So the past few days have consisted of me trying to sort my old Marvel Comics to get rid of the shit.
I'm not evening going to try and deal with the DC stuff at the moment since it is taking me so long just go get the Marvel shit in order.
And quite frankly, I haven't been seriously interested in Marvel books since the 80s.
I realized as I was going through the comics that I remember the actual stories of the 80s books but I apparently bought various Marvel books in the late 90s that I can't tell you a single damn thing about.
Uncanny X-Men from the issue #94 to the early #200s I remember every single story. Apparently I bought a lot of stuff later than that and I can't guarantee I read any of it.
Marvel all kind of collapsed for me once Uncanny X-Men split into multiple pointless books and when The New Mutants became the godsawful X-Force.
And once John Byrne left Fantastic Four in the 80s, I can't really say what happened after that for those characters either.
**warning** picture heavy
Iron Man #152 holds a special place for me since my friend Dean had this and it was the first comic that I saw where the cover artist Bob Layton, had composited an actual photo into the background. Plus it was the first time in my comic-reading life where a change of armor appeared, though that gimmick would become common every 10 issues in the 90s.
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I seem to have a few bronze age Iron Man issues too. I must have picked these up when working at the various comic cons during my teen years.
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For me, Marvel during the early 80s can be summed up by one man: John Byrne!
Now a lot of people can't stand him, and I'll admit his specific style hasn't evolved as the decades have gone by, but his art on Uncanny X-Men, and his writing/art on Fantastic Four and Alpha Flight was fantastic.
His style was consistent and his pencils, especially when inked by Terry Austin, was fantastic.
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Another artists who I love from that period is Barry Windsor-Smith.
Now I don't really know his work from the early 70s and discovered him when he did some Uncanny X-Men, some New Mutants (above), and his Machine Man series.
His line art became his "own" and his style was unlike others.
A good chunk of 70s and 80s Marvel art is totally interchangeable to me but BWS stands out.
I'd love to see him illustrate some Neil Gaiman written DC superheroes.
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Now when I think of boring comic characters, the Incredible Hulk is usually right up there.
But there was this brief period when Peter David was writing on the book when it was brilliant, especially with the "Mister Fixit" Grey Hulk.
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I also loved Louise Simonson's Power Pack series. It was a great series about kids that got superpowers from an alien and when June Brigman was illustrating the book it was top notch.
She actually could draw comic book children that looked like human children. Many artists can't draw children (*cough* John Byrne *cough*).
I even liked when Franklin Richards started appearing in the book as Tattletale.
Alas, the books when through art changes and once the kids' powers swapped it went downhill mostly.
And of course, we have this oh-so-great cover of Wolverine threatening a 5-year old Katie Power with his claws.
The funny thing here is that 5-year old could pretty much incinerate him.
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Marvels Epic subline brought me Alien Legion which to this very day should still be made into a film or tv series.
With the advent of decent and relatively affordable television CGI effects it makes this series totally possible.
Pssst... Marvel... why not try to develop one of your other properties as a film??? This one. This one right here!
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Oh. And can you guess which tv star was popular when this issue of New Mutants came out?
BWS is a fine artist, but also a profound dick. So says several friends who have met him.
Whoa, that's a lot of paper crack ... but reading your post brings back memories of when I collected comics ... a long time ago. I actually have that same Hulk issue lying at my parents' place in a box somewhere!!
And I agree, the mutant universe got lame when X-Force and the other carbon-copy x-teams arrived on the scene ...
Now that I think about it, what happened to Rob Liefield and the rest of the Image crew anyways?!?!
I know MacFarlane makes his toys and his Spawn movie tanked ...
Liefeld has gone where his artistic skills went... nowhere.
There was this awesome simplicity.
There was Uncanny X-Men and then New Mutants. Both had a similar core but they complemented each other.
It just got worse and worse and worse and the 80s rolled into the 90s and then you had all these useless and totally forgetable X-books.
I was actually shocked that I have some issues of Cable and X-Man and such.
I have NO MEMORY of buying or reading any of this shit at all!!!
Liefeld recently resurfaced for an Onslaught Reborn special. . . but considering the animated gif of Cap from Heroes Reborn that went around a couple years ago, I'm surprised Marvel would even bother. Honestly, with artists running around like Adi Granov and John Cassaday running around these days I'm surprised that Liefeld can actually find work.
Of course, I hated Hush too. . . the Image founders are pretty much teh suck. Outside of keeping Moore employed in the mid-90s they're pretty much worthless.
". . . running around like Adi Granov and John Cassaday running around. . . "
It's a good thing my father (a retired English teacher) hates the internet. He'd kill me if he read that.
I remember when the Image comics line was all the rage ... now when I check their value on eBay, all of 'em are pretty much worthless.
Sigh.