Iconoclastic cartoonist Howard Chaykin has championed free speech and great comics for over 50 years. Between his work as the artist on the first 10 issues of Marvel’s 1977 Star Wars series, his scathing political satire American Flagg, and his controversial x-rated Black Kiss, Howard Chaykin has spent his career pushing the boundaries of comic book storytelling with unforgettable postmodern takes on pulp heroes and science fiction. Now, Marvel and Fantagraphics are teaming up to publish Lost Marvels No. 2: Howard Chaykin Vol. 1: Dominic Fortune, Monark Starstalker, and Phantom Eagle, a celebration of Chaykin’s work that collects some of his earliest Marvel comics and his jaw-dropping collaboration with The Boys and Preacher writer Garth Ennis.
In his introduction to the collection, comics scholar Brandon Costello writes, “Bringing together stories from Howard Chaykin’s early and later Marvel Comics days, Lost Marvels: Howard Chaykin showcases essential work from the career of a groundbreaking artist acclaimed for his formal innovations and narrative sophistication.”
Due out in August, Lost Marvels No. 2: Howard Chaykin Vol. 1 follows the success of Marvel and Fantagraphics’s Lost Marvels No. 1: Tower of Shadows, which reproduced all nine issues of the never-before-collected horror anthology. The two celebrated publishers are continuing the ambitious line of hardcover releases with two more hardcover volumes in the Lost Marvels series this year, with more releases to follow in the coming years.
- In August, Fantagraphics will publish Lost Marvels No. 2: Howard Chaykin Vol. 1: Dominic Fortune, Monark Starstalker, and Phantom Eagle. When Howard Chaykin broke into comics in the 1970s, there was nothing quite like him. His original characters Dominic Fortune and Monark Starstalker took classic pulp heroes and ran them through a postmodern blender. This new volume collects some of the most exciting, sought-after work by Chaykin from 1975 to 2008, including retro-science-fiction bounty hunter Monark Starstalker’s debut appearance and all the Dominic Fortune stories, including the character’s unexpurgated Max series, published a generation later. Completing the package is the collision between pulp heroism and the devastating, bloody realities of World War I in Chaykin’s 111-page collaboration with The Boys writer Garth Ennis on War Is Hell: The First Flight of the Phantom Eagle. As the artist behind Marvel’s comic adaptation of the first Star Wars movie and the creator of iconic, influential series like the sci-fi satire American Flagg! and the adults only vampire saga Black Kiss, Howard Chaykin has earned his reputation as a prolific and essential cartoonist.
- In November, Fantagraphics will publish Lost Marvels No. 3: Savage Tales of the 1980s. For 13 months in the mid-1980s, Marvel assembled some of its strongest artists and writers to tell gritty, harrowing, and blackly humorous adventure stories ranging from gangster noir to historical battlefields to the deadly old West to post-apocalyptic futures. Unseen for nearly 40 years, here is some of the most shocking work of artists John Severin, John Buscema, Sam Glanzman, Val Mayerik, Ron Wagner, Grey Morrow, Wayne Vansant, Herb Trimpe, Michael Golden, Joe Jusko, Mary Wilshire, Arthur Suydam, Will Jungkuntz, Vincent Waller, and Ken Steacy, and writers Chuck Dixon, Bill Wray, Don Kraar, Robert Kanigher, Denny O’Neil, Doug Murray, and Archie Goodwin. Stories include Severin and Dixon’s “By Rail to Vladivostock,” Murray and Golden’s “The Nam, 1967,” Glanzman’s “Of War and Peace: The Trinity,” Jungkuntz’ Blood & Gutz series, and Trimpe’s Skywarriors series. Savage Tales of the 1980s reprints all 8 issues of the magazine’s run, the first time they have seen print since 1986. They are reproduced in facsimile format, including color covers.
Preview the brand new volume of Lost Marvels below:
The Lost Marvels series is dedicated to introducing remarkable stories to a new generation of readers and restoring them to their rightful place in comics history. Lost Marvels No. 1: Tower of Shadows is available now from Fantagraphics; Lost Marvels No. 2: Howard Chaykin Vol. 1 will be available on August 12, 2025; and Lost Marvels No. 3: Savage Tales will be published on No
