Marvel Comics – Page 19 – Greg Goldstein's Comic Art Gallery

Paul Smith — Wonderous World

September 29, 2020 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Paul Smith, Pin-up tribute to Steve Ditko, ASM Annual #2 (1965), 2001

Elegant, clean and striking: The definitive Paul Smith style captures Steve Ditko’s classic (and only) pairing of Spider-Man and Doctor Strange in Amazing Spider-man Annual #2 from September 1965.

Seeing the pairing of these now iconic Marvel cinematic characters creates some wistfulness here.

Last week, Disney postponed the feature film Black Widow once again. It’s now scheduled for May 2021, a full year behind schedule. 2020 will be the first year without a film in The MCU since 2009.

And, even when the films were less frequent in the early days, a Fox or Sony Marvel film typically filled in the gaps.

(No, I’m not going to act as if the recent New Mutants counts. More people have probably seen the officially unreleased Roger Corman Fantastic Four film than New Mutants.)

Now of course, Covid has thrown the entire upcoming film schedule into disarray. Eternals and Shang-Chi also moved, and swapped positions in the queue — for now.

After that, it’s a bit of a wild card.

The next three films should be Spider-Man 3, Doctor Strange 2, and Thor 4… but, we’ve seen differing revised release dates for those just in the last week.

Then, the schedule becomes even hazier, but let’s put off that discussion until next week.

Meanwhile, up next this coming week on the blog:

Spidey, Doc, and of course… Thor. See you soon.

*The current digital version of the original splash from Amazing Spider-Man Annual #2 in 1965.*

Many reprints, many colors, and a few layout and production changes, too. From left to right, the original annual coloring re-mastered for digital, the coloring and other changes from the “emergency” reprint in Doctor Strange #179, and the re-colored (again) reprint from Marvel Tales.

Here’s a bet: Ditko drew the cover for ASM Annual #2 well before he and Stan knew what the story would be. Otherwise… you’d probably see Doctor Strange actually on the cover. A few years later, and a deadline blown, Barry Smith was called on to provide a new cover for the story which was reprinted completely out of continuity in Doctor Strange #179.

*Digital colors by Gerry Turnbull, and, in the MCU, Spidey and Doc work together to try to defeat Thanos in Avengers Infinity War. It doesn’t go well… at first.*

Chris Sprouse — Hauled Away

August 22, 2020 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Daredevil #601, April 2018

Daredevil, beaten and bruised, is hauled away by the NYPD in this cool cover by Chris Sprouse and Karl Story.

It’s an apt metaphor for the part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe that briefly resided on Netflix.

Daredevil, along with Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist and Punisher anchored an ultra-violent “Marvel Knights” style universe on the steamer for three years. Pretty good television shows, ultimately victims to the battles between the giant entertainment behemoths.

Daredevil was my personal favorite of the group, leaning very much into Frank Miller’s work on the “Man Without Fear” and “Born Again” story arcs. Terrific cast, well-written scripts, and a definitive, stunning performance by Vincent D’Onofrio as Wilson Fisk / Kingpin.

In about six months, the moratorium on rights reversion ends, so Marvel will be free themselves to use the characters in the MCU. In fact, there is a dedicated group of fans campaigning for the cast, if not the entire show, to return in some form under the Marvel banner.

A long shot of course, but the group has worked tirelessly to make its opinion known. Fingers crossed.

Meanwhile this cover is an oddity in that it highlights a scene that took place in the previousissue. Just in case you missed it, I guess.

Doesn’t matter from an art standpoint of course. It is a striking image. Regardless. And as mentioned in a previous post, I’m always happy to see Sprouse and Story on… pretty much anything.

Frank Miller, John Romita Jr., Al Williamson — Fearless

August 20, 2020 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Daredevil: Man Without Fear #1, October 1993

Frank Miller returns to Daredevil and brings an all-star art team with him in the origin story, “Man Without Fear.”

Ok, easy to call “all-star” an oft-overused cliché, but in this case, no exaggeration. The artistic team of John Romita Jr. and Al Williamson is a stunning compliment to Frank’s storytelling.

This is Romita’s best work up until this point in his career, and Al certainly still had his inking chops as well.

I’m guessing (and strictlyguessing) that Miller provided a full script or close to it, because the layouts and storytelling are so “Milleresque.” Either that, or Romita Jr. channeled his inner Miller.

Probably a combination of both.

In this page, young Matt Murdoch discovers his true powers for the first time in a sink or swim training session provided by his tutor, the mysterious “Stick.”

The page layout cleverly and beautifully uses the nine-panel grid to show the development of Matt’s reaction time to Stick’s attack.

A great page from one of the all-time great limited series.

David Mazzucchelli — Devil Noir

August 18, 2020 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Daredevil #217, April 1984

55 years ago, Wallace Wood emphasized the “devil” in Daredevil with a dramatic costume change for the character in issue #7. The series, which had floundered early on, started to gain some traction with Woody’s work just a few issues prior. Issue #7, featuring Daredevil hopelessly outmatched by the Sub-Mariner, is considered a silver-age classic.

Our next three posts celebrate this anniversary with a look at the “modern” man without fear.

I love classic film noir. Dark streets, shady characters, two-faced femme fatales, dimly lit apartments, et al. All great.

At one point, there was not a sign of comic art in my office — just classic noir posters.

So it’s no surprise that that some of my favorite takes on Daredevil are those same noir tropes applied to comics by outstanding storytellers like David Mazzucchelli.

And great pages like this one, featuring Daredevil in every panel, playing the (blind, but super-powered) detective. Mazzucchelli’s use of cinematic camera angles and shadows and light creates a deeply moody page, especially when seen in its original form.

Mazzucchelli keeps nearly all of his original art, and he both penciled and inked this page, so it’s a fantastic rarity as well. Only a handful of Daredevil pages that he is fully responsible for have appeared for sale on the secondary market.

*Daredevil #217 features a dramatic cover by the amazing Barry Windsor-Smith.*

Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli would collaborate on one of the best loved comic book story arcs of all time: “Born Again.” At IDW, we were fortunate enough to put together an Artist’s Edition of the series with beautiful scans provided from Mazzucchelli himself.

Gene Colan — Rumble

August 15, 2020 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Wonder Woman # 295, September 1982

Continuing our celebration of Wonder Woman for the next few posts — no matter when the new film finally releases.

Gene Colan delivers an outstanding splash in an offbeat story involving t video-game mania. Well, it was 1982. Think Atari 2600. Only here we have a cast-off villain –General Electric — from Jack Kirby’s Sandman (I kid you not) who uses a kind of mass hypnosis… oh never mind.

As mentioned previously, I’m a passionate fan of Gene’s work and picked up nearly everything he did at Marvel. By the time he jumped ship to DC I was less interested in superhero comics in general and paid little attention to his work on Wonder Woman. (Batman was another story, as I thought he was a great choice for the dark detective.)

Turns out it was a short but memorable run on WW (artistically at least) and Gene is actually responsible —under the direction of publisher Jeanette Kahn — for her very first costume re-design, replacing the eagle on her chest with the “WW.” (Not including a brief stint in “mod” civilian attire in 1968- 1973.)

The exact new design may have been a work in progress, because the halter on this original has an art patch on it.

*Wonder Woman gets an updated halter, logo and creative team, as previewed in DC Comics Presents #41, and ultimately launching in Wonder Woman #288.*

*Gene’s work at Marvel looked nothing like the other “bullpen” artists, yet somehow fit in perfectly. Where he went, I typically followed.*

Jim Starlin — Magical Mystery Tour

July 21, 2020 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Dreadstar #2, January 1983

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.*

*Jim Starlin sends his love, NYCC, 2019*.

Joe Sinnott — 4Ever

June 30, 2020 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Sketch, NYCC Convention Program, 1972

Joe Sinnott, easily one of the greatest comic book inkers of all time, and a terrific person to boot, passed away a few days ago. He was 93.

Joe drew the very first sketch I ever owned (and still do, BTW) in my convention program at my very first NYCC, 1972.

Reed Richards — Mr. Fantastic — was an appropriate choice, because Joe’s legendary inks on both Kirby and then John Buscema (and ultimately others) provided a polished, consistent look for “The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine.”

I own other art inked by him, but this one is extra special.

RIP Joe. Many thanks and salutes from all of us for your astonishing career.

https://greggoldsteincomicartgallery.com/sal-buscema-and-joe-sinnott-fireworks/

https://greggoldsteincomicartgallery.com/john-buscema-going-underground/

Michael Berry — Getting Serious

June 6, 2020 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Humorama Magazine Group, 60s

The National Cartoonists Society would be poised for their annual awards event this month if it wasn’t for the COVID pandemic, so it’s a good week to celebrate cartoons.

And we need some way to celebrate summer again…

Michael Berry is very underrated cartoonist. With many appearances in Esquire and Playboy, plus hundreds of cartoons in the “cheapie girlie” magazines, his love of pretty women was always apparent. And many of his gags actually still hold up.

Unlike his better-known contemporaries like Dan DeCarlo, Jack Cole, Bill Ward et al, not enough is known about his life and career. That’s a shame — he’s just as good. One of the many things I enjoy about his art is that the finished result appears effortless.

Although I am sure it wasn’t.

*Humorama applies to a single magazine, as well as an entire line of inexpensive men’s gag magazines, published during the 50s and 60s by Martin Goodman of Marvel Comics fame.*

*A collection of Humorama cartoons from recent years — currently out of print, unfortunately.*

Gene Colan — Agent Of Sleep

May 30, 2020 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Captain America #120, December 1969

Concluding our look at SHIELD on the eve of its 55th anniversary.

Gene Colan was a polarizing storyteller when it came to artistic style.

Fans either really loved his work (count me in that group) or didn’t like it at all. I could never figure that out. Of course his work didn’t look anything like the rest of Marvel Bullpen, but that was cool; his dynamic storytelling and extraordinary use of light and shadows was astonishing. To me, at least.

Colan’s run on Captain America came after both Kirby and Steranko, and that was a definite change of pace. But Gene’s reality-defying physics felt like a perfect fit for Cap, Marvel’s own reality-defying super powered acrobat.

Inking Gene Colan was one of the most challenging assignments in comics, but the legendary Joe Sinnott delivers here.

Nick Fury, of course, is the most important supporting character in the Marvel Universe. After Kirby and Steranko’s run was completed, the character couldn’t sustain his own title, but SHIELD was an important part of the entire Marvel Universe, primarily with Captain America in the latter part of the Silver Age.

And of course that dynamic repeats — brilliantly — in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

And for the record, even though it appears Fury’s up to absolutely no good by hypnotizing Steve Rogers in this scene, he actually did have a higher purpose in mind.

Ultimately it didn’t work. The man is Captain America, after all.

Inking Gene Colan was one of the most challenging assignments in comics, but these two issues stand out: Issue #127, inks by Wally Wood, and #135, inked by Tom Palmer. The Palmer splash is a wonderful harbinger of monstrous things to come on the Wolfman/Colan/Palmer Tomb of Dracula series, while the Wood issue is simply spectacular looking from start to finish.

Meta Fury: Fury is retooled as a black character in the Ultimate Marvel line in the early 2000s, and writer Mark Millar **ultimately** utilizes the likeness of Samuel Jackson for the role — neglecting to tell him that. But Jackson held no grudge — ultimately playing the character in 11 films and counting.

*Fury and Cap share a special bond early on, as discussed here.*

Frank Springer — Death To Fury!

May 28, 2020 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. #10, March 1969

Continuing a look at SHIELD on the eve of its 55th anniversary.

Jim Steranko is not a hard act to follow.

He’s an impossible one.

But on the SHIELD solo series, Frank Springer gave it a try. And in possibly another circumstance, it probably would have been fine.

But, like I said, all of sudden SHIELD transformed into an inadvertent real life version of another spy series: Mission Impossible.

Springer, who broke into Marvel with his work on this series actually captured some of the Steranko vibe in these issues. Barry Smith also managed to capture some it in one issue as well, and even Herb Trimpe had a few cool stories before it became a moot point, and the series died.

In a vacuum, the Springer Fury issues, as exemplified by this page, are well told and illustrative. Clear storytelling and panel variety move us through the action quickly and creatively.

But coming off the Kirby-meets-Krigstein pop-psychedelic acid trip of Steranko’s earlier issues, it wasn’t enough to keep the series going.

But of course, Nick Fury, and SHIELD, lived on.