Today in Comics History, July 22: Happy birthday, Millie Shuriff!

Today's the birthday of Millie Shuriff! You probably don't recognize the name, so stop, collaborate and listen: she has the third-longest employment at Marvel Comics (after Stan Lee and Flo Steinberg), hired in 1956 when the company was still known as Magazine Management (the "Atlas" era). Starting out as a freelancer, Millie later was hired full-time by Stan to serve as Marvel's bookkeeper and the person who cut vouchers for freelancers to get paid, and without paid freelancers, you don't get pages. See, without Millie Shuriff, there would be no Marvel Comics!


from Marvel Vision #30 (Marvel, June 1998)

Face It Tiger February, Day 27: We're Off to See the Lizard

from Spider-Island (2015 series) #4 (Marvel, November 2015), script by Christos Gage, pencils and inks by Paco Diaz, colors by Frank D'Armata, letters by Clayton Cowles

Today in Comics History, February 4, 1984: Massive floating heads threaten nation

from Amazing Spider-Man #252 (Marvel, May 1984), script by Roger Stern and Tom DeFalco, pencils by Ron Frenz, inks by Brett Breeding, colors by Glynis Oliver, letters by Joe Rosen

365 Days of Power and Responsibility, Day 52: This is indeed a disturbing universe

Panels from "Great Incomprehensibility!" in Secret Wars Too one-shot (January 2016), script by Al Ewing, pencils and inks by Jacopo Camagni, colors by Jesus Aburtov, letters by Travis Lanham

365 Days of Defiance, Day 317: Victor! Polo! Victor! Polo!

Panels from Secret Wars (2015 series) #7 (January 2016), script by Jonathan Hickman, pencils and inks by Esad Ribic, colors by Ive Svorcina, letters by Clayton Cowles

365 Days of Defiance, Day 210: Oh the humanitree

I try not to normally reprint...(counting carefully)...a full four pages from a single comic book in this feature, but the build-up and the pay-off are just so good I couldn't edit it down without feeling like I was doing injustice to the pacing. Okay, Star-Lord is facing off against ultravillain and glamour ab model Black Swan, armed with nothing more than his wits, his sarcasm, and...is that a toothpick?





Panels from Secret Wars (2015 series) #7 (January 2016), script by Jonathan Hickman, pencils and inks by Esad Ribic, colors by Ive Svorcina, letters by Clayton Cowles

365 Days of Defiance, Day 199: IT'S COBBLESTONIN' TIME!

Panels from Secret Wars (2015 series) #6 (December 2015), script by Jonathan Hickman, pencils and inks by Esad Ribic, colors by Ive Svorcina, letters by Chris Eliopoulis

365 Days of Defiance, Day 172: Might as well jump

Panels from Secret Wars (2015 series) #2 (July 2015), script by Jonathan Hickman, pencils and inks by Esad Ribic, colors by Ive Svorcina, letters by Chris Eliopoulis

365 Days of Defiance, Day 133: War of the Gods

Panels from Secret Wars (2015 series) #7 (January 2016), script by Jonathan Hickman, pencils and inks by Esad Ribic, colors by Ive Svorcina, letters by Clayton Cowles

366 Days with J. Jonah Jameson, Day 161: J. Jonah Jameson will never eat toasted cheese before bedtime again

Panels from Spider-Man & the Secret Wars #4 (May 2010); script by Paul Tobin; pencils by Patrick Scherberger and Clayton Henry; inks by Terry Pallot, Patrick Scherberger, and Clayton Henry; colors by Brad Anderson; letters by Dave Sharpe

Where the Heck III: What should have been our armor becomes a sharp and angry sword (Still No Credit Where Credit Is Due)

Well, Armor Wars, the five-issue Secret Wars miniseries is done and dusted (and bagged and boarded and marked down for the quarter issue bin at your local comic book store). Yep, quite a few of of the 49 Secret Wars miniseries are starting to wrap up, leaving us looking longfully at the finish line a few miles ahead and hoping everybody remembers that to get Johnny Storm down from hanging on the firmament where he's been stuck since Doom hung him up there like some Doomsmas tree ornament made out of flamy unstable molecules. As for Armor Wars, it's as good a time as any to tally up and point out that Marvel went and unbroken 0-5 on giving Don Heck and Larry Lieber proper credit for co-co-creating Iron Man. As you may remember (go ahead! remember!) I pointed out here that Marvel gave incorrect creator credits in the first two issues here, and that they deleted the creator credits entirely in the following two following issues here. For the record, here's the page of Armor Wars #5 where they managed to squeeze in practically everybody's name short of Robert Downey Jr. and Irving Forbush:


Credits page of Armor Wars #5 (November 2015)
Let me just show you what ya shoulda added there, Marvel:

Iron Man created by Stan Lee, Don Heck,
Larry Lieber, and Jack Kirby

Well, let's see if it gets fixed in the inevitable trade paperback (I'll be checking!) or on the credits page for October 7th's Invisible Iron Man volume 7, #1. Or is that volume 8? Doesn't matter. I'll be checking. (shaking my hoof warningly at Marvel)

As for Armor Wars itself, it died pretty much as it lived: big and explodey. It's far from one of my favorite Secret Wars tie-ins at all, and issue #5 didn't redeem it, being pretty much a couple dozen pages of exposition shouted over a big-ass fight sequence. F'r example:


Panels from Armor Wars #5 (November 2015), script by James Robinson, pencils and inks by Marcio Takara,colors by Esther Sanz, letters by Travels Lanham
Followed by more explosions and explanations...


And then even more destruction and deconstruction...


Before everybody gets back on stage for the big-summing up, hosted, as far as I can tell, by the Earth-Battleworld's dimensional counterpart of Natasha Irons:


…and a coda mock-flooded with the promise for adventures and excitement to come in that crazy little world of Armor Wars City, until of course Marvel-Earth gets put back together next month, like a hastily-assembled jigsaw puzzle, just to get it off the table so you've got room for dinner.


Armor Wars, everyone! Armor Wars. Armor Wars, won't you?

(BTW:)

Iron Man created by Stan Lee, Don Heck,
Larry Lieber, and Jack Kirby

Where the Heck II: Veteran of the Secret Wars (Continuing Credit Where Credit Is Due)

We're about halfway through Marvel's gynormous Secret Wars mega-event, or as I prefer to call it "You liked the Age of Apocalypse? Well, here's fifty of 'em!". Although they're kind of using up their "What If?" quota for the 2010s pretty fast, I'm enjoying a lot of the series, especially Planet Hulk, X-Men '92, Runaways, Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows, Ghost Racers, Giant-Size Little Marvel, Captain Marvel & the Carol Corps, and the "nontinuity" of Deadpool's Secret Secret Wars flashing back to the original Secret Wars. And last week's Howard the Human was as delightfully surreal as I had hoped, with glorious art by Jim Mahood, reminding me of Mark Martin's Gnatrat from the 1990s. (And yes, that's a big compliment from yours little stuffed truly.)

But you may remember when I recently chided Marvel Comics for listing the creators of Iron Man incorrectly in Armor Wars #1. To sum up briefly, the "created by" line reads


when it should read

Iron Man created by Stan Lee, Don Heck,
Larry Lieber, and Jack Kirby

Yeah! Don't forget Heck and Lieber, guys!

Sadly, though, the credits pages of Armor Wars #2 continued to insist


And #3 and 4 averted redressing the problem by avoiding any "created by" credit whatsoever:


C'mon, Marvel! You've got one issue of Armor Wars left in the miniseries to give Heck 'n' Lieber their due. especially since you'd gotten it right up until that point, as seen in tehthecredits of Superior Iron Man #9:


Heck, if you can get this guy's credit right...


That's about all I need to say right now about Secret Wars: Fight for the Right to Party, except for this...


Panel from "Misty and Danny Forever" in Secret Wars: Secret Love #1 (October 2015); script by Jeremy Whitley; pencils, inks, and colors by Gurihiru; letters by Clayton Cowles
…which is set on a realm of Battleworld so bizarre that Colleen Wing's apartment door opens outwards (even though its hinges aren't on the outside). Are they on the same world as Mystery Science Theater 3000's "Gunslinger?"


If so, I so wanna see the Daughters of the Dragon fight Roger Corman!

(And remember:)

Iron Man created by Stan Lee, Don Heck,
Larry Lieber, and Jack Kirby

Ziggy Pig: Beyond Thunderdome

PREVIOUSLY: on Marvel's Secret Wars…


Hey, wait a minute…that guy did say all Marvel worlds that no longer exist, right?

That means it's time for


Next week: Millie the Mauler!

You can read more about Marvel/Timely's Ziggy Pig and Silly Seal, created by Al Jaffee! So where's my Ziggy fold-in, Marvel?

365 Days of Marvel Coloring Books, Day 2

Page from Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars: The Crime Of Centuries Coloring Book (1984)

365 Days with Ben Grimm: Day 197

Final panel from Secret Wars #12 (April 1985), script by Jim Shooter, pencils by Mike Zeck, inks by John Beatty, colors by Christie Scheele, letters by Joe Rosen

365 Days with Ben Grimm, Day 168

Panels from Secret Wars #8 (December 1984), script by Jim Shooter, pencils by Michael Zeck, inks by John Beatty, Jack Abel, and/or Mike Esposito, colors by Christie Scheele, letters by Joe Rosen

The Unsettling Slang of Mister Clint Barton, Part 5

One definition of a Clint Bartonism: words strung together that have never been spoken in that order before or since:


Panel from Secret Wars #8, (December 1984), written by Jim Shooter, art by Mike Zeck, John Beatty, and Christie Scheele

The Feel-Good Comic of the Summer!

As the final issue (#12) of Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars opens, our heroes are in a bit of a tough spot...


All panels are from Secret Wars #12 (April 1985), written by Jim Shooter, art by Mike Zeck, John Beatty, and Christie Scheele

Can't quite read those small caption boxes? Never fear, Secret Wars fans, I shall...not unlike the Marvel superheroes...blow them up:



Whoa, Jim Shooter sure loved these characters a lot to kill them off so completely, didn't he? Well, surely it can't have been a total massacre, can it...?:




Oh, the superhumanity! But what about the Thing...you can't kill him off! Surely the Hulk musta survived! Spider-Man? They wouldn't kill off Spider-Man, would they? And even if Shooter did, he surely leave the Sensational New Character Find of 1985, Spider-Woman alive to tell the tale, wouldn't he...?



Well, at least they died with dignity and respect, right? I'm sure Shooter has some lyrical words of peaceful repose to salute our fallen heroes...


Sheesh, Jimbo. Got macabre? And you thought Marvel Zombies was grim!

PS: They got better.
PPS: "Twenty-one lie dead here"? Count again.

Your Friendly Neighborhood Anterograde Amnesiac Spider-Man

Just call him The Amazing Short-Term Memory-Loss Man:

All panels in this post are from Secret Wars #3 (July 1984), written by Jim Shooter
art by Mike Zeck, John Beatty, and Christie Scheele







In the end, it was just good ol' Professor Xavier mucking about with Spidey's neurons for a good laugh. Hey, it got boring there on Battleworld; Chuck had to find some fun somewhere!

But...knowing his agenda, Joe Quesada would be smart to repurpose this segment and solve what he considers one of Marvel's greatest problems, not in an extended crossover series event...but in four simple panels:








Problem...solved!