Yep, it’s the long awaited last issue of Capt. Fantastic. What I distinctly remember about this is that I conceived of this as a 12 issue series that would end with exactly the death featured in this issue. That’s pretty weird – an eight-year old plans the death of his comic book alter ego as the grand finale. It’s weird enough to me that I would plan an ending in the first place – superhero comics were not known for their finite storylines, you wouldn’t find anything to stop the franchise from moving on – same with television. The inclusion of “Chapter” with each issue, though, was pulled from my preoccupation with old movie serials – did I talk about that before? – and they did have endings. Not really groundbreaking endings – usually the villain is defeated, that sort of thing, nothing terribly life-changing – but conclusions nonetheless, and being film, there was no guarantee of a second sequel with that hero.

By the way, I believe that’s Thor that Capt. Fantastic meets with – apparently he is disrupting the lightning somehow. I’m not really clear on that – the economy of words to an eight-year-old and all that. I think this might be the only time Thor makes an appearance in EL Comics – Hercules was a much bigger deal for me – but we shall see – I can’t be expected to remember all of my creations!

This blue paper wasn’t an aesthetic choice. As I recall, I came into a pile of different blank paper that I started to use for my  comics – hence the tan paper of the previous issue that was also different from the more usual lined notebook paper and the blank white paper. I’m fairly certain it was a pile of paper that one of my parents procured from somewhere and handed to me, and I rather like the unpredictable paper phase that I went through.

On the other hand, I’m less fond of the incoherent story phase. While the previous issue was unexpected in this realm, this one is just … confusing. Well, I mean, I get it up to a point. Capt. Fantastic seems to be showing off to his friend Bob, but then it’s revealed that it’s all part of a plan to introduce Bob to the fact that he is destined to become Capt. Fantastic’s lesser. The part about tripping over his cape is funny, though something I ripped off from Captain America, during the period he became Nomad in the 1970s. You know, the Man Without A Country? This would put a date on this actual issue – really soon after Watergate.

Unfortunately, I don’t get the final page. Who disappeared? Bob as Capt. Fantastic Jr.? The parachutist? Why? And doesn’t Capt. Fantastic care enough to pursue the matter further? Was Bob the parachutist? Clearing I have some writing workshops to attend.

Thus far, I pretty much think of this as my masterwork within the EL Comics frame — less influenced by Action Comics and more by Finnegan’s Wake, though without not only ever having read Finnegan’s Wake, but without even knowing of its existence. Or James Joyce’s. I think I knew about Ireland, though.

How to explain this adventure? I can’t, so I don’t. If life is a series of seemingly random events that are forced into a psychological equation that adds up to us, then Capt. Fantastic #10 surely reveals the secrets of Capt. Fantastic as a character — and as with Bergman or Dennis Potter, these pieces are presented to the audience to put together with their own experience as the instruction manual.

And, no, I have no idea if that is The Flame from Funtastic Four or something else entirely.

Sadly, I give away the entire plot with that first panel, but at least it shows that I was an organized writer even in grade school!

As near as I can decipher, those last two panels on the first page are abstract guiders meant to show the trajectory of Capt. Fantastic’s impromptu spinning drill — like a map, but more confusing.

The cover drawing is not one of my best. I assume it’s Capt. Fantastic, since the guy trapped underground wears a hat, but I can’t be sure.

Really a disappointing effort, I have to say. I hope I recover my mojo next issue.

For all you continuity buffs, Hercules already made an appearance in his own comic at some point in the chronology, and I remember thinking at the time that it was only natural that he and Capt. Fantastic should be the super buddies of my comics line like Batman and Superman were for DC. In fact, I seem to be doing a little retrofitting here, since it turns out they were already friends in their secret identities but had thus far managed to keep their super ones a mystery from each other all that time – it should also be noted that my best friend back then was a kid named Tom, so to some degree I was paying homage to our buddyhood by naming the secret identities after each of us. It’s a shame that the real John and Tom never used the full force of their power to defeat a scrawny dog – that’s work meant for our superhero counterparts and no one else.

The cover is more like a sight gag from Plop. If I date this correctly, I loved Plop at the time I wrote this, so who knows?

Capt. Fantastic never does go after the kidnapper does he? What a shame. He has lived to cause another curious tractor-like wheel monstrosity to pave over a child another day — and that child may not be so lucky as to secretly be Capt. Fantastic with the magic word of Mazahs!

Speaking of which, I saw in a recent issue of Billy Batson and the Magic Power of Shazam that the word is said backwards — indeed, Mazahs has finally made an appearance in an official Captain Marvel comic. Now Captain Marvel’s is ripping ME off!

Sadly, Capt. Fantastic #5 has gone missing, but I’m thinking the story is not so complicated that we can’t pick it up with some level of ease even after skipping a whole chapter.

This is the first of my early comics where I can honestly say that I did something in tribute rather than ripping it off wholeheartedly – that is, the inclusion of the Sleestak. As fans of Land of the Lost will note, that is not a Sleestak at all, but rather an homage. An homage that ends up in a hole in the ground in one of my favorite fictional sequences that I ever wrote. Two panels, one concise statement, but so much work and emotion in between.

I’m pleased with the cover variation here – no poses of braggadocio, rather real superheroing going on. The poor long-armed boy is safe to drag his knuckles another day. And that last panel makes me weep with pride.

It’s a good thing I put issue numbers on these things, because the covers are all basically the same – Capt. Fantastic standing in heroic pose, or at least the best my hand could render.

One of the more interesting parts of the cover to me – and you’ll excuse me for becoming even more self-indulgent here – is the use of chapters. I know exactly where I got that from. When I was around 8 or 9, there was a UHF channel I would watch all the time when I lived in Fairfield, CA – just outside of Travis Air Force Base. I’ll only say that my childhood was quite troubled at that point due to family situations, but I was able to take refuge in the genre stories that I delighted in. It was on this UHF channel that I discovered old time movie serials, specifically things like Flash Gordon and Captain America and Commander Cody, all packaged together in a regular format under the heading of Solid Gold Heroes.

The channel itself would show serials, superhero cartoons, Universal monster movies in rotating chunks several times a day – so let’s say The Wolfman showed in the morning, it would also show at 4 p.m. and then 9 p.m. I loved that channel. I’d like to say it was Channel 61, but of course this was decades ago.

Anyhow, I was fascinated by the serials and that is where I got my episode device here – I was mimicking that and – seriously I though this way – and wanted to meld that with comics publishing conventions.

As to the rest of the issue, what to say? By inserting the word “dumest” I didn’t think much of the dream plot even back then. It is kinda weird, I have to admit, but then it provides one incredibly strange image – the opening with Capt. Fantastic on the operating table – that I think is pretty great years later, even if it’s not drawn particularly well at all. Actually, it’s drawn poorly … but the intention to get a little weird is appreciated.

I am haunted by the fact that the one person thought Capt. Fantastic was Capt. Fabulous. Is that a mistake I read or did was I making a in-joke? I did one issue of Capt. Fabulous – yes, yes, complete with the misspelling, thus making him Capt. Fabulas – and I will present that following this run of Capt. Fantastic. Was this my first real cross-title continuity?