Okay, it's not really shocking. But it is, I hope, interesting.
In December of 1977, right around my 24th birthday, I sold my first comic book script to a brilliant young DC Comics editor named Paul Levitz: a short horror tale for House of Mystery called “The Lady Killer Craves Blood.” (You can read the story behind that first sale here). The so-called “mystery books” were where new writers learned their craft before being promoted to bigger and better things and I hoped “Lady Killer” marked the beginning of a long career in a medium I adored. In the months that followed it looked like I was on my way, selling more stories to Paul for DC’s anthology line, which included an oddball comic book called Weird War Tales.
WWT was exactly what the title implied: tales of horror and the supernatural, generally running five to eight pages, set on the battlefields of history. I contributed a number of stories to Weird War, including my first book-length assignment—a 22 page multiversal saga called “The War On The Edge of Reality!” I don’t know if that was the first time WWT featured a full-length story, it might have been, but what I remember most was that Paul gave me a raise—from $13.00 a page to $15.00 a page—and I felt like a wealthy man.
I was gaining momentum in the business. Now I had to keep that momentum going—and that meant pitching, and selling, more stories. I have a clear memory of sitting at the typewriter (remember those?), trying to come up with new ideas for Paul, and pondering that oddball title: Weird War Tales.
Weird. War.
Weird.
War.
What, I suddenly wondered, would be weirder than classic monsters fighting World War Two? I’d grown up on Universal monster movies, playing endlessly on our local New York stations, and the idea of government-created versions of Frankenstein, Dracula, and the Wolf Man taking on Hitler’s hordes delighted me. It was such an obvious fit for WWT I was surprised no one else had come up with the idea. But, since no one had, I prepared to pitch it to Paul.
Except I never got to.
Right around that time, the infamous DC Implosion happened. For a variety of complex reasons, DC’s sales were crippled and the line was staggering, on the verge of collapse. To quote Wikipedia: “On June 22, 1978, DC Comics announced staff layoffs and the cancellation of approximately 40% of its line.” The wagons were circling, only necessary staff and freelancers were being kept on.
One thing I clearly wasn’t: necessary.
I remember going up to DC to see Paul but not being ushered in to his office. Instead he came out to the waiting area, explained the situation, and told me there would be no work—none whatsoever—for the foreseeable future.
I staggered to the D train and headed home to Brooklyn in shock, my comic book career shot down before it ever took flight. And that story about classic monsters fighting in World War II? Gone forever.
Except it wasn’t.
In the spring of 1979, I received a call from DC editor, and all around great guy, Jack Harris: He was launching a new anthology comic, science-fiction this time, called Time Warp. Would I be interested in pitching? Time Warp reopened the DC door for me—the company hadn’t gone under after all—and I was back in the fold, selling stories to Jack, working with Paul again, and soon sitting across the desk from DC’s newest editor, one of comics’ all-time great writers, and one of the nicest humans you could ever meet, Len Wein. I’ve said before that working with Paul, Jack, and Len was my comic book college: I learned so much from those three men, Len most of all. How lucky was I that this legend, the man who co-created Swamp Thing and Wolverine, soon became both my mentor and friend? That he saw something in me I couldn’t see in myself? That he took a personal interest in my career—teaching, nurturing, guiding me along the creative path?
Len had taken over editing both House of Mystery and Weird War and wanted to shake the books up a little by adding ongoing features. Better yet: He wanted me to write them. For HoM Len gave me a title—“I…Vampire”—and I cooked up the tragic tale of Andrew Bennett and Mary, Queen of Blood (that’s another story for another time). For Weird War I dusted off that “monsters in World War II” idea that had so intrigued me back in June of ’78. Len loved it and the “Creature Commandos” feature was born. (I’m not sure who came up with that name—the memory is lost to time—but I suspect Len and I did it together, tossing ideas back and forth till we landed on a title that fit.) Pat Broderick was drafted to illustrate the first issue—he did a stellar job designing the characters and bringing them to visual life—and we were off.
Okay, so “Creature Commandos” wasn’t exactly high art—when you think about it, the whole thing’s kind of silly—but, with Len hovering over my shoulder, I poured heart and soul into the series and did my best, using my still-limited skill set, to give the stories some meat, some gravitas, and to make our cast of tortured monsters, led by the truly monstrous and all-too human Lt. Matthew Shrieve, memorable.
I only wrote the first half dozen “Commandos” stories—an opportunity at Marvel, too good to pass up, took me away from DC for a good six years (that, too, is another story for another time)—and, although I did revisit Andrew Bennett years later during my runs on Doctor Fate and Justice League Dark, I never wrote Shrieve and Company again. They were a footnote in in my career and an even smaller footnote in the history of comic books.
Which is why I was so surprised, last year, when I heard that an animated Creature Commandos series was going to be the entry point for James Gunn’s rebooted DC film and television universe. The series launched on Max this week. James is building on our core concept—none of the original characters appear—but it’s gratifying to know that an offbeat idea I cooked up at the very beginning of my career has come back to life, in such a significant way, so many years later.
Maybe it wasn’t so silly after all.
