15 posts tagged “john byrne”
When I was first introduced to Ms. Marvel, I have to confess I didn’t find her very interesting, and as a matter of fact, thought that the Red and Blue Captain Marvel costume looked absolutely ridiculous cut into a bad one-piece swimsuit. But I had a friend who absolutely loved her, (and I mean LOVED her!) and insisted on sharing, so I was exposed to her comic whether I liked it or not! This actually worked out to my benefit as I was able to filter through the stuff I didn’t like and appreciate the stuff I did, and eventually I came around and started picking up some of those issues myself!
The biggest part of what turned me around from a non-believer to a general fan of the comic was, of course, THE NEW COSTUME! Now THIS was what I liked! Rendered by a master of sexy super-heroine costumes was the mighty DAVE COCKRUM, and YES, the new outfit looked EXACTLY like a variation of Jean Grey’s revamped PHOENIX costume, but HEY, when you’ve got a winning formula, you don’t mess with it…
So, anyway, gone was the horrendous red and blue outfit, in was the sleek ‘n’ sexy blue outfit with the lightning bolt and golden sash , and just in time for a return slugfest against super baddie Deathbird (who would go on to give Hawkeye a run for his money in AVENGERS #189) then onward to my favorite arcs of the series, where Carol dukes it out with a civilization of super Lizard Men! Ah, trust me, it’s cooler than it sounds. And THEN…
Then the Comic got cancelled. Yep. GEEZ! All that coaxing and convincing me to get onboard the Ms. Marvel Fan Ship, and then the voyage was abruptly ended! But the best was yet to come with the aforementioned AVENGERS stint, all lovingly rendered by John Byrne, who was TOTALLY in his PRIME at this time!
At this time we started trying to buy all the back issues of old Avengers stories, and when we got our hands of the epic KREE-WARS stories, got to see exactly where Carol Danvers had come from in the first place! It was kind of nest to realize she actually had a bit of “history” within the pages of those old Silver Age Marvels!
So yeah, I was a fan there…but after that surrealistic ( and highly controversial) AVENGERS issue (196?) where she gets pregnant in some convoluted cosmic drama, I kind of lost interest and drifted away again. Next time I checked, for some reason the character named “Ms Marvel” was a big female version of the Thing! I didn’t know if this was supposed to be Carol Danvers or some OTHER character, and I DIDN’T WANT TO KNOW! (Okay, I found out later it was some OTHER gal, but still, the shock…!)
In fact, it was only with the arrival of Frank Cho’s cool and sexy MS MARVEL revival did I breathe a sigh of RELIEF, for here once again was that awesome dynamic costume, proving it could stand the test of time! The Ms Marvel of Old was back! ( and MAN, let’s hope she STAYS that way!)
A funny side-story that always makes me smile is remembering when my friend picked up a new issue of Ms Marvel and saw that Carol was dating some dude with a beard, he mock- angrily declared war against all bearded men, and set about cutting up every picture of a bearded man in the daily newspaper. I sat on the couch howling with laughter as he jokingly destroyed all the pictures, until he got into trouble when his father scolded him and said “What are you DOING to the Newspaper? I haven’t even READ it yet!”
Ahahahahahaha!!!
Ms. Marvel / Carol Danvers
First Appearance: Marevel Super-Heroes #13
By Roy Thomas and Gene Colan
Ah, another one in the category of “salacious one-shot characters” that seem to spring forth effortlessly from the pen of comic maestro John Byrne, Arathaza is at once both awe-inspiring and utterly disposable!
Issue# 585 of Superman’s ACTION COMICS begins with a bang not so unlike the explosive opening teasers of the great JAMES BOND movies of yesteryear where we come in not at the beginning but rather the end of the last mission, and so we see Superman already engaged in battle with a new (and after, never again seen) villainess who is slowly draining the life force out of Supes.
Through their dialog we learn that the majestic (and slightly Tina Louise a la Ginger Grant looking) Arathaza was once only a mild mannered secretary named Barb Kowaleski until she found the means of transferring Superman’s powers to herself. It is here that he turns the tables on her, rendering himself completely passive so that there is no power to draw from!
At that point, he grabs her staff, which he rightly figures is the source of her powers, and she’s turned back into the frumpy looking mortal that she was. Supes sweeps her up, saving the day and delivering the coupe de grace to the latest would-be world dominator!
And then and ONLY then did the actual story featuring the Phantom Stranger start!
I had a friend who was in love with a certain actress, stating she had the “most perfect and prettiest face created by nature!” Then a few months later he came across a plastic surgery site that indicated his lady of worship had had quite a few procedures done, especially in the eyes and nose department!
Looking at the “before” shots of the woman’s “enhancements”, he sighed and said, “Ahh, I should have known…Nobody THAT perfect could have been for real!”
Although he was talking about his favorite actress, he may as well have been talking about our next Super-Vixen, the lithe and lovely Miss DELPHINE COURTNEY… This was a woman who seemed to have it all- brains, style, AND beauty…and just like my friend’s fallen angel, was a complete and utter invention… quite literally, in the case of Ms. Courtney!
In the issues of ALPHA FLIGHT leading up to the death of Guardian (who I’ll ALWAYS think of as “Vindicator”), Delphine Courtney ws the sultry smooth talker hired by Jerome Jaxon to corral ex-members of Beta and Gamma Flight into forming a team to battle Canada’s answer to the Avengers.
Delphine was always shown in the latest styles, sexy outfits and slinky dresses befitting her sylph-like features, and I was loving it! It was here that I guess I should have remembered the lesson of my friend’s tragic tale, but I was too busy enjoying the view!
We thought we were in for a helluva cat-fight when Heather Hudson (wife of Guardian) began tearing at Delphine’s face and clothes, calling her a “Harpy”- but unfortunately, under all that satin and silk (and skin!) was nothing more than cold, unfeeling metal, as Delphine is revealed to be nothing more than an android, and a darn ruthless and evil one, at that!
That Android would escape to “live” another day, and the next time she (it) showed up was disguised as The Guardian himself! While the reappearance of the character was cool, and the story really helped put a close to the Death Of Guardian storyline, she (it) never did put back on that Delphine disguise, and I found that I really missed that old look of hers!
Delphine Courtney
First appearance: Alpha Flight #8
By John Byrne
Well, I was to get educated by my friends James and Lar, those brothers with the unlimited cache of awesome silver age comics (and the passion and expertise to go with it!) who let me borrow some of their old DOOM PATROL comics to peruse.
First thing that struck me was how cool Cliff Steel AKA Robotman was, (and what kid didn’t dig Robotman?) here’s this nearly indestructable guy listening to Guy Lombardo records! Larry Trainor was cool as Negative Man, a dude who looked like a cross between Jimmy Olsen and Human Torch! And then there was Rita Farr, the lovely movie star turned exotic Giantess when exposed to volcanic gasses during a bad photo shoot. Remember my love of Diana Rigg? Well, that’s EXACTLY who she looked like to me!
Rita was simply a pleasure to look at, especially when they’d get her all dolled up for some dance or event, whether it be a love-in to investigate a mad guru, or the school to play chaperone to Beast-Boy and his date (and by the way, just WHAT was their relationship? Sometimes they acted like Rita was him MOTHER!)
Funny, there were issues where it was pretty obvious to me that they’d drawn one good head shot of Rita, and stuck photo stats of the head onto several different panels of Elasti-Girl in various predicaments…(Maybe she didn’t look good in the original pencils?) but as an artist myself, know that it’s rare when you can get a face looking just right, and quite frustrating when you’ve gotta duplicate it three or four times every page!
* * * * * * * * *
Their enemy Captain Zahl had a bomb set to go off in a fishing village that would kill 14 innocent people, or the DP could sacrifice themselves instead. In a wacky ending, the group said, “Those ordinary people are important-We’ll Die!” Ba-Boom, The End!
Well, it seems like John Byrne had the SAME problem that we did, for when he relaunched the DOOM PATROL in his controversial 18 issue run, one of the thing he did was this EXTREMELY funny passage where Cliff Steele is time-shifting through various dimensions, and one of the scenes he lands in just happens to be that deadly ending from issue #121, and this time Cliff has a decidedly more realistic take on the proceedings:
PS: I know a LOT of people had problems with Byrne’s reboot of Doom Patrol- specifically his elimination of the various incarnations of DP that came before. I certainly understand that, but for me, it was kind of nice to see the group return to the original four members I grew up with (though Byrne DID introduce his OWN new members), and besides, where else are you gonna see Rita Farr doing her impression of The 50 Ft. Woman? Ahahahaha!
Rita Farr / Elasti-Girl
First appearance: My Greatest Adventure #80
By Arnold Drake, Bruno Premiani
Murray Boltinoff and Bob Haney
There have been many yeas and nays regarding John Byrne’s SUPERMAN reboot back in 1986, and while I’ve agreed and disagreed on the various pros and cons of the jumpstart, the very creation of Silver Banshee has already made it worth my while- folks, I just LOVE this super-villainess!
Yes, she’s (like) a walking vampire, sucking the life out of anyone hapless enough to get in her way, but at times, she is downright ADORABLE! YES! So powerful and yet so much like a “fish out of water” in ways…gotta love when she’s propositioned by the construction worker, and asks, “Are you addressing ME, little man?”! She couldn’t believe some guy of the street was trying to pick her up…I, however, fully understood!
(and I guess would have met the same fate as the now-deceased dude!)
And I think secretly even Jimmy Olsen has a thing for Ms. McDougal, because it really seems like he spends an AWFUL lot of time spying on her as she “does her thing” in those bookstores. He ‘s always peeking at her through a window in the background! Ahahaha!
Now, what’s the deal with Silver Banshee? Is she ALSO supposed to be silver with black accents? I hope not…I think the solid black and white contrasts give her the shocking impact you’re supposed to have, reminding me so much of a pirate ship flag with its stark skull and crossbones design. Plus, the white gives her the ghostly, ethereal look, too!
Siobahn McDougal
Silver Banshee
First Appearance Action Comics #595
Created By John Byrne
Featured in the Green Lantern special GANTHET’S TALE, (drawn by Byrne and written by science fiction writer Larry Niven), Darthatheen’s multi-dimensional persona made her stand out among Lantern’s opponents, and the open-ended revenge theme leads one to think Niven and Byrne were planning on expanding her character in some future tale.
Throughout the tale, facets of her complex personality are hinted at- after savagely battling with the girl, Hal is surprised to find she actually cares about the fate of an advesary she may have been able to save. When she is confronted with the death of her beloved father, she swears revenge, and we think we’re getting set up for an awesome cosmic showdown between Hal and Darthatheen…
Wait, Did I say YOUNG lady? As Hal noted himself, though the gal might LOOK like a pretty young lady, Darthartheen is in fact, hundreds of years old!
Darthartheen
Green Lantern Ganthet's Tale
By Larry Niven and John Byrne
supervixens!@greyvictory
Absolutely one of the very best Fantastic Four stroies in the mighty FF canon!
The story opens with a scene Fantastic Four fans have long been familiar with: Four astronauts sneak onto the government base to pilot an unauthorized test flight to the moon. They are Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Ben Grimm and Johnny Storm, and they are about to make the jump into outer space that will become one of the most significant events in their lives as well as the world around them!
The secret flight has been planned in haste due to expected budget cutting, and as they hurtle upwards into outer space, they fear the shielding against the cosmic rays will not be enough to protect them. As they enter the cosmic storm, their worst fears are realized as the rays penetrate through the ship’s siding, and a bizarre transformation takes place within the four passengers aboard the ship as the rocket crashes back down to earth.
But here is where the familiar story diverges into a new and different story from the one we know…unlike the famed test flight when they crash land and are reborn as the Fantastic Four, in THIS scenario, the ship smashes down and explodes in a gulf of flame! Suddenly we see young Johnny Storm screaming up out of bed- the vision we have just seen has been no more than a bad nightmare of his!
But as Johnny crawls out of bed and gets ready for his day, we see at once that something is different- Johnny doesn’t appear to be the superhero Human Torch of the Fantastic Four, instead, he seems like a regular teenage boy living in a small town on his way to work at Sal’s Garage. He waves to the pretty girls on the street, and makes a visit to his favorite couple… Reed and Sue, who also appear to be no more than a normal married husband and wife in a quiet neighborhood!
He drives past Ben and Alicia, another happily married couple outside their café, and we are treated to another surprise- Ben is Human, and Alicia can see! Cleary we are dealing with an alternate reality of the Fantastic Four…or are we? As Johnny drives off, we see a man across the street observing the exchange of pleasantries with obvious delight. He is Phillip Masters, the father of Alicia, and as he tells himself, “Perfect! It’s All Going Exactly as I Want It!”, we realize that whatever is transpiring here is some kind of conspiracy, and it is happening to the REAL Fantastic Four.
That night, Sue is haunted again by the mysterious dream, and this time, after a heated argument, she sees Ben turning into a monstrous thing, she sees him stretching a pliable Reed, and finally setting Johnny on Fire! It is clear the dreams are becoming worse, and when Johnny and Reed are discussing it the next day at Ben’s café, he sheepishly admits that HE’S been having the same kind of dreams, too! Reed tries to wrap his mind around the subject, but then Phillip Masters and Alicia arrive, and they turn the conversation to more pleasant things.
After a long and particularly frustrating day at the university dealing with Mr. Vaughn, Reed sits alone in the dark and ponders the coincidence of all three of them having such similar dreams. Johnny on fire. Ben as a monster. Reed as a rubber man. And the space ship. It always comes back to the ship…
Reed drifts off to a troubled sleep. He dreams… and all the pieces of the puzzle fall into place: The Space Flight. The Cosmic Rays. The Crash. The birth of the celebrated Fantastic Four, the Baxter Building, and then, something sinister…the Puppet Master hypnotizing them…and leading them down to a secret lab, with one other waiting in darkness... He almost has the complete story, but just as he reaches for the answer, Reed falls out of his chair, crashing awake!
The fall has left him clear-minded and positive of one surety: THE DREAM IS THE TRUTH. And as he knows that, he knows that whoever has imprisoned them in this fairytale town must also be a dangerous villain who must be stopped. But he must accomplish his first great task: Convince the other team-mates that their life has been a lie!
Reed arrives home at an ungodly late hour, his arm covered in matted blood. He has sliced his arm with a scalpel to prove to himself that the bodies they inhabit are not real bodies, but in fact some sort of synth-clone puppets that their minds are inhabiting. The others, of course, do no believe a word of it, and think Reed is delusional from the loss of blood. “You Don’t Believe me”. states Reed, “But you will. Our very lives may depend upon it. I WILL MAKE YOU BELIEVE ME!”
Phillip Masters is sweeping the front of his toy store when he is accosted by the angry members of the team. Reed has been successful in convincing them the truth, and their real memories have come crashing back. Seeing the ruse is over, the former Puppet Master admits that he had a hand in the deception, but only because he wanted to see his daughter Alicia happy. But Masters didn’t have the technological knowledge to implement this kind of project, and brought in someone who did. “Who?” asks Reed, and just then a voice booms from above, “SURELY, REED RICHARDS, THAT IS NOT DIFFICULT TO DEDUCE?” Their captor all along has been DOCTOR DOOM!
With the illusion lifted, Doctor Doom grandly reveals the complete picture: They are indeed trapped in synth-cloned puppets of their real selves, and have been sentenced to live out their lives in the tiny constructed town of Liddleville! Enjoying the bizarre prison he has made for them, he’d even occasionally “entered” the town by “jumping” into a robot body to harass Reed Richards…Yes, Doom was Mr. Vaughn! So now what? “What do you intend to do?” asks Reed, and Doom laughs. He doesn’t plan on doing anything to them- he has reduced them to his play-things, and will leave them there in the Liddleville prison, trapped in their puppet bodies, while he leaves to reclaim the throne of Latveria!
Reed knows there is a small spark buried within each of their little cloned bodies that is in all of them that made them become the Fantastic Four. He must find a way to get their powers back, escape this prison and stop Doctor Doom- and he remembers something that just might do it… Earlier, the University had received a special piece of machinery, a PARTICLE ACCELORATOR, a device that can recreate any type of radiation, whether it be radiation from the sun, or…cosmic rays! After examining the equipment, Reed determines that is a real, functioning device, and all that is left is for the group to make the decision to change back to the Fantastic Four.
One by one, the members each step up to the accelerator, and get dosed with the equivalent of the space flight’s cosmic rays, reverting them back to the Fantastic Four, albeit a much smaller version! Using their powers, they break free of the Liddleville town prison, and soar out into Doom’s laboratory, where they have been secured away. They get to the control console , but find Doom has removed the Power Module that will start the controls and free them.
They lure Doom back to the lab and get him to “jump start” the module with an energy blast, and railroad him into setting off the controls, which frees the group at last from the puppet bodies they’ve been imprisoned! The group leaps up and quickly prepares for a battle with Doctor Doom, but find that the energy shock has left him strangely immobile. Not quite dead, he seems to be in a type of coma…
The reason we find, is that Doom has jumped back to his little robot body, and with only a twist of a ring, is ready to jump back when the Fantastic Four are off their guard! He is about to commence departure, when the ring is smashed by a thrown rock.
It is Phillip Masters, and he has re-programmed the entire town to his will. All he wanted was for his daughter to be happy, and Doom has ruined it for them. He orders the townspeople to destroy Doom, who flees for his life, knowing that if he should “die” in robot form , his mind will perish as well. He knows that in the robot body, he can run forever…but so can they!
A Terrific story by John Byrne, celebrating the story of the Fantastic Four and their origin.
One of a handful of fairly active Marvel Super-Heroines that never really had her own comic, at least back in the bronze age of Marvel comics!
Funny thing about Colleen- it seemed like as time went by, little by little she lost her “ethnic” look, looking less and less Chinese with every issue she appeared in!
In fact, by the time she appeared in X-Men #118, she looked positively caucasian, and this being the first issue I ever saw her in, I was in a world of confusion…Here was this white girl with a chinese last name, but talking Japanese, and claiming to be “Bushido”! In fact, she actually said “I Am Bushido”, which isn’t really the correct term, as bushido is a code of ethics more than a rank.
Anyway, moving on to collecting the Byrne/Claremont Marvel Team-Up issues, by this point Colleen more closely resembled The Wasp than Suwan, and It wasn’t until I managed to collect the early IRON FIST stories that I got to see her as a “chinese” girl proper.
In an interesting side note, my friend Gerg gave me a bunch of issues from the new Iron Fist series by Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction, and I was pleasantly surprised to see Colleen looking oriental again, albeit retaining her auburn hair!
Colleen Wing
First Appearance: Marvel Premiere #19
by Doug Moench and Larry Hama
My first exposure to Misty Knight was in the same place that I first saw Colleen Wing: In the pages of the Byrne / Claremont run of THE UNCANNY X-MEN.
My first actual memory of Misty was,in fact, Uncanny X-Men #122. In that issue, Ororo returned to the apartment of her childhood where she has a violent tussle with some punk drugged up kids. Power Man arrives with a very slick "Pam Grier"-ish chick at his side. Who WAS this gal? Assumptions at the time told me she MUST be Luke Cage's girlfriend, maybe nothing more?
But I was wrong- reading back issues later I was to find she had closer ties than I thought- she was Jean "Phoenix" Grey's roommate, and later when I began collecting the Byrne / Claremont run Of MARVEL TEAM-UP, I found she was co-owner of NIGHTWING INVESTIGATORS along with Colleen Wing (Get it, Knight-Wing.) and her beau was non other than Daniel Rand, A.K.A. IRON FIST!
It was only when I started delving into these earlier issues that I got a clearer picture of how cool she really was. Collecting IRON FIST (and later POWER MAN and then POWER MAN/IRON FIST), I was surprised how fully developed her character was! Reading these, it really seemed a shame that her character never took off (back then). I bet if Colleeen and Misty had gotten their own series with Byrne and Claremont at the helm, we coulda been in for one HELL of a story!
Oh, and funny thing- All that time reading those issues, I NEVER knew that Misty sported a Bionic arm a la the Six Million Dollar Man! They relied so heavily on her cool attitude and smart thinking that I don’t believe I ever saw her use it once! In fact, it wasn’t unitl the John Byrne NAMOR comic years and years later that her “powers” were dramatically revealed to me!
Misty Knight
First Appearance (unnamed)
Marvel Team-Up #1
Second Appearance (name revealed)
Marvel Premiere #20
By Tony Isabella, Roy Thomas and Ross Andru
Created by Henry Pym’s frankenstein creation Ultron, It was only natural that Ully would want his bride to be infused with the life-force of his "father's" wife, Ms.Janet Van Dyne-Pym,better known as the nimble WASP! Using advanced technology, a kidnapped Wasp, and a brainwashed Henry Pym, Ultron hoped to transfer Janet’s soul into the metallic shell of his mate!
Alerted by Hank’s trustworthy ants, the Avengers intervened just as Janet’s life-breath was almost completely absorbed by Jocasta, and the sudden separation resulted in two-two-two girls in one! And although she did start off with her hubby’s diabolical bad habits, Jocasta quickly saw Ultron as the crumb he really was, and crossed over to the side of the Angels!
George Perez really knew what he was doing when he created the visuals for this character. It was like he’d been studying just what was so attractive about Tina, the platinum kitten of the METAL MEN, and added MORE curves and general sexiness, and came up with Jocasta…Sexy? heck, he even got her a sexy-as-hell Metal GARTER BELT as part of the design, or at least that’s what I always thought it was!
But it was her portrayal in the later issues under the care of David Michelinie and John Byrne’s hands where I really felt she could branch off into a multi-dimensional character, as they depict her as a naive, curious girl very observant of the “human interplay” between her fellow Avengers. There’s this great scene where Tony Stark’s putting the moves on Ms. Marvel, and Jocasta is bored of the bland chatter. She tries to connect with the Vision, whose stand-offish attitude only made her look more warm and human in contrast!
But the best is perhaps when general fly-in-the-Avengers-ointment Government Official Henry Peter Gyrich realizes she’s “alive”, and demands to know if she’s cleared for security. She then shames him, asking him if the government is so paranoid now they’re screening the machines!
Jocasta
First Appearance: Avengers #162 by George Perez and Jim Shooter
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