Articles with the Tag John Buscema

Fifty Essentials in Fifty Days 49: Essential Fantastic Four Vol. 07

books and books review, Comix
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Essential Fantastic Four Vol. 07
Gerry Conway, Roy Thomas, Rich Buckler, John Buscema and friends
Reprints: Fantastic Four #138-159 and more (September 1973 – June 1975)
Get this for: The FF enter the Bronze Age — three stars

For the penultimate entry in this series we got Essential Fantastic Four Vol. 7, the first volume to feature neither Jack Kirby nor Stan Lee. Instead Gerry Conway handles writing duties for most of the run collected here, both on the regular series and on the five Giant-Size issues also included. Roy Thomas takes over from him with #156, after a fill-in issue by Len Wein. The art is taken care of by John Buscema, then Rich Buckler.

The period of The Fantastic Four collected here is one I know relatively well, having read these issues in Dutch translation years ago, buying them for a guilder at a time from a market stall. These were doublesized with cardboard covers and like the Essential collections, in black and white, so I had something of a deja vu rereading this.

At the time I first read these issues I wasn’t what you call critical of what I read: if it had superheroes and villains, especially new ones, that was good enough for me. Rereading them again it’s clear that these are not nearly of the same quality as even the worst of the Lee/Kirby collaborations; they’re quite mundane in fact, for all their non-stop action and attempts to emulate Kirby’s creativity. Lee and Kirby created the Inhumans, the Watcher, the Kree and Skrulls, the Black Panther and Wakanda and so on, basically creating the whole Marvel Universe from scratch. With Conway, we get a race of abominable snowmen, who are reverted to normal humans at the end of the story — not quite the same, is it?

Not that Gerry Conway and later Roy Thomas were bad writers, but they missed the creative spark of the Lee-Kirby collaborations. Instead both fall back on reusing established villains and soap opera to hold the reader’s interest. So we get the return of the Miracle Man, last seen in issue 3, Annihilus and Doctor Doom on the one hand and the maritial problems of Reed and Sue Richards on the other. Most stories also take more than one issue to complete, not always a good thing. It’s not all bad: I quite like that very distinctive, early seventies energy these stories have and both Conway and Thomas keep them flowing, sweeping you along with them.

On the art side there’s little to complain off, with first John Buscema and then Rich Buckler as penciler. Again, if you compare them to Kirby, both are a bit on the bland side here and certainly Buscema had and has done better elsewhere. I think that , as with the writing, the art suffers a bit from being forced into the Marvel Housestyle, trying to ape Lee and Kirby when it would’ve been better if both had followed their own paths.

Essential Fantastic Four Vol. 07 collects a low period in the Fantastic Four’s existence, when the title was in a creative slump. There are some points of interest, but they’re few and far between. For me it was an exercise in nostalgia reading these issues, going back to a time when I was much less critical of comics and could still enjoy these kind of stories for what they were.

Fifty Essentials in Fifty Days 42: Essential Fantastic Four Vol. 06

books and books review, Comix
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Essential Fantastic Four Vol. 06
Stan Lee, Archie Goodwin, Roy Thomas, John Buscema and friends
Reprints: Fantastic Four #111-137 (June 1971 – August 1973)
Get this for: The Fantastic Four within Kirby or Lee — three stars

Curse my luck! Just as with the Essential X-Men yesterday, I never managed to get volume five of Essential Fantastic Four either, which means I missed the end of the Lee-Kirby run. Instead volume six offers Big John Buscema on art duties, with Stan Lee, Archie Goodwin, then Lee again and finally Roy Thomas handling the writing. Good though these gents are, their work can’t compare to what Jack Kirby brought to The Fantastic Four. Even though Stan Lee himself is still around for a while here, the chemistry he had with Kirby is gone. Kirby and Lee could always spark ideas of each other, now Lee had to do it all himself.

It’s not all bad though. For a start, this volume contains the first Fantastic Four comic I ever read, #113, translated in Dutch as Vier Verdedigers Classics #59 which an uncle had in his collection — and I have now. That issue was the start of the Overmind saga and its cover is burned in my memory. It was not just the first FF comic I read, but must have been one of the earliest superhero comics I ever saw and it fascinated me. It’s a typical late Silver Age Marvel issue, continuing directly from the previous issue, with cameos from the Hulk and Agatha Harkness and a guest star appearance by the Watcher, while the action never stops, all drawn in that wonderful expressive, larger than life John Buscema style and it’s just crack to a certain kind of geek boy (or girl) like me. It may not have been half as good as what Lee and Kirby had been up to before, but I didn’t know anything about that.

The whole Overmind story showed that some of the creativity of that earlier run was still present in The Fanastic Four, as the Overmind turned out to be the last living survivor of an ancient alien race, the Eternals, scource of the cosmos, who had conquored all before them until they reached the planet Gigantus, which dwarved Galaxies and was their doom. As the Eternals’ own planet died beneath them, they put all their mental power into the Overmind and send him into the universe to sleep and wait until the time was right for the Overmind to come from beyond the stars and crush the universe! The Fantastic Four are helpless before him, even need to teamup with Doctor Doom to fight him but even that is not enough, though Doom does get his crowning moment of awesome as he fights an unequal battle with the Overmind but keeps standing for he is … DOOM! In the end though it’s the Stranger, revealed to be the combined might of the people from Gigantus who tames the Overmind.

The Overmind is however the only original villain to fight the Fantastic Four this volume, as for the most part they fight old enemies and even menaces originally introduced in other series. Diablo and Galactus return for rematches, they get involved with the Inhumans again, the Frightful Four come back with a new member, and so on. There are other changes in the status quo though. Roy Thomas lets Sue Richards quit the FF and makes Medusa of the Inhumans her replacement, while the relationship of Johnny Storm and Crystal also ends, as the latter falls for Quicksilver, the mutant Avenger. On the whole The Fantastic Four is much more soap opera orientated then before, less interested in exploration as well, more going for fighting “conventional” villains. It’s not as wild as the Lee-Kirby runs, but it’s far from bad either.

As for the art, John Buscema is as great as Kirby in his own right and I do like the grandeur he gives a character like the Watcher, as well as the body language he gives his characters. A more conventional artist than Kirby perhaps, but you can hardly fault him for that. I love how he poses his characters, the stances he gives them which betray their emotions and character. Every now and again, often in just some small throwaway panel I just have to stop and study his art, bask in it.

A letdown after the sheer mastery of the first four Essential Fantastic Four volumes? Perhaps, but Buscema’s art and the efforts of Lee, Goodwin and Thomas make up for a lot.

Fifty Essentials in Fifty Days 32: Essential Avengers Vol. 04

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Essential Avengers Vol. 04
Roy Thomas, John and Sal Buscema, Neal Adams and friends
Reprints: Avengers #69-97, Incredible Hulk #140 (October 1969 – March 1972)
Get this for: Roy Thomas’ best work — five stars

I learned two things from Essential Avengers Vol. 04: Roy Thomas’ dialogue was still pretty much influenced by Stan Lee and he was overtly fond of the word “stripling”. But this innocent peccadillo can be forgiven, as Thomas is the first writer to release The Avengers‘ full potential, unleashing the first classic cosmic crossover: the Kree-Skrull War! It’s the climax of an incredible volume, in which Thomas mixes both standard supervillain threats with more outlandish foes, keeps up the pace throughout but does not neglect the personal either.

The volume starts almost as strong as it ends, with the first great Kang the Conquoror and the Grandmaster, using the Avengers as pawns in their cosmic chess game, introducing the Squadron Sinister, the first of two Justice League of America pastiches. It’s a great, fun story which also reveals one of Thomas’ obsessions, WWII/Golden Age heroes, as the climax of the story takes place in Paris 1941 and features the Golden Age Captain America, Namor and the Human Torch, amongst others. A second great cosmic story is the twoparter with Arkon the Imperiator, the leader of a barbaric world from another dimension, who wants to destroy the Earth in a nuclear holocaust to save his own home planet.

As said, Thomas also has more mundane supervillains threatening the Avengers, with several old foes (the Grim Reapder, Living Laser, Swordsman, Whirlwind and the Man-Ape teaming up as the Lethal Legion to destroy the Avengers together. There’s also the threat of Zodiac, an Astrology based criminal army as well as Cornelius van Lunt, the businessman who seems to finance them. Zodiac is an enemy that returns a few times, first seen in #72, then again in #77 and for the third time in #80-82. They’re not the only ones to return to plague the Avengers once more: Arkon is another villain to pop up again.

The same goes for the JLA pastiches, as in issue 85 and 86 four Avengers travel to a parallel Earth where they meet the Squadron Supreme, with quite obvious standins for several heroes from the Distinguished Competition: Hawkeye (Green Arrow), Thom Thumb (the Atom), Lady Lark (Black Canary), American Eagle (Hawkman), Dr Spectrum (Green Lantern) The Whizzer (Flash), Nighthawk (Batman) and Hyperion (Superman). Nighthawk also turns up in #83, the Rutland Halloween Parade as the costume worn by Tom Fagan. Rutland’s Halloween parade would feature in quite a few Marvel and DC comics books during the seventies, sometimes even forming unofficial crossovers as Fagan was a lifelong comic book and science fiction fan and friends with writers like Thomas, Len Wein and Steve Englehart. It’s one of those neat traditions that has sadly fallen by the wayside since.

Speaking of science fiction, this collection also features the two issue Harlan Ellison written crossover between The Avengers and The Incredible Hulk and sadly it hasn’t aged well. More attention seems to have been paid to horrible puns riffing on Ellison short stories than to a real plot, but at least it did introduce Jarella and the subatomic world she lived on to the Hulk. I can see why people would’ve been exited to see an established and well respected writer like Ellison dabbling in comics, a sign that comics had grown up, but almost forty years on it feels like stunt casting.

Something else that hasn’t aged well is Roy Thomas continuing attempt to put some relevance in The Avengers. So in issue 73-74 the Sons of the Serpents are used once again to talk about race matters and how both sides are equally wrong and manipulated by greedy men for their own gain. Issue 83 is no better, featuring an equally heavyhanded approach to “women’s lib”, as several female superheroes decided the best way to advance feminism is to destroy the Avengers as male chauvenist pigs, under the influence of the Enchantress disguised as the Valkyrie. It’s all written from a well meaning liberal point of view, but it’s politically naive and ultimately supportive of the status quo and the myth that America is a land of opportunity for all, evidence be damned.

And then there is the Kree-Skrull War, running from Issue 89 to issue 97, one continuing story and if I remember correctly then the longest story ever told in a Marvel Comic. Thomas takes the two longstanding alien threats from Fantastic Four and Captain Marvel, mixes in the Inhumans as well as unsubtle analogies to the 1905ties communist witch hunts and of course his own obsession with Golden Age superheroes and makes it all work.

What helps a lot in selling it all is having Neal Adams coming aboard for the artwork. Not that the art has been bad up untill then, with John and Sal Buscema spelling each other on art duties until then, but Adams kicks it up a notch. All three artists are good at showing the grandeur and the glory of the Avengers, each in his own way is more than able to visualise the battles and settings Thomas comes up with, but everything Adams does is just that little bit more special. It’s this that makes the Kree-Skrull War special, something every other Avengers writer will try to emulate and top from then on, rather than just another good Avengers story like e.g. the Kang-Grandmaster clash earlier in the volume.

So yeah, for some of the best of what The Avengers could be, this is the volume you need.

Fifty Essentials in Fifty Days 23: Essential Silver Surfer Vol. 1

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Essential Silver Surfer Vol. 1
Stan Lee, John Buscema and friends
Reprints: Silver Surfer #1-18 (August 1968 – September 1970)
Get this for: whiny Silver Surfer is whiny — four stars

The Essential Silver Surfer Vol. 1 is one Essential collection I dreaded rereading, because I knew that it collected the original Silver Surfer series of the 1960ties, written by Stan Lee and drawn by John Buscema. I also knew that in Lee’s hands, the Surfer’s personality was a bit … melodramatic and self-pitying, shall we say? Throughout the series he’s flying around the world, his noble brow creases with the sorrow of being exiled on Earth away from his beloved Shalla Bal, amongst a hopelessly primitive race of barbarians suspicious of each other and of him. Every other issue sees him get caught up in a fight not his own, as people respond with aggression, hatred and fear against him. It is somewhat tedious reading just one issue, let alone all eighteen of that first series.

Now I’m sure the story of how the Silver Surfer came to be is well known enough not to tell again; how when Stan Lee got the first pages back for Fantastic Four #48 with the first appearance of Galactus, there was a second figure there, a silver figure on a silver surfboard added by Jack Kirby, how Lee got enamoured of him and give him a bigger role in the story and brought him back a few times as a guest star. His solo series was a logical outgrowth of this: the Surfer had always been popular in his appearances and for Lee it was a chance to do something different, from the heart. This was a prestige project for Lee, which is also why the first seven issues were doublesized, 68 pages rather than the usual 32.

Sadly it failed however. The series was no success and with the eight issue became a normal, 32 page sized comic, but only lasted for ten more issues. Issue 18 would be the last, ending on a cliffhanger. The unusual — and expensive — format cannot have helped, but I think the general mopiness of the Surfer himself was the greatest culprit. He was just too depressed and depressing and much more so than any other Marvel hero, seemed to exist in a state of stasis, never catching a break and nothing ever changing for him. He alternates between wanting to be accepted by humanity and wanting nothing to do with us and it’s all a bit tedious.

What makes up for this, more than made up for this even, is John Buscema’s art. I love his late sixties, early seventies style, also seen on Fantastic Four and Thor after Kirby had left those titles. His figures are all bold and imposing, his heroes standing widelegged and ready for action, his villains looming and smoldering with hidden menace. And while the men are handsome or brutish, his females are all beautiful. Buscema’s best work on the series may have been issue four, which saw the Surfer being manipulated by Loki to take on the Mighty Thor. Buscema has great fun drawing all the Norse gods as well as the battle between these two heavyweights.

The switch back to the normal thirtytwo page monthly comics format did not do the series well. Lee had less room for his (unsually even for him) verbose stories, while with the pressures of a monthly series the art started to suffer as well. In the first seven issues John Buscema had been inked first by Joe Sinnott, then by his brother Sal Buscema, both enhancing his art. From issue eight however he was inked by Dan Adkins and that combination is decidedly weaker. I’ve never liked Adkins, who I’ve never seen do anything interesting either as a penciller or an inker. Here he weakens Buscema’s penciling, overshadowing it with his mediocre inks.

Essential Silver Surfer Vol. 1 is the collection of a flawed series, interesting as such if somewhat of a slog to get through and much redeemed by the great artwork.

Fifty Essentials in Fifty Days 18: Ms Marvel Vol. 01

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Essential Ms Marvel 01
Gerry Conway, Chris Claremont, Jim Mooney and friends
Reprints: Ms. Marvel 1-23 and more (January 1977 – April 1979)
Get this for: seventies feminist superheroics — Four stars

Now for a complete change of pace, from the heart of the Silver Age taking a giant leap forward into the Bronze Age, long after the people who had laid the foundations of the Marvel Universe had left (and had come back and left again) and some of the creativity and magic had gone out of it. The mid to late seventies were a rough patch for both Marvel and DC, as the old newsstand distribution networks were in upheaval, inflation and economic depression made comics expensive and there was little room to experiment with new titles. So what you get is attempts to play it safe, through either cashing in on some trend or by creating a spinoff — Ms. Marvel is a combination of both: a spinoff of Captain Marvel and an attempt to cash in on the resurgence of second wave feminism, as seen through a comics prism. Despite this the title would last barely two years, being canceled with #23 and with the last two issues, already prepared only seeing print two decades later, in the early nineties Marvel Super-Heroes Magazine.

I don’t know why M.s Marvel failed the first time around: perhaps it could never find an audience out on the newsstands, or people didn’t buy it because it featured a girl (Marvel never having had much luck with female headliners) or just because not enough newsstands stocked it. But one thing I know, quality couldn’t have been the issue. True, it took a couple of issues for Ms. Marvel to find its feet, but once Chris Claremont comes onboard with issue 3 it settled into a nice rhythm. I’ve certainly read much worse titles from that time which were much more succesful.

Ms. Marvel is Carol Danvers, an old supporting character from the sixties Marvel Captain Marvel series, reintroduced in Ms. Marvel as the eponymous superheroine, in the first three issues suffering from amnesia and not knowing she’s Carol. Carol meanwhile gets a job as the editor of Now Magazine, Jolly Jonah Jameson’s woman’s magazine. He wants the traditional subjects: cooking, fashion, gossip, she wants it to make a hardhitting, proper news magazine: soap opera gold, though as per usual with superhero jobs it plays second fiddle to Carol’s other career and its complications.

The whole amnesia/two people angle doesn’t really work and is quickly abandoned once Claremont takes over the writing. He does keep the conflict between Carol and Ms. Marvel however, each with a distinctive personality and not always liking the other that much. Personally I never like this sort of forced conflict or handicap so I’m glad to see this slowly disappearing over time here.

On the supervillain side of things, Conway introduces A.I.M. as a recurring foil and Claremont keeps them around, as well as adding MODOK to the mix. Other established villains, including the Scorpion, obscure X-Men foe Grotesk as well as a couple of badniks from the old Living Mummy series from Supernatural Thrillers also appear. Claremont had a knack for getting tough, physical threats for Ms. Marvel to actually beat with her fists like any other strong male hero would do, rather than the usual non-physical threats reserved for superheroines. There are few original creations here, with Deathbird introduced in #9 and Mystique from #16 the most significant, Claremont using both of them in Uncanny X-Men later on. For the most part however Ms. Marvel is mutant free.

But Claremont was leading Ms. Marvel into that territory though, through the long running subplot of some unknown enemy (which turned out to be Mystique) targeting both Carol Danvers and Ms. Marvel. However Ms. Marvel before that subplot reached fruition and it took Avengers Annual #10 two years later to tie up these loose ends. That one starts with Carol being thrown off the Golden Gate Bridge, rescued by Spider-Woman (who Claremont was also writing) and brought to Prof Xavier to be examined mentally. Meanwhile the Brotherhood of Evil, led by Mystique attack the Avengers and its newest member Rogue turns out to have stolen Carol’s powers.

Apart from housecleaning however and revealing the final fate of Ms. Marvel Claremont had an ulterior motive for writing this annual. Between the end of her own series and the annual Ms. Marvel had been a member of the Avengers and in a particularly bad storyline had been raped and impregnated (all off panel), gone through the full pregnancy and given birth in a day to a boy who turned out to be her rapist, using her to be able to live on Earth, but when this fails he takes her with her to Limbo, where they live happily ever after, or so the Avengers think, never having spent a minute to think things through. Claremont had done this, had gotten offended and used the final part of the story to spell it all out. It’s one of the best “fuck you” moments in comics I’ve read.

Claremont would return to Ms. Marvel even later, in the early nineties in the anthology title Marvel Super-Heroes, which reprinted both the final finished but never published issue, as well as a followup bridging the gap between her series and Avengers Annual #10. Here they’re presented in chronological order, before the annual.

The final verdict is that this was a perfectly enjoyable series, nothing much out of the ordinary, but never bad either. The art, first by John Buscema, followed by Jim Mooney, Keith Pollard, Sal Buscema, Carmine Infantino, Dave Cockrum and finally Mike Vosburg is decent to good, but with so many artists in such a relatively short period it’s hard to create a real style for Ms. Marvel. Essential Ms. Marvel vol 1 is a nice view of what a lesser title of the seventies looked like.