80-Pagecast 27: God Bless America, Captain

Another fortnight goes by and another Marvel movie comes out. So naturally we talk about Captain America: Winter Soldier. Spoilers: we spoil the heck out of the movie. But only after we go through some news and briefly mention Silver Surfer #1, Ghost Rider #1, and Inhuman #1. Of course we wander off topic alot, including talk of Don Glut's odd hobby.

Sal's Sunday Punch #23

Oh right, we still have this blog.  So hey, let's get our punch on.

It's Memorial Day weekend in the States, so this week we're paying homage to America's top super-soldier...times two!  See, after Steve Rogers ended up in the deep freeze, America still needed a Captain America...and there were a few of them.  One in particular, William Burnside, the Captain America of the '50s, didn't lead the charmed existence that Rogers did.  He wasn't the sanest of individuals to start with, and when a botched Super-Soldier process damaged his sanity, he went super-crazy.  Eventually the government had to put him in cryo-stasis, but eventually he got out and went on a rampage. In Captain America #156, by Steve Englehart and Sal Buscema, he and Rogers have their big throwdown.  As could be expected, it's the real Cap who delivers the Sal Buscema Punch:

Wait, that's not Ultimate Captain America!  He'd be making fun of the French or something.

Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting paid it a nifty homage in 2012's Captain America #19, in an issue that recounts Cap #156 while Steve has another encounter with Burnside.

I guess we forgive you for giving the Avengers leather jackets now, Steve.

Ricochet to Freedom

This is an advertisement. You can see it on the top of this comic strip. Please, please, please let this be official Marvel canon.

Please. Spider-Man and Captain America are chosen by the president to be fired from giant pistols into an enormous spider web that was put there by aliens to strangle the hopes of freedom.

This is an official story, right... please?

--Andrew S.

Sal's Sunday Punch #6

Y'know sometimes you need more oomph to your punch. Sometimes you need to really really knock it out of the park. The best way to do that, of course, is to get Sal Buscema to draw the thing. But if you want to really take it over the top there's only one way to do it.

You gotta go for the Double Sal Buscema Punch.

From Captain America #150, written by Gerry Conway, drawn
by Sal Buscema and inked by Tony Mortellaro and John Verpoorten.

So in this story Cap and his sidekick The Falcon fight alongside Batroc the Leaper against an evil doppelganger of The Stranger, who actually wants to die and is trying to get the heroes to kill him. Sorta.

But none of that is important. What's important is that two dudes at once punch the Stranger and he goes flying, flipping over backwards and screaming. Sal Buscema style.

--Andrew S.

The Sal Buscema Punch

(Spectacular Spider-Man #149, written by Gerry Conway, art by Sal Buscema)

Sal Buscema has basically drawn everything at this point. If Marvel published a book in the '70s or '80s, Sal Buscema probably penciled or inked an issue of it. He's always been one of my favorite artists - he draws the angriest Hulk, the craziest Green Goblin, and the punching-a-guy-in-the-face-iest Spider-Man. The fights in a Sal Buscema book are invariably crazy - people hit each other so hard there's a little explosion at the point of impact, all while screaming at each other with characteristically angular, over-the-top facial expressions. And when that fight's coming to an end, Spider-Man's going to punch a guy so hard that the guy's gonna flip backwards, a gape-mouthed expression of shock on his face. This happens a lot - so much that I have dubbed it the Sal Buscema Punch.