Greg Goldstein's Comic Art Gallery
Panels and Pages… Art and Artists… Creators and Conventions… Musings and Memories…
Classic Iron Man vs. Magnus: Robot Fighter, Commission, 2001
Mankind advances more than 2000 years into the future, and the greatest superhero of the era apparently can’t distinguish between a robot and a man in a suit of armor?
No matter, it’s a superb piece of art by the terrific Paul Smith. And a perfect way to honor both characters’ 6oth anniversary.
Magnus, Robot Fighter #20, November 1967
Gold Key was never a publisher of choice for me as a kid. It had to be a really slow day at the comics rack, and I had to be flush with cash (meaning a few extra coins) to pick up the one Gold Key title I liked: Magnus Robot Fighter.
Russ Manning’s vision of the future was so clean and pristine that I didn’t much care about the stories, I just loved the art. Beautiful futuristic cities, and crazy badass robots. Oh, and his men and woman were gorgeous. Natural selection had apparently taken leaps and bounds by 4000 AD.
The future looked really bright — minus that whole totalitarian robot situation, of course.
Magnus Robot fighter turns 60 in 2023. 1963 was apparently a good year for armor.
Star Wars Daily Comic Strip, June 16, 1980
At first glance, Russ Manning’s clean art style is an unusual choice for Star Wars. The saga (the original film specifically) is a bit rough around the edges, with scorch marks, dusty landscapes, dirty uniforms, and beat-up droids.
Manning, best know for his beautiful art on Tarzan and Magnus Robot Fighter, is anything but.
His work is crisp and polished. Magnus lives on Earth 4000 AD, a world populated by handsome men and gorgeous woman inhabiting a shiny futuristic city. The battle against the sentient robots? Terminator this is definitely not.
But, Russ’ imagination and enjoyment for Star Wars is obvious on these strips.
Even if the stories themselves, like those in Marvel comics, were often “B” level because they weren’t permitted to do very much with actual film-related plots, his storytelling and renderings provided more than enough visual interest to keep the strips engaging.
This specific example, which features most of the Star Wars main cast, comes at the conclusion of Russ’ penultimate story. He died of cancer too young at 52, a few months after this strip was published.
Had he lived, I’m certain he would have come back to Star Wars at some point.
After all, he created a city-covered planet, very much like Coruscant, years before George Lucas did. In fact, when Magnus debuted, George Lucas was still a teen who, among other interests, had a passion for comic book art.
Wait a minute… (*)
*Ok, Lucas (definitively) and Manning (likely) were influenced by Fritz Lang’s ground-breaking film Metropolis, and this is just a fun coincidence. But still.