The Incredible Story of Mighty Doc Stalwart Annual #2

Scooter James may have had the strangest ascent in comics history. He started as ‘The First President of the Doc Stalwart Fan Club” in 1970 - at ten years old. He became a regular contributor to the letters’ column (starting with a letter published in issue #100), with a missive appearing in every column from that point forward. As of issue 150, he got a special spotlight in “Note from the Fan Club President”, that was set aside from the other letters each month. 

Scooter eventually became a creative voice as well. He sent in a story idea that served as the foundation for the “Return to the Future” storyline (Mighty Doc Stalwart #127-130), and at fifteen, started contributing story outlines (paid $3 per outline), that were adapted into backup features, almost always featuring his favorite characters, the Stalwart Legion of the 28^th Century.

So, it was somewhat appropriate that as of Mighty Doc Stalwart #251, at age 24, he was hired full time as the editor-in-chief of New Stalwart Press; he was the one who was tasked with hiring the replacements for Byron John, the brothers Mike and Theo Pretzlaff, who took over the book going forward.

He had big ideas. He launched the Spectacular Stalwart Super Society. He started negotiating television and toy rights for the characters. He started to look at ways to merchandise Doc and his world, building the brand beyond its humble comic book origins.

But one of the biggest and most outlandish of his ideas was unveiled at the New Years’ Comic Con ’84, two weeks into his tenure as editor-in-chief. He organized the first ever ‘Independent Comics Company Summit’, where dozens of small publishers and independent creators met together in Ballroom B of the Grand Castle Hotel to share an idea he had.

The “Big Two” were doing huge crossover events, bringing together their major characters to battle a huge cosmic threat on a grand scale. He wanted to do something similar. He knew that New Stalwart Press, though a successful company, was nowhere near the size and scale of the Big Two, and wouldn’t be able to do such an event independently.

However… he suggested that everyone in the room, if they wanted to work together, could pull it off. His pitch was simple: The Mighty Doc Stalwart Annual #2 would be a collaborative story where dozens of creators, representing dozens of smaller companies, would come together to tell a story with each of their signature characters joining together against a huge cosmic threat. They would all continue to hold the copyrights to their own characters, granting one-time rights to publish them here.

Over the next twenty-four hours, what might be the greatest comic book jam session of all time took place, as dozens of creators worked together to build a story and crank out 64 pages. This was released to much fanfare; each creator received 100 ‘limited edition’ copies to sign and sell at conventions, and the book was released through newsstand distribution. Each creator kept a few original pages, and these were distributed in a lottery system. All proceeds were donated, and many of the creators who contributed suggested that this was a ‘launch point’ for their independent comic companies.

But, I mean, I don’t have to tell you all about this. You were there, after all.   

And the Kickstarter will reveal how it all went down.