DC Comics Are Sold Here!

How good is Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez? Look at the stunning poster above, just of a myriad of outstanding pieces of artwork he produced for DC in the late Bronze Age of Comics. There was a time when DC was a my favorite comic book company (after Charlton of course) and not surprisingly it coincided with the time when Garcia-Lopez was setting the artistic bar for the company. No artist ever did handsome and dashing better than Garcia-Lopez. I have one of these posters tucked away in my sprawling collection somewhere and I need to find it.

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Dial N For Naked!

Did not know this existed! Must have! Will Meugniot is one of the finest "Good Girl" artists of his generation and a book like this which blends lovely gams with bogus comic book lore on vintage comic book art is fabricated just for me. Go here for more details! Let Me repeat -- I must have one of this!

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Man Of Newton!

While I was researching The Phantom for some earlier posts, I rand across this Superman illustration by the late great Don Newton. Something about it tickled my consciousness. Aside from being a neatly crafted image featuring the Son of Krypton at his most majestic it reminded me of something I'd seen recently.

That something was Henry Cavill in his role of Superman. I've been most impressed by the DC movies of recent vintage and Man of Steel most of all. The notes were all there for a admittedly darker but still utterly fascinating of what it might be like if there really were a Superman. Recent reports say that despite gossip Cavill is not leaving the role, to which I say "Huzzah!"

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All-Winning Recreation!

I am a die-hard All-Winners Squad fan from the moment I ran across their second adventure reprinted in the pages of Marvel Super-Heroes. Timely Big Three of Human Torch, Sub-Mariner and Captain America to anchor a team of heroes back when such things were exceedingly rare indeed. Sadly the Squad only had a few missions, but those few left many a fanboy, like yours truly, hungry for more.

Bill Black must've been one of that number too. Here he recreates the work of Syd Shores from the cover  of All-Winners Comics #21. It's a pleasure to see him not attempt to update the characters but attempt to truly represent what was on the newsstands so many decades before.

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The Latest Death Of Captain Marvel!

With that movie coming out and all, Marvel has seen fit to put out yet another version of The Death of Captain Marvel. This one not only includes the famous graphic novel and the key issues from late in the series when Nitro "kills" Captain Marvel and the Marvel Spotlight issues in which Mar-Vell discovers his fate, but reaches all the way back to the very beginning and puts together the very first Captain Marvel tale of how he first came down to Earth to be among man. And since I'm a total sucker for this period of Captain Marvel, I picked up this tome. But there's nothing new here for folks who already have these tales in the other tomes in which they have been printed. But it's nifty (for me anyways) to have this alpha and omega edtion of the Kree captain.

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Don Newton's Complete Phantom!

The Phantom was created by Lee Falk in 1936 and became an exceedingly successful comic strip. It rumbled along for decades, gaining worldwide popularity, though for some reason rarely getting a steady bid in the comic book format. Then Gold Key got the nod and gave the Ghost Who Walks his own self-titled ongoing comic and it must have done okay, because later King Features had its own comic book version and when that enterprise sputtered the property came into the domain of the Charlton folks who continued the numbering which had been running through both the Gold Key and King runs. They assigned Jim Aparo to draw the book and it immediately gained a modern dynamic which many of the classic versions lacked. Aparo was eventually replaced by Charlton stalwart Pat Boyette who offered up a rather idiosyncratic version of the hero. I liked it, but then he was phased out and a more reliable classic look appeared. That held sway for a short time and then it happened.

Don Newton was a name known to many comic fans, an early attendee of the up and coming conventions, Newton was a major contributor to the fanzines of the day and he clearly had professional level skills. He'd been working at Charlton on some ghost stories here and there and then he was tapped to draw The Phantom. I remember picking up the comic, issue sixty-seven which featured a dramatic poster shot of the iconic hero with his sidekick Devil, and the story was brimming with atmosphere and rich with dark details. This was a different Phantom and I knew I liked it. I was not alone and the issues, though few they are, of the Newton run have been considered the gold standard for the strip since by many fans including yours truly.

Now Hermes has collected just those Don Newton issues together under one cover. It lovely stuff, showcasing the rough-hewn nature of Newton's take on the world, a world often with a film noir feel. The Phantom here is mysterious and agile and feels somehow more dangerous than any who has walked before. Here are the issues in this not-cheap hardback tome.

(Don Newton cover only on this issue.)

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Fire Versus Water!

I don't know if it was some sort of master plan but I doubt it. However the chips fell, Marvel, then called Timely has two of the most famous and successful Golden Age comic book superheros in the Human Torch (who wasn't "Human") and the Sub-Mariner (who wasn't always a "hero"). Now in this new series of trades dubbed "Decades" we get a nifty batch of Subby's and Torch's earliest squabbles.

The idea that they existed in the same universe likely rocked the world of more than a few fans at the time. We are so used to expansive and elaborate continuities these days that the raucous early days of comics have a refreshing atmosphere of pure creation. Eventually the two would become partners alongside Captain America, the Whizzer and Miss America as part of the All-Winners Squad, but in these early encounters they'd rather fight than switch. Almost all the work here is by the two creators of these characters -- Bill Everett and Carl Burgos, although there is one story drawn by the infamous "Unknown". This one is sheer fun.

Here are the covers of the comics in the collection, though of course only the Sub-Mariner and Torch material is included.

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