There are 3 major points I'm gonna try to prove.
(A) Neal Adams was a technically revolutionary artist, who invented more-or-less-out-of-whole-cloth
multiple new approach to comics storytelling.
You should have stopped there.
..or here.
The bolded part is patently false. Comics--being a medium leg-ironed with a lack of movement to readers who are and live in a world of realism, emotion & movement--only succeed when those human expectations are met, as opposed to illustrations so workman-like its as flat and lifeless as line art created for office furniture instruction sheets. Or worse, art that is so off the deep end of an artist's style quirks, that it is largely unsuitable for more than a handful of characters--not at all desirable for a publisher creating a large, unified world. Neal Adams never had an issue illustrating all but a couple of characters at
any company (e.g., Spider-Man, who was so hard defined by Romita Sr. that no one before or after his run ever matched the style &
life brought to the character). From superheroes to horror to TV adaptations, Adams made the subjects his own, living up to and surpassing potential writers could barely imagine based on how characters were executed
before Adams' arrival.
This too, is a false notion, as Adams' work did not become the template for
The Amazing Spider-Man (Romita-ville and not-so-distinguished followers until his son took the wheel many years later),
The Fantastic Four (a title which was always trying to finds its artistic way in the "post-King" years with the Buscemas, Buckler, Pollard, et al., until Byrne's run scrapped trying to capture Kirby-isms),
Captain America, Star Wars, The Invaders, The Legion of Super-Heroes, Superman (even with the occasional Adams work),
Wonder Woman, Adventure Comics, and on and on and on. Adams was a force--but most editors & artists knew he could not be imitated, hence the aforementioned titles
not attempting his infinite choices in visual storytelling, etc.
What you're getting at is a torrential flood of false beliefs abut Adams' work and his influence. On that subject, if he's "responsible" for the scribbled garbage of artists like those who founded Image, then he's just as responsible for being a noted influence on one of the--if not the greatest post-Adams artist in Alex Ross. It must work
both ways, with Ross being a now long-time, significant, positive impact on the industry far beyond comic fans.
We're not talking about Harvey Comics, reptisaurus. This is a sub-genre that by its very nature
demands more expressive, thoughtful, and yes--thrilling layouts. The basic panel, equally basic illustrative style of (for one example) early Silver Age (and a few Bronze Ager artist) was so simplistic that it restricted the entire story telling mission--which is the point of the medium, not just checking in with four-to-six panel layouts that served a format instead of the story point & potential.
In the following example from
Creepy #14 (April, 1967)--
--Adams' work shows--in all its potent glory--why the simple artists / simple layout would have failed to express the tension, conflict and a darker suggestion of the story; how its particularly clever, extreme low angle arrangement shows the
vampire, with his relatively small frame in a position of vulnerability (right page) in contrast to his well-armed number of captors, yet Adams' work--in concert with the dialogue--makes it clear (for the readers--not the executioners) the danger is far from over when the scene would indicate otherwise. That is masterful execution of a comic page(s), as it is not only selling the horror/drama, but real human emotional investment (instead of just putting "ACTION!" on the page) in the grim deeds presented.
Adams succeeds in making the reader do two seeming opposing things: take the time to
study the scene--the characters' temperament, while using his filmmaker-esque talent to keep the elements (and readers' eyes) moving in a natural story direction. That lifts the comic book out of the simple--the common exercise in disposable, monthly repetition, placing it on the platform of compelling, one-of-a-kind entertainment that had to be revisited months...years...decades later. Few ever had that kind of effect on the industry.
Next, we will examine how Adams takes a script page and dives deep into the struggle of characters--
Anyone else would have illustrated literal translations of a line of dialogue or scene description, but that's for the monthly workman, not one bringing
life to the four-color page. In the examples above, Adams took what would have been simple vignettes and a main subject (if rendered in the Golden/early Silver Age DC thought balloon style, looking no better than a child's collage), and internalizes the plight of a character or defining situation to show just how bleak life can or will be. In particular, the page shows the physical & psychological split between Oliver the man and Oliver the costumed hero--both (at that point) not knowing how to fight against the towering social issues he had admonished Green Lantern for not addressing.
Adams brilliantly places the short story's subject--a young black child--in the center, his size sort of dwarfed by the steps of his run down brownstone home, yet he will suddenly mean so much more, hence the focus and placement
within the two sides of Oilver. The story's conclusion brings it all home, but the struggle is laid out without flaw on this opening page. Once can almost imagine a camera slowly pulling in on the center of Queen/GA, entering the child's world.
More to the point, the panel sample makes use of the many techniques at Adams' disposal, showing a tense, if not rattled Green Arrow recalling then-all too recent, defining statements on American violence and corruption (the "moral cancer" he refers to), but the images of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy are not mere floating heads as seen on endless comic covers, but an unusual mix of the ethereal...and something mirroring a newspaper image, placing the victims in both a position of martyred admiration and in the flat, hard-delivered truth of a news story one had no choice but to swallow. Adams brings those incongruous elements & techniques together, with GA's shaken facial expressions being the powerless outcome. No easy way to communicate that world of commentary, but Adams achieved it in yet another unforgettable manner.
This could go on for quite some time/pages, but here, Adams' brilliance and effect on the medium cannot be underestimated or forced into a false negative. Without him--a hypothetical world where Neal Adams never exited--and one is left with a medium that with few exceptions, was stagnating, and would not have evolved in ways that frankly, helped the short and long term life of the medium.
So far, you've failed to demonstrate a negative cause and effect impact on the industry that is undeniably linked to Neal Adams.
