Alter Ego # 200 July 2026 (magazine review)
Any magazine getting to a hundred issues is good going. To double, that exceptional. Hardly surprising that this issue of ‘Alter Ego’ focuses on its editor Roy Thomas’ own career after so long. With this one, it’s a look at five comicbooks series that were his favourite to write. I guessed one of the one’s not shown on the cover. Even so, I’d love to know his top ten or based on reprints.
His fifth is the ‘Fantastic Four’. He wasn’t the second writer after Stan Lee because Archie Goodwin stood in for a couple issues as Thomas was asked to write ‘Spider-Man’ for a couple issues instead. Objectively, after Lee, Thomas wrote the FF for seventy issues under various artists which is still a record. I certainly read his run on the book and details here stirred some memories.
His fourth is ‘The Invaders’, the first as editor/writer and into his favourite era, World War Two and super-heroes. The way Thomas describes it, he didn’t have to do Marvel’s current continuity and had more control of what he could do. I followed his original run. I though artist Frank Robbins drew to the era, but really it was his inkers who sorted out his rubbery figures.
Roy Thomas’ third is ‘The Avengers’, which he explains he covered in Alter Ego # 13. However, since 2012, Australian fan Shane Foley asking for answers to questions about his 50 issue run and here is the result. He tends to bulk questions per issue but gets a lot of information back, especially when it comes to Stan Lee’s decisions on line-ups and such.
Oddly, the missing two on the cover are pretty obvious to work out but have less pages since they’ve been covered before. Instead, Thomas focuses on different aspects and with a certain S&S character, other choices and his supporting cast With DC Comics version of ‘The Invaders’, I like the examples of its first issue cover being the basis for so many other covers, making it iconic. I hope there’s an argument out of this that we need to see other iconic covers that have been redrawn with other characters.
Under his Mr. Monster title, Michael T. Gilbert looks at the comicbooks that influenced him into being a collector. Oddly, none of which I read. As a sidenote to this, especially for the UK, how many came across American comicbooks at school, tucked away in a cupboard for a rainy break when we couldn’t go out. Even more incredible, the first reads were ‘Jimmy Olsen’ or ‘Lois Lane’ than the super-hero titles, hardly the main enticers. It shouldn’t be surprising that ‘Jimmy Olsen’ was Gilbert’s first read.
The nine interviews with contributor to ‘Alter Ego’ fills in a lot of information about their own careers and how they came to be doing the work they did. I was surprised to discover how many interviews Jim Amash conducted were plagiarised. A problem with the new generation of writers not realising they have to note their sources. Considering so many of these interviews are rare in the first instance, he probably is the only source.
The Fawcett Collector has a look at Roger Fawcett’s history of his father and family’s publishing company but never completed because he died of cancer in 1979. Some gaps are filled in but their father, ‘Captain Billy’, really was much of an adventurer of his time period. He and his four brothers were more business-like, although they held a friendly affair to their employees than other businesses.
When TwoMorrows do bigger issues, they do tend to carry a lot more information and this one is no exception. I do have to wonder if Roy Thomas’ own book about his early career coming out shortly will cover much different here but I suspect its range will be more.
GF Willmetts
July 2026
(pub: TwoMorrows Publishing. 162 page illustrated magazine. Price: $25.95 (US). ISSN: 1932-6890. Direct from them, you can get it for$25.95 (US))
check out websites: www.TwoMorrows.com and https://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=98_55&products_id=1882&zenid=27mgg214fvv07cih00vhn4vdo0
