John Wayne, that is, as portrayed in The 'Nam, Marvel's pretty-provocative saga of an active-duty unit in the Vietnam War, following characters as they moved in an out of their military rotations.
Panel from The 'Nam #41 (February 1990), script by Doug Murray, pencils by Wayne Vansant,
inks by Geof Isherwood, colors and letters by Phil Felix
The cast of The 'Nam held Wayne's 1968 movie The Green Berets in about as much regard as did Roger Ebert...
"The Green Berets" simply will not do as a film about the war in Vietnam. It is offensive not only to those who oppose American policy but even to those who support it. At this moment in our history, locked in the longest and one of the most controversial wars we have ever fought, what we certainly do not need is a movie depicting Vietnam in terms of cowboys and Indians. That is cruel and dishonest and unworthy of the thousands who have died there.... If I were a soldier in Vietnam, I would not want to be represented by "The Green Berets." I would not want my fellow citizens to think I was as stupid and simple-minded as the Americans in this film.
...which is, none at all. It's one of the most reviled of John Wayne's films.
Despite his mention, I'm pretty sure that's not s'posed to be George Takei's character in the panel below (see stills from the movie for comparison), so I can't claim him as one of the celebrities appearing in this comic book.
However, we can add to the tally of real-life persons in comics this appearance of North Vietnam President Ho Chi Minh, if we count political figures, which I do (and will later throughout this feature!).
Except holy cow I don't remember the Marvel Superheroes breaking up the Vietnam War! Good thing it's just a fantasy sequence brought on by grunt Mike "Iceman" Phillips reading a contemporary Marvel comic book.
Which hey, allows me to also classify this post as another entry in Comics within Comics! Iceman, of course, was reading the special edition of FF #60 with the "censored" brown background specially printed for servicemen.
Cover of Fantastic Four (1961 series) #60 (March 1967), pencils by Jack Kirby, inks by Joe Sinnott, colors by Stan Goldberg, letters by Sam Rosen
Altho' they reversed the policy to later include The Punisher in The 'Nam comics, Marvel was at first dead-set on insisting the stories took place in the "real world" and not the Marvel Universe, which is why the cover to this issue comes as such a surprise:
Cover of The 'Nam (February 1990), pencils by John Romita Sr. and Ron Frenz; inks by John Romita Sr.
Such a surprise that even the corner box was flabbergasted!
And no, it didn't even take place during Assistant Editor's Month.
from D.P. 7 #21 (Marvel/New Universe, July 1988), script by Mark Gruenwald, pencils by Paul Ryan, inks by Danny Bulanadi, colors by Paul Becton, letters by Janice Chiang
Panels from Powerless #6 (January 2005), script by Matt Cherniss and Peter Johnson, pencils and inks by Michael Gaydos, colors by Lee Loughridge, letters by Dave Sharpe
Showcase! The classic DC comic that began as a "you requested it" anthology with firefighters (#1) and frogmen (#3) until it hit on its successful formula with The Flash in #4, kicking off the entire Silver Age of Comics. From that point on Showcase was the four-color tryout home of characters and features to see if they could support their own books. Before they had regular comic books of their own, Lois Lane, Challengers of the Unknown, Green Lantern, Rip Hunter, Sea Devils, Atom, Metal Men, the Spectre, the Creeper, Anthro, Angel and the Ape, Bat Lash, and the Hawk and the Dove all had feature premieres in Showcase!
And then there were the other kind of Showcase features...the fugitive kind, who never developed into a series, altho' in some cases they're still a minor part of the DC Universe, trotted out every now an then for a Crisis or two. Top Gun! No, not Tom Cruise, but a western. Firehair, another western, was a white man raised by the Indians saga (by Joe Kubert). Nightmaster, who never got his own series but at least has popped up in Shadowpact. in recent years. Private eye Jonny Double! ("Born to Trouble!") And even Ian Fleming's James Bond's Doctor No's movie's adaptation reprinted from a UK issue of Classics Illustrated.
But then there were characters pretty much lost to history, doomed forever to The Land of Cancelled Heroes. For example, pretty much nobody remembers The Maniaks, a three-issue Showcase tryout right at the tail end of the hip, gear, and fab "Go-Go Checks" era of DC. This comedy feature starred a teen rock band which we'd now consider reminiscent of The Archies, but they premiered nearly a year before Arch, Jug, Ronnie, Bet and Reg got together with two guitars, a drum kit, and a tambourine. By Showcase #71, the Maniaks's third and final try-out issue, the Powers That Be The Distinguished Competition put in a special guest star, presumably to goose sales, much in the way beloved Maltese children's character Goosio would do. DC took a daring and offbeat approach and brought in what could probably be truthfully described as the most unexpected guest star of them all. Yes, it's everybody's favorite 1970s comedy nebbish, 1980s not-as-funny-as-he-used-to-be, and 1990s accused sex predator, Woody Allen! By kind permission of the City of New York, I guess.
Cover of Showcase (1956 series) #71 [The Maniaks] (November-December 1967), pencils by Mike Sekowsky, inks by Mike Esposito, letters by Ira Schnapp
Hey, hey, we're the Maniaks! Four crazy kids with exactly one defining characteristic each,, at least one of them kinda offensive for a female protagonist of a comic book. And then there's Woody Allen, fresh off his career-defining writing debut What's New, Pussycat and writer/director of What's New, Tiger Lily?, without which we probably wouldn't have Mystery Science Theater 3000. Also, for some reason, there's an expy (or "generic celebrity") of 1960s super-slim British supermodel Twiggy (here called "Twiggly"), so we won't be counting her. Also appearing: ladders, and the Maniaks's gimmick of singing their songs to the tune of another, so we can imagine what the melody would be. And they're all here on a stage that's tilted about thirty-five degrees up!
Splash page from Showcase (156 series) #71 [The Maniaks] (November-December 1967), script by E. Nelson Bridwell, pencils by Mike Sekowsky, inks by Mike Esposito
Woody has come to the kids with his new play, a can't-miss sure-hit never-fail musical set during the Civil War and threatening to do for Robert E. Lee what The Producers did for Adolph Hitler. Again, don't forget that the band's female singer Silver Shannon is only interested in money, because it only tells us twice on this page. Sheesh, lady, go hang out with The Green Team, why doncha!
Here's some other characters introduced and quickly forgotten until they have to appear as stock background characters in the musical. "Rock Hutsut" is not even a proper expy of Rock Hudson, but at least "Twiggly" looks like Twiggy. Is that visual foreshortening, is is Twiggly only twelve inches tall? Well, she's only twelve inches wide, at least.
I can't imagine that at the time, a Venn diagram of DC Comics readers and those who had seen Woody's 1960s nightclub stand-up routines would include many more people than E. Nelson Bridwell. Thanks to retrospective, of course, and my much-played copy of the re-release of his routines on LP in 1978, when I first read Showcase #71 as a back issue I immediately recognized the comic's flashback...
...was a repurposed routine from Woody's stand-up act.
Man, I sure hope Nelson Bridwell gave a small portion of his salary to Woody Allen for this page of plot, sadly the only genuinely humorous part of the comic.
Hey look, another generic celeb, this time one of Allen's admitteed comic infuences, Groucho Marx! There's lots of Marx expys in comics (most notably a running gag character in The Defenders and the lovingly-detailed Count Julius in Dave Sims's Cerebus, before he went completely off the rails (Dave, not Groucho Marx).
Oh Silver: big box offices, is that all you can think of? And here, for no added expense, is a panel I'll feature later this year on October 21 in "Today in Comics History!" It's the comic book that keeps on giving!
The second part of the comic is the musical itself, populated with songs sung to the tune of another. This was a frequent MAD magazine trick (I hold MAD #203's "The MAD Star Wars Musical" in great esteem), but the Maniaks treatment of the same tricky trope talls falls flat because the lyrics just aren't that funny. You can accuse Woody Allen of a lot, but being just not that funny in the late '60s isn't one of them.
There's nothing like a good tune. And that was nothing like a good tune! And here's two more!
Is the play a hit success? A failure? Will it do boffo at the box or mediocre in the mezzanine? Ehhh, the story tells us right out, that doesn't matter. And we won't find out! Instead it wraps up with the kids kickin' out fourth-wall and telling the readers to BUY MORE DC COMICS and write in with their opinions of The Maniaks. Did you dig it, hep cat, or is it the squarest thing since your Dad brought you home a Burl Ives album?
We never saw any of the letters pro- or con-Maniaks (Showcase of that era seldom printed letter columns), but I'm pretty sure the fan reaction to and sell-through of Showcase numbers 68, 69, and 71 was not so much manikial but more meh. The Maniaks didn't get their own comic book and didn't even show up during the Crisis on Infinite Earths, Woody Allen also didn't get his own comic book...but he did star in a comic strip, Inside Woody Allen, syndicated from 1976 to 1984. The strip's recently been reprinted in a nice big volume Since Inside Woody Allen was distributed by King Features Syndicate, he must be in the Flash Gordon/Mandrake the Magician/The Phantom Extended Universe, and I expect Woody to make an appearance any day now in an issue of Dynamite Comics's King, teaming up with Dagwood Bumstead, Mark Trail, and terminal bring-down Funky Winkerbean.
But the Maniaks (established as existing in the DC Universe through a crossover character with The Inferior Five) were not completely forgotten...at least not by Kurt Busiek, who never forgets anything about comic books. Silver Shannon, cash-obsessed lead singer of the Maniaks, pops up in The Power Company as the secretary of team owner Josiah Power.
Panels from The Power Company #3 (June 2002), script by Kurt Busiek, pencils by Tom Grummett, inks by Prentis Rollins and Christian Alamy, colors by Alex Sinclair, letters by Comicraft
Note the poster for that Broadway show hung behind Silver's desk, and the photo of the other three Maniaks behind her (why wasn't she in that picture?). Also, and you can't say this often in comics: Silver has aged. This can only be explained by John Byrne's suggestion (about Timely's Blonde Phantom) that in comics you only age when you're not appearing in comics.
He rounded out her character, but Kurt Busiek didn't forget Silver's gold-digging propensities.
Panels from The Power Company #4 (July 2002), script by Kurt Busiek, pencils by Tom Grummett, inks by Prentis Rollins, colors by Alex Sinclair, letters by Comicraft
Busiek even let Silver save the day at the end of the series, a cancelled-too-soon #18.
In the end, we know what happened to Woody Allen, and enjoying his work can what we call these days "problematic" at best. But what of the Maniaks? Do they have any legacy in the DCU? Does anybody remember them? Well...yeah.
Panel from The Power of Shazam! #48 (March 2010), script by Eric Wallace, pencils by Don Kramer, inks by Michael Babinski, colors by Jonathan D. Smith, letters by Rob Leigh
The World's Greatest Band. Huh. They made it after all.
Make thy two burgers, like meatballs, start from their casserole,
Thy ground and minced beef to bake
And with sauce of Worcestershireworshire,
Spike rice into the oven porpentine.
Gourmets and gourmands and gourmetinas, may I present to you, overlooked by the kindness of grapes and their special cameo guest-star the teapot, Mama Bull's famous Oven Porcupines.
...which are meatballs and rice in tomato sauce. Makes 4 to 6 servings, or, in our family, 12 to 72.
Hey, what's Charles Bronson doing popping up in the middle of the Sin-Eater saga, a Spider-Man story about a killer vigilante with a death wish...oh.
Panel from Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man #108 (November 1985); script by Peter David; pencils by Rich Buckler; inks by Brett Breeding, Joe Rubinstein, Kyle Baker, and Pat Redding; colors by George Roussos, letters by Phil Felix
Panels from Avengers (1998 series) #22 (November 1999), script by Kurt Busiek, pencils by George Pérez, inks by Al Vey, colors by Tom Smith, letters by Richard Starkings
An atmospheric page featuring long-time CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite, as depicted by Gene Colan. Can you guess what series it's from before you check the credits below?
Panels from Daredevil (1964 series) #70 (November 1970), script by Gary Friedrich, pencils by Gene Colan, inks by Syd Shores, colors by Mimi Gold (?), letters by Sam Rosen
I think I've figgered out how to get away with calling it a week well before the weekend: with Filling up Fridays: Fine Flashback Fosts Posts, re-presenting some of my favorite Comics Oughta Be Fun! entries that you might not have seen, or would enjoy seeing again! Anyway, because I have to go to bed early, I'm re-presenting a Bully classic originally published on June 21, 2011! (I was six then.)
All redheads look alike. It's true! Here's proof: two absolutely identical-looking photographs placed side-by-side for your confusion:
You might find it hard to believe, but these two photographs are actually of different people! That's not the same person at all, but actually Karen Gillan and Willie Nelson! Or maybe Willie Nelson and Karen Gillan. Let me keep looking at them to see if I can figure that out. Hmmmm.
The redheads of the Marvel Universe all look alike, too! Take gorgeous go-go gal Mary Jane Watson, f'r instance.
Panels from Marvel Team-Up #79 (March 1979), co-plot and script by Chris Claremont, co-plot and pencils by John Byrne, inks by Terry Austin, colors by Glynis Wein, letters by Tom Orzechowski
As usual when danger's all about and...evil is in the air, smooth operator Peter Parker ducks his date and slips away to change into his long underwear instead of hanging around with his supermodel girlfriend. Are you beginning to wonder why we idolize Spider-Man? Me too.
Not content to sit on the sidelines while Peter Parker takes photographs of Godzilla versus Iron Man or whatever happens to be going on, vivacious redhead Mary Jane takes the law into her own hands and enters the mysterious haunted museum by herself. I bet the villain is going to be some caretaker wearing a rubber mask, which means that M.J. can be one of those meddling kids. Serves her right for wearing Gwen Stacy's blouse and jacket.
I bet around about now you're wondering where the all-redheads-look-alike bit comes in. Right about now, True bullievers! Hyp-mo-tized Mary Jane grabs a convenient sword from a museum case, setting off the alarms and instigating an INTERPOL worldwide search for the debonair thief of the Pink Panther Diamond. Oh, also, she changes to somebody else. Who could it be? Gold Girl? Loincloth Lass? Yellow Young Woman?
Nope! Curvaceous redhead Mary Jane Watson transforms into curvaceous redhead Red Sonja, complete with explanatory asterisk and buy-it-now box in completely different lettering! What she really needs is a caption explaining how the heck she can wear a bikini made of silver dollars, and why it doesn't jingle when she walks, and what the heck the purpose of those thigh bands are. Red Sonja: the original Rob Liefeld character.
And then Spider-Man...and this is the important part...thinks she looks like Mary Jane. Because Mary Jane often runs around in a metal bikini waving a broadsword and attacking demons. Oh wait, that's just in Peter Parker's fan fiction.
So, there you go. Mary Jane Watson = Red Sonja. It's easy enough to see how they would be confused for each other. One of them causes tigers to hit the jackpot, and the other one cuts the heads of tigers and puts them in a stewpot. Pretty darn close. Which not only means that Sonja looks like Mary Jane, but that she also looks like every other redhead in the Marvel Universe. At least to Wolverine:
Panels from What If? v.2 #16 (August 1990), script by Glenn Herdling, pencils by Gary Kwapisz, inks by
Ian Akin and Brian Garvey, colors by Daniel Vozzo, letters by Janice Chiang
Wha...huh?!? What the Sam Scratch is Wolverine doing in the era of Red Sonja? Well, there's a very simple explanation. Here's the backstory:
The year is 1990, and Department H launches the last of Canada's deep space probes. In a freak mishap, Wolverine 3 and its pilot, Captain James "Logan Howlett, are blown out of their trajectory into an orbit which freezes his life support systems, and returns Wolverine to Earth, 500 years previous.
Wait, that doesn't make any sense. Eh, let's just say that The Watcher did it. Anyway, Wolverine's first thought upon seeing Red Sonja is that she's popular American humorist Jean Shepherd, but then he believes her to be Jean Grey, the Girl Who Wouldn't Stay Dead™. Well that makes sen...huh??? The only way you can explain this is that all redheads look alike! Also, for some reason, Sonja thinks Wolverine hosts a late night talk show. (That last sentence satisfies the National Comic Bloggers Association's minimum mandatory requirements for a reference of Conan O'Brien when discussing Conan the Barbarian.)
Completely by coincidence in the same story, Conan the B. is transported to Wolverine's time and place, where he immediately mistakes Jean Grey for Red Sonja! Hah! It's because all redheads look alike! His misapprehension has some slightly unfortunate consequences.
So! End of the universe, everybody! End of the universe.
Before it ends, let's take another look at some Earth-616 proof that all redheads look alike. Jean Grey, completely coincidentally and for no apparent reason at all, happens to look exactly like her own evil clone, Madelyne Pryor! What are the chances of that? Especially since Maddie Pryor is related to revolutionary comedian Richard Pryor.
Cover of Mutant X #20 (June 2000), cover art by Adam Pollina
It's a good thing that when she was first introduced, Chris Claremont Scott Summers remembered to tell us that Madelyne Pryor looked exactly like Jean Grey, since we'd never seen Paul Smith draw Jean Grey yet, and for all we knew it could be a completely different redhead. If it weren't for the fact that (sing it along with me) all redheads look alike!
Panels from Uncanny X=Men #168 (April 1983), script by Chris Claremont, pencils by Paul Smith, inks by Bob Wiacek, colors by Glynis Wein, letters by Tom Orzechowski
I always thought that Claremont and Company oughta have capitalized on the resemblance of Maddie to Jean up as the best practical joke Scott Summers would ever play. "Hey, everybody, look who's back!" "AIEEEEEEEEEEEE!" "Naw, jus' funnin' ya! Sucker!"
Panels from Uncanny X=Men #173 (September 1983), script by Chris Claremont, pencils by Paul Smith, inks by Bob Wiacek, colors by Glynis Wein, letters by Tom Orzechowski
Of course, it was only a matter of time until Jean Grey popped back up from her grave like some redheaded toaster pastry to confront her coincidentally identical genetic clone:
Cover of X-Factor #38 (March 1989), cover art by Walt Simonson
Wow! They sneer alike, they walk alike, and in these two panels they even talk alike!
Panels from X-Factor #38 (February 1989), script by Louise Simonson, pencils by Walt Simonson, inks by Bob Wiacek, colors by Petra Scotese, letters by Joe Rosen
I've deleted the next ten panels which consist of Jean and Maddie repeating "a distorted mirror" again and again until Wolverine stabs them both through the throat. (Oh, how the X-Men and X-Factor all laughed and laughed!) Instead, here's a completely literal and not at all symbolic page in which the Giant Floating Heads of Jean Grey and Maddie Pryor face off in a battle of wits including two senior citizens, their tiny selves, and a naked girl. (Wow, I am loving these special pieces in X-Men Monopoly!)
Of course, in her first appearance, we the readers were thrown off by the miscoloring of Maddie's hair. As she was not a redhead in this cameo, we of course didn't confuse her with anyone else in the Marvel Universe at all.
Panel segment from Avengers Annual #10 (1981), script by Chris Claremont, pencils and colors by Michael Golden, inks by Armando Gil, letters by Joe Rosen
Then she got better and became a redhead, and it was like looking in Jean Grey's mirror! Well, over her shoulder so you could see Jean while you were doing so. Um, if you were angled just right so that you couldn't see yourself in the mirror but you could see Jean just fine. Or maybe even better, it was like looking in Jean Grey's mirror if you were standing next to her while she was looking in at and you are a vampire! So, to sum up, Jubilee agrees with my undeniable proof that all redheads look alike.
Panels from Uncanny X-Men #238 (Late November 1988), script by I think you can guess who by this point, pencils by Marc Silvestri, inks by Dan Green, colors by Glynis Oliver, letters by Tom Orzechowski
All of which leads us full circle. If Mary Jane Watson = Red Sonja = Jean Grey, then we can wrap it up like this:
Panels from Marvel Knights Spider-Man #13 (late November 1988), script by Reginald Hudlin, pencils by Billy Tan, inks by Jonathan Sibal, colors by Ian Hannin, letters by Cory Petit
Wolverine luvvvvvvvvs Mary Jane Watson.
But not to worry! I mean, it's not like Logan has ever, ever made a move on somebody else's girl, right?
In Wolverine's favor, really, he probably just thought he was making out with Mystique or Siryn or Juggernaut. Because all redheads look alike. Isn't that right, Rachel Summers?
Showcase! The classic DC comic that began as a "you requested it" anthology with firefighters (#1) and frogmen (#3) until it hit on its successful formula with The Flash in #4, kicking off the entire Silver Age of Comics. From that point on Showcase was the four-color tryout home of characters and features to see if they could support their own books. Before they had regular comic books of their own, Lois Lane, Challengers of the Unknown, Green Lantern, Rip Hunter, Sea Devils, Atom, Metal Men, the Spectre, the Creeper, Anthro, Angel and the Ape, Bat Lash, and the Hawk and the Dove all had feature premieres in Showcase!
But then there were characters pretty much lost to history, doomed forever to 
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