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Post by MWGallaher on Jul 19, 2020 9:31:49 GMT -5
So I've been thinking about the 70's, when we'd first learn of upcoming titles and features in letter columns or the Bullpen Bulletins, and how sometimes when they made it to the stands, they had different names than the ones under which they were promoted.
Examples:
In coded cryptogram, the Bullpen Bulletins announced that the feature we would eventually know as simply "Man-Wolf" was initially intended to be "J. Jonah Jameson Presents My Son, the Man-Wolf"! The original title probably sounded too comedic for a comic that was supposed to ride the soon-to-implode monster craze.
In another coded message, the feature that debuted (for one issue only) in Giant-Size Chillers #1 was to be not "The Curse of Dracula" but rather "The Victims of Dracula". I think "Victims" would have been more evocative, and I think I'd have liked a series focusing on some of those turned to vampiric forms, but maybe the title was too alarming to appease the Comics Code Authority?
Tony Isabella's take on Katar Hol was initially announced as "The Secret War of Hawkman", not "The Shadow War of Hawkman". Marvel beat DC to that catchy trademark, but I think "Shadow War" was really a lot stronger.
Jonah Hex's replacement in Weird Western Tales, according to the letter column, was supposed to be "Savage", not "Scalphunter". From a modern perspective, both are problematic, but maybe "Savage" was a little worse...or perhaps they wanted to stay on Gil Kane's good side and not tread on his trademark, even if Kane's "His Name Is...Savage" was off the stands.
I seem to recall that Marvel's "Son of Satan" was initially announced as "The Mark of Satan", and that "Tomb of Dracula" was teased as "House of Dracula".
Can anyone think of any other examples, not only in the 70's but before or after?
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Post by codystarbuck on Jul 19, 2020 10:49:22 GMT -5
Jonah Hex's replacement in Weird Western Tales, according to the letter column, was supposed to be "Savage", not "Scalphunter". From a modern perspective, both are problematic, but maybe "Savage" was a little worse...or perhaps they wanted to stay on Gil Kane's good side and not tread on his trademark, even if Kane's "His Name Is...Savage" was off the stands. Well, except his name was Savage; Brian Savage. I grant that it wasn't necessarily a great title, though the fact he is a white man could have made for an interesting commentary, if the theme had been the savagery of the white persecution of the Native Americans. However, this was DC, not Eclipse. |
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Post by rberman on Jul 19, 2020 11:04:04 GMT -5
The Misfits was delayed and then released as Fallen Angels.
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Post by MWGallaher on Jul 19, 2020 12:06:14 GMT -5
Jonah Hex's replacement in Weird Western Tales, according to the letter column, was supposed to be "Savage", not "Scalphunter". From a modern perspective, both are problematic, but maybe "Savage" was a little worse...or perhaps they wanted to stay on Gil Kane's good side and not tread on his trademark, even if Kane's "His Name Is...Savage" was off the stands. Well, except his name was Savage; Brian Savage. I grant that it wasn't necessarily a great title, though the fact he is a white man could have made for an interesting commentary, if the theme had been the savagery of the white persecution of the Native Americans. However, this was DC, not Eclipse. Right, "Savage" certainly made sense, which makes me more curious why DC chose to change it. And yes, they could have had a more ambitious treatment of the premise; the first six issues written by Michael Fleisher held promise, and were pretty "savage", but then Gerry Conway took over and any hope for a worthy companion to Jonah Hex evaporated. |
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Post by beccabear67 on Jul 19, 2020 12:41:54 GMT -5
I didn't know any of those, it is interesting to learn about. The only thing that came to my mind was way back how Captain Marvel before Whiz Comics #2 in Thrill Comics #1 (unreleased) was billed as Captain Thunder.  But I don't know if they announced it's coming in any other Fawcett publications if there were any. Maybe DC mentioned Action Funnies before they renamed it Action Comics?  |
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Post by codystarbuck on Jul 19, 2020 13:40:19 GMT -5
Well, except his name was Savage; Brian Savage. I grant that it wasn't necessarily a great title, though the fact he is a white man could have made for an interesting commentary, if the theme had been the savagery of the white persecution of the Native Americans. However, this was DC, not Eclipse. Right, "Savage" certainly made sense, which makes me more curious why DC chose to change it. And yes, they could have had a more ambitious treatment of the premise; the first six issues written by Michael Fleisher held promise, and were pretty "savage", but then Gerry Conway took over and any hope for a worthy companion to Jonah Hex evaporated. James Robinson redeemed it, though, with the Tomes Past stories, in Starman. There, for the uninitiated, Brian Savage ends up being the first "starman," as a law enforcement official in Opal City, where he encounters the Shade. |
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Post by codystarbuck on Jul 19, 2020 13:46:48 GMT -5
I didn't know any of those, it is interesting to learn about. The only thing that came to my mind was way back how Captain Marvel before Whiz Comics #2 in Thrill Comics #1 (unreleased) was billed as Captain Thunder. But I don't know if they announced it's coming in any other Fawcett publications if there were any. Maybe DC mentioned Action Funnies before they renamed it Action Comics? Thrill Comics was an "ashcan," a quick black & white to secure copyright; but, Thrill Comics was already taken. So, Fawcett re-titled it as Flash Comics, but, DC beat them to it, which led to Whiz. Someone beat them to Captain Thunder, which led to Captain Marvel, but, I can't recall if the Flash Comics ashcan had Captain Thunder or Marvel. The promo for Infinity Inc featured La Garra (I think Roy had it as La Garro), which was the female Wildcat; but, the character didn't show up until Crisis and with the Wildcat name. It wasn't advertised, per se; but, Mike Grell's Warlord started out as a pitch to newspaper syndicates for an adventure series, called Savage Empire. Grell retooled the concept, a bit, when he pitched it as Warlord, for DC. |
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Post by Prince Hal on Jul 19, 2020 14:31:02 GMT -5
Not a name change, but what seemed a tonal change. The figure in the original ads publicizing Bat Lash made it look as if it were going to be closer in tone to spaghetti Westerns than "Maverick." The lettering was a bit more toward the humorous side. I think the ad gave DC wiggle room depending on what kind of story Aragones and crew turned in. And when I looked for the image below, look what I found in the article: "The ad was purposefully done to evoke echoes of the Sergio Leone Spaghetti Westerns that were gaining popularity at the time. It would turn out that the ad had been created by then DC Editorial Director, Carmine Infantino, before anyone had any real idea what the character or the series were going to be about. All that existed at that time was the name: Bat Lash. A decision had been made to try a new kind of Western. Something that was different from the old John Wayne type and especially different from the Rawhide Kid and other Marvel Western characters. But no one could quite agree on what that ‘different’ Western would be." Read further and you'll find something new to me (or to my memory, anyway). The writer of the first issue of Bat Lash was Sheldon Mayer!Infantino hated it, though, and literally tossed it! More good stuff follows in that article. diodatilodge.wordpress.com/2012/07/31/bat-lash-the-peace-loving-cowboy/ |
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Post by spoon on Jul 19, 2020 16:33:09 GMT -5
I think I've seen house ads that had previously announced Crisis on Infinite Earths as instead being titled Universe or DC Universe (I forget whether DC was in the title).
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Post by codystarbuck on Jul 19, 2020 17:22:31 GMT -5
I think I've seen house ads that had previously announced Crisis on Infinite Earths as instead being titled Universe or DC Universe (I forget whether DC was in the title). Dick Giordano's Meanwhile page referred to it as The History of the DC Universe. That was later reused for the two-issue mini that gave the post-Crisis timeline to the characters and previewe some of the titles to follow, like the revived Justice League, as well as show the Charlton characters, whichw as one of the few places to find Son of Vulcan and Judomaster (I think Peter Cannon was there, too, since he was used in Crisis). Crisis was presented a bit differently in the house ad I think you are referring to...   |
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Post by MWGallaher on Jul 19, 2020 23:07:10 GMT -5
Great example there, spoon , and thanks for posting the scan, codystarbuck ! Being reminded that they had the logo prepared and ready to go before simplifying the title, I would speculate that perhaps they realized that "universe" was incompatible with "infinite Earths" (an implied multiverse). I realize that I touched on another example in my initial post: Marvel's Giant-Size line went through a shake-up early in its history, with the "umbrella titles" Giant-Size Super-Stars, Giant-Size Super-Heroes, and Giant-Size Chillers giving way to the more specific Giant-Size Fantastic Four, Giant-Size Spider-Man, and Giant-Size Dracula, with the other features intended to headline those books moving into their own quarterly series. Of the initial titles, there was one other that never got published under its originally-promoted name: Giant-Size Super-Teams...  ...never appeared. Instead we got just plain Giant-Size Defenders:  Giant-Size Super-Stars was originally supposed to rotate between FF, Spider-Man, and Conan; Giant-Size Chillers would rotate Dracula, Werewolf By Night, and Man-Thing. Almost immediately, the plans changed, and instead of appearing in Giant-Size Super-Stars #1, Spider-Man went to Giant-Size Super-Heroes #1, and all of the Giant-Size books were to feature a single headliner, rather than rotate them, but they still had generic titles that would, I suppose, have allowed swapping out leads. Keeping with that, the Defenders were supposed to be the leads in every issue of Giant-Size Super-Teams, but then the plans changed again, and they dropped all the "umbrella" language in the titles, hence "Giant-Size Defenders" instead of "Giant-Size Super-Teams Featuring the Defenders". Notice also that the house ad was for a 35 cent comic, and the Giant-Size books were reconfigured to be 50 cent books, with reprints increasing the page count. Only the "umbrella title" issues came out at 35 cents all-new; the re-focused titles were all in the 50 cent format. Thanks to the re-jiggering, the first issue of Giant-Size Defenders didn't contain the actual material intended for Giant-Size Super-Teams #1, but instead featured reprints and a framing story. Perhaps the content intended for G-S Super-Teams went into Giant-Size Defenders #2, but the letters page implies they were working from scratch on #2, so maybe there never was anything prepared for G-S Super-Teams beyond a house ad, which used recycled art from Marvel Feature #1. |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Jul 20, 2020 5:02:14 GMT -5
Do you remember Stan Lee telling us of the high quality colour magazine Marvel was about to publish, pretty much in the vein of Heavy Metal?
It was to be titled Odyssey until, one month later, we learned that copyright issues would cause it to be known as Epic.
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