The DNAgents Day!

Mark Evanier was born on this date in 1952. Evanier was a key assistant to Jack Kirby in the 70's and had a robust career writing for Gold Key in the 70's and DC in the 80's and 90's. He became a force in the Indy market and co-created Groo the Barbarian.  He also created one of my favorite Indy comics- the focus of today's Dojo celebration -- The DNAgents. 

Let me say categorically that "The DNAgents" might be my favorite title for any comic anytime. It's ferociously clever and instantly communicates not only the name of the heroes but also identifies their plight as "artificial" human beings. Grown in a vat from strands of select DNA and a multitude of chemicals these superhumans are wonderful analogs for any marginalized group who might want to identify with them, a fantastic ploy for comics seeking readership. Created at the height of the popularity of the X-Men and the New Teen Titans, Mark Evanier (a first-rate writer and comics-lore expert and raconteur) and Will Meugniot (the second best Good-Girl artist of his generation after the late Dave Stevens) found a fantastic formula (almost literally) which tapped into that same vein without seeming imitative. Some of that goes to the strength of the characterization which is evident in both the writing and the illustration. These are stories about "people" seeking relationships among themselves, others outside their group and with the broader society which slowly learns of their existence.

For those who might not know The DNAgents are Surge, Rainbow, Tank, Amber, and Sham, five teenagers who are all of five years old. Grown in a lab they have been developed and programmed by rather cold-blooded scientists and even colder-blooded businessmen to serve the interests of the Matrix Corporation, specifically one man named Lucius Krell. The team are sent to perform various tasks for Matrix, rarely if ever told the truth behind their missions and at the same time they are seeking to find some semblance of what passes for a normal existence as college students in Southern California.

I've always gotten a smidgeon of a Jack Kirby vibe off this book, not in the way that often comes across as an attempt to clone Kirby's style in the art, but rather in regard to the themes. The Matrix Corporation always struck as me as The DNA Project/Evil Factory set in a more realistic and recognizable environment. The Agents themselves have a "Forever People" vibe, though the personalities are slightly different. Their "bus", the awesome ship they used to travel in from time to time reminds me of the Super-Cycle and the Fantasticar at the same time. I say this not to suggest the DNAgents are mere copies of other work, but that like most superhero work they evolved from that which had come before, using the themes and tropes in new ways to somewhat different effects.

Also I've always thought (and maybe Evanier or someone else has said as much) that the DNAgents were a commentary on the then new concept of creator-owned properties. That the Agents are the "property" of Matrix goes to the thematic core of the comic, and it's difficult to imagine that Evanier and Meugniot weren't speaking to the comic book powers-that-were-at-the-time about the changing nature of the enterprise. 

I read the saga as it first appeared, but then ultimately traded away those comics. Then I re-gathered them again many years ago. Most recently I picked up the black and white reprint of the adventures from Image which featured many pages developed directly from Meugniot's originals. The DNAgents, published by Eclipse was always a professional looking publication, properly bright and colorful. But reading these same stories in a restrained black and white format has caused me to focus more intently on the writing and less on the shiny well-crafted images, and good writing it is indeed.

The DNAgents - Industrial Strength Edition a was published a few years before that in 2008, and before that About Comics reprinted the first six issues. It's a total hoot to read stories filled with nostalgic tech such as video game parlors, walkmen, and pagers. The 80's seems like yesterday to me, but then I'm getting rather old and reading stories which document that time can really drive home how quaint it all was compared to the way technology has seared its way into nearly all aspects of modern life (this blog for instance).

Here are the lovely covers for the issues contained in this Industrial Strength Edition. (One is already above.)

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Tigra The Were-Woman!

Making comics for girls seems relatively easy these days. There are lots of comics which feature women in strong lead roles, and that's no accident, but it has been long in coming to a medium which for many years targeted kids. I guess the expectation back in the day was reinforce the existing norms of society which held women in check both socially and legally. The latter has been much improved despite recent high-profile setbacks in health care, but the former is harder to negate. The "Women's Lib" movement of the 70's was instrumental in this regard though now it is heckled from the peanut gallery and folks will chide women for "going too far", as if it were possible to go too far in seeking equal rights and protection. 

Beware! The Claws of the Cat was very much of that movement. Created intentionally to bring a woman into costume and into a comic book of her own. At that time Marvel had exactly none. A quick survey of the "Distinguished Competition" found only Wonder Woman. Superhero comics were for boys and romance and Archie comics were for girls. Marvel's intent was to create a female superhero written and drawn by women. So Linda Fite got the scripting gig and Marie Severin got the penciling job. Longtime purveyor of sexy dames Wally Wood inked the well-crafted debut. We meet a mousty housewife named Greer Nelson who is at a loss after her cop husband is killed and seeking a direction finds Dr. Joane Tumolo who wants to use Greer as a candidate in some science experiments to enhance a woman's powers. She does and after some complications the Cat is ready to purr. 

The Cat series is sadly a short-lived one. Like its companion comics Shanna the She-Devil (which went five issues) and Night Nurse (which went four) the comic is given the axe after many artistic changes (Alan Lee Weiss, Bill Everett, etc.) and only four brief issues. 

Attempts the cross-promote the series in Marvel Team-Up came too late to save the series. But the end was not to be for Greer Nelson. Gerry Conway and Jim Mooney are the team on this one. 

Giant-Size Creatures introduced Greer in another role, Tigra the Were-Woman. In a story by Tony Isabella and Don Perlin, she teams up (sort of) with Werewolf by Night who is smitten with her despite his generally ferocious nature with most folks. Turns our Greer and Dr. Tumolo are kidnapped by Hydra (the all-purpose evildoers at Marvel) and further it is revealed that Tumolo is a member of a hidden race of Cat People who have lived alongside mankind all this time. Greer is hurt and to save her she is changed into Tigra. Needless to say, between them Tigra and Werewolf rip and tear Hydra a new butthole. 

Now adopted into the monster world, it's logical Tigra's next stop is Monsters Unleashed where in a handsome story by Chris Claremont and Tony DeZuniga she helps defeat the evil life-stealing sorceress above posing with her rat attendant. (I suppose the story might have been done after this piece art.)

It's not long before Tigra gets her own series. The art in this debut issue is by Will Meugniot, an artist who will distinguish himself with some excellent good girl artwork. This is not top-flight stuff. In the first part of a longer yarn by Tony Isabella, Tigra gets involved with Rat Pack, a gang of pillagers who prey on small towns and are led by a mysterious gent named Joshua Plague. 

The momentum of the series was immediately undercut by a fill-in issue featuring some lusty Frank Robbins work in a story showcasing Tigra against Kraven the Hunter. They try to make this story fit the flow of the storyline but it's a clumsy attempt. 

Will Meugniot is back and Tigra is again on the trail of the Rat Pack. Now she has the help of Red Wolf and his wolf buddy Lobo. 

After they work out their differences, Tigra and Red Wolf keep after the Rat Pack. John Byrne steps in to draw this issue and this is an excellent example of his early work. 

The Tigra series wraps up but not before Tigra has to find a way to defeat the Super Skrull. Jim Shooter wrote it and George Tuska drew this final Tigra Marvel Chillers episode. Great Kirby cover!

Our next stop is Marvel Two-In-One in which Tigra seeks Ben Grimm's assistance to stop a renegade Cat Man dubbed The Cougar. Another solid tale by Bill Mantlo with art by Sal Buscema and Don Heck. Love that Jack Kirby cover as well. 

Marvel Team-Up is the next stop. This issue features a return bout with Kraven in which it takes both Tigra and Spidey to bring the Hunter low. The comic features a crisp Chris Claremont script and some outstanding Byrne artwork whose version of Tigra is my favorite to this point. 

She's back in a solo story in an issue of Marvel Premiere with Mike Vosburg and Ernie Chan sharing the art duties on this Ed Hannigan and John Warner story. Dr. Tumolo dies in this comic but that's only the beginning as the Cat People themselves and all humanity are threatened by a feline fugitive from the High Evolutionary's "New Men" project. 

It's Tigra and Spidey again, this time confronting the return of Tigra's oldest foe. Readers of The Cat series will be pleased I suspect. This is flavorful tale by artist Kerry Gammil and writer J.D. Matteis. 

The volume closes out with a stunning four-part Tigra tale drawn by Mike Deodato Jr. and written by Christina Z. In this tale Greer enters the police academy to go undercover and infiltrate a vigilante group of rogue policemen called "The Brethern of the Blue Fist". She fights many a ferocious battle both as Tigra and Greer before getting to the bottom of this corrupt gang of cops. It also turns out that her late husband might have been involved with them. Deodato produces some outstanding artwork in this one, very moody and atmospheric. Above average for the era. 

All in all, this was a great little package full of both warm reminders and several surprises. Tigra is a remarkable character, at once sexy and exceedingly dangerous. Even in her Cat mode Greer Nelson proved to be one of the sexiest superheroes. Did the title do much for women's liberation, in the end I suspect it depends on who you ask, but I say absolutely. 

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The Incompleat Howard - Volume Two!

In this second volume of The Complete Howard the Duck the rest of the original color run is captured along with the first of Howard's black and white magazine. In these issues the energy which catapulted the fowl to fame is beginning to sputter. There are still amazing moments but Steve Gerber appears (at least from this distance) to be running a little low on inspiration.  There are several writers who give Gerber a break now and again as the series rumbles along and Gene Colan's artwork supported by Klaus Janson's embellishments is remarkable though too requiring some interruptions, some planned some not. 

In the first of the stories here we at long last find out more about the mysterious and exceedingly powerful Dr. Bong, an enemy who can freeze his opponents in place with a the strike of his capacious bell-covered head.  Dr. Bong is a former corrupt journalist who used the power of the press to destroy reputations and game wealth and power.  His present goal is Beverly Switzler, a woman he has been fascinated with since he first saw her as a live model in their college days. Now as an nigh all-powerful and thoroughly unscrupulous megalomaniac he simply kidnaps her. 

Dr. Bong's specialty is genetics and to that end he has created a small army of critters called "Neez" which is also what they say to the exclusion of anything else. In a weird attempt to give Howard what he imagines the duck wants, Bong puts him into a machine and alters his genetics to transform Howard into a "hairless ape". Howard is not amused. 

Escaping Dr. Bong's lair (which shifts locations from the ocean to the mountains) Howard and an evolved duck named Fifi fly to NYC. The crash landing kills the unfortunate Fifi and puts Howard into a situation in which he must now cope with the world on its own terms sans his peculiar nature. But who he is and what eventually proves too powerful and he once again transforms into a duck. For her part Beverly to save Howard's life consents to marry the mad Dr. Bong. 

Now Howard minus his lovely Beverly must find a way to live and so he gets a job and just so happens to land one with a dude named "Beverly Switzler". Turns out this generous businessman is Beverly's uncle and namesake. Howard hires on as a dishwasher and works alongside a chap named Sudd who also is a dedicated member of SOOFI. (Save Our Offspring From Indecency). But Sudd's desire for cleanliness in all things overcomes him when a microwave accident transforms him into a monster comprised of cleansing bubbles. 

Howard survives Sudd only to have to confront SOOFI itself in the next issue drawn by Carmine Infantino. This organization which uses death and mayhem to clean up America in all its circumstances turns out to be headed by an infamous fiture who readers of the era might well recognize as a spokeswoman for Florida citrus concerns.

 

Howard then finds himself drawn back to his roots when he is shanghaied the sorceress Jennifer Kale, Korrek the Barbarian and the enigmatic Man-Thing. The trio need the brave Howard to battle against some dope named "Bzzk'Joh" (Berserker) who wants to conquer the universe or something like that. This issue and the next are deftly drawn by Howard's co-creator Val Mayerik. 

This Star Wars parody yarn comes to a conclusion in the very next issue which features a cover that makes it impossible not to notice the source material. It's a fun romp of a story but it is somewhat off the tone of quasi-seriousness which had become necessary for many of the best Howard stories. This is a lark of a story without any sense of consequences, fun but ultimately meaningless and now it just occurs to me perhaps that was Gerber's intent. 

Howard is back on Earth and up to his old tricks of trying to scratch out a living among us hairless apes in the next issue. He is having some trouble along the way as he tries to get to the docks to meet Wendy Wester and Paul Same who are arriving at long last aboard the ship Howard and Beverly had been kidnapped from many issues before. 

Paul Same had been a starving artist but aboard the ship he met Iris Raritan who took a shine to him and his work and became his patron. This new connection throws Howad and his friends into a wild fracas when they attend a party of Raritan's and find the Circus of Crime. 

The Ringmaster sees show-biz potential in Howard and kidnaps him yet again to become a performer. Of course Howard doesn't find his new role to his liking and fights back. His friends try to find him and when they do with the assistance of Raritan, Paul and Wendy are critically injured. 

Guilt over the injuries to his friends and the general unrelenting stress of his daily life lead Howard to have nightmares in which he fights back. he wakes to find the male Beverly Switzler and Raritan by his side and they make a plan for Raritan and Howard to confront the Circus of Crime. Against the odds they do just that. 

Gerber is assisted on the writing in the next issue by Mark Skrenes and once again Carmine Infantino steps up to draw the story. This is a file story as the presence of Beverly indicates. Together the two old comrades fight against several antagonists (an elderly femme fatale, a myopic bus driver, and a overly zealous military man) who all tell of their encounters with the duck and his girlfriend to a psychiatrist who labels them all mad until he himself catches a glimpse of Howard and must be carried out in a straitjacket. 

The next issue is again a fill-in with Mark Evanier supplying the plot and Will Meugniot doing the art. It's a send-up of the Jerry Lewis Telethon which once made an annual splash and some money for Muscular Distrophy. A down-on-his-luck comedian sees Howard and and in him an affliciton which will draw in the cash. Needless to say it's a fracas in Las Vegas when Howard comes to understand he's part of a scam. 

The original storyline and artist are back in the next issue which finally finds us checking on Winda and Paul who are still hospitalized. Doctor Bong returns and gives Howard an ultimatum. He is jealous of Beverly's continuing regard for Howard despite her becoming his wife. And he gives Howard only a few hours before he comes to kill him once and for all. Beverly's uncle now owns a garage and gets his mechanic, a delusional bloke named Claude Starkowski who claims to be the brains behind much of Stark Industries greatest breakthroughs, to build a suit of armor for Howard to fight Bong. 

In the final regular issue of the original color comic run Dr. Bong and Howard face off with Howard's armor saving him but not really giving him an upper hand. When it looks as if  Bong will at long last kill Howard, the lovely Beverly steps in and presents Dr. Bong with a bowl full of genetically engineered Bong quintuplets. She threatens Bong with bad publicity for abandoning his progeny (his own weapon of choice) if he doesn't spare Howard. In a fit after having been betrayed by Beverly he relents and sends both Beverly and Howard back to Cleveland and the bedsides of Paul and Winda. Beverly's uncle greets them with affection and the curtain comes down for the time being. 

When Howard the Duck returns to the comic racks later in the years 1979 it is without the guiding hand of his co-creator Steve Gerber who had been fired by Marvel for missing deadlines. (More on Gerber's dismissal next week.) Instead we find the underrated Bill Mantlo helming the scripting chores. The saga picks up where we left off in a story drawn by Michael Golden. Howard and the two Beverly Switzlers are driving back to Cleveland when they suffer a flat tire. With no spare, they seek shelter and unfortunately find it on the farm of the murderous Mr. Chicken and his henchman Skidoo. He wants to dominate the poultry market with his genetically superior birds and sees something in Howard to help that process. Beverly he just tries to kill. To be honest the motivations in this story confused me, but Howard and Bev do survive and rejoin the other Beverly in the repaired car. 

Back in Cleveland at last they find that Bev's uncle has bought a taxi firm and Howard needs a hack license to work for him. After some grumbling this is accomplished and on the streets he and Beverly find fares and trouble when the Cleveland marathon breaks out and a notable runner named Cleft Chin appears to have been drugged or something and so for reasons that never make sense Howard and Beverly decide to drag him into their cab and help him win. The enemy who is causing this trouble is an outrageous fellow called Jackpot the One-Armed Bandit who can belch out coins at the drop of his one single arm. They prevail. 

Then in the third story Howard runs up against the Kidney Lady again as well as some other creep dubbed the Brooklyn Dodger who is just as weirdly offended Howard. This pair capture Howard and Beverly and attempt to use magic to quicken to life a couch which will swallow them up. But they beat down the villains of course and then Winda an Paul appear, the latter having finally recovered. The gang finally together take advantage of an offer by a movie producer Digitalis and we can only guess how that will work out. While some of the character motivations feel off, nevertheless Howard and Beverly are back together and clearly so. And now with the status quo has at long last reset, we await the next issue where the Pro-Rata, who has been lurking in the shadows, plans to strike. 

More next week. 

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