Alex Nino proves to be one of Jim Starlin’s better inkers (if not the best) with this one and only fabulous collaboration for Rampaging Hulk magazine in 1977.
It’s a gorgeous Hulk fantasy story, worth seeking out in its original magazine format. (It’s reduced to comic book size, with inferior reproduction, in Rampaging Hulk Essentials, the only available reprint.)
As I was working on this post, Nostalgic Investments listed a beautiful DPS from this story for 15k (see below) and, in today’s market, that definitely seems reasonable.
“We are considering turning the universe inside out.”
Jim Starlin delivers a classic and trippy page from his Infinite (figuratively, and sometimes literally) cosmic series featuring Adam Warlock, Gamora, Thanos, et al.
Starlin. Cosmic. Trippy. Nuff said.
Well, almost…
If you told me when I was a kid that we’d have Warlock Happy Meal toys someday, I would have called the drug overdose hotline on your behalf. Trippy indeed.
We begin our third annual Halloween celebration with a terrific Alan Davis splash of Thanos becoming Death in The Infinity Conflict graphic novel.
Like all recent Davis and Farmer pages, it’s a combination of blue-line printing and pencil by Davis, and finishes by Farmer. And, also like all pages by that terrific art team, it looks great.
Happy Halloween — foe the next few weeks. See you on Thursday.
Continuing our celebration of the 60th anniversary of the debut of Fantastic Four #1. (August 8, 1961)
Jim Starlin pens a love letter to the classic Hulk-Thing battles of the 60s and 70s with this fun two-parter from Marvel Fanfare.
The Hulk decks Mr. Grimm “off-screen” as it were, bridging the two issues. (See below.)
I never cared one way or another whether The Hulk or Thing was stronger (I pretty much enjoyed any crossover), but apparently this subject is very emotional for some.
That said, Thor is stronger than either of them.
Let the hate mail begin. Ha.
CBR has done a great overview of those classic battles, which you can read here.
Jim Starlin lets our imagination fill in the actual punch, as the Hulk has apparently just decked the Thing in between issues.
The Marvel Age of crossovers begins in March 1963, with a very busy FF meeting the Hulk and Spider-Man in the same month..
We continue to celebrate Jack Kirby’s legacy at DC Comics with a special two-week look at Jack’s characters and concepts as envisioned by other creators. 2021 is the Fiftieth anniversary of the Fourth World storyline. *
Superman (with Mr. Miracle’s help) gets into it with the Infinity man in this great splash page and well-crafted mini-series by Jim Starlin.
Starlin of course created Thanos, the not-quite knock-off of Darkseid, who became one of the most popular super-villains in the Marvel Universe, and ultimately the ultimate “Big-bad” of the MCU. So it’s fitting to have him play in the Darkseid’s sandbox as well.
Ironically, it took Darkseid a bit longer to achieve the same level of popularity in the DC Universe, but his own crown as DC’s ultimate super-villain has been amplified by his inclusion in the Zach Snyder “cut”of Justice League.
As for the series title? Let’s just say that reports of the New Gods’ deaths are greatly exaggerated.
*Purists will note that some of the characters and titles actually made it onto newsstands before the close of 1970, but the fully integrated series (Jimmy Olsen, Forever People, New Gods, and Mister Miracle) — doesn’t fully materialize until the following year.
Darkseid and Thanos, not as similar as you might think. (Darkseid doesn’t need a cosmic cube to be a god — he already is one.)
Jim Starlin’s Marvel work had a big impact on me back in the day: Space Opera. Philosophy. Offbeat humor every so often, just enough to keep us from focusing too much on the end of… well, everything.
So it was no surprise that I was more than curious about Dreadstar, his creator owned project that launched form Epic (Marvel’s creator line) in 1982. Sure enough, it did not diverge from Starlin’s established interests — or my taste. I enjoyed his entire run on the series.
(It’s always so odd when a creator leaves a creator-owned book. But it happens frequently. And I digress.)
This page is actually one of two I acquired about 10 years ago. The other page had Vanth Dreadstar on it (although minimally) but I ended up keeping this one (and trading the other) because it sums up the classic Starlin style. To me, only Steve Ditko did space and time magic with the same trippy flair.
(Crazy neon coloring by Glynis Oliver Wein on the published piece as well.)
Dreadstar had to slowly make his way through magazines and graphic novels before he ultimately appeared in his own (color) ongoing series.
By now, we should be in the next phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but unfortunately, we have a six-month delay. So, for the first time in a dozen years, no Marvel film to launch the summer movie-going season.But, we won’t let that delay slow us down here — this week, we’re looking at some comics art related to the next three scheduled films.
Marvel’s ability to spot trends, and capitalize on them, definitely helped their their 1960s rise from second (more like fifth) banana to publishing powerhouse in the 60s and 70s.
Case in point: Martial arts and specifically “Kung-Fu.”. First flooding film houses, and then television, the craze rapidly spread through pop-culture in the early 1970s. Bruce Lee — and dozens of imitators — had clearly caught the public’s imagination.
Marvel quickly launched three genre series in late 1973 and early 1974. First up was Shang-Chi, originally by Steve Englehart and Jim Starlin, and shortly thereafter by Doug Moench and Paul Gulacy.
Shang-Chi’s backstory was intriguing — in the comics, he’s the son of Dr. Fu Manchu, famed villain from the Sax Rohmer novels. This plot detail, ultimately a rights issue, helped derail Marvel from reprinting the series for more than 40 years.
And, it’s been changed apparently for the Shang-Chi film now scheduled for May, 2021. He’s re-written now as the son of the Mandarin, an early Marvel (Iron Man) mastermind who was “impersonated” in Iron Man 3. We will see how that plays out.
As for this page itself: Shang- Chi barely makes an “appearance”, but so what? It’s a cool example of Gulacy’s Steranko-influenced storytelling.
And, as for the criticism that perhaps Gulacy’s style was too influenced by Jim Steranko in these early issues? I say, so what to that too. Jim had already bowed out of comic book stories by then, and if you liked his work, this was possibly the next best thing.
Marvel leaps out of the Kung-Fu gate , with Shang_Chi, The Deadly Hands magazine, and Iron Fist in 1973 and 1974.
