Tuesday, August 26, 2014
Groove's Faves: "The Evil That Is Cast..." by Stern, Byrne, and Layton
It's Ol' Groove's birthday! 1963 was some year, wunnit? Avengers, X-Men, and moi! Seriously, as usual, since it's my birthday, yers trooly is picking one'a his all-time fave comic mags to rap with y'all about! This time we're looking at a masterpiece created by the multi-talented hands of writer Roger Stern and artists John Byrne (who co-plotted, as well) and Bob Layton: "The Evil That Is Cast" from The Incredible Hulk Annual #7 (Summer 1978). Sterno was killin' it on the Incredible Hulk around the time this annual came out, while Byrne and Layton had teamed up to provide some awesome art on The Champions about a year earlier. When Teen Groove saw that double-sized beauty on the bottom of the magazine rack at the local Convenient Store, there was no doubt it was goin' back to Casa de Groove! I mean, besides the aforementioned awesome creative team, we had the Hulk (of course), The Angel and Iceman (from The X-Men and, yep, The Champions) versus the original Sentinel, Master Mold with the mind of another X-Villain, Steven Lang! Roger's story was very cool, lots of action and humor, giving art-team Byrne/Layton plenty of cool stuff to draw, especially Master-Mold's asteroid hq--wow!! 'Nuff said! Check it out! Pass the cake!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
LinkWithin
Happy Birthday, Groove! Have a fantastic, far-out day!!
ReplyDeleteHey, Groove! Happy Birthday. I knew we shared a kinship. And not just because our birthdays are so close. Mine is August 28, 1963. A very good year, indeed, eh?
ReplyDeleteHappy birthday, Groove!
ReplyDeleteAnd what an excellent way to celebrate - I love this annual. It pretty much has all of the features of what I consider the ideal summer annual: a fun, exciting done-in-one story and lovely art. Perfect for both the casual fan and regular readers of the series.
Happy Birthday! I always liked this story, while it has to pull some fast ones to bring together the necessary players, Stern crafts an ending to the story that doesn't take a lot of moving parts to complete -- for all the threat of the master mold, the hulk just basically tears it to bits. There's no reversal or clever power usage, just brute force. It can seem somewhat anti-climatic, but it fits well with the kind of pathetic character the master mold is, and shows Stern's real gift for flow and pacing and not needing to be overly clever.
ReplyDeleteHappy birthday!
ReplyDeleteAnd thanks for this! I love the early Sentinel stories and didn't know about this one!
Hey, Happy Birthday, man!
ReplyDeleteYou are a young'un compared to me, which is one of the reasons I enjoy your site so much. I lost track of comics right around the time you seem to have started picking up on them so this gives me a little continuity.
Happy Birthday Groove! Well spending your birthday with the Hulk, Iceman, Angel and Master Mold is time well spent! I still have this very issue!
ReplyDelete- Mike from Trinidad & Tobago.
Thank you,Mr Groove,for sharing.
ReplyDeleteAnd belated birthday greetings!
Cheers!
/Mr Anonymous