A Green-Skinned Gent!

(The dates for 1975 and 2025 are identical.)

The holiday season is once again upon us. This little Christmas card from the Marvel Bullpen jumped out at me (kinda' literally) and I immediately recognized the source despite the addition of the little heroes in the corner and the Santa gear (by Mirthful Marie most likely).

One of my favorite images of the Incredible Hulk is this incredible image by Jack Kirby which appeared as the front of the great sweatshirt Marvel licensed way back in its heyday.

As can be seen by this vintage ad which features the artwork of Marie Severin and images from sundry issues of Tales to Astonish. 

Here's another classic ad which gives you a look at the delightful back image for this hilarious sweatshirt. The allure for me was and is mighty, and for a mere two ninety-eight it could've been mine. I never got one, but I've always wanted one.

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The Incredible Hulk Day!

Jim Steranko was born on this date in 1938. Steranko is one of a kind in the comics world. He was a magician and the inspiration for Jack Kirby's Mister Miracle. He became an ace artist for Marvel on Nick Fury and other titles for a brief but impressive period, and later a creator of a fabulous covers for a myriad of paperbacks starring The Shadow and others. He wrote his own History of Comics. 

This Bronze Age British Mighty World of Marvel cover featuring the Hulk seems at first glance to be adapted from the iconic Jim Steranko-Marie Severin cover for King-Size Hulk Special #1 from 1968.

It's not.

The Brit cover seems rather to have been adapted from the original Steranko artwork for the King-Size Special cover, the artwork not retouched by Marie Severin. Check out that face.

Steranko's original has lots of potency, but frankly I think that Marie Severin's alterations to the Hulk's head add some drama. The Steranko face is too beastly, and it lacks the human component to give the image the necessary connection for the audience. Steranko's Hulk is well and truly a monster. Great piece of dynamic action though. 

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Lost Marvels - Tower Of Shadows!

In the summer of 1969 Marvel decided to spread its wings and attempt to return to making magical mystery comics as they had done less than a decade before. The supernatural was popular again, so much so that the Comics Code had done little when DC brought forth a truly scary The House of Mystery under Joe Orlando's editorial control. DC was onto something and Marvel wanted a taste. To that end they announced two new titles -- Tower of Shadows and Chamber of Darkness. Fantagraphics attempted to reprint Tower of Shadows but is only able to do so in an incomplete form. For some reason two stories based on H.P. Lovecraft stories were not able to be reprinted, much to the detriment of this otherwise handsome volume.  

"At the Stroke of Midnight!" by Jim Steranko is the first and the best story in the series. Steranko was at his very best, offering up a haunted house story that fragmented time for the characters and the reader as well.  "From the Brink!" by Johnny Craig gives us a dandy tale of a man who is seeking to root out fake mediums and then he finds a real one. "A Time to Die!" by Stan Lee and John Buscema and Don Heck is a tale of a mad scientist and his even madder assistant and what happens when the former discovers the secret of immorality.  Cover by John Romita, replacing one by Jim Steranko which Stan Lee rightly deemed in my eyes as less effective. 

"Witch Hunt!" by Roy Thomas, Don Heck and Dan Adkins tells the tragic story of a man looking for witches but gets surprised when he finds something else. "Look Out, Wyatt -- Automation's Gonna Get Your Job!" by Gary Friedrich, John Buscema and John Verpoorten is a story set in a mine where men fear machines will take their jobs, but one man finds that fear ends up threatening them even more. "One Hungers" by Neal Adams and Dan Adkins has a few hippies uncover a voracious menace from across time.  Cover by John Romita for the Adams story. 

"The Moving Finger Writhes...!" by Len Wein, Gene Colan and Mike Esposito is the story of a man who is a failure until he finds a special book which lets him glimpse the future, but what's there is both wonderful and terrible. "Midnight in the Wax Museum!" by Gary Friedrich, George Tuska and Marie Severin features a reporter who wakes up one day and discovers a house has appeared from nowhere and then he finds aliens. "The Terrible Old Man!" by Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith finished this issue but sadly is not in this collection. Cover by Marie Severin for the Friedrich and Tuska tale. 

"Evil is a Baaaaad Scene!" by Allyn Brodsky and Don Heck has two hippies seeking cheap thrills but find more than they bargained for when they let an evil mystic cast spells in their apartment. "One Little Indian!" by Marv Wolfman, Gene Colan and Dan Adkins tells the story of a cruel man who is cursed and is warned to avoid Indians, which he tries to do. "To Sneak -- Perchance to Dream!" by Tom Sutton is a sequel to a Chamber of Darkness story in which two spies occupy a living house in order to blow up a plutonium plant. Cover by Marie Severin and Herb Trimpe for the Brodsky and Heck tale. 

"The Demon that Devoured Hollywood!" by Roy Thomas, Barry Windsor-Smith and Dan Adkins is about a famous horror film actor famous for his make-ups, but who has a terrible secret which ultimately destroys him. "Flight into Fear!" by Wally Wood tells of a lame young man who falls asleep on a gargoyle and before you know it finds himself a giant in a land of people needing a sword-wielding hero. "Time Out!" by Gerry Conway and Syd Shores gives us the story of a desperate couple who find themselves locked in a haunted house, and they lose something but gain something as well. Cover by Barry Windsor-Smith and Bill Everett for the Thomass-Windsor-Smith story. 

"The Ghost-Beast!" by Wally Wood is another sword and sorcery story in which a character named Beowulf fights a deadly monster, but it turns out he is a menace as well. "Contact!" by Tom Sutton is a two-page bit of fun about a power-hungry old man who makes contact with aliens, much to his regret. "The Scream from Beyond!" by Steve Skeates, Gene Colan, and Dan Adkins tells the story of an evil man who causes crashes to record the sounds, but who finds a sound he doesn't want. Cover by Marie Severin for a reprint story "Man in the Rat Hole!" by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. (Not in this collection.)

"The Scream of Things" by Allyn Brodsky, Barry Windsor-Smith, and Vince Colletta is about a researcher and an evil girl who find more than they can handle in a cursed mansion. "Of Swords and Sorcery!" by Wally Wood is another sword and sorcery effort, this one filled with an evil sorcerer, an elf, and a transformed dwarf in addition to the usual hero and damsel in distress. Cover by Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and Marie Severin for the reprint story "I Was Trapped by Titano, the Monster the Time Forgot!" (Not in this collection.)

"Sanctuary!" by Wally Wood is yet another sword and sorcery tale about a man who would be king and seeks a crown in a forbidden place. Cover by Berni Wrightson for the Wood tale. The rest of the issue is comprised of reprints featuring artwork by Steve Ditko and Don Heck. (Not included in this collection.)

"Pickman's Model" by Roy Thomas and Tom Palmer. Cover by Berni Wrightson. The balance of the issue was filled with work drawn by Don Heck and Jack Kirby. Only Wrightson's cover is included in this collection. 

This one-short King-Size Special cover by John Romita is included as well. 

Here is Jim Steranko's rejected cover for the debut issue of Tower of Shadows. It's an awesome piece of artwork, but I have to agree with Lee that Romita's was likely to sell more books. 

With both Tower of Shadows and Chamber of Darkness, Marvel wanted to tap into that EC horror host vibe as both Warren and DC had done. To that end they created Digger, above seen in a distinctive outfit by Steranko. 

John Buscema renders him in his more traditional look for the third story in the first issue. Buscema's version is less offbeat but creepier. 

Digger shared hosting duties with the official host of Chamber of Darkness, one Headstone P. Gravely. Both Digger and Gravely show up in the early issues of Tower of Shadows, but soon Marvel lets them fade away in favor of letting the artists introduce their own tales. I hated to see the hosts go, but using the real talent was actually quite in keeping with Marvel's general trend of promoting that talent for the fans. 

Tower of Shadows changed its title to Creatures on the Loose and became a home to more vintage monster stories from the Atlas days and sword and sorcery, specifically Marvel's first King Kull story by Berni Wrightson, and later Gullivar of Mars by Gil Kane and Thongor of Lemuria by a host of talents. Man-Wolf finished off the series. But for all that, I never forgot Tower of Shadows and really enjoyed this chance to tumble into its pages again. 

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Marble Universe Day!

Marie Severin was born on this date in 1929. Severin was the sister of artist John Severin, and she was a key artist at EC Comics and later Marvel in its heyday. She was dandy artist on her own, but she was especially good at caricature and wild and wooly comedic action. It's hard to imagine Not Brand Echh without her. 

It's Earth-9047 according to those mavens who monitor such things. The "Marble Universe" is a mockery, specifically of the Marvel Universe and any other that a joke might demand. 

If "Mirthful" Marie Severin had never drawn anything but Not Brand Echh, she'd still be one of Marvel's most significant and important artists. While other "Bullpenners" contributed to the comic including such luminaries as Jack Kirby, Tom Sutton, Gene Colan, and such, the book's whole demeanor and feel was defined by Marie Severin's lively energetic renditions of the "Marble Comics" characters who populated the upstart pages of this self-deprecating rolling masterpiece.

More than anything else it was Not Brand Echh that made Marvel's talents different, not only a willingness to make fun of themselves, but actually an eagerness to find the absurdity in the comics they themselves produced and so put all of the effort into a more complete context. It was as far from stuffy as one could get. And leading the pack was Marie Severin, a masterful caricaturist who could nail not only the look but the feel of a person and imbue them with antic energy on the comic book page. These are Marie's real masterpieces, as loony as they are.

Here are her covers for the book, all of the run, save for a couple by Tom Sutton and Jack Kirby.

(Tom Sutton with Additions by Marie)

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Tennis, Anyone?

I adore this single page by the incomparable John Buscema and George Klein. These two blended their talents all too briefly on the Assemblers, but they created some exciting pages between them in that tiny period of time.

For one thing I like comic book pages where characters read comics, especially recognizable comics. It's fun, and suits the personality of Hawkeye (not yet revealed to be Clint Barton yet) perfectly.

And for another thing, his page is a clever multiverse-bending ending to a story from Not Brand Echh #12. That's a delightful cover by Marie Severin by the way. 

The whole story can be found here at the Diversions of the Groovy Kind Blog. The story by Roy Thomas and Tom Sutton is pretty funny and involves these "Revengers" at a very particular time in their history when they were arguably at their weakest. The team consisted of Goliath, the Wasp, Hawkeye, the Black Panther and brand-new member the largely untried Vision.

In fact, this story had to happen in between issues #58 and #59 of The Avengers run since that is the only possible time that the assembled team pictured so elegantly by Buscema and Klein ever existed. The Vision became an Avenger in issue #58 and the erratic Hank Pym doffed his Goliath duds to become Yellowjacket in issue #59.

So, it is in the pages of Not Brand Echh of all places, in this weird fusion of the of the Marvel and Marble universes where we find this Avengers team assembled for the one and only time really.

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The Lady Liberators And Much More!

This wonderful issue of The Avengers introduced the "Lady Liberators", a one-shot gang of Marvel's most dangerous dames led by the Valkyrie (who was in fact the Enchantress in disguise). 

(Marie Severin's early layout for this dynamic cover.)

It's one of my favorite comic books from one of my favorite runs in the series. The message of "Women's Liberation" is again front and center today as reactionary forces work diligently to claw back rights that women have enjoyed for decades. 

(Parody of the cover by Bob Layton)

Strong women in the public square terrorize far too many Americans who had a chance to elevate a strong qualified woman to the highest office in the land and instead selected a raving maniac and useful idiot for the former Soviet Union. Shame. 

Women in comics have always been a mystery of immense proportions. Comic books have almost always been the singular playground for young boys and later young men. Girls were allowed to read romance comics when those got invented and the MLJ line stays alive even today with its Archie line up. But comics are famously about superheroes and superheroes are for boys. We all know that.

So, when dames show up in the four-colored pages they are either damsels in distress or dames of great danger. This month has featured the latter, those women who are just as inclined to stand on the throat of any malignant mope who might imagine she needed saving. (I won't say whose throat I image they might be standing on.) Enjoy these exceedingly dangerous dames

Death to Male Chauvinism! 

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