This & That: Our ...Somewhat Less Than Favorite Covers...

Redartz:  Hi folks! Not long ago we did a post about our favorite comic covers. In the interests of balance and full coverage, it seems natural to consider the other side of the coin: covers that, shall we say, didn't light our fires. And this is not to disrespect any particular title or artist; it's just that these covers failed the 'cover would make me buy it' test by a long shot.

First off:  This cover for Avengers Annual 10. For the most part, I like Al Milgrom's work, but this cover is just way too cluttered. All those panels, unevenly spaced. An overabundance of text certainly doesn't help. And this doesn't even address the "Columbia" banner across the top. As great as the interior was, the cover wasn't.

 Next up are two covers from Ross Andru, featuring the banner characters of each of the Big Two. As with Milgrom, I usually like Andru's work. At least, his interiors. Somehow, though, I always felt he lacked something when it came to his covers. On Superman, it just looks blocky- there were numerous such covers about that time. Kind of an uncomfortable viewing angle; good thing Supes wasn't turned a bit or we'd have gotten a Super booty shot. As for Spiderman 157, again we have some rather clunky figures; along with a flat background. Coming during the heyday of John Romita covers, seeing this from Ross was dismaying...

Turning to a couple of my favorite artists, here are examples that just go to show that nobody's perfect. Avengers 162 by George Perez? Not a bad cover, certainly. But as good as he usually is, this seems a bit unremarkable. And the action is difficult to follow; the composition seems rather scattershot. And Ultron looks a bit cartoonish, strangely.

 My other bronze age favorite: John Byrne, of course! But not because of this cover, I'm afraid. Byrne could do wonders depicting Ben Grimm, so what happened here? Fantastic Four 274 is the book, and our rocky friend Ben is the subject. But he almost gets lost amongst the rubble and bricks. Even the Thing's look seems off. Strange, as Byrne provided some fabulous cover art during this same era. Again, nobody's perfect.















Speaking of perfection, many folks would consider Jack Kirby the perfect comics artist. He's always the King in my book, but even he has some clunkers. This cover for Fantastic Four 78 always struck me as off; especially Ben Grimm's human face. That's quite a nose he's got there.  As for his later work, some of it was incredibly cool. However this cover for 2001 issue 2 looks like an ad for Max Factor mascara. Kirby could get pretty loose with some of his later drawing, but this cover was a bit too loose for my tastes. 
 

And how about this cover for Daredevil 69 by Sal Buscema? For one thing, that's a lot of prominent word balloons. Especially distracting against that black background. As for the art itself, Daredevil looks like he bulked up quite a bit. He almost resembles one of Carmine Infantino's famous DC apes. And it's a minor thing, but it bothers me: DD's mask has that sharp black shading, but the rest of the figure just looks flat...

 

And here are some more general cover comments. Photo covers can be quite effective: the classic cover to Submariner 7 for example: Namor looks amazing as John Buscema depicts him rising above the streets. On the other hand, this Spider-Man cover (from ASM 262) just looks a bit cheesy to me. Perhaps it's the combination of hand-rendered art and photography that works for me; the photo alone just lacks punch.

 

 Finally, this cover for Justice League of America 23 (2006 series) exemplifies one of my pet artistic peeves. Specifically, it has no sense of design. It's an over-rendered mess. Fine linework is great, but not when it gets totally lost in Too Much Detail. Everything in this cover mushes together visually, with the exception of the logo and Wonder Woman. And really, I don't mean to be critical, but it is a problem way too common with comic cover art in the modern era. This cover could have been more effective if, say, they took out half the characters and blacked out the background. Then you could actually make out individual figures and actions. It reminds me of my first year drawing class in college: what you leave out is as important as what you put in. 

Okay, I've pontificated enough. I'll turn the mike over to Marti; let's see what he's got for us...
 

Martinex1: Thanks for getting us started Red!  There are a number of comics that rub me the wrong way.  And it is not necessarily because the art is bad, some of my selections will actually be from some of my favorite artists who are definitely superstars.

Martinex1: My first choice in this rather dubious post is for Avengers #228.  Al Milgrom pencilled this piece.  I think the cover would have been one-thousand times better if he actually had Hank Pym in costume.  It is the "Trial of Yellowjacket " after all, and the cover can be symbolic if he doesn't wear his fighting togs in the story itself.  That choice really diminished the cover.  On top of it, I have never liked that Hank is very indistinguishable from Steve Rogers, Clint Barton, and Donald Blake when out of costume (which is probably why those characters are fully suited up in the background).  I believe this should have been corrected by editorial.  This cover just was not good enough.

Martinex1: I really admire John Byrne's art.  He is definitely one of my favorite artists of all time.   I know some people don't like his style, but I have always found him to be an enjoyable and clear storyteller.  I also think that many of his covers are iconic - just take a look at Uncanny X-Men #141 or almost his entire run of Fantastic Four covers.  It is a bucket list type dream to own original cover art from Byrne.  But I would not want to own one of these.  This particular FF cover does nothing for me.  I have commented before that I am really turned off by "civilian" covers when I am looking for super-heroes. It is of course rendered quite well, but thematically it does nothing for me.   This Alpha Flight cover is a miss for me also.  I think the extreme close-up works against the layout - it wants to be "in your face" but it comes across as strange and unshapely.  If he had pulled back just a bit, it may have been more effective.  Having said that though, it may not be the pencil art at all but rather the color that is off-putting.  The pink header does not work well at all against Sasquatch's orange fur and it actually seems to cut off the top of his head.  I am not sure if the whole thing would have looked better if the entire panel was orange.

Martinex1: George Perez is another favorite of mine.  But I have never liked covers that put the characters in a distant shot.  Covers should be bold in my mind; the characters should be larger than life. Something about the size of the characters diminishes the cover for me.  It would have been a perfectly fine internal panel, but for the "marketing" of a story, I thought this was a miss.  This cover is actually famous in a sense as it is well-known that the graffiti on the train car includes the names of many comic creators and co-workers from Marvel.  It is a novelty in a way, but I felt that the touching tribute to his peers actually minimized the action because he needed to pull back to use the space on the train car.   I am torn on this one, but it does not work for me and back in the day I delayed buying this issue from the spinner rack for a long time.

Martinex1: Bob Layton is just fantastic and he had an iconic run on Iron Man along with writer David Michelinie.  I like his work even more now as I have recently been looking back at his key run on the book. Layton also shares some of his work on Twitter, and I always check it our because it is fantastic.  This cover however always seemed rushed because of the strangely proportioned characters.  I know it is supposed to be a forced perspective to indicate the characters "coming at you," but it is just too much.   Wolverine's lower leg is much too large and Spider-Man looks fat.  It always strikes me as weird, like a fun house mirror version of the characters.  I don't like it.

Martinex1: Metal embossed covers never did anything for me.  I found it very hard to see the art.   The Avengers had an intermittent series of this type of cover during the Gatherers story arc.  I preferred the second print  or newsstand versions so that I could actually see the art.  Steve Epting and Tom Palmer were a great team, but I could not even distinguish the characters in the embossed version; the art was just lost.

Martinex1: Archie Comics and Harvey Comics are spectacular and we don't discuss them enough here. And I know you are going to say, "What?  How can you criticize this classic art?"  And I would respond that it is not at all the art that bothers me about these covers.  My beef with these publishers though is that I can never recall what is inside a particular issue because the cover does not tie to the stories.  There are old Archie tales that I remember so fondly.  A beloved cousin gave me a ton of Archie issues when I was little, and after losing them decades ago to childhood wear and tear I wanted to recreate the collection.  It is impossible  For the life of me, I cannot recall a single issue cover to try to source the comics.  I have absolutely no point of reference.  That was never true for super-hero tales back in the Bronze Age.

Martinex1: On the other hand, more modern comics have embraced the poses and poster shots for covers and I hate it.  Take a look at the comics below.  They may indicate what heroes are in the issue (maybe) but there is absolutely nothing about these covers that indicates anything about the story inside.  I really dislike that immensely.  In the future, any collectors will have the same concern with Marvel that I have with Archies and Harveys.  The embracing of these stock shots is misguided I think.

Redartz:  Marti, I so agree with your thoughts about those 'poster shot' covers. Once in awhile is fine, but almost every issue? No, give us some reference to the interior contents to entice us to buy. But hey, it's time for you all to chime in. What do you think about these covers we've chosen, and what covers can you think of that left you cold?

This & That: Spectacular Spider-Man 77!

 Redartz:  Greetings, folks; and welcome to our first comic review of the new year! Here at BitBA, we've tried to cast some attention to some less -frequently addressed titles, such as Rom and Alpha Flight. Many have written much about Marvel's banner character Spider-Man, Amazing Spider-Man
 being the flagship title and Spidey's original home. But for today's discussion, we'll look at an issue of Amazing's sister publication, Spectacular Spider-Man, and a fine Bronze Age example it is.

Martinex1:  A good choice for a title to review Red.  I was indeed a Spider-Man fan, but I only owned a smattering of Peter Parker The Spectacular Spider-Man.  I cannot really say why, I just tended to buy Amazing and Team-Up first.  So my knowledge of the stories in Spidey's second series is pretty limited.

Spectacular Spider-Man 77 (Apr. 1983) by Bill Mantlo, Al Milgrom and Jim Mooney

Redartz:  To begin with, how about that cover? It really stood out to me on the stands the first time I saw it...

Martinex1:  I've always liked when they played with the logs and masthead on comics.  I know Ed Hannigan did a number of memorable examples on Spectacular, and here Al Milgrom jumps in with a good one.  I like how the corner box is torn.  My understanding is that they did this all by hand back in the Bronze age - literally cutting and pasting.

 Redartz:  I believe you're right. They didn't have Photoshop back then, but still managed to accomplish some very cool visual effects. Incidentally, Milgrom seems to be showing a few touches of both Steve Ditko and Frank Miller here. Depicting the 'spider senses' going off was a Ditko trademark, and it's nicely done  here. 

And now, a brief summary of the story:



 

The story opens at Potter's Costume Shop (proprietor Melvin Potter, better known as Daredevil's frequent foe Gladiator). A group of thugs have pulled a job, and are trying to elude the police. They burst into Potter's shop, shooting him and threatening to incriminate him (as Potter's currently on parole and trying to go straight- as revealed in references to then-current Daredevil issues).

Meanwhile, Spider-man has just had an unpleasant encounter with Dr. Octopus, who has attacked the Black Cat (who is recuperating in the hospital). As Spidey patrols the city in preparation for a showdown with Ock, he stumbles upon the police cordon around Potter's shop.

 



The police fire tear gas, and the hoods exit the store, along with Potter: now costumed as Gladiator. Spider-man attacks, and there is a brief battle; worsened by Potter's pain-induced relapse into his delusional identity (he thinks he's an actual Roman Gladiator).












But the panicked thugs, fearful that Potter will turn on them, have revealed to the police that Potter was innocent of wrongdoing. Once Spider-man is aware of this, he appeals to Potter's better instincts, breaking through the delusion, and Potter ends his rampage. He then offers to repair Spidey's costume!


 





















 Any initial thoughts on the story, Marti?
 
Martinex1: One flaw I felt in the story is that the robbery thugs never seemed that threatening.   In some comics, these characters would be finished off in a page (or even a panel) so it was a little off having them threaten the Gladiator when that guy went up against Iron Man and Daredevil back in the Silver Age.  

Redartz:  That's a good point. I do like seeing the use of lower-level threats facing heroes like Spider-Man and Daredevil (not really likely to have much success against, say, Galactus). Spidey facing street hoods goes back to his origins, but yes, Potter could have taken them apart easily. Perhaps his mental instabilities made him extra cautious.

The middle section of the issue was devoted to the 'subplot' of Dr. Octopus' vendetta against Spider-man and the Black Cat. I always love seeing Ock, and his attack (ripping out Felicia's life support) was pretty brutal.  Not the greatest Ock/Spidey battle ever, but entertaining and suitably dramatic...
  
Martinex1:  The threats to the hospitalized Black Cat and the subsequent fight scene between Spidey and Doc Ock were nicely handled, but at the end I was left scratching my head.  The villain came to the hospital to confront Spidey and to threaten to kill him "tomorrow"?!?  Huh?  Why not today?  

I know that this story read like a stand alone issue, but the Doc Ock tale in Spectacular had been going on for a few issues and continued after that.  But this particular fight ended like something out of the Batman television show, "Bwah ha ha.  I have you on the ropes, but I'll see you tomorrow when we can really fight!"  I must be missing something, or this could have been scripted a bit better.

Redartz:  Another solid observation, partner.  Ock somewhat addressed the issue, stating he wanted his foe to "know a night of fear". Regardless, Ock caught his foe by surprise (in a rather novel way- having Spider-man's senses alarming during a dream, and thus being ineffective), and the Black Cat was absolutely helpless. Ock never had a better shot at finishing them both off.

The final third of the issue deals with the Gladiator's fate. This particular comic featured two of my favorite villains, Dr. Octopus and the Gladiator. Thus I was warm to the story from the start. I did like how they referenced Potter's background and mental problems from the Daredevil storylines,  I also thought Spider-man reaching out in potential friendship to Melvin was a nice touch; perfectly in keeping with Peter Parker's altruistic nature.


Martinex1: Although I know the Gladiator on the surface, I knew very little of his history.   I did not know that in his madness he thought he was from the Roman gladiatorial times.  I saw the Netflix Daredevil series, and it was interesting to see Melvin running a costume shop of sorts and assisting Daredevil with the costume design.  That was a nice tribute to the original source material.

 Did Spidey and Gladiator ever team up again?  It would be nice to see Melvin identified as the tailor for the Super-set.  

 Redartz: Yes, it was fun to see him appear on the Netflix show. They even had a couple of wrist blades visible, if you looked. Regarding later teamups- good question. Perhaps some of our friends out there can enlighten us. And since you mentioned the costume shop, let's talk about the art. I got a kick out of the background details in Potter's costume shop: Batman and Hawkman costumes! You can see them on the opening pages shown above.

Martinex1: I liked the side column pictures of the creative team.  I am not sure I have seen that done anywhere else, and I wondered what inspired them this time.  Funny that they depicted Jim Shooter as Dr. Doom.  I wonder how he felt about that or if it was just a shared and accepted gag.  He at least went along with the joke.

Redartz:  That credit display was amusing. To hazard a guess, I'd bet Mr. Shooter found being portrayed as Doom pretty humorous...
Overall, I found the artwork to be pretty satisfying. I've mentioned before my appreciation of the work of Milgrom on this title, especially in tandem with Ed Hannigan. Of course here he does pencils, with Jim Mooney inking.  

Martinex1:  I am not the greatest fan of Al Milgrom's art.  It is very hit and miss.  I really liked his early work on Marvel Presents with the Guardians of the Galaxy, but in all honesty his work on the Avengers turned me away.  I feel that he positions heroes in very stiff ways; they never seem comfortable in the pose.  And he also tends to widen the characters' faces; that part often reminds me of Carmine Infantino's work.
However, I do find Milgrom's work to benefit from the inker assigned.  In this case, I am curious how Jim Mooney will fare as I liked his work many years prior over at ASM.  In fact I always thought he helped keep Spidey consistent, and even here on the splash page that is a nicely formed Spider-Man.  

Redartz:  I agree, some of Milgrom's work can be...less successful. I do feel he did some of his best work on Spider-man, and on the Guardians of the Galaxy. And regarding Jim Mooney: great point about his consistency. Mooney seems to have a fairly heavy presence as an inker. Whether inking John Romita, Sal Buscema, or Milgrom, you can see that familiarity everywhere. 

Martinex1:  Mooney was in the comic industry for a long time.  He started out in "funny animal" comics back in the heyday of that genre, before getting a shot at Batman.

Redartz: Quite right; he shows up on some of those old Supergirl stories in Adventure Comics too. 
Oh, that dream sequence of Spider-man and the Octopus:  fairly well executed. That color effect seemed to show up often in comics of this time period, Keith Giffen loved using the technique. I will say that there were a few places in the book (for instance, the orange sky behind Ock during a nighttime scene; shown above) where the coloring seemed a bit odd.

Martinex1:  I too liked the dream sequence and how it was depicted.  The coloring choice for the dreams was interesting - simply leaving the inks alone but colored in magenta.  I wonder whose choice that was.  There is a language used for memories and dreams in Marvel comics that usually includes the panel corners to be rounded.  This was bit different and I liked it.  Although the actual color choice was strange; perhaps a darker green or purple would have been more off-setting, dark, and mysterious.

Redartz:  Okay, time to sum it all up. 

The Good:  A good story with some nice artistic touches; two classic villains and a great cover.
The Bad:  Nothing really bad per se, but there could have been more motivation to Potter's actions, and a few examples of clunky dialogue could be found (is a furious, fleeing hood really going to insult his accomplice using a  "PC" phrase such as "overweight idiot"? ).

 The Ugly:  Some of the pastel colors in the backgrounds. Kind of brought to mind an IZOD shirt. Ew.


Martinex1: 

The Good:  A nice single issue story with a basic if not memorable plot and some action.  It gave some insight to an older standard villain in the Gladiator.  Nice dream sequence.
The Bad: To me it came across sometimes as a Bill Mantlo filler issue. To be fair, I rank Mantlo as one of my top ten favorite writers but there are times, probably due to his prolific nature, that some stories seemed to have less characterization and motivation.  That was somewhat apparent here.
The Ugly: C'mon Doc Ock - finish off your arch nemesis and the Black Cat when you have the chance!  And Shooter as Dr. Doom (I always considered him more like Galactus)!
Rating: I give the book 3,25 Bronze Medallions.   Extra quarter point for the fantastic cover!

Chew the Fat: Spotty Villains!

Martinex1: It has been said that the villain makes the hero.   Could Batman be Batman without the Joker?   Perhaps not.   The better the rogues gallery, the better the adventure.   The bigger the threat, the more challenging the conflict.   I think we can agree that is true to some degree.   Spider-Man has a plethora of crazy and iconic villains from Doc Ock to the Green Goblin.  On the DC side, Flash has a cool collection of baddies with Captain Cold, the Top, Weather Wizard, Heat Wave, Gorilla Grodd and the rest.


But today we are not going to talk about the "good" villains (the villains who you look forward to seeing).  No, today we are going to discuss villains that make you scratch your head - but you like them anyway.  In other words, with new villains created throughout the Silver and Bronze ages there were a lot of dogs.  But some of those "misses" stay near to your heart because of nostalgia or theoretical untapped potential. Who are the third stringers and the D-listed creeps that you have enjoyed over the years?  


Here are a few of my favorites from the past, that almost nobody would include in top tier lists.  I am curious what you have to say about other "enemies" that we should be more welcoming towards.

My first example is the Spot.  He appeared first in Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man issue #99.  While I am not always a fan of Al Milgrom's art or writing, I really enjoyed his work here.  The Spot is a scientist who was trying to find a path to Cloak's (of Cloak and Dagger fame) dark dimension.  Things went a bit haywire and  Dr. Jonathan Ohnn emerged with some of the funkiest powers I've ever seen.  The myriad of dark spots on his body are actually holes in and out of another dimension.  The character has a great sense of humor and was a good rival for Spidey.  The first time they met, Spider-Man couldn't control his laughter after hearing the villain's name, but he quickly got his comeuppance as the Spot showed him a thing or two in defense of the Kingpin.  A fun story, a fun character, and there should be a lot more of him in the books.

My second example harkens back to the Silver Age.   Daredevil was modeled somewhat after Batman in terms of his nighttime crime-fighting and athletic skillset.   So who was Daredevil's Joker in the early days?  It was none other than the Jester.  Jonathan Powers was a washed up actor who took on a criminal assassin's role in Daredevil #42.   While not ultra powerful, he was a good foil for the serious Daredevil and really gave him a run for his money.  Much of my liking of the Jester is nostalgic.   Some of the first comics I received were part of the first Jester arc and I particularly liked when he teamed with Cobra and Mr. Hyde in Daredevil #61. The Gene Colan art helped as he portrayed the villain as cagy, wiry, and quirky.   He made a few appearances in "modern" times, but never really caught fire.  There should be room for a deadly swashbuckler loaded with dangerous yo-yos, puns, and yuks. (And that cover with the Statue of Liberty photo is top notch).

Another character I like is Blackout.   He originated as a villain for Nova and has a strange dark dimension origin that is slightly similar to the Spot's (go figure).   He was a lab assistant caught in an accident falling into the void and emerging with light absorbing powers along with the dark force.  He goes a bit mad and is very paranoid.  I really began to admire the strangeness of the character when he was manipulated and controlled by Moonstone in the Avengers' "Under Siege" arc.   In Roger Stern's story, he was essentially used and abused by Zemo and the Masters of Evil and had a truly tragic end at their hands.  Despite the whacky mask and the limited early characterization, I found myself wanting more of Blackout.

On the DC side of things, as a kid I stumbled across an issue of Detective Comics at a school White Elephant sale.  On the cover it looked like Batman was fighting a purple and orange Spider-Man.   In fact the character was the ruthless killer Black Spider who hunts down druglords.   He sees himself as serving a brutal justice to the evildoers who got him addicted and sent his life into turmoil.  Gerry Conway and Ernie Chan created the character.   I think his costume is very sharp looking.  It is interesting that Conway brought a Punisher-type character with a spider motif to DC.  I like how Black Spider's motivations are not that much different than Bruce Wayne's, but Eric Needham (Black Spider) does not share Batman's reluctance to kill.

Those are my picks for underappreciated villains.  Who are your favorites; what is their potential; and why don't others see it like you do?   Villains who never really made the mainstream cut, but remain personal favorites is the theme of today's post.  Cheers!