Ho, ho, ho, Groove-ophiles! Ol' Santa Groove is back, baby! Can ya believe the Big Day is almost here? Well, it is, and it's time to count down from 12 days to one, hoo-hah! Let's kick the big celebration off with a lingering and loving look at who was doing what at Marvel Comics waaaay back in December, 1970! I can remember getting several of these magnificent mags stuffed into my stocking--how 'bout you?
Dig it! Adams, Romita, Colan, the Brothers Buscema, Wrightson, Trimpe, and more! And do these tired eyes spy the debut of
King Kull and the second appearance of the
Titans Three (who'd get it all together a bit later as the
Defenders)? That's enough to jingle any Marvelite's bells!
1970! One of, if not my favorite year as a Marvel Zombie! Man no wonder DC didn't stand a chance! Beside's Stan Lee & Roy Thomas's awesome tales. Look at their super team at the Marvel Bullpen of pencilers & inkers!
ReplyDeleteEverything Marvel was putting out kept topping the month before. Sal Buscema, & Bill Everett were rocking the house of ideas. Not forget those other guys & gals. Romita, John Buscema, Marie Severin & all the others weren't too shamby either. Great post groovyone!How about covering 1971 next? Excelisor!
Wow, Colan is just amazing, huh!
ReplyDeleteIs the Wrightson Kull story available online to read?
ReplyDeleteI have to say my favorites here. Which is very hard to choose one from the others. Because their all gems. Would have to be Sub-Mariner #35 the Titans Three. Not only did we get three of Marvel's most powerful heroes. But they were all angry rebels beautifully drawn by Sal Buscema at his peak!
ReplyDeleteThen we also got three Avengers ta boot! Thor, Ironman & Golaith/Clint aka Hawkeye in a battle royal. Bill Everett's inks on Gene Colan's Capt.America. John Romita on Spidey inked by Sal! WOW! My buddy Herb Trimpe's beautiful Hulk & John Buscema's FF, Thor & inked by my friend "Joltin" Joe Sinnott!
Stan sure knew how to pick & hire top talented & classy people. The old Marvel Bullpenners are some of the nicest people I've ever had the pleasure to know & meet in my nearly 50 years of life. Thanks to Stan & the bullpen they made my rough childhood bearable & gave it a beckon of light. I couldn't wait to run to my locale corner & magazine stores every tuesday & thursday to buy up every Marvel Comic/B & W mag I could back in the 1970's! Make Mine Marvel Forever!
Yep.
ReplyDeleteNow THERE'S the good stuff!!
ReplyDeleteNot to be contrarian, but I've always wished that Adams hadn't spun his wheels on the Inhumans strip, which I always thought took him away from what was by far his most important assignment, and a much more prestigious title, GREEN LANTERN. Considering how many times those GL/GA stories have been reprinted, can you imagine if Neal had used the time he saved from not doing the Inhumans and instead produced a few more classics with O'Neil?
ReplyDeleteHave those Inhumans stories ever been reprinted, by the way?
Go back about three months earlier, and that's the time I started buying comics. Funny how you can always remember what the first issue was of any title that you read...whereas I'd be going to tell you when I stopped.
ReplyDeletecheers
B Smith
Yes, The Inhuman issues have now been reprinted in the marvel masterwork's volume on the Inhumans, volume 1. And the story led into the Avengers in the Kree-Skrull war. Also, I don't think Neal Adams had much choice whether to leave GA/GL. DC was done with the experiment, and he landed the gig with Marvel. Therefore, it's not something that affected one another.
ReplyDeleteOK, it took me a while to figure out just why there were all these Marvel splash pages from such diverse book, but then I realized I had seen just about all of them. From the painful Gene Colan close-up of the gorilla to the odd multiple pannel Black Widow non-splash... from the beautiful Neal Adams Inhumans to the comical sequel to Jack Kirby's last Fantastic Four work. (what a mistake to chop it all up...!)
ReplyDeleteThis was one of the last Marvel Christmas's that I was around for. I dropped out of comics within a few months of this...