CAP'S BACK!

Next week will see the release of a new Marvel Masterworks, featuring what I think are the finest stories from my Captain America run with Mike Zeck and John Beatty. I wrote an introduction for the book and you can read it below...

As I write this introduction, it’s June, 2024. Yesterday, June 18^th, would have been Mark Gruenwald’s 71^st birthday. Mark, who died in 1996, when he was a shockingly-young 43, was one of the most important creators—no, not just a creator, a creative force—in Marvel’s modern history. As I said in my introduction to our previous Masterworks, Mark loved comics with an almost transcendent passion, an unbounded enthusiasm—and that enthusiasm infused everything he did. As an editor, he shepherded some of Marvel’s greatest characters through memorable runs, and was the prime architect behind the mammoth Handbook of the Marvel Universe. As a writer, he co-authored the very first Marvel limited series, Contest of Champions, wrote one of the earliest, and finest, superhero deconstructions, Squadron Supreme, and had a classic ten year run on the very book we’re here to discuss, Captain America. More important than all of that: Mark was a truly good person.

Back in the 1980s and 90s, a trip to the Marvel offices from my home in upstate New York usually meant I’d be spending the entire day there—not just discussing work with my editors, but catching up on our lives, discussing (to purloin a phrase) life, the universe, and everything with an extraordinary editorial staff that included Danny Fingeroth, Tom DeFalco, Bob Budiansky, Carl Potts, and Ann Nocenti. Mark’s office was always one of my first stops. Gruenwald was smart, charming, funny, genuine—and I always looked forward to our talks. When he took over as editor of Captain America from the erudite and amiable Jim Salicrup, there was no “getting to know you” phase, no circling each other warily, wondering if this partnership would work. No, we hit the ground running: our relationship already built on a foundation of mutual respect, both creative and personal.

 

Mark’s knowledge of the Marvel Universe ran deep—far deeper than mine, and I was a fairly obsessive fan—and one of the things I enjoyed about working with him was the challenges he’d throw my way. Knowing my penchant for digging into the bad guy’s heads, he’d pick a villain—the Viper, the Porcupine, the Scarecrow—and ask for a new and deeper take. If I wasn’t familiar with the character, he’d fill me in on their backstory. We’d then bounce around ideas—in some ways, the best part of the job—after which I’d go off and write the story. Mark wasn’t the kind of editor who’d sit over your shoulder, questioning every creative choice, every line of dialogue, every twist and turn. I had freedom when I was writing these stories. Freedom to take Captain America in any direction I chose, following my own unique creative road. And if, on occasion, that road was leading toward a cliff-edge—all writers screw up occasionally, that’s why God made editors—Mark was always there to gently pull me back.  

 

One of my favorite memories of Mark involves the three-part Deathlok epic included in this volume. I’d read some of the early Deathlok comics, but wasn’t intimately familiar with the  complex mythology built by creators Rich Buckler and Doug Moench and continued by other writers. Mark, of course, was—and, knowing that 1983 (the year we were crafting these stories) was also the year the Nth Commandos initiated the Purge that created Deathlok’s future (see? I told you it was complex), he suggested we do a story building on that, teaming Cap and Deathlok to prevent that dystopian future from happening. (And also explain why the Marvel Universe of 1983 wasn’t an apocalyptic hellhole.)

 

When I expressed some hesitation—all this backstory seemed a little too complex for my tastes—Mark went above and beyond: creating a document, and a detailed timeline, that clearly explained the entire history of Deathlok and his world and where it could go from there. (I thought this extraordinary effort alone should have earned Mark a co-plotter credit, but every time I brought it up, he refused.) Problem was, I still couldn’t wrap my head around what the story would be about. Yes, we wanted Cap and Deathlok to stop the Nth Command, but I always wrote from the inside out. I wanted to know what the inner journey of the characters, Deathlok in particular, was going to be. (I had a handle on Steve Rogers and his psyche; by this time I knew Steve as well as I knew my best friends.) If I couldn’t unlock that door, I wasn’t going to do the story. In fact, after wrestling with the material for a while, I called Mark and told him I couldn’t crack it. He didn’t try to push me, didn’t try (as another editor might have) to dictate a path for me to follow. He simply said, “Okay, then we won’t do it.”

 

And, as often happens, as soon as I let go of the idea, the solution came: Deathlok’s journey was about personal identity. About a man literally searching for, and finding, himself: reuniting the fragments of his shattered psyche. Once I tumbled to that, once I understood Luther Manning, the entire three-part saga came together. And Mark, as always, allowed me to tell the story in my own way. I’m sure, given the chance, he would have done it differently—but he respected my voice and vision, stepped back, and let me follow my muse. The result was—for me, anyway—the peak of my collaboration with Mike Zeck. And it wouldn’t have happened without Gruenwald. Thanks, Mark, for everything. Wherever in the omniverse you are, know that you’re still appreciated. And sorely missed.

 

Now on to Mr. Zeck: If you look through these Masterworks volumes that collect the DeMatteis-Zeck issues, I think you can see the growth, the evolution, of our creative partnership. A little tentative in the beginning, perhaps, but growing in confidence, in chemistry, with each succeeding issue. The best writer-artist collaborations result in a kind of mind-meld. You begin to intuitively understand each other, to flow with each other in service to the story, and, by the time we were creating the tales collected here, Mike and I had achieved that. Looking back, I’m struck once again by Zeck’s ability to convey action and emotion with simplicity and power, and to tell a visual story with what appears to be effortless fluidity—but is actually hard-won mastery of the comics form. When I was scripting from Mike Zeck art (and all these stories were done in the so-called Marvel style: I’d write a detailed plot, Mike would pencil from that, after which I’d supply the finished script), I never had to over-explain anything, adding clunky exposition to make up for lack of clarity in the art. With Zeck, the action and primary emotions were crystal clear, and I was free to dive deeper into the characters, to add more layers, more texture, to the stories.

 

John Beatty—one of the finest inkers in the business—was the icing on the artistic cake. I don’t know if the average reader understands the power an inker has: the wrong one can drag even the greatest artist down, while the right one can lift the pencil art up to another level. (Understand: It’s not generally a question of good or bad inking, it’s about mismatched styles. Inker A may do wonders when working with Penciler B, but put them together with Penciler C and it’s a disaster. And, yes, it’s the same with writers and artists.) Mike and John were a stellar team and they’d built on their chemistry month after month, fusing into an almost singular entity. Beatty brought a heroic shine to Mike’s pencils that was absolutely perfect for Cap: the most genuinely heroic of Marvel characters.

 

Zeck and Beatty had to take some time off along the way and we were fortunate enough to have one of the all-time Marvel greats, Sal Buscema, step in for two issues. I was a huge fan of the Cap stories Sal did with Steve Englehart, for my money one of the greatest Captain America runs ever, and I was delighted to work with him—laying the groundwork, however unconsciously, for our future collaboration on Spectacular Spider-Man. (But that’s another introduction for another time.) Sal only provided breakdowns—the gorgeous finishes were provided by Kim DeMulder—but he’s such a pro that all the visual information I needed was there on the page. Take a look at the sequence on page 86 of this volume, as Cap sprints across the top three panels, then leaps, swinging up to the rooftop—or the sequence at the top of page 109, where Sal communicates the danger and desperation of Cap’s fall by focusing on his boots and hands—and behold a master storyteller at work.

 

(Along with the Buscema issues, this collection also includes a terrific Falcon mini-series by Christopher Priest (then known as Jim Owsley), Mark Bright, and Paul Smith, and an equally-terrific, and wildly cosmic, Cap annual by Peter Gillis and Brian Postman.)

 

During this period, we were joined by another, vital part of our Cap crew: assistant editor Mike Carlin. The Great Carlini—who would go on to a long and celebrated career at both Marvel and DC—impressed me from the start. He wasn’t just there to fetch Gruenwald’s coffee or erase errant pencil lines on the art. No, Mike was full of ideas and enthusiasm, and it was clear from the start that he would evolve into a skilled editor. It also helped that Mike was, and remains, one of the nicest guys in the business. He’s also the only editor to put my face (along with Zeck, Beatty, and Carlin himself) on the cover of a comic book, as part of the infamous “Assistant Editor’s Month” event. The “Bernie America” back-up story in Captain America #289 was great fun to write—and perhaps a rehearsal for the sublime silliness of my Justice League International run with Keith Giffen—and I remain inordinately fond of the Mo-Skull (and his partners Larry-Skull and Curly-Skull. Nyuk-nyuk-nyuk).

 

These stories also brought back the Bucky of the 1950s, who I named, for reasons that have long since escaped me, Jack Monroe. I’d always been fascinated by that lost chapter in Cap’s history, brilliantly developed by Englehart and Buscema during their run, and bringing in Jack—a young man out of time, with a dark, troubled past and no one to turn to but Steve Rogers—brought a new, dramatic element to the book and also expanded our bench of strong supporting characters. Stripping away the Bucky identity and transforming Jack into Nomad—another nod to Steve and Sal—allowed us to both honor the past and move Jack Monroe into the future.

But my favorite Cap supporting character from this era remains Bernie Rosenthal. Bernie wasn’t some melodramatic romantic device, she was (for me, at least) a very real, three-dimensional woman—a Jewish New Yorker, but free, I hope, from hoary “New Yawk” tropes—and I did my best to deepen and expand the Steve-Bernie relationship. When I wrote them together, they were never “Captain America and his girlfriend,” they were two people, two equals, who loved and respected each other and worked hard to keep their connection strong. Bernie’s presence in the book helped ground the stories in what I hoped was genuine, relatable emotion. She remains a favorite to this day.

 

But what’s a hero without a villain to oppose—and we had one of the greats with the Viper. The three-parter that kicks off this volume is a personal highlight from the run, thanks in no small part to the presence of the woman also known as Madame Hydra. Traumatized in childhood, certain of humanity’s corrupt, irredeemable nature, determined to burn America, and eventually all the world, to the ground, Viper was terrifying because, from her perspective, she was right. Seen through one lens, humanity is corrupt and beyond redemption. What better opponent for a man who always sees the best in us? Who embodies our highest ideals and most cherished hopes? The Viper trilogy also allowed me the opportunity to take a hallucinatory dive into Steve Rogers’ psyche—a journey brought to harrowing visual life by Zeck and Beatty—digging a little deeper into his childhood, illuminating more of Cap’s past.

 

The aforementioned Deathlok story really was a peak for our team—we were in the proverbial zone, doing our best work together without even realizing it—but it also turned out to be our last hurrah. By the time Cap returned from the distant year of 1993 (funny how time changes our perspective), Zeck and Beatty had been recruited to illustrate Marvel’s first maxi-series, the classic Secret Wars. Mike and I wouldn’t work together again till we did Kraven’s Last Hunt, four years later. That Spider-Man story is considered a classic—and, if it is, a good part of its success rests on the foundation Mike and I built with Captain America: the artistic muscles we developed, the creative chemistry that emerged from years of collaboration. We weren’t starting from scratch on KLH, we were picking up where we left off and continuing from there. So that’s one more debt of gratitude I owe Steve Rogers.

 

I continued writing Captain America for another year—and I’m proud of the work the late, great Paul Neary and I did with our massive Red Skull epic (a story I’m sure we’ll be exploring in our next Cap Masterworks volume)—but the Zeck-Beatty era was magical: a period of creative challenges and creative growth. I’m very grateful these stories have been collected in this beautiful edition and that new readers will be able to discover them for the first time.

  ©copyright 2025 J.M. DeMatteis

MORE SHENANIGANS

Had another great conversation with Adam Chapman of the Comics Shenanigan podcast—talking about Spider-Man '94, Dr. Fate, Moonshadow, and lots of other things. You can listen to it right here. Enjoy! 

REMEMBERING SHOOTER

Jim Shooter, longtime editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics, and a man who had a profound effect on my career, has passed away.

I broke into the business at DC in the late 1970s, writing for the various anthology books, working with superb editors like Paul Levitz, Jack Harris, and the late, great Len Wein—I think of them as the professors at my personal comic book college—learning the fundamentals of the craft. Under their tutelage I moved, slowly and carefully, from eight pagers to my first book-length stories; from horror tales with twist endings to stories featuring childhood icons like Batman, Aquaman, and Hawkman. I even created a couple of series of my own—"I…Vampire" for House of Mystery and "Creature Commandos" for Weird War Tales—but my creative bicycle still needed sturdy training wheels: I had so much to learn.

I’d sent some samples over to Marvel, which eventually landed in Shooter’s lap. Jim—who I’d also interviewed for a comics-centric piece I wrote for The Soho Weekly News (I was a journalist in those days, too; when you’re a freelancer, you’ve got to keep as many doors open as possible)—saw something in my work and was open and generous with feedback, insight, and encouragement. Shooter was an intimidating figure—unusually tall and very commanding—with a long resume in the business (he’d started writing comics professionally when he was 13!). He was also a superb editor with a deep understanding of story, who was able to communicate that understanding with force and clarity—and soon became the next professor in my comic book college experience.

Under Jim’s watchful eye, I worked on a few fill-in issues (I recall an Iron Man story that I later repurposed as a Captain America tale, an Avengers issue that vanished into oblivion, and a Doctor Strange story, featuring the obscure villain Tiboro, that eventually made it into print), hanging on Jim’s every word and incorporating his wisdom into my work. I had a very simple rule in those days: The editor is always right. I wanted to learn, wanted to grow, and I certainly wasn’t going to argue with someone who knew far more than me about the medium. As Paul Levitz once told me, “You can’t break the rules until you’ve learned the rules”—and if I was going to make comics a career that lasted, I had to learn them all.

Jim kept throwing me interesting side-gigs, too: I wrote plots for French Spider-Man stories, crafted detailed biographies of all the Marvel characters for…well, it’s been so long I’ve forgotten what the purpose was. I also spent a couple of weeks in Stan Lee’s office—Stan was in California—watching an animated television series and writing up notes on the lead character, a Spider-Man rip-off, to aid Marvel in a lawsuit. (And if you don’t think being paid to hang out in Stan Lee’s office and watch cartoons was a dream job, what are you doing reading this in the first place?) Shooter eventually offered me a freelance contract—steady work, solid page rate (for the times), royalties—shifting my career into high gear.

Jim’s greatest strength was that he had a clear vision of what Marvel should be, how a story should be told, and he pursued it wholeheartedly. I didn't always agree with that vision (and he didn’t always agree with mine!), but I always respected it. His impact on Marvel Comics, and the comic book business as a whole, was massive.

A final story: Once, around 1983 or ‘84, I was in the Marvel office, and I’d brought my son, Cody, who was three or four at the time, along with me. We were in, I think, Mark Gruenwald’s office, when Shooter entered, all six foot seven of him. Jim greeted Cody warmly and my son slowly looked up—and up and up and up—at what, to him, was the largest human he’d ever beheld, a giant straight out of “Jack and the Beanstalk,” and burst into tears. Jim instantly retreated: He didn’t want to be responsible for traumatizing a child. But Cody, of course, was right: Jim Shooter was a giant of our industry and I am forever grateful to him for bringing me aboard the Marvel ship.

Wherever in the multiverse you are, Jim: safe travels. And thank you.

©copyright 2025 J.M. DeMatteis

BACK TO THE '90s

The classic 1994 Spider-Man animated series is back in comic book form! Here's the scoop via ign.com:

"Spider-Man '94 is a four-issue limited series that picks up where the show's infamous cliffhanger ending left off in 1998. The series brings Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson back to New York and promises to pit the wall-crawler against two iconic villains who will be making their debuts in this animated universe. The series is written by long-time Spidey veteran (and a writer on the original animated series) J.M. DeMatteis, with art by Jim Towe (Spider-Verse vs. Venomverse) and covers by Nick Bradshaw, Ron Lim, and John Tyler Christopher." (I should also mention that the fantastic color work is by Jim Campbell.)

You can read the whole story here. Spider-Man '94 will be out in September!

And while I have your attention: I only share a newsletter a few times a year and I just unleashed the latest. You can read it (and subscribe) by clicking this link.
(By the way: the Vonnegut quote in the newsletter came from Eliot Rosewater, not Kilgore Trout. There was clearly a glitch in the mental matrix when I wrote it. (And if you've never read God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater—do it now.))

DEFENSELESS

It's recently been announced that the long-running Marvel Masterworks line has been put on hiatus. This won't impact the upcoming Captain America and Ghost Rider Masterworks that collect work of mine, but it does cancel the next Defenders Masterworks that was slated to come out in January.  I wrote an introduction for that volume and, rather than see it go to waste, I'm sharing it here. Enjoy!

And so we move into the second year of my Defenders run with the the great Don Perlin. As I mentioned in my introduction to the previous Masterworks, Don was a veteran of the business—he’d had a long career that stretched back to the late 1940s, including a stint working with trailblazer Will Eisner—while I was still a wide-eyed newbie, nervously walking a career tightrope: anxious to make it across to success, terrified I’d fall and plunge into comic book oblivion. With his lengthy track record, Don could have pulled rank on me, he had every right to, but instead he welcomed me to the Defenders family with open arms, treating me as a creative equal: as warm and enthusiastic a collaborator as I could have hoped for. Most important, Don—who passed away in 2024—was an incredibly nice man, which made working with him a consistent pleasure. In our first year, Don and I were getting to know each other, both professionally and personally, but, by year two, our collaboration really locked in and, in my opinion, we did some of our best work together

The primary focus of that first year was what came to be known as “The Six-Fingered Hand Saga,” a sprawling supernatural epic that, to my delight, is still held in high regard. I enjoyed injecting occult elements into Defenders. It gave the book a unique flavor that made it stand out from the rest of the Marvel line and opened the door to stories that could explore the more spiritual and metaphysical aspects of life, the universe, and everything. But with that epic under our belts, where could we go next? It was time, I decided (looking back, I can’t say if that decision was conscious or intuitive), to dig deeper into our characters, to put spotlights not just on the Defenders as a whole, but on the individuals who made up the team. When you’ve got multiple heroes, villains, and cosmic plot lines fighting for space, it’s sometimes easy to lose sight of those individuals. I’ve found that the best way to rectify that is by putting on the brakes, eschewing the epics for a bit, and focusing on single-issue stories: one-offs that allow the creators to drill deeper into the characters’ psyches and tell a complete, satisfying tale with a definitive beginning, middle, and end. 

 

The first spotlight issue in this volume—Defenders #102’s “The Haunting of Christiansboro”—focuses on the Gargoyle. Looking back, I find it interesting that, not yet 30 when these stories were written, I chose to create a character who was an old man, pushing eighty (which seemed absolutely ancient to me at the time. I wonder if I was unconsciously exploring my own feelings about growing older. Sitting here all these decades later, it seems I was.) The average superhero was youthful, vibrant—but Isaac Christians had lived a long, tumultuous, wearying life; and yet he retained a vibrant spirit, a sweetness of soul, that refused to surrender to the darkness. The “Christiansboro” story allowed us to take a deep dive into Isaac’s backstory—and laid the groundwork for 1985’s Gargoyle mini-series (which I hope will grace a future Masterworks volume). Don—whose design for the character was visually reminiscent of Jack Kirby’s Demon, which, in turn, was inspired by a Hal Foster image from the Prince Valiant comic strip—turned in genuinely eerie, evocative work, enhanced by the gorgeous inks of the legendary Joe Sinnott.

Next up is “Yesterday never Dies”—which turns the spotlight over to Devil Slayer. One of the advantages of working on Defenders was that it had a history of mining the more obscure characters in the Marvel Universe—and they don’t get any more obscure than Eric Simon Payne. The beauty of that for a writer is that he’s free to make the character his own, without interference from The Powers That Be. If we were using major characters like Spider-Man or Wolverine in the book, we’d be in the editorial crosshairs, but no one was going to march into Defenders editor Al Milgrom’s office complaining about the way we portrayed Devil Slayer, because no one cared. “Yesterday” deals with Payne’s tortured past—as well as his relationship with 60s burnout Ira “Sunshine” Gross (clearly a progenitor of “Sunflower,” the mother figure in my creator-owned series Moonshadow. And would you believe me if I told you I just realized that?), who embodied the last gasp of naïve hippie idealism in the face of the cynicism and avarice of the 1980s. The story also brings in two Avengers: Wonder Man and my favorite of the original X-Men, the Beast— the latter of whom would, the following year, prove extremely important to the book.

The Beast is back for “Rising”—Hank McCoy’s arc building on a story I began in Avengers #209—but the heart and soul of the tale is another obscure character I adored: Daimon Hellstrom. Defenders was a book that flew under the radar—not only were our characters from the fringes of the MU, but our sales, while never warranting cancellation, were on the low side—and the aforementioned Powers That Be weren’t paying the same attention to us that they would have paid to the Big Guns. How else to explain a Christmas tale that features the crucifixion of Satan’s son and a scene where the devil reveals that he and God are one and the same? Take a look at Daimon’s face—expertly detailed by Perlin and Sinnott—as that shocking, illuminating truth sets in: a truth that changes his character—if not forever (it’s comics, after all), then certainly for the remainder of our run.

Next up is a crossover that began in Captain America—a book I was writing at the time, illustrated by the killer art team of Mike Zeck and John Beatty—and then leapt into Defenders, bringing together story threads I’d been nursing in both titles. The second part is most notable for the unexpected death of Nighthawk (unexpected not just to the readers, but to me. Sometimes when I’m writing things simply happen, the story and characters upending my carefully laid plans: Kyle Richmond’s demise was one of those things), which, in turn, led to “On Death and Dying” in Defenders #107—the title taken from the classic work by Elizabeth Kubler Ross. That story begins with Valkyrie’s murder, and having the team reeling from the loss of two members allowed me to once again put the brakes on and explore the characters’ thoughts and feelings as they discuss mortality, the afterlife, grief, hope, and the inevitable ending, and perhaps new beginning, that waits for all of us. (I remember a review at the time saying Defenders was like superhero group therapy. It wasn’t meant as a compliment—they clearly thought the book was way too talky, too invested in psychology and emotion over action—but that’s how I took it.)

Valkyrie didn’t stay dead for long as Defenders #108 launched a two-part story, co-written by Master of Marvel Continuity Mark Gruenwald, that explored, and clarified, Brunnhilde’s tangled back story. Collaborating with Mark, either as my editor (as he was on Captain America) or a writing partner, was always a joy. All of us who work in this business love comics, but I don’t think I ever encountered anyone who loved them more than Mark. All these years later his death—in 1996, at the shockingly young age of 43—still breaks my heart.

 

We return to spotlight issues with “Hunger—not just a favorite story in this volume, but a favorite out of my entire Defenders run. A sequel to “Yesterday Never Dies,” “Hunger” is a study in existential angst, crushing despair, and the search for meaning in a universe that seems sorely lacking in that quality—with the ghost of “Sunshine” Gross providing a kind of Greek chorus. The truth is Eric Simon Payne isn’t remotely likable—he’s done despicable things in his life—but he is relatable, a truly Dostoyevskian, tormented soul, and we find ourselves caring about him despite those despicable things.

I often look back at stories I wrote early in my career and cringe a little, sometimes more than a little, knowing how much better I could do now, but “Hunger” remains one that I’m truly proud of. It was a challenging piece of work and Don Perlin (enhanced by long-time Marvel inker Mike Esposito) rose to the occasion, bringing powerful emotions, and a truly haunting quality, to the tale.

Defenders #111 focuses on Hellcat. No Marvel character has ever journeyed quite so far as Patsy Walker, who started out in the 1940s as the star of teen-humor books, eventually making the surprising leap to the mainstream Marvel Universe, where she became a member of the Avengers named Hellcat. In the course of our Six-Fingered Hand storyline, we’d transformed Patsy into a literal hellcat—and perhaps the daughter of Satan himself (and the sister of the man she loved, Daimon Hellstrom). “Fathers and Daughters” put all the questions swirling around Patsy’s origins to rest and (provoked by a request from editor-in-chief Jim Shooter, who wanted it made clear that Marvel’s Satan and the biblical Satan weren’t the same being) also allowed me to explore, and explain, the mythology of Marvel’s Hell-Lords. In the end, Patsy has to face down the most dangerous devil of all, her personal devil. That she does this adds to her evolution as a character—and clears the path for Patsy’s reunion with her true father.

 

Next we have two epics that are crowded, some might say overcrowded, with heroes and villains: an Avengers Annual—masterfully illustrated by Al Milgrom—which pits our Defenders against the then-current Avengers line-up, and a three-part Defenders-Squadron Supreme crossover. The annual brings back an old Defenders foe, the bizarre alien entity called Nebulon, who sets both teams against each other. Defenders #112—#114 ran through the entire summer of 1982 and featured the Defenders and the Squadron, as well as the return of Fantastic Four villain Overmind, and Null, the Living Darkness—last seen in Defenders #102. Mark Gruenwald, who was prepping his groundbreaking Squadron Supreme mini-series, generously allowed me to use three new Squadron members he’d created—Arcanna, Nuke, and Power Princess—and even provided designs for their costumes. The final chapter of our trilogy was co-plotted by Don, who pulled out all the visual stops, as the Defenders and the Squadron literally join forces to defeat Null.

I’ll be honest: These massive crossover events have never been my forte. I struggle with them, afraid I’ll drown beneath the weight of all those characters. Did I succeed or fail with this one? I’ll leave the final judgement to you.

 

Speaking of final: The last story in this volume is another all-time favorite. “A Very Wrong Turn” is a tribute to one of the greatest minds of the 20^th century: writer/artist/absolute legend Theodore Geisel—aka Dr. Seuss. One of my earliest, and warmest, memories is walking, hand in hand with my parents, to the Avenue J library in Brooklyn, sitting down in the children’s section and discovering Geisel’s wondrous worlds. His books had an impact on me that echoes through my work, and life, to this day. In 1982, my son Cody was two years old and we were constantly reading Seuss’s work. Wouldn’t it be fun, I thought, inspired by those readings, if we could do a story set in a Seuss-like universe? That was yet another joy of Defenders, which had a history of smashing norms, thanks in no small part to the iconoclastic work of Steve Gerber: I was free to always change things up and move in whatever oddball direction the whims and winds took me. (It helped tremendously that I had an editor who allowed me to do that. Milgrom gave me all the creative room I needed, but was always there to offer guidance and save me from racing, like Wily Coyote, off the edge of the creative cliff.) 

I mailed Don a stack of Seuss books and he did an extraordinary job of capturing Geisel’s playful, mind-bendingly imaginative style. (One of the things I truly respected about Don was that he wasn’t the kind of artist who stopped evolving. I watched him, over our more than three-year stint on the book, continually challenging himself to expand his artistic reach. “A Very Wrong Turn” is proof of that.) I don’t recall what the readers thought of our journey into Seussiana—if that’s not a word, it should be—but Don and I loved it, and I still hold this story close to my heart.

Truth is, I hold all these stories, the successes and the failures, close to my heart. My years on Defenders allowed me to experiment, play, build up creative muscles, and take the first tentative steps toward finding my individual voice as a writer. I couldn’t have written Moonshadow, Kraven’s Last Hunt, or any of the work that followed had I not had the freedom Defenders allowed me. And for that I am forever grateful.

©copyright 2025 J.M. DeMatteis

SURF'S UP

Brian Wilson—the genius behind the Beach Boys greatest work—has died.

Back in 2010, I was driving along—on the way to pick my daughter up at school—when the 1966 Beach Boys single “God Only Knows” came on the radio: it was as if I’d never heard it before. The richness of the production, the plaintive, multi-layered vocals, the sheer heart—and heartbreak—of the piece: absolute magic. I’d always enjoyed the Beach Boys (you’d be hard-pressed to find a better pop song than “Good Vibrations,” and I'm especially fond of two other Wilson classics: the Beach Boys' "'Til I Die" and the solo track "Love and Mercy"), but I was never a major devotee, as I know many people are. But that song. That song... I was twelve when “God Only Knows” came out. It took me forty-four years to get it—but, wow, did I ever.

Safe travels, Mr. Wilson. May you surf the cosmos and find all the love and mercy your soul desires.

UNLIMITED

Had a great chat about adapting Alan Moore's "For The Man Who Has Everything"—and lots of other things—with Justice League Unlimited's Wonder Woman herself, Susan Eisenberg, and her charming co-host James Enstall of the Justice League Revisited podcast and you can listen here.