Hero Histories

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Reading Room: DOC SAVAGE (& SPIDER-MAN) "The Future is NOW!"

When Last We Left Our Heroes (in two different eras)...

Art by Gil Kane & Frank Giacoia.

Both Doc Savage (in 1934) and Spider-Man (in 1974) are lured to the same Manhattan building (in their respective time periods) by the same beautiful woman from another dimension.
(Only in comics would such a statement actually make sense!)
The woman, Desinna, warns both of them (in their respective time periods) about the presence of her associate, Tarros, mutated and driven insane by an accident during the testing of an experimental dimensional portal.
Suddenly, in 1934, Tarros appears...

Though the Doc Savage comic had been cancelled in 1973 after only eight issues, Marvel still held the license, and with a Doc movie coming out in the summer of 1975, they did one more new color comic, along with a reprint of the first two issues of Doc's series (which we re-presented HERE), before initiating a b/w magazine featuring all-new stories rather than adaptations of the pulp/paperback novels.
The movie tanked.
The magazine, though a critical success, was cancelled after eight issues.
Doc would make one more Marvel appearance, in 1976's Marvel Two-in-One #21 (which we re-presented HERE), teaming up with The Thing in a similar split-time period story with a notable exception...the two heroes actually met!
Ironically, DC Comics has reprinted both the color and b/w Doc series from Marvel Comics!
(In the world of entertainment property licensing, truth is stranger than fiction, even science fiction!)
However, due to licensing restrictions, neither Marvel nor DC has reprinted the two team-up tales we've re-presented on this blog, nor will they ever do so.

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Reading Room: DOC SAVAGE "Other People, Other TImes!"

When Last We Left Our Heroes...

A mystery at a Manhattan building brings Doc Savage and Spider-Man to the same locale in their respective time periods (1934 and 1974).
Web-Head meets Desinna, a lovely blue lady from another dimension who warns him the demolition of the building will unleash danger, which it does!
Spidey manages to temporarily contain the threat and demands an explanation as to how something that happened during the building's construction 40 years earlier relates to the present...

...and mayhem ensues...TOMORROW...in the astounding conclusion!

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Reading Room: DOC SAVAGE (& SPIDER-MAN) "Tomorrow is Too Late!"

When Last We Left Our Heroes (in two different eras)...

Good question, Web-Head!

After you met this half-naked blue lady at the site of an old building being demolished, she showed you images from the day, in 1934, when the building was dedicated by none other than New York's Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia!

Also on hand was the legendary Doc Savage, along with several of his aides.

The amazing adventurers foiled an assassination attempt against the Mayor after being warned via an anonymous letter that "something" would happen at that location.

However, they were a few hours early, and the danger they were warned about still hadn't been revealed...

No, Spidey's not naked in panel 4! They just left out the cyan "blue" color* on his costume!

Tomorrow, we flash back forty years to see what happened when Doc met Desinna...

You may note that this story, along with the Doc/Thing team-up in Marvel Two-in-One that we presented here and here have not been reprinted either by Marvel (in their various Spider-Man or Thing reprints) or DC (in their Doc Savage reprint trade paperback)

It's part of the problem combining licensed characters (which comics publishers don't own, just lease) with the publisher's own characters.

DC has a similar situation with two Bronze Age Batman stories guest-starring The Shadow.

Unless you dig them up in a back-issue bin, you'll only find them here and here!

Marvel's Godzilla comic used SHIELD personnel and other Marvel characters as supporting characters and guests.

Even so, Marvel had to re-negotiate with Toho to do a Godzilla Essentals.

Similarly, the plethora of toy-tie ins that featured Marvel characters and presented plot elements continued in mainstream Marvel titles (Rom, Micronauts, Shogun Warriors) will never be reprinted!

And, while the events that occurred can be referenced, the licensed characters themselves can't be directly-named!

From the 1990s onward, publishers have built-in reprint rights for licensed tie-ins that combine characters, so there have been trade paperbacks of Superman/Aliens, Batman/Judge Dredd, etc.), but for almost all of the earlier tie-in team-ups, you have to find the original issues.

*The "blue" in Spidey's costume is actually a combination of cyan (light blue) and magenta (pink-red) ink.

Often the magenta is left out, resulting in the blue being a bright "Superman" blue, but it really should be a medium-dark blue.