip since 2011, and has won Harvey Awards for Best Syndicated Strip in 2013, 2014 and 2015! He is a frequent guest at conventions, and if you see him, stop by and say hello!

-Mark Belkin

The 1988 Wrath of The Spectre mini-series

In 1988, based on the renewed popularity the Spectre was receiving thanks to his 1987 ongoing series written by Doug Moench, DC comics decided to reprint the Spectre’s "controversial" stories that ran during 1974-1975 in Adventure Comics. Wrath of the Spectre reprints Spectre stories from Adventure Comics #431 to #440 and three additional Spectre stories (that never saw print) in a 4-issue deluxe format mini-series. The creative team responsible for the Adventure Comics Spectre stories were Michael Fleisher (writer), Russell Carley (art continuity), Jim Aparo (art), Frank Thorne (art) and Joe Orlando (editor). These stories were considered controversial as editor Joe Orlando was trying to push the limits of the Comics Code as far as he could.

A little bit of context: the Comics Code Authority was formed in 1954 as an indirect reaction to a book by Fredric Wertham called Seduction of the Innocent which claimed that scenes of graphic violence, sex, and drug use within comic books encouraged similar behavior on impressionable youths. During the late 1940s and early 1950s it was not uncommon for a comic book to have scenes of graphic violence (real or implied) since horror and crime comics dominated the comic book market. One of the comic book companies to be hit the hardest was EC Comics (known for classic horror and crime titles such as Tales of the Crypt, Vault of Horror, The Haunt of Fear and Crime SuspenStories). EC Comics went down in a blaze of glory and fought tooth-and-nail to print the material they deemed fit - Comics Code Authority be damned. EC Comics was eventually sold to the company that also owned DC Comics in the early 1960s. Why is this relevant? Because Orlando’s comic book career (first as a penciller and then as an editor) started at EC Comics. You see, Orlando had vast experience working with horror titles (ex: EC Comics, Warren, and Atlas comics) and while Spectre wasn’t a horror character per se - it sure seemed that way based on his original stories.

The Spectre was created by Jerry Siegel and Bernard Baily and first debuted in National Allied Publications’ More Fun Comics #52 (1940). It was speculated that Siegel, who also co-created Superman prior to creating the Spectre, was influenced by the success of Gil Kane and Bill Finger’s Batman (published in 1939) and decided to create a darker, grimmer super-hero. When the Spectre first debuted, he was the ghost of a slain cop whose modus operandi was to hunt down murderous criminals and mete out brutal supernatural vengeance. Additionally, the Spectre also fought other mystic beings that were just as powerful as he was. The Spectre was popular enough to become a chartered member of the Justice Society of America in All Star Comics #3 (1940), and then suddenly the Spectre stories were toned-down drastically - starting with the introduction of Spectre’s new bumbling sidekick in 1941: Percival Popp the Super-Cop. Once DC realized that the introduction of sidekicks helped sales of a book (ex: Batman and Robin), nearly every DC hero was assigned one. Unfortunately, the Spectre was relegated to keeping his bumbling sidekick out of harm’s way - which pretty much killed the eerie supernatural tone of the series first established by Siegel. The mid-1940’s were not kind to super hero comics as their popularity had waned and other genres of comic books (ex: war, western, science fiction, romance, crime and horror) had become the big sellers. The Spectre was last seen in All-Star Comics #23 (1945) before he slipped into 'comic book limbo’.

Fun Fact: The Spectre story in More Fun Comics #52 (1940) had the first appearance of DC’s version of God in the story. Hint: The Voice that gave Spectre his powers was intended to be the Voice of God.

Gardner Fox and Murphy Anderson revived the Spectre in 1966, thanks to the guidance of editor Julius Schwartz who had been systematically reviving/updating all Golden Age heroes (ex: Flash, Green Lantern, the Atom, Hawkman, etc) for a new generation of comic book readers. This newly introduced Spectre was a watered-down version of the original, who now apprehended villains and delivered them to the police instead of slaying them. Furthermore, this new Spectre really played up the “battling powerful cosmic villains” aspect of the Spectre mythos.

In 1972, under the direction of editor Joe Orlando (who was also editor for DC’s House of Mystery), Adventure Comics was gradually shifting from the superhero genre to the supernatural/fantasy adventure genre. By this point the Comics Code Authority has loosened it’s censorship, and horror comics were able to get away with more - which is why the market was suddenly flooded with horror titles again. Orlando was experienced with horror comics and it was a genre he was familiar with, he just needed a superhero he could feature in Adventure Comics who could also be played as a horror character - enter the Spectre. Fleisher was chosen as the writer for the Spectre based on his previous experience writing horror/suspense stories and his knowledge of Golden Age DC characters (Fleisher researched and wrote all 3 volumes of The Encyclopedia of Comic Books Heroes). Fleisher was insistent on capturing the original 'vengeful’ essence of the character (as introduced in the early Jerry Siegel stories) rather than the cosmic champion he was portrayed as during the 1960s in the Gardner Fox stories.

The reason this series was so controversial (at the time) was because the audience of the 1970s were not accustomed to super heroes killing villains. The only other Spectre stories the audience would’ve been familiar with were the Gardener Fox stories of the mid-to-late 1960s in which the Spectre conformed to the “super heroes never kill” rule. It may not be the fact that the Spectre killed criminals that was so appalling, but the manner in which he did it (ex: turn them to wax and have them melted, turned to wood and hacked up with an ax, etc) and the fact that it seemed like the Spectre took pleasure in it. In truth, the creative team was actively trying to recreate the spirit of the EC horror comics of the 1940s, but the comic readers of the 1970s probably would not have been aware of that. Joe Orlando was researching the Comics Code, finding out what he was not allowed to do, and then doing it anyways thanks to some loophole in the Comic Code guidelines (you’ll notice that all of the Adventure Comics issues featuring the Spectre have the Comics Code Authority seal on them). A few readers wrote in to state that they were uneasy with the idea of a super-hero delivering vengeful justice, and a new reporter-type character [Earl Crawford] who represented their views on the Spectre was introduced to the series. The most notable thing about this controversy, however, is that most of the outcry against this series came from within the comic book industry - fan-oriented writers and assistant editors were upset that a super hero character was getting the horror treatment and boldly stated that Orlando, Fleisher and crew were ruining the “American Super-hero”. It was rumored that a combination of DC’s apprehension towards the “controversial” content of the series and dwindling sales were the reasons the feature was cancelled and replaced with an Aquaman feature instead (Adventure Comics #441).

NOT Clark Kent - Earl Crawford (Wrath of the Spectre #4)

I really enjoyed this reprint series. In the 80s, reprint collections weren't as easily attainable as they are today, so you either needed to own the original issues (or have a friend lend them to you) to read the original material. The coloring is absolutely beautiful and does Jim Aparo’s illustrations a lot of justice. I don’t think anyone can do swooping and swirling capes quite like Aparo. I always liked the Spectre, but only knew of him from whatever I read during All-Star Squadron, so I never really understood his powers as they were never fully explained. Is he omnipotent? Just how powerful is he? This reprint series didn’t answer any of these questions, as he seems to be invulnerable and can’t be harmed by anything. The stories all kind of followed the same formula: a murder/crime is committed, detective Jim Corrigan is on the case, the Spectre catches up to the killers and they meet a gruesome supernatural death at the hands of the Spectre. The stories were pretty self-contained - very much the same approach you’d find in a horror anthology comic.

The last three unpublished stories started adding continuity, and that seemed like a step in the right direction. The 'new' material was actually originally written by Fleisher back in the 70s, but was never illustrated because the Spectre feature in Adventure Comics was cancelled before it could see print; Paul Levitz, assistant to editor Joe Orlando at the time, was so fond of Fleisher's work that he kept them for safe-keeping should the series ever be resurrected again. Aparo getting the opportunity to illustrate these fifteen year-old scripts in the late 80s is a lucky break, indeed. Aparo's pencils for his 'new' work didn't seem as dark and shadowy as his early 70s Spectre work, but it still fit the overall theme nonetheless. Aparo explained that, since the Wrath of the Spectre didn't carry the Comics Code Authority seal, he could get a little more explicit with the horror sequences in the 'new' material he was illustrating. When Fleisher was asked if he'd ever consider writing the Spectre again, he replied with "I think it would be intriguing to try. but I don't think I have it in me to do what I was doing then." In the letter column of Wrath of the Spectre #4 (1988), Fleisher elaborates that his 70s Spectre features was his first attempt at writing a continuing comics series and that he just did whatever he felt like doing and described it as a naive effort that lacked refinement. He explained that he felt he was now too sophisticated and would not be able to approach the project with the same energy he originally approached the project with. (Fleisher was well aware that his 70s work broke a lot of unspoken rules in regards to what was crossing the line in a superhero comic. He acknowledges this as a major factor in his early Spectre's notoriety among fans.) Fleisher would go on to write Jonah Hex (and then Hex) for DC comics from 1977 to 1987.

Worried you missed out? The Wrath of the Spectre is now available as a collected edition, reprinting all 4 issues... in color!

-Justin

[This article first published in Nov 2013 on the DC in the 80s tumblr.]

A Decade in the Life of Jonah Hex (1984 - 1985)

With a comics career spanning nearly 45 years, multiple cartoon appearances, a feature film, plus a guest-shot on the CW's television show Legends of Tomorrow (April 14th, see local listings), Jonah Hex is the highest-profile character in DC's Western stable. Created by writer John Albano & artist Tony DeZuniga (both of whom wanted to bring the aesthetic of "spaghetti Western" movies to comics), Jonah debuted in 1972's All-Star Western #10 (which was re-titled Weird Western Tales by issue #12) and quickly became a fan favorite. Albano parted ways with his creation after penning only ten issues, leaving him in the very capable hands of Michael Fleisher, who would accompany the scar-faced bounty hunter over to his first self-titled series, Jonah Hex, three years later.

Between 1977 and 1987, Fleisher fleshed out virtually every aspect of the character's life, giving readers details about Jonah's childhood and his wartime experiences, having him settle down and start a family, even revealing his final fate at the dawn of the 20th Century, as well as the possible nightmare to come in the mid-21st Century. In this series of articles, we're going to present you with a "highlight reel" of this ten-year period under Fleisher's tenure, showing you how Jonah Hex went from being a mere four-color cowboy to a legend that would survive the deterioration of the genre that birthed him.

As Jonah Hex #87 (October 1984) opens, Jonah finally tells Adrian Sterling his true feelings, namely how he’s beginning to feel "like some rich girl’s lap dog, goin' out tuh fancy dress-up parties ever' night." He's heading back out West, and though he does offer to bring her along, Adrian's hesitation is about all the answer he needs. Jonah hitches a ride on a freight train headed west, which later gets blown to Hell and gone by some outlaws...a bad move on their part, since Jonah survives to take them out one by one. Jonah hauls their carcasses to the nearest town, where the sheriff shows him the newest wanted poster to come in...and it just so happens to bear Emmylou Hartley’s face! She did indeed assist Brett and the other two gals, Camille and Sandy, with a bank robbery last issue, and though all the women were disguised as men, some people got a glimpse of Emmy’s face when her bandana fell down during a struggle with a bank customer -- Brett shot the man, but the blame has gotten pinned on Emmy.

In Jonah Hex #88, Jonah tries to get to the bottom of this mess, which gets more complicated when another group of train robbers decide to use the wanted poster of Emmy to their advantage: the leader buys a blonde, pigtailed wig and forces one of the younger gang members to wear it, the notion being that any job they pull will be blamed on Emmy’s gang instead. As (mis)fortune would have it, one of the passengers on the first train they decide to rob under this scheme is Adrian, who's so in love with Hex that she's trying to track him down. During the trip, Adrian strikes up a conversation with a former tavern gal named Temple Starr. Unlike Adrian, Temple is running away from a man, not after one, and she shows Adrian the man’s picture in an engraved locket he gave her. In a contrived sequence of events, Adrian asks to try on the locket just as the robbers burst into the passenger car, killing Temple and striking Adrian in the head with the butt of a gun. This results in Adrian losing her memory and (thanks to the engraved locket she was still wearing) later being led to believe that she’s actually Temple Starr! Though Jonah later rounds up the robbers, he never learns of Adrian’s mishap, and aside from a couple of brief scenes in the next issue of an amnesiac Adrian working in a saloon, this is the last we’ll ever see of her. For all we know, she spent the rest of her days waiting tables, unaware that she’d left friends, family, and riches behind in New Orleans.

After the false lead caused by the train robbers, Jonah finally manages to catch sight of Emmy with Brett and his gang. He follows them into the town of Red Dog, where they try to rob the assayer’s office. Not believing that Emmy could be a willing participant in all this, Jonah busts open the back door with the intent of rescuing her, and gets a nasty surprise:

Brett, Emmy, and the others get away clean, and the reader was left to wonder for two months whether or not Jonah survived. It turned out that, while Jonah didn’t lose his life, he did lose Tony DeZuniga, who left the title after this issue. Back in 2006, I was able to ask him via a mutual friend why he'd left, and his reply was simple: his contract with DC had expired, and they decided not to renew it. Though we can’t say for certain why DC made that decision, the most likely reason is that, by this point in time, the company had already determined the title was to be cancelled. As Fleisher had told readers months earlier, overall sales weren’t what they used to be, and with Crisis on Infinite Earths -- DC’s huge 50th anniversary event -- just around the corner, the time had come for sweeping changes across all titles. To paraphrase the old tagline, worlds would live and worlds would die, and Jonah’s world had fallen squarely on the "die" list.

This didn’t mean Fleisher was going to let Jonah go down without a fight. If the direct market didn’t favor Westerns, he’d find a different genre to slip the bounty hunter into. This is where Bob Greenberger comes into the picture: as editor for both Crisis on Infinite Earths and The History of the DC Universe, Greenberger was privy to much of the behind-the-scenes action during the mid-1980s. I spoke with him on the subject in 2012, and he said this portion of our tale actually begins a few years before Jonah’s impending cancellation. "In 1982, when Mad Max: Road Warrior was being brought to the United States after playing to huge box office in Australia a year earlier, several DC execs, including special projects guru Joe Orlando and his editor Andy Helfer, attended a screening. Andy was arguably in favor of licensing it for comics and Orlando, I was told, didn’t think DC should spend the money, just rip it off.” Greenberger believes that Helfer, who was acting as "keeper" for Fleisher in regards to his various projects, brought up the idea of dropping Jonah Hex into a Mad Max kind of setting (Fleisher credits his own viewing of the movie as inspiration, and it’s possible that Orlando, being a longtime friend of Fleisher’s, may have contributed to the idea as well). Also, Fleisher was locked into a four-books-a-month contract at the time -- with Jonah Hex cancelled, another project had to be created to fill that hole -- so he was given the go-ahead to move Jonah to a whole new playing field, "with the out being that we knew he’d come back [to the Old West] so he could be stuffed," Greenberger said.

With the destination set, all they needed to do now was build the road that would get Jonah there. First priority was getting a new artist, and Mark Texeira was chosen for the task -- illustrating Hex’s upcoming adventures would be his first long-term gig, starting with Jonah Hex #89. This issue is less action-packed than usual, and for good reason: Jonah’s got "a king-sized hole" in his chest thanks to Emmy, and he's resting up at the local boardinghouse. It's during this time that Jeremy Ashford comes riding into town, itching to avenge the death of his father, the Gray Ghost, who'd passed away two issues earlier after escaping Hex's wrath. Despite his poor physical shape, Hex saves Jeremy from being shot by a fella gunning for the bounty hunter, an act which later puts Jeremy in a moral quandary: how can he carry out his oath when the man he's sworn to kill saved his life? He eventually decides to face Hex like a man, unmasked. Finding him out on a porch swing, Jeremy sits down across from Jonah and tells him who he is. Jonah says he already knows, as he spied the uniform inside Jeremy’s bag when he saved him from getting shot. Jeremy then draws his gun and holds it inches from Jonah’s face, but the bounty hunter doesn’t flinch, he simply says, "Yuh want muh two cents, boy? Don’t do it!" What follows is probably the most intense scene in a Jonah Hex tale ever:

Jonah's calm demeanor causes Jeremy to lose his nerve and run off. Jonah breathes a sigh of relief, then reveals that he’d been holding a cocked pistol beneath the blanket on his lap the entire time. Moments later, Jeremy, who can’t live with the shame of letting down his father, puts his own pistol to his head and kills himself, bringing an abrupt end to the Gray Ghost saga (though a new version of the character would turn up 25 years later in Jonah Hex v2 #59).

The final three issues of Jonah Hex were drawn by Gray Morrow, who’s probably better known for his work on another DC cowboy -- Greg Saunders, the original Vigilante -- but he’d also done a cover or two in the past for the bounty hunter. It’s uncertain why Texeira didn’t close out the series, though we can speculate that his schedule was possibly full due to work on the new Hex title, so Morrow was brought in to pinch-hit, with Texeira contributing to two of the covers. There’s a feeling in these tales of Fleisher just biding his time until the end, shoehorning scenes that are relevant to the current storyline into scripts he perhaps had laying around. It’s not to say these three issues are bad, they just mostly come off as "business as usual". Jonah Hex #90 revolves around a young woman named Silver Ames, who’s decided to become the fastest gun in the West, and she’s got it in her head that the best way to do it is to kill everyone who’s faster than her. When we meet her, she's just tracked down Jeremiah Hart, the second-fastest gun in the country according to folks. I’m glad to tell you that the colorist finally got it right and made Jeremiah dark-haired again with tan-colored buckskins, but we don’t get to enjoy it for long because Silver shoots Jeremiah in the back when he refuses to draw on her. We later see Mei Ling sobbing over Jeremiah’s dead body, and though it’s a terrible note to leave the poor gal on, this is the last glimpse we'll get of Mei Ling until the 2006-2011 Jonah Hex series.

Meanwhile, Jonah’s recovered well enough that he can go searching for Emmy again. It’s a darn shame he doesn’t know Emmy just escaped from Brett’s clutches, as he could’ve saved himself a lot of grief out on the trail: first Jonah gets caught in a rockslide (which kills his horse), then he gets mauled by a mountain lion (which tears his Confederate coat to shreds). By some miracle, he makes it to a farmhouse, where the owner lends him a horse. This is where Jonah’s luck finally turns good again, as he just misses being hit by a "shootin' star":

Not giving the strange incident a second thought, Jonah heads back to town to get patched up by the doc. A telegram about Hart's murder (from Mei Ling, perhaps?), is waiting for him, and just as he reads it, Silver Ames herself shows up, demanding a shootout. Knowing what she’s capable of, Hex shoots her down before she can finish her three-count. His attitude about it may seem blasé, but who knows how many times he’s gone through this same scenario...and unlike Jeremy, who was reluctant to kill when the time came, it didn’t appear that any amount of talking would make Silver back down. Then we get to Jonah Hex #91, where we're introduced to yet another love interest for Jonah, and they’re not subtle about it either, showing Jonah in a lip-lock right on the cover, which imitates a Neal Adams Superman piece from 1971:

Jonah runs into Carolee while he’s out looking for Emmy (there must be a really fast tailor back in Red Dog, because he’s wearing his Confederate coat again), and she tells him a sob story about wanting to join the rodeo that just came into town. Well, it just so happens Jonah knows one of the guys working that rodeo, and he says he’ll see what he can do about getting her a job. Carolee is so overjoyed by the news that she pulls him down for a roll in the hay right then and there...which wouldn’t be so bad if she wasn’t seventeen and he wasn’t pushing forty! Jonah is quite aware of how wrong this relationship is, but he doesn’t seem too eager to fight it. However, it does turn out to be a good thing that Jonah’s hanging around the rodeo, as there’s a few former employees that’re fixing to destroy it. While tracking them down, they ambush him, and though Jonah manages to kill one before the rest run off, the dead body vanishes in a beam of light while Jonah’s back is turned -- since he didn’t witness the event, Jonah doesn’t make the connection between this disappearance and the incident at the farmhouse, but the reader may have by now. Back at the rodeo, Jonah decides the best way to smoke these skunks out is to make them think he’s moved on, so he raids the costume tent and -- in one of the most embarrassing moments in Jonah’s career -- disguises himself as a rodeo clown:

As if that wasn’t humiliating enough, he also spies Carolee cozying up to the owner of the rodeo. The only good thing to come out of Jonah’s greasepaint adventure is he catches the bad guys before they can do any more damage. The issue ends with Jonah punching a mirror in a fit of rage, and who can blame him? Think of what’s happened to him in the past year: He got tossed in prison, he went on a major bender and had to go to a temperance farm to dry out, he lost his wife to another man, he burned through three girlfriends (the last one being more than half his age), and then there’s all the usual crap he has to suffer through on a daily basis like getting shot and stabbed and beat up and what-have-you. It’s been a long time since Jonah’s had so much go wrong in his life all at once, and the new life waiting around the corner will be just as rough. When we reach Jonah Hex #92 (dated August 1985), the cover says it all: "GUT-WRENCHING FINAL ISSUE! Will it also be Jonah's last gunfight?" To tell the truth, the overall issue is far from gut-wrenching. The story flips between scenes of Jonah protecting a young orphan girl who witnessed a murder, and scenes of Emmy still on the run from Brett, the latter of which have the pace of a slasher film, as Emmy keeps thinking she’s reached a safe place, only to have Brett turn up and set her running again. It all comes to a head in the last few pages, when Jonah stops in the Red Dog Saloon for a drink, and Emmy runs in and finds him...just as the mysterious beam of light that’s missed him twice before finally hits its target:

And just like that, in the summer of 1985, the very last Western on the comics market came to an end. The heyday of four-color cowboys had long since passed, and it would be decades before publishers would offer up multiple Western-themed titles again (though only a handful compared to the old days). Along with the loss of an entire genre, readers would also be deprived of any knowledge as to what happened to Emmy after Jonah vanished: like Adrian Sterling, there has never been another mention of Emmylou Hartley in all the years since her last appearance. As for Jonah himself, he would be given one last chance at survival, far from the genre that birthed him. In a comics shop full of superheroes, Jonah needed a miracle in order to stand out amongst them. What he got was HEX.

In our next installment, we go back to the future...whether ya like it or not!

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All content in this article entry written by Susan Hillwig. If you want to attribute any of this work, please credit Susan Hillwig. For more of Susan, check out her One Fangirl's Opinion blog.