Over on the CBR fora, the subject of BLACK GOLIATH came up. One poster said he'd have liked to have seen the sales pitch for such an oddball series.

My response:

"As I understand it, there was no pitch. The execs upstairs decided they needed five new books in a tearing hurry, and there was no time to think about it, so Len Wein (who was EIC at the time), Marv Wolfman (about to become EIC) and several staffers went out to lunch and made up books they could get rolling that very day. BLACK GOLIATH, INHUMANS, MARVEL CHILLERS (featuring Mordred), MARVEL PRESENTS (Bloodstone) and ADVENTURES ON THE PLANET OF THE APES were the books they made up, I think. Once they had a chance to think, the contents of CHILLERS and PRESENTS changed (to Tigra and Guardians of the Galaxy, respectively), but none of the books lasted. BLACK GOLIATH came out a few months after the others, but I think it was part of that one brainstorming lunch, as well."

This spawned a thread asking people what 5 books they'd come up with if they had to come up with 5 books fast. Most of the answers seem to have been answered in the spirit of "What 5 books would you like to see?" rather than "What 5 books could you get rolling in a hurry and get on the stands in an impossibly-short amount of time?"

So I'm throwing out the challenge over here -- you've got no time, you've got to get this done right away and get the books rolling. What 5 books do you put out that you can get rolling and staffed in a day or so?

I prefer asking the question in the original context -- it's mid-1975, and you have to come up with 5 different Marvel books than the ones they chose -- but you can answer the question set at any time, at any company. Just think fast.

For bonus points, staff the books too, keeping in mind that you can't just pull people from other titles -- gotta be guys that are/were available for that sort of thing, and fast.

My answers were:

1. HERCULES. Conan was doing well, so it'd be worth a try, either stories of Herc in the Age of Legend or modern stories with a mythic flavor. They did give him a tryout around then, when they moved Iron Fist into his own series and turned MARVEL PREMIERE into a spotlight book, but I'd have just slomped him into his own book.

Staff: If we go with barbarian myth-adventure - Doug Moench and Alfredo Alcala. If we go with bust-em-up superheroes, Bill Mantlo and George Tuska, with a good inker. But oh, if I only had a few months to set it up, Kirby could write and draw it...

2. THE FALCON. Cap was reportedly selling well, Englehart had just left and Kirby was on the way. Why not see if you could springboard Sam into his own book?

Staff: Offer it to Steve Englehart as a way to follow up his CAP run. If he doesn't want it, Tony Isabella. That young guy Perez on the art (he did Inhumans!).

3. THE HUMAN TORCH. Unless the recent reprint series had poisoned the well. I've always thought Johnny could make a decent solo star, if handled right.

Staff: Snag that young assistant editor Roger Stern, whose writing we've seen in Charlton Bullseye, and team him with that Canadian guy, what's his name? Burns?

4. WUNDARR - what the hell, we're experimenting, and Gerber had put an engaging supporting cast around Wundarr in TWO-IN-ONE. Let's see if the story of a dopey, impulsive child-hero and the people who try to guide and teach him can go anywhere.

Staff: Steve Gerber and Marie Severin, if Marie's willing to draw a monthly. Or Joe Staton, if she's not .

5. ARKON - a cosmic shift puts a large chunk of Polemachus onto Earth, as a floating island somewhere in the mid-Atlantic. How does the Marvel Universe react to barbarians and hi-tech magic in a modern world?

Staff: Chris Claremont (hey, he was available to take over BLACK GOLIATH as of #2!), Steve Gan and a cool inker -- Rudy Nebres, maybe. Or Vincente Alcazar, pencils and inks.

I added: This likely isn't what I'd actually do -- they made up at least two new characters (Bloodstone and Mordred) and I'd probably do some of that. I'd also have better access to sales figures, which might lead me to do more horror or something -- or maybe a Kamandi-like series, since it was doing well for DC and getting licensing money (Marvel did try to do a similar series a couple years later, but it was DEVIL DINOSAUR). But part of the game seems to be that there's no time to think it over, so..."

And shortly thereafter I figured out the Kamandi-like series:

KNIGHTS OF WUNDAGORE, in which the creations of the High Evolutionary colonize a new planet, only to find strange creatures and dangerous conditions all around. Plus a human brother and sister in the mix, for audience identification.

Staff: Frank Robbins writes it. Lee Elias pencils and inks. We could give this one to Chris Claremont and SF it up, but I think I want kid-friendly more than soffisicated.

That's mine. What's yours?

kdb

I'll preface this by saying that I'm a little rusty on which characters were already around by that point (so if they hadn't debuted by the point in time we're talkin', assume that they were created for the new series ), but:

White Tiger by Moench and Perez

Black Widow by Claremont and Byrne

Wolverine by Stern and Cockrum

The Liberty Legion by Thomas and Springer

Doctor Druid by Gerber and Mayerick

a challenge; verily shall I pick up this gauntlet:

Current Roster DC:
Sgt. Rock - set in modern times with Rock's son / grandson as the key character set in various conflicts around the globe. Story by Ostrander, art by one of the Kubert boys, preferably Andy.

Tales of the DCU - Darwyn Cooke doing whatever the heck he wants, with a caveat that no superhero character can appear in more than 3 books in 18.

House of Secrets - relaunch the try out title with rotating writers and artists in the horror genre. Get Len Wein to talent wrangle.

Frontiers of Space - Walt Simonson doing SA science fiction with new and existing space characters that don't wear green or have wings.

The Metal Men - Keith Giffen and Ed Benes doing light hearted, but not BWAHAHA stories.

Oh, and I'll make room at the printers by cancelling 4 Batman titles...

Jason

Hmm. Tough challenge, Kurt. With the deadline looming, I think I'll just stick to titles and basic setups!

Company: DC Comics
Time: Now

The Crimson Avenger (the new character from the pages of JSA; lots of potential here)
Shazam! (focus more on Cap alone this time, less of the Marvel Family; more "epic" feel to his adventures)
The Unknown Soldier (mysterious new character [could he be the original?!] fighting terrorism in the modern era)
Mister Terrific (have him battling a new ultra-powerful criminal organization, utilizing his abilities to be "invisible to technology"))
The Blue Beetle (a new character takes over for the late Ted Kord; using tech that's just as wild and advanced now as Ted's was in the 1960s)

I don't know if the White Tiger existed yet, but if he did, c'mon, he was created by Bill Mantlo. Let Bill write it.



Dave is not able to draw more than his current assignment, X-Men. [And Wolverine's not actually popular yet, but what the hell.]

kdb

Fair enough.



What was Sal Buscema doing at that point? He's a drawing machine, ain't he? Let him take Wolverine.

Cool story Kurt..plus a fun little challenge - I was born in 1975 so Ill stick to:

DC comics - modern times.

Suicide Squad - Villains United and Wanted are hits...readers love villains..bring back some classic Squad members and a few newbies..and keep the kill count nice and high...no one can write this puppy except John Ostrander in my opinion..on the art side Id like to see Leonard Kirk - he has proven he can do superheroics (JSA) as well as grim and gritty (Bloodhound).

The Secret Six - blackmail, mysteries, action and espionage - the high concept for this book is just too good to go to waste..give action afficonado and conspiracy theorist Andy Diggle a crack at this and team him up with Lee Weeks on the art chores.

Vigilante - the cowbow from WW2 - something about a cowboy in modern times just works for me - an old school sheriff dispensing justice with his six guns and a lasso in an age of white collar crime, corruption and uber violence. Chuck Dixon has given us some great action, crime, and western tales. Ed Barreto on the art chores and we are set.

the Spectre - story and art by Walt Simonson..i dont know why but i beleive Simonson's style would just work on the Spectre...give him a new host and let him loose on all the sickoes and demons out there.

Dr Mid-Nite - i think he could carry his own series...a CSI type detective who uses his brains and forensics to solve crimes..a thinking mans hero (3 CSI shows on tv...why not a comic?)...Matt Wagner as the writer with Lewis Larosa (punisher) on art chores.

Sal was a workhorse, but since he didn't get any of the new books at the time, I figured he's busy -- at the moment, drawing DEFENDERS and MARVEL TEAM-UP, about to take over HULK and in a few months, SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN.

So he's probably not completely unavailable, but if you put him on your Wolverine book, he's probably going to be unavailable for one of the others.

And, no offense to Rog, but ... Roger Stern? Wolverine? Really?

kdb

It's not room at the printer you'd have to make. None of these guys, with the possible exception of Ostrander, would be immediately available. Some of 'em wouldn't be available at any price.

Staffing the books with available talent -- guys you can get virtually immediately -- is part of the game.

kdb

I'd buy virtually all of these, though I don't see many of 'em lasting (still, that Vigilante series would be sweet for the 8 issues it ran). Still, again, you're going to have staffing problems -- especially with guys like Walt, Lee and Matt, who aren't exactly the kind of folks you can get on a rush.

Plus, there's already a VIGILANTE book (different character, but title being used) coming from DC, by Bruce Jones.

kdb

Hey, the character was practically an unknown at that point, so why not?

Still, if Cockrum's already working on X-Men then Wolverine's already being used.

Howzabout Doc Samson by Stern and Tuska (Psychiatry and Psuper-heroics! )

Because Roger's not exactly the "excitable mean guy with claws" writer type, unknown or not, so is he really going to enjoy it? And he's gotta be a good enough fit for the material to get that first plot to an artist F-A-S-T, without having to think too hard.

I'll also point out that I'm not even sure Roger was working at Marvel yet, though if not he was about to be. But his writing experience was minimal -- in the real world, he didn't get his first regular gig until about a year and a half later -- so you'd want to play to his strengths rather than expect immediate virtuosity.



Tuska's certainly available, but Samson's only made a few appearances, the latest four years ago. He's about to become a supporting cast member in HULK, but isn't there yet. And the writer about to use him is the EIC -- so he may be possessive.

kdb

Well, the Inhumans is almost one books I'd always do, were I EIC. But:

1. Marvel Super-Heroes. As a predecessor of the Giant Size books, I'da put Roger Stern in charge of reinvigorating the near-pinnacle book that MSH was encroaching upon when it was converted to a mere reprint book. This woulda been around issue 68ish, so maybe a reset woulda been involved, but do it JUST like the MSH book before it, with rotating, solo stories of different Marvel characters, so I wouldn't get into this kinda jam again. Art chores? A squad, with Tuska, Wood, and Mebbe Buckler?

2. Black Panther. I know, I know, he's in Jungle Action, but this really needed to be its own title. Black Panther deserved his own bi-monthly title for a looong time. The existing team is fine, but...whats Jack Kirby doing this year? Kamandi? Can we win him back with this, and mebbe...

3. Fantastic Tales. A la Strange Tales, with Thing/Torch stories in the front half, and the odd characters in the back; Inhumans, Wyatt Wingfoot, Agatha Harkness, The Surfer, etc. Let Jack do his thang.

4. Black Widow. She just got done appearing in Amazing Adventures, so folks are used to great art, and seeing her solo. If she keeps up the appearances in Avengers, she could just take off. With the beauty of the Way-Forward machine, we can see Perez' Widow series in Fanfare, so lets get him to do it, as a prelude to seeing if he can tackle the Avengers, later if we need a fill in. Writer? Jim Shooter oughtta be primed for working with Perez, setting up a twenty-year friendship and a beautiful run on the Avengers. Hell, some day they might collaborate on JLA/Avengers...
Can we add a Crimson Dynamo back-up feature here, give that CPL kid, Bob Layton something to do?

5. The Beast! Marvel is looking for a monster vein, right? And Hank just appeared over in Amazing Adventures as a near-monster, and X-Men is reprints, so lets use him like a modern-day Hulk title, with Englehart and that Byrne kid, from CPL. If we can get some buzz going, his recent appearances in Avengers might just get this into a Marvel Mag as well. That rumored X-Men book is never going to get off the ground, anyway, right?

Dark Horse candidate? BUY CPL from Bob Layton, and get Marv Wolfman, Steve Ditko, and WHOMEVER to let the EPIC age of Marvel begin ten years early. Can we really break some ground here, and if these guys wanna OWN Avenging World, Blade, Omega, and Howard the Duck, lets give them some rope, and invest in the long-term. Atlas is tanking, and we all know you can't run that business like that, but lets get the energy Howie Chaykin and Neal Adams, and Wally Wood and Ditko and such were chucking at a windmill and fuel a new revolution rather than snuff out artistic liberty and independence.

Marvel 1975

The Black Knight - Let a couple Brits do it. IIRC Marvel UK got off the ground not long after this time so there was plenty of solid talent around. A little scouting would have probably dug up Alan Grant or Steve Moore and guys like Brian Bolland and Brian Talbot were just cutting their teeth in the art market around then, maybe even a young Alan Davis or Dave Gibbons.

The Prowler - Was that his name? He was in a handful of Spider-Man stories in the early 70s. Nice backstory and a connection to Spidey's cast. I've heard the black community related to Spidey because of the full face mask. Here's a cool black character in the same mold. Tony Isabella liked writing urban characters. Roger Stern was just getting started, but his familiarity with the Spidey mythos would have been a plus. I like the guy who ended up doing some of McCregor's Panther vs Klan stories for art but can't bring up his name. Billy something? Who did those early Luke Cage stories, Tuska? He'd be great, too. Jim Mooney inks!

Silver Surfer - I loved the cosmic series of the era, Warlock and Captain Marvel and Dr. Strange. I think you give this one to Steve Englehart and maybe Al Milgrom or Steve Leialoha or Alan Weiss or any of that crowd. As an alternative: Galactus by Jack Kirby, just to see what would happen.

The Misfits - A team book featuring the oddballs or attitude problems who always had a hard time in other teams, the guys who were quitting every other issue, anybody who ever said, From now on, I work alone! Forced to work together for some reason, they find a vibe that really works, the same Gen X vibe that worked for the X-Men. Quicksilver, Hawkeye, Angel leap to mind as possibilities. Not hard to come up with a couple more if I could really get back into a 1975 mindset -- help me out here! -- plus some new characters. I like Claremont and Byrne for this one.

Dark Tales - A horror anthology written by Archie Goodwin with a variety of artists: raid DC's stable for the cover story with Wrightson, Jones, Kaluta, and that whole school; with back-ups by up-and-comers Simonson, Russell, Rogers, etc. and bullpen staples like John Buscema and Kane, who could probably manage the occasional 4-8 pager.

Can we get George Perez for your Misfits book? It seems to me that someone HAD a "Misfits" team. Kurt? Any help here? Was it Charlton? Somethings ringing a bell.........WAIT!

It was Wally Wood, doing those magazine things with Cannon, which were 1969 and 1976, so long as they only appeared in the second book, yer title is OKAY!

I wasn't a fan of Perez circa 1975. His Kirby-ish period never did much for me. He came into his own a few years down the road.

No problem changing The Misfits if necessary. How about The Rebels? Or The Outsiders (scoop DC by about a decade)? Pick any biker gang without the word Hell in it and you're probably okay. It occurs to me that Spider-Man would actually work on this team, as opposed to The Avengers, where he would never make it (heh).

Hey, I liked the Black Panther in Jungle Tales!

The title is cool (I think). Prowler is a great callout. I liked Jungle Action as well, but BP needs his own book, man.

Also, can we just assign George Tuska wherever we need him? Man, the guys was versatile and managed a lot of different feeling books throughout the seventies. The more stuff I go back and repurchase, the more I find his name on stuff!

Kurt, of those titles, which ones contained characters that were newly-created ( or new to the Marvel titles ... ) ?

As I understand it, Mordred appeared in some early Marvel/Timely comics?

I'm assuming Black Goliath and Planet of the Apes were new, but what about Tigra and Bloodstone?

Jim Lawless

Not sure about creative teams, but here goes.

<B>Infra-Man</B> - Adapting the movie http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073168/ into a series

<B>Quicksilver</B> - A spotlight on one of my favorite underused characters

<B>Negative Quest</B> - A team of B-list heroes or cosmic heroes search the Negative Zone for something. ( Nova, Captain Marvel, Firelord .. maybe?)

<B>Marvel Girl</B> - Another underused ( at the time ) favorite mutant. It would have been nice to see her in her own series before all of the Phoenix stuff.

<B>The Shroud</B> - I think he appeared in Super-Villain Team-Up later than '75, but I'm running out of ideas.

<B>The Copperhead</B> ( Yeah, I know this is 6 ) - Didn't he appear in a Spider-Man title as a villain ... but he was more of a pulp vigilante like The Shadow or The Avenger, correct?

Jim Lawless

I like the Negative Zone thing -- Rick Jones is lost in the NZ and Marvell leads a team of heroes through the FF's Baxter Building portal to save him. Saving Private Jones!

Kurt - re the VIGILANTE book...your right WS is releasing one too...we can call this one..THE LAWMAN or something that evokes an old western movie title...your right it would probably last only 8 issues...but they would be fun (better than Blakc Goliaths 5 issue run:)

If Simonson's busy ...maybe Rucka on the SPECTRE would work..he likes his crime tales plus he recently introduced a new Jim Corrigan in Gotham central..team him up with Steve Lieber or Kano and voila.

if Wanger is too busy for Doc Mid Nite...id say hire Christos Gage - he is a writer for Law and Order (knows his police procedure) and just completed a great little deadhsot mini series..!

I don't know nearly enough to guess at who worked for Marvel at the time, much less who would have been quickly available, but I'll play the title game.

Blastaar The biggest problem with villian books is that the bad guy can never truly win. Leave all the action in the Negative Zone with Blastaar defending his planet and conquering new ones so you can get past that problem. Don't know how successful it would be, but it would get my interest.
The Impossible Man Impy picks a human form and travels the world trying to help people and usually causing a fair degree of mayhem in the process.
The Savage Land Was there a Ka-Zar title around this time? Assuming there wasn't, I'ld create a new series character and cast from one of the Savage Land tribes that could fight dinosaurs and other tribes for survival. Keep contact with the outside Marvel Universe to a minimium.
Midnight New character series set in Detroit. A former gang member returns home after a short prison term. Determined to make his home better and make up for his past, he uses his knowledge of the inner city gang scene to work against the street level crime that plagues his enviroment. No fancy gear or powers, works with cleverness and determination. Dresses all in black while working only at night.
Revolution! Historical series about the American Revolution. Narrative shifting from battlefield soldiers to members of the Continental Congress and everywhere in between. Try and line it up so that the "Declaration of Independence" issue hits the stands by late June of 1976.

Don't know if any of these ideas would have been marketable, but it is what I would have suggested in 1975.