Comic Coverage

Which Came First: The Mutant or The Freak?

So, which came first....the mutant or the freak?

One of the great Unsolved Mysteries of Comics* has to be "Who inspired who in the creation of DC Comics' Doom Patrol and Marvel's X-Men?"

*Okay, admittedly, we don't have that many Unsolved Mysteries to begin with...but work with me here.

Though they ultimately went on to tell very different kinds of stories, the similarities between the fundamental concepts of The Doom Patrol and the X-Men are startling...and, as I initially thought, most likely due to one publisher copying the other.

However, a closer examination of the timeline casts some doubt on that theory.

My Greatest Adventure #80, featuring the debut of the Doom Patrol, had a cover date of June 1963, three months before X-Men #1 hit the stands.

Hey! Mystery solved, right? Not so fast.

While it was certainly possible, the odds of Stan Lee and the Marvel gang being able to (1) Check out DC's Doom Patrol, (2) get clearance and financing to publish a knock-off and (3) actually produce, print and distrubute the comic book in three months' time was a real stretch.

Granted, Marvel was a young, hungry, up-and-coming publisher with speedsters like Jack Kirby, working for them...but still....that's crazy fast...and somewhat unlikely.

Still... what are the odds of two comic book publishers, unknown to the other, simultaneously coming up with a team lead by a mysterious, wheelchair-bound benefactor?

Both teams composed of outcasts who protect a society that hates and fears them?

Both teams characterized as "the Strangest Heroes"?

Both teams battling a "Brotherhood of Evil"?

Indeed, the odds against the "creative synchronicity" theory are pretty steep, and it's not likely the X-Men were rushed to market following the Doom Patrol's debut....so what does that leave? Something much more devious? The late Arnold Drake, creator of the Doom Patrol, seemed to think so:

"...I’ve become more and more convinced that (Stan Lee) knowingly stole The X-Men from The Doom Patrol. Over the years I learned that an awful lot of writers and artists were working surreptitiously between (Marvel and DC). Therefore from when I first brought the idea into (DC editor) Murray Boltinoff’s office, it would’ve been easy for someone to walk over and hear that (I was) working on a story about a bunch of reluctant superheroes who are led by a man in a wheelchair. So over the years I began to feel that Stan had more lead time than I realized. He may well have had four, five or even six months."

So did Marvel actually have a mole at DC Comics....or did DC just have a snitch working for them? Who knows?

Further muddying the waters of the "who copied who?" question is something I haven't seen discussed: How much did Arnold Drake borrow from Marvel Comics in the first place, specifically The Fantastic Four?

It's no secret that by 1963, DC had noticed how popular Marvel's groundbreaking "dysfunctional heroes" dynamic had become with comic book fans, and Drake's quirky, quarrelsome Doom Patrol certainly seemed to be a response to that. In fact, maybe it's just me, but some of the Doom Patrol members themselves seemed to have visual or personality traits that mirrored Marvel's famous Foursome.

Robotman's gruff personality (not to mention orange coloring) remind you of someone? How about demure Rita Farr? Any visual overlap between the Human Torch and the Doom Patrol's Negative Man? Definitely food for thought.

So...which came first? The Freak (the Doom Patrol) or the Mutant (the X-Men)? Or was it corporate espionage...or simply a crazy, cosmic coincidence?

What do YOU think?

Does someone out there have any additional facts or insights that could shed some light on this decades-long mystery? I'll be sure to post them as an update to this post if I receive any.

Which Came First: The Vision or The Red Tornado?

A few months back, I posed the question "Which Came First: The Doom Patrol or the X-Men?", one of the enduring Unsolved Mysteries of superhero comics.  Of course, I didn't come up with any definitive answer, but that's the fun of an unsolved mystery, right?

Well, another unsolved mystery that's always fascinated me was the virtually simultaneous first appearances of DC's Red Tornado and Marvel's Vision characters.

The Red Tornado took his first bow in Justice League of America #64, which sported a cover date of August, 1968.  A mere two months later, the Vision appeared in Avengers #57.  You're probably thinking "What's the big mystery?  The Red Tornado beat the Vision by a whole two months!"  Ahh, but you have to keep in mind the process of creating a comic book, which (at the time) took about three to four months from concept to printed product, so it would have been impossible for Marvel to rip-off DC within that tight of a time frame.  In short, just like the X-Men and the Doom Patrol before them, the Red Tornado/Vision debuts appear to be a genuine cosmic coincidence!

What makes their dual debut such a "cosmic coincidence"?  Here, let's compare their first appearances and chalk up the astounding similarities:

Which Came First: The Swamp Thing or The Man-Thing?

Like any business rivals, comic book publishers have routinely "borrowed" popular characters and concepts from their competitors.  However, there were a handful of times when publishers created characters that were so similar, yet appeared so close together, that one publisher copying the concept from the other was a virtually impossibility.

We've seen this "superhero synchronicity" with Marvel's X-Men and DC's Doom Patrol.  We saw it again with the Red Tornado and the Vision.  Now, as we trade the world of bright colored costumes for the murky mysteries of the swamp, let's consider the question:

Of course, before we look too closely at these two goop-encrusted gentlemen, the concept of the supernatural swamp man predates both of them by about thirty years!

As the "template" for all shambling muck monsters to come, Theodore Sturgeon's 1940 short story "It" featured a man who died in the swamp, but rose again as a vengeful half-man, half-rotting vegetation creature.  Obviously inspired by Sturgeon's swamp man, Hillman Periodicals created the first comic book swamp man named The Heap in 1942.  Starting out as a minor villain, the Heap soon became a recurring character in Airboy Comics until the title was canceled in 1953.

Another notable swamp-bred creature of the Golden Age was Solomon Grundy, whose name was taken from a 19th century nursury rhyme. Making his debut in All-American Comics #61 (1944), Grundy became a recurring villain of the Justice Society of America...and continues to plague them today!

Now that we've established that the shambling swamp monster has a rather long pedigree, let's flash forward to the late 1960's and early 1970's, as American comic books reflect a new horror craze sweeping the popular culture.  Readers were buying supernaturally-themed comics as fast as DC and Marvel Comics could crank them out, which spawned a coincidence as mysterious as the swamp itself.

Cover dated May of 1971, a Marvel anthology named Savage Tales #1 hit the stands (click the cover images for a larger view).  One of the black and white magazine's short stories featured the tale of biochemist Ted Sallis, who desperately injected the "miracle drug" he developed into his own system to protect it from sinister forces.  Pursued into a swamp, Sallis ends up drowning...but was later revived by a combination of his formula (and supernatural forces) into a creature known as the Man-Thing! 

Cover dated July of 1971, DC's House of Secrets #92 featured the story of Alex Olson, an early 20th century scientist who was caught in a lab explosion (triggered by a treacherous lab partner) and dumped into the swamp.  Revived by a combination of chemicals and supernatural forces, Alec transformed into the monstrous Swamp Thing!

At this point, you might be thinking "Hey, Man-Thing beat Swamp Thing by a full two months!"  Ah, but remember, in the comic book biz it typically takes three to four months to create and print a comic book from start to finish...so the two month gap between Savage Tales #1 and House of Secrets #92 tells us that DC wouldn't have had a prayer creating a Man-Thing knock-off in such a short period of time.

Nearly a year later, Man-Thing made the jump to color comics and battled Ka-Zar in Astonishing Tales #12 (June) and #13 (Aug), followed by a starring role in the Adventure Into Fear title beginning with issue #10 (October of '72).

October of 1972 also marked the first issue of the Swamp Thing series.  Encouraged by the sales of his debut appearance, DC commissioned the same creative team (Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson) to update the character's origin to the present day. Obviously, DC was now fully aware of Marvel's Man-Thing, since the updated Swamp Thing origin made Alec Holland (previously "Alex Olson") a "a scientist working on a secret bio-restorative formula", who was murdered by a gang of bad guys and later restored to life by his secret formula.

Further muddying the already muddy swamp water was the fact that, in between Swamp Thing's first and second appearances, his co-creator Len Wein wrote the story for Man-Thing's second appearance, originally slated for Savage Tales #2 (but ultimately published in the aforementioned Astonishing Tales #12).

Confused yet?  Good...because now it's time to introduce yet another element of confusion to the swamp man mystery! Hitting the stands in March of 1971 (two months before Man-Thing's debut in Savage Tales #1) was Skywald Publications' Psycho #2 featuring a revival of....THE HEAP! (Remember him?)

It looks like supernatural swamp men were on plenty of people's minds during the winter and early spring of 1971!

Swamp Thing or Man-Thing: The Plot Thickens!

Regular readers may recall a post from
several months back that asked the question:

If you're a new reader, or don't recall the post, click here for the details. To summarize, rival publishers DC Comics and Marvel Comics came out with their own spooky swamp creature character at virtually the same time:

Marvel's "Man-Thing":  First appeared in the black-and-white magazine Savage Tales #1, cover dated May of 1971.

DC's "Swamp-Thing": First appeared in House of Secrets #92, cover dated June-July of 1971 (meaning it hits the stands in June).

Since comic books typically took about three or four months to create from start to finish, it's highly unlikely that DC Comics could have turned around a knockoff in only two months.  It wasn't impossible, especially since Swamp Thing's debut was only an eight page story within a larger anthology title, but...as I said...highly unlikely.

Okay, now for the new wrinkle I just came across.  As the original post went on to explain, the two swamp men wouldn't begin appearing regularly until the following year (Man-Thing: June of '72; Swamp Thing: October of '72).  However (and here's the twist), during that intervening year, DC published The Phantom Stranger #14, cover dated July-August of 1971.  Note how the cover date is a mere one month past the June-July debut of Swamp Thing, which makes it clear that DC had not one, but two swamp-men stories in the pipeline during the spring of 1971.

Making the appearance of this cover even stranger (no pun intended) is the look of the monster itself.  Illustrated by Neal Adams, the "Spectre of the Stalking Swamp" is astonishingly similar to Marvel's Man-Thing.  In fact, as you can see from the comparison below, all you need to do is add the tell-tale "carrot nose" and some dangling "carrots" to the existing brow ridge and you've got yourself a twin of the Man-Thing!

So...what was going on here?  It was odd enough that DC came out with their Swamp Thing so close to the debut of Marvel's Man-Thing...but there they were...a month after their own swamp-man with a near-duplicate of the Man-Thing....who himself wouldn't appear in a color comic book until the following spring!  Moreover, the cover date was still a bit too close to Savage Tales #1 for Adams to have (A) seen the Man-Thing artwork or (B) copy the look in time for the Phantom Stranger cover.

Of course, isn't it somehow fitting that the origins of comics' most famous swamp men would be bogged down in a mystery as murky as the swamp itself?

Which Came First: The Crusaders or...The Crusaders?

Unlike the other strange comic book coincidences I've covered, this one's more of a good natured quasi-collaboration than a perplexing mystery.

By late 1976, both Marvel and DC Comics were publishing titles that featured revivals of their respective Golden Age characters. First out of the gate was Marvel's The Invaders, which retroactively chronicled the WWII-era adventures of Captain America, his sidekick Bucky, the Sub-Mariner, the Human Torch, and his young ward Toro. On the other side of the aisle, DC offered up The Freedom Fighters, featuring Uncle Sam, Phantom Lady, Doll Man, The Ray, Black Condor, and The Human Bomb (all of whom were old Quality Comics characters DC had recently acquired).

Well, perhaps influenced by the Marvel-DC "Superman vs. Spider-Man" collaboration earlier that year, Freedom Fighters writer Bob Rozakis seemed to have caught a case of "crossover fever". As Rozakis himself explained in 2003, his idea for a pseudo Marvel-DC crossover soon took on a life of its own:

"As I recall it, I had come up with the idea of using the Crusaders...in Freedom Fighters and joked with then-editor Tony Isabella that it would be really funny if (Invaders writer) Roy Thomas used a version of the FFers in Invaders and called them the Crusaders as well. I believe it was actually Tony who spoke with Roy and suggested the unofficial crossover… but neither Roy nor I got to see these alternate-reality versions of our teams until the books were published."

Although Rozakis came up with the initial idea, Roy Thomas beat him to the newsstand with "Calling...The Crusaders!", which appeared in Invaders #14-15 (cover-dated March-April, 1977). In the story, a mysterious new group of superheroes appeared in war-torn England while the Invaders were elsewhere in Europe. It turned out the five members of the Crusaders unknowingly received their superpowers from a mysterious figure named "Alfie", who was actually a Nazi spy planning to assassinate the King of England! 

As with any pastiche of another company's characters, the members of Marvel's Crusaders (left) were clever mirror images of DC's Freedom Fighters (right): 

So...what was DC's answer to Marvel's opening salvo? Ah, you'll have to come back tomorrow to check out the other Crusaders, who appeared a scant two months later.  See you then!

Crusaders Times Two: The Marvel-DC Pseudo Crossover

Yesterday I covered how publishing rivals Marvel and DC Comics arranged for an unofficial "crossover" of sorts between the Invaders and the Freedom Fighters. However, instead of the actual characters appearing in the other company's title, imitation or "pastiche" versions of them were created...with the added twist of both substitute teams sharing the name "Crusaders".

Marvel Comics went first with Invaders #14-15 (March-April 1977), which featured somewhat vague doppelgangers of DC's Freedom Fighters.  A few months later, it was DC's turn with Freedom Fighters #8 and #9 (June & Aug. 1977), featuring doubles of the Invaders that were remarkably close to the originals:

Thought to be only comic book heroes from the WWII era, the Crusaders suddenly appeared in the flesh to apprehend the Freedom Fighters (who were wrongly-accused fugitives from justice at the time). After the initial skirmish between the two teams, it was revealed that the Crusaders' shield-slinging leader Americommando was actually The Silver Ghost, an old enemy of the Freedom Fighters. Like the Nazi spy "Alphie" from the Invaders story, the Ghost was the one responsible for giving the other four Crusaders their superpowers. Where did he find these gullible recruits?  Why, at a comic book convention, of course!

(click on the panels for a larger view)

 

 

Wait..,"Lenny", "Marvin", "Arch", and "Roy"? Those would be none other than Len Wein, Marv Wolfman, Archie Goodwin, and Roy Thomas...all of them part of the first generation of fans to become comic book pros.

 

So...what did I think of the two Crusader crossovers?  Well, the artwork on both wasn't spectacular, and of the two stories, I think I prefer the one from The Invaders (the comic convention thing from Freedom Fighters is just smothered in cheese). However, I think the thing I appreciate the most about the pair of Crusader crossovers is the spirit of fun and good-natured collaboration behind them both. It'd be nice to see some of that again between DC and Marvel.

Which Came First? Brainiac or BRAINIAC?

Although Superman's villains don't enjoy as high a profile as, say, Batman's, most comic book fans are aware of Brainiac, an inhuman computer mind bent on destroying civilizations and stealing their knowledge. 

However, modern fans may not be aware that Brainiac's earliest appearances portrayed him not as an malevolent computer, but as a living, green-skinned humanoid with an advanced intellect. Sort of an intergalactic version of Lex Luthor. In fact, his original design in Action Comics #242 (1958) didn't even include the telltale diodes that have criss-crossed the top of his head for decades (and, strangely, that same issue's cover).

Then, six years later in Superman #167, Brainiac was suddenly revealed to be the evil computer we're familiar with today. Why the sudden switch?  For the answer, look no further than the Special Announcement printed on this issue's letters page:

Considering Otto Binder's affinity for actual science (which I infer from his work on Space World magazine), I'm guessing that his selection of the name "Brainiac" may not have been the "remarkable coincidence" the editor claimed it to be (perhaps under advisement from DC's legal department), but setting that aside, it IS pretty amazing to find out how DC Comics intersected with a guy like Berkeley (above inset photo), very much a "brainiac" himself in the nascent field of computer science & robotics.

So...how did DC respond to Mr. Berkeley's earlier claim to the term "Brainiac"?

 

Now, as much as I love the straight-forward innocence of these old letter pages, the 21st century cynic in me wants to peek a little further behind the scenes. In other words, was this public acknowledgment of the name duplication, and DC's decision to make Brainaic a "computer personality" enough for Edmund C. Berkeley and/or those representing his interests (i.e. "lawyers")?  My answer seems to materialize in the very next paragraph, as DC hypes the living daylights out of Mr. Berkeley's "Brainiac" home computer kit...a little quid quo pro, perhaps?

Far be it from me to just end it here, right?  After reading about this mysterious Brainiac Computer Kit, I just had to see a visual.  After a bit of searching, I finally found a shot of an original kit in all of its "less than $20" glory.  What do you think...does that look "simple" enough to construct at home?