I made an error in a blog post from last April regarding Marvels #0. I’ve since corrected the post, but wanted to reflect on the error, as I find it more significant than a typo on a blog post. It’s correcting a fundamental decades-old misunderstanding on my part regarding something of great personal significance.
I credited the writing of the story in Marvels #0 to Kurt Busiek, who in fact had nothing to do with its writing. Why do I find this error on my part so significant? Because Kurt Busiek is one of my all-time favorite writers, because Marvels is one of my all-time favorite stories, because Marvels #0 is one of my all-time favorite single issues, and because it ends with one of my all-time favorite quotes, a quote I thought was my favorite Kurt Busiek quote.
…on that day of my freedom in 1939, this world had its first confrontation with the fantastic. The golden age of miracles would begin, and in the years to come, the world would know the presence of the unnatural and extraordinary as part of reality.
The quote is due either to Alex Ross or Steve Darnall or both.
How long was I confused on this point? 20 years. Why did I get confused in the first place?
Well, that will require a bit of a dive into personal history. Marvels came out in 1994. I was 12 years old. I had been reading comics almost 4 years at this point and was very into Marvel, but didn’t have a good means of keeping up with the zeitgeist. I went to comic stores frequently but irregularly. I had no money of my own, so needed money from my parents to buy comics. At this point, I was trying to keep up with Avengers, X-Men, Amazing Spider-Man, Warlock and the Infinity Watch, and the 2099 titles. I’d soon start subscribing to comics. This helped me not miss so many issues, but didn’t help me discover new things. So Marvels slipped by unnoticed by me. Here’s a glimpse of what I read instead of Marvels #1, for better or worse.
Jump forward to 1999. I was now working in a comic book store and paying attention to everything that came out, and looking back on what I’d missed. Given my love for the Marvel Universe (and that I was picking up basically every Marvel comic that came out every week), my boss thought it was silly that I hadn’t yet read Marvels. He was right. So, circa 1999, I picked up this collected edition.
You can see it’s been well-loved.
It opens with the Human Torch story in question. The page in my edition even bears a signature from Kurt Busiek from when I recently saw him at Dutch Comic Con in Utrecht.
Here’s Mr. Busiek and myself.
When I look past that opening story to the credits page of this book, the only writer’s name to appear is Kurt Busiek. So it is actually quite natural that I assumed he just wrote the whole thing. In truth, he wrote everything but that opening story.
On the final page, there are acknowledgements. Alex Ross thanks the people who modeled for his artwork. This is the only place Steve Darnall’s name appears, noting that he was the model for the character of Fred.
I picked this series up in other forms over the years, getting a nice Marvels hardcover and the original issues. When I look to the credits page for Marvels #0, I again see no mention of Steve Darnall’s name. And Busiek is credited, but with “Book Concept”. A vague phrase that doesn’t suggest any scripting. And Alex Ross is credited as “Artist”, which again doesn’t suggest scripting.
Busiek also writes the introduction to this comic, and, with hindsight, he’s explaining the origin of the story I’m reading. That Alex Ross had created it before any involvement by Busiek as part of his pitch for Marvels, an anthology of various characters. Busiek got involved after, and they together transformed Ross’s idea as exemplified by this story into what became Marvels #1-4.
On an interior page, we get a likely humorous retelling of events from Ross’s point of view, and he does mention Steve Darnall’s role. So the credit was there if I looked close enough, just hidden.
Before Marvels #0 was released, this story was serialized in Marvel’s monthly news/behind-the-scenes comic, Marvel Age #130-133.
If we look to Marvel Age #130, we see a note from Alex Ross explaining this story’s inception from his point of view, and Steve Darnall’s role. This comic story was entirely Ross’s. He conceived it, drew it, and wrote a script. But he asked his friend Steve Darnall to do a second pass at the script, and the published version is a mix of both scripts.
Of course, I know Steve Darnall’s work. Also high on my list of all-time favorite comics is DC’s Uncle Sam series from 1997, by Steve Darnall and Alex Ross. The original Uncle Sam was the spirit of America taken form as a superhero, introduced in 1940.
This modern revival of the character had him fallen on hard times. Living as a seemingly crazy bum, with his mind untethered from time, wandering through an America he recognizes all too well, as everything he sees carries echoes of things he once saw, all illustrating the tension between America’s ideals and its reality, but with an ultimately reaffirming and optimistic look to the future.
Notably, the GCD has the credits for Marvels #0 correct, but the UHBMCC does not. They make the same mistake I did and credit the issue to Kurt Busiek. I’ve already e-mailed the maintainer (a wonderful human named Markus) about the issue, so I expect it to get fixed.
How did I finally come across the truth after 20 years? I picked up the recently published Marvels Annotated comics.
And the first issue of this new annotated reproduction gives the correct credits for Marvels #0.
That led me to some research, which led to this blog post. So, there you go. Error fixed. All apologies to Mr. Darnall.
