Watchmen – Greg Goldstein's Comic Art Gallery

Watchmen — Odds and Sods

January 18, 2020 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Random Thoughts and Observations

Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons early concept art for Watchmen

The Price Of Greatness

Each time I consider a purchase of an original Watchmen page, the price becomes too rich for my taste and I get cold feet. And then, each succeeding time, the price is much higher. Lesson learned? Not yet.

That said, at IDW, we published a beautiful Watchmen Artifact Edition, so I did get to browse quite a few pages and see some impressive scans.

Archie’s Efforts

The MLJ/ Archie superhero universe is fascinating: Since the 80s there have been multiple attempts to launch and sustain the characters, and none have quite worked. Fingers crossed for the most recent efforts, although I’m not certain any new titles featuring the latest iterations were published last year. It’s also interesting that Archie has licensed them to DC a few times.

DC’s Appetites

And speaking of DC, it’s fascinating to me that they would own so many superhero characters, add more, and then license even more. To wit: They purchased the Quality library, the Marvel family, The Charlton superheroes, and Wildstorm. At one point or another, they’ve licensed the Archie superheroes, The T.H.U.N.D.E.R Agents, The Spirit, The Conde Naste pulp characters and Fighting American. And a host of other ones I’m likely overlooking. Whew.

Moore’s Luck

Did Alan Moore’s familiarity with the Charlton and Archie characters come from childhood? Or later perhaps when he attends some fan gatherings/ early UK conventions? You could barely find some of those comics in New York, so it’s intriguing (and ultimately fortunate) that they made their way into the UK.

Morisi Gets His Rights

Why did Peter Cannon Thunderbolt revert back to creator Pat Morisi? Why was his deal so different than Steve Ditko’s? Or, did he manage to find a copyright loophole later on? Questions, so many questions…

Not Too Desolate:

If Bob Dylan receives a royalty for the Desolation Row lyrics included in the Watchmen comics, it’s probably the easiest and most surprising money ever. If his people took a flat fee, all I can say is… oops.

Frank McLaughlin — Charlton’s Atomic Age Ends

January 16, 2020 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Captain Atom # 89 (1967), Re-creation By Frank McLaughlin, 2012

Concluding our series on the roots of the Watchmen characters.

Charlton’s haphazard and often erratic publishing strategy certainly didn’t help sustain its line of superheroes. (Or “Action Heroes,” since technically, superhero is a joint trademark of Marvel and DC. But I digress.) Captain Atom #89 is the final issue of that series, and within a year all of the (mostly short-lived) action heroes were toast.

They wouldn’t return until about seven years later, when Charlton deciphered the burgeoning fan market. The company endorsed the superhero-themed Charlton Bulletin in 1975, a fanzine that included among other things, Steve Ditko’s unpublished penciled story for the cancelled Captain Atom #90. They asked a young Charlton freelancer by the name of John Byrne to ink it.

Byrne is among many talents with early careers at Charlton. Others include Dick Giordano, Jose Garcia Lopez, Jim Aparo, Bob Layton, Denny O’Neill, and Mike Zeck, Also on that list: Inker (and Charlton Art Director) Frank McLaughlin, who inked Ditko’s original #89 cover and re-created this version above.

As for Captain Atom? DC purchased him and the rest of the Charlton superheroes from the financially struggling Charlton in 1983, and they made their first DC appearance in Crisis on Infinite Earths (1985). Since then, he (and the rest of the gang) ultimately lived on in the pages of DC, of course, which was the point of Editor Dick Giordano not letting Alan Moore use those exact characters for Watchmen.

Alan, as we have discussed, was not deterred, and created his own versions of the characters.

Ironic, since those original Charlton characters could barely raise an eyebrow, and yet we are still talking about Moore’s Watchmen today.

*The original and published art for Captain Atom #89. Frank’s red-do is faithful, but makes a few changes.*

*The first and last pages of Steve Ditko’s Blue Beetle re-do, from a backup story in captain Atom Atom #83.*

*The introduction of Nightshade. 1966 or not, the handling of the character earns an “ouch.”*

Thunderbolt makes an entrance, and exits a short time later. He precedes the re-dos of Captain Atom and Blue Beetle in 1965. (And he takes over the Son of Vulcan title, who is never truly considered part of the Charlton main superhero universe.)*Meanwhile, the rights reverted back to creator Peter Morisi, and Thunderbolt now has a home at Dynamite Publishing, where he feels a lot like… Ozymandias.*

The Peacemaker steps up and Captain Atom celebrates his new uniform and power abilities. And The Question makes his final appearance in Blue Beetle #5 (1968), which inexplicably appears on the newsstand nearly a year after issue # 4.

Final tally Watchman —

Nite Owl 2 – Blue Beetle 2
Silk Spectre 2 – Phantom Lady/Black Canary/Nightshade
Comedian – Peacemaker/Shield
Dr. Manhattan – Captain Atom
Rorschach – The Question
Ozymandias – Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt

Steve Rude — Gone In 60 Seconds

January 14, 2020 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Before Watchmen: Dollar Bill #1, March 2013

Steve Rude delivers a nicely designed splash page for the one-shot Dollar Bill comic from the Before Watchmen series. Len Wein wrote the issue, and Steve penciled, inked and hand-lettered the entire issue himself, a definite rarity. It’s one of the better-looking Before Watchmen comics.

As Watchmen fans know, Dollar Bill is a member of the Golden Age Minutemen — tragically gunned down when his cape gets caught in a revolving door, as described/depicted in the comic book, film and television series.

His role in the series is pretty much limited to that one tragic moment, so this one-shot gives the creative team a nearly blank slate to flesh out his character.

Definitely a unique creation, he is sponsored and employed by a bank as an actor, and pressured by his employer to work with the Minutemen as an actual costumed crimefighter. Any derivation from an existing character would be in design only — and his costume is in fact similar to Archie’s (MLJ’s) Golden Age Captain Flag.

And Flag did reappear in the Archie superhero revival (Mighty Crusaders #4 and #5) in the 1960s, so Moore would have definitely seen him since he has already discussed his interest in those characters.

Not that aren’t enough patriotic-themed red and blue costumed superheroes to go around.

*The published splash page flanked by the Rude painted cover and by a variant cover by the late, great Darwyn Cooke.*

Captain Flag in three different incarnations: Golden Age introduction, Silver Age introduction, and in an ironic Modern Age introduction he stands front and center. Why ironic you ask? This 1989 version of the MLJ/Archie superheroes, despite the ad, never actually appeared. Archie’s management got cold feet over the potential mature themes conflicting with the company’s wholesome image and pulled the plug.
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Mike Sekowsky — Road To Minutemen

January 11, 2020 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Mighty Crusaders #2, January 1966

Continuing our series on the roots of the Watchmen characters.

Alan Moore, on his original idea for Watchmen:

“I wanted more average super-heroes, like the Mighty Crusaders line … [the] original idea had started off with the dead body of the Shield being pulled out of a river somewhere.”

Although the Watchmen eventually morphed out of Charlton heroes instead, elements of the Crusaders and the other MLJ/Archie Superheroes found their way into Watchmen lore. Perhaps most notable is the Hangman, a Golden age Archie character who along with Black Hood, becomes the obvious inspiration for Hooded Justice, a member of the original Golden Age Minutemen in the Watchmen series. (And has a critical role in the Watchmen HBO show.)

Also notable is the Mothman, an obvious derivation of Archie’s (Simon and Kirby’s) Fly / Flyman.

The original MLJ superheroes disappeared into the mists after World War 2, which didn’t impact Archie financially as the title character and his teenage friends transformed the company, including the published actual name which changed from MLJ to Archie in 1946.

But Archie’s management seeing the giant superhero success down the road at DC and Marvel took another stab starting in 1959 with the Shield and the Fly. Ultimately, many of the golden age characters reappeared, forming a team, the Mighty Crusaders.

Superhero artist Mike Sekowsky was first a Timely (nee Marvel) staffer and then a long-time DC mainstay. He is perhaps best known for his work on Justice League of America, where he could draw almost any character.

So he is well suited to tackle the Mighty Crusaders, a team-up book developed to compete with Justice League and other superhero team books of the day.

But Jerry Siegel’s (yep, Superman’s creator) writing style had most definitely not kept up with the style of the day, and the book was cancelled after seven issues. In fact, the entire Archie superhero experiment fizzled out by late 1967.

But… not before they managed to bring together nearly all the dusty MLJ heroes and put them in one comic book. Issue #4 of Mighty Crusaders, is a goofy favorite, entitled “Too Many Heroes.”

Too many, perhaps, but certainly enough to reach into for character ideas twenty years later.

Issue #4 of the Mighty Crusaders is a… gas. Pretty much every MLJ/Archie hero (as seen twenty years later in this house ad) mysteriously reappears to apply for membership into the Crusaders. The Crusaders themselves disappear after a short-lived series in 1966, but re-emerge multiple times starting in the 80s.

*The classic Minutemen team shot as drawn by Dave Gibbons and recreated by the late Darwyn Cooke 25 years later, and the nearly identical PR photos from the 2009 film and 2019 television series.*

Final Scorecard — Minutemen and their original counterparts:

Silhouette = Completely unique. (Maybe an amalgam of Black Canary, Black Cat and a female version of the Fox if you want to stretch out the derivations…)

Mothman = Flyman

Dollar Bill = Captain Flag

Nite Owl 1 = Blue Beetle 1 (Dan Garrett)

Captain Metropolis = Shield (with some Steel Sterling thrown in)

Silk Spectre 1 = Phantom Lady (with some Black Canary thrown in)

Hooded Justice = Hangman (with some Black Hood thrown in)

Comedian = Peacemaker (with some Shield thrown in)

Mike Mayhew — Lady Of Quality

January 9, 2020 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Starman #44, July 1998

Continuing our series on the roots of the Watchmen characters.

Isn’t the Silk Spectre actually Nightshade, the only female superhero in the Charlton superhero line-up? After all, all the other main characters are derived from silver-age Charlton heroes.

Or, if not, perhaps she is an altered version of DC’s Black Canary, who, thanks to retconning, became a mother/daughter Golden Age/Silver Age legacy character?

What does Alan Moore say? He said at one time that she’s based on the Phantom Lady (Sandra Knight), created by the Eisner Iger studio in 1940, and first published by Quality Comics in 1940. (Moore says Nightshade was “boring.” I’m not sure what, if anything, he’s said about Black Canary.)

Phantom Lady had quite a few incarnations in the Golden Age, moving from publisher to publisher, ultimately becoming yet another casualty of the Golden Age.

She is perhaps best known for the cover of Fox Features issue #17 (by Matt Baker), prominently featured in Frederic Wertham’s infamous anti- comics tome Seduction of the Innocent as an example of titillation (costume) and sadism (bondage.)

She first appeared in the DC universe as part of the Freedom Fighters, a group of superheroes fighting Nazi domination of an alternate Earth (“X”), in Justice League #107 (October 1973.) The rest of the Freedom Fighters are also superheroes from Quality Comics — DC obtained Quality’s characters in 1956, but with the exception of Plastic Man, had kept the characters in limbo.

Between her multiple iterations and publishers in the Golden Age, and her (at least) four incarnations at DC, there are likely more versions of Phantom Lady than any other secondary character in comics history.

In this post-crisis version, she is retconned as Starman’s cousin, helping him fight crime in the “Golden Age.” In fact, this great action page by Mike Mayhew is from the classic James Robinson Starman series.

As for Charlton’s Nightshade? She can’t catch a break. She was briefly introduced as a partner for Captain Atom and received a short-lived back-up feature in his title just prior to its cancellation. Despite some fine early art by Jim Aparo, those stories have never been reprinted — other than public domain press.

*Silk Spectre 1 and 2 from the 2009 Watchmen film, plus SS 1 from the Before Watchman series.*

*Phantom Lady made the wrong kind of headlines when Matt Baker’s cover appeared in the sensationalistic and dunderheaded Seduction of the Innocent.*

Phantom Lady’s original costume, above, which was modified only slightly when she first appeared in the DCU, below. The illustration for the DC Who’s Who entry below right is by the legendary Dave Stevens (Rocketeer).

Key Black Canary appearances include her first solo story in the Golden Age, along with her reintroduction in the Silver Age, culminating in her moving from Earth-2 to Earth-1 to join the Justice League. Got that?

*Post Crisis and Post Watchmen, Black Canary ultimately becomes officially two characters, mother (original) and daughter (modern)*, *as outlined in Secret Origins #50, left* *and Who’s Who in the DCU, right.*

Nightshade made her first appearance alongside Captain Atom in issue #82, and they received her own back-up feature a few issues later. Despite being Charlton’s only female character, Alan Moore says she is not the model for Silk Spectre.

Denys Cowan and Bill Sienkiewicz — Meta Human

January 7, 2020 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

The Question #37, March 2010

HBO’s Watchmen was an unexpected television smash of 2019, and it has landed on a number of best of lists. This series of posts explores the Watchmen characters, which have roots in the more traditional superhero universe.

Steve Ditko creates the iconic and mature character Mr. A (with moral absolutism as his trademark) in 1967 for the prozine Witzend, published by Wally Wood.

A few months later, Ditko tones down the violence and moral absolutism just a bit, and creates a more comics-code friendly character, The Question, for Charlton Comics.

In 1983, DC acquires the Charlton superheroes from the financially strapped publisher. The characters first appear in 1985’s mega-event Crisis on Infinite Earths as inhabitants of “Earth Four.”

In 1986 Alan Moore retools the Question/Mr. A as Rorschach for Watchmen.

Even before Watchmen concludes, the Question receives his first own ongoing (and very mature) DC series by Denny O’Neil and Denys Cowan.

In issue #17 of that series, the Question (Vic Sage) reads a Watchmen comic and dreams that he is Rorschach.

A most meta series of events.

Ultimately, The Question series ran 36 issues, ending in 1990. 20 years later, DC added an extra issue as part of the Blackest Night storyline that brought back additional issues of previously cancelled comics.

Which brings us here: In this issue, Bill Sienkiewicz, who drew or inked nearly all of the covers for that original series, inks an entire issue for the first time over Denys Cowan’s dynamic pencils. (Cowan had penciled all but one original issue.)

This is the last page (Renee Montoya is The Question here) from the story. But, of course, certainly not the last of The Question. As he/she has already appeared a few times since, most recently notably in Grant Morrison’s Multiversity: Pax Americana on a new version of Earth Four.

And, in this universe, Vic Sage sounds a lot like… Rorschach.

And the circle continues….

Ten years ago, in Blackest Night, the original Question, Vic Sage, is resurrected to fight the then current Question, Renee Montoya.

*The first appearances of Mr. A and The Question, along with the cover of the first and only feature-length Question comic from Charlton.*

*We meet Rorschach in Watchmen #1, and then the Question meets him in his dreams in Question #17, the first time a Watchmen character appears in any other DC comic.*

*A recent incarnation of the Question and his Charlton colleagues in the DCU.*

Steve Ditko — Road To Watchmen

January 4, 2020 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Captain Atom #89, December 1967

HBO’s Watchmen was an unexpected television smash of 2019, and it has landed on a number of best of lists. The next few posts explore the Watchmen characters, which have roots in the more conventional superhero universe.

Most fans of the original 1986 graphic novel know that the main group of (five of the six) Watchmen characters have direct antecedents from the “Charlton superhero universe.” Since DC had recently acquired those characters from the financially strapped competitor, creator Alan Moore’s idea was to use them for his Watchmen concept. But Dick Giordano, DC’s editor at the time, nixed the idea, knowing that Moore’s concept would mean that those characters would be rendered unusable in the greater DC Universe.

Moore, undeterred, simply turned the Charlton characters into his own.

Some more literally than others.

Steve Ditko renders a dynamic action page featuring the original Dr. Manhattan, Captain Atom.

Ditko is the unofficial godfather of the Watchman, having created or revamped Captain Atom, The Blue Beetle and The Question (plus Nightshade) all in a short period in 1966/67. With little in the way of material changes, the three appear as Dr. Manhattan, Nite Owl, and Rorschach in Watchmen. (Nightshade is not so obvious — more on that in a future post.)

Ditko had left Marvel in 1966, returning to Charlton in the immediate period after his departure. His return there launched a brief, but ultimately futile attempt at a fuller Charlton superhero universe. By 1968, none of the books survived.

Ditko is co-creator (with writer Joe Gill) of the original Captain Atom character, and his origin story (March 1960) is extremely similar to Dr. Manhattan’s, minus the blue skin. In Space Adventures #33, he is seemingly atomized, but he ultimately reappears — with super powers. President Dwight Eisenhower asks him to become the military’s greatest weapon.

On this page from the final issue of the original series, Captain Atom fights “Thirteen” a (surprise!) super-villain with supernatural powers. Inks are by Frank McLaughlin, who was Charlton’s Art Director at the time. Finding a decent inker for Ditko — other than Ditko — could often pose a challenge, but McLaughlin delivers here.