It's not just nostalgia which makes me rate the debut cover of Doctor Strange by Dan Adkins very highly. This is a very dramatic cover, and has a lot of punch at a time when comics still battled at the newsstands for attention. The astral form of Doc rising menacingly from his stoic figure is powerful stuff. That look on Doc's spectral self is pretty grim. Throw in some Dikto-esque room furnishings and this is a truly weird and compelling cover.
A glimpse at the very next issue, and a potential reader might be forgiven for perhaps thinking Doc Strange were some disembodied adventurer, some type of ghostly guardian. Dan Adkins left the book with the very next issue, but his impact on those early Strange comics is pronounced and after all these decades quite effective.
Here's a link to an interview he did some years ago where he talks candidly about his Marvel Comics career among many other things.
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Adkins was a good, competent follow-up to Ditko. Not as lush as Colan, but that's not a bad thing.
ReplyDeleteThe Colan covers were impeccable (especially the next ish, 172 with Dormammu), but I missed the more austere/moodier interiors with Ditko and Adkins after a while..
And frankly, I didn't like Brunner nearly as much as Ditko, Adkins or Colan.
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