Marvel Comics: June 2009 Archives

Jim Steranko wrote extensively about two characters in the pulp magazines--characters that were the early prototypes for Superman and Batman.  Doc Savage and the Shadow.

I had already bought several Doc Savage paperbacks (with beautiful James Bama covers) before Marvel announced they would publish a comic book based on the character in 1972.  It was a pretty good series with nice art by Ross Andru.

Steranko drew the cover of issue #2, set against a Mayan backdrop.  The first two issues were a retelling of Doc's origin, which I had read in the first paperback.  Doc's father is killed and he traces the murderer back to Central America--the source of the Savage's great wealth.

Steranko's Doc uses the Bama design (as did the Andru art inside), with the skull-cropped hair, vest, and boots.  That was the version I always had in my head reading the paperbacks.  In the History of Comics, you can see that Doc was portrayed on those covers with blond hair and normal clothes--kind of like a muscled Robert Redford.

I love how different properties get "Marvelized".  In the logo, SAVAGE reins above everything else.  Which is funny, because Doc isn't Savage, he's like Brainaic 5 with superior fighting skills.

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Doc Savage #3 started a new storyline with the cult of the Silver Death's Head.  Doc's creator, Lester Dent, always created great names for the bad guys in his stories.  This cover features the villain standing on a map of the world he intends to conquer, while Doc faces off against his army of silver goons.  Pretty wacky.

This series only lasted eight issues, but it wasn't the Bronze Man's last appearance at Marvel.  He guest starred in Giant-Size Spider-Man #3, and later had his own black and white magazine--which also lasted eight issues!

Steranko would go onto to express his love for the pulps by painting a series of paperback covers for The Shadow.  I'll always admire Steranko for turning me onto the great history of pop culture and characters like Doc Savage.  Nuff said.

Beginning...a week of covers by the legendary Jim Steranko!

However, these aren't necessarily his most famous covers from the 1960s.  No, most of these covers were published in 1972, the year I first encountered the work of this impressive artist.

There were times when I could impress my elementary school teachers with my knowledge of Greek mythology (derived from Hercules in the Avengers), Norse mythology (Thor, of course), and classics like the Invisible Man, from Supernatural Thrillers #2 in 1972.  Steranko sells this cover beautifully.  It transports you back to a 19th century English pub with all the background details.  I was intrigued by the Invisible Man unraveling his bandages, removing his glasses, etc.  The adaption inside was well executed, recapturing the essence of the story in one issue.

Steranko also drew the cover to the first issue of Supernatural Thrillers, featuring an adaption of Theodore Sturgeon's short story, IT!  A few years later in Astonishing Tales, another character called IT! (a 30 foot tall stone giant) would take over that book.  Marvel recycled the IT! logo that you see here.  When I started to read science fiction stories a few years later, I sought out the writers I knew about from Marvel: Sturgeon and Harlan Ellison in particular.

There's one more Marvel horror cover that Steranko did in the 1970s, and it's infamous--because Stan Lee rejected it!  Tower of Shadows #1 featured a short story by Steranko, and he drew this cover along with it.  This was obviously a bone-headed decision on Stan Lee's part.  Steranko's cover is awesome and if he had let it go, surely Tower of Shadows #1 would have been a collector's item.  You can read on Wikipedia about Steranko's disagreement with Lee over this cover.  Nuff said.

I found this while researching the launch of the new X-Men in 1975.  Foom #10 had a special X-Men issue, and Marie Severin drew this great cartoon:

Severin drew Len Wein, Chris Claremont, and Dave Cockrum getting roasted alive by Marvel's fans--for replacing the classic X-Men team in Giant-Size X-Men #1.  They were indeed apprehensive about kicking out Angel, Marvel Girl, and Iceman!  No one could foresee the tremendous success that would befall upon the new and improved X-Men.  Nuff said.

There are many classic Marvel comics covers that are iconic.  Amazing Fantasy #15, Fantastic Four #1, and Hulk #1 are in that treasured line-up.  When it comes to the X-Men, while the first issue by Jack Kirby in 1963 has a place in history, it is the cover to Giant-Size X-Men #1 by Gil Kane and Dave Cockrum that remains supreme.

It is hard to imagine the impact of Giant-Size X-Men #1 for a fan of Marvel's mutants.  The last new X-Men was published in X-Men #66 in 1970, although the X-Men title continued publication with reprints of the Stan Lee and Roy Thomas stories.  Through those reprints, a new generation of Marvel readers became fans of Cyclops, Marvel Girl, the Beast, Iceman, and the Angel.  From 1970-1975, the X-Men made a few guest appearances--most notably in Marvel Team-Up #4, Avengers #110-111, and the Beast's series in Amazing Adventures #11-17. 

I snatched up my copy of GS X-Men #1 the instant I saw it.  If the X-Men weren't enough, I knew that Dave Cockrum was the artist.  He had already knocked me out with the superb job he did on Giant-Size Avengers #2, and the art in GS X-Men #1 was even better.  With Len Wein as the writer, I immediately recognized Wolverine on the cover from his debut appearance in the Hulk.  All of the other mutants were incredibly new and mysterious.  I couldn't figure out why Cyclops was just behind Wolverine--in the new team--and also in the faded background with the old X-Men.

The cover to Giant-Size X-Men #1 features a classic Gil Kane motif of having the heroes running toward the reader, exploding out of the comic book page.  Kane's cover to Giant-Size Defenders #1 is almost identical.  Gil Kane's pencil layout for this cover is shown above.  Looking at this, you can see Cockrum kept the essence of Kane's figures, but adding his own take on the characters.  Kane drew Colossus with pupils and Cockrum executed it with white eyes--the way he's drawn in the comic. 

Cockrum's costume design for Storm, Colossus, Thunderbird, and Nightcrawler were visually stunning.  It's interesting that on this famous splash page, Cockrum is showcasing his original creations front and center--with the pre-existing Banshee, Sunfire,and Wolverine hanging in the background.

This comic has one other special place in Marvel history--it's the first all-new series that was introduced within the Giant-Size Marvel line.  The other titles (like Giant-Size Avengers, Defenders, etc) were extensions of a well established monthly series.  This revival was designed for the Giant-Size format, the story in issue 1 is 35 pages.  The next chapters in X-Men #94-95 were clearly designed for Giant-Size X-Men #2, and split into two when it was decided to resume new stories in the X-Men title.

Giant-Size X-Men #1 was the best 50 cents I ever spent in the 1970s--probably the best two-bits ever in my entire life!  Wein and Cockrum concocted a near-perfect story that introduced us to a new generation of mutants, but they acknowledged the team that came before and treated them with respect.  Sadly, I sold my copy of this comics when I was 20 and needed money for something frivolous.  Haven't we all thrown away precious comics like this for a song?  Nuff said.

Mighty Marvel Western was a reprint title, featuring the western triple threat of Kid Colt, Two Gun Kid, and Rawhide Kid.  When Gil Kane started doing some covers in the 1970s, the comics were worth collecting for that alone.

I got turned onto this cover to Mighty Marvel Western #44 by one of the Two Morrows magazines.  I can't help but think it's one of the most brilliant covers I've ever seen.  Rawhide Kid looking up at an ambush--his attackers are reflected in the pool he's drinking water from.

The Rawhide Kid is featured on Mighty Marvel Western #40 freeze framed during a shootout in a small town.  An unseen enemy targets his rifle on the Kid from the roof above.  No problem, the Kid's got eyes behind his back.

On the cover to issue #41, the Kid displays his solution to a showdown by shooting the guns out of out his adversary's hands.

There are a lot of logos on these covers...how did Marvel's staff ever fit them all?  LOL!  Nuff said.

Marvel Comics' superhero, Captain Marvel, first appeared in Marvel Super-Heroes #12 (1967) and launched his own series soon afterward.  Captain Marvel was a Kree soldier named Mar-Vell and came to Earth wearing a white and green uniform.  After sixteen issues and fading sales, a fashion emergency was called.  Gil Kane drew the cover to Captain Marvel #17 (1969) that proclaimed one of the most extreme makeovers in comics history:

I think Captain Marvel's read and blue costume design is one of the greatest in the world of comics.  The yellow exploding sun in the center of his chest, the mysterious nega bands around his wrist, and the weird half-mask that exposes his hair--every detail just makes him visually unique and unmistakable.

More than just the costume design--it was the way the Gil Kane drew the character.  Don Heck had briefly drawn the new costume at the end of issue #16 and it wasn't nearly as exciting.

Besides the new costume, Captain Marvel #17 has a story that focuses not on Mar-Vell, but perennial sidekick Rick Jones.  After Rick's brief stint as Captain America's all-new Bucky ends, he leaves Avengers Mansion feeling destitute.  Holographic visions of Captain America lead him to a secret base, where he discovers the nega bands.

After donning the nega bands and clanging them together, Rick Jones exchanges places with Mar-Vell, who had been trapped in the Negative Zone.  It seemed like kind of a raw deal to me, but Jones was excited to be back in the superhero game.  Gil Kane really makes Mar-Vell explode back into Earth's dimension in this full page splash.

Roy Thomas crafted this pairing of Rick Jones and Mar-Vell to become the Marvelized science-fiction version of CC Beck's Captain Marvel character.  Rick Jones slamming the nega bands together is akin to Billy Batson saying the magic word, Shazam!  After DC Comics had acquired the rights to Beck's Captain Marvel, they never published a comics series featuring the character.  Their rights to a comic book series with that title had lapsed.  Marvel Comics had latched onto the opportunity, which made perfect sense--here was a Captain named after the company.  But it completely shutdown any future comics from DC with the title Captain Marvel or Captain Marvel Jr--two comics that had a long publication history in the 1940s and 1950s.  One of the smartest landgrabs in the world of comics.

Rick Jones and Mar-Vell basically had a timesharing arrangement as far as "Earth-time" was concerned.  One stayed on Earth, while the other one watched his partner's activities from the Negative Zone.  They remained in telepathic communication, giving each other advice, or in Rick's case, making a lot of jokes.   Years later, Gerry Conway would partner up Firestorm's Ronnie Raymond and Professor Stein with a similar device.

Regardless of this nifty costume change and the Rick Jones gimmick, Captain Marvel was cancelled with issue #21.  Mar-Vell and Rick would go on to play a big role in the Avengers Kree-Skrull war saga.

While Captain Marvel #17 was a landmark issue, it wasn't the first one I bought.  DC Comics revived the Billy Batson Captain Marvel in 1972, in a comic titled Shazam!  I read that one first, but a short time later, Marvel announced they were reviving their character.  I bought Captain Marvel #22 when I saw it on sale at 7-Eleven during the summer in Phoenix, Arizona.  I couldn't quite understand why there were two Captain Marvels, but the cover to issue #22 by Gil Kane really made Marvel's version more attractive.  Mar-Vell's flying in a typical Kane pose and you've got that dude in the foreground where you can see his nostrils.  Nothing says panic like a Kane nose shot!

The cover blurb said:  He's back!  The Hero Who Wouldn't Die!  There you go, I was hooked.  Billy Batson was buddying up with Talky Tawny and exclaiming Holy Moley on every page.  Steranko's History of Comics had explained to me why kids in World War 2 went gaga over CC Beck's creation, but in the 1970s, that seemed weak to a kid raised on Star Trek and Spider-Man.  Mar-Vell had a cool costume and had returned from the dead.  There was no competition in coolness, Mar-Vell had won me over.  Nuff said.