Scooby D'OH!

Despite the cover story "The Strange Case of Dorian Wormwood" being credited to writer Robert Kupperberg, the lead story in Scooby Doo, Where Are You? #15 was written by me, Robert's evil twin.

Look, I've only been writing for DC since 1975 and working on Scooby Doo since 2008 or so. It's going to take them a while to learn my name, I suppose...

NY Comicon 2011

A fine time was had by all! Met friends old and new, talked some business, took some pictures:

Me and the cover to the first LIFE WITH ARCHIE collection at the Archie Comics Booth

Power Girl and me

Me and Supergirl

Me and Plastic Man

From left to right: letterer extraordinaire John Workman, DC writer/production whiz Bob Rozakis, me (kneeling), DC writer/editor Jack C. Harris, writer/producer Michal Uslan, and DC Comics librarian Allan Asherman

Above was one of the best moments of the show for me (photo courtesy of Jack Harris). While I wasn't a member of the early-1970s group of young talent hired by DC Comics that became known as the DC Woodchucks, I was a fan on the fringe and friends with lots of these guys, and best pals with another Woodchuck, Paul Levitz. What's a Woodchuck? An explanation, courtesy of Bob Rozakis' blog, Anything Goes:

Back in the very early days of our careers at DC Comics, then VP/Production Manager Sol Harrison decided that we "kids" should put together a company-backed fanzine called Amazing World of DC Comics. He came to my desk and said, "Go get the rest of your pals and bring them to my office." So I went to my compatriots and said, "Sol wants to have a Junior Woodchucks meeting." I was making a joke, using the name of the faux-Boy Scouts that Huey, Dewey and Louie of Donald Duck fame belonged to. But the name stuck...and we became DC's Junior Woodchucks.

He Loves Peace So Much, He's Willing to Kill For It...And He's Downloadable, Too!

Waaay back in 1988 I wrote a miniseries for DC Comics starring the Joe Gill/Pat Boyette-created character, Peacemaker. Peacemaker was originally published by Charlton Comics in 1966 as part of editor Dick Giordano's "Action Hero Line" and lasted only a couple of years. Years later, DC acquired the rights to the Charlton Comics heroes (nearly losing them to Alan Moore's whim in the 1980s, had his Watchmen gone as originally conceived), and I have managed, happily, to be involved with many of these characters over the year as both writer and editor.


I got my shot at Peacemaker in the pages of Vigilante, where he was portrayed as a dangerous psycho who listened to the voices of the people he had killed who spoke to him via his helmet. In 1988, I spun him off in the aforementioned miniseries (with artists Tod Smith and Pablo Marcos), which was a total psychotic, blood-spattered romp against international terrorism. The voice in his head/helmet now belonged to his deceased and unrepentant Nazi father, and my editor's marching orders to me had been to push the envelope on crazy and violent.

DC has just posted the entire 4-issue Peacemaker miniseries online for download at .99¢ each via it's DC Comics app for the iPhone and Android devices, as well as at Comixology.com.

It was, someone in DC Digital told me the other day, sick enough that it was "a book that had to wait for the market sensibility to catch up with it."

Not shabby for a guy who writes Archie and Scooby Doo, huh?

There Were GIANTS Then!

I was recently asked by my pal Rob Kelly, of the Aquaman Shrine and many, many other blogsites devoted to the olden days of comics, to contribute an essay to a collection he's editing based on one of those other websites, entitled Hey Kids, Comics: True Life Tales From the Spinner Rack. Hey Kids, Comics! has an admirable Mission Statement" "to share the beloved memories of discovering comics for the first, second, tenth, or hundredth time" and "anyone with a story or photos are welcome to contribute." Other contributors include Steve Englehart, Jonathan Latham, Mike Carlin, Bob Greenberger, Stephen DeStefano, J.M. DeMatteis, Steve Skeates, and a whole lot more.

My beloved memory? 

Hey, Kids, Comics!

“An All-Star Collection of the Greatest Super-Stories Ever Published!”

© Paul Kupperberg

Covers © DC Comics

Oversized, higher price-point comics had been around since almost the beginning of comics. The first comics were 64-pages for 10¢. In 1939, within a year of Superman’s debut in Action Comics #1, one of the companies that would one day become DC Comics, published the first of two officially licensed New York World’s Fair Comics, 96-page extravaganzas featuring Superman, Batman, Robin, Sandman, Slam Bradley, and Zatara, the 1939 edition selling for 25¢, the one from 1940 for 15¢. In 1944, they tried topping themselves with the 128 page, 25¢ Big All-American Comic Book (featuring everybody!). 

Dell and Disney and later Whitman all played with the oversized format over the next couple of decades. Giant compilations of stories around a seasonal theme (Bugs Bunny’s Winter Fun) or genre (Western Round-Up, Walt Disney’s Silly Symphonies). I have several issues of Dell’s late-1950s A Giant Comic, each with a different theme, 96-pages for a quarter.

In 1960, DC Comics tried its hand at the giant-sized format again with two comics: Superman Annual #1 and Superman Annual #2, one published in August (to take advantage of kids on summer break from school) and the other in January (to take advantage of kids on Christmas break).

Even if they were playing fast-and-loose with the concept of “annual” by publishing two a year (a trend that continued for the next three years), these were remarkable packages, irresistible blocks of four-color excitement that any kid with even a modicum of commonsense would have to own!

I mean...eighty pages for a quarter?!

I was in love.

Remember: a kid could do a lot of damage with 25¢ in 1960.

The corner candy store offered an irresistible array of penny goodies, licorice whips, candy buttons, Bazooka, lollipops, Necco Wafers, Turkish Taffy, pretzel sticks, root beer barrels, Tootsie Rolls, wax lips, Sugar Babies, candy necklaces...enough candy to keep a five year old and his friends in a sugar-haze for days at a stretch. A slice of pizza and a Coke was twenty-five cents. The price to ride the bus or subway was 15¢, and it was still under a buck to get into most neighborhood movie theaters, while comic books were priced the same as they always had been, 10¢...albeit with thirty-two pages of content versus the original sixty-four.

             

The corner candy store was also the venue in which the candy-sated five year old bought his comic books. In my East New York neighborhood of Brooklyn, that was Flemmy’s, on St. Johns Place, right around the corner without having to cross a street from where we lived on Buffalo Avenue. In the opposite direction was the grand Eastern Parkway, a European-inspired boulevard designed by the same men who created New York’s Central Park and Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, and the much grander neighborhood of Crown Heights. But St. Johns Place, with its hardware and clothing stores, its Kosher-style delis and bakeries, the knishe stores, the local movie palace (the Congress, where my grandmother once sold tickets and my grandfather ran the projector, and where I saw my first movie, ‘The Three Stooges in Orbit’ with my older brother and Uncle David), was the street where we spent our time.

             

Flemmy’s had been on St. Johns Place forever. My father had grown up in East New York and Crown Heights and had hung out in front of the old candy store with his pals, a veritable Bowery Boys gang of guys, from his best pal Morty, to the mentally challenged ‘Crazy Eddie,’ who, almost twenty years later wound up in the same East Flatbush neighborhood my grandmother was then living in...which was also the neighborhood my friends and I made our weekly Tuesday pilgrimage to in order to buy the new comics from the four candy stores and newsstands that lined our route, none of which carried all the week’s releases from the six or seven publishers then filling the racks. By the time I was that five year old in 1960, Mr. And Mrs. Flemmenhoffer (there was also a son, a renowned neighborhood lay-about who eventually wound up as a television producer and, I believe, died young) were getting old and, Mr. Flemmy in particular, very cranky. He liked to bark out absurd and disturbing things to his kiddie customers, like “Why aren’t you working?” and “Go home and shoot your brother!” But that didn’t prevent me from going in whenever I had the cash in hand to get my fill of candy and comics, the two staples of life (sorry to say, that hasn’t changed much in the intervening fifty years).

             

I remember Bugs Bunny. I remember the mice and ducks in the Disney Comics, and, most of all, I remember Wonder Woman. I loved Wonder Woman when I was a kid. It was being written by Robert Kanigher and drawn by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito. The stories were filled with dragons and genies, Mer-Boys and Bird-Boys, fairy tale kingdoms everywhere, and the glorious ridiculousness of Wonder Tot and Paradise Island.

           

And then Superman flew into my living room.

             

He came through the television, as I recall, in the form of the classic 1940s Max Fleischer theatrical cartoons on a program called Terrytoon Circus, hosted by Ringmaster Claude Kirchner. Kirchner, who had spent years playing the Ringmaster character on the Chicago-based Super Circus, assisted by Mary Hartline, beginning in 1949, and been in New York since 1955, the year I was born, and his program is one of my earliest memories. The half hour Terrytoons Circus ran every weekday evening at 7 p.m. on WOR-TV, channel 9 in New York, after which was my bedtime. Kirchner was my Barney, my Power Rangers, my Transformers, and he introduced me to Superman. Whatever I saw on that show was what my five year-old imagination took to bed with me. I dreamed in black and white, of old silent Farmer Brown cartoons and the Man of Steel.

            

 It was an easy and natural shift from the gray-toned figure on our small-screen black and white wood cabinet Philco to the blue-and-red clad one on the cover of the comic books on Flemmy’s magazine stand, the wooden rack up against one wall of the narrow store, opposite the soda fountain and counter.

           

Comics were, as I said, just ten cents, but only if bought new, off the newsstand. Up St. Johns Place, towards Ralph Avenue, was a secondhand bookstore owned by a man named Dave Solomon. Dave was a dumpy, egg-shaped fellow with greasy hair and thick glasses, but it was there my father had bought two-for-a-nickel coverless pulp magazines in his youth, and it was there we went for two-for-a-nickel coverless comics. (Years later, Dave was found, quite accidentally, having relocated to Church Avenue and Argyle Road in Flatbush, right near my brother’s apartment, circa 1970.) Even I, as bad in math as I remain to this day, could figure out this enabled me to read four times as many comics for the same dime!

           

But there was one exception to the pricing structure.

            

Those were the 25¢ giants. The annuals!

Continued, in Hey Kids, Comics: True Life Tales From the Spinner Rack...!

...Beware My Power, Green Lantern's Light! Extra

"Eyes of the Beholders!" Continued

© DC Comics

Pal and "Eyes of the Beholders!" penciller Rick Stasi sent me this scan, pulled from eBay, of a page (page 7 to be precise) from our (probably) never-published story, the script for which can be found in the previous three postings. Thanks, Ricky!

Enjoy!

Let Those Who Worship Evil's Might-Part 3

"Eyes of the Beholders"-Part 3

© DC Comics

No Evil Shall Escape My Sight-Part 2

"The Eyes of the Beholders"-Part 2

© DC Comics

In Brightest Day, In Darkest Night-Part 1

The following script was written, if memory serves me -- and it seldom does -- in the mid-1980s. DC Comics legendary editor Julie Schwartz was semi-retired from monthly comics, but still working on special projects, like DC's science fiction graphic novel series, and, for a time, on fill-in issues of ongoing titles. Back before continuity was such a harsh mistress, a late-running issue could be substituted with a fill-in prepared well in advance and waiting in a drawer to be slipped into the schedule. Julie was given the job of commissioning and editing a boatload of such fill-in issues for the major DC titles; my friend Rick Stasi was scheduled to pencil this story, but for reasons I forget (if I ever knew 'em), most of these fill-ins never got drawn.

(Update: Pal and artist Rick Stasi dropped me an e-mail to tell me that this story was indeed penciled, lettered and inked and that, possibly, according to what he was told by editor Schwartz, it may have been used in comics albums licensed by German publisher Ehapa, for which I wrote or co-wrote with Bob Rozakis about half a dozen 48-page Superman stories, most unpublished in this country.)

I wrote a Green Lantern fill-in, this 19-page script one of the undrawn issues. Since I got my first computer late in 1986, this story, written on a typewriter (Google it), must pre-date that. The hand-written edits were Julie's work...as you can see, he did not spare the editorial pencil...

"The Eyes of the Beholders"-Part 1

© DC Comics

Wheet! Wheet! Part 2

HAWKWORLD: "A Matter of Conscience" Part 2

© DC Comics

PAGE NINE

1 (SCHINDLER is shaking hands with HAWK, still flustered by his presence, as KLEIN makes the appropriate introductions.)

Schindler: Uhm... yes, well... you’re HAWKMAN, aren’t you?

Klein: Yeah. This’s Mel Schindler, of the B’NAI B’RITH ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE.

Hawk: Nice to meet you. Excuse me, but I’m not from around here... what’s a B’nai B’rith...?

2 (CLOSE-UP OF SCHINDLER, recovering his equalibrium as he speaks to Hawk.)

Schindler: Uh, yes... we’re an American Jewish service organization, involved in relief work and vocational training.

Schindler 2: I represent our Anti-Defamation League.

Hawk: I see. Do many people defame the B’nai B’rith, Mr. Schindler?

3 (SCHINDLER is looking at HAWK like he’s from another planet... which, in fact, he is. KLEIN is rolling his eyes to the heavens.)

Schindler: Not the group ITSELF, Mr.... er, Hawkman. Jews. And, yes, quite a few people do just that.

Schindler 2: Which is what I want to talk to YOU about, Lt. Klein. What are your people DOING about the vandalism of the memorial?

4 (CLOSE-UP of KLEIN as he reaches into his shirt pocket to extract a cigarette from the pack there. He looks tired.)

Klein: What’d you WANT from me, Schindler? Some loon takes a can of spray paint to the statue... no witnesses... no NOTHING.

Klein 2: All I CAN do is put a man on patrol in the park so it doesn’t happen again.

5 (SCHINDLER is angry, pointing a finger at KLEIN as HAWK looks on.)

Schindler: I thought you, of ALL people, would understand what vandalism of this sort MEANS. I suppose I was WRONG...

Klein: SAVE the GUILT okay? I KNOW... a damned sight BETTER than you--

6 (CLOSE-UP OF KLEIN, angrilly clamping his teeth down on the cigarette.)

Klein: -- But what I feel doesn’t mean SQUAT here. This sort of crap turns my stomach...

7 (CUT TO: to an ESTABLISHING SHOT of a small, tidy house on a street of similar houses, somewhere in SKOKIE. This is a heavily residential area of quiet streets lined with homes with their neat little patches of lawn out front. Very quiet, very nice... one of those ideal American communities in which to bring up the kiddies. Or live out your retirement years.)

Cap: “... But I can’t materialize a perp out of thin air with nothing to go on but my OUTRAGE...

PAGE TEN

1 (AROUND BACK of the house, by the back door to the kitchen: the light is on in the kitchen and, through the window, we can see old HIRAM moving past the window, carrying a dinner plate. On the wall of the house, we can see the shadows of three men moving towards the back door.)

Cap: “... And no matter how loud you HOWL for me to go rounding up the ‘USUAL suspects,’ I don’t PLAY that way--

2 (INSIDE THE HOUSE, in the kitchen, where HIRAM is just about to sit down at the small kitchen table to eat his dinner. His little dog is sitting on the floor beside the table, looking expectantly up at his master. HIRAM’S back is to the door, so he doesn’t see the silhouettes against the curtains on the kitchen door moving up towards the door.)

Cap: “-- So unless you’ve got some USEFUL information for me, you’re just WASTING my time...”

Hiram: STOP begging, Cassie. You have YOUR dinner, I have MINE.

3 (HIRAM is turning to look towards the kitchen door, brow furrowed, surprised. All he can see through the sheer curtains over the door’s window is a vague silhouette.)

Hiram: Eh? Who’s THERE...?

SFX: KNOK! KNOK!

4 (HIRAM is standing before the kitchen door, hesitant, unsure. The dog is sniffing at the bottom of the door.)

Hiram: I said, who’s there? I... I was just about to sit down to my dinner...

SFX: KNOK! KNOK! KNOK!

5 (Suddenly, a baseball bat is smashing through the door window, sending glass flying at HIRAM who is recoiling, covering his face with his arms in surprise.)

SFX: KRASSSH!

6 (Now the door itself is flying open, kicked in from the outside by a blackbooted foot.)

SFX: THWAMM!

7 (Standing framed in the doorway are three skinhead Nazi punks, dressed in leather and denim, torn t-shirts, and liberally festooned with a wide variety of Nazi symbols. Mean as can be... and meanest of them is the leader, WILKS, who’s at the fore of the group, tapping his baseball bat on the palm of his hand, a nasty smile on his face, directed at the scared, shocked old man.)

Wilks: I got something for you to CHEW on, pops!

Hiram: M- my... god... what... WHAT do you WANT...?!

PAGE ELEVEN

1 (WILKS, with his two goons right behind him, is stepping into the kitchen, pointing at old HIRAM with the baseball bat. HIRAM is backing away, frightened. The dog is snarling and growling at the skinheads.)

Wilks: Wanna TALK to you, old man. We HEARD what you said about us on the news. Didn’t like it.

Hiram: You... you get OUT of my house... right NOW, you HEAR me!

2 (FLASHBACK PANEL: HIRAM -- once as a teenager in the late-30s, early-40s -- is shielding his mother and sister from flying splinters as uniformed and heavily armed Nazis kick open the door to their apartment.)

3 (WILKS is poking HIRAM in the chest with the end of the bat, smiling coldly at the old man.)

Wilks: Not yet, Jew boy. Not till we discuss a few things... like your calling us ANIMALS. We think that’s real FUNNY--

Wilks 2: -- Coming outta a LOWER LIFE FORM like a JEW. Know what I mean?

Hiram: I... I KNOW... I know all ABOUT you... and your KIND...

4 (WILKS is looking over his shoulder at his two friends, smiling. He’s got HIRAM pinned against the wall now, holding the old man there with the end of the bat pressed against his chest.)

Wilks: Hear that? He knows us. That makes it EASY, don’t it?

Punk A: Yeah, Wilks. REAL easy.

Hiram: You... you’re a bunch of THUGS, you hear me?! You imitate a MONSTER... but HE couldn’t kill us all... YOU’LL never do it...

5 (WILKS is shouldering the baseball bat as he returns his gaze to old HIRAM, still smiling his cold-as-ice, hateful smile.)

Wilks: You gotta understand something here, Jew boy. Old Adolph-- he was on the RIGHT track, but he was TOO soft on all of you...

6 (Without warning, WILKS is swinging the bat, at old HIRAM, off panel.)

Wilks (burst): ... JUST TOO DAMNED SOFT!

Cap: “I find this whole situation AND your attitude DEPLORABLE...”

SFX: KRAKK!

7 (CUT TO: back to the police station, where an irate SCHINDLER is storming away from a fed-up KLEIN and a slightly confused HAWK.)

Schindler: ... And you can be sure the mayor and the media’s going to hear about this, Lt. Klein. COUNT on it!

Klein: Yeah, give hizzoner a big WET one for me while you’re at it.

Hawk: What was that all about, Lt.?

PAGE TWELVE

1 (KLEIN is dropping his cigarette to the floor in disgust, shaking his head in annoyance.)

Klein: Ahh, just some LOCAL trouble. You know anything about World War II? The Nazis?

Hawk: Some. But that’s history, isn’t it?

2 (CLOSE-UP OF KLEIN, looking down at his feet as he speaks.)

Klein: Not around HERE it isn’t. Anyway, the short of it is, part of the Nazi gameplan was the eradication of the Jewish race...

Klein 2: ... Mostly in CONCENTRATION CAMPS-- extermination centers where they worked European Jews to the brink of death--

3 (TIGHT ON KLEIN’S foot, as he grinds out the cigarette with the toe of his shoe.)

Klein: -- Then gassing or shooting the one’s who didn’t drop from starvation or exhaustion... 6 MILLION Jewish victims... probably the SAME number of other ethnic or racial UNDESIRABLES...

4 (KLEIN, pain and sorrow showing on his face, is looking up at HAWK.)

Klein: But, you know, try as they might, some of their victims SURVIVED the camps... 45 years later, a lot of them live here in Skokie.

Hawk: I appreciate the history lesson, but I don’t understand what that’s got to do with TODAY.

5 (KLEIN is looking over at a uniformed COP, who’s calling to him from across the room.)

Klein: Because you don’t FORGET something like that...

Cop: LT.! We got a call in... ASSAULT-- victim’s that old guy who reported the vandalism at the Memorial.

Klein 2: HELL!

6 (KLEIN, pissed, is reaching inside his office, grabbing up his jacket from inside. HAWK is looking on, clearly not sure what’s going on here.)

Klein: I don’t like the VIBES I’m getting here, Hawkman. I gotta GO... want to tag along?

Hawk: If I won’t be in the way.

Klein 2: You WON’T be--

PAGE THIRTEEN

1 (CUT TO: an ESTABLISHING SHOT of HIRAM’S house. There are several police cars and an ambulance outside the house, cops all over the place, some keeping the curious neighbors back.)

Cap: “-- And you might just LEARN something about us Earth folk...”

From house: ... ASSAULT, my rosy butt! This is as far past assault as you can get--

2 (INSIDE, in HIRAM’S kitchen, which is full of cops and detectives, including KLEIN and HAWKMAN, as well as a DOCTOR and two emergency medical technicians. The DOCTOR is helping the emergency techs load the battered HIRAM on a stretcher. Some detectives are searching the room for evidence, taking pictures. The table is overturned, the kitchen pretty savagely vandalized, everything smashed up... and the walls and other surfaces covered with spray-painted graphetti: swastikas over a Jewish star, anti-Semitic slogans. KLEIN is surveying the damage, seething with suppressed rage.)

Klein: -- This is TERRORISM, plain and simple.

Klein 2: Bastards!

Hawk: This isn’t just ANOTHER case to you, is it?

3 (The ambulance technicians are lifting up the stretcher with HIRAM on it in the foreground. Beyond this we see KLEIN turning to look at HAWK.)

Klein: You think? Maybe it’s got something to do with my being Jewish, huh?

Hawk: Maybe. But ANY decent man’s going to feel outrage at such a crime, regardless of religious affiliation.

4 (CLOSE-UP OF KLEIN, barely restraining his rage as he bites down on the filter of a cigarette he’s putting in his mouth.)

Klein: Maybe... or maybe not ENOUGH people get angry enough.

Klein 2: I don’t know... I suppose it’s better where you come from?

5 (CLOSE-UP OF HAWK, not looking all too happy himself, looking down, avoiding KLEIN’S eyes.)

Hawk: Uhhh... no...

Hawk 2: No. In some ways, Lt. Klein, it’s a whole lot WORSE...

Cap: “I didn’t tell him about the places BELOW on Thanagar--

6 (CUT TO: an ESTABLISHING SHOT of the park and the Survivor’s Memorial statue. It’s dawn and the park is empty... except for the winged figure of HAWK standing before the statue.)

Cap: “-- The places where living, sentient beings are DISPOSED of once they’ve served their purposes.

Cap 2: “Thanagar’s policy of conquest, domination, and enslavement of alien races.

PAGE FOURTEEN

1 (Move in on HAWK, standing before the statue, grimly looking up at it.)

Cap: “Thanagarians accept it.

Cap 2: “It allows them their lives of luxury and ease.

2 (CLOSE-UP of HAWK, his face shadowed, sad.)

Cap: “If they don’t think about it, they don’t have to DO anything about it.

Cap 2: “And if the price of their privilege is the suffering of a few alien inferiors--

3 (HAWK is walking away from the statue, towards a public telephone that’s conveniently located on the edge of the park.)

Cap: “-- So be it. It’s nothing I can understand or accept... MY race JUSTIFIES the destruction of DIFFERENT species...

4 (SHOT OF THE STATUE.)

Cap: “... While Earthmen destroy their OWN. People whose ONLY difference is the shading of their skin or the gods they worship.

Cap 2: “It’s beyond insanity. BOTH our systems... sheer insanity.

5 (HAWK is at the phonebooth, dailing a number.)

Cap: “How... WHY do they erect monuments to the VICTIMS, rather than the victors, or those who SAVED them from their fates?

Cap 2: “I wish to hell someone could EXPLAIN it to me...”

6 (HAWK on the phone.)

Hawk: Let me speak to Lt. Klein, please.... Hello, Lt. Klein... no, I was just wondering if you had heard about Mr. Wyznowski...

Hawk 2: He’s conscious? That’s good news... yes... yes, thank you, lieutenant. Good-bye.

7 (HAWK is hanging up the telephone, looking back over at the statue)

Cap: “I suppose I’ll just have to find someone to ASK.” -- From Katar Hol’s Personal Journal

PAGE FIFTEEN

1 (CUT TO: an ESTABLISHING SHOT of a CHICAGO neighborhood saloon... kind of like Bucket of Suds, in a residential neighborhood, the next day.)

From bar: ... It was WAY cool, man! Should’a seen how that old man went down. Learned him to lip off, eh, Wilks?

2nd from bar: That’s the TRUTH, man...

2 (INSIDE THE BAR: a real redneck joint, specializing in beers and shots and sports events on the TV set over the bar. Majorly working class. Seated in the back around several tables are WILKS, his buddies from before, and a half dozen other skinheads, all gathered around to hear the story of beating up the old man from WILKS’S own mouth. Bottles of beer litter the table tops, cigarette butts overflow ashtrays, and the bartender and couple other customers are keeping away from the boys in the back.)

Wilks: ... Figure every 40, 50 years, you gotta beat some RESPECT into ‘em. Learn ‘em RESPECT for their white, Christian BETTERS!

Thug: Right ON, man!

Thug B: Sheeny bastard knows who’s boss NOW!

Wilks 2: Yeah, the old man got the message--

3 (TIGHT ON WILKS, looking mean and tough as his buddies look on, hanging on his every word.)

Wilks: -- But what about the REST of ‘em? Man, hitting that old man really opened my eyes.

Wilks 2: I mean, we TALK about the problem, but what’d we DO about it?

4 (WILKS is snarling, holding up a fist in front of his face.)

Wilks: We been slackin’ off something FIERCE, guys!

Wilks 2: Well, no more, y’understand? We’re gettin’ ACTIVE, dig? We’re going HUNTING--

5 (CUT TO: an ESTABLISHING SHOT of SKOKIE GENERAL HOSPITAL, early morning.)

Cap: “-- To put the fear of the WHITE MAN’S GOD into Jew town!”

From hospital: ... Mr. Wyznowski? I hope I’m not disturbing you, sir.

6 (INSIDE THE HOSPITAL: KATAR is standing in the doorway of a private hospital room where old HIRAM is laying in the bed. He’s pretty badly beat up, his face a mass of bruises, one eye swollen closed, bandages on his head, his right arm in a cast. A uniformed COP is stationed outside the door in the hallway.)

Hiram: What else do I have to do? No, no, come right in, Mr....?

Katar: HOL, Mr. Wyznowski. Katar Hol.

Hiram 2: You’re with the police, Mr. Hall?

7 (KATAR is standing awkwardly by HIRAM’S bedside.)

Katar: In a manner of speaking. But I’m not investigating your attack... not exactly. You see, I was there with the police at your house last night...

PAGE SIXTEEN

1 (HIRAM is smiling, pointing the finger on his good hand at KATAR.)

Katar: They tried explaining it to me. The REASON for the attack, I mean. I’m not from here, and...

Hiram: SURE... I THOUGHT you looked familiar! You’re that HAWK fella from outer space, no?

2 (KATAR is sitting down on the edge of the bed, where HIRAM is patting the bed.)

Katar: Yes, sir. I suppose that’s why I can’t quite understand WHY things are as they are.

Hiram: Sit down, sit down.

Hiram 2: Oy. To ME you came for those answers?

3 (HIRAM is smiling gently, patting KATAR’S knee.)

Hiram: Let me tell you something, Mr. Hawk-person... I’ve lived with such hatred all my life, and I couldn’t BEGIN to tell you WHY it exists.

4 (CLOSE-UP of HIRAM’S battered, bandaged face.)

Hiram: Don’t look so glum. Look, who can say why somebody hates? In 1938, I was a young man in Poland and I didn’t hate ANYBODY.

Hiram 2: Then Hitler and his Nazis came in and, suddenly, because I was a Jew, I was no good!

5 (FLASHBACK PANEL: It’s the early-40s and we see young HIRAM, gaunt, half-starved, wearing a ragged striped concentration camp uniform, one of many working with picks and shovels on a road or digging a ditch. They are all under the hostile guard of Nazi soldiers. HIRAM is glaring up at the nearest Nazi as he works.)

Cap: “They locked us in ghettos. They starved us. They whittled away our number. They sent us to their hellish camps...

Cap 2: “... And they taught me how to HATE. Sure, who wouldn’t hate them for exterminating my family, friends... my race?

6 (FLASHBACK: Inside the barbed wire of the concentration camp, a sympathetic teenage German boy in a uniform too large for him is passing the only slightly older HIRAM a hunk of bread.)

Cap: “But even then, not everything was so black and white. In the heart of hell, I found the occasional act of KINDNESS.”

Continued…

Wheet! Wheet!

I've recently had occasion to dig through a few old file drawers and I've come up with some interesting "lost" items from my 30+ years in the funny book business. Most of the found items have been in the form of unpublished scripts, both my own and copies of the works of others. Among those I written but unpublished were several fill-in stories, including a mid-80s Green Lantern fill-in, and a couple from the early-90s for The Doom Patrol and, this one, for Hawkworld. It was to be pencilled by my pal Rick Stasi, but it never got that far (the DP fill-in was pencilled, by Rick; I'll run that one of these days). It's full script, so I'll run it in three installments:

HAWKWORLD: "A Matter of Conscience" Part 1

(c) DC Comics

PAGE ONE

1 (We open with a tight-shot of a pigeon perched on a statue, although we can’t see what that statue is just yet. It’s early evening.)

Cap: Skokie, Illinois:

Cap 2: Birds of a feather, they say, flock together.

2 (Close-up of the pigeon as it looks up into the sky, where a flock of his fellow pigeons are taking off, as pigeons are wont to do, disturbed by something passing by.)

SFX: WOOF! WOOF WOOF!

3 (Now the pigeon is taking off, flapping towards its fellows.)

Off panel: CASSIE! STOP that...

SFX: WOOF!

4 (The pigeon is joining the flock that’s winging up into the sky as we pull back to see that it had been perched atop the HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL in the square in Skokie. There’s a little mongrel dog, trailing its leash behind it, jumping at the statue, barking wildly at the retreating birds. The dog’s owner, HIRAM WYZNOWSKI, is calling to the dog as he hurries towards it. HIRAM is mid-70s, slightly stooped, whatever hair he’s got left is white.)

Hiram: ... Stop that, right now, you BAD girl!

Cap: That’s true not only of birds. People will do the SAME thing.

Cap 2: The ties that bind people together can be just about anything...

SFX: grrrRRRRR WOOOF!

5 (HIRAM is stooping over to pick up the end of the dog’s leash as it continues yapping away at the fleeing pigeons.)

Cap: Social. Economic. Racial. Ethnic...

Hiram: Cassie! How many time I have to TELL you, eh? LEAVE the birds alone.

6 (CLOSE-UP of HIRAM’S LEFT forearm as he reaches down to pick up the leash. His sleeve is pulling up, revealing his forearm under his jacket... and the concentration camp number tattooed there, slightly faded but still visible.)

7 (CLOSE-UP of HIRAM, glancing up at the off-panel statue as he rises, looking shocked.)

PAGE TWO

1 (FLASHBACK PANEL: it’s 1940ish, and HIRAM is in his late-teens, part of a pack of bewildered and frightened men, women and children being herded towards railroad cattle cars by uniformed Nazis.)

2 (Looking from behind HIRAM, up at the statue before him, looking shocked, because spray painted on the statue in bright yellow paint is a Nazi swastika.)

Cap: ... Or shared experiences.

Hiram: My... god...!

3 (CUT TO: A TELEVISION-SCREEN SHAPED PANEL and a shot of the statue, focusing on the spray painted swastika. At the bottom of the screen the words “WBBM 2 / LIVE FROM SKOKIE” are super-imposed.)

TV (electric): ... Don’t know what kind of person would DO such a thing... HERE, of all places.

4 (TELEVISION-SCREEN SHAPED PANEL, with the words “WBBM 2 / LIVE FROM SKOKIE” super-imposed at the bottom of the screen: the ‘camera’ is pulled back to show the REPORTER interviewing old HIRAM, who’s very upset, standing in front of the defaced statue.)

Hiram (elec): This is a MEMORIAL to people who DIED under the Nazis. To deface it like this... I don’t understand such a thing.

5 (TELEVISION-SCREEN SHAPED PANEL, with the words “HIRAM WYZNOWSKI / Skokie Resident” super-imposed at the bottom of the screen, which is showing a CLOSE-UP of the very upset old HIRAM.)

Hiram (elec): What kind of HATEFUL mind would even THINK to do this... what kind of ANIMAL...?

From TV (elec): Once again, the peaceful suburb of Skokie has become the focus of ANTI-SEMITIC activities...

Off panel: Who’s he calling an ANIMAL?

6 (Now the TV-SHAPED PANEL is on an actual television -- now showing the REPORTER talking into the microphone, addressing the camera; old HIRAM standing beside him -- sitting on a rickety old dresser in a rickety old room. The wall behind the dresser is decorated with Nazi memorabilia: old propaganda posters, a swastika flag, etc. Extending into the panel from the foreground is a hand holding a remote control, pointed at the TV, clicking the off button. The hand holding the remote has a crude prison-tattoo of a swastika on it.)

TV (elec): ... A particularly HEINOUS crime in this predominantly Jewish community, home to one of the largest groups of World War II concentration camp survivors in the... klik!

Off panel: Somebody ought’a teach that old hebe some MANNERS--

7 (SAME AS ABOVE, except the TV screen has gone black.)

Off panel: -- Somebody like ME...

PAGE THREE

1 (SPLASH PAGE: up in the skies over CHICAGO, where we see HAWKMAN, sailing along through the skies, just behind a formation of birds winging along, trailing at a discreet distance, as though wanting to be part of the flock but afraid to get too close. Big, panoramic shot, with the Chicago skyline in the background.)

Cap: “What’s that expression they have? Something about... birds of a feather? It has to do with companionship and sharing, I’m told. Nothing I’ve ever been very good at.

Cap 2: “I’ve always been more of a loner, both home on Thanagar and here on Earth. But I’m learning... at least I’m TRYING to learn, but the odds have hardly been in my favor.

Cap 3: “I thought I was breaking through in my relationship with SHAYERA... but then she was ordered HOME, escorting the captured BYTH back to Thanagar. That was just their EXCUSE, though.

Title: A MATTER OF CONSCIENCE

Credits: PAUL KUPPERBERG * guest writer

RICK STASI * guest penciller

THE INKER * inker

TIM HARKINS * letterer

SAM PARSONS * colorist

PAGE FOUR

1 (TIGHT-SHOT of HAWK, as he flies along, looking grim.)

Cap: “It was really all about politics, the tenuous diplomatic dance between Earth and Thanagar.

Cap 2: “Shayera wasn’t what could be called an IDEAL ambassador of goodwill--

2 (HAWK is still trailing behind the flock of birds, a lonely figure in the sky.)

Cap: “-- Especially not to a world whose memories of Thanagar’s part in the INVASION of their planet is still fresh.

Cap 2: “So they sent her away, to give Earth time to FORGET how she dealt with criminals.

3 (CUT TO: a bird’s eye view of an elevated train station platform [the HOWARD STREET station, which is the northern terminus for trains in Chicago proper, and the station where people switch over to trains into the suburbs] crowded with commuters headed home for the evening. But there are two THUGS who are bursting onto the platform, leaping the turnstiles, guns in hand, their presence creating quite a disturbance among the startled and frightened commuters. A train, with its doors open, is standing at the platform.)

Cap: “The THANAGARIAN way. Swiftly and, by Terran standards, BRUTALLY.

Cap 2: “Just as she and I were starting to come to terms with one another.

4 (STILL ON THE PLATFORM: as the THUGS push their way roughly past startled commuters, diving into the waiting train -- the two-car “SKOKIE SWIFT” -- whose doors are just starting to close. A Chicago COP in pursuit of the two THUGS is just leaping the turnstile himself, his gun drawn, shouting.)

Cap: “I miss her. MORE than I thought I would. Maybe more than I SHOULD.”

Cop (burst): STOP... OUT OF MY WAY--!

5 (CUT TO: HAWK, in the sky over the el station, looking down, hearing the commotion.)

Cap: “Maybe not... maybe it’s all part of my learning to NEED people.

PAGE FIVE

1 (HAWK is diving down towards the elevated train station, cutting through the flock of birds and sending them scattering in all directions, breaking their formation.)

Cap: “So I look for ways to keep myself from thinking about Shayera...” -- From Katar Hol’s Personal Journal

2 (CUT TO: the station platform, where the frustrated COP is watching the train pull away. He’s unclipped his radio microphone from his pocket, talking into it.)

Cop: This’s O’Rouke, at the HOWARD STREET EL... I lost two armed perps on the northbound SKOKIE SWIFT!

Cop 2: Notify the CTA... and have the SKOKIE P.D. ready at the DEMPSTER stop--

3 (Suddenly, HAWK is swooping by, right past the amazed COP and the startled commuters, following the tracks at platform level, and trailing a strong breeze in his wake.)

SFX: WHOOOOOOSSH!

4 (CLOSE-UP of the COP, smiling as he speaks into the radio mike.)

Cop: -- And you might wanna tell ‘em to have an AMBULANCE standing by for the perps...!

5 (CUT TO: HAWK, speeding along right behind the train, bearing down on it as it rumbles down the tracks.)

6 (CUT TO: inside the train. The two THUGS are standing by the door of the train as it speeds along. The commuters in the train are cowering, keeping as far away from the two armed men as possible in the crowded train. THUG A is smiling, but THUG B is looking through the window, as though checking for pursuers.)

Thug A: We DID it, man! We LOST the heat...!

Thug B: Yeah, right-- you ever hear of RADIOS, dummy? There’s gonna be a TON’A cops waitin’ on us at the end’a this ride!

PAGE SIX

1 (TIGHT ON the THUGS, standing in front of the doors, their backs to it, so they don’t see HAWK starting to pull even with the door.)

Thug A: Yeah... yeah, that’s right. What’re we gonna do...?

Thug B: I dunno... but we got a whole TRAIN full’a HOSTAGES, man! There ain’t gonna be no shootin’ long as we got ‘em.

2 (SAME AS ABOVE, as THUG A looks around the train, starting to smile. Behind them, through the windows in the train doors, we see that HAWK has pulled abreast of the train doors and is looking in, at the two THUGS.)

Thug A: Right, okay... then they GOTTA give us anything we WANT!

Thug B: It ain’t that EASY... we gotta play it SMART or we’re dead...

3 (SAME AS ABOVE, except now HAWK is swinging a nunchaka at the window in the door, smashing the glass. The THUGS are reacting, lunging forward, putting their arms up to protect themselves from flying glass.)

Thug B: ... MEAT!

SFX: KHRASSH!

4 (OUTSIDE the still-moving train, as HAWK keeps abreast of the door: he’s reached through the shattered door, grabbing THUG B by the scruff of the neck.)

5 (CUT TO, inside the driver’s compartment at the front of the train: we’re looking from behind the DRIVER’S head, out at the tracks ahead. Just ahead, there’s a signal light on the side of the tracks -- like a traffic stop light -- with the signal changing to RED, indicating that the train should stop.)

6 (CLOSE-UP of the DRIVER’S hand, pushing the controller lever to the “stop” position.)

7 (OUTSIDE THE TRAIN: HAWK, still holding tight to the back of THUG B’S collar, is yanking THUG B hard up against the door.)

Thug B: GHAGGK!

SFX: KRAKK!

PAGE SEVEN

1 (The train is screeching to a stop... but HAWK keeps moving forward... but he hasn’t let go of THUG B. The force of his forward momentum is ripping open the train doors.)

Hawk: SEVEN HELLS...!

SFX: SKREEEECHHhhh

2 (HAWK has released his hold on THUG B so that he can extract his arm from the broken window. This results in his dropping THUG B to the ground alongside the tracks. THUG A is appearing at the door, gun in hand and ready to use it.)

Thug A: SONOVA... JEEZ-- WHO...?!

Hawk: Name’s HAWKMAN, meat--

3 (HAWK is pulling up, going straight up and twisting around to head back towards the open door, to stop his forward momentum. THUG A stands framed in the doorway of the train, aiming his gun at HAWK.)

Hawk: -- But you’d know that if you read the newspapers... IF you could read!

Thug A: Yeah, I heard’a you... the MARTIAN guy...

4 (THUG A has opened fire at HAWK, who’s diving back down towards the train door. HAWK still has the nunchaka in hand and is whirling them around.)

Hawk: THANAGARIAN--

SFX: BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

5 (HAWK is letting the nunchaka fly, the end of the handle catching THUG A on the chin, snapping his head back, the gun falling from limp fingers.)

SFX: CHONK!

6 (HAWK is landing beside the train. THUG B is sprawled on the tracks at HAWK’S feet; THUG A is laying unconscious, half-hanging out the open train door.)

Hawk: -- But I don’t imagine that makes much difference to you now, does it, meat?

Cap: “... Just as soon hand ‘em over to the Chicago boys, sir--”

PAGE EIGHT

1 (CUT TO: later, as night starts to fall, with an ESTABLISHING SHOT of a police station in SKOKIE -- a new, low, modern building, with cop cars parked in the lot out front.)

From station: -- THAT’S where they did the crime, let the city have ‘em...

2 (CUT TO: inside the station, in the office of Skokie Police Det. Lt. Barry Klein, who’s about 40-ish. He’s on the telephone, not all that pleased with whoever he’s talking to at the other end. HAWK is also there, standing with arms folded across his chest, leaning against the wall.)

Klein: ... ‘Cause, frankly, I don’t NEED to hassle the paperwork if we’re going to be giving them up down the line ANYWAY. I... uh-huh...

Klein 2: Yessir.

Klein 3: Understood, sir.

3 (KLEIN is taking the phone from his ear, looking sourly at it. HAWK is amused.)

Klein: ... Jerk!

Klein 2: You couldn’t’ve caught those creeps BEFORE they crossed the Skokie line, could you, Hawkman?

Hawk: Sorry, LT. KLEIN. NEXT time, I’ll pay CLOSER attention to territorial boundaries.

4 (KLEIN is rising, waving his hand in dismissal, still not happy, but forgiving HAWK.)

Klein: Not your fault. The prosecutor wants to hold them on hijacking, kidnapping and discharging weapons... CHICAGO wants them on assault and attempted murder.

Klein 2: Guess I’ll let the POLS fight it out, eh? I’ve got my OWN problems.

5 (OUTSIDE THE OFFICE, in the squad room, looking towards the door as KLEIN opens it for HAWK. Hurrying towards the door is MEL SCHINDLER, a 30-ish, angry looking man in a suit.)

Klein: Oh, cripes... and HERE comes my problem NOW...

Schindler: LIEUTENANT! I’ve been looking for you!

6 (SCHINDLER is stopping short as HAWK steps from the office, surprised to see a winged man standing there. KLEIN is looking at SCHINDLER like SCHINDLER is the cause of every trouble he’s ever had.)

Schindler: I’ve been trying to get some ANSWERS to... to... OH!

Klein: Hey, good work, Hawkman. This’s the first time I’ve seen him at a loss for words.

Continued...