Megaton Archives!

Megaton Archives captures a moment (or two) in time. A time in the 80's when comic books shops exploded, and an avalanche of material was available to the comic book reader. But it proved to be overwhelming for everyone involved and the majority of these comics, nearly all black and white books disappeared when the marketplace could not support so many players. The story of Megaton Comics is a little more complicated and has a rather happy ending for a company which shut down just before its much ballyhooed "explosion". 

Gary Carlson was the name behind Megaton, an anthology comic which showcased superheroes first and foremost. The main character unsurprisingly was named "Megaton", an unfortunate choice simply because of the presence of Megaton Man by Don Simpson. The similarity was unintentional. Things are also a bit confusing since "Megaton" is the name of the company, the comic, and the lead hero. 

The debut issue of Megaton landed on the direct-sales stands in 1983 and clocked in at over sixty pages with stories in many genres, but generally superheroes and sci-fi. The first issue featured the writing of editor Gary Carlson and the art of Butch Guice, Erik Larsen, Mike Gustovich, Gene Day, Dan Reed, Ken Landgraf, Frank Fosco and others. We meet heroes such as Megaton, a black man who is dying until a weird experiment grants him immense powers; Vanguard, an alien in Earth's orbit looking out for mankind and forced to get involved; and Ethrian, a hero who arises when a distant planet is overrun by hostile alien forces. There are others, but these three and a young woman named Ultragirl are the ones who will go forward.  

The second issue of Megaton takes a while to reach the readers, two years in fact. So long that more than a few of the talents have gotten jobs with the Big Two. Erik Larsen is still around and Clarke Hawmaker shows up to fill in the spaces alongside folks like Frank Fosco. Gary Carlson suffered a medical situation which hurt the progress of the series at a critical time. 

With the third issue the page count drops and features a new hero called simply The Dragon. Erik Larsen is most generous in bringing his many creations to the Vanguard storyline. This issue feels more professional in many ways than the first two, partly because of the improving craftsmanship but also it seems the book has found a focus -- superheroes. I love this cover. 

Finding new talent seems to have been Gary Carlson's main job on the book and he found a humdinger in Angel Medina who goes on to draw four installments of the lead feature Megaton, and gives the storytelling a big jump up. For some reason too, the characterization of the series seems to improve. The Vanguard stories by Carlson and Larsen are quite good, and the arrival of Grass Green's Wildman and Rubberboy adds quite a bit of zest to a darn good comic package. This issue also features a portfolio by Frances Mao, a talented artist I personally worked with in the late 70's when I was running an APA for a time. 

The book keeps on buzzing along with issue number five. The Megaton story dominates the issue and moves the story along quite a bit with decent effect. Grass Green is back with a hilarious Wildman and Rubberboy story in which they battle an angry Snowman. 

I am a big Grass Green fan and already own the Wildman and Rubberboy comics which were published by Carlson around this time. 

Ethrian is featured on the cover of the sixth issue and returns inside the comic as the space saga hurtles along, but hits a snag when it finishes on a cliffhanger which promises to be developed more in the debut of Ethrian's own comic, a comic which never ever arrives. Sadly, this is also Angel Medina's last issue drawing the Megaton feature. 

Under a pretty dang good cover by Butch Guice, a new artist takes the reins in issue seven, a fellow named Gary Thomas Washington. His style is lighter than what had come before and is a slight drop unfortunately, though still interesting. Ultragirl returns, not seen since issue one and gets in volved in the Megaton storyline. Artist John Thompson also draws a solo outing for the returning heroine and Bill Willingham proves a bit of spot art. 

Megaton ends its run with issue eight which landed on the stands in 1987. It was always intended to be the final black and white issue as Carlson had big plans to launch a color reboot as well as several new comics featuring Vanguard and along with a few others. This issue is also notable in that Rob Liefeld supplies a back-up story with Megaton and Ultragirl and brings romance into the picture. But the big plans don't develop and along with many other comics which had in some ways overwhelmed the young direct sales market, Megaton disappeared with a snap of the fingers. 

Years later the characters morphed into what we know as Big Bang Comics, a series I mightily enjoyed for quite a while. The Image boys appreciated Carlson's early efforts to use their work, and some see Megaton as a precursor to the Image Comics brand itself.  

The fascinating thing about this collection is not just that you get the comics, but you get lots of information and opinion from Carlson himself about the series as it developed and the talents that helped to make it so. Reading this collection was not unlike watching a movie with an audio commentary, something I love to do. There is a suggestion a second volume will emerge publishing material for the first time which was caught in the collapse and giving us all more of an insight into what it was like to make comics in the 1980's. I'll buy it and I highly recommend this volume to one and all. 

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The Complete Aztec Ace!

It was a great pleasure to at long last read the full run of Doug Moench's Aztec Ace from Eclipse. I was an Indy fan when this book debuted from Eclipse but soon had to draw back in because of family responsibilities and financial obligations. One cannot justify getting expensive (at the time) comic when the wife and child need to taken care of. I could've filled in the collection at anytime, but never did. But when I saw that Dark Horse had reprinted the complete run with a few extras I was intrigued. That is until I saw the asking price of $79.99 -- too much for idle curiosity I thought. Then I found the book for half that and jumped. I'm very happy I did for this is a very intriguing read. I won't suggest it's a complete epic, because the reader is left with a number of questions after all is read and done. But that's to be expected of a series this densely packed with details and motivations which doesn't reach its natural ending. 

Aztec Ace is a time traveler from the 23rd century who operates out of a base hidden in the world of the Aztecs in the 14th century. The funniest detail is that he uses the accumulated slime from slugs to power his time travel devices. He hooks up with a woman named Bridget Kronopoulous from 1940 and they fall in love. But first she has to die. Later they take a swing at a bogus Ben Franklin and a fake Cleopatra among others. There are appearances by the real Amelia Earhart, Glenn Miller and Ambrose Bierce. They have an ally hidden in a head shop in 1969 and another who is a detached head who sounds like Sigmund Freud. They make sure that Galileo's work survives. They battle strange creatures called "Gaunts" which serve the whims of a man behind a gas mask named Nine-Crocodiles who rules a land isolated from time itself. The latter has a wife named Shakreen who gives birth to a baby, but the baby might the child of Aztec Ace himself. Aztec (or Caza as he's called) pretends to be a number of things including a Mummy and a bonafide Golden Age superhero. There is no way to fully explain all that goes on in this series without creating a vast network of cross-referenced entries with deep annotations. The series rewards dealing with the complexity by treating the reader as an adult. 

Doug Moench's scripts are dense and require a reader's full attention, but that's worth the effort. The artwork is by a number of talented chaps including Mike Hernandez who does the first two issues another later on, and Ron Harris who lays out several issues late in the run. Tom Yeates sneaks in toward the end of the series and I assume we'd have seen more from him if it had continued. (His cover rendition of Cleopatra in the penultimate issue is a stunner.) But the core of the art is done by Dan Day who offers up sterling and ornate artwork ideally suited to the tone of the book. Nestor Redondo is on hand to give the series a solid look with is masterful inks. Mike Gustovich steps in to ink later issues with great results. 

Below are the covers for the full run. Also included in the collection is a single story from Total Eclipse. 

It's a lot of money for a collection. But if you can find it for less like I did, I highly recommend it. It was nice to time travel back to the 80's again, if even for a little while. 

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All-Star Comics - Omega And Alpha!

And then it came to an end. With the Crisis On Infinite Earths (much more on that later) the woeful decision had been made that the Justice Society of America was redundant and so could properly be disposed of so that comics could march forward stalwartly into a new age. Dopes!

Roy Thomas seeking to control the demise since he could not prevent it concocted a wild story which served as something of an oddball bookend to 1979's DC Presents special which had related the previously unrevealed origin of the JSofA. In this wild tale drawn by the talented David Ross and inked by Mike Gustovich the Justice Society finds itself again confronting head on the might of the Third Reich and the devious Adolph Hitler.

To forestall defeat, they allow themselves to be transformed into avatars for the Norse Gods who then enter into an eternal conflict with the great demons of Nordic myth. Thus they are locked away in this version of Valhalla, neither really dead nor really alive, apart from the larger DCU but forever  (in the imagination at least) fighting the good fight.

It was a noble effort, but alas an unsatisfying one, at least for this reader.

Years passed.

Eventually though DC decided to bring them back. It takes place as part of one of the more woeful crossovers called Armageddon. In one of the off-shoots of that story line called Armageddon: Inferno sundry heroes are assembled to battle an other-dimensional threat called Abraxis across four time periods. The battle goes poorly and the Spectre decides to call out some heroes who already exist outside time, the Justice Society of America. They are brought in and battle the villain on his home turf and defeat him. They are then rewarded by being brought back into the DC Universe with the henchmen of Abraxis himself taking their places battling the Nordic gods.

Though the artwork on this storyline is spotty in places, the  JSofA chapter is drawn nicely by Dick Giordano though the story is terribly wonky.

So knocking off the Justice Society was proven a bad idea. That didn't mean DC wasn't done trying to do it though. More later. 

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The Heart Of Texas!

Michael Golden
Texas Comics was just one of the myriad comics companies that popped up during the 80's rush that developed after the advent of the direct sales market. The stands were besotted with all sorts of start-ups and wannabes, most all of them featuring superheroes. Texas Comics produced exactly one comic, but it was a whopper featuring an eye-popping wraparound cover by Michael Golden The comic co-starred  The Justice Machine and the T.HU.N.D.E.R. Agents, and debuted the Elementals. This was a one-shot Indy that delivered.

John Byrne and Mike Gustovich
The Justice Machine created by Bob Gustovich had a run at Noble Comics, but were licensed to the Texas Comics boys. Later they showed up at Comico, Innovation, and others.

Lou Manna and Willie Blyberg

George Perez
The T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents had a venerable career extending back to the 60's and Tower Comics. They were revived in  the early 80's by John Carbonaro in his JC Comics and later by Deluxe Comics. The latter caused quite a stink which resulted in litigation lasting  years, and which kept the Agents off the racks for decades.

Bill Willingham and Bill Anderson
Perhaps the the most notable achievement of the Texas Comics experiment was the debut of The Elementals created by Bill Willingham. They were picked up by Comico and proved to be a sturdy superteam, surviving well into the 90's under various imprints.

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