Page Turners: Dave Cockrum

Dave Cockrum always aspired to become a comic book artist and in 1968 his first published work appeared in the “ Fantastic Fanzine“ which directly resulted in him being hired by Warren in 1971 to pencil a "Vampirella" strip. His obvious talents soon caught the eye of DC where he became assistant to Murphy Anderson and in 1972 he was given the option of working on DC’s "The Legion of Super-Heroes" strip.

In 1972, the LSH strip appeared as a back-up tale in DC ‘s Superboy comic, it was here in #195 that I first came across Dave Cockrum’s art in the LSH tale "One Shot Hero" (splash page above) which I have blogged about before. Prior to Cockrum’s arrival the LSH characters looked dated and by all accounts sales in the series were dropping, so with little to lose he began updating the teen heroes' costumes to dramatically “sexy” effect (something that Mike Grell would expand on when he took over the art chores) and moved the strip toward more of a science- fiction feel. With updated costumes, new characters (Wildfire etc) and a new writer in Cary Bates , the title picked up and became one of DC’s best sellers (for a time ) and resulted in the Superboy comic being retitled “ Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes” from issue 197.

Above: From "Superboy and the LSH" 100 page special showing the then new LSH "sexy" costumes .

Above: Page from "Superboy and the LSH" #197

Above: Page from "Superboy and the LSH" #198

Above: The cover to "Superboy and the LSH" #199 one of only a handful of Cockrum pencilled LSH covers (this was of course inked by the excellent Nick Cardy)

Above: Splash page from " Superboy and the LSH" #202 - this was Dave Cockrum's last issue before he left for Marvel. This tale was was inked by Mike Grell, who would take over the title from issue 203.

In 1974, Cockrum fell out with DC when Carmine Infantino refused to return a page of art that he produced for “Superboy and the LSH” # 200 , the marriage of Bouncing Boy and Duo Damsel (page above). On joining the House of Ideas Cockrum co-created, with Len Wein, The new X-Men , introducing new characters including Nightcrawler , Storm, and Colossus. Taking a led from his success at the Legion, Cockrum also redesigned the X-Men costumes transforming the title from a failing comic into a media sensation and a Marvel money making machine.

Above: Page from X-Men #96 - This was my first issue of the new Uncanny X-Men - I was never a fan of the original X-Men, but I loved this version - Image from the Epic collection.

Above: Splash page and pages 2 and 3 from X-Men #107

Above: Pages 2 and 3 from X-Men #101 (and cover at heading) - images from the Epic collection.

Seemingly Cockrum did not benefit financially from the success of the X-Men and left the title after two years (returning three years later for a short time), after this he worked on several titles including Ms Marvel where he redesigned her costume (above splash from Ms Marvel #20)

Above: Splash page from Batman #412 (image taken from the internet)

Above: From "The Legion of Superheroes" #300 - Dave returned to the title that started it all for him with a nice chapter in this anniversary issue - previous Legion artist including James Sherman and Curt Swan also provide art.

After leaving Marvel Dave’s career did not go as well as most fans would have thought it should have. His creator owned title “ The Futurians” originally published by Marvel, was a critical success but a commercial failure. Although he did occasioanl work for Marvel and DC by the 1990s his style was out of favour and he found regular work with various lesser-known publishers (Acclaim, Defiant, Broadway, Claypool) who would all go out of business, leaving Dave facing financial ruin. In 2003 with his health failing, he was admitted to hospital. Fortunately, the comics industry rallied round with a benefit auction and book of artwork by his peers (The Uncanny Dave Cockrum Tribute) and Marvel (to their credit) came up with a generous retirement settlement for him in 2004. Sadly, in 2006 Dave Cockrum passed away at the age of 63 due to complications from diabetes

Bring on the back-ups: - One-shot hero!

One of the good things about DC comics in the early to mid-1970’s were the backup stories that appeared in many of their books. In many cases these strips were better than the main feature which made it worth picking up a title that on the face of it, I would not normally purchase. One such title was Superboy which in the early 1970s featured the occasional tale of my then favourite team the Legion of Super-Heroes. The LSH had been appearing in Superboy since issue 172 and with issue 197 the popularity of the strip justifiably resulted in the comics title being changed to “Superboy starring the Legion of Super-Heroes".

It was with issue 195 of Superboy that my favourite Legion strip appeared an 8 page tale entitled “ The one-shot hero!” written by Cary Bates with art by the wonderful Dave Cockrum. The story revolves around a new candidate for the Legion called ERG-1 (Energy Release Generator - 1) a teen who was converted into pure energy which he stores in a containment suit. But he also has a secret power which he refuses to show to the rest of the Legion members thereby resulting in him being turned down for membership.

ERG-1’s secret power was that he could deliver a high powered energy blast but he could only use this once before (seemingly ) dooming himself. In the story ERG-1 despite being rejected for membership to the Legion responds to an emergency that the other Legion members are unable to halt and saves Colossal Boy from certain death by using his power blast thereby dooming himself. Of course that wasn’t the end of ERG-1 as the character was so popular that ERG-1 returned from the “dead” under the name of Wildfire to become one of the Legions most popular members.