All throughout April and May, we’re crowdsourcing a coronavirus quarantine comics reading list. Each weekday for a month, we’ll post a new recommendation from someone in the comics industry to help folks get through the isolation. This includes writers, artists, letterers, editors, comics journalists, publicists, and more…all paired with a local shop that’s currently selling the books via mail order.

Today’s pick comes from writer/editor Stuart Moore…enjoy!

ONE comic for a quarantine of this magnitude? I say thee NAY! A single title be not enough for this Ragnarok which doth engulf us…and so lo, I must pick TWO! Both of my choices are inspired—in very different ways—by the original Marvel titles created and pioneered by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, and refined by Roy Thomas and his many collaborators, in the early to mid 1960s.

DOOM PATROL #53 is an outright parody of Lee and Kirby’s work…specifically Fantastic Four, and ultra-specifically Fantastic Four #51 (“This Man, this Monster”). But Grant Morrison, at the height of his surreal powers in this one-off, did more than just plug in the members of the Patrol for the FF and add jokes—though the jokes are very funny indeed. He channeled the entire approach of early Marvel, opening with a guest appearance by the “Mighty Mystics”—a Silver-Age-style team based on such soon-to-be-Vertigo characters as John Constantine, Hellblazer (who wears a red-and-blue cape and domino mask) and Doctor Thirteen, the Multiple Man!!

Artist Ken Steacy brought the story to vivid life, and I happen to know that editor Tom Peyer—who speaks Lee-Kirby like a native—directed this one to publication with particular care. In just twenty-four pages, you’ll meet the Legion of the Strange; Mr. E, the Malleable Medium; Kay Challis, Elasti-Woman; The Living Guru, herald to the dread Celestius; the Anti-Cube “once used against the Ultra-Voyager”; and much, much, much more. You may have heard of the Image parody DOOM FORCE, a one-shot that came out around the same time; this one is even more fun, and a bargain at $1.99 on Comixology.

Fourteen years earlier, AVENGERS #178 presented one of the oddest stories ever to appear in that title. Writer Steve Gerber was in full Howard the Duck mode when he wrote “The Martyr Perplex,” a baffling fill-in featuring the Beast (Hank McCoy). This story defies analysis—the plot outline reads like an opium dream. It involves a two-faced villain called the Manipulator, who might not actually be a villain at all, and a ragged apparition who tells the Beast “I have come to die for you.” There’s hypnosis and mind-games, and a government conspiracy, and 1970s singles bars, and…

…and, well, “Perplex” is really about Hank McCoy’s discomfort at his newfound popularity, and his difficulty in realizing that his “different” nature must have caused his parents significant pain. But it’s not all angst—the story is full of funny lines. When Hank tromps out of the rain into Avengers Mansion, Janet Van Dyne quips “Look what even the cat refused to drag in!” And when Cap tries to give him some advice, Hank shuts him down with “Aaah, go pledge allegiance, willya?”

The writers of the 1970s built on Stan and Jack’s basic template in a variety of ways; this little masterpiece, slipped into one of Marvel’s most mainstream titles, was probably as whacked-out as they ever got. The classically styled art by Carmine Infantino and Rudy Nebres somehow makes the story even more unreal. Another $1.99 on Comixology, or you can find it on the Marvel Unlimited app. -Stuart Moore

STUART MOORE is a writer, a book editor, and an award-winning comics editor. His recent writing includes the comics series BRONZE AGE BOOGIE and CAPTAIN GINGER for AHOY Comics, the Marvel/Titan novel X-MEN: THE DARK PHOENIX SAGA, and an adaptation of the novel BATMAN: NIGHTWALKER for DC Entertainment’s new Ink imprint.

Other recent comics writing includes DEADPOOL THE DUCK (Marvel), BATMAN: NOIR ALLEY (DC/Turner Classic Movies), and EGOs (Image). Novels include THANOS: DEATH SENTENCE (Marvel) and three volumes of THE ZODIAC LEGACY, a Disney series created and cowritten by Stan Lee. Stuart’s past comics work includes WOLVERINE NOIR and NAMOR: THE FIRST MUTANT (Marvel); FIRESTORM (DC Comics); assorted Star Trek and Transformers projects; and the original science-fiction graphic novels EARTHLIGHT, PARA, SHADRACH STONE, and MANDALA. He has also written JOHN CARTER: THE MOVIE NOVELIZATION and the novel version of Marvel’s CIVIL WAR.

Stuart consults for Stonesong and for AHOY Comics, where he holds the mysterious title of “Ops.” In the past, he has been a book editor at St. Martin’s Press and editor of the Virgin Comics / SciFi Channel and Marvel Knights comics imprints. At DC Comics, he was a founding editor of the acclaimed Vertigo imprint, where he won both the Will Eisner award for Best Editor and the Don Thompson Award for Favorite Editor. Stuart lives in Brooklyn, New York with his wife, author Liz Sonneborn, and two of the most spoiled cats in the universe.

Doom Patrol #53
Writer: Grant Morrison
Artist: Ken Steacy
Publisher: DC Comics
We meet a Doom Patrol that might have been if two guys named Stan and Jack had chronicled their adventures 25 years ago.
Buy It Online: Click here!

Avengers #178
Writer: Steve Gerber
Artist: Carmine Infantino
Publisher: Marvel Comics
While picking up women in a nightclub, Beast is assaulted by an anti-mutant fanatic. On his way home, he encounters a mysterious ghost telling him to be “absolved of all anger.” Who is this apparition visiting Beast? And who is the mysterious woman demanding a favor from the Beast?
Buy It Online: Click here!

Get comics from a local comic shop with this directory from the Comics Industry Collective of stores open and doing mail order!

Click here for the full coronavirus reading list!