"My Word!!! Sherlock Holmes is a JUNKIE!!!" by Ian Baker

With apologies to Neal Adams, E.R. Cruz and Sidney Paget.

Cataloging old comics recently, I came across Eternity #5 , a Sherlock Holmes comic containing reprints of the 1930s newspaper strips illustrated by Leo O’Mealia (a fantastic illustrator whose work is reminiscent of Mike Kaluta - see cover of Action #2) ,and I erroneously made the assumption that Sherlock Holmes had featured quite a bit in comics over the years, despite traditional Sherlock Holmes stories really not lending themselves to the things that comic books excel at - punchy narrative and explosive action.  

Attempts to turn Holmes into an action hero within comic pages have generally engendered a lukewarm response, Guy Richie’s movies not withstanding. However, the more recent TV series of Sherlock and Elementary, set in the modern age, have successfully breathed new life into an old character, being both commercial and critical successes, and have done so while avoiding the tropes that have sometimes defined the character to the extent of becoming a cliche.

Today we’ll take a closer look at Sherlock Holmes in comics within the confines of the Bronze Age.

As this blog is both Portsmouth and comic centric, let’s start with a brief primer on Holmes’ connection to Portsmouth through his creator, Edinburgh native Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Here are a few facts about his creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle:

1. Arthur Conan Doyle came to work in Southsea as a young doctor in 1882 to set up a medical practice at Bush Villas in Elm Grove. Here he took up writing Holmes stories to while away the time between patients (strange he would have spare time as I’m sure Portsmouth was awash with social diseases at that time) 
2. His first Holmes adventure written in Southsea was A Study in Scarlet , followed by The Sign of Four.
3. He based elements of the character of Holmes , along with his approach to deductive reasoning, on his mentor the Edinburgh Doctor Joseph Bell 
4. He was also the first goalkeeper of Portsmouth Association Football Club, predecessor to today’s Portsmouth Football Club (“The 3 Lions problem” was an early discarded story idea :-) )

Mark Wingett’s blog on Doyle’s early days in Southsea is well worth a quick read. In addition, many of the Holmes stories written by Doyle contain references to Portsmouth, Southsea, Fratton and the surrounding area, and more detail can be found here.

Despite the number of books, films and television adaptations, I’ve been surprised there are so few iterations of Sherlock Holmes in comic books at all, and only five appearances in the Bronze Age in total.  

Holmes’ appearances in the pages of DC and Marvel in the mid-1970s coincided with that period of frantic expansion prior to the “DC implosion” when the major comic companies were looking around for literary properties that could be easily adapted - the pulp characters such as The Shadow, Doc Savage and The Avenger being prime examples that were transferred with varying success a few years earlier.

Here is the list of appearances by Sherlock Holmes in the pages of DC and Marvel, a mixture of straight adaptations and new material which clearly indicates that there was no strategic plan for developing the character.

• DC: Sherlock Holmes #1 (Pub 26th June 1975) by Denny O’Neil and E.R. Cruz, adapting The Final Problem and The Empty House, as an integrated story. 
  
  
  
• DC: Joker #6 (pub Dec 4th 1975) - where the Joker fights head -to-head against an actor who believes he is Sherlock.  Writer: Denny O’Neil Art: Irv Novick 
  
  
  
• Marvel: Marvel Preview #5 and #6 - A surprisingly faithful adaptation of Hound of the Baskervilles. (published 1976-01-06 and 1976-04-06)  These two stories are superior adaptations drawn by Val Mayerik and Tony Dezuniga ; written by Doug Moench

  

  © Marvel Preview #5

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  © Marvel Preview #6

  
  
  
  
• DC: Detective #572  (published Dec 26th, 1986) celebrating the 50th anniversary of Batman (Mike W Barr and Ernie Cruz, Ed Denny O’Neil).   The Detective Story features an elderly Holmes encountering Batman.

  

And that’s it.

So why only 5 comics?  Denny O’Neil - as editor and/or writer, was the engine behind the DC incarnations, and has spoken of his affinity for Sherlock Holmes in blogs and videos over the years. Over at Marvel, Archie Goodwin provided editorial duties.

The Marvel Preview issues which Goodwin edited are superb adaptations which take their cue from the Sidney Paget illustrations. Val Mayerik’s illustrations evoke both Paget and Berni Wrightson in equal measure and was obviously a labour of love.  

In contrast, the DC comics adhere to a Basil Rathbone-clone approach inspired by the Universal Studios films of the 1930s and 1940s. All fog, deerstalkers and  “gor blimey’s”. E.R. Cruz's art in the singular issue of “Sherlock Holmes #1” from DC is excellent as well, and the fine lines would have benefitted from a Black & White presentation.

So why did Sherlock Holmes not prosper in the Bronze age of superheroes? Well, there are a number of reasons.

• A boring costume. Comic book protagonists dress the same from comic to comic, and so stories about regular citizens (even smart ones) are not really suited unless our heroes are members of the police or military, where a uniform provides a consistent look to the hero. DC decided upon clothing Holmes in a green checkered coat and deerstalker in all situations - not the most dynamic of costumes.

• Lack of Motivation. All great comic book heroes have an origin story. Holmes has no back story or motivation beyond the need for mental stimulation. Doyle’s cold, eccentric thinking machine  has no real friends other than Watson. He describes himself as a “high-functioning sociopath” .

• Lack of Differentiation. Sherlock is insufficiently differentiated from other crime solvers, and pales in comparison to heroes who can both solve crime with their brains and fists. If he really was the World’s greatest detective, where does that leave Batman?  (I have yet to read a Batman comic where he solves a crime just by thinking through the clues.  Or is there?)

• No Rogue’s Gallery. Holmes has only one worthy villain - Moriarty - who has been already dispatched in DC issue #1 .
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• Poor use of Locations.  Holmes of the books traveled around the country - he was not stuck in a foggy London. In the Bronza Age the convention was that heroes were bound to a place - Gotham City, Metropolis, Star City, Central City, etc. - and a fog-ridden London would provide limited scope for varied encounters.
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• Constrained by Public Domain.  The Bronze Age adaptations were based on the Holmes character as presented in the Public Domain stories, and the writers were unable to use the stories or characterization of Holmes as found in  the Copyrighted Stories between 1923 and 1927, when Conan Doyle’s personal losses in the Great War brought humanizing changes to the Holmes character .

If we consider the key attributes of Holmes as described by Doyle in the books, we find a cold, calculating, misogynistic, drug addict, relying heavily on Watson as his Boswell, his one fixed point in a changing world.  These are all qualities that make him interesting on TV, yet by the very nature of the Comics Code Authority in the 1970s ensured that these admittedly anti-social qualities could not be easily portrayed.  

The breakthrough of DC’s Green Lantern- Green Arrow #85 in 1972 of portraying the effects of substance abuse was insufficient to result in a major sea change in comic book stories in the Bronze Age. It was more an outlier that signaled the end of “relevance” in mainstream comic books, and certainly did not pave the way for a compelling presentation of Sherlock Holmes.

So is there a good comic to be made to feature Sherlock Holmes today? 

I do believe that it is possible. I am heartened by the superior mystery and character work being turned out today at Image by Chris Condon and Jacob Phillips, or by Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips , all working in the the noir genre. Their books demonstrate that there is room for non-superhero stories with intelligence, no longer relying on explosive action, in the independent creator-owned segment. I look forward to seeing what is possible. 

Just avoid the foggy streets and deerstalker.