Stories That Were Never Told That We Wish We Had Read

Gary Cohn and his longtime friend and writing partner, Dan Mishkin, entered the comicbook industry together in 1980 following correspondence with Jack C. Harris, an editor over at DC Comics. That first work—drawn by Steve Ditko—was the three-page short story On the Day of His Return" which appeared in Time Warp #3 (Feb.–March). This initial sale was soon followed by the team creating Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld with artist Ernie Colón then going on (with Paris Cullins) to create Blue Devil. Cohn and artist Ron Randall co-created the Barren Earth.

From there Cohn has gone on to write for several other comicbook companies, including Archie, Crusade, Marvel, Mattel, and Renegade Press. He also wrote several stories for William Tucci's Crusade Comics including an intercompany crossover between Crusade's Shi and Marvel Comics' Daredevil. Cohn also wrote three Hardy Boys and two Nancy Drew novels. After a while, Cohn left comics and became a teacher at the Information Technology High School in Long Island City, retiring in 2017.

Needless to say, just knowing what Gary did over the years as a comicbook writer, isn’t to know all of it, just recently he published a comicbook-sized “memoir” of work he pitch, but for one reason or another never wound up in publication. The book, The Will-Be’s that Weren’t is nothing short of an amazing look back into things that Gary had pitched to various publishers but were never published, even though (now that we’ve read this book) we wish that they had been.

This book is a collection of at least three projects that Gary pitched that got through various stages of production, from proposal, to outline, to script, to pencils, to inks, to lettered pages. Behind each and every project, Gary provides a backstory the names of his collaborators, as well as sketchy details about what company and editor passed on the project (all names have been altered to protect those that were involved). The three projects are referred to as El Demon, Hellrazers, and Bete Noire.

First up is El Demon. As Gary tells the talk, back when he was writing for Big Corporate Comics (which he refers to as BC—draw your own conclusions as to whom it really was). Gary pointed out that during those days there were essentially two games in town, BC and Phenomenal Comics about which he pitched story ideas. From there, Gary went on to obliquely describe a couple of BC characters before launching into his description of El Demon, whom he described as a Zorro copy with a supernatural gimmick.

To Phenomenal, he pitched an idea about their ghostly western character, “Weird Rider”, (again not the real name), that had been updated from riding a horse to a motorcycle. Unfortunately, his take on “Weird Rider” didn’t fly, so he revamped it into his El Demon concept and took it back to BC. This is one story that went from a pitch to a proposal, to an illustrated story, but that’s where it unfortunately ended, as the story was never published. Fortunately for us, Gry still had all of the various stages of this process which he reprinted in this tome with truly amazing art by Ron Randall.

Next up is Hellrazers, which was a pitch to add to Phenomenal’s futuristic 2222universe. According to Gary, the Hellrazers was based off a concept he had a decade earlier called The Others. Calling once again upon Randall, Gary pitched his revised concept to a Phenomenal editor (Bobby M). Once again, it unfortunately went nowhere (Gary doesn’t remember if the title was canceled, or the entire 2222 universe was scrapped), but a 20-page story was mostly fully illustrated, which he reprints without the dialogue which was apparently lost somewhere along the way.

Gary did include his proposal for The Others, which was about a group of children who were taken from their homes in 1916 by aliens and taken off planet, only to be returned some 70 years later each child (who were handicapped when taken) have become enhanced by the aliens, and this group of kids were to be turned into a superteam.

Finally, we come to The Dark Man, A.K.A. Blackheart, A.K.A. Blackheart in Nightown, A.K.A. Bete Noire (The Dark Beast). Here Gary suggested to Dan Mishkin that they develop a Batman-like character called The Dark Man. Unfortunately, it went nowhere, but a decade later, Gary developed a new wrinkle to the character, where he lived in an alternate 1890, where vampires had come over on the Mayflower, and now the New World was populated by a hoard of vampires.

Gary cast Bete Noire as a mysterious creature of the night, very much in the mold of Batman who is pursuing a serial killer with a vampire modus operandi, leaving his victims bloodless. While pursuing the killer, somehow Bete Noire finds himself transported to an alternate dimension where “his” city is now a Victorian nightmare that is controlled by vampires. With no way back Bete Noire must now do what he can to rid the city of its nightmarish curse. This pitch also comes with art by Ron Randall.

Each of the above pitches are wonderfully entertaining not just from the concept of the pitch themselves, but in the way that we get to see the entire process, from idea, to pitch, to plot, to script, to art. Very rarely do we get to see the entire process of how an idea comes about, and being ale to see these older ideas of Gary’s is a real thrill. We know that Gary produces a small batch of these comics, hopefully, when he runs out he will either reprint them, or create another book, with other concepts of his. We can only hope.

Write what you know: Joe Martino’s The Mighty Titan

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.

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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.

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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.

My days under the Malibu Sun!

Way back in the early '90s I was writing for, well, virtually every comicbook magazine under the sun. As if that wasn't enough, I was also penning articles directly for several of the major comicbook companies as well, including Marvel (Marvel Age, Marvel Year in Review), Dark Horse, Image (Extreme), Valiant/Acclaim, DC, and of course, Malibu. (I was also writing for JC Comics, a non sports card magazine, a phone card mag, as well as a couple of computer gamming publications.) Recently, while going through some old files, I came across a copy of The Malibu Sun #30 (Oct. '93) — a newsletter/'zine dedicated to Malibu projects — where I got to interview Barry Windsor-Smith. This is the interview that was printed.

Rune in the Ultraverse: An Enlightening Conversation with Barry Windsor-Smith

 

After leaving Valiant, Barry Windsor-Smith signed up to join the crew over at Malibu’s Ultraverse, co-creating (along with Editor-In-Chief Chris Ulm) Rune, an other-worldly vampire living on Earth.

 

Robert J. Sodaro: How or why did you end up at Malibu?

Barry Windsor-Smith: I don’t mean to be flippant, but why not? They’re a good company; they’ve got a lot of good stuff going for them. I like all the people that I’ve met there so far. The Ultraverse sounds like a good idea. I got talking with them. I’ve been talking with everybody since I quit Valiant. I’ve been talking with Dark Horse’s Mike Richardson; I’ve been talking with Jim Lee at Image. In the case of Malibu, it was just one of the groups that I was talking to, and Chris Ulm had a concept in mind...I can’t remember the original title. We discussed it, and we changed the title to Fuzion. It was about a group of kids who were experimented on without their knowledge, back in the ‘60s or ‘70s. These four disparate kids were an attempt to make super soldiers, that sort of a thing, by scientific means they were given the power of cold fusion. The power only works when all four of them are in the same spot at the same time. It’s actually a lot more interesting than that. I’m not describing it very well.

 

RJS: When you say “…in the same spot.” How close do they have to be to each other?

BWS: When they touch; I think it’s all down to physical contact. If they are separated, there is no power. This was all done in secrecy, when they were kids, and they don’t know what happened to them. Their past lives have been eradicated. They’ve been put into different lifestyles and kept separate until the power can be harnessed by the bad guys. That was the original concept. That concept still stands, but we added a great deal to it because I picked up on the fact that one of the bad guys was named Rune and that he was a 10,000-year-old vampire, floating around in the background. I said, “Heck, why do we have a 10,000-year-old vampire floating around in the background? Let’s bring him up front here. He’s interesting.” So, from that initial talk with Chris, we developed an entire plot and storyline based around this character called Rune. A bizarre, evil-looking guy, who sucks blood and all that sort of stuff, as vampires have a tendency to do. There is more to it than that. Rune is a dying creature. He’s not earthly, for one. I don’t think we’ve sorted out where we want him to come from— outer space, or another dimension — we’re certain he isn’t human. He is in the process of dying from some alien form of cancer. It’s explained in the first storyline for Rune. He is in search of power that will sustain his life. This is how he comes in contact with the kids, who are not adults, these four characters from this clandestine thing called The Fusion Project. That’s basically where the interaction comes from.

 

RJS: What is the title of title book going to be?

BWS: It was Fusion, but now it’s going to be called Rune. We’re calling the three-page format introductory series, which appears in each October Ultraverse issue, Rune. We’ve got a plot, we’ve got character drawings, we’ve got personalities worked out, and all this other stuff, but as I’m working on it, which is always the case with me, I change things as I go along. I’m directing the story, and I see something about this character that didn’t occur to me before, that I could add to, or take away from, or get rid of entirely. When I’m working on a project, it’s very much in a state of flux. Something I can tell you on Thursday, might be old news by Saturday, because I’ve already thrown it out, or I’ve added something by Sunday morning that changes the whole direction of the damn thing. This is basically the way I work, the way I’ve always worked. There is nothing written in stone at this moment. As I stage the stories, who knows what is going to happen.

 

RJS: So, it’s starting in October as a back-up feature?

BWS: Yes.

 

RJS: ln all of the Ultraverse books?

BWS: In all of the Ultraverse books, yes. It’s 11in all. So, the Rune story will be coming out as a back-up in each of those books, and it will run for 11 issues, in different titles all the way through until we’re done w:tth the story.

RJS: It’s part of the Ultraverse?

BWS: Yes, this is definitely Ultraverse stuff.

 

RJS: You will be writing and drawing on Rune?

BWS: In the case of Rune, I’m plotting the story, but Chris Ulm is doing the scripting at the moment. That’s to say that things can change at any given time, but that’s the layout right now. I’ve done three stories so far. I’ve done an awful lot of ad material for it too. It’s a pretty intriguing character. Very much a Barry Windsor­Smith character.

RJS: What makes him a Barry Windsor-Smith character?

BWS: Well, he’s sort of on the dark side, rather than the heroic stuff that I’ve been known for. This guy is very unusual looking. He’s got lumps all over him. Not quite like the Thing, or anything like that, but as I say, this guy has some sort of alien form of cancer, and he’s got a pretty distorted body. Even with the distortion, I’m drawing him technically well. You have to look at him twice to realize he’s got bulges and bumps where he really shouldn’t have.

RJS: He’s going to be the central character of this series?

BWS: He will certainly be the central villain, without a doubt. A central character? Not quite sure. The installments, starting in October, are all about Rune. When we blend Rune into the Fusion storyline, it will be an ensemble cast. The way I like to do things is to see which characters come to the fore. Who does the most talking? Who is going to have the most action on stage, as it were. Rune will be a major character, like Dr. Doom is the major villain for the FF, or something like that.

 

RJS: Don’t you think it’s unusual to name the book after the villain?

BWS: What isn’t unusual? I don’t know that the one should follow any form of previously planned...

RJS: it’s easy to get your readers .to identify with the hero, it’s not so easy to identify with an anti-hero, to make the villain a sympathetic character, is like making a movie about Hitler, and showing him as a sympathetic character.

BWS: This answer isn’t right on the money, but, if you went to see a movie about Hitler, you would know what the outcome was, and know about the character before you went there. Let’s say, the Terminator — the first Terminator — the Terminator was the villain. I think that’s a reasonable effort at explaining my decision there.

RJS: The analogy works very well, so you’re making him quite the  unhandsome character...

BWS: He’s actually very ugly indeed. It’s a test of my own story-telling skills. If you look at Wolverine, he’s not exactly Patrick Swayze.

 

RJS: What about naming the series after the villain?

BWS: I think it’s acceptable that the series is named after the villain. The villain isn’t attractive, but he’s dynamic, vicious, and evil beyond description. Being inhuman, he has no scruples whatsoever. The weight humans carry around, even the bad guys, simply comes from an entirely different perspective. Again, not unlike the Terminator, now that his name has come up. He has arms and legs, but as I say, he’s vastly distorted.

 

RJS: How is it that he came to Earth?

BWS: I haven’t the foggiest. I know it’s going to dawn on me or Chris at some point. Then it’s, “Of course! That’s what we were trying to think of!” So, we’re leaving that go until the right idea pops into one of our heads.

 

RJS: Getting back to you coming ever to Malibu, why was it that you left Valiant?

BWS: Obviously I’ve been asked this question a thousand times. There was a whole period there, when my lawyer advised that I shouldn’t speak about it. I did temper myself very well. It’s a long story. I wasn’t happy at Valiant. That you can certainly quote me on.

 

RJS: Let me ask you this: Did it have anything to do with Jim (Shooter, founder of Defiant) leaving? Did things get worse after Jim left?

BWS: It had nothing whatsoever to do with Jim leaving. The company changed radically when Jim left, or was forced to leave, rather. The intention was to change it for the better. I was there as an executive for about a year. I guess I just felt like a fifth wheel there, to be honest. I was their best writer, and their best artist. That made me feel out of place.

 

RJS: Going from the creative to the business end of it. Was that upsetting to you? Would you rather be...

BWS: Obviously, I would rather be a creator. If I was an executive type, I would have been an executive a long time ago. It’s just not my cup of tea. Being of the aesthetic nature, and also being an executive, I would have liked to have had more control of the quality of the work. I spent a year there, basically, teaching the younger members of the team how to do what they do, trying to teach the colorists the theory of color.

 

RJS: ls this the only project you’re working on for Malibu at the moment?

BWS: It’s a big enough project it should be the only. One I’m working on. Yes, it’s the only one I’m working on. I’m working on the first 30-odd pages in the first three installments, and then the first three or four books of Rune I’ll be producing. We’ll take it from there. That’s where the contract takes me, so we’ll see as we go along. I’m certainly having a good time with the people at Malibu. They’re very nice folks indeed. I’m enjoying their company.

 

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