Manic Monday Triple Overtime--Frank Miller And The Dog Apocalypse!

Frank Miller (no, not that Frank Miller) is having a bad day...

Or, maybe he's just off his medication?

Well, he goes to a friend's crib, and lays out his theory:

Wha? Cute dogs?!?! A threat?!?!? However could that be?

See--that's why you shouldn't teach evolution in school--it's gives your unstable teacher paranoid fantasies!!

But...

Ahh...the absence of evidence is actually the proof!! So obvious!!

All righty, then, Frank Miller is looney tunes, right?

Damn them! Damn them all to hell!!

So Frank goes home to fetch his dog, and they prepare to...hypnotize him!!

Take my word for it--hypnotizing a dog isn't any great feat...

Well, that solves that...

Well that's all settled, and now Frank can adjust his dosage, and...

Wait--there's more?!?

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

This is all Siskoid's fault...

From Journey Into Mystery #62 (1960), as reprinted in Fear #6 (1972)

Neal Adams, The X-Men, And The Revolution!

I've sung the praises of Neal Adams before...but I think that many of us just can't conceive what an earthquake, what a thunderclap his arrival on the scene was.

Take, for example, X-Men #55 (1969).

Granted it looks as if deadlines or some such made a bit of a dog's breakfast out of this. Layouts by Don Heck, pencils by Werner Roth, inks by Vince Colletta....

I'm not harshing on the art here--I've made no secret that I'm a fan of Don Heck's 60s work, and while this isn't Kirby, the many hands produced perfectly serviceable super-hero fare.

Pay special note to the layouts, the portrayal of emotion and power and speed.

Then, imagine yourself reading that in the day, and then, exactly one month later, being presented with this:

That "introducing" is a bit misleading...X-Men #56 wasn't even Adams' first Marvel work, let alone his first super-hero joint.

But here we have the same characters, same costumes, same powers...and it's like this comic book is coming from a different universe than last issue:

Obviously Tom Palmer was a big help here, too (Adams did his own colors during most of his X-Men run, so he gets extra credit there.). But Adams' experience in the advertising world, having to draw realistic characters for ads, blossomed into this incredibly different looking "photo-realism" that grabbed your adrenal gland and didn't let go!

Adams had already been making waves with the Deadman strip and other books at DC. But good gosh, just picture having read #55 four weeks earlier, and then reading this!!

Of course, it seems that not too many did pick it up, because despite some great stories and mind-blowing art, the Thomas/Adams run was insufficient to save the book from cancellation.

Soon enough, Neal would join up with Denny O'Neil for their famous Batman and Green Lantern/Green Arrow runs.

But these X-Men books, where the solid-but-staid-and-maybe-even-boring style was replaced, without warning or transition by a new, incredibly dynamic and kinetic style? That's where the revolution was, brother. And comics woulds never be the same again.

Manic Leapday Triple Overtime--Great Moments In Black Widow Montages!

I can't think of a better way to finish off Leap Day than by wallowing in Natasha Romanov goodness from her run in Amazing Adventures.

The first few issues, they tended to start off with a montage splash page, like this one...

But that wasn't enough, so we had a training montage in side the story...

Issue #2? Let's do it again!

For issue #3, Gene Colan picks up the torch...

Even Dandy Don Heck got in on the fun:

Montage, won't you?

From Amazing Adventures #1-3 & #7 (1970-71)

Manic Monday Bonus--Heck Yes!!!

Heaven knows, Don Heck never gets enough credit.

Perhaps even worse, he's become maligned by some. To children of the 1980s, his art seemed not as flashy, not as realistic as they'd come to expect, to old-fashioned. His named was too easily punned with "hack." And certain comic magazine publishers who couldn't tell the difference between Heck and Sal Buscema egged on famous writers who had no idea of what they were talking about to delcare Heck the "worst artist of all time."

Well, there's a whole bag of  "Frak yous" for those guys.

If you've hung around here often enough, you know my level of respect for Heck, who never gets enough credit for his role in Marvel's Silver Age:

I mean, just look at that!!

But he was more than just super-heroes. Most of you punks don't know squat about his 50s pre-Code  horror work...and here's your chance to fix that:

IDW's Yoe Books line is putting out their latest collection of classic 1950s horror work, and it's all Heck, all the time!

And, yeah, there's Hitler's Head:

Heck could bring the horror, and this is a great chance to see some of those stories.

You can pre-order the book here on Amazon for a January release, or just take a free peak at some of interior pages. Or it will be showing up at your local comics shoppe in the next few weeks, if they ordered it.

Oh, and did I mention Hitler's Head?

Don Heck. Respect.

Friday Night Fights--Is That A Slide Rule In Your Aromor, Or Are You Just Glad To See Me Style?

For this week's Friday Night Fights, let's roll way, way back--to Iron Man's first fight with the dreaded Mandarin!!

It turns out that Tony was not at all ready for this fight, so the Mandarin has him worn down--roughed up, batteries running out...it's not looking good for our hero!

In fact, Iron Man is in such bad shape, the mandarin has decided to forgo his rings, and deliver the killing blow with...KARATE!!

But...

Really? A built-in slide rule?!?

There you go, folks--Tony Stark proves that science can beat martial arts!!!

Spacebooger would like to see Iron Man try and pull that crap with Shang-Chi...

Slide rules beat karate in Tales of Suspense #50 (1964), by Stan Lee and Don Heck.

Now is the time for you to go and vote for my fight. Why? Because Stan and Don had Tony beat the Mandarin with a frickin' slide rule!! So go and vote!!