$5.95In the USA

No.24May2003

PLUS:PLUS:

SPOTLIGHT ONThe Magnificent

MORTMESKINMORT

MESKIN

Vigilante TM & ©2003 DC Comics

MORT MESKIN:His Kith & KinSection

Alter EgoTM is published monthly by TwoMorrows, 1812 Park Drive, Raleigh, NC 27605, USA. Phone: (919) 833-8092. Roy Thomas, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Alter Ego Editorial Offices: Rt. 3, Box 468, St. Matthews, SC 29135, USA. Fax: (803) 826-6501; e-mail: roydann@ntinet.com. Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial offices. Single issues:$8 ($10 Canada, $11 elsewhere). Twelve-issue subscriptions: $60 US, $120 Canada, $132 elsewhere. All characters are © their respectivecompanies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © Roy Thomas. Alter Ego is a TM of Roy & DannThomas. FCA is a TM of P.C. Hamerlinck. Printed in Canada.

FIRST PRINTING.

Vol. 3, No. 24 / May 2003Editor Roy Thomas

Associate EditorsBill SchellyJim Amash

Design & LayoutChristopher Day

Consulting EditorsJohn MorrowJon B. Cooke

FCA EditorP.C. Hamerlinck

Comic Crypt EditorMichael T. Gilbert

Editors EmeritusJerry Bails (founder)Ronn Foss, Biljo White,Mike Friedrich

Production AssistantEric Nolen-Weathington

Cover ArtistsMort MeskinDave Cockrum

Cover ColoristTom Ziuko

Mailing CrewRuss Garwood, Glen Musial,Ed Stelli, Pat Varker, Loston Wallace

And Special Thanks to:

™

MORT MESKIN:His Kith & KinSection ContentsWriter/Editorial: “Mort Be Nimble, Mort Be Quick!” . . . . . . 2“He Raised the Artistic Bar!” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3Jim Amash’s Short Celebration of the Life and Legend of Mort Meskin.

Alex Toth: Homage to Mort Meskin: Maestro . . . . . . . . . . . . 5“He Thought He Was a Great Comic Book Artist!” . . . . . . . . 9And he was right! Jim Amash talks with Mort Meskin’s sons Peter & Philip.

Portrait of a Collector: Ed Lahmann Revisited! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27Bill Schelly interviews a star of 1960s fandom—and remembers the late Biljo White.

The Marvelous World of “What If?”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31Michael T. Gilbert on some Marvel Age comics covers that never happened!

FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America) #83. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37P.C. Hamerlinck proudly presents Marc Swayze and William Woolfolk.

X-Men: From Silver to Bronze Section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Flip Us!About Our Cover & Contents Page Illo: We wanted you to see it both in color and in black-&-white. Collector Ethan Roberts, who acquired this great display drawing a few years ago(he says it belonged at one time to Meskin’s artist-friend George Roussos), believes it may beMort Meskin’s original concept drawing—i.e., the first illo ever!—of the DC hero TheVigilante, who appeared for years in Action Comics and even had his own movie serial. Wesuspect Ethan may be right, for the original art is partly colored, almost certainly by Meskin,with a red bandanna mask—a light blue shirt (it became solid blue in the comics)—andwhite pants (colored light blue in Action) . Our thanks to Ethan for letting us print thisnever-before-published piece. [Art ©2003 Estate of Mort Meskin; ©2003 DC Comics.]

Ger ApeldoornBob BaileyMike W. BarrBill BlackJerry K. BoydTom BrevoortMike BurkeyR. Dewey CassellChris ClaremontDave CockrumTeresa R. DavidsonArnold DrakeShane FoleyGary FriedrichMike FriedrichGlen David GoldMark & StephanieHeike

Tom HorvitzMichael KellyEd LahmannStan Lee

Don MarisRobert MarquezPatyPeter MeskinPhilip MeskinJoe PetrilakWilson Ramos, Jr.Charlie RobertsEthan RobertsJerry RobinsonRandy SargentJim ShooterCraig ShuttDavid SiegelMarc SwayzeDann ThomasAlex TothHames WareDylan WilliamsTom WimbishWilliam Woolfolk

This issue is dedicatedto the memory of

Biljo White(1929-2003)

by Jim AmashMort Meskin started drawing comic books in the Eisner-Iger shop in

1938. His stay was brief, but he built up his skills to the point where hebecame the first artist to draw “Sheena, Queen of the Jungle,” provingthat Will Eisner’s faith in him was justified. Meskin matured ratherquickly as an artist. He had been well educated at Pratt Institute and hadalready done professional work for magazines, as well as a two-yearstretch at a newspaper syndicate. He also studied some of the best artistsof his time: Milton Caniff, Herbert Morton Stoops, Roy Crane, AlexRaymond, and Ed Cartier (whose pulp illustration influence wasextremely evident in Meskin’s pulp work).

Meskin left Eisner & Iger for the Harry “A” Chesler shop, but hedidn’t stay there long, either. His work appeared in the comics publishedby several companies, including Timely, Lev Gleason, and MLJ (laterknown as Archie Publications), where he drew a variety of super-herofeatures, including “Bob Phantom,” “Captain Valor,” “Hercules,”“Captain Valor,” “MisterSatan,” “The Wizard,”and more. But he wasstill finding himself as anartist when he made hisnext stop, which was along one, at DC Comics.

It was at DC thatMeskin found his artisticvoice in comic books.He started there on the“Vigilante” feature, andwas an immediate hit.“Vigilante” was reallysupposed to be a fillerfeature in ActionComics, but Meskinturned it into an artistictriumph. Every page wasa visual treat as herefined his storytelling,which was strengthenedby his dramatic composi-tions and his ever-increasing use of blackareas. His application ofdefined negative space toreinforce his scenestaging only heightenedhis graphic imagery. Meskin’s compositional arrangements of groupedfigures in a scene were always compelling, never contrived. Peoplesmiled a lot in his stories, as if to say to the reader, “Join in and have funwith us.” But, good as his drawing was, he never forgot to tell the storyfirst. It was impossible a reader to stop and stare at just one panel,because Meskin knew how to draw the reader into the story and keephim there until the final panel.

As experimental as his storytelling was on “Vigilante,” he raised theartistic bar once he was assigned to the “Johnny Quick” feature. Whilethere were several comic book super-heroes applying super-speed as

their stock in trade, Meskin’sgroundbreaking visual treatmentsof the hero in motion was a sightto behold. His utilization ofmultiple, fully-drawn images ofJohnny Quick to portray rapidmovement was inventive andeffective. If Meskin was influencedby stop-action photography, hisnovel use of camera anglesconvinced any reader that JohnnyQuick really moved that fast,leaving the company’s major

speedster, The Flash, visually behind in second place. This approach tospeed depiction required hard work with no shortcuts, which mayexplain why few others tried to duplicate it (Witness other artists likeRalph Mayo, who took the more conventional tack when he drew thefeature... boring and lackluster by comparison.) Dan Barry, one of thegreat comics artists of the time, gave it a shot, as did Joe Kubert yearslater in the 1980s when he drew Johnny Quick on some of DC’s All-Star Squadron covers. However, these two great artists were the excep-tions.

With this body of work, Meskin became one of the most admiredartists among his peers. Many compared his work, in quality and

“He Raised the Artistic Bar!”A Short Celebration of the Life and Legend of MORT MESKIN

The Magnificent MORT MESKIN part one 3

Mort Meskin inking a pagesometime in the 1950s—and a great

“Johnny Quick” sequence fromAdventure Comics #127 (April 1948)depicting multiple images of hands

and arms or whole figures. MostMort Meskin photos printed in thisissue were sent by Dylan Williams,

who works with Peter Meskin inrunning the <www.meskin.net>

website, which we definitely inviteyou to visit! These photos are

mostly from the personalcollections of Meskin’s sons, Peterand Philip. [Art ©2003 DC Comics.]

quantity, to that of Jack Kirby. Therewere similarities in the work the twoproduced at the time, though it’s morelikely Meskin was influenced by Kirbythan the other way around. InkerCharles Paris once noted that both menwould sit down in the morning and, by5:00, individually produce four pages ofcomplete art. Paris also observed thatMeskin’s figures were not as exaggeratedas Kirby’s, and usually his pages weremore tightly finished. But sometimesKirby would draw a page more thanMeskin did, and he was alsocontributing to the final written productas he drew, frequently writing the scriptor rewriting a script scribed by others.Jack Kirby confirmed the often-told talethat Meskin was intimidated by Kirby’sability, making it difficult for Meskin todraw in the DC bullpen when Jack wasaround.

It shouldn’t have mattered, becauseMeskin was nearly, if not completely,Kirby’s equal at the time. Artist andcomics historian Jim Steranko, for one,believes Meskin equaled Kirby on manyassignments during this period. DC hada giant in their midst, though they didn’talways appreciate him. Meskin was quietand rather shy, due partly to a speechimpediment and partly to emotionalproblems, which eventually led to aseries of nervous breakdowns. He leftDC for a while and worked at othercompanies, such as StandardPublications. He shared a studio withpartner Jerry Robinson, producingmemorable comics like Black Terror(previously a very dull, but leadingcompany character), and The Fighting Yank, as well as Golden Lad forSpark Publications. Meskin and Robinson were a great team, alwaystranscending the scripts they were handed. Eventually, the two split uptheir studio, but retained their friendship and mutual admiration.

Meskin went to work for the Simon & Kirby shop, drawing a varietyof genres in books like Bullseye, Young Love, Young Romance, JusticeTraps the Guilty, Police Trap, and Captain 3-D (packaged by Simon &Kirby, but published by Harvey Publications). He also worked for a fewother companies, such as Timely and Standard. Meskin also shared astudio for a while with George Roussos, who had previously inked

Meskin’s pencils at DC.

By this time, Meskin’s style hadchanged a bit. His staging was moreurbane, less kinetic, though that maybe due to the change in subject matter,since romance and horror comicsdemanded a different look than super-heroes. He adopted a looser, rough-hewn inking style, applying morecrosshatching than before, which gavemore of a mid-tone to the finishedblack-&-white art than in his DCdays. Sometimes, facial features weresuggested more than completed. Itwas top quality work, but perhaps notas aesthetically pleasing as it had been.

Mort Meskin returned to DCComics in the mid-1950s, stayingthere until he’d had enough of thecomic book business. The industrywasn’t kind to Mort, who certainlygave far better than he received. Hiswork lost some of its vitality andquality, often appearing rushed.Editors such as the tyrannical RobertKanigher treated Meskin horribly,despite knowing about the artist’sprevious emotional problems. It wasshabby, squalid treatment of a formerstar, now on the downside of animpressive career.

Meskin left DC Comics for thecomparatively safe haven of adver-tising work at BBD&O around 1965.The insulting, shortsighted epitaph toMeskin’s career at DC was spoken byeditorial director Irwin Donenfeld.When an artist asked about Meskin’s

departure, Donenfeld replied, ”We had to let Mort Meskin go. Mort quitdrawing fingernails.”

Mort Meskin never stopped drawing. His desire and ability to depictthe world as he felt it only grew. In later years, he painted hundreds ofscenes in oil, pen and ink, and in watercolor, many of which reside infamily members’ homes. He endlessly experimented with technique andstyle, always searching for his next artistic discovery.

To Meskin, creating art was a lifelong achievement. Even birthdays,weddings, religious holidays such as Chanukah and Rosh Hashanah andother events were dutifully and lovingly remembered in fun, well-illus-trated cards. Bristol board, canvas, paper towels, napkins: anything thathad white space was in danger of being covered with impressionistobservations from his creative mind.

Overall, the legacy of Mort Meskin is an important one. He broughta fresh, vital look to comics that entertained his audience for years. Hisunique and often daring storytelling, coupled with his dramatic use ofpositive and negative space, influenced people like Jerry Robinson,George Roussos, Bob Forgione, Joe Kubert, and Steve Ditko. An exami-nation of the facial expressions on many of Ditko’s and Kubert’scharacters betray the Meskin influence, as do several stylistic qualities oftheir inking. Meskin was an artist who tried to grow and change with thetimes. Whether one can easily dismiss his later work or not (or thevaried reasons behind the changes), there’s no denying that thebright light of freshness that Mort Meskin shone on the comicsfield had a lasting effect on those who followed.

Some of the best of Meskin’s solo super-hero comics work—as well as his monumental teaming with friend and fellow artist Jerry

Robinson—has been restored and reprinted by Bill Black’s AC Comicsin beautiful black-&-white editions which allow the linework to beseen more clearly. This Meskin splash from Cressen/Spark’s Golden

Lad #2 (Nov. 1945) appears in AC’s Golden-Age Greats Vol. 13. Do yourself and favor and see AC’s ad elsewhere in this issue.

[Restored art ©2003 Paragon Publications.]

Write to: Robin Snyder, 2284 Yew St. Rd. #B6,Bellingham, WA 98226-8899

MONTHLY! Edited andpublished by Robin Snyder

4 Mort Meskin

Conducted & Transcribed by Jim Amash[INTERVIEWER’S INTRO: Mort Meskin left a great comic booklegacy, but that’s not what makes him so extraordinary. As mostpeople know, raising children is the most special of achievements, evenwhen things run on an even keel. Battling personal and professionalproblems, Meskin continued to be a wonderful parent and role modelfor his two son, Peter and Philip. As Meskin was reluctant to publiclydiscuss his career or personal life, it falls to his sons to tell us abouthim (in separate interviews which we’ve combined for the sake ofeconomy). From our vantage point, Meskin’s greatest success was thesons he reared and the feelings he engendered in others. If the makeof a man is measured by what he leaves behind him, then MortMeskin proved he was one hellof a man. —Jim.]

“How Do You Draw,Dad?”

JIM AMASH: When and wherewas your father born?

PETER MESKIN: As far as Iknow, he was born in Brooklyn,May 30, 1916. His full name wasMorton Meskin.

JA: Sometimes he signed hisname “Morton Meskin, Jr.”

PETER: He made that up. Healso made up “Mort Morton” and,I think, “Mort Morton, Jr.”

JA: Why did he invent the“Junior” part?

PETER: I don’t know. I guess hewas young and thought that the“Junior” would be cool orsomething. [laughs] His father’sname was Joe.

One of my earliest memories ofmy father was that he would bringhome copies of his comics to mybrother Philip and me. We’d beghim to do it. We would immedi-ately read them, whether therewere two comics or twenty. We’d memorize every single word in everysingle comic, reading his stories first. We were his biggest fans and had aset of comics that you wouldn’t believe. You could show us one panelfrom a story of his and we could tell you where it came from. But mostof those comics disappeared years later.

JA: Philip, what are your earliestmemories of your father?

PHILIP MESKIN: As you know, ournuclear family broke up early. I was inthe third grade. I remember crawlingaround Prospect Park with my fatherand Peter. I remember living with mygrandfather when I was about one ortwo years old. I also remember going toParis with my mother and brother on atrip. My father didn’t come along.

JA: Did your father have any siblings?

PETER: Yes. He had a brother, Nat, anda sister, Muriel. They both passed awaybefore he did, though. Uncle Nat was theoldest and Aunt Muriel was the youngest,so my father was the middle child.

JA: What art education did your fatherhave?

PETER: He went to Pratt Institute. He never graduated but went therefor two or three years. He really learned how to draw human anatomy.He was respected for that. I remember one of the sculptures he made athome. It was a plaster cast of Moses, a copy of the one with horns byMichelangelo, and he could name every muscle in the figure. He also

“He Thought He Was a GreatComic Book Artist!”

And He Was Right! A Candid Conversation (or Rather, Two of Them)with the Sons of Golden Age Legend MORT MESKIN!

The Magnificent MORT MESKIN part three

Mort Meskin with his sons Peter (left) andPhilip (right, and the splash from the

superbly-drawn “Johnny Quick” tale inAdventure Comics #127 (April ‘48). Unlessotherwise noted, photos in this section are

courtesy of Peter Meskin, provided by DylanWilliams from the <www.meskin.net>

website. Give yourself a treat and give it alook! We’ve only shown the tip of the

Meskin iceberg. [Art ©2003 DC Comics.]

9

took some courses at the Art Students league, and he taught for a while.He still spoke with a stutter at the time, so he was very uncomfortabletalking in front of groups.

JA: When did you become aware that your father was an artist?

PHILIP: I can’t remember atime when he wasn’t, becausehe was always brining in artsupplies and comic books.

PETER: I’m three and a halfyears older than Philip. Iremember Dad’s studio,which was a room I loved togo in because that’s wheremagic happened. I’d stand onmy tiptoes and look up at hiseasel and watch him drawand paint. I could smell allthe paints and inks. I loved it.I asked him once, “How doyou draw, Dad?” Heshrugged and said, “I don’tknow.” He’d point to hisshoulder and say, “It comesdown my arm and goes outmy fingers and comes out ofthe brush.” He never wantedto teach Philip and me howto draw. He felt it was toodifficult a life. I never learnedto draw because he didn’twant us to.

PHILIP: That’s true, thoughI don’t think he activelydiscouraged it. I once askedhim about that when I was inhigh school. He said it was aconscious decision on hispart not to encourage us inart because of the badfeelings he had towardsmaking a career out of art,the struggles you have to gothrough, etc.

JA: Art has never been aneasy career path to follow.

He was trying to protect youfrom what he was goingthrough. Your father soundslike he was a very sensitiveperson, and the deadlinesprobably got on his nerves,which might have contributedto some of his problems.

PHILIP: I think he had periodswhere putting out those pageswas a struggle. I rememberduring his “Mark Merlin” yearsthat he had troubles. My mainmemories of my father’s comicbook career are the House ofMystery, House of Secrets years.I felt his later years in comics

were not as good as his earlier years. I was proud of his work, but Iknew the artwork he had done previously was much more detailed.There were more lines, less caricatured faces. I remember someone [JimSteranko in his History of Comics. —Jim A.] writing, “So what ifMort didn’t know the construction of a .45 automatic?”

I think it was an issue ofShowcase where Dad drewthis great story about a pilotwho landed in the desert. Adust cloud came along and hewas sucked into this otherworld where the ArabianNights were. He fell in lovewith a beautiful girl.

My favorite comic bookartist who ever lived wasBarry Smith, when he wasdrawing the early Conancomic books. Barry Smithwas intense, and he put a lotinto his work.

JA: You know, my editor onthis magazine, Roy Thomas,wrote those comics.

PHILIP: I didn’t know that.The reason I mentionedBarry Smith was because Ididn’t think Pop was as goodas Barry Smith. I think mydad reached his peak incomic book art around 1956.“Johnny Quick,”“Vigilante,” Black Terror...that work was good, but itwas done before my time.

JA: I wasn’t born until1960, so my earliestmemories of your father’swork were the reprints ofHouse of Secrets andHouse of Mystery stuff.But when DC startedreprinting “Johnny Quick”and “Vigilante,” I fell inlove with Mort Meskin’s

Under the house name “W. Morgan Thomas,” Meskin drew the first “Sheena, Queen of the Jungle” episode, whose U.S.debut was in Jumbo Comics #1 (Sept. 1938). At this point Sheena was very much in the mode of H. Rider Haggard’s She,

but that would soon change to the Tarzanic model. [©2003 Paul Aratow/Columbia.]

This DC page by Mort Meskin from what his son Philip calls “his ‘Mark Merlin years’” was kindly sent to us by Ger Apeldoorn of The Netherlands, who says he got it from the

black-&-white British Blackhawk #27. Boy, is Alter Ego going international, or what![©2003 DC Comics.]

10 Mort Meskin

work, and it influenced me. I used to copy your dad’s super-herowork. Later on, I saw the Black Terror and his work for Simon andKirby.

PHILIP: The “Mark Merlin” stuff was done after my father’s stay in thehospital. He wasn’t into the artwork as much as he had been before.Also, he was living then by himself in Greenwich Village in a one-roomapartment where he had a bed and an easel. This was before he met mystep-mother Molly, who had a major, positive impact on his life. GeorgeRoussos also lived in that building, and they were friends.

JA: Roussos inked your father on “Vigilante” and also drew thatfeature after your father left it.

PHILIP: I didn’t know that.

“100% Almost True-to-Life Stories”JA: You dad probably was more into making a living rather thanhaving the passion for the artwork itself, perhaps. Also, he had

problems with some of the people he worked with, and maybe theybeat him down a little bit.

PHILIP: That could be true. He was a lifelong stutterer and wasn’t veryaggressive.

JA: Did he have the stutter as a child?

PETER: Well, no... maybe. As a young child, under the age of six, hewas climbing on an icebox and it fell on him. It landed on his leg and healways carried a scar from that. I think that’s when the stuttering started.That was very traumatic for him. But when he sang, he never stuttered.He knew all of the old songs, and I know those songs today because heand my mom sang them to us. He was a good singer and a good reader.

At bedtime, he’d make up very clever stories for us. He’d call them“100% Almost True-to-Life Stories.” He’d always feature Philip and mein those stories: “Once upon a time, on a far-off planet, Prince Peter andKing Philip...” and so on and on. Great stuff!

He eventually stopped stuttering in his later years, as he became moreconfident in himself. This was after he’d left comic books and wasworking for BBD&O. I forget who got him that job.

JA: Was it [comic book artist] Marvin Stein?

PETER: Yes, it could have been Marvin. I remember some of Dad’sfriends from my early childhood, like Jerry Robinson. We used to goover to his house on Riverside Drive. Jerry and his wife Gro had a rabbitand I used to play with it on the floor.

PHILIP: Jerry was a strong presence in our lives. I remember being inhis apartment (where he still lives) as a child. Jerry was a good friend ofmy father’s and stood by Dad when he was hospitalized for emotionalproblems in the mid-1950s. I remember Jerry had a Scandinavian wifeand a daughter about my age. I used to chase that rabbit around.

I also remember that my father was friends with Irwin Hasen, whodid the comic strip Dondi. I had a picture hanging over my bed ofDondi saying, “Dondi says, ‘Hello to Philip.’”

A Conversation with Peter and Philip Meskin 11

Mort Meskin and his first wife, Betty—the mother of Peter and Philip.

While working on this issue, we received a scan of this art from collector Don Maris, who writes: “Bob Bailey says you’re doing an issue about

Mort Meskin and he thought I should send you the first page from a one-of-a-kind comic. The comic is a 16-page 1940s giveaway called Weekly ComicMagazine. According to Overstreet, it was printed by Fox around 1940-41

and sold to stores that wanted comics to give to their customers or their kids.This is an 8-page story and, as you may be able to see, has a credit for

‘Meskin and Sundell.’” Many thanks, Don! “Sundell” is almost certainly earlywriter and editor Abner Sundell, whose 1942 article giving advice to aspiring

comics scripters was reprinted in A/E V3#4. We caught Don just in time! His copy of WCM will be auctioned off by Heritage Comics in July at the

San Diego Comic-Con. [©2003 the respective copyright holder.]

by Bill SchellyIntroduction: I’ve never had thegood fortune to meet Ed Lahmann inperson, but I feel as if I know himbetter than many of the comics fansI’m in touch with—mainly becauseof his penchant for phoning everymonth or two to chat. He begancalling shortly after The Golden Ageof Comic Fandom appeared in 1995,so we’ve covered a lot of ground inthe past eight years.

For me, a child of the 1950s, it’sbeen fascinating talking to a fellowwho was nine years old whenSuperman #1 was published, theprime age to read and enjoy comics.Ed has given me a window into thefirst great days of comic books, aswell as the early years of fandom, since he got in on the ground floor.

On top of all that, Ed is a prolific artist, working mostly in coloredpencil. The Comic Fandom Archive is proud to be able to showvisitors some of the many portfolios that Ed has donated. It’s a shamewe can’t run some of these marvelous illustrations, but our black-&-white printing simply wouldn’t do justice to them.

BILL SCHELLY: When and where were you born?

ED LAHMANN: I was born in Indianapolis, Indiana on December24th, 1930.

SCHELLY: I always like to know something about the parents of thepeople I interview. How would you describe your folks?

LAHMANN: My father’s name was Clarence Lahmann, and mymother’s was Beatrice. They were both college graduates. Dad was anindustrial engineer. Mom was set to be a teacher of English literature andgrammar. My mother was a genius and Dad wasn’t far behind. Dad wasan employment manager for the G&J Rubber Company (later U.S.Royal); he lost that job due to the Depression, but managed to getanother job at the Real Silk Hosiery mills, and it was at this time he metMom on a streetcar ride home.

They got married, and then I entered the picture. Things really gotrough for the next three years until Dad landed the job with Roosevelt’sWPA during the war. After the war he went into real estate, but then hada major stroke in 1949—just as I was graduating from high school—andpassed away just a few years later. He was just 64 when he died, butMom lived to the age of 99.

SCHELLY: Tell us about your early family life, and how you got intoreading comic strips.

LAHMANN: My father was a great reader of the comic strips. Hesubscribed to all of the local papers, and on Sunday mornings he wouldgo to the local newsstand and also get the Chicago Tribune and theChicago Herald American. Practically every syndicated strip was

covered in our house. My father taught me how to read using these earlycomic strips. I was reading clearly by my third birthday. I really didn’tdevelop a favorite comic strip until I was about seven years old. It wouldprobably have been Flash Gordon at the time, but I also liked Tarzanand Dick Tracy.

SCHELLY: When comic books came along, how did you becomeaware of them?

LAHMANN: I had an older cousin, Herbert Lahmann, who had theearly Famous Funnies, More Fun, New Fun, Popular Comics, Tip-TopComics and King Comics.

The first comic book I ever bought myself was an early Tip-TopComics. A gentleman lived next door to me who worked for DeWolfeNews, a periodical distributor, who gave me all of his damaged returns,with half or no covers. I remember he gave me a nice copy of MarvelComics #1. It only had part of the back cover missing.

When my mom would go downtown shopping with her mother, shewould always bring me back four or five comic books. My dad neverbought me any comic books until, in the late 1930s, he brought mehome Superman #3. From time to time he would buy me others, andwhen Gilberton’s Classics Comics came out, he bought me all of thoseup until I decided to buy them for myself.

SCHELLY: What were your favorite comics during World War II?

LAHMANN: My favorites were Popular Comics, King Comics, Tip-Top Comics, and in the hero genre, Detective Comics, Action Comics,Flash Comics and Whiz Comics. Plus my special favorite, Joe Jinks #12.During those early years of comic books, in my neighborhood we tradedall the time. We also traded the Big Little Books. I liked all the genres.That’s why I had such an affinity for Popular Comics.

SCHELLY: Of the comic book publishers during the Golden Age, doyou have a favorite?

LAHMANN: Looking at their entire outputs, I would have to sayQuality is my favorite, overall. But I have to mention Dell, as Popular

In Alter Ego #6 (“Vol. 1,” April 1964), then-editor Ronn Foss featured a brief biography of A/E contributor Ed Lahmann, entitled “Portraitof a Collector.” Since forty or so years have passed since then, it seemed time to visit Ed again, in…

Portrait of a CollectorED LAHMANN Revisited!

Title 27Comic Fandom Archive

Ed Lahmann today (left), with his two favorite comic books—and in1974, with a whole wall-full of colorful classics. Photos courtesy of Ed.

31

[Molecule Man TM!& ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

The Marvelous World of “What If?”

by Michael T. GilbertWhat if...?

What dyed-in-the-wool comic fan hasn’t asked him- or herself thatdelicious question? Older Marvel fans still debate such world-shakingquestions of comic book trivia as: What if Steve Ditko hadn’t quitSpider-Man after issue #38? Would it have ever been as popular as itbecame under John Romita’s brush? For that matter, what if Joe Kuberthad taken over the strip, instead of Romita? Hmmm...

Or what about Giant-Man? He was the big cheese main feature inTales To Astonish—until the Hulk’s mag got cancelled in 1963. A yearlater, a ten-page tale of Ol’ Greenskin began sharing Astonish with 12pages of Giant-Man, beginning with issue #60. Five years later he tookover the book completely––kicking Giant-Man out of the mag in theprocess! That’s a fact. But what if The Hulk’s first run hadn’t been afailure?

Well, there’s a good chance Tales To Astonish would’ve turned into asolo Giant-Man title. “What would that have looked like?” you mightwonder. Well, wonder no more, frantic ones! Super-fans Shane Foleyand Randy Sargent have the answer!

Shane Foley, 45, is an ambulance paramedic in Queensland, Australia.He also draws comics, some of which were published in Australia in the‘80s and early ‘90s. His partner, 48-year-old Randy “Sarge” Sargent, hasbeen a Marvel fan since 1964. Sarge plays music (drums are his weaponof choice!) and works at Criss Enterprises in Parkersburg, Ohio. Sargesays, “I enjoy very much the Silver Age of Marvel Comics. EspeciallyJack Kirby. To me he was the Silver Age of Marvel Comics.”

These two Kirby nuts met electronically on the Kirby-L mailing listtwo years ago and began collaborating on a series of full-color “what if”covers. Shane draws the covers, freely swiping old Kirby comics to getthat authentic “early-Marvel” feel. Then Sarge completes the illusion bypasting up authentic logos, character boxes, and so forth, beforecomputer-coloring the art in a palette eerily similar to that of earlyMarvel covers.

If you like these covers, keep your eyes peeled for more in futureissues. Matter of fact, we plan to run some “imaginary” 1963 Hulkcovers showing what “might have been” if the first series hadn’t beencancelled with issue #6. Until then, we hope these two will whet yourappetite!

MTG’s “cover” for his Molecule Man re-imagining. [Art ©2003 Michael T. Gilbert;Molecule Man TM!&!©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

The comic book that never was! What if The Incredible Hulk hadn’t taken over The Wasp’s backup spot in Tales to Astonish #60? Well, instead of sharing the

book with ol’ Jade-jaws, lead feature “Giant-Man” might have finally gotten hisown title—and it might’ve looked like this! Art by Shane Foley & Randy Sargent,

utilizing the artwork of Jack “King” Kirby. [Art layout/concept ©2003 ShaneFoley & Randy Sargent; original art ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.; Giant-Man,

Ant-Man, Kang, Wasp, & Sub-Mariner TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

32 Michael T. Gilbert

[Illu

stra

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©20

03 P

.C. H

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linck

.]

No. 83

William WoolfolkThe Human Side of the Golden Age

Plus: Marc Swayze

[FCA EDITORS NOTE: From 1941-53, Marcus D. Swayze was atop artist for Fawcett Comics. The very first Mary Marvel charactersketches came from Marc’s drawing table, and he illustrated herearliest adventures, including the classic Mary Marvel origin story,“Captain Marvel Introduces Mary Marvel” (CMA #18, Dec. ‘42);but he was primarily hired by Fawcett Publications to illustrateCaptain Marvel stories and covers for Whiz Comics and CaptainMarvel Adventures. He also wrote many Captain Marvel scripts, andcontinued to do so while in the military. Soon after he left the servicein 1944, he made an arrangement with Fawcett to produce art andstories on a freelance basis out of his Louisiana home. There hecreated both art and story for The Phantom Eagle in Wow Comics,in addition to drawing the Flyin’ Jenny newspaper strip for BellSyndicate (created by his friend and mentor Russell Keaton). Afterthe cancellation of Wow, Swayze produced artwork for Fawcett’s top-selling line of romance comics. After the company ceased publishingcomics, Marc moved over to Charlton Publications, where he endedhis comics career in the mid-’50s. Marc’s ongoing professionalmemoirs have been FCA’s most popular feature since his first columnappeared in FCA #54, 1996. In the past few issues Marc has talkedabout his pre-Golden Age of Comics period. Beginning with thisinstallment, he returns to discuss his early days at FawcettPublications, as he did when his column first started in the pages ofFCA seven years ago, for a smaller and somewhat differentreadership. —P.C. Hamerlinck.]

The year was 1941. I rose from my seat in the reception room ofFawcett Publications as a big fellow approached with outstretched hand.It was France E. (Eddie) Herron, editorial director of the Fawcettcomics group. With him was chief assistant, John Beardsley. We wentdirectly to the office of an art director.

“We liked your drawings,” Al Allard said. They had sent me severalsketches of a flying hero in a red suit. I didn’t let on that I didn’t evenknow the name of the character.

“Yeah,” said Herron, “We couldn’t distinguish your art from Beck’s.”

“Who’s Beck?” I asked.

I had arrived in New York the previous evening, had registered at anearby hotel, and was in the lobby of the Paramount Building by 9 a.m.sharp.

“What a place to work,” I thought. On the ground floor was theParamount Theatre, where Glen Miller and his orchestra were currentlyappearing. On the corner was a huge Walgreen drug store. Across thestreet was the Astor Hotel where Hollywood stars stayed when in thecity, and where The Three Suns opened their program nightly with theirbeautiful theme, “Twilight Time.” On the opposite side of SeventhAvenue was the Times Building, where current headlines in lights rotatedconstantly. This was Times Square!

The executive and editorial offices of FawcettPublications occupied the 22nd, 23rd, and 24th floors. Intalking with the receptionist, I learned of the companyhaving originated in Minneapolis, its growth, and therelocation to New York City. They published numerousmagazines on a variety of subjects, she said… movies,confessions, photography, mechanics, and comics.

In the art director’s office I was advised that officially I would be on the staff of Allard, but that functionally I would be responsible to Eddie Herron of the comics.Neither saw a problem with my contributing anoccasional illustration to the non-comics magazines. My purpose in being there, however, was clear: to aid in getting out the growing volume of artwork made

necessary by the phenomenal success of… Captain Marvel.

So that was the name of the guy in the red suit! As Allard andHerron briefly related the history of the character, Beardsley left theroom. He returned with a smallish, black-haired, clean-shaven fellow inshirtsleeves.

“Marc Swayze, this is C.C. Beck,” he said.

Joining the art department at Fawcett Publications was like enteringanother world. My first impression of the place was its size… huge…with some of the upper towers of Manhattan in view through tallwindows along two sides. As we stepped in from the art director’s office,the somewhat loud, jovial, mingled conversations subsided, and abouttwenty or thirty heads turned our way.

[Art & logo ©2003 Marc Swayze; Captain Marvel © & TM 2003 DC Comics]

By

38 Marc Swayze

Marc Swayze’s cover for FCA #54 (Winter 1996) marked the first installment of his column, “We Didn’t Know... It Was the Golden Age!”—and the

beginning of P.C. Hamerlinck’s tenure as FCA editor. [Art ©2003 Marc Swayze; Captain Marvel TM & ©2003 DC Comics.]

[Introduction: American writer William Woolfolk’s career of 60+years is still going strong today. An accomplished writer, novelist,playwright, essayist, columnist, and publisher, he was one of thehighest-paid, most sought-after writers of the Golden Age of Comics,where some of his peers referred to him as “The Shakespeare ofComics.” His comics writing résumé is an impressive list of classiccomics characters: Captain Marvel, Captain Marvel Jr., Ibis theInvincible, Superman, Batman, Captain America, Blackhawk, Plastic Man, The Spirit… and the list goes on.

[Golden Age Comics fan Shaun Clancy originally put me in touchwith Mr. Woolfolk in 2000. A correspondence and friendship hadbegun, resulting in Woolfolk’s fascinating essay, “LookingBackward… from My Upside-Down Point of View,” published backin FCA #65 (Alter Ego V3#6). It was a joy to present the article byone of comics’ greatest writers, but I knew as I painstakingly editedWoolfolk’s 40+ pages down to 9 pages, that a follow-up interviewwould definitely be necessary.

[I was honored to briefly meet Mr. Woolfolk (and his daughter,Donna, also an accomplished author) in person at the 2002 San DiegoInternational Comic-Con, where he received an Inkpot award. Itwas Woolfolk’s first-ever conventionappearance... and I’m glad I put DavidSiegel in touch with him, the man who wasinstrumental in getting Bill to the show.Bill resides in upstate New York, wherehe’s busy working on several projects. Ourinterview was conducted in late 2002 viae-mail. —P.C. Hamerlinck.]

WILLIAM WOOLFOLK: I feel likesomeone poised in the middle of a high diveinto an empty swimming pool, but I’ll domy best to answer your questions.

PCH: Thank you, Bill. First of all, I wantto ask if you have a basic philosophybehind writing fiction?

WOOLFOLK: My basic philosophy inwriting fiction is derived from whoever saidthat what was crucial in writing fiction is toachieve “a suspension of disbelief” in thereader. Until the reader is willing to at leasttemporarily suspend his disbelief, he will notwillingly attend to your story or accept theactions your characters engage in. Thissounds more formidable than it is. If yousimply put interesting characters into inter-esting situations, you will hold the reader’sunskeptical attention.

PCH: When preparing a story, specifically acomic book script, did you first write out arough draft/outline containing the plot andsub-plots, or did you simply prepare itmentally without the use of extensivenotes?

WOOLFOLK: In preparing astory for any medium, fromcomic books to novels totelevision or movies, I alwayswork out a rough outline inadvance. This outline is subjectto change, often many changes,but at least it gives me aframework within which tooperate. Without it, I’m likesomeone in free-fall without aparachute.

PCH: Comic stories from theGolden Age were generallyaction and plot driven, yetyour comic scripts alwaysgave special attention tocharacterization, making fora better developed, well-rounded, and interestingstory. Did you knowinglystrive to expand the comicbook story beyond its estab-lished, streamlined formula?Did you always go abouttreating the comics as a validliterary art form…or did youview it as simply another jobthat will help pay the bills?

WOOLFOLK: I’m flatteredby your description of mywork. I did come from awriting background, in

The Human Side of the Golden AgeGolden Age Writing Great WILLIAM WOOLFOLK

Interviewed by P.C. HAMERLINCK

The Human Side of the Golden Age 41

Bill Woolfolk (at far right) and chums at the San Diego Comic-Con, August 1,2002—Bill’s first! [Left to right in back:] Longtime “Aquaman” and

“Metamorpho” artist Ramona Fradon... Donna Woolfolk Cross... DavidSiegel... Dick Ayers (among other things, a Timely/Marvel mainstay from thelate ‘40s through the ‘70s)... and William Woolfolk. Center with hat: Lindee

(Mrs. Richard) Ayers. [Photo ©2003 Charlie Roberts.]

A Fawcett house ad from Captain Marvel Adventures #5 (Dec. 1941),with art by Mac Raboy. Captain Nazi was one of Bill Woolfolk’s most

notorious additions to the Fawcett Universe. [©2003 DC Comics.]

“literary” magazines and slickmagazines so I suppose I did try toexpand the comic book stories toinclude what I had learned fromprevious writing. The chief secret inbuilding a character: always ask thewhy of how. There was a decidedscarcity of real writers at the time.Some publishers even left the storiesin the hands of the artists tocompose, which was roughly equiv-alent to leaving them in the hands ofthe Boston Strangler.

PCH: You’re regarded as a majorGolden Age comics writer whocreated few major characters butone who was called upon to keepgreat-established characters strong,even perfecting them. How didyou adapt to all the different stylesand characters? Was it difficult foryou to juggle so many differentones at one time, or did you viewone character pretty much thesame as all the others?

WOOLFOLK: Those who accuseme of creating few comic bookheroes and villains are quite right.There were two reasons for this: Iwas always writing for three or fourdifferent publishers at a time, so Ihad to piggyback on their estab-lished characters. The other reasonis that I never felt fully committedto writing for comics. I had loftierambitions. I was quite wrong, ofcourse, for comics have outlasted my writing efforts in other media…and nothing upsets me more than being proven wrong. No, I don’t think it was particularly difficult to juggle writing for many differentcomic book heroes all at once. Basically the story requirements were the same… and, fortunately, the checks I received were equally cashable.

PCH: Let’s backtrack for a bit. You were born in Long Island in 1917and your family moved around frequently because of their professionas Vaudeville entertainers. How much of an impact, if any, did thathave on your becoming a writer? How early did you know youwanted to become a writer? Did reading books and the pulps in youryouth prove influential… or did other influences play a part? Also,was Seymour Reit’s suggestion that you try your hand at comics asuggestion you’re glad he made to you… and if he hadn’t, do you feelyou would had stayed with the slicks, eventually moving on towriting novels? Do you feel comics made for a good training groundfor future works such as The Naked Hunter, My Name Is Morgan,The Builders, Opinion of the Court, The Beautiful Couple, Maggie,The Adam Project, Thai Game, and your other novels?

WOOLFOLK: Did you have to remind me of when I was born?! Whydon’t you just say, “At the time when dinosaurs were still walking theearth…”?

My family was mostly in show business and were even semi-famousin their own time. George M. Cohan was their patron saint. I might havefollowed in their footsteps except that their kind of show business wasdecimated by the advent of sound in motion pictures, so I had to seekanother form of creative outlet: writing. This was reinforced by my

experience in college, in which Iwas the darling of professors whopersisted in reading my writingaloud to my bored classmates. Andmy ambitions were furtherfortified by the fact that I sold afew short stories to avant-gardeliterary journals that paid mostly insubscriptions. I earned lifetimesubscriptions to journals whoselifetimes were considerably shorterthan my own.

Despite these literary preten-sions, my own reading interestswere more narrowly focused onscience-fiction. I discovered H.G.Wells, Jules Verne, and then HugoGernsback and his AmazingStories magazine. I willinglysuspended my disbelief in visionsof the future. There was an obviousdichotomy between what I liked toread and what I wrote, adichotomy that in one way oranother has persisted to this day.I’m not sure I can explain this, butI suspect it was warring impulses:the desire for enduring fame versusthe need for material success. Allmy writing life I have tried tomarry the pursuit of excellencewith the pursuit of money, and thetwo are not always compatible.

My friend Seymour Reit(creator of Casper the FriendlyGhost) was a classmate in NYU,

and suffered from the same ambivalence. We both hoped that if we shotour arrows into the air they would come back to Earth with a goldengoose in them. I have related previously in FCA how we had agreed ifafter graduation we had not found gainful employment (it was arecession year) we would get into bed and draw the covers up over ourheads and not emerge again until someone came to our rescue.

Sy Reit was an artist as well as a writer and found a job with JerryIger’s shop. He suggested I try to write for comics.

I usually put off to tomorrow the things I should have doneyesterday, but I finally got around to sending ideas to MLJ, where HarryShorten was the editor. He had been a year ahead of me at NYU andwas a football star, so I felt I had a tenuous connection. The upshot ofthat was that I began writing for MLJ, scripting The Wizard, TheShield, The Hangman, The Black Hood, and Steel Sterling as well asothers, until Shorten proved obdurate about matching what I was beingpaid elsewhere.

I had shot my arrow into the air, and by God it came back with agoose in it… and the goose laid golden eggs. In no time I was earningten times what the average person was.

What would have happened if I hadn’t got into comic book writing? Iwould have continued selling very occasional stories to Toronto StarWeekly and Liberty and secondary slicks, and probably eventually havetried to write a novel. But without the necessary experience andtechnique, writing a novel is something like the Laurel and Hardy moviein which they are pushing a piano up a steep flight of stairs and everytime they get near the top the piano comes tumbling down to thebottom again.

A page from “Captain Marvel and Bulbo the Whale,” scripted by Bill Woolfolk, with art by the late great Dave Berg, before he became

one of Mad magazine’s most popular writer-artists. From Captain Marvel Adventures #15 (Sept. 1942). [©2003 DC Comics.]

42 William Woolfolk

DAVE COCKRUMSTAN LEE

ROY THOMASGARY FRIEDRICHARNOLD DRAKEMIKE FRIEDRICH

LEN WEINCHRIS

CLAREMONTJIM SHOOTER

PATYGIL KANE

JACK KIRBYWERNER ROTH

DON HECKJOHN BYRNE

BRUNO PREMIANIJERRY ROBINSONMARIE SEVERINMARC SWAYZE

ALEX TOTHBILL WOOLFOLK

MICHAEL T.GILBERT

BILL SCHELLYJIM AMASH

P.C. HAMERLINCK

Golden, Silver, & Bronze Age Art

& Artifacts By:

DAVE COCKRUMSTAN LEE

ROY THOMASGARY FRIEDRICHARNOLD DRAKEMIKE FRIEDRICH

LEN WEINCHRIS

CLAREMONTJIM SHOOTER

PATYGIL KANE

JACK KIRBYWERNER ROTH

DON HECKJOHN BYRNE

BRUNO PREMIANIJERRY ROBINSONMARIE SEVERINMARC SWAYZE

ALEX TOTHBILL WOOLFOLK

MICHAEL T.GILBERT

BILL SCHELLYJIM AMASH

P.C. HAMERLINCK& MORE!

MUTANT MADNESSMONTH!

THE MENCALLED“X”

THE MENCALLED“X”

$5.95In the USA

$5.95In the USA

No. 24May2003

X-Men TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.

X-MEN:From Silverto BronzeSection

Alter EgoTM is published monthly by TwoMorrows, 1812 Park Drive, Raleigh, NC 27605, USA. Phone: (919) 833-8092. Roy Thomas, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Alter Ego Editorial Offices: Rt. 3, Box 468, St. Matthews, SC 29135, USA. Fax: (803) 826-6501; e-mail: roydann@ntinet.com. Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial offices. Single issues:$8 ($10 Canada, $11 elsewhere). Twelve-issue subscriptions: $60 US, $120 Canada, $132 elsewhere. All characters are © their respectivecompanies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © Roy Thomas. Alter Ego is a TM of Roy & DannThomas. FCA is a TM of P.C. Hamerlinck. Printed in Canada.

FIRST PRINTING.

Vol. 3, No. 24 / May 2003Editor Roy Thomas

Associate EditorsBill SchellyJim Amash

Design & LayoutChristopher Day

Consulting EditorsJohn MorrowJon B. Cooke

FCA EditorP.C. Hamerlinck

Comic Crypt EditorMichael T. Gilbert

Editors EmeritusJerry Bails (founder)Ronn Foss, Biljo White,Mike Friedrich

Production AssistantEric Nolen-Weathington

Cover ArtistsDave CockrumMort Meskin

Cover ColoristTom Ziuko

Mailing CrewRuss Garwood, Glen Musial,Ed Stelli, Pat Varker, Loston Wallace

And Special Thanks to:

™

Ger ApeldoornBob BaileyMike W. BarrBill BlackJerry K. BoydTom BrevoortMike BurkeyR. Dewey CassellChris ClaremontDave CockrumTeresa R. DavidsonArnold DrakeShane FoleyGary FriedrichMike FriedrichGlen David GoldMark & StephanieHeike

Tom HorvitzMichael KellyEd LahmannStan Lee

Don MarisRobert MarquezPatyPeter MeskinPhilip MeskinJoe PetrilakWilson Ramos, Jr.Charlie RobertsEthan RobertsJerry RobinsonRandy SargentJim ShooterCraig ShuttDavid SiegelMarc SwayzeDann ThomasAlex TothHames WareDylan WilliamsTom WimbishWilliam Woolfolk

This issue is dedicatedto the memory of

Biljo White(1929-2003)

X-MEN:From Silverto BronzeSection

ContentsWriter/Editorial: The Men Called “X” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2Stan Lee: “I Wanted Magneto to End Up Being Professor X’s Brother!” . 3Roy Thomas: “I’m Proud of Both My Runs on The X-Men! ” . . . . . . . . . 6Gary Friedrich: “I Was Never Really an X-Men Fan!”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13Arnold Drake: “Stan Loved Dialogue!” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15The X-Men: “A Cool Concept!”–-– A 2000 Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Craig Shutt with Dave Cockrum, Jim Shooter, Roy Thomas, & Arnold Drake.

Mike Friedrich: “The Topic of Conversation Was the Revival of The X-Men! ” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Len Wein: “Alienation Was What The X-Men Were All About!” . . . 31Dave Cockrum: “We Kicked the Whole Thing Around a Lot!” . . . . . . . 34

Interview with the “New X-Men’s” first artist—plus a sidebar with wife Paty.

Chris Claremont: “I Was in the Right Place at the Right Time!” . . . . . . . . 48Mort Meskin: His Kith & Kin Section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Flip Us!About Our Cover: We couldn’t be more pleased and honored that Dave Cockrum agreed tocreate a new X-Men drawing especially for this edition of Alter Ego, in addition to sendingus a multitude of previously unprinted illos of Marvel’s mighty mutants for use with his ownand other interviews herein. A word to the wise: Dave does commission work featuring TheX-Men, Starjammers, Futurians, Legion of Super-heroes, and other characters he’s drawn,and can be reached at <parrotstew@in4web.com>. [Art ©2003 Dave Cockrum; X-Men TM &©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Above: As discussed in this issue, a few years back Dave penciled a never-published fill-in X-Men issue, the original art for which has recently been returned to him by Marvel. Severalpages (and even one penciled page) from it appear herein, starting with the balloon-less half-page reproduced above depicting the late-’60s X-Men and their greatest foes. Oh, and thoseare Lorna Dane/Polaris’ feet above The Angel’s head, jutting out from another panel. Inksby Joe Rubinstein. [©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Interview Conducted by Phone – Feb. 11, 2003Transcribed by Brian K. Morris[NOTE: Since Stan Lee was the co-creator and first writer of TheX-Men, beginning with its first issue in 1963, I could hardlyconceive of doing a special issue on Marvel’s merry mutantswithout getting his thoughts on the matter. I promised him ourphone talk between L.A. and South Carolina would take onlyabout fifteen minutes, and I was as goodas my word. —Roy.]

ROY THOMAS: I alwaysconsidered it strange that Marvelcame out with two super-hero groupsat virtually the same time: TheAvengers and The X-Men. I wascurious why that happened.

STAN LEE: They came out at the sametime?

RT: Within a couple of weeks of eachother, at most.

LEE: Well, I never thought of them asbeing similar, because The X-Men was atotally new group of new characters. AndThe Avengers was just a bunch of guys Iput together, but we’d seen them allbefore. So I never thought of them asbeing a new group.

RT: It seemed to me when I first saw itthat, as opposed to The Avengers, The X-Men was more in the vein of FantasticFour—a group created as a group, only with the teenage appeal ofSpider-Man. Did you have any of that consciously in mind when youdid it, sort of combining those two books?

LEE: [laughs] I don’t think I was thinking of that. I think all I wastrying to do—and again, I don’t remember it—it may be that [Marvelpublisher] Martin Goodman said to me, “Why don’t you do anothergroup?” Because if the Fantastic Four was doing well—

RT: So you did two of them.

LEE: You’re right, The Avengers were a group. But we always hadguest stars. To me, this was the ultimate “guest-star.” [laughs] We hadfive guest stars in one story.

RT: I remember you told me soon after I came to work for you in1965 that your original name for the comic was The Mutants, butMartin Goodman nixed it. I was wondering why you went with thatname, and why he nixed it.

LEE: Well, I wanted it to be called The Mutantsbecause they were mutants. [laughs] It seemed like thelogical name. And I remember this, because I’ve toldthis story so often—he nixed it because, he said,

“Nobody would know what a mutant is.” He didn’t think people under-stood that word. But if people wouldn’t know what a mutant is, how thehell are they going to know what an “X-Man” is?

I needed another name, and I’d decided to call the professor,Professor X. And they were characters with “extra” powers. Andsomehow, at some point, it made me think of them as The X-Men. Youknow, Professor X, and they had an “X” power. Of course, one of themwas a woman, so I shouldn’t have done that. [laughs]

RT: Well, “X-People” or “X-Persons” wouldn’t have sounded verygood. I’m curious, did you make up all five of the characters whenyou made up the idea, or did you leave who some of the particularcharacters were up to Jack?

LEE: Oh, no. I always made up all of them, in all the books. Jack wasjust the guy to whom I’d say, “Hey, I’ve got something for you todraw.” Of course, after that, his contributions were considerable.[laughs] But in the beginning, I used to just hope he’d like it and say,“Oh, great. I’ll draw it.”

Stan Lee in the Silver Age—as seen in the set of Bullpen photossold in the early ’70s—and the cover of A Certain 1963 ComicBook that is worth a lot more now than it was then, from theblack-&-white pages of The Essential Uncanny X-Men, Vol. 1.

Thanks to R. Dewey Cassell for reminding Ye Editor that the setof photos had ever even existed! This one was taken circa latespring of 1970, as shown by the cover proofs on Stan’s office

wall. [©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

“I Wanted Magneto to End UpBeing Professor X’s Brother!”STAN LEE Talks to ROY THOMAS about the Early Days of The X-Men

–––and Even “The Doom Patrol”

The Men Called “X” part one 3

“Another Mighty Marvel Bullpen Surprise!”“X” has traditionally and mathematically stood for the unknown—the mysterious factor in an

equation, either algebraic or human. And, despite the unique talents of the individuals involved with TheX-Men after its mid-1970s return, it’s certainly unknown and perhaps ultimately unknowable preciselywhy that comic became, twenty-plus years ago, Marvel’s best-selling title, surpassing even The AmazingSpider-Man, just as the latter had once passed Fantastic Four. That hardly seemed a likely scenario backin the 1960s, let alone the first half of the 1970s, when there was no original X-Men book.

Sure, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby started The X-Men out well, and it always had its following. But in the’60s it never approached the popularity of The Avengers, let alone of F.F.. And once first Jack, then Stan,departed within a few issues of each other—Jack after #17 (Feb. 1966), Stan with #19 (April ’66)—The X-Men began a slow decline which ended in cancellation.

I know because, to a certain extent, I suppose I was a part of that late-’60s decline.

I’m proud to this day that Stan passed the scripting of X-Men on to me with #20 (May ’66). He handedme already-penciled pages by Werner Roth, who had taken over full penciling with #18, after a briefapprenticeship over Jack’s layouts. As per all my previous hero scripting for Stan (one “Iron Man,” twolate Ditko “Dr. Stranges,” and Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos), I started out with a storyalready plotted by Stan and the penciler. It was Stan and Werner who teamed up mutants Unus theUntouchable and The Blob, decided how Professor X lost the use of his legs at the hands of the recurringvillain Lucifer. I was simply the hired gun—or rather, hired typewriter. But I was happy to pick up thetorch.

This photo of Roy Thomas from the SilverAge Bullpen series (courtesy of R. DeweyCassell) has gotta be an early shot, since

after ’66 or ’67 the Rascally One rarely worea tie to the Marvel office! Roy wrote the

original X-Men and helped jump-start thenew mutant group, both of which are

pictured in this Dave Cockrum art—done for a Slurpee cup, Dave tells us.[©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

“I’m Proud of Both My Runs on The X-Men!”A Fond Look Back by the Marvelous Mutants’ Second Scripter,

ROY THOMAS

6The Men Called “X” part two

All I recall about doing the “dialoguing” (a term not then in use) on#18 is that, as I’d done with earlier super-hero efforts, I taped tissuepaper over the original twice-up penciled art and drew on balloons andcaptions containing the “copy” (as we called it, taking a term fromadvertising). I can’t remember if it was my decision to have so manypeople on the splash talking, or whether Stan added even more balloonswhen he went over my script with me. I know there were changes; I justdon’t know what they were. I do know I hadn’t indicated any moreballoons than are there in the published comic: a grand total of ten, notcounting the introductory caption and the credits. Stan added the blurbreading “Another mighty Marvel Bullpen surprise!” with an arrowpointing to my name beneath his. I was flattered to have him drawattention to me, indicating he wasn’t totally ashamed of the script. Butthen, if Stan hadn’t felt I was up to the job, he wouldn’t have given meThe X-Men, less than a year after I’d walked in the door.

My early X-Men is certainly copy-heavy, even for me. Somethingabout Werner Roth’s pencils lured me into giving most people in thepanels dialogue; they usually looked as if they were all talking. But that’snot Werner’s fault. He and I were both simply doing what we felt Stanwanted. Stan seemed to like our X-Men. After all, he hadn’t exactlybeen shy about sticking lots of word balloons into Werner’s panelshimself, as witness #19, page 11: its final 1/3-of-a-page panel containsseven characters—and eleven word balloons!

Actually, I’m not at all ashamed of my X-Men dialogue my first timearound, even though I feel my second stint (mostly with Neal Adams)was superior. I don’t think that, for the most part, it’s bad dialogue...

there’s just a bit too much of it. And even that is a subjective opinion,not shared by everyone who read the issues, I’m happy to say.

“Let’s See How a Swingin’ Staff Handles a Yarn All by Their Lonesome!”

The first sour note for me on X-Men came with my second issue,#21. I learned that, for reasons never made clear, Stan had told the artistthat he (Werner) would be plotting the upcoming issues, and I’d besimply writing dialogue and captions for them. Now, understand: inthose days, Werner wouldn’t have received one extra cent if he hadplotted all stories with no input from me; I’d still have received my fullscript rate, then probably $10 a page. But I felt that I, not Werner,should be plotting the stories. I said so to Stan and prevailed, though I’mnot sure how much I contributed to the plot of #20 (“From WhenceComes... Dominus?”) and how much is Werner’s or, indirectly, Stan’s.

Werner himself seemed happy either way, and to this day I’ve no ideawhether the plotting thing was his idea or not. He was older than mostother artists I’d worked with, or so he appeared to me at the time; andthough he was always friendly, his enthusiasm for comics seemedlimited. Yet he was certainly not un-inventive, as witness page 17 of #20,where one panel on a six-panel page shows five mutants on three sets ofstairs ascending the face of Dominus’ enormous machine. Like JohnRomita, Gene Colan, and other Bullpenners, he had been drawingromance comics for DC and, finding himself with less and less work asthat genre slowly imploded, had wandered over to Marvel. Like Colan,Mike Esposito, and others, he opted at first for a pseudonym: “JayGavin,” taken from the first names of his sons—a common ploy in thosedays.

Although X-Men hadn’t been one of my favorite comics before I’dentered the field, I enjoyed writing the mutants—especially The Beast,with his voluminous vocabulary. The others, however, I found lessdifferentiated than Sgt. Fury’s six buddies.

Splash of X-Men #20, repro’d from the black-&-white Essential Uncanny X-Men, Vol. 1. The word “Uncanny” was retroactively added to the 1960s

title later to avoid confusing with the new X-Men mag begun in the ’90s.[©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

“If a super-villain isn’t much by himself, put him in a group with severalothers!” That was Stan the Man’s philosophy—and it worked pretty well in X-Men #22-23 with Unicorn, Scarecrow, Porcupine, The Eel, and Plant Man.

Script by Roy Thomas, art by Werner Roth & Dick Ayers. Repro’d from a photocopy of the original art, courtesy of Mike Burkey. See Mike’s ad

elsewhere in this issue. [©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

The Marvelous Mutants’ Second Scripter 7

Conducted & Transcribed by Jim Amash[INTRODUCTION: Gary Friedrich did a lot of comics writingbetween 1965 and the mid-’70s, so he has an excuse for not reallyremembering his short writing stint on the 1968 X-Men: from issue#44, which he scripted from a Roy Thomas plot, through #47, whichArnold Drake scripted from Gary’s plot. However, Gary has etchedhimself into X-Men lore by scribing the Iceman origin back-ups in#44-46. In a near-future issue, A/E plans to present a fuller look atGary’s stint at Marvel, but for now, we’ll whet your appetite withthis brief look back. —Jim.]

JIM AMASH: How did you get the writing job on The X-Men?

GARY FRIEDRICH: The way things worked then was that Stan Leewould give up the writing on a title to Roy Thomas. Roy would thengive up something to me. Millie the Model went from Roy to whoeverwas ahead of me (Ron White, I think), and pretty soon, I came in andgot Millie. Then Stan passed something on to Roy, and he passed Sgt.Fury on to me. So probably, Stan passed something on to Roy and hepassed The X-Men off to me.

JA: Issue #44, the Red Raven issue, was plotted by Roy (so he getstotal blame for the Red Raven idea!) and you scripted it. The back-upIceman story was entirely written by you. So I assume Roy was in themiddle of working on the lead story when you took over, because Roytook the Red Raven name from an old Timely comic, packaged by

Simon and Kirby, and it was such abomb that it only lasted one issue. OnlyRoy would have remembered anobscure character name like that!

FRIEDRICH: That’s probably whathappened. That sounds like something I’d

inherit and sounds like something Roy would pull from out of the past. Ihave to say that the whole memory of writing the X-Men has beenflushed out of my memory. I just don’t remember anything about it.

I do remember how hard Roy worked on the series. There was a timewhen Roy and I were living together, and he was writing The X-Menthen. Roy was always a hard worker and he really lived this stuff. Hereally slaved over The X-Men and you can see that by noticing all thecopy in the stories. [laughs] I can remember [letterer] Artie Simekcalling in, whining and crying about how much copy there was. Hewanted a couple extra dollars a page because the copy was so heavy.[more laughter] I don’t blame him. Artie worked at home and wouldsometimes call me at home and say, “What the hell are you doing to me?There’s 79 balloons on this page! You’re killing me!” He’d call and askfor Roy, and I’d say, “How are you doing, Artie?” and Roy’d be wavinghis arms, like saying, “No, no! I’m not here!” [mutual laughter] Artie’donly call for one reason. But everybody liked Artie, so it wasn’tpersonal. I never met Sam Rosen... only Artie would call!

But Roy and I both had a tendency to write a lot of copy. There’s alot to read in those comics and I always liked to read comics like that.

JA: Did you write that heavily because it was your style, or becauseStan and Roy wrote a lot and you thought that was the Marvel style?

FRIEDRICH: I don’t think it was a matter of style; it just seemed tocome out that way. I never liked plotting things, but of course, you hadto do that to some degree at Marvel. I liked to start a story with a coupleof characters and see where it took me. The writer has more control if hewrites a complete script first.

“I Was Never Really an X-Men Fan!”An Interview with Silver Age Mutant Scribe GARY FRIEDRICH

The Men Called “X” part three 13

Groovy Gary Friedrich, as seen in a Bullpenphoto section in the 1969 Fantastic FourAnnual—flanked by (on left) an un-used

cover for X-Men #48 (Sept. 1968) penciledby Dashin’ Donnie Heck and inked by

Jazzy Johnny Romita—and (on right) bythe published all-Romita (?) version.

Thanks to Jerry K. Boyd for finding thisone for us! Jerry figures—and we agree—that Stan or publisher Martin Goodmanmay have rejected it at the last minutebecause both heroes have their faces

turned away from the readers—but then,that’s why the big cameo heads at leftwere added. Also, that monster on thefirst cover does look a bit like a frog!

[©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Interview Questions Prepared by Jim Amash(Feb. 7, 2003)[NOTE: He’s baaack! And we are happy to have him. In Alter Ego#17 Arnold Drake discussed The Doom Patrol, and here he returns totalk (mostly) about his involvement with The X-Men. Consideringthat there are a few similarities between the two super-hero groups, itseemed like the right time to ask Arnold about The X-Men, whilecomparing the differences in the writing process between full-scriptwriting at DC and the “Marvel method.” Rather than simply beinterviewed, Arnold preferred to use my questions as a springboard towrite the following piece, which contain a few choice observationswhich I found fascinating and thought-provoking. For more on thesesubjects and Arnold’s creation of “Deadman,” as well as on his GoldKey writing, see Alter Ego #17. And if Arnie wants to spell “comics”as “comix”—well, who are we to gainsay him? —Jim.]

In 1966, when I’d been at DC for a dozen years or more, I decided totake my family to live in England for a while. Both my parents had justdied (within six months of each other), and my wife Lillian, who attimes was closer to my Mom than to her own, mourned her deeply. Amajor scene change was in order. Too, I thought that for Pamela (seven,at the time), it would be a greatadventure. And so it was.

In “Nevern Cottage” (a lovelyLondon house that Pam dubbed“Nevern-Nevern Land”), far from DC’sinternal and external bickerings and theminutiae of the comix industry, I beganlistening to my guts. They told me thatDC was running, nay, streaking up ablind alley.

Mort Weisinger and Jack Schiff were the top editors. But there wasno editor-in-chief. DC President Jack Liebowitz feared that appointingone would drive the other to quit. But I offered a daring notion: “Bringin a top talent from outside. Like maybe hire an editorial VP from Time-Life?” Liebowitz smiled benignly, as you do when you’re talking to aschizophrenic who’s off both his rockers. His words were, “What Timeexecutive would touch the comic book business?” Which, with thepassing years, reads as pretty good irony.

So, with the market sprinting off in all directions, DC was without acompass. Plummeting sales said something was wrong. But what?Finally they chose Carmine Infantino to supply some answers. Goodmove! He worked night and day to sharpen the look of the magazinesand lift office morale. And he did both brilliantly.

Improving sales showed they were beginning to face their problems.But, to quote a Schiff axiom: “The cover sells that month’s issue. But theinsides sell next month’s!” And the insides had changed very little. Thatwas where it was at when I returned from London.

In a meeting with Irwin Donenfeld (son of founder Harry), I saidthat Marvel was gaining fast on DC. Carmine was their Jack Kirby. Butthey also needed a Stan Lee. I offered my services. He said, “We outsellMarvel 3-to-1.” I said, “That’s this year.” He shrugged his executive

shoulders. But now I saw that hissecond favorite sport was running upblind alleys. So I packed my bowlingball and moved over to Marvel.

I already knew a bit about Marvel.When The X-Men’s first “ish”appeared some three months after“Doom Patrol” #1 [My GreatestAdventure #80], I pointed out thefantastic similarity to the DC editors.Weisinger said, “Don’t get your bowels

“Stan Loved Dialogue!”ARNOLD DRAKE Talks about The X-Men, His Time at Marvel—and The Doom Patrol!

The Men Called “X” part four

Arnold Drake in uniform in 1942, two years before he took part in the Battle of the Bulge—a recent photo with his granddaughter Tatiana, one of a set of twins—flanking his first plot-and-dialogue contribution to The X-Men, a 5-page feature on Iceman in #47 (Aug. 1968). Photos courtesy of Arnold.

[X-Men page ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

15

[NOTE: On June 9-11, 2000,the city convention center ofWhite Plains, NY, an hour fromNew York City out inWestchester County—yes, thesame Westchester County thathas been home to ProfessorXavier’s School for GiftedYoungsters—hosted JoePetrilak’s All Time Classic NewYork Comic Convention, withone of the greatest guest lists ofSilver and (especially) GoldenAge talent anywhere, ever,period. Alter Ego plans todevote an entire issue to it inthe near future. One Silver-and-Bronze Age event was anX-Men panel, hosted by CraigShutt, writer of the “Ask Mr.Silver Age” column for TheComics Buyer’s Guide. I’vehad to edit and telescope the panel slightly to fit it into this special X-Men issue with so many interviews. Special thanks to JoePetrilak! —Roy.]

CRAIG SHUTT: I have the easy task ofintroducing three guys who really don’t needany introduction. To my immediate left isJim Shooter, who worked as editor-in-chieffor a number of years on The X-Men... RoyThomas, who did many of the classic storieswith Neal Adams and had some input onthe new X-Men when they were first beingstarted up... and Dave Cockrum, whosesketchbook held many of The X-Men, evenbefore any of us had ever seen them. WhatI’d like to ask each first is: from your timewith The X-Men, what do you considerone of the highlights, or one of the keythings that you remember best from thoseyears?

JIM SHOOTER: Well, I’m kind of one ofthe least involved here of any of these guys,so... [passes the microphone to Roy, whopasses it to Dave]

DAVE COCKRUM: Well, it was justmainly fun, most of the time. You know,when you’re young and enthusiastic and acomics fan, that’s the most fun you canhave, really. Marvel was a fun place towork, and getting to draw all these people

in Spandex, that was great. Iguess, as far as The X-Mengoes, “Kitty’s Fairy Tale” is oneof my favorite high points,because we were just jokingaround and said, “Why don’t wedo a fairy tale?” It was justspur-of-the-moment, off the topof our heads; we just spun thatstory out, and that was a gas.

And the Brood stuff. TheBrood were so nasty that, ifPhoenix had eaten their planet,she’d have gotten a medal.[laughs] And I thought that wasfun. Those were really meanbuggers, you know. [to Roy] It’syour turn.

ROY THOMAS: I enjoyed mytwo stints as writer on The X-Men. The first was with WernerRoth, and later Don Heck andRoss Andru, as the second writerof The X-Men, after Stan Leesuddenly turned it over to meone day. But probably the mostenjoyable time was working withNeal Adams on all but one of theissues of X-Men that he did.Despite deadline problems, it wasalways worth it in the end,because they were beautiful;they’ve been printed over and overagain, and they deserve to be. Itdidn’t make any difference whatthe story was. Just to be knockedout by the beauty of those pageswas enough.

But in some ways, the most satis-fying thing to me personally is that,back in ’74, not long before I left theeditor-in-chief job, one of my lastacts was to say, “Hey, let’s revive TheX-Men!”—which I’d always beenwanting to do and had been trying todo, here and there. We made them aninternational group... figuring maybethis time they’d make it. Well, itturned out they did, more than any ofus could ever have guessed. And Ithink that Dave Cockrum and ChrisClaremont particularly, and Len Wein,

The panel gets under way with the moderator and the three previously announcedguests (left to right): Craig Shutt, Jim Shooter, Roy Thomas, and Dave Cockrum;

photo courtesy of Joe Petrilak—plus Dave Cockrum and Gil Kane’s cover for Giant-size X-Men #1 (1975). Dave discusses who did what on the panel. And learn more

about it in our interview with Dave, later this issue. [©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

The X-Men: “A Cool Concept!”A Panel on the Silver & Bronze Age X-Men –-––with DAVE COCKRUM,

JIM SHOOTER, ROY THOMAS, & ARNOLD DRAKEConducted by Craig Shutt (June 11, 2000) Transcribed by Brian K. Morris

The Men Called “X” part five 18

who wrote the first story, and then later maybe John Byrne as an artist,too—that handful of people ended up turning The X-Men into somethingthat none of us ever would have dreamed as late as 1974, ’75, which wasthat X-Men would become the hottest thing at Marvel Comics. If you’dtold somebody that 25 years ago, they’d have locked you up in a roomwith Prez or Brother Power, the Geek.

SHOOTER: X-Men was becoming the big hit while I was there. Ididn’t do much with starting it, so it was always up front and importantwhen I was there. There was an issue with Firelord that Dave drew. Hehad a big apartment in Queens, and before I found my own apartment, Istayed with him for a while. Well, look at the splash page with Firelordflying over the X-Men mansion, and picture me with a broom in myhand, standing on one leg in the living room. That was my debut in TheX-Men. [laughs] He used to ask me to pose. He’d say, “Hold your handlike this.” “I can’t write while I’m holding my hand like this, Dave.”[laughs] But little bits of me crept into the art here and there, and thatwas fun.

In some ways, The X-Men was sort of the hardest book; and in someways, it was the easiest book. Chris Claremont deserves immense creditfor the success of The X-Men; he wrote it and did a great job. A lot ofwriters—if something was wrong with a script, I’d call up them and say,“Hey, this doesn’t work,” and they’d say, “Well, if you want to changethat, it’s okay,” and I would do a rewrite, and that was the end of it.Chris, the first time I changed a word, went ballistic. [laughs] Out of hismind, right? And then he said [angrily], “Just put an ‘X’ in the marginand tell me what it is.” So he would come in and see a little “X”scribbled in the margin. He’d say, [angrily] “What’s this?” I’d say, “Well,you know, it’d be nice to mention a character’s name in this issue,Chris.” And he would—[growls] then he’d go find a typewritersomeplace and he would fix it. But he wanted every word to be his,okay? And it was. Okay, with a rare exception—a place where I acciden-tally wrote some suggested copy. And in the space allotted, he couldn’tfigure out anything else to put in there and he was furious, but he had touse those words.

Chris, also, was responsible for recruiting all the great artists on TheX-Men. He really made it a personal mission. I think he even had somedeal where he paid Tom Orzechowski extra to stick with lettering TheX-Men. The same with Glynis Wein—Glynis Oliver—the colorist. Hereally made it his personal crusade to make that book work, and boy, did

it! So it was a joy working on it, and even though Chris and I arguedlike cats and dogs over the stories, as editors and writers do sometimes, Ithink all of us really felt we had something special going on there, and alot of great moments.

CS: I was interested in seeing what the new movie [the first X-Menfilm] does about mutants, and the prejudice against them. And I waswondering what you see as what their appeal has been over theyears—if it was the prejudice and the misfits, or if it was the coolcharacters and the powers they had.

SHOOTER: I don’t know. I mean, I think it was a cool concept. I thinkI really credit it to the fact that the people doing it did a better job thanalmost anybody else. They did really work their butts off, and Daveused to crash an airplane every issue. [laughs]

THOMAS: One of the reasons it wasn’t as big in the early ’60s isbecause its time really hadn’t come yet. It was before the age of theteenaged super-hero. I noticed back in the ’50s, when I was a teenager,that the teenage idols kept getting younger. First there was Elvis, whowas 21 when he really hit. A couple of years later, Ricky Nelson was 18when he got big. And then suddenly there’s Fabian, who’s like 15 or16—and I think this is what happened to comics, a decade or so later.Nor was the “outcast” thing quite as big earlier. Remember, ’63 was stillthe Kennedy years. But by the middle and late ’60s, with Viet Nam andcivil rights and all that, the idea of the outsider as the hero came in big.And what did you have as the groups before that? You had JusticeLeague of America. I mean, these guys are just a bunch of Rotarianswith super-powers, you know? And the idea that they would ever arguewas just beyond belief.

The Fantastic Four argued and that was what made them fun, butthey were still a group. Everybody knew where they lived. They wereheroes and lionized. The Avengers were all heroes—everybody knewwho they were, and they had a building. And the mutants were theseguys, hiding out behind trashcans or trying to pretend they’re a bunchof innocent kids up in Westchester County. Where is that WestchesterCounty? It’s a fictitious county like Gotham City, you know? [laughs]

I think it was a combination those two things, and the incredibletalents of the people who did it. Despite the fact that Len Wein did avery fine job with that first issue, and I had a little something to do withgetting it going, it was primarily Chris, first with Dave and then with

“A Cool Concept” 19

We’ll confess it up front, with no apologies: Dave Cockrum sent us a lot of rare artwork, and we intend to use nearly all of it in this issue and next! Of this drawing of the “old” and “new” X-Men, though, Dave writes: “Frankly, I don’t remember doing this. It was apparently done for an unused

mug design for the Danbury Mint. Very little of this looks to me like my work. I think the inker must’ve heavily reworked it.” The inker is John Koblish, who has done work for both Marvel and DC. [©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

John Byrne. Once that was in place, everything else since that time, nomatter who did it, and how it sold, goes back to those few guys, morethan anything else. Sure, the issues Neal and I did were influential onthose guys. Plus Lee and Kirby, of course, in the first place. Yeah, theyhad something to do with it, yeah. [laughs]

COCKRUM: One thing that always weirded me out a little with themutant prejudice thing was, how come guys that acquired their powerslater weren’t discriminated against, you know? Why were you onlydiscriminated against if you got born with it? I’d sit and scratch my headan awful lot about that. Mr. Fantastic is weirder than a lot of thosemutants. Why don’t people hate him? But they didn’t.

SHOOTER: Good P.R.

COCKRUM: Yeah. Hehad money. [laughs] But Ithink the mutant perse-cution thing was a gooddeal of it. But the thing is,they were also treated likea family. In spite of all ofthis hatred and fear, theyhung together andsupported each other, andthey could count on eachother. Well, most of thetime, anyway. And thatappealed to a lot of thereadership, I think. Plus,people were constantlyleaving and coming back, and new peoplecoming in, so you had an ever-changingcast, and nobody had a chance to getbored.

CS: With the second group, Wolverinebecame a real break-out star. And I waswondering what it was in his makeupthat suddenly made him become a guywho could have so many series and mini-series, as that point when he did.

SHOOTER: Roy, you were the editorwhen Herb and Len did it [in TheIncredible Hulk #180-181], weren’t you?

THOMAS: Yeah. I had a couple ofdifferent names—now, Dave may haveshown me a Wolverine character before—[Dave nods] but I had it in my mind that Iwas going to make up a character, or have acharacter as a villain. And I wanted him tobe Canadian, because we had a lot ofreaders in Canada, and he was going to becalled either “Wolverine” or “Badger.” But“Wolverine” sounds like a wolf, and“Badger” sounds like, “Aw, come on.”[laughs] The “Badger” name got used later,too. Maybe Dave had this other characterbefore, which I didn’t consciouslyremember, but there are only so many animals in the world.

So I take Len Wein out to lunch, tell him I want a guy named“Wolverine”—he’s Canadian, he’s short and mean. Because a wolverineis a small, fierce creature like the Tasmanian devil. Nelson Bridwell hadthe Tasmanian Devil in his group over at DC by this time; besides, TheTasmanian Devil couldn’t be Canadian. I don’t remember this, but Len

says I said, “I want to see how you do a Canadian accent,” because he’dbeen doing “Brother Voodoo” with a Jamaican accent. What would hesay: “Eh?” We just talked it over and, except for those few sentences,everything else was Len working with Herb—I don’t know if Herbcontributed a little extra. When Herb and I worked on The Hulk, wejust talked over ideas for ten or twenty minutes, and then he’d go anddraw. But anyway, they went off and did it. Everything else, even thefact that he was a mutant was, I presume, Len. And the fact that he hadthe prodigiously-sized claws, that, too, would have been added by Lenand Herb.

Also, years earlier, I’d needed the name of something stronger thansteel or anything else. And I’d read a translation ofthe play Prometheus Bound by the Greekplaywright Aeschylus, which used the adjective“adamantine,” and I remembered that. So I madeup this thing called “adamantium” in TheAvengers. So, though I didn’t make up the idea ofgiving Wolverine adamantium claws, I was reallypleased that adamantium became a part of it, too. Iwas thrilled a few years ago when I sawadamantium mentioned by name in either Time orNewsweek. I’d contributed a word to the Englishlanguage. [chuckles] Maybe it’ll be in thedictionary someday, along with “Quinjet,” orsome other deathless contribution of mine.

[laughs]

But basically, it was Lenand Herb; and of course itwas developed, later on, byother people. Dave and Iwere arguing back andforth in print a year or soago in Comic Book Artistabout which of us came upwith the idea for the inter-national X-Men. Dave saidit was me, and I said it wasDave, or at least MikeFriedrich said it was Daveand that sounded okay tome. So we never did figureit out.

COCKRUM: You said,“mutant Blackhawks.”[laughs]

THOMAS: Yeah, Iremember that phrase, butMike Friedrich seemed toremember you showing mesome sort of internationalthing that was similar tothat, before. You and MikeFriedrich were originallygoing to be the team.

COCKRUM: I don’tremember showing you

anything like that. You said “mutant Blackhawks” and maybe an islandlocation, or something like that.

THOMAS: My idea, originally—but I didn’t insist on it being used, andI left the editor-in-chiefship soon afterward and it took a long time toget that first issue out, and that’s why my name isn’t on it—[laughs] myidea was to use a couple of the original guys like Cyclops and Marvel

20 The X-Men Panel

Wolverine co-creator Herb Trimpe at the March 1975 Mighty Marvel ComicConvention, as seen in FOOM #10, Marvel’s own “fanzine”—and the rarely-reprinted final panels of The Incredible Hulk #180 (Oct. 1974), the world’s

first glimpse of Canada’s own Wolverine. Can you believe it—for a change,he’s breaking up a fight, between Ol’ Greenskin and The Wendigo!

Script by Len Wein (whom you’ll see later), inks by Jack Abel. [Hulk art ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Conducted & Transcribed by Jim Amash[INTERVIEWER’S NOTE:Len Wein is one of thosewriter/editors celebrated bycomic book fans for manyachievements, particularlythe co-creation of DC’sSwamp Thing—but also forhis initial involvement in theX-Men relaunch in 1974-75.The X-Men have becomeingrained in pop culture, dueto strong planning on thepart of their re-creators.While Len’s tenure was shortand sweet—one wholeissue!—he helped build thefoundation for a commercialsuccess that no one couldhave imagined at that time.Built on top of thefoundation laid by Len arethe successful careers of manycreative talents, and AlterEgo is thrilled to give himthat kudo now. Take a bow,Len! —Jim.]

JIM AMASH: How did you get involved with The X-Men?

LEN WEIN: Sort of diagonally. It was more by accident than anythingelse. There were rumors of reviving the X-Men series at Marvel for anumber of years. Roy Thomas had the idea of reviving them as a groupof international heroes, like the Blackhawks. At one point, MikeFriedrich was supposed to be the writer, but he’d left Marvel by the timethe series was actually greenlighted, and I got the job, though I don’texactly remember the reasons why. I was glad to take it.

JA: You became editor-in-chief at Marvel around the same time,didn’t you?

WEIN: Yes.

JA: Considering The X-Men’s past history, there wasn’t a whole lotexpected from the relaunch, was there? After all, The X-Men weren’tthe Fantastic Four.

WEIN: Exactly. At that point in time, I was also writing several othermajor titles at Marvel, so this wasn’t like doing the Fantastic Four. Whoknew what The X-Men would grow into? It was just another book. Itwas no different to me than “Brother Voodoo” or a couple of other newseries that I was involved in. The special thing to me was that I’d beworking with Dave Cockrum.

JA: I can understand that. Tell me how you and Dave plotted storiestogether.

WEIN: We went into a room, sat down, and worked it all out. Weworked out most of Giant-size X-Men #1 in the office, over several

days. The biggest problem we had was resolving the story; we couldn’tcome up with an ending. We were hammering it out in the office, and I think it was Chris Claremont who suggested the idea of sort ofsquirting the island out into space.

JA: Oh, yeah? How involved was Chris in the early plotting?

WEIN: That was as involved as he was.

JA: But he sat in on the plot sessions, didn’t he?

WEIN: As did everyone else in the office, since we were plotting there.Chris was my assistant, and since I was editor-in-chief, his desk wasabout fifteen feet from my desk. He sort of basically heard what wewere discussing, but he wasn’t really sitting in on the meetings.

JA: When you and Dave talked out the plot, did you go and type itup for him?

WEIN: I’m not sure, but I believe so. Back in those days, I worked inseveral ways. I typed plots for various people, and I wrote some downin longhand and dictated them to the artists. I don’t remember whichway Dave and I worked, or if we just satdown together and he took notes.

JA: Whose idea was it to keepCyclops as the team leader?

WEIN: Oh, I think both of us agreedon that at the beginning. We wanted tokeep some connection to the old X-

Men, and Cyclops had been the leaderof The X-Men. But we basically hadthe understanding that most of thegroup would be new characters and notthe old team.

JA: Even though Jean was datingCyclops, you decided to get rid of her.Why?

WEIN: For variety’s sake and to opennew possibilities. But I had planned tobring her back eventually.

JA: Dave told me that you got ridof her because she was a wimpycharacter and you guys hadn’tdecided what to do with her.

WEIN: That was part of it. Wewanted to find a way to make herinteresting. It also openedromantic possibilities for Scott,since she wouldn’t be around.It was worth our time not tohave her there.

JA: You had createdWolverine before this seriesgot started. Tell me aboutthat.

“Alienation Was What The X-MenWere All About!”

LEN WEIN, Co-creator of the 1970s X-Men, Talks about Roads Taken and Not Taken

The Men Called “X” part seven

“Liltin’ Len Wein,” as depicted in theMighty Marvel Comic Convention program

book in 1975, around the time he wasworking on Giant-size X-Men #1.

[Art ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

A Storm sketch drawn by Dave Cockrum on the back of one of his X-Men art

pages in 1977. [Art ©2003 Dave Cockrum; Storm TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

31

Interview Conducted &Transcribed by Jim Amash[INTERVIEWER’S INTRO-DUCTION: Dave Cockrum wasthe visual architect of the new X-Men series that Marvel Comicslaunched in 1975. His superiorability to design costumes,coupled with his effective drafts-manship, lent the freshness andconvincing reality necessary tothe new series’ success. Whileothers such as Chris Claremontand John Byrne were extremelyimportant creators on this series, much of the early impact of TheX-Men relied on Dave’s contributions. The current worldwidepopularity of The X-Men has its roots in the foundation he helpedestablish. With that in mind, this interview examines those timesfrom Dave’s point of view as an artist. —Jim.]

JIM AMASH: You left DC Comics, where you were doing the“Legion Of Super-heroes” feature in Superboy, for MarvelComics. What did you start on at Marvel?

DAVE COCKRUM: The first thing I did at Marvel was a “Gulliverof Mars” story for a black-&-white magazine. I remember JohnRomita making me fix a lot of stuff on that story. I wasn’t acclimatedwith the Marvel style yet... you know, all their characters had thesebig bodies and little heads, and I was drawing figures with naturalproportions.

JA: This was in 1973. The new X-Men series started in 1975. Whatwere you doing for those two years?

COCKRUM: I penciled two issues of Giant-size Avengers andinked six issues of the regular Avengers comic, in groups of three. Ithink there were five pencilers on those six issues. One issue had anold George Tuska “Captain America” segment that they just spliced in.Don Heck, Rich Buckler, Bob Brown, and—I believe there was anotherartist, whose name I can’t remember, who penciled those issues. I mightas well have been classified as a penciler, because they told me to “makethem all look alike.” In order to make George Tuska’s work look like theothers, I had to do a lot of re-penciling. Everything was there; it was justthat it was straightforward Tuska art, and they wanted a uniform look tothat issue. Basically, I used Dick Giordano’s style over Neal Adams tomake the artists all look alike.

JA: I don’t suppose you made any Xeroxes of the pencils?

COCKRUM: I used to Xerox a lot of the pencils to stories I did, butsomewhere along the line I lost most of them. I do have a few things,including an unpublished fill-in story I did for X-Men. In this story,Xavier goes to visit FBI agent Fred Duncan and they reminisce aboutthe career of The X-Men. My tour of duty on The X-Men was coveredin one panel, which annoyed the hell out of me. Roger Stern wrote thisscript and really whizzed past what I’d done on the series. I don’t know

why the story wasn’t used. Maybe because it’s a very quiet story; it’s justtwo guys reminiscing. There are a lot of flashback panels, and you do seeaction shots, but it’s basically not the sort of story they usually do in X-Men. Maybe it’ll turn up one day in an annual or something. I don’tknow when I drew it... maybe ten or fifteen years ago.

JA: Tell me how your involvement with The X-Men began.

COCKRUM: Roy Thomas was editor-in-chief, and I’d been badgeringhim to draw a series. Roy liked my stuff, and at one point I’d shownhim some of the character designs for villains that I had done for “TheLegion of Super-heroes,” which included a version of a character Inamed Wolverine. Apparently, this was what gave Roy the idea to askLen Wein to create a character called Wolverine. When the “powers-

“We Kicked the Whole ThingAround a Lot!”

DAVE COCKRUM Talks about His Co-creation of the New X-Men in 1974-75

The Men Called “X” part eight

“Dave ‘X-Man’ Cockrum,” they called him in the 1975 Mighty Marvel ComicConvention program book (they couldn’t come up with an adjective

starting with a “d”?!)—plus what Dave calls “a revamped version of X-Menhead circle.” [Storm, Nightcrawler, Wolverine, Cyclops, Marvel

Girl/Phoenix, Colossus, and Banshee TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

34

that-be” decided to revive The X-Men, Roy thought of me and gaveme a chance.

With the character design of Wolverine, I also had a drawing of histwin sister Belladonna. They both wore black, and he had sort of“tufty” hair and big sideburns and fangs. She wore a black costume thatshowed a lot of skin, and she carried a whip. There were a couple ofother characters, like Manta and Sidewinder. Roy liked my ideas.

JA: When you started on the series, Mike Friedrich was involved.

COCKRUM: Right. He was going to be the writer. Roy, Mike, and Iwent to lunch and had a general planning meeting about how toapproach the series. I think it was at that point that I started drawing upnew characters, one of which was The Black Cat... not the one Idesigned later for Spider-Man. But then the project was put on hold,and when we got back to it, Mike was no longer involved and Len Weinwas asked to write the series. Also, by this time, other cat characters, likeTigra, had popped up, so I decided to do something else with The BlackCat.

JA: Did the fact that you were a good costume designer, as well as agood artist, help you get this series?

COCKRUM: It may have. Roy knew about my “Legion” work,though Wildfire was the only character of mine that made it into thatseries. I had created Nightcrawler (in a yellow-and-black costumeinstead of the familiar red-and-black) for the Legion, but editorMurray Boltinoff was very conservative and didn’t want to doanything to offend his readers. I guess Chameleon Boy must have beenintroduced into the Legion before Murray handled the feature, or hemight not have gotten in, either. He thought Nightcrawler was toostrange-looking. I don’t know why he didn’t go for Typhoon, becausehe at least was fairly normal-looking. At least Wildfire made it into theseries.

[EDITOR’S NOTE: At this point Jim asks Dave about how TheBlack Cat “metamorphosed” into Storm. Since Dave talks aboutthat, in similar words, in the 2000 convention panel a few pagesback, we’ll skip ahead to his other comments on the creation ofStorm. —Roy.]

The splash of the never-published fill-in X-Men issue drawn circa 1990, inkedby Joe Rubinstein and scripted by Roger Stern; repro’d from a photocopy of

the original art, which was returned to Dave while this issue of A/E was in theworks. Thanks to Marvel returns editor Wilson Ramos, Jr., for sending A/E

copies, and to Tom Brevoort. [©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

“We Kicked the Whole Thing Around a Lot!” 35

This 1972 drawing by Dave Cockrum shows some of the “character designs for villains I had done for ‘The Legion of Super-heroes.’" Guess which one of

’em Dave named ‘Wolverine’! Contrary to what Dave remembers in this interview,Roy T. doesn’t recall having any memory of this character or even his name

when he asked Len Wein to develop a Wolverine in The Incredible Hulk #180-181,but it might have been there in his subconscious. [©2003 Dave Cockrum.]

Sidebar by Roy ThomasI remember Paty—Dave Cockrum’s wondrous

wife—telling me back in the 1970s how she adaptedher original name “Patty” into its present form aftera friend left out a “t” once when writing it. Guessshe just liked the way it looked—and, theramshackle rules of English being what they are, thenew version of the name wound up beingpronounced with a long “a,” thus giving her a fairlyunique cognomen. It fits her.

As Paty Greer (her name from her first marriage),she used to write letters to Marvel—maybe she evensent in some sketches with them, for she’s a talentedartist. At any rate,sometime duringmy two-yeartenure as Marvel’seditor-in-chief, andfor some timethereafter, shewound up workingon staff, and doingsome artwork, aswell. For instance,in 1973 Bill Everettinked her pencilsfor the third issueof The Claws ofthe Cat.

And youcould’ve knockedme over with one of The Angel’s feathers when, one bright day in 1974,she surprised me in my office at Marvel with a gift she’d made for me—what was described in the Dec. 5, 1974, issue of the Middletown [NY]Times Herald Record as “a complex chess set.”

As Hunter Thompson would say: Indeed.

It was a chess set, and then some—with each piece, pawns and all,hand-carved in the shape of a different Marvel character. Heroes on oneside, villains on the other. Paty has always had a thing for The Vision(the Silver Age version John Buscema and I introduced in The Avengers#57 in 1968), and back then she followed his longtime and eventuallyaltar-bound romance with The Scarlet Witch—shall we say, closely! Soshe made Vizh and Wanda the 8"-high king and queen of the “goodguys” side. They were counterbalanced by Mephisto and TheEnchantress for the “bad guys.”

“I worked on and off for more than two years” on that chess set, sherecalled for the newspaper, while (as described by the reporter) shepicked up “a softly hued statuette resembling the 32 pieces she made forthe ceramic set, all hand carved.”

“It was a surprise,” she continued, referring to the moment when shepresented the quite sizable, multi-part gift to me. “And he wassurprised!” Paty doesn’t have to rely on memory for that remark; sherecorded the moment on audiotape, and still has it—she even sent me acopy! As for yours truly, I eventually transported the set back to myapartment as gingerly as I could, since I didn’t want anything to happento any of the pieces.

And nothing has. Nearly three decades later, that exquisite, beautifulchess set which has always meant so much to me sits behind glass in adisplay case in my home office in South Carolina, maybe 15 feet awayfrom me as I type these words—and once, when I owned a rug with achessboard design, I even set all 32 pieces up on it, in their propersquares, and played a game with it. Facing each other were the afore-

“Paty”––It Rhymes With “Katy”!

Paty, as seen in the Mighty Marvel Comic Convention program book—and a drawing she didespecially for FOOM #10 in ’75. Key: The Angel = staff artist Duffy Vohland; The Beast = staffer ScottEdelman; Iceman = editor Marv Wolfman; Cyclops = editor-in-chief (and X-Men writer) Len Wein;

Marvel Girl = Paty; Prof. X = Stan Lee. [©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

The Men Called “X” part eight-aWO^ 43

[Paty continued on next page.]

“A chess set, and then some.” Photo by Dann!Thomas.

Interview Conducted &Transcribed by Jim Amash[INTRODUCTION: ChrisClaremont was at the epicenter ofa cultural phenomenon, though hedidn’t know it yet. He took the1974 standard of the super-heroicsoap opera style of writing andraised the bar for writing in thecomics industry. Great successesseldom start out fully formed, andas you’ll see, this one didn’t,either. Claremont and Cockrumtook The X-Men, checkered pastand all, and retooled the seriesinto something so special that theshockwaves unleashed at Krakoain Giant-size X-Men #1 stillreverberate in our imaginations.And made Chris Claremont oneof the most influential writers incomic book history. —Jim.]

JIM AMASH: I’m a little unclearas to what your position was atMarvel when the new X-Men series started.

CHRIS CLAREMONT: At that particular time, I was an associateeditor. Len Wein was editor-in-chief, and as associate editor, I wasnumber two. For all intents and purposes, I was then what I was the lasttime I was at Marvel, which was the #2 editorial guy. In those days, itwasn’t as large and complicated a structure as it is today.

JA: So that’s why you were sitting in on the original meetingsbetween Len and Dave Cockrum.

CLAREMONT: Well, my office was right outside his office... my deskwas. We really didn’t have offices, per se. I would kibbitz every chance Igot.

JA: How involved were you in the early meetings? Were youthrowing ideas in, too?

CLAREMONT: It was a general, unstructured thing. I would hang outand listen to Len and Dave work. We all just sort of spitballed ideas ateach other. It was a lot of fun.

JA: So Len leaves the series and you script issues #94 and 95, beforecompletely taking over the writing chores.

CLAREMONT: The original publishing plan was to bring out The X-Men as a giant-sized quarterly comic book. It was partly to competeagainst DC’s 25¢ comics... [laughs] twenty-five cent giants! What achange from today.

The general consensus was that this format would present theseries in a back-door pilot format in order to get a sense of whatcommercial potential The X-Men had. And also construct apublishing plan that was conducive to both Len and Dave’sschedules. As editor-in-chief, Len didn’t have that much time todevote to writing comics, and Dave was not the fastest penciler inthe universe. It was felt that this format would allow Dave topresent the work in a form that allowed him to maximize thegreatest visual potential. It also would allow Dave to stay on theseries for a longer amount of time.

What happened was that at the time when Len decided to leavethe editor-in-chief position, there was also a rethinking ofeditorial publishing policies. The decision was made to go from aquarterly format to a bimonthly format. At that point, the second

“I Was in the Right Placeat the Right Time!”

CHRIS CLAREMONT on the Early Days of the New X-Men

The Men Called “X” part nine

“Cheerful Chris Claremont,” as seen in the 1975 Mighty Marvel Comic Convention

program book. As Chris pointed out at the 1995 Stan Lee Roast, transcribed back in Alter Ego, Vol. 3, #1, they were runningout of alliterative inspiration by the time

they made that one up!

Nightcrawler and Storm, in a beautiful pencil drawing gifted to Chris byartist Dave Cockrum in 1975. It was used in the X-Men coffee table book, and was done on the back of an X-Men page. [Art ©2003 Dave Cockrum;

Nightcrawler & Storm TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

48

giant-size issue was alreadypenciled, except for the last dozenpages or so. It required a chunk ofrevamping.

JA: Who did the revamping?

CLAREMONT: The “überplot”was Len’s. We had to build to apoint where Thunderbird died atstory’s end. The pacing of theevents was substantially established,but out of necessity, we had tobreak the story into two parts. Wehad to find a place to split the bookso that issue #94 had an excitingconclusion,which we did by havingThe X-Men blown out of the sky.Then we redesigned the second halfof the story so it was a coherentstand-alone issue that led to a finalconclusion.

I did the restructuring, but itwas basically Len’s story. Issue #95was my pacing... mine and Dave’s.#96 was my first official plot, andeven then it was amusing, because itwas sort of a mess. I was trying tofigure out what the hell to do. MarvWolfman had taken over as editor-in-chief, and I was holding down astaff job while trying to figure outwhat Dave and I wanted to do withThe X-Men—who the characterswere and what we wanted to do withthem—without losing any time.

JA: Was the fact that you werepreviously involved with The X-Men, as Len’s associate editor,make it a given that you’d takeover the series?

CLAREMONT: I was in the rightplace at the right time. They needed a body and I needed the work. Iwas enthusiastic about the work. I loved working with Dave. I loved thecharacters. It was one of those circumstances where it was thought,“Why not give the kid a shot?” It was a low-profile book and no onehad any great hopes for it. Dave’s stuff had done exceptionally well forDC’s “Legion of Super-heroes,” but The X-Men had always had a verystoried history at Marvel. The “Legion” had a measure of historicalchops to it. Curt Swan, Edmond Hamilton, and other luminaries hadworked on the feature. The X-Men had Roy Thomas and Neal Adamson the book for a while, but the new series wasn’t viewed as having thepotential of becoming a heavy-hitter at that point. At this stage, we weredeciding how to define the new characters. We were jumping off into theunknown. So they decided to “give the kid a shot.”

JA: Since you took over in the middle of the writing process, youdidn’t have time to hit the ground with characters that were fullyformed.

CLAREMONT: I think Dave and I both felt that the issues wherethings started to creatively jell were issues #98, 99, and 100. 96 and 97were issues where we were working out the kinks. The other problemwas that we had a one-hundredth issue staring us in the face, and tradi-tionally, centennial issues were associated with big events. How do you

create a big event when the book isonly six issues old? What can wedo?

Again, it’s a matter of us findingcreative energy and synergy as ateam. The way Dave visualizedJean in #94, when she left thegroup, was different than the wayhe drew her in #97, when she cameback. My feeling was that if she’dhave looked in 94 the way she hadin 97, I’d have never let her out ofthe book. I was looking forchemistry between the characters.We wanted to shake up the statusquo. If we left Jean in the book,it’d become too much like theoriginal X-Men. The original ideawas to bring her back, but not as amember of the team—but thenwhat do we do with her? I neededto figure out who Storm was...who Cyclops was... and what weretheir key elements? How toapproach Nightcrawler? How toapproach Colossus? And how verymuch to approach Wolverine?

JA: This was supposed to be ateenage group, but by this time,Scott’s not really a teenager, ishe?

CLAREMONT: I think the wholenature of the team was such thatWolverine was a military officer inthe Canadian Armed Forces;therefore, he was not a teenager.Storm... you always had the sensethat even if she was a teenager, thefirst line they used was that “Hereyes were blue as crystal and olderthan time.” There was the sense

that there was more to her than meets the eye. Colossus was very mucha teenager, or at least, in his late teens, in that ambiguous, ephemeralspace between 12 and 20. Nightcrawler could have gone either way. Ithink we all felt that in order to draw a demarcation between the oldteam and the new one, the idea was to play them a little older and moremature. This added a dynamic whereby they are not exclusively kidstrying to learn their powers. We wanted to take it up to the next level;more of a university level than a middle school or high school setting.

JA: I asked Dave this question and I’d like to hear your thoughts onthis subject. What age did you have in mind for Professor X whenyou started the new series?

CLAREMONT: Forties. What did Dave say?

JA: He said somewhere in his thirties.

CLAREMONT: Yeah, about that.

JA: But when you started adding details to his background, he has tobe older.

CLAREMONT: The problem with back stories is that they alwayscome back to bite you on the ass. My big mistake, structurally speaking,was making Storm my age. The idea that she was born in mid-century,

The final page of The X-Men #94 (Aug. 1975), repro’d from a photocopy ofthe original art, thanks to Mike W. Barr and Tom Horvitz. Originally a longer

story was planned for what would have been Giant-size X-Men #2, but ithad to be cut in two when the comic became a 32-pager. Chris Claremont,script (from a Len Wein plot); Dave Cockrum, penciler; Bob McLeod, inker.

[©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

“In The Right Place at the Right Time!” 49