In a feature that highlights writers who bring out long-ignored characters, CSBG highlights the strange journey of Wonder Man’s agent, Neal Saroyan.
This is “I remember it well”, a completely new feature that highlights instances where writers bring up forgotten storylines or attributes of comic book characters. I have a similar snippet called “I’ve been here before” when writers put out their own old plots / characters, but this is when different writers do. I also have a snippet called “Provide Some Answers”, when writers solve long-forgotten plots, but this is when writers don’t solve anything, they just bring back something that hasn’t been used in a long time.
Today, we see how Wonder Man’s talent agent returned, just so we learn a terrible secret about him!
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Neal Saroyan made his debut in the first issue of the ongoing 1991 Wonder Man series. The aim of the series was to satirize 90s Hollywood and Neal was one of the key characters that would be used to poke fun at Hollywood excesses. . He was Wonder Man’s (Simon Williams) agent and there didn’t seem to be a line for what he felt was too far away to promote his client. In the first issue (from Gerard Jones, Jeff Johnson, and Terry Austin), Wonder Man has a great battle with another ionic power character, Goliath (formerly known as Power Man). After much chaos has been caused, Simon discovers that it was Neal who sent Goliath after him in the first place as part of a publicity plan.
What’s interesting is that something similar happened during Wonder Man’s early days of acting in the West Coast Avengers and Simon resisted back then and it was probably a sign of the times when although he was disgusted by the actions of Neal, he still stayed with Neal. as your agent. From that point on, throughout the series, Neal was one of the main pieces of comic relief (in a series that started out as a “funny” book and then went strangely dark for far too long). Even when Neal wasn’t in the actual comic, he was helping propel the action, like when he hired a “partner” for Wonder Man … without Wonder Man’s knowledge, of course.
However, by and large, Neal’s role in the comic was to show up and occasionally get Simon a job or at least an interview (sometimes, supervillains would use Neal to get to Wonder Man by faking a job opportunity). However, Neal was also used to criticize the amoral nature of Hollywood. There’s a good short story in the first Wonder Man Annual where Neal gets Alex (Wonder Man’s girlfriend of sorts and then a fiancée of sorts, who I recently wrote about here) a concert to write a blockbuster film adaptation of the then recent event. of the Avengers, Operation: Galactic Storm. Alex initially agrees, but realizes that he cannot sell his soul and write a movie glorifying war.
Later, when Wonder Man’s friends accidentally get superpowers from Wonder Man, Neal focused on putting them in harm’s way for the sake of publicity.
After Wonder Man died following the conclusion of his ongoing series, Neal was obviously put in comics limbo for years, but when Wonder Man came back to life in 1998, Neal appeared in the 2000 miniseries Avengers Two, where Roger Stern, Mark Bagley and Greg Adams solved some plots from the ongoing Wonder Man series (including his fiancée). Throughout the series, Neal tries to take advantage of Wonder Man’s return to earn some money or at least get publicity, but Wonder Man was no longer interested in acting and, at the end of the series, announces a founding of “Second Chances. “. that Neal has to agree to work for the sake of publicity.
Neal returned to comics limbo, but returned in a big way in the 2007 miniseries Wonder Man by Peter David, Andrew Currie, Drew Hennessey and Rob Schwager. Subtitled “My Fair Superhero”, the series begins with Wonder Man and Neal having lunch when they meet an old friend of Neal who is the target of an assassin known as Ladykiller. Before that point, Neal and Wonder Man were talking about Simon’s former girlfriend, the Scarlet Witch, who had apparently gone insane recently and killed a group of her teammates in The Avengers. Neal was arguing that some people are just born evil and Simon argues that anyone could be redeemed (and sure enough, Scarlet Witch was later redeemed). Neal then sticks to that position where he pushes Simon to make a new documentary called “My Fair Superhero”, where Wonder Man will attempt to reform Ladykiller and turn her into a superhero. Simon, who has this great foundation from “Second Chances,” reluctantly agrees.
The rest of the series will see Wonder Man and his friends try to transform Ladykiller into a hero named Ladyfair. Along the way, Wonder Man and Ladyfair appear to be falling in love, while the group she works for continues to haunt her. However, in the penultimate issue of the series, we find out that NEAL is actually the head of the group he works for! And guess what else? Neal also has mind control powers! Does any of this make sense? I mean, does Wonder Man make any sense? So let’s get on with it!
In the latest issue of the series, the Avengers are throwing a party for Ladyfair, but Neal steps in and communicates with Ladyfair and insists that she should unscrew a plug on her teeth and use the poison hidden there to prick the punch bowl. Yeah, this whole “My Fair Superhero” routine was just Neal manipulating Wonder Man into bringing a killer into the middle of the Avengers so he could kill as many of them as he could. However, despite her mind control powers, Wonder Man had changed Ladyfair so much that she decided to commit suicide rather than go back to being a murderer …
With Neal’s plans ruined, his bad companions turned on him for not keeping his promises and when Wonder Man broke into Neal’s office to bring him to justice, Neal had already been killed by one of his clients …
That was a strange trip for the Wonder Man agent, huh?
I’m sure you guys have other sample ideas for this column, so please send them to me at [email protected]! I would love to upload them for a month!
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Reference-www.cbr.com
