Here is yet another older article of mine that appeared some years back on another web page with which I am no longer associated. It has been my intention to bring that older work here, and with this article I have now brought over all the articles from that other site.
As writers, we are told to “write what you know.” Which is a
pretty nifty trick when you consider that we — as funnybook writers — write
about green-hued monsters, men from other planets who can fly, billionaires
wrapped in Iron, ageless mutants with razor-sharp claws, brilliant scientists
with the proportionate strength of an arachnid, and yes, even pre-teen girls
who morph into killer werewülves. Yeah, like we know
a whole bunch about all that, eh? Well, the sad truth is that while we don’t
really know so much (or as much as we would like) about having powers and
abilities far beyond those of mortal men, we do each know quite a bit about the
everyday ordinariness of our own lives.
Well, taking this lesson to heart, writer, artist, and
publisher Joe Martino determined to write about the one thing he perhaps (and
unfortunately) knew best. Joe, as it turns out, he had cancer — twice. That’s the
bad news; the good news is that he beat it both times it showed up in his body,
but at a very terrible cost. Cancer, you see, not only cost Martino his peace of
mind as well as a couple of sections of his kidney, but his first marriage as
well. Needless to say, there were quite a few very dark days for Martino during
that terrible time. Still — to corrupt a cliché — the thing that did not kill
him actually helped make him a much stronger writer.
Martino found a way to turn his personal journey through the
Hell of cancer into his teen-aged passion for comicbook superheroes. As a teen
he discovered the joy of comics and as an adult he turned that escapist
entertainment into a way to work his way through his own pain. His first couple
of forays into comics took the forms of a hero that tread the ground between
this world and the next (Ripperman), and
a traditional superhero replete with powers from an alien race (Shadowflame),
both of which were published by Arcana. From there, Martino
determined that he wanted to continue producing comics, but decided that he
wanted to publish them himself and created JGM Comics, which became the home of
his latest creation, The Mighty Titan.
Starting in April 2013 Martino formed a publishing
partnership with publisher, Dave Ryan and brought his creations to Red Anvil Comics.
The Mighty Titan is a typical superhero cut from the same
cloth as are the best of costumed heroes. He is the pinnacle of the pantheon of
those heroes, like Philip Wylie’s Gladiator,
or Henry W. Ralston and John L. Nanovic’s Doc
Savage. Titan though, is replete with powers and abilities akin to
those of Superman, the regal presence of Thor, along with the magic of Captain
Marvel. Then, so as not to overuse the Metro New York locale, Martino
determined to cast his hero in a different zip code, and he had his hero call
Chi-Town his home. That’s right, even though Martino is a New Jersey native he
felt that Manhattan had enough heroes protecting it, so, Chicago became Titan’s
kind of town. Just as every good hero needs his own major nemesis, Titan finds
himself clashing over and over again with Trenchmouth, an evil ex-Nazi
scientist. During one particular battle, however, Titan realizes he doesn’t
quite feel like himself, which is where our story begins.
Still, while all of the previous paragraph sounds pretty
much like every other hero you’ve ever seen, Martino’s story veers off from the
beaten path of “traditional” superheroes (or “Superiors” as Martino has come to
call the enhanced heroes in his universe of characters). According to Martino, his newest creation is a superhero concept with a unique twist that brings his
own story into focus — Titan, you see, also has cancer. “The story essentially
takes the experience I personally went through with cancer and wraps them up in
a superhero shell,” Martino tells us. This then becomes the “write what you
know” part of Martino’s work; given that Martino himself has survived cancer
(again, not once, but twice — causing some of his friends to think of him as
some sort of mutant himself) he felt it important to write that into the story,
in order to “survive” it again. “This isn’t autobiographical,” Martino stated.
“I have researched and talked to other cancer survivors to try and get the
feeling of what other people have experienced.”
Martino initially developed the idea for the series in 2004
when he was struggling through his first bout with kidney cancer. “It was a
very difficult decision to take some of my personal experiences and put them
down on paper in order to entertain people and possibly allow them to have a
glimpse into what some of us go through while battling this potentially deadly
disease,” Martino explained. Needless to say while Titan’s story most assuredly
does have some very serious aspects to it, it is still a very cool — and yes,
even fun — superhero comicbook that is full of dire villains, giant mechas, as
well as some truly great mythological creatures.
What Titan experiences is in Martino’s words, “What it feels
like to be invulnerable, and then, suddenly never being able to feel that way
again.” The Mighty Titan is suddenly tasked with not only having to be able to
save the world; but needing to be able to save himself as well. According to
Martino, the book explores themes of fear, loss, pain, and ultimately the
perseverance of the hero himself due to courage and determination. Titan is a
hero of great power and strength, but he is also cast as someone who reminds us
that we all have great weaknesses, and that we all can be destroyed. Still
Titan (and by extension, Martino) also provides us all with great hope. For it
is when we feel at our weakest, when we’re not sure whether or not we can make
it through our darkest hours, it is uplifting superhero tales like this one
that remind us that we can be saved, and that hope is not
lost.
Characters, Story and Content of The Mighty
Titan, Ripperman and Shadowflame are Trademark ™
& Copyright © 2014 & 2024 Joe Martino. The text to Funnybook City is
Copyright © 2014 & 2024 Robert J. Sodaro, D.B.A. Freelance Ink. All rights reserved by
their respective owners.
Robert J. Sodaro is a noted comicbook historian and journalist who began reading comics during the early ‘60s while sitting on the newsstand in his Uncle’s Mom & Pop grocery store. He began writing about comics in the early ‘80s and wrote for virtually every print comicbook publication published during the ‘80s & ‘90s.
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