I think Bill Everett's classic character deserves his own "general" thread, to discuss anything related to him. After all, how many Marvel characters have been around even longer than Captain America?
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Some early-60's cover restorations...
FANTASTIC FOUR 4
FANTASTIC FOUR 6
and some later stuff...
TALES TO ASTONISH 70-80
TALES TO ASTONISH 81-85
SUB-MARINER 1968
...and some even later stuff...
SUPER-VILLAIN TEAM-UP
I've got lots more... but I'm holding off posting much of it at my blog until I can have enough issues done to do it in an "organized" fashion.
from the MASTERWORKS board:
Gormuu wrote:
The Stan-bashing and resulting defenses of Stan are derailing this thread so completely from what the OP is trying to get. Please allow him the courtesy of having a streamlined conversation that's topical. Thank you.
Moderatin' 'Muu
I totally agree with this.
SUB-MARINER was Bill Everett's greatest work. And CAPTAIN AMERICA may be Jack Kirby's most iconic of all his countless creations.
WHY do maniacal Stan Lee and Marvel fanatics have to keep derailing threads and getting rude and obnoxious and insulting every time someone tries to praise certain creators for work they actually did?
On the other hand, the only HUMAN TORCH series I ever enjoyed was the Johnny Storm spin-off. Go figure! (Specifically, the Jack Kirby stories, and the Dick Ayers stories. The Bob Powell stories...ehhh, not so much. Writing was clearly not his best talent, and he shouldn't have been put in a position where he had to do it to get the job.)
I sometimes thing the saddest thing about the whole Bill Everett situation is that, when he came back to Marvel in the mid-60's, he wasn't allowed to write SUB-MARINER without editorial interference. It's painfully obvious to anyone who's read his work in ASTONISH that he, not anyone else, was writing the episodes he worked on... but no less than 3 other people all did the dialogue, getting pay and credit for what should have been Everett's work, and which, I have no doubt, would have been better if Everett had been allowed to do it himself.
Then, years went by where he wasn't allowed to do any stories at all. Just inking jobs. Jack Kirby spoke up in an interview, specifically pointing out Bill Everett as an example of a man who was an excellent artist in his own right, and was wasting his talent inking other people's work (no matter how good those inks and the resulting art was).
When Everett was FINALLY allowed to take over HIS OWN character, SUB-MARINER, again-- after Roy Thomas & Gerry Conway had spent 49 consecutive issues driving the series INTO THE GROUND... the results were shockingly good. I mean, at a point where just about every Marvel Comic was dark, downbeat, gloomy & pointless, Everett's SUB-MARINER was bold, bright, uplifting, and FUN to read! I'd say it may have been the BEST damn thing from Marvel that year (with HERO FOR HIRE a close second).
As I said, I think the saddest thing is that this didn't happen-- oh, say, 49 issues earlier.
It's also pretty obvious that Everett, like most Marvel writers at the time, was acting as his own "de facto editor"-- assembling the art teams where needed. Just as John Romita was doing on AMAZING SPIDER-MAN (with Don Heck, Jim Mooney, John Buscema, Gil Kane, Jim Starlin), Everett got some amazing talent to help out on his book. You had Dan Adkins, Alan Weiss, Rich Buckler, Sam Kweskin, Syd Shores, Howard Chaykin. You can really tell it was Everett doing this-- because as soon as he passed away, ALL those people were gone, and in their place, John Romita, Don Heck, George Tuska... none of whom really were right for the character, or managed to capture his look and personality. Don Heck, in particular, never really "got" Subby, not even in the 60's.
Still, I love that final year of Everett. Since I got ahold of them (only about 10 years ago!!), I must have read them 3 times already.
I enjoyed Bill Everett's Golden, Silver and Bronze Age work as well, Henry. But the man had serious deadline issues as Roy Thomas, a huge supporter of Everett's, attested to.
Also as to Everett not immediately getting the Sub-Mariner back, I made the point while discussing Captain America that it was Jack Kirby who revived the Sub-Mariner in Fantastic Four #4 probably without informing Wild Bill of his intent, just as he put out a new version of the Human Torch with no regard of Carl Burgos' rights. Not to mention, bringing Cap (and Bucky) back without consulting Joe Simon. Similarly Atlas did not ask for Jack's permission for the 50s return of Cap.
Is this ethically wrong? That's one's own opinion. But was it legal? Yes and that's the way comics were are still are for the most art today.
This is not an arguement; it is simply a point.
Seems like TWO points, but what the hey.
Regarding deadline problems: hey, so did Frank Giacoia! (heh heh heh) I wonder why he gets such a "pass" from fans? I mean, his inks weren't THAT impressive. Solid, but nothing really flashy or anything.
I'm thinking of those 2 issues of CAPTAIN AMERICA where Everett inked Gene Colan, and the linework was SO excessively detailed and fine, it reminded me of the kind of engravng they use on money. WHOA!!! Mind-boggling.
Kinda like those 2 issues of MASTER OF KUNG FU when Paul Gulacy inked himself. Apparently, the 2nd time he did it, HE caused some kind of deadline problem that resulted in a "Deadline Doom" fill-in, and Gulacy never inked himself at Marvel again. (I still wish Dan Adkins had stayed on. With the really cheap paper they were using in the mid-late 70's, his inks just looked better.)
more from MASTERWORKS:
John Buscema does some very nice work. All the same, every time he takes over a series from someone else, it always feels like you're watching a TV series where every single character has been recast with different actors. Everyone remembers when Dick York became Dick Sargent-- can you imagine if Elizabeth Montgomery AND Agnes Moorhead AND David White AND Maurice Evans AND Paul Lynde AND Bernard Fox had been replaced at the same time? Why would anyone want to keep watching?
When I think of SUB-MARINER, I think of Bill Everett. And those artists who managed to "capture" the look or feel of Bill Everett's work were few and far between. I'd include Jack Kirby, Wally Wood, Dan Adkins, Marie Severin, and Ross Andru. (The latter was a real surprise to me-- he only did 3 issues of the book, each with a different inker, yet I immediately felt he was FAR better suited to Subby than he EVER was on AMAZING SPIDER-MAN!!! His work on ASM never did it for me, except when John Romita was inking it.)
...In the 1950s , a TV company had optioned Subby for a projected TV series ( Which had an actor's name attached to it , but never went any further than that . ) , which was why the 50s revival of Namor lasted longer , as the option continued .
Some years ago , an article about the director Philip Kaufman ( the 70s verion of Invasion Of The Body-Snatchers ) , in describing him going through his desk and throwing out?? old scripts , mentioned a full script for a Sub-Mariner movie that Kaufman was poised to make at some time !!!!!!!!!
By the way , because of the " Lo-Animation/60s flash animation " TV series , I always knew that the pronounciation was " Sub-MAR-In-Er " , not " Mah-Reen-Er " !!!!!!!!!!!
Personally, I think Roy Thomas is the ONLY one who mispronounces Namor's monicker, as he refuses to EVER let go of anything from the early 40's... (heeheehee)
"Dr. Strange-- Master Of BLACK MAGIC!" (yeah right)
I think Bill Everett's classic character deserves his own "general" thread, to discuss anything related to him
I think Bill Everett deserves his own thread, but the Sub-Mariner? Ehhh. Never cared for him at all. I do like the handful of post-Silver Age Subby issues that Everett drew, but every gorgeous panel gets me to thinking, "Man, I wish he was drawing another comic book!"
What are you saying? Which did Racally Roy prefer?
"Sub-MAR-in-ner" or, "Sub-Mah-REEN-er"
As a kid, I sounded out the name like I had heard in the war movies on TV...Sub-marines...
But once I learned of the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, I figured it out.
I don't know which Roy prefers, I just know that, Roy being Roy, he refuses to ever let anyone FORGET that some people misprounounce it. "When I was a kid..." (He does get STUCK on some things.) : )
It's funny, it just crossed my mind, I never saw any of the Grantray-Lawrence Subby cartoons, but I did see all the Hanna-Barbera FF's from 1967. And when, a few months later, I first saw Sub-Mariner (in the reprint, in the back of FF ANNUAL #3, reprinting FF #6), I don't think it ever occured to me there was a connection between "Prince Namor" and "Prince Triton" (voiced by Mike Road, alias, "Race Bannon"). Years later, I found out that the story where the FF went undersea to battle Attuma had been adapted from a comic-book, but I hadn't seen the cartoon in many years, and wasn't aware that they hadn't actually had "Sub-Mariner" in the cartoon (but rather a reasonable faccimile).
It's crazy, but to this day, I still think FF#6 may be the BEST Sub-Mariner story of the early 60's, as it most shows him as a very complex, intelligent, conflicted person, and not merely as a destructive hothead. In FF#6, you're not sure, is he a good guy, a bad guy, or something in between?
By comparison, in the 3-part Iron Man-Subby knock-down drag-out that went between SUSPENSE and ASTONISH, Subby comes across as a TOTAL A**H*** who deserves to have his butt kicked... and is lucky Iron Man let him go at the end when Warlord Krang re-appeared to gloat.
One of my favorite quotes:
"AWAY, spineless humans! How DARE you approach the royal presence with your PUNY weapons?"
(This guy NEEDS taking down a few pegs...heh heh)
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