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Post by bobc on Sept 25, 2006 9:26:51 GMT -5
well isn't Steranko supposed to be some great artist? I thought he was dreadful. That Polaris costume alone should have ended his career.
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Post by dlw66 on Sept 25, 2006 9:31:05 GMT -5
People love Steranko's Captain America most of all. He never really grew on me, either. I find his art akin to Rich Buckler's when Buckler took over the FF after the Buscema run (circa #141). The Overstreet Price Guide refers to that period as "Kirby-ish Buckler art"...
Isn't it funny how the perception of a book can change so dramatically with an artist switch? On another thread, maybe the Liefeld one, we are again debating art vs. story. As I have said over and over again, you go replace Werner Roth with Neal Adams, it doesn't matter who is writing. Similarly, John Buscema leaves and Rich Buckler (who is a very serviceable artist, and I am fond of a large body of the man's work) takes over, and there is a noticeable difference in quality.
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Post by Doctor Doom on Sept 25, 2006 10:51:58 GMT -5
Heh. If you don't mind me saying so I find this a reverse of the situation in my Kang Dynasty review. You pointed out that I didn't have the experience with older comics to make a full and sound judgement about them and now I must reverse our positions with regards to modern comics. Well, for what it's worth I disagree that Ghost Rider was ever anything close to the 'face' of Marvel, and Punisher was never THAT close. I do take your point, but I want to add that actually, Venom was LIGHTER in the 1990s. Venom is a villain, but in the 90s he became an anti-hero, a 'Lethal Protector' and similar rubbish. But yeah, I know what you mean about Wolvie, Punisher etc. Though Spidey always is and always has been the face of the company. I want to add that this may be just for me, but nowadays and certainly where I grew up and in my current environment, if you asked most people, even those who read a scattering of comics, to name the main heroes (and if you filter out the DC ones) they will tell you Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Incredible Hulk and the Fantastic Four. I very rarely hear the Avengers mentioned, many people don't know who they are. Guess that's what comes of not having a major 1990s cartoon! (UTS doesn't count!) While I agree with this, I say again it was during the 90s and I believe Marvel have improved a lot since those days, and certainly the comics I read are generally lighter again than they were in the 90s, indeed have been lighter since Heroes Reborn. Well again, I don't think this comes across as much as you say. As you admit yourself, Spidey is an exception, but I also believe Fantastic Four is, along with the likes of She-Hulk, Cable/Deadpool, Thunderbolts and many other books. Certainly New Avengers and to a degree Captain America follow the trend you have mentioned, but I don't think it overwhelms the inherent 'good' in the Marvel Universe. Interestingly, I agree EXACTLY that this is a core message of the Marvel Universe but I hold that it still is today. If anything, I think the change today is that Marvel are saying these heroes CAN make a difference, but they have to try as hard as they can, they need to push more, it's not getting easier it's getting harder. This may be what you're getting at. Ironically, I feel it works the opposite. I feel the message of hope is buried deeper than it was before, but that simply means that when the hero unlocks it, it feels like much more of an achievement, much more of a heroic deed and BUILDS ON that sense of wonder within us- the fact that the hero never gave up no matter how hard it became rather lets free the 'inner child' as you say. Well I hold that Civil War IS in-character for Spider-Man but it's up to each person's own. Personally I could imagine Peter fighting under those circumstances, though I rather imagine that in his head he's be wisecracking and whatnot to try to pretend to himself he was really fighting a super-villain, not let himself think about what he was doing. The latest ASM had a very well depicted fight between Spider-Man and Captain America where he had a very interesting monologue that all his life he had striven for the love of his family, the respect of men like Cap, and now he had it... and he was about to lose it forever.
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Post by dlw66 on Sept 25, 2006 11:19:13 GMT -5
Touche'
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Post by sharkar on Sept 25, 2006 20:10:40 GMT -5
Okay--I am talking about issue 50 with Polaris on the cover. Trust me, Roy Thomas couldn't have written this crap. I'm not sure who wrote it. I loved the Neal Adams/Roy Thomas stuff--I was wrong about the X-Men being cancelled after 50, in fact the X-Men went on for quite some time apparently. bobc, you're right, this X-Men arc (#49-#52, introducing Lorna Dane) wasn't written by Thomas, it was written by Arnold Drake and it was a mess. Among other things it was never made clear exactly what Lorna's powers were, she just seemed to emit some sort of generic "waves of incredible force." It wasn't until #57 , which Roy Thomas scripted, that her powers were referred to being magnetic. The dialogue in #49-#52 was awful with strange breaks in terms of word balloons and uncharacteristic speech patterns such as Lorna addressing Iceman, whom she knew from #49, in #50 as "man of ice." Weird. But I admit, I have always loved Steranko's cover for #50, it was very striking. And I'm glad to see that Lorna is currently sporting a uniform that is very similar to what Steranko designed back in 1968, only the mdoern version is decidedly less ghoulish (no little skull clasp, etc.).
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Post by Yellowjacket on Sept 26, 2006 8:50:20 GMT -5
The Overstreet Price Guide refers to that period as "Kirby-ish Buckler art"... That´s something I don´t quite understand, though I have to admit I´ve read very few of Buckler´s books so far (that is the five early Avengers books and with FF #150 only one FF book). My point is, I always found him kind of a Buscema "clone", never a Kirby clone. I should add a really good one - for example the art in Avengers #102 (the Vision/Grim Reaper story) is simply great - and for me, all in the style of Big John.
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Post by bobc on Sept 26, 2006 9:11:33 GMT -5
Sharker--thanks. For a minute there I thought I was going nutz. No way could Roy Thomas have written that!! I've seen a lot of medicore writers over the years, but only this Drake guy has achieved the covetted award of Worst Writer Ever! I mean the medicore writers were at least coherent usually, but that Lorna Dane stuff was just random! The issues preceeding that little arc were a little dull but were okay and then suddenly BAM!!! I'd love to hear the gossip on Drake--apparently he just disappeared, thankfully.
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Post by dlw66 on Sept 26, 2006 9:14:15 GMT -5
I think when discussing art in the FF, one has to consider that Joe Sinnott inked over Kirby, Buscema, and Buckler, as well as Perez and other later. Sinnott is what you'd call a strong inker, in that his style sometimes buries the pencils of the artist. Be that as it may, it is the reason one could say that FF art throughout the 70's was somewhat "consistent".
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Post by bobc on Sept 26, 2006 9:43:05 GMT -5
I liked Palmer a lot better on inks. Sinnott was okay, but Palmer could make medicore pencils come to life.
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Post by dlw66 on Sept 26, 2006 9:49:04 GMT -5
Palmer definitely needs to go into our AA Hall of Fame soon. No doubt he's inked more Avengers issues than any other. He made Steve Epting a nice follow-up penciller to Buscema's 80's run on the book.
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Post by dlw66 on May 10, 2007 12:10:33 GMT -5
In the General section I posted a thread about revisiting some of our more in-depth discussions of days gone by. I came across this one yesterday and thought some of our newer members might want to look it over -- there are some really good points here!!
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Post by von Bek on May 11, 2007 10:35:10 GMT -5
bobc, you're right, this X-Men arc (#49-#52, introducing Lorna Dane) wasn't written by Thomas, it was written by Arnold Drake and it was a mess. Among other things it was never made clear exactly what Lorna's powers were, she just seemed to emit some sort of generic "waves of incredible force." It wasn't until #57 , which Roy Thomas scripted, that her powers were referred to being magnetic. The Alex Summer debut was also a mess, how could he be Scott´s younger brother if he was graduating from university? But I admit, I have always loved Steranko's cover for #50, it was very striking. And I'm glad to see that Lorna is currently sporting a uniform that is very similar to what Steranko designed back in 1968, only the mdoern version is decidedly less ghoulish (no little skull clasp, etc.). Steranko also did the design for the best X-Men logo ever, that stayed on the cover until the 2000´s.
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Post by scottharris on May 11, 2007 13:32:41 GMT -5
I'ev always liked Steranko's art. It is very clearly styled after Kirby, but it seems to me to be a commentary on Kirby art rather than a copy of it. He took the classic Kirby Marvel-style over the top heroic stuff and fused it with a then-modern psychadelic sensibility, most notable of course in his SHIELD issues. This sort of hybrid stuff can also be seen on display in Avengers #66, very early work by Barry Windsor-Smith that seems to me to be heavily influenced by Steranko's work.
As far as Definitive Charactarizations, I've always been a very big fan of Captain America #401, perhaps Gruenwald's best Cap issue which is especially odd considering it came directly between Operation Galactic Storm and the godawful Capwolf.
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Post by Engage on May 15, 2007 15:40:02 GMT -5
I think when discussing art in the FF, one has to consider that Joe Sinnott inked over Kirby, Buscema, and Buckler, as well as Perez and other later. Sinnott is what you'd call a strong inker, in that his style sometimes buries the pencils of the artist. Be that as it may, it is the reason one could say that FF art throughout the 70's was somewhat "consistent". Sinnott is love. His Fantastic Four is the definative look for that team, as far as I'm concerned. No matter who drew the book it always turned out okay when he was inking.
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Post by sharkar on May 15, 2007 18:50:59 GMT -5
The Alex Summer debut was also a mess, how could he be Scott´s younger brother if he was graduating from university? It made no sense! Since then, it's been unofficially retconned that Alex was graduating from high school in that issue (X-Man #54, v. 1). Yes, he had a way with logos! Loved the Hulk cover from that era on which Hulkie is straining to hold up his own logo. Amazing...he (Steranko) did only 2 issues #50-#51 (and the cover to #49, which sported the old, boring logo) and those are arguably the most memorable issues from the X-Men's first run. Adams' work is significant too but he had the benefit of Thomas' scripts; the Steranko issues have only the art to recommend them. Edit: added vonbek's quotes!
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Post by The Night Phantom on May 21, 2007 19:58:47 GMT -5
The Alex Summer debut was also a mess, how could he be Scott´s younger brother if he was graduating from university? Maybe Alex is a lot smarter.
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Post by Alchemist-X on May 21, 2007 22:53:42 GMT -5
Hmmmmm
Spider-man - Soooo many to pick, but It would either be at the end of Maximum Carnage where he takes on the whole Carnage crew by himself, or in ASM (can't remember which) where He lifts a whole colapsed train yard off his back to go after the Lizard.
Iron Man - Mask in the Iron Man's end was something else. It proves just how great Tony's genius really is, and shows beyond anything his intelligence is his greatest asset.
Darkhawk - The Heart of the Hawk Story Arc, particularily the end, which pretty much defined Darkhawk for the rest of the good issues in the series.
Cap - When he was chosen as the leader of Marvel's heroes during the Secret Wars tells you everything you ever need to know about Cap in just a few sentences.
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Post by von Bek on May 22, 2007 9:21:24 GMT -5
The Alex Summer debut was also a mess, how could he be Scott´s younger brother if he was graduating from university? Maybe Alex is a lot smarter. Actually one of the retcons tried to tell us exactly this, that Alex was some kind of boy genius...
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