Alter Ego Day!

Roy Thomas was for many years my favorite writer. His work on The Avengers completely won me over. Roy was Stan Lee's hand-picked successor to the Marvel empire, but after a few years he dropped those duties to concentrate on Conan the Barbarian. Later he jumped to DC, and there went about creating a completely detailed narrative of DC's WWII years in the pages of All-Star Squadron. Roy's work with Alter-Ego began in the late 90's and I've followed every issue since. But that was not the first Alter-Ego. 

In the 1960's Alter Ego was a trail-blazing fanzine and in the 1970's it reappeared as a fascinating prozine. In the 1980's it changed once again and became the very thing which it once viewed with historical perspective, critical acumen and fanboy fervor. It became a comic book. In the 80's as we know the comic industry changed and the newsstands gave way to the comic book shop as the main means of delivering comics into the still oft sweaty hands of its readership, and with that change came many a new company to fill the expanded racks. Pacific, Capitol, Eclipse, AC, and many others. But for my money for a tiny time the cream seemed to be First Comics hailing out of Chicago, a company which seemed to combine the knew attitudes toward talent with a substantial business model. Turns out it was less impressive than I'd imagined and went away faster than I expected, but during its time among the many titles such as  a revived E-Man, Starslayer, Mars, and ground-breaking American Flagg was a humble little limited series with a famous name -- Alter Ego. 

Roy Thomas, an original contributor and eventual publisher of the fanzine Alter Ego got the rights to the name and using a concept he'd imagined back in the misty days of the Sliver Age, brought together a gaggle of public domain superheroes to form a "Limbo Legion" which was to led by a boy turned superman named "Alter Ego". The details are immense for a four-issue series as is the wont of a Roy Thomas effort. The artwork by Ron Harris is adequate to the task but just and is immensely helped by the addition of inker Rich Burhett on the final two issues. 

A boy named Ron Lindsay finds a comic shop and canny eye-patch wearing owner who gifts him a box of Golden Age comics. Soon that shop is destroyed and we discover the owner was none other than Captain Combat (a new name for the hero Captain Battle). In the box is a mask which when worn turns the wearer into the other-dimensional Alter Ego, a superhero of great powers who leads the likes of Skyboy (Airboy), Holy Terror (Black Terror), Scarlet Streak (Silver Streak), and other against the villain Scarlet Claw (The Claw) and his henchmen Rockjaw (Ironjaw), Uriah Heap (The Heap), and Emerald Empress (Green Sorceress) among others. 

It of course turns out there is much more to the story when we learn that the origins of the Scarlet Claw and Alter Ego are actually linked in a weird way. We see batches of airplane heroes battle the Claw's forces and later a squad of jungle heroes stand up to the evil threat, as Alter Ego comes and goes into this dimension which seems still to be fighting a variation of WWII. When not there he's just Rob Lindsay questioning his sanity and trying to deal with the questions of his caretaker Grandfather and his two absent and divorcing parents as well as the officials at the school he sometimes attends. It's the bouncing back and forth between dimensions which I feel is the greatest weakness in the storytelling as it forces the concoction of various motives to drive Rob back into danger. 

Ultimately of course the heroes win the day and it's not a spoiler to tell you that. The way in which it happens is not totally unclever at that. The weakest part of the storytelling is the incessant whining interior monologue by Rob as he moans about whatever situation he's in. It might have the veneer of realism, but it gets tedious to once again have to endure his questioning of the reality he's experiencing. He has a girlfriend who hangs by him for reasons that seem unclear, but that might just be life. Frankly I think the series needed much less of Rob's world (supposedly ours) and much more of the fantasy comic book universe into which he is propelled. But still it's a smart comic book series with a nice evergreen whiff of nostalgia, a Roy Thomas specialty. 

There is a fifth issue of this series celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary and was published along with the rest of the limited series in 2012, but of course it is not included in the 2005 reprint from Heroic Publishing and I do not have a copy of it alas. 

As it turns out, Roy was not the only one who had the spritely notion to harness the power of public domain heroes such as Airboy, Claw and Black Terror. Here are some others examples from the Eclipse, AC, and Dynamite publishing outfits. 

Rip Off

Alter Ego - The Comic Book!

In the 1960's Alter Ego was a trail-blazing fanzine and in the 1970's it reappeared as a fascinating prozine. In the 1980's it changed once again and became the very thing which it once viewed with historical perspective, critical acumen and fanboy fervor. It became a comic book. In the 80's as we know the comic industry changed and the newsstands gave way to the comic book shop as the main means of delivering comics into the still oft sweaty hands of its readership, and with that change came many a new company to fill the expanded racks. Pacific, Capitol, Eclipse, AC, and many others. But for my money for a tiny time the cream seemed to be First Comics hailing out of Chicago, a company which seemed to combine the knew attitudes toward talent with a substantial business model. Turns out it was less impressive than I'd imagined and went away faster than I expected, but during its time among the many titles such as  a revived E-Man, Starslayer, Mars, and ground-breaking American Flagg was a humble little limited series with a famous name -- Alter Ego. 

Roy Thomas, an original contributor and eventual publisher of the fanzine Alter Ego got the rights to the name and using a concept he'd imagined back in the misty days of the Sliver Age, brought together a gaggle of public domain superheroes to form a "Limbo Legion" which was to led by a boy turned superman named "Alter Ego". The details are immense for a four-issue series as is the wont of a Roy Thomas effort. The artwork by Ron Harris is adequate to the task but just and is immensely helped by the addition of inker Rich Burhett on the final two issues. 

A boy named Ron Lindsay finds a comic shop and canny eye-patch wearing owner who gifts him a box of Golden Age comics. Soon that shop is destroyed and we discover the owner was none other than Captain Combat (a new name for the hero Captain Battle). In the box is a mask which when worn turns the wearer into the other-dimensional Alter Ego, a superhero of great powers who leads the likes of Skyboy (Airboy), Holy Terror (Black Terror), Scarlet Streak (Silver Streak), and other against the villain Scarlet Claw (The Claw) and his henchmen Rockjaw (Ironjaw), Uriah Heap (The Heap), and Emerald Empress (Green Sorceress) among others. 

It of course turns out there is much more to the story when we learn that the origins of the Scarlet Claw and Alter Ego are actually linked in a weird way. We see batches of airplane heroes battle the Claw's forces and later a squad of jungle heroes stand up to the evil threat, as Alter Ego comes and goes into this dimension which seems still to be fighting a variation of WWII. When not there he's just Rob Lindsay questioning his sanity and trying to deal with the questions of his caretaker Grandfather and his two absent and divorcing parents as well as the officials at the school he sometimes attends. It's the bouncing back and forth between dimensions which I feel is the greatest weakness in the storytelling as it forces the concoction of various motives to drive Rob back into danger. 

Ultimately of course the heroes win the day and it's not a spoiler to tell you that. The way in which it happens is not totally unclever at that. The weakest part of the storytelling is the incessant whining interior monologue by Rob as he moans about whatever situation he's in. It might have the veneer of realism, but it gets tedious to once again have to endure his questioning of the reality he's experiencing. He has a girlfriend who hangs by him for reasons that seem unclear, but that might just be life. Frankly I think the series needed much less of Rob's world (supposedly ours) and much more of the fantasy comic book universe into which he is propelled. But still it's a smart comic book series with a nice evergreen whiff of nostalgia, a Roy Thomas specialty. 

There is a fifth issue of this series celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary and was published along with the rest of the limited series in 2012, but of course it is not included in the 2005 reprint from Heroic Publishing and I do not have a copy of it alas. 

As it turns out, Roy was not the only one who had the spritely notion to harness the power of public domain heroes such as Airboy, Claw and Black Terror. Here are some others examples from the Eclipse, AC, and Dynamite publishing outfits. 

Rip Off

A Multiverse Of Marvels!

Alex Ross is one of those artists who transformed the look of comics. The artist who comes to mind immediately as having done something similar is Neal Adams. Adams took the rules of illustration and incorporated them into comic book storytelling. Ross did the same thing with painted works. One of his favorite subjects has always been Captain Marvel - The Big Red Cheese. He did the cover above for the third issue of Alter Ego, the fanboy magazine edited by Roy Thomas. 

In the most recent issue of Alter Ego, the one hundredth and sixty-sixth, he doesn't do the cover. That image of Captain Marvel is by Kurt Schaffenberger who is the main focus of the issue. 

But deep inside the issue Ross takes on the immense task of identifying as many comic book characters (and otherwise) who have or might have been inspired in some way the great Captain Marvel - Billy Batson heroics from the Golden Age. I think Ross himself fell in love with the character during the Bronze Age revival which saw the character bereft of his own name and required to operate under the title of Shazam. One of the real gems is the two-page poster above by Ross featuring all of those characters from as a diverse landscape. That art is only part of a detailed article title "Echoes of Shazam" identifying and discussing each one. It makes for an especially good issue of Alter Ego and one I highly recommend. Get a closer look at this link. 

Rip Off

The Alternate Mark Of Kane!

Take this vintage 1969 fanzine Alter Ego cover with typically energetic Gil Kane images surrounding a Marie Severin portrait.

Add one vintage 1963 Gil Kane and Murphy Anderson Green Lantern cover from that classic DC run, in which the artist cleverly bends, if not breaks the Fourth Wall.

And you get the most recent  2017 Alter-Ego pro-zine cover for issue #149 from Roy Thomas and the gang at Twomorrows! Love this one boys. Some books you buy because of the covers. I'd have bought this one anyway, but I'd have bought for the cover too.

And for good measure, here is the interview from that long ago issue of Alter Ego.

Rip Off

The Second Best Of Alter-Ego!

I wanted a copy of The Best of Alter-Ego Volume 2 the moment I read about it, but alas never saw a copy. The other day I did and I snapped it up.

There are scuds of vintage articles by fans about comics from the heyday of fandom, but the reason I craved this volume was Sam Grainger. Grainger who did the wonderful cover image above, illustrated an adaptation of Gardner F. Fox's Warrior of Llarn as scripted by Roy Thomas.

I've seen one page of this great fan work years ago in one of Bill Schelly's collections, and immediately wanted to see more. The story was reprinted nearly a decade ago, but this is a much cleaner version.

Sam Grainger is one of the often overlooked talents of comics, a fan who broke into the pros doing reams of inks for Marvel, DC, and elsewhere. He penciled all too rarely, but I fell in love with his lively style on Charlton's The Sentinels, a back up feature in Thunderbolt.

 This is a very worthy follow up the first volume published originally by Hamster Press well over a decade ago.

Rip Off

Thru Space And Time!

I'll be the first to admit that not every issue of Alter Ego commands my attention as perhaps it ought. But I've been a faithful follower of the Roy Thomas edited magazine since its second coming as part of the Twomorrows line-up many moons ago now. But the most recent issue, scheduled to hit the stands today, does look like a sweet one. 3-D comics are just plain fun, and this looks to be a nice heaping helping of them, properly packaged with some great background info. Here's a link with more details.

And while I'm at it, I have to admit it's been a long time since I was so excited month in and month out about a comic book. Getting my mitts on the next Classic Popeye by the late great Bud Sagendorf from YOe Comics and IDW has become a real treat and reminds me of simpler times when I looked forward to all sorts of great comics.

It's a darn good week.

Rip Off

Alter Ego's Action Heroics!

Here's a cover for an upcoming issue of Twomorrow's Alter Ego. It's due out this December and it focuses on the late Dick Giordano, best remembered in the Silver Age as the father of the "Action Heroes" at Charlton before jumping to DC and bringing much of his stable of talent with him. Here's a link to the solicitation.

It's a wonderful cover. Here are the sources for the Charlton images.

Steve Ditko
Pete Morisi
Steve Ditko
Dick Giordano
Steve Ditko
Rip Off

Extreme Zombie Makeover!

I don't have my copy in hand yet, but I'm eager to see the latest issue of Alter Ego with its features on some of the non-EC horror comics of the 50's. Among those comics are some from Atlas (soon to be Marvel) and one of the most durable impressions in those is Bill Everett's Zombie from Menace #5. That stolid figure serves as the cover for the issue.


The image is from the first page of the story. Here's a link for the whole story.

The Zombie was revived by Marvel in its monster heyday in the black and white magazine Tales of the Zombie ("Zombie" being a word that at the time still could not be used in color comics, Marvel substituting the word "zuvembie" in the Brother Voodoo stories).


As you can see one of the ads for that magazine makes use of Bill Everett's classic zombie pose (flipped), but I detect the hand of John Romita in the makeover of this figure to give him some happenin' 70's hair and mildly less passive expression.

Bill Everett
John Romita?
Rip Off

Who Says A Comic Book Has To Be Good?

Not Brand Echh captured the spirit of Silver Age Marvel Comics as well any title they published. It was in the spirit of classic spoof comics like MAD, Cracked, and others, but it too the Marvel mythology and characters and rooted the jokes there, giving it a flavor unlike any other funny comic ever.


Alter Ego #95 features Not Brand Echh artist supreme Marie Severin and also offers up a detailed breakdown of all thirteen of the Not Brand Echh comics as well as the follow up reprint book Crazy. This is an issue of Alter Ego not to be missed.

Books like NBE and MAD were the filters for pop culture for isolated youngsters like myself. I couldn't see the movies or all the TV shows or buy all the comics, but in books like these I could get a sense of what was going on.

Aside from the debut issue featuring a "King" Kirby cover, the run featured covers by Marie Severin, an artist who has a knockout ability for caricature and a very lively line too. Tom Sutton assisted on two covers for issues #4 and #5, but the rest is clearly the hand of "Mirthful" Marie.

Here's a gallery. Enjoy!

















Rip Off