It Came from the 1990s: The Invaders miniseries

At the end of my last blog post I promised to look at a much more successful project to come out of editor Mike Rockwitz’s office at Marvel Comics in the early 1990s. The Invaders was a  miniseries which revived the World War II era superhero team for new adventures.

Roy Thomas loves the Golden Age of comic books. Thomas was born in 1940, so he grew up reading the early adventures of the Justice Society of America from DC Comics and the various superheroes from Marvel precursor Timely Comics.

The unusual things about Timely is that, even though their heroes frequently appeared together on dynamic covers, they never actually met in the stories within, other than the occasional fight or team-up between the original android Human Torch and the hybrid anti-hero Namor the Sub-Mariner. The only exception to this was the two appearances of the All-Winners Squad in All-Winners Comics #19 and #21, which were published in late 1946 and written, respectively, by Golden Age pioneers Bill Finger and Otto Binder. Namor and the Torch were joined by Captain America, Bucky, Toro, Miss America and the Whizzer in the All-Winners Squad.

After Thomas came to work at Marvel in the mid-1960s he began to utilize the Timely characters of the 1940s in his own stories. By 1975 he hoped to revive the All-Winners Squad in a series that would be set in the early 1940s and see the team operating during World War II. Then-publisher Stan Lee disliked the All-Winners Squad name and Thomas, who himself had never been too enthusiastic about it, came up with the alternate title The Invaders, as the heroes would be invading Hitler’s Fortress Europe to liberate it.

The team made their debut in Giant-Size Invaders #1, cover-dated June 1975, in a story written & edited by Thomas and penciled by Frank Robbins. Set in late December 1941, the story saw Captain America, Namor, the Human Torch and teen sidekicks Bucky and Toro fight against the super-powered Nazi agent Master Man. At the story’s end the five heroes resolved to work together to fight against the Axis menace.

The Invaders quickly became an ongoing series, running for 41 issues between August 1975 and September 1979, with an Annual being released in the Summer of 1977. Thomas edited the entire series and wrote nearly all the issues, with Don Glut coming in to pen the last few.

Thomas left Marvel for DC Comics in 1981 and created All-Star Squadron, an even more successful superhero series set during World War II. Thomas returned to Marvel in late 1986 and within a few years he was once again writing books set during the Golden Age. His editor on the majority of these, including The Invaders miniseries, was Rockwitz.

As Thomas recounted to Jim Amish in Alter Ego # 136 from TwoMorrows Publishing, he and Rockwitz had a good working relationship.

“Generally speaking, we got along quite well. He kept coming back to me for projects. And he wouldn’t demand to know every plot twist in a story in advance, which I’d have found boring and off-putting.”

The Invaders four issue miniseries was published in early 1993. In addition to Thomas and Rockwitz, the creative team was penciler Dave Hoover, inker Brian Garvey, letterer Pat Brosseau and colorist Paul Becton, with Ian Akin stepping in as co-inker for the third issue. The cover logo was designed by Todd Klein.

The first issue of the miniseries opens on the evening of June 22, 1942, picking up shortly after the conclusion of the ongoing series. Cap, Namor and the Torch discover a Nazi u-boat in the waters of New York Harbor. To their surprise, the craft is smuggling in a quintet of super-powered Nazi agents. The Invaders are even more startled when they realize that each of the five members of the Battle Axis is actually American.

Caught off-guard, the trio of heroes are defeated and barely make their escape. They retreat to the headquarters of the home front team the Liberty Legion in Times Square, where they are reunited with the dimension-shifting Thin Man. The Invaders relate their encounter with the Battle Axis to the Thin Man. Hearing their description of the Nazis, The Thin Man, who has been keeping track of American superheroes in order to enlist them for the war effort, is shocked to realize that all five of the Battle Axis were themselves, until now, costumed crime fighters.

Elsewhere, the romantically involved Miss America and the Whizzer are walking along the East River in their civilian identities when they stumble across the Battle Axis coming ashore. The Whizzer is captured but Miss America just barely escapes. Fleeing to Liberty Legion HQ, she tells the Invaders what has happened, as well as what she overheard said by Dr. Death, the ruthless leader of the Battle Axis: the Naxi agents are heading to Los Angeles as part of “the Fuhrer’s supreme plan –to knock America out of the war!” The Invaders quickly head west in pursuit of their dangerous foes.

The Invaders miniseries was definitely enjoyable, so I’m not going to go into too much detail about the story. If you’re a fan of these characters I definitely recommend seeking out these issues for yourself, or picking up one of the collections in which it’s been reprinted.

In addition to the Invaders and Liberty Legion members, Thomas utilizes obscure superheroes Blazing Skull, Silver Scorpion and the original Vision, all of whom hadn’t appeared since the early 1940s. He also brought back a pair of characters he had co-created with Frank Robbins in The Invaders series, the Blue Bullet and the Golem.

Thomas had actually wanted to have the original Vision, who was an other-dimensional alien named Aarkus, join the Avengers way back in 1968. However editor Stan Lee instructed that Thomas have an android join the team, and so Thomas created a brand-new android Vision who was visually similar to the original. My pal Alan Stewart offered a comprehensive look at this in his retrospective on Avengers #58.

So, finally, a quarter century later, Thomas at long last had the opportunity to write the Golden Age Vision in this miniseries. Hoover’s cover to The Invaders #3 featuring the Vision is even a homage to the android Vision’s first cover appearance on Avengers #57 by John Buscema & George Klein, which in turn was inspired by the alien Vision’s introductory splash page from Marvel Mystery Comics #13 by Jack Kirby & Joe Simon in 1940.

Okay, I’ve heard of double vision, but triple?!?

The Battle Axis are also bona fide Golden Age superheroes. Thomas’ original idea was to have several obscure Timely heroes join the Nazi cause, but editor Mark Gruenwald balked at the idea. So Thomas dusted off a handful of even more obscure characters from the 1940s from other publishers who had fallen into the public domain and had them turn evil.

I thought Thomas actually made the heel-turns by the various Battle Axis members fairly plausible. In the late 1930s there were very strong isolationist feelings held by many Americans, as well as a fairly significant pro-Nazi movement in existence in the United States. Just because the country finally entered World War II in December 1941 did not mean that the people who held those beliefs would change them overnight. So it makes sense that you could have a handful of costumed vigilantes who for personal or ideological reasons would throw in with the Third Reich.

Thomas helpfully provides some detailed information on the various characters appearing in this miniseries in a trio of text pieces in the back of the first, third and fourth issues. Keep in mind that in 1993 the majority of readers would not have been alive when the original Golden Age comics came out, very little of that material had yet been reprinted by Marvel, neither had the original run of The Invaders been collected, and there was no Wikipedia. To put it in perspective, in the first piece Thomas notes that if you would like to read All-Winners Comics #19 and #2, both issues are available on microfiche!

I found Thomas’ text pieces invaluable, and I’m sure others did too. I appreciate that Thomas wrote them, and that Rockwitz encouraged him to write them rather than running ads in the spaces.

The artwork by Dave Hoover on The Invaders really was fantastic. I was a big fan of Hoover’s work. He’d recently drawn some nice fill-in issues of Excalibur, Nick Fury and Wolverine, as well as She-Hulk and Iron Fist serials for Marvel Comics Presents. So it was definitely a pleasure to see him penciling this miniseries.

Rockwitz clearly appreciated Hoover’s work, as a year later he gave him the regular assignment of penciling Captain America. I really liked Hoover’s depiction of Cap in The Invaders, and it was nice to then have him draw the character’s monthly series, on which he also did good work.

Brian Garvey & Ian Aiken had contributed some really rich, textured inks / finishes over Sal Buscema’s pencils on Rom Spaceknight a decade before this, so I was also a fan of their work. I feel they provided very nice embellishments on The Invaders, effectively complementing Hoover’s pencils. It’s a very attractive-looking miniseries.

Hoover sadly passed away on September 4, 2011 at the much too young age of 56. I addition to enjoying his work, I met him at comic conventions a couple of times, and he seemed like a good person, so I was definitely saddened by his death.

Rockwitz was very happy with how The Invaders came out. On the text page of issue #4 he describes it as “a dream come true for me.” As Thomas later related in Alter Ego #136:

“Mike said one of the proudest things of his editorship – and he didn’t sound like he was kidding – was being able to have me do another Invaders series. I don’t know why that should be the high point of anybody’s life [chuckles] but I certainly appreciated the thought.”

There were apparently tentative plans by both Thomas & Rockwitz for further Invaders stories. In issue #4 Rockwitz mentions the Invaders would be appearing “in an upcoming Captain America mini-series due out this year” but as far as I know that project never came to fruition.

Ultimately Thomas & Rockwitz would only ever be able to do one more Invaders-related story after this. Thomas wrote a fill-in story for Captain America #423 (January 1994) which revealed the never-before seen first encounter between Cap and Namor. Pencils were by M.C. Wyman and inks by Charles Barnett III, with letters by Diana Albers and colors by Ovi Hondru. It’s another enjoyable story with gorgeous artwork.

I’ve always felt Wyman had a style reminiscent of John Buscema. That was especially the case when he was inked by Barnett, whose inking really evokes a Bronze Age feel to it. I always enjoyed seeing Barnett’s inks over various pencilers during the early to mid 1990s. Wyman & Barnett only worked together a few times, unfortunately. They made a great art team.

Roy Thomas is a good, imaginative writer, one of the architects of the modern Marvel universe, who successfully wove together the interesting yet disparate strands of the company’s early history into a rich tapestry. I’m glad that Mike Rockwitz was able to afford him so many opportunities to write new stories in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The books they produced together were a lot of fun. Rereading them 30 years later, those comics are still enjoyable.

It Came from the 1990s: Starblast

In my previous post I took a look at the unusual Questprobe project Marvel Comics published in the mid 1980s. I indicated this would lead into an installment of “It Came from the 1990s.” That brings us to today’s post, where I will be looking at the Starblast crossover from Marvel that came out in late 1993.

Often I put together these “It Came from the 1990s” entries to spotlight comic books from that decade that I feel are overlooked or underrated. Unfortunately, this is NOT one of those series.

Starblast has regrettably been described as one of the worst comic book crossovers of all time. I was reminded of it by longtime Marvel editor Tom Brevoort on his own WordPress blog in which he took a look at Quasar #56, which he brands with the label of “Worst Cover Ever.” Brevoort’s piece reminded me of Starbast, which in turn got me thinking about Questprobe, as the later indirectly inspired the former. And here we are.

Starblast #1 cover by Claudio Castellini

It would not be accurate to say that no one ever sets out to make bad movies, or TV shows, or music, or artwork, or whatever. There are some people who recognize that crap sells, that there is an audience for absolute drek, and so they produce terrible products because they know it will make money.

Having acknowledged that, it is my general observation that the majority of creators who go to work in the comic book industry do so because they truly love the medium, they desire to work within it, and they wish to create genuinely good stories & art. The fact that they don’t always succeed is down to a number of factors, such as unforgiving deadlines, poor pay rates, difficult marketplace conditions, clashes with editorial, and the existence of management that is frequently unsympathetic to talent.

I really do believe that the creators behind Starblast set out to produce a good comic book; the fact that they did not succeed offers a sad snapshot of the comic book industry three decades ago.

Mark Gruenwald was the main creative force behind Starblast. As both a writer and editor Gruewald enjoyed utilizing the more obscure elements of Marvel continuity. He frequently drew on these elements in Quasar, the ongoing series that featured everyman Wendell Vaughn as the reluctant Protector of the Universe. It really felt that Gruenwald was personally invested in the character of Quasar, with Gru even giving Wendell some of the same personal background that he had.

Gruenwald spent two years building up to Starblast in the pages of Quasar. First he had Wendell temporarily acquire the incredibly-powerful cosmic force known as the Star Brand from Marvel’s ill-fated New Universe imprint. Wendell accidentally passed the Star Brand on to his girlfriend Kayla Ballentine. She was then abducted by the Chief Examiner from the Questprobe series, who wanted to duplicate the Star Brand’s power to use against the ravaging Black Fleet that was attacking his world. The Star Brand proves to be too powerful for the Examiner to replicate, and so he is forced to battle the Black Fleet with the powers of the other Earth superhumans he’s previously duplicated. Unfortunately this isn’t enough and he’s defeated, forcing the reluctant Kayla to use the Star Brand to obliterate the Black Fleet.

Quasar #37 written by Mark Gruenwald, penciled by Greg Capullo, inked by Harry Caldelario, lettered by Janice Chiang, and colored by Paul Becton, published by Marvel Comics in August 1992

That at last brings us to Starblast. The cyborg Skeletron and his crew of space pirates the Starblasters are the sole survivors of the Black Fleet. Having witnessed his entire armada destroyed by the Star Brand, Skeletron seeks to acquire its incredible power for himself. He dispatches the Starblasters to attack Earth, distracting the planet’s superheroes so he can abduct Kayla.

I feel there was a certain potential to Starblast. It’s an interesting premise. Gruenwald, despite his unfortunate tendency to write Quasar as a dry series of encyclopedia entries rather than an awe-inspiring exploration of the Marvel cosmos, was a good writer. The editor of Quasar and Starblast was Mike Rockwitz, out of whose office a number of enjoyable books were released in the early 1990s.

Regrettably the Starblast crossover just did not come together in the way Gruenwald must have imagined.

Starblast #1 written by Mark Gruenwald, penciled by Herb Trimpe, inked by Ralph Cabrera, lettered by Michael Higgins, colored by Paul Becton, published by Marvel Comics in January 1994

Starblast was a four-issue miniseries, with Quasar #54-56, Secret Defenders #11, Namor the Sub-Mariner #46-48, and Fantastic Four #385-386 all being labeled as parts of the crossover. Starblast and Quasar were both written by Gruenwald, and so the story runs directly between those two books. But the other parts of the crossover are at best peripheral, telling almost-unrelated stories. It seems like there was some problems getting everything coordinated between Gruenwald and the other writers.

The artwork on Starblast is also a major issue. Beneath a gorgeous cover by Claudio Castellini on issue #1 is interior art by penciler Herb Trimpe & inker Ralph Cabrera. Trimpe was a good, solid artist who had been working for Marvel since the late 1960s. However, by the early 1990s his style of art had unfortunately fallen out of favor, and the young, hot artists who worked on the X-Men and Spider-Man books before founding Image Comics were very much in demand. In an effort to make himself more bankable, Trimpe adopted a style inspired by the Image founders.

I am a fan of Trimpe, and I’m usually very charitable towards his work from the 1990s. He was in a tough position, trying to stay employed, doing the best he could. But his art on Starblast is difficult to look at.

Starblast #2 written by Mark Gruenwald, penciled by Herb Trimpe, inked by Ralph Cabrera, lettered by Michael Higgins, and colored by Paul Becton, published by Marvel Comics in February 1994

Trimpe does well enough on the first few pages of Starblast #1, with his weird work actually enhancing the unearthly menace of the alien Starblasters. But as the issue progresses and Gruenwald brings in Quasar and Earth’s other heroes, the wonky anatomy and bizarre layouts become really painful.

It’s sad that in the early 1990s an experienced, reliable artist like Trimpe had to churn this stuff out in an effort to extend his career. I’m just glad that when he finally started getting work in comic books again beginning in 2008 he was able to go back to his normal style.

Trimpe & Cabrera also drew the second issue of Starblast, and the artwork is just as poor. By the third issue they’re gone. Pencils are by Grant Miehm. The credit for inks is “Many Hands” which really tells me that there must have been some horrific deadlines and behind-the-scenes problems facing this series.

Miehm is another good, solid, underrated artist. I had been a fan of his art since a few years earlier when he penciled Justice Society of America and Legend of the Shield for DC Comics. He then worked on Ravage 2099 at Marvel, doing very nice work, as well as penciling a couple of fill-in issues of Quasar. Miehm’s previous fill-in work on Quasar, and on the third issue of Starblast, really convinces me that he should have been the artist for the entire miniseries. He draws all of the characters in his chapter really well and his storytelling is solid.

Starblast #3 written by Mark Gruenwald, penciled by Grant Miehm, inked by “Many Hands,” lettered by Michael Higgins and colored by Paul Becton, published by Marvel Comics in March 1994

Regrettably Miehm only drew the third issue. Starblast #4 has three pencilers, Brian Kong, Rich Buckler Jr & Nate Palant, and two inkers, Don Hudson & Ernie Chan, and so is a bit of a stylistic mess. Probably the strongest part is the first third of the issue which Kong penciled. I like his work, but I imagine that this must have been another deadline nightmare. Hudson and Chan are both good inkers, but they have such very different styles. All of this gives the impression that Rockwitz must have been forced to grab whoever was available just so he could get the issue finished.

All three issues of Quasar that are part of Starblast are penciled by John Heebink, with inks by Dan & David Day and Aaron McClellan. Their work isn’t flashy, but it gets the job done, and it’s consistent in quality.

The artwork was not the only problem with Starblast. Gruenwald’s story is overly ambitious, unfocused, and crowded. There are too many characters fighting for the spotlight. The second issue of Starblast literally wastes the entire chapter with Quasar, the Squadron Supreme & various random heroes fighting Gladiator & the Shi’ar Imperial Guard.

Quasar #54 written by Mark Gruenwald, penciled by John Heebink, inked by Dan & David Day, lettered by Janice Chiang and colored by Paul Becton, published by Marvel Comics in January 1994

Well, there is one interesting footnote to this: Gruenwald did finally have Marvel’s two main Superman expies, Hyperion and Gladiator, meet in Quasar #54. He obviously relished the idea of presenting such a metatextual battle.

The Starblasters are visually interesting, but again there’s just too many of them, and most of them are barely developed, with the majority just getting lost in the crowd. It’s odd that Gruenwald would dig up a bunch of obscure alien bad guys and then do almost nothing with them.

For example, one of the Starblasters is Threkker, and he’s either supposed to be the space vampire “The Captive” that Jack Kirby introduced in Captain America Annual #3 or another survivor of his nearly-extinct species the Epsiloni. (Threkker is the guy with the biiiig teeth.) Kirby wrote the character as this horrifying cosmic menace, but here he’s basically just some big generic thug working for Skeletron.

Starblast #4 really rushes along, ending very abruptly. So abruptly, in fact, that Quasar #57 is actually an unofficial epilogue that wraps up a lot of the Starblast plotlines. It does seem like Gruenwald was treating the Starblast miniseries as four extra issues of Quasar, rather than as a self-contained event, and as a result it’s something of a narrative jumble.

I feel it’s also worth pointing out that Starblast was simultaneously published at the exact same time as two other Marvel crossovers, “Siege of Darkness” in the Ghost Rider family of “supernatural superhero” books, and “Blood & Thunder” in the “cosmic” books written by Jim Starlin & Ron Marz. Almost comedically, there are scenes in both Quasar #54 and Secret Defenders #11 where Adam Warlock and Doctor Strange explain with some annoyance that they can’t help out against the Starblasters because they’re too busy with the events in “Blood & Thunder” and “Siege of Darkness” respectively. That demonstrates just how cluttered and glutted the Marvel line had become by the end of 1993. Something had to give… and it would very soon after.

Starblast #43 written by Mark Gruenwald, penciled by Brian Kong, inked by Ernie Chan & Don Hudson, lettered by Michael Higgins and colored by Paul Becton, published by Marvel Comics in April 1994

One of the reasons why I am so forgiving of Starblast is that, with the benefit of hindsight, I recognize it was produced at a time when the Marvel line had expanded to a completely unmanageable degree, and that it was released immediately before the start of the catastrophic market crash of the mid-1990s. Within a few months various titles would be canceled, including Quasar. Numerous creators and staff at Marvel would lose their jobs. In other words, it was a really dark time for the industry. People like Gruenwald and Rockwitz were just doing their best to get the books out on time and with as much of a level of professionalism as they could in an extremely difficult climate.

I’ve said before that while I love the medium of comic books, I often find the realities of the industry incredibly depressing. It can be a very difficult field to work in. And then, of course, someone like me comes along with his blog and says “Hey, remember that crazy stuff you worked on thirty years ago?”

In the near future I’m planning to look at another project that Mike Rockwitz edited, one that was much more successful. Stay tuned.