365 Days of KirbyTech, Day 78: Captain Okada's Sea-Dragon

The portrayals of Japanese sailors in this WWII-era Captain America comic are offensive and racist in their depiction. They are presented here as a historical document of a 1941 Golden Age comic book within the context of its contemporary history and perceptions of the time.


Panel from "The Gruesome Secret of the Dragon of Death!" in Captain America Comics #5 (August 1941), script and art by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby

365 Days of DC House Ads, Day 129

House ad for Batman #203 (August 1968); printed in The Adventures of Jerry Lewis #107 (July-August 1968)
Comic cover art: pencils and inks by Neal Adams, letters by Gaspar Saladino (?)
Ad designed and lettered by Gaspar Saladino
And now...The Blueprints of Batman!

Batcave '48!

Panel from "The 1000 Secrets of the Batcave!" in Batman #203, originally published in Batman #48 (August-September 1948), script by Bill Finger, pencils and inks by Jim Mooney, letters by Ira Schnapp

The Batplane II!

Panel from "The Birth of Batplane II!" in Batman #203, originally published in Batman #61 (October-November 1950), script by David Vern Reed, pencils by Dick Sprang, inks by Charles Paris, letters by Ira Schnapp

Batcave '68!

Right: "Secrets of the Batcave—1968" two-page spread in Batman #203, artists unknown
(Click picture to giant-penny-size)

In this story, Batman is hobbled by his own sense of honesty and honor. Never make a deal with a criminal, Batman! Never make a deal!


Panel from "The Flying Bat-Cave!" in Batman #203, originally published in Detective Comics #186 (August 1952), script by David Vern Reed (?), Batman and Robin figure pencils by Bob Kane, all other pencils by Lew Sayre Schwartz, inks by Charles Paris

Batman is nothing if not pedantic. He won't set foot in Gotham for a week, thanks to the...

FLYING BAT-CAVE

Batman has made the Flying Bat-Cave so much like home. How much like home has he made the Flying Bat-Cave?

HE BROUGHT ALONG THE GIANT PENNY

And why did he bring along the giant penny?

BECAUSE, THIS

And now

THE ROGUES GALLERY OF BATMAN #203

PUTTYFACE

THE SCOWLER

ACE HARDWARE CONSTRUCTION-LEVEL HEAD

FAMOUS LAST WORDS GUY

So: Batman #203, won't you?

We'll draw a blueprint, it must be easy

Blueprints! You know 'em, you love 'em, and you use 'em to utterly destroy that pesky, meddling Superman. (Last applies to Earth-2 Lex Luthor only). Continuing Comics Oughta Be Fun!'s feature on blueprint and plans that actually appear within comic book stories (one of a series, collect 'em all!) And what's even more fun, you can make 'em all! So, get together your hammer, your phillips screwdriver, thirty thousand square feet of lumber, your Radio Shack Electronic Learning Lab, a spot welder, several discarded Iron Man armors, and very soon within the confines of your own basement you'll be creating a Sentinel or a set of Falcon wings or maybe a keen new hideout for you and all your pals! Just remember the first rule of safety...lock the door to the Negative Zone while you work so Ben and Johnny don't interrupt you by letting Blastaar and Annihilus free! (Really, seriously, that's one's very important.)



You too can talk to the ants, with your own patented Hank Pym Giant-Man helmet. (Say, why won't it let you talk to the giants?) Just don't wear it too long...it'll make you wasp-slappin' crazy!

Panel from Avengers #2 (November 1963), script by Stan Lee, pencils by Jack Kirby, inks by Paul Reinman, letters by Artie Simek



Here's a trio of blueprints from the swingin'est super-spy of the seventies...Colonel Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.*! (What, you were expecting Bart Fargo? Phil Moscowitz? Would you believe...Neil Connery?) First up: the secret underground lair of HYDRA! (Not pictured: barracks, galley, billiard hall, or Viper's "ready room.") Hey, is this gonna be on the test? Stan says yes, it is! So trying getting into the university of your choice without knowing this, buster!

Panel from Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD #15 (November 1969), plot and dialogue by Gary Friedrich, plot by Herb Trimpe, plot and script by Dick Ayers, pencils by Herb Trimpe and Dick Ayers, inks by Sam Grainger, letters by Jean Izzo
(Click picture to Burj Dubai-size)



Coming in at #515 in the 5,000 Hats of Jack Kirby, it's a cutaway diagram of Nick Fury's Amazing Rear View Hat! Costing over ten million dollars in research and development, this chapeau de subterfuge allows Nick to see who or what is coming up behind him, allowing him to kung fu their sorry butts from here back to Moscow, comrade! Or, I s'pose, he could just, um, turn around and look.

Panels from Strange Tales #137 (October 1965), script by Stan Lee, layouts and plot by Jack Kirby, finishes and inks by John Severin, letters by Artie Simek



And here's another HYDRA secret base...one that's liable to tick off the Sub-Mariner and his finny friends big time, because it involves a fake cruise ship, an underwater flying saucer, an underground soundproofed tunnel, and, for reasons I can't quite figure out at the moment, over 72,000 Arby's Beef and Cheddar sandwiches. I dunno why, but heck, they're such a super-succesful criminal organization, there's gotta be a good reason!

Panel from Strange Tales #141 (February 1966), script by Stan Lee, plot and pencils by Jack Kirby, inks by Frank Giacoia, letters by Sam Rosen
(Click picture to hydra-size)



Not so much a blueprint, more a radioactive-enhanced radar-sensed sonar x-ray-o-gram of the brownstone headquarters occupied by Matt Murdock (you 'n' me know him as the blind-as-a-bat Daredevil!) All corners are heavily padded with foam rubber and even the TV has a specially raised braille screen so DD can kick back and enjoy touching that week's episode of Mannix. Remember: cut this panel out and save it...here too, there may be a test later! Whoops! Did you just ruin your comic's future resale value? Don't worry, folks...it was only pre-Miller Daredevil...you ain't gettin' a dime either way! Haw!

Panel from Daredevil #128 (December 1975), script by Marv Wolfman, breakdowns by Bob Brown, finishes and inks by Klaus Janson, colors by Michele Wolfman, letters by Joe Rosen



Finally, let's take a dimensional hop, a universal skip, and a jump one thousand years into the future to examine the space cruiser of the Legion of Super-Heroes using Ultra Boy's suggestively named penetra-vision. (So-called because Kal-El once beat the tar out of him in the Legion's locker room for using the trademark term 'x-ray vision'.) It's not quite the starship Enterprise and not quite a Klingon cruiser...it's a completely new design totally from the original minds of the 1970s DC (there's no stopping them now!) Please note that despite Brainiac-5's objections, the Legion Cruiser has been installed with a "human needs" section. So they could poop.

Panel from Superboy starring the Legion of Super-Heroes #219 (September 1976), script by Jim Shooter from a suggestion by Ken Klaczak, pencils and inks by Mike Grell
(Click picture to Shooter-size)


So. Blueprints. What have we learned? Well, that when they're in comic books, they ain't blue.


*Surely He Intended Everybody Loves the Designs

Where's Uatu?

Here's a buncha blueprints (or, more technically, architectural views) of famous (and not-so-famous) landmarks in the Marvel Universe. Please gape and gaze to your heart's content. But I didn't just put these here out of the goodness of my little red satin heart, oh no sirree! Let's make a Mighty Marvel Scavenger Hunt outta it, shall we?

In the best tradition of Martin Handford, get out your magnifying glass (be careful not to fry Ant-Man, willya please?) and see if you can find:

• Tabletop TV screen
• The Scarlet Witch
• 2 thumbtacks
• Sky-hooks
• Asbestos bed
• The world's tallest punching bag
• Countless tapes, films, and books
• Insulated doorknob
• Honeycombed halls
• Edwin Jarvis
• Honey ants
• Water-filled elevator shaft
• Chandelier
• Undersea maps
• Solar flare device
• Tony Stark's snazzy roadster
• The Invisible Girl
• A very tiny garbage heap
• The Transformers' slogan
• The severed head of Janet van Dyne
• A compliment by Roy Thomas

Giant-Man's Penthouse HQ, from Tales to Astonish #59 (September 1964), script by Stan Lee, pencils by Dick Ayers, inks by Paul Reinman, letters by Sam Rosen
Click image to Bill Fostersize



The Ani-Men's HQ, from Daredevil #10 (October 1965), but this recolored version is from the reprint in Daredevil Annual #2 (February 1971), script, pencils, and inks by Wally Wood, additional pencils by Bob Powell, letters by Artie Simek
Click image to Foggysize



Johnny Storm's bedroom in Glendale, from Strange Tales #101 (October 1962), plot by Stan Lee, script by Larry Lieber, pencils by Jack Kirby, inks by Dick Ayers, colors by Stan Goldberg, letters by Artie Simek
Click image to asbestosize



The Sentinels' "Anthill" hideout, from Avengers #104 (October 1972), script by Roy Thomas, art by Rich Buckler, inks by Joe Sinnott, letters by John Costanza



A real ant hill, from Tales to Astonish #62 (December 1964), script by Stan Lee, pencils by Carl Burgos, inks by Dick Ayers, letters by Artie Simek



Saved the best for last: Avengers Mansion, from Avengers Annual #1 (September 1967), script by Roy Thomas, pencils by Don Heck, inks by George Roussos
Click image to Tony Stark's bank-book-size

Didja find 'em all, every single one of them? Of course you did! Give yourself a Bull-Prize!
Didn't find the Invisible Girl? She's in the corridor outside Johnny's room! How can you tell? Because big sisters are snoops.
Looking for more maps and blueprints of the Marvel Universe? Here's Peter Parker's World and the Fantastic Four's Baxter Building HQ!

The Amazing Spider-Maps

Over the past forty-six years (46! Gosh, Pete's old), the world of Spider-Man has been chronicled in the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man, Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man, Marvel Team-Up, Web of Spider-Man, Everybody Loves Spider-Man, Spider-Man Episode II: Attack of the Clones, Gossip Gwen, and many other fine Marvel Comics publications. But even for a visual medium, it's sometimes hard to picture the setting of Spidey's many amazing (spectacular, webbish) adventures in and around Manhattan, New York, the place so nice they named it...Manhattan.

Once in a great while, however, Stan, Steve, JR and the gang o' Bullpen Buddies at Marvel flesh out the New York City of Pete Parker and his pleasant pals and Spider-Friends by providing us, the gentle readers, with maps or views of where ol' Pete lives, works, hangs out, or watches the love of his life plummet from a bridge. Hop on the F train of Earth-616 and journey with us now to the Manhattan of Spider-Man:


Click on any image to Man-Mountain Marko-size 'em
Don't use this map of Manhattan island from Amazing Spider-Man Annual #5 to get around town...not only is the print really, really small and the streets not marked, you also risk driving right into the giant Gwen Stacy head somewhere in the East River. (Although, running into Gwen Stacy...say, I don't see the downside of that!)



Peter Parker grew up with his Aunt May and his Uncle Dead Ben in the Queens suburb of Forest Hills, right down the street from Burt Bacharach, Carol Channing, Michael Landon, Ray Romano, Art Buchwald, and a guy by the name of Stan Lee, whose house Li'l Petey once egged. He also lived near Paul Simon, who was so impressed with the young whippersnapper that he later wrote a song called "Me and Pete Parker Down By the Schoolyard," although he was later convinced to change the title by his good pal Julio Iglesias. Here's where Pete lived with Aunt May in Forest Hills, where every morning the home was filled with the delicious scent of fresh-made wheatcakes, which went a long way to cover up the lingering smell of gunfire cordite.



Every Spider-Boy must become a Spider-Man, and later on when Peter moved into Manhattan his with pal Harry Osborn, the squarest-lookin' teen in the world, they shacked up together shared this swingin' bachelor pad from Amazing Spider-Man Annual #4. Chez Osborn/Parker was full of hot and cold running chicks and microscopes and an impressive amount of closet space for Peter to hide his Spider-Jammies and Harry to keep his Green Goblin suit. Oh, the fun those two had on laundry day when their outfits would get mixed up! They laffed and laffed and laffed. Later on, Harry died, but then Peter sold his wife to the devil and Harry came back, so that's okay.



Here's Pete's solo apartment from Amazing Spider-Man Annual #13, which the caption tells us is located at "410 Chelsea St....right off 8th Ave." Well, Google map detectives, there ain't no Chelsea Street in Manhattan (there's one in Staten Island, but that's a heckuva commute for a guy who seldom rides the Staten Island ferry). Let's assume the Merry Marvel Marching Society really meant that PP lives in Chelsea off 8th Ave., and since 23rd Street's smack-dab in the middle of Chelsea, let's guess that Pete hunkered down on 23rd Street. No. 410 W 23rd Street would put him closer to Ninth than Eighth Avenue, but what the heck—slapping Casa Parker on Twenty-Third means that during the seventies, he's on the same block at the famous Chelsea Hotel, and you know what that means: Marvel Team-Up featuring Spider-Man, Sid Vicious, and Nancy Spungen!



Also in ASM Annual #13, here's a look at the offices of everybody's favorite fish-wrapper, The Daily Bugle, where the paper's motto is "A 'Spider-Man: Threat or Menace' story in every issue, or the next one's free!" (Also: "You may have already won a million dollars in the Bugle's Triple-J Lottery!") During this time, however, May Parker's little boy Petey had smartened up a bit and gone to work for the Bugle's leading competitor, a great metropolitan newspaper whose editor-in-chief can't seem to notice that his bespectacled star reporter is actually...wait a minute, I got confused. The Globe is the muckracking tabloid that busted wide the story that blind attorney Matt Murdock is actually the superhero Daredevil, and also that Lindsay Lohan is a Skrull advance scout intent on conquering and devouring the entire human species. One of these stories was later proven to be false.



ASM Annual #13 also peeks in on Pete's college alma mater, Empire State University, home of the Fightin' Clones. Pete's college woes were lightened by dating the vivacious and sultry Deborah Whitman, a firebrand of a foxy lady who had a reputation as a wildcat and a hellraiser. Well, that's the way Peter tells it, and if he doesn't want to admit he actually got those clawmarks on his back during a fight with a supervillain guy named Puma, let's let him have his little fantasies.



Remember how we found out, through the cunning use of maps, that the Parker apartment in Annual #13 wasn't all that it was cracked up to be? Well, with lightning speed and the swiftness of Pietro Maximoff, two years later Marvel Comics admitted their error and published the real Parker-Pad in Amazing Spider-Man Annual #15. Just as the Batcave had its giant penny, big dinosaur, and stuffed Jason Todd, Pete's secret hideout (never discovered by the female sex in all the years he lived there), contained the traditional cigar store indian, Burma Shave slogan sign, and the very first prototype of Big Mouth Billy Bass, the electronic talking toy that Peter created during an aimless weekend and later sold the rights to Wham-O for the sum of sixteen million dollars. Sadly, he blew his fortune that very evening when Aunt May sent Pete down to Gristede's to pick up a quart of milk but instead returned with a handful of magic beans. I've said it before about Peter Parker and I'll say it again: the boy ain't right.


Can't get enough Super Sugar Crisp maps of Marvel's Manhattan? Check out these non-Bully but still pretty cool webpages on the Official Map of NYC's Spider-Man Week, Wizard magazine's Guide to Marvel's Manhattan, or this clever juxtaposition of the buildings of Manhattan on Earth-616 and Earth-1218 (look it up, fanboys).

Just remember, whichever one you use, choose wisely: everybody needs a map sometimes.

Our house is a very very very fine house/With a portal to the Negative Zone on the thirty-fourth floor...

Sure, most of us have photo albums of our house. Some of us might even have lovely oil paintings of our baronial estates. But how many of us have blueprints of where we live regularly published in comic books? Unless your last name is Richards, Storm, or Grimm...then not you, bub!


From Fantastic Four #3 (March 1962), art by Jack Kirby



From Fantastic Four #6 (September 1962), art by Jack Kirby



From Fantastic Four Annual #1 (1963), art by Jack Kirby



From Fantastic Four #201 (December 1978), art by Keith Pollard and Joe Sinnott



From Fantastic Four #249 (December 1982), art by John Byrne




From The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe #4 (April 1983), art by Eliot R. Brown


Remember: save this post for future reference!...

...just in case you're ever lucky enough to visit the fabulous Baxter Building in beautiful midtown Manhattan: