Cover by HOWARD PORTER.

I’ve always liked this story, “Visions of Glory,” the framing sequence for the 80-page Justice League Quarterly #16 (September 1994), the “All Glory Issue” featuring four stories starring General Glory. General Glory was a star spangled parody of the straitlaced, upright Captain America created by the irrepressible Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis in Justice League International. Part of the conceit was that though Joe Jones/General Glory was a real person, his adventures during and after World War II appeared as comic book stories so the world would think he was just a fictional character.

I don’t recall if I was the first writer to do pastiches of General Glory comic book stories from across the character’s history, but I did at least four of them, which ended up being used in the penultimate issue of JLQ, surrounded by the aforementioned 21-page “Paths of Glory” by me, artist Vince Giarrano, lettered by Albert DeGuzman, colored by Patricia Mulvihill, and edited by Brian Augustyn and Ruben Diaz. The glorious cover was by Howard Porter.

… Which led into the 12- page “I Fought Groout, the Creature Who Came from the Cracks in the Earth!” (and HERE) a parody of the 1950s Stan Lee/Jack Kirby Marvel Monster stories. The art was Rick Stasi and—for verisimilitude—Dick Ayers, the actual inker of many of those 1950s Stan Lee/Jack Kirby Marvel Monster stories! It was colored by Jerry Nicholas, and lettered by… I’m not sure. Comics.org has it credited to Ruben Diaz, but I’m pretty sure that’s wrong.

… Bringing us to a take-off of the goofy 1950s Mort Weisinger-era Superman versus gangsters in suits stories, “Moolah Murphy Goes Straight!” Once again, we lucked out by getting an artist who had actually worked on those stories at the time, the legendary Curt Swan. Curt played it absolutely straight and the result, inked by Jose Marzan Jr., lettered by Gaspar Saladino, and colored by Nicholas, was dead on.

… Our cue to go back to the 1980s and “A Return on a Dark Night,” (and HERE) taking off on Frank Miller’s landmark storyline. While it was beautifully drawn, it was beautifully drawn all wrong by the artist Khato. My script called quite explicitly for the artist to mimic—at the very least!—the layout of Miller’s Dark Knight; any similarity to Frank’s actual style the artist brought to it would be gravy. But Khato was, if memory serves me, from Argentina, and the scripts he received from the U.S.A. had to be translated for him, so this was most likely a case of something literally getting lost in the translation. Phil Allen colored and Agnes Pinaha lettered.

… And then came “The Power… and the Platitude!” featuring the Wildbloods (“a new group of heroes for our generation!”) and my too-cute swipe at the nascent Image Comics. I think I tried too hard and went too obvious on this one, but parody is a cruel mistress, and print is for posterity. The art was by Danny Rodriquez and Andrew Pepoy, lettered by Chris Eliopoulos, and colored by Greg Rosewall.

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