CREATOR EXCLUSIVE
IPC’s greatest heroes unite against the Spider in new miniseries Smash!
AFTER PAYING TRIBUTE TO IPC’S CLASSIC CHARACTERS in his creator-owned series Jack Staff, Paul Grist is bringing together iconic heroes and villains like Janus Stark, Jane Bond, the Steel Claw and the Spider in Rebellion’s new miniseries Smash! “Jack Staff was basically me having a romp through comic history using ‘variations on a theme’ characters at a time when the characters hadn’t been seen in British comics for over 25 years,” he tells Red Alert. “So I figured I was one of the few people who remembered, let alone cared about, these black and white British comic heroes of childhood. I thought it might be difficult to write stories about the ‘real versions’ of the characters, but the truth is the two versions are really quite different, so I never found myself doing something that would have sat better in Jack Staff.”
Explaining that “the basic idea was to have a series of Spider stories where he comes up against various comic characters from the UK comic library,” Grist reveals that the three-parter spans several decades, beginning in the ’60s. “The Steel Claw is very much a ’60s secret agent/adventurer-type character, while Jane Bond was an editorial suggestion to try and bring a few female characters into the storyline, given that there weren’t too many of them kicking around in the boys’ comics of the ’60s,” explains Grist. “She was fun to write, so much so that I actually brought her back for issue three.”
THROWBACK TO THE FUTURE
However, issue one begins in Victorian times, with renowned contortionist and escapologist Janus Stark confronting a malevolent demon. “He doesn’t actually get to come up against the Spider, as the time frame wouldn’t really make that work,” says Grist. “But his actions kind of kick off the loose link that binds the story together as the Spider cartwheels through the ’60s to the pre
