I seem to recall it was pretty violent towards everyone.

Kind of amusing that they designed Jhagur with that bald pate and the long hair on the sides, evoking the look of Hawkman's mask (it's especially easy to imagine the cover being slightly revised to become Katar Hol in his Thanagarian helmet).
When this was being promoted, I remember reading in the Comics Buyer's Guide that it was originally prepared as a revamp of an existing DC character, but they didn't say which one. At the time, my guess was Martian Manhunter, and the funny thing is, this could just as easily have been a J'onn J'onnz revamp, right down to that same look evocative of the original: bald head, bulging brow, alien skin color...

Reminds me of this guy:

Marvel Preview #17



Gil Kane's Blackmark!

Creative Team: Gil Kane-writer/artist. However, Archie Goodwin did scripting on the original and probably this. Neal Adams did some penciling and Harvey Kurtzman some layouts on the original. Not sure here; there is no notation of such. Roy Thomas is listed as consulting editor and he was involved in originally bringing Blackmark to Marvel.

So, little background. Kane had the idea for Blackmark and his attorney, via a mutual friend, got him in touch with the CEO of Bantam Books. A dinner followed and a contract for , which was increased to 8, when the first artwork arrived. Kane had two books completed and they had talked about releasing them together, then follow up a month later with the third, for a stronger presence on bookstands and shelves. However, Bantam oly released the first, in 1971, and sales were disappointing and they called a halt to the project. Excuses for the performance of the book ranged from genre classification to the size of the printed art (it was published as a mass market paperback and some stores lumped it in with Peanuts books and some with sci-fi and fantasy). Roy Thomas reprinted the first book in the pages of Savage Sword of Conan #1-4. This is the second book and is published in its entirety.

Synopsis: Earth was devastated by nuclear holocaust. A new, more savage world arose from the old, with sky ships and barbarian warriors, mutants and petty tyrants. Blackmark led a slave uprising and is now a king and a host of Lords goes to meet with him, perhaps challenge him. They fight to determine the spokesman and Reynard of the Commonlands wins.



Blackmark receives the visitors, with a watchful eye. At a banquet, he calls for oaths of fealty and Reynard makes his challenge. they fight savagely, until Blackmark activates a button on his sword, which brings energy to life and he overwhelms Reynard, who yields and swears loyalty to Blackmark's dream of a united New Earth.

Blackmark still seeks revenge for the death of his parents and seeks the murderer among the lords. Word comes of an attack by the monsters of the Psi-Keep on a castle and its devastation. Blackmark marshals his forces and rides to the castle; but they are too late. The monsters attack and Blackmark fights with his weapon, but they fall back. The scientist Balzamo arrives, with a pre-holocaust weapon he had uncovered, but had been unable to make work. he found a manual for it and was able to activate it. it creates an electrical charge which should interrupt the mental impulses of the Psi-Keep monsters.

They renew the attack, with the new weapon and are successful. They liberate the castle and Blackmark finds a bit of crumpet, the daughter of the castle's lord. Reynard watches and plots. The girl, Shandra, is neglected, as Blackmark deals with fighting the demons. She fears his nightmares.



Blackmark intends to attack the Psi-Keep; but, finds Shandra has run off with Reynard. Blackmark and his men sail North and come upon a small sailing boat, where they find Shandra, badly wounded. She tells them of Reynard's treachery, that he planned to alert the Psi-Keep, for his own power. Blackmark asks Balzamo to try to save Shandra, as he leads his forces after Reynard. They land and advance and meet the mutants in battle. Blackmark comes across Reynard and learns he is the murderer of his parents. they fight a savage duel...



The Psi-Keep is defeated and Blackmark leads his army out and finds a new plant bloom, giving hope for the future. When he returns home, he finds Shandra dead.

Thoughts: The text and art are an odd mix; but, it works relatively well, as Kane uses more visual storytelling than some of the Byron Preiss experiments. There is some redundancy in text; but, nothing too bad. It is an odd hybrid, though. Kane's art is great, matching his best and better than what he was doing at Marvel, where a divorce led him to churn out covers, which even he felt were forgettable (in many cases, though not all).

The story shows great similarity to the later Thundarr the Barbarian cartoon series, which was conceived by Steve Gerber, and which had character designs form Jack Kirby and Alex Toth. It also resembles many elements of Arthurian lore, which Kane would explore in his novel, Excalibur, co-written by John Jakes.



There, too, does Arthur neglect his young bride, Guinevere, who turns to his friend, Lancelot, and he later leads his armies against traitorous son Mordred. Here, Reynard serves the function of both Lancelot and Mordred, while Shandra is Guinevere. The sword weapon is a sort of Excalibur, as it has properties beyond the norm (science, here, magic in Arthurian lore). Kane and Jakes' novel sought to keep the Arthurian stuff realistic, so actual magic is downplayed for early science, with Excalibur said to have been forged of a metal made from a meteor's ore. Merlin is more of a manipulator than magician, with possible psychic powers. Here, too, we have a mix of science and psychic ability, rather than "magic."

Interesting experiment and one of the early proto-graphic novels, which gives it a historical place, if not necessarily a literary place, based on the story within.

Marvel Graphic Novel #12 Dazzler, the Movie



Yeah, right; don't hold your breath for that one! Though to be fair, you could say that it's already been done...



Yes, the future of entertainment is...................Roller Disco!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Creative Team: Jim Shooter (or James, as stated in the cover)-writer, Frank Springer-pencils, Vince Coletta-inks, John Morelli-letters, Christie Scheele-colors, Ralph Macchio-edits (in name only, I would bet)

Frank Springer gets a bit ignored, since he worked more as an inker, at Marvel; but, he came from comic strips, Drew dell's Brain Boy, in the 60s, and was artist on The Adventures of Phoebe Zeitgeist, with National Lampoon and SNL writer Michael O'Donoghue. He drew some right perty women, so he is a pretty good choice for this. He was also the regular penciler on Dazzler, with Coletta on inks; so, this is pretty much an extension of that series.

Synopsis: Alison Blaire has become Jane Fonda.........



Her classes are packed, she's beautiful and she literally glows. She notices her mutant power manifesting and tamps it down. After class, a producer, Eric Beale hits on her, promising to help her career, as a "special friend." Alison blows him off, saying employees aren't allowed to date members and goes to work out with weights, where she befriends a shy young man, Freddy. She is the first person to be nice to him and he invites her for some carrot juice, at the bar. They are interrupted by her boos, who reveals that Mr Beale has just bought the club, who then demands she get dressed to go out with him. Alsino puts her weight bar in his hands and says she has a prior engagement, with Freddy, as Beale collapses on the floor, unable to hold the weight.

Freddy drops Alison off at her place and she gives him some confidence and a kiss goodbye, then hangs out in her small apartment, reading anti-mutant articles. She gets a call from ororo, who worries about her being so public, on stage, though Alison assures her the audience thinks it is all special effects. Meanwhile, a Roma Nekoboh is awakened by his butler, in Beverly Hills. He has also met and been turned down by Alison and is looking forward to chasing her. He puts on his girdle and hairpiece and goes out.

Alison sings a bit of Elton John ("I'm Still Standin'"), while Beale watches from the audience. When she finishes, she is assaulted by paparazzi, who say Nekoboh has announced she will co-star in his next film with her. She storms out. Beale was wondering about her light effect and then notices that she doesn't seemed bothered by the constant flashes of light that affect everyone else, from the cameras. Alison returns home to find Roman there, waiting. She tells him to get out and he pulls a Harvey Weinstein



Alison kicks him out, without resorting to her powers. The next morning, she goes out and Roman shows up in his car, to harass her. She tries to move away and he keeps following. She ducks in an alley and secretly fires out laser light, puncturing his tires, sending him out of control. He steps out of the car, spinning and seems to have a heart attack, which turns out to be an act. Roman keeps badgering Alison, until she finally agrees to hear him out, over coffee.

Roman makes his pitch, talking about Alison's principles and his desire to see her succeed, as well as needing a hot young co-star to help sell the movie he needs to solve his financial problems.



Alison gives in and Roman then begins buying her new clothes and a new home. They go out to be seen at a swanky nightclub, for some free press. The next day, Roman talks to his business manager, who tells him he can't get backers, due to photos of Dazzler with the X-Men, in New York, during the Hellfire Club attack. They are afraid of mutant associations. Roman changes tactics. Meanwhile, Alison reveals, secretly, that she agreed to do it to help Roman's career, not her own.

Meanwhile, Eric Beale sees the press on Alison and Roman and tells his people to get onto Roman's manager, to offer to back the film. Alison comes home to a party and the news. It is obvious she has succumbed to Roman's charms. She starts to kiss him and stops, saying she has to tell him something and he reveals he already suspects she is a mutant and he doesn't care. Cue bedroom music and shut the door....



In the morning, Alison sees the papers and that Beale is backing the film. She gets upset and tells Roman about his advances. He says he probably doesn't know that his company is invested in the film and the deal includes carte blanche for Roman. Alison has a couple of drinks to calm her nerves, while Roman gets a message to meet with Beale. Roman and Alison do the towns.......



Back at home, Alison has new gowns and a new harido, a cigarette and drinks, then catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror and doesn't like what she has turned into. She goes to be alone and strips down, to see herself in the mirror (seen covered or obscured). Then Roman interrupts her. He has a paper that reveals Alison is a mutant. Roman placed the article, thinking it would help sell the film. Alison is upset and Roman sweet talks her.

Roman has arranged a stunt, at LAX. 747s are lined up and the media is present. Roman and Alison arrive by helicopter, in a sling chair, underneath. Alison takes the stage, in a bikini and Roman makes a speech and has the jet engines turned on and reved up, which Alison converts to a light show.



The decibel levels from the engines is far too much for proximity and the crowd is deafened. Alison absorbs more and more until she is like a mini-sun, visible from the moon. Finally, the engines are cut and the crowd runs in fear. Beale signals Roman that he was in on this. Later, they are attacked outside a club and Alison uses her powers. She reveals that she can, now, without a sound source. She is continuing with the movie for mutants, to help undercut the hysteria. However, mobs start to picket and Alison's attempts to make peace are twisted by the media.

They shoot the film, as hysteria grows and Alison's home is burgled. Finally, Alison has a meeting with Eric Beale, who reveals that he orchestrated everything and owns Roman and uses the only print of the finished film to try to blackmail Alison into signing a contract, sleeping with him and becoming his property. She gives him an answer...



She walks out and finds Roman returning to destroy his contract and they leave together. He is happy and she says she loves him; but, must now act to try to help mutants, as she intended with the film.

Thoughts: Well, my recurring question with these is "Is this deserving of the format?" This is debatable. The story is a bit different from the norm and has broader themes than we have in the average comic. It's not particularly visually experimental, as it uses a constant 6-panel grid (I suspect Shooter laid it out and Springer followed accordingly). It's pretty much a character piece, exploring Alison Blaire as she is manipulated by the Hollywood machine. As such, it's not a bad plot for an actual movie; but, it tends a bit too much to melodrama and it requires Alison to be more than a bit naive. Her series was in its 3rd year; so, it isn't like she is new to mutant hysteria or such things. It also requires her to be victimized, which is a Shooter trait (and his writers, under his editorial regime). It just doesn't ring true, as a character, to me. By this point, she had faced Galactus. Hollywood shouldn't be this hard.

The writing, itself, is fine, what you would expect from Shooter. It gets a bit heavy in the dialogue and the pages are cluttered with words. There is nothing terribly unique about the story, though, as much is swiped from A Star is Born and other tales of Hollywood . A subscription to TCM and a legal pad and pencil could get you this script.
The art is also fine. Springer is more of the traditional mode, having worked for newspaper strips, Dell, DC and Marvel. he did uncredited work for Leonard Star, on The Heart of Juliet Jones and On Stage, as well as Friday Foster, with Spanish artist Jorge Langaron. he worked in romance strips and fits this type of story; but, it lacks a bit in the visual flair one would expect, in a graphic novel. There is no experimentation with form or storytelling, which isn't surprising, as Shooter's fingers are all over this. Whether or not Springer had desires to play with things, it looks like he was working from Shooter's layouts. He showed far more visual flair in Phoebe Zeitgeist, though it is kind of hard to post examples.....

Adults only........


In the end, I would say that no, it's not exactly the kind of thing I would want published as a graphic album. If Springer had been freer to do the visuals, then it would be another story. Also, he looked so much better inking his own work, though Coletta does a decent job, without obviously hindering things. Mostly, it is the uninspired layouts that keep this from being an average soap opera plot in an average soap opera comic strip. This could have been On Stage, except the art was livelier there, with Starr and Springer or Juliet Jones, with Stan Drake. I will give credit to Shooter for tapping Springer. At Valiant, he also gave work to Drake and Australian comic strip artist John Dixon. What he didn't give was the freedom to push the boundaries. This is a writer's piece and it is well executed, for what it is, as you would expect of Shooter; but, it isn't trying to be something more, which leaves Shooter behind his contemporaries, like Archie Goodwin, Chris Claremont, Marv Wolfman, Don McGregor or Steve Gerber.

This could have just as easily been an issue or two of the regular Dazzler comic. It features the same creative team and the person who first developed the character. Dazzler was intended to be an animated special, with Casablanca records, with Marvel Animation doing the film and Casablanca providing a singer. it morphed into a film, with Filmways, with Bo derek as the desired star, which led to visual changes from someone based on Grace Jones, to someone more like derek. When hubby/svengali John was nixed as a director, the project fell apart. Instead, Marvel made Dazzler their first Direct Market-only comic, after a debut in X-Men. The first issue had high speculation sales; but, subsequent sales dropped significantly and it was never a strong seller. Springer took over the art early on, with danny Fingeroth, producing the only really memorable stories: the two-part Galactus story and the What If alternative tale. Shooter was writing it at this stage, tying it more to the X-Men, with little improvement.

No, there is nothing special about this tale; but, it is a pleasant enough read, taken on its own. In that, it fit with much of what Marvel produced in the 80s, under Shooter's story dictates.

From the beginning, Jim Shooter would do his own layouts when writing, including his first run on LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES, when he was backed up by the team of Curt Swan & George Klein, or, on some issues, Jim Mooney.

However, somehow, this didn't work as well when he got to Marvel. And it probably "explains" his outright CONTEMPT and genuine abuse of Gene Colan, causing the guy so much grief that he wound up qutting the company just to get the HELL away from an out-of-control editor who was turning his life into a living hell.

I have a copy of PHOEBE ZEIT-GEIST around here somewhere. Fun, but not that memorable for whatever reason.

My favorite Frank Springer art remains his short run on NICK FURY, AGENT OF SHIELD, where he wound up working with multiple writers (Roy Thomas, Archie Goodwin, Ernie Hart, Gary "burnout" Friedrich). He had the unfortunate luck of having to follow Jim Steranko. I blame the failure of those issues more on the chaotic writing, much of which was trying way too hard to imitate the WORST, chaotic excesses of Steranko. Things began to settle down once they finally decieded (after Friedrich left) to try and return to the more coherent style of Jack Kirby's writing... but that was only one issue before they PULLED the plug on the book ("A Day In The Life", illustrated by Herb Trimpe).

I've never cared for Springer inking other's pencils, or vice-versa. Even Johnny Craig's inks over Springer in one issue didn't "do it" for me.

It occurs to me that on JUSTICE LEAGUE INTERNATIONAL, while writer Keith Giffen was doing the layouts, certain pencillers would follow them more-- OR LESS-- than others. The issues pencilled by Adam Hughes, particularly, you could see he was "playing" fast-and-loose with those layouts more than anyone else in that run.

My guess is, POWER-MAD Shooter didn't want anyone NOT following his layouts exactly, just as multiple interviews have revealed that he didn't like anyone even QUESTIONING his orders about anything, at any time.

He strikes me as somebody who would have done much better work, working for a REAL TYRANT of an editor, instead of being the tyrant himself. This may explain why his late-60s LEGION run remains my favorite of that series' entire history.

You know, I wonder, since Vince Colletta was a romance artist most of his career (until romance comics fell out of favor, and he had to find working INKING-- GASP! -- superhero books --starting with Joe Orlando's ill-fated DAREDEVIL #2-4), maybe they should have gotten Colletta to do FULL ART on this book. there might have been a lot more sensitivity about the visuals... or something.

Regarding a graphic novel about a popular star making a movie under extreme duress... I prefer John Blackburn's "BREATHLESS". It's a real pity that only had a limited print run, and it's really up in the air if ANY of his work will ever be reprinted.