Black Panther, In Respect of Retrospect

Some of you may have noticed in our Black Panther Roundtable, the notable absence of one of our Roundtable regulars. It's not that Zulu LaMar Forte didn't have much to say; it's that he had a lot. LaMar is one of the Cube's oldest friends and first supporters, and he's not just a comics fan but also  a true student of African history. There was a lot to lay out there in terms of the movie, and so, I turn it over to him.

Black Panther, In Respect of Retrospect

(or “Light A Candle, It's About to Get Real Black In Here”)

by Zulu LaMar Forte

When I saw the final costume for T'Challa in Captain America: Civil War, I had a feeling that Marvel was on to something. The costume itself told a story, in that moment. And it made me think about the stories that could be told within the MCU framework, whether or not they would be told, and what sort of care and attention would be given to the particulars.

Seemingly for a number of the people that have or will see this movie, just getting a movie with an all-black cast that gives them a good reason to pay top dollar for stale popcorn and a week's worth of carbonated beverages is good enough; as an African raised in the diaspora of North America, the norm for me is trusting people that don't look or think like me, that aren't me, to do justice to who my ancestors were...and ultimately, to who I am. And as much as I thoroughly enjoyed Black Panther I would be irresponsible to not give thought to it here, and look at it outside of the popcorn n' pop soda perspective. To put a film like this, which I found to be a multilayered marvel generally, under the proper scrutiny that I have never had the luxury of avoiding, I pose 3 questions, in three parts:

• Who was the African before colonization?

• Who was the African during colonization?

• Who is the African, afterward (and now)?

I: Who Was The African Before Colonization?

I could answer my own question with something like “the original man” or “the mother and father of civilization,” and while both those statements are factual, they still don't do our history justice. One of the lasting refrains of my life has been “What has Africa really contributed to the world?” and if I can be candid for a moment, “just about everything” is a more than appropriate answer: humanity, ethics, writing, spirituality, science, mathematics (the combination of the last three in particular is unique, and found nowhere else but at its place of origin), law, and social order are all human achievements that have both origins and highly developed apexes in Africa. Even the most staunch deniers of these would still have to admit that the world's wealth was made on the backs of my people, only for us to be locked out of benefiting from that wealth.

No conversation about Africa, or Africans, is complete without bringing up the pillar of our nature, and social order: the concept of Ma'at. Ma'at is the embodiment of a multitude of concepts such as truth, justice, righteousness, equality, reciprocity, sobriety, harmony...but the head of all these is balance. As a living concept Ma'at (this is the part where I make it clear: contrary to popular belief, what most people call the “gods” of Kemetic culture are not actual beings that people worshiped, they were attributes of nature given a human form and used to tell stories and teach lessons, as there was no concept of religion or need an outside savior) takes the form of a Kemetic woman, because the aforementioned concepts are considered feminine traits.

The Dora Milaje are based on Kemetic warrior queens such as Nzingha, but also on Marcus Garvey's all-woman bodyguard squad and the warrior women of Dahomey

This is not a slight or an insult, because that balance that Ma'at embodies is a universal balance reflected on all planes of existence, and as such that balance was also found in the relationship between a man and a woman. There was no misogyny, sexism, or hatred of women, because it never occurred to anybody to think of a woman as being anything other than equally divine when put beside a man. This is something that not many people can actually believe, or even appreciate properly, because all most of us know is the inverse. And when I explain this I almost always get a “well it's not like that anymore” and it usually comes from those of European ancestry, because they cannot imagine a world or people that have no concept or hatred for women and if they could, it would have to be a thing of the past, as opposed to something that still lives in the people that created it.

The first concept of what we would call a “goddess” later on comes from the Congo, and just so happens to coincide with the origin of humanity. Nut (newt) is the personified concept of the universe, and her body consists of the universe in its totality. Usually depicted as reaching across the sky, the heavenly bodies came directly from her womb, and the sun itself died every night only to be taken into her mouth and reborn in the morning. Pepi II of Kemet said “The heavens are found between the legs of the goddess Nut” famously, and Dr. Yosef Ben Jochannan, whom we call “Dr. Ben” lovingly, came along in the 20th century and brought it full circle: “Just as the heavens are found between the legs of Nut, on Earth heaven is found between the legs of the black woman.” You cannot have a concept like this and hate women, or think them beneath you, and likewise you cannot perpetuate a concept like this if you view men as being beneath you. This is what we call the dialectical law of opposites, and in African culture opposites are seen as divine instead of defined against a negative and corrupted structure.

This plays into Black Panther, being set in an African country that has defied colonization, and these concepts are clearly left intact because of it. It is the nature of Ma'at, and as a result the African, for the woman to be the giver of the ways, and the man to be the enforcer of the ways. Tehuti was the compliment of Ma'at and his role was to record events, and as such he scribed the 42 Negative Confessions as she called them out; his zoo-type was the ibis, because the long pointed bill of the ibis resembles a pen. T'Challa, a single and childless African man, has women around him that respect his position and in turn he knows and understands that his personal power comes directly from them. The movie did a fantastic job of laying a base for something that, for most people, is a foreign concept. Even the concept of the throne is born from the matrilineal system, as the throne is symbolic of the lap of the mother, and T'Challa's throne has the same configuration as ones we see in Kemetic reliefs and scrolls.

One thing that stuck out to me was the me'ri (love) between T'Challa and the women in the film. It isn't often that level of care is given to relationships between African men and women in films and television, and usually when it is done it's so heavy-handed and not well thought out. They had disagreements without yelling at one another, and never allowed these disagreements to interrupt or define their relationship. It was refreshing to see that, especially when we have other programs that show families, royal or not, at each others' necks so often. Not once did T'Challa call into question their capabilities, and even when he was defeated never did they consider deserting or berating him for it.

Ma'at is also shown in how the elders are treated. In the words of Baba John Henrik Clarke, “In Africa nobody had a word for “old folks' home” because nobody had ever thrown away grandma and grandpa.” Elders were-and are, despite the best attempts of a white supremacist patriarchal mechanism-revered and not looked at as dead weight. For example anybody that grew up in a black church knew that the oldest woman was known as “the mother of the church.” Not an official position, but the mother was given the highest respect and you'd get mangled for sitting in her favorite seat, in the least. The Wakandan elders were afforded the same esteem by everyone, even those not of royalty. One of the few ways I could come up with to make the film better was to have elders from out community in the movie; Winnie Mandela (RIP), Shaharazad Ali and Baba Dick Gregory (RIP) imparting wisdom to T'Challa, his sister Shuri, and even his mother Ramonda? Yes, every time and all the time.

I Photoshopped this pic of Baba Dick Gregory in traditional African garb

II: Who Was The African During Colonization?

The plight and struggle of the African today often makes for a tense and laborious discussion, mostly because of a failure or refusal to admit its genesis. The primary weapon of the conqueror, whether it be the European or the Arab before them, was a distortion and corruption of the greatest gift we gave to mankind. Despite the near-universal resistance to the idea, African spiritual concepts gave birth to what we now know as religion, and the fact that these concepts were distorted and used to attempt to destroy us is a violation that the English language has no suitable words for. Never mind that missionaries commonly worked as agents to “spread the word of God” in order to take away land from native Africans, often with death as an end result. Those details are typically seen as inconsequential or best left no discussed, as to not rile up people who may hear them and not take it well.

It isn't enough to say that colonization interrupted African progress; the conquering of Kemet halted human progress as a whole, because while Kemet wasn't the creator of most of these spiritual and scientific concepts, it was the zenith of them. We can attribute these scientific and spiritual concepts to both Kush (Ethiopia, and it's not a coincidence that 'ethics' has its birthplace here) and the aforementioned Congo.

Imhotep himself is paid tribute in the Hippocratic Oath, in the opening line. “I swear by Apollo the Healer, by Asclepius, by Hygieia, by Panacea, and by all the gods and goddesses” of course refers to Greek gods, and of those four gods only 3 are fictional. Asclepius is the Greek god of medicine, and is the name given Imhotep when they added him to their pantheon. Hippocrates himself declared “I am a child of Imhotep” due to him studying Imhotep's work, thousands of years after his death. Imhotep used what we consider modern medical tools, such as scalpels, as well as the first recorded prescriptions. 

I understood the mathematics involved with the Pythagorean Theorem because while I learned it formally in the 10th grade, I instantly recognized the theorem itself as being found in Kemetic mathematics-also knowing that Pythagoras studied with the Kheri Heb priests there. I always found it humorous that the Kheri Heb priests' curriculum consisted of 40 years of study, while Pythagoras, whom is considered to be one of the most intelligent people that ever lived, flunked out around year 22.

When looking at how Wakanda was depicted in Black Panther I immediately drew the parallel between it and both Kemet and Kush. Wakanda is a synthesis of the two, having Kemet's scientific pedigree while also maintaining Kush's spiritual and historic pedigree (Kush is one of the few African countries that was never conquered). I would imagine if Kemet was never conquered, it would look like Wakanda. I lamented with my nephew when talking about African history about what a sight it would be to see flying cars and trains zooming over and around the Great Pyramid of Giza, which would be in its original condition coated with white limestone. As excited as I am to go to Africa next year, not being able to watch the sun rise over the pyramids and have the light reflect off the limestone and across the desert is something that brings both a rage and bittersweet feeling I cannot describe.

The tribes of Wakanda are based on different African tribes.

Also I must state that there were several African dynasties and advanced cultures that were also destroyed, and while I can't go into detail here for lack of time and space, it's well worth the research.

The common line of thought, and this is why the language we uses matters, is that slaves were brought to what would later become the Americas and forced to work for free. But the fact is that doctors, artists, scientists, mathematicians, spiritualists and skilled people of all sorts were brought here and made slaves. This is an important distinction that must not be continued to be ignored or mimimalized.

III. Who Is The African, Afterward (And Now)?


Of the three questions posed, this one may be the most complex and the one most needing nuance. Of the many metaphors found throughout Black Panther the most continually referenced ones involve the relationship-and often battle-between African tradition and the contemporary circumstance that came with post-colonization Africans. We can go back to the early 20th century and see a great divide of perspective, most notable between The Talented Tenth and the followers of The Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey.

The Talented Tenth, who counted intellectual luminaries like W.E.B. Dubois amongst their number, were called so because they were considered the representatives of the ten percent of America-born Africans that had the privilege of a top shelf education (if you can call it that), and as such were allegedly the best qualified to lead their people to their destiny. From this tradition came the black bourgeoisie, or what can be called the “black and bougee” today. While their combined skill and knowledge base cannot be denied, these superlatives were often accompanied with an air of superiority that kept them from reaching the common person in their neighborhoods. They differed from other brilliant African minds like the previously mentioned Drs. Ben and Clarke in this manner; the latter split time between gathering a knowledge base and working with and for their people in an intimate manner, as well as training the next generation to do the same.

Marcus Mosiah Garvey created what is still the single greatest African movement ever founded in the Americas, and he did it by engaging Africans all over with his formidable oratory skills and then following up with strategic organizing. He had a vision of creating self-functioning communities that would lead to a way out of America and back to Africa, for those that wished to go, or a path to the kind of self reliance that a nation within a nation needs to sustain itself. His concept of Pan-Africanism didn't involve hating Europeans, as is the common trope associated with these sort of movements if you let outsiders tell it, but a re-instilling of pride in those of us with a direct African origin. Dr. Clarke compared the history of a people to a clock that gives them their accurate time of day, and a compass to direct them in the way they must go. And we as Africans have precious little to go on, compared to the other people of the world, thanks to the slave trade and how it destroyed the African family unit.

The pose that is known now as the “Wakanda Forever!” is the posture utilized by Ausar, while holding his staff and flail, most commonly seen in busts and Kemetic sarcophagi.

As T'Challa represents the traditional African man, Killmonger represents the African man born in the diaspora, long ago cut loose from the physical shackles of chattel slavery but still bound by the same spiritual and mental chains that prevent a people from their original destiny, in turn taking up the task of carrying out his master's ways and being the reflection of him instead of his Great Mother that nursed the entire planet in her lap.

One thing I keep hearing from moviegoers is how they wanted to see Killmonger have a redemption arc that ended with him ruling at T'Challa's side. This would have been impossible. Throughout the movie, he had no qualms about enacting gross violence towards his people, but especially the women. He starts the film out being violent towards a woman, and even when he is shown with an African woman he seems to care about, he has no problem killing her when she has outlived her usefulness. Such an egregious violation of Ma'at would have been more than enough to get him executed. Then once he becomes the nessu (king) his first act as a regent is to enact violence on an elder (also a woman). This is the sort of spirit and action that you can't just happily-ever-after from in a matrilineal society. He was well beyond redemption and this is what made his last line just as much of a violation; he didn't call on his ancestors once the entire movie, until it fit his purpose. That moment showed he had no interest in being anything they were, and it recalls one of Marcus Garvey's most famous quotes: "I have no desire to take all Black people back to Africa; there are Blacks who are no good here and will likewise be no good there."

The film explores other African motif and imagery (not at all intended to be all-inclusive):

• During the club scene the outfits of T'Challa, Okoye and Nakia mirrored the colors of the Pan-African flag.
• In the final fight scene Killmonger and Black Panther fight on an underground railroad.
• The elders of Wakanda are wearing actual African garb from different African tribes.
• The pose that is known now as the “Wakanda Forever!” is the posture utilized by Ausar, while holding his staff and flail, most commonly seen in busts and Kemetic sarcophagi.
• The Dora Milaje are based on Kemetic warrior queens such as Nzingha, but also on Marcus Garvey's all-woman bodyguard squad and the warrior women of Dahomey

To close, I'd like to thank anyone and everyone that stuck with this thing to the end. I hope you learned something, or at least found something worth thinking about. This is just a surface reflection of what I could go into, but I find that the subject of the history of my people is very rewarding when self researched.

Also I'd like to dedicate this piece to all my mothers, those both here in the now and transitioned. Peace be upon you, and may the universe be pleased with you. Ase, ase, ase-o.

An Interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates

In December of 2015, The Comics Cube received a huge compliment from Ta-Nehisi Coates, who said that the website had been helpful for him in getting started on his first comic. Four months later, he was writing the bestselling comic book of 2016, Black Panther. With the King of Wakanda taking the world by storm with what is so far the third-biggest movie domestically of all time, and with Ta-Nehisi Coates being named the next writer of Captain America, we thought we’d reach out to see how life has led Ta-Nehisi to this point, and what we can expect from his work moving forward.

OF MONARCHS AND PATRIOTS

AN INTERVIEW WITH TA-NEHISI COATES

by Duy Tano

Black Panther Volume 1 in Hardcover

DUY TANO: First of all, I want to thank you so much for the compliments you gave two years ago.

TA-NEHISI COATES: Oh, no, man. I know how it is — I know it’s weird, but you know, I started with this little blog that I had, and I couldn’t really make a living being a writer. And that was a long period, I guess. You know, people love things, and they want to write about things… I don’t know, you shouldn’t forget that. You should remember that. And so even once I got to the point where I could actually make a living, the love was very much still there. So I try to remember there are people out there who make their living doing other things — I don’t know how you make your living, actually! (laughter) —but you want to support people being able to write about things that they love. That’s the point I’m trying to get to.

So when you were growing up, it’s pretty clear that you were a big comics fan. Who were your particular favorites?

You mean heroes or writers?

We’ll start with characters, then we’ll go to writers.

Spider-Man was a big one, and then the X-Men. You know, the old X-Factor from the 80s. That was big. I was a Wolverine guy. This is before Wolverine became what Wolverine became. I mean, he was just getting big, you know what I mean? Like his first series started — not miniseries, the first series — I have Wolverine #1, and it was a big deal, but it wasn’t to the point where he had to appear in every book yet. They hadn’t quite gotten it yet. So I was a huge Wolverine guy.

In terms of writers, you know it’s weird, because back then, I know now who I followed and who I liked, even though I wasn’t aware, because you have to remember, I was a young child, man. I started collecting when I was like eight, nine years old. So I didn’t have awareness of writers. Then I stopped when I was like fourteen and got in high school and got into other things. But at the time, I was a big fan of that Ron Frenz/Tom DeFalco run on Spider-Man.

Yeah!

Loved that. Big Roger Stern guy, from his stuff on The Avengers.

Under Siege!

Oh my God, I loved that. Under Siege was incredible. I was talking to Ed Brubaker the other day and he was giving me advice on Captain America, and he told me to read Roger Stern’s Cap, and I said, man, you gotta read Under Siege. I mean, it’s just ridiculously good. Still. It holds up, you know?

It’s great. You ever read Roger Stern and John Byrne’s Captain America?

Not yet. Not yet. How many issues is it?

It’s like eight issues long, and then they got taken off the book.

That’s what Ed was talking about. He was advising me to go read that, and I haven’t yet, but I will. And also, the first comics I bought was John Byrne’s Fantastic Four. This was one of the first books that was in my collection. I bought that and a Teen Titans issue, but for some reason I just stuck with Marvel.

Is it possible because Marvel was the “cool” brand? In grade school, I remember I was a DC guy and no one else was a DC guy, so I had to get into Marvel too to play along.

Yeah, I didn’t perceive it that way. I think, rightly or wrongly — probably wrongly — I perceived Marvel as having a level of depth. I think back to that first issue I bought, and it’s the one where the Psycho-Man has imprisoned the Fantastic Four, and he’s manipulating She-Hulk’s fear. The whole issue is about She-Hulk getting over that fear and fighting the Psycho-Man. And if you’re nine years old, ten years old, eight years old, however old I was, that’s pretty deep. That has some weight. It’s not just some bang, pow, whatever. And it’s weird, because I think I should have been primed to be a DC guy, because I watched Super Friends a lot when I was a kid, but it just didn’t translate.

Speaking of writers, is there a particular writer you emulate or are inspired by?

At the time?

At the time, and now.

So I think back to all the things I liked when I was a kid, so I guess I was thinking of (Chris) Claremont when I first started. My comic book collecting life has gone through phases, so there’s a very young phase, when I was in elementary or middle school —started elementary, lasted till middle. I don’t think I was eight, I think I was nine or ten. And then there was an adult phase that began when I was about twenty-five, twenty-six, and that was because I found myself in a difficult place in my life and comic books kinda helped with that. And that continued intermittently up until the point when I started collecting. And so when I got the job to write, I had to look at it differently. I had to look at it like a writer. ‘Cause you know, the form changed so much.

Black Panther #9, cover by Brian Stelfreeze and Laura Martin

So when I started Black Panther, there was one person I thought about a lot. It was (Jonathan) Hickman. Hickman’s ambition and imagination was just so vivid and huge, and even when all of the storylines didn’t connect and everything didn’t ultimately flesh out, I didn’t really care. I just liked living in his world. And that’s weird to say, but I liked being there. So I guess this is the beginning of his Avengers run, ‘cause I actually had to go back and read much of that Fantastic Four stuff. But the beginning of his Avengers run, where it’s, all sorts of crazy s*** happens. And it’s probably my favorite Avengers run. ‘Cause I think as comic book fans, a lot of the time, at least on the internet, we tend to be conservative, and we want classic renditions. And his was just so non-classic. And I loved it, so when my turn came to write, I wanted to do something ambitious and big.

Your journalistic and nonfiction writing tackles a lot about the state of current events, racial dynamics, and everything. How does that inform the way you write comics?

It’s usually the same questions. You know, I write a lot about race, right? And racism and white supremacy, but what I’m ultimately writing about is power, and this is the lens with which to see power that most interests me. But when I go over to Black Panther, it’s not about racism or white supremacy. But I’m actually still writing about power. It’s the same thing. And in Captain America, which won’t really in any direct way be about race, racism, or white supremacy either, it’s still about power. It’s still about power, you know? And that just is the most interesting thing to me. That really is probably the connection.

Your Black Panther run does cover a lot of intersectional demographics. You have black LGBTQ characters, for example, and it’s got shades of gray throughout. I was wondering what message it is you hope people take away from such a diverse group of characters and the power dynamics between them? Because quite honestly it could be said that Black Panther in your run isn’t necessarily always right.

Black Panther #12, cover by Brian Stelfreeze and Laura Martin

Yeah, and I want to read stories like that. What made those Claremont books so great is that you weren’t sure Professor X was right. Maybe Magneto really was right. There’s an issue in Jim Shooter’s much-maligned Secret Wars where they think Magneto did something. And Captain America’s going after Magneto, and Wolverine stands up for Magneto. He jumps all over Captain America. He says “You claim to defend America, but we mutants are getting pushed into the sea, and where were you?” And so that always appealed to me about Marvel. That sort of shading. Well, who’s really right here? It’s the protagonist who I’m writing about, but I don’t know that the protagonist can necessarily be objectively, clearly right.

I mean, you’ve seen this debate with the Black Panther film. It’s one of the great things Ryan (Coogler) did, right? People are actually debating, was Kilmonger right? That’s incredible. That’s how you know when you’ve done good.

I feel obliged to ask, since I work in marketing, is there a particular demographic in mind for your target audience? Is it hardcore comics fans, fans who would not necessarily step into a store but would buy it in paperback, minority readers, or just yourself, the type of comics you would’ve wanted to read when you were younger?

I think that’s the answer. It’s twelve-year-old me. (laughter)

That’s the one who’s definitely gonna enjoy it! So in Black Panther, we noticed that you basically recreated the map of Wakanda. Previous maps have existed, but where once they said things like “Deep, uncharted terrain,” you’ve given them Wakandan names and a whole history. Can you elaborate on the importance of having done this?

The modern map of Wakanda

The map that I had seen before was Don McGregor’s map. And Don was the one who really created Wakanda as a world. So I’m in his debt for that. At the same time, it had been about thirty or forty years, so I felt like maybe I could update it a little bit. I wish I had more time! It’s one of the things I’m thinking about right now. We’re going into this intergalactic empire/Wakanda space. And if I could, man, I’m trying to figure out how to design star maps and stuff like that for the galaxy. I have the notes. I got the names for the galaxies that comprise the empire. And it actually took a long time in Photoshop to try to figure out that one map. I don’t have any skills in that at all. I did that myself.

That’s cool!

Yeah, that’s me! And then they went and had their office do the finishing touches and everything. But to figure out things like a star map, that’s the kind of thing I want to work on. Because I want people to feel like they’re immersed in a world, like you’re part of it, like this is a real ongoing thing.

Yeah, the only people right now who I believe are doing that are you and Jason Aaron on Thor.

Yeah, but it’s good. It gives comic book fans a sense of the world being real.

I gotta ask this, because I’m a big Thor fan. But you’re using a lot of gods right now. Is there any chance of a crossover in the near future?

Me and Jason talked about that! Actually, we talked about it with Avengers, because there’s obviously some commonality with Panther and Cap being Avengers. But maybe we should, I don’t know! I love Jason!

That’s great! I hope it works out.

Not a bad suggestion.

So what was it like knowing you were working on Black Panther, you’re the guy bringing it to life every month on the printed page and on digital… and all of a sudden this movie hits. And it’s this huge thing. What was that like for you? How much did it mean to you, for this character to be introduced to this wide new audience?

I would just describe it like this: I was on a plane, coming back from LA, and this stewardess gave me the Wakandan salute. You know, it’s this black woman with dreads, and she just gave me the Wakandan salute. I mean…

Did you tell her you write Black Panther?

She knew! That’s why she gave me that salute. It’s been surreal. I feel like I got an essay about what it was like. It’s been intense. It’s been really, really intense.

And it’s not stopping.

It’s not stopping! It’s not stopping. The best part though for me is how much it has upped the game for what kind of comic books I need to be creating. I gotta do better. I really feel like that. And it’s good to feel like that. It’s good to feel like I really, really got to do better. I mean, this script that I’m working on now, right? It’s like this space battle between these starfighters in the empire. I’ve never done anything like that. And I have to try to do that, to challenge myself to do that.

Ryan’s a great artist, so I haven’t just benefited from the film, but from his friendship. And so I was telling him about how the film has upped the standard of the comic book, and how I wanted to be, just a better writer of fight scenes. And he said to me, why don’t you just write twelve straight issues of just fight scenes? Write as much as possible. And that was just such a tremendous suggestion. To have somebody around you like that, to say something like that. It’s been huge, man.

Is there any directive from Marvel to make the comic characters more in line with the movie versions? I am, of course, thinking of Shuri.

No, not Shuri. I think you might see some spinoffs and limited series that take advantage of that. For the people wanting to see Okoye or wanting to see Shuri. No, on the contrary, there’s an issue out now. It did two things. There’s Okoye making her first appearance, at least in my run, and there’s the actual Wakandan salute from the movie. But that’s me and Leonard (Kirk). You know what I mean? That’s not Marvel saying, hey, Okoye’s really hot right now, you should really put Okoye in the book. It was, man, I saw Okoye in the film and I thought, oh my God, she’s incredible. Like to me she’s the best thing about it. In terms of characters she’s my favorite character in that film.

She’s my girlfriend’s favorite too. I just wanted to say that because she’s in the room right now.

Woo! She’s got the spear, she’s leaping off the balcony, and her dress is flaring. It’s beautiful. It’s really, really beautiful. So I felt more inspired by the film to write stuff and to be a certain way than I felt pressure from Marvel to do it.

That’s great, because I think some creators might feel annoyed when they change too much from the comics.

Nah, Ryan’s gotta do his thing, and it gives me inspiration, you know what I mean?

Moving on to Captain America, what does the idea of writing him mean to you, both as a writer and an African-American person? Because I think you’re the first non-white guy to be writing him as an ongoing, right?

Yeah, I think Christopher Priest did Captain America and the Falcon. So I think there’s some debate about what you consider to be first and what’s official, and all of that. I’m not so concerned about that. I think for me the big honor is… like I read Ed’s Winter Soldier arc years ago. When I was still on Twitter, I could not stop talking about that thing. It was revelatory to me. Not just the Winter Soldier arc, but the Death of Captain America. In a time when people kill off characters for shock value all the time – like I don’t think I’ve killed off anybody in Black Panther yet. And one of the reasons I haven’t is just that it’s done for so much shock value that I haven’t really done it. To actually kill somebody and make a story, a real story out of it, that’s one of my favorite comic book stories, period. That and Winter Soldier put together, those back-to-back arcs, it’s inspiring to be able to take up that character after that. I don’t know, it’s huge.

Like I said in my blog post, just the notion that people think this sort of dude is like Joe Blow nationalisme, you know what I mean? And he’s not. He’s not even that in the movies, if you watch the movies closely. Half the time, he’s fighting against the government, be that taken over by Hydra, be that folks trying to have a registration act, so I don’t know. I’m excited.

I’m very excited for you. Congratulations on that gig.

Thank you.

Captain America #1 cover, out in July, by Alex Ross

Do you find it difficult to follow in the wake of current events with Captain America? Because I think the Hydra storyline is still fresh in people’s minds. I know Mark Waid is trying to get rid of that, but just looking at the internet it looks like a lot of people are still focused on the Hydra Cap thing. Any pressure on getting away from that?

No, no, see, I love continuity. So for me, the fact that Cap was banished to this other universe and there was somebody else using his name, who led Hydra against these heroes and now he has to come back and be Cap, and he has to use that same name, that same face, that same uniform, and to not just regain the trust of his country, but his trust in himself? This is grit for me! This is good storytelling stuff for me. This is the little bits that you make gravy out of from the bottom of the pan.

So no, listen, man, this is a dude whose girlfriend — the love of his life — was sleeping with a clone of his for like a year! What kind of issues must they have? No, forget the issues they must have, what kind of issues does she have herself? You know what I’m saying? This is good stuff! This is really really great stuff.

So much of writing is not in the idea, but in the telling. So I don’t know, I don’t fear that at all.

I’ve noticed that people still call Captain America: The Winter Soldier the best Marvel Cinematic Universe movie, and I think a lot of it is in the telling, like that twist really takes you by surprise.

Yeah it does. You’re exactly right. So many people like that twist. I would actually argue – and Black Panther will threaten this if it gets a trilogy – but to me, just in terms of competence in storytelling, the Captain America movies are probably my favorite.

It’s the best, top to bottom, isn’t it?

Top to bottom, one, two, three. It has an amazing level of consistency. It’s certainly my favorite superhero one, but I put it right up there with Star Wars. Star Wars is more epic, more sprawling, but I think just in terms of even quality of movies? One, two, three is pretty damn good for Captain America.

Yeah, I think the first movie is really underrated.

Oh, that first movie is hellaciously underrated. I watched it recently. It’s a really solid movie, a really, really solid movie. Perfect casting. Chris Evans, he’s got him. The first one is really underrated.

Chris Evans has got him in a way I don’t think anyone else has got their characters.

I would even say Downey on Stark. Downey on Stark is really good, but Chris Evans, he’s got him. He’s got him.

I live in the Philippines, so I definitely have to ask this for my Filipino readers. What’s it like working with Leinil Yu?

Oh man, Leinil is incredible. He’s incredible. I wish you guys could see some of his stuff. You’ll see it soon enough. I was telling him yesterday – he sent some pencils in. This is a pretty heavy storyline we’re trying to tell, and there’s this emotional weight and power that he brings. It’s beyond anything that I’ve worked with, I’ll just say that.

And you’ve worked with some very good artists.

Yeah, (Brian) Stelfreeze is incredible, he’s absolutely incredible. And I don’t want to be in the habit of comparing people, but weight is what I think of. Gravitas, almost, that he brings to these things.

Can you give us a short preview as to what things we can expect from your Captain America run? Which villains are gonna show up, which themes are you gonna tackle?

Well, I think the first arc is all about trust. Does Cap trust himself? Do people around him trust him? And does America trust him? What is America? What is he actually captain of? What is he returning to? That’s what I’ll say, ‘cause I gotta be careful.

And are there plans of a Captain America/Black Panther crossover at some point?

Um…we’ll see.

Thank you very much for the time.

No problem.

RIP Debra Jane Shelly

Duy: Yesterday, the Cube lost a good friend.

Debra Jane Shelly was not a creator, nor was she involved in any way in the production of comics. She was a researcher at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. But she really loved comics. Her partner, Kevin Boyd, runs the Comic Book Lounge and Gallery in Toronto. She occasionally helped out there.

Debra and the Cube go way back. Anyone who's ever started a website will tell you it's hard to get an audience. The first time the Cube saw a big spike was when it was plugged on Facebook by Keiren Smith, colorist, letterer, and beloved spouse of Ty Templeton. Via the magic of Facebook, Debra Jane, their friend, got on my Facebook page and, eventually, on my friends list, and we ended up talking quite a bit. She was incredibly nice, incredibly fair. She was fun to talk to. First, we talked comics, then we talked about stuff. Just general stuff. To the extent that you can be close to someone without ever having actually met them — and I believe that's not only possible but rather very easy; I've never met Ben and Travis and Kimberly and they write for the Cube — Debra was as close as it got. She knew more about me than some people in my daily life did, and I knew I could trust her. I confided in her when I had problems, and I constantly found myself using exclamation points and smiley faces when talking to her, things I rarely do. But it was genuine. And even though I didn't read the same comics she read, for the most part, and we didn't love the same things, we had enough of an overlap that we could really talk comics all day. But we knew each other well enough that if we did have to talk all day, we didn't have to stick to comics. Although now I'm feeling like I should give Love and Rockets another shot, just for Debra Jane.

One anecdote before I turn this over to the others. In March 2012, I saw that my favorite artist, George Perez, was at a convention in Toronto, and was offering quick head sketches for a price. I contacted Debra, who was working the convention (apart from just helping out, because she had a law background, she could notarize CGC comics), about getting me one, and she said okay, but when I was about to place the request, the list was already filled up. After the convention, Debra showed me this:

She went over to George, flashed that smile of hers that's in pretty much every picture of hers, and asked really nicely if she could have a sketch of Captain Marvel and Mr. Mind for her friend in the Philippines. It was very sweet. Because of the way shipping works, I only received the sketch recently. I'll always remember her when I look at it.

Two weeks ago, I deactivated my Facebook account temporarily, and only told a few people. She was one of the people I told, and it is a little surreal to think that me saying goodbye on what was our primary mode of communication was our actual, final goodbye. More, Ben's final column on the Chris Claremont/John Byrne X-Men run was supposed to go up today. It had, in it, a bunch of Wolverine and Alpha Flight. Canadians, basically. So Ben filled it up with Canada jokes, and he did it because he knew Debra read his column regularly, every Monday, every word.  She won't get to laugh at those jokes now. But we will remember her, whenever we make fun of Alpha Flight, or the Toronto Raptors.

Even more than with me, though, Debra eventually became really close to Ben. She called Ben her bro, a brother she never had (Edit: I realize this originally made it sound like Debra did not have a brother. This is not the case. Shortly before Deb passed away, her brother Greg had daughter, Sidney).  When Ben was in Afghanistan for six months, facing pressure I can't begin to imagine, she was there to listen and to prop him up every chance she got. When Ben came back from the Middle East, she told me she was holding her breath in suspense, and when he got off the plane to hug Kimberly and their kids, Debra told me she actually cried. It says a lot about her that she could feel so much empathy and love for people she only ever spoke to over the internet, and explains why we, as a group, the Comics Cube, could feel so much empathy and love for her.

Last night, I and a bunch of guys here, in the Philippines, who interacted with her a lot met up, impromptu, to drink in her honor. We miss you already, Debra. You'll always be a part of the Cube. My heart goes out to your little corner of Toronto. Rest in peace.

Ben: It isn’t fair.

About three years ago I was invited to join an online comic book group.  Ever since then I’ve been fortunate to become friends with a wide and varied group of individuals, all with a shared passion for comics.  One of the most special of those friends was Debra Jane Shelly.  Debra Jane Shelly was one of the kindest people you’d ever have the chance to meet.  (She had the kind of name I always had to say in full.)  She quickly became my adopted big sister.  I suspect she was probably a big sister to all of the people that knew her.

Debra Jane Shelly was one of the most supportive people I’ve ever known.  There wasn’t any good reason for her to be so supportive of me, that’s just how she was.  For all my sarcasm, and occasionally bad behavior online, she always stuck up for me, and was there to take my side.  It got to the point where anytime I had gotten into some super stupid internet argument, the first thing I’d do is message her and apologize.  I didn’t want her to be disappointed in me, so I had to explain myself beforehand.  She was always reassuring and confident that the other person had it coming.  She believed in me, again, for no real good reason.  Like a big sister, she wasn’t afraid to boot the troublemakers out for messing with us.  She was a great friend.

Debra Jane Shelly was always there for me to talk to when times were tough.  When I was supposed to deploy to Afghanistan and miss the birth of my son, she did what she could to make me feel better.  When that assignment got cancelled, she was as happy as anyone.  When another assignment came a few months later, she supported me before, during, and after.  Always checking in to make sure I was okay, always with words of encouragement and her boundless enthusiasm.  When I returned home safe, I could feel her joy through the screen.

Debra Jane Shelly loved our boys.  Not only am I sad that I will never get the chance to properly meet her in person, I’m even more sad she’ll never get to meet them.  Out of all the endless amounts of pictures that we posted of our boys online, she commented on most of them.  I’m sure she would have spoiled them senseless.

Debra Jane Shelly will be sorely missed.  My condolences to her family, and to Kevin.  She made the people around her, and the world, better with her positivity and kindness.  I’ll never be the kind of person that she was, but at least from having known her, I can try.    

Travis: I’m avoiding writing anything about Debra Jane Shelly, because I don’t want to draw up borders on her. Her awesome exceeds my ability to delineate or express said awesome. While I procrastinated, I saw a picture Duy Tano posted of Tom Hiddleston lifting a kid dressed as a superhero, and thought about all the nice things Debra might have said about that pic. Over half the things I have seen or heard since news of her death reached me, have reminded me of Debra. Heck, I picked up the copy of The Crow I just bought the other week, and it fell open to “The Woman Who Was Shelly.”

Months back, I started getting email notifications that Debra was liking my posts. Either she liked some twenty posts one after the other, or kept liking, unliking, liking the same one. My friend looked over my shoulder at the growing notifications and said, “That Debra really likes you.”

Debra liked me! Debra approved of something I posted! I understood just then how the nuns at Saint Catherine’s Indian School wanted us to feel when they would tell us to “remember, Jesus loves you.”

I don’t constantly lionize her, I’m not now. I accept that she was really cool, and – at least online – very level-headed. She was funny, and sharp, and witty, she cared so much, and she could be so patient that I inevitably tried to keep up and be just as patient. Talking with people, seeing the newest posts on her facebook wall, or things in my email, I understand that she was a guide for many who knew her, a gauge. Debra is cooler than than my conscience, because, if anything, she’s got the better smile (that smile!), and I will periodically reflect, “Debra wouldn’t do that” and alter my behavior accordingly, for the rest of my life.

And, I wasn’t close. I surely don’t know those closest to her, her family or immediate neighbors, her partner, Kevin, or even those who’d have recognized her just because they work the counter somewhere she frequented during the week. She had a profound effect on me; I won’t try to feel the effect she’d have on those closest, out of fairness to them, and fairness to her. But, I wish them all the best in the world, and all the comfort the world can afford.

I said it elsewhere, when blathering about how I was going to post something Loki-related for her and then wondered suddenly if everyone was pulling a “Debra is dead” joke and I was just too slow to get it, but for all that saying someone is in a better place might be trite, wherever Debra is now, is undoubtedly a better place. Any place is better, because Debra is there.

Kimberly:  In loving memory of Debra Jane Shelly

The sun sets on this day
The wheel turns
Your essence rides the light
Your body returns to star dust
We are all mere mortals but eternal in our existence
Your soul will know the meaning of life again

What Happened to Della Duck?

What Happened to Della Duck?

by Duy

This is the Donald Duck family tree, courtesy of Don Rosa in his Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck.

Click to enlarge.

Notice anything? Here, lemme zoom in.

So over there, we've got Scrooge, with his sisters Hortense and Matilda. Hortense McDuck married Quackmore Duck, and she gave birth to twins, Donald and Della. Donald of course is the uncle of Huey, Dewey, and Louie, making them Della's kids with — who the hell is that guy that bird is in the way of?

The first time the kids were shown in 1937 in a Sunday strip by  Ted Osborne and Al Taliaferro, we're introduced to them via a letter from Donald's "cousin" Della, in which she tells Donald to take care of the kids for a while.

Of course, she wouldn't be Donald's cousin for long, and she quickly became Donald's sister in family trees by Barks, even if she was called "Thelma" in one of them.


Anyway, when Rosa did his big Scrooge McDuck timeline in Life and Times, there was a period when Scrooge roamed around the world building his empire. In that period, Hortense gave birth to the twins.

Scrooge sent his family away right after that (with little Donald giving him a literal kick in the butt), and the next time Scrooge meets Donald, Donald's already got custody of the kids. Huey, Dewey, and Louie just say something cryptic.

This is never followed up on, ever.

Now, it's been suggested by some, even Don Rosa himself, that Della ended up marrying one of Daisy Duck's brothers, which is how come she's "Aunt Daisy" to the boys, but as far this was never worked into a story. As for what happened to Della, that is a mystery and will likely remain so. It's been explained that there's no way for such an explanation to not end up as really depressing, since she's probably either dead or a negligent mother. Rosa goes into more detail on his Facebook page:

For the entire 20+ years I was creating Barks Duck stories, fans would always beg me to tackle the question of what happened to the parents of Huey, Dewey & Louie (hereafter "HD&L"). And I thought long and hard about how to go about it. What would the possible plot resolutions be? I could think of four.

1) HD&L go on an epic search for their lost parents. They never find a trace. There's no point to the story! Nix. 2) HD&L go in search of their parents, and discover they are dead. Depressing and pointless. Nix. 3) HD&L go in search of their parents, and find them! Alive and well! So... they go to live with their parents rather than staying with Unca Donald? I can't do that! That would threaten to rend the very fabric of the universe! Nix! 4) HD&L go in search of their parents, and find them! But... they stay living with Unca Donald? Rather than with their own parents? I can't do that! That would be depressing and probably result in all manner of litigation and paternity suits and I don't know what. Nix.

He continues:

Is there a #5? I had one in mind as far back as 1990 when I first went to work for Egmont and learned that (unlike America) Europe was an entire continent of Barks Duck lovers who wanted someone, anyone to tell this tale. I even put a scene into the storyboard-script for one of my first Egmont stories that would hint at this 5th possibility. But I did not include it in the finished version of the story because it would still have been very problematic as to how to deal with such the plot or its final outcome.

It feels very "wrong" for me to discuss this with a detailed explanation. I prefer to simply let people see the storyboard-script of the deleted scene and let them decide for themselves. Besides, I never thought it out beyond that scene. It appeared in the HALL OF FAME and in an even more complete version was in the DON ROSA COLLECTION. Mikkel (above) has apparently seen it.

Maybe Jano can copy it over and show it here? And that's all I will say about it.

Here's the deleted scene:

It's a strong hint, but at the end of the day, it's one of those unsolved comics mysteries, and it'd be great if we could find out what happened!

Hey, since Don Rosa was the first great Duck artist after Barks and made his reputation on piecing together the life of Scrooge McDuck, maybe the next great Duck artist will be the one who explains this one loose end!

As a side note, a few of my friends have suggested it's a certain Duck, Howard the.

So as I finished writing this, I ran into this piece by Chris Sims, where he basically said the same things. Go read it!

Update: I found this online, an unofficial Rosa-drawn family tree. As you can see, there are some changes. We actually see the boys' dad, but he's still unnamed. But most importantly, Rosa says Matilda is married to Ludwig Von Drake, who I always thought was awesome! (And he appeared all of once in Barks' stuff. Boo!)

You can read The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck here!

What I Learned from Multiple Supermen

Last week seemed like Superman week, and a bunch of stuff happened. It was Superman's 75th birthday (Happy birthday, Superman!), the Siegel lawsuit against DC for the ownership of Superman finally ended, and the new Superman: Man of Steel trailer came out. The most interesting thing to me was what a friend said in relation to that trailer:

I wonder if general audiences are more forgiving of characters that aren't as recognizable. Everyone has a preconceived notion of who Superman and Batman are so if they screw that up, it's much more critical. I don't think general audiences came in with a strong preconceived notion of who Thor, Hawkeye, and even Captain America are. I didn't really, so I was more ready to accept their version. I think it's a unique problem that makes Superman especially harder.

And that got me thinking, because she was right. We do tend to judge fiction by what we've seen before—I know someone who has never read a Spider-Man comic in her life, but judged last year's Amazing Spider-Man movie harshly because (and I'm not kidding about this) it didn't follow the exact same story in the Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies (never mind the fact that it couldn't have and that would have been storyline suicide), right down to Tobey Maguire's more built body in comparison to Andrew Garfield. And even if we try not to judge by those standards, we still assume people do—a friend told me that I didn't like the Nolan Batman movies because it didn't live up to my views of Batman, which I just thought was weird because I grew up with at least three or four different versions of Batman, and my problems with the Nolan Batman movies are problems I would have with any movies, or any works of fiction, for that matter.

You could make the argument that there is a correct version of Harry Potter, or maybe even Captain Marvel considering that no interpretation of his past the Golden Age has been anywhere near as critically or commercially successful, even if you scale down to relative fan sizes (the most popular hero of a generation, or a backup hero meant to entice hardcore fans? Not a comparison), and even that's already an argument. Don Rosa's Scrooge McDuck may be the closest thing to Carl Barks' Scrooge McDuck, but no one says the Scrooge McDucks not done by Barks and Rosa aren't "real." Cranky, miserly Scrooge McDuck who does whatever he can to not show emotion in the Barks comics is as "real" as the cranky, miserly Scrooge McDuck who's more open with his feelings in Duck Tales.

But for someone like Batman or Superman, it just seems silly. There may be wrong interpretations, but there isn't just one correct interpretation. It's impossible, and it goes against one of the greatest strengths of these characters: their adaptability.

When I was a kid, I was inundated with a lot of Superman material. These included, in no particular order because I actually can't remember the order I got these in, the Christopher Reeve Superman movies (complete with a comic adaptation of III), a digest reprinting Silver Age Superman stories, scattered issues of John Byrne's Superman, the Super Powers Superman action figure with the minicomic, Jack Kirby's Super Powers comic, and a bunch of Bronze Age comics, including Superman vs. Spider-Man: The Battle of the Century. What did these versions of Superman have in common? Well, aside from the suit, him coming from the planet Krypton, the basic power package, his secret identity as Clark Kent, and Lois Lane? Almost nothing.

And when you look at all the different versions of Superman, you can see there are many choices to be made, many aspects to his personality that need defining.  To name a few:

• Do you use clumsy Clark Kent like Christopher Reeve, or do you use hard-boiled get-the-story Clark Kent like George Reeves?
• Is Krypton a scientifically advanced utopia, like in the Silver Age, or a too-scientifically-advanced and emotionless planet of detached and disconnected people, like in Byrne's version?
• Did Superman come to Earth as a baby, as in most versions, or as a full-fledged grownup, as in the radio show?
• Are Clark Kent and Lois Lane married, dating, or stuck in that Clark-Lois-Superman triangle where Lois doesn't even know his dual identity?
• Is Clark Kent a newspaper reporter, a TV anchor, or anything else that has to do with the news?
• Does the S stand for Superman because Ma Kent made the suit, or does it stand for hope in Kryptonese?
• Does Superman embrace his Kryptonian heritage, as he does a little too much before Crisis on Infinite Earths, or does he, as Byrne established, place the Earth so far above it that Kryptonian culture ultimately doesn't matter to him?
• What's with kryptonite? Are there multiple colors and are they plentiful, or is there only green and it's rare?
• Does Superman kill when he has to, as Byrne made him do in a well-received story involving Phantom Zone criminals, or does he absolutely never kill?
• Are Ma and Pa Kent alive or dead? Or is Ma Kent alive and Pa Kent is dead? Which is it?
• Can he fly or only jump an eighth of a mile?
• Was he Superboy when he was younger or wasn't he?

Charles Schulz, the creator of Peanuts, apparently went on record that DC ruined Superman the moment they gave him flight. It sounds so preposterous now, because flight is so ingrained in our image of him, but there was a time when he couldn't fly and apparently that was a big enough deal that at least one person thought changing that power ruined him. And this is a pure preference—that's his version of Superman, the one he thinks is ideal. It's not wrong to prefer it. It can't be.

My ideal version of Superman? The really powerful version with a Fortress of Solitude in the arctic, complete with the Bottled City of Kandor and multiple versions of Kryptonite, who loves Krypton but also loves Earth, and has accepted that the Earth is his home now. Ma and Pa Kent are both alive, and he's married to Lois. Clark Kent is a hard-boiled reporter and not a clumsy act, Lex Luthor is a businessman, Brainiac is from Krypton, and Superman doesn't kill—ever. Other superheroes can kill when they feel they have no choice and their hands are pushed, but Superman will not, and things will be fine, because that's the Superman in my head. He always finds a better way. And guess what? That Superman has never been published, ever. It's just too specific a version. There are too many factors.

Some want a more human, more relatable Superman, and while I don't get the appeal of that at all, it's still what they want, and variations of it have been known to work. Maybe not for me, but they worked. People really love that Byrne run, and Smallville did run for 10 seasons.

And I guess that's what I learned from growing up with multiple versions of Superman. There is no "right way" to do him. There are many wrong ways to do him—I think we can all agree, for example, that the infamous Kevin Smith anecdote where Jon Peters told him to make sure the Superman in his movie didn't fly, didn't wear a suit, and had to fight two polar bears and a giant spider would have been a bad idea.

It's SO funny though.

But for a right way? There isn't one. Superman has at least two classic versions: the very powerful version who's surrounded by fantastic trappings and who lets humanity find themselves, or the less powerful and more grounded version who tackles more social injustice than otherwordly evil. These two versions are not compatible. They cannot coexist at the same time. They could, perhaps, be different endpoints for the arc of the same character, but all those traits all at once? They don't mix. They can't mix. They're contradictory. Superman can't say "We need to let humanity fight its own battles" and then punch a lobbyist. He can't say he misses Krypton and then say he doesn't care about Krypton in the same story. Superman can have diametrically opposite versions and they can work. Superman is an adaptable character, but unlike someone like Spider-Man, who can adapt as the same character over time, Superman has to be rebuilt because his character aspects are so either/or that there really is no middle ground. The same is true of Batman.

I think they key is to hone in on the pulse of your intended audience. That's what Siegel and Shuster did back in 1938, when they introduced Superman as a two-fisted champion of the oppressed who took the law into his own hands and even fought corporate lobbyists, because America was still in a depression and people needed that kind of proactive attitude. It was only a few years later when Superman got turned into the perfect All-American boy, complete with eagle on his arm, which reflected America's role in World War II. Christopher Reeve gave the world a hero to admire in the midst of a time when they were cynical about it, but that same approach didn't work 20 years later when they tried it with Superman Returns. (And what were they thinking putting the star of Action Comics in a  movie with barely any action?) But even Brandon Routh's Superman is a Superman, as valid and as real as the rest of them; he was just the Superman in a really underwhelming movie.

It's obviously easier said than done, and sometimes it'll work and sometimes it doesn't, but I think the phrase "That's not Superman!" should be used in a more sparing fashion. Sometimes it's true, but more times, it's not. There's just no such thing as a "correct" Superman, and liking one version doesn't preclude you from liking the others. There are almost always pieces in any version that you like or don't like. The Man of Steel trailer may not have done anything for me, but I'm still glad he's actually, you know, punching someone in it. I love the zaniness of the Bronze Age Superman, but think it went too far sometimes, like that one time Clark Kent actually ate his costume to hide it and then said at the end of the story that it will come out all right (seriously, ew). I may not have liked what John Byrne did with Superman, but he laid a good enough foundation that I enjoyed the work of subsequent creators, especially Roger Stern's.

There's more than one way to do things. And there's nothing wrong with accepting multiple interpretations of one character. Maybe we shouldn't be so stringent about how we think these characters should be like, and maybe we should learn to let go when a writer doesn't capture our vision—after all, it's his vision, not ours. And there's nothing wrong with liking more than one version. My favorite time to have been a Superman fan since I was a kid was in 2007, when Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely were doing All-Star Superman and Geoff Johns and Gary Frank were doing Action Comics. Both Supermen were different characters, and I loved both and wanted them both to continue. All-Star was the closest version to the one in my head, but Action was the one I was showing non-comics-reading friends, because it just had such wide, primal appeal.

Maybe, instead of sticking hard and fast to our ideal versions of a character like Superman, we should be celebrating his adaptability, and encouraging DC Comics to put out multiple versions instead of pushing one "real" version. Because there is no one real Superman; just a collection of trappings that make up any version of Superman. And as long as those trappings are satisfied, it's all "real."And as long as an interpretation speaks to the target audience, then it deserves some room to breathe. Even contradictory ones, at the same time.

Interview: Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez

Last week saw the release of The Adventures of Superman: Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, featuring, as far as I know, the first collection devoted to the man who's likely known best as DC's licensing/merchandising artist. (One of the things he's best known for is the 1982 DC Style Guide, and he still does some of the model sheets today.)

Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez has always been one of my favorite artists, both in terms of drawing iconic poses and in terms of sequential interior artwork. So I grabbed that collection up, and it's some really good Bronze Age fun, with one of my favorite artists drawing one of my favorite versions of Superman.

So I decided to chat with Mr. Garcia-Lopez via Facebook and ask him some questions about his work, what he's proud of, the Superman collection, and of course, what's he's up to.


Comics Cube: You've drawn quite a number of characters over the years. Which one is your favorite to draw?

One of Garcia-Lopez's works
he's most proud of is
Cinder and Ashe, which he
did with Gerry Conway

JLGL: The ones I've created are my favorites for obvious reasons, followed by Batman, Jonah Hex, Deadman, and Wonder Woman.

As I'm sure many of your fans do, I think of you as the "face" of DC Comics due to your licensing work, which, by its very nature, doesn't explictly credit you. One of the comments I got most often when I wrote that article on your work a couple of years ago was "I've seen those drawings all my life, but I never knew who drew them!" Do you ever wish you got more recognition for this aspect of your work from more casual fans, or even from hardcore comics fans?

My comics production has been minimal and even less in recent years, so yes, anything that promotes my work in those licensing drawings are welcome for professional reasons.

What goes into an iconic pose? How do you pose, for example, Superman or Captain Marvel, and say, "Yes, that's it. That's them, and that's the image that should go on a kids' backpack"?

Most of these characters—at least the big ones like Superman, Wonder Woman,or Batman—were around before I was born, so we are not working in a vacuum. We already know what poses work better according to the characters' personalities. Anyway, the rules governing these pieces are different from the comic books. They are not directed to a regular comic fan but to a more general audience, one that is not familiar with the latest changes in comics and looks at these characters as something not different from a Coca-Cola logo, for instance. Usually I do at least three sketches for each pose, and the Art Director, Merchandising Manager, and a bunch of other people have the last word over what pose is going to finish.

An example of Garcia-Lopez's merchandising/pin-up work.

I've also noticed that some pieces of yours incorporate words. Does incorporating words or logos into a graphic take a different kind of mental process, or is it all part of the same kind of thoughts that go into designing?

The only pieces that I did integrating lettering and design elements were the ones I did for the first DC Style Guide in 1982. I presented those layouts as a whole and they were approved without any major alteration. Nowadays I concentrate only in the poses and then they are used with different backgrounds and graphic designs ,mostly digital during the last decade.


What is your penciling process like when doing a full story? While you don't do a lot of interior work, but your layouts and sense of composition are so dynamic without feeling cluttered. You break panel borders and do unconventional things (one of my favorites is the one where Wonder Woman throws Superman to a wall, and all the action is outside the panels — it really gives a sense of kinetic energy). I have to ask, how much thought do you put in when it comes to laying out a page? Do those storytelling decisions just come naturally or instinctively, or is it a more cerebral process?


There's nothing special. When I read the script or plot a couple of times, I can visualize right away the sequences and take note of references I'd need. Then comes the page layout. At the beginning I just concentrate in telling that story sequence in the best possible way. This is a very rough stage. When I feel happy with the way I can "read" the drawings, then I start playing with bigger or smaller panels or taking a character outside the panel lines to give more emphasis to the action. Everything is very intuitive. The basic rule here is no matter the way you do it, never betray the spirit of the script.

Garcia-Lopez is fond of
Twilight, which he did with
Howard Chaykin

If you had to choose just one comic book that you've drawn that really defines your skills, which one would it be?

I have at least three books I consider my favorites for different reasons. One is Twilight, the others Cinder and Ashe and Road to Perdition. The first has a lot of visual tricks to enhance the some way complicated story, while the others are straight storytelling. No fancy layouts there. You just have to read the books and not being distracted with pin-ups or splash pages.

If the day ever comes that you walk away from DC Comics, what other iconic characters (it doesn't have to be Marvel) would you like to tackle? Would you be interested in creator-owned material?

I've never intend to do "iconic" characters. They just came my way, that's all. So, I'd be open to anything that may allow me to draw and tell stories.

Can you say a few words about the Superman collection that's coming out soon? What are your fondest memories of it? What is your favorite story in it? And how does it feel seeing it in print after all these years?

Well, it's a nostalgia trip showing "the ugly, the bad, and the good." I grew up as an superhero artist doing Superman, and the first works are quite weak, but thanks to editors like Julius Schwartz or Joe Orlando and their confidence on me, I could get, finally, a some way decent Superman. All stories are good, but my favorite is Superman and Deadman. Besides the great Len Wein story, I was more confident at that time with these characters and I think it shows in this particular work.

Garcia-Lopez is also very proud of
his work on Road to Perdition.

Are there any writers in particular you'd like to work with?

I've been lucky to work always with talented writers and if I tell you names I'd risk forgetting some of them.

What can we expect in terms of full comic book work in the foreseeable future?

Not too much, I'm sorry to say. I'm not good material for keeping a schedule in a regular book, so I concentrate more in licensing/merchandising stuff and in comics just one short story here and there. Nowadays I'm working in a couple of Western stories with a character named Madame 44.

Finally, I just want to say thank you again for taking the time to answer my questions. You've been one of my favorite artists since I was a child and I first read the Batman/Hulk crossover, and you continue to be. My friend has what he calls that "Garcia-Lopez Law of Awesomeness," which means that "As long as it's awesome, it's okay if it doesn't make sense," because I once said that I don't care if Batman kicking Hulk in the stomach is ridiculous — you just drew it so convincingly that I still buy into it. So thank you again.

Well, thank you!


Get Adventures of Superman: Jose Luis-Garcia Lopez on Amazon!

Get Cinder and Ashe on Amazon!