What it is, Groove-ophiles! If you can remember the Summer of 76, you probably remember the big
U.S. Bi-Centennial celebrations, Top 40 radio hits like
Afternoon Delight and
Silly Love Songs, The
Fonz and
Nadia Comaneci (via the
Summer Olympics) ruling the airwaves, or mebbe you went to the movies and got freaked out by
The Omen. Most important of all, though, was what we could find on the old spinner rack, right? Marvel, DC, Charlton, Archie, Harvey, and Gold Key had tons (I say, TONS) of comics that month, so there's no way Ol' Groove is gonna put 'em all in one post. Instead, I'm gonna share the sensational splash pages from my own personal, bought-strait-off-the-spinner rack twenty (in no particular order) favorite comics from July 1976! Yeah, they're all Marvel and DC, but hey, it's my list! You can debate, add to, take from, or trash the entire list if'n ya wanna--but these are mine, I tell ya! Mine, mine! (How'd
Daffy Duck get in here?) Enjoy!
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| Marvel Premiere #32 |
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| Starfire #2 |
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| Thor #252 |
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| Warlock #15 (from a reprint, sorry...) |
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| Warlord #3 |
I really dug those JLA-JSA team-ups! A summer tradition. I notice how there usually weren't two versions of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, probably because they looked so much alike it would have confused readers. You didn't often see the Earth-Two Batman on these adventures, like the one shown here.
ReplyDeleteI thought that guy was retired.
M.P.
I think you nailed it, M.P.! They managed to make two Supermen share the scene (mostly notably later in COIE) by shortening one's cape, using different s-shields and aging him, moreover, Wood managed make Kal-L look exactly like Shuster's Superman and totally different by the Swanderson inspired current one.
DeleteTwo Batmen was harder stuff, though, same suit, face covered, and basically the same guy - E2 Bats did not even had his pipe while in the cape! - so that's probably the main reason why Golden Age Brucie met an untimely end (smoking kills, pal!) and why Dick Grayson did not get to wear the cape.
Concerning Wonder Woman, you were always confused about which version you were looking at, in those years!
One can't praise enough Frank McLaughlin's greatness as an inker. He really makes some great artists'work shine (Chan and Dillin, here, and of course he brought Irv Novick's art to the upper level), in a less personal way than Anderson or Austin, whose brush was almost immediate to notice, and even Giordano. He properly is "the" DC inker of the seventies.
ReplyDeleteHe worked in tandem with Giordano at times and shows some of that influence, while retaining his own style. I liked his full art on Judomaster over at Charlton.
DeleteBoy, the House of Ideas was bursting with talent at this time. It's reflected in the titles: Warlock, X-Men, Nova, Master of Kung-Fu and revitalized oned such as Thor and Spidey. DC just couldn't compete.
ReplyDelete