In place of Conway's uncredited editor (or "uncreditor" if you prefer and I know you do) we have "the Slasher." (Get it? GET IT?) Slasher is an abusive control freak -- wait a minute--! I'm an abusive control freak! But I'm not nearly as bad as Slasher. Right, guys? Storm Boy, tell all this nice people I'm not as bad as Slasher. Do it! Don't make me smack you again. There, see? Storm Boy agrees with me. Aaaannnyway, Slasher calls Demitrius a "blathering fool" and tells him "I am the power in this team -- you're mere deadwood."
In place of Young Conway, we have "Demitrius", a put-upon, talkative, sensitive type with crazy shit literally coming out of his head. Demitrius is shaggier-looking than the Slasher and he loves to dance! Clearly he's a member of the younger generation... the Demitrius Generation.
I gather from this panel a power struggle had recently taken place within the Marvel Bullpen, with Young Conway gaining the upper hand over his nameless editor. Perhaps Conway had gone over the editor's goggled, leather-helmeted head and charmed the Marvel bigwigs -- maybe even Stan the Man himself! -- and he was at last free to fill the pages of Iron Man with as many over-written word balloons and thought bubbles as he wished! Stan would understand. ("Editors--!" Stan thought, his toupee quivering with contempt. "Bah! As long as the writers are emulating my mighty melodramatic manner, why should I need editors! Except maybe to write cover copy, and to mow my lawn on Sundays! Although none of them do it as well as Kirby did. The crazy li'l troll even edged my sidewalk! With scissors! And sure, he muttered to himself the whole time but when he finished for the day and I flipped that shiny new nickel at him you could see the gratitude in his eyes. And then I'd shout "DANCE!" and he'd do this mutant Charleston with a couple of Ann Miller tapdance spins thrown in, until he'd grab his chest and collapse into the begonias. And as they loaded him into the ambulance we'd just laugh and laugh--! By the hammer of Thor, I wish I had Kirby back! It's like when you're almost done with a tube of toothpaste and suddenly it's gone and it turns out the wife threw it out... you miss it, because you wanted to squeeze out whatever was still left inside! ...Good ol' Kirby...!")
6 comments:
Wow.
I got nothin'. Your summary is about a thousand times better than anything I could dig out, even with a dig at the weird perspective that manages to somehow hide Demetrius and still show off his "headlights."
I guess I was born too late to be part of the (heh) Demetrius Generation.
Ok, so when the dude grows, where does all that extra mass come from?
I wanna know!
Aw, screw it. It just doesn't matter.
Man, I would absolutely love to see this comic totally redialogued. Here's how I'd redialogue this panel.
Slasher: Eat laser, lobster-boy!
Demitrius: Ahhh--fuck!
See how easy that was, Young Conway?
So Young Conway wrote his struggles into the script. "Energy claws! Like Ditko, but SEXY! Emerging from Demitrius' swelling, itching brain!" he wrote in his script.
And it was pencilled, and the penciller was puzzled for a moment, until he thought, "hey, let's put tits on Demetrius' head. Like that hat I saw at the beach!"
Then, he swiped Doctor Octopus' tentacles, and history was made.
Uncredited editor? Really?
This had an editor?
siskoid:
No.
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