|
|
Post by Slam_Bradley on Jan 29, 2018 19:06:30 GMT -5
How long did the Challengers series run and can you really call it a success like JSA ( the influence for team books in Marvel ) was? I could only imagine copying something that was a sure fire concept like Superman, Batman, Captain America etc. I guess I'm asking, if it was so great why didn't it continue to be published? 2) Kirby left Challengers (and DC) after issue 3, so it suffered the fate of many a series orphaned by its creator. Kirby left after issue #8. With the four Showcase issues there was twelve Kirby issues in total. |
|
|
|
Post by chadwilliam on Jan 29, 2018 20:55:05 GMT -5
Shelly Moldoff claimed that in 1948, when William Gaines was in dire financial straits and without any idea where to take the EC line, he offered Gaines a deal that in return for suggesting what the next big trend in comics will be and coming up with a breakdown for where to direct his energies, the publisher would give him a percentage of whatever EC makes in profit should his new idea prove successful. Gaines agreed and a contract was signed. The idea Moldoff had was to put out a string of horror comics and he provided Gaines with some stories done by Johnny Craig, himself, Gardner Fox, and others. When Moldoff asked when Gaines would like the next batch of stories, Gaines kept putting him off. Eventually, Moldoff came across a copy of Tales From the Crypt on the stands and wondered what the hell was going on. He asked Gaines about his contract, about where his percentage of the profits were, and Gaines replied that he wasn't interested in honoring the contract. Moldoff spoke with Gaines lawyer and was told that if he put up a fight, EC would see to it that he'd be blackballed in the industry. The interview from which I acquired this info came from one conducted by Roy Thomas for Alter Ego and in it, Moldoff also claimed to still have the contract itself to back up his claim. I haven't researched this enough to find out if a copy is online, but as already noted here, it is a fact that Gaines stole from others (perhaps most famously, Ray Bradbury). twomorrows.com/alterego/articles/04moldoff.html |
|
|
|
Post by Dizzy D on Jan 31, 2018 5:27:12 GMT -5
So did Arnold Drake. From the DC Wiki, among other sites: According to Comic Coverage: Which Came First: The Mutant or The Freak?, creator Arnold Drake felt: "...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." I'd like to find the original source of this quote from Drake. Yeah, I don't buy it. I don't think any comics historians buy it. (A) There were only two months difference between when the books hit the stands, (B) What possible reason would Stan have to copy an unproven and not-yet-commercially successful formula? (C) The X-men were a fairly obvious amalgamation of Stan's own best selling titles - The X-men and the Fantastic Four. The egghead, the reverse human torch, the girl. And, hey, the Iron Man-esque Angel as well. Combine that with teenage superhero/Spider-man and $$$$$$. (D) And weren't really "reluctant" super-heroes at all. The "world that hates and fears them" thing wasn't played up at all until the Sentinels story, more than two years after the X-men debuted. The uncomfortable outsider quality of the Doom Patrol - the thing that really defined the book - didn't show up in the X-men 'till years later. They were both not-quite-traditional superteams led by a guy in a wheelchair, but they weren't similar in tone at all. (Basically the Doom Patrol had a theme and a point of view, and the X-men just felt like generic Marvel product.) (E) Lee and Kirby didn't really borrow current ideas from another company. Fantastic Four # 1 was influenced by JLA, but I can only think of one example after that that could have been influenced by DC. (The Phantom Eagle miiiiight have been a response to Enemy Ace.) Sure, the early Thor had lots of Superman elements in it, but it wasn't Weissinger's continuity heavy 1962 Superman. It was the simpler, 1946-ish Lois Lane love triangle Superman. I know this is strange considering that Marvel spent most of the '50s blatantly ripping off Dell and EC and basically every other major company, but once the '60s hit they didn't really steal ideas from other companies outside of obvious genre signifiers (Let's do some romance books! Let's do a war book!) (F) Arnold Drake has never been shy stating that the Doom Patrol used elements from the Lee/Kirby Fantastic Four. So in the extremely, unlikely (to my eyes impossible) event that Stan said "A guy in a wheelchair with a superhero team? That is a 100% sure-fire money maker idea that I must steal! So Smart! Such Genius! This brilliant idea never would have occurred to me in a million years! I will be rich! RICH I TELLS YA!!!!" Then turn-about seems to me to be fair play. Yeah, I agree with this. The timing is just too narrow, especially with the lead-in times that were on comics at the time (pre-digital colouring, e-mail and so on, I'd expect you were spending a lot more time between initial pitch of a comic and having it land on the stands. Maybe somebody who was in the industry can confirm/deny this?). Early X-Men was banking on two "big" ideas: a common origin for both heroes and most villains (the new race of superpowered humans emerging) and being a superhero school. Neither were part of Doom Patrol's pitch. The X-Men were never reluctant heroes and the hated and feared part came later, based basically only on the actions of both Magneto and Bolivar Trask (and I think by that time X-Men was already a better seller than Doom Patrol, based on the figures here: www.comichron.com/yearlycomicssales/postaldata/1966.html). The only common connection between the two is a leader in a wheelchair and it makes sense make a leader/teacher disabled, so the young team of heroes/students can not always fall back on him. Also "mutants are hated and feared" was already in Amazing Adult Fantasy #14, the X-Men prototype Stan Lee did, which in turn predates the Doom Patrol. If there is any cribbing in early X-Men it's from different source: Cyclops always had a very strong resemblance to The Comet, a superhero who had disintegrating beams shooting uncontrollably from his eyes that could only be stopped by his special visor. |
|
