Thursday, December 21, 2017

Groovy Christmases Past: 1978

Merry Christmas and Happy Ho-ho-holidays, Groove-ophiles! Today we're setting the Waybac machine to December 1978. We'd survived DC's infamous DC Implosion, Batman got killed in the comics (no lie!), John Byrne was on fire (five comics this month!), two of the most important artists of the 1980s appear, and Superman was thrilling the world on the Silver Screen! Are you ready for this...?
 See? I told'ja! Yeah, it's the Earth-2 Batman--but it's the first Batman and it's for real!


 Could anyone create a cover like Mike Grell?


 David Michelinie and John Byrne's Avengers era starts here!

 Artist Jerry Bingham's first full-length comic!


 If this cover had been a poster, it would still be hanging on Ol' Groove's wall!

 Roger McKenzie brings back the 1950s Captain America in a haunting storyline that would affect the real Cap for many years...



 Artist Bill Sienkiewicz makes his brain-blasting comicbook debut on the Moon Knight backup!







Chris Claremont. John Byrne. Terry Austin. Mary Jane Watson "becomes" Red Sonja. Best. Issue. Of. MTU. EVER!



 Pre-Daredevil Frank Miller art, baby! (And, oh, yeah, DD is in this ish!)





 John Byrne mania even makes Charlton reprint his earliest work!



 At last! The tabloid comic we all wanted! Merry Christmaaaas!


3 comments:

  1. Thanks for posting all these great days of X-Mas past. Brought back so many great memories. I was 17 then, comics to me were still great until around early 1980/82 at Marvel. I think beside's certain titles. Sadly was losing their top talents to DC. That second wave had already moved on to hollywood or just left comics. Like Jack Kirby. Frank Brunner, Mike Ploog & Starlin was doing his independent titles. By early 1988 the last remaining Marvel greats. Had been retired or been fired. Both Ron Frenz & Herb Trimpe told me. Marvel after months of promises of new assignments. That never came they received pink slips literally by a Fed Ex. Thinking finally they were getting their next assignment. The Jim Shooter special I guess? Very sad & crappy way to let long time employees go. Sorry to ramble on here. I think Shooter/Marvel blew it. Not keeping Perez, Wolfman, Gerber, Starlin, Kirby, etc happy.

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    1. That may very well be. And there was a noticable exodus of talent under Jim Shooter. But think of it this way; there would never have been a Wolfman/Perez Teen Titans if they had stayed at Marvel. And one thing I will always be thankful to Mr. Shooter for is he brought order to the creative chaos that was the norm for Marvel from 1972 - 1978. Under him we no longer suffered the Dreaded Deadline Doom,which often meant a fill-in or reprint right in the middle of ongoing continuity. In fact, I believe it was his insistence that creators meet their deadlines that led to some of the departures.

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  2. Infantino, Byrne, Golden, Austin, Grell, Sienkiewicz (those Moon Knight stories were exquisite). The mind boggles at the assemblage of talent for this month. I have to agree MTU # 79 was the greatest issue of the title. It also contains the biggest female bust of all time. The single panel page where Mary Jane becomes Red Sonja they are bigger than her head (my friend and I always got a chuckle out of that).

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Special thanks to Mike's Amazing World of Comics and Grand Comics Database for being such fantastic resources for covers, dates, creator info, etc. Thou art treasures true!


Note to "The Man": All images are presumed copyright by the respective copyright holders and are presented here as fair use under applicable laws, man! If you hold the copyright to a work I've posted and would like me to remove it, just drop me an e-mail and it's gone, baby, gone.


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As for the rest of ya, the purpose of this blog is to (re)introduce you to the great comics of the 1970s. If you like what you see, do what I do--go to a comics shop, bookstore, e-Bay or whatever and BUY YOUR OWN!