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| Cover art by Ernie Chan (Chua) and Vinnie Colletta |
Tuesday, June 2, 2015
Titanic Tuesdays: "You Can't Say No to the Angel of Death! (Or Can You?)" by Rozakis, Novick, and Colletta
What it is, Groove-ophiles! Well, you seemed to get a kick our of our last visit to the Teen Titan's 1976/77 revival, even though you know it wasn't a blockbuster mag by any stretch. Still, it's fun to see what happened between the classic Silver Age Titans and the superstar Titans of the 80s, so--ta-dah! here's yet another new departmant: Titanic Tuesdays! We know Bob Rozakis is gonna try to give us our quarter's worth each month with cool plots, DC-filtered, Marvel-ized characterization, and the continuing quest to make a super-hero out of Mal. Artistically we'll get a very mixed bag, let Ol' Groove warn ya! But hey, t'was part of our beloved Groovy Age! Today we're peeling back the pages of Teen Titans #45 (September 1976) for "You Can't Say no to the Angel of Death! (Or Can You?" with art by Irv Novick and Vinnie Colletta!
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Oh joy. Another Vince Colletta hack job. Unfortunately he was as much a part of the Bronze Age as the Dreaded Deadline Doom was for Marvel.
ReplyDeleteThis whole good / bad artist thing seems.. weird. One would have thunk that in a country of 250,000,000 persons there would have been dozens of great artists gracing the pages of comics, no? Though, if I read my comics history correctly, no-one was "proud" to be a comic-book artist prior to the 80s / 90s? Anyhow, this seems like standard fare for D.C. at the time. Unless it was Aparo, or Adams, or Kirby, or Robbins D.C. art all kind of looked the same.
ReplyDeleteThis is one of the few issues of this run of Teen Titans that I had; as such, it brings back some fond memories, although there's nothing particularly notable about the story. I have to say, though, that the art isn't really all that bad. Novick has always been a solid penciler, and, quite unusually, Colletta's inks don't look too bad in this case, either.
ReplyDeleteI always liked Novick's art on Batman and Flash and this one was not bad. I think the only reason I picked it up was because the store in my town that carried comics was having problems with distribution and this was about the only thing that looked interesting on the rack that week.
ReplyDeletePoor Mal. He wasn't treated well until the Young Justice cartoon, though folks kept trying. I always wanted them to recall that he had been introduced as a boxer and have him train with and take over for the Brave & Bold version of Wildcat, who apparently lived on Earth 1. Could have been cool!
ReplyDeleteKenn is the first person I've ever heard with a decent direction for Mal. Too bad it comes forty years too late.
ReplyDeleteWith the exception of the origin in the last issue, this was the artistic highpoint. Say what you will about Coletta...and I'll agree with you. Novick was a solid, unflashy journeyman artist who's career stretched bak to the Golden Age. His work on the Flash in the 70's defined the character for me. His work didn't have the flash of Cardy, but there was something much worse coming right around the corner.
This reads like Mal and his costumed sidekicks. And Mal makes for a dull protagonist. Did anyone ever say, "Hey! Mal and Lilith are in this issue. I've GOT to have it." Aqualad was particularly wasted. Did he ever throw a punch, swim, breathe underwater, or command any sea creatures once in this run? Never mind that he's the second only to Wonder Girl in the super-strength department.
James Chatterton
The unflashy artists, such as Irv Novick and Dick Dillin, were the real backbone of the industry. They dependably turned out solid, if unexciting, artwork month after month while flashier artists such as Adams, Steranko and Golden (whom I love) were less frequent and often deadline challenged contributers.
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