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I'm not even sure the Bizarre Adventures story was actually in the Logan's Run universe. If they lost licensing, then they "re-tooled" the story.

So Kirby invented those damn frogs that are being abused over in Panther's book now? Good to know who to blame. Ha ha ha.

If they lost licensing, then they “re-tooled” the story.

They did indeed do that. But I'm still curious.

Bah. You wore me out. I accede to every point, and further postulate that we were twins separated at birth. Look, I have this amulet.

Bah.

I'll say that Bill Mantlo's first issue of Skull The Slayer absolutely rocked, though. You know, the one that starts with Scully disbelievingly looking at a ziggurat made of gold.

Maybe that was his second issue.

Bah. I'm sure I'm wrong, damn you.

Bah.

That's a really interesting take on it, and a side of things that's especially easy to forget.

Anyone with an interest in games in the early '90s would probably be aware that the same thing happened to Ron Gilbert's three game story arc he had planned for The Secret of Monkey Island. He ended up leaving LucasArts, the developer, after the second title, which featured an unfortunately cryptic ending.

The team who picked it up for the third game did an admirable job, but it just didn't feel right. Gilbert has talked since then about the fact that he'd had it all planned out to the letter, but he still won't say what the actual plot was meant to be. Which is probably analogous to what you feel with Omega, I dare say: frustration of the highest degree!

My own personal "I want to see how the original creators would have ended it" is the DC series Thriller. Robert Loren Fleming and Trevor Von Eeden were doing Grant Morrison comics while Morrison was still in art school. Brilliant stuff. But (as near as I can tell) Von Eeden slighted Fleming somehow (editorial escaserbated it) and Fleming left, and the next issue, Von Eeden--not knowing he had slighted Fleming and not wishing to continue without Fleming--left. Which left Bill DuBay and Alex Nino desperately trying to pull together (and eventually end) a series they really didn't have any kind of feel for. It's horrible to watch what they do.

If I could rule the world, I'd get Fleming and Von Eeden to write an equivalent amount of issues and do their own version of a wrap-up. And then I'd release it in trade. And the Dubay/Nino issues would be banished like the works of Copernicus or the original versions of Star Wars and Blade Runner had been in the past.

Marvel doesn't owe you an ending to Gerber's Omega, Greg. And considering Lethem was the one who pitched the project, and some of Marvel's editors didn't even know who Omega was (which, by the way, puts paid to that "trademark renewal" crack), expecting one in the first place was a long shot.

I thought Gerber had talked about his annoyance at not being given the first crack to finish his story, but maybe I imagined it, or am thinking of something someone said on his behalf. Either way, I'm too tired/lazy to check right now, so I'll assume you're bringing up a new point here. It's a good one, too.

It's worth pointing out that occasionally the decision to continue with a story without the original author's consent results in something good- Lee and Romita's Spidey wasn't as good as Lee and Ditko's, sure, but it sounds like it was better than what Ditko wanted to do.

"Marvel doesn’t owe you an ending to Gerber’s Omega, Greg."

Did he say they did? I must have missed that part.

That reminds me of the QUESTPROBE stuff from the '80s or '90s. Dude in fishbowl helmet appears, does wacky stuff to various Marvel heroes, then vanishes, as part of a tie-in to a series of computer games. And then poof, into the night.

And ultimately, it was followed up on, and finished, in Quasar, I believe. Home of the obscure.

Interesting I believe the entire New Universe storyline was also wrapped in Quasar. Apparently Wendell attracts abandonned stories.

There was some creative continuity to the QUESTPROBE follow-up. Mark Gruenwald was the penciller for QUESTPROBE #1 and the writer for QUASAR.

It’s worth pointing out that occasionally the decision to continue with a story without the original author’s consent results in something good- Lee and Romita’s Spidey wasn’t as good as Lee and Ditko’s, sure, but it sounds like it was better than what Ditko wanted to do.

I understand that, and even included an example with the Panther. I even understand that nobody at Marvel owes me anything and that Jonathan Lethem was trying to do an homage. I'm not talking about the moral dimension of the matter at all, or trying not to; that ground's been pretty well covered. But tell me as comics fans who've read about various revivals over the last twenty years, how many times has your reaction been wild hope that turned in a matter of seconds to disappointment when you read the rest of the press release? That's more what I'm talking about here with the Omega thing. It's a fanboy column this week. Really it was me channeling my inner HEAT member a little bit. I just got to thinking about how COMMON it used to be to have someone come in and jerk the rug out on a series.

For the record, though, if you really want to know my position on the Omega thing... I tend towards Gerber's point of view and I'm amazed that someone like Lethem who professes to be a fan of the material and the author would not be aware of the other stuff, particularly how personally Gerber takes his creations in comics. The fact that they didn't speak until AFTER it blew up into a thing in the comics press is what makes me look at Lethem a little askance. If I was in Mr. Lethem's position I would have made Gerber my first call as soon as Marvel said yes -- "I hope this doesn't bother you, it wasn't Marvel, it was me, I'm a big fan of the material, I'd appreciate your indulgence on this"-- and I suspect if Jonathan Lethem had done that... well, I don't know how it would have shaken out, but I think it would have been less acrimonious.

Anyway, I'm pleased they worked it out, but as far as reading the new book is concerned... just not interested. The fan-fiction thing is too hard for me to get past. I actually have a whole rant about how famous people from other fields who come to comics and geek out in their scripts would never get the stuff past an editor if they weren't famous people, but that's something for another day.

Yeah, it sucks when creative teams change midstory, or a book gets cancelled without its storylines being wrapped up. But does anyone really expect to see a conclusion to the plotlines from an obscure comic from THIRTY YEARS ago?

I've always found this practice fascinating, Greg. Thanks for writing about it. I think I've been meaning to write about it for, like, two years, so I'm quite pleased to see you actually DO it.

Did he say they did? I must have missed that part.

I quoted it for you below. Greg's article certainly puts the responsibility on Marvel to publish the ending to the story.

the thing that raises it from merely irritating to utterly infuriating from a long-time Marvel reader’s perspective, is that this was our chance, finally, to see what Gerber was REALLY going to do with the ending. And Marvel blew us all off. Again.

In reality, though, Steve Gerber is the one who's blowing you off. He could detail his ending for the story any time he wanted to, and put it online where everyone could be exposed to it.

But it's more important to take a stand, apparently.

Goddamnit. I suck at this code.

You just have to make sure to always use / on the last one, Dan.

Gerber on Omega, one more time...

So, look—coming at this in a very general way—it would just be really nice if, in the case of a character created by someone who is still living and still active in the industry, the publisher would think to approach the that person and say, “Hey, we’d like to do something new with this character. Would you like to try it again?” How much effort does that take? How much does it cost in editorial pomp and self-importance, especially weighed against the good will it would create?

The concern that’s usually at the root of this problem—sometimes it’s warranted, sometimes it isn’t—is that the publisher will automatically assume that an older writer or artist will want to do with the character exactly the same thing they did, oh, say, 30 years ago, to use Omega as an example. Now that’s true of some creators, sometimes, but others of us learn and grow and don’t stop developing as writers or artists. I am not a ’70s writer. It’s the 21st century, I’m still banging away at the keyboard, and I’m not planning to stop anytime soon. I’m also very much not unique that way. So while I do understand a publisher’s desire to bring a new approach to an older property, I also think it’s presumptuous of them to assume that every older creator is only capable of doing reruns.

Now, the Omega matter happened slightly differently. As I understand it, when Marvel approached Jonathan Lethem about writing for them, it was Jonathan who inquired about Omega. Marvel said fine, but the idea didn’t originate with them. It still would’ve been nice of them to call, but the truth is, they were never going to say “no” to a New York Times bestselling novelist in order to get a new Omega book from me.

I want to add, by the way, in regards to Omega, that Marvel and I did manage to reach an accommodation about that character and a couple of others. In the end, they were very reasonable about it, and I consider the matter closed.

To be fair, a writer who runs around posting his plots online tends to be a writer who never gets to sell them. For all we know, Gerber recycled the concepts for his Omega ending long ago, and we've all "read" the original ending without realizing it.

Endings are not an especially important thing to most superhero comics (does anyone read Spider-Man wanting to see how everything eventually turns out?), so I can't quite fault writers of failed superhero comics for just assuming nobody cares. I mean, the guys publishing the story didn't.

Also.

Best title for a post on this blog, ever.

Maybe on ANY blog.

Let's not forget the infamous ELF that Gerber had running through the Defenders before leaving. They ended up with another writer having him run over by a truck? Can't believe this was Gerber's original idea seen to fruition.

What about that purple spaceman in the Daredevil comic who was going to walk to another planet on stairs of light? Did he ever get there? Did he get hit bt a space truck?

The Elf said:
"Let’s not forget the infamous ELF that Gerber had running through the Defenders before leaving. They ended up with another writer having him run over by a truck? Can’t believe this was Gerber’s original idea seen to fruition."

In a way I always felt that this was actually more respectful a conclusion than the chintzy low rent finale Omega received in a much more decadent later era of Defenders. I believe that it was Kraft who did that (elf hit by truck), also responsible for what would turn out to be the only halfway decent post-Gerber Defenders story for a veeerrry long time (Scorpio, obviously).

As for the other stuff, eh, well I don't really have the energy for the bickering right now, but suffice to say that I would never lift a finger in support of a company I don't even work for against an individual. Corporations deserve no defense from people just bitching about them beyond what they're perfectly able to pay for.

 

What about that purple spaceman in the Daredevil comic who was going to walk to another planet on stairs of light? Did he ever get there? Did he get hit by a space truck?

 

Go here for details, but in a nutshell, he was captured by the Stranger and (probably) escaped during the aftermath of the fight between Stranger and Overmind, as depicted in Quasar #14-16.

About the Elf, I don't know that its history was meant to have a logical end. If memory serves, Gerber described him somewhere as a symbol of randomness or something similar.

Then again, the Elves have surfaced again, both in Defenders and in Gerber-penned stories of other books.

There's (as usual) a nice profile here:

http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/elfwagun.htm

Also.

Best title for a post on this blog, ever.

Maybe on ANY blog.

Yeah. I have no position whatsoever on the subject matter of this column, but the title, I want to hug it and squeeze it and call it George.

From DC the most notorious one has to be Rick Veitch's Swamp Thing time travel storyline.
Veitch has Swampy traveling back through time. He had just reached Camelot when the next issue was supposed to have Swampy meet Jebus himself. But DC yanked the story and Veitch walked leaving Swampy stranded in time.
Some guy named Dough Wheeler took over basically skipping the Jebus issue and had Swampy meet the last Neanderthals and eventually get back to the present day. And then a bunch of crappy stories including fighting mold...

There's still hope that one day DC will let Veitch finish the story...

I remember their skitishness about the Jesus thing being that he was supposed to be a magician. In light of Preacher, it's hard to believe they'd ever have any problems with blasphemy, but this was a few years before Vertigo and Swampy was still in the DCU, more or less. Also, according to the web page I read to make sure I wasn't totally talking out of my ass, the Last Temptation of Christ was getting a lot of heat at the time. That's all here: (http://www.sequart.com/swampthingPOSTMOORE1.htm).

Regarding OMEGA -- I've been trying to get Gerber and Skrenes together for an in-depth look back at the series for a while now, but they both have busy schedules. Mary currently co-owns a lighting company in Las Vegas(http://www.jrlighting.com/about.php) and Steve's been in and out of hospitals trying to get on a transplant list for a new lung. But they've seemed receptive to the idea, and I hope their schedules work out at some point.

If this does come together, I hope they'll be willing to talk about where OMEGA would have gone -- or at least raise some demand for a one-shot or miniseries resolving the original. Cross your fingers.

My own disappointment about Veitch's Swamp Thing storyline being nixed wasn't so much to do with that particular story being left hanging (I wasn't a huge fan of Veitch's Swamp Thing anyway) as the story's censorship and Veitch's abrupt departure meant that Neil Gaiman decided not to take over--as was planned-- as Veitch's replacement.

That kind of sucks and all, but I think the fact that he was able to totally focus on the Sandman worked out pretty well in the end.

For what it's worth, hasn't Gerber said that he doesn't even remember exactly what he'd had in mind for the Elf with a Gun?

As for the Omega bit, I totally agree that the write-off wasn't one of the better things Steven Grant's ever done, and that I'd dearly love to see Gerber's original ideas, but it is nice that someone, ANYONE wants to revisit the property after all these years. Perhaps this revival might arouse enough interest that Gerber may get a chance to revive it himself someday.

Hadn't realized that Bloodstone switched writers for the last chapter... I still wonder what Domino's original purpose was. (He was revived, years later, by Mark Gruenwald as part of the Scourge story. Did Gru EVER see a loose end he didn't try and fix? It's a miracle we didn't see Omega on a dissection slab in Quasar...)

As for Skull the Slayer, 3 writers in the first four issues is a bad, BAD sign... even if all three are GOOD writers, as was the case here! That said, Englehart's issue with Slitherouge was really good, for a title he didn't have any desire to write by his own admission. I still wish somebody would revisit that plot arc, since it's the only loose end still existent from the series. Well, that and Skull's arch enemy charging into the Bermuda Triangle to look for him just as the series ended.

I was a little too sarcastic in my reply to Michael, but I guess we just read Greg's intent differently, Apodaca. The column was just a chance to gripe, like he said in the comments right above you. And when someone can make a gripe as articulate as Hatcher, I'm inclined to let him have one every now and then. I don't want to speak for him, but it was clear to me that he didn't really expect marvel to publish Gerber's version...he just really wished they would. And I don't see anything wrong with that.

After seeing the crazed Jack Kirby Black Panther with Solomon's Frog, I have a whole new level of understanding for Priest's work on Black Panther. Man, that was some great stuff.

Reggie Hudlin? Bah. Get your Hollywood out of our comics, Joey Q.

Great article, Greg!

I'm just pleased to know that I'm not the only one who enjoyed Skull The Slayer and Thriller.

Veitch’s abrupt departure meant that Neil Gaiman decided not to take over–as was planned– as Veitch’s replacement.

Oh I forgot about that. Wasn't it supposed to be gaiman and someone else (Morrison?) alternating storylines? That would have been good. That Floronic (sp?) Man short that appeared had a lot of interesting hints in it that Gaiman would have explored. Curses!!!

OK... I just HAVE TO ask...
WHAT issue of COMICS FEATURE had that Englehart interview?

As someone who LOVED that storyline and was "Doc-blocked" of a good ending, I'd love to read the man's complete take on it all.

Please, if anyone knows which issue this was, please LMK.

ThanX!

~P~
P-TOR

It was Comics Feature #5, P-Tor. Ebay listing at this link.

ThanX, Greg.

Actually, it turned out, a buddy of mine has the issue and will swap it for some other item.

So, that link is good for ANYONE ELSE who wants it.

ThanX!

~P~
P-TOR

I've been waiting for the end of the Logan's Run story after #7 for, what, 30 years now. The Bizarre Adventures story unfortunately doesn't conclude the #7 storyline; it was just a non-related filler story that they revamped after losing the license (it did have cool Michael Golden art, though).

When I win the lottery, I'm hiring the creative team from #7 (Klaus Janson did the art, I think; I don't remember who wrote it) to finish that story. Sigh... it's weird what comic fans obsess over...