El Sargento Es Un Bobo!

The truth hurts sometimes. And it hurts in all languages!


Great gag! You can almost feel Beetle's self-satisfied grin, and hear Sarge's snarl. Violence is imminent!

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When Lands The Saucer!

I was first able to read the tale of the Badoon's first fateful arrival on Earth in an abridged form in the pages of Marvel Presents #8, when the "Dreaded Deadline Doom" caused the editors at Mighty Marvel to showcase the story between some new material in that comic. I was glad to finally read about the Badoon and their first foray onto our globe, and gladder still when some few years later I snagged a back issue of the Silver Surfer comic itself.


Silver Surfer #2 dated October 1968 somehow eluded me when I was a budding fanboy. The cover by John Buscema and Joe Sinnott is a real humdinger. I looked at it more closely in this post.


Here's Al Milgrom's original artwork for the reprint cover! Milgrom's work oozes an enthusiasm which is impossible to mimic.

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Bronze Nemesis!

This is something different. Bronze Nemesis is a collection of jazz tunes from Doc-Tone Records inspired by the pulp adventures of Street & Smith's Doc Savage. Here's a link to the website for more information on ordering the collection. And here's a link which explores the concept a bit by the titular leader of the Scott Robinson Doctette.


The cover art is a James Bama Doc pose lifted from Bantam's The Dust of Death superimposed against a threatening saxophone, a microphone, a drum, and an always mysterious theremin.


Here's a sample of the collection's contents, this one inspired by the vintage Doc adventure The Secret in the Sky.



I'm not sure about this one, but the limited edition bronze vinyl version seems fun.

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Art Of Thunder!

It's possible that Wally Wood's work on the Tower Comics line of THUNDER Agents might be his best mainstream comics work, or perhaps to put it a bit differently, his most satisfying. Here are some covers from the line and some of the layouts which demonstrate Wood's process.




Final Art by Dan Adkins



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El Hombre De Bronze!

This close up of the classic Jim Steranko figure works very effectively as a cover for a recent Spanish version of a DC collection of vintage Marvel Comics adaptations of Doc Savage stories.


DC Comics have the rights to the character currently and somehow also the rights to reprint the Marvel Comics from the early 70's. This a pretty handsome volume from a few years ago.


Jim Steranko did two outstanding covers for the series, and the first of these served as the cover for the DC collection.


Here's a peek at a more recent recreation of this memorable Steranko rendition of the Man of Bronze.


For the record here is Steranko's other Doc Savage comic cover. Somewhat less dramatic perhaps, but arguably more pulpy in its feel.

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An Uncanny Homage!

The cover by Jim Steranko for X-Men #49 is truly one of the stunning images of the Silver Age of comics. Steranko's presence on the series was momentary, but left a deep impression on fans who were there to witness it. I was one of those fans, and Steranko's offbeat rendition of the "Merry Mutants" was dramatic and oddly attractive. Werner Roth and Don Heck had been giving the team reliable service for many years. The series had seen talents like Ross Andru and George Tuska and Dan Adkins drop by after the initial burst of issues by Jack "King" Kirby. But it was mostly rather workmanlike if quite decent by and large, until Steranko busted out with his version. Neal Adams came aboard soon thereafter to give the team a final burst before the ultimate flameout of the series.


Here's the original to Steranko's groundbreaking superhero image, a Dali-esque nightmare vision. I can't recollect how many times as a kid I traced the Angel figure, at once awkward and compelling.


The art looks perhaps even more dramatic with a black background as seen on this Masterworks cover.


But what really caught my eye recently and got me to thinking anew about this classic Steranko image was this homage/swipe by Jean Frisano for the French comic Strange. He does a valiant job of capturing at once the weirdness of the original Steranko art and adds if anything even more kinetic activity to it. Steranko for all his elegant design work could draw somewhat static figures, here that seems to have been solved.


Frisano even went a step further on a later Strange cover and created an original cover done in a distinctively Steranko style. It's almost akin to finding an unknown Steranko featuring classic Marvel characters.



My compulsion to be complete requires the addition of Steranko's other two X-Men covers from issues #50 and #51. Steranko only drew a few issues, but what issues they were.

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Some Avengers Assembly Required!

This a pivotal issue of The Avengers for a number of reasons. Gil Kane & Dan Adkins First The Avengers #72 marks the initial time that Captain Marvel then in his "Silvertop"-period Negative Zone-relationship with Avengers "mascot" Rick Jones met up with the Avengers team. Cap's own series had been put on hiatus the previous month. This 1970 meeting would be critical a few years later when Mar-Vell and Rick again hooked up with the Assemblers to help wage the Kree-Skrull War. Herb Trimpe & Sam Grainger Second, the issue gives some resolution to a mystery left hanging with the demise of the first SHIELD series, the seeming death of Nick Fury himself at the hands of the first Bulls-eye. Jim Steranko & Jim Tartaglione Also the mystery about what was the relationship exactly between Nick Fury and his arch nemesis Scorpio was uncovered. We learn in this issue that Scorpio was in fact Nick's brother Jake. Sal Buscema & Sam Grainger As part of that reveal we also meet for the first time The Zodiac, who have since become arch enemies of the Avengers and others. I was truly excited by the double page reveal of this colorful (if admittedly sometimes goofy) gang of baddies. Marvel made sometimes great and sadly sometimes poor use of them in the years to come. Sal Buscema & Sam Grainger But a third thing always stands out about this issue drawn by Sal Buscema and inked by Sam Grainger. This was not the first issue to feature the Avengers conference table with the big honkin' "A", that might've been The Avengers#34. Don Heck But it was the first to my memory to show all those ginchy specially designed chairs for every member with the nifty hero-specific symbols on the back of each. Can you imagine how frustrating it got for Jarvis and his maintenance crew to keep changing out Hank Pym's chair as he morphed his identity over and over. There must've been a closet or shed somewhere with a bunch of Hank's old Avengers chairs in it, just waiting for the next permutation. Clint Barton must've given them the shakes too. I wonder if these chairs are Sal's own invention, or a detail of Grainger's inking, or were perhaps indicated in the script by Roy Thomas. This is the kind of earth-shaking continuity info that once upon a time might've inspired Roy or a late Mark Gruenwald to write a complete story. Jack Kirby & Paul Reinman Whatever the case, they sure came a long way since those early days when they were sitting on milking stools. Rip Off