Originally published February 18, 1994, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1057
For the first time in quite a while, I have to do a bit of a fill-in column, since I’m crunched on a deadline from a Star Trek novel. (So for all those who ask, “How do you have the time to do all the things you write,” the answer is, I don’t always.)
During one of my occasional “Raiders of the Lost Ark-esque” cleaning out of my files, I happened upon an illustration done by Kyle Baker, the Coolest Man in Comics (not to be confused with Joe Duffy, the Hardest Working Man in Comics). The history of it is that, in my very first published comic story (Amazing Spider-Man #266, I think) I teamed up–for some demented reason or another–the Toad, Frog-Man, and Spider-Kid. At the end of the story I sent them off as their own group, to be called “The Misfits.” I had every intention of bringing them back in a future story.
Then word came down that I couldn’t call them the Misfits, because (as I recall) Marvel was in negotiation with Hasbro to do a comic series based on the forthcoming “Jem and the Holograms” cartoon and toy line (remember her? Fashion doll and rock musician, whose slogan was “Truly Outrageous”…a truly bizarre slogan, since the most common definition of “Outrageous” is “disgraceful or offensive.”) And Jem’s main antagonists were a girl group called “The Misfits.”
Apparently there was concern that there would be tremendous overlap in the audiences for a rockin’ fashion doll and Spider-Man. Young girls would pick up a “Jem” comic advertising a battle with “The Misfits” and would express disappointment that the Toad wasn’t in it.
At any rate, I couldn’t use the name. So we held a contest, asking readers to send in a potential new name for the group. The prize was going to be an original piece of artwork which Kyle Baker graciously agreed to contribute. Unfortunately, before any winner could be declared, I was fired off the Spider-Man titles. And not too long after that, the Toad went back to being a bad guy, and that was pretty much that.
As I recall, several different readers all came up with what I thought was a pretty workable name: “The Good Guys.” Since the group never returned, though, we never really got to declare a winner (plus, getting fired had me pretty angry at the Spider-Man universe anyway, plus dividing up one piece of art would have been dicey.) Of course, if I hadn’t been fired off the series, and the group had returned, it means that Defiant would have been publishing a title with the exact same name as a previously existing Marvel group. But I doubt that would have presented a problem, because Marvel has a long history of being a real good sport about such things. Right, guys? Right, Jim?
In the meantime, though, Kyle was good as his word and turned in the artwork. Which I still have, and which still makes me laugh, which Kyle’s work inevitably does. So I thought I’d share it with you. And Kyle, if you’re out there, and you want the artwork back, just give me a yell.
Art © 1994 Kyle Baker. Characters © 1994, 2010 and TM Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc.
(Peter David, writer of stuff, is pleased to announce that the Friends of Ellison (FOE) is being deluged with mail, with dozens more pieces coming in every week. The buttons–graciously designed by Kurt Busiek–are in production. Within the next few weeks I’ll be running the first installment of the FOE newsletter [i.e., selections from the letters]. Be sure to look for it.)
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I’m actually amazed, amazed I tell you, that I actually bought this issue of ASM when it first came out.
I followed the PAD for quite awhile, and I had no idea he wrote this. Doesn’t surprise me, but I didn’t pay much attention to writers in those days. Unless his name was Walt Simonson.
TAC
I had that issue too, in its spanish edition.
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Incidentally, there is a (recent) british TV show called “Misfits” with a superheroic bent you all should be checking out.
I always wondered whatever happened to the contest to rename the Misfits.
I really liked that story, and I always wanted to see the team again.
Shortly after that issue, the Toad appeared in Vision & Scarlet Witch by Steve Englehart. Not only was he the bad guy, but the story claimed he’d been somewhere out in space for the last few years. Did anyone ever straighten out this contradiction? (This was during a period when Marvel was very, very good at keeping continuity straight between all their titles. I was really surprised a discrepancy this big happened at that time.)
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It wasn’t your first published story, though. Spectacular #103, ‘Compulsion’, with the Blaze appeared earlier.
It has been a while since I’ve read it, but didn’t Spider-Man also appear in that Vision & Scarlet Witch storyline? I seem to recall him being dissed by Wasp for not being a genius scientist. 😉
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I also remember that Toad saw Spider-Man, and was ashamed of himself and teleported away.
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Theno
Not too long ago I went through and made sure I had VF minimum condition copies of all your Spidey stuff, PAD. Those were some of my FAVORITE Spidey books ever. I reread them lately… and they still are.
It’s a shame you’ve never been given a freer hand with the character (and F.N.Spidey doesn’t count).
Yeah, I also remember reading the “Misfits” issue in Portuguese when it was released here.
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One interesting datum. In those times of old, I also didn’t pay as much attention to writers’ names as I do today. Except for a few I couldn’t help remembering, like Claremont.
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So, I had read all of the PAD Spider-Man stuff, and enjoyed all of it, but it didn’t fixate on mind which stories were PAD’s, and which were by others like Tom de Falco, but I still remembered the stories themselves.
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Years later, I’ve re-read my old Spider-Man books, mostly to see if Tom de Falco’s stories were any good, or if he’d been a horrible writer from the beginning (I started to really loathe de Falco after his FF and Thor). I seemed to remember he’d written some good Spidey stories. But as I’ve re-read, I realized that EVERY SINGLE ONE of the stories I remembered as good were by Peter David, and Tom de Falco had written the rotten ones.
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So yeah, I’m a big fan of those stories, PAD. (Not so big on your Friendly Neighbourhood Spidey stories, though).
I really love DeFalco’s Spider-Man stories from that time, although I hate his Thor and Fantastic Four. He wasn’t as consistently good as Peter, though.
(The stuff I liked the least back then was Michelinie on Web Of Spider-Man. I don’t know how he ended up getting promoted to Amazing.)
Web of Spider-Man was what got me into Spider-Man comics in the first place (“Hey, a new issue #1! I have to get it!”) but yeah, it was pretty dreadful. Not that I knew it at the time, being only 10.
While not a huge fan of DeFalco myself, I think his SpiderGirl was a consistently good read. I really loathed his FF and in Thor he had huge shoes to fill, but I have trouble considering him a “terrible writer” since he has proven he can deliver.
Heh, I had the same experience you did. I didn’t pay attention to writers when I first got into comics, I just knew that Peter Parker, TSSM was the best Spider-Man book (I started reading it with the Death of Jean DeWolff story line). Then as an adult I reread all of my old Spider-Man books and, yep, Peter wrote all the good ones (though Jim Owsley/Priest wrote some good stuff, too, as I recall, but he only wrote a few issues).
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But in defense of Tom DeFalco, he did write one of my favorite Spider-Man stories ever (the Dr. Octopus AIDS story from Spider-Man Unlimited).
Holy crap. I have that issue. It was actually one of the ones I was using to try and get the Clone into comics, but they give him a headache.
did the actual misfits band (the one w/ jerry only and glenn danzig) not matter at all back then?
i always wondered how Jem and the holograms were able to use the name……i should study punk law or something…..
I believe that punk law dictates that they must mosh to decide ownership of the name.
Which Star Trek novel were you working on at the time PAD?
Yes, Christopher Priest was kind of good, though he also sort of abused the theme of Spider-Man as the naive hero endlessly and mercilessly showed up by more “mature” heroes like Daredevil and Wolverine.
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David Michelinie was kind of blah on Spider-Man to me. Not bad, just not too good either. But at least he was great on Iron Man.
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I know people say a lot of good things about Spider-Girl, but deFalco’s Thor and FF burned me so bad, that I never felt any desire to read Spider-Girl. I know it’s irrational, but I refuse to believe that I might like anything from the man that wrote stories that I so loathed.