2005 Upper Deck Justice League of America VS System CCG Card DJL-109: Power Siphon

Illustration by Keron Grant.

I forgot to mention yesterday that even though my card scans are often squared rectangles, gaming cards almost always have rounded corners like poker cards, because the rigors of gameplay would swiftly wear down pointed corners. The points would poke your hands (as was still the case if you played with plastic sleeves,) and it would create a point of vulnerability for the card to be permanently bent (or "marked,") and the sides could begin to separate from each other. Another thing that I forgot as I started looking into the VS. System is that I have old man brain, and it would wear me down.

I've been a little obsessive over the Vs. System, because I realized while working on the DC Secret Files Podcast that the short form periodical reference books like Who's Who were abandoned in the '90s in favor of trading cards. They returned in comic book form as Secret Files and Origins specials, but those were far from comprehensive in their coverage, so you needed trading cards to supplement them for snapshots of the full scope of the DC Universe in the '90s. But also, getting into the 21st century, the non-sports comic book trading card market was virtually extinct, and almost none of those sets featured original art. It was just reprinted, repurposed material from the comics industry. Also, the Secret Files books themselves were increasingly few and far between in the aughts. But see, collectible card games were still a thing, had a broad scope in service to gaming mechanics, and I finally realized my usual resource Trading Card Database effectively "hid" these cards in a separate gaming catalog. Suddenly, properties that I'd struggled to find resources to cover were at my virtual, digital fingertips. All these Vs. System posts are the fruit of searches for these cards on places like eBay.

The quality and resolution of these images vary wildly, and the availability of images from the later sets are thin. What I really wanted was to get my hands on the actual cards to pull my own scans. However, most eBay listings for individual cards start at a dollar each, plus shipping, and I'm looking at needing hundreds of these things. I don't want to get buried in duplicates of a card game that I'll never play by buying not-inexpensive boxes, where there are even boxes available to buy. So one day, my gal and I hit numerous comics and gaming stores, plus a gaming-specific co-op "convention" open most weekends on the other side of town. This took up much of the day. We came home empty-handed.

For starters, the only actual Vs. System product we found was at Houston's oldest comic book store. They only had Marvel cards, in packs, collecting dust in a plastic case on a back wall counter. The card I'm featuring today can almost book a rental car without any insurance hassles. Why would I even think anyone would have a decades old gaming system in stock? Even though VS. System had way more releases than the Overpower I did collect, and I saw them being sold in more shops, that was also probably during the Bush Administration. Hell, HeroClix is much more recent, and nobody has carried those in nearly a decade. The only hybrid comic/card shops that I know of to still exist are all like that one-- local institutions-- around my advanced age. Only after did it occur to me that I never see sports cards outside of department stores nowadays, or single trading cards outside of booths in antique malls.

I do see gaming cards, but guess what? That's still mostly Magic and Pokemon. Almost nobody has those bulky cardboard boxes, or even the wooden shelving anymore. It's all plastic and glass now, enough to hold active modern card packs and encase high dollar key singles. Common deck building stuff is what you buy the packs for, and then trade with your community, not the shop. I'm sure the prices come from matching online dealers, because who would bother to print a guide in 2026? At gaming specialty stores, Vs. System isn't necessarily even a memory. How many shops have opened and closed since the cooling of J-horror and the rise of K-Pop, itself an institution now, rather than an emerging scene?

At that CCG convention thing, my gal was going booth to booth with a picture of a Vs. System pack on her phone like we were working a missing persons case. We also called some shops on said device (not helped by her initially asking for "Vee's Cards,") and almost nobody even knew what we were talking about. Here, they had sports cards. There was a stray comic booth where I tried to buy a $3.50 Comics Journal, before determining it was actually a $350 wall book because of some early McFarlane art. There was a tiny representation of comic book trading cards in a few binders. There were some of those intricate cardboard boxes from back in the day. They did not contain twenty year old VS. System singles, nor should they have. Why would they? Only an old man who sees that broad expansive of time as a blip, despite my entire relationship with my previously mentioned old lady being contained within than expanse, could delude himself into thinking otherwise. What do I know about modern CCG retailing, or any hobby retailing? I haven't gotten my regular comic fix at an LCS in near on a quarter century.

And so, back to eBay, casting my net far and wide for viable scans. Probably ordering singles to fill those gaps. And torturing y'all with the product of these efforts. An old man boring you with tales of a card game that could attend college that he never even bought himself.

2005 Upper Deck Justice League of America VS System CCG Card DJL-188: Rallying Cry!

Illustration by Duncan Fegredo.

Both the sportscard and comic book markets started heating up in the 1980s, feeding off one another, so that your average comic shop carried sports cards and vice versa. A lot of this was Mom & Pop stuff, so everybody was learning how each business type worked as they went along, and you tended to value every investment. In the case of cards, you'd typically open up at least one box of a desirable set to see which chase cards you could score to display in a case, and to have common singles to sell or trade to help customers put together sets. Even when you weren't actively making money on those loose cards directly, you provided a service, and by being a resource brought people into the store. Even as the trading card market took a downturn, the rise of collectible card games heightened the value of singles. Game players needed multiple copies of the same useful cards in customizing decks for play, or even just to have enough duplicate cards to maintain multiple active decks for various strategies of gameplay. Just as your Beckett was cooling down, your Scrye was heating up, and games like Magic: The Gathering and Pokémon kept the lights on when other hobby businesses were closing down.

I myself played Overpower and Star Wars, and usually kept my decks in sleeves. Since I was a DC guy, the only box of Overpower that I ever bought for myself was the JLA expansion. Aside from starter packs (basic pre-built decks of first editions,) everything else I got from loose individual packs, or by buying/trading single cards through other players and shops. As was typical, I usually carried my cards in a prefab folded cardboard box that held a single row of cards on their side, and was about 10 inches long with a built-in lid. At the shops I ran and frequented, single cards were usually kept in a variant of these boxes, which I'd guesstimate were something like a foot & a half wide and maybe two feet long. These were more complicated to build, because they would hold multiple rows of cards with separate cardboard slats that were folded into the larger pre-cut template. Cards in these boxes were stood up, and you had a separate folding lid template that could be used to keep dust and debris out of the boxes, or to secure them for transport. That's how you could safely get them to shows/conventions, though being cardboard, you wouldn't want them to be hit with anything more than the lightest of rain sprinkles. At least here in Texas, we'd have stacks of these boxes in our shops, usually supported by wooden shelving behind the counter or in the back room. If you had the right build, you could also get comic book short boxes on those shelves, and because you valued all that stock that you'd put money into, there were often a lot of each type of box around. Of course, in the '90s, after the bottom started to fall out, everybody had overstock to liquidate. You didn't want to pay property taxes on product that wasn't moving. You had to cut your losses at some point, or drown in them.

2007 Upper Deck VS System DC Legends CCG Card DCL-268: Overwhelming Odds

Illustration by Adam DeKraker & Jeff Albrecht.

Thanks to my doing extensive research into these Vs. system cards for another project, I'm flush with material for these daily posts, but Google itself has been working against me. First, I couldn't post comments here or elsewhere, nor schedule, but I did (eventually) do real time posts. For a while now, I could only access my Google accounts through Chrome, which is in no way my default browser at home. However, my desktop Chrome stopped logging into anything last night, and will barely function as a browser. I was busy elsewhere today, hoping it would correct itself, and failing that, I seem to have successfully accessed the blog via a different browser. Hence, the 14 hour late post that I could have easily served up at 2:25 a.m. (get it?)

Anyway, here's a Miss Martian cameo to change things up very slightly, and because it will (hopefully) be the latest post for less than half a day. If you'd prefer a better look at M'gann M'orzz, I posted her Ryan Sook drawn character card back in '09.

2005 Upper Deck Justice League of America VS System CCG Card DJL-073: Staged Attack

Illustration by Billy Dallas Patton & Kris Justice.

Annoying to have Google/Blogspot/Blogger's comment mechanism break down for two days a few days into the only multi-day posting I do here all year*. Especially because I was working on fairly substantial comments to other people's blogs, so I guess the timing was actually good, because I could just tuck those into one of these posts to pull out later. And anyway, Saturday morning is a perfect time to address the matter, since I was never going to have much to say about a sportsball-themed gaming card by unfamiliar artists** featuring a gambling-themed super-villain team I never had much use for. Just another "X" on the calendar.

* Scheduling/posting was giving me trouble too, so I'm glad I got anything out at all.

** Even their names sound more like football players' than comic book drawrers. This post brought to you by DraftKings.

2005 Upper Deck Justice League of America VS System CCG Card DJL-054: Martian Manhunter - J'onn J'onzz

It's wild to me that I haven't previously posted this card, as it features two of my favorite things. Kevin Nowlan is one of my all-timer comic book artists, and getting a commission from him was a dream come true (...for me. Him, I think not so much.) Probably a contributing factor was the assumption that I would have posted it by now, and so perpetuated my not actually doing so. Plus, reposting scans is the laziest thing I ever did as a blogger, and I've always seen it as low value filler. But time brings respectability, and a lot of the places that I drew from for these images are no longer readily accessible. For instance, a bunch of these VS. System posts used to link to Ryan Sook's website for larger resolution original art, and now it redirects to a Swedish casino gaming website. I once found a decent enough scan of Arthur Suydam's virgin art to repurpose it as a mock cover for a Despero: The Greatest Stories Ever Told trade paperback. Now I can't find an unmarked scan of the actual card online or in my personal files. There's luckily still an eBay store that features scans of many of these cards, so I'm exploiting that resource while I can, because I might be the resource one of these days.

2007 Upper Deck DC Comics Legends VS System CCG Card DCL-022: Martian Manhunter - The Last Martian

Art by Juvaun Kirby

This one has a bit of history. I first featured the original line art in a post from 2009, taken from Kirby's seemingly defunct deviantART page, which is substantially altered/cropped/enhanced on the actual card. I'd first attempted a directory of these cards in 2014, long abandoned and forgotten, using links to a CCG specialty shop that no longer offers the cards (or images of same.) This effort was aided by LissBirds, a sweetheart of a regular commenter who I think I scared off with my pivot to podcasting (and our bro-y "locker room talk" among friends.)

As I've been researching the VS. System, it seems like the DC Comics Legends expansion is very tough to come by. I can't find any boxes available online, and eBay listings for individual cards are uncommon. I'm mostly having to do broader Google searches until I tumble upon old CCG sales pages that typically no longer offer the card for purchase. It's a very large expansion at 273 cards, the last DC set, and the second from last Vs. System release overall. It features some really beautiful art by Ryan Sook and others, but also some of the most hideous pieces of the game (often by John Van Fleet, doing what looks like CGI of a quality more in line with early '90s stuff like Donna Matrix. I have to work for every image, and this one? I had to blow it up to reach 400 pixels. There's also some element to this that was exclusive to tournaments/conventions, and there are a ton of repeat characters, so this may be some sort of re-release/compilation set. Whatever-- it's a toughie, and I wished I'd started on this when there were more online resources available.

Strange Brain Parts: "Maybe Absolute Martian Manhunter Isn’t Great?" Video Essay

I often watch the videos of Strange Brain Parts, and appreciate that there's a channel that does the kind of deep dives into the "above ground" comics of interest to a fellow well traveled Gen-X reader. He's a lot better at social engagement than I'll ever be, with his own Discord and five-figure subscriber base offering hundreds of comments to individual videos. I'm exhausted just thinking about maintaining that, never mind the precarious nature of being financially supported by YouTube. His videos pop-up in the algorithm of my TV, but when I tried to search out a specific one online, I was forced to sign in just to view the thing. It's an odd model from my standpoint, but I was happily surprised my first post in months got a comment and a few views within a day. Who am I to talk?

Anyway, I had a few people reach out to me here and elsewhere about my thoughts on Absolute Martian Manhunter. I haven't finished collecting a Martian Manhunter comic in floppies since the 2015 volume, and I haven't even finished reading a run since the 2006 mini-series. I haven't truly enjoyed a book with "Martian Manhunter" in the title since the one from 34 years ago by an artist who's been dead for a decade-and-a-half and a writer we don't talk about anymore since he went to prison for the worst things. My opinion of Absolute Martian Manhunter should be as predictable as the setting of the sun and rise of the moon. But I did buy the trade paperback in softcover, and I had it read back in April. I did the action figure post first, because I felt it was more timely, with a plan to review that first volume the following week. But I always had something more interesting to do, and now that I have the second and final volume waiting for me... I can't really remember much about the first. So I'll reread it and do a review of both volumes this month, when I feel a compulsion to get it done, but that's kind of a review unto itself.

I never expect something like an Absolute Martian Manhunter video essay to find me. I mostly watch political/broader creative media commentary on the TV, as most comic book vlogging feels like a waste of my time. But one of the channels I already watch covering the rare book with six-figure sales will prompt that sort of thing. The video criticizes the book from directions that I hadn't really considered, because I was hung up on considerations both broader and much more specific to my interests. Still, I support all the views expressed here, and will add my own insights later in the month.

Hopefully you can see it, if the embed doesn't also prompt a dang sign-in. I hate the 2020s.

2007 Upper Deck VS System DC Comics Legends Game Card DCL-059 "Telepathic Link"

Art by Cat Staggs.

This one is darkly humorous to me, because the post has been sitting in my drafts since before Photobucket started watermarking or omitting all of my blog images. They were my primary hosting site for years, especially my most productive period, and the prospect of going through all those posts for revisions contributed to my crashing out as a blogger. Anyway, as I sniff around for easy material in a largely unplanned 19th anniversary observation while simultaneously going deep into the VS. gaming system card for more pressing hobby concerns-- synergy! The jpeg from my files is dated 3/3/2011, and I managed nearly three more years of relatively daily posting from that point, so I guess this just got lost in the shuffle (so to speak.) Expect more of these throughout the month.

2026 McFarlane Toys Martian Manhunter Family of Figures

My understanding is that McFarlane Toys is going to lose their license to produce DC Comics action figures later this year. Whether it's severe restrictions on which characters they can produce in these final month, or the company losing its mind, their final year selections are deep cuts. There can perhaps be no greater evidence for this than their being multiple Manhunter from Mars-related offerings. Actually, the Ryan Kendall figure is the greatest indication, since he starred in the only Black Condor title ever produced 34 years ago that was cancelled after only one year despite being drawn by Rags Morales. This material has never been collected, he was killed off two decades ago, and there is no appreciable fan base for what looks like a dollar store knock-off of the Total Justice Hawkman. So of course I'll pick one up if I find a substantially better deal than the $26.99 initial asking price.

But again, what piques my interest and prompted this post was the J'Onn J'Onzz connection, which begins with the new Martian Manhunter DC Comics Page Punchers. I have to confess that I've rarely been wowed by the sculpts on the McFarlane DC figures (obviously excluding Ambush Bug & Cheeks the Toy Wonder.) Aside from using a similar lime green shade as on my beloved Super Powers figure, the only reason I'd buy this Manhunter is the novelty of the smaller format. Well, that and the cloth cape with folded-down collar. I also found it odd that rather than reprint a solo comic for the Alien Atlas, it was a Dan Jurgens Justice League with the crazy convoluted origin of Bloodwynd. Well, about that...

McFarlane will produce the greatest mass market Bloodwynd action figure ever, mostly because it's the only one ever, setting aside some nice custom jobs that I've seen over the years. It's designated as a "Red Platinum Edition," which is code for "overpriced GameStop exclusive" at $34.99 (the Manhunter is a still bogus $27.99, btw.) Sh'yeah, right. I will inevitably own this toy, probably when m'boy Fixit snags it for a fiver from one of his many thrift scene connections in a year or so. Besides essentially possessing J'Onn's body for a time (maybe-- it's a very confused story,) Bloodwynd also served in the same short-lived League iteration as Black Condor.

The connections don't stop there, either. The Martian Marvel beat up Captain Marvel in an iconic JLI bout (adore the cape, not digging the spikey hair.) Aztek was a JLA teammate (why did they sculpt his helmet like a Dragon Fruit?) The DC Direct Eclipso was maybe that line's best sculpt, and the Sleuth from Outer Space was prominently cover-featured in the final issues of his solo series, with this McFarlane pass being the closest anyone has come to his look from that period (though this is more JSA/Robinson JLofA.) Bronze Tiger dated Gypsy and trained her in the martial arts. Say, why hasn't anyone ever done a Martian Arts pun? I'm a big Ben Turner fan, but this New 52 design barely registers as the same character, plus I understand that he was a were-tiger? Jeez, the New 52 was dumb as a bag of hammers.

Miss Martian is the most obvious Manhunter Family brand extention, if not necessarily the most accurate. She was created for Teen Titans, best known from the Young Justice cartoon, and fell off after barely brushing against J'Onn J'Onzz in books like Brightest Day. This is another $34.99 job, so unless I opt to buy the other two Page Punchers, I don't see this one coming home. She's had a few figures now, and I haven't bought any yet. Honestly, my female alien telepath of choice from this lot would be Saturn Girl, which also has a funky sculpt, but I have a great affection for the post-Zero Hour "Archie" Legion and no Imra Ardeen representation to date. I also have to say, as much as I hate those awful "drawn" statues with the fake comic book linework on them, but I flipped for the Gangbuster. I couldn't care less about the character, but this was a perfect example of how to employ that technique.

Superman Sonderausgabe #6 - Superman gegen Mongul! (1981)

I never thought of Cologne as a must-visit locale for comic book fans. However, my second trip to Germany was going to be too brief to do anything substantial, so I Googled some nice looking shops within walking distance of where we were staying. As it happened, there were actually several very appealing and quite varied fandom-related stores in the area. Some were more geared toward Generation X nostalgia, like 1970s actions figures, lunch boxes, and such. One was a three story deal in the heart of the tourist section that gives Forbidden Planet a run for its money. My Gal found a vintage Playmobil from her childhood in their basement, while I hoarded a bunch of cheap '80s/'90s digest reprints of U.S. comics for "stocking stuffers." I was quite pleased to find Red Circle and First Comics representation in that department, although the condition on the latter was so poor that it's physically warped (while reprinting Warp.)

Click To Enlarge


Given the oft-noted fastidiousness of Germans, I was surprised to observe that they don't know how to store comic books. For instance, all of those digests were loose on a freestanding display rack, and some had been mauled to pieces by small children and clumsy adults (guilty.) They don't use standardized comic boxes either, with that mega-store I mentioned employing wooden shelves with dividing panels instead. Houston's own Bedrock City Comic Company has a similar set-up, with the key difference being that the Germans also don't use backer boards. Their vintage "floppies" are often on a thinner, glossier stock than their Bronze Age U.S. counterparts, and on top of that, they love sealing their comic bags with 3-inch-plus strips of tape. I over-zealously chanced opening them while on the road, and surely put some crimps in them spines, where a wiser man would have cut them free with scissors instead.

Click To Enlarge


I bring this up in part because there was one specific shop that I had targeted when getting the lay of the land. While on vacation in Europe, we saw plenty of modern style comic shops full of Panini reprints or North American imports, usually with at least some selection of more antiquated formats. This one shop in Cologne though was a proper Android's Dungeon hole in the wall. Mind, it probably still had more square footage and better bones than your average dusty old American dump, but it was still a dim and cluttered mess with treasures of yore. I could have easily spent a whole day there, and way too much money, but I had already punished my wallet and suitcase miserably at early stops. I needed to be as swift and objective-minded as I could be in the time allotted.

Click To Enlarge


This was tough because there were boxes everywhere, and again, random old repurposed and tape-reinforced cardboard of quite varied dimensions. Not knowing what else to do, I grabbed a smallbox small box (about a square foot) off of an eye-level but deep shelf, and set it on another chest-level box. A severe and socially disinclined shopkeeper that was already giving my gal hairy eyeballs just for taking up the limited space scolded me in Deutsch. Following his gestures, I was meant to take any given box to a cluttered wooden table nearby to peruse, since again, these comics were not held up by backer boards. I had been selfish in many of my prior purchases, but also, there wasn't that much representation of the Bronze Age DC favored in my blogging/podcasting circles. Here I had a good chance of digging up varied Silver/Bronze reprint floppies of their childhood favorites, and I did. Several nifty old numbers and a few more contemporary items that were reasonably inexpensive, so I didn't feel to guilty about it.

Click To Enlarge


There was one though that kind of broke the bank. The first Mongul story from 1980's DC Comics Presents #27 has been reprinted a bunch of times, thanks mostly to his being immortalized in "For the Man Who Has Everything." However, that introductory story arc by Wein & Starlin was pretty well regarded by Superman fans even before Moore & Gibbons got to him. I thought for sure I'd gotten the UK hardcover collection with the original Bolland cover at some point, but I guess not, so this German edition is my first oversized collection of DC Comics Presents #28 with Supergirl and DC Comics Presents #29 with The Spectre, plus unrelated bonus reprints. Despite his fallen posture, the Jim Starlin Martian Manhunter cover remains a personal favorite, so it's nice to have it on squarebound cardstock in a 9" x 12" presentation. The interiors are also on a heavier white stock, recalling the Baxter format, which is much more vibrant than the original comics without becoming glossy eyesores. The inside covers are plain white, and the random reprint stuck between the first and second Mongul chapters is a Supergirl serial that started in 1971's Adventure Comics #408. Mike Sekowsky is joined by inker Dick Giordano for a tale of green-skinned alien invaders that concluded in Adventure Comics #409. I feel this was worth my 25€, but I do feel a bit bad for not feeling the same about getting a similiar edition featuring Firestorm's induction in the Justice League of America (as advertised on the back cover) for my buddy Shag. Eh, he's well traveled enough to go get his own, plus I already got him other cool stuff.

DC in Germany

• Aquaman in Top Comics Wassermann Nr. 108 (1970)
• The Atom & Aquaman in Superman-Batman Heft 8 (April 1976)
• Wonder Woman in JLA - Die neue Gerechtigkeitsliga #31 (1999)
• GrimJack in Die Cosmic-Ranger Nr. 3 (1985)

2025 The Martian Criminal Baytown Eastern Rim Funny Book & Vintage Con Commission by Sam Lotfi

Click To Enlarge


For once on this blog, I'm featuring a vintage talent from way back, instead of antique unpublished art. Sam Lotfi was unknown to me when I first got a commission from him twelve years ago, having only published a little work with Antarctic Press in 2002-2003. In the dozen years since, he was twice featured in DC Comics' New Talent Showcase, and worked on their titles Anti / Hero, Zatanna: The Jewel of Gravesend, Girl Taking Over: A Lois Lane Story, Zatanna & the Ripper, Birds of Prey Giant, and Scooby Apocalypse; plus drew the YA graphic novel Young Alfred: Pain in the Butler. For Marvel/Icon, he did Painkiller Jane: The Price of Freedom, and contributed to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Reborn at IDW, plus the Boom! Studios mini-series Mosely, and more besides. It's been cool seeing one of "our guys" do well, but I haven't seen much of him locally between COVID and backing away from the biggest Houston show. I also ran into another art "regular" from the glory days, Nick Pitarra, who was doing free sketches on Saturday (so I argued with him about my refusing free art and ended up with a gifted hardcover of Ax-Wielder Jon instead.)

But back to Lotfi, I've always found his modern stylist take on mid-century aesthetics a great fit for Martian Manhunter material, but he did ask if it was okay to shake it up a bit with the so-called "Magician-Thief" from 1956's Detective Comics #231. In their one story together, the Martians in their natural forms were more or less indistinguishable, with a color gaffe even giving them both pink outfits. I was happy to have the artist give the Martian Criminal his own vibes, and it helped that one's had evolved over decades, where the other was frozen in fifties form. I enjoy Lotfi's more elongated and menacing face, the temple veins, and the big hand forced perspective. The unnamed Magician-Thief should have had the same powers as the Alien Atlas, but he favored subterfuge, and the art here hints at different manners of manifesting those abilities than J'Onn J'Onzz's. This turned out great, and it's also a nice way to look back on past works as part of the blog's extended anniversary celebration!

Sam Lotfi

• 2013 TOR, the Robot Criminal of Mars Comicpalooza Commission
• 2014 The Human Flame Comicpalooza Jam Sketch Detail
• 2014 Martian Manhunter Villains Comicpalooza Jam
• Instagram
• Sam Lotfi's Website

More Art Monday

• 2023 FAN EXPO Chicago The Rocky Horror Picture Show Brad Majors Commission by Andrew Pepoy (signed by Barry Bostwick)
• 2024 Charlotte Heroes Convention The Maxx colors by Daniel Govar

2025 Primaid Baytown Eastern Rim Funny Book & Vintage Con Commission by Pop Mhan

With commission rates skyrocketing and my interest in paying them for corporate-owned characters plummeting, you might be surprised to see that I actually have some brand new art to show off on this blog. This piece offers remedies. Firstly, I'd still kind of like to complete a set of Hyperclan spotlight pieces, but it especially bugged me that I hadn't gotten any of the female members. Heck, Primaid's the second best known member. I mean, I have an Armek because Rick Hoberg wanted to draw a mech, and an A-Mortal because the dude sitting with Tim Vigil did good Halloween stuff. Only Primaid and Protex were in the second big White Martian story arc and fought a member of the DC Trinity. Plus, she just looks cool, and can rarely by seen in full figure on the comics page.

The other motivator was that despite maintaining a career since the '90s on heavy-hitting properties like The Flash, Batgirl, Masters of the Universe, Raven: Daughter of Darkness, Ghost Rider, and a mini-series of The Demon, Pop Mhan still charges perfectly reasonable rates for high quality work. I've dug him since at least The Impulse/Atom Double Shot in '98, plus he co-created Spyboy with the late, great Peter David. He was also a cool guy who talked about the demands of the licensing work that he's been doing more heavily in recent years. He's work on another creator-owned project that he's developing, a sort of younger readers Hellboy, and I hope to see that come to fruition.

More Art Monday

• 2023 FAN EXPO Chicago The Rocky Horror Picture Show Janet Weiss Commission by Brandon Peterson (signed by Susan Sarandon)
• Pitt & Friends finished art by Evan Dorkin
• Pop Mhan.com

2014-2016 Vulture Jam Art featuring Mr. V by Antoine Mayes

Click To Enlarge


I've gone back and forth on whether I wanted to end the anniversary month on a jam piece, or new stuff. Given how much of this month was devoted to finally getting a Marco Xavier bio page online, and all the revisiting of his vast criminal organization that entailed, it was only natural to end September on Vulture. For the record, besides being part of the blog's bucket list, I'm also still miffed that Marco Xavier doesn't have a page on Fandom's DC Comics Database (defaults to Amalgam and House of Mystery results,) Comicvine (defaults to Mister X,) or Wikipedia (a small Vulture page.) Not to get a swell head, but let's be real, a lot of what is out there is derived from my work here, often using art that I commissioned, sometimes by folks who were/are regulars here (Alien Atlas Apostles?) For nearly thirty years, I've been the Martian Manhunter-related change that I've wanted to see in the world. The work's still not done either, but I did take advantage of time spent here to bookmark future entries and built much of a Vulture profile/link list for later.

Enough about me though, because this is supposed to be about the artists... who were mostly paid a decade ago and I don't see much/at all anymore. Chris Foreman was at a small show in Baytown earlier this month, but he'd already contributed to the only related jam I was trying (and failing) to nudge forward there. I see Johnny J. Segura III every once in a while, but the rest of these folks have been missing from my sphere since at least COVID. I got a relatively large amount of work from Antoine Mayes in the short time that he turned up at local shows, including Porto “The Man of 1,000 Disguises” (twice,) The Alien Robots, The Doom Shadow, The Giant Watery Hand of Gilgana, and the Horn Firing Creature of Gilgana. Better luck next year for getting that still deferred jam out to the public! Anyway, I asked Adrian Nelson to do some wraparound art for the 2015 J'Onzz Family Portrait Artist Jam, and wanted to do something similar for this jam. By the way, I keep up with art commissions in part through creators' business cards, and I've had a stack on my desk for a few months now. Adrian's with his take on Deadpool sits right on top, and Bad Cog had a small booth at that Baytown con. He passed a few years ago, and I get a bit maudlin when I glance over at it.

Back on track, I found Mayes' work to be cool and imaginative, plus he didn't some nice work with ballpoints without being overly precious and taking forever. Since it was a selection of Vulture's more monstrous operatives, with Marco Xavier embedded at right like some sort of horror host, it made sense to have the specter of Mr. V hanging over the gang. Also, there wasn't a lot of space to work with, and he didn't have a lot of face to work in. Because he's Faceless, see? Anywho, I think Mayes put the capper on this around 2015-16, but nobody dated their contributions, and I only ran into him at a couple or three shows. I hope he's still out there. I'm sorry I kept everyone waiting on this, but maybe it's a fun blast from the past and not gross negligence on my part?

Vulture Jam

• Abba Sulkar, Shtarker, & Grosse by Isaiah Broussard
• Crime Goliath Monster-Man by Johnny J. Segura III
• The Manhunter Monster by Chris Foreman
• Marco Xavier by Brian Denham
• "The Martian Double-Cross!" Robot by Chad Townsend

The Vile Menagerie: MARCO XAVIER

Alter Ego: Marco Xavier
Occupation: Playboy; Sportsman; Crime Czar
Marital Status: Single
Known Relatives: None
Group Affiliation: Vulture
Base of Operations: The Mediterranean
First Appearance: House of Mystery #160 (July, 1966)
Height: Approx. 6"
Weight: Approx. 170 lbs.
Eyes: Dark
Hair: Black

History:
Little is know of the past life of the wealthy mystery man, Marco Xavier. Behind the high iron gates of his posh Mediterranean villa, he lived alone, with neither friend nor relative. Called by some a "very stubborn... lone wolfer," Xavier maintained his fortune by working with illicit operations, but never as a dedicated member. Still, his reputation of being reliable in performing "extra-legal chores" was "well known in underworld circles." The internationally famous playboy was eventually linked to such shady figures by a special security department, which in fact appeared to be their only lead in investigating the most sinister criminal organization on Earth, Vulture. Mr. Steele brought in J'onn J'onzz, the Manhunter from Mars, to pursue this lead. However, as soon as the Alien Ace began observing Xavier, he bore witness to a seemingly fatal car accident, as the playboy careened through guardrails on a winding mountain road and plunged to a fiery explosion below. Thinking quickly, the shapeshifting Martian assumed the guise of Marco Xavier, dangling from an outgrowth to be "saved" by local authorities.

Xavier appeared to have at least one named servant, a gentleman named Jeffers, who ushered in agents of Vulture to meet with "Xavier" the morning after the accident. Despite the assertions of Mr. Steele, Xavier had a highly desirable number of associates and friends, whom Xavier would be paid to spy upon or otherwise sabotage-- among them, notable magnates such as Apollo Magnus, Miklos Agar, Aldo Szuzi, and Pierre Carré. Marco Xavier appeared to have been quite the ladies man, often followed by a "bevy of beauties;" from doting socialites to dating secret agents, who he referred to frequently as "chicks." These assets seemed to help the faux Xavier maintain high value with the Faceless leader of Vulture, Mr. V.

After some time with J'onn J'onzz active under the guise of Marco Xavier, assisting Vulture in various plots, he received his final assignment. Manhunter/Xavier stole "the ultimate weapon" prototype pistol from The Carré Company, swapping it for a replica, but the deception was soon detected. Marco Xavier was finally wanted by the police for a specific crime, limiting his usefulness to Vulture, who still owed him a million dollars for the heist. After repeatedly evading authorities, Manhunter/Xavier was picked up by Vulture operatives, and taken to a tiny island on the opposite side of Mediterranean from his villa. This was a different location from where the pistol had been taken, and another high-tech underground Vulture base, which explained why the Manhunter had not detected it in prior surveys.

"Xavier" was led to Mr. V, who unmasked to reveal "Faceless" as Marco Xavier. Supposedly, one of Vulture's men had posed as the gendarme who had pronounced Xavier dead after the accident. It was declared that Vulture had been toying with the Manhunter from Mars the entire time, until they could deduce his secret weakness of fire. This Marco Xavier had continued the masquerade until he could lure Manhunter into "the perfect trap!" Rather than simply roast the Martian alive, and apparently "insane with power," this Xavier targeted Manhunter with the purloined prototype. It immediately exploded, wrecking the Vulture base, and presumably killing Marco Xavier before the Manhunter's eyes a second time.

Quote: "HA-HA! And now, while there still remains a breath of life in you, I shall test the ultimate weapon-- on my favorite target-- you!"

Created by Jack Miller & Joe Certa

Ivor Sandez

The killer Ivor Sandez was the personal "hatchet man" of Mr. V, and believed to be the only person in Vulture who knew Faceless' true identity. He was spotted by the Manhunter from Mars along a road near the posh Mediterranean villa of Marco Xavier, briefly stranded with his chauffeur as they experienced car trouble. The Alien Ace trailed Sandez to one of Mr. V's main headquarters in the mountains, but a Martian meteorite caused a body swap between Manhunter and the hatchet man. Ivor Sandez then decided to use his newfound Martian might to take out his grievances with the world, especially a Mr. V who "treated me like a dog-- ordering me around!" Sandez trashed the Vulture base, and J'onn J'onzz in Sandez's human body was blamed for leading Manhunter to the lair. While Mr. V was presumed to have vacated the site, Ivor Sandez continued his hate-filled rampage across the Mediterranean, while Vulture agents were under orders to shoot the human "Ivor Sandez" on sight. The day was saved by Manhunter's visiting other-dimensional side-kick Zook, who used his freezing powers to quash the meteorite, which reverted the Martian and Sandez back to their normal bodies. The Manhunter then captured Ivor Sandez, which may have led to his final confrontation with Mr. V. Ivor Sandez appeared in House of Mystery #170 (February, 1968).