Before Watchmen: Is Ozymandias Alan Moore?

I don’t like the execution of this Jae Lee cover, but I really appreciate the concept of it. When Clark Kent rips open his shirt like this, he reveals his true, more powerful Superman self beneath. But when Ozymandias pulls off his costume, he reveals the much more powerful (and dangerous) Adrian Veidt. I think the message this image sends is perfectly fitting. I just wish someone other than Lee had drawn it.

I unfortunately find the variant cover by Jill Thompson rather off-putting. There’s something about this style that feels rather amateurish to me. Ozymandias appears slightly off model. And Bubastis isn’t even the right color. Was this a rush job? It’s a shame there isn’t any appealing art with this issue because I think Len Wein actually did something interesting here.

The issue begins with Adrian conceding that even though he’s the smartest man in the world, he’s not the most creative. He was convinced he had to do something dramatic to save the world, but he had absolutely no idea what to do. So he turned to the world of science fiction. Adrian assembled a massive collection of books, TV shows, and movies, which he spent several months consuming. But even after reading and watching everything he could get his hands on, he still lacked the inspiration he needed. So he went back through everything a second time. And then a third time.

Finally, something spoke to him. An episode of a 1960s show called The Outer Limits, which featured an elaborate plot to create a fake alien scare in order to unite the world divided by the Cold War. Adrian became obsessed with that episode, called The Architects of Fear, and watched it repeatedly for several days. Seeming to forget it was a work of fiction, he scrutinized every detail of the characters’ plans, determined to deduce why their plan had failed. Ultimately, Adrian decided they didn’t go big enough.

So he quickly built a biolab and tried to genetically create the most hideous creature he could imagine. He ended up with an adorable kitten of a tiger/lynx hybrid. Adrian fell in love with his new pet, which he named Bubastis. However, he was once again forced to confront the limitations of his imagination, so he launched an elaborate plan that began with the purchase of an isolated island and taking every precaution to conceal it from all available public records. And then spend several years constructing all the necessary infrastructure on said island.

Time passes and Adrian is horrified to learn that President Nixon has sent Dr. Manhattan to Vietnam. Adrian is even more bothered by Nixon changing the Constitution so he can serve a third term. So he takes this moment to publicly reveal his secret identity, making the same striking pose he did on the cover. But when the police went on strike, and Nite Owl teamed up with Comedian, Adrian chose to put his costume back on and go out and help. However, he doesn’t really do much. He injures a kid who spray-painted “Who Watches the Watchmen” on a wall, then he beats up a guy who was stealing a TV. We later learn that Adrian was just hoping that enough people would see him in costume to spread rumors that would boost the sales of his Ozymandias action figures.

At the time of the Keene Act passing, Adrian is frustrated that all his years of working with Dr. Manhattan has yet to reveal the secret of teleportation to him. But he does take some comfort in observing the technological progress the two of them have brought to America with electric cars and affordable blimps.

So I had an epiphany while reading this. What if Len Wein had been writing Adrian Veidt as if he were Alan Moore all along? A genius, to be sure, but also a cocky, overly wordy one who is easily distracted and not necessarily the most creative. Think about it: Moore’s most celebrated works weren’t exactly original creations. V for Vendetta was a modernization of the Guy Fawkes legend. The League of Extraordinary Gentleman was a conglomeration of famous literary characters freely available in the public domain. And his original plan for Watchmen was to involve the group of characters DC had recently acquired from Charlton Comics. DC wouldn’t let Moore work with Blue Beetle, Captain Atom, and the rest, so Moore just barely tweaked those characters and left everything else the same.

And then there’s the ending. Moore really did steal his climax from The Outer Limits, but he didn’t tell anybody until Wein (the editor of the original series) discovered the connection while issue #10 was in production. Wein demanded that Moore change it, but Moore refused, choosing instead to randomly throw in a line of dialogue from The Architects of Fear episode as a tribute. Of course, this decision would have major ramifications for the film adaptation of Watchmen, as DC desperately sought to avoid a lawsuit. But Moore didn’t care about that.

Maybe I’m reading too much into this, but it really feels like Wein was making fun of Moore here. “Oh, sure, you need to read every single sci-fi book known to man and watch every TV show three times over for ‘research’ … yeah, right!” I don’t know if that was Wein’s intention, but this reading certainly made this series a lot more enjoyable to me. So that’s what I’m going to go with.

1974 Part One: The beginning of the end

What does it mean for your team when the owner decides to run for governor? Well, in the case of the Utah Stars, it meant nothing but bad news. The year of 1974 was the beginning of the end for the ABA in Utah. But it also was the beginning of the NBA’s arrival to Utah.

As if it wasn’t bad enough that the Stars had to spend most of the 1972-73 season knowing they’d soon lose their head coach, Utah then spent much of the 1973-74 season with the knowledge that owner Bill Daniels would be selling the team. In January 1974, Daniels announced his candidacy for the Colorado governorship. He promised to hold on to the Stars until the season ended, and he vowed to do everything he could to keep the team in Utah. Unfortunately, it proved enormously difficult for him to find someone willing and able to purchase the club.

And then in February, the Stars were hit with a bombshell. Their top player, Zelmo Beaty, had filed a lawsuit for more than $1 million. This all began in October 1973, with Beaty holding out of training camp to try to get a better contract. The Stars responded by suing him, but he quickly agreed to pay a fine and return to the team in order to have that lawsuit dropped. But a few months later, Beaty decided to sue his team partly for that training camp fine, but mostly for failing to honor all the terms of the contract he had originally signed with Jim Kirst back with the Los Angeles Stars. For better or worse, Beaty agreed to continue playing for Utah while the lawyers battled it out in the courts.

So with all that looming over Utah’s head, the players tried to stay focused on winning basketball games and the front office of Vince Boryla and Arnie Ferrin tried to prepare for the draft. Everybody apparently hated the ridiculous format of four separate drafts in 1973, so the ABA wisely pared it down to a more standardized system. Of course, they still continued their practice of beating the NBA to the punch, holding the first two rounds of their draft in March, then the next seven rounds in April. Neither of Utah’s first two picks — Joe C. Meriweather and Len Kosmalski — joined the team, which sadly was all too commonplace in the ABA.

Between the second and third rounds of the draft, Daniels finally ended his months-long search for a buyer. Daniels had allegedly asked for $2.5 million for anybody willing to keep the team in Salt Lake City and $3 million for out-of-state offers. On April 1, Daniels announced that a Salt Lake-based corporation called West Am agreed to purchase the Stars. (Is it really wise to make such important announcements on April Fools’ Day?)

Keith Howick, president of West Am, promised to not only keep the Stars in Salt Lake, but also to keep the team’s front office in place. Although the purchase of the team (which was scheduled to be finalized on August 1) included Vince Boryla’s minority share, Howick hoped to keep Boryla on board as team president for at least two more seasons. Daniels perhaps felt a little strange selling the team to a company, but he acknowledged that the prices of professional sports teams had risen to the point where individuals couldn’t afford them by themselves. But could West Am actually afford the Stars? The company owned a small ski resort, a motorhome manufacturer, and various real estate properties throughout the state. Nowadays, it doesn’t seem like too big of a hurdle for such a corporation to come up with $2.5 million. But back then? Well, I consider it a bit of a red flag that West Am immediately began calling on the government’s help to enable them to sell off 80% of the team as public stock options. West Am claimed this was because they wanted to let local Utahns have a more direct ownership in the team. But I (with the benefit of hindsight) can only see this as an admission that West Am did not have the required capital.

Regardless, this was an exciting time for the Stars. And it may have been the allure of new owners that prompted Boryla and Ferrin to make a massive gamble in the third round of the draft.

Moses Malone was a high schooler from Virginia, who had been considered by many to be the next Wilt Chamberlain. He was also intrigued by the idea of becoming the first basketball player since the 1940s to completely skip college and go straight to a professional league. The NBA forbade this, but the ABA was willing to set a new precedent. And the Stars were willing to take that risk. Of course, this pick was incredibly polarizing at the time, with many people — including in the local media — criticizing the Stars for seeking to exploit a teenager.

Of course, there was no guarantee that Malone would actually join the Stars. That saga would take months to resolve. In the meantime, there was still plenty of basketball left to play! So let’s take a look at the five most interesting players this season.

Zelmo Beaty’s legendary career had finally begun to approach its end. Although the 34-year-old managed to appear in 77 games, he only put up 13.4 points and 8.0 rebounds per game. And he missed the All-Star Game for the first time in his ABA career. But he was still regarded as the leader of the team and many envisioned him as the ideal mentor to young Moses Malone (should he choose to join the Stars).

Willie Wise once again was Utah’s best player, putting up 22.3 points, 7.6 rebounds, and 1.4 steals per game. He made his third straight All-Star Game and was on the All-Defensive First Team for the second year in a row.

James Jones also had another strong season with 16.8 points, 5.2 assists, and 1.9 steals per game, along with an ABA-high .884 free throw percentage. He made his second-straight All-Star appearance, which was his sixth overall.

Ron Boone continued to thrive in his starting role, averaging 17.6 points, 5.2 rebounds, 5.0 assists, and 1.5 steals per game. He also was named an All-Star for the second time of his career, his first time as a member of the Utah Stars.

Gerald Govan was acquired by the Stars in 1972, when Utah sent former Ute Merv Jackson to Memphis. Govan was a 6-10 center from Jersey City, who played college ball at St. Mary of the Plains in Kansas. He was drafted by the St. Louis Hawks in the 11th round in 1964, but he didn’t make the team. So he went to Italy until he signed with the New Orleans Buccaneers in 1967. In 1969, he made his first and only All-Star appearance. His numbers dipped by the time he reached Utah — just 7.0 points and 8.8 rebounds per game in 1973-74 — but he was a reliable player who helped ease the pressure off the oft-injured Beaty.

New coach John Mullaney kept the Stars on their winning ways, finishing with a 51-33 record to win the Western Division for the third-straight year. Utah needed six games to eliminate San Diego in the first round, before facing off against Indiana for the fifth consecutive season. Once again, the Western Division Finals went a full seven games. Fortunately, Game 7 was played in the Salt Palace. Unfortunately, Zelmo Beaty was unable to play.

However, James Jones stepped up big time with 29 points, nine assists, seven rebounds, and two steals as Utah cruised to a shocking 109-87 victory. This put the Stars back in the Finals for the third time in franchise history, this time pitting them against superstar Julius Erving and the New York Nets. Utah dropped the first two games in New York before returning to Salt Lake for Game 3. Despite Jones’ 28 points and Beaty’s 22 points with 16 rebounds, the Stars lost by three points in overtime. (Willie Wise’s 7-for-20 shooting performance certainly didn’t help matters.)

The Stars did avoid a sweep, thanks to Jones’ 24 points and Gerald Govan’s monster 23 rebounds in Game 4. But the Nets claimed the title with a 111-100 win in Game 5. Sadly, Zelmo Beaty (who apparently had the flu) only had four points and zero rebounds in what turned out to be his final game for the Utah Stars. It also ended up being the final game for Willie Wise and James Jones in Utah uniforms, though they both performed much better. Wise had 34 points and Jones scored 20. Whether anyone involved knew it at the time, it was the end of an era.

Just 11 days after losing the championship to the Nets, Bill Daniels was forced to make an unhappy announcement. The proposed deal with West Am Corporation had fallen through. Daniels refused to go into much detail of why the agreement was canceled or what happened to the down payment West Am had given him of more than $50,000 and 350 acres near Heber City. From what I can tell, it seems the biggest sticking point was West Am’s inability to guarantee a full sale of 80% of the team through stocks by September 1.

In a tense press conference, Daniels vowed to sell the Stars by August 1, saying that date would give the new owners time to relocate the franchise in time for the 1974-75 season, if necessary. Although he prioritized keeping the Stars in Salt Lake, Daniels did raise his asking price from $2.5 million to $2.8 million to offset the losses he had sustained since April. The sad fact was that the Stars were bleeding money. Despite being one of the winningest teams in the ABA, attendance at the Salt Palace had been in a steady decline since their 1971 championship. And nobody really knew why. Even the league’s biggest star, Dr. J, couldn’t sell out a Finals game in Salt Lake. Was it because the Stars didn’t have any local talent on the roster by this point? Was it because basketball fans had come to regard the ABA as an inferior product to the NBA? Was it because Ron Boone was so boring to watch?

Vince Boryla went on the offensive during the May 21 press conference. He placed all the blame on the media for driving fans away. He claimed the Stars only received negative attention from the papers — even after they reached the Finals. Daniels hastily distanced himself from Boryla’s remarks, and he put out another concrete number that would serve to guide the next potential buyer. He set the Stars’ break-even point at 5,000 season tickets, but in 1974, they had less than 3,500.

Enter financial consultant James A. Collier. He launched an ambitious “Save Our Stars” campaign to drive up season ticket sales. By July 24, the Stars had reached 5,000, but their goal was actually 7,000. Both he and the local government didn’t just want the Stars to break even — they wanted the team to actually be profitable. They worked out a complicated deal involving escrows and stock options and tax rates that went way above my head. But from what I can tell, that 7,000 goal was never met. But that didn’t stop Collier from trying to purchase the Stars. He spent all summer quietly negotiating with his team of 20 investors. That number soon dropped by half, then finally six by the time August rolled around. Which then set up a rather unusual press conference.

Without ever actually saying that he had purchased the Utah Stars, Collier indirectly implied that he and his five fellow investors were now in control of the franchise. If you think that sounds fishy, you’re not alone. One of the first people to jump ship at this news was head coach Joe Mullaney. In his lone season with the Stars, he not only took them to the Finals, but he was named co-Coach of the Year. But even though he had two years left on his contract, he decided he didn’t want to risk missing any paychecks (as so many people involved in the ABA did). So Mullaney went to Memphis, then St. Louis, before returning briefly to the NBA with Buffalo. But he was out of the big leagues by 1978, finding work in Italy, at Brown, and then finally back to Providence, where he retired in 1985. He eventually passed away in Providence, Rhode Island, in 2000 at the age of 75.

It was pretty much an open secret that Mullaney was headed out the door by the time Collier and associates held their odd press conference. So Collier came prepared, using the opportunity to announce the hiring of former Ute Bucky Buckwalter as director of player personnel. Although Collier didn’t explicitly say it, everybody naturally assumed that Buckwalter would also be named the head coach. Of course, the Stars did officially make an offer to Zelmo Beaty, who was still interested in becoming a player/coach. But he was insulted by their offer of $25,000 when the average salary for ABA coaches was $50,000.

Morris “Bucky” Buckwalter was born and raised in Oregon, but played for the University of Utah, leading them to the NCAA Tournament quarterfinals in 1956, only to lose to Bill Russell and the San Francisco Dons. Buckwalter wasn’t good enough to go pro, so he got involved in coaching, joining the Ute staff as an assistant in 1959. He served under the legendary Jack Gardner until 1967, when he got his first head coaching job at Seattle University. He stayed there until becoming an assistant for the NBA’s Seattle SuperSonics in 1972. In 1973, he was named the interim head coach to replace Tom Nissalke (remember that name). 

After a 13-24 record, Seattle wasn’t too interested in keeping Buckwalter, but the Utah Stars were happy to have him for two reasons. One, he was a connection to Utah — something the Stars hadn’t had since LaDell Andersen left. And two, he promised to play an up-tempo game. Even though Joe Mullaney’s slowed-down isolation offense worked well with Utah’s aging roster, the fans hated him for it. Apparently reaching the Finals didn’t matter if it wasn’t fun to watch. In any case, no one was too sad to see Mullaney leave.

And it seems like very few people lamented Vince Boryla’s departure, either. His shares in the team had (allegedly) been purchased by Collier and associates, and Collier himself had claimed Boryla’s position as team president. Boryla had been an effective general manager, making big, bold moves that helped the Stars win the 1971 title and remain a contender for the following three years. But he had also been a brash, contentious figure, constantly complaining about the media and the ABA’s ineffectual commissioners. 

I don’t think his criticisms of the sports reporters was warranted, but I do empathize with his complaints about the ABA. I find it completely outrageous that the league allowed another team to essentially steal Utah’s No. 1 draft pick. I also have a bit of sympathy for Boryla being forced to make all the hard decisions for the franchise. While Daniels seemed to do little more than write checks from Colorado, Boryla was the one dealing with Utah’s constantly rotating coaching carousel and the increasing cost of the players’ contracts. Yeah, Daniels did have deep pockets, but it became harder to justify his spending when the team kept losing more money each year.

Boryla kept busy by becoming the agent for his quarterback son, Mike, who was drafted in fourth round in 1974 by Cincinnati. Mike Boryla was a Pro Bowler in 1975, but a knee injury ended his career in 1978. Vince Boryla returned to the NBA as the general manager of the Denver Nuggets. In 1985, he was named Executive of the Year. In 2016, he died in Denver at the age of 89.

With Boryla and Mullaney out of the picture, that left Arnie Ferrin, James Collier, and Bucky Buckwalter to try to convince Moses Malone to sign with the Stars. Shortly after announcing his “takeover” of the team, Collier led the way of wooing the 19-year-old phenom. Wisely, Zelmo Beaty was not involved in these efforts. I imagine his frustrations with the Stars would have turned Malone away faster than Robert Parish. But convincing Malone to join still took an enormous amount of work, mainly because he had already signed a letter of intent with the University of Maryland. For one wild week in August, Malone dominated the headlines, seemingly changing his mind back and forth each day. And the amount of money Utah was offering him also varied widely. But finally, the intense negotiations paid off for the Stars’ new management. Partly because Malone was worried the NCAA would punish him for receiving money from college recruiters.

After initially seeking a 15-year contract worth over $3 million, the Stars signed Malone to a five-year deal worth approximately $1 million. The team was notoriously cagey about revealing any financial details, especially at this time, when Collier wouldn’t even explicitly say whether he purchased the team. Regardless, it was an enormous amount of money for a team with cash flow problems to dedicate toward one player. This deal reminds me eerily of the Los Angeles Stars signing Zelmo Beaty. It was the right move for the team, but the wrong move for the franchise.

This was supposed to be an exciting moment for the Stars. They had returned to the Finals, secured a new owner who would keep the team in Utah, and they added one of the nation’s top prospects. But everything continued to crumble down around the franchise. And for Bill Daniels, too. Despite pouring approximately $300,000 of his own funds into his political campaign, Daniels lost in September’s Republican primary to incumbent John Vanderhoof, who went on to lose to Democrat Richard Lamm in the general election. Perhaps he was distracted by endless negotiations of the sale of the Stars, or his still on-going lawsuit against his first coach, Bill Sharman.

The bad news continued when general manager Arnie Ferrin resigned just one week after Daniels’ gubernatorial defeat. Ferrin took a position in the University of Utah’s athletic department, but he made it clear that he was worried about the financial stability of the Stars and the ABA as a whole. He admitted that he (and perhaps others in Utah’s front office) had really been counting on the long-promised merger with the NBA. But that Oscar Robertson lawsuit still hadn’t been resolved, putting the future of the ABA in serious jeopardy. Ferrin quickly was promoted to athletic director for the Utes and held that position until 1985. In 2022, he died at age 97.

Just three days after Ferrin announced his resignation, the Stars released Zelmo Beaty, while Willie Wise and Jimmy Jones announced their intentions to hold out of training camp. Talk about everything happening at once! Of course, each of these decisions had slowly been building all summer long, so let’s break them down one at a time.

Despite Beaty’s frustration with the Stars, he insisted that he wanted to retire in Utah. He had received an offer from the Lakers in August, but decided to give the Stars a month to try to match it. In explaining how the negotiations broke down, Beaty casually dropped what I consider a huge bombshell: “I don’t think the fans are aware of the fact that Bill Daniels still owns the Utah Stars.” That’s right. Everyone had spent all summer referring to Collier as the owner, and Daniels and Collier played along with it, even though they both knew full well it wasn’t true.

This was particularly troubling for Beaty, who seemed like he had been hoping for a fresh start with Collier. Beaty realized he would never be able to get a fair deal from Daniels after he had sued his employer in February. So Utah decided to cut their losses with Beaty and allow him to reunite with Bill Sharman in Los Angeles. Beaty didn’t play particularly well in his lone season as a Laker and retired in 1975. He then finally fulfilled his dream of becoming a coach, by taking over the Virginia Squires. But he only put up a 9-33 record in that hectic final season of the ABA. 

Beaty never held another coaching job after that. And it seems like he largely disengaged from basketball, apart from a couple of brief gigs with the Utah Jazz broadcasting team. In 2013, he died of cancer at age 73. Three years later, he was posthumously enshrined into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. His wife of 50 years, Ann, delivered an extremely brief prerecorded speech. She and her two children were then officially welcomed into the Hall of Fame by Lenny Wilkens, who had played with Zelmo on the St. Louis Hawks.

In an October press conference, Daniels sheepishly apologized for pretending he had sold the team. He also admitted that Collier had only sold 5,600 season tickets — well short of the promised 7,000. Even worse, many of the people who had purchased tickets had backed out. But Daniels remained adamant that Collier would still become the owner of the franchise by the end of October — they just needed to finalize the details, which apparently included a massive drop in price to $1.8 million. Unfortunately, Daniels chose to use Jones and Wise as scapegoats, arguing that the holdouts were preventing the sale.

While Beaty’s departure hurt, it wasn’t terribly surprising. Nor was Jimmy Jones’. Back in June, after his contract expired, Jones made it quite clear that he would leave unless he got a pay raise. Jones asked for a four-year deal worth $250,000. He said that Utah had offered him only $80,000, while Collier claimed the deal was for $150,000. In any case, Jones made the argument that because the new offer was more than 10% less than his current salary, he was now legally a free agent. This was another case where Utah’s secrecy with financials came back to hurt them.

In October, Jones signed with the NBA team that had originally drafted him back in 1967, the Washington Bullets. The Stars tried to prevent this with a legal injunction (not that they didn’t have enough lawsuits on their hands), but were ultimately unsuccessful. Unfortunately, Jones’ NBA career turned out to be a dud. He tore the ligaments in his knee in 1975 and had to retire in 1976. Sadly, he was recently seen working as an 81-year-old Uber driver in Las Vegas.

While the Stars had all summer to deal with Beaty and Jones, Willie Wise’s trade request caught them completely off guard. And they did not take it well. In addition to fining him $300 a day, Daniels refused to trade Wise or even sell his contract — even though he publicly admitted that seven other teams had made serious offers for the valuable two-way forward. Wise could have ended the standoff at any time by simply rejoining the Stars, but he was just as stubborn as Daniels, saying he’d rather be poor and happy than rich and miserable.

And why was Wise so miserable? He had learned that Vince Boryla (and/or Wise’s agent) had secretly altered his contract, which had included a substantial amount of money to be deferred until 1975. But without Wise’s consent, that deferment had been pushed back to 1979. With the turmoil of Daniels struggling to sell the Stars to Collier, Wise rightly worried that his contract would never be paid in full. He was also quite distressed with how the team treated Beaty and Jones. After spending years propping Beaty up as the face of the franchise and Jones as the best guard in the league, Utah was loath to pay them what they were worth and quick to demonize them as disloyal and selfish. 

Wise aptly put it thusly: “They say they are tired of players who don’t live up to their contracts, but why can’t we get tired of them making promises and not living up to them or fulfilling clauses in specific times? Or doing things underhanded that we’re not aware of? We have no recourse? We have to take it and the abuse dished out in the papers?”

Can you believe that Zelmo Beaty was named president of the players union ahead of this guy? Seriously, every interview I’ve watched or read from Willie Wise has blown me away with how articulate and thoughtful he was. Anyway, Wise’s contract was eventually sold to Virginia, but not until January 30, 1975. Wise spent two seasons with the Squires, which meant that he was coached by Beaty, but only for a little bit. Beaty wasn’t hired until January 26, 1976, and Wise went down with a season-ending injury on February 24. After the ABA collapsed, Wise signed with the Denver Nuggets, but was limited to a reserve role. The next year, he joined the Seattle SuperSonics, but only appeared in two games before another injury forced his retirement. Today, Wise is working with Jimmy Jones to advocate for higher pensions of former ABA players.

So, to recap, in one year, Bill Daniels …

• Spent months negotiating a sale of the Utah Stars to West Am Corporation, which ultimately fell through

• Spent even more months negotiating a sale to James A. Collier and his associates, which never fully materialized

• Spent a sizable chunk of his personal fortune on a failed run for governor of Colorado

• Spent quite a bit of time and money in court, battling lawsuits against his former coach and two of his players

• Lost his current coach, team president, and general manager

• Lost the three best players of his team

But he did gain Moses Malone … a transaction that only cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars that he didn’t really have. As October turned into November and then December, Daniels was forced to finally admit that Collier would never be able to purchase the Stars. Daniels promised to keep the team in Salt Lake through the 1974-75 season, but beyond that was anyone’s guess. For the first time all year, he actually publicly began musing about moving the team to Cincinnati, Toronto, or even back to Los Angeles and Anaheim. He also expressed interest in owning the Denver Nuggets, since their owner lived in San Diego and would have rather owned the Conquistadors. The only thing snagging up this potential trade of franchises was Daniels’ inability to sell the Stars.

So, things were looking pretty grim at the end of 1974. But I’ll leave on a high note. One good thing brought about by James Collier was the introduction of fresh new jerseys.

Collier replaced that obnoxious giant star in the middle of the jersey with a fun, dramatic swoop, reminiscent of the controversial Atlanta Hawks jerseys of the day. Obviously these new uniforms weren’t enough to save the Stars, but they were a welcome change of pace.

I had originally planned on adding the formation of the New Orleans Jazz to this post, but I decided it was already long enough. (There was just so much drama this year!) So next time, we’ll explore the origin of the franchise that eventually became Utah’s preeminent professional basketball team.

Before Watchmen: A little coordination would have helped

At last, we come to the end of Darwyn Cooke’s amazing Minutemen series, which has by far been the most consistent and engaging product of the cash-grab bonanza from DC. Cooke concludes his miniseries with a haunting image of the Hooded Justice, who was by far the most mysterious and enigmatic character in Alan Moore’s Watchmen. The Hooded Justice presented the most world-building, story-writing opportunities, as he’s essentially a blank slate. But Cooke resisted that temptation so strongly, he even refused to give us a clear look at him on his cover. Of course, as the story will soon reveal, this may not even be the real Hooded Justice …

The variant cover by Becky Cloonan is underwhelmingly mediocre. It’s your basic collage of the Minutemen, with Hooded Justice looming large over everyone. But there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason for the staging of these characters or the expressions on their faces. Some are happy, some are stern, and I have no idea why.

Last issue ended with the cliffhanger of Nite Owl being knocked out by the Hooded Justice while trying to rescue a young boy. This issue jumped ahead so abruptly, I thought I had missed something. Nite Owl is being given a key to the city at an event attended by Marilyn Monroe, Joe DiMaggio, and many of the people who had been rescued by Nite Owl, including the boy who had been kidnapped by Hooded Justice. However, even though Nite Owl had saved the boy, he had failed to catch Hooded Justice.

After the ceremony, Nite Owl teamed up with Mothman one last time to try to find Hooded Justice. First they visit Nelson Gardner, who admits he hasn’t seen Hooded Justice in years. But as the three talk, they simultaneously realize that Hooded Justice’s most likely hiding place is their old headquarters. So Nite Owl and Mothman storm the tower and, sure enough, Hooded Justice is there waiting for them. He greets his visitors by throwing a large box at them, which severely injures Mothman. Hooded Justice then threatens to kill both of them if they don’t leave. Instead, Nite Owl attacks, brutally murdering his former teammate. Hollis Mason later wrote that he wishes he could say it was an accident, or that his rage had blinded him, but he knew full well what he was doing the whole time.

Nelson arrived shortly after Hooded Justice’s death and he screeched at Hollis to not touch or unmask Hooded Justice. But Hollis didn’t care about that. He helped the injured Byron Lewis limp away, while Nelson burned down the entire tower to bury his former lover. Believing he had avenged the deaths of countless innocent boys over the past few decades, Hollis slept like a baby that night.

The years passed, and Hollis gradually realized it was time for him to retire. In one of his last moments of lucidity, Byron purchased him the car shop he would end up operating for the rest of his life. As Hollis got closer to publishing his book, he was suddenly visited by the Comedian. Eddie Blake warns Hollis not to print the book, but Hollis stubbornly insists it only contains the truth. So Eddie decides to reveal the real story about the Hooded Justice.

When Hooded Justice refused to testify before Congress, J. Edgar Hoover ordered the Comedian to track him down. So Eddie decided to start by following Hollis, which led him to the Silhouette’s apartment. Eddie combed through all the material Ursula Zandt had collected on the case of the disappearing boys. Ursula had identified a circus strongman and former Nazi as the key suspect, who Eddie naturally supposed to also be the Hooded Justice. With some help from the FBI, Eddie found the strongman and killed him. Although he immediately realized that this man was too old to be Hooded Justice. However, he did give him an idea of how to attract the attention of Nite Owl.

Eddie disguised himself as Hooded Justice when he abducted the boy. Eddie bound and gagged the child, but otherwise didn’t harm him, simply using him as bait for Nite Owl. Eddie made sure that Hollis got a good glimpse of his Hooded Justice costume before he knocked him out and ran away. Eddie’s plan worked, as this encounter provided Hollis with the motivation to finally track down the Hooded Justice. Although Eddie admits he never expected Hollis to kill the man.

Eddie then left the stunned Hollis with another threat to not publish his book. Hollis ultimately decided to print it anyway, with major exception. He cut out the part about him killing the wrong man and all the controversial bits that J. Edgar Hoover wouldn’t have approved of — I’m assuming the attack on the Statue of Liberty, the firework warehouse, much of the stuff with Silhouette and Silk Spectre, etc. (basically all the new stuff that Cooke added). Hollis did, however, choose to keep the part of Eddie’s attempted rape, sort of like one final middle finger to the man. The rest of the pages were burned, with Hollis choosing to burden himself with the truth of Hooded Justice to his grave.

That was a pretty neat twist at the end. But what, exactly, was the point? Beyond, of course, making Hollis Mason more of a hypocrite with deeper dark secrets (which I fully support). I’m mostly asking about Hooded Justice. Because Cooke didn’t dare to delve into any specifics of Hooded Justice’s identity and backstory, all of his actions came across as irrational and rather random. I mean, I can understand refusing to testify before the House of Un-American Activities Committee. But why did he keep wearing his costume in complete solitude at the abandoned Minutemen headquarters? And why did he want to kill Nite Owl and Mothman? I suppose there comes a point where you can keep a character so shrouded in mystery that they can’t even be considered a character at all.

All in all, I loved Cooke’s Minutemen series. I believe DC should have given him 12 issues to fully encapsulate all their Before Watchmen ideas. That way, we would have had a punchier story with clean, exceptional art. And we would have had more consistency. Reading this issue immediately after Nite Owl #4 really makes me wonder what was the difference between the papers locked in Hollis’ safe and the papers that he burned. I suppose they could tell the same story, but it doesn’t make much sense for Hollis to dramatically burn the pages and then retype them all up and show them to his protege. I think a little bit of coordination between these two titles would have gone a long way. Same thing with the Ozymandias series, which also briefly explored the disappearance of Hooded Justice (before the book got bored). In hindsight, it seems kind of obvious that everyone should have begun their search at the Minutemen tower — and that includes the Comedian, the FBI, Nelson, Nite Owl, and the world’s smartest man, Ozymandias. Do you really expect me to believe that not a single one of those people thought to investigate literally the only place in the world that the Hooded Justice was known to stay at?

Oh well. This was still a good six-issue run from one of the greatest comic book creators of his time. He did his best with the source material, but I still kind of think that he shouldn’t have done it in the first place. According to legend, DC had asked Alan Moore to write a 12-issue prequel to Watchmen and he had actually agreed to do it … only if DC gave him the rights to Watchmen. I don’t know how much of that is true, but I do know that DC ended up creating a bloated, mostly unsatisfying prequel project that I still haven’t finished.

1973: All-Stars on Stars Avenue

On Feb. 6, 1973, Salt Lake City hosted the ABA’s 6th Annual All-Star Game. But before I can get to that, I have to talk about the 1973 ABA Draft, which was more complicated than ever before!

This year, the ABA decided to hold four separate drafts spread out from January to May — a Special Circumstances Draft, a Senior Draft, an Undergraduate Draft, and a Supplemental Draft. I suspect the ABA may have created this Special Circumstances Draft to avoid missing out on the next Julius Erving, who wasn’t drafted by the ABA because the league didn’t know he wanted to leave college early. Regardless, the ABA selected a pool of players they believed needed to be picked in January and couldn’t wait till the main draft. Some of these players were seniors, some were underclassmen. I don’t know why. The ABA was quite weird. Anyway, the Stars had the eighth pick in this draft, and while they foolishly passed on George Gervin, they did actually pick a future Hall of Famer.

Robert Parish was a 7-1 center from Shreveport, Louisiana. When he enrolled at Centenary College in 1972, he was one of several players who submitted an ACT score instead of an SAT score. The NCAA accused Centenary of using an illegal test score conversion formula to land the star freshman and they placed the college on probation for six years — barring them from postseason play and refusing to acknowledge their records or statistics during that time.

Naturally, the ABA and the Utah Stars felt that Parish would not want to continue playing college ball under such harsh restrictions. But, as was always the case in the ABA, drafting the player was only half the battle. To convince Parish to sign with the Stars, general manager Arnie Ferrin flew to Parish’s home with Utah’s best player, Zelmo Beaty. This was Ferrin’s first big test and … he blew it. From the way Parish told the story, it almost sounds like Beaty actually discouraged Parish from joining the ABA. I wonder if Beaty was secretly seeking to sabotage the Stars at this point. You see, by the time he and Ferrin made this trip out to Louisiana in May, Beaty had been denied the chance to become a player-coach for the Stars (more on that later) and he was having issues with his contract (more on that much later).

Anyway, Parish felt that Centenary did nothing wrong and he chose to stay with them for all four years and appeal the NCAA’s decision. The court ruled against the small college, but that didn’t prevent Parish from becoming a top NBA prospect. He eventually put together a remarkable career that included nine All-Star appearances, four championships, and a new record for most games played (LeBron James has since passed him).

Now it’s time to put that heartbreaking draft behind us and focus on the fun part of 1973 — the All-Star Game! The ABA hadn’t invented the dunk contest or anything like that yet, so the All-Star “weekend” only consisted of a Bill Cosby appearance the night before the game. The game itself was naturally held in the Salt Palace. LaDell Andersen coached the West, which had three Utah players on its roster: Zelmo Beaty, Willie Wise, and James Jones. (He’s listed pretty much everywhere these days as Jimmy Jones, but the newspapers I read from 1973 called him James.)

Andersen did everything he could to let his players shine, giving Wise and Jones the most minutes on the team. (Beaty was already beginning to succumb to his old age and only played 15 minutes.) Wise arguably had the best game on the West’s winning squad, putting up a game-high 26 points and six rebounds. Shockingly, he was not chosen as the game’s MVP. That honor instead went to Denver’s Warren Jabali, who had 16 points and seven assists. The sold-out Salt Palace booed as Jabali was named the winner of a free trip to Europe instead of Wise. Ironically, Jabali didn’t even want to go to Europe, saying he much rather would have preferred a cash prize.

Even though Wise got robbed of the game MVP, the All-Star Game was still a special moment for Salt Lake City. Now let’s take a quick look at the five most interesting players for Utah this season.

Zelmo Beaty did make his third-straight ABA All-Star team and he only missed two games in the regular season. But his bad knees had begun to catch up to him. His production level had dipped down to 16.4 points and 9.8 rebounds per game. And for the first time since joining the ABA, Beaty did not receive any MVP votes. Luckily, the Stars had someone else ready to pick up the slack.

Willie Wise had a career year with 22.0 points and 8.2 rebounds per game. Not only was he an All-Star, but he also earned a spot on the ABA All-Defensive First Team and received an MVP vote for the first time since his rookie season. Wise stepped up even more in the playoffs, raising his scoring to 25.0 ppg.

James Jones made the All-Star Game for the first time as a member of the Utah Stars, but it was his fifth All-Star appearance overall. He put up 16.7 points and 5.6 assists per game, but saw his numbers dip slightly in the playoffs.

Glen Combs led the ABA in 3-point percentage for the second-straight season, making 38.1% of his long-distance shots. Unfortunately, he suffered a career-altering injury that limited him to 50 games. He finished the regular season with a 13.2 ppg average, but he was a shell of his former self by the time the playoffs began. Combs could only play 6.7 minutes per game in the postseason, averaging a dismal 2.7 ppg. Utah would trade him away partly through the 1973-74 season and he retired in 1975.

Ron Boone was the greatest beneficiary of Combs’ injury. He put. Up 18.5 points and 5.1 rebounds per games and even received a vote for MVP (for the first and only time of his career). Unfortunately, Utah really needed Boone to also step up in the playoffs, but his scoring dipped to 16.9 ppg.

The Stars went 55-29, claiming their second-consecutive Western Division title. After sweeping the San Diego Conquistadors in the first round, Utah faced the Indiana Pacers in the Western Division Finals for the third-straight year. This time, the Pacers won in six games. Perhaps the most painful loss was Game 5 in Salt Lake City. Willie Wise scored 34 points, but Zelmo Beaty only had nine, and the Stars lost 104-102. Indiana then cruised to a decisive 107-98 win in Game 6, as Wise was held to just 17 points. Former Star Donnie Freeman came up big for the Pacers, filling in nicely for the aging Roger Brown.

Oddly, Stars coach LaDell Andersen seemed almost relieved by the loss, simply saying, “Now we don’t have to try to win on Saturday.” You see, he had spent most of this season knowing it would be his last. In January, Utah State had offered him their Athletics Director job, and he agreed to take it as soon as the Stars season ended. Andersen admitted that he had always wanted to be Utah State’s AD, but he had originally planned on staying with the Stars for five years. He went out of his way to praise the team’s front office, and conceded that he liked “most of the players.” Which, to me, means that he didn’t quite like all the players. I know it was quite common in this era for college coaches to struggle with professional players’ desire to make money and maximize their earnings. I’m not certain if that was Andersen’s problem with the ABA, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it played a factor in his early departure.

While Andersen appeared to be at peace with his decision, he created a cloud of uncertainty that hung over the Stars for most of the season. And it took Vince Boryla and Arnie Ferrin quite a long time to find a new head coach, which is rather odd, considering how they literally had people begging for the job. Zelmo Beaty, entering the final years of his career, asked to be the player-coach. Tom Nissalke, who had recently been fired from Seattle after he foolishly traded away Lenny Wilkens, also asked for the Utah. But Boryla turned them both down. A full eight months passed from Andersen’s announcement before Boryla’s ideal candidate fell into his lap.

Joe Mullaney was a 6-0 guard from New York, who helped Bob Cousy and Holy Cross win the 1947 NCAA Championship. He was drafted in the third round by the Boston Celtics in 1949, but he only played 37 games for them. After working with the FBI for a while, Mullaney got into coaching at Norwich University in 1954. The next season, he joined Providence College, where he thrived, winning two NIT Championships. In 1969, he took the leap to the professional world, taking over none other than the Los Angeles Lakers. In his first season, he guided Los Angeles to the NBA Finals, only to lose to New York in seven games. After failing to return to the Finals the next season, the Lakers fired Mullaney in 1971 and replaced him with Utah’s Bill Sharman.

Ironically, Vince Boryla initially wanted Mullaney to replace Sharman, which would have basically ended up as a funny inter-league coaching swap. But as Utah’s lawsuit against Sharman drug out, Mullaney chose instead to coach the Kentucky Colonels. He took the Colonels to the 1973 ABA Finals, but lost to Indiana in seven games. He probably would have stayed in Kentucky had the franchise not gained a new owner, who clashed with Mullaney and threatened to move the team to Cincinnati. Mullaney strongly considered returning to Providence, but Boryla quickly swooped in and convinced him to lead one of the ABA’s best teams.

Could this new coach help the Stars continue their winning ways despite their aging and disgruntled captain, their injured sharpshooter, and their continued streak of bad luck in the draft? We’ll find out next time.

Before Watchmen: The show must go on?

Andy Kubert’s final cover for Nite Owl confirms that this really was a Rorschach story all along. Here he is, front and center, taking up most of the cover, leaving Nite Owl a mere afterthought. Yeah, he’s on fire, but is anyone really worried? We all know Rorschach will be perfectly fine by the time the main Watchmen series begins. That’s the problem with prequels. It’s really hard to create tension.

Our lackluster variant cover is by Ethan Van Sciver, who also chose to minimize Nite Owl’s presence on the finale of his own series. I’m not fond of this art, and I’m less fond of this artist. So I’ll just move on to my review.

The Nite Owl series was delayed by the sudden passing of 85-year-old comics legend Joe Kubert. Of course, he was just the inker over his son’s pencils, so this issue was virtually indistinguishable from the previous three. I suspect the delay was mostly to allow Andy time to grieve, which was completely understandable. To fill in the gap in production time, DC hastily cobbled together two Moloch issues … with mixed results. So was this issue worth the prolonged wait?

The first half of the issue details Rorschach nearly being burned alive by the crazed reverend. A little bit of lip service is paid to how Nite Owl tracked down the reverend through his fingerprints, and he arrives just in time to save Rorschach. Rorschach then kills the reverend by stabbing him in the back with his “The End is Nigh” sign (even though its stick wasn’t sharpened or anything).

Dan then confronts Hollis over his deepest, darkest secrets that allegedly proved he wasn’t really a hero. Dan begs Hollis not to print this confessional, saying that he prefers to maintain the idealized version of his father figure alive. Hollis agrees to put the manuscript in his safe, urging Dan to revisit them after he dies.

Nite Owl then confronts Rorschach over his fatal tactics, and the conversation doesn’t really go anywhere. But we do get a flashback showing that a young Walter Kovacs killed one of his mother’s more aggressive clients by placing a tripwire at the top of the stairs. We then find out that Dan lied about the Twilight Lady in the main Watchmen series. He actually was deeply in love with her and dated her for some time before she broke up with him over the phone. And the miniseries closes on a shot of Walter walking down the street with his sign.

I guess I’ll start with the best part: Hollis Mason’s secret. I really like the idea of Hollis holding back the worst things about himself in his tell-all book. I’m a firm believer that Alan Moore intended to tell a story without any heroes, and that certainly includes Hollis. This bit felt in line with that vision and, although it was brief, the moments of Dan wrestling with that legacy were nice. Would this story have benefitted from actually revealing Hollis’ secret? I’m not sure. But I certainly think it should have had a lot more of Hollis in it. After all, this miniseries was called Nite Owl and there were two Nite Owls in Watchmen. I would have preferred to have had J. Michael Straczynski split his story between them and not devote so much of it to Rorschach.

From the cover to the final image, this issue made it clear that Straczynski really wanted to write about Rorschach all along. It’s kind of funny how he kept being given assignments in Before Watchmen that he seemingly didn’t want. He turned Nite Owl’s story into Rorschach’s and Moloch’s into Ozymandias’. And if that wasn’t bad enough, he insisted on revising the history of the main story. Instead of young Walter being a strange and timid child until some schoolyard bullies caused him to snap, Straczynski felt it would be better if he had always been devious, cunning, and overtly violent from the beginning.

And then there’s the bit with the Twilight Lady. Straczynski fell into the same trap Darwyn Cooke did by throwing in a genuinely good hero. Not only do I believe this conflicts with Moore’s intentions, but I really don’t appreciate how Straczynski basically said that Moore was wrong. Moore didn’t just show that none of his characters were good guys — he also went out of his way to make almost all the costumed individuals (heroes and villains alike) sexual deviants of some sort. In Moore’s mind, this life of costumed adventuring would most appeal to homosexuals, prostitutes, or people with strange kinks. Like the guy who got a sexual thrill from being beaten up. Or even Nite Owl, himself, who could only become aroused when wearing his mask. I felt that Moore deliberately placed the Twilight Lady in that same category and never wanted her to become the cliched “prostitute with a heart of gold.”

Even though I never really enjoyed the backup pirate tale, I must confess that this issue felt strangely empty without it. I’d wager that everyone involved in this bloated Before Watchmen project had lost their appetite for it by this point. DC abruptly ended the Crimson Corsair without bothering to wrap up its story in a coherent manner. And they quietly canceled the planned Epilogue issue, choosing to focus on finishing the rest of the miniseries. Nite Owl’s delay was understandable. But for the others? I’d wager that exhaustion and ennui had set in. The show must go on, right? By any means necessary.

1972: You call THAT a consolation prize?!

I am baffled by this banner. From what I can tell, this was the official championship banner the Stars hung in the Salt Palace. I have no idea why it randomly included the 1972 Western Division Championship — that seems like something that should be on its own banner, but what do I know? Anyway, as you can see from this strange banner, the Utah Stars followed up their championship run with another successful season, but fell short of repeating their title.

Despite a tumultuous offseason, new head coach LaDell Andersen guided Utah to a 60-24 record and a first-place finish in the Western Division. As always, I like to take a look at five of the most interesting players on this season’s roster.

Zelmo Beaty was once again Utah’s top player, putting up 23.6 points and 13.2 rebounds per game. He returned to the All-Star Game and finished third in MVP voting (rookie Artis Gilmore won and Dan Issel was second). Beaty played all 84 regular season games and all 11 of Utah’s playoff games. But his knees began giving him issues in the postseason and he was often seen hobbling around on crutches between games. As such, his scoring fell to just 20.1 ppg in the playoffs.

Willie Wise enjoyed a breakout season, averaging 23.2 points and 10.6 rebounds per game. He became an All-Star for the first time and led the Stars with 25.3 ppg during the playoffs. Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough for Utah, but I’ll get more into that later.

Glen Combs was Utah’s third All-Star this season with 16.5 points per game. But most impressively, he led the ABA with 103 total 3-pointers and a league-high .406 percentage. For some reason, he really struggled in the playoffs. His minutes dipped from 34.6 per game to 28.8 and his scoring fell to 13.3 ppg.

Jimmy Jones was the lone bright spot for Utah’s 1971 offseason. Even though former Ute Merv Jackson did have a few good moments during the championship run, he had already fallen far from his All-Star rookie year. So general manager Vince Boryla decided to find an upgrade at point guard through free agency. He did have to pay a heavy price, though. In addition to paying Jones twice what Memphis had offered him, Utah also had to forfeit its first round pick of the 1972 draft. (As the Oscar Robertson lawsuit worked its way through the courts, both the ABA and NBA continued enforcing onerous anti-free agency rules.)

Jones was born and raised in Louisiana and attended Grambling State. In 1967, he was drafted in the second round by the Baltimore Bullets and was a territorial pick by the New Orleans Buccaneers. The 6-4 point guard chose to stay close to home and became an All-Star in each of his first four seasons (three in New Orleans and one in Memphis after the team relocated). But when his contract expired, Memphis apparently lowballed him, even though he had twice received MVP votes.

After being burned by Jim McDaniels, Boryla was thrilled to learn that Jones actually wanted to come to Utah. In his first season with the Stars, Jones put up 16.5 points and 6.2 assists per game, bumping those numbers up to 21.0 ppg and 6.3 apg in the playoffs. It appeared that he was worth the cost.

John Beasley ultimately ended up being Utah’s consolation for losing McDaniels. Officially, Carolina gave the Stars a big man named George Peeples. But Peeples pulled a McDaniels and also refused to play in Utah. So in November 1971, the Stars were forced to trade Peeples, a future draft pick, and what was reported as “a considerable amount of cash” to Dallas for Beasley.

The 6-foot-9 big man was born and raised in Texas and attended Texas A&M. In 1966, he was drafted in the fifth round by the Baltimore Bullets, but he never made the team. So he went the minor league route, playing for the Phillips 66ers and Allentown Jets before joining the Dallas Chaparrals. Beasley was a huge hit right away, making three-straight All-Star Games, winning the 1969 All-Star Game MVP, and receiving votes for the regular season MVP twice. But by the time Utah traded for him, he was no longer that player. Beasley put up a dismal 3.9 points in just 10.8 minutes per game in his first season with the Stars, serving as a painful reminder of that lost No. 1 overall pick. On the bright side, Utah didn’t miss out on anything with Peeples. He only played in 15 more professional basketball games after this trade.

For this season, at least, the McDaniels debacle didn’t limit Utah’s production on the court. After claiming their first division title, the Stars once again faced off against the Chaparrals in the first round. And for the second-straight year, Utah cruised to an easy sweep, which set up another rematch with the Indiana Pacers in the division finals. Just like last year, this series went the full seven games, but this time, Utah had home court advantage. But it didn’t help too much, as the Pacers built a big lead early and held on for a 117-113 win. Willie Wise had an impressive 26 points, 11 rebounds, and seven assists. Zelmo Beaty added 25 points and 11 rebounds, and Jimmy Jones chipped in 23 points. But they just weren’t enough to best Roger Brown (27 points and seven rebounds), Freddie Lewis (23 points, 12 rebounds, and six assists), and Mel Daniels (19 points and 15 rebounds).

The Salt Lake Tribune reported the loss as the end of a “beautiful dream.” And for three key figures in our story so far, it was the end. In a way.

Former All-Star Red Robbins became victim to the ABA’s first (and only) expansion draft. The ABA lost its first two teams this summer — Miami and Pittsburgh — but oddly added an expansion team in San Diego. Many complained that the new owner of the Conquistadors should have simply acquired one of those failing franchises, but the ABA chose to make a clean break of them. As such, they held a dispersal draft for all the players on the folding teams, followed by an expansion draft for the new team. The Stars were only allowed to protect six players, so that left poor Red Robbins exposed. He stayed in the ABA until 1975, but never regained his All-Star form. After one final year in Italy, he retired from pro basketball. Robbins died in 2009 at age 65 due to cancer.

To replace Robbins, the Stars traded for a big man named Gerald Govan. He didn’t make much of an impact, but he did cost Utah former Runnin’ Ute Mervin Jackson. The one-time All-Star really was a shell of his former self by this point, and he ended up only playing 22 games for Memphis before his career came to an abrupt end. Jackson died in 2012 also at the age of 65 due to Parkinson’s disease.

The third key figure to leave didn’t actually leave, but just diminished his role. Team president and general manager Vince Boryla decided his dual role was too stressful. So he hired a new general manager, while maintaining his duties as team president. For all intents and purposes, Boryla remained the face of the franchise, as owner Bill Daniels rarely left his home in Denver and was so hands-off, he didn’t even meet with the Stars’ new general manager until well after Boryla had hired him. Just like with his choice at head coach, Boryla wisely tabbed a local legend for this position.

Arnie Ferrin was born in Salt Lake, played high school ball in Ogden, and college ball at the University of Utah. In 1944, he led the Utes to the NCAA Championship and was named the Most Outstanding Player of the tournament. After serving in the Army, he returned to guide Utah to the 1947 NIT Championship (which some considered even more impressive than the NCAA Tournament at the time). In 1948, the 6-foot-2 Ferrin was drafted in the second round by the Minneapolis Lakers. He won two championships with George Mikan, but then retired in 1951.

Ferrin spent the next two decades heavily involved in University of Utah athletics, holding various broadcasting and administrative jobs. But he never had any prior experience of being a pro team’s general manager. So we’ll see how he did in the coming years. Of course, it’ll be impossible to sort out his actions from Boryla’s, as he was a very active team president.

One of the first things Ferrin did was announce a series of exhibition games against NBA teams in Hawaii. After the 1971 merger fell through, the NBA and ABA began playing each other on a regular basis. In 1971, the Knicks visited the Salt Palace and won. In 1972, the Stars earned their first victory over an NBA team, defeating the Seattle SuperSonics, who were coached by Tom Nissalke. Remember that name.

In addition to entering the 1972-73 season with a new general manager, the Stars also finally did something about their dreadfully boring uniforms. Unfortunately, these new ones are a bit obnoxious. They’re the kind of gimmicky design that you would normally see for an All-Star Game — not for 84 regular season games. Come back next time to find out if these new jerseys brought any good luck. (Spoiler alert: They didn’t.)

Before Watchmen: So much wasted potential

After giving us such a strong cover for the first Moloch issue, I was really disappointed by Eduardo Risso’s work here. The choice of playing cards seems like a lazy play on magician clichés, especially since we never really saw Moloch use cards in his act. And the focus is completely on Ozymandias, which … well, actually is the perfect representation of this issue. Sadly. But it’s still a bland cover!

The variant cover by Olly Moss is a wonderful old timey poster of Moloch, Ozymandias, and Dr. Manhattan. I love the colors and design, and most of all I love the implied story within. Perhaps a scenario where Moloch, under the direction of Ozymandias, manipulated and controlled Dr. Manhattan. But that’s not what really happens in this issue. I think you could make the argument that J. Michael Straczynski was trying to tell a story like that, but I feel he fell far short of that goal.

Straczynski opened the finale of his two-issue miniseries with Adrian Veidt presenting himself as a Christ-like figure offering redemption to Edgar Jacobi for his many sins. Adrian gives Edgar a job with his own private office, secluded from the rest of the building so none of the other employees will ever see him enter or leave. The work Adrian gives Edgar to do is extremely tedious busywork, reviewing page after page of equations that allegedly came from three separate teams, working independently on a top secret project. Adrian claims he was always impressed by Moloch’s ability of concentration, and as such, he trusts Edgar with this work more than any computer.

Edgar gratefully accepts the job and diligently dives into the dull, repetitive task, never realizing that the equations were randomly generated by Adrian with a few mistakes intentionally placed in them to give Edgar a false sense of accomplishment. Nor does Edgar ever suspect that the papers he’s handling are highly radioactive. As the days pass, Adrian continues to heap praise upon Edgar and even doubles his salary. He then gives Edgar a new task: delivering packages to Janey Slater.

For some reason, Janey is incredibly open with Edgar. She reveals that the package contained what appeared to be cigarettes, but were actually medicine — at least, that was what Adrian told her. Janey had stopped smoking, but couldn’t shake her persistent cough, so Adrian promised to give her something that actually made her healthier while playing off her old addictive habit. Of course, neither Janey nor Edgar suspect that these medicinal cigarettes are actually much worse than ordinary cigarettes.

Edgar gets sicker and sicker each day, meeting with the company doctor, who secretly had his license revoked for some horrible reason. This meant that he was willing to go along with Adrian’s plan to keep progressing Edgar’s cancer under the guise of treating it. Adrian generously offers to cover the costs of all of Edgar’s treatments, and Edgar has no choice but to accept. Later, Edgar notices that Janey is also getting sicker each day, but she keeps smoking Adrian’s cigarettes as she doesn’t have any other choice.

After the Comedian visited Edgar in his run-down apartment and drunkenly rambled about the end of the world and a secret list, Edgar promptly tells Adrian everything that happened. It’s tough to tell, but it seems to me that Straczynski was implying that Adrian was genuinely surprised by Edgar’s revelation. After their conversation, Adrian decides to have someone constantly watch Edgar’s home, which comes in handy once Rorschach starts visiting.

Edgar was at home watching the TV on the night of Dr. Manhattan’s disastrous interview. As Edgar tries to come to terms with the knowledge that both he and Janey had been betrayed, Adrian pays him a personal visit. Surprisingly, Adrian reveals his entire plan to Edgar. He explains that Edgar’s death can help serve a higher purpose and save the world. So he gives Edgar a choice: continue to slowly die of cancer or accept to the head to set a trap for Rorschach. Edgar seems to genuinely buy into Adrian’s plan (not that he has much of a choice) and he accepts the bullet, calling it the greatest magic trick in the world.

I hate to admit it, but I actually really liked that final line about Adrian’s magic trick. I did not, however, enjoy the journey it took to get there. The story itself was as underwhelming as the artwork. It was slow, dull, and largely inconsequential. From the first page to the last, poor Edgar was a creature completely devoid of any agency. Of course he agreed to everything Adrian said — he literally had no other options! I guess he did technically volunteer the information about the Comedian, but that wasn’t presented as a choice he wrestled with. It was almost like he just did it out of instinct. Almost like how Straczynski instinctively threw Janey Slater into this story. It didn’t make any sense for Adrian to have Edgar interact with her, but Straczynski had an idea and couldn’t stop himself from putting it on the page.

A lot of the ideas in this comic don’t line up particularly well with Alan Moore’s work. First there’s Edgar’s bleak, run-down apartment. Would he really still be living there after Adrian doubled his salary? And why would Edgar be caught desperately buying illegal sham medicine when he believed that Adrian was providing him with the best medical care available? I also think Edgar would have promptly told Rorschach that he was working with Adrian as a way to prove that he was completely reformed. Almost nothing in this issue makes any sense.

It seems like Straczynski wanted to write about Ozymandias instead of Moloch. And that makes perfect sense. Adrian’s plan is vast and multifaceted, offering ample opportunity for exploration and addition. But I feel like Moloch’s story offered even more opportunity, as there were vast parts of his backstory left completely open by Moore. Give us a good reason for the Comedian feeling like Moloch was his only friend (beyond the lame “we heard about JFK’s death together”). Show some more direct interactions with Dr. Manhattan to lend more credence to the cancer story. And please, please show more of Moloch’s criminal career! He was the biggest traditional supervillain in Watchmen, but we never actually got to see him do anything. This series had so much potential!

Speaking of wasted potential, this issue also included the abrupt conclusion of The Curse of the Crimson Corsair. This modern-day homage to the Black Freighter had been presented in two-page increments at the back of every single Before Watchmen issue … until now. And it wasn’t supposed to end here. DC had planned to keep it going through the end of this whole enterprise, but then suddenly announced that writer Len Wein was leaving Corsair to work on an issue called Before Watchmen: Epilogue.

Wein later admitted that he was also confused by the whole situation. He only knew that artist John Higgins had been upset with the direction of the story. Wein, of course, believed it was his story to tell and Higgins had simply been hired to draw it. He had heard a rumor that Higgins threatened to leave the project if he didn’t get his way, and that’s what seems to have happened. But Higgins didn’t last the whole run of Before Watchmen and apparently was forced to wrap up the story long before he wanted to. The planned Epilogue issue also never came to being, as DC lost all appetite for it. Many artists had begun missing deadlines and I think the public had begun to wise up to the fact that most of the Before Watchmen issues were garbage.

Anyway, The Curse of the Crimson Corsair told the tale of an honest sailor who was a complete victim of circumstance. Much like Moloch in this issue, the sailor completely lacked agency and was dragged from one horrifying event to the next — especially once Higgins took over the writing and seemed to only care about drawing the scariest, most grotesque things imaginable. Then, completely out of nowhere, the story ends with the sailor turning into the Crimson Corsair because he apparently lost his soul while trying to save it. Well, that’s what happened in the Black Freighter. But not the Crimson Corsair. 

Had Wein been able to see the story all the way through, he might have been able to convincingly work up to that ending. I’m sure it would have been a lot better than the aborted mess we got, but I don’t know how much I would have actually enjoyed it. This project did waste its potential, but I have to admit it never had that much potential to begin with. It was always going to be a tough sale, as even the Black Freighter is often one of the most criticized aspects of the original Watchmen. But at least the Freighter story tied in directly to the main plot and had the added bonus of providing some fun world building. The limitations of this format prevented the Corsair from having that kind of significance. It was just a horror pirate story for the sake of being a horror pirate story. And that is why it failed.