Creator Credits for Loki (season 2) 2023

Another season of Marvel Cinematic Universe television has come and gone - this time it was the 2nd season of Loki. My list of creator credits is featured below; as always, I'm not infallible and I welcome any corrections. You can view my full list of MCU creator credits on this page!

Walter Simonson: creator of Mr. Mobius, a senior executive in the Time Variance Authority; the Time Variance Authority depicted as an immense bureaucracy (Fantastic Four #346, 1990); of the Minutemen, the foot soldiers of the Time Variance Authority (Fantastic Four #352, 1991); of the Time Variance Authority based in null time, outside time itself (Fantastic Four #353, 1991); of Casey, a Time Variance Authority employee (Fantastic Four #354, 1991); co-creator of the Time Variance Authority, (TVA) an organization taxed with policing the timeline and undoing damage caused by alternate timelines; of the Time Variance Authority served by Justices, armed agents sent to correct timeline disruptions; of the Time Variance Authority pursuing Zaniac through time (Thor #372, 1986)

Stan Lee: co-creator of Kang, a time traveler and conqueror garbed in a battlesuit, clad in purple (Avengers #8, 1964); of Ravonna, a time traveler affiliated with Kang who falls in love with him (Avengers #23, 1965); of Thor, Asgardian god of thunder (Journey into Mystery #83, 1962); of Loki, Asgardian trickster god with magical powers, including the ability to cast illusions; Loki as Thor's brother; Loki's helmet with horns and green costume with golden accessories; of Odin, ruler of Asgard; of Asgard, legendary home of the gods; of Balder the Brave, legendary Asgardian warrior (Journey into Mystery #85, 1962); of Thor learning a lesson in humility from time spent on Earth (Thor #159, 1968)

Jack Kirby: co-creator of Kang, a time traveler and conqueror garbed in a battlesuit, clad in purple (Avengers #8, 1964); of Thor, Asgardian god of thunder (Journey into Mystery #83, 1962); of Loki, Asgardian trickster god with magical powers, including the ability to cast illusions; Loki as Thor's brother; Loki's helmet with horns and green costume with golden accessories; of Odin, ruler of Asgard; of Asgard, legendary home of the gods; of Balder the Brave, legendary Asgardian warrior (Journey into Mystery #85, 1962); of Thor learning a lesson in humility from time spent on Earth (Thor #159, 1968)

Mark Gruenwald: co-creator of Renslayer, Ravonna's surname (Avengers Annual #21, 1992); of Alioth, a cloud-like temporal entity who is a foe of the Time Variance Authority, Kang and Ravonna (Avengers: The Terminatrix Objective #1, 1993); of Ravonna assisting Kang in his "Victor Timely" identity (Avengers: The Terminatrix Objective #4, 1993); of Kang having a makeshift alliance with the Time Variance Authority (Fantastic Four Annual #27, 1994); of the Time Keepers, three extraterrestrials who have assumed mastery of time (Thor #282, 1979)

Larry Lieber: co-creator of Thor, Asgardian god of thunder (Journey into Mystery #83, 1962); of Loki, Asgardian trickster god with magical powers, including the ability to cast illusions; Loki as Thor's brother; Loki's helmet with horns and green costume with golden accessories; of Odin, ruler of Asgard; of Asgard, legendary home of the gods; of Balder the Brave, legendary Asgardian warrior (Journey into Mystery #85, 1962)

Mike Gustovich: co-creator of Alioth, a cloud-like temporal entity who is a foe of the Time Variance Authority, Kang and Ravonna (Avengers: The Terminatrix Objective #1, 1993); of Ravonna assisting Kang in his "Victor Timely" identity (Avengers: The Terminatrix Objective #4, 1993); of Kang having a makeshift alliance with the Time Variance Authority (Fantastic Four Annual #27, 1994)

Sal Buscema: co-creator of the Time Variance Authority, (TVA) an organization taxed with policing the timeline and undoing damage caused by alternate timelines; of the Time Variance Authority served by Justices, armed agents sent to correct timeline disruptions; of the Time Variance Authority pursuing Zaniac through time (Thor #372, 1986)

Keith Pollard: co-creator of the Time Keepers, three extraterrestrials who have assumed mastery of time (Thor #282, 1979); of Zaniac, a movie monster with yellow skin and green hair portrayed by actor Brad Wolfe (Thor #319, 1982)

John Buscema: co-creator of the existence of divergent timelines which are accessible by others (Fantastic Four #118, 1972); of He Who Remains, the entity behind the Time Keepers who exists at the end of time itself (Thor #245, 1976)

Peter Sanderson: co-creator of "Victor Timely," an alias adopted by Kang while on Earth in the early 20th century, used to introduce advanced technology at earlier points in the timestream, based out of Wisconsin (Avengers Annual #21, 1992)

Rich Yanizeski: co-creator of "Victor Timely," an alias adopted by Kang while on Earth in the early 20th century, used to introduce advanced technology at earlier points in the timestream, based out of Wisconsin (Avengers Annual #21, 1992)

Roy Thomas: co-creator of the Time Keepers depicted as working with the Time Variance Authority (What If #37, 1992); of He Who Remains connected to the Time Variance Authority (What If #39, 1992)

Jean-Marc Lofficier: co-creator of the Time Keepers depicted as working with the Time Variance Authority (What If #37, 1992); of He Who Remains connected to the Time Variance Authority (What If #39, 1992)

Randy Lofficier: co-creator of the Time Keepers depicted as working with the Time Variance Authority (What If #37, 1992); of He Who Remains connected to the Time Variance Authority (What If #39, 1992)

Len Wein: co-creator of He Who Remains, the entity behind the Time Keepers who exists at the end of time itself (Thor #245, 1976)

Doug Moench: co-creator of Zaniac, a movie monster with yellow skin and green hair portrayed by actor Brad Wolfe (Thor #319, 1982)

Don Heck: co-creator of Ravonna, a time traveler affiliated with Kang who falls in love with him (Avengers #23, 1965)

Archie Goodwin: co-creator of the existence of divergent timelines which are accessible by others (Fantastic Four #118, 1972)

Ralph Macchio: co-creator of the Time Keepers, three extraterrestrials who have assumed mastery of time (Thor #282, 1979)

Mark Pacella: co-creator of the Time Keepers depicted as working with the Time Variance Authority (What If #37, 1992)

Gavin Curtis: co-creator of He Who Remains connected to the Time Variance Authority (What If #39, 1992)

Dan Slott: co-creator of Orobourous, a member of the Time Variance Authority (She-Hulk #3, 2006)

Scott Kolins: co-creator of Orobourous, a member of the Time Variance Authority (She-Hulk #3, 2006)

J. Michael Straczynski: co-creator of Asgardians connected to Broxton, Oklahoma (Fantastic Four #536, 2006)

Mike McKone: co-creator of Asgardians connected to Broxton, Oklahoma (Fantastic Four #536, 2006)

Herb Trimpe: co-creator of Renslayer, Ravonna's surname (Avengers Annual #21, 1992)

Back in Action: Flash Gordon!

Comics blogger Mike Sterling recently noted that the comic strip Flash Gordon has recently and unexpectedly become interesting! Creator Dan Schkade took over the strip a few weeks ago and he's certainly emphasizing familiar faces, lots of action and an energetic art style. Here's the homepage.

I didn't grow up with the Flash Gordon strip - I've never seen a local newspaper who carried it. In fact, the local newspapers seemed to have little interest in the non-humourous comic strips (Rex Morgan M.D. is the only comic strip drama I recall from my youth). Consequently, I think I'm in the majority who know of Flash Gordon as a museum piece, a relic, a forgotten property; indeed, the comic strip went on hiatus in 2003 and spent the last 20 years replaying old strips. Not every property gets a second chance, but the weight of Flash Gordon's influence on science fiction and adventure must surely have helped it.

I'm pleased with what I've read so far - if these strips had been in the newspaper when I was a kid, I would have been a huge fan. Kudos to Mr. Schkade!

11 Thoughts about Ahsoka (2023)

1. I knew nothing about Ahsoka prior to seeing her on the Mandalorian. I found her pretty underwhelming in that program but I understood she was some kind of popular character in the expanded Star Wars universe. I didn't plan to watch her program but my wife and I needed a distraction and it was good enough. Certainly it wasn't as bad as the Book of Boba Fett.
2. But Ahsoka has a lot of other characters who are only barely introduced - they're all treated as though their adventures have been going on for some time. So they might also be from the expanded universe? Or maybe the series was going for an in media res style comparable to the original trilogy?
3. Sabine might possibly be the worst sidekick I've ever seen in fiction. Her arc is that she keeps failing at everything she attempts until the final episode. There is a good case to be made that Ahsoka would have had an easier time if she had simply lost Sabine's phone number, since Sabine gives up the advantage to the bad guys every time she interacts with them.
4. The Sith in this series were at least something different. The Inquisitors from Obi-Wan Kenobi were perhaps the most tiresome Sith I'd yet seen, but Ray Stevenson's character on Ahsoka demonstrated that it's possible to do something different; instead of the typical petty Sith in-fighting and self-destructive nihilism, Stevenson's repressed performance and quiet weariness were at least a change from the usual.
5. Hayden Christensen is allowed to act now.
6. At one point a useless senator character scoffs at the account of what Ahsoka's been up to as thinking it sounds like a fairy tale. My dude, are you paying attention to the universe you live in? Fantastic fairy tale stuff happens every day!
7. Which brings to mind the space whales. My immediate reaction to my wife when they appeared was: "If you lived in the Star Wars universe and you were high on drugs, how would you ever know? 'Whoa, I think I see space whales. But I guess those things just exist in this universe.'"
8. The way in which Thrawn is treated as a mythical evil seemed off to me. Yes, Thrawn is a legendary Imperial leader. But he's not Sith - he's only powerful because of what he's to command into battle. Hearing characters talk about him like some figure of destiny seemed off, given that actual Sith were standing in the room at the time.
9. Then we finally meet Thrawn and he pretty much proved my point. He spends all his time delegating orders to others because he has no real power, just a lot of subordinates. His catchphrase, heard about every 15 minutes is: "Great Mothers; I have need again of your assistance."
10. The Stormtrooper with the golden face is the dorkiest Stormtrooper I've ever seen, and that's a feat.
11. Zombie Stormtroopers are not the wildest thing about Ahsoka; for me, it was hearing notes from Danse Macabre play as the zombies rose up. I was not expecting to hear an actual music sample in Star Wars.

Radio Recap: The Clock

The Clock was an old-time radio mystery anthology series that ran over ABC from November 3, 1946 until May 23, 1948. Although it's estimated that the series broadcast 78 episodes, we have a mere half-dozen circulating today. However, in 1955 the program was revived in Australia by Grace Gibson, who evidently used some (or all?) of the scripts in their version.

The Clock is a bit of a frustrating series to pin down. Even though the mystery anthology program is one of the most popular types of programs among old-time radio collectors, collectors and researchers don't appear to have unearthed very much information about the program. It's also surprising because the series had some major talent behind it - notable performers as well as the peerless craft of producer William Spier. You'd think there would have been numerous articles written about the series while it was being produced but... evidently not.

The Clock used noises such as the ticking of a clock and the chimes of bells to lend colour to their narratives. Each episode was hosted by Father Time himself (portrayed by William Conrad during the William Spier era). But beyond these trappings, the title "the Clock" doesn't tell you much about the show, not in the way a title such as Suspense, Escape, Romance or Intrigue efficiently tell you what to expect.

Most of what we have from the US version dates from William Spier's involvement. Many of the episodes preceding his were apparently written by Lawrence Klee, who would later write for the Chase. Spier was joined by many familiar voices from his work on Suspense, notably the team of Elliott and Cathy Lewis and even writer Lucille Fletcher! At the time, Spier had quit Suspense and I'm sure it was a coup for ABC to bring him aboard the Clock. Yet Spier's time on the Clock (no pun intended) was very short-lived; he definitely produced the final 6 episodes but we don't even know when his tenure as producer began. After the Clock ran down (pun intended) he moved on to the Philip Morris Playhouse before finally returning to Suspense one last time; some of the programs Spier produced for the Clock had been produced on Suspense, including "The Right Man" (heard on Suspense as "Bank Holiday" on July 19, 1945); others would be reprised on Suspense, including "The Search for Isobel" (November 3, 1949).

What we have of the US version is a bit mixed. "Bela Boczniak's Bad Dreams" (also referred to as simply "Bad Dreams") is Lucille Fletcher's contribution as writer but it's not up to quality of Suspense plays such as "The Diary of Sophronia Winters" of "the Thing in the Window." And one of the earliest surviving episodes - "Nicky Kane Lives" - is an odd duck, a quasi-supernatural tale of a gangster seeming to come back from the dead.

Based on what little we have of the US version, it would be hard to say whether we've been deprived of something great by not possessing all of them, but I'm sure simply because of the talent involved it would be nice to have all of Spier's episodes of the Clock.

If it's true that the Australian version was indeed adapted from the US scripts - and episodes do indeed sound like US dramas - then the surviving 50 or so Australian episodes at least gives us some concept of the show's usual plots. The first episodes of the Clock I ever heard were both Australian episodes: "All the Money in the World" (about a young man who receives unlimited money from an eccentric millionaire - it's the same premise that Jack Benny used as satire in his "I Stand Condemned" radio skits) and "The Man with the Strange Trunk" (concerning a woman who is very curious about a hotel guest's large trunk).

The Internet Archive has a collection of the Clock episodes that you can find over here - but be warned that like most attempts to impose order on the Clock it intermixes the US version with the later Australian episodes. Perhaps future researchers will be able to better determine the complete broadcast history of the Clock - we may yet be treated to some rediscovered missing episodes as well!

"That can't be true, John. I can't imagine saying that." I Am Stan (and Stuf' Said) review

A few years ago I read and enjoyed Jack Kirby: The Epic Life of the King of Comics, a graphic novel biography of Jack Kirby written and drawn by Tom Scioli. When I learned he had recently released I Am Stan: A Graphic Biography of the Legendary Stan Lee I was immediately intrigued and quickly read a copy. Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy this book as I had the earlier tome.

I Am Stan covers Stan Lee's life from childhood to death and as he lived a good 95 years that's a lot of ground to cover. Early on the book traces events from his life as a fairly linear biography but once Marvel Comics becomes a success in the 1960s the narrative gets a little snarled as Scioli moves events around chronologically for dramatic effect and frequently years pass between pages without notice.

If you're very well-versed in the life of Stan Lee then you should have no problem following Scioli's account of his life -- everything he represents has already been covered by other biographies. If you're not familiar with the other biographies you will probably find yourself at a loss to understand why Scioli dramatizes episodes from Stan's life without context.

For instance, early in Stan's life Scioli puts great effort into contextualizing and explaining what's going on; when Stan becomes editor at Marvel, Scioli takes the time to name check all the artists in the bullpen at the time. You would assume that it will important to know the names of all these men since Scioli took the time to name them, but that would be an incorrect assumption; Syd Shores makes one more brief appearance but knowing who was who in the 1940s bullpen matters not a whit to the rest of the book. Similarly, late in the book there's an episode where the police engage in a wellness check on Stan Lee and there are references to a business partner called "Keya." If you're up on your Stan Lee lore then you know why the police are talking to Stan and who "Keya" is but Scioli doesn't frame this.

Like the police wellness check scene, many pages of I Am Stan feel weightless, without narrative. His Jack Kibry was guided by narration told in Kirby's voice but there is no one to guide Lee's life. If you haven't already read a recent biography of Stan Lee (such as my favourite, True Believer by Abraham Riesman) you won't understand the weight of certain scenes; as well, the story is told strictly from Stan Lee's perspective - so when Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby leave Marvel the reader doesn't really understand why they did so, only that Stan didn't understand.

If I understand Scioli's efforts, it seems like he just wanted to put the reader into Stan Lee's shoes and experience moments from his life, but the longer the book went on the less connected I felt to Stan as the narrative wandered from one moment to another on each page. Rather than a long-form narrative, I Am Stan reads like a webcomic that was meant to be enjoyed one page at a time rather than all at once - and as an addendum to a proper biography, not a biography in its own right.

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Seeking out I Am Stan led me to Stuf' Said by John Morrow, a publication that was originally an issue of Morrow's Jack Kirby Collector magazine in 2019. A large part of why we comics fans have such complicated misgivings about Stan Lee have to do with the way he treated his collaborators, particularly Jack Kirby. In Stuf' Said, Morrow created a chronology from interviews and statements by Lee, Kirby and others close to them to track the sequence of events that led to Lee and Kirby's collaboration at Marvel and its dissolution.

Stuf' Said is definitely for the serious comics devotee - the one who really wants to know 'who said this and when.' For all that I know about these periods of history, there was a lot I didn't know such as the complete timeline on Kirby's involvement in the creation of Spider-Man; Kirby claiming a hand in creating Spider-Man was divisive to fans (although reading Morrow's book, Kirby's actual quotes are not as dismissive to Ditko as I saw others claim online) so discovering the earliest published mention of Kirby's involvement actually appeared in Marvel's own Foom magazine surprised me.

Riseman's True Believer had earlier made an impression on me with how passive-aggressive Stan seemed towards his collaborators and that not every artist was willing to put up with it (certainly not Steve Ditko or Wally Wood). Stuf' Said is particularly good at piecing all of those slights together; it's particularly instructive to note how many times Stan disparaged Dr. Strange while he was scripting that series - indeed he only seemed to consent that Ditko created Dr. Strange because he didn't want credit for those comics. But decades into his role as Marvel's perennial pitchman, he would repeatedly claim Dr. Strange was a favourite of his.

Stuf' Said is definitely not for the layman, it's for the dedicated comics fan who has a firm grasp on Lee and Kirby's careers. But I found it a fine book with a great deal of interesting discernments on the part of the author (particularly noting Kirby's satire of Stan Lee would have been invented at the same time Romita was satirizing Kirby in Captain America).

Both I Am Stan and Stuf' Said are best enjoyed by the experienced comics fan, but while I Am Stan is all very familiar and loosely-structured, Stuf' Said has excellent research and a very firm layout. It's obvious which I prefer.