SILVER AGE DEATH MATCH: Justice League of America vs. Fantastic Four
Fred Van Lente pays (another) birthday tribute to Gardner Fox — who was born 110 years ago on May 20, 1911 — with a new column concept…
WHO REIGNS SUPREME? Fred Van Lente brings you a 65th ANNIVERSARY BATTLE ROYALE! By FRED VAN LENTE Welcome back, fight fans! In honor of the 65th anniversary of the Aug. 8, 1961, publication of Fantastic Four #1, 13th Dimensional Grand Poobah Dan Greenfield requested I pit two of the most storied runs of the book against each other: that of plotter/artist/co-creator Jack Kirby and that of writer/artist/Alpha Flight co-creator John Byrne, two runs I love deeply. But which one is better? Using extremely scientific methods developed by the North American Comic Book Death Match Commission, of which I am the chair and sole member, I set about determining that FOR ALL TIME in this here article. I should point out that in just a couple weeks, on August 20, the play my wife Crystal Skillman and I wrote about Jack, King Kirby, will be returning to the New York stage for a limited run, thanks to BrooklynOne and director Bill Coulter (tickets here). Our poster was created by the late, great Tommy Lombardozzi, one half of the Jacked Kirby podcast, who passed away far too soon and far too young in July. You are missed, brother. As this is the record-setting third time Kirby’s FF has entered the Death Match octagon (you can awe at the other matches here and here), I had to change up the formula a bit: Since we’re celebrating the title’s debut on August 8 — 8/8 — I’ll match every eighth issue of these runs against each other once (Kirby lasted a couple years longer than Byrne, so he begins at #8). Cool? Cool. Ring that bell! — ROUND ONE Fantastic Four #8: “Prisoners of the Puppet Master!” Reed discovers a way to turn the Thing into Ben Grimm, just in time for him to meet Alicia Masters, his soon-to-be love interest, who prefers him rocky. (Sad trombone noise.) I love Kirby’s grotesque design of her awful stepfather, the Puppet Master, who looks like a demented marionette himself. This befits a sociopath who crafts mind-control puppets of people from radioactive clay so he can make them jump off bridges and start prison riots just (as far as I can tell) for funsies. P-Mas gets annoyed at the FF’s interrupting his psycho jollies and sets out to destroy them. In an inadvisable move, he makes a...
WATCHMEN AT 40: Fred Van Lente is in the ring! — UPDATED 5/13/26: Watchmen #1 was released 40 years ago, on May 13, 1986! Perfect time to reprint this piece from February 2022. Plus, check out 13 COVERS: WHO PARODIES THE WATCHMEN? Dig it! — Dan — In a lot of respects, this is recurring 13th Dimension columnist Fred Van Lente’s gutsiest COMIC BOOK DEATH MATCH — pitting Marvel’s cult-fave 1980s maxiseries Squadron Supreme against what’s widely considered the greatest superhero graphic novel of all time, DC’s Watchmen. But it’s all about the details, isn’t it? So sit back and dig this exploration of two surprisingly similar, yet substantially different, comics classics. Who wins the big brawl? Read on. — By FRED VAN LENTE Hey there! For this latest installment of COMIC BOOK DEATH MATCH, we are simultaneously reading two comics often mentioned in the same breath: Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, and Squadron Supreme by Mark Gruenwald and a bunch of artists, most notably Paul Ryan. Both are dark, self-contained mid-1980s 12-issue maxi-series that challenge the suppositions of the superhero genre; and, not coincidentally, their main characters are analogues for another company’s heroes. Rando humans given superpowers by the Grandmaster to fight the Avengers in Issue #70 of that mag by Roy Thomas and Sal Buscema, the Squadron Sinister were obvious stand-ins for Superman (Hyperion), Batman (Nighthawk), Flash (Whizzer), and Green Lantern (Dr. Spectrum). But of course this was far too clean-cut an explanation for Thomas, he of the Grand Unifying Geek, who retconned his own work in Avengers #85. There we learn that in addition to all his other flaws, Grandmaster is a plagiarist: He ripped off the idea for his Sinisters from the Squadron Supreme, a sort of League of the greatest heroes of an alternate reality, where they fight for Justice (get it, get it). Likewise, the main characters of Watchmen are all stand-ins for heroes created for notoriously shady publisher Charlton that were acquired in the 1980s by DC: Captain Atom (Dr. Manhattan), the Question (Rorschach), Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt (Ozymandias), Blue Beetle (Nite Owl), Nightshade (Silk Spectre—sort of) and Peacemaker (the Comedian). Alan Moore crafted a story that was basically “Who Killed Peacemaker?” but DC editor-in-chief Dick Giordano, who had gotten his start at Charlton, immediately saw that Moore’s plans would render...
Fred Van Lente pays (another) birthday tribute to Gardner Fox — who was born 110 years ago on May 20, 1911 — with a new column concept…