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Post by brutalis on Mar 12, 2021 20:50:29 GMT -5
Tuska Iron Man is Detroit Steel Muscle Car IMO. He looks strong, powerful and a punch from a Tuska Iron Man will leave a dent in your skull! There I said it😉
This too was my time for Iron Man. The villain war was an amazing idea, just not a great selection of villainy. IM's gallery of foes just doesn't have the panache of Batman, Spidey or Flash.
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Post by Batflunkie on Mar 12, 2021 21:48:57 GMT -5
I read Iron Man #71. Sort of a meh conclusion to the multi-part "epic" with the Mandarin and the Yellow Claw (with Sunfire thrown in for good measure). The George Tuska art isn't doing it for me, either. I'm mixed on Tuska's contributions to Marvel. I think he's a great artist for sure, but I remember thinking when I was reading an issue of TOS that, even when the layouts were done by Kirby, it was lacking the comic book dynamism that made Marvel so good in it's golden years
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Post by profh0011 on Mar 12, 2021 21:59:00 GMT -5
Mike Friedrich was NOT one of the better, or even more coherent writers out there. In retrospect, I find his BIGGEST contribution to comics was not only publishing STAR REACH, but also, collaborating with Jim Starlin on WRITING the contracts that set up the Marvel Graphic Novel line, EPIC ILLUSTRATED, and EPIC COMICS in general.
But regarding IRON MAN... yeah, I came in just about the time he did, and my earliest issues bought as they came out was the Mike Friedrich-George Tuska run, interrupted for a few issues by the debut of Arvell Jones (who also did IRON FIST for 3 issues, and got VASTLY better by the time he was working for DC Comics a few years later).
I have often joked about George Tuska's art style being a "BLUNT instrument". When Iron Man would punch somebody, it was like a BRICK going thru plate glass. Nothing subtle at all! And yet, with the right inkers, he could do some decent-looking, exciting, and FUN comics.
There was an issue drawn by Craig Russell set in Detroit that was cool. Then there was that 4-parter involving Dr. Spectrum, where Happy & Pepper were having marital problems, and the last page was the corniest soap-opera situation. Pepper winds up kissing Tony, and at that exact instant, Happy walks in. "MY BEST FRIEND IS IN LOVE WITH MY WIFE!" ("To be continued"-- it was hilarious. Kurt Busiek & Roger Stern later revisited this to actual lesser effect many years later. Busiek seemed to be needlessly revisiting a LOT of much-earlier storylines to lesser effect.)
I recall in parts 3 & 4, the flashback recaps at the beginning of each chapter got longer and longer. I wondered if they'd eventually have 20 pages of recap, and then realize they'd run out of pages for story. Sounds like a "Rocky & Bullwinkle" episode, don't it?
Trying to figure out the inter-book continuity between IRON MAN and THE AVENGERS at that time could cause a cerebral hemmorage. There was a point where Friedrich & Englehart had episodes set in Viet Nam the SAME month, but I'd almost bet if you worked it out, they actually took place months apart.
I had to hand it to Friedrich for his NERVE and vision. He tried to do the equivalent of "CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS" about 13 years before Wolfman & Perez did, only without ANY cooperation from the rest of the Marvel writers, and so it all just fizzled very quickly, with The Yellow Claw and The Mandarin being the top contenders, and Iron Man being pretty much the ONLY hero involved. The lynchpin was "The Black Lama", who it turned out, wasn't a bad guy after all, but was from another dimension, and the finale had Iron Man trapped there for 2 issues which CHIC STONE did the pencils for under Vince Colletta inks (if memory serves-- I'm doing this without looking it up-- heeheehee).
It was a relief when Friedrich finally left. The new era was going to be by Len Wein & Herb Trimpe. But first they lost Jack Abel, they they lost Trimpe, and then Wein fizzled out after maybe only 5 issues. So typical of him, I forget how many times he did that. GREAT start to a run, and then he gets bored and walks. OY. They went thru 4 or 5 writers in a year, until perrennial fill-in guy BILL MANTLO finally became the regular, because NOBODY else could bother to stick around. ("What memories, what memories.")
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Post by profh0011 on Mar 12, 2021 22:08:15 GMT -5
My favorite dialogue: She makes Dorrie Evans look like a boy! I swear: in 1995, I met a girl in a rock band who was a DEAD RINGER the for the way Kirby & Sinnott drew Crystal in those early episodes. SAME face.
Crystal's looks actually got less specific and more general as she went. Makes me wonder if Kirby based her on some REAL girl, but then slowly veered off-model as the months went by.
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Post by Batflunkie on Mar 12, 2021 22:36:22 GMT -5
I have often joked about George Tuska's art style being a "BLUNT instrument" I spent more time laughing at this than I should have
Tuska's artwork reminds me of something that you would see in like wildlife brochure or even a coloring book
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Post by Hoosier X on Mar 13, 2021 4:35:42 GMT -5
My favorite dialogue: She makes Dorrie Evans look like a boy! I swear: in 1995, I met a girl in a rock band who was a DEAD RINGER the for the way Kirby & Sinnott drew Crystal in those early episodes. SAME face.
Crystal's looks actually got less specific and more general as she went. Makes me wonder if Kirby based her on some REAL girl, but then slowly veered off-model as the months went by.
I think she’s based on Brigitte Bardot.
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Post by dbutler69 on Mar 13, 2021 6:32:00 GMT -5
I read Iron Man #71. Sort of a meh conclusion to the multi-part "epic" with the Mandarin and the Yellow Claw (with Sunfire thrown in for good measure). The George Tuska art isn't doing it for me, either. I’m holding my hands over my ears. La la la la la la la la! My first issue of Iron Man was #80, but I loved the whole idea of a War of the Super-Villains, so I picked up most of the issues of IM from #60 on pretty quickly from used bookstores and the occasional convention. I still have a soft spot for the War of the Super-Villains and I like the Tuska art quite a bit. Also ... Roxie Gilbert! Marvel needs to bring her back! As far as Tuska, to each his (or her) own. Yes, I love the idea of a War of the Super-Villains. I don't know if this thing with the Black Lama getting these villains to fight each other continues, or if this got dropped, but I do hope it continues.
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Post by profh0011 on Mar 13, 2021 12:59:59 GMT -5
I think she’s based on Brigitte Bardot. This kind of thing fascinates me. MANY (if not most) artists who create characters base them on real people, but, this is often disguised by "cartoon" drawing styles, and forgotten when a mountain of different artists draw the characters over decades and nobody stays "on model".
So it's been one of my pet projects to try and figure out WHO might be the models, and to do that, you usually have to go back to the ORIGINAL artist, and, that era-- or earlier.
Steve Ditko, for example, based a number of his characters on actors from the 1930s. So he was already looking back a generation before readers when those comics were NEW.
Hmmm... COULD be!
John Romita is usually harder to figure out than Jack Kirby, since his line style is often even more "cartoony" (or "generic").
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Post by dbutler69 on Mar 13, 2021 15:05:48 GMT -5
I read Iron Man #72. This was a fun issue. Some silliness, but still fun, as Iron Man decides to attend a comic book convention! Roy Thomas, Mike Friedrich, Tom Orzechowski, and Frank Brunner appear. The Black Lama shows up again, as mysterious as ever. I am wondering what this guy is up to!
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Post by Hoosier X on Mar 13, 2021 16:06:36 GMT -5
I think she’s based on Brigitte Bardot. This kind of thing fascinates me. MANY (if not most) artists who create characters base them on real people, but, this is often disguised by "cartoon" drawing styles, and forgotten when a mountain of different artists draw the characters over decades and nobody stays "on model".
So it's been one of my pet projects to try and figure out WHO might be the models, and to do that, you usually have to go back to the ORIGINAL artist, and, that era-- or earlier.
Steve Ditko, for example, based a number of his characters on actors from the 1930s. So he was already looking back a generation before readers when those comics were NEW.
Hmmm... COULD be!
John Romita is usually harder to figure out than Jack Kirby, since his line style is often even more "cartoony" (or "generic").
I think Queen Bee in JLA #60 resembles Charlotte Rampling. But honestly I’ve never even looked to see if she had made any movies when JLA #60 first appeared. EDIT TO ADD: JLA #60 is from 1968 and Georgy Girl is from 1966. For some reason I was thinking JLA #60 was older that. But it couldn’t be much older because Batgirl is in it.
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Post by profh0011 on Mar 13, 2021 16:46:41 GMT -5
I tell you what was spooky. When they did the first X-MEN movie, I thought Famke Jansen was a DEAD RNGER for the Werner Roth version of Jean Gray. (NOT Kirby's Jean-- Roth's!) Made me wonder if they'd actually looked at the comics.
Roth's storytelling was a bit "low key" for a superhero book, but he sure drew pretty people. I also felt like his pencils were "inker-proof". EVEN the likes of Vince Colletta & Dick Ayers, his stuff still looked "NICE". But I'd have preferred if they'd gotten someone like Sam Grainger on inks more often.
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Post by chaykinstevens on Mar 13, 2021 17:13:09 GMT -5
Trying to figure out the inter-book continuity between IRON MAN and THE AVENGERS at that time could cause a cerebral hemmorage. There was a point where Friedrich & Englehart had episodes set in Viet Nam the SAME month, but I'd almost bet if you worked it out, they actually took place months apart. I had to hand it to Friedrich for his NERVE and vision. He tried to do the equivalent of " CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS" about 13 years before Wolfman & Perez did, only without ANY cooperation from the rest of the Marvel writers, and so it all just fizzled very quickly, with The Yellow Claw and The Mandarin being the top contenders, and Iron Man being pretty much the ONLY hero involved. According to Steve Englehart's website, he was the uncredited co-plotter of Iron Man #73-75, 77 and 80-81.
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Post by kirby101 on Mar 13, 2021 17:14:34 GMT -5
You may be onto something profh.
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 9,620
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Post by Confessor on Mar 13, 2021 20:51:58 GMT -5
I re-read Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale's Batman: Haunted Knight trade paperback last night... Last week, I treated myself to a couple of cheap Batman TPBs off of eBay, including Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale's The Long Halloween, which should arrive early next week. In preparation for its arrival, I decided to re-read Haunted Knight which collects three Halloween-themed one-shots that Loeb and Sale did in the Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight series prior to working on The Long Halloween. I bought this collection back in 2000 or so, I think, and although I remember enjoying it at the time, I haven't read it since. The three stories are still entertaining superhero romps at their core, but they really lack depth. There aren't any engaging mysteries to hook the reader, just a series of action-packed encounters between the Dark Knight and the likes of Scarecrow, the Mad Hatter, and the Penguin. What they do have in spades though is introspection – LOTS of introspection. Too much introspection. These stories all dwell on the murder of Bruce Wayne's parents in Crime Alley and all feature the tortured, psychologically damaged version of Batman, who is emotionally crippled by these tortured memories and who routinely doubts his own sanity -- almost to the point of being incapacitated. Now, I know that this "grim & gritty" version of Batman was very much in vogue back in the mid-to-late '90s when these tales were penned (no doubt influenced by late '80s works like The Killing Joke, Dark Knight Returns and Year One), but across the three stories such introspection and psychological torment gets really wearing. A number of times I found myself rolling my eyes and thinking to myself, "oh, pull yourself together, man, you're a hero, for Christ's sake!" To be honest, I recall this "fragile" and "emotionally damaged" characterisation of Batman being an issue for me back in 2000 when I first read these stories too. On the art side of things, Sale's work sure looks lovely, with his Gothic, shadowy art being an excellent fit for the Halloween ambience of the stories. In particular, a sequence in the third story in which a dream-phantom of Poison Ivy appears to a fever-racked Bruce Wayne as he sleeps is really beautifully drawn. His art is a little more cartoony than his later work for Marvel, and one or two sequences did require me to look twice to understand what was going on, but the art certainly suits the tone of this book very well. All in all, my feelings about this collection are unchanged from those of 20 years ago. These are pretty fun stories (though I could've really done without all the angsty navel-gazing from Bruce), with some nice artwork, but are far from being essential Batman comics. Haunted Knight certainly isn't a patch on Loeb and Sale's later colour-themed mini-series that they did for Marvel ( Daredevil: Yellow, Spider-Man: Blue etc). I really hope that The Long Halloween is a more engaging and less lightweight read than this.
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Post by spoon on Mar 13, 2021 22:12:56 GMT -5
Continuing my Green Lantern binge read, I read Green Lantern #119-140, then Tales of the Green Lantern Corps #1-3, then Green Lantern #141-143.
The Green Lantern/Green Arrow era ends with #122 with the aborted wedding of Hal Jordan and Kari Limbo after a whirlwind romance. The wedding is interrupted by Kari having a premonition of Superman in danger. In the Phantom Zone, Guy Gardner is discovered alive allied with (or perhaps manipulated by) the Phantom Zone criminals. So begins the first of something being off about Guy, years before he became a major character.
Green Lantern #123 brings three huge, simulanteous improvements. First, Green Lantern is back to being the solo star, with Green Arrow and Black Canary written out of the book as GL decides he needs to rescue Guy along, leaving Ollie feeling rejected. The GL/GA format had becoming very limiting. It was hard to give both heroes adequate attention in 17 pages, and it felt very forced how threats were created that fit for both GL and GA. Second, Joe Staton takes over as penciler for Alex Saviuk. Staton's work is instantly dynamic. He gives a distinctive look to GL and other cast members. Saviuk art was so pedestrian by comparison. Third, a run of issues that pits GL mostly against his classic Silver Age foes begins. They are more interesting than many of the threats GL had been pitted against for the past few years. We get Sinestro, the Qwardians, Star Sapphire, Hector Hammond, Sonar, Evil Star, and Doctor Polaris all in short order. They changes are huge obvious improvements that it a shame the book just coasted for a while before this.
The Star Sapphire issue is Denny O'Neil swan song on GL. He goes out with a bang with a fun arc that has a big assemblage of GLs in combat and an interesting twist about General Fabrikant of Qward. As if O'Neil wants to end on a happy note, he has Carol and Hal decided to set animosity aside for one night after the Hal/Kari Limbo romance. There's a transition period of three issues, which features three different writers handling short main stories, with a three-part Green Lantern Corps back-up introducing Arkkis Chummuck.
New regular writer Marv Wolfman returns to a past formula with Hal back as a test pilot and Tom Kalmaku back as a mechanic. But he also immediately puts Hal through the ringer in a Doctor Polaris arc that has Hal getting sidetracked as Carol Ferris is kidnapped, then losing his power ring to Dr. Polaris, and being temporarily blinded. There's a shocking scene where Hal finds Tom contemplating suicide and tells him he's a quitter who might as well jump. But they somehow patch it up by next issue. The quest to find Carol is sidetracked again by a time travel story that takes Hal both to the 58th century Solar Director role and a meeting with Space Ranger in his time. Then, it's a battle with Eclipso, whose other self Bruce Gordon now works for Ferris Aircraft.
Meanwhile, Carol kidnapping turns out to be plot by Conrad Bloch, a deformed villain who turns out to be the disgruntled ex-partner of Carl Ferris. He's also kidnapped Carol's parents. It's all part of a sadistic plot to torment the Ferris family while also forcing Carol to sabotage and destroy Ferris facilities. Conrad is also the dear old dad to aircraft manufacturer Ned and blackmailing, corrupt Congressman Jason. Conrad seemingly dies, but I know Jason Bloch ends up showing up again.
The Tales of the Green Lantern Corps mini-series is also drawn by Joe Staton, but scripted by Len Wein and plotted my Mike W. Barr. I love this mini! A surprisingly large amount about the Corps's mythos and membership is stuffed into these three issues compared to everything about the Corps in the all issues of GL that have come before. Arisia is introduced as a newbie. Some other members get names. The concept of the Honor Guard is introduced, including the two members aside from Tomar Re. It interweaves history with a current story that reminds me of the Untold Legend of the Batman mini that came out the year before, but I like this mini a lot more.
Although for me Joe Staton is the definitive GL artist, I tend to prefer when he is inked by someone else rather than handling the full art chores. The art in issues from this period inked by Frank McLaughlin is really beautiful. Staton does a solid job inking himself in some of this issues though . . . until #141-143. That's an arc that introduces the Omega Man. Perhaps because he was drawing both the ongoing series and the GLC mini, Staton art on this arc looks really sloppy and rushed. Also, the Omega Men aren't particularly interesting here, although we get some interesting stuff about the Vegan worlds that I know Wolfman also uses in New Teen Titans with Starfire.
Since #132 there's also been an Adam Strange back-up feature. The best thing I can say about it is that it doesn't reduce the GL stories stay the same length, because the back-up stories are accommodated just by expanding the page count by the number required for the back-up. I've been reading the Adam Strange back-ups just to have the full binge read experience, but they're mostly boring and don't have anything to do with Green Lantern. I'll probably never re-read these back-ups. I'm looking forward to when they're replaced by Green Lantern Corps back-ups in just a few issues.
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