Today in Comics History, October 24, 20XX: If you follow this logic, Doom shoulda been ruling earth in 2002

from Doctor Doom #2 (Marvel, January 2020), script by Christopher Cantwell, pencils and inks by Salvador Larroca, colors by Guru-eFx, letters by Cory Petit

Today in Comics History, October 8, 1871: The Atom attempts to pin another one of his heinous crimes upon an innocent cow

This is an expanded and updated version of a post originally published October 8, 2014.




from "Suddenly...the Witness Vanished!" in Detective Comics #432 (DC, February 1973), script by Elliot S! Maggin, pencils and inks by Murphy Anderson, letters by Ben Oda

Today in Comics History, April 15, 1986: I dunno, some kind of timey-wimey stuff

from Back to the Future (2015 series) #14, 16, and 17 (IDW, November 2016, January 2017, and February 2017), script by John Barber, pencils and inks by Emma Vieceli, colors by Jose Luis Rio, letters by Shawn Lee

Today in Comics History, April 15, 1912: "Hello, I'm the Titanic! You may remember me from such blog features as last's month's 'Liberty Bell March.'"

from Time Bandits #1 one-shot (February 1982), script by Steve Parkhouse, pencils by David Lloyd, inks by John Stokes, colors by Don Warfield, letters by Irving Watanabe
(Here, to be specific. Where you can read more about the Time Bandits comic!)

Liberty Bell March, Day 22: Midnight sunshine, silent thunder, sky as black as day...only a dream away

In the 1980s, during the last few years before the arrival of the VHS and Beta videocassettes, Marvel put out a lot of comics in the genre that would soon mostly killed off: the movie adpatation comic book. They ranged from the extraordinary (Dune and...um...surely some others I'll think of later) to the forgettable (Raiders of the Lost Ark, Dragonslayer, For Your Eyes Only, Blade Runner, Howard the Duck, Buckaroo Banzai, Annie, The Muppets Take Manhattan, 2010, Willow, Xanadu (really?), Dark Crystal, Sheena, Masters of the Universe, Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night (huh.), House II...) A genre of comic that had worked pretty well in the 1950s and 60s for Dell and Gold Key (especially in their Walt Disney movie adaptations) became passé when you could see the movie again later whenever you wanted on chunky VHS. You could5 really see Marvel throwing everything against the wall, hoping for another Star Wars-sized hit.

Still, during this period they published what I think is the only collaboration between Marvel and Monty Python...sort of. Time Bandits (1981) is not an official Python film, but it's pretty close, with script and direction by Terry Gilliam, appearances by John Cleese and Michael Palin (who also co-wrote the script), and it's produced by HandMade Films, the closest thing there is to an official Python movie studio, having been founded by George Harrison (yes, that one!) and Denis O'Brien to finance Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Today in Comics History, March 18, 1884: I got to double back again, double back again

Today's Today in Comics History comics history today (well, you know what I mean) doesn't begin on March 18th, but it winds up there eventually and momentarily. Confused? then you ought to have guessed it's another time-travelling with the original DeLorean DMC-12 — accept no ready player substitutes — in yet another alternate universal twist on Back to the Future, Part II! The one with two Marties.

All-around no-good-nik Biff Tannen is poised to take over the world...well, at least, become President of the United States, and you can't even conceive how wrong time would be if we elected to that prestigious office an orange-haired butthead. It's sometime in mid-1986, and Biff has captured Marty and Doc Brown and Doc's in-between-the-realities time machine. Biff orders Doc to set the TM™ for June 1, 1996 (and now you know which panel you can expect to see in this feature two-and-a-half months from now) so he can clean up in the stock market. Doc fiddles with the knobs and Biff steps into the time machine, which looks like a refrigerator. After all, if you're gonna build a time machine, why not make it cool?


from Back to the Future: Biff to the Future #6 (IDW, July 2017), story and script by Bob Gale and Derek Fridolfs, pencils by Alan Robinson, inks by Alan Robinson and Jaime Castro, colors by Maria Santaolalla, letter by Shawn Lee
Say, do you know what happened in Hill Valley, California, on March 18, 1884? me, I woulda guessed it was the date of Z.Z. Top's first single hitting the charts:


But no, it's not, and Doctor Emmett Brown knows exactly what happens at noon on March 18, 1884, as he very cleverly noted in the Biff Tannen Museum only (flips through pages in confusion) one issue before!


from Back to the Future: Biff to the Future #5 (IDW, June 2017), story and script by Bob Gale and Derek Fridolfs, pencils by Alan Robinson, inks by Alan Robinson and Jaime Castro, colors by Maria Santaolalla, letter by Shawn Lee
So it's clear that Doc's actually sent Biff back in time to 3/18/(18)84 and not back to the future of 6/1/(19)96. Placing Biff squarely in the middle of...


from Back to the Future: Biff to the Future #6
So, four minutes later, when Doc's microwave pizza is done the automatic retreval system on the time machine brings Biff Tannen back (as we say) to the future...


Time travel, ladies and gentlemen. It's confusing, but it usually works out in the end. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go watch President Clinton give her weekly press conference. Join me, won't you?

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!

Today in Comics History, July 28, 1962: All Hail Lord Emperor Doom, Master of This Comics Blog

Heel, dogs! And kneel before the person of the Almighty and Ever-Powerful Doom, Master of the World, of your fate, and of this puny cow's comics blog! Most certainly you remember that upon July 20, 1962 — well before the arrival of the accursed Fantastic Four, Doom cares not what the cover date of their first comic says — Squirrel Girl arrived from the future year of 2016, followed thereafter by Doom himself and Squirrel Girl's sidekick (but everyone knew her as Nancy). It was therefore mere child's play for one like Doom to manipulate the time/space continuum to become the Emperor of the World! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Witness the charnges to the timeline that shall forever signal the Age of Doom!



from The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl (December 2015 series) #3 (February 2016), script by Ryan North, pencils and inks by Erica Henderson, color by Rico Renzi, letters by Travis Lanham
Witness the splendor of Planet Doom!



from The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl (December 2015 series) #4 (March 2016), script by Ryan North, pencils and inks by Erica Henderson, color by Rico Renzi, letters by Travis Lanham
Ah ha ha ha ha ha! Doom is triumphant! Doom shall forever reign! No one can defeat Doom, for no one is powerful enough to battle me! No enemy is


Oh, crap.

Today in Comics History, July 20, 1962: Squirrel Girl finally finds a way to write off her purchase of that Back to the Future DVD on her taxes

Squirrel Girl has disappeared! Her friend Nancy Whitehead (who is a redhead) is looking for her. And since she's not the Unfindable Squirrel Girl, there's an obvious clue right in front of Nancy's nose:


from The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl (December 2015 series) #2 (Marvel, January 2016), script by Ryan North, pencils and inks by Erica Henderson, color by Rico Renzi, letters by Clayton Cowles
Meanwhile Thenwhile, back on July 20, 1962, Squirrel Girl is hiding a secret message to the future! (uture uture uture)


Well, that was easy!

Not quite as easy: Nancy finding a way to go back in ti...oh, here's Dictor Doom and his patented Time Platform™. Well, that also was easy!


Panels from The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl (December 2015 series) #3 (February 2016), script by Ryan North, pencils and inks by Erica Henderson, color by Rico Renzi, letters by Travis Lanham
You can pick up the story again on July 28th! Bring your nuts.

Today in Comics History, April 18, 1938: A little less talk, a little more Action

from "Emmett Brown Visits the Future" in Back to the Future (2015 series) #4 (IDW, January 2016), story by Bob Gale and Erik Burnham, script by Bob Gale, pencils and inks by Erik Evensen, colors by Jose Luis Rio, letter by Shawn Lee
So which easily-obtainable, high-increase-in-investment resource did Doc bring back from 1938? Well, whaddaya think?


Well...wouldn't you?

Today in Comics History, April 15, 1912: Jughead joins the sixty-two other time travellers on board the Titanic

from "Unstuck in Time!" in Archie Giant Series Magazine #602 [The World of Jughead] (Archie, October 1989), script by Rich Margopoulos, pencils by Doug Crane, inks by Tom Moore, colors by Barry Grossman, letters by Bill Yoshida
"There's no Mr. Jones on our passenger list."

Today in Comics History, April 1, 1992: A harmless little April Fool's prank goes horribly, horribly wrong

So, what could possibly happen when Jules and Verne Brown decide to play a little gentle April Fool's Day trick on their dad, "Reverend" Jim Ignatowski "Doc" Emmett Brown, who just so happens to have invented the time machine and knows a thing or two about thinking fourth dimensionally, huh? Pretty innocent, right? What's the worst that could happen?


from Back to the Future (1991 series) #4 (Harvey, June 1992), story by Peyton Reed and Mark Cowen; adapted by Dwayne McDuffie; penciks, inks, colors, and letters by Nelson Dewey
Well, this is what happened. Are we all laughing now, Jules and Verne? Is it oh so funny that the fabric of time and space got pretty much destroyed, huh? Is it just a harmless prank for you to enjoy anymore? Are you not entertained?



Why don't they look? Why don't they look?!?


from Age of Ultron #10 (Marvel, August 2013), script by Brian Michael Bendis, pencils and inks by oh, take your pick, colors by Paul Mounts and Richard Isanove, letters by Cory Petit
So, if the next time machine I stop happens to be yours...don't tell me that you were speeding a little, only breaking the law a little...only doing something a little bit wrong, save that for somebody else, brother! Because I've seen too many "little bit" follies, and they end up a little bit dead! Now I'm gonna grab me a little bit of lunch!


Also: DON'T DATE ROBOTS!

Today in Comics History, February 14, 1973: Peter Parker forgets to buy Gwen Stacy a Valentine's Day present; warps time and space to fix it

from Marvel Team-Up (Marvel, 1972 series) #10 (June 1973), script by Gerry Conway, pencils by Jim Mooney, inks by Frank Giacoia, colors by Stan Goldberg, letters by Charlotte Jetter

Today in Comics History, October 12 (Let's Poke Fun at Columbus Day Special): The Absolutely True Diary of a Brooklyn Indian

Let's join America's favorite comic books characters as they travel through time and meet Christopher Columbus!







from the Doc and Fatty story "See America Foist!" in World's Finest Comics #41 (DC, July 1949), pencils and inks by Howard Sherman