My biggest leap forward in freelance writing in a long time. I talked to such great people, too. That's Back Issue #110! Steve Englehart and Annie Nocenti fans shouldn't miss it. How do you not miss it? Here! http://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=98_54 The site! Order yours! Ships January 16th. My thanks again to John Workman, Scott Edelman, Sam Maronie, Harold Parker, Will Alovis, Ken Segal (now there's a sound guy), the Marvel Comics Fans 1961-1986 page on Facebook (for bringing me together with fans and photos) - and especially our hard-working editor, Michael Eury, who also pulled off a move in the middle of a hurricane and got this one out in fine form. NOw that's how you Face Front! I was wrapping up burritos and wrapping up wrapping up burritos when I pitched for this assignment. I tried Marv Wolfman, John Workman...even hovered over a possible phone number for John Romita, Sr. I stayed on the trail, one lead to the next. I ...

When Patsy Walker gained the costume and powers of Hellcat in Avengers #144, the character was not, pardon the expression, made from whole cloth. In fact, writer Steve Englehart had rescued her from cancellation and obscurity by bringing her into the superhero comics of the day as a friend to his newly-transformed Hank McCoy, a.k.a. the Beast, created from X-Men comics. Patsy was the stand-alone survivor now of what was once the biggest comics genre of its day, a day when women readers, female adults, no less, were the surprising core of comics readership in America. From the site, "A very brief history of romance comics": For the first and last time, adult women were major consumers of comics. (A)lthough the genre is largely dismissed by comics aficionados today, it was created by two of the most revered artists and writers of the time: Jack Kirby and Joe Simon, who kicked off Young Romance in 1947. Kirby and Simon had created Captain America in the early '40s, and Ki...

In the 1950's, the racks were full of cowboy comics; Will Eisner's Western Picture Stories was tied for the first, along with a book called Star Ranger, in 1937. Television and the movies had a cowboy "hay day." By the mid-70's, they were mostly being reprinted rather than produced in first runs; Marvel's Westerns usually carried great covers! Steve Englehart, while writing the Avengers superhero comic in 1975, decided to visit those thrilling days of yesteryear, with a time travel story featuring Thor, Hawkeye, and Moondragon on the trail of Kang the Conqueror. As Hawkeye had discovered, Kang figured taking the 20th century would be much easier if he started in the 19th century. This story, in AVENGERS #142 and 143, had an old-fashioned train robbery. Thor and Moondragon disguised as passengers, anticipating the attack, mostly fended off by Two Gun Kid, the original Ghost Rider (or Night Rider), Kid Colt and a very Indian-costumed Hawkeye. The next half...

Pyramids, high adventure, and bittersweet romance! DEATH OF A SWORDSMAN! Sponsored by Integr8d Soul Productions. Order "Devils and Angels" or "Puzzle Girl" in black ($13 plus shipping) or white ($11 plus shipping) by sending money and message (size, color, design) to luelyron@gmail.com for PayPal, or write there for the address if you want to send a check! Devils and Angels is the cover to D'n'A: The Mountain, our b & w comic! It's only $3.25. New issue is on the drawing board now! So, Mantis, the mystic martial arts mistress, has turned to the Vision, the cerebral synthezoid heart of Earth's Mightiest Heroes, the Avengers. She suggests their situations are exactly alike: they each have questions about the truth of their natures, and almost complete control and attunement with their bodies. While hex casting mutant the Scarlet Witch secretly battles for her life under the tutelage of Agatha Harkness, Mantis tells Vision the...

Sponsored by Integr8d Soul Productions. Order "Devils and Angels" or "Puzzle Girl" in black ($13 plus shipping) or white ($11 plus shipping) by sending money and message (size, color, design) to luelyron@gmail.com for PayPal, or write there for the address if you want to send a check! Devils and Angels is the cover to D'n'A: The Mountain, our b & w comic! It's only $3.25. Act the Fourth: Death of a Swordsman by Lue Lyron By AVENGERS #128, it’s apparent that everyone feels they need someone else. Scarlet Witch: needs this new teacher to take over her life, risk her life, challenge her powers and her fundamental doubts in her abilities to recharge between hexes more quickly, and establish a relationship with nature (at the same time that her science spawned boyfriend seems to flake). Vision: this android---this man---needs to tell Scarlet Witch, Wanda, he loves her, and needs to tell Mantis he admires her, and needs some as...

When he joins the call for ‘every Avenger that ever was’ in the anniversary #100, before he returns with Mantis in AVENGERS #114, the Swordsman is still openly considered a criminal. Captain America asks, “last I heard, weren’t you in prison?” “A technicality.” He admits how he got call, along with his typical bluster: he stole one of their planes, he says, and overheard the call on the radio. Nonetheless, Thor invites him to fight for Earth, anyway. Since the beginning, there’s been a similarity to his student Hawkeye, the Archer, in skill set with a weapon and proving himself to others. Hawkeye learned the bow and arrow at the Swordsman’s side, and was the first to find out he was a rotten crook, stealing the box office for their carnival and then cutting a tightrope with Hawkeye on it, escaping, leaving him to fall. In fact, we find out Hawkeye’s real name, Clint Barton, in AVENGERS #65, when his brother returns---so ashamed is he of the crimes committed in the f...

Sponsored by Integr8d Soul Productions. Order "Devils and Angels" or "Puzzle Girl" in black ($13 plus shipping) or white ($11 plus shipping) by sending money and message (size, color, design) to luelyron@gmail.com for PayPal, or write there for the address if you want to send a check! Devils and Angels is the cover to D'n'A: The Mountain, our b & w modern supernatural comic! It's only $3.25. 4-way Street So, as the team returns in #119 from a battle they had almost no chance to win (see Scarlet Witch’s post, Avengers/ Defenders War), Mantis senses Swordsman’s pain, but he makes light of it with bluster. Black Panther’s questions about Mantis turn out to be based on his respect for her training, but she says her past is nothing of note. Suddenly she pitches forward—her “Mantis Sense”?---warning of mystic vibrations of great danger in Rutland, Vermont. So quickly, the team is off to what becomes a costumed parade/ party / battle w...