Wally Wood – Page 2 – Greg Goldstein's Comic Art Gallery

Gil Kane and Wallace Wood — Toys For The Holidays (Part 2)

December 29, 2020 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Captain Action #3, May 1969

Can lightning strike twice in the toy biz? Inventor Stan Weston thought so, and I for one, became proof of concept.

Weston had created the original 12” G.I. Joe “doll” for Hasbro in 1964 and younger baby boomers like myself quickly became obsessed with the figures and all their wonderfully detailed accessories.

Next up: Weston took his invention to Ideal Toys in 1966, and turned it into a superhero concept, capturing the zeitgeist of the era. Captain Action was born, and despite the goofy name, its dozen licensed superhero costumes were a terrific gimmick.

Kids could turn the good captain into a number of well-known characters including Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, Captain America and Aquaman.

And the best part? The costumes and accessories worked just fine with existing G.I. Joes, so any crafty kid (we were all crafty, FYI) could create a multiverse Justice League without buying multiple Captain Action figures.

The toy line burned brightly, but briefly, and by 1968/69, the product was heading to the closeout racks. That apparently didn’t concern DC, which licensed the character for yet another brief comic book series.

Fortunately, visual storytelling chores were handled by Gil Kane and Wally Wood, making for some great original art. (Wood drew issue #1 solo, and then inked Gil on issues #2, #3 and #5. Gil scripted, penciled and inked issue #4.)

This cool page features the origin of “Dr. Evil,” main nemesis to the good Captain. Remember when I said the Captain Action name was goofy? I have no words for naming a villain “Dr. Evil.”

Wallace Wood — The Truth Is Out There

November 7, 2020 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Weird Science Fantasy #26, December 1954

I love stories about UFO sightings. As a kid, that was a (small) section of the library I often haunted.

I don’t believe that aliens are touring our planet, but I’d love to find out I’m mistaken. The problem, of course, is that the science, as we understand it today, makes it pretty unlikely. (A fun book on the subject, The Physics of Star Trek, dives into the detail.)

I like UFO stories so much that this was one of the first actual EC back issues I ever forked over my hard-earned allowance for back in the early 70s.

I don’t own that issue anymore, I sold it when Russ Cochran’s reprints started covering the EC bases.

But I own this great “one-pager” of Wood original art — something I could never have conceived of as a kid.

And who knows? Maybe one day, extraterrestrials actually will land on the White House South Lawn and tell us: “Einstein, nice man, he just had one part of the formula incorrect.”

Happy 50^th EC Comics!

Wallace Wood — EC’s Finest Warms Up

November 5, 2020 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Weird Science #8, July 1951

Earlier in the year, we celebrated EC Comics “New Trend” 50th anniversary with some great original art examples from the legendary Jack Davis. Today — and Saturday — we will celebrate once again, this time with the astonishing Wallace Wood.

Woody hadn’t quite hit his artistic prime yet when he drew this Weird Science tale, “The Probers.” But he was perhaps at his most prolific, pencilling and inking up to three pages a day(!) for EC and other publishers of the day.

That sheer volume would decrease as Woody’s detail became more and more intricate, and the finishes more and more polished. In a very short time, Wood’s peers would pretty much always refer to him as best in class.

*Some of Woody’s great SF art (Non EC) can be found in his 50s comic book stories, as well as his illustrations for Galaxy magazine.*

Wallace Wood — All Star

April 23, 2020 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

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.

*The first original Golden Age cover appearances of Star-Spangled Kid, Spectre and Hawkman.*

*All Star Comics returns with art by the legendary Wallace Wood. Bam!*

The new Justice Society launches on CW in a few weeks with the premiere of Stargirl on May 11.

Steve Ditko and Wallace Wood — Time Of Death

February 13, 2020 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

T.H.U.N.D.E.R Agents #7, August 1966

Death in superhero comic books had always been a gimmick. “Robin Dies at Dawn” likely meant he would be back by dinnertime. (In fairness, it’s a pretty good story.)

Imaginary stories, hoaxes, dreams, mad science, robots, time travel, alien resurrection, etc. all kept our featured players in good health. There was not much chance a title character was going to exit from his book permanently.

So back in the 60s, legitimately killing a character was in fact, a groundbreaking novelty. And this T.H.U.N.D.E.R Agents story is one of the first. Ditko, Wood and company had spent 6 issues developing the character of Menthor (John Janus), and they shot him to death on this page in Issue #7.

This historic page captures that collaborative methodology of Woody and the Tower artistic team on T.H.U.N.D.E.R Agents. Dan Adkins scripted and provided layouts, Ditko penciled the story, and Wood inked it, with assists by Adkins.

The original T.H.U.N.D.E.R Agents lasted only last 20 issues, and perhaps, had it survived, John would have been resurrected at some point. But it certainly did not appear that way.

Unlike, say, modern times where killing a lead character is a gimmick once again.

Superman. Dead. Then alive.

Batman. Dead? Nope, he’s back.

Captain America? Reborn. Bucky? Not dead, just hiding in Russia for a few decades.

Etc.

*A few months after the death of Menthor, teenaged writerJim Shooter kills off (spoiler alert) Ferro Lad in the Legion of Super-Heroes.*

Menthor’s powers derived from a “cybernetic” helmet, so t was no surprise that another character would don the helmet and ultimately become a new Menthor when T.H.U.N.D.E.R Agents was resurrected by other publishers. John Janus? Still dead, I believe.

Wallace Wood — Agent of Change

February 11, 2020 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #11, March 1967

Wallace Wood made his move.

The frustrated artist, working “Marvel style” on Daredevil — plotting AND drawing — but only paid for the art, heard about a new opportunity. Tower, primarily a book publisher, had decided to take a leap of faith into the comics biz, and Woody was ready to help them.

It was the perfect role for Woody, who had carte blanche to develop the comics as hew saw fit. He was artist, storyteller, art director and defacto editor — all rolled into one.

And with the help of friends/colleagues Len Brown (Topps Mars Attacks) and Dan Adkins, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents was born.

Combining a super powered team (think Justice League) with a secret spy organization (ala S.H.I.E.L.D., which had just launched a few months prior) T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents was an effort to capitalize on the secret agent pop culture craze. (James Bond, Man from U.N.C.LE., et al.).

This page is a great example Wood’s crystal clear storytelling and trademark inks. Adkins is credited in some instances on this story as the penciller, with Wood on inks, and due to the collaborative nature of the creative teams on these stories, it’s often easy to lose the thread of who did what.

But this looks like pure Wood here, as Dynamo and his “duplicate” (there are actually three Dynamos in this story — don’t ask) are mowed down in a hail of bullets.

I’ve I always wanted to use that phrase.

Who are you going to call?:

T.H.U.N.D.E.R. The Higher United Nations Defense Enforcement Reserves.

U.N.C.LE. United Network Command for Law and Enforcement.

S.H.I.E.L.D: Originally Supreme Headquarters, International Espionage and Law-Enforcement Division and later Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate. In the MCU film and TV Universe, it means Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division^.

*By 1965, the super-spy craze (and acronym obsession) was in full bore in pop culture.*

By the time of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents launch, Wood had created two bonafide superhero masterpieces. The Superman parody in Mad Comics and the Daredevil and Sub-Mariner crossover in DD#7 are still considered classics today.

Denys Cowan and Bill Sienkiewicz — Meta Human

January 7, 2020 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

The Question #37, March 2010

HBO’s Watchmen was an unexpected television smash of 2019, and it has landed on a number of best of lists. This series of posts explores the Watchmen characters, which have roots in the more traditional superhero universe.

Steve Ditko creates the iconic and mature character Mr. A (with moral absolutism as his trademark) in 1967 for the prozine Witzend, published by Wally Wood.

A few months later, Ditko tones down the violence and moral absolutism just a bit, and creates a more comics-code friendly character, The Question, for Charlton Comics.

In 1983, DC acquires the Charlton superheroes from the financially strapped publisher. The characters first appear in 1985’s mega-event Crisis on Infinite Earths as inhabitants of “Earth Four.”

In 1986 Alan Moore retools the Question/Mr. A as Rorschach for Watchmen.

Even before Watchmen concludes, the Question receives his first own ongoing (and very mature) DC series by Denny O’Neil and Denys Cowan.

In issue #17 of that series, the Question (Vic Sage) reads a Watchmen comic and dreams that he is Rorschach.

A most meta series of events.

Ultimately, The Question series ran 36 issues, ending in 1990. 20 years later, DC added an extra issue as part of the Blackest Night storyline that brought back additional issues of previously cancelled comics.

Which brings us here: In this issue, Bill Sienkiewicz, who drew or inked nearly all of the covers for that original series, inks an entire issue for the first time over Denys Cowan’s dynamic pencils. (Cowan had penciled all but one original issue.)

This is the last page (Renee Montoya is The Question here) from the story. But, of course, certainly not the last of The Question. As he/she has already appeared a few times since, most recently notably in Grant Morrison’s Multiversity: Pax Americana on a new version of Earth Four.

And, in this universe, Vic Sage sounds a lot like… Rorschach.

And the circle continues….

Ten years ago, in Blackest Night, the original Question, Vic Sage, is resurrected to fight the then current Question, Renee Montoya.

*The first appearances of Mr. A and The Question, along with the cover of the first and only feature-length Question comic from Charlton.*

*We meet Rorschach in Watchmen #1, and then the Question meets him in his dreams in Question #17, the first time a Watchmen character appears in any other DC comic.*

*A recent incarnation of the Question and his Charlton colleagues in the DCU.*

Walter Simonson — Bucket List

September 17, 2019 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Hercules Unbound #7, November 1976

Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez and Wally Wood only teamed up for six issues of the short-lived Hercules Unbound. Garcia-Lopez moved on, and Walter Simonson took over with Issue #7. (Wood only stayed on for one additional issue.)

Walter’s art style, like many of his generational peers (Chaykin, Wrightson, etc.) is very distinctive. Manhunter. Thor. X-Factor. Ragnarok. Et al. Typically, when you see a Walter Simonson penciled page, you know it.

Not here though. As noted earlier, Wood’s inks typically put so much lush polish on the pencils, It’s not that easy to sort out the penciller’s own style. When I first scanned this issue, I didn’t immediately catch that Garcia-Lopez was off the book. (Once you know, and compare against the earlier issues, you can definitely see some differences.)

Here’s an extra cool thing about this great Herc page. I luckily acquired it at a convention where Walter was a guest of ours at IDW Publishing, and I asked him to inscribe it. It reads:

“Another bucket list check mark — my layouts — Wallace Wood inks!”

Footnote — More creative shuffling: After two issues inked by Bob Layton, Walter provided both pencils and inks on the final two issues. As evidenced below, Walter’s work again looks like… Walter!

Printed Page
Cover By Rich Buckler, Inks by Wood
Simonson over Simonson

Wally Wood — Inking Unbound

September 16, 2019 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Hercules Unbound #4, May 1976 (Pencils by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez)

Gerry Conway and Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez — an artist’s artist if there ever was one — launched Hercules Unbound in 1975. But the real news was that Wally Wood would be inking the book.

Wally’s lush art had graced just a handful of DC superhero titles in the late ‘60s, when I had first started actively reading comics. My first exposure to his stellar inking was likely in 1968’s Captain Action. (He also penciled issue #1 of that short-lived series.)

By the time he returned to DC in the mid ‘70s, I was not only familiar with much of his oeuvre (EC, Marvel, Warren, Tower, etc.), I was pretty much obsessed with his art, as both penciller and inker.

If his work at DC was going to be inking only, so be it, because typically it didn’t matter who was penciling — Wood’s dramatic and distinctive inks make everything look mostly like… Wood. That includes hall-of-fame stylists like Steve Ditko and Gil Kane. And frankly, some of those artists’ styles were more fluid and dynamic than Wally’s to begin with.

This page is no exception, featuring dynamic action and storytelling by Garcia-Lopez, who had only recently broken into DC, and would rapidly become one of the industry’s most respected artists. At this point in the series, the art team was most definitely firing on all cylinders.

It did not matter that I wasn’t quite sure how Hercules fit into the greater DC universe, or even if he did. I was going to be saving a small piece of my comics’ budget for Hercules Unbound.

Like they say in the comics: To be continued…

Andrew Pepoy — Wally World II

September 14, 2019 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Archie #646, September 2013

What if EC Comics merged with the Archie line back in the ’50s and survived through the present day? Andrew Pepoy gives us the short answer with Betty and Veronica as Wally Wood-styled space girls on this cool variant cover for Archie #646.

And, as bonus, Cosmo the Merry Martian brings along the whole Martian army. (Mars Attacks!)