Insect Asides, Part Four ~~ A "Comical Wednesday" Post

Dan Courtney's cover is signed "Dan 'C.C.' Courtney," so I'm assuming that's a reference to artist

C.C. Beck... but I couldn't locate a cover that this illustration was based on... if indeed there was one!

Here's another chapter in my seemingly-endless look behind the scenes of my first attempts at scripting comic books!

Insect Man's Weird Tales #96, my second issue -- drawn by artist Dan Courtney -- was what I call a "transition" issue. Basically, it dealt with issue #95's cliff-hanger ending, and set things up for issue #97. In fact, I didn't even give this story a distinctive title. I just labelled it as the conclusion to issue #95's "You're Not a Kid Anymore!"

It had been established by writer Chris Coleman that since his revival (Insect Man's revival, that is, not Chris Coleman's!), Rex experienced pain whenever changing back from his insect form(s). One of my earliest decisions as new writer was to get rid of that particular plot point.

After a fistfight in which Rex "Insect Man" Mason and Greg "Kid Secret" Nile (sans any superhero uniforms) dispatched their three SKULL antagonists, I had Rex and Greg discuss the problem of the aforementioned pains.

That's right, he said "The blasted thing came from Mars!" Y'see, young Paul Howley's Insect Man origin story from 1965 had established that Rex Mason had gotten the ring that gave him his shape-changing abilities from a Martian who had been visiting Earth. Well, twenty years later, we all knew that this alien could not actually be from Mars. Or could he?

It was early in my tenure as writer that I decided that each Insect Man story could be different. An issue could be dead serious. Or it could be totally goofy and humorous. A story could be set in outer space, in another dimension, or on the streets of Worcester, Massachusetts, in the so-called "real world."

Writers are God, don'tcha know?

I had decided that issue #97 was to be a real "bozo" issue. Plenty of silly jokes, and references that would mostly be appreciated by the comic book & entertainment fans who bought the IMWT title.

And yes, I had actually decided to send Insect Man and Kid Secret to Mars! But 1985 readers knew that such a trip could take a couple of years. I had to work around that, which, luckily, would be fairly easy in a goofy issue, right?

I started out by giving them transportation for their space journey.

The "Ben Grimm" reference, by the way, was a comic book insider's joke. Ben Grimm,
better known as The Thing of The Fantastic Four, had been a test pilot in his youth.

As a tiny sub-plot, I included a short segment where Greg was complaining about the name "Kid Secret" as being inappropriate for a now-adult superhero. Rex jokingly asked "What do you expect us to call you? Mister Secret?" To Rex's surprise, Greg actually liked the new name (although the superhero uniform(s) he wore during the next few issues still bore a "KS" logo)! Admittedly, I liked the name, too, because it reminded me of such Golden Age comic book heroes as Mister Terrific and Mister Scarlet (among others)!

The 1978 Superman movie (starring Christopher Reeve) had used "You Will Believe a Man Can Fly!"
as its slogan. I don't remember if the "You Will Believe a Man Can Fly (to Mars)" re-working
was my idea, or someone else's... but I definitely liked it, as it set up the tone of the following issue!

Insect Man's Weird Tales #97, the so-called "Special 'Off-the-Wall' Issue," was originally going to be called "Insect Man Conquers the Martians," a titular take-off of the 1964 piece-o-crap film, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. Returning artist Ken Carson (already drawing better than he had two scant issues earlier) based a great cover on the Dell comic book adaptation of the movie!

There was a slight problem. Paul Howley said that nobody would understand the reference to the 1964 movie. He suggested we change the title to "My Favorite Martian," a title taken from the 1963-1966 TV show of the same name which Paul (and I) had watched as a youngster. Ken and I very briefly argued that one sixties reference was as obscure as the other, but quickly figured that we didn't really care either way. And after all -- heh -- it was Paul's book.

The young boy is Greg's son Rex (shown very briefly in IMWT #96), obviously named after Greg's
childhood friend/mentor, Rex "Insect Man" Mason. This scene never actually appeared in the book.

The issue was penciled by Holly Basiner and inked by Ken Carson.

Early in the story, I got to use the following purposely-silly method to "work around" that pesky one-to-two-year travel time to and from Mars! 

Here's my "cheat," folks!

Every single time I made a comment in the dialog or captions about the cost of the mission, I'd have the dollar amount crossed out and I'd write a caption blaming "national security." In retrospect... That cutesy little routine got tired pretty quickly.

My original caption was written as "If we don't get sued for something this issue, it'll be a miracle!" As shown above, Ken Carson (who inked and lettered the book) added yet another comic book in-reference, changing my caption to "it'll be a miracle, man!" referring to Eclipse Comics' Miracleman title of the 1980s.

After four hours of waiting, Rex and Greg were transported to a planet called Menro-6, the true home of the "Martian." There, they encountered Insect Man's ol' buddy, whom I named Hur-Bi (pronounced "Her-BEE," not "HER-bee," if it freakin' matters). Hur-Bi was an alien who used a lot of Earth slang in his speech.

The "Guardians of the Universe" crack refers to DC Comics' blue-skinned race of interstellar immortals, who give
the Green Lantern Corps their power rings... not to be confused with Marvel Comics' Guardians of the Galaxy.

To make a long story short... well, not short, perhaps, just not quite as long... Hur-Bi found and fixed an imperfection in the Insect Man ring. All Rex and Greg had to do now was travel home.

As it happened, however, no sooner had the multi-billion-dollar advanced prototype of the space shuttle re-entered Earth's atmosphere before it was spotted by the head of SKULL itself, the Mummy! And at this point, the light-hearted story approach of this issue came to a halt!

That's right. I wrote a story in which a space shuttle exploded. Maybe you think that's in bad taste, considering that it was right around that time that the real-life Space Shuttle Challenger disaster occurred.

Only thing is.. The Challenger disaster happened on January 28th, 1986.

My story was written, drawn, and published before the end of 1985.

To Be Continued...

Thanks for your time.

Insect Man, Insect Man's Weird Tales, and all related characters and titles are copyright © Paul B. Howley.