Harlan Ellison | Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books

Avengers #105 (November, 1972)

Writing about Avengers #100 back in March of this year, I referred to the four issues that immediately followed that milestone as a “victory lap” for Roy Thomas, whose nearly-six-year tenure as the title’s writer was about to come to an end. In characterizing Avengers #101-104 in such a fashion, I don’t mean to denigrate them; they’re not bad comics, by any means. But coming directly upon the heels of the three-part “Olympus Trilogy” crafted by Thomas with Barry Windsor-Smith — and, right before that, the “Kree-Skrull War” epic by Thomas, Neal Adams, and Sal and John Buscema — these comics can’t help but seem somewhat anticlimactic by comparison. I suppose there’s always been a part of me that kind of wishes that Thomas had just quit while he was ahead. Read More

Batman #237 (December, 1971)

Posted on October 30, 2021 by Alan Stewart

Batman #237’s “Night of the Reaper!” wasn’t the first comic book story set at the real-life Rutland, VT Halloween Parade; that distinction goes to Avengers #83, which was published one year earlier (and was covered here on this blog last October). Nor would it be the last such tale.

But it was almost certainly the best of the bunch.

That’s really not surprising, given that the story was crafted by one of the most outstanding creative teams of the era — writer Denny O’Neil, penciller Neal Adams, and inker Dick Giordano — as well as that it, more than most of its fellows, aspired to be about something more than either the Parade itself, or conventional superheroic goings-on — something decidedly more serious, in fact — and was largely successful in achieving this aim, ultimately addressing the subject of the Holocaust in a dramatic, but sensitive, manner.

Nevertheless, the origins of this classic story in certain actual (but not very serious) events — and the appearance within its pages of several equally actual persons who either already were, or would soon become, well-known comics industry professionals — can’t help but be responsible for a certain amount of “Night of the Reaper!” lasting appeal. And it’s with those events, and persons, that we begin. Read More

Hulk #140 (June, 1971)

Posted on March 17, 2021 by Alan Stewart

“Harlan Ellison Month” (well, “Harlan Ellison Week +1”, anyway) continues here today at “Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books”, as we take a look at the second half of a two-issue crossover between Avengers and Hulk, originally published in March, 1971, which the writer of those two Marvel series, Roy Thomas, adapted from a plot synopsis by Mr. Ellison.

I’m not going to provide a summary of the tale’s opening chapter here, mostly because the recap provided on the first three pages of Hulk #140 (which’ll be coming up shortly) will tell you pretty much everything you need to know to be able to follow the rest of the story — and also because you can, at any time, click on this link for the Avengers #88 post if you missed reading it a few days ago, and you really do want all the details. Even so, before we plunge head-first into the comic’s narrative, we need to take a moment to note what Thomas, as scripter, is going to be getting up to in these pages. And to facilitate our doing that, we’re going to quickly flip to the back of the book, to have a look at the letters column. Read More

Avengers #88 (May, 1971)

Posted on March 13, 2021 by Alan Stewart

In our last post, we took a look at Justice League of America #89 — a very special issue of DC Comic’s premiere super-team book, in which writer Mike Friedrich paid homage to one of his literary heroes by basing his story’s central character of “Harlequin Ellis” on the noted science fiction author and screenwriter, Harlan Ellison.

By a remarkable (but apparently entirely random) coincidence, the same month that saw the publication pf JLA #89 (March, 1971) also saw the release of a very special issue of the Marvel Comics series featuring that publisher’s nearest analogue to the Justice League, Avengers, which writer Roy Thomas had scripted from a plot outline by the real Harlan Ellison. You really can’t make this stuff up, y’know? Read More

Justice League of America #89 (May, 1971)

Posted on March 10, 2021 by Alan Stewart

As noted in my recent post regarding Gold Key’s Star Trek, I didn’t get to see the TV series on which that comic was based until it hit my local market in syndicated re-runs, around 1970-71. And since I started consuming licensed Trek tie-in media (what there was of it) almost immediately upon discovering the show, concurrent with my viewing the television episodes for the very first time, my initial encounters with some classic Trek stories ended up being by way of the printed page, rather than the cathode-ray tube. That’s because the earliest licensed prose fiction based on the property, a series of paperback books written by James Blish and published by Bantam Books, were collections of short stories adapted from the TV episodes themselves. Read More

Justice League of America #53 (May, 1967)

Posted on March 14, 2017 by Alan Stewart

I’ve written before on this blog — several times — about my admiration for comics writer Gardner Fox’s reference library — a library I don’t really know anything about, but the existence of which can (or must, even) be inferred from the assortment of off-the-wall factoids (mostly, but not exclusively, related to mythology and folklore) to be found scattered throughout his Sixties ouevre. The Justice League of America story featured in today’s post — “Secret Behind the Stolen Super-Weapons!” — is another sterling example of this penchant of the prolific scripter’s; but before we jump right into the story, let’s take a moment for a look at the cover. (It’ll be brief, I promise.) Read More