#doug moench

[vertigoartgore]

1978's Master of Kung Fu Vol.1 #67 cover by cover artist Paul Gulacy.

[curtvilescomic]

Demon in a silvered glass, opening page. Kull by Doug Moench and John Bolton

[dirtyriver]

House ad for Six from Sirius 2, 4-issue miniseries, December 1985-March 1986, by Doug Moench and Paul Gulacy

[the-gershomite]

Kull and the Barbarians #3 -September 1975

Red Sonja She Devil with a Sword

"The Day of the Sword"

plot: Roy Thomas

script: Doug Moench

art: Howard Chaykin

[wanderingmind867]

If we get a new Batman tv show with pre crisis Jason Todd as Robin (as I continue to insist we need), we should definitely have Black Mask in the show as a prominent antagonist. You've seen all my posts on him and his backstory. He's perfect. This child of wealthy parents who hates social rules and conventions and masks. This almost anti capitalist businessman. He's a series of internal contradictions, but he has some really good merit for use as a Batman villain. Pair him with Two-Face and Clayface, have a story about masking. Pair him with Riddler, another character who might be autistic and who definitely understands hiding your true self. Pair him with Zsasz (like i've pitched before) and you'll get too weird men who hate society and might love each other.

Jason Todd and Roman Sionis don't have to be violent enemies like they seem to be nowadays. They can have a more fascinating relationship than that. Black Mask needs to become a bigger villain that everyone can learn n about. And I won't stop pushing until we finally see it happen. A show based on the pre crisis adventures of Batman and Robin II (Jason Todd) would be the perfect show in which to introduce Roman Sionis as a major antagonist.

[brevoorthistoryofcomics]

BHOC: SHOGUN WARRIORS #5

In the late 1970s, the Marvel Universe found itself inundated with visitors from the nation’s toy aisles, as the company licensed property after property in the hopes of landing on another hit the scale of STAR WARS. They wouldn’t quite get there until the one-two punch of G.I.JOE and TRANSFORMERS in the 1980s–by which point, the decision was made (largely; there were a couple of outlier…

[all-action-all-picture]

1977 ad for the Marvel adaptation by Doug Moench and Larry Hama of the H.G. Wells classic The Island of Dr. Moreau.

[marvelousmrm]

Moon Knight #26 (Moench/Sienkiewicz, Dec 1982). Hit it! I’m a sucker for semiotics, and variable meanings are exciting fodder for Spector’s multiple identities.

[ultrameganicolaokay]

DC Finest: Batman - Red Skies by Doug Moench, Gene Colan, Tom Mandrake, Bob Smith, Adrienne Roy and more. Cover by Colan, Dick Giordano and Anthony Tollin. Out in September.

"Dive into one of the most celebrated periods in Batman history from award-winning writer Doug Moench (Moon Knight, Deathlok) in this DC Finest volume collecting stories taking place during the game-changing Crisis on Infinite Earths event. As red skies loom above, Batman and Robin must clear Catwoman from being accused of murder. Plus: Two-Face returns! Collects Batman #388-400, Batman Annual #10, Detective Comics #554-567, and Secret Origins #6."

[balu8]

Batman #383

Just As Night Follows Day...

by Doug Moench; Gene Colan; Alfredo Alcala; Adrienne Roy and Cen Oda/Albert DeGuzman

DC

[cantsayidont]

There are some things in DC's voluminous back catalog that they ought to properly reprint because they're good — gems of past eras. However, there are also some things they ought to properly reprint because they're delightfully stupid, like the Superman/Batman team-ups from WORLD'S FINEST COMICS. DC has actually reprinted all the stories from the '50s, through about 1961, but a lot of the '60s material has only been reprinted in the B&W SHOWCASE PRESENTS books, which is a shame.

The WORLD'S FINEST team-ups went through several distinct phases. Superman, Batman, and Robin had shared the covers of WORLD'S FINEST COMICS since 1941, but it wasn't until 1954 that shrinking page counts obliged them to actually share the lead feature. The '50s stories are pretty good of their time, with some lovely Dick Sprang art, and the presence of Superman meant the drift into science fiction was less jarring than in the contemporary Batman books. In 1964, editorial control of WORLD'S FINEST passed to Mort Weisinger and it became a Weisinger-era Superman book that happened to have Batman and Robin in it. Starting in 1967, though, things started to get stranger and stranger as Weisinger's stable of sci-fi veterans like Edmond Hamilton and Otto Binder gave way to Bob Kanigher, Cary Bates, and Bob Haney, who turned out some exceedingly weird material. Stories like the two-parter about Superman having died and willed his super-organs to various people (#189–190) aren't quite as ghoulish as the covers suggest, but their inexplicable weirdness is emblematic of the period.

For a little while in the early '70s, DC evicted Batman from the series, making WORLD'S FINEST a general-issue Superman team-up book. (DC reprinted those issues in trade paperback in 2020.) This apparently wasn't a big commercial success, but rather than immediately returning to the expected Superman/Batman format, WORLD'S FINEST began to feature the Super-Sons, the teenage sons of Superman and Batman in a hazily defined parallel reality — written by Bob Haney, whose stories consistently evoke the sensation of mild concussion. The "real" Superman and Batman also returned, although they had to alternate with their hypothetical future sons, appearing roughly every other issue through 1976. From 1976 to 1982, WORLD'S FINEST once again became an oversize anthology book, with a Superman/Batman main feature backed by a variety of other characters like Green Arrow and Hawkman. The stories in that period are not quite as ludicrous as the late '60s (although if you see Bob Haney's name in the credits, you know you're in for a wild ride), but even the soberer installments are consistently very silly, full of nonsense like Kryptonian lycanthropy and the return of some especially ridiculous older villains like the Gorilla Boss of Gotham City and Doctor Double-X.

It wasn't until issue #285 that Superman and Batman again had the book all to themselves. The late period dials back the zaniness and has mostly uninspired plots, but writers Doug Moench and David Anthony Kraft compensate with some eyebrow-raising and apparently deliberate "Superbat" ship-bait; my personal favorite is Kraft's "No Rest for Heroes!" (a short story in the back of WORLD'S FINEST #302), where Superman and Batman go to a dive bar in the middle of nowhere to talk about their relationship and Batman ends up throwing a knife at someone.

Very little of this stuff is actually good by any normal standard — although the 1964–1967 period is no more or less weird than any other Weisinger Silver Age Superman stories — and the artwork is only occasionally better than passable. However, it's so stupid and so ridiculous that it's consistently fun, in a way DC doesn't really do anymore, at least not on purpose. Assembling all the Superman/Batman stories (leaving the Super-Sons to their own TPB), omitting the various backup strips, and giving it decent color reproduction would make for a nice package, and the presence of Superman and Batman would make it more commercially viable than some of DC's more artistically worthy back catalog material. Low-hanging fruit, if you ask me.

[vertigoartgore]

House-ad for Batman: Bloodstorm (1994). Art by Kelley Jones and Les Dorscheid.

[coverpanelarchive]

Mister Miracle #15 (1990)

[bringbackwendellvaughn]

[nerds-yearbook]

Moon Knight was granted his own title and origin given with a cover date of November 1980. The issue introduced Bushman, Dr. Peter Alraune, Jallad, Sabah, and Khonshu, who were created by Doug Moench, Bill Sienkiewicz, and Frank Springer. ("The Macabre Moon Knight!", Moon Knight 1#, Marvel Comic Event)

[wanderingmind867]

I feel like most of batman's villians are more authentic than Batman himself. Say what you want about The Joker, Penguin, Two-Face, etc. But at least they don't hide who they are. They're authentically themselves. And I feel like a lot of versions of Batman aren't that. He's a rich man who has high standards for the people around him. He's almost the definition of seeming pretension and arrogance. Whether he actually is like this depends on the story. But most versions really make me dislike Batman. And it makes me kind of feel like his villains all lead better lives than him.

I mean.. honestly. Batman hides behind a mask, but everyone he seems to care about ends up dead or injured or deformed anyways. Clearly this crime fighting career isn't working out as a very saintly thing. His money and his secrets only bring him more pain. But Batman's rogues are at least aware they're not well. They might not all try to improve themselves, but they at least know they're not okay. And so they just embrace that. They're living more authentically than most real people ever do.

This is why i came to love Black Mask after reading about him online. You can use him to really sharply hone in on topics of masks and masking and personas and identities. Black Mask hates masks. He collects them, but he hates the concept of masking your true feelings. It's all he ever did his whole life, and it broke him. His parents forced him to hide his true self. His company was bought out and destroyed because he chose to be authentic, took impulsive risks and got people injured. He was actually finally opening himself up to the world, and he was repayed with Bruce Wayne stealing his family's inheritance from him! Roman did injure many people with his cosmetics, that's true. But he still tried to be authentic, and he was punished for it.

Black Mask was tormented by masks and social rules and standards. He was invented to be a villian for the 1980s, the decade of excess. He embodies the worst of the decade. Lurking behind the fashions and spectacles were many broken souls, crushed by the soulless capitalistic business machine. Like the left wing radicals who sold their souls for comfortable living with money to burn. Roman Sionis is a repudiation of all of them, while simultaneously also serving as an embodiment of all of them. He's a villian stuck in his original time period, but his story transcends the 80s. As long as social rules and capitalism and the concept of masking exists, there will be a need for Black Mask and his False Face Society.

In fact, I think this is why so many DC animated TV shows seemed terrified to use Black Mask. Nobody is ready for an all ages audiences to meet a man who embodies the anti capitalism movement. Nobody is ready for the anti capitalist who's probably autistic (considering his hatred of social rules and socializing, which really feels painfully accurate to my own experiences). Nobody is ready for Roman Sionis, the businessman who hates capitalism, hates social rules and conventions, yet also embodies the dead inside feelings of a neglected rich child.

Roman Sionis is Batman if Batman had negligent parents and worse business acumen. He is…he is a great character. Doug Moench knew what he was doing. And I want to see Roman Sionis on an animated tv show, stat. I can imagine his episodes for Batman the Animated Series. I can picture them clearly, because his whole character is clearly defined. There's nothing you have to change. You just have to be willing to get political and socially satirical. Roman Sionis might now be my favourite villain i've barely read any comics with. If he had as much exposure as Two-Face did, I would have loved him as a kid. Why didn't anyone tell me about him!?