Greg Goldstein's Comic Art Gallery

Eric Powell — Justice League Of Bizarros

Action Comics #857, December 2007

Our ode to Halloween and the creatures that often inhabit the comic book pages continues…

Bizarro Doomsday, at the bidding of Bizarro Lex Luthor, destroys the newly created members of the Bizarro Justice League.

Huh?

Trust me, it’s a wild ride. You just have to read it for yourself. Written by Geoff Johns and Richard Donner (Yes, that Richard Donner), the three-part story unravels (er, unfolds) in graphite, ink and wash-tone in perfect fashion by Eric Powell.

Donuts not included.

Jim Lee — Rescue

Superman #211, January 2005

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

Jim Lee’s 12-issue run on Superman, “For Tomorrow”, is classic. Even though the story itself is not as highly regarded as his Batman “Hush” storyline, the art and storytelling start off pretty great and quickly proceed to spectacular.

Comic Book Resources summed it up:

“Superman: For Tomorrow” is an uneasy mixture of introspection, lamentation, and explosive action (think “Hamlet” mixed with “Godzilla”), Lee’s art only increases in spectacle as the story unfolds.”

Case in point, this issue featuring Wonder Woman: Epic action, glorious detail, creative and dynamic storytelling. Do you get the sense I like the art?

Inks on this page are provided by the talented Sandra Hope, filling in for Scott Williams. Based on high quality of the finished story, I’m certain there were some deadline struggles along the way.

Re-reading the entire story today, it’s also better than I realized the first time around. That said, the Absolute Edition is definitely worth owning for the art alone.

Kevin Maguire — Heroes and Villains

Superman Poster, 2017

For those movie buffs who think that the action blockbuster crowding out other films is a modern phenomena, let’s discuss June 1981.

6/12 — Raiders of the Lost Ark opens.

6/26 — James Bond: For Your Eyes Only opens.

And the week in between?

6/19 — Superman 2 opens.

All three pretty good, and one certifiably one of the greatest adventure films ever made. (I don’t have to say which one, do I?) That’s pretty much the entire summer, right there.

I’ve always had mixed emotions about the first two Superman films. (No mixed opinions about films 3 and 4. They are terrible.)

Christopher Reeve as Superman AND Clark Kent, is terrific of course, and some of the action sequences and effects are great in both. And, as a dyed-in-the-wool New Yorker, I enjoyed the location filming, especially the actual Daily News building standing in for the Daily Planet. Plus, Lex Luthor and the Phantom Zone criminals. (I loved the Phantom Zone.)

Some of it, however, is pretty cheesy. Even by 1978/1981 standards. If these films were meant to cleanse the palate of the completely camp 1966-68 Batman TV series, they didn’t completely accomplish it.  There are definitely some groaners in here. (Miss Teschmacher!)

But…  Would I rather watch these films as say compared to the modern film versions of Superman? Ha. Easy choice. It’s not nostalgia clouding my judgment when I say that.

The first two films capture the spirit of the Superman character in a joyous way. And although character has often been terrifically well-represented television since then (Superman Animated, anyone?) the recent films are mostly… ugh. Just ugh.

Someday, a reboot will fix that. You can’t keep a good Superman down.

Until that time, we will always have art, including this magnificent poster by Kevin Maguire featuring Supes and most of his key villains. Love the art, dislike the coloring. Over-rendered, and not well executed, specifically on Superman’s facial features. (Almost looks like a completely different face.)  Modern coloring is like film CGI. Less is usually more.

Great art, though. Who said everything looks worse in black and white?

Howard Chaykin — JSA At War

Superman #226, April 2006

Continuing our multi-week celebration of the 80thanniversary of the Justice Society of America.

This is great action splash from Howard Chaykin, and a rare treat to see him illustrate classic superheroes.

As part of the Infinite Crisis storyline, Supermen from two different universes clash, each one living the life the other. When one goes to halt the Nazi atrocities of World War 2, he learns the difficult truth about Hitler’s super stalemate courtesy of the Spear of Destiny.

It took more than 35 years to tell the origin of the Society, and Paul Levitz created a plausible scenario that explained why America’s heroes simply didn’t use their powers to end the war in favor of the Allies quickly and decisively. Spoiler alert: It involves magic. 

Roy Thomas and other writers ultimately ran with (and expanded) the concept, and writer Joe Kelly incorporates this premise into this Crisis Crossover.

This is the final issue of this specific volume of Superman, launched nearly 20 years prior, as part of the “John Byrne reboot.”

Dan Jurgens — Unfair Fight

Booster Gold #8, June 2008

Continuing our celebration of the 80th anniversary of the Justice Society of America, with each new post featuring a different classic JSA character.

Today’s riddle: What do comic art collectors miss the most that comic book editors and publishers miss the least?:

A: Word balloons on the art board themselves.

Digital lettering is an amazing boon for comic book production, and a disappointment for many art collectors, myself included.

If you work in the editorial department, of course, no one misses the endless FedEx packages trafficking from penciller to letterer to inker, and back. Ugh.

But… the art boards themselves feel less complete without them. These are, after all, comic book pages. Comic books are pictures AND words.

Modern comic book original pages are analogous to silent films. If the visuals communicate well enough, you can interpret the storytelling without words. (And there shouldn’t be too much of that anyway. But I digress.)

Which finally gets us to this page by the great Dan Jurgens and Norm Rapmund. Superman is about to break the neck of  fellow hero Wildcat, while Maxwell Lord looks on gleefully.

Pretty easy to figure out that Superman is either under some sort of mind control — or he’s not Superman at all. (Spoiler alert, it’s the former, and Wildcat survives.)

This is a great splash from a great art team on a great series. As mentioned in a previous post, I’m definitely a fan of this run of Booster Gold, which ended perhaps a bit prematurely because of “The New 52” reboot in 2010.

Wallace Wood — All Star

All Star Comics #59, 1976

All Star Comics, featuring The Justice Society, returned for the first time in 25 years, and the legendary Wallace Wood returned to superheroes for the early issues as well.

“Return” for Woody is a bit of an overstatement, since outside of his own creation, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, Wood’s work in superheroes was limited. Ironically his most lauded superhero work in the DC universe is Superduperman, an EC Mad Comics parody from 1953.

In All Star, editor Joe Orlando (and Wood’s former protégé at EC) provided Woody the chance to play with many of DC’s classic characters, including Superman, and he was given a chance to help set the look and feel of at least one enduring new one, Power Girl, the “Supergirl” of Earth Two. On this great battle page, we have Hawkman, The Star-Spangled Kid, and Doctor Mid-Nite in all out action.

As demonstrated by the art itself, Wood is responsible for the pencils and inks on this “second” issue, with Rick Estrada providing rough breakdowns and receiving credit as “designer” on this issue.

Woody left the title after less than a year’s worth of issues, but the work he left was behind was definitely “all star” material.

Fun fact: Hawkman was the only original member of the JSA to appear in every issue of the original All Star comics as part of the team.

Fun fact: Despite the fact that All Star had originally continued as All Star Western in 1951, DC re-started the series using the Golden Age numbering.  Today it would be  #1 issue with more than a few variant covers…

Fun fact: “Super Squad” is just… ugh.

Kurt Schaffenberger — Golden Age Marvel

Whiz Comics # 129, January 1951

This week we celebrate the 80th anniversary of the original Captain Marvel, (cover dated in 1940, although the issue likely appeared on most newsstands in late 1939) now known as Shazam.

Captain Marvel (Shazam to you kids) appears in every panel in this ebullient page pencilled and inked by Kurt Schaffenberger.

Schaffenberger went to work as an assistant in the Jack Binder studio in 1941 just as Fawcett’s Captain Marvel was soaring, eventually outselling DC’s Superman. When Schaffenberger returned from World War 2 military service, he ultimately penciled and inked complete stories.

His wholesome, uncluttered and often whimsical style was a perfect fit for Captain Marvel, who was nothing if not wholesome and whimsical.

Schaffenberger drew many of the stories that capped the end Captain Marvel’s amazing run — and 10 years of legal battles with DC.

In fact, despite the seemingly never-ending copyright lawsuit that alleged that the Big Red Cheese was a knockoff of Superman, The Captain outlasted many of his spandex-attired peers, publishing longer than most competitive superhero titles.

But, by 1954, declining sales meant that Fawcett no longer had the will to fight. They settled with DC, and called it a day for Captain Marvel.

As they say…  To Be Continued.

Fun Fact: After Fawcett left the superhero business, Schaffenberger ultimately went to work for DC, and became best known for his 10-year run on the Lois Lane series, setting the DC house style for the character for much of the silver age.

Curt Swan — Sportsman

Strange Sports #3, February 1974

Today is the 100th birthday of the late, great Curt Swan, one of DC’s all-time storytellers. And while the internet is blowing up with great Swan Superman images, (and there are literally thousands of those) let’s instead pull this splash out of left field. (Ouch, wrong sport.)

It’s a Hall of Fame page from this fun 70s series, with story by Frank Robbins, inks by Dick Giordano and the whole shebang edited by Julie Schwartz.

Merlin? King Arthur? Knights playing football against contemporary players? Somehow the whole thing made perfect sense — to me, at least.

Thanks for all the magic Curt — here and everywhere else.

Ok, so we can’t resist ONE Superman family image…

Michael Cho — Man Of A Thousand Costumes

Detective Comics #1000, April 2019

Today concludes our special series celebrating Batman’s 80th birthday.

I’m not a child of the ’50s. Didn’t make the cut.

But… I was a little kid in the ’60s when DC published many great 25-cent annuals (80 pages!) and specials reprinting classic tales of classic characters.

Like Batman, for instance.

It was in these annuals that I learned abut Giant Batman, Rip Van Batman, Rainbow Batman and more. I had no idea when these stories first appeared, and I didn’t care. It also didn’t matter that they didn’t quite fit in with the “new-look” Batman. They were goofy fun, and I was a kid, and goofy fun was a job requirement.

I hadn’t thought much about those iterations of Batman in recent years. Many of those stories have yet to be reprinted in the current DC omnibus collections because of, well, pesky chronology.

Then at SDCC, Preview Night, Michael Cho’s art representative put this original of Detective #1000 on display while I was chatting with him.

It floored me.

Michael captured so many of those wondrous Batman moments in one stunning and giant (Its drawn on a double-size board) original. And as noted previously, I’m a passionate admirer of his art.

I asked the price. The dealer answered. I gulped. My art budget would be shredded.

But I understood the pricing — it’s obviously a one-of-a-kind piece. A classic cover for a milestone comic book.

I hesitated for one millisecond. And then I was smart enough to say: “Yes, I want it.”

Good thing too. Turned out there was another buyer literally right behind me. (Typically, I’m the collector who just misses out, so this was unusual.)

I confess that I didn’t recognize ALL the Batmen on the cover at first. (Some of course are covered by the final trade-dress.) But fortunately, with Michael’s help, it’s now sorted out:

17 visible front-facing Batmen surrounding “Conventional” (Regular? Traditional?) Batman and Robin, and seven additional Batmen with a back view to the reader. Below is the complete list, with the original appearances noted as well. The art gallery features the original covers, as wells Michael’s preliminary art, created digitally.

These are not all the odd versions of Batman. Michael himself laments that he couldn’t fit in Batman Jones (Batman #108) or Batman Creature (Batman #162), and a few others, but hey, there’s only so much room.

As for Invisible Batman? (Detective #199.) Who’s to say he’s not also on the cover somewhere? I’m certainly not ruling it out.

Detective 1000 by Michael Cho:

  • Front view (17):
    • Jungle Batman – Batman 72
    • Rainbow Batman (full) – Detective 241
    • Mummy Batman – Detective 320
    • Giant Batman (leg) – Detective 243
    • “First” Batman (Thomas Wayne costume) – Detective 235
    • Alien Batman (weird face & body) – Batman 140
    • Alien Batman (orange ears) – Detective 251
    • Bat-Baby – Batman 147
    • Genie Batman – Detective 322
    • Swindle Batman – Detective 222
    • Captive Planet Batman (weird helmet) – Detective 256
    • Rip Van Batman – Batman 119
    • Scuba Batman – Detective 253
    • Robot Batman – Detective 239
    • Dragon Society Batman (tunic with #1) – Detective 273
    • Scottish Batman (kilt bottom) – Detective 198
    • “Original” Batman (cape open like wings) – Detective 195
  • Back View (7):
    • Bronze Batman – Detective 302
    • Clayface Batman – Detective 312
    • Zebra Batman – Detective 275
    • Interplanetary (space helmet) Batman – Detective 165
    • White Snow Suit Batman – Detective 165
    • Luminous (radiation) Batman – Detective 165
    • Rainbow Batman (pink) — Detective 241

Ian Churchill — Melee

Superman Doomed #2, October 2014

Presenting the final post in our series celebrating Supergirl’s 5thseason premiere tonight on the CW.

As noted previously, Ian Churchill’s run on Supergirl was terrific, and his brief return here, is still a welcome one.

On this dynamic page, Supergirl shreds Cyborg Superman, who is (I think) actually Supergirl’s father, who is under the mind control of Brainiac, who is… never mind. This “prequel” to the complicated DC convergence crossover is convoluted, and the less said, the better.

But the art, of course, is great.