I’ve just finished reading the issues contained in the Masterwork (#137-148) for the first time in many years. In it, we see the transition from Gene Colan to John Romita to Sal Buscema (with one issue by Gil Kane) as well as the transition from Stan Lee to Gary Friedrich. In it, we get to see Spidey guest-star in two issues, Steve Rogers join the NYC police force, the early days of the Cap and Falcon team, the team break up, the Gray Gargolyle, the destruction of the SHIELD helicarrier, the introduction of the Fem-Force, the resurgence of Hydra, who’s behind it, who’s backing it (the Kingpin), who’s really behind it (the Red Skull), and the fifth and final Nazi “Sleeper” robot (speaking of which, Luke taking down an ATAT on Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back is very reminiscent of the Falcon’s attack on the Sleeper).
I never really cared much for Sam Wilson’s activist girlfriend Leila. When I was younger I thought it was because she was a militant, but I know now it’s because she’s a blatant racist of the worst stripe. She’s a good character (albeit one-dimensional) for Sam to play off against, but I really can’t see what Sam saw in her in the first place (other than the fact that she was smokin’ hot, of course). When Jack Kirby took over in #193 he gave her the following line of dialogue in her first scene: “I don’t know how you clowns conned me into brewin’ java for you — but don’t make a habit of it!” A lot was made of this line in the letters pages at the time, how out of character it was for her to be wearing an apron and brewing coffee for Sam and Steve. I thought at the time that Kirby was out of touch with Englehart’s run (which immediately preceded hi)s, but it was my favorite Leila scene up until that time. Now I see it as a deliberate attempt on Kirby’s part to soften her character. And it’s still my favorite of her scenes up to that point. She’s portrayed much as more likeable these days.
"Kirby was out of touch with Englehart’s run (which immediately preceded his)"
Not immediately. Although, quite typical of "months of fill-in chaos" as seen repeatedly on a book like IRON MAN between long runs by certain people, you had 3 issues with John Warner (the 1st plotted by Englehart), 3 issues with Tony Isabella (the last dialogued by Bill Mantlo), and 1 issue with Marv Wolfman (who also was listed as editor on the last 3 issues here). And of these, 6 were drawn by Frank Robbins, and 1 (Warner's last) by Sal Buscema (his last until after Kirby's run).
You can see why, even if everything Jack Kirby did was a bit odd, offbeat or even off-kilter with the rest of the Marvel Universe, it was such a RELIEF when Jack came back to take over the book, as from the moment Englehart left, it was total chaos. In fact, in my book, it was chaos before Steve left, because I just COULD NOT STAND Frank Robbins' art!
What really surprised me was being reminded that in CAP's case, Steve's departure was not when he went to DC-- that happened a little later. Steve left CAP, seemingly on a whim, right in the middle of a story, because apparently he felt he'd said all he wanted to on the book, and because, as a "challenge", he wanted to take on SUPER-VILLAIN TEAM-UP. I mean... talk about madness. And yet, true to Steve's track record, he did, by a wide margin, the BEST writing on that misbegotten's series' entire run. (I'd rank Tony Isabella's 2 issues as a close 2nd.)
Having recently re-read all of the issues in the Masterworks book, I can say that Leila is a B**** (yep, that's word). She's just nasty, and mean-spirited, and spends most of her time running Sam Wilson down into the ground. The really sad thing is the large number of people who will just ignore that and see nothing but a hot bod, and lay open their lives to unending grief and misery, because (as one ex-friend of mine actually said to me one day), "THE SEX WAS SO GOOD!"
I can never quite be certain how much or how little Gary Friedrich contributed on the writing end. I do know that his CAP run was wildly erratic, and, as usual with him, the quality could go from brilliant to completely incoherent from one month to the next. I was a bit stunned when I realized that the very month the story "Burn, Whitey, Burn!" came out, Camden had its own RACE RIOT in which dozens of stores were burned out, and the "white flight" to the suburbs commenced, from which its tax base has never recovered.
...The 5th Sleeper story had the distinction of being an extra-length story , coming out during that one month when most?? of Marvel's mainstream titles went to 48 pages , then went back to the standard 32 nrext month , having faked DC out into buying paper stocks enough that they were TIED to the " Bigger & Better " format for a yearish...Martin Goodman's farewell present to his old home !!!!!!!!!!!
And in fact , the 20c/254c Marvel/DC period finally got Marvel to #1 in sales over DC , only then , not during the Sixties .
Hold it! The 5th sleeper was in #148 (Apr'72). The double-sized issue was #143 (Nov'71), which was the one that contained the infamous "Burn, Whitey, Burn!" story.
#144 got confusing, as it was obviously meant to be another extra-length issue, and the 3rd chapter wound up instead in #145. Had it been published as planned, each of its 3 chapters would have been by a different penciller-- John Romita, Gray Morrow, and Gil Kane.
I read that Gil Kane was planning to take over the series, but somehow, never did more than that one 14-page chapter. Instead, John Romita filled in the remaining pages of #145, and probably to the surprise of everyone, Sal Buscema took over in #146, doing a run that lasted all the way to #181 (with only a single fill-in in all that time, Alan Weiss in #164). When Len Wein took over as editor from Roy Thomas the next month, somehow Sal was replaced by Frank Robbins.
What I never realized until quite recently was, Sal's debut on CAP was actually much earlier. He did pencils and inks on both #114 & 115, the first over John Romita layouts, the 2nd over John Buscema layouts. (You couldn't tell this from the way the credits were written, but I could tell there was a HUGE difference between John doing full pencils and Sal doing inks, and John doing layouts and Sal doing pencils and inks.)
It may be a bit mind-blowing to fans looking back on the era, but in the early 70's, Sal on CAP got the exact same reception as George Tuska on IRON MAN and Herb Trimpe on HULK. Fans HATED them!! Crazy, when you consider all 3 became "the" artists for those books during that period.
...That's interesti g , Henry , that insight/recollection of what fan opinion of the early-mid 70s was .
I'm interested in talking about fan culture ( Geeesshh . - Excruiatingly(Sp??) pretentious choice of term , I realize . ) /opinions/what it's been over the years .
I never would have known that, except for reading the letters pages at the time. I picked up a few of Tuska's early IRON MAN issues (when he had Johnny Craig on inks-- WOW!!!) and everybody was complaining about how "cartoony" the new guy was, and please bring back Gene Colan.
When I re-read my CAP collection, there it was, same thing when Sal became the regular. Oh, he's not as good as Romita or Colan or Steranko or Kirby or...
I don't have many HULKs from that period, but I seem to recall Herb Trimpe said this in an interview, that when he took over, all they got for a long time was hate mail! (My own personal fave Trimpe art is when he was inked by Jack Abel. What a great combination they made! But that was much later, nearer to when he left the book.)
I forget what the reaction to Ross Andru was. I know, myself personally, I felt he had an awful lot of trouble getting the regulars to look "on-model". Re-reading so many old comics in recent years, I was quite surprised when it hit me that Andru was MUCH better on SUB-MARINER than he was on Spidey, and in fact, he seemed MUCH better-suited to the character than Gene Colan, John Buscema or Sal Buscema. So of course, he only ever did 3 issues (with 3 different inkers, what else). Of course, he also did the first 3 DEFENDERS stories, which also had Namor. MUCH better than Sal on that book, too.
The Frank Robbins stuff I wound up liking was HUMAN FLY and MAN FROM ATLANTIS, oddly enough. Also, JOHNNY HAZARD, which I think is from the 50's. Someone posted a TON of those on their Facebook page, and I was so blown away, I grabbed the whole lot of them. Which says a lot, considering how much I REALLY disliked his work on CAP, INVADERS, and even THE SHADOW.
You know, I realize that often, editors appreciate dependability more than quality. Which "explains" Vince Colletta, Sal Buscema, etc. Maybe Len Wein was too young, immature and erratic to understand this? I mean, when I started adding editors to my own indexes, I suddenly began to notice that, most of the time, a change in editor was accompanied by a change in creative line-up. Even though writers at early-70's Marvel were considered "de facto editors" (because there was NO WAY one person could possible edit 60-80 books a month), it stood out that the same month Len took over as editor, suddenly, Sal was off CAP. I mean-- what happened there?You know... it JUST occured to me... I wonder if Steve Englehart decided to leave CAP for SVTU-- because of Frank Robbins? (An artist so "bad" EVEN STEVE couldn't take it?)
Even though there's so many people whose work may be considered "better" than Sal, for the longest time, I considered Sal one of the better CAP artists, and I still definitely rank his CAP as his best and most consistent work. (Too bad they kept changing inkers so often.) Funny thing-- my favorite Sal art on CAP was the issue, "Turning Point", where he realizes he's got super-strength. And the first HALF of the book was inked by Joe Sinnott-- UNCREDITED!!
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I’ve just finished reading the issues contained in the Masterwork (#137-148) for the first time in many years. In it, we see the transition from Gene Colan to John Romita to Sal Buscema (with one issue by Gil Kane) as well as the transition from Stan Lee to Gary Friedrich. In it, we get to see Spidey guest-star in two issues, Steve Rogers join the NYC police force, the early days of the Cap and Falcon team, the team break up, the Gray Gargolyle, the destruction of the SHIELD helicarrier, the introduction of the Fem-Force, the resurgence of Hydra, who’s behind it, who’s backing it (the Kingpin), who’s really behind it (the Red Skull), and the fifth and final Nazi “Sleeper” robot (speaking of which, Luke taking down an ATAT on Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back is very reminiscent of the Falcon’s attack on the Sleeper).
I never really cared much for Sam Wilson’s activist girlfriend Leila. When I was younger I thought it was because she was a militant, but I know now it’s because she’s a blatant racist of the worst stripe. She’s a good character (albeit one-dimensional) for Sam to play off against, but I really can’t see what Sam saw in her in the first place (other than the fact that she was smokin’ hot, of course). When Jack Kirby took over in #193 he gave her the following line of dialogue in her first scene: “I don’t know how you clowns conned me into brewin’ java for you — but don’t make a habit of it!” A lot was made of this line in the letters pages at the time, how out of character it was for her to be wearing an apron and brewing coffee for Sam and Steve. I thought at the time that Kirby was out of touch with Englehart’s run (which immediately preceded hi)s, but it was my favorite Leila scene up until that time. Now I see it as a deliberate attempt on Kirby’s part to soften her character. And it’s still my favorite of her scenes up to that point. She’s portrayed much as more likeable these days.
"Kirby was out of touch with Englehart’s run (which immediately preceded his)"
Not immediately. Although, quite typical of "months of fill-in chaos" as seen repeatedly on a book like IRON MAN between long runs by certain people, you had 3 issues with John Warner (the 1st plotted by Englehart), 3 issues with Tony Isabella (the last dialogued by Bill Mantlo), and 1 issue with Marv Wolfman (who also was listed as editor on the last 3 issues here). And of these, 6 were drawn by Frank Robbins, and 1 (Warner's last) by Sal Buscema (his last until after Kirby's run).
You can see why, even if everything Jack Kirby did was a bit odd, offbeat or even off-kilter with the rest of the Marvel Universe, it was such a RELIEF when Jack came back to take over the book, as from the moment Englehart left, it was total chaos. In fact, in my book, it was chaos before Steve left, because I just COULD NOT STAND Frank Robbins' art!
What really surprised me was being reminded that in CAP's case, Steve's departure was not when he went to DC-- that happened a little later. Steve left CAP, seemingly on a whim, right in the middle of a story, because apparently he felt he'd said all he wanted to on the book, and because, as a "challenge", he wanted to take on SUPER-VILLAIN TEAM-UP. I mean... talk about madness. And yet, true to Steve's track record, he did, by a wide margin, the BEST writing on that misbegotten's series' entire run. (I'd rank Tony Isabella's 2 issues as a close 2nd.)
Having recently re-read all of the issues in the Masterworks book, I can say that Leila is a B**** (yep, that's word). She's just nasty, and mean-spirited, and spends most of her time running Sam Wilson down into the ground. The really sad thing is the large number of people who will just ignore that and see nothing but a hot bod, and lay open their lives to unending grief and misery, because (as one ex-friend of mine actually said to me one day), "THE SEX WAS SO GOOD!"
I can never quite be certain how much or how little Gary Friedrich contributed on the writing end. I do know that his CAP run was wildly erratic, and, as usual with him, the quality could go from brilliant to completely incoherent from one month to the next. I was a bit stunned when I realized that the very month the story "Burn, Whitey, Burn!" came out, Camden had its own RACE RIOT in which dozens of stores were burned out, and the "white flight" to the suburbs commenced, from which its tax base has never recovered.
...The 5th Sleeper story had the distinction of being an extra-length story , coming out during that one month when most?? of Marvel's mainstream titles went to 48 pages , then went back to the standard 32 nrext month , having faked DC out into buying paper stocks enough that they were TIED to the " Bigger & Better " format for a yearish...Martin Goodman's farewell present to his old home !!!!!!!!!!!
And in fact , the 20c/254c Marvel/DC period finally got Marvel to #1 in sales over DC , only then , not during the Sixties .
Hold it! The 5th sleeper was in #148 (Apr'72). The double-sized issue was #143 (Nov'71), which was the one that contained the infamous "Burn, Whitey, Burn!" story.
#144 got confusing, as it was obviously meant to be another extra-length issue, and the 3rd chapter wound up instead in #145. Had it been published as planned, each of its 3 chapters would have been by a different penciller-- John Romita, Gray Morrow, and Gil Kane.
I read that Gil Kane was planning to take over the series, but somehow, never did more than that one 14-page chapter. Instead, John Romita filled in the remaining pages of #145, and probably to the surprise of everyone, Sal Buscema took over in #146, doing a run that lasted all the way to #181 (with only a single fill-in in all that time, Alan Weiss in #164). When Len Wein took over as editor from Roy Thomas the next month, somehow Sal was replaced by Frank Robbins.
What I never realized until quite recently was, Sal's debut on CAP was actually much earlier. He did pencils and inks on both #114 & 115, the first over John Romita layouts, the 2nd over John Buscema layouts. (You couldn't tell this from the way the credits were written, but I could tell there was a HUGE difference between John doing full pencils and Sal doing inks, and John doing layouts and Sal doing pencils and inks.)
It may be a bit mind-blowing to fans looking back on the era, but in the early 70's, Sal on CAP got the exact same reception as George Tuska on IRON MAN and Herb Trimpe on HULK. Fans HATED them!! Crazy, when you consider all 3 became "the" artists for those books during that period.
...That's interesti g , Henry , that insight/recollection of what fan opinion of the early-mid 70s was .
I'm interested in talking about fan culture ( Geeesshh . - Excruiatingly(Sp??) pretentious choice of term , I realize . ) /opinions/what it's been over the years .
I never would have known that, except for reading the letters pages at the time. I picked up a few of Tuska's early IRON MAN issues (when he had Johnny Craig on inks-- WOW!!!) and everybody was complaining about how "cartoony" the new guy was, and please bring back Gene Colan.
When I re-read my CAP collection, there it was, same thing when Sal became the regular. Oh, he's not as good as Romita or Colan or Steranko or Kirby or...
I don't have many HULKs from that period, but I seem to recall Herb Trimpe said this in an interview, that when he took over, all they got for a long time was hate mail! (My own personal fave Trimpe art is when he was inked by Jack Abel. What a great combination they made! But that was much later, nearer to when he left the book.)
I forget what the reaction to Ross Andru was. I know, myself personally, I felt he had an awful lot of trouble getting the regulars to look "on-model". Re-reading so many old comics in recent years, I was quite surprised when it hit me that Andru was MUCH better on SUB-MARINER than he was on Spidey, and in fact, he seemed MUCH better-suited to the character than Gene Colan, John Buscema or Sal Buscema. So of course, he only ever did 3 issues (with 3 different inkers, what else). Of course, he also did the first 3 DEFENDERS stories, which also had Namor. MUCH better than Sal on that book, too.
The Frank Robbins stuff I wound up liking was HUMAN FLY and MAN FROM ATLANTIS, oddly enough. Also, JOHNNY HAZARD, which I think is from the 50's. Someone posted a TON of those on their Facebook page, and I was so blown away, I grabbed the whole lot of them. Which says a lot, considering how much I REALLY disliked his work on CAP, INVADERS, and even THE SHADOW.
You know, I realize that often, editors appreciate dependability more than quality. Which "explains" Vince Colletta, Sal Buscema, etc. Maybe Len Wein was too young, immature and erratic to understand this? I mean, when I started adding editors to my own indexes, I suddenly began to notice that, most of the time, a change in editor was accompanied by a change in creative line-up. Even though writers at early-70's Marvel were considered "de facto editors" (because there was NO WAY one person could possible edit 60-80 books a month), it stood out that the same month Len took over as editor, suddenly, Sal was off CAP. I mean-- what happened there?You know... it JUST occured to me... I wonder if Steve Englehart decided to leave CAP for SVTU-- because of Frank Robbins? (An artist so "bad" EVEN STEVE couldn't take it?)
Even though there's so many people whose work may be considered "better" than Sal, for the longest time, I considered Sal one of the better CAP artists, and I still definitely rank his CAP as his best and most consistent work. (Too bad they kept changing inkers so often.) Funny thing-- my favorite Sal art on CAP was the issue, "Turning Point", where he realizes he's got super-strength. And the first HALF of the book was inked by Joe Sinnott-- UNCREDITED!!
...Re: Robbins' Johnny Hazard , I am aware it was his highly Milton Caniff-esque newspaper strip which ran until 1976 or so .
I've never seen it really beyond the briefest repros/illustrations...