Showing posts with label John Buscema. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Buscema. Show all posts

Friday, 4 November 2016

Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. in Strange Tales (1951) # 135-150, Tales of Suspense (1959) # 78


(I originally read these comics in mid/late March 2016)

Spent the last week reading Lee and Kirby's 'Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.' strips from the pages of Strange Tales. The creator billing is not entirely accurate as Kirby only provides layouts for most instalments, with artists including John Severin and Don Heck penciling. John Buscema returns to Marvel with ST # 150, for his first job since the '50s.

The 12-page strips are densely written and provide almost as much reading as a standard '60s Marvel comic, so I've been reading them at a rate of 2-3 per day. They're fun if second rate stuff, though they get progressively better. Nick is a great character, a blue collar James Bond, and Stan clearly enjoys writing his funny, sarcastic and rough-edged dialogue. His personality is contrasted well against that of new boy and eager beaver Jasper Sitwell in later stories. 

Many long-standing Marvel concepts are introduced here: HYDRA, AIM, Life Model Decoys, etc, and # 145 is an early crossover with Tales of Suspense # 78. 

Jim Steranko takes over for his legendary run with issue # 151. I'll come back to those soon enough, especially since they continue a plot already set in motion.


   
   
   
  
 


Strange Tales (1951) # 135-150 and Tales of Suspense (1959) # 78 are collected in:

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Strange Tales (1951) # 135 is collected in:

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Strange Tales (1951) # 141-143 are collected in:

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Thursday, 22 September 2016

Fantastic Four (1961) # 104-125


(I originally read these comics in late July 2015)

I read the Lee/Kirby FF at least a couple of years back and thought I should get around to picking up the post-Kirby era, with art by Johns Romita and Buscema. They're comparable to Kirby's last twenty or so less inspired issues on the title, but not his best. Stan Lee soldiers on, but they're definitely missing something. The only new characters of note are the Over-Mind, who doesn't seem to pose nearly as dire a threat as the characters would have you believe, and Gabriel the Air-Walker, Galactus' latest herald, revealed as a robot (*yawn*) after two drawn-out issues of battle. This time the Big G has come to reclaim the Silver Surfer after long since condemning him to earth. I guess a good herald is hard to come by, as Gabriel clearly wasn't it. There's also the introduction of Janus the Nega-Man in a confusing story cobbled together from leftover Kirby pages (issue # 108). Brief returns from Doom, Annihilus and Diablo (unseen since # 35) don't add up to much and it's clear an air of predictability has settled over the title; there's another doomed attempt to cure Ben, another Thing vs. Hulk slugfest, etc... 

Issue # 119 is pretty good, however, with Roy Thomas attempting some of that oh-so-hip early '70s social relevance in a story where the FF must rescue T'Challa, the Black Panther (here having temporarily renamed himself 'The Black Leopard'), from imprisonment in a segregated African nation. Thomas takes over as writer full-time from issue # 126 onwards. 

These issues are moderately entertaining, but they seem a long way from the title's peak five or six years prior.


   
   
   
   
  
  


Fantastic Four (1961) # 104-110 are collected in:

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Fantastic Four (1961) # 104 is collected in:

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Fantastic Four (1961) # 105-116 are collected in:

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Fantastic Four (1961) # 105/106 are collected in:

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Fantastic Four (1961) # 111-125 are collected in:

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Fantastic Four (1961) # 111/112 are collected in:

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Fantastic Four (1961) # 116 is collected in:

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Fantastic Four (1961) # 117-125 are collected in:

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Fantastic Four (1961) # 119 is collected in:

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