|
|
Post by dlw66 on Jul 11, 2008 12:53:19 GMT -5
It's been a while since we did a cover-love dedicated to just one book. So, here's a little Mutant history lesson that everyone can join in on!! Have at it! While I didn't always care for this era when the book carried the VERY large masthead, I do just love this John Buscema offering (too bad he didn't do the interiors, which were just generally AWFUL!!)...  The first "old" X-Men comic I ever had. Again, the JB art is super. This book crosses over with Avengers #53.  "Neal Adams" and "fantastic cover design" are synonyms.  This was such a great story overall, and this particular cover did a nice job of meshing the old and new teams. Byrne's Beast was just a slight notch below Perez's, in my opinion. Fantastic battle with Magneto that segued into a very good Savage Land tale.  Brutal, sexy, powerful, and a great homage to the past -- "This one has it all!!". But lose the king-sized advertisement, for Pete's sake!!  |
|
|
|
Post by Tana Nile on Jul 11, 2008 18:00:57 GMT -5
Those are some great covers Doug - I think you already know that that particular Neal Adams one is a favorite of mine!  I also have always been sad that #137 had that big yellow banner at the top. it hurts the image (which is a great one). Here's some I think are notable: I like the menace and drama from this early cover:  Neal Adams doing what he does best:  A great Adams rendition of Cyclops making a valiant last stand against the Sentinels:  A modern classic by Byrne. How many times has this cover been copied now, I wonder?  Finally, some beautiful Alex Ross work for the cover of X-Men 500:  |
|
|
|
Post by dlw66 on Jul 11, 2008 21:52:42 GMT -5
Great choices, Tana!
The Ross cover was just shipped as a poster this past week, if I'm not mistaken. It would look lovely and lively in your game room!!
Has anyone else seen Adams' alternate cover to #56 with the Living Monolith? It was passed over because Neal had drawn the merry mutants each chained to a letter in the title. Editorial was afraid the book wouldn't sell because the logo was obscured! Yeah, right...
|
|
|
|
Post by Dr. Hank Pym on Jul 11, 2008 22:06:20 GMT -5
I don't have a top five list (LOVE the covers that I've seen so far!), but here's two personal favorites of mine!   |
|
|
|
Post by woodside on Jul 12, 2008 18:27:53 GMT -5
# 5 is none other than Giant-Sized X-Men # 1. I love the cover because it represents just how much of a startling change there is between the original team and the new one!  # 4 is the final part of the Dark Phoenix Saga. There's just something fantastic and energetic about this particular cover. Something about Jean and Scott having taken a beating, but still fighting for their lives.  # 3 is the first issue of Uncanny X-Men proper and is just so iconic! Not as much as Giant-Sized, but still . . .  # 2 is Grant Morrison's first issue on X-Men and boy, does it look sleek! I love this cover.  # 1 is X-Men # 1, circa 1991, featuring one of the best X-artists ever, Jim Lee! What I like about it is not only does it convey the same sense of change (in terms of costumes) as Giant-Sized and # 114, but it also pays a homeage to Uncanny X-Men # 1. 
|
|
|
|
Post by woodside on Jul 12, 2008 18:31:22 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by Shiryu on Jul 18, 2008 12:44:08 GMT -5
This is tough for me, X-Men is one of those books I have rarely followed. My knowledge is limited to Uncanny pretty much from the creation of the "New" X-Men until the time when they fought the Brood in space.
Some of the covers posted here, especially the Byrne ones, are stunning though.
|
|
|
|
Post by sharkar on Jul 19, 2008 12:57:52 GMT -5
Great thread, great covers. While I didn't always care for this era when the book carried the VERY large masthead... Yep, during that period Marvel tried various ways of trying to generate interest in the X-Men, which was one of their rare unpopular books. So the logo receded ("The X-Men Featuring:") and instead we were treated to the following large "cover captions": "The Death of Professor X!" (#42, a "floating heads" cover by cover by Buscema) "The Power of Magneto" (#43, Buscema cited by dlw) "The Angel" (#44) "The Sense-Shattering Cyclops" (#45, another by Buscema cited by dlw) "The End of the X-Men!" (#46) "The Beast and Iceman" (#47) Here, at least, the heading was justified, because at this point the X-Men had split up into smaller groups (a very short-lived experiment) "Cyclops and Marvel Girl" (#48) It's funny, it's almost as if Marvel was embarrassed by the X-Men logo, so they shoved it into the background during this period...which then makes it all the more puzzling why, a year or so later, Martin Goodman would vehemently veto Neal Adams' cover design for #56- - because it obscured the logo! (Granted, by this time there was new, Jim Steranko-designed logo in use, so maybe that's why...). As dlw mentioned: Has anyone else seen Adams' alternate cover to #56 with the Living Monolith? It was passed over because Neal had drawn the merry mutants each chained to a letter in the title. Editorial was afraid the book wouldn't sell because the logo was obscured! Yeah, right... The two covers, with Neal's original design on the right:   Say what you will about Silver Age DC, I feel they did cutting edge covers back then (especially the Carmine Infantino covers). Look how they played with the Batman logo here (the traditional Batman logo is on the left, on the Scarecrow cover):   " |
|
|
|
Post by sharkar on Jul 19, 2008 13:13:38 GMT -5
Okay, now as for my favorite X-Men cover, there's no competition- - it's always been this one (the first time the new, Steranko-designed logo was used, which--with only minimal tweaking--became the standard logo). Just an incredible cover.  A distant second (IMO) is this one (#4, below). I especially like Kirby's rendition of Wanda; I think he did a great job with her (as did Heck later on). Strange that her costume was colored green here and on at least one other X-Men cover back then (sort of like Namor's trunks being colored red on several covers back then). True, Pietro's cover costume was also miscolored (blue, but not the light blue he'd adopt later on), but it seemed really strange that a character called the Scarlet Witch would sport a costume that was not--well, scarlet. The miscoloring was limited to the covers, though; in the interiors everyone had the right colors.  EDIT: replaced X-Men #4 cover image |
|
|
|
Post by dlw66 on Jul 19, 2008 13:22:52 GMT -5
Sharkar --
I have always loved that Blockbuster cover on Batman, and I'll agree - DC figured the cover would sell and that (for once) their consumers would be old enough to figure it out.
As long as we're on the topic of logos being hidden or changed -- check out Sports Illustrated over the past three decades. Many weeks the photography obliterates half of the cover logo. I think SI is still selling OK when that happens.
Goodman was silly, because the rejected Adams cover was more powerful than what was published...
|
|
|
|
Post by Dr. Hank Pym on Jul 19, 2008 19:11:32 GMT -5
sharkar:
I always thought that Toad looked SO creepy on that cover, and in early X-Men issues. It's weird that his looked totally changed into a random loser villain later on! In fact, other than Quicksilver, EVERYONE looks creepy on that cover! Magneto especially!
And I never knew that the original cover to 56 was so much cooler!
|
|
|
|
Post by sharkar on Jul 21, 2008 12:34:36 GMT -5
Sharkar -- I have always loved that Blockbuster cover on Batman, and I'll agree - DC figured the cover would sell and that (for once) their consumers would be old enough to figure it out. Yes--I mean, I know the top third or so of the cover (where the logo usually was) was very important, because often that was the only part of the cover that could be seen in the old days (newsstand, spinner racks)...so for this issue, in lieu of the logo, DC placed the figure of Batman right there at the very top of the cover. You couldn't miss him. But I still give DC credit for wreaking havoc with the logo--literally! As long as we're on the topic of logos being hidden or changed -- check out Sports Illustrated over the past three decades. Many weeks the photography obliterates half of the cover logo. I think SI is still selling OK when that happens. Yep, good point. sharkar: I always thought that Toad looked SO creepy on that cover, and in early X-Men issues. It's weird that his looked totally changed into a random loser villain later on! In fact, other than Quicksilver, EVERYONE looks creepy on that cover! Magneto especially! You're right, doc; Pietro has a stoic look here but he does not come across as evil. As you note, the Toad looks quite malevolent on the cover--and Wanda looks menacing, too. She's kind of imperious in the issue itself as well; IIRC, it's not until the next issue (X-Men #5) that she starts to displays the softer side of her personality. |
|
|
|
Post by sharkar on Jul 21, 2008 12:56:24 GMT -5
I picked X-Men #50 as my favorite X-Men cover, and that reminded me that it came out a month after the iconic Avengers #57 cover. These two very similar covers were the best I'd seen up until that point from Marvel. With the red and green, it was like an early Christmas that year. A great pair of covers.  |
|
|
|
Post by scottharris on Jun 28, 2009 4:51:54 GMT -5
Is this one of the more inexplicable groupings of Marvel characters ever? I mean, I read this comic and I still look at this cover and wonder how the heck these people ever ended up together:  |
|
