Sunday, September 6, 2009
Making a Splash: Neal Adams/Tom Palmer X-Men
Greetings, Groove-ophiles! Y'know, everyone talks about the great art Neal Adams and Tom Palmer produced during their tenure as X-Men artists back in 1969, but no one does anything about it. Well, that's all about to change! Here for your eyeballs' edification are the sizzling splash pages from X-Men #'s 56-63 and 65 (February-September and November 1969)! Get'cher keyboard outta the drool zone, baby, 'cause here we go!
Neal Adams & Tom Palmer rule! It's a shame Marvel didn't keep them on the X-Men. Just think, maybe then, we might not have ever had the new X-Men? would that team, with the exception of Wolverine been just members of the Legion of Superheroes over at DC? Would Dave cockrum had left DC at all then. Would he had then relaunched Shazam/ Captain Marvel for DC then. Like he told me DC had just offered him back then?
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting this, man if only the X-Men hadn't been canceled. I had just started buying them then too. Who knew a woman with green hair could look so hot huh? Except maybe Capt. Kirk! I know I had Tom Palmer ink a Gene Colan Capt. Marvel piece I once owned in Dec 2001. He told me through e-mail back then, after I spotted one of these pages for sale. That these were all stolen & that Marvel had never returned any of their Avengers or X-Men pages to him or Neal. Guess he thought I was super rich & would give them back to him. If I did indeed own any. I wish I was rich, or even mildly wealthy for that matter! Who wouldn't love to own any of their gems! Great post as usual Groovy One! Keep e'm coming!! I always was a big X-Men fan, even way before the New X-Men came about!
That's a slice of fried gold!!
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting, Groove. What a fantastic run of issues! "Before I'd Be Slave..." is one of my all-time fave Bronze Age comics, with Neal Adams at his best, despite the rather sedate splash-page.
Man - o - man were Adams and Palmer some kind of magic. I don't know whose idea it was to team these two up but you are talking about the best penciller of all time united with the best inker of all time. Is it any wonder we are still talking about these artistic masterpieces over 40 years after they occurred? Palmer brought a luster to Adams' pencils that was always lacking when he was inked by Giordano. He opened up Neal's talent so wide that it was as expansive as the universe, pulsing with power and beauty. Sorry for the hyperbole. One of the main reasons I collects comics is for the art. And it doesn't get any better in the Groovy Age that when these 2 men were pumping it out. Avengers # 93 is the pinnacle of their collaboration IMHO with these X-Men issues a close second.
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