I adore big overstuffed comic books like this one. This package out this week, offers up all three Defender stories from Marvel Feature. We have the debut tale where Doc Strange, Sub-Mariner, and the Hulk team up to master the threat of Yandroth and his doomsday machine. That's followed by a Halloween clash with Dormammu, and finally a meeting between the Hulk and the team with Xemnu the Titan (once called "Hulk" himself). Also up is one of my favorite Doc Strange stories, "The Return" which was part of the debut.
All the stories were written by Roy "The Boy" Thomas and drawn by Ross Andru, with the exception of "The Return" which features scrumptious Don Heck and Frank Giacoia artwork. The inking is remarkable in these with Bill Everett doing an especially offbeat job on the debut story, Sal Buscema gilding the Dormammu tale, and Everett returning for a more traditional job on the Xemnu story.
These are some great stories, and big old reprint packages like this I find irresistible. There are even some old ads for the series included as a mini-bonus.
Highly recommended.
And for good measure here's the new Neal Adams cover which swipes his classic Defenders debut original. It's not nearly as good, but interesting nonetheless. I can't say I'm crazy about this new logo either, seems a bit wimpy for this team.
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ReplyDeleteNice job describing Everett's inks on the debut story. Very diplomatic. You're familiar with the reasons behind that (which came out in ALTER EGO I believe)? Apparently Andru was doing particularly loose, scratchy pencils at the time. Someone like his longtime inking partner Mike Esposito instinctively knew how to ink his work but Everett was used to tighter pencils. It's said he got frustrated and just inked every single line.
ReplyDeleteNow that you mention it, I do remember reading that about the unusual look of the first story. Everett during these later days was a real interesting fellow. I think it reflects exceedingly well on Stan Lee the number of times you read he was throwing work to those guys who were there at the beginning of Marvel. Stan seemed to feel a need to keep these guys in the fold.
ReplyDeleteWhat really knocked me out in this reprint package is how good Don Heck's stuff looks. His sleek style really comes across on these glossy pages.
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