Articles by aaron-rosenberg
Thu Mar 27, 2008 — by Aaron Rosenberg
Happy Birthday: Mon-El
Superboy's big brother... sort of
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Lar Gand was born on the planet Daxam and, as a young man, took to exploring the galaxy. He was unlucky enough to land on Krypton just before the planet exploded, but Jor-El warned him away in time. Jor-El also provided Lar Gand with a map to a safe planet he’d already selected for his own infant son—a planet called Earth.
Lar Gand went into suspended animation for the journey, and upon arriving he encountered Jor-El’s now-teenage son Kal-El, also known as Superboy. The two hit it off immediately. Lar Gand was suffering amnesia from his trip and his Daxamite powers, plus the map from Jor-El, convinced Kal-El that Lar Gand was his brother.
He gave his newfound sibling the name Mon-El, since they met on a Monday. Unfortunately, Daxamites find lead even more poisonous than Kryptonians find kryptonite, and when Mon-El was accidentally exposed to lead he regained his memories but almost lost his life. Superboy placed his friend in the Phantom Zone to save him until they could find a cure.
In the 30th Century, Saturn Girl finally created a temporary antidote, which Brainiac 5 later modified to become permanent, and Lar Gand left the Zone and joined the Legion of Super-Heroes. He became one of their greatest members, and led the Legion several times.
Wed Mar 26, 2008 — by Aaron Rosenberg
Happy Birthday: José Luis Garcia-Lopez, Brian Bolland, and Mark Verheiden
Three great comic creators, one great day!
Today is a popular birthday for comic book creators! Three very different comic book luminaries all share March 26.
José Luis Garcia-Lopez was born in Spain in 1948 but moved to Argentina in 1952. Growing up he worked on several Argentinian comic strips, and in the late 1960s he began doing romance titles for Charlton Comics. Garcia-Lopez moved to New York in 1974 to work for DC. He’s best known for his art on Superman.
Brian Bolland was born in 1951 in Lincolnshire, England, and began drawing at age 10. He went to art school and published work in various underground magazines, then met Dave Gibbons at a comic convention in 1972. Gibbons recommended him to Bardon Press Features and Bolland began drawing comics professionally. In 1977, he found work on the new British comic 2000 AD, and soon became a regular artist on Judge Dredd. In 1979 Bolland began working for DC Comics, doing both covers and shorts. Perhaps his most famous image is the cover to Batman: The Killing Joke.
Mark Verheiden was born in 1956. He started writing comics in 1987, creating The American for Dark Horse. The following year he wrote his first Aliens comic. Verheiden then wrote several Superman stories and a Phantom maxi-series for DC Comics. He also works in television and film, and has contributed scripts to Smallville and other series. He currently serves as co-executive producer of the popular Battlestar Galactica television series.
Tue Mar 25, 2008 — by Aaron Rosenberg
Happy Birthday: Night Girl
She's strong in shadows!
Lydda Jath was born on the planet Kathoon, a world that lives in permanent darkness. Her scientist father found a way to give her super-strength but didn’t realize it would only work at night or in deep shadows.
Lydda applied for the Legion of Super-Heroes but was turned down because they felt her power’s limitation made it impractical. She met Brek Bannin, Polar Boy, at the tryouts and together they formed the Legion of Substitute Heroes.
After the events of Infinite Crisis, it appears that future history has been rewritten and Lydda has become a member of the Legion of Super-Heroes instead.
Mon Mar 24, 2008 — by Aaron Rosenberg
On This Day: Joe Barbera
One of the American cartooning greats
Joseph Roland “Joe” Barbera was born on March 24, 1911 in the Little Italy section of New York City. Though he loved drawing from an early age, Barbera put art aside for a more traditional job as a banker.
When the Great Depression hit, his banking job disappeared, however, and Barbera turned back to his first love. In 1932 he joined the Van Beuren Studio as an animator and scriptwriter. When Van Beuren closed down four years later Barbera moved to MGM. In 1938 he first teamed with William Hanna, and their second joint project, the first Tom & Jerry cartoon, Puss Gets the Boot, was nominated for an Academy Award.
Hanna and Barbera continued to work together, receiving seven Academy Awards over 17 years for Tom & Jerry. In 1955 they took charge of MGM’s animation division—when it closed two years later they founded their own company, H-B Enterprises, which they soon renamed Hanna-Barbera Productions.
Together they produced the Flintstones, the Jetsons, Scooby-Doo, and many other great American cartoons. Barbera died on December 18, 2006 of natural causes. He was 95 years old.
Sun Mar 23, 2008 — by Aaron Rosenberg
On This Day: The Trickster!
One of the Flash's Rogues is born
Giovanni Giuseppe was a con artist and circus acrobat before he decided to turn to a life of crime. He changed his name to James Jesse and created several clever but dangerous gag devices and a pair of shoes that let him walk on air.
Calling himself the Trickster, James embarked upon his new career, only to encounter and be defeated by the Flash. The two clashed frequently throughout the years.
For a brief period, the Trickster reformed and worked with the FBI, but he later reverted to his criminal ways.
Sat Mar 22, 2008 — by Aaron Rosenberg
On This Day: Princess Diana/Wonder Woman
Pygmalion, eat your heart out!
The Amazons of Paradise Island lived in peace for hundreds of years, safe from men and their cruelty. But their queen Hippolyta was not completely happy. She longed for a child of her own.
Shaping clay from the island into the statue of a little girl, Hippolyta begged the gods to grant her request and bring the statue to life. The gods took pity upon their beloved servant and the statue became a little girl who leaped into the arms of her “mother.” Hippolyta was overjoyed.
She named the girl Diana and raised her as her daughter and heir. Years later, when Captain Steve Trevor crashed on Paradise Island, Diana fell in love with him and saved his life. Trevor informed the Amazons of the war going on in the world beyond, and the goddess Aphrodite decreed that an Amazon should go forth and battle the Nazis on Paradise Island’s behalf. Hippolyta held a contest to select their champion and Diana secretly entered and won.
She journeyed to the outside world and became known as Wonder Woman. Since then Princess Diana has been a force for good throughout the world.
Fri Mar 21, 2008 — by Aaron Rosenberg
On This Day: Mark Waid
The Leonardo Da Vinci of comics?
Born on March 21, 1962 in Hueytown, Alabama, Waid entered the comics industry in the mid-1980s as an editor and writer for Fantagraphics Books’ fan magazine, Amazing Heroes.
He soon moved to DC as an editor on Secret Origins and Legion of Super-Heroes. In 1990, he shifted from full-time editorial to freelance writing, and in 1992 DC hired him to write The Flash. Waid stayed with The Flash for eight years and can be credited with establishing Wally West as a worthy bearer of the Flash name and costume. Waid then moved to Marvel to work on Captain America.
In 1996 he went back to DC to produce his best-known work, the mini-series Kingdom Come with Alex Ross. He also wrote the follow-up series, The Kingdom, and has since written JLA, Impulse, Empire, Fantastic Four, and others.
In July 2007 Waid joined Boom! Studios as Editor-in-Chief. He’s stated since that all of his future creator-owned work will be with Boom!
Thu Mar 20, 2008 — by Aaron Rosenberg
On This Day: Ned Buntline, Dime Novelist
One of the greatest of the dime novelists is born...
Edward Zane Carroll Judson was born on March 20, 1886 in Stamford, Delaware County, New York. He ran away from home as a boy and took to the sea, taking on the name Ned Buntline, which he would use for the rest of his life—a “buntline” is the rope at the bottom of a square sail.
Buntline stayed at sea several years, fighting in the Seminole Wars and achieving the rank of midshipman, before retiring and creating various eastern newspapers, including Ned Buntline’s Own. While in Fort McPherson on a lecture tour, Buntline crossed paths with Wild Bill Hickock and tried to interview him for a dime novel. Hickock refused and ordered Buntline out of town at gunpoint. Instead, the reporter located Hickock’s friend William Cody, better known as Buffalo Bill, and decided to write about him instead.
The Buffalo Bill Cody-King of the Border Men dime novel series was an enormous success and Buntline followed it with a play, Scouts of the Prairie, which opened in Chicago in December 1872. The two men had severe differences of opinion and temperament, however. As a result, the show closed in June of the following year, and Buntline and Cody went their separate ways.
Buntline continued to write dime novels, but none matched his earlier success—he was close to penniless by the time he died of congestive heart failure in 1886.
Wed Mar 19, 2008 — by Aaron Rosenberg
On This Day: Josef Albers
A powerful figure in art history is born...
Born on March 19, 1888 in Bottrop, Westphalia, Germany, Josef Albers was a designer, photographer, typographer, printmaker, and poet, but he is best remembered as an abstract painter and theorist.
A professor at the prestigious Weimar Bauhaus for many years (from 1922 to 1933), Albers moved to the U.S. and joined the faculty of Black Mountain College in North Carolina after the Nazis shut the Bauhaus down. He took a job teaching design at Yale in 1950, and taught there until his retirement in 1958.
Albers continued to paint and write in New Haven until his death in 1976. His work is often considered a bridge between traditional European and new American art, and he heavily influenced the Op artists, among others.
Tue Mar 18, 2008 — by Aaron Rosenberg
On This Day: Planet Earth
Happy Birthday, world!
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On March 18, 3952 B.C., the world was created, according to the Venerable Bede.
Bede was a Benedictine monk of Jarrow, a biblical scholar, and the first English historian. He lived from 673 to 735 and is best known for His Ecclesiastical History of the English People (H.E.), which he finished four years before his death.
Bede was officially sainted (as St. Bede the Venerable) in 1899 and named Doctor of the Church, but his followers were proclaiming his miracles only 50 years after his death.
Mon Mar 17, 2008 — by Aaron Rosenberg
On This Day: The National Gallery of Art
Home to many great works of art opens on this day in 1941
The National Gallery of Art opened in Washington, D.C. on March 17, 1941.
Financier and art collector Andrew W. Mellon established the A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust just before his death in 1937, and it was this trust that worked with Congress to establish the art museum. John Russell Pope, who later designed the Jefferson Memorial, designed the original building, and I.M. PEI designed an East Wing addition that was completed in 1978.
The gallery was centered around twenty-one masterpieces originally owned by Catherine II of Russia—Mellon purchased the collection in the early 1930s.
Sat Mar 15, 2008 — by Aaron Rosenberg
On This Day: Dan Adkins
Strange tales from a great artist
Born on March 15, 1937, in Midkiff, West Virginia, Dan Adkins grew up in rural areas where he could indulge his love of wandering and exploring. When he was 11, however, rheumatic fever left him paralyzed from the waist down for six months.
He passed the time by reading comics books and became fascinated with the artwork in particular. Adkins joined the Air Force after high school and became a draftsman, then an illustrator. It was during that time that he started the fanzine Sata, in 1956.
After leaving the Air Force Adkins moved to New York, where he did freelance illustration for several years before joining Wally Wood Studio in 1965, which gave him his start in comics. Since then he’s worked for DC, Marvel, Eclipse, and others, and done many magazine covers as well. Adkins is probably best known for his work on T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, Strange Tales, and Doctor Strange.
Fri Mar 14, 2008 — by Aaron Rosenberg
On This Day: Catwoman
One more year, nine more lives!
The daughter of Brian and Maria Kyle, young Selina had an unpleasant childhood. Her mother loved cats more than her own children and eventually committed suicide, while Selina's father was an angry layabout who drank himself to death a short while later.
Selina wound up on the streets of Gotham City, in an orphanage, and then in juvenile hall in rapid succession. At 13, she discovered that the hall administrator was embezzling funds, and almost died when she threatened to expose the woman. Escaping the trap, however, Selina stole enough evidence to incriminate the woman and enough money to keep herself going for a while, and then disappeared.
Mama Fortuna, who ran a gang of young thieves in Alleytown, took Selina in and taught her to steal properly. Selina grew up and became an accomplished thief, but had to lay low after a burglary went wrong. A pimp named Stan offered her a job posing as a dominatrix and conning information out of her “clients.” Selina accepted.
It was while she was at this job that she first saw Batman and, inspired by him, created her own costume to become the renowed masked, cat burglar, Catwoman.
Since then, Selina has vacillated between villainess and heroine, and has had an off-again, on-again relationship with Batman himself.
Thu Mar 13, 2008 — by Aaron Rosenberg
On This Day: The Flash!
The Fastest Man Alive
Born in Fallville, Iowa, Barry Allen grew to be a meticulous man and an excellent police scientist with one notable flaw—he was always late.
That changed, however, on the night that he was working late in his lab in Central City and a lightning bolt shattered a case full of chemicals and doused Barry with the supercharged contents. After that accident, Barry discovered that he could move at superspeed. He adopted a costumed identity, donning a red costume with a gold lightning bolt motif, and became the Flash, the Fastest Man Alive!
Barry would become one of the greatest heroes in the world, a founding member of the Justice League of America, and Central City’s protector, before his untimely death during the Crisis on Infinite Earths. Even death could not stop the Flash, however, and he has reappeared several times since to aid his family and friends.
It’s important to note that the Flash is one of the DC heroes whose birthdate has been changed. Before the Crisis, his official birthday was six days later, on March 19. Now that's fast!
Wed Mar 12, 2008 — by Aaron Rosenberg
On This Day: 'Daily Planet' EiC Perry White
Great Caesar's Ghost!
Born in Metropolis’ Suicide Slum, Perry White’s first job was copy boy at the Daily Planet, a job that interested him in the newspaper journalism that would soon become his life.
Perry was already a well-respected reporter for the paper, having returned after stints in Chicago and Gotham City, when the Daily Planet’s owner, Lex Luthor, decided to get rid of the paper. Perry found an investor who was willing to save the Planet on the condition that Perry become editor. Though reluctant to give up writing, Perry agreed.
Since then, except for brief stints for personal or professional reasons, Perry has remained the Daily Planet’s Editor-in-Chief. Though he won a Pulitzer himself years ago, for his exclusive interview with Superboy, Perry’s greatest achievement may be his two finest hires: a pushy girl named Lois Lane and a mild-mannered Midwesterner named Clark Kent.
Happy Birthday, Chief!
