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Friday, October 15, 2004
Talkin’ Chaykin: The Scorpion #1
Part 1: The Shadow
Part 2: Blackhawk
Part 3: Black Kiss
We’re going back here folks, back to 1975. That was the year that Atlas/Seaboard published the first issue of Howard Chaykin’s The Scorpion. It wasn’t the first book that featured work solely written and drawn by Chaykin, the anthology Star*Reach featured his Cody Starbuck stories in 1971. But Scorpion is still a glimpse of a young artist just discovering his storytelling talents. I thought I should include some early Chaykin into my little series here (of which this entry could be the last, I haven’t decided yet) so here we go.
The Scorpion shares many of the characteristics of a typical Chaykin adventures story like Blackhawk. There’s the chance for Chaykin to flex his history buff muscles. Moto Frost, a.k.a. The Scorpion is a man that has been around for a long time. He’s fought in the Civil War, been a special envoy for President Theodore Roosevelt and fought in World War I. Now this seemingly immortal adventure has shown up in 1930’s New York and is “providing justice…for a price.”
If The Shadow was Chaykin’s take on a decades old pulp hero then The Scorpion is Chaykin’s own pulp hero created from the ground up. The story here is hardly as maniacal as The Shadow. While that book had a post-Flagg! Chaykin working without the Comics Code, this has a pre-Flagg! Chaykin working within the Code and, as Jeff Rovin’s article for The Comics Journal #114 proves, working for a very conservative publisher. Not that Chaykin delivered a sub-par story. It may not have a lot of that Chaykin-pizzazz but The Scorpion is a fine adventure comic.
The story unfolds in a very straightforward manner, a big contrast compared to Blackhawk or American Flagg! where there were plenty of twists and turns in the plot. The Scorpion does have that typical “Chaykin-man” cockiness and love for adventure. He’s also got a smart and equally cocky woman by his side, his best gal Miss Bishop. The villains are greedy and murderous as Hell. It’s nothing new, but done well. One thing I felt that was missing was Chaykin’s sharp dialogue. The book isn’t filled with stilted, exposition-heavy talk like other books; there is some natural feeling to the dialogue. It’s still nothing like we would see in Flagg! where emotions and characterization shines through easily and people are constantly talking over each other.
The art also isn’t as adventurous as we would later see but Chaykin still does prove himself to be one of the great adventure artists with this book. Pages may have many panels on them but they are there to create the right sense of pace and never make the page feel busy. Some of the layouts such as the one on page seven arrange the simple rectangular panels in a way that looks exciting and really gets the feeling of urgency an action scene requires. Chaykin’s line here is a lot looser than we usually see, even looser than on Black Kiss or Challengers of the Unknown (the issue that came out this week as great). Nothing wrong with that, I like the look a lot and it should be noticed that while his line is looser this is Chaykin trying to be his most photorealistic. A lot of the art reminded me of another young artist just starting out at the time, Walt Simonson whose Manhunter series with Archie Goodwin came out only two years ago. Both take the tropes of the typical adventure story and use them to show off some real talent that has proven to create wonderful later work in both cases.
There were three issues of The Scorpion put out by Atlas/Seaboard. The second one was rushed with Simonson, Michael Wm. Kaluta, Bernie Wrightson and others helping Chaykin with the artwork. The third book had nothing to do with Chaykin or his incarnation of The Scorpion. Chaykin did create the character of Dominic Fortune that appeared in various Marvel books and is seen as his way to continue working on The Scorpion character. There’s no chance we’ll see any of the above reprinted but at that same time you none of it should cost you too much in the back issue bins.
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