Jack of all Trades

Originally published March 29, 1996, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1167

The last of the Marvel mainstays is gone.

In the first quarter of the year that lost us Jerry Siegel and Burne Hogarth, the loss of Jack Abel will probably leave a number of fans scratching their heads and shrugging. Jack Abel? Who he?

He was a Marvel mainstay, that’s who.

What I talk about mainstay, I should really define my terms.

After all, there are other Marvel employees of long duration, longtime employees who seem to have always been there. There are people who seem indispensable to Marvel, people who have withstood fire and flood, assorted firings, and various upheavals with the steadfastness of the Rock of Gibraltar (or the desperation of that female rock climber in the opening of Cliffhanger—and we know what happened to her).

But when I’m talking of a mainstay, I mean someone with roots in Marvel back when Marvel was not No. 1 (or whatever it is these days), when it was the scrappy underdog, the hip place that appealed to youth, the place of irreverence, nipping at DC’s high-toned corporate heels.

It was a place where some artists even worked under fake names because they needed, for legal reasons, to conceal their connection with the upstart company.

And there were others with their creative roots in the 1960s or earlier: Denny O’Neil, Archie Goodwin, John Romita Sr. (head of Romita’s Raiders, the art correction squad), Jim Shooter, Danny Crespi (the production manager—I don’t know when he started, but it seems as if he’d been there forever).

And, back in those days, there was an inker named Jack Abel who did a variety of stuff. (Most notable, to me, was his work on Iron Man over the pencils of Adam Austin—oh, excuse me—Gene Colan. If you think throwing glasses over Superman’s face provides an unlikely disguise, imagine Colan sticking a pen name on his uniquely stylized art and thinking anyone would be fooled. But I digress—)

When I first met Jack Abel, well over a decade ago, he was already firmly ensconced in the Marvel bullpen. He worked on the production end, doing everything that needed to be done. His name had an almost Dickensian aptness, since he was a Jack of all trades, doing whatever he was able.

Jack was white-haired, seemingly forever. Slightly paunchy, with a voice that sounded like it needed a touch of WD-40 oil. He was, if I recall correctly, quite involved with the mighty Marvel softball team. After all, all work and no play would have made Jack a dull boy.

And, as the years passed, time took its toll on the mainstays of Marvel.

Danny Crespi died, as did Solly Brodsky. Denny O’Neil and Archie Goodwin went to DC. Shooter was fired. John Romita Sr. left.

And Jack—

Jack was the mainstay. About a dozen years ago, he had a stroke and, some years later, a second. His frustration with the deterioration of his physical abilities was evident. He was a young man, a go-getter, trapped inside an aging body.

His medical battles left him with a pronounced limp. You know the scene in Forrest Gump where the braces shatter from the young Forrest’s legs while he’s running, and he motors across a field at high speed? I suspect that’s how Jack wanted to be: capable of suddenly dashing from the afflictions he was dealt with, leaving them far behind and sprinting for all he was worth.

He absolutely refused to slow down.

He was 68 years old and would not retire. What was the point in that? Jack was made of sterner and more determined stuff than that. To sit back, relax, dwell on the past, and try to avoid thinking about the shortening days of the future? There was no point to that.

Jack was a warhorse who clearly believed that, if one is alive, one must continue to work, to produce. To serve the commonwealth. He continued to come in, 9-to-5, proofreading and slugging away.

This garnered respect, even from those who you would think respected no one and nothing.

Marvel fired 275 people two months ago.

Let’s say that number again: 275.

Spell it out: Two hundred and seventy-five.

How difficult would it have been for Marvel to punt one old guy?

An old guy three years past the standard retirement age with deteriorating health.

A man whom family and friends were begging to slow down, take it easy.

And Marvel didn’t.

I was surprised—pleasantly so—to learn that Jack had been passed over during the Marvelcution.

His income remained intact, his health insurance benefits remained intact.

Jack’s dedication and steadfastness were something that not even the highest corporate levels at Marvel wanted to screw with.

Because he was more than just a worker or employee.

He was a symbol.

He was a mainstay.

Clearly, the only way he was leaving that office on a permanent basis was feet first.

Which was exactly what happened. The mainstay who had given his heart to Marvel for decades did so, literally, one final time.

He had a heart attack while in the office. Marvel Editor Kelly Corvese valiantly administered CPR and got Jack breathing, but it was really too late.

And so the last of the mainstays is gone.

Oh, some of the old pros are still connected with Marvel. And there’s Stan the Man, of course.

But it’s not the same as the guy who was in the office at 387 Park Avenue South, day in, day out, and who’s now going to be represented by an empty chair.

Was Jack right to act as he did?

After all, if he had slowed down—taken it easy—he might still be here.

Actions that one person might consider admirable, another might consider stubborn.

A company about which Jack felt so strongly and profoundly that he literally worked for it until he dropped, is considered by others a heartless, soulless corporation that feeds off dedicated employees like a succubus until their worth is at an end and then casts them aside.

Should he have just quit? Walked away? Possibly extended his lifespan? Sixty-eight isn’t that old these days, after all.

It’s a question to which I can provide no answer. It’s not my place. It’s not my life.

How one lives one’s life, how one decides when it’s time to pack it in and when it’s not, is a highly individual decision.

All that matters in the final analysis is that Jack simply couldn’t.

In a day and age where the pursuit of leisure-time escape—from rollerblading to surfing the internet—is at an all-time high—and, in an industry where there are monthly titles that come out a couple of times a year and missing shipping dates have reached epidemic proportions—there was Jack Abel with his work ethic. Do the job.

Do the job for as long as you can, in as professional a manner as you can, so that the comic books turned out are the best they can possibly be.

This kind of dedication goes beyond mere selfish concern.

It’s a dedication that stems from aspiring to a higher ideal—an ideal that says that all living beings must provide a function. An ideal that says that the comic books the fans plunk down their money for should be the best they possibly can be.

And Jack Abel was dedicated to that ideal.

I can’t pretend to claim that I was all that close to him. I don’t know much about his life outside the office.

What I do know is that, every time I would come into the office, I’d see him there and I’d say hi and chat a minute or two and think, “Well, at least all is right with Marvel, because Jack’s still here.”

And now he’s not there any more.

The last of the mainstays—gone.

Fallen in the place that meant so much to him that he wouldn’t leave it voluntarily.

And whether that was right or wrong in some greater sense, considering that it deprived his loved ones of a longer stay with him on this Earth—in the final analysis, it was right for him.

It was right for a mainstay.

And we’re all the poorer for his loss.

Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to Second Age, Inc., P.O. 239, Bayport, NY 11705.