Mister 8

Despite the dearth of posts lately, Mister 8 is not dead. Sadly, we did lose one of the renowned television spymasters yesterday with the passing of Peter Graves, Mission: Impossible‘s Jim Phelps. I have to admit that despite seeing every episode of most of the other 60s spy television shows, I’ve only seen a handful of M:I episodes. Perhaps this is a good time to rectify that, in memory of Graves.

Armstrong and Robert Culp...not the best picture of either of us.

It’s a bad month for 60s spies. While I confessed to not knowing much about Mission: Impossible with the passing of Peter Graves, I became a fan of I Spy after meeting Robert Culp last year at the New York Comic Con. I was quite sad to read at Spy-Fi Channel that he’d passed away today at the age of 79.

There are a variety of posts on Culp, and especially his character Kelly Robinson, in the archives of Mister 8.

Sarge Steel Who's Who

Dick Giordano was an amazing comic book artist and editor who oversaw some of the richest periods in mainstream comics history. He passed away this morning at the age of 77.

You’ll read plenty at other sites about Dick’s work with Charlton, where he supervised greats like Steve Ditko and Joe Gill as they created heroes like Blue Beetle (the Ted Kord version), Captain Atom, The Question (my favorite comic hero ever), Thunderbolt, Peacemaker, and the rest of the Action Heroes that later became the inspiration for The Watchmen, which was published later during Dick’s era as editor-in-chief at DC Comics.

Comic writer / all-around-niceguy Mark Evanier writes of Giordano that, “He was good at finding talent, good at leaving it alone to do what it did best, good at stepping in when necessary. Writers and artists generally liked working with Dick. Most found him honest, helpful and willing to gamble on new things.”

When I first began Mister 8, I’d planned a series of theme weeks, and one of the first ideas I had was to cover one of my all-time favorite comic secret agents, Sarge Steel, whom Giordano had a (steel) hand in creating while at Charlton. I approached Dick about a potential interview, and he was kind to respond to a first round of questions, before, I suspect, being too busy with conventions and prior engagements to answer the rest. So, to get Mister 8 back on track, and to honor the memory of Dick Giordano, I hereby declare Sarge Steel Week in effect.

Sarge Steel Logo

Dick Giordano art from Charlton Portfolio

In the mid-1960s, the editor job of a little publishing company out of Derby, Conn., was accepted by a man named Dick Giordano who took the company’s superhero comicbook line and cut the “super.” In doing so, he created the famous Charlton Action Heroes — with names like Blue Beetle, Judo Master, Peter Cannon (Thunderbolt!), Peacemaker and the Question. Together with Cold War holdover Captain Atom and his sidekick Nightshade, the characters Giordano edited established the silver age of Charlton Comics and, although they were quickly canceled at the time, they now enjoy a home at DC Comics (with the exception of Peter Cannon) and a cult fanbase.

“With the exception of Captain Atom, not one of the Action Hero line had a power,” Giordano said in a 1998 interview with Comic Book Artist. “They weren’t super-powered characters but were people who had something: Blue Beetle had the bug, Judo Master knew martial arts, Sarge Steel had a steel fist and a gun, Fightin’ Five were just highly-trained military personnel, even the Question just had the ability to cover his face up with a mask that couldn’t be ripped off. The concept of super-heroes, then and now, wasn’t terribly exciting to me.”

Giordano edited these books, some of which featured creators like Steve Ditko, Frank McLaughlin, Pete “PAM” Morisi, Pat Boyette, Steve Skeates, and the prolific Joe Gill. But Giordano only lent his amazing artistry to one of the action hero books — Sarge Steel.

In addition to establishing the new age of superheroes, the mid-60s was also the era of the jet-setting master of espionage. With the debut of the cinematic James Bond in 1962′s Dr. No, combined with a new age of tension between the East and West and tales of real-life spies, the private detectives and police who jumped from the pages of Spillane evolved into dapper globetrotters who carried shoulder holsters under their three-piece suits. Soon, the films and television were filled with the exploits of The Avengers, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., The Saint, The Prisoner, Get Smart and others.

This fad carried over to the comic books where, most notably, Sgt. Nick Fury who led the Howling Commandos during Marvel Comics’ fictional World War II years (the actual title was begun in 1963) became Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. in August of 1965. Charlton had their own spy character, Sarge Steel who debuted in “Sarge Steel: Private Detective #1″ in December of 1964 — a whole seven months before Fury. Though Steel (a Vietnam vet whose battle with Communist saboteurs cost him his hand, later replaced with a solid steel prosthetic fist) was called a private detective, from the espionage-filled first issue it is apparent that he’s something a little more than your average P.I. As gumshoe aficionado Jim Doherty writes on the Thrilling Detective website: “The problem was it got started in the mid-60s, during the 007 craze, and PIs were passe, so, in each and every issue, Sarge got involved in an espionage plot instead of a more typical PI plot. By the last two issues, they weren’t even pretending to be a PI book anymore.”

Be he P.I. or be he spy, one thing could be ascertained — Sarge Steel kicked ass. With the first few issues featuring complete thin-lined cinematic artwork by Dick Giordano and solid scripts by workhorse Joe Gill, Sarge Steel was established as a force to be reckoned with. And he was, for 10 issues of his own title (first called Sarge Steel, then Secret Agent for the last two issues) and as a back-up in Judo Master for eight issues.

Sarge Steel regularly appears now in DC Comics as a gruff government man in charge of creating conspiracies and keeping an eye on the superhero population. But this week, we’ll be celebrating the original Sarge Steel — the ‘Iron Man with the Steel Fist.’

Here’s a scan of an article from an old fanzine, Comic Fandom Monthly, an issue (I forgot to note which) from 1972:

Sarge Steel Commission piece by Dick Giordano

As I said in my initial post on the passing of Dick Giordano, I’ve been planning a Sarge Steel Week since starting Mister 8. I wrote to Giordano in February of last year to inquire as to the possibility of an interview. He responded favorably, and provided answers to a first round of questions. But soon, it was convention season, and the last round of questions I submitted went unanswered. I never pushed the subject, but I wish I had now.

In any case, what follows is an all-too brief email exchange with Dick Giordano on the subject of Sarge Steel, conducted in March of 2009:

Mister 8: Sarge Steel is credited as a Pat Masulli creation, and I’m struggling a bit to place the timeline here. Had Masulli been promoted to general manager, with you taking on the role of managing editor at this point?

Dick Giordano: No, I believe Pat’s title at the time was still Managing Editor and I was a staff artist given the assignment. He became General Manager much later and I took his position as Managing Editor. Neither title is correct in publishing circles and were assigned to people who handled the business of publishing, not the creative.

M8: How much of the character concept was Masulli’s, and how much was the work of you and Joe Gill? Did Masulli approach the two of you with, “I’ve got an idea for a character,” and you ran with it from there?

DG: Pat wrote the first script, loosely in pencil, as I recall.  The steel fist was his idea and Sarge Steel and Bess were his names.  I was responsible for the design of the characters including the Y-shaped scar at the bridge of Sarge’s nose and his brush cut and style of dress.  I designed Bess with an eye to satisfying my desire to draw good looking, sexy female characters. She was never developed as a strong character, which I would insist on doing now.  She was, unfortunately, just eye candy.  Like every supporting  female character of the times.

I don’t recall how the assignment got to Joe Gill’s typewriter but I do recall Pat saying that he couldn’t do it regularly.  Joe and I discussed it briefly and I was given carte blanche to make alterations I thought would make the story better.  Joe, Pat and I were on staff and did most of our work in the same office in normal business hours so consulting with each other never presented a problem.

M8: How do you see Sarge Steel fitting in with the (for the most part) non-powered “Action Heroes” line that also featured Blue Beetle and (my all-time favorite comic character) The Question? He shares an enemy with Judo Master, so he’s certainly part of the shared universe, but how does he fit thematically with the other costumed heroes?

DG: He didn’t have a costume but he WAS an Action Hero, no?  After a while he was delegated to the back-up slot in Judo-Master.  I’ve never been a big fan of continuity and it never reared it’s ugly head at Charlton.  Sarge was in the Korean conflict (I think  [Dick remembers wrongly here -- Sarge was in Vietnam; according to Max Allen Collins, he was the first P.I. who was a Vietnam veteran]), where he lost his left hand and Judo Master was active in WW ll.

M8: How did you define the look of Sarge? Did he have a physical model, like an actor, to influence his appearance? Was the tall, crooked nosed, dark-haired, well-dressed version that we see in the comics the first version you developed?

DG: Actually, he was patterned somewhat after me.  I made him taller, older and heavier, and traded in my pompadour for a crew cut.  Sarge was wishful thinking on my part…I wanted to look ( and BE ) like him.  I used myself as a model on some of the art. I was well dressed in those days wearing a jacket and tie to the office every day ( the plant we worked in was NOT air conditioned) and wore cuff links and a tie bar.

M8: How did you go about deciding on the style of the book. Though Sarge is, especially at first, a throw-back to P.I.s of the days of film noir, his visual style is all 60s-era secret agent. He has to be the most well-dressed comic book character…maybe ever. And he drives that beautiful Jaguar XKE / E-Type. Did you go in with a sense that you wanted Sarge to be a very modern, contemporary character?

DG: He was originally a combination of Mike Hammer and Sam Spade, my favorite tough guy private detectives. Later, we added a bit of the secret agent mystique when 007 was a rage. Someone of authority at Charlton ordered the change to make Sarge a secret agent to hop on the James Bond bandwagon. I stopped drawing it at that point.

The Jaguar roadster was my favorite car of the time and I bought a model car to draw from.  I still have the model.  I wanted him to be suave and honest and tough…and very contempory.

—

And sadly, that’s as much as we finished. I’d hoped to talk next about the legendary and prolific Joe Gill, and the factory-like process at Charlton, but alas, it was not meant to be.

I will respectfully disagree with Giordano on the subject of Sarge Steel’s attire. Other comic book heroes and villains wore off-the-rack suits, but Sarge was one of the few who you could tell wore bespoke suits. In looking at pictures of Giordano at the time, one suspects the style came directly from the artist.