I'm ready to post more sketches sent my way via a fella named Paul, I believe, on behalf of Cory Vandernet. They are of a "lost x-man" named Caliban. Someone used that name eventually for a different mutant character, but this one is quite different. OK to post them, JB?

BTW, what happened to the thread with the Cheryl Ladd look-a-like in superhero gear? I never got a chance to save that picture.

OK to post them, JB?

*******


Sure --- and I deleted the other thread because the question was answered about halfway thru, but people (including YOU , David Pruitt!!) continued to make "guesses".

Oh, I didn't know it was a real question that you wanted an answer to. I thought, "I wonder who this is" meant who was this character supposed to be, or whatever. Email me the picture anyway, I'd like to save it. Without further ado, I'll post the new pictures.

Courtesy of Cory Vandernet:

Quick note, here, that the ©Marvel notation was a courtesy back in the day, and since the character was never used, has no meaning. Marvel does not own this character (other than the X-Men uniform version, of course -- but there only the uniform), I do. Might even use him in DOOM PATROL.

Very cool!

I have wanted to see these sketches ever since I first learned about them while reading an interview in the "X-Men Companion" books.

No slight to Dave Cockrum's version, but I prefer the one posted above to what finally appeared in "Uncanny X-Men."

If I recall correctly, this Caliban was meant to be part of the original version of New Mutants, along with Kitty Pryde. Is that correct?

If I recall correctly, this Caliban was meant to be part of the original version of New Mutants, along with Kitty Pryde. Is that correct?

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Sort of.

Shooter one day decided that the X-Men was all about the school. No matter than Stan and Jack had graduated them in the 9th issue, the book was all about the school . Chris and I were uncomfortable with the idea of Banshee, Wolverine, Storm and even Scott being "students", so I suggested a second team. The current members would become the "teachers" and the new kids the "students" (sound familiar?). Kitty -- as Ariel -- and Caliban were to be the first new recruits.

Then Shooter declared that this was "The Legion of Substitute X-Men" and forbade us to go that way. We were already at work on the Kitty story -- which got stretched from 2 parts to 3 when Shooter also insisted we introduce Dazzler right now no matter what we had actually plotted -- but we abandoned the rest and my version of Caliban never happened. Without him as a justification for the name "Ariel", I suggested we call her the more evocative name "Sprite", which we did.

(For a while, anyway. Chris never liked the name -- he was the source of the "Tab" joke in one of her early issues -- and got rid of it as soon as I left. She then had no definitive name until Chris read Heinlein's "The Cat Who Walked Through Walls" and she became Shadowcat. A name which, of course, tells us nothing about who she is or what she does.)

Later, when it became "his idea", Shooter allowed the introduction of the second team, as "The New Mutants".

" Might even use him in DOOM PATROL."

Does that mean that DC would own the character, should you choose to use him in Doom Patrol?

How does it work, when a creator uses his characters in a publisher owned book like DP? Does something along the lines of "Used By Permission of JB" have to appear in the Copyright notice?

" Might even use him in DOOM PATROL."

Does that mean that DC would own the character, should you choose to use him in Doom Patrol?

How does it work, when a creator uses his characters in a publisher owned book like DP? Does something along the lines of "Used By Permission of JB" have to appear in the Copyright notice?

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It's a bit tricky. The estate of Jerry Seigel, a while back, was able to prove something we all knew already: that Seigel and Shuster had created Superman before they went to work for National Periodicals. Therefore the character was not "work made for hire" and so the Seigel estate was, under changed laws, able to claim a sizable chunk of Superman. This is also true of Captain America -- Simon and Kirby created the character than then pitched it to Timely. Also true of Dave Cockrum and Nightcrawler.

Marv Wolfman tried to make this the basis of his claim on Blade, but unfortunately for him the evidence (including his own words) proved Blade was not a pre-existing character.

So, if I use Caliban (with a different name, of course) in DOOM PATROL, there could come a situation some 40 years hence when a big budget movie is being made based on the character, and I might like to make a claim against the earnings.

Possibly to buy a new urn.

"What's a John Byrne urn?"
"About twice the average page rate."
badabump

I don't want to be in an urn because I'm claustrophobic. Scatter me to the four corners of the Earth; that's probably the only way I'll ever get to go there!

"Possibly to buy a new urn."

Cremetion is the way to go for JB then??

On the matter of Superman's copyright, is what they proved going to change the idicia on Superman goods and or in the mags themselves. There is a website dedicated to Superman I recall, Superman Through the Ages, that was following the case closely and changed their own idicia to refelc that Superman was now copyright DC and the Shuster estate ... I was checking every so often in the mags themselves after that but I never saw the change. I haven't checked recently ...

Scatter me to the four corners of the Earth; that's probably the only way I'll ever get to go there!

******


Wanna know something neat? Those who figure out such things have calculated the rate at which matter gets recycled here on Sol III, and these figures tell them that each and every one of us has one atom of Shakespeare (whoever he was) in us! One atom also of Aristotle, Plato, Michelangelo, Leonardo, Julius Caesar -- pretty much everyone who lived before about 500 years ago.

Imperious Caesar dead, and turned to clay, might stop a hole to keep the wind away. . .

Cremetion is the way to go for JB then?

******

What I really want is for my mortal remains to be put in a comfy chair and stuck out in the middle of a field somewhere, to let Nature take its course.

Not sure how I am going to engineer this, however, tho everyone who matters to me knows this is my genuine "last request".

Otherwise, burn it!!

That's exactly how I want to have my body disposed of. Recycling me to let everything else that can use the matter do so.

I have had discussions with friends and family on this, some of whom think i'm nuts for it, but one friend told me that there is a Jewish tradition of wrapping the body in w white sheet, and placing it in the ground with out a casket.

All of these questions I have had, not that there is the internet I can actually do some research and not ask a favorite comic creator mine all of these silly things ...

I'm hoping for a funeral pyre myself. Are they legal?

one friend told me that there is a Jewish tradition of wrapping the body in w white sheet, and placing it in the ground with out a casket.

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Most of what we think of as "traditional" American funeral rites and processes are the invention of the undertakers -- who, by the way, hate being called "undertakers", so use it as often as you can!

The Jews traditionally wrap their dead in a shroud and plant 'em as is. Embalming is forbidden by the Faith -- something undertakers will gloss over when they tell you it is "state law" that a body must be embalmed. In fact, the last time I looked only California -- which has a strong undertaker's lobby -- has specific laws requiring embalming and even coffins (another word undertakers hate),

If you have any interest in this deliciously morbid topic, I suggest you hunt up the 1996 revised edition of Jessica Mitford's infamous book, "The American Way of Death". Believe you me, I really wish I had read this one (or the original edition, actually) before my Mother-in-Law died in 1988!

"How long will a man lie in the earth, ere he rot?"

Not very long!!!


[can't seem to type "undertaker'!]

I am interested in it very much, and thanks for the suggested reading. Just the sort of thing to put on the bedside table as an usher into the dreamworld.

I live in CA, so I'd better be somewhere else if I want to follow through somehow on this "when my time comes."

Ariel and Caliban, cute. Were you going to work Prospero in there somehow?

Mike Nebeker - Super Genuis
Good Judgement comes from Experience and Experience comes from... Bad Judgement.

Wasn't there a "newer" Xman that they used the name Caliban?

Dwayne
nothing to see here move on

He's what I can remember and parts that I've picked up along the way but don't take this as being totally correct.

M*****'s Caliban was originally one of the Morlocks. He was a pastey little kid with something like empathic powers if I remember correctly. Somewhere down the road he was tricked into becoming one of Apocalypse's 4 horsemen. Not sure of more than that.

Edited cuz I'm having problems with english as a first and only language apparently.

There are som additional layers to that.

Back in the day when Jim Steranko was editing Marvel's official fanzine, there was a "contest" to create a new mutant for the X-Men book. The winner was a character called Humus Sapiens, who was promptly ignored and forgotten.

Years later, looking for ways to mess up Chris and my carefully plotted out X-stuff, Shooter dredged up Humus Sapiens and demanded that this character immediately be installed in the book. "We promised! And Marvel keeps its promises!"

Chris and I stalled, and I eventually left the book. Dave came back, and again Shooter insisted Humus Sapiens be used. Chris and Dave did the best they could with the character -- but ultimately the name was just too lame, and they used "Caliban" instead.

The final version had nothing left of Humus Sapiens.

They eventually used that contest character again in a marvel book a couple of years ago...
God I wish my brain was working so I could remember what issue..

Dwayne
nothing to see here move on

Humus Sapien (which sounds like something you can order in a Greek restaurant) was used in Thunderbolts a few years back by Fabian Nicienza.

Your Friendly Neighborhood Pain In The Ass

Thats the ticket Mike- now I remember

Dwayne
nothing to see here move on

Caliban was a kid? For some reason, I read him as a middle-aged mutant with a creepy fixation on Kitty.


Brendan Howard

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look inside Brendan's brain at www.brenhow.com