Comic Book Resources

Great idea for a piece, Greg!!

Failed audition characters have always fascinated me!

If I hadn't just read the Earth X trade I wouldn't have known who Woodgod was. Now that I know, could someone make me unknow?

Cool post. It'd be nice to see something like this available today.

Woodgod is my copilot!

I really liked Woodgod. And Monark Starstalker.

I also liked seeing the succession of almost always unsuccessful but often interesting characters and situations.

You forgot about the recent Amazing Fantasy. That was a tryout title. Arana, new Scorpian, Vegas, new Death's Head. I mean... it didn't do well. But thats what it was.

Yeah, I recognized all the names, even if I couldn't tell you who the hell some of them actually are.

I just went digging in old cover archives and discovered Marvel Premiere. Seriously? *Awesome.* I want all of them. Woodgod, man! WOODGOD!!! I'd bring him back. Yes, I'm the only one who would do so.

And anything Kirby did back then was gold, even Dingbats, I'm sure. Karl Kesel will attest to that.

It's a shame that anthologies like these fail in today's market. That's what happens when you lose the newsstands, and kids, who are the ultimate impulse buyers.

I remember Woodgod being in a couple of issues of Marvel Tales back when that series was around. I think it reprinted Marvel Team-Up. He was teaming with Spider-Man (obviously) and the Hulk.

Mr. Chris: "I remember Woodgod being in a couple of issues of Marvel Tales back when that series was around. I think it reprinted Marvel Team-Up. He was teaming with Spider-Man (obviously) and the Hulk."

That's right. Very often, the team-up books at Marvel were used to tie up loose ends of series that got canceled or never greenlit in the first place. That's why, in addition to the Woodgod example you mentioned, you saw such unlikely pairings as Ben Grimm and the Scarecrow in Marvel Two-In-One, or Ben, Spider-Man and Warlock on the moon in the Marvel Two-In-One Annual.

The Flash was hardly a sure thing out of the starting gate. He appeared in Showcase 4 (1956) and then got another berth in Showcase a year later (issue 8, 1957) and another a year later (issues 13 & 14, 1958) before getting a full-fledged series a year after that in 1959. That's almost 4 years of very occasional appearances before actually graduating to a solo book.

Lois Lane, on the other hand, had a try-out in Showcase in 1957, and had her own title six months later.

I read every single one of the tryouts you mention in the opening. Is that sad or what?

To the last Amazing Fantasy series' credit it did manage to hang around for 20 issues, which is longer than either Marvel Feature or First Issue Special lasted even though those had some better concepts introduced in them. Though, if you were to change the new Scorpion's name to "Ninja-Girl" I bet she'd have a better chance of catching on.

The fun of these series from a back issue hunting perspective is definitely being able to read some potentially really out there material that in all liklihood will never see a collection (unless somebody wants to do a "Weird stuff we did" book). Some concepts leave you wondering just why they didn't take off (where's my Legion of Monsters book, dangit!!??) and others make it fairly self-evident.

One of the main reasons why this type of "let's try out this brand-new offbeat character concept!" book doesn't exist anymore is that, nowadays, a comics artist or writer who has a brand-new and potentially-successful new character probably isn't going to introduce that new character in a company-owned "mainstream" book. Today the writers and artists have other options avaiable - options that, unlike the main companies, allow the artists to keep the rights over their creation.

These days, I see so many readers complaining that all we get are "revamped" and "redesigned" characters, instead of the flood of brand-new concepts that we used to see in the 60s and 70s... and the truth is that those times are not coming back, EVER again. In our day and age, if a comics creator has a brand-new character idea, he's going to KEEP that idea until he can publish it himself; while in the 60s, the main companies were pretty much the only game in town for a comics creator with new superhero ideas. Let's face it: Todd McFarlane wouldn't be NEARLY as rich as he is today if Spawn were a Marvel character.

So by all means, let's look at these old "Marvel Premiere" and "DC Showcase" with all the fondness they deserve - but let's also understand that books like these, filled with bold and outrageous new characters, are a thing of the past as far as Marvel and DC are concerned. The bold and outrageous new characters of OUR time still can be found, mind you, but not on Marvel or DC. Now they're published outside the "Big Two", and the good news is that these characters' creators still own them: heroes like Astro City's Jack-In-The-Box, the retired superhero from Ex Machina, the mystical superheroine Promethea... and of course, there are many crappy "new ideas" too, characters just as bad as the worst "Marvel Premiere" auditioners.

Meanwhile, Marvel and DC repeatedly "redesign" their old properties, always hoping to attract new readers... and instead of really NEW ideas we get new costumes and/or powers for decades-old characters such as Nova, Batwoman, Mister Terrific and Luke Cage (who's still the black stereotype he always was, but now instead of an afro he dresses like Shaft). Because that's IT for these two publishers; we fans can't really expect the writers and artists, who have families to feed, to introduce brand-new characters in books whose publishers won't let them keep the rights over their creations. That leaves Marvel and DC with their existing (and vast!) universes of already-owned properties, so that's the best they can offer us: reheated/revamped/redesigned old characters. If we want new and outrageous concepts, we gotta look outside the "big two".

Love to see a return of tryout titles! One of my all time favorites is Bat Lash. I wish DC would hurry up and reprint all of his stories in a Archive or Showcase title.
That was an interesting commentary about the Silver Age Flash taking 4 years until he got his own solo title which in reality was continuing the numbering of the original Flash's title.