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Ghosts of Comics’ Past: August in Comic History – Dr. Doom, Image, #0, and the CDC

By | August 2nd, 2021
Posted in Columns | % Comments

Multiversity’s history column returns to examine more items from comic book history, this time themed on events that occurred in August. Let’s start with a jump back to 1970 when Dr Doom starred in a solo story before working our way back to the present to conclude with a very timely comic about virus outbreaks published by the CDC in 2018.

August 1970 (cover date)

The double feature “Astonishing Tales” #1 hit the stands in the Summer of 1970 with a cover date of August. The first half was a Lee & Kirby story about Ka-Zar. The second half of the book starred Dr. Doom and was the first time a Marvel villain headlined a feature. There was no special fanfare surrounding that milestone; comics starring villains have been around since ”Silver Streak” #1 in December 1939, so it’s possible writer Roy Thomas and artist Wally Wood didn’t even realize they’d done something new.

The feature was dropped after the eighth issue as part of a complicated gambit to keep prices down and hurt DC. Ka-Zar continued to headline the comic until issue 21, when he was briefly replaced by the monster story IT before Deathlok arrived to carry the book to its demise at #36 in 1976.

August 1992

After Image formed in February 1992, it took the comic industry by storm. Every book was a top seller, and speculators were buying multiple copies of every release. The meteoric rise hit its crescendo in August 1992 when its marketshare overtook DC in both dollars and pieces. It was the first time in the history of the direct market that someone other than DC and Marvel were in the top two. Too bad it was only on paper.

Image was notorious for shipping books late, and while retailers ordered more Image than DC for August, they did not receive more. This was no benign embarrassment for the company because retailers had paid for those unshipped issues, and now their credit was tied up. Distributor rules being what they were at the time, there was nothing the retailers could do but wait and hope readers were willing to buy the same volume whenever the books finally arrived. The situation got worse as the comic market crashed in Summer 1993. In January 1994, Capital City, the second-largest comic distributor, took steps to protect retailers when it instituted a new policy that fined publishers who missed their shipping deadline by 60 days and required them to cancel or resolicit, giving retailers a chance to revise their orders and get they funds back.

August 1994

DC’s big event for 1994 was “Zero Hour,” a sequel to “Crisis on Infinite Earths” that promised to fix all of DC’s continuity problems once and for all. Forever. Really this time. They mean it. No reboot will ever be needed again.

I’m sure you know how that worked out for them.

The whole thing was the brain child of Dan Jurgens, and it might have turned out as advertised if he hadn’t been made to revise his plans to fit editorial whims. But maybe not. Who can know? One of his big plans to fix the timeline was to bring every DC title to an end and relaunch them with new number ones. It wasn’t a new idea, Marv Wolfman had wanted to do that back in 1986 with “Crisis” but had to settle for “Batman: Year One” and “Man of Steel.” Jurgens got closer to the goal, but still had to settle.

In August 1994, in the midst of “Zero Hour”, DC celebrated “zero month” when every ongoing series received a zero issue and retold the origin of an important character. In theory, they were supposed to be jumping on points that summarized the new and official history of the DC Universe. In practice, they’re mostly unimportant stories that cause confusion for back issue hunters trying to complete a run. Some, like “Green Lantern” #0, just continue the story from #55 and need to be read before #56.

August 2018

A few years ago, when “Pandemic” referred to a board game or distant history, the CDC was trying to make everyone more aware of how real such a thing could be. That’s why they enlisted Bob Hobbs to illustrate the graphic novel “The Junior Disease Detectives: Operation Outbreak”, completed and released for free in August 2018. This 60-page piece of free edu-tainment is designed for classrooms and comes complete with classroom activities and discussion guides. If you want to learn more about how the CDC tracks new diseases and has a plan in place to protect us from pandemics, the booklet can be downloaded for free at the CDC website linked in the book title. Enjoy, and feel safe!


//TAGS | Ghosts of Comics' Past

Drew Bradley

Drew Bradley is a long time comic reader whose past contributions to Multiversity include annotations for "MIND MGMT", the Small Press Spotlight, Lettering Week, and Variant Coverage. He currently writes about the history of comic comic industry. Feel free to email him about these things, or any other comic related topic.

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