Ka-Zar the Savage 11 (February 1982)

Marvel ought to turn this one into a movie. Not a Ka-Zar movie, but a movie about the backstory–Dante Alighieri the action star. Jones’s Dante chased a Cthulhu-worshipping cur from Italy to Antarctica to save his girlfriend, discovering a long abandoned Atlantean vacation resort, which eventually the bad guy turns into Hell. And Dante writes Inferno about it.

It’d be an awesome movie, even if the recap in the comic is only a few pages.

The craziness of that plot, unfortunately, is the most substance in the issue. It’s an action issue, with a lot of scene humor, and it’s good. It’s just not substantive.

Josef Rubinstein takes over the inks to mixed result. Ka-Zar’s face is better, but Shanna’s is worse. But the art does seem stronger. It’s unclear if it’s Rubinstein or Anderson finally having something interesting to draw.

Jones hasn’t fully recovered, but close enough.

DC Retroactive: Wonder Woman – The ’80s 1 (October 2011)

For three pages, Wonder Woman has good art. In their all-knowing wisdom, DC only had Carlos Rodriguez do three pages. The first part is by Rich Buckler, who’s not terrible, just not even mediocre. But the last part, by Tim Smith III, is absolutely hideous. I wonder if they were willy-nilly hiring artists, trying to make the issue a mess, since Roy Thomas’s script doesn’t deserve good art, much less publication.

Thomas’s script, full of casual sexism and atrocious expository dialogue, is one of the worst things I’ve read in a while. My favorite moment is when Silver Swan calls herself something 2.0. Now, since the story’s set in 1983, is just a dumb anarchism or is Thomas giving Swan credit for that catchphrase (based, presumably, on DOS releases).

Oh, I forgot how he kills her because she’s ugly.

It’s crap. Thomas probably can’t write grocery lists.

CREDITS

Double, Double…; writer, Roy Thomas; pencillers, Rich Buckler, Tim Smith III and Carlos Rodriguez; inkers, Joe Rubinstein, Jack Purcell, Norman Lee and Rodriguez; colorists, Kevin Colden and Matthew Petz; letterer, Travis Lanham; editors, Chynna Clugston Flores and Kwanza Johnson; publisher, DC Comics.

Captain America (1968) #254

Captain america 254

What a bunch of trouble to launch a new Union Jack. I guess Stern gets to kill the original Union Jack (and Baron Blood) but the whole thing is just a setup for Marvel UK. Whatever.

I’m being really harsh and I shouldn’t be. The issue’s not bad—except Cap running around in his outfit, shield in hand, all the time. It just doesn’t work. They should have rethought it. Otherwise, Stern does a fine job mixing horror and superhero and Blood’s death scene is absolutely fantastic.

There’s a strange logic misstep at the end too, with it being unclear how Union Jack survived his first, noisy heart attack (before succumbing to his second, silent one). But the real draw is Byrne’s artwork. Besides Cap’s weak big blues, the art this issue is outstanding. Byrne does a British village, horror, contained action. His composition is comics masterwork. Great looking stuff.

Captain America (1968) #253

Captain america 253

When Stern isn’t writing too much exposition, he really does a good job. I always forget during those exposition heavy issues.

Cap heads off to the UK to help out the aged former Captain Britain with a vampire problem. Byrne gets to draw the English countryside. The selling point of the issue is really Byrne’s art. The plotting’s fine and the dialogue’s decent, but the art’s just phenomenal. Except maybe the last page, where Cap’s eyes are too wide.

Other than the UK stuff, there’s only a couple scenes. The first is Cap foiling a robbery. Byrne really goes all out for it, using (or creating) iconic poses for Cap. Then Steve and Bernie have their first date. Stern accelerates the courtship awkwardly and kills a lot of the charm. Good will towards the characters helps the sequence pass.

It’s still impressive as an example of excellent superhero comic art.

Marvel Treasury Edition 28 (July 1981)

Was Jim Shooter paying himself by the word, because I don’t think I’ve ever read more exposition in a comic book. It’s terrible exposition too, but I suppose the sentences are grammatically correct. For the most part.

But what I can’t figure out is the artwork. The combination of John Buscema on pencils and Joe Sinnott on inks produces one of the worst eighties comic books I can remember seeing. Superman’s figure is strangely bulky, with a little head. But the facial features on everyone are awful. It’s a hideous thing to read.

The story concerns Dr. Doom trying again to take over the world, which is boring. The interesting stuff is Clark working at the Bugle and Peter working at the Planet. They should do a series. But not by Shooter, who makes Peter constantly horny.

Interesting to see the black chick after Clark though.

It’s an awful comic.

CREDITS

The Heroes and the Holocaust!; writers, Marv Wolfman and Jim Shooter; penciller, John Buscema; inkers, Joe Sinnott, Terry Austin, Klaus Janson, Bob McLeod, Al Milgrom, Steve Leialoha, Walt Simonson, Bob Layton, Brett Breeding, Joe Rubinstein and Bob Wiacek; colorist, Glynis Wein; letterer, Joe Rosen; editor, Milgrom; publisher, Marvel Comics.

Captain America (1968) #252

Captain america 252

Oh, is Stern’s exposition bad. I mean, it’s real bad. What I can’t figure out is why he bothers with it. It seems the only reason for the endlessly wordy narration is he has to fill space… but he doesn’t. This narration goes in boxes at the tops of panels. Byrne’s art is more than enough to hold the reader’s attention.

The best part of this issue is when Cap and Batroc team up against Mister Hyde. Byrne’s action is fantastic, but the team up also makes sense.

Unfortunately, the issue reads like a proto-“decompressed” narrative. Stern takes forever to get through what’s basically an all-action issue. Again, Byrne saves it.

At the end, there’s a little recap of Cap’s origin and his friends and so on. His apartment gets a page too. They just did an origin recap last issue, so the repeat’s pointless, but competently done.

Captain America (1968) #251

Captain america 251

Besides Stern inexplicably wasting four or five pages recapping Cap’s origin, it’s a good issue. The origin recap made me wonder if Byrne wanted to get to redo the iconic panels, but they’re really small.

Byrne does a great job this issue, especially once the fight scene gets started at the end between Cap and Batroc and Mister Hyde. The bad guys have teamed up to blackmail the city. The fight takes place on a ship. It just works out great.

Most of the issue is probably dedicated to the bad guys, actually. There’s a prison break sequence and then there’s them bickering about teaming up. Cap has his open, then pulls an all-nighter drawing for his day job. Bernie shows up (but not for long enough).

It seems like all Stern needs to do is write through his wordy exposition; once it’s out of his system, he’s fine.

Superman vs. the Amazing Spider-Man (January 1976)

It’s too bad this one doesn’t work out better, but at least it fails in an interesting way. Superman and Spider-Man simply can’t work together. It’s not so much the problems with them not matching powers—Lex Luthor zaps Spidey with some red Kryptonite powers to even the odds at one point—it’s the characters themselves, they’re too different.

The comic’s split into four parts. First is a Superman prologue, then a Spidey, then Doctor Octopus and Lex teaming up before the culminating team-up between Spidey and Superman. The first three parts work great. The fourth part barely works at all. Peter Parker and Lois Lane meeting up, professionally, it works great. Morgan Edge and Jonah getting hammered? Also great.

Superman calling Spidey “web-slinger?” Not great. Though Spidey gets away with calling him “Supes.”

The art hodgepodge makes it visually interesting, but not good.

It’s sadly charmless.

CREDITS

The Battle of the Century!; writer, Gerry Conway; pencillers, Ross Andru, Neal Adams and John Romita; inkers, Dick Giordano, Terry Austin, Josef Rubinstein, Bob Wiacek and Romita; colorist, Jerry Serpe; letterer, Gaspar Saladino; editors, Roy Thomas, Julius Schwartz, Marv Wolfman, E. Nelson Bridwell, Carmine Infantino, Stan Lee and Conway; publishers, DC Comics and Marvel Comics.

Captain America (1968) #250

Captain america 250

After some hiccups, Stern finally gets the whole “Captain America for President” idea working. The problem scenes are the establishing ones. It’s Cap talking to the third party guys who want him to run on their ticket. The issue gets good once it’s Steve Rogers trying to figure out if he should run or not.

That opening is so bad, in fact, I thought the whole issue would be a disaster, but Cap’s speech explaining why he will not run is some iconic writing from Stern on the character.

Maybe the awful expository narration for the opening action scene (Cap versus a domestic terrorist) soured me to the issue prematurely.

Rubinstein’s art—Byrne’s credited with breakdowns—definitely has its moments. Unfortunately, the art’s the best while Steve Rogers is helping Bernie Rosenthal move into her apartment. That scene’s a good one anyway though.

It’s a fine issue, brief but effective.

Captain America (1968) #249

Captain america 249

The Dragon Man cliffhanger really does not resolve well. All Stern can think of to get it over with promptly is for Cap to throw his glove in Dragon Man’s eye.

Then Dragon Man heads off to confront Machinesmith and Cap tags along. This sequence, from the cliffhanger resolution to Machinesmith’s hide-out, is visually fantastic. Stern doesn’t even cloud it over with narration or exposition, we just get to see the Byrne and Rubinstein art.

Unfortunately, the Machinesmith stuff is far less satisfying. Three quarters of the issue is Cap fighting a robot (or a piece of a robot) only to discover another robot waiting to attack him.

The final resolution, coming after two flashbacks revealing Machinesmith’s tortured past (Daredevil beat him up amongst other things), has a very sci-fi feel to it. Stern inexplicably closes this sequence with some awkwardly patriotic thought balloons.

But the art’s great.