Concluding our tribute to Captain America’s 80th anniversary.
Ah Las Vegas.
The only place where you are likely to find a giant statue of Captain America, yes? But even Las Vegas wouldn’t have accepted a giant statue of the Red Skull — swastikas and all. (Imagine a giant Patton statue facing off against a giant Rommel sculpture. It does not compute. ) It’s a rare slip in an otherwise fun Cap mini-series penned by Bruce Jones with beautiful visual storytelling by Steve Rude and Mike Royer.
And the good news is that the Skull statue that gets blown to smithereens on this great splash page, anyway.
Happy 80th Mr. Rogers!
In addition to the obvious Jack Kirby references throughout, Rude manages to work in a Steranko homage on the opening page of the issue. Meanwhile JG Jones delivers a surprisingly boring and stiff painting of Cap on the cover, which, to make matters worse, looks like it belongs to a completely different series altogether.
The “impersonation” trope is one of my favorites in comics, and a long-standing tradition in Marvel’s history. In fact, the first time Captain America “appears” in the Silver Age in Strange Tales #114, it’s not Captain America at all. It’s a Human Torch villain, The Acrobat, in disguise.
And this trope was consistently employed throughout the early Marvel Comics. The Skrulls impersonate the Fantastic Four in issue #2, The Chameleon impersonates Spider-Man in ASM #1, and the Avengers are nearly defeated by the shape-changing Space Phantom in issue #2 of their launch title.
Stan was obsessed with this concept, apparently.
For the record, here on this terrific action page by Mike Zeck and John Beatty, the uniformed Cap is the “real” one. The clown impersonating Steve Rogers is Primus, The Mutate.
File that under: “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
Zeck drew one of the most iconic images of the era: Captain America vs. Wolverine.
Dan Jurgens delivers a dynamic and powerful splash of Captain America fighting the hordes of Hydra. Whenever I look at this page, I’m reminded of Jim Steranko’s great double page spreads of Cap in action against similar — or — greater odds.
Dan’s splash is not a swipe — and possibly not even a purposeful homage — but its energy captures the spirit of that great Steranko run.
This is the part where I should swipe Stan Lee and say “Nuff said, “ except I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the other main figure on the page who appears at first glance to be The Red Guardian.
He is not. He is, in fact, “Protocide,” an early super soldier experiment retconned into Cap’s continuity — and pretty much retconned out, after the Jurgens run ended.
Now I can say it:
“Nuff Said.”
Steranko’s great splashes always had Cap in mid-air, performing improbable acrobatics against impossible odds!
Fallen Son: The Death Of Captain America #5, August 2007
John Cassaday — a fan favorite artist if ever there was one — delivers a striking double-page splash of the Silver Age Avengers, with Captain America dominating the scene.
In the original comic, it was the Avengers that discovered the World War 2 legend floating in suspended animation in (essentially) a large ice cube. Of course, they never would have found him if it wasn’t for another Golden Age icon, Namor the Sub-Mariner, but as always, we digress.
This rendering actually combines multiple 60s Avengers line-ups into one image; The Hulk quit in a huff at the end of issue #2, fought against the team in issue #3, and was MIA by the time Cap thawed out in issue #4.
Cassaday’s art is stunning throughout this issue, but, biasedly perhaps, I think this is by far the best page(s) among many great ones.
The spread has appeared as both a poster and a limited edition Giclee, so, clearly it’s had some impact.
Assemble indeed!
In short order, Cap returned to the Marvel line-up, received his own solo feature, and then a few years later, his own series. (Picking up the numbering from Tales of Suspense.)
Ultimate Avengers #3, December 2009, and Avengers Assemble Season 2 (Marvel Universe) #4, 2015
Continuing our tribute to Captain America’s 80th anniversary.
Captain America breaks a lot of a glass. In his very first solo appearance in the Silver Age, (Tales of Suspense #59) Jack Kirby has him jumping directly at the reader, shattering a window as he does.
Maybe that shield gives him a sense of security. After all, the super soldier serum made him super strong, but not invulnerable. And Batman and the other “ordinary” (no enhanced super-powers) heroes tend to break a bit less glass.
This great splash page features rouge Captain America doing the glass bit with tremendous drama and detail by the terrific Carlos Pacheco.
And the art is so dynamic that Marvel used again six years later as a cover for an animated series cover.
That’s pretty cool —it could have been used as a cover the first time around, but second time’s the charm apparently.
The splash becomes a cover a few years later.
Stan Lee and Jack Kirby break the glass in Captain America’s very first Silver Age solo appearance.
Captain America officially turns 80 in a few weeks, and this iconic character is definitely worth an anniversary celebration. (Cap #1, created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, is cover-dated March 1941, but the on-sale date was December 20,1940.)
First up is this great Jack Kirby homage by Ron Frenz and Bruce Timm that appeared as a pin up in Captain America #50 (3rd series.). This piece, typical of Timm’s other published comic book work, is “inks-only” over a Frenz layout.
The layout itself is an homage to Jack’s Captain America art that appeared on the cover Marvelmania #1 (fan magazine), near the end of his Silver Age run at Marvel. Frenz added the Super-Adaptoid, and Bruce did his magic, creating a classic Kirby look.
Jack’s original art for this cover was little-seen until it finally appeared in color as the cover to the Jack Kirby Collector (#34, 2002),
The Super-Adaptoid was a mid-60s creation appearing early during Cap’s Silver Age revival. Also pictured, Captain America #1 with Cap decking Hitler a full year before the U.S. entered World War II.
Jack Davis and Stan Lee only worked together a handful of times. Jack drew six Rawhide Kid stories at the dawn of the “Marvel Age,” after Jack Kirby became too busy designing and developing Marvel’s earliest superheroes.
Davis’ cartoony style is unmistakable, and definitely a departure from the typical Marvel western art line-up that included Kirby, Dick Ayers and Larry Lieber, among others.
These Davis Western stories are some of the final color comic book stories to he ever drew. Shortly after their publication, Davis returned to Mad Magazine and became a Mad mainstay for more than 20 years.
And of course, we can’t forget the Time Magazine covers. The TV Guide covers. The film posters. The advertising work. Trading cards for Topps. Etc.
Just a few things to occupy the drawing board of one of America’s most talented and recognizable commercial illustrators.
Too bad Stan couldn’t persuade Davis for a bit more work. I’m not sure how it would have worked out on the traditional superhero stories * but a few short pieces for Not Brand Echh would have been right on the nose.
(*Well, actually I’m certain it would have been jarring to see Jack on “straight” superhero stories…)
Here’s a dramatic title page by the legendary Doug Wildey from 1960.
My reaction to the page, however, pales in comparison to the one from the story’s co-creator, Stan Lee.
Back in about 2010, we visited Stan in his Beverly Hills office to get some signature plates signed for the first John Romita Spider-Man Artists Edition. Stan’s “people” were kind enough to let us bring some personal items to get signed as well, so I brought a few pages of original art with me.
Stan, who was telling stories and singing while he was signing (Yes, singing, not a typo for signing. Story for another day.) stopped dead in his tracks when he saw this page of art.
He stared at it quietly for a few moments — given the speedy pace of our morning, it seemed like an eternity — and you could see pleasant memories wash over his face. And then the big Stan Lee smile:
“Doug Wildey. Wow. He was great. So terrific. I loved his stuff. I wish we had a chance to do more together.”
He handed the page back to me, still beaming, still examining it up and down as he slowly passed it back. I had seen Stan sign thousands of items; many of them with fond remembrances, but nothing quite like this.
A great page, certainly. But perhaps an even greater memorable moment — for the two of us.
Stan in the Timely / Atlas / Marvel offices in 1954, just a few years prior to the publication of the Earp story.
Happy Birthday to the great Steve Ditko, who would have turned 93 today.
Ditko drew — and possibly wrote (Stan Lee on credits, but that sometimes is overstated) — this neat little science fiction back-up story in the third issue of Iron Man.
These SF and horror stories would soon become rarities as publisher Martin Goodman and Editor Lee replaced them with a new line-up of superheroes, including a certain web-crawler that would bring Ditko more notoriety than anything else he would create.
The Amazing Spiderman #1 had just hit the newsstands. The rest as they say…
Marvel did a nice job reprinting all of Stan Lee’s and Steve Ditko’s horror and SF stories in this two-volume series.
Ron Frenz goes full on Jack Kirby (with perhaps a dash of John Buscema) with this wonderful Mangog splash from the second Thunderstrike (Thor — sort of) mini-series.
Just because the “Monster Age” at Marvel ended when the superheroes took over the publishing schedule (early 60s), that didn’t mean that Kirby stopped creating great monsters during the era.
In fact, the monsters had to be fiercer, meaner, and smarter — to provide antagonists worthy of our intrepid heroes.
Take Mangog here. His appearance typically means the end — of everything. Hence, Ragnarok. Stan and Jack introduced him in Thor 154 and 155 back in 1968 and he’s created havoc from time to time ever since.
As for Mr. Frenz? Another great looking effort, with terrific inks by Sal Buscema.
