Comic Book Resources

Marvel Zombies #4 homages X-Men #1.

X-Men #104:
http://image.milehighcomics.com/istore/images/fullsize/97792366288.104.GIF

Although not a direct cover homage, Jim Lee’s covers for the 90′s X-Men #1 had a similar “theme” (X-Men attacking a force field-protected Magneto, with Cyclops taking a shot at it).

Best,
Hunter (Pedro Bouça)

Classic X-men #12 was a homage to number 1.

I’d really like to see that Wolverine fellow get his own title–he’s a great supporting cast member in the Avengers, but I think he could be a break-out star someday!

OK, in all seriousness, of the past and current Avengers, I’d like to see Beast, Hawkeye, and Wonder Man each get their own series. Actually, scratch that. I’d like to see Beast and Wonder Man get a duo book, like Power Man and Iron Fist. The two of them have a friendship that a lot of different writers have portrayed very well over the years, and I think it’d be a great dynamic for an ongoing series. (And it goes without saying that Beast would revert to his “classic” blue and furry look.)

And as to traitors…Hank Pym betrayed the Avengers by working with the Masters of Evil when he had his nervous breakdown, only to defeat them all when it turned out his real plan was to put the Avengers in a position that he was the only one who could save them, to show he was the hero after all! (He got therapy. He needed it.)

Aztek seemingly betrayed the JLA when it was revealed that Lex Luthor funded the secret organization that gave him his powers; at the same time, Green Arrow seemed to betray the team while under Circe’s influence. But Aztek refused to follow Luthor’s orders, and Green Arrow turned out to be a double-agent for Batman (along with Mirror Master, a traitor who betrayed the villains to the heroes in the same storyline.)

Xorn betrayed the X-Men.

I second the call for a Wonder Man & Beast book. Preferably written by Peter David or Christopher “Jim Owsley” Priest.

Jarvis betrayed the Avengers by supplying aid to the second Masters of Evil in exchange for money to pay for his mother’s medical expenses.

Is the cover theme “Ritas”? Spiral was once Ricochet Rita, Monstergirl’s secret identity was Rita Lopez, and Yellowjacket II is also known as Rita DeMarr.

Iron Man betrayed The Avengers in the mid to late ’90′s, during “The Crossing”. After this was when he got replaced by Young Tony Stark.

I think Jarvis could easily support his own title, especially if he had a cool alliterative adjective, like JOLTIN’ JARVIS or JUNGLE JARVIS ADVENTURES.

I would buy that.

Snapper Carr’s betrayal of the League in JLofA #77 was motivated because the Joker had dressed up as “John Dough” and led an anti-superhero and anti-elitist crusade on behalf of “the average man” that sucked Snapper in. Denny O’Neil had his motivation down as the feeling that “no one cared about [him] for who [he] really was;” Snapper felt that his entire identity as a person was defined by his League mascotship and lashed out stupidly with a little prodding from the Clown Prince of Crime.

Luckily, Steve Englehart revisited Snapper’s betrayal in JLofA #150, adding in a bit more psychological depth by suggesting that Snapper was basically right: the rest of the world saw him as nothing more than “the JLA’s mascot,” to the point that he couldn’t live a normal life…and, at the same, time, couldn’t cash in because he was “just the mascot” and a betrayer to boot. Not the best explanation, but an explanation all the same: Snapper got tired of being the superhero universe equivalent of a star[bleep]er. (And to drive it home, Engelhart had him become the otherwise ludicrously named Star-Tsar for a couple of issues, a likely reference-by-anagram to the Rolling Stones song”Star Star,” whose second “star” was originally a rather stronger word.)

As to other infamous betrayals in comics, I can think of a few:

— In the aforementioned JLofA #150, Mark “Privateer” Shaw turns out to be the true Star-Tsar, having been freed from the Manhunter brainwashing in previous stories but not from the powerlust that the cult had used to hook him in the first place. This is why Shaw, as the Privateer, eventually turned up in the Suicide Squad before reclaiming the Manhunter identity for bounty-hunting.

— Along those lines, the entire “Millennium” crossover was built around the idea that every single DCU hero had at least one Manhunter turncoat in his or her or its supporting cast. In the JLI’s case, that turned out to be Rocket Red #7, who wasn’t even human, but a Manhunter android.

— A number of X-Men members and allies recently betrayed the team to Apocalypse inr eturn for restored or enhanced powers…and of course, promptly turned around and betrayed Apocalypse, as is the way of such stories.

— Colossus, in the 90s, defected from the X-Men to the Acolytes, a cultlike incarnation of the Brotherhood of (Evil) Mutants.

— Though not exactly a betrayal, Priest’s Black Panther series revealed that T’Challa had initially joined the Avengers in order to spy on them as a potential threat to his homeland of Wakanda.

— In one of the more brutal, if not surprising, twists in the series, Starman supporting cast member Barry O’Dare betrayed the rest of the O’Dare family to help the Culp-possessed Shade and an army of villains destroy Opal City. He was eventually gunned down — and managed to gun down — Matt O’Dare, a formerly corrupt family member who had already betrayed the underworld after discovering himself to be a reincarnation of the lawman Brian Savage, Scalphunter.

— Dr. Druid notoriously betrayed the Avengers under Terminatrix’s influence, actually bringing about the team’s breakup through his manipulations.

I totally agree about Ditko’s work on Amazing Fantasy 15. But a funny story about that final panel where Spider-Man is looking over the killer of Uncle Ben. I got a second-hand copy of (I think) Ron Goulart’s History of Comics almost 20 years ago or so and they had that page reprinted. And I thought the dots that were being used as pupils on Spider-Man’s eyes was someone defacing the book so I went over it with Liquid Paper!

Years later I found out, it actually appeared in Amazing Fantasy 15 that way (by mistake)!

Do all three covers involve hot girl/girl action?

Ok, the choker in cover three may not be that hot….

whoops….cover two.

Are these fights between ladies who were both enhanced by the same guy? Spiral and Psylocke both both got extra body parts from Mojo. The Wasp and Yellowjacket both mack off of Pym’s particles. I’ve never read YHIL.

I don’t have an answer that hasn’t been given by anyone else so I’ll comment on the cover of X-Men #32 with this thought:

How the heck many freakin’ swords do you actually need in a one-on-one battle?

You know, after a while, I would think they’d start getting in the way and become more of a liability than an advantage.

That’s the nineties, ladies and gentlemen. The nineties.

The Teen Titans have been betrayed by members repeatedlt after Terra, actually. Jericho was possessed by the corrupted spirit of Azarath and betrayed his teammates as leader of the Wildebeest Society. Raven died during that adventure, and returned to attack her teammates (not a betrayal, I suppose, as she was a villain at the time, but still tehy were her friends). And Superboy was mentally controlled by Lex Luthor to betray his teammates. Oh, and at the same time Indigo was revealed to be Braniac 8 from the future and betrayed the Outsiders.

Atom Smasher betrayed the rest of the JSA by joining Black Adam in his quest to reconquer Kahndaq.

The three covers (besides girl battles) deal with body/costume swappage (i think. I don’t know about YHIL)).

———

As for Ditko, he does WONDERS with little space in all his early Doctor Strange stories of Strange Tales.

Remember, these were 8-page back-ups and he had o cram a LOT of info (including whacked out other-dimensional landscapes & mystic spell-zaps that no one had seen before) into very few pages.

Damn, he gave the entire origin in about 2-pages.

———-

And as for “betrayal”… Morbius betrayed the “Midnight Sons” to the demon; Lilith (and her Lilin) during the Midnight Massacre storyline.
He was “possessed” at the time, but still, he killed one of the “Midnight Sons” at the time.

Obscure?
Yes.
Sorry.

~P~
P-TOR

“Obscure?
Yes.”

It’s funny, because I was thinking back to that story but couldn’t remember who the betrayer was. I was thinking it was one of the Darkhold Redeemers.

Would Starhawk’s betrayal of the Guardians of the Galaxy somewhere in the middle of that run be more obscure or less?

Also, am I to understand that the connection there is *not* that they all have the name ‘Rita’? There’s something else they have in common?

I’d like to see a list of X-Men who have never betrayed the X-Men.

Problem is, I can’t think of any.

Did Tigra really betray the Secret Avengers? She was a spy from the get-go.

I’ve always wondered…on the cover of X-Men #1 why does Angel have a bazooka? And why haven’t we seen it since? All the guy does is fly. It makes sense to pack a bazooka, just in case the ol’ swoop-in-and-punch doesn’t work. Now that he’s lost the razor-sharp wings, Warren needs to get the bazooka out of mothballs and start laying down some explosive shell on some bad guys.

Betrayals-
Cameron Hodge, the original X-Factor’s business manager, turned out to be the boss of the mutant-hating Right.

One of Jamie Madrox’s dupes betrayed the second incarnation of X-Factor.

Moondragon has betrayed the Avengers at least once. Yet, they still let her come to the big meetings. Go figure.

Hawk, under the influence of Monarch, betrayed and killed Dove. She got better, though.

I don’t know if it counts, but just about every member of the Serpent Society betrayed their founder, Sidewinder, to side with the Viper.

As far as Avengers deserving of their own series, if we’re counting the New Avengers, my votes would be for Luke Cage, Spider-Woman (though she has a series coming up in ’08, I hear), and Dr. Strange (it’s been far too long since he’s had his own ongoing). With that said, Echo would be deserving of a mini-series or one-shot. She’s an interesting character that has been way underutilized.

If we’re talking “classic” Avengers, um… to be honest, as much as I’ve loved the series through the years, aside from the heavy hitters like Cap, Thor and Iron Man, everybody else felt like second-stringers, regardless of their power levels. I loved the Vision and Scarlet Witch, for example, but couldn’t picture them in their own series, though their minis worked well. I would say that Hawkeye or Falcon were probably most deserving of their own ongoing series, along with Captain Marvel/Photon/Monica Rambeau.

-r-

“You know, after a while, I would think they’d start getting in the way and become more of a liability than an advantage.

That’s the nineties, ladies and gentlemen. The nineties.”

Well considering Claremont still gives nearly every character he can a sword (see Dazzler in New Excalibur) its not that out there.

RE: Angel having a bazooka… I always thought he was catching a missle or something, but you’re right. If I recall correctly, either Joe Casey or Ian Churchill wanted to give Angel some sort of gun/offense weapon when he was on Uncanny, but the editors said no.

Man, I would totally buy a comic about Angel laying the bazooka smackdown on random supercriminals. That would rock.

On the subject of Avengers who could support a solo series, I think the Black Widow is easily the best candidate. She’s got plenty of ties to lots of corners of the Marvel Universe, and it’d be easier to build up a life for her outside the Avengers… considering she already has one, and it’s already compelling. I really dig spy/espionage books and she’s a natural for that.

For the homage, how about Uncanny X-Men #21? It’s got a pretty similar layout, especially with the guy blasting the shield in the lower left corner and beast flying/riding through the middle of the picture.

Joe Casey’s first issue of Uncanny featured Angel using a bazooka-like gun, presumably as an homage to X-Men #1.

And yes, the theme is “Rita,” as all three covers feature a character named Rita! Congrats, Stickler!

And Graeme – that story is hilarious!

Omni-Man was never a member of the Guardians of the Globe, but he was a trusted ally, and did eventually betray and murder them.

Alex Wilder was a traitor to the Runaways, a team he formed and led, from the very beginning.

Cheshire betrayed the Secret Six to the Society.

Secret quit Young Justice after they refused to help her break her father out of prison, and then joined Darkseid and almost destroyed the world.

Nemesis Kid joined the Legion specifically to betray them.

Both Wonder Man and Vision were originally supposed to betray the Avengers, but instead betrayed their creators (Baron Zemo and Ultron, respectively).

Spike betrayed X-Force.

Orphan killed Spike Freeman.

Hank Pym betrayed the Ultimates (and his country).

Omni-Man betrayed the Guardians of the Globe.

Hero Brown betrayed Victoria and the Amazons.

I think it’s a metal pole, not a bazooka, because what better weapon to use against Magneto than a metal pole?

Speaking of Starman betrayals, Medphyll turning out evil during the search for Will Payton was a classic twist.

- All of the Redeemers betrayed the Squadron Supreme.
- Wonder Man betrayed Zemo.
- Atlas betrayed Zemo.
- Joe Quesada and Dan Didio have betrayed me as a fan.

Yeah, Ditko’s really good. Maybe the best ever at usin’ a small panel to convey a bunch of information about the characters.

Maybe the best ever at usin’ a small panel to convey a bunch of information about the characters.

And still tell a story!

Yeah. It never got cluttered. Plus there’s precious few artists who use symbolism as effectively. Really wish he was still working and less… um emphatic in his beliefs, which made a bunch of his later work unreadable to me.

Yeah, I’m that way, too. His later works are a bit much for my tastes.

I found a lot of Ditko’s later stuff really surreal, thought-provoking and brilliant. I love it. It’s a real mindtrip, but it actually has a real viewpoint behind it that it’s commentating on, based on the real world, rather than the stuff that we often see from people like Morrison, which usually is just comics and science fiction commentating on comics and science fiction. I’d take Ditko’s later surreal mindtrips over Morrison’s Animal Man and Doom Patrol any day.

Ooh, in the trifecta of Starman Betrayals, the Starman from 1,000,000 months in the future was secretly working with Solaris, the living sun, to betray the Justice Legion A!

Obviously, I think yer being a little hard on Morrison:

The Invisibles, the Filth, the X-men: All of ‘em were ABOUT sociology. The Doom Patrol and Animal Man were about how we see reality. None of the three Vertigo series Seaguy, WE3, and Vinamarama were commentary on comics.

And, cheez, I just read Ditko’s Static. It wasn’t even strange, or surreal. Just pure formula. Ten page stories. Six pages of lectures on Randian principles. Four pages of punching. Annoying.

Never read Static, but I did like the Mr. A stuff I read, plus that fantagraphics one-shot he did in the 90s. My all time favorite is the Blue Beetle/Question story where they fight the hippies.

Well, yeah. But fighting Hippies is ALWAYS cool. Never read Mister A. Has it been reprinted?

No, but Dial B for Blog gave a great 3 part summary, starting here:

http://www.dialbforblog.com/archives/296/

Part two (which you can jump to by changing the 296 of the url to 297, has the first story reprinted in its entirety. It may be overbearing in message, but I do think it’s more intellectually developed and emotionally intense than some of the socially conscious stuff O’Neil, Skeates and Haney were trying to do over at DC at the time. One unfair thing about Ditko that I hate is that he’s always mocked and called “brainwashed”, preachy or a cult member because he believed in a conservative philosophy, yet O’Neil is lionized and called principled, even though he was just as preachy and extreme, just because he was on the left. It’s like if you have views from the right, you were a nut that was brainwashed into believing them, but if you have views from the left, you nobly came to those views through self-education, principled crusading and valor. Apparently no one can be brainwashed into being a lefty a

I have the completely irrational belief that a Wasp solo series could be great.

I think that’s an oversimplification, T. Ditko isn’t simply “a conservative”, he’s a believer in Objectivism, which is a philosophy very specific to the thoughts of Ayn Rand, and which has been accused of being as much a cult of personality to the late Ms. Rand as it is a system of philosphy. Rand’s assertions of an objective moral truth that can be determined by intelligent people frequently, in practice, boiled down to “I’m an intelligent person, I say this is an objective moral truth, therefore you must all agree with me.” She claimed that objective aesthetic values could be found for music and art, which naturally coincided with her own, her followers would invent justifications for some of her own questionable activities (because, naturally, she was objectively in the right), and the Objectivist philosophy has attained a bit of a dubious reputation as a result. Combined with some of Ditko’s eccentric habits, and his reclusive nature, it’s painted a bit of an odd picture of the man.

I wouldn’t say, for example, that Frank Miller’s been “brainwashed”, even though I do think he’s a fairly conservative writer. But Ditko leaves himself a bit more open to those charges than most conservatives. (For more on the quirks of Objectivism, I recommend the somewhat-strangely-titled “Why People Believe Weird Things”, by Michael Shermer. It’s a good book in general, covering a wide variety of topics and giving some nice analysis to the way the human brain works.)

That Mister A. story was cool. More engergetic, and more punching!

I do have a lotta respect for Ditko; He seems like a smart guy and really fiercely believed in what he was doin’, and Mister A. and his stuff for Charlon was some of the first really PERSONAL work for comics.

And, really, I think “fuck off, the work speaks for itself” is a fine attitude when the work so obviously does.

“Ritas”, huh?

Hmm.

See, I would have said “Big Shoulder Pads”. But that might just be me…

I really don’t think Miller is clearly conservative or liberal. I have no idea what he is. I think he is more to the right than the average comic creator, which makes people call him conservative, but I think he’s a little more complex than that.

By the way, I own “Why people believe weird things.” I do understand why it says Rand and her believers can be cultlike and hypocritical, but really you can argue that about any intense movement. Most of the hypcrisies, sexual fixations and messianic complexes Shermer uses to argue that Rand and her close circle were a cult (and I agree, they were) can easily be found in the types of philosophies O’Neil subscribed to as well: Black radicals like the Panthers, hippies (if you ever meet anyone who grew up on a hippie commune, they can tell you horror stories), radical feminists, radical environmentalists…all these groups display some of the same cultlike, hypocritical and self-destructive mores that Objectivism did. It doesn’t invalidate EVERYTHING in the underlying philosophy though, they all had some valid viewpoints as well.

So while I agree that Rand was a nut in her personal life and there were many cultlike aspects to her circle, the same can be said about a lot of the leaders of left-wing causes and groups a leftie like O’Neil subscribed to. This is not to excuse Rand and the shortcomings of her belief system but rather to say that many O’Neil’s philosophies had hypocritical stances, charismatic and dangerous gurus, rigid internal rituals and redefinition of sexual mores, yet he never gets the flak for his belief system Ditko does. I’m just saying that I wish there was equal treatment. Like, if people were calling Englehart and O’Neil and Ditko all brainwashed kooks that’d be fine. Or if they were all lionized for being loyal to their visions, okay. It’s just the selective harping on Ditko’s beliefs while giving everyone else a pass that bugs me.

How random…

I don’t think anyone’s gotten this one.

Thor #427 is an Uncanny #1 homage. I was cleaning out some long boxes and I found this. (I was a massive Excalibur fan in its beginning)

X-Men #1 cover homage:

Here’s the oddest one: Power Pachyderms #1, by Blaustein and D’Agostino http://www.comics.org/coverview.lasso?id=212005&zoom=4

There’s at least one more comic book cover homage that I know of that has not been named yet, and two “comic-related publication” covers.

Can anyone tell me what Wonder Man’s personality is? He always seemed really one-dimensional.

What really strikes me about Steve Ditko’s artwork is the almost entire lack of any backgrounds in the samples. These days, he wouldn’t even be able to get his stuff looked at like that, let alone hired. Makes me think that modern editors are stressing the wrong things when they go looking for artists…

Ditko would do backgrounds, but you have to remember that those early issues were churned out fast and the panels smaller than today and crammed onto tight grids on the page. If you look at Kirby’s early FF, there were many panels without backgrounds there too. Once the pages loosened up and artists were allowed to decompress the storytelling more, put less panels on the grid and enlarge them, Ditko and Kirby put more backgrounds in.

Kirby moreso than Ditko

I think in the “small-panel” era, Ditko’s stuff was muh, MUCH better than Kirbys. Ditko’s more of an introverted artist, if that makes any sense. He’s good at drawing character’s psychological states, while Kirby was this big, bombastic extrovert artist, who’s best work was with these big-ass panels.

I didn’t know who the Ultimates traitor was… it hasn’t been printed in trade yet.

I shake my fist at you, Brian Cronin.

“Alex Wilder was a traitor to the Runaways, a team he formed and led, from the very beginning.”

And it made no sense what so ever.

Got an X-Men 1 homage, Marvel Knights 4 #24.

I don’t think my previous example counted, so I found another homage to X-Men #1: Comicology #2. It’s a magazine about comics rather than a comic, but it features Mike Allred’s Atomics characters in an homage to the original, so I think it counts.