The Highlight Reel: Pre-Lucas Space Coolness!

The early 1970's was a dreary time for budding science fiction fans like me. Sure, we'd seen plenty of old movies and Star Trek reruns, but their primitive special effects were (at best) distracting or (at worst) a laugh-out-loud brand of silly that took us right out of the story. Movies that did have decent effects, like 2001: A Space Odyssey or Soylent Green, usually conformed to the depressing late 60's/early 70's paradigm of dreary socio-political pontification and certainly weren't what our youthful spirits (or grade school intellects) were yearning for.

However, before George Lucas came to the rescue (and simultaneously blew the lid off popular culture) with Star Wars in 1977, there was a special comic book that seemed to foreshadow that film's epic scale and groundbreaking visuals. As the penultimate chapter of Marvel's Kree-Skrull War, Avengers #96 (1972) brought comic book action to an unprecedented level of "widescreen" spectacle. With very little to inspire him visually (save perhaps the WWII dogfight films that also inspired Lucas), artist Neal Adams drew quite simply one of the most cinematic, visually exciting comic book stories ever published...particularly the pages I'm about to share with you.

But let me back up a bit.  Way back in January, I featured another sequence from this story in one of my Friday Night Fights posts. In that post's comment section, a reader referred to the pages you're about to see as "one of the best sequences in all comics history", so obviously other fans share my high opinion of Adams' work (along with some snappy...and sometimes endearingly sappy...narration by writer Roy Thomas). So, to my good pal Hube...this one's for you!

(click on each page for a larger view)

 

Have the Avengers ever looked cooler?  Yeah, that shot of Iron-Man at the top of page 2 was little goofy (not to mention his ill-advised use of the word "Bazzonies"), but beyond that tiny glitch, this stuff is pure gold.

Some highlights:

Page One:

• Iron-Man leading the squadron of fighter ships.

• Thor hurling his hammer from his fighter craft!

Page Two:

• That dynamic panel of Thor and the Vision in classic Adams-esque poses dodging laser fire.

• The aforementioned thunder god and android ignoring the void of space and ripping a hole in the Skrull spaceship!

Page Three:

• The cool tech Adams drew for the Skrull warriors.

• That heroic under-shot of Thor in panel three.

Page Four:

• Cap almost casually jumping out of his "crashing go-buggy" while assessing the situation amidst total chaos and destruction.  Captain America defined.

Page Five:

• That "Oh, $%#&" look on the Skrull commandant's face in panel three.

• The Avengers bringing new meaning to "kicking the door in".

• Thor's final panel threat, sounding like some kind of elaborate curse from the ancient world.

With the reality of an Avengers movie getting closer every day....who knows? Maybe we'll see this sequence come to life in an Avengers sequel somewhere down the road! Until then, Avengers #96 will live on as a visual precursor to Star Wars and a high point of The Highlight Reel.

Comments

[Hube]

Amen, brotha! This is comics at its purest ULTIMATE!!

[Pat Curley]

Adams was something new; he was one of the first artists I could actually identify by certain "tells", and I bought pretty much everything he did in the early 1970s and late 1960s. Although I think he gets a little too much credit on Batman's late SA renaissance (and Irv Novick not enough), he really was awesome on Green Lantern/Green Arrow and I say that as a huge Gil Kane fan.

There are a few artists from that late 1960s era that really started to transcend the sterile, six-panels per page artwork of the Silver Age; Aparo, Adams, Colan, Buscema and Smith are the names that come quickest to mind.

[David]

I couldn't agree more with the statement "Have the Avengers EVER looked cooler?" But I wonder why Thor troubled himself to take a go-buggy? ;)

[Mark Engblom]

"There are a few artists from that late 1960s era that really started to transcend the sterile, six-panels per page artwork of the Silver Age; Aparo, Adams, Colan, Buscema and Smith are the names that come quickest to mind."

A great point, Pat. This was a time when some really great strides in comic book storytelling were taking place, and the guys you mentioned (among others) don't get nearly enough credit for their innovation. Sure, Kirby remains "the King" in so many ways, but I think his shadow sometimes obscures the other innovators of that era (to which I would also add Jim Starlin, Frank Brunner, and...a tad later...Garcia Lopez).

[Mark Engblom]

"But I wonder why Thor troubled himself to take a go-buggy?"

So he could pop the top in the vacuum of space and hurl his hammer! Thor strives for maximum coolness in all that he does.

[Brian]

The early 1970's was a dreary time for budding science fiction fans like me.

B-but, b-but-- what about Planet of the Apes?? (:

Great post. I love Adams, and the layouts here really remind me of his fantastic work on those late-sixties X-Men books.

[The Mutt]

This comic looms large in my mythology. I agree that it's brilliant, but I think The Avengers looked best drawn by John Buscema and Tom Palmer.

Thomas/Buscema is still my favorite Avengers creative team ever, but those Adams issues were sweeeet.

I beg of you, please post the sequence that comes a little later, when a Skrull ship is headed to Earth with a planet-buster bomb, and Cap's only option is to send Clint Barton on a suicide mission to stop them.

To this day, I say it's the coolest moment in Marvel history.