Today in Comics History, June 22: Small town deals with mass amnesia the true American Way: by merchandising it

from Silver Surfer: Ghost Light #1 (Marvel, April 2023), script by John Jennings, art by Valentine De Landro, colors by Matt Milla, letters by Joe Sabino

Today in Comics History: September 23: Happy birthday, John Coltrane!

Born on this day in 1926: jazz saxophonist/composer John Coltrane, creator of dozens of sublime jazz songs and albums (A Love Supreme, Blue Train, Ascension, My Favorite Things and more).


from the liner notes of the American Splendor soundtrack CD (New Line Records, 2003), script by Harvey Pekar, art by Gary Dumm
Happy birthday, Mr. Coltrane!


from Silver Surfer: Ghost Light #1 (Marvel, April 2023), script by John Jennings, art by Valentine DeLandro, colors by Matt Milla, letters by Joe Sabino

Fun with Comics: The greatest guest star of them all

I'm way behind on many comics. I just finally finished the second volume of Dan Slott and Mike Allred's Silver Surfer. Somebody asked what comic book made you cry? The second-to-last issue, #13.

And then there's this, too, in #14, which...I'm sorry it took me so long to see it.


from Silver Surfer (2016 series) #14 (Marvel, December 2017), script by Dan Slott, pencils and inks by Michael Allred, colors by Laura Allred, letters by Joe Sabino

365 Days of Defiance, Day 59: If I Could Turn Back Time

Get a load of this guy:


Panels from Silver Surfer (1968 series) #6 (June 1969), script by Stan Lee, pencils by John Buscema, inks by Sal Buscema, colors by Bill Everett (?), letters by Artie Simek
That's the evil Overlord, lord of over pretty much everything. The omnipotent mutant — no, not Wolverine — conquered earth, and probably Mars and Vulcan and Tattooine, and now he's after Zenn-La. But not if Zenn-La's Favorite Son (six years running beginning in ZY 62,901), the Silver Surfer, can stop it!


Incidentally, did we mention he had destroyed Earth? Whoa, that's likely to put a crimp in the monthly publishing plans of Marvel Comics. "Good news, Stan! We're way ahead on Silver Surfer." "Excelsior! What's the bad news?" "All the other books are cancelled."


This of course, paints a terrible direction for the timeline of Earth-616, wiping out and invalidating all those future histories of 616 like Spider-Man 2099. On the other hand, it has wiped out and invalidated future histories like Ravage 2099. Hmmm. Six'a one, half dozen of another. Oh, and meanwhile! Silver Surfer has been captured. GOOD ONE NORRIN.


Here's the thing about Silver Surfer: he just won't give up. I could take pretty much any issue of his book, especially the original 18-issue '68 series, and quote panels from it for 365 Days of Defiance. He may angst more than anyone else in the 616 except a Claremont character, but buy golly, he gets the job done. But how's he gonna succeed this time, considering he can't call for a Marvel Team-Up?


Never give up! Never surrender! That would be the Surfer's credo, if he wasn't so pure enough to not steal it from Commander Peter Quincy Taggart and the brave crew of the NSEA Protector, who have a machine that can send them thirteen seconds in the past HEY WAIT ONE SECOND THERE


The Surfer is attempting time travel, in the "other direction," to go back in time and get a couple humpback whales, and hit Overlord with them!


Actually, he's going to prevent the Overlord from being born by squishing the giant space-spider that bit him! More or less. The moral of the story is the Silver Surfer will do anything at all to stop your evil plans, including rebooting history. What a badass!


Consider this: the moment at which the Overlord was actually born became the alternate timeline of Earth-6966, in which, to quote the cover of a popular X-Men comic book, everybody dies. (You heard me: even Squirrel Girl.) It's not until the Silver Surfer goes back and diverts this universe that it branches off properly into what is always and (very nearly) forever Earth-616. Those of you who are students of Roy Thomas's history textbook What If? will understand the cosmic importance of the Surfer's actions: so determined to resist against the ultimate dictator, he changed time and space itself and saved every one of us. And reminded us that even if you can't travel in time or even if you're not wearing little silver underpants, we are all the agents of change in our multiverse. Please stand up against the space or Earth-based tyrant of your choice today, everybody!

365 Days of Defiance, Day 11: Once upon a time Simon & Schuster published defiant books

Panels from The Silver Surfer graphic novel (Simon & Schuster, 1978), script by Stan Lee, pencils by Jack Kirby, inks by Joe Sinnott, colors by Glynis Wein, letters by John Costanza

Separated at Birth: Get Well Soon

Left: Marvel Two-in-One (1974 series) #96 (February 1983); layouts by Ed Hannigan, pencils by Ron Wilson, inks by Frank Giacoia
Right: Silver Surfer (2016 series) #4 (July 2016); pencils and inks by Michael Allred, colors by Laura Allred
(Click picture to Man-Size-Kleenex-size)

If I Ran Marvel Comics

Cover of Silver Surfer (2016 series) #1, art by Mike Allred.
I cannot tell a lie: I put the Bully figure into this cover, and it's drawn by Roger Langridge.

365 Days of KirbyTech, Day 104: Al B. Harper's Device

And now...Al B. Harper!



No, no, no, not Al B. Sure(!)...Al B. Harper. Al B. Harper has never had a top Billboard Chart hit single, but he was a brilliant scientist who had doorknobs that responded well to the "cosmic thrust" and OH NO WE DON'T WANNA KNOW WHAT A "COSMIC THRUST" IS, NORRIN RADD.


Panels from Silver Surfer (1968 series) #5 (April 1969), script by Stan Lee, pencils by John Buscema, inks by Sal Buscema, letters by Sam Rosen

365 Days of KirbyTech, Day 49: Reed Richards' Compu-Beam

Splash page from Silver Surfer (1968 series) #5 (April 1969), script by Stan Lee, pencils by John Buscema, inks by Sal Buscema, letters by Sam Rosen
Reed may call it the Compu-Beam, but I like to say it's the Fantastic Four's Bathroom Alarm.

One Night in Rutland: 1973

Well, maybe I should retitled this feature Two Nights in Rutland. As usual, I bit off more than I could chew last night. B. Kliban put it best when he said



and I might add to that, never promise to blog twenty-five times in a day. So let's spread out these Rutland Halloween Parade posts over the next few days, moving along to 1973's Avengers #119! It kicks off with the Avengers jetting off (past the Giant Moon Knight Weapon Butter Sculpture) to...where else but Rutland, Vermont, while at the same time faithful butler except for that time he sold out all the Avengers to Ultron Edwin Jarvis muses on the World's Mightiest propensity to eat junk food. Really, Jarvis, it's actually just that Thor loves the Happy Meal toys. (The girl toys, oddly enough.)


Panels from Avengers #119 (January 1974), script by Steve Englehart, pencils by Bob Brown, inks by Don Heck, colors by Glynis Wein, letters by Artie Simek

Of course, you can't have a Rutland Halloween Parade story without our old pal Tom Fagan welcoming the Avengers to Rutland, and you can't have a 1970s Marvel comic without a footnote referencing previous Marvel comics books, and, before Roy gets interrupted, almost referencing a DC comic book. That's a big no-no, Roy!



What's this? Tom Fagan, turned evil?!? (Well, his last name is reminiscent of the villain in Oliver Twist!) It's too bad Batman isn't here, because he would have spotted instantly that's not Tom, who does not refer to Rutlanders as "obnoxious townspeople." (Except maybe for that one guy who tried to shut down the Rutland Halloween Parade until he was visited on the night of October 30 by three ghosts.)



No, that's not Tom after all, but a supervillain in a rubber mask! Which isn't silly in and of itself, until we find out that the baddie is The Collector! Yes, folks...The Collector, the Cosmic Super-Hoarder who steals beings from all planets of the galaxy and places them carefully in Mylar™ snugs to preserve their value! Do you think, like a comic book fanboy, he likes to collect variant versions? "Over here I've got Steve Rogers Captain America, and on that wall James Barnes Captain America, and over there in that longbox I've got stored Bob Russo, John Walker, Earth-1610's Scott Summers...and I've got a coverless edition of 'Scar' Turpin."



Yep, that's right: one of the Elders of the Universe. The freakin' most powerful beings in the known galaxies. Guys like...well, you know 'em, let's name them off: The Collector, the Champion, the Grandmaster...um...Ego the Living Planet...er...Mister Buda is one, I think...Giant Space Whoopi Goldberg...The Stranger...The Brother-in-Law...Sam the Butcher...we know them all, right?

Two-page splash page from Silver Surfer v.3 #9 (March 1988), credits as above
(Click picture to Galactusize)

Oh yeah, and that guy, too. Anyway, you're telling me that a being with complete cosmic awareness and galactic-sized power needs to wear a rubber mask? Next you'll be telling me that he hits his victims over the head and drags them into a bush!



Which makes the next scene, where the Collector takes over Tom Fagan's house and plans to kidnap the Avengers when they come to the party all the more awesome when he's foiled by Tom and his legion of costumed Vermonters! I do believe that in the last panel of this comic the Collector will growl that he would have gotten away with it, too, if it wasn't for those meddling Vermonters! (This is a very good reason not to give maple syrup to the Collector as a Life Day present.)



How do you drive a Master of the Universe (no, not that one) mad Lock him in a room with comics fans! It's good the Collector escaped when he did, because next they were all going to play the Marvel Overpower Collectible Card game, and I don't care how many of those cards the Collector has, these guys have got more. Insert your own "Collector...we would have words with thee" speech balloon in the final panel.



So, all's well that ends...oh, wait! I forgot a dangling subplot from earlier in the issue: Thor has brought along to Rutland his villainous brother Loki! (Odin always is saying they don't do enough together.) Loki's brain has been erased after the events of the previous issue, and Thor's been trying to determine what the best and safest place to store this now-harmless Norse god. Thor would have put him in his storage space (with his motorcycle, his guitar, the cinder-block furniture from his first apartment, and his entire collection of Playgod magazines), but he defaulted on the monthly rental fees and the whole kit-and-kaboodle was auctioned off on A&E's Storage Wars. Heimdall was pretty peeved about that: he never got back the poster of Farrah Fawcett-Majors that he lent Thor.

In any case, Thor decides to leave Loki behind in the peaceful, idyllic community of Rutland, Vermont, where nothing wicked or evil ever happens except every single freakin' October 31st. Good going, Thunder God! I'm sure that decision will never come back to bite you in your well-toned, muscled ass!



Some of you may be wondering exactly what happened to Loki after that. Well, he fell in with a local woodsman and his brother, and he was so accepted by this friendly duo that they later adopted him as their own brother. Happy, happy days for Loki...probably the best time he had in his lifespan of the past several thousand years, and it was all up there in beautiful rural Vermont.



Next time: the world's most awkward wink! (No, this comic does not star Clark Kent.)

365 Days with the Warriors Three, Day 293

Panels from The Mighty Thor #6 (November 2011), script by Matt Fraction; pencils by Olivier Coipel; inks by Mark Morales, Cam Smith, and Dexter Vines; colors by Laura Martin; letters by Joe Sabino

Same Story, Different Cover: Everybody's gone surfin', so publish a reprint

L: Silver Surfer #2 (October 1968), cover art by John Buscema and Joe Sinnott
R: Marvel Presents #8 (December 1976), reprinting about half of Silver Surfer #2, cover art by Al Milgrom and Joe Sinnott

(Click picture to Badoon-size)


Now, here's an odd one: same story, different cover, on a very unusual pair of books. Marvel Presents was not a reprint title (issues #1-2 featured Ulysses Bloodstone, issues #3-12 the Guardians of the Galaxy), nor was it even a team-up title: the galaxy being guarded by the...um, Guardians is in the 31st Century; the Surfer's tale takes place in the contemporary times of other Marvel books being published in late '68. Later on we'd find out that the Guardians even exist in a different reality: Earth-691 rather than our familiar 616.

Marvel Presents #8 reprints, within 17 story pages, less than half of the 40-page story "When Lands the Saucer!" from Silver Surfer #2, surrounding it with a couple pages' framing sequence of the Guardians of the Galaxy watching the same story on "Badoon Mento-Corder" (the Betamax of the Milky Way Galaxy). Here's two comparison pages to show you the segue. Note that Surfer is up to story page 12 and Marvel Presents at story page 2...they've already edited out the first 11 pages of the Surfer comic!

L: Page 12 of Silver Surfer #2, script by Stan Lee, pencils by John Buscema, inks by Joe Sinnott, letters by Sam Rosen
R: Page 2 of Marvel Presents #8. Bottom half reprinted from Surfer #2; top half script by Roger Stern, pencils by Al Milgrom, inks by Bob Wiacek, colors by Glynis Wein, letters by Jim Novak

(Click picture to Mento-Corder-size)


And here's how it wraps up: Surfer #2 story page 38 of 40 is mostly reprinted on story page 16 of 17 of Marvel Presents:

Not only a reprint, but there's been a lot cut out of this version. I won't bore you with comparing the two page by page, but I dunno: if I'da spent 30¢ of the allowance money in 1976 (that amounts to approximately $650 in today's currency) and all I got was three new pages of Guardians of the Galaxy and half a reprint of an eight-year old comic book, classic though it may be, I woulda been a little miffed, Bicentennial cheer or no!

And yet, here's Steve Gerber's note on the letters page of Marvel Presents #10 that they got "not one negative letter" on the reprint.



"Not one negative letter." Hmmm, is that the same Marvel office that in '84 received overwhelmingly positive letters on Secret Wars, according to Jim Shooter in Marvel Age #20?



Yeah, I'm gonna cut that off right there before it gets too sappy.

Gerber doesn't give us a specific reason Marvel Presents reprinted Silver Surfer, but I'm guessing it was the usual culprit of those times: The Dreaded Deadline Doom. Right up until the 1980s, Marvel would deal with a behind-schedule monthly or bimonthly comic issue by slating in a fill-in ish or a reprint. At least there was usually, as here, an apology or explanation to the fans about the fill-in or reprint, and then back to business as usual in the next issue, we promise you, True Believer! Well, at least you felt that Marvel was levellin' with ya right there with a mea culpa and an blushing apology. It made you feel like one of the Bullpen itself: not perfect, but trying your best. So, in those days, maybe the occasional reprint wasn't such a horrible thing after all.

Of course, Marvel later solved the dilemma of the Dreaded Deadline Doom with an entirely different solution:


L: Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk #2, cover-dated April 2006
R: Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk #3, cover-dated May 2009

or


L: Daredevil: Father #1, cover-dated June 2004
M:Daredevil: Father #2, cover-dated October 2005
R:Daredevil: Father #5, cover-dated January 2007

or


L: The Twelve #8 of a 12-issue limited series, cover-dated December 2008
R: Issue #9 has not been yet published as of September 2011.

Hmmmmmm. Reprints, anyone?

365 Days with the Warriors Three, Day 207

Panels from Silver Surfer #4 (February 1969), script by Stan Lee, pencils by John Buscema, inks by Sal Buscema, letters by Artie Simek

365 Days with the Warriors Three, Day 124

Panels from Silver Surfer #4 (February 1969), script by Stan Lee, pencils by John Buscema, inks by Sal Buscema, letters by Artie Simek

365 Days with the Warriors Three, Day 70

Panels from Silver Surfer #4 (February 1969), script by Stan Lee, pencils by John Buscema, inks by Sal Buscema, letters by Art Simek

365 Days with the Warriors Three, Day 7

Panels from Silver Surfer #4 (February 1969), script by Stan Lee, pencils by John Buscema, inks by Sal Buscema, letters by Artie Simek

What If...Monty Python Wrote Marvel Comics?

All panels from Silver Surfer #7 (August 1969), script by Stan Lee, pencils by John Buscema, inks by Sal Buscema, letters by Sam Rosen