Sept. 6th, 2005
Apples & Origins

   Recently, I was thumbing through my copy of Marvel's trade paperback, Fantastic Firsts (2001), which reprints all the origin stories from Origins of Marvel Comics and Son of Origins. It doesn't include the secondary stories from those volumes, such as "Brother, Take My Hand" from DD #47, but instead includes such neccesary milestones as the first Sgt. Fury & Ant-Man, plus the Silver Age debuts of the Sub-Mariner & Captain America, all of which were neglected in the Origins series. Gone are the fuzzy, almost improvised chapter intros of Stan the Man. Nonetheless, he contributes to Fantastic Firsts heart-warming new Forewords and Afterwords. The individual stories are instead introduced by a variety of creators associated with their respective series, such as the late Don Heck on Iron Man, Dick Ayers on Sgt. Fury, Herb Trimpe on The Hulk... I find the package an improvement. Stan's homilies in the original series are fun, but don't hold up for me, the anal-retentive fact-checker, like they used to. The only odd fit is the inclusion of Wolverine from 2001's Origin #1 (the Wolvie miniseries, not the reprint volumes). It's more than thirty years later than the most recent reprinted story, 1968's Silver Surfer #1.

   Wolverine's the only Marvel character since the Silver Age to have earned a spot amongst the pantheon of Marvel's top tier characters, enduing the test of time. It's no disrespect to Andy Kubert, Richard Isanove and the others involved in the story, but whoooosh! What a quantum leap in storytelling and printing reproduction and a testament to the loss of innocence in the art form. Also, Origin #1 is the only origin story, ironically, not self-contained in one issue. This doesn't deter my enjoyment of the book, it's just an unusual addendum of sorts. I suppose they could've reprinted Hulk #181, but Wolvie was just a bit player in a three-way battle with Hulk and Wendigo. In all fairness, Origin #1 was the only comic that came close to suiting the qualifications for inclusion of this volume. I imagine the reprint editors struggled with this decision. Beautiful Bruce Timm cover, by the way (can there be any other Timm cover?)

   Wonder what I'm getting at? Okay, strap yourselves in...

   Bwah-ha-ha dept: Rereading The Hulk #1 (1962) from Fantastic Firsts... In the opening pages, Bruce Banner's making final preparations for the testing of his new Gamma Bomb. After being browbeaten by Thunderbolt Ross, then nutured by Ross' daughter Betty (a scenario that would continue for years ad nauseum), Banner's assistant, Igor chimes in (apparently joining in on the fun of annoying Bruce, the beleaguered Cold War version of Dilbert):

   Igor: "Listen, Banner, this is your last chance to tell me the secret of harnessing the Gamma Rays! It isn't right for YOU to be the only one who knows!"

   Banner: "Sorry, Igor. The formulas are locked in my room, and they will STAY there!"

   Why didn't Banner out-and-out say : "The formulas are locked in the lower left drawer of my desk, in the manila folder marked Gamma Formulas, and they will STAY there!"

   That bit of dialouge always busts me up! Ahhh, Silver Age fun.

   Bite the hand that feeds me dept: I love all the commissions I've been getting the past few years, especially since they offer me rare opportunities to ink pencillers I may not normally ink, such as Gene Colan, Mike Zeck, Chris Sprouse, etc. I especially love inking the seemingly 'second tier' characters such as Dr. Strange, Loki, Sub-Mariner and Speedball. I've done a lot of Batman, Spider-Man, Wonder Woman, and more recently, FF character inking commissions (probably due to renewed interest from the movie-I've got a cool Brett Booth Doom/FF piece I'm currently working on).

   That said, I'd love to have the opportunity to ink obscure characters like Guy Gardner, Nova, Sinestro, The Spirit, Dynamo, Firestorm, Moon Knight, Power Man, Iron Fist, any of the Forth World characters, hell, even Jack of Hearts in his original costume (though you might only get Perez to climb THAT mountain). I understand the more popular characters get a higher resale value, if a fan needs to unload art to pay for real-life expenses. Lots of art gets traded around and if you love a Batman piece, another art dealer may be more than a little reticent in discussing a trade for your Guy Gardner piece, no matter how pretty it is. Hopefully, David Finch's new Moon Knight miniseries will renew interest in the character. Some comics creator once said that Moon Knight was the character everybody drew in their high school notebooks.

   I thought I was alone in doing that!
 
To be continued...
 
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