George Perez

Avengers #149 (July, 1976)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

The issue of Marvel Comics’ Avengers that we’re discussing today is the first ever of the title to have had not only its interiors, but also its cover, pencilled by artist George Pérez (though we should note for the record that John Romita is alleged to have done some touch-ups on the piece, and that the inks were provided by Frank Giacoia).  That seems quite appropriate, given that Avengers #149 also brings to a close the storyline that kicked off with Pérez’s first outing on the title, in issue #141; besides that, it’s a really attractive piece of work (especially if you’re as big a fan of the Mighty Thor as is your humble blogger)… and, of course, the first of many fine George Pérez Avengers cover to follow.  Read More

Avengers #148 (June, 1976)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Last month we took a look at Avengers #147, the cover of which we noted found its penciller, Rich Buckler, operating in “full Kirby mode”.  By contrast, the cover of today’s fifty-year-old comic happens to have been pencilled by Jack Kirby himself… and may I just say, ain’t nothin’ like the real King, baby.  (For the record, Mike Esposito inked this piece.)  Read More

Avengers #147 (May, 1976)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Cover to Avengers #145 (Mar., 1976). Art by Gil Kane and Dan Adkins.

Cover to Avengers #146 (Apr., 1976). Art by Gil Kane and Al Milgrom.

Back in November, we looked at Avengers #144, featuring the latest (as of Nov., 1975) installment in writer Steve Englehart and artist George Pérez’s “Serpent Crown Saga”.  As readers of that post will recall, despite the comic’s final-page “Next” blurb’s promise that the following month’s issue would present the next chapter in the still-ongoing storyline, when Avengers #145 arrived on stands in December its pages were instead filled by the first half of a completely unrelated, out-of-sequence story scripted by Tony Isabella and drawn by Don Heck.  That issue, together with the fill-in yarn’s second part in the next month’s Avengers #146, pushed the continuation of Englehart and Pérez’s epic out to February, 1976.

According to later reports, both halves of this story had originally been intended for publication in Giant-Size Avengers #5 — a plan that was up-ended by Marvel Comics’ mid-1975 decision to phase out their whole line of mostly-new-material-filled giant-sized comics.  (While GSA #5 was indeed published in September, it was an all-reprint book.)  Given that 30-plus pages of Isabella-Heck material had already been both produced and paid for, it’s certainly understandable that Marvel would want to get it into print sooner or later.  But smack-dab in the middle of a complex, multi-issue story arc?  That hardly seems like an optimal solution. Read More

Avengers #144 (February, 1976)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

As regular readers of this blog may have noticed, I tend not to talk very much about the covers of the half-century-old comics we discuss here; unless they’re really strikingly good, my tendency is simply to note who drew them — to the extent that that’s known, anyway — and then move on.  (And just this week, in writing about Defenders #32, I forgot to do even that much; my thanks to reader Ben Herman for stepping into the breach.)  But I’m going to make an exception this time, simply to express my disappointment with this particular job by Gil Kane and Frank Giacoia.  While there are aspects of the composition that work well, the central figure of Hellcat — a significant new character (OK, technically a new combination of two pre-existing characters) whom readers are seeing here for the very first time — is almost painfully awkward, at least to my eyes.  Kane was a great talent, but among the very many (probably too many) covers he cranked out for Marvel in the 1970s, it stands to reason that there’d be at least a few clunkers; and for me, this is one of them.  (Naturally, your mileage may vary.)  Read More

Avengers #143 (January, 1976)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

The cover of this issue, pencilled by Gil Kane and inked by Frank Giacoia (and maybe Mike Esposito), might fairly be called a bit misleading.  Sure, the Avengers fight a big scaly monster inside, but not these Avengers — Captain America, Iron Man, the Beast, the Vision, and the Scarlet Witch — who, setting aside the whole monster business, show up for only two of the story’s nineteen pages, besides.  On the other hand, the promises made by the cover’s blurbs are right on the money: these five Avengers do indeed “break loose” from the confinement we saw them trapped in back in Avengers #142; plus, this issue also features “the final battle against the power of Kang!” — or, at least, a final battle, since, then as now, nothing lasts forever in Marvel superhero comics.  Read More

Avengers #142 (December, 1975)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Last month we took a look at Avengers #141, which, as regular readers of this blog will remember, ended with three time-travelers — the founding Avenger named Thor, the would-be Avenger known as Moondragon, and their temporary ally, Immortus — touching down in the American West of 1873, just in time to be startled by someone coming up behind them… a someone, or someones, whom our travelers could see, but whose identities remained unknown to us readers…

…at least until the cover of the next issue — the subject of today’s post — where the illustration by Gil Kane and Frank Giacoia (with a likely assist from John Romita) rather gives the game away ahead of the book’s opening splash page…  Read More

Avengers #141 (November, 1975)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

The main topic of today’s post is Avengers #141, which kicked off the last major story arc of one of the series’ defining writers, Steve Englehart — and also featured the debut on the series of one of its most celebrated artists, George Pérez.  But given that the last issue of the title we looked at on this blog was #137, back in April — and that that one ended on a fairly large cliffhanger, with the Wasp having just been seriously injured by the enigmatic alien known as the Stranger — we’ll have some catching up to do in regards to the three intervening issues before we can move on to the latest doings of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, circa August, 1975.  Read More

Astonishing Tales #25 (August, 1974)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Marvel Comics’ first official mention of the feature that would eventually become known as “Deathlok the Demolisher” seems to have been a brief blurb in the fourth issue of the company’s self-produced fanzine FOOM (cover-dated “Winter, 1973”, but bearing a date of “Winter, 1974” in its indicia; Mike’s Amazing World of Comics offers an “approximate on-sale date” of January 1, 1974).  After hyping a 2-part adaptation of the movie The Golden Voyage of Sinbad that would be coming up soon in Worlds Unknown, FOOM‘s anonymous news columnist went on to add:  Read More

Conan the Barbarian #15 (May, 1972)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

When we last left Conan back in December, he and his two companions — Zephra (daughter of Conan’s old foe, the wizard Zukala), and Elric (ruler of an otherworldly realm called Melniboné) had just fended off an attack by Prince Gaynor the Damned and his Chaos Pack of beast-men.  We now pick up the tale where Conan the Barbarian #14 left off, as presented by the same storytellers — plotters Michael Moorcock (creator of Elric) and James Cawthorn, scripter Roy Thomas, artist Barry Windsor-Smith, and co-inker (with Windsor-Smith) Sal Buscema:  Read More

Teen Titans #33 (May-Jun., 1971)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

As discussed on this blog back in January, Teen Titans #32 ended with two of our young heroes, Kid Flash and Mal, trapped in a bizarre alternate reality following their inadvertently causing the death of a young caveman during a time-trip to the Stone Age.  Having been coerced by this quasi-medieval world’s version of their adult mentor Mr. Jupiter — here a wizard called Jupiterius — into being tested to prove themselves worthy of his assistance, the final page of the story found Kid Flash attempting to match or best “Trueshot” — this world’s Speedy — in an archery contest:  Read More