Monday, July 2, 2012

Groove's Faves: "It's All in the Mine" by Englehart and Rogers

One of the (many) highlights of DC's Summer of 1977 output was the return of Jack Kirby's Mister Miracle. Though The King was no longer at DC, the powers that were placed the Super-Escape Artist's re-vamped mag in the hands of the super-star team that was wowing us in Detective Comics, writer Steve Englehart and artist Marshall Rogers. Thanks to this ad...

...Teen Groove was psyched and ready when he got his hands on Mister Miracle #19 (June 1977), and lemme tell ya, I was not disappointed in the least. Not only did Englehart and Rogers craft an action-packed, explosive tale to knock my socks off (though truth to tell I usually spent my summers barefoot), but editor Denny O'Neil allowed Rogers to enlist the amazing Ilya Hunch to ink this minor masterpiece! Dig it!


















What? You wanna know who the heck Ilya Hunch is? So did we, baby! O'Neil laid the truth behind "Ilya Hunch" on us in the letters page of MM #20. Check it out!

Who says Diversions can't be edumicational?
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6 comments:

  1. Edo BosnarJuly 2, 2012 at 5:09 AM

    This resumed, second run of Mister Miracle is rather unfairly overlooked. Even though it only ran for seven issues, and ended, as I recall, with a kind of ambiguous cliff-hanger, this material really deserves a collection. In fact it seems like a no-brainer: written by the two Steves (Englehart and Gerber) with art by Rogers and then Michael Golden.

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  2. AnonymousJuly 2, 2012 at 10:32 AM

    Hey Groove, thanks for posting this way cool comic. My question is, has this ever been done before, where an entire comic is inked by a collection of talented people and each person ONLY did that one character?
    Hmm?
    David D
    davidd5927@yahoo.com

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    1. The Groovy AgentJuly 2, 2012 at 7:28 PM

      It was probably done lots of times, David, considering comics' assembly-line creation, but this might have been the first time everyone was actually credited for their work.

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  3. hobbyfanJuly 2, 2012 at 11:55 AM

    I bought those issues second hand. Great stuff, in an effort to pick up the baton Kirby left behind. The later revival just pales in comparison.....

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  4. William PrestonJuly 2, 2012 at 7:17 PM

    Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the copyright information on the first page say this is volume 5? Why would that be? Did the first 18 issues take four years? Were there really four prior "volumes"?

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    1. The Groovy AgentJuly 2, 2012 at 7:40 PM

      You're right, William! For some strange reason, DC's volume numbers actually showed each title's age. Mister Miracle made its debut in 1971, so in 1976 it was on "volume five" (never mind that it wasn't being published for three or so years between cancellation and revival). It's crazy, but that's they way they did things back then. Good eyes, and thanks for asking so I finally had the chance to talk about such nutty nitpickiness! ;D I just hope my explanation made sense...

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