If I Had a Buck... The Many Artists of Captain America

Martinex1: Captain America's costume has not changed much over the years that he has worn it.  Sure there were some more noticeable fashion updates in the past decade, but for the most part our star-spangled Steve Rogers has been known for his red, white, and blue, for his stars and stripes, for his winged head and his pirate boots, for his chain mail and his shield.   

It is interesting to see how different great artists depicted the American hero. So this $1 Challenge has a simple premise; here are 14 covers with Cap in charge, but all handled by different artists. Pick your favorites and discuss why that is.   There were so many great covers to choose from, so if you have a favorite you'd like to share, be my guest.

These are all in the Quarter Bin, so get a bang for your buck... four comics, four colors, four quarters...what can be better? 

Captain America #109; Jack Kirby.
Captain America #110; Jim Steranko.
Captain America #132; Marie Severin.
Captain America #140; John Romita.
Captain America #183; Gil Kane
Captain America #222; Ernie Chan
Captain America #225; Frank Robbins
Captain America #230; Ron Wilson
Captain America #241; Frank Miller
Captain America #254; John Byrne
Captain America #260; Allen Milgrom
Captain America #263; Mike Zeck
Captain America #303; Paul Neary
Avengers #340; Ron Lim (Okay this is a great Wasp cover too, but it is one of my favorite Cap covers of all time).

If I Had a Buck... Mirthful Marie Severin!

Doug: Well, if I don't have egg on my face. And lots of it! Our buddy Martinex1, famous inventor of the $1 Challenge (hey, maybe he's The Man!) alerted me to my senility -- like he had to go and do that... Anyway, today's post was actually emailed to us waaaaaaay back at the end of November. Who knows what I was doing then -- it obviously wasn't readying this post for publication! So today we rectify that, and I think you'll enjoy it. Public apologies to ol' Mike S. -- you'll find this worth the wait!

Guest Post – If I Had a Buck…MARIE SEVERIN 

 

Mike S.: Last fall in a couple of posts and comments, Marie Severin’s name was mentioned as an underappreciated artist, a great talent on the Incredible Hulk book, and as a go-to mainstay of the Marvel Bullpen.   

So here is a challenge of “If I Had a Buck”, highlighting the varied work of Ms. Severin’s career.  Not only was she a fantastic superhero penciler, but she also handled comedy, mimicry, satire, adventure and horror genres extremely well.   It is actually surprising how many different high level Marvel characters she touched.  The art always reflected the classic house style but often also contained interesting perspective and layouts.   She started as a colorist at EC and headed the color department at Marvel for a time, all the while pitching in on so many aspects of comic art and production along the way.   She was very prolific and I believe she should be listed along with many of the Silver Age greats.  

Take a look at the 14 covers below, all with Marie Severin art, and I think you will get a small taste of a very big talent.   Spend your dollar wisely; there are plenty of 15 cent masterpieces to choose from.  

Why Can't We Be Friends? Tales to Astonish 100

Tales to Astonish #100 (February 1968)
"Let There Be Battle!"
Stan Lee-Marie Severin/Dan Adkins

Doug: You don't mind if I submit Exhibit A in the conversation of "The Cover Was Way Better Than the Book", do you? Today's review has as its subject a comic I've long wanted to read -- the cover does it for me, right? About a year ago I picked up the second paperback volume of the Marvel Masterworks Incredible Hulk. I now have reprints of the original 6-issue series as well as the entire Tales to Astonish run. What I'd love to do is get my hands on affordable reprints of the Hulk ongoing that commenced during Marvel's expansion on the cusp of the Bronze Age. Anyway, I read this story around a week ago in preparation for today's presentation. I think we have a case here of the cover being so enticing that it really would be tough for the interiors to hold up. So why...?

Doug: To begin, my judgement of the book is framed not by any first impression. The title is typical late-Silver Age bombast from Stan Lee, and the splash page is interesting if overly crowded by text boxes (a whopping seven of them -- count 'em!). Hey, here's a great comic book question for you, that sort of ties into current events: You know how there's political talk that Americans (and citizens of other nations, too) have ceded some of their civil rights in the post-9/11 world, what with all of the surveillance cameras that permeate our public spaces? That cannot be a 21st century phenomenon, can it? Here we see Namor checking out the Hulk in the American southwest, and you know Dr. Doom, Reed Richards, the Avengers, and lord knows who else were always on some visi-screen creeping on a guy (good or bad). My impression of this mag was really carved out by the first half of the story. It's just such a fabricated story -- it certainly smacks of "Hey, it's our 100th ish, and what would you think of having the stars of both halves of the book tussle in a full-length brouhaha?!" Let me give those of you who've not read it a few specifics --

Doug: Namor decides to ally with the Hulk, basically because he'll be twice as menacing with the Green Goliath beside him. He swims off in search of ol' Greenskin, but encounters an experimental hydrofoil that fires on him. Game on. The ship's crew radios their "master", and we don't have to wait to see who it is -- it's none other than the Puppet Master. And what a rendition of Phillip Masters Mirthful Marie Severin gives us! Wow, man -- imagine if Mr. Clean, Lex Luthor, and Wilson Fisk somehow had a child (I know...blech!!). And to make it worse, the get-up he wears, with the big "P" on the front. Oh, my. So Masters is mad that Namor mixed it up with the sailors and ended up wrecking the hydrofoil he was in the process of stealing. Revenge, revenge, revenge -- because that's what super-villains do. Masters decides, since the Hulk is on the news, that he'll craft a puppet of that beast and use him to pay back the Sub-Mariner. So long story short, this is how our two combatants are brought together. The cover touts this yarn as an epic 22 pages (double-sized from the usual 10-pagers enjoyed by Hulk and/or Sub-Mariner fans); Namor and the Hulk fight for 16 of those pages! If I was 10, I'd be beside myself. But as a stodgy middle-aged connoisseur of slugfests, not so much. I should mention that as the Puppet Master gains control of the Hulk, Rick Jones gets mildly knocked around by the purple pantsed one. This of course continues the running subplot of "Thunderbolt" Ross and Major Glenn Talbot needing just one more reason to persecute the Jade Giant.

Doug: OK, so what was not to love? Severin's art was fine. She was never one of the top shelf talents in Marvel's bullpen, at least to my eyeballs. But she was solid and steady -- certainly capable and she delivered the goods here. The fight scenes have some power, emotion, and even a little tension. A criticism I'd make is that she draws the Hulk on the small side -- in fact I'd argue that she draws him smaller here than even the Thing should be drawn. If the accepted tale-of-the-tape for Monster-Banner was 7 feet tall and 1000 pounds, then this Hulk looks closer in size to his alter ego. She also does a nice job of conveying that Namor is generally out-classed by his adversary, and thus does a good job of changing locales of the battle, being sure to incorporate some water scenes. Her various facial expressions are nicely rendered.

Doug: So it's not Marie. It must be Stan's script then. And here is where I think my problem rests. We have a 22-page story with a 10-page plot. I really think that this possibly could have been designed for one half of the book and then Stan decided to fill it out to a cover-to-cover clash of titans. I'm not keen on the Puppet Master as the catalyst, either. C'mon -- a grade-Z baddie? Why bother? All Namor would have to do is look at the Hulk wrong and they'd start fighting. So that the Puppet Master was employed didn't get it with me. Stan's script overall just wasn't up to his Silver Surfer, or Fantastic Four or Amazing Spider-Man that he'd have been writing at the same time. Nope -- this effort seemed like it came from a guy who viewed the assignment as perhaps down his list of things to do. So while this wasn't the worst story I've ever read, I think I'm just so colored by my expectations of the potentiality.

Doug: But that's a sweet cover, isn't it?

"I'm Just a Lucky Dude Who Got to Write..."

Doug: Two days ago, while perusing the BAB Twitter account's timeline (I have two accounts/timelines -- one for "me", and one for "us" that I share with my partner), I came across a series of tweets from Bronze Age scribe Gerry Conway. I'll admit to being tired of Conway often being referred to as "the guy who killed Gwen Stacy". While that may be a claim to fame of his (or infamy, depending on your perspective, I guess), it's certainly in no way indicative or summative of the body of his work in the industry. Conway was lamenting the fact that he's often referred to as a "comics legend", and took just a smidgeon of umbrage. He deflected the "legend" status to folks like Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and Steve Ditko. So of course, I meditated on that for awhile and thought to myself, hey -- we need to discuss this on the blog!

Doug: Gerry Conway wrote a memorable run on Amazing Spider-Man, following an incredible run of 106 out of the first 110 issues written by Stan "the Man" Lee (with issue #s 101-104 penned by Roy Thomas). Conway stayed on the title for over three years; the deaths of Gwen Stacy and the Green Goblin came inside his first 12 issues. As Jim Shooter before him, Conway cut his professional teeth as a teenager.

He crafted that story -- perhaps the most pivotal 2-issue "arc" of the Bronze Age, and also co-created the Punisher as well as several Bronze Age villains that have become Spider-Man mainstays. He wrote the controversial clone saga (which looks like a literary classic in its own right as compared to the second clone saga) and brought a sort of second closure to the death of Gwen Stacy. Additionally at Marvel, he co-created Werewolf by Night and Man-Thing, and wrote the premier issue of Tomb of Dracula. Click here for a listing of Conway's creations/co-creations during his prolific career at Marvel and at DC.

Doug: So -- what exactly is a legend, then? If we look at the parameters of this blog, which most of us agree generally (but not always) focuses on the period from 1970-85, then I'm going to stand up and say that Gerry Conway is a Bronze Age legend. His Spidey run, coupled with his eight years as scribe of Justice League of America, is enough to get brought up in the conversation. My next question would be -- additionally, who else is a "legend"? I know that I often use the term "master" in describing the art of John Buscema, Neal Adams, Kirby, and sometimes even John Byrne. Are they legends (Kirby undeniably is, so no one needs to go there), too? Is Julius Schwartz, the shepherd of the Bronze Age as an editor, a legend? I'll be curious to see what our masses have to say about this oft-bandied term. And when today is all said and done, Gerry Conway may just have to wear that crown...

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0176689/

Doug's Favorites: Marvel Heroes & Legends 1

Marvel: Heroes & Legends #1 (October 1996)
"For Better and For Worse"
Stan Lee/Fabian Nicieza-John Buscema/Sal Buscema/Gene Colan/Steve Ditko/Ron Frenz/John Romita, Sr./Marie Severin/Terry Austin/Al Milgrom/Tom Palmer/Bill Reinhold/Joe Sinnott

Doug:  Just take a look at that cast of creators, and you'll easily see why this book is a favorite of mine!  I'll admit right up front that the script here stinks for the most part.  I think Stan was working way too hard to seem quaint -- really wanting a throwback to Marvel's Silver Age heyday.  But, he was certainly handicapped from the get-go by a weak plot from Fabian Nicieza.  This book was published in the years shortly after Marvels, when the House of Ideas had ceased to be new for the most part, and became bent on a program of recycling; hence you'll find Marvels narrator and protagonist Phil Sheldon alongside a youth -- the latter serves as the catalyst to bring all of the heroes  into action.  But what's lost here is the fact that Kurt Busiek told the tale of Marvels through Phil Sheldon.  Here, Sheldon is a bystander who just happens to find himself in the thick of things.  And the young lad who gets himself lost amid the throng of celebrity watchers on the day Reed Richards married Susan Storm?  He's really a pain-in-the-butt and for my money would have been better left to the mercy of the Grey Gargoyle.  Sheesh, but I'm curmudgeonly in this season of brotherly love!

Doug: So given that the basic premise of the story is that the kid is along a crowd-restraining barrier, freaks out when the super-scuffle breaks out and gets separated from his dad, and encounters all of Marvel's Silver Age stable (sans the Hulk and Dr. Strange) of characters before he's eventually reunited with his father, I thought I'd approach this review just a bit differently.  I've included nine images from the story, the latter eight celebrating the artists of Marvel's past (with the exception of the final sample, which is by Ron Frenz).

Doug:  Leading off, above, is Our Pal Sal Buscema.  I chose this page, as well as all of those that follow by this simple criteria -- I felt these pages best represented the artists as we knew them.  Look at the Sal offering -- action, emotion, and those undeniably Sal-like facial expressions.  One comment -- I cannot stand when stories that are written from a past perspective use modern expressions in the script.  Example A is Jonah telling Robbie, "Grab your cellular phone!  Gotta call the Bugle!"  Given that this is an "untold tale", I don't know why any such updating was necessary.

Doug:  Next up is Sal's older brother, Big John Buscema.  I know we sometimes use the term "stock pose", and one could certainly argue that the second panel is just that from the pencil of JB; but ain't it great??  Love it to pieces.  In case you're wondering, the story segues from one artist to the other, sometimes on the same page, but sometimes at the top of a page.  In the case of the brothers Buscema, they actually share a transitional page -- very appropriate, I felt.

Doug:  Jazzy Johnny takes center stage next, and on his trademark character.  This was a bit ironic to me, as on the cover credits you'll notice the name of Steve Ditko.  But, given that there is no mention of Dr. Strange, I thought Ditko on Spidey would be a slam dunk.  But no -- you'll have to scroll down just a bit to see where he wound up.

Doug:  Yep, Ditko's on the Fantastic Four.  A couple of things to remember -- Jack Kirby had passed away about two years prior to the publication of this mag.  And, what's more, Ditko had only a smattering of experiences as the penciller on Fantastic Four stories.  So I still believe that, while his inclusion in this book was a wonderful touch, his assignment to the FF portion is dubious at best.  Romita could have done it, as he'd had that short stint following Kirby; but I think we'll all agree that Romita and Spider-Man are like peanut butter and jelly.

Doug:  You know what I like about Gene Colan?  His energy.  From the panel lay-outs to the incredible sense of speed he instills to his characters in action, Colan is a vibrant storyteller.  Below you'll find yourself some vintage Daredevil.

Doug:  Of all the Silver Age greats included, I felt that Marie Severin's talents had declined the most.  This is unmistakably her; you can even get a sense of the caricature work she did in Not Brand Echh!  I'm at a loss to know if she ever did the art on the X-Men, but given the choices that were not available (Don Heck, Werner Roth, etc.), it's fine by me that the first lady of Marvel was included on the Merry Mutants.

Doug:  I'm not sure what's going on with Ron Frenz in this book.  Don't get me wrong -- I enjoyed his work on Amazing Spider-Man and the Silver Surfer revival.  And I suppose for those consumers who were teens in 1996, a little injection of then-modernism may have been a selling point - search me.  It's good stuff (although some of his faces are really off -- there's a panel of Sue that I didn't include where her eyes are closer to her ears than to her nose!)

Doug:  I'm sure there are those among our readers who didn't even know this magazine existed.  There's actually a second issue that features the Avengers, but I've never seen it so can neither pump nor pan it.  Despite this story's poor writing, it still remains a fave of mine.  I've long contended, contrary to the opinions of just about anyone who will listen, that art carries the comics medium over story.  And I'll use this book as my support.  At the end of the day, Stan failed me.  But the heroes of my youth -- those guys and gal who gave me the best time copying their lines as if they were my own, returned one more time to make me smile.  That's what comics in the '60's and '70's were all about, after all.

BONUS:  How about one more page of John B. love?  Several years ago I purchased a pencil rough from a dealer on Ebay.  It happens to correspond to the published page below it.  We've discussed recently how by the '80's and beyond Big John was largely doing breakdowns with his inkers given the responsibility of finishing and polishing.  So marvel at this creative process, and get all giddy at the sight of a JB original.