I read a lot of comic books as a kid. This series of posts is about the comics I read, and, occasionally, the comics that I should have read. While I was a committed student of the history of Marvel Comics upon devoting myself to their stories at the age of ten, I was shamefully slow to come around to the art of the creator who was arguably the most important figure in the groundbreaking, foundational years of the publisher. Working with writer Stan Lee, artist Jack Kirby was the architect of the early Marvel Universe, officially co-creating almost every … Continue reading My Misspent Youth: Captain Victory and the Galactic Rangers by Jack Kirby

I read a lot of comic books as a kid. This series of posts is about the comics I read, and, occasionally, the comics that I should have read. By the time I started reading Marvel Comics offering in the early nineteen-eighties, there was a clear house style to the art. Looking at the issues from that era now, the figures, no matter who was drawing them or which artists they claimed as an influence, feel somewhere in the sweet spot between the clean clarity of John Romita, Sr. and the potent muscularity of John Buscema. The foundational works from … Continue reading My Misspent Youth: Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. by Jim Steranko

I read a lot of comic books as a kid. This series of posts is about the comics I read, and, occasionally, the comics that I should have read. I can pinpoint my very first comic book that featured Ultron. Avengers was one of those titles I picked up during my ravenous first feast on superhero comics in the summer of 1980. With limited resources to spread around — even with comics at a mere fifty cents a pop — the title that boasted the inclusion of “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes” was ideal, given the presence of a bevy of Marvel … Continue reading My Misspent Youth: Avengers #202 by Jim Shooter, David Michelinie and George Pérez

I read a lot of comic books as a kid. This series of posts is about the comics I read, and, occasionally, the comics that I should have read. I acknowledged before that I absolutely craved a veneer legitimacy for the storytelling form I loved so much through my teenage years — and, ahem, beyond — which could and did lead to me developing an outsized enthusiasm for those titles released under the “prestige format” during the latter portion of the nineteen-eighties. These were comics that were printed on heavier, glossier paper and squarebound like a paperback novel (rather than … Continue reading My Misspent Youth: Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters by Mike Grell

I read a lot of comic books as a kid. This series of posts is about the comics I read, and, occasionally, the comics that I should have read. I had a few particular weaknesses when I was a kid, and Marvel Two-in-One Annual #7 hit a bunch of them. I got a geeky thrill from team-up titles, I felt like I was getting something big and important when I bought one of Marvel’s Annuals (double-sized editions of regular titles that typically arrived in the summer months, presumably when young fans both had more spending money and more time to … Continue reading My Misspent Youth: Marvel Two-in-One Annual #7 by Tom DeFalco and Ron Wilson

Like a lot of teenaged comic book fans in the nineteen-eighties, I was a helpless devotee of the uncanny X-Men, the group formally tagged as “Marvel’s Merry Mutants” but far more angsty and melodramatic in their iteration two decades in to their publishing history. (They weren’t really all that merry in the nineteen-sixties either, but Stan Lee loved alliteration.) They’d been shepherded from a group perpetually on the brink of publishing extinction to a true sensation by writer Chris Claremont, who became a star creator in the process. The X-Men had so clearly become the line’s prime commodity and Claremont the … Continue reading My Misspent Youth: Magik by Chris Claremont and John Buscema, Ron Frenz, and Sal Buscema