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Post by MWGallaher on Dec 26, 2019 21:47:54 GMT -5
I tried to stick to pair-ups, except for Wonder Woman/Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. And I swapped a few out that had already gotten good coverage, although I felt I had to include Deadman and Kara, a genuine classic (although one that could have been even stronger with a better art job than Dick Giordano's rather stiff rendition). I intended to avoid leaning heavily on B&B, which (for reasons you might have already guessed!) I've been studying pretty carefully for over a year now. But as a big Jim Aparo fan, I did decide to give him a place in all my top few spots, including some B&B issues.
Some my near-misses that didn't crop up in anyone's list (that I noticed): Batman and The Atom in B&B #115, "The Corpse That Wouldn't Die", in which the Atom animated a comatose Batman from inside his brain to solve what he thought would be the Batman's final case! B&B 100 is a strong contender, but again, I wanted to go with our leader's original intent, and this 5-way team-up seemed too crowded for this contest. I seriously contemplated the surprising team-up of The Creeper and Wildcat from Super-Team Family #2. It wasn't a very good story, but it represented a promise of potential surprises, too few of which would ever materialize. But c'mon, if they can publish a team-up of these two, what couldn't they surprise us with?! DC's Shadow #11, guest-starring the Avenger, was a team-up of my two favorite pulp characters. I thought of this one too late for my list, but the weakness of the Cruz artwork (in comparison with Kaluta and Robbins) would probably have kept it off my list anyway. I had more Marvel entries than I originally expected to, none of them from the usual suspects (MTIO, MTU, G-S S-M). Dracula and the Silver Surfer in Tomb of Dracula #50 is one Marvel comic that I considered early on, a crossover that worked way better than I think anyone would have expected. Fin Fang Foom wasn't quite enough of a solo star to make me feel comfortable including his encounter with It! The Living Colossus, but man, do I love all four issues of that run in Astonishing Tales!
I was disappointed that no one picked Jerry Lewis and Batman or Jimmy Olsen and Don Rickles!
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Post by MWGallaher on Dec 24, 2019 6:36:12 GMT -5
robot1a Russell's Pelleas & Melisande is a big favorite. WTFiction! I even became a fan of the opera after reading this. There are very few opera's I'd ever willingly sit through but I've got CD's and DVD's of this one, all thanks to Russell's having introduced me to it through his adaptation.
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Post by MWGallaher on Dec 23, 2019 17:30:37 GMT -5
2. Batman and Sgt. Rock (with Jim Aparo, Bob Haney, and Murray Boltinoff) in Brave & Bold #124By Bob Haney and Jim Aparo January 1976, DC Comics We all know this one, and I expect it will crop up in others' lists these last two days. Bob Haney's craziest issue of B&B--and that's saying a lot!---in which the creative team has to rewrite the story while it's happening to foil the villains, who have changed the script to make it kill off Batman and Sgt. Rock! So why the love? As the former head of the Official Jim Aparo Fan Club, how could I not include the issue where the king of team-up artists played an active part in the plot? And as some might remember from last Christmas, I love "What The Fiction", and this qualifies for sure! Just try to wrap your head around this bizarre plot, try to find the thread of what's "really" happening: any perspective you take, any universe you choose to observe from, it's a mind-bender! I still vividly remember getting this in my subscription, Jim Aparo right there on the cover! What a blast! Also, despite never following the war comics at the time, I found Sgt. Rock to be one of the most dependably enjoyable B&B co-stars (along with the other frequent guests, Deadman and Green Arrow). Fun facts: This image: is actually a fairly accurate representation of Jim's process! He would start out by ruling all the panel borders and doing the lettering, then start filling in the blank spaces with the illustrations that he visualized when he was doing the lettering! This is probably one reason he never seriously considered Marvel's overtures; this approach required working from a full script, not "Marvel style". Jim didn't actually like this issue all that much! He was a little embarrassed when I discussed it with him, revealing that it didn't really reflect his actual working environment...and his home was not anywhere close to the water, so the motorboat escape wasn't realistic! And he drew a pretty good likeness of himself, too!
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Post by MWGallaher on Dec 22, 2019 11:57:25 GMT -5
3. Phantom Stranger & the Spawn of Frankenstein in Phantom Stranger #26"From Dust Thou Art..."By Len Wein, Marv Wolfman and Jim Aparo, cover by Mike Kaluta DC Comics, Aug/Sep 1973 Thanks to exposure very early in my comics collecting days, the Phantom Stranger is one of my favorite series, and favorite characters. I was loving every globe-trotting, lushly-illustrated installment of this inscrutable mystery man's adventures from Wein and Aparo, and was getting a huge kick out of the Spawn of Frankenstein, courtesy of Wolfman and Kaluta, who had usurped Dr. Thirteen's slot in the backup, keeping the Ghost Breaker around as pursuing nemesis. With this installment, everything came to a head. I am certain that all involved were working under the assumption that this was to be the final issue of PS, a series that, according to its final letter column years later, was perennially in danger of cancellation. (And today I am struck with imagining how the team would have reacted on learning that some 35 years later, both the Stranger and Frankenstein--or at least a version partially inspired by Wolfman and Kaluta's take on the character--would see publication in their own individual comics series: "Yeah, right. And we'll all be carrying around Mother Boxes, too, hunh?" "Well, sort of, but I prefer to think of them as portable Absorbascons, myself.") We open with a classic splash, with one of the Stranger's trademark soliloquies, hinting at the finality that hung over this title's presumed fate, with the monster standing amidst burning wreckage, carrying a beautiful girl: In a moody tale of demonic possession, the long-running feud between the Stranger and Thirteen comes to a suitable conclusion. The Stranger, with Frankenstein, has saved and revived Thirteen's comatose wife, Marie. The Stranger pulls his disappearing act, the monster strides into the night, with Thirteen certain that they will meet again. If it had all stopped there, I'd have been sad, but satisfied. The Phantom Stranger would return, but never with the heaviness and mystery with which Wein and Aparo imbued him. Gerry Talaoc for Aparo, Bernard Bailey for Kaluta? Not quite a fair trade, if you ask me, but such are the lessons a young comics fan must learn to deal with to postpone the longer-term partings ahead. So a nostalgic selection, but a very worthy one, deserving of a high ranking!
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Post by MWGallaher on Dec 20, 2019 10:01:01 GMT -5
5. Batman and the Phantom StrangerBrave & Bold # 98“Mansion of the Misbegotten” By Bob Haney and Jim Aparo Oct/Nov 1971, DC Comics Who’s the top artist in team-up comics, that unique American genre in which a new pair of established characters join forces every issue? Marvel Two-In-One fans might think of Ron Wilson, who drew 43 issues. Other Marvel fans might point to Sal Buscema, credited with pencilling 48 issues of Marvel Team-Up, and 12 of Marvel Two-In-One. But most of us are rightly going to think immediately of Jim Aparo, who illustrated 79 issues (and several additional covers) of DC’s The Brave and the Bold, establishing him as the king (and cementing his place as one of the most memorable Batman artists in the process). And this is where it began, when Jim was called upon to first draw Batman, to first step into the artist’s chair for The Brave and the Bold. Initially a fill-in for the previous established regular artist, Nick Cardy, Jim was called to duty, despite being a relative newcomer to DC, on the strength of his bi-monthly efforts on behalf of this issue’s co-star, the Phantom Stranger. As the letters page notes, this is not the first time Jim followed Nick, who he had previously replaced on Aquaman. The letters page also implies that, although Nick will illustrate issue 99 (he only inked over Bob Brown, though), Jim was on for the long haul. And as of issue 100, he was! And there on page one, with perhaps slightly shorter ears, is Aparo’s familiar Batman: The story is a Haney classic, with his not-uncommon wild ideas that should but never did change Batman’s world (he gains responsibility for a new godson left orphaned at the end of the issue!). It has the horror trappings we found throughout DC’s early 70’s superhero comics, rendered exquisitely by Aparo, to no one’s surprise. The Phantom Stranger is one of my very favorite regular guests in B&B, always guaranteeing a departure from conventional superheroics, and never looking better than when rendered by Aparo. It was always a pleasure to see him return to these pages. A solid issue, deserving of special love this season for bringing my favorite comic book artist to his seat of special status for the first time!
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Post by MWGallaher on Dec 19, 2019 9:41:50 GMT -5
Marvel Classics Comics Omnibus Hardcover – August 25, 2020. Masterworks of literature - retold in the Mighty Marvel Manner! In the late 1970s, respected comic book writers and talented artists joined forces to adapt many of the world's most famous stories onto the comic book page. From adventure tales like The Last of the Mohicans, Treasure Island, Robinson Crusoe and Ivanhoe, to horror staples Frankenstein and The Invisible Man! Whether it's the classical poetry of The Iliad and The Odyssey, the dystopian sci-fi of The War of the Worlds, or the terrifying tales of Edgar Allan Poe, this collection of cultured classics is sure to thrill you from cover to cover! Featuring world-famous and beloved characters like Robin Hood and Alice in Wonderland, and illustrated versions of novels by such authors as Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Jules Verne and many more! COLLECTING: MARVEL CLASSICS COMICS (1976) 13-36... My question of the day: starts with issue 13. Where are issues 1-12?!?!? The first 13 issues were reprints of classics adaptations by Pendulum Press--Marvel colored them and added covers by their own artists, but didn't have the copyrights for the material. As of issue 13, they were generating the adaptations in-house, with their own artists and writers, and held the copyrights for those issues.
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Post by MWGallaher on Dec 18, 2019 21:38:08 GMT -5
Russell inks Brian Apthorp. {Spoiler}I'm adding the Earth-1 Batman to my roster, for reasons I'll eventually explain, but this still leaves me with 6 entries remaining in my secret personal Classic Comics Cover Contest challenge!
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Post by MWGallaher on Dec 17, 2019 9:08:24 GMT -5
robot1a for me this week with that great John Romita cover with stewardess Bonnie Franklin and a Scottish mystery man from a Brigadoon-like "once-a-century" village. And by the way, the "Bonnie Tyler" series in Young Romance #126-#139 is a pretty weird one, with some interesting fantasy elements and a heroine who frequently ends a story in the arms of the love of her life, only to start the next falling for a completely different guy.
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Post by MWGallaher on Dec 12, 2019 10:19:39 GMT -5
I'll be running a little behind due to obligations this weekend, but I've got four write-ups completed, and I think three of those are unlikely to get a lot of coverage from the rest of you. This is a great topic for me; since the team-ups were the most exciting thing about comics when I started collecting, I'm going back to some of my earliest, most memorable, and hence most beloved issues. I may not make it out of the 70's at all this year!
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Post by MWGallaher on Dec 11, 2019 22:44:02 GMT -5
I have no idea what's happening on this cover, except that the title translates to "Duel at Midnight", but it's got men in solid color kilts (and from my research, that is a thing, even if it's not what tartanphantom had in mind), and it's got Robin Hood... {Spoiler}and Robin Hood ticks off another entry on the roster comprising options I can use for my secret personal cover contest challenge, cutting me down to six remaining entries, unless I expand the rules again!
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Post by MWGallaher on Dec 10, 2019 9:17:03 GMT -5
tartanphantom gets my vote with that Bill Everett beauty of a cover!
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Post by MWGallaher on Dec 4, 2019 13:35:02 GMT -5
The Viking Prince rips the sail as we head off to adventure in the debut issue of The Brave and the Bold, 1955: {Spoiler}Thanks, beccabear67, for a topic I was able to participate in! After using this cover, there are only 7 entries remaining in my secret personal cover contest challenge. Last week I had to expand the slate of entries I'm pulling from, and using this one crosses one category off the list that I really regretted having to add in last week. This opportunity made it a lot more viable for me to complete my little project in the next couple of months!
And with all the much better Viking Prince covers available, why did I go with this one? A good question, with a good answer...an answer that can be abbreviated G.G.)
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Post by MWGallaher on Nov 27, 2019 11:36:57 GMT -5
Well, I really didn't want to do this, with only 2 entries remaining in my secret personal cover challenge, but I'm bringing in the B-team. No, I guess it's the C-team, since I enlarged the scope once before. Now there are 8 entries remaining on my newly-expanded roster, so I'll hopefully finish this up in 2020!
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Post by MWGallaher on Nov 20, 2019 9:34:11 GMT -5
I really didn't want to resort to this, but with only three covers to go in my secret personal cover contest challenge and my options highly constrained, I have no choice: Get it? Batman, lives in a cave? And a canary in a coalmine? And with that, I'm down to two remaining entries, and I'm more constrained than ever before! Can I compete next week? The week after? Will I finish before the year's up? I sure hope so!
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Post by MWGallaher on Nov 15, 2019 9:44:16 GMT -5
An Untold Tale of Clark Kent"The Ghost That Haunted Clark Kent" by Leo Dorfman (as Geoff Browne), Curt Swan, and Murphy Anderson Action Comics 406, November 1971 For this round, I'm going in reverse chronological order, so that I can start out with the very first issue of Action Comics I ever purchased, apparently actually on sale in November 1971, matching the cover date! This backup is cover featured, and as a monster/horror fan first, it was surely its image of the ghost of Superman carrying his own spectral head in his hands atop the Tower of London that sold me. The story is branded with the Superman logo, not the Clark Kent Logo, but a blurb declares it "an untold tale of Clark Kent." (Aren't most of these tales "untold" until they're published?) Synopsis: We open with the cover scene, as Clark Kent, doing a TV special in London, comes face-to-face with one of the headless phantoms the guide claims haunts the walls, this one a "spectre of Superman!" Note that in the story, Clark thinks: "Impossible! Ghosts are the spirits of the dead! But I'm Superman! And I'm alive!" Back on the cover, Clark's shouting: "But that's impossible! Ghosts don't exist..." Superman's met too many ghosts in his career to be a non-believer, but he's playing the skeptic for the cover pitch! Clark flees the scene, feigning cowardice, and with his x-ray vision, sees the phantom passing through walls into a lab, where he replaces his head and transforms into "another Superman...in the flesh!" As Superman, Clark bores through to the "ghost's" underground lab, where he is greeted by a shriveled Troy Magnus, a London physician of 1665. He had developed an alchemical cure for the plague which protected him as he treated patients. Before he could make cures for the populace, the elixir appeared to fail him. But instead of dying, he changes to a ghostly form, then back again. Thinking he was indeed cured, he resumes treating patients, but now all his patients die--even those who didn't have the plague to start with! Troy begs the guards to kill him before he wipes out the city, but his body instinctively reverts to its phantom form upon threat of death. Like Poe's Fortunato, Magnus is sealed up alive in the walls of the building, and he spends the centuries undying, doing transmutation experiments. He discovers he can control the transformation to spirit form, allowing him to safely explore the outside world. And tonight, he spotted Clark Kent changing to Superman, and made himself appear as a doppelganger in order to lure him in. Superman is invulnerable to his deadly presence, and with his superpowers may be able to help Magnus die. Superman refuses, and Magnus understands, asking the Man of Steel to seal up the cracks he's left with his entry, lest the plague escape. Using his heat vision to seal the cracks, Superman accidentally zaps some of the mirrors Magnus has been using. When the rays are reflected back on him, his spectral transformation does not protect him--only mortal weapons were harmless to him, but Superman's "super-weapon" is strong enough to grant him the death he wanted. Superman bricks up the corpse, leaving us with this parting thought about the man who spent his trapped years of loneliness attempting to transmute lead to gold: "The poor man didn't realize that atomic scientists of our age transmuted metals long ago..."Thoughts: Wait, what? Our atomic scientists have long since transmuted metals?! I think you're misunderstanding something, Superman. Radioactive decay does indeed result in elements changing into different elements, but don't imply that we've mastered the art of changing lead into gold, man! So here's a classic example of taking a cool cover image and coming up with a story to explain it, and I've gotta say it doesn't do a very good job of it. In particular, the impersonation of Superman was an unnecessary and unconvincing component of the alchemist's plan. Surely Clark would have been just as interested in tracking down an "ordinary" ghost? I can also imagine this story being told in reverse in the Silver Age: why is this 17th century corpse discovered bricked up in the tower of London wearing a Superman costume? For one of my earliest comics purchases, this story didn't have much long-term impact. Reading it again now doesn't bring back any memories other than the cover, which I've seen many times since. And it's a real cheat trying to pass this off as a "Clark Kent" story. Clark's in seven panels, not even as much as I'd expect in a typical Superman story.
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