BURIED TREASURE | 13th Dimension, Comics, Creators, Culture

Apr10

BURIED TREASURE: Carlos Meglia’s SUPERMAN Stories

Posted by Dan Greenfield on Apr 10, 2024

BURIED TREASURE: Carlos Meglia’s SUPERMAN Stories

Two wonderful treatments of the Man of Steel… By PETER STONE DC Comics’ Elseworlds line of books is returning, opening new avenues to creating unique stories and concepts, or bringing us sequels to some of the originals. Some of the original Elseworlds were futuristic, some were based in the past, some were simply a different origin to familiar and beloved characters. Batman in the French Revolution, Kingdom Come, Superman landing in the Soviet Union, Gotham by Gaslight, and even Batman as a vampire. Amid all these, there was one that I thought was particularly interesting. Kal-El lands in a jungle in Africa while John Clayton’s father takes the family home before he and his wife are killed and he is raised by great apes. Instead, Superman is raised by the great apes and becomes a lord of the jungle while John Clayton becomes Lord Greystoke in England before finally being drawn back to Africa. This story — Superman/Tarzan: Sons of the Jungle — written by Chuck Dixon, was drawn by an amazing artist by the name of Carlos Meglia. Meglia was an Argentinian artist who received great acclaim outside the American comic industry. In 1984 he decided to make a bigger splash by working in animation for Hanna-Barbera on shows starring the Smurfs, the Flintstones and Scooby-Doo. In 1991, he teamed up with Argentinian writer Carlos Trillo to create Cybersix, which was a comics series that was turned into both animated and live-action TV shows. He won awards and moved to Spain, but American comics were exploding. Millions of sales per issue. Who wouldn’t want to be connected to that? On a personal note, in the early 1990s, Continuity was looking for artists. Neal Adams saw Carlos Meglia in a portfolio of a bunch of different artists and said the guy was good. I saw a painting he did of a man being crushed by a closing metal door and I immediately wanted to work with him. He wasn’t available, but he was great. Great color sense, great anatomy, great faces. He was terrific, but he was working for other companies. A couple years later, Dark Horse snatched him up for a Star Wars title, but he was destined for greatness at DC Comics. I used to go to Midtown Comics in Manhattan and buy comics that I thought...

Apr07

BURIED TREASURE: James Robinson and Paul Smith’s LEAVE IT TO CHANCE

Posted by Dan Greenfield on Apr 7, 2024

BURIED TREASURE: James Robinson and Paul Smith’s LEAVE IT TO CHANCE

A wonderfully charming series for the kid in all of us… By PETER STONE Sometimes you look into a candy store, one of those old ones with the individual candies in clean, glass jars with labels like 5 cents or three for a dime. The person behind the counter will scoop out some of those mouth-watering chocolates or chewy fish and slide them into a paper bag. As a kid, you always go for the really good ones, carefully feeling the coins in your pocket to make sure you have enough. Then, you see it… the most wonderful candy you could imagine. It’s a small container of Swiss chocolate, made by the best in the world. It won’t last long, but it’s spectacular while it melts in your mouth. That, to me, was what Homage Comics’ Leave It to Chance was. In 1995, WildStorm Productions created the Homage Comics imprint to focus on more writer-oriented series. The imprint fell under the umbrella of Image Comics but featured some diverse and unique titles — like Leave It to Chance, written by James Robinson and co-created and drawn by the famed X-Men artist Paul Smith. The series protagonist was a precocious 14-year-old girl named Chance Falconer, daughter of a famed paranormal investigator and all-around magic wielder, Lucas Falconer. In the classic young-adult adventure style (Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Treasure Island, Harry Potter, Percy Jackson), Chance gets drawn into danger through her own “investigations” in Devil’s Echo, a city populated with magic characters and evil villains. To aid her in her adventures, Chance is best friends with a diminutive dragon named St. George, reminding the reader that Paul Smith co-created Lockheed for Kitty Pryde in the X-Men. The stories are filled with giant frogs (that’s right GIANT FROGS) along with a frog army, the Flying Dutchman, evil Catholic school matrons, low level demons used as flunkies for crime bosses, fairies and a zombie hockey player who returns to get revenge on his killers. Chance finds her way through these stories with heart and compassion and the help of St. George and her police friends… and occasionally, her father. I never imagined it would last for more than a few issues, but it made it to 11 and was a real gem. Every story is full of that Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew/Harry Potter kind...

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