Go ahead and call it a comeback--LL Cool J hardly ever reads my blog anymore. Today's gallery spotlights performers and characters attempting to return to the limelight after a few years away from the public eye.
My senior year in high school (1976-77) was a tremendous leap forward in my overall education. I mean, not in terms of math, physics, English, or even study hall, nor in terms of learning how to talk to g-g-g-g-gurls, but in terms of learning more and more about rock 'n' roll music. The 1960s ruled for me, and my favorite acts included The Beatles, The Monkees, The Kinks, The Dave Clark Five, and The Animals. Plus, like, KISS, The Raspberries, and Sweet. And Fleetwood Mac. Where was I? Oh yeah: The Animals. I badgered Utica's WOUR-FM to play "It's My Life," and wrote Where is Eric Burdon now that we need him? in permanent marker on the underside of the cabinets in the school newspaper's office. The idea of an Animals reunion woulda been almost up there with a Beatles or Monkees reunion in my pop dreams of '77, and damned if Burdon didn't indeed get back with Alan Price, Chas Chandler, Hilton Valentine, and John Steel as "The Original Animals" for a 1977 LP called Before We Were So Rudely Interrupted. I plucked my copy out of the used bin at Record Revolution in Cleveland Heights the summer after graduation, as high school faded into the rear view mirror, and I moved toward the potentially enticing notions of college, punk rock, and girls I could talk to, and dance with, and impress with my wit and good looks. A sense of humor turned out to be way more important in that whole talking-to-girls thing than I ever realized in high school.
I listened to this Animals reunion album quite a lot in that summer and fall, fixating in particular on their versions of "Many Rivers To Cross" and "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue." As much as I liked the record, I'd be lying if I said it was the equal of the great '60s tracks on my 2-LP The Best Of The Animals. This Animals reunion was ultimately short-lived--we gotta get out of this place!--but the original quintet reconvened yet again in 1983, releasing a lesser album called Ark and mounting a tour that brought them live on stage before my very eyes for a concert in Buffalo. I brought a date.
Although the original Captain Marvel outsold even the mighty Superman to become the most popular comic-book superhero of the 1940s, he was long gone from the spinner racks by the time I crusaded onto the scene in the '60s. I became a fan in the early '70s, via a culmination of pop culture factors I've already discussed elsewhere. My timing was good, because I was primed 'n' ready when former rival publisher DC Comics licensed the World's Mightiest Mortal for revival in a new title called Shazam! in 1972. A live-action Saturday morning Shazam! TV series followed in 1974. I was so enthused and excited when I learned that Captain Marvel was returning to comics, and I initially enjoyed the new Cap stories (and was particularly fond of artist Bob Oksner's rendition of a supercute Mary Marvel). But my interest faded. It soon became clear that the new stuff was...silly, and it all paled horribly in comparison to the stirring vitality of Cap's exploits from the '40s and '50s (which, lucky for me, DC reprinted often in the pages of Shazam!). Still, Shazam! # 1 was my very first chance to read a Captain Marvel adventure, new or old. I'd seen the 1941 movie serial The Adventures Of Captain Marvel. I'd read the single-page tease of Cap's first appearance from 1940's Whiz Comics # 2, as reprised in Jules Feiffer's book The Great Comic Book Heroes. But a complete Captain Marvel comic book story? I started with Shazam! # 1.
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| Mary Marvel by Bob Oksner |
So sad to watch good love go bad. I have three older siblings, two brothers and a sister. I can't say we've always gotten along perfectly, but the few times we didn't were, frankly, my fault entirely, and occurred a long, long time ago. The idea of family discord is alien to me, and I know how fortunate I am in that regard. Such discord was not alien to The Everly Brothers. I have no idea when the exquisite on-stage harmonies of Don and Phil Everly diverged so sharply from any hope of filial harmony in real life. We do know that Phil smashed his guitar and walked away during an Everly Brothers show in 1973, and that was the bitter, messy end of one of rockin' pop's all-time greatest acts.
And then, they re-united: a concert in London in September of 1983. Could bygones become bygones? We don't know, and we can't say. Whatever backstage tension or day-to-day drama may or may not have still existed, when they sang, Don and Phil retained the angelic voices that made us dream, dream, dream. The reunion concert was an enormous success. The Everly Brothers were back!
Perhaps it's cheating to use EB 84, the brothers' 1984 studio reunion, in place of The Everly Brothers Reunion Concert in today's discussion of acts and characters making their returns to the public eye. But unlike an in-concert document, EB 84 showed The Everly Brothers attempting to work together on an ongoing basis. It was the first of three albums they recorded in the '80s, followed by the moving Born Yesterday in 1986 and the final album Some Hearts in 1988. I confess I don't remember EB 84 as well as I do Born Yesterday; I need to do myself the favor of re-acquainting myself with the Everlys' fabulous '80s work. But I for damned sure remember the single from EB 84, a lovely Paul McCartney song called "On The Wings Of A Nightingale." When I had the wonderful opportunity to see The Everly Brothers (with guitarist Albert Lee!) in the late '80s or maybe early '90s, I hoped they would include "On The Wings Of A Nightingale" in their live set, but no--it was strictly an oldies show. The oldies were great. The Everly Brothers were great. Their later stuff should also be recognized as great. It's said that The Everly Brothers became estranged again; Phil's death in 2014 made that divide permanent. Bye bye love.
In the early '60s, Captain America was not initially part of the dawn of the Marvel Comics universe. The Star-Spangled Avenger was created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby in 1941 for Timely Comics, the publisher that would eventually become Marvel. Cap's first run lasted until 1949, and the character was revived briefly during the heart of the Cold War for a handful of Red Scare stories in the mid '50s. When Stan Lee, King Kirby, Steve Ditko, and others began creating The Marvel Age Of Comics in 1961, it was all done with new characters: The Fantastic Four. Spider-Man. Iron Man. The Mighty Thor. The Incredible Hulk. The Fantastic Four included a teen hero called The Human Torch, with the same fiery powers as his Timely Comics counterpart, but still a new character.
The Fantastic Four was the portal through which Marvel wound up reviving its original top three characters. The Sub-Mariner, who rivaled (and maybe surpassed) Cap and the Torch in popularity at Timely, was brought back as a villain in the fourth issue of The Fantastic Four. Fantastic Four Annual # 4 featured the original Human Torch's final battle. And in Strange Tales # 114, in the new Torch's solo series, we met a character claiming to be Captain America. It was an impostor, but the stage was set for the real Cap's return in The Avengers # 4 in 1964.
I owned a copy of this comic book, although not until 1970, when my sister's boyfriend gave all of his old comics to his girlfriend's kid brother. Thanks, George! But I knew the story long before that, shortly after reading my first Avengers comic book in 1966. Cap was my immediate favorite in the group. In the fall of '66, a series of barely animated cartoons based directly on Marvel's comics began airing on TV under the collective title The Marvel Super-Heroes. When Captain America throws his mighty shield/All those who chose to oppose his shield must YIELD! Yeah! Avengers # 4 was one of the comic book stories re-told in that series, showing me how The Avengers discovered a frozen figure floating in the cold waters of the Atlantic, a figure which turned out to be Captain America, preserved in stasis since the end of World War II. Cap awoke from his icy slumber, and became an Avenger. A movie would later refer to him as the first Avenger. To me, he was and remains the main Avenger.
(A mint condition copy of The Avengers # 4 is now worth a buck or two. Or six thousand. My copy was already far, far more tattered than that when I received it from George, and I remember finally removing its nearly-detached cover. I subsequently traded it to a friend in high school. Its monetary value is negligible. The values of its story and its memory remain vital and immediate to me.)
During the heyday of The Monkees' popularity in 1966-67, pundits were certain this made-for-TV combo's shelf life would be finite. The sudden and precipitous decline in The Monkees' stardom by decade's end seemed to prove the pundits right, but not for long! Reruns of the TV show, continued airplay of those great records, and critical reappraisal of that body of work have helped The Monkees to gain new generations of fans and to remain a relevant touchpoint for many. 1975 brought the first attempt at a Monkees revival, as the original quartet discussed offers of a tour, a TV commercial for McDonald's, maybe a new record, possibly even more TV or film work. Both Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork opted out (Tork later claimed he was never asked in the first place), but David Jones and Micky Dolenz were willing to re-Monkee, and they joined veteran Monkees songwriters Tommy Boyce & Bobby Hart as Dolenz, Jones, Boyce & Hart. The new group toured under the unwieldy title "The Golden Hits Of The Monkees: The Guys Who Wrote 'Em And The Guys Who Sang 'Em!," and packed the believers in at state fairs across this great land of ours (and elsewhere). They made a cheesy TV special. They made one eponymous studio LP, and they recorded a live album in Japan.
Dolenz, Jones, Boyce & Hart did not match the chart success of The Monkees. I remember hearing about it at the time, and being intrigued by it. I think I saw the TV special somewhere in there, and I heard Micky Dolenz on the radio defending the record against charges that it was mere bubblegum (Yeah, but it's progressive bubblegum!). In 1977, I read in Rodney Bingenheimer's column in Phonograph Record Magazine that a bearded Peter Tork had joined his ex-(pri)mates Micky and Davy on stage during a show in L.A. And I ached for a full-fledged Monkees reunion.
For all that, I didn't get around to hearing the DJB&H album until the early '80s. It certainly didn't get any airplay, and I'm gonna guess I couldn't spare/risk the cash to buy a new LP of songs I hadn't previewed. By the time I mighta been willing to chance it, the album was pretty much gone from retail. I almost bought it at Brockport's Main Street Records circa 1980 or '81, but passed up on that record in favor of--of all things--Blue Cheer's Vincebus Eruptum. I did subsequently pick up both DJB&H and their Concert In Japan LPs on separate return trips to Main Street, though I don't recall which one I bought first. I was underwhelmed at the time. "Moonfire" sounded uncomfortably close to the hated sound of REO Speedwagon, at least to my ears then, but I sorta liked the goofy cover of The Coasters' "Along Came Jones," I kinda liked the stiff single "I Remember The Feeling," and I loved the "(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone" rewrite "You Didn't Feel That Way Last Night (Don't You Remember)." Ultimately, though, I think I have more affection for DJB&H than for the 1987 Dolenz-Jones-Tork Monkees album Pool It!, and possibly more than the 1996 full-band Monkees reunion Justus. Of course, the greatest of the Monkees reunion albums was 2016's Good Times!, which I regard as the greatest rockin' pop comeback album ever done by anyone.
Batman is my favorite superhero character, followed by the original Captain Marvel. The Green Hornet is probably my all-time # 3, a radio hero I first discovered through his short-lived 1966-67 TV series. I don't remember ever really enjoying a Green Hornet comic book series. The three-issue TV-inspired series from Gold Key Comics was my first, and I snagged a mid '40s issue of The Green Hornet Fights Crime when I was in high school, but neither attempt moved me. The Gold Key run represented the only new Green Hornet comics published until Now Comics attempted its own flight of the bumblebee in 1989. I was so looking forward to this. And I was so disappointed.
In fairness, it's possible that no Green Hornet comics could ever live up to my fantasy ideal of what they should be, even if I were writing it. In recent years, some '30s-set efforts written by Matt Wagner or Mark Waid came closest, though I confess I'm really looking for an effective take on the 1966 incarnation that made me a Hornet fan to begin with. Give the folks at Now Comics some credit; Steranko's first-issue cover was perfect, and writer Ron Fortier came up with a neat generational aspect, picking up from the original radio Hornet's family ties to The Lone Ranger and establishing that the radio Hornet was father to the TV Hornet and grandfather to the late '80s Hornet. But the comics just never grabbed me to the extent I hoped they would. (Also credit Now for getting Van Williams, the actor who played The Green Hornet on TV, to write a comic book arc about his own old character. And I tell ya, I prefer Now's Green Hornet to the awful 2011 movie with Seth Rogan, and to the Green Hornet comics written by Kevin Smith. I'm still waiting for my definitive comic book Green Hornet.)
By the early '80s, former Herman's Hermits singer Peter Noone was tired of being cute 'n' cuddly ol' Herman. To paraphrase Creem's review of this album: Noone was sick of leaning on the damned lamppost, and he wanted some action. Noone's short-lived new wave pop group The Tremblers delivered a rockin' good time, both live and on their only album, Twice Nightly. Even the band's name--a play on "knee-tremblers," a reference to clandestine sex in the alley--was a bit ruder than anything ever said to Mrs. Brown about her lovely daughter. Noone was unable to reconcile his former image with the new image he wanted. The Tremblers' live set consisted of all of the tracks from the album, and nothing else: no non-LP covers, no other new material, and for God's sake no Herman's Hermits songs. That was an unfortunate decision. It's not like The Tremblers projected a junkie image like they were Johnny Thunders or something, nor were they metal or punk, nor any more salacious than The Knack (who were salacious enough). Their music was a tangent to that of Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers (I think Mike Campbell played on the album), or a more boppin' version of The Cretones, or a less-raucous relative of The Romantics. The lone cover was Elvis Costello's "Green Shirt." I could see why he/they might not want to perform "I'm Henry VIII I Am," but "A Must To Avoid" or "No Milk Today" would have enhanced their set. When I saw a Tremblers show, I called out a request for "Oh, You Pretty Things," the David Bowie song that had been Noone's first post-Hermits single about as decade before that. Noone brushed off the idea with a breezy We know that one! as he moved on to "Steady Eddie" or "Dad Said" or whatever Tremblers song was next on the set list.
Which is fine, by the way. Going to the show, I knew The Tremblers weren't going to perform anything from the Hermits' hit parade. I liked Twice Nightly a lot, and I'm still thrilled I had a chance to see them live. The Tremblers weren't around for very long, and Noone soon reverted to his old role as Herman. Second verse, same as the verse.
I've seen Herman's Hermits twice without Peter Noone, and I've seen Noone solo a few times. He's a confident and engaging performer who seems to know who he is and how to entertain his audience. His current show is a good time, servin' up Hermits hits alongside covers of songs by The Monkees and Freddie & the Dreamers. He doesn't perform any Tremblers songs. I wish he did.
Charlton Comics never had as much success with its superheroes as it did with other genres. The Pride Of Derby, Connecticut kept its presses running with funny animal, horror, war, and humor comics, but made only sporadic attempts to depict the exploits of costumed crusaders. Charlton's license of Lee Falk's The Phantom ran for a while, and Nicola Cuti and Joe Staton's beloved E-Man made a bold effort to carve out a space on newsstands in the mid '70s. Charlton's only sustained attempt to create a group of superhero titles was the short-lived Action Heroes line with then-editor Dick Giordano in the '60s. Captain Atom, The Blue Beetle (co-starring The Question), The Peacemaker, Judo Master, and Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt were here, and then they were gone. So was Giordano, who moved on to DC around '68 or so.
George Wildman ran Charlton in the '70s and '80s, and he politely but firmly insisted that superheroes didn't deliver sufficient sales for Charlton. So a revival of the Action Heroes always seemed unlikely, at least until Charlton Bullseye # 1 in 1981. If I remember right, Charlton Bullseye was supposed to be a new talent showcase, with the writers and artists doing their work for free as an audition for better things presumed to come. My impression of Wildman at the time was that he was pretty easy-going and friendly with Charlton fans; given that this title wouldn't have to pay its creators, Wildman was willing to be a bit more lenient with subject matter. So, in Charlton Bullseye # 1, novice writer/artist Dan Reed brought back The Blue Beetle and The Question.
It turned out to be one of Charlton's final superhero books. Captain Atom (and Nightshade) returned in Charlton Bullseye # 7 (written by Reed, drawn by Bill Black), and Martin L. Greim's new funny-animal hero Thunderbunny appeared in the sixth and tenth issues. Charlton Bullseye # 10 was the last issue. The above-mentioned Bill Black was able to license an Action Heroes team called Sentinels Of Justice (Captain Atom, Blue Beetle, The Question, and Nightshade) for his own Americomics line, in a story originally intended for Charlton Bullseye. DC then purchased the Action Heroes characters from Charlton, and Charlton finally shut down its presses for good.
When I talk about my development as a rock 'n' roll fan, I often find myself discussing my senior year in high school and my freshman year in college, 1976 to 1978. It figured into my Animals story above, and it's a constant reference point for me, simply because the time frame was, without a doubt, my rockin' pop flashpoint. There were influences and inspirations all around me, as I began to expand the frequency of my record purchases, to listen to radio that wasn't just Top 40, to read Phonograph Record Magazine, to see concerts, to write my first attempt at rock journalism, and (as also noted above) to get girls. Rockin' and rollin'--I was on my way!
My change in radio habits brought great rewards: FM radio. I loved the AM radio of a few years before, but by '76 and '77, WOLF-AM was playing disco and other boring sleep aids. WOUR-FM was playing The Rubinoos, Nick Lowe, Graham Parker, and The Sex Pistols. OUR mixed oldies into its regular mix, and also had a killer Friday night oldies show. That show introduced me to The Yardbirds. Somewhere in there, on FM or maybe AM, I heard a beguiling little gem from 1965: "Laugh, Laugh" by The Beau Brummels. I became obsessed with that song (a story told in Comics And LP Cover Cavalcade # 2). It took me a while to line things up, but I eventually became a big fan of The Beau Brummels.
Because I came to The Beau Brummels so late in the game, I completely missed their 1975 reunion album, The Beau Brummels. It wasn't quite a complete reunion; Ron Meagher left before the album was completed, leaving Sal Valentino, Ron Elliot, Declan Mulligan, and John Petersen as the last Brummels standing. When I finally did catch up with the album years later, it still took a bit for it to connect with me; I now regard it as one of the better reunion albums, probably better than Byrds, at least on a par with The Animals' Before We Were So Rudely Interrupted and The Flamin' Groovies' recent Fantastic Plastic, if not quite the equal of The Monkees' Good Times! (nor, if one includes comeback LPs that aren't reunions per se, 1979's The Searchers). I owe myself the pleasure of a fresh spin of The Beau Brummels very soon.
Hey, it's a two-fer! We close not with a character's return, but the return of a title: Secret Origins. Secret Origins began as a couple of 80 Page Giants in the early '60s, reprinting who-they-are-and-how-they-came-to-be tales of the Superman-Batman team, The Flash, Wonder Woman, The Challengers of the Unknown, etc. In 1973, DC Publisher Carmine Infantino's determination to exploit the company's vast supply of previously-printed material--the same determination that had already launched the 100-Page Super Spectaculars and Wanted, The World's Most Dangerous Villains--led to the revival of Secret Origins as a regularly-scheduled title.
I bought Secret Origins faithfully, but I was discouraged early on by the relative lack of Golden Age material. Well, the first issue was mostly Golden Age--only The Flash's origin was of later vintage--but c'mon, I'd already read the origins of Superman and Batman, leaving Hawkman's first encounter with The Ghost the only "new" Golden Age story for me in that issue. The second issue was all Silver Age, with Supergirl, The Atom, and Green Lantern. But, except for The Legion Of Super-Heroes in # 6, it was all Golden Age from # 3 on, with the origins of Wonder Woman, Wildcat, The Vigilante, Kid Eternity, The Spectre, Blackhawk, Aquaman, and Robin the Boy Wonder. I approved, but no one else did; Secret Origins was cancelled with its seventh issue.
The title returned in 1986 for its first-ever incarnation as a series of new stories chronicling the origins of DC superstars. Writer Roy Thomas was heavily involved in this series, taking advantage of an opportunity to define the back stories of DC's oldest characters. At the time, these Golden Age heroes were still located on Earth-2, an alternate world and universe separate from the continuity of the contemporary, mainstream DC Universe (Earth-1), and Thomas was in charge of all things Earth-2 . The original plan was to alternate Earth-2 characters and (then-) contemporary characters with each succeeding issue. The first issue starred the Golden Age Superman, written by Thomas and illustrated by classic Superman artist Wayne Boring with inks by Jerry Ordway. The second issue integrated the recently-acquired Blue Beetle into DC continuity. The original Captain Marvel starred in Secret Origins # 3, followed by Firestorm and The Crimson Avenger. The title expanded to double-sized with its sixth issue, allowing older and contemporary characters to share a single issue. I didn't care about Halo in Secret Origins # 6, but I for damned sure cared about Thomas' origin of the Golden Age Batman, especially because it featured the first new Batman art by Marshall Rogers--my all-time favorite Batman artist!--for the first time in nearly a decade. Instant classic!
Secret Origins lasted a total of fifty issues, plus some attendant specials, but Roy Thomas was frustrated almost immediately by a really big complication: Crisis On Infinite Earths was in the process of rewriting DC history, eventually declaring that there had never been an Earth-1 or Earth-2 or Earth X, et al., just one single Earth with a single heroic history. There had never been a Golden Age Superman, or Batman, or Wonder Woman, or even Captain Marvel. The multiverse was no more. Secret Origins continued, even as some of its earlier stories were rendered moot by the results of Crisis. Worlds would live. World would die. Not even origins were safe from revision.
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| A new origin of The Justice Society Of America, with Superman and Batman written out. |
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Our new compilation CD This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 4 is now available from Kool Kat Musik! 29 tracks of irresistible rockin' pop, starring Pop Co-Op, Ray Paul, Circe Link & Christian Nesmith, Vegas With Randolph Featuring Lannie Flowers, The Slapbacks, P. Hux, Irene Peña, Michael Oliver & the Sacred Band Featuring Dave Merritt, The Rubinoos, Stepford Knives, The Grip Weeds, Popdudes, Ronnie Dark, The Flashcubes,Chris von Sneidern, The Bottle Kids, 1.4.5., The Smithereens, Paul Collins' Beat, The Hit Squad, The Rulers, The Legal Matters, Maura & the Bright Lights, Lisa Mychols, and Mr. Encrypto & the Cyphers. You gotta have it, so order it here.
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