Patrick Broderick was 17 when he answered a cattle call for DC’s new Junior Bullpen project. How lucky was he to step out of the long line and run into Carmine Infantino? Pat drew early appearances of Iron Fist in Marvel Premiere, and later, Captain Marvel, a flame-headed guy called Ghost Rider in a Marvel Team-Up fill-up, and a good run on Micronauts (succeeding Mike Golden, ending with #34, cover date, Oct. 1981) before he started Firestorm back-ups at DC. He later co-created the Nathaniel Adam iteration of Captain Atom, also drawing Batman: Year Three, a terrific revival of Green Lantern, and the inventive Doom 2099. He’s also been an adjunct instructor at the Tampa Bay Art Institute. Pat returned to draw more Green Lantern and various covers for Marvel, also. We had an amazing time, talking. (Well, we certainly weren't doing the polka!) Here's part one. We've focusing on his time on Firestorm, but we also talk about why he left Micronauts, how he got started,...

ONe of a series of talks with Firestorm creators- like Gerry Conway, Al Milgrom, Pat Broderick, Rafael Kayanan, Tom Mandrake, even early editor Jack C. Harris, we have a philosophical afternoon with John Ostrander. Writer of the modern Suicide Squad, Star Wars: Legacy, The Spectre, and his own creation, Grimjack at First Comics (a very philosophical, satirical space adventure), John began his career as a stage actor in Chicago, providing his connection with Mike Gold. Brought aboard to craft the Legends line-wide crossover, John's fill-ins on Firestorm won him the job when it was vacated by Firestorm's talented parent, Gerry Conway. At one point, I posited to John, this: Firestorm was not generally considered frightening in his earlier incarnation. I think of your Firestorm as a Scary Outlaw-like you said, the danger. There were some questions inside Firestorm himself. Don’t take for granted that he’s going to do the right thing...he’s got to come to it. When you ha...

A conversation with writer John Ostrander and your host, C Lue Lyron! We chat about breaking in at DC during the Legends crossover; the influence of socially conscious writing by --and vegetarian dinner with-- Denny O'Neil. We discuss how John's always been inspired to mix real life, philosophy and imagination. Here's the episode link, too: https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-wmdxb-98ab40 Feel free to copy and share! Our talk began like so: C Lue: What did Mike Gold ask you to accomplish when you came aboard to do Legends? John: He sort of laid it out for me. Now, Legends was the first mini-series after Crisis On Infinite Earths, which was a twelve issue run. He said he wanted to do this one in six. Crisis sort of blew up the DC Universe, took things apart. Our goal was to bring it back more together, and to launch some new books, as well. So Legends would show how the new, single DC Universe worked together. C Lue: What were you thinking as...