Working at Marvel Comics has been a job dreamed of by so many young people, every since the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man and the original Avengers made it the cool, connected, offbeat place it was in the Marvel Age. Virtually every one who came to work there, from the late 60's onward, was a massive fan of some (or nearly all) Marvel character. So here's the story about one of those young people. (And here is Glam rocker Marc Bolan- who once interviewed Stan Lee for a BBC show-holding the first comic scripted by DAK! Yeah!) Stream or download, and happy 2019! DAK: Everyone likes to use the phrase, “break into comics”- but I like to say, I was invited. Not that I wouldn’t have broken in! Lue: You already had taken on work, in high school, as a literary agent for the work of pulp writer Otis Adelbert Kline. You simply wrote, expressed some knowledge and interest- boom, you got it. DAK: I put an inquiry to see if I could work for Marvel. One day, I went ...

IMMORTAL HULK #8: Victory in his cold, dissected hands! The Hulk's survival crosses a line that dissolves any feel-good simplicity of the gamma giant-as-superhero. I recommend you see for yourself how his vengeance comes together, just as his predicament- one I never saw before, for any character!-verges on becoming insurmountable. For this Hulk and his dizzying powers, what seems like ultimate defeat, physically, just plays into his cold, dissected hands! I don’t keep up with every very good comic series or individual work in the genre. The day I bought my wonderful What If? Comic, I also realized the sun was setting on our local store- What If? Comics and Collectibles. Here I am, reliable vehicle secured, savings, best job yet and freelance articles- I’m ready to get some comics! Are you ready to get some comics, too? Well, when the sun goes down, if you want at least one monthly comic that touches upon rich Marvel history, superhero suspense in a horror-fix atmosphe...

Flash Fiction: What IF? Flash Thompson Became Spider-Man One-Shot The opening narration’s the first feint. Longtime-fans familiar with military vet Flash Thompson will think they’re reading captions describing how his time in the service taught him the difference between heroes and “a thug with a gun.” But the chaos unleashed towards our perspective by Diego Olortegui’s art stems from ‘the good guy.’ For this is not the mature Flash cultivated by this very writer on his original groundbreaking Spider-Man run. This is no friend of Peter Parker, who walks up to our intrepid shutterbug spitting menace. The narrator? Our new version of Colonel Nick Fury, standing in for The Watcher after the events of Secret Sins as The Unseen, with a very different formula for seeing Infinity. His words are the weigh station to a parallel Earth, and the times have picked up in the heart of Spidey’s roots, where our writer discovered Spider-Man, himself. It’s Midtown High’s football hero, with...

We save the movies for our favorite larger-than-life heroes- that's Freddie Mercury! Rockin' time, sweet date. The story of Bohemian Rhapsody from Fox jibes closely with biographical Queen lore. Freddie was a sweet guy, prone to life in huge, dramatic, colorful strokes, and it's fair to say, this was because he wrestled with the tedium and unrest of life off stage. I've long thought the adoration and adrenaline and bombast of a fist-pumping live show is surely such an addiction, it's really little wonder those who attain its heights find life away from the spotlight nearly unbearable. The gifts wrapped up in the making of a song are an internalized transporting feeling that rivals, and for some, surpasses the stage. But for rock's super-talented full-blast front man, the stage was also a place where he could be loved, seemingly unconditionally, and his shared creative prowess with Queen, known and loved. But there are things about a person that are terri...

Larry Lieber started working for Marvel when they were still, technically, Atlas Comics, on June 26th, 1958. Do you know him as the writer and scripter of stories like: the origin of Thor? Iron Man? Writer of Ant-Man, or the Rawhide Kid? Larry gives his story, from the earliest days mentored by his famous brother, Stan Lee, through his Western comics writing, the monsters, the early Marvel superheroes, to the shortly-lived Atlas Comics of 1975, and back to Marvel, where he worked on The Hulk newspaper strip. He finally landed the daily Spider-Man newpaper strip, which he wrote for thirty years! I love Epic Marvel Podcast- they still have a Steve Englehart series about Dr. Strange I've just remembered I want to hear! They inspired some of my writing last summer about the Heroes For Hire, just as they hit Netflix together. I began supporting Epic Marvel on Patreon. They're well-produced and land so many terrific interviews with classic creators. Take a listen! http...

The kid from Huntington Woods grew up with a real passion for reading DC Comics. He was creating his own stories by the time he pulled up at the drug store that carried the first appearances of two characters with whom he'd spend many working hours one day: Spider-Man and Mighty Thor. Sometime after graduating the University of Michigan in 1972, Jim Starlin's old Berkeley High school chum Allen Milgrom would embark on his own comics career. They both began with late 1960s fanzines. Allen then did some writing over at Warren Publishing. Carmine Infantino put him with Murphy Anderson, a very professional-looking fellow who was rather quiet about working in comics. Murphy worked in the office avoid his wife's errands from the home, so he was on the scene when Al joined DC and did backgrounds for Anderson. He did this for about a year before freelancing at Marvel, where Jim Starlin had already served briefly as Art Director. Al would later revisit Thor and a new gener...

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,...