From: [Abhijit Khale] at [transarc.com] Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc Subject: 1963 annotations Date: Sun, 5 Jun 1994 17:02:21 -0400 I've written up some annotations for 1963. Originally I was going to wait to finish the series up till the Image annual came out. But since it keeps on getting delayed, here are the annotations as is : Post comments or send them to me directly. Enjoy !! Abhijit The annotated 1963 ------------------- Written by Abhijit Khale Please send comments to [Abhijit Khale] at [transarc.com] Disclaimer : All 1963 characters are copyrights and trademarks of their respective owners. All Marvel and DC characters mentions are copyrights and trademarks of Marvel and DC respectively. General comments : 1) Alan Moore is known to do a lot of research on his subject matter. Thus, when he makes a seemingly casual comment, it may be just that, or it may have deeper meaning. This annotation tries to find out cross-references, if any. 2) The annotations do NOT cover things like : Who is the Wasp ? Who are the FF ? Some minimal knowledge of Marvel (and DC) is assumed. 3) Most early 1960s Marvel comics (especially Iron man and the Hulk) were crudely anti-communist. Alan Moore parodies that heavily. 4) Early Marvel was also quite sexist. Most female characters (Wasp, Invisible Girl) were shown as frivolous, air-headed, dependent on their male colleagues and occasionally flirtatious. This is something Moore parodies heavily. Also, note the comments in the lettercol about how the only comics girls should be reading are romance comics. More Moore parody. 5) The alliterative style and hype is very reminscient of Stan Lee, and shows Moore's brilliant dialogue skills. Moore skewers Stan pretty heavily throughout the series. 6) Alan Moore also hypes lots of real (and very good) comics, but does so in Marvel/1963 style. 7) The annotations are in order as you flip through the comic and include ads, text pages and lettercols. Book 1 : Mystery Inc by Alan Moore, Rick Veitch, Dave Gibbons. Mystery Inc are obviously the Fantastic Four homages. The Cover says "America's most exciting comic book", a variation of the FF's title "World's Greatest comic magazine", which it actually used to be at one time. Planet === Thing, Ben Grimm. Crystalman === Mr Fantastic, Reed Richards. Infra Girl === Invisible Girl/Woman, Susan Storm Richards. Kid Dynamo === Human Torch, Johnny Storm. The characters behave like their counterparts as well : Crystalman is a scientist, Kid Dynamo is short tempered. Differences : Kid Dynamo and the Planet are brothers, and Kid Dynamo is interested romantically in Infra Girl. Page 1 : Mystery Mile === Baxter Building, FF HQ. The title "Mayhem on Mystery Mile" seems to be a play on the marriage of Reed and Sue, which was labelled "Bedlam at the Baxter Building". Page 6, panel 1 : "Amazona" === Thundra, an old Marvel character who came from a world dominated by women. Page 6-7 : Note the similarities and difference to the FF's origin. The Planet is referred to as an astronaut (Ben Grimm was a test pilot). Page 8 : An early FF story had the FF read mail. One topic of the mail was the uselessness of Sue in the FF. Some of the blatant sexism displayed here is very similar to that in early FF. Panel 4 : More on Infra Girl in book 6 annotations. Page 9, panel 1 : Reverse Magic :-). Text Page : Item 1 : Warhol and Dali references are obvious gags. Blue box : hyping the 80 page annual which ends the series. Shopping List : Each issue will be covered separately. Orange box : Chester Brown writes and draws Yummy Fur. All the other comics mentioned are real. Yellow box : Stan Lee would sometimes indulge in hype about how comics could get rid of racial troubles, bring peace etc., although not to this level. I think Moore's wife is called Phyllis (at least, Big Numbers mentions research done by Phyllis Moore). No idea where the name Wilma for Affable Al's wife came from. Stan used to sign off with Excelsior, Moore does so with Excalibur, which is also the name of a Marvel title that uses characters that Moore worked on. Page 12, panel 1 : Doc Apocalypse === Doc Doom. The reference to Kid Dynamo's dad disappearing may be a comment about Johnny and Sue's father, who was jailed as a criminal. Panel 2 : King Zero may be the Submariner. More on this later. Page 14, panel 1 : More on the Fury and this plotline in issue #2. Page 15, panel 1 : N-Man === Hulk. T-shirt ad : Reminscient of T-shirt ads in 60s Marvel comics. This is proba- bly a real ad. Page 21 : There is no real equivalent for the "Maybe Machine" in early FF, although Reed did build Negative Zone portals and use Doom's time machine. Page 22 : Crystal Man is as smart as Reed. Although Marvel has parallel Earths, the use here bears a stronger resemblance to DC's parallel Earth mythos. Page 23, panel 5 : The early Reed was often jealous when Sue showed attention to another male like the Submariner. Letter Page : Letter 1: More on Sky Solo in book 2. "Dixie's Dates" may be a reference to Marvel romance and Archie comics like Millie the Model or Hedy and Patsy. "Tombstone Kid" may be a reference to an old Marvel Western comic called "Two Gun Kid". N-Man === Hulk. The Hulk and the Thing fought several times. Note the sexist comments about Neon Queen. Letter 2 : King Zero is mentioned as having reappeared in an early issue of Mystery Inc and also as having appeared in the Golden Age. So he's probably the Submariner, who re-appeared in early FF. Pink Box : Murphy Anderson is a very respected Silver Age penciller and inker who now does color production work. Letter 4 : A gag and a pointed comment about Marvel's work-for-hire practices. Letter 5 : Anti-award === No Prize. Letter 6 : More on N-Man, Horus, Infra-Man later. Yellow box : "Rarebit Fiends" is a Rick Veitch strip which appears in the back of Maximortal (and in Cerebus). More on this later. Inside back cover : Moondog's is a comic store chain. Back Cover : This is a parody of an ad by Don Bolander, Director of Career Institute, which promised to teach English. The picture, the questions et al. are similar, although the garbled language is obviously a joke. Book 2 : No one escapes the Fury. by Alan Moore, Steve Bissette and Dave Gibbons. Fury === Spiderman, of course. Cover : "RoofRunner". Spidey is called the "WallCrawler". Page 1 : U.S.A = Captain America. More on him later. LASER = SHIELD, right down to the similar acronym. Commander Solo = Nick Fury Note that Spiderman rarely worked with SHIELD in his early days. Page 2 : Solo even smokes like Nick. Spiderman's father was not a superhero, so there's another difference with Marvel. Page 5 : Fury even talks and swings around like Spidey. Page 7, panel 1 : Voidoid may be the Green Goblin. More on this later. Dune === The Sandman, an early Spiderman foe. Pyroman : No real obvious match. "Threatening Three" : Spidey once fought 6 of his enemies who called themselves the Sinister Six. Sub Ad : Derived from old ads for toy subs and a parody of Anti-Sovietism. Page 9, last panel : "Screaming Skydogs" : Nick Fury used to head a group called the Howling Commandos in WW-II. More on this later. Page 13 : The Dinosaur may be a play on old Spidey Foes the Lizard and Stegron. Stegron even used intelligent dinosaurs in some of his stories. Page 17 : The Fury's mother is the Aunt May equivalent. Text Page : Item 1 in Yellow Box : Both Kim and Gary (unfortunately) are real people. All the comics mentioned are real as are the people like Bagge, Clowes, Los Bros Hernandez. Item 2 : Hyping the annual again. Yellow Box : "Sky Solo and her Screaming Sky Dogs" = "Sgt. Fury and his Howli- ng Commandos", an old Marvel war comic. Moore appears to be parodying the sometimes crude anti-German nature of the comic. Page 18 : Spidey's parents were killed by the Red Skull, not in the manner shown here. The Fury's dad is the Golden Age hero known as the Fighting Fury (more on him in issue #6). "Sinister Squid" may be Dr. Octopus, who was also a nuclear scientist. Page 21 : Voidoid's identity is secret. Page 23, last panel : Dr. Kent Kane === Hank Pym, Ant Man. Miss Mason === Janet van Dyne, the Wasp. More on these two in book 6. [ This may also be a side reference to Dr. Curt Connors, a scientist and a friend of Spidey's. ] Page 24, panel 2 : The Wasp would make comments like that in her early days. Ad : Moondog's Ad again. Letter Page : Letter 1 : The various speculations about the Voidoid's id lead me to believe he may be a Green Goblin copy. The Green Goblin's id was originally secret and was revealed in an early Spiderman storyline. Letter 2 : "Sspral" and "Vapoor" : Marvel used to publish Monster comics in the 50s. These are probably references to old Marvel monsters, although I don't have exact names. "Mut-Ants" : The Hulk fought Mole men in an early issue, but I don't remember his fighting any intelligent insects till much later. "Behemoth Bugs from Mystery Inc. " : I don't remember the FF fighting such bugs or anything similar. "Journey into Unearthly" : Old Marvel title "Journey Into Mystery", most not- able for the first appearnce of Thor. The other two titles covered later. "Rul Rax Rhoom" : Fin Fang Foom, a 50s Marvel monster. "Yolk" : no reference. Moore is also parodying Marvel's litigiousness, which caused the change of the name of Marvelman to Miracleman. Duane Simpson and the comments about misspelling : Any references ? Yellow box : Morrie is probably a real guy. But the comment about his being Al's uncle is meant to parody the fact that Stan Lee got his job at Marvel only because his uncle was the publisher. Letter 3 : Either of Sinister Squid or Dr. Centipede is probably Dr. Octopus. "Art-Boy" : No reference. Letter 5 : Parodying Stan's hucksterism. "Cosmax" is Galactus (more on this in issue # 3). "Arcturian Ulti-mind" may be a reference to the Kree Supreme Intelligence, an adversary of the Fantastic Four. More on Johnny Beyond in issue #4. Pink Box : Hyping Stephen Bissette's work in Taboo and his upcoming Tyrant. Sky Solo pin-up : "Lady from L.A.S.E.R" may be a play on "Man from U.N.C.L.E", an old TV show. Ad : Parodying certain artists' tendency to swipe art. "Ruckler products .. Kirby Street" : Rich Buckler is an artist known for swiping Jack Kirby's work. [ Maybe they should have named it Riefeld Products ? ] Inside Back Cover : Another T-shirt ad. Back Cover : Looks like a parody of hair loss ads, but I don't have a direct reference for it. Book Three : "Tales of the Uncanny" The title is probably based on old Marvel comic "Tales of Suspense". Ultimate Special Agent by Alan Moore, Rick Veitch, Don Simpson. Ultimate Special Agent === Captain America. Also a play on US Agent, which id Cap took on once when he couldn't become Captain America. Pages 1-2 : USA is stopping the assasination of JFK. Page 3, panel 1 : "Leo Harley Osborne" : Lee Harvey Oswald was the name of JFK's killer. Panel 2 : Note the grassy knoll reference. Page 4, panel 2: "Vitamin Omega" : Cap obtained his powers through the Super Soldier serum. panel 5 : "Osborne's trip to Russia" : Oswald defected to Russia and then came back. Page 4-6 : "Brian Ruby" : In the real word, Jack Ruby was the guy who killed Lee Harvey Oswald in a manner similar to that shown here. Page 6 : "Red Brain" === "Red Skull", an old Cap villain. The Red Skull doesn't have all these powers though. Page 11-12 : The man from the future ties into the Image 80 pg annual, prob- ably. Olfactory fighting Ad : Parody of Karate ads which claimed to make you a mas- ter of karate. Yuckk... Text Page : Item 1 (in Pink Box) : Four Color Images is a real art gallery in New York which exhibits comics art. I presume the exhibition of Mystery Inc. art was for real. Item 2 (in Pink Box) : I believe all the characters mentioned are real. Yellow Box : Moore is poking fun at the collector mentality. Item 3 : Hyping the annual. I assume the name change for the VOIDOID is based on reality. [ Does WILDCATS have a character named the Void ? ] Hypernaut by Alan Moore, Stephen Bissette, Chester Brown Hypernaut : There is no direct correspondence to a Marvel character. Instead, Hypernaut seems to be drawn on Hal (Green Lantern) Jordan and Iron Man but also has several individual characterstics. Page 1 : Many of the text panels seem to be about numbers and four in particu- lar. Page 2 : Queep : This seems to be a parody of various silly sidekicks that DC characters like J'onn and the Space Ranger had. Tony Stark never had such a sidekick, and Hal picked one up only in the 70s (Itty the Starfish). Queep also bears some resemblance to the Monkey King, a very frightening demon that Moore and Bissette created in Swamp Thing. Panel 2 : more on Infra-Man in book #6. "Ammonite" : no reference. Panel 3 : "Molemoth" : no reference, could be Mole Man. Last panel : Hal Jordan was a test pilot Page 3 : The idea that the Hypernaut needs his cybernetic receptacle to surv- ive is similar to early Iron Man, in which he needed his armor's chest devices to keep his heart beating. The reference to a guild, though, is very similar to the Green Lantern mythos (which itself derives from the Lensmen). Page 7 : The being is a 4-D creature. This may be a parody of a silly 50s Marvel character called the 3-D man, who returned to fight the Hulk later. Page 12 : This switching betwen body suits is very reminscient of LSH member Wildfire. Lettercol : Letter 1 : "NumberJack", "Piface" : no references. "Chessmen" : Iron Man did fight a Black Knight in his early days. He also fought some Chessmen, but that was much later, in the 1980s. May also be a play on old JLA villains called The Royal Flush Gang, who would dress up as playing cards. "Achtung Spitfier", "Kid Swastika" : no references. Moore is also parodying Marvel's refusal to let Cap age. Letter 2 : "Cosmax" eats suns. He must be hungrier than Galactus, who eats planets. USA may have a thing for Sky Solo : Cap had one for a Shield agent called Sharon. Letter 3 : Both DC and Marvel were known to be careless about their artists original artwork back in the 1960s. Joe Kubert once came in to find DC staffers about to shred his artwork. Jack Kirby had a very hard time getting Marvel to give some of his art back. Letter 4 : Ed "Emperor" Evans === Jack "King" Kirby. Jack Kirby co-created Captain America, as Evans did with USA. Much of this letter and the response is a fairly obvious indictment of Marvel's and Stan's treatment of Jack. The "sold rights .. for thirty-eight dollars" comment, though is closer to the story of Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster, who sold Superman to DC for a very small sum. Letter 5 : "Amputo" : Could be the Mandarin, although he fought Iron Man, not the Hulk. "Professor Scwheppes" : no reference. Inside Back Cover : Another T-shirt ad. Back Cover : Another anti-communist parody, as well as a parody of ads in comics which sold lifesize monsters and skeletons. Blue Box : All the comics mentioned are for real. Book Four : "Tales from Beyond" The Hulk appeared for a brief while in an old Marvel comic called Tales To Astonish. N-Man by Alan Moore, Steve Bissette, John Totleben. N-Man === Hulk, obviously. Page #2 : The N-Man only rates a Colonel, while the Hulk gets General Ross. Tsk. Tsk. Page #5 : Kokarovitch may be a play on old Hulk villain the Abomination. The Abomination was also a Soviet spy who exposed himself to gamma rays and became a monster with Hulk level powers. Ad for US Government Surplus : Parodying catalogue ads seen in Marvel comics. The ad is full of gags like "Senators : 5 for 99 cents", "VD training film". Page 12 : Sally Stevens === Betty Ross. Betty was never Bruce Banner's assist- ant in the early Marvel Universe. Panel 6 : more on Infra-Man in book #6. Monster Ad : More anti-communist parodies. Johnny Beyond by Alan Moore, Jim Valentino, Stephen Bissette. Johnny Beyond === Dr. Strange. However, the dialogue used here is more reminscient of the dialogue used in some late 60s DC comics (most notably the Teen Titans) to attract teenagers because it was "hip". Page 5 : The house bears a resemblance to Dr. Strange's abode. Page 6 : "Garab Dorje" is an equivalent of the Ancient One, Dr. Strange's tea- cher. Text Page : Item 1 : A very funny Alice Cooper gag. Pink Box : Moore is obviously working in some jokes about Stan's past. Stan did indeed get the job at Marvel/Timely only because his uncle was the publisher. [ Did he really marry a heiress ? ]. The relationship between Stan and Jack as collaborators is also parodied. This seems to be saying that Jack Kirby did most of the work on the comics the two collaborated on. Item 2 : I assume the reference to the auction of 1963 art at Christies is accurate. Page 9 : In his early stories, Dr. Strange would separate his astral body from his physical one often. Page 10 : The comments about reversed molecules are accurate. Page 11, panel 1 : A very Steve Ditkoish landscape. Lettercol Letter 1 : "Warsaw Pack" : No obvious match. The Soviets had several super- villains in early Marvel comics, but no supervillain group. "Moscow Dynamo" : Crimson Dynamo, an old armored Soviet supervillain. "Komissar Kremlin" : no reference "Diabolical Dugpa" : may be Baron Mordo, old Dr. Strange enemy. "Cubist Creature" : no reference. Could be Man Thing, although he first appea- red later. "Weirdo", "Beastnik" : no reference. Moore is also making a pointed comment about the Comics Code authority's ref- usal to allow zombies in comics in the 1960s, as well as their banning the showing of gay relationships. Letter 2 : A gag about the ad on the back of issue 1. Letter 4 : Yeah, the lettercols are fiction (Surprise, Surprise). Blue box : Murphy Anderson won an award at Ithacon. Note the comments about the lawsuit if the Planet were orange (like the Thing) or N-Man were green (like the Hulk, sometimes). Letter 5 : Parodying sexism at Marvel as well as the fact that some female fans are worried about getting junk mail if their full addresses are printed in comic books. Letter 6 : Part of this is obviously a parody on Marvel UK, for which Moore worked at one time. I believe Marvel comics used to be reprinted in black and white weekly magazines prior to the coming of Marvel UK. [ Exact references, anyone ? Is the writer a real person ? ] Yellow Box : Hyping Bissette's Tyrant. Blue Box : Hyping Valentino's Shadowhawk. Inside Back Cover : Another T-shirt ad. Back Cover : Parodying the Sea Monkeys ads in old comics. Book Five : Horus, Lord of Light by Alan Moore, Rick Veitch, John Totleben Horus === Thor, obviously. This replaces Norse myths with Egyptian myths. But the correspondence to actual myths here is much stronger than in Thor. Page 1 : "Termagant", and his brother "Typhon" : Thor used to fight giants quite often in his early days. These two could be the equivalent of Ymir and Surtur, two regular opponents of Thor and Odin or they could be Frost Giants. Page 3 : Thor's human id used to be Dr. Don Blake. He had a nurse called Jane Foster. Janet is a Jane Foster copy. Page 7 : Thor's adversary was his half brother Loki. Horus's adversary is the Egyptian god Seth. Ad : more anti-communism parody. Text Page : Item 1 : John Totleben is an artist who's done lots of work with Alan Moore. He's been known to have problems with his eyesight recently. "Hellhead" is a project he's doing with Rick Veitch. Item 2 : ANIA is a comic book publisher. Heru is presumably a real comic. Green Box : This is a fairly obvious attack on Stan Lee. "Origins of Sixty Three part two : how I created everything all by myself .." is probably meant to be a parody of Stan Lee's Origins of the Marvel superher- oes, which says basically that he created Marvel all by himself. Its also true that most Stan Lee collaborators such as Kirby and Ditko were later to fall-out with him. Kirby even created a character (for DC) called Funky Flas- hman, the ultimate con man, as a Stan Lee parody. Page 9 : The mythological references to the death of Osiris are accurate. Ad Page : Parodies of old Sea Monkeys ads again. Note the reference to "Yummy Fur". Decals : "King Hell" is the imprint under which Veitch publishes some of is work. "Mad Love" is the imprint under which Alan Moore's Big Numbers was being published. "Spiderbaby Grafix" is the imprint under which Steve Bissette publishes some of his work. Page 16 : Astarte is an Egyptian mythical character : using her may also be a tip of the hat to the use of Hela, Norse Goddess of Death as a Thor and Odin adversary. Page 23 : The whole storyline bears a minor resemblance to a pivotal Thor storyline which culminated in Thor #137. In that story, Thor took Jane Foster to Asgard and asked to marry her. Odin tested her and found her unworthy to be a goddess and sent her back to Earth. Letter Page : Letter 1 : "Crisis in Cloudland" : no reference to any early Thor, although DC used to label their annual JLA/JSA team-ups as "Crisis .." as well. "Tales of Heliopolis" : Marvel used to run "Tales of Asgard strips as a backup to Thor. "Alligator" : No Thor reference, but there is an Egyptian connection. "Brothers Grim" : Termagant and Typhon from page 1-2. Letter 3 : Neil Gaiman is a real person :-). "Delerium, duke of dreadful dreams", foe of Johnny Beyond is probably a reference to Dr. Strange foe Nightmare. There is actually a strong surface similarity between Nightmare and Gaiman's Dream : they look somewhat alike, and their powers are dream-based. More parody of poor writing of Brits by American authors and of Marvel's litigiousness. Inside Back Cover : Another T-shirt ad. Back Cover : Parodying ads which claim to get rid of zits and pimples. Letter 5 : A real letter ? Halluejelah !! Book Six : Tomorrow Syndicate Tomorrow Syndicate === Avengers. Cover : "Earth's mightiest heroes" is a tag used for the Avengers as well. Page 1 : Duty Roster : The Avengers' original membership was a match with this, i.e. Thor, Iron Man, Hulk, Ant-Man and Wasp as members. Cap joined in Avengers #4, but by that time the Hulk had left, and Ant-man was Giant Man. Infra Man === Ant Man, Infra Girl === Wasp. Page 2, panel 3 : The Hulk would often argue with Thor or Iron Man. Panel 4 : The Wasp would often comment on how dreamy Thor looked. Page 3, panel 5 : "Tomorrobile" === Quinjet, which the Avengers used for travelling. Page 4, panel 3 : More Wasp airheadedness parodied. Page 5, last panel : "Underman" : might be an old underground villain called Tyrannus or even the Mole Man. "Brothers of the Kraken" may be a reference to racist Avengers foes called "The Sons of the Serpent". Page 6, panel 5 : "FBI surveillance photographs" : may be a veiled comment by Moore about J. Edgar Hoover's penchant for surveillance. Ad : This is a parody of an ad which used to say "We're looking for people who like to draw". The layout and the use of the artistic image is similar (the original ad would use Normal Rockwell). This is also an ad for Rick Veitch's RareBit Fiends comic. As the ad says, this is a tribute to the great comic strip artist Winsor McKay, who used to do a strip about dreams called Rarebit Fiends and later did the famous Little Nemo in Slumberland strips. Page 9 : 1963's Golden Age heroes appear. They bear a resemblance to Marvel's Invaders and also to some other Golden Age heroes. Frosty Guy : King Zero. As mentioned in the annotation for book 1, this may be the Submariner. Hero with Blue Mask and Horns : The Fighting Fury, the Fury's father. American Beauty : No real match at Marvel, but might be Phantom Lady, Wonder Woman, Miss America or Liberty Belle. Also, a younger version of USA and the original Hypernaut. Page 10, last panel : Note the comment by the original Hypernaut that he had never heard of the guild of Hypernauts. The Golden Age Green Lantern was not originally empowered by the Guardians as the Silver Age Green Lantern was, although his history has changed many times since then. Page 11, panel 3 : "Blur of Earth-Alpha" === Flash of Earth-2. "Blur and Blur Boy of Earth-Beta" === Flash and Kid Flash of Earth-1. The use of the Flashes is significant, since it was the Flash of Earth-1 who first met the Flash of Earth-2 in the classic "Flash of two Earth's" story. Panel 4 : The JLA and JSA used to hold annual team-ups at one time, before DC, in their infinite wisdom, decided to get rid of them. Panel 5 : Superman in front, with his death certificate (round about the time of the Return of Superman storyline). Swamp Thing in back, a character Alan Moore and Rick Veitch have more than a passing familiarity with. Page 12, panel 2 : "Infinite Crisis" : Clearly a reference to the Crisis on Infinite Earths at DC. Panel 4 : The guy sitting on the sofa next to the Blur of Earth-Alpha is the character he was based on : Jay Garrick, the Golden Age Flash. The guy with the pointy ears with his back to us is the Batman and the character next to him is probably the Catwoman. These may be the Earth-2 versions of Batman and Catwoman, who were married and were wiped out of existence by the Crisis on Infinite Earths. [ An outside chance is that it could be the male Wildcat, character who was involved in some hard to place Brave and Bold Team-ups with Batman : but the Batman wouldn't have his arm around Wildcat.] Page 13-14 : A parallel Earth inhabited by villainous doubles of superheroes. This bears a resemblance to Earth-3, an old DC Earth which had exactly the same situation, i.e. villainous doubles of the Justice League called the Crime Syndicate. Text : Item 1 : More sexism parody. Item 2 : All of these are real comics. Look at pages 21-22 to get a glimpse at their characters, or better still, look at their comics. Yellow Box : So Moore "got a couple of big ones" out of this. Good. Moore seems to be saying that if the demand is strong enough, he'll do more of this beyond the Image annual. Item 3 (blue box) : Hype for 1963 1/2 and there's more in the comic later. Item 4 : Almost all of these are real folk. Page 18 : Moore seems to think that the most likely consequence of the Cuban Missiles Crisis would have been nuclear war. Page 18-19 : The world of 1963 1/2. Page 20-21 : Text page covers all these characters pretty thoroughly. Page 22 : Note how the coloring is changing as the heroes enter the future. Page 23 : The guy from book 1 Page 24 : The background screens contain a number of both 1963 characters such as N-Man, Fury, Mystery Inc. members, Johnny Beyond, the Tomorrow Syn- dicate as well as other Image characters such as Shadowhawk, the Savage Drag- on, Supreme, WildC.A.T.S and Spawn. [ Any reference on the red and white costumed archer ? ] Letters Page : Letter 1 : "Ammonite", "Iron Curtain", "Berlin Wally", "Amputo" : no immediate reference. Iron Curtain may be the Titanium Man, an old communist villain. The other characters mentioned have already been covered before. Letter 3: "Indian Rubber Sam" and all the mathematical villains mentioned : no reference " a whole guild of heroes, each from a different world ..." is not an original concept, of course. "mans a lens " : a reference to EE "Doc" Smith's Lensmen, which also had the same idea. "colors his lantern green" : sound familiar ? "gets drunk on a Black Planet Cocktail ... " : Only reference I can think of for this one is in an old SF story called QUR by Anthony Boucher. Much of the plot of the story revolves around getting a certain type of cocktail (Three Planets Cocktail). "Warps into a smithy" : [ I'm positive I've heard this before, but the exact reference is eluding me.] Green Box : Hyping Miller and Gibbons' Give Me Liberty as well as Gibbons' Aliens work. Letter 5 : Doc Apocalypse, as mentioned before, is a Dr Doom equivalent. "Doc A can switch shapes with someone .. a trick he learned from the Eg'eads". Dr. Doom learned this ability from aliens called the Ovoids in an early FF story. He used it in the mid-80s in Byrne's FF stories. The letter asks if "Doc Apoc" and the "freaky Pharaoh Tutses" are the same. The reference here is to an old Dr. Doom storyline in which he met the villainous Egyptian Pharaon Rama Tut. Rama Tut hinted in one of his early appearances that he may be the same person as Doom. "comic based on numbers" : A reference to Alan Moore's comic Big Numbers which is only up to #2 so far. Moore is pretty open about why he's doing this. Letter 6 : Ho'd Win is a constant matter of debate. Letter 7 : Doug Winter : any reference ? Is he just imaginary ? "Havana Tim" : no reference "Red Flag, Hammer and Sickle" : could be a Soviet character called the Vin- dicator, but he appeared much later. Letter 8: Moore is parodying some of the titles that Marvel handed out like Marvel Zombie, or FOOM. Letter 9 : More anti-communist parody. The reference is to the CIA's attempted assasinations of Fidel Castro back in the 60s ... with poison cigars no less !! Yellow Box : "All this and Earth Two" : a pun and a reference to DC's Earth-2. Modern Mystery comics cover : no reference. Probably a Golden Age comic cover. Tomorrow Syndicate cover : A copy of the cover of FF #1, which is itself a copy of the cover of Brave and Bold #28 (First Justice League). Inside Back Cover : Ad for Tyrant Back Cover : Ad for 1963 1/2 ... again.