Comic Coverage

Humble Beginnings: "My, What big TEETH You Have!"

In the early years (or "Golden Age") of superhero comics, most of the villains heroes encountered were just garden-variety gangsters or, if they did wear a costume, still just human beings at the end of the day. However, that paradigm began to shift with the appearance of clearly IN-human, monstrous characters like Solomon Grundy.

Based on a dreary 19th-century nursery rhyme (was there any other kind?), Grundy was a chalk-skinned zombie who arose from Slaughter Swamp in All-American Comics #61 (1944) to become an arch-enemy of the original Green Lantern and, later on, his Justice Society teammates. True to his undead nature, Grundy remains one of comics' most recognizable and colorful villains well in the 21st century (despite his black & white color scheme).

However, there's a visual aspect of Grundy's earliest appearances that didn't survive into the modern era: his gigantic slab of teeth!

Looking like something between the Japanese caricatures of WWII and celebrity wingnut Gary Busey, Grundy's gigantic chompers were so bizarre and distracting, they nearly canceled out his otherwise imposing presence.

Flash forward to Showcase #55 (1965), Grundy's first appearance in the second (or "Silver") age of superhero comics. Judging from the cover (click to enlarge), Grundy is still sporting some rather large teeth, but nowhere near as slab-like as his 1940's incarnation.

Soon, Grundy would not only lose the goofy teeth but gain considerable bulk as well, in effect becoming a white-skinned version of Marvel's popular Hulk character (right down to the primitive third-person speaking style).

Super-Bloopers: Tangled in the Web of Alliteration!

Despite chronicling the adventures of superhuman beings, comic book creators are prone to the same all-too-human foibles the rest of us are. However, unlike most of us, their gaffes, goofs, and bloopers were published for all the world to see. Sure, the errors are usually fixed if the stories are reprinted, but the originals live on as an endearing testament to demanding deadlines and human fallibility.

My goal is to make an ongoing series out of these delightful little slip-ups (so email me your suggestions!), but to get things started, here's a doozy from none other than The Amazing Spider-Man #1 (1963). Granted, there was a seven month gap between his debut in Amazing Fantasy #15 and this first issue of his solo series...but of all the details a writer can get wrong, the name of the main character shouldn't be one of them. Instead of "Peter Parker", the alias of Spider-Man (for two panels, anyway) was...Peter Palmer??!

Considering the surplus of alliterated names in superhero comic books (Reed Richards, Clark Kent, Lois Lane, Martian Manhunter, etc.), it's understandable Stan blanked out on Pete's last name. Further muddying the waters was an actor named Peter Palmer, the star of both the Broadway play (1956) and film adaptation (1959) of the Lil' Abner comic strip, something a comics guy (and future Hollywood pitchman) like Stan Lee certainly must have been aware of.

Regardless of where "Peter Palmer" came from, this Super-Blooper is definitely one for the ages.

Change We Can Believe In: Quadro-Morphosis!

As is becoming increasingly clear, not all change is good. Nowhere has that principal been better understood than within the comic book superhero community, as shocking physical transformations have afflicted their ranks for decades.

Justice League of America #7 (1961) featured not one, not two, not three, but FOUR such transformations...all at the hands hostile aliens from the planet Angellax!

Luring the heroes into a booby-trapped funhouse packed with exotic weaponry, Green Arrow, the Flash, Wonder Woman, and Green Lantern race through an open door...only to "feel the tug of mysterious cosmic forces" transforming them into:

As a surprise to exactly nobody, cool-headed teamwork won the day... allowing the Leaguers to return to normal, defeat the Angellaxians and banish them to 100,000 years of suspended-animation space travel.

A harsh punishment?  Sure...but at least Wonder Woman didn't have to go on a crash diet!

Oh...and one final bit of heroic inspiration: Lego Green Arrow...who, instead of wallowing in self-pity over his boxy body, figured out a clever way to rise above his temporary handicap!

To quote the diminutive Mr. Queen: "Stand aside Aquaman! I'm raring to turn a few shafts loose!"

Random Coolness (Part 11)

More of the small details that made a BIG impression on me, randomly plucked from the nostalgia-drenched regions of my comic-addled brain. 

1.  The technical drawings of Eliot R. Brown: As soon as The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe hit the stands in 1983, I was instantly hooked. A fifteen issue mini-series, the Handbook exhaustively 

chronicled Marvel's massive catalog of characters (living and dead), vehicles, weapons, headquarters, artifacts, and other minutia geeks like me gobble up. As exacting and interesting as the information was (they even listed how much weight characters could bench press!), one of the coolest aspects of the Handbook series was the amazing technical drawings of a designer and science-whiz named Eliot R. Brown. Despite the absolute impossibility of comic book tech...well...actually working, Brown's highly detailed drawings and schematics somehow made them seem (kinda-sorta) plausible.  I mean, look at this guy go....and these are just Iron-Man's gloves and boots (click to enlarge)!

Pure malarky, of course...but speaking as a kid who'd spent hours drawing breakaway diagrams of the Six-Million Dollar Man's bionics, I loved this stuff. 

2. Kirby Mouths: Jack Kirby drew like nobody else...and that included parts of human anatomy that bore little resemblance to the way real body and facial features functioned. 

One of those endearingly exaggerated body parts was the male mouth, which Kirby often drew with the lower corners hitched well below the bottom lip line. It's a mouth position you can imitate with some effort (come on...you know you want to try it), but it's not a facial expression you're likely to see reflected anywhere in reality. But that's part of the magic of Kirby's Marvel years...where anatomically illogical quirks and shortcuts wonderfully conveyed the hyper-drama and explosive action The King perfected.

3. Marvel's bottom-of-page promo blurbs: A bit like cable news text crawls along the bottom of the TV screen, Marvel's bizarre little promo blurbs were also curiously irresistible to read. Printed in tiny type at the bottom of each story page, these snappy phrases not only plugged other Marvel mags on sale that month, but they also made it clear that things were happening all across the Marvel Universe. A very simple but effective little gimmick that (to this day) is still an endearing and (inexplicably) comforting aspect of 1970's Marvel Comics.

 

Classic Ads: Stuck on Stick-Ons!

As an enthusiastic new fan of comics in the early-to-mid 1970's, my fascination for superheroes extended beyond the comics themselves and into a dizzying array of merchandise sporting their image. Some of my favorite products at the time were Mego action figures, Slurpee Cups, t-shirts, and superhero bubblegum stickers.  However, as cool as that stuff was, there was an ad for a product that seemed to put them all to shame: Marvel-Hero Stick-Ons!

I craved those giant stickers like nothing else!  I just had to paste them on my walls, doors, notebooks, lampshades, lunchbox, or whatver!  Trouble is, my mom took one look at the ad and gave me the instant "thumbs down", reasoning (correctly) that the stickers would probably be murder to get off the walls. Of course, I was dumbfounded she couldn't see the awesome possibilities of affixing giant Marvel superheroes to the walls of our home (the nerve!)....but I got over it.  

Still...I wonder if anyone else's mom actually did let them order this set of stick-ons from "Our Way Studios".  Any fellow old-timers like me out there who had the Marvel (or DC) Hero Stick-Ons?...or even saw what they looked like on someone else's wall?  Were they anywhere as cool as the ad implied...or did they just limply peel off in a matter of hours? 

Top Ten: Comic Book Vehicles (Part One)

Several months back, I listed my Top Ten Lamest Comic Book Vehicles, which inspired some good discussion in the comments section. So, to keep the conversation going, let's balance the cosmic scales by taking a look at the Top Ten COOLEST Comic Book vehicles. 

(According to ME, that is.)

The Spider-Mobile: In addition to its sporty dune-buggy design, the early 1970's roll-out of the Spider-Mobile was also a clever parody of crass commercialism and celebrity endorsements.  As part of their campaign to sell a new non-polluting car engine, the ad agency of Carter and Lombardo convinced a reluctant (yet cash-strapped) Spider-Man to lend his name to the promotion. With the help of gear-head Johnny "Human Torch" Storm, the Spider-Mobile made its debut in Spider-Man #130 (1974)...becoming a source of constant embarrassment and irritation for Web-Head until it sunk into the Hudson River less than a year later. More precisely, a dozen panels after the image below (from Spider-Man #141). Sure, as a concept the Spider-Mobile was a joke (a joke Spider-Man was in on), but it's cool design by artist Ross Andru demands the first slot on my Top Ten list.

 

The Asgardian Starjammer: Something I've always loved about Marvel's classic Thor series was its "Lord of the Rings meets Star Trek" fusion of fantasy and sci-fi elements. Take the Starjammer, for example. Looking like an ancient Scandinavian dragon ship, the enchanted Starjammer could sail the "seas" of the universe with only a sail and rudder as its only visible means of propulsion and navigation.  An odd sight, to be sure, but perfectly consistent with the surreal mythic/cosmic whimsy that made Thor such a consistent joy to read.

Brainiac's Skull Ship: When DC upgraded Brainiac from a green bald guy into a Gigeresque high-tech horror, they also traded in his old 50's era flying saucer for a terrifying new spaceship that mirrored his spooky, skull-like head. Adding to the creepy factor were giant tentacles snaking and probing from the bottom of the ship. Although Brainiac himself has undergone several more upgrades/retrogrades since then, the Skull Ship has managed to stick around in essentially the same sinister form.

The Silver Surfer's Board: Has there ever been a character more perfectly suited to the time of its creation than the Silver Surfer? Channeling the surf culture of the early 1960's, artist Jack Kirby inserted this mysterious chrome-plated character into the artwork of Fantastic Four #48 (1966), taking writer and F.F. co-creator Stan Lee completely off guard...though not for long. In fact, Lee added some polish to the Silver Surfer by infusing his dialogue with noble, philosophical musings that mirrored the hippy-dippy cosmic spirituality of the age. Although the character is still surfing the skyways today, no artist has ever surpassed (much less equaled) the streamlined cool and eerie grace of Kirby's Silver Surfer...with the heiroglyphics of elaborate flight paths zig-zagging in his wake.

The S.H.IE.L.D. Flying Car: Nearly two decades before a DeLorean flipped its wheels and flew into the closing credits of Back to the Future (1985), Marvel Comics entered the international spy craze in style with their flying Porsche 904. Built for the security organization known as S.H.I.E.L.D. by Tony (Iron-Man) Stark, Nick Fury and his fellow agents could look classy on the road, then flip the wheels into hover-mode for aerial surveillance or a quick getaway! 

That'll do it for Part One. Stay tuned for the top five comic book vehicles in Part Two! Some will be obvious choices...but there may be a surprise or two as well.

Top Ten: Comic Book Vehicles (Part Two)

Yesterday we covered ten through six, now fasten your seat belts for the final five. Think you've figured them out already?  Think again!

Samson's Chronomobile: I run hot and cold on the stories of Grant Morrison, the avant-garde metatextual shaman of superhero comics. Some of them, like Final Crisis, I find insufferably esoteric... yet others, like his All-Star Superman, I find fresh and wildly entertaining. Using the sprawling Superman mythos of the Silver Age (1960's) as his inspiration and template, Morrison celebrated many of the character types and situations the Superman of that far away era often encountered...such as his routine befriending of historic/mythological heroes! In issue #4 of All-Star Superman, Biblical strongman Samson showed up in the time-traveling Chronomobile (along with his Greek mythology pal Atlas) to challenge Superman to a friendly contest of strength (as mythic strongmen are known to do). Now, the Chronomobile appeared for only a panel or two, but the thought of Samson gallivanting through time in a cosmic hot rod just delights me to no end. Enough to earn it the vaunted number five slot.

 

The Fantasti-Car: As the first official super-vehicle of the modern Marvel universe, the original Fantastic-Car was quickly dubbed "the flying bathtub" for obvious reasons (click on the inset to the left for a closer look). Later on, F.F. leader Reed Richards designed a much more dynamic and useful Fantasti-Car, one which could fly as either a single unit or detach into four separate "scout" modules. Ideally, a comic book vehicle should be a good thematic fit with its respective character(s), and the Fantasti-Car's bulky "family vehicle" feel and somewhat corny name did exactly that for Marvel's First Family!

 

The Goblin Glider: The villain who ultimately became Spider-Man's greatest enemy made his rather inauspicious debut with a goofy plan and an even goofier vehicle. Thankfully, by his second appearance, the Green Goblin's original mode of transportation was replaced by the sinister Goblin Glider! Faster and more maneuverable, the bat-shaped flying platform belched out dark clouds of smoke, adding flagrant disregard for the environment to Norman Osborn's long list of crimes! Years later, the Goblin Glider would play an important (and hugely ironic) role in one of the most dramatic scenes in comic book history, perfectly justifying its place at #3.

The Golden Age Batmobile: Although I'm fond of most Batmobile designs from Batman's seven decade run, I'm particularly drawn to the earlier Golden Age (1940's) models featuring the spooky "bat head" mounted to the grill. If criminals weren't already scared of Batman himself, the Batmobile's eerie "sunken eyes" barreling toward them would send them shrieking for the safety of the nearest police precinct.  I also get a kick out of how the Golden Age Batmobile always seemed to be drawn from a dramatic 3/4 "worm's eye" (ground-up) perspective, with the looming bat-head and windshield area swiftly tapering back and down toward the much smaller back fenders (as you can see in the examples below).  Eternally classic and forever cool.

 

At this point. you might be wondering what could possibly supplant the Batmobile for #1? Well, believe me, I went round and round with this in my own head...and ultimately decided to make my top pick:

Kal-El's Rocketship: Surprised? Yeah...in a way, I was too (and I made the dang list)! Sometimes I just don't know where these things are going to take me...but the more I thought it through, the more it made sense to move it all the way to #1.

You see, unlike the other vehicles on my list, this pick has nothing (or very little) to do with visuals or high concept and everything to do with the pure pop-cultural significance of the rocket that delivered baby Supes to Earth. Put another way, it's "historical significance" (if you'll permit me to use such a grandiose term) within the world of superhero comics seems to trump the more visually appealing vehicles on my list...even one as iconic as the Batmobile!

After all, the crudely-drawn rocketship appeared in the very first panel of the very first Superman story in Action Comics #1 in 1938 (left), and..in one form or another...has remained a crucial part of the Superman story ever since. Of all the rocketship designs, I suppose a sentimental favorite would be the Silver/Bronze Age version (lower left below), but like I said, it's looks are less important than its place at the head of the comic book history parade.

So...what do you think?  Am I off my rocker for my #1 pick? Did I make a huge mistake by omitting a certain comic book vehicle?  Or am I right on the mark? Leave a comment and let me know!

Super-Bloopers: Paging Doctor Blake...

Despite chronicling the adventures of superhuman beings, comic book creators are prone to the same all-too-human foibles the rest of us are. However, unlike most of us, their gaffes, goofs, and bloopers were published for all the world to see. Sure, the errors are usually fixed if the stories are reprinted, but the originals live on as an endearing testament to demanding deadlines and human fallibility.

This edition of Super Bloopers comes to us courtesy of reader David Morefield. Back in Avengers #2 (1963), teenage sidekick Rick Jones encountered the Incredible Hulk (actually the shape-shifting villain known as The Space Phantom). Considering Rick was the one responsible for Doctor Bruce Banner's transformations into the Hulk...and had been a constant companion of Banner/Hulk ever since...he apparently couldn't remember good doctor's name.

"Doctor Don Blake" was, of course, the human alter-ego of Thor, Asgardian god of thunder and the Hulk's fellow Avenger. Well, look at it this way: By giving the wrong name, Rick's error actually protected the identity of Bruce Banner from the wily Space Phantom, right?

Thanks for the tip and the scan of the panel, David! If any of YOU have some great super-blooper suggestions, send 'em to me.  Or, better yet, send me a scan of the panel and I'll post it here!

3rd Anniversary Link-O-Palooza: Day One

 

As my wife and I begin a physically and emotional draining week of getting our daughter off to college (sniff), I realized that the 3rd Anniversary of the Comic Coverage Blog takes place this week as well!  Obviously, something had to give and it certainly wasn't my daughter, so in place of actual content, I thought I'd post links to some of my favorite posts from the past three years.  Long-time readers are sure to recognize several of them, but new readers will hopefully get an even better feel for what makes Comic Coverage tick.

Captain America: Cross-Dressing for Freedom!

Who's Who in Your Local Comic Shop

Cover to Cover: Stars & Stripes (and Capes) Forever!

Fighting the Scourge of Late Comics!

Worst Cover Ever: Captain America #2

3rd Anniversary Link-O-Palooza: Day Two

Continuing my 3rd Anniversary "clip show" week 

(kinda like the late night talk shows do):

Cover to Cover: Way Out West!

Spider-Man's Guide to Romance

Comic Book Life Lessons

An Alternate Origin of Batman!

Classic Ads: Buy a Monkey!

Portrait of an Addict

Odin: All Knowing. All Powerful. All Fabulous

Superman vs. The Taxman!

The Velveteen Comic Book

Gold Nuggests: All You Need Is a Great Catch Phrase

Along Came a Spider

The Game of LIFE: Spider-Man Edition