Please Come to Boston - Strange Adventures 206

Strange Adventures #206 (November 1967)(cover by George Roussos and Mike Sekowsky)
"An Eye for an Eye!"
Arnold Drake-Neal Adams/George Roussos

Doug: Name a character who you know next to almost-nothing about, but that intrigues you. Got one (or two?). Deadman's mine. If memory serves, and that's shaky ground these days, two of the Brave & the Bolds (#79 and #104) I've reviewed are the only Deadman comics I've read. Well, aside from his appearance in Kingdom Come. The premise is interesting to me: a man murdered who is given the power to find his own killer. That power includes the ability to see and hear all that goes on around him -- but not touch, and no one else will feel his presence. The kicker is that he can possess anyone at any time -- their mind and body. They won't, however, remember a thing. From Deadman's intro/origin in the previous issue:

This is Deadman -- the spirit of one man in the bodies of others -- moving from life to life, to find the man who brought him... Death! Follow him in the Strangest Adventure series of them all!

Boston Brand was truly a Deadman as far as the world was concerned. Naturally that limited the potential for any interaction with DC's other heroes, but it didn't stop Brand's ability (and willingness) to be manipulative of the living who crossed his from making things interesting.

You know you want a 100-Word Review...

Circus aerialist (and part owner) Boston Brand, a brusque fellow in life, has been murdered. But the deity Rama Kushna has offered Brand a gift – the powers necessary to find his killer. The first suspect is Jeff Carling, the lowlife brother of Lorna, one of the circus girls who was sweet on Brand. Jeff’s come looking for money. But Deadman possesses Carling’s body, only to find out that the plot is thicker than imagined. In a whirlwind of biker gangs, mob hits, and payoffs, Deadman manages to find that a) Carling was not his killer and b) exonerate Carling of a murder rap.

The Good: I cannot complain about anything related to the execution of this story. Although only Boston Brand's second appearance, I felt like the creators got me up to speed on the origin story, the powers, the cast, etc. From the splash page, the art is light years ahead of what we saw in the previous issue. I don't necessarily want to denigrate the work of Carmine Infantino and George Roussos. Strange Adventures #205 is actually a nice-looking book! But c'mon... lay it next to the work of Neal Adams and... Yeah, I know Adams himself has detractors. I am not among that camp. While not possessing the pedigree of a career that began in the Golden Age, such as Jack Kirby, Joe Kubert, et al., Adams now has around 50 years behind him so must certainly be a consideration in that "greatest of all time" conversation we had a few weeks ago. Here's a side-by-side of a portion of Deadman's origin for your own assessment:

Adams wanted to put his stamp on the book and character -- it's pretty obvious in that only 30 days after Deadman's first appearance readers were given a detailed origin recap complete with Deadman's "death", and a survey of his cast of characters and of his powers. Again, for me I thought this was excellent; I didn't read the first issue until after completing this one. Not sure how many other kids would have done that back in '67, but there had to be a few.

Arnold Drake's dialogue was fun. It was maybe a little on the Silver-Agey side, but that was what I expected. Marvelites should recognize Drake's name from his work on early issues of the X-Men, Captain Marvel, and as the creator of some group called the Guardians of the Galaxy (yeah, like that'll last...). Some of the characters in the story might have been predictable, but I think that was part of the hook in getting this new book off the ground. Let the readers go along for the ride with Boston Brand, discovering things even a second or two before our protagonist. Sort of like audience participation.

There was no baddie in the story (although there were a few unsavory types), outside of the knowledge that somewhere lurks the unseen assassin from the previous issue. That was fine, as this traveling mystery show had so much potential that Deadman didn't need a rogues gallery -- his rogue could be anyone! And that brings me back to the wonderful potential of the character -- this could be told as an all-ages story, or easily as an "adult" type of tale (face it -- Brand can inhabit any body he wants and make said occupy-ee do and say whatever Brand wants). With the god Rama Kushna ever present (though not ever seen other than as emanating from other sentient beings), a foray to the world of the occult was always possible as well.

Notice the fellow in the samples who looks like Guy Gardner! Of course that's not the way ol' Guy looked back in the day, but the resemblance to the character we'd come to loathe post-Crisis is uncanny!

The Bad: I can't decide what to say about the coloring here. More accurately it's re-coloring. Sometime on this space Karen and I discussed that this newer method sort of enhanced the Tales of Asgard trade, giving it a "storybook" look. We didn't, however, care for it as much in the Chronicles of Conan trades. Years ago, Neal Adams fell in love with computer coloring, and as many of you know (see some of the Batman reviews here) he has insisted on recoloring all of his material that gets reprinted. The entire Batman Illustrated by Neal Adams series of hardcovers (now available as trade paperbacks) is recolored, as is the trade I am reading/scanning from. Part of me wants to chuck this a rung lower into the "Ugly" category, but I suppose I can leave it here. It didn't prohibit me from enjoying the story. It may have inhibited that joy, but it didn't stop me in my tracks. Honestly, I'd like to see the four-color version for comparison's sake. And Adams has long been fascinated with color. For those of you who don't know, when he got to DC from Marvel he was influential in improving DC's color palette. Read a wonderful and recent explanation of this history here.

The Ugly: As usual, nothing much to say here, unless you find yourself particularly offended by the coloring. Then we could slide that from "bad" to "ugly".

I look forward to reading more from this trade in the future. It's stretched me a bit, but I've found this very appealing.

A Classic Review from Doug -- Marvel Super-Heroes 18

Note: This review was originally published at Two Girls, A Guy, and Some Comics on 26 July 2009.

Marvel Super-Heroes #18 (January 1969)

"Earth Shall Overcome!"

Arnold Drake-Gene Colan/Mickey Demeo

Doug: I recently picked up the Marvel Premiere Hardcover, Guardians of the Galaxy: Earth Shall Overcome. I recalled the Guardians mainly from the pages of the Defenders, back in my early comics-buying days. When I saw that not only this collection was coming out, but its sequel (Guardians of the Galaxy: The Power of Starhawk), I was very excited to read them. I am a big fan of Marvel's recent strategy of getting not only important storylines from the Bronze Age back into print, but entire runs of short-lived series.

Since we tend to focus mainly on the Silver Age here at TGAGASC, I thought I'd stick to the first appearance of the Guardians from 1968 -- Marvel Super-Heroes #18 (cover-dated January 1969). The tale was authored by Arnold Drake and rendered by Gene Colan and Mike Esposito (under the latter's pen name of Mickey Demeo).

Arnold Drake, creator of the Doom Patrol and Deadman, was a longtime writer for DC Comics who fell out of favor with editorial toward the end of the 1960's. Shortly after seeing his workload dwindle to nothing, he moved over to Marvel Comics, where he created (with Colan) the Guardians. You can read more about Drake in a wonderful obituary penned by Mark Evanier at the following link:

http://www.newsfromme.com/archives/2007_03_12.html#013083

I'll be honest -- this story reads just like a 1960's DC science fiction yarn! Colan's pencils (and I am speaking of figural form, speed lines, etc.) somewhat lend themselves more to the DC style than to what Marvel was then producing. Saying that, however, other than one splash page, there is not a single panel in the story that has right angle corners! Colan was really pushing the envelope with panel lay-outs here. Although there are no characters or backgrounds that break the panel boundaries (as we'd see a little later from not only Colan but also from the likes of Neal Adams, et al.), Colan's style is somewhat unnerving to the unsuspecting reader. A Colan-art veteran, I was nonetheless taken aback by the frenetic pace of the storytelling -- it was as if Drake's words could not keep up with Gene the Dean's pictures!

Drake's characterization is pretty basic. The bad guys, an alien race known as the Badoon, are pretty typically malevolent. They posture, they say all the right (or wrong, I suppose) things, and are pretty menacing in speech and in their looks. The goal of the Badoon is to eradicate the galaxy of humanity. On the other hand, the good guys fall into pretty basic team-book dynamics. It's difficult at this point to tell any pecking order among the four white knights, but it is pretty clear that Yondu the archer will be toward the bottom. I really had to laugh at the total lack of political correctness in Yondu's speech patterns -- reading him here was to "hear" Jay Silverheels speaking as Tonto! It really was funny. Vance Astro is a little bit of a smart aleck, and nowhere near the Captain America-clone he will become in subsequent incarnations of the team. Martinex is basically written as he will be later -- serious, focused. Charlie-27 is the one character who seems really undefined. He is listed as a survivor of the Jupiter colony, with a mass 11x that of an Earthman. However, the way Colan draws his head is quite odd, as it seems almost to flow -- it certainly changes shapes throughout the story. And, one would think that in spite of his bulk and weight that Charlie-27 possesses super-speed. He is drawn on many pages either with an overabundance of speed lines, and even at times in sequential pictures as if moving faster than the eye could normally follow -- as if he were Quicksilver or the Flash! I never remembered Charlie-27 possessing super-speed in any other stories, and indeed I can find no online references to that power in regard to his character. So perhaps Drake/Colan wanted to tinker with this later...

And that "later" wouldn't come to pass anytime soon. The Guardians, after their one-page, cliffhanger first appearance, would be back-burnered until Steve Gerber chose to unshelve them in 1974. After that, they would appear somewhat regularly as guest-stars in Marvel Two-In-One and the Defenders (1975), before gaining their own series in the pages of Marvel Presents (1977).

If you're a fan of the Bronze Age, or of science fiction, or just of today's Guardians (which I admittedly know nothing of), then you should seek out this hardcover. For my money, I wouldn't plunk down any change just for Marvel Super-Heroes #18, but for the added content the collection was the way to go.

PS (27 July 2014) -- I think I've gotten better at writing reviews over the years...