Marshall Rogers: Brightest Days And Darkest Knights by Jeff Messer and Dewey Cassell (book review).

Comic book artist Marshall Rogers (1950-2007) was admired by fans for his work on the ‘Detective Comics’ comic book as written by Steve Englehart and inked by Terry Austin, but he never got on well with DC Comics editorial staff, mostly because of his take on the Dark Knight. Bear in mind this was back in 1977, and house style was still prevalent with particular characters. A book on his work has been long overdue, and TwoMorrows has released this one, ‘Marshall Rogers: Brightest Days And Darkest Knights’ by Jeff Messer and Dewey Cassell. It is a combination of interviews and a lot of artwork.

From his sister, Suzanne, we get a lot of his back history, and his death at 57 mirrored that of his father,who died at a similar age with heart congestion. Rogers studied architecture at degree level, and this is reflected in his work and his sense of design. Looking at his pencil work, it’s obvious he drew very tightly. Seeing his pencil work does confirm this.

Writer Steve Englehart’s analysis of his first run on Batman in Detective Comics # 471-477 is something also covered in Comic Book Creator # 37, but here it’s in more depth. As he was a few months from going to Europe with his wife, Englehart had to resort to full scripts and the hope that he wouldn’t have a journeyman artist and was finally pleased when he saw the final issues months later. His conversation points out what Marshall added to the scenes.

Rogers liked to work from full scripts, and his inker Terry Austin liked to embellish, so they were a good combination, although DC’s Joe Orlando continually had them over the coals about their work, but it was too late to have anything changed. Englehart’s comments on DC Comics’ corporate state and reluctancy to associate creators with their runs on the comics are something I hope have changed with management. I still have these comic books, currently marooned in a place I can’t get at because of my wrist tendon injury, which is still repairing itself, but I can see the reprints going. That being the case, you need to go after ‘Batman Dark Detective TP’, which is still at a reasonable price if you haven’t read it.

Marshall Rogers was also the starting artist on the last continuing ‘Batman’ newspaper strip, written initially by Max Allan Collins, who had to leave because a different syndicate didn’t want him to do anything but ‘Dick Tracy’. Rogers was off after the third story because he couldn’t keep up with the deadlines. The information here from Dewey Cassell fills in a lot of information. Looks like I’m not the only one saying these should be released in a book format so we can see them.

More informative is a 2005 radio interview on ‘Nuff Said’ with its host Ken Gale interviewing Rogers in depth. His thoughts on events at Kent State University, where 4 students were killed and 20 injured by the National Guard while he was there, give a depth we had over here compared to what was shown on US TV. If he hadn’t done an all-nighter to reach a task deadline and had been asleep, he would have been with his friend delivering his task, who got shot in the arm. There are very few interviews with Marshall Rogers, and this 2½-hourinterview here is quite extensive.

At the end of the book, there is a complete booklist of Rogers’ work. With the reprints, he often did new covers, which means you might have to be selective. I think I was most surprised by how much he did before and after his job at Atari. If he signed his work ‘Marshall’, he pencilled and inked. If he only did the inking, then his work was signed ‘Rogers’.

This is an honest book about Marshall Rogers, covering his faults as well as good stuff. Don’t leave it too long before getting a copy.

GF Willmetts

August 2025

(pub: TwoMorrows, 2025. 159 page hardback. Price: about £25.00 (UK). ISBN: 978-1-60549-130-1).

check out website: https://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=95_93&products_id=1856