The DNAgents Day!

Mark Evanier was born on this date in 1952. Evanier was a key assistant to Jack Kirby in the 70's and had a robust career writing for Gold Key in the 70's and DC in the 80's and 90's. He became a force in the Indy market and co-created Groo the Barbarian.  He also created one of my favorite Indy comics- the focus of today's Dojo celebration -- The DNAgents. 

Let me say categorically that "The DNAgents" might be my favorite title for any comic anytime. It's ferociously clever and instantly communicates not only the name of the heroes but also identifies their plight as "artificial" human beings. Grown in a vat from strands of select DNA and a multitude of chemicals these superhumans are wonderful analogs for any marginalized group who might want to identify with them, a fantastic ploy for comics seeking readership. Created at the height of the popularity of the X-Men and the New Teen Titans, Mark Evanier (a first-rate writer and comics-lore expert and raconteur) and Will Meugniot (the second best Good-Girl artist of his generation after the late Dave Stevens) found a fantastic formula (almost literally) which tapped into that same vein without seeming imitative. Some of that goes to the strength of the characterization which is evident in both the writing and the illustration. These are stories about "people" seeking relationships among themselves, others outside their group and with the broader society which slowly learns of their existence.

For those who might not know The DNAgents are Surge, Rainbow, Tank, Amber, and Sham, five teenagers who are all of five years old. Grown in a lab they have been developed and programmed by rather cold-blooded scientists and even colder-blooded businessmen to serve the interests of the Matrix Corporation, specifically one man named Lucius Krell. The team are sent to perform various tasks for Matrix, rarely if ever told the truth behind their missions and at the same time they are seeking to find some semblance of what passes for a normal existence as college students in Southern California.

I've always gotten a smidgeon of a Jack Kirby vibe off this book, not in the way that often comes across as an attempt to clone Kirby's style in the art, but rather in regard to the themes. The Matrix Corporation always struck as me as The DNA Project/Evil Factory set in a more realistic and recognizable environment. The Agents themselves have a "Forever People" vibe, though the personalities are slightly different. Their "bus", the awesome ship they used to travel in from time to time reminds me of the Super-Cycle and the Fantasticar at the same time. I say this not to suggest the DNAgents are mere copies of other work, but that like most superhero work they evolved from that which had come before, using the themes and tropes in new ways to somewhat different effects.

Also I've always thought (and maybe Evanier or someone else has said as much) that the DNAgents were a commentary on the then new concept of creator-owned properties. That the Agents are the "property" of Matrix goes to the thematic core of the comic, and it's difficult to imagine that Evanier and Meugniot weren't speaking to the comic book powers-that-were-at-the-time about the changing nature of the enterprise. 

I read the saga as it first appeared, but then ultimately traded away those comics. Then I re-gathered them again many years ago. Most recently I picked up the black and white reprint of the adventures from Image which featured many pages developed directly from Meugniot's originals. The DNAgents, published by Eclipse was always a professional looking publication, properly bright and colorful. But reading these same stories in a restrained black and white format has caused me to focus more intently on the writing and less on the shiny well-crafted images, and good writing it is indeed.

The DNAgents - Industrial Strength Edition a was published a few years before that in 2008, and before that About Comics reprinted the first six issues. It's a total hoot to read stories filled with nostalgic tech such as video game parlors, walkmen, and pagers. The 80's seems like yesterday to me, but then I'm getting rather old and reading stories which document that time can really drive home how quaint it all was compared to the way technology has seared its way into nearly all aspects of modern life (this blog for instance).

Here are the lovely covers for the issues contained in this Industrial Strength Edition. (One is already above.)

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Guardians Of The Galaxy Day!

Arnold Drake was born on this date in 1924.  Drake was a key writer artist at DC and later at Marvel in the 60's and 70's. He is best known for The Doom Patrol, but I'll always remember him as the writer of the Guardians of the Galaxy story - the focus of today's celebration. 

If I was forced to pick only one comic book ever and that's all I ever got, Marvel Super Heroes #18 might be the one. I love this comic for its pure blend of science fiction and superheroics. I love this comic for its wonky heroes, four very different men from across the solar system fighting against a bizarre lizard people tyranny. 

The debut story is by writer and co-creator Arnold Drake and exquisite artwork by fellow co-creator Gene "The Dean" Colan and Mike Esposito (under his "Mikey Demeo" disguise),  and relates the 31st Century future in which the Earth has colonized the solar system and beyond thanks to "Harkovian Physics" (move over Einstein), and finds a motley gang of aliens and hybrid humans joined to battle the deadly Badoon, a warlike lizard race from space. Arnold Drake and Gene Colan were at the top of their respective games with this showcase for a new super team, each though merely the product of circumstance. Charlie-27 is my favorite, a simple man who merely seeks to save his family and who is forced to run for his life despite his great strength and speed when he can't do that. Martinex is properly shiny and knowing and weird, but he is similarly motivated. 

And then there's Major Vance Astro, the thousand-year-old Earthman who is at once bitter and selfless, a proper blend of human characters which Drake was so adept at showing. Alongside this "Lone Ranger" (a resurrected masked man, don't you know) of the future is the noble native, the taciturn Yondu with his delightful Yaka arrows which act like living things and obey his commands. These are fascinating characters who were united and committed by story's end to battling against the alien threat of the dominating Badoon.

Major Vance Astro is a 20th Century man sent into deep space to Alpha Centuari in 1988 only to find his long journey and the 1000 years it took unnecessary when he finally arrived at a fully settled colony on a planet in deep space. After realizing he is trapped inside his life-preserving copper foil suit, he joins up with Jovian militiaman Charlie-27 and Pluvian scientist the crystalline Martinex along with Yondu, a finned alien native from the Alpha Centauri system.

The same Badoon who had only a few months before appeared in the pages of Silver Surfer #2 in our modern day. That invasion was thwarted but now we see they returned, and they have won the day conquering not only Earth but all its disparate colonies on Jupiter, Pluto, and beyond. It's a fresh dazzling world that Drake and Colan present and I was hungry for more after the first Marvel Super- Heroes outing. I never got it, that is I never got it for a good long while.

This unlikely gang of four battle the Brotherhood of the  Badoon in 3007 A.D. for one brief shining issue then disappear into the comic book mists.

They reappear many years later in the 1974 pages of Marvel-Two-In-One and enlist the time-traveling Ben Grimm and Captain America to help them in their ongoing future war with the deadly Badoon. These stories were written by Steve Gerber and drawn with precision by Sal Buscema.

That battle continues in the 20th Century in the pages of Giant-Size Defenders #5 with vibrant Don Heck artwork . Some of the Guardians are now sporting ginchy new costumes designed by Dave Cockrum.

Then the saga shifts back to the future in four issues of The Defenders regular comic again written by the  Gerber-Buscema team. The Badoon are ultimately defeated and the Guardians meet a new member, the enigmatic Starhawk.

These Defenders issues were a try-out of sorts for the space team of the future and it worked, with the Guardians next showing up in their very own comic under the official title of Marvel Presents. With scribe Steve Gerber and artist Al Milgrom in control, the Guardians at long last would find their way forward.

The team adds yet another member when Nikki, a firebrand from Venus hooks up with the Guardians. I'm of two minds about the addition of Nikki and Starhawk because I always felt that the original core group of four, Astro aside, were not developed sufficiently before these additions. Nonetheless the team pressed on.

One curious issue of Marvel Presents was a fill-in which featured some of Silver Surfer #2, the 1968 comic which actually debuted the Badoon battling the "Sentinel of the Spaceways" a few months before they show up in the future to conquer our solar system.

The run in Marvel Presents ended after a cool dozen issues and after this brisk but potent outing the Guardians were once again an itinerant team. 

The comics feel less escapist now than they did years ago for some reason. 

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A Hero For Hire!

(The dates for 1975 and 2025 are identical.)

I've always cottoned to comic book stories that deal with the logistics of vigilantism. The classic Fantastic Four story when they go broke and end up working for the Sub-Mariner at his movie studio is a delightful story which points back to the real world as most good stories do. The Avengers from time to time have had stories which mentioned the stipends the heroes get while they serve among the ranks. But no Marvel story hit on the economics of heroism more directly than Luke Cage, Hero for Hire. The Epic collection of Luke's earliest adventures emphasizes his name but when the comic first started to show up on comic book spinner racks it was "Hero for Hire" that branded the comic most forcefully. 

We meet Lucas when he is an inmate at Seagate Prison and he's there for a murder he did not commit, the murder of his beloved. His former compadre "Diamondback" set him up and now he stews about his unfair situation while using his fists to defend himself. He's offered the chance to participate in a lab experiment conducted by a Dr. Burstein and it turns out to give Lucas a steel-hard skin and enormous strength and endurance. He literally busts out of prison takes on the ironic name of "Luke Cage" and decides to help those who need help but for a price. Luke cuts a striking figure on the debut cover by John Romita and that look with the blue (black?) descending into his boots is the ideal. He looks rather like Fred Williamson. 

In the second issue he gets his revenge on Diamondback and makes it known to the criminals of Harlem that a new hero is on the block. This is "blaxploitation" at its finest, a yarn about an angry black man who has complicated issues with the civil authority and who seeks to do good but must needs look for himself in the bargain. These early issues really evoke that Shaft vibe. 

By the third issue he's fighting a mercenary named "Gideon Mace" and his mob and is not getting much money for his troubles. It turns out not surprisingly that Luke is a much better hero than businessman. Doc Burstein returns to the story and agrees to hold Luke's secret for a time and we also meet a bonafide love interest in Dr. Claire Temple. Mace appears to drown as the story closes. 

The art in the first three issues had been magnificently done by veteran George Tuska with inks by up and coming African-American artist Billy Graham. But in the fourth issue Graham does all the work in a story which has a Phantom haunting the very neighborhood in which Luke keeps his office. It's above a movie theater run by a friendly young kid named "D.W." after the infamous movie director D.W. Griffith. I'm not sure if the writer Archie Goodwin intends to invoke memories of Birth of a Nation but it's hard not to think so. 

Tuska is back in the fifth issue, but Goodwin is gone, replaced by Steve Englehart. This issue features one of Luke's most memorable villains, the robust "Black Mariah" who runs an ambulance scam in NYC. 

Graham takes the lead again with inks by Al Williamson for an indifferent product. The story too seems off the beaten path as Luke goes to the suburbs to battle armored ghosts in a story about a dangerous inheritance. 

One of my favorite Cage stories from this era is the delightful and dangerous Christmas yarn that Englehart and Tuska spin which weirdly evokes A Christmas Carol and Dr. Strangelove at the same time. 

Then we are treated to a nifty two-parter when Luke comes up against Marvel's top baddie, Doc Doom. First Cage is hired by Doom to chase down some errant robots hiding in Harlem but when the Monarch of Latveria tries to stiff Cage on his fee of two hundred bucks, the Hero for Hire hops over to the tiny kingdom to get his pay. The FF make an appearance and give Luke a rocket to get over to Latveria, This is an early effort to bond Cage more tightly to the larger Marvel continuity. 

One of my favorite Hero for Hire villains is "Mister Surete/Mister Muerte" or "Mister Luck/Mister Death". He's a gambling crime boss who depends on his good fortune to defend his casino operations and has a trick where he spins a wheel which charges up one of his hands with deadly electricity. One handshake is all it takes to burn you to a crisp. He's an arrogant villain who cannot understand why Cage keeps coming at him over the course of their two-issue battle. 

One of the more successful villains from this run is "Chemistro" who wields a handgun that can change one substance into another such as steel becoming glass. This Alchemy Gun is a deadly weapon and it's all Luke can do to survive long enough for the villain, a disgruntled ex-employee of a car manufacturer to be hoist on his own petard. Cage's appearance in Amazing Spider-Man is referenced in this issue. 

Luke Cage always seemed to have the most curious and interesting rogues to battle. Not least among them was Lion-Fang, a disgruntled scientist who used his knowledge to share intelligence with large cats and got from them some degree of ferocious energy. Needless to say, it didn't turn out for him in the end. 

The last three issues of Luke Cage, Hero for Hire were comprised of a three-part tale that reintroduced several characters from the debut issue such Shades and Commanche, two inmates of Seagate who escape and try to set up a protection racket. And Luke's arch nemesis Rackahm, the guard to actually was instrumental in making Cage so powerful turns up again, even more repulsive than before. But first Cage has to fight the giant lawyer named Big Ben who is harassing Mrs. Jenks, a woman Cage had done work for in previous issues. 

She ends up getting kidnapped and a reporter trying to blackmail Cage gets murdered by Rackham but Cage's girlfriend Claire Temple gets arrested for the crime. In an effort to clear her he gets into all sorts of trouble. Billy Graham turns in some of his best work while Tony Isabella steps in to script the story begun by Englehart. 

Frank McLaughlin handles the inks over Graham's pencils on the third part which introduces a new villain called "Stiletto". Both Shades and Commanche help Cage put down this baddie and by the end Cage's secret is safe once more, but a few people do have to die. 

Luke Cage (and the boffins at Marvel) decided that he needed a new monicker for his hero trade, so in this issue he ponders several options striking at last on "Power Man" (as in "Black" Power Man I reckon). It's fine and it's worked for him ever since, but I always preferred the more mercenary "Hero for Hire" label. In this issue Luke is duped into trying to steal some Stark armor and battles old Shellhead himself. George Tuska is back on pencils and Billy Graham bids farewell to Cage with a dandy inking job. The newly titled book slips to a bi-monthly schedule with this installment. For me, it loses some of its specialness when they decide to give Lucas a somewhat standard "codename".  

As I reflect on these Hero for Hire stories again, I was struck by the anger Luke feels nearly all the time. He has that office in a low-rent part of NYC and it's a good thing since he destroys the fixtures at least once an issue. Either he does in a fight, or he just loses his temper and smashes something. Luke Cage is a man who has been treated unjustly and is now working outside the law but also in tandem with it to bring villains to some degree of justice, albeit natural justice at times. He's a hero always seeking to treated on an equal basis with the other heroes in Marvel Universe who he perceives as having fewer obstacle in their way in that regard. 

"Blaxploitation" is about giving black audiences heroes they can root for and since many if not most Black citizens at the time were just getting adapted to a society which was just then legally beginning to treat them as regular citizens. It remains an incomplete process alas. Luke Cage, Hero for Hire speaks to that anger and frustration and presents that audience with a superhero who shows his face with pride and demands that he be treated with respect. 

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