Classic Comic Geek Story: X-Men Vs the Jabberwock, Submariner and Greek mythology
The poet RayVi Sunico (You may remember him as the Philosophy of Religion teacher who required you to read the proceedings of the Nuremberg Trials, German optional) was in childhood an avid reader of Marvel Comics.
When the mutant called The Juggernaut was introduced in X-Men #12, something clicked in the geek brain. “Juggernaut” sounded like the subject of a beloved Lewis Carroll poem that all good little geeks memorize in as many languages as possible (inc. Esperanto).
Here is a piece of that poem, read by the Cumberbatch.
So RayVi fired off a letter to Stan Lee in which he replaced “Jabberwock” with “Juggernaut”.
And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock Juggernaut, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
And Stan Lee wrote him back! Marvel sent RayVi a free copy of that issue, with a short note from Stan handwritten on the title page. Uncle Stan said, “Nice poem.”
RayVi can claim to have invented the mash-up. Unfortunately that precious artifact is lost—his brother gave away the comic book (Aargh). Later, the words “Beware the Juggernaut, my son” appeared on the cover of an X-Men issue. (Not that he’s taking credit for it.)
In another letter to Stan, RayVi noted that if Sub-Mariner is the son of Poseidon and his sometime adversary Hercules is the son of Zeus, that would make them…first cousins! That note was printed in a Sub-Mariner comic book.
RayVi would go on to win (or not) five No-Prizes, which are given for “meritorious service to the cause of Marveldom”. Although he no longer has copies of the comics in which his letters appeared, they’re still out there and will turn up sometime.
This is a happier story than our other friend’s “How my cousin borrowed my Batman #1 (Detective Comics #27) and I never saw it again.”
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
March 29th, 2014 at 13:08
“How my cousin borrowed my Batman #1 (Detective Comics #27) and I never saw it again.”
This almost gave me a heart attack.
Meanwhile, I miss letter columns in comic books. Those were just so personal and really made you feel the editors were real people and that you could provide honest feedback. Nowadays, they’ve removed lettercols, and anything going through their official sites/boards are usually so filtered.
March 30th, 2014 at 00:48
Your Grace, perhaps the X-Men Omnibus Vol. 1 (by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby) may have the letter he wrote. Many Marvel omnibuses reprint the letter pages of the yesteryears, Your Grace. And, that’s the problem with Stan Lee, he has a very faulty memory even in his younger years (and that, he virtually took credit on almost everything he “created” in Marvel in the 1960s, including Kirby and Ditko’s co-creations as well until in the 2000s, but the damage was done), Your Grace.
March 31st, 2014 at 00:45
@allancarreon There are still letter columns exist in some select Marvel books (like the current Hawkeye and Daredevil series). Many times, Spider-Man’s letter column is still operational, but not as often as it used to be. Many Image comics that are successful like Saga and Walking Dead have letter columns.