1 82658 00358 6 ™ with MARK BAGLEY • PAT BRODERICK • GERRY CONWAY • RON FRENZ • RAFAEL DAVE GIBBONS Hulk UK interview • Nova • Dr. Manhattan • Radioactive Man • Bongo’s Radioactive Man and Fallout Boy • Holo-Man & more explosive features! KAYANAN • TOM MANDRAKE • BILL MORRISON • FABIAN NICIEZA • JOHN OSTRANDER “Nuclear Issue” starring THE FURY OF FIRESTORM! 8.95 $ June 2019 June No.112 Firestorm TM & © DC Comics. All Rights Reserved. Rights All Comics. DC © & TM Firestorm Relive The Pop Culture You Remember when Saturday morning television was our domain, and ours alone? When tattoos came from bubble gum packs, Slurpees came in superhero cups, and TV heroes taught us to be nice to each other? Grew Up With! Those were the happy days of the Sixties, Seventies, and Eighties— our childhood—and that is the era of TwoMorrows’ new magazine RETROFAN! #5: Interviews with MARK HAMILL and Greatest American Hero’s WILLIAM KATT! Blast off with JASON OF STAR COMMAND! Stop by the MUSEUM OF POPULAR CULTURE! Poke fun at a campy BATMAN COMIC BOOK! Plus: “The First Time I Met Tarzan,” MAJOR MATT MASON, Moon Landing Mania, SNUFFY SMITH at 100 with cartoonist JOHN ROSE, TV Dinners, Celebrity Crushes, and more fun, fab features! SHIPS JUNE 2019! #6: Interviews with crazy creepster SVENGOOLIE and Eddie Munster him- self, BUTCH PATRICK! Call on the original Saturday Morning Ghost Busters, with BOB BURNS! Uncover the nutty Naugas! Plus: “My Life in the Twilight Zone,” “I Was a Teenage James Bond,” “My Letters to Famous People,” the ARCHIE- DOBIE GILLIS connec- tion, the PINBALL Hall of Fame, Super Collector DAVID MANDEL’s comic art collection, Alien action figures, the RUBIK’S CUBE fad, and more fun, fab features! SHIPS SEPTEMBER 2019! (84-page FULL-COLOR RETROFAN #1 RETROFAN #2 RETROFAN #3 RETROFAN #4 THE CRAZY, COOL CULTURE WE GREW HALLOWEEN! Horror-hosts ZACHERLEY, 40th Anniversary interview with SUPERMAN: Interviews with the SHAZAM! 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History of BEN COOPER HALLOWEEN paper, RetroTravel to METROPOLIS, IL Park, a Star Trek Set Tour, SAM J. JONES BETTY LYNN (“Thelma Lou” of The Andy COSTUMES, character lunchboxes, superhero (home of the Superman Celebration), SEA- on the Spirit movie pilot, British sci-fi TV Please add $1 per issue Griffith Show), TOM STEWART’s eclectic VIEW-MASTERS, SINDY (the British Barbie), MONKEYS®, FUNNY FACE beverages, classic THUNDERBIRDS, Casper & Richie Rich for shipping in the US. House of Collectibles, and Mr. Microphone! and more! Superman and Batman memorabilia, & more! museum, the KING TUT fad, and more! (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $4.95 • Now shipping! (Digital Edition) $4.95 • Now shipping! (Digital Edition) $4.95 • Now shipping! (Digital Edition) $4.95 • Now shipping! SUBSCRIBE NOW! Four issues: $41 Economy, $65 International, $16 Digital Only DON’T RISK A SOLD OUT ISSUE AT BARNES & NOBLE! TwoMorrows. SUBSCRIBE TODAY! Phone: 919-449-0344 The Future of Pop History. E-mail: [email protected] TwoMorrows Publishing • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA Web: www.twomorrows.com Volume 1, Number 112 June 2019 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Michael Eury PUBLISHER Comics’ Bronze Age and Beyond! John Morrow DESIGNER Rich Fowlks COVER ARTIST Pat Broderick COVER DESIGNER Michael Kronenberg PROOFREADER Rob Smentek SPECIAL THANKS Mark Arnold Fabian Nicieza Cary Bates Luigi Novi Pat Broderick John Ostrander Gerry Conway Amanda Powers DC Comics Tom Powers Cecil Disharoon Gage Skidmore Steve Englehart Roger Stern Robb Epps Bryan D. Stroud Gary Frank Roy Thomas Reader advisory: Contains mild nudity Dave Gibbons Steven Thompson in Dr. Manhattan article (with sample images from Watchmen) Grand Comics Mark Waid Database John Wells INTERVIEWS: The Firestorm Interviews . 2 Robert Greenberger Michael Zeno We duck, cover, and roll with enough Firestorm creators to crowd a fallout shelter Hal Halbert Jack C. Harris BRING ON THE BAD GUYS: Radioactive Man . 26 Heritage Comics Is he a Master of Evil or a Thunderbolt? The story of Marvel’s Chen Lu Auctions John Higgins UNKNOWN MARVEL: The Incredible Dave Gibbons . 33 John Joshua The Watchmen co-creator discusses his early work on the UK Hulk comic Claude Kane III Donald Kasen ROUGH STUFF . 38 Rafael Kayanan Bask in the irradiated glow of glorious graphite Paul Kupperberg James Heath Lantz ONE-HIT WONDERS: Meet Microwave Man . 45 Dave Lemieux Remember Cary Bates’ short-lived Superman villain? Tom Mandrake Robert Menzies WHAT THE--?!: Holo-Man. 50 Al Milgrom From the company that brought you Peter Pan Records came this colorful ’70s superhero Bill Morrison BEYOND CAPES: The Dr. Manhattan Project . 54 A blue man’s group of scholars dissects Watchmen’s god-hero; includes interviews with Don’t STEAL our Dave Gibbons, John Higgins, and Gary Frank Digital Editions! FLASHBACK: Lo, There Shall Come a… Radioactive Man! . 67 C’mon citizen, Bill Morrison shares recollections of the Simpsons Universe’s nuclear knucklehead DO THE RIGHT THING! A Mom BACK TALK . 72 & Pop publisher Reader reactions like us needs every sale just to survive! DON’T ART GALLERY: All-Star Squadron Lives!. 77 DOWNLOAD Fantasy covers continuing Roy Thomas’ World War II-set superhero series OR READ ILLEGAL COPIES ONLINE! Buy affordable, legal downloads only at www.twomorrows.com BACK ISSUE™ is published 8 times a year by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, or through our Apple and Google Apps! Raleigh, NC 27614. Michael Eury, Editor-in-Chief. John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Office: BACK ISSUE, c/o Michael Eury, Editor-in-Chief, 112 Fairmount Way, New Bern, NC 28562. Email: [email protected]. Eight-issue subscriptions: $82 Economy US, $128 International, $32 Digital. Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. Cover art by Pat Broderick. Firestorm, the Nuclear & DON’T SHARE THEM WITH FRIENDS OR POST THEM ONLINE. Help us keep Man TM & © DC Comics. All Rights Reserved. All characters are © their respective companies. All material producing great publications like this one! © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © 2019 Michael Eury and TwoMorrows. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING. Nuclear Issue • BACK ISSUE • 1 PART ONE: THE COMING OF THE NUCLEAR MAN 1977: A new DC Comics hero explodes from his first issue cover—a smiling, scintillating super-being with… his head on fire? Welcome to Firestorm the Nuclear Man #1 (Mar. 1978). We’re flying from the heart of his inception, exploring the bonds of the creators at his core. How will this newest mystery man transmute the comics world? How will he become the elemental and terrifying outlaw of a transformed DC Universe? Which of his unique rogues will go on to multimedia stardom? Well, our hero’s story begins with… oh… C.R.A.P.! The reading public could start with the Kirby-flavored Al Milgrom cover. But it wouldn’t be Gerry Conway-era Firestorm without a few laughs, right? The Coalition to Resist Atomic Power recruits the new kid in town, an athletically gifted teenager named Ronnie Raymond, who’s been bouncing from town to town with his father. All Ronnie’s trying to do is to impress conducted by this cute girl he’s met, Doreen Day. He’s not really a Cecil Disharoon dumb jock, but his rival for the girl, Cliff Carmichael, is both a brain and a bully, and undermines Ronnie from the start. Ronnie’s constantly overshadowed by Carmichael in class, since the teacher, Mr. Taubman, has little sense of balanced classroom management. Now, what’s up with the principal who’s keeping an eye on Ronnie is a story tied directly to that town-to-town gyro-vagueness, and one day, we’ll know why! Ronnie’s easy to get behind, for anyone who’s been the outsider… and as we’ll quickly see, he’s in over his head in every way. So the Coalition bunch presents themselves as protesters, and hey, here’s a way to make a difference! Away Ronnie sneaks into the night, invading the latest nuclear facility, designed by a buttoned-down fellow named Dr. Martin Stein. Along with his assistant Danton Black, Stein’s created the safest clean-energy facility in the world. In fact, it’s fully automated! Black, however, has sought an injunction to keep it from ever going online. The protesters turn out to cross a line from being Luddites to actual terrorists, who meet Stein’s rebuke with violence. They leave Stein and Black to their fate when they trigger the facility’s destruction. Ronnie Raymond’s left behind to become the proverbial fall guy. And then… something wonderful happens. Something born in the fervent imagination of Gerry Conway. FIRESTORM CREATOR AND ORIGINAL WRITER GERRY CONWAY Always a storyteller and reader, Conway made his own comics from childhood.