The Enigma of Adam Warlock

I’ve finally been experiencing the pleasure of reading the full Stan Lee/Jack Kirby run on Fantastic Four via the most recent re-issues of the softcover Marvel Masterworks series and though the last few volumes have brought such seminal stuff as the debuts of Galactus and The Black Panther not to mention the classic “This Man…This Monster!” Coming up next, I’ve got the first appearances of Blastaar and Ronan to look forward to, but most significantly for me, the introduction of Adam Warlock. For as long as I can remember, I’ve had questions about Adam Warlock that I’ve never been able to find answers to—admittedly I haven’t looked too hard or I would have read the Jim Starlin stories by now—and hope that perhaps by starting from the beginning, I’ll understand this character and his evolution a bit better.

Characters undergoing wild transformations in comics aren’t unheard of; in fact it’s more or less business as usual at this point. The landscape of modern comics—the super hero genre especially—is littered with figures who bear little resemblance to their original incarnations. Still, Adam Warlock’s four decade-long journey from artificial man to mystical space hero with a significant detour to cosmic messiah and fairly unveiled Christ allegory along the way is pretty unique.

The character that would become Adam Warlock debuted in 1967’s Fantastic Four #66 as Him, an artificial man created by the Enclave to be the peak of humanity. He was more a handsome gold-skinned Frankenstein than anything resembling what he would become, but relevant to this examination, he was a character firmly rooted in science—the Enclave were criminal scientists—and thus right at home in the sci-fi adventures of the FF. Him would resurface a few more times—and Her would be introduced—but he never caught on the way many other Lee/Kirby creations did.

In 1972, Roy Thomas and Gil Kane got a hold of Him and reinvented him as Adam Warlock, introducing what would become his familiar visual cues of a yellow thunderbolt emblem with red and gold gladiator flourishes as a costume. According to an old issue of Back Issue—via Wikipedia—Thomas fully intended to do a super hero version of Jesus Christ, having recently become a fan of Jesus Chris Superstar; Him had some pedigree but little baggage or history, so he made as much sense as existing character. Thomas had the High Evolutionary stand in for a higher power and evolve Adam to godhood, then dropped him on the newly-created Counter-Earth where he served as savior to its people, protecting them from the Man-Beast—a rogue High Evolutionary creation serving as the Lucifer figure—and eventually their creator—the Evolutionary again—who toyed with wiping them out.

Warlock began waxing philosophical not unlike his cosmic contemporary The Silver Surfer, but not about his plight in being trapped on Earth, rather the pressures placed on him by his power and the expectations of those he protected.

The Thomas-written Warlock saga only ran eight issues, but Jim Starlin would pick up the character not long after, writing and drawing a new story that took his messianic routine to the stars. Starlin pumped up the cosmic soap opera by introducing The Magus, Warlock’s evil alternate from a possible future, and weaving in dimension jumping and time travel as well as the established Thanos, but also continued to explore the character as more than just another super-powered bruiser, asking questions about destiny, the corruptive nature of power and what role even a supposed savior had in shaping who he would become. With Magus, Starlin also was not afraid to posit that this might not be the typical “evil twin” scenario comics fans knew well and that instead Adam may indeed by mentally ill and possessing multiple personalities. The Starlin Warlock is—from what I’ve heard—trippy, expansive, of the era and possibly the most well-regarded material that has been produced featuring the character.

This era of Adam Warlock concluded in 1977 with a three-part crossover through Marvel Team-Up, Avengers and Marvel Two-In-One that saw the character give his life to thwart a scheme by Thanos.

Adam Warlock would return 14 years later as part of the crossover event The Infinity Gauntlet, and it was around this time I would be first introduced to the character. In a story written by Starlin, Thanos, recently resurrected himself, gets a hold of the combined Infinity Gems, which grants him near omnipotence, and Warlock along with his allies Pip and Gamora are brought back from a limbo-type existence within the Soul Gem to thwart him. The good guys win and Adam actually gets the Infinity Gems himself for a moment, but they are ultimately split up amongst his chosen Infinity Watch, and they go off into their own ongoing series.

Each of the next two summers—1992 and 1993—would feature another “Infinity” event penned by Starlin, in which Warlock and Thanos would be major players and nearly every Marvel title and character would become involved. In Infinity War, the forgotten Magus gains his own existence out of Warlock’s passing wish to excise himself of all good and evil during his brief time holding the Gauntlet, and creates an army of evil twins of Marvel heroes—fun fact: this is where the Spider-Man character Doppelganger, featured in Maximum Carnage and more recently the Carnage mini by Zeb Wells and Clayton Crain, originated—so that he can try and assemble the Gems. The next year, in Infinity Crusade, Warlock’s “good” side, the Goddess, takes advantage of various heroes’ faith to brainwash them and create a super hero civil war over a decade early while trying to “cleanse” the universe by destroying it.

I vividly recall reading Infinity Crusade with my best buddy Matt Corley when I was 11 years old; when I spotted a few issues of Infinity War not long after, I snatched those up as well. It would be a while yet before I found Infinity Gauntlet in trade and got the full saga (and of course years later I’d pick up Infinity Abyss and Marvel Universe: The End, but those may be stories for another time). I was a kid, so the slam dunk concepts of bad guy duplicates and hero vs hero grabbed me pretty easily—they still would/do—but I always found myself a bit mystified at what exactly was the deal with Adam Warlock. I mean, these were huge Marvel stories that touched every single comic and featured more or less every single character available, but guys like Spider-Man, Wolverine, Iron Man and Captain America were more or less supporting characters—if that—while this orange-skinned dude with a shiny green thing on his forehead was front and center. Surely he was the most important character in the Marvel Universe, right? So why had I never heard of him?

As I mentioned in my post about Thor: Blood and Thunder, there were in fact two Warlock series—Warlock & the Infinity Watch and The Warlock Chronicles—running concurrently in the mid-90’s. At the time, I was curious about this because, again, I really had no sense of who Adam Warlock was, but at the same time, he was starring in more books than Daredevil or The Hulk. Looking back now, it’s interesting and a bit bizarre to think that Warlock, who was such a quirky, boundary-pushing figure in the 70’s would morph into the central figure of some of the most prominent projects on Marvel’s radar 20 years later—and they were written by the same guy! Adam Warlock had gone from being on the fringe of the Marvel Universe, relegated to Counter-Earth or deep space so Thomas and Starlin could dig into the idea of Jesus as a super hero without attracting too much attention, to being right in the thick of things, living on Monster Island, showing up in prominent books and ordering the A-list heroes around in the center of crossovers. If you give the Infinity trilogy and early issues of Infinity Watch a solid read, Starlin is certainly still delving into larger issues of duality, religion and the heart of what makes good and what makes evil, but he’s also writing very commercial comic books, something I can’t imagine he ever thought he’d be doing with Adam Warlock when he plucked him out of limbo decades earlier.

Adam Warlock’s 90’s glory days crashed around the same time the rest of the comic industry’s did. His books were cancelled, he was shipped over to the Ultraverse for a quick crossover/reimagining, then slipped into limbo by the end of the decade. He’d be gone a good six years or so before popping back up in the aforementioned Infinity Abyss and Marvel Universe: The End minis, both written as well as drawn by Starlin, where his primary role is to play counterpoint to Thanos, who has once again gained ultimate power and is waffling on whether or not to embrace his nihilistic tendencies or not.

The most recent Warlock resurrection came about in 2007 with Annihilation: Conquest, and I was actually at Marvel for this one. This time, Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning brought the character back—Bill Rosemann told me at the time that he was “one of the last missing pieces of the cosmic puzzle”—bringing things somewhat full circle—if you discount the Him years—with the High Evolutionary being involved and Warlock again being touted as a universal savior whose form is sought by Ultron as a host body. DnA made Adam part of their Guardians of the Galaxy series where he served as one of the team’s many wildcards, in part due to the schizophrenic nature that had long been a part of the character’s makeup and also because he had new mystic-based powers that moved him closer to fitting the Warlock name. This incarnation lasted a couple years before Adam fulfilled his seeming long ago destiny, finally becoming The Magus and getting taken down by his old teammates and later by an evil alternate version of Captain Marvel.

Going back to the beginning, I’m very much looking forward to the next volume of Marvel Masterworks: Fantastic Four—coming this November—to see the genesis of a character who would be Frankenstein, Jesus, a cosmic explorer, the center of the 90’s Marvel Universe, Thanos’ confidante and an outer space magic man; even for comic that’s a pretty wild resume and I’d like to read it all the way through.

The Many Loves of The Human Torch

Two months removed from the death of The Human Torch and a month and a half after Valentine’s Day, I’m riding the zeitgeist as I always do and writing a post about Johnny Storm’s various girlfriends and shape shifting alien wives.

Many good super hero comics have a strong soap opera element. From the Superman-Lois Lane-Clark Kent triangle to the Melrose Place-like shenanigans of the early 90’s X-Men, love and lust between these attractive folks in spandex can be as crucial to keeping things fresh and building an acclaimed run as your central mystery or monthly action scene.

As with many things, 60’s Marvel pioneered a lot of the soapier elements in comics—or to be fair polished them up, since the aforementioned Superman stuff was going before and the Legion of Super-Heroes had to have been at least holding hands and trading flight rings—with Peter Parker’s pursuit of Betty Brant in Amazing Spider-Man, Bruce Banner’s Quasimodo-like yearning for Betty Ross in Incredible Hulk, the shy courtship between Cyclops and Marvel Girl and so on. But nowhere was the interpersonal as important as Fantastic Four.

The personal dynamic amongst the FF has always been at the forefront of their stories, just as much as their villains or the wild locations they visit. However, it’s not like any other super team because it’s not a group of peers hanging out and waiting to couple off, it’s a family; to go back to my favorite analogy-generator already used once in this very post, if the other teams are Melrose Place, Fantastic Four is The Waltons. Romance played a role, but paternal, fraternal, maternal and whatever means the sister version (saternal?) bonds came first.

Reed and Sue Richards are the longstanding royal couple of the Marvel Universe; they’re Billy and Alison if things had worked out (three Melrose Place references in five paragraphs—I’m rolling!). Theirs is a mature and sweet but ultimately kinda boring love. And The Thing is an awesome character, one of the best, but part of his whole deal is that no girl is ever going to get with him unless she’s blind and has a kink for clay already established.

Which leaves us—or left us—with The Torch.

For 50 years, Johnny Storm had to shoulder the burden of being the single guy bringing any and all romantic intrigue to Fantastic Four (because Sue was never really going to swim off with Namor). He played every role from love struck teenager to swarthy playboy to even over-his-head newlywed. Every time a new creative team came onboard or a direction shift was made, invariably, Johnny got a new girlfriend—and what a group.

Let’s talk about a few.

DORRIE EVANS
The Human Torch’s mostly anonymous teenage girlfriend who came more or less pre-packaged with the series and then stuck around predominantly off-camera for the first 50 issues or so. For real, the best ever appearance of Dorrie Evans is Amazing Spider-Man #21, in which she has more lines then every issue of FF she showed up in combined—and is named Doris for some reason—and spends the story trying to use bookish Peter Parker to make Johnny jealous but also kinda falls for him (as I recall). It’s the most personality Dorrie ever displayed, much of it the usual Silver Age girlfriend “make the hero jealous” routine, but she also came across as kind of sweet at time and perhaps would have been perfect for Peter. I also love that when Stan Lee had to name his young male lead’s love interest he went with “Dorrie”—was that name more common in the 60’s?

CRYSTAL
I would hope at this point my loathing for Crystal is well-known or I’m really not doing my job here. She is in all likelihood my least favorite comic book character ever, with only Sardath giving her a run for her money—and that idiot got taken out again in the new issue of R.E.B.E.L.S.! But I digress. That aside, the Romeo & Juliet romance of The Torch and Crystal is one of the classics and even I kinda dig it. The funny thing is, finally having recently gotten around to reading the original stories in Masterworks form recently, the whole thing comes out of nowhere entirely; one issue Johnny is sort of pining after Crystal’s older sister Medusa (and maybe still dating Dorrie?), then the next he’s madly in love with Crystal—and likewise—and then the next they’ve got an unbreakable barrier between them and it’s heartbreaking. It’s one of those stories that are really great and emotional as long as you just look the other way on its origins and how quickly the dial got turned up to 11, but that’s the simultaneous beauty and absurdity of Silver Age comics. Of course Crystal broke Johnny’s heart because she’s an awful, awful shrew, but it was nice while it lasted.

FRANKIE RAYE
I’ve got a weird soft spot for Frankie Raye, despite the fact she co-opted the Nova codename for a couple decades. Her back story is nutty—she’s the stepdaughter of the guy who created the original Human Torch, got fire powers from a lab accident, and then was given amnesia, an invisible golden swimsuit that blocked her abilities and subtle pyrophobia by her stepdad via hypnosis—and she was actually a bit out of Johnny’s league and didn’t seem to realize it. More than that, though, I love the John Byrne story where she more or less became Galactus’ willing herald because it would save Earth but also because she just thought it would be fun to see outer space; she again broke Johnny’s heart, but doing so by getting cosmic powers from an immortal planet eating space god is a pretty clever and unique breakup strategy.

ALICIA MASTERS
Midway through his awesome FF run, with The Thing out of the picture, John Byrne decided to experiment with mixing things up a bit and not only moved She-Hulk in as a new member of the team, but also hooked up Johnny with Ben’s longtime love interest, Alicia Masters. I was initially intrigued by the pairing, but ultimately, like I believe most fans, didn’t think it worked. A lot of interesting but somewhat ham-fisted of Johnny noticing that Alicia is actually somewhat close to his age and stuff. After Byrne left, Roger Stern ended up marrying the couple, which really didn’t seem to work, as it altered the dynamic I talked about at the beginning of this post and took Johnny out of play as the FF’s single guy. Eventually the folks working on the book came to see it was an odd fit as well—though not for awhile—which brings us to…

LYJA
…it wasn’t Alicia after all, it was a Skrull! Lyja had a lot of potential as a character and as a love interest for Johnny, but I don’t think she or their relationship ever really got a fair shake since she was created as a solution for a situation rather than a new idea. Her alienation from her own race and the way she somewhat put her warrior nature in check because of how much she cared for Johnny and on the flipside his having to work through such ultimate betrayal as getting married under totally false circumstances but realizing he did love this woman is all good story fodder, but the whole thing came along at an unstable time for the book and the characters, so it never came to fruition as it may have during another period. I did like Lyja’s brief return during Secret Invasion, as she deserved to tell off Johnny for forgetting about her, but I also like that they still couldn’t quite resist one another.

NAMORITA
The Nova-Namorita fan in me of course despises this pairing, but aside from that, I kind of love it. It’s so perfect on so many gimmicky levels: the mini-Namor/Sue thing, the fire/water thing, that they’re both just outgoing party hard characters who know how attractive they are. This is another one that never got enough play and it’s too bad she’s gone (and presumably the Namorita who turned up during War of Kings was plucked from before her dating Johnny days); they’d be a fun occasional hookup.

ULTIMATE FIRESTAR
Even in the Ultimate Universe, Johnny is a mack daddy who can’t win. Crystal ditched him even harder over there, and just when he seemed to have a good thing going with Liz Allen, she burst into flames and went off to hang with the X-Men. I’d like to see this one revisited. Somebody get me Brian Bendis…

Cruel Summer: Super-Skrull

The Skrulls, introduced in only the second issue of Fantastic Four way back when, exemplified one thing differentiated FF from so many of the standard super hero series to come and also made it the perfect bridge from the 50’s era of genre fiction to the true Silver Age: they were a science fiction concept that would have been right at home in Strange Tales or Tales to Astonish five years earlier, but they would end up being great foils for the tights and domino mask crowd well into the present. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby weren’t exactly riding a wave of high concept with the Skrulls as they were full-on “Invasion of the Bodysnatchers” knock-offs; the types of shape-shifting sinister extraterrestrials you’d find any weekend at the local drive-in.

That, however, is what makes the Super-Skrull so cool.

Kl’rt, the Super-Skrull, made his debut in Fantastic Four #18. He was the Skrulls’ greatest warrior, and as a result, selected to undergo genetic manipulation that gifted him with all the powers of the hated FF in addition to his own natural shape-shifting abilities. In fact, not only could he do all the stuff his foes did, Skrull science made him just that much better than them in each category. This was truly a villain worthy of the World’s Greatest Comic and seemingly an unstoppable ass-kicker.

The FF still won, of course, but only after getting thrashed pretty soundly and Reed Richards basically cheating by figuring out Super-Skrull was getting his powers augmented by a low-orbiting satellite and jamming the frequency; they couldn’t beat him, but they outsmarted him and his dummy superiors.

Super-Skrull has always had a fierce look, courtesy of Kirby. The Skrulls look freakier than your run-of-the-mill bad guy aliens to begin with, but pasting one of those ugly mugs on a body that can do everything the FF does is just a no-brainer when it comes to rad designs. For all the crazy cool neo-Super-Skrull designs that Leinil Francis Yu and other churned out during Secret Invasion—and oh how fun that must have been—I think the original still stands out; there’s something about that rocky Thing arm on fire and/or stretching that’s undeniably neat (I think the biggest challenge any artist faces when drawing Super-Skrull is feeling like they need to somehow incorporate the Invisible Woman’s less visually cool powers in).

Of course after an awesome first appearance, the problem with Super-Skrull became obvious: how can a guy this cool keep losing to everybody? I mean, if the Fantastic Four themselves are one of Marvel’s premiere teams and able to thwart off such tremendous threats from Doctor Doom to Galactus, how come a guy who can do everything they can do better than them and also change shape and also has super hypnosis (by the by) loses to Spider-Man, Ms. Marvel and Iron Fist? Mister Fantastic’s ol’ “block the satellite” trick became a tired deus ex machina and a villain who should have been ferocious dropped sadly into the same category as the Rhino or Abomination in terms of being the dude heroes beat on when they needed to establish bonafides before fighting true big league baddies.

It would take 43 years before somebody came up with e idea that Super-Skrull could actually make a pretty decent hero—or at least anti-hero. Keith Giffen, Andy Schmidt and the other great minds behind the 2006 Annihilation event hit on this notion and tasked Javier Grillo-Marxuach with crafting a four-issue limited series working Kl’rt into the proceedings.

In Annihilation: Super-Skrull, Grillo-Marxuach stays quite faithful to the established characterization of Kl’rt from all his previous appearances, he just casts him on the side of angels in this particular adventure, and in the process demonstrates that he was never so much a villain in the classic sense as a proud and dedicated warrior who happened to be working for the guys fighting our heroes. Super-Skrull remains ornery and arrogant throughout the series—he alienates his key ally, a young Skrull who hero worships him, just by being a jerk, and drives him over to the bad guys’ camp—but he also possesses many qualities we’d number as virtuous, such as his determination and even selflessness when it comes time to make a huge sacrifice in order to stop Annihilus from advancing on the Skrull homeworld. Even Reed Richards himself, whom Kl’rt reluctantly turns to for help in his mission, muses on how it really is the circumstances that shape our opinion of a being like the Super-Skrull.

For his part, Kl’rt of course does not care how he’s ultimately viewed so long as the job gets done. To borrow from pro wrestling, he’s “Stone Cold” Steve Austin: he could care less whether or not the fans cheer him so long as he wins the World title, and in having this attitude, he just becomes more popular.

Annihilation and its sequels have done wonder for Super-Skrull as they have mostly been war stories at their heart, and Kl’rt is a soldier. He did fine as a cackling super villain for a bit, but as I mentioned, it got played out and he was being used more to put other characters over than for his own virtues. His dedication to the Skrull Empire and willingness to do whatever it takes to see it prevail plays way better in a story where they’re part of a coalition battling Annihilus or the Phalanx than it does when he’s trying to conquer Earth through Hollywood or something; it renders him a far more three-dimensional character. Likewise the war-time camaraderie he has formed with guys like Nova and Star-Lord allows him to display a more relaxed side of his persona that makes him more appealing.

For me, aside from the look and the powers and the other stuff Super-Skrull has going for him, I’ve always just enjoyed that he often seems like the sole tough guy in a room full of weasels. The Skrulls are all about subterfuge and these long-form infiltration plans like Secret Invasion; Super-Skrull is their greatest champion, yet he’d prefer to walk right up to you and punch you in the face. He could be disguised as your wife or best friend, and yes, he does use those powers on occasions, but more often than not, he’s content to be an inconspicuous green monster that can still kick your ass because he’s a bad, bad man.

If they made a movie of Annihilation or about the Skrulls, you’d need to get a guy from The Expendables to play Super-Skrull, and there’s not much higher compliment I can offer than that.

Art Attack: June 2010's coolest covers

Well, most comic companies released their June solicits two weeks ago, but it's never too late to enjoy some gorgeous cover art! And boy are there a LOT of pretty covers headed our way this summer, so check these out...

ABE SAPIEN: THE ABYSSAL PLAIN #1 by Dave Johnson

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN PRESENTS: BLACK CAT #1 by Amanda Conner

ASTRO CITY: SILVER AGENT #1 by Alex Ross

AVENGERS: THE ORIGIN #3 by Phil Noto

BOOSTER GOLD #33 by Kevin Maguire

BUZZARD #1 by Eric Powell

COWBOY NINJA VIKING #7 by Riley Rossmo

DAREDEVIL #507 by Paolo Rivera

DC UNIVERSE LEGACIES #2 by Andy & Joe Kubert

DEADPOOL: WADE WILSON'S WAR #1 by Jason Pearson

FANTASTIC FOUR #580 by Alan Davis

FANTASTIC FOUR IN...ATAQUE DEL M.O.D.O.K. #1 by Juan Doe

GODLAND #34 by Tom Scioli

GREEN ARROW #1 by Mauro Cascioli

INCREDIBLE HULK #610 by John Romita Jr.

JUSTICE LEAGUE: GENERATION LOST #3 by Tony Harris

LOCKJAW AND THE PET AVENGERS #4 by Ig Guarra

META 4 #1 by Ted McKeever

PETER PARKER #4 by Brendan McCarthy

R.E.B.E.L.S. #17 by Kalman Andrasofsky

S.H.I.E.L.D. #2 by Gerard Parel

SERENITY: FLOAT OUT #1 by Jo Chen

THE JOKER'S ASYLUM: CLAYFACE #1 by Kelley Jones

THE THANOS IMPERATIVE #2 by Aleksi Briclot

THE WALKING DEAD #74 by Charlie Adlard

THOR #611 by Pasqual Ferry

TINY TITANS #29 by Art Baltazar

WOLVERINE: WEAPON X #14 by Ron Garney

X-FORCE #28 by David Finch

ZATANNA #2 by Stephane Roux

Hallmarks of the Silver Age part two

Picking up from where we left off...

1963: Iron Man
It’s possible 1963 may have been Marvel’s biggest year of the Silver Age, with Doctor Strange making his debut and both the Avengers and X-Men coming together while the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Thor and the Hulk all continued to churn forward, introducing new villains and supporting characters as they went. However, I place Iron Man at the head of the class for this one, and would have done so even without the character’s recent big screen success (though that certainly doesn’t hurt). Just as Thor did with fantasy, Iron Man introduced the realm of technology into super hero comics in a way not done before; yeah, heroes and more often villains often wielded fancy weapons of some sort or another, but Iron Man was really the first high profile comic book character who relied solely on technology to provide him with his “powers,” with invention and innovation playing a huge part in his ongoing adventures. On the human side of the coin, Tony Stark was in many ways Bruce Wayne done over Marvel styles, with the same crazy wealth and playboy persona—though his was not a front—but also with his feet firmly planted in the clay of hubris and the unawareness of the idle rich. Iron Man was a richly flawed character from the start, and he’s never really completely reformed his ways, but he has persevered as a good guy in spite of them, which makes him a compelling character. It’s also worth noting that few tropes in super hero lore have been re-used as often as “guy in a suit of armor,” but not other similar character comes close to Iron Man’s success and popularity.

As a recently enlightened Doctor Strange fan, I was tempted to consider Doc here almost on the strength of Steve Ditko’s visuals alone—coupled with being comics’ most prominent magic-wielder—but like how Thor and Hulk get eclipsed by Spider-Man, so too does Strange by Iron Man. The Avengers was just the Justice Society or Justice League done Marvel style, with all the biggest names coming together, and while it’s proven a vital franchise, there wasn’t much innovation behind it and unlike with the year the JLA was created, there was actual competition here. The idea of misfit heroes embodied by the X-Men and Doom Patrol, both created in this year, took Spider-Man’s plight somewhat to the next level, but the latter have never really managed to hit it big, and the former have succeeded not really in much part due to its original incarnation.

1964: Daredevil
Way before the likes of Frank Miller, Brian Michael Bendis, et al. came along to reinvent him into Marvel’s hard-luck kid and most hardboiled costumed hero, Daredevil was in many ways a sort of second rate Spider-Man, ripping off his counterparts acrobatic moves, witty repartee and other trademark qualities in hopes of lightning striking twice. It was a success in some regard as DD remained a viable star who could support his own ongoing series until the 80’s where his renaissance took place, but he never achieved Spidey’s success, nor could he really be expected to given that he basically inherited all his big brother’s hand-me-downs. However, it’s not like Daredevil just exploded two decades after his creation without there being anything there, as Stan Lee, Bill Everett and their collaborators certainly invented a unique protagonist and took some pretty significant risks in his realization. The idea that a hero with a major handicap like blindness would swim as opposed to sink with an audience chiefly composed of young boys who were highly unlikely to find such a setback sexy or appealing certainly could have been enough to shoot the idea down, but Daredevil’s creators persevered and indeed his unique standing as comics’ first and most well-known blind hero—though not the last—laid the groundwork that gave Miller somewhere to start and that has always set him apart from his contemporaries enough to keep him noticed. Major credit must also go to artist Wally Wood, who created one of the medium’s sleekest, coolest looks by modifying DD’s somewhat gaudy original yellow togs into that slick red costume.

The other most significant creations of 1964 were both villains: Spider-Man’s true archnemesis the Green Goblin, and the Justice League’s evil counterparts the Crime Syndicate; both have endured and made for some excellent stories, but neither rates above Daredevil.

1965: The Inhumans
While both Marvel and DC were thriving in terms of the ongoing adventures of their existing characters, 1965 was a bit of a lean year for new characters in comics. However, I’d tag Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s introduction of the Inhumans in the pages of the Fantastic Four as being the most noteworthy new arrival. Though nobody has ever found quite the perfect recipe to making the Inhumans true headliners—though Paul Jenkins made a damn good case—so many creators come back to them time and again wanting to give it a shot because the characters possess some intrinsic quality that makes them quite appealing. I’d say a large part of that can be attributed to Kirby doing some of the finest design work of a remarkable career, particularly with Black Bolt, whose costume has few peers when it comes to sheer radness. The bizarre and intriguing mix of personalities and powers within an extended family unit also presents an irresistible hook for fans and inviting challenge to writers and artists.

Speaking of great looks, the bizarre Metamorpho also hit the scene in 1965 and parallels the Inhumans somewhat in terms of being a consistently popular character with both fans and creators who has never really reached that upper echelon. These days Donna Troy is better known as being the greatest symbol of continuity’s potential damage, but years before her first retcon she was significant as the first female sidekick who really stuck.

1966: The Black Panther
This was maybe the toughest call of this little exercise, as three pretty iconic and impressive characters all debuted as part of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s ongoing Fantastic Four tour de force in 1966, but at the end of the day, I’ve got to go with the Black Panther. Obviously the major consideration here is that he’s the first African-American hero who really broke through comics’ color barrier and emerged as a legitimate star, but that aside, T’Challa really is a pretty great character on merits aside from that as well. The concept of the warrior king was hardly a new one in either comics or fiction in general by the time Lee and Kirby created the Panther, but I’ve always liked the way they made him a thinker first and fighter second—a trend pretty much every subsequent creator handle the character has continued and improved—who had an edge over opponents who outmatched him based on his ability to keep his cool and strategize. The idea of a technologically-advanced civilization in the middle of Africa may not have been born with Wakanda, but certainly Lee and Kirby gave this particular fictional nation more spark than any others. Ultimately though, great character or not, the Black Panther will always be most remembered for being a trendsetting black character not only due to his coming first (or darn close), but also for the respectability he has garnered.

The other guys I had under consideration for 1966 were the cosmic duo of Galactus and the Silver Surfer, introduced in perhaps the best Lee-Kirby collaboration ever. The Silver Surfer is one of the most incredibly tragic figures in all of comics, Galactus is the amazing realization of two of the medium’s most epic minds working at their biggest scope and both sport, again, great Kirby designs, an had they just been introduced a couple months earlier they would have been shoo-ins; oh well.

1967: Batgirl
While Wonder Woman has always been recognized somewhat de facto as DC’s top female character—and the biggest female character in comics history—I daresay the Barbara Gordon incarnation of Batgirl is not only more affable in many ways, but has also left a more fondly remembered impression on a wider audience (within comics at least; despite Yvonne Craig’s best efforts, she can’t topple Lynda Carter on her best day). At first thought, the idea of a teenage girl slipped into the grim world of Batman may seem an odd fit, and during some periods it would have been, but Barbara came about during the Dark Knight’s more innocent Silver Age days and acclimated perfectly. In the long view though, just as Robin gave Batman a necessary counterbalance to his darkness in the Golden Age, Batgirl added a just as crucial element of renewed enthusiasm as the 60’s began to wind down. With a great costume and that neat link to the civilian side of Gotham as Commissioner Gordon’s daughter, Barbara gained an acceptance among male fans many female characters never enjoy—and was probably the first crush for more than a few—and was certainly also a more than decent role model to young girls with her pluck, independent spirit and ingenuity. Her translation to various forms of multimedia (Alicia Silverstone aside) also demonstrates the character’s enduring value.

1967 also saw Steve Ditko leave the Marvel nest definitively with his creation of The Question perhaps his best-known character from outside the House of Ideas and another chance for him to explore his fascination with the ideals of right and wrong. Vic Sage has become a neat vessel for creators like Denny O’Neil to play with over the years and benefits from strong roots put in place by Ditko.

1968: Franklin Richards
As you’ve no doubt gathered by reading this list (and likely by being a comic book fan), a lot of first took place in the pages of Fantastic Four, including the first time two teammates entered into a lasting marriage, followed in 1968 by the Invisible Girl giving birth to Franklin Richards, the first child of super heroes after a fashion. Certainly Franklin has not always been the most beloved character, but his continued presence (and lack of aging—save for time travel hijinx) in the FF’s world over the last 30 years both speaks to a core of quality and the fact that once again Fantastic Four is not quite like most other comics. Some creators have also done some pretty neat stuff with Franklin over the years—not just in terms of Chris Eliopoulos’ laudable all-ages efforts, but in the Marvel Universe proper as well—including current FF scribe and major Franklin fan Jonathan Hickman.

Two other enduring figures who showed up in Avengers during 1968 were the yin and yang of the Marvel robotic set, Ultron and the Vision, with one becoming an implacable villain who has become only more terrifying with time and the other carving a niche as a unique hero and touching examination of humanity’s nature.

1969: Black Canary
DC wrapped the Silver Age as it had begun it: by taking a Golden Age concept, applying some polish, and creating a new superstar. In this case, the elevation was done in the form of Dinah Laurel Lance, the second and more well-known Black Canary. Though at the time the Canary was thought to simply be the same lady from the 1940’s migrating over from Earth-2 to Earth-1 following the death of her husband, she immediately displayed a new take-charge personality in fitting with the rising feminist movement, and we would learn years later via retcon this was in fact the daughter of the heroine who served in the Justice Society, so we’ll go ahead and recognize her first appearance as being in 1969. Regardless of her origins, the revitalized Black Canary represented a new breed of female characters who didn’t need the powers of Wonder Woman to break out of the role of damsel in distress, and gave the Justice League a feminine counter to the similarly non-powered Batman and Green Arrow. The romance between Arrow and Canary would also quickly become one of the most intense and popular in comics, opening up a whole new world in the 70’s.

Across the street at Marvel, Stan Lee and Gene Colan gave Captain America a new partner who couldn’t be more different from his original teen sidekick Bucky: the street-smart, mature, high-flying Falcon, who also happened to be a black man. Written with a combination of savvy and passion by Lee and successors, Falcon would prove popular enough to share billing with Cap on his series for several years.

Well this was fun and educational for me, so I hope you all dug it—anybody wanna see me tackle the 70’s next?