Author Archives: Steven Howell Wilson

More thoughts on Jim Shooter’s first run on Avengers

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Continuing my review (Part One was last week) of the first six Avengers issues written by comics legend Jim Shooter… For those who just want to dive in without reading part one, know that I like Jim Shooter. He did phenomenal work on the Legion of Super-Heroes as a very young teen, and he did a nice job with these issues. But, later, he wrote some phenomenally bad Avengers issues. I’ve often wondered why his second visit to the Mansion was so unsuccessful. So I revisited some of those early, favorite stories of mine to see if I could see the seeds of the bad in what I thought was the good.

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Some thoughts on Jim Shooter’s first run on Avengers

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(Total comic geekiness this week. No need to look within for any profound reflections on life. Sorry!)

I started reading Marvel’s premier team book, The Avengers (AKA, unofficially, The Mighty Avengers and sometimes The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes) in 1974. I grew up with it as one of my top favorite comics. As I grew peripherally aware of who was writing the scripts, who was drawing the pictures, I came to see Jim Shooter’s first tour as author of the Mighty Assemblers’ adventures as something of a golden age for the team. But then, to be fair, I pretty much considered the entire run, from about ten issues after I started reading and figured out what was going on, to the time seven years later when I just felt I’d gotten too old for comic books, to be a golden age. (Too old for comic books at 15. I know, right? Y’see, there was this girl…)

But Jim Shooter, the still-very-young writer who, at age 13, had taken over DC’s Legion of Super-Heroes a few years earlier and made it a fan favorite, brought some very special moments to the team’s history, especially when he was working with George Perez, arguably the greatest artist ever to draw the Avengers. (And that’s saying something, when you consider they were also drawn by Neal Adams, Don Heck, John Buscema and Jack Kirby, to name a few.) Continue reading →

A simple passage from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain:

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WidowDouglas

The old Welshman came home toward daylight, spattered with candle-grease, smeared with clay, and almost worn out. He found Huck still in the bed that had been provided for him, and delirious with fever. The physicians were all at the cave, so the Widow Douglas came and took charge of the patient. She said she would do her best by him, because, whether he was good, bad, or indifferent, he was the Lord’s, and nothing that was the Lord’s was a thing to be neglected. The Welshman said Huck had good spots in him, and the widow said:

“You can depend on it. That’s the Lord’s mark. He don’t leave it off. He never does. Puts it somewhere on every creature that comes from his hands.”

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Goodbye, Danny

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Less than a year ago, I was eulogizing my friend Marty Gear in this space. Marty lived a full life, and changed the lives of many, many people for the better. He died quietly in his sleep. Up to the last, he did the things he loved with the people he loved. I miss Marty, and the shock of his death was wrenching. But I can’t look back with any regret on his behalf. As far as I can see, Marty made of life everything he could. His life was well lived.

Sitting in a meeting Tuesday, I learned via email that Danny, Marty’s son and my former classmate at Atholton High, was now dead as well. Danny took his own life, ending his journey early. I wasn’t close enough to Danny to comment on what kind of life he led, whether he was happy (I conclude he was not), or how many lives he touched. I know tidbits about the trials he endured, relayed to me by a concerned father. I know he had children, and I know from their public posts on Facebook that they loved their Dad very much. After 1980, Danny was mostly the son of a friend of mine; someone I thought well of because his Dad loved him so much, and was proud of him.

But, in 1980 Danny was a bright spot in my life, and I’ll never forget how that felt. The reason I say that might seem kinda silly, but little things mean a lot, especially to a 14-year-old who hasn’t confronted a lot of big things. Continue reading →

Getting to the heart of a character… Captain America: The Winter Soldier (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

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captain_america__the_winter_soldier___fan_poster_by_superdude001-d68na0lTom Sawyer. Huck Finn. Oliver Twist. The Artful Dodger. Tarzan. Rhett Butler. Scarlett O’Hara. Peter Pan. Alice in Wonderland. To some of us, characters like these, and their many, many young siblings, are more real than the people we work with, go to school with or meet on the street. Their images are indelibly stamped on our hearts, so well did their creators fashion them. They are alive for us.

All of these characters have been revisited, again and again, by authors not their creators. That’s because they are so powerful. Because we want more adventures with them. Because they fire the imaginations of even the most imaginative people… and, yes, sometimes the imaginations of the dullest of people as well.

I daresay Captain America is such a character now, for millions of Americans. Created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby in the pages of Timely Comics (now Marvel Entertainment, thank you very much!) during the early days of World War II, Cap was re-engineered by Kirby and Stan Lee beginning in 1963. Starting as just another patriotic-themed Nazi-buster, in the 1960s, Steve Rogers became a stranger in a strange land, Rip Van Winkle, Buck Rogers, a man who goes to sleep and wakes up in a time not his own. Of course, in 1963 he’d been asleep for only 18 years. Now, since World War II can’t move in time, the movie version of Cap awakes over 65 years in the future, still young, still ready for battle.

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Getting Beyond Zero Tolerance

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Sometimes our friends drive us crazy. They can be real pains in the ass. They’re not always reliable. They are loud, opinionated, and needy. They have crazy ideas that come at you from far out in left field… Sometimes they just leave us rolling our eyes and shaking our heads and wondering why we bother to get out of bed on days when sleep seems to be just the most wonderful thing ever invented by… whoever invented it. Wasn’t it Neil Gaiman?  Yeah, sometimes our friends drive us crazy.

And sometimes…

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Superman Plays Football… and other tales of woe.

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Superman_1 Every now and then something sort of little gives you pause and makes you consider something… bigger. In this case, “something little” is one of the very earliest comic book adventures of Superman. Published in Action Comics #4 (making it the Man of Steel’s fourth appearance), the story is called, predictably enough, “Superman Plays Football.” (It’s also re-printed in Superman #1.)

Well, that’s its title in the index at the Grand Comic Book Database. On the story, there’s no title. That was typical of Golden Age comic stories, as is the length of this one, just over twelve pages. Also typical, but disturbing, are the attitudes toward life, fair play and personal interaction displayed by the characters. Those are the “something bigger” or “somethings bigger” that I’m talking about. They’re attitudes which may have been typical of the time, but certainly not attitudes I would want to push off on young readers without some kind of comment. (Of course, now, young readers are unlikely to see this story. I think mostly only middle-aged nostalgia buffs like me are bothering to read Superman adventures from the 1930s.)

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Getting Lost in a Story

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Did you ever get lost in a story? I mean really lost, as in the places and the characters so dominate your waking mind that it’s hard to focus on other things? Where characters become so real to you that you think about them, worry about them, talk to them in your head and spend time formulating solutions to their problems that you would share with them if only you had the opportunity?

Naturally, I’m asking because that has happened to me. It can be a weird, even jarring experience, almost like a dissociative state, to be conducting the business of a busy, professional life and be more engaged by thoughts of people who don’t exist than you are by the work or the people in front of you.

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I am so mad at Ayn Rand

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judgmentdayI am so mad at Ayn Rand…

Right?

I mean, I never met the woman. She’s been dead for 31 years. And what I’m mad at her about, she did when I was four. And it had nothing to do with me. Still, I’ve just never been so angry and disappointed with one of my heroes before.

Okay, “I am so mad,” is an exaggeration. I experienced a moment of shock and anger is more appropriate. Let me back up a bit and tell you what prompted this. I was reading a book called Judgment Day: My Years with Ayn Rand. Since its original publication in the late 80s, it’s been renamed just My Years with Ayn Rand. Don’t know why. Was the original title too religious in its connotations for the atheist followers of Rand, or was it, perhaps, too subtle for the average reader to understand why what’s essentially a tell-all book (albeit a high-brow tell-all) would be named “Judgment Day.” Hint: It’s because Ayn Rand was noted for saying, “Judge and prepare to be judged” in answer to the Christian admonishment to “Judge not, lest ye be judged.” She didn’t think anyone should go without having to answer for their actions, so every day with her was Judgment Day. I guess it was kinda uncomfortable for a lot of people.

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Press Room – My Upcoming interview in Back Issue

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Back Issue! 71 - Click Image to CloseI guess the only thing cooler than being interviewed in the pages of one of your favorite magazines is being interviewed in one of your favorite magazines and having the cover art turn out to be this amazing image of Dr. Strange and Clea by Arthur Adams. My friend and sometimes-editor Bob Greenberger did the article on the DC Comics Bonus Book program of the late 1980s, for which I wrote a Warlord story which turned out to be the first professional work of comic artist Rob Liefeld. The interview is fairly short, but includes some reflections of times long-past when I was just starting out. It ships this week! Buy a copy at your local comic shop, or order (paper or eBook) from TwoMorrows.