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Post by wildfire2099 on Nov 15, 2019 9:29:07 GMT -5
X-Men #55 ...Backup: 'Where Angels Fear to Tread' Thomas/Roth ( no inker credit.. so maybe Roth inked himself?) Check the story's credits again --Sam Grainger is listed as both inker and (surprisingly) letterer. The Angel story plus the Dr. Deranged/Deadpan story in Not Brand Echh #13 (on sale the same time as X-Men #55) were Grainger's earliest work for Marvel. He also did both the inking-lettering on that NBE story. I've always liked his work and loved the Sal Buscema-Grainger run on the Avengers back in the day. Huh.. that IS weird... that's why I didn't notice. I fixed it .
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Post by wildfire2099 on Nov 15, 2019 10:05:25 GMT -5
X-Men #56 Thomas/Adams/Palmer 'What is.. The Power' Plot: The Pharoah leads the X-Men into an ambush, and escapes to his base with him minions re-capturing Alex in the process. he uses Marvel Science(tm) to suck the power out of him and give it to himself.. saying it's not quite a mutant ability, but 'Cosmic Rays' (#2 on the list of 'best excuses for Superpowers in the Marvel U, after 'radiation'). I guess the mutant part is being able to harness/control them? Anyway, he and Alex share the power, so when he gets it all he becomes.. the Living Monolith. The X-Men arrive for the fight (Angel follows him and leads the team there via Jean's telepathy), and are losing again when Alex manages to take the power back despite the evil science contraption is trapped in and steals the power back and brings down the base... but can he control the power at all before he kills himself and everyone around too? To be Continued! Notes: -Wow, what a difference! Adams is pretty awesome here.. I love his Jean. He draws the characters looking a bit older and more realistic, and it help a TON. Living Monolith is a pretty cool design, too. - The X-Men kinda get punked though... twice. Alot like the early bad old days where they lost every fight. I hope we don't go back to that. -I found this quote, which is very interesting... I guess Adams intended to experiment? It totally worked. Neal Adams on being assigned to X-Men
"[Stan Lee] just said, "What do you want to do?" I said, "Well, what's your worst-selling title?" and he says, "X-Men. We're going to cancel in two issues." "Right," I said, "I'd like to do X-Men." When Stan asks me why, I say, "Because if you're going to cancel it in two issues, you're probably not going to pay much attention to it and I can pretty much do what I want." "Fine," he says, "you do X-Men, but after we cancel it, you have to an important book like Avengers."
DeFalco, Tom. Comic Creators on X-Men. London: Titan Books, 2006. p45. -I'm not sure why Jean has Spidey Sense now, but damn if this isn't a beautiful page: Plot: B Art: A+ History: A- (first Adams) And the back up: 'The Flying A-bomb' Thomas/Roth/Grainger Plot: After a brief fight, where Angel is dead set against them, Prof. X convinces Angel mentally what he stole was a nuclear device, and he has to fly to the upper atmosphere to freeze it so it deactivates (Marvel Science ftw!) Angel believes him, and does so.. them decides to sign up. The End! -I really hope this is the last of these... they're just not good. Total filler. The index of the epic volume seems to indicate one more (for Jean, I assume) but only 1 part, so that's good. Someone realizes they should have more Adams pages
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Post by dbutler69 on Nov 17, 2019 10:09:47 GMT -5
My first experience with this issue was a thin hardcover book which covered just these issues. Of course, I simply loved the look!
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Post by electricmastro on Nov 17, 2019 17:46:42 GMT -5
X-Men #56 Thomas/Adams/Palmer 'What is.. The Power' Plot: The Pharoah leads the X-Men into an ambush, and escapes to his base with him minions re-capturing Alex in the process. he uses Marvel Science(tm) to suck the power out of him and give it to himself.. saying it's not quite a mutant ability, but 'Cosmic Rays' (#2 on the list of 'best excuses for Superpowers in the Marvel U, after 'radiation'). I guess the mutant part is being able to harness/control them? Anyway, he and Alex share the power, so when he gets it all he becomes.. the Living Monolith. The X-Men arrive for the fight (Angel follows him and leads the team there via Jean's telepathy), and are losing again when Alex manages to take the power back despite the evil science contraption is trapped in and steals the power back and brings down the base... but can he control the power at all before he kills himself and everyone around too? To be Continued! Notes: -Wow, what a difference! Adams is pretty awesome here.. I love his Jean. He draws the characters looking a bit older and more realistic, and it help a TON. Living Monolith is a pretty cool design, too. - The X-Men kinda get punked though... twice. Alot like the early bad old days where they lost every fight. I hope we don't go back to that. -I found this quote, which is very interesting... I guess Adams intended to experiment? It totally worked. Neal Adams on being assigned to X-Men
"[Stan Lee] just said, "What do you want to do?" I said, "Well, what's your worst-selling title?" and he says, "X-Men. We're going to cancel in two issues." "Right," I said, "I'd like to do X-Men." When Stan asks me why, I say, "Because if you're going to cancel it in two issues, you're probably not going to pay much attention to it and I can pretty much do what I want." "Fine," he says, "you do X-Men, but after we cancel it, you have to an important book like Avengers."
DeFalco, Tom. Comic Creators on X-Men. London: Titan Books, 2006. p45. -I'm not sure why Jean has Spidey Sense now, but damn if this isn't a beautiful page: Plot: B Art: A+ History: A- (first Adams) And the back up: 'The Flying A-bomb' Thomas/Roth/Grainger Plot: After a brief fight, where Angel is dead set against them, Prof. X convinces Angel mentally what he stole was a nuclear device, and he has to fly to the upper atmosphere to freeze it so it deactivates (Marvel Science ftw!) Angel believes him, and does so.. them decides to sign up. The End! -I really hope this is the last of these... they're just not good. Total filler. The index of the epic volume seems to indicate one more (for Jean, I assume) but only 1 part, so that's good. Someone realizes they should have more Adams pages And an interesting take in regards to how Neal Adams also deserves credit for basically helping keep people interested in the X-Men regardless of cancellation: “The impact of Neal Adams' presence can't be overstated. It could be argued that the X-Men wouldn't exist today if not for four men; Neal Adams is one of them. X-Men, at this point never one of Marvel's big sellers, was limping towards cancellation. While the work Adams does alongside Roy Thomas, beginning here, won't save the title from ceasing to publish original stories in ten-issues time, it is credited with increasing sales enough to keep Marvel from canceling it outright. More importantly, the Thomas/Adams run will help make a cult hit out of its final days as they craft original riffs on classic X-Men tropes that will inspire later creators. Like the original Star Trek, this run, while lacking commercial success, will cultivate a small-but-devoted fan base, one that will help keep the characters alive until the next generation debuts. Adams' work is both groundbreaking and trendsetting. It's not just that he does things few artists at the time are doing, but that what he does becomes the industry standard. Compared to the house styles of the time, his art (like Steranko's before him, and similarly incorporating influences from the world of commercial illustration) is far more detailed and realistic with unique and innovative panel layouts. Figures within panels are larger, backgrounds are more nuanced. Even the characters on the cover are breaking the fourth wall and interacting with the logo. While it's easy to see how his art is different from what came before, it's hard to appreciate how innovative it is, because so much of modern comic book art is built on the work of Neal Adams. But what he's doing at this point in his career, like using the whole page simply because he can or thinking about how the layout of the page contributes to the story, will have such an impact both on fellow artists and sales of comics that future artists will incorporate his innovations into their own work while the comic book companies are happy to let them. These are things most every artist nowadays does and thinks about. It's not that Neal Adams did them first, it's that after he did them, everyone else started doing them too.“ - www.therealgentlemenofleisure.com/2010/10/x-amining-x-men-56.html?m=1
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Post by beccabear67 on Nov 17, 2019 22:57:58 GMT -5
My first experience with this issue was a thin hardcover book which covered just these issues. Of course, I simply loved the look! Was it this book? I used to have it and it was my first taste of the Thomas, Adams & Palmer X-Men as well. I think it was on sale late 1981-early 1982. Apparently there was another volume right after it with the savage land stories, but I never ran across that one. I loved the way Neal Adams did Polaris for some reason, maybe one of the few people who could do a green haired character in then current clothing without them looking in any way ridiculous. John Severin (in Hulk #150), and John Byrne (circa X-men #125-128) were also able to pull it off. The only Neal Adams I ever saw as a very young reader though was a Strange Adventures: Deadman and I remember being unable to make sense of it. So much depended on the caption and balloon placement and I think maybe on that issue it was rather less than perfection. I just could not figure out how to read it. All other comics I'd seen were more a grid of panels and Adams was very free-form SF Fillmore concert poster-ish (here's one by Bonnie McLean)... Now I think it's brilliant, and Steranko was also doing things like that (and Will Eisner before either of them), but as a little kid I simply didn't know how to 'read' it sometimes, I'd get lost easily. Had I seen these X-Men then I wonder what luck I'd have had with them? The letterer is really critical and almost needs the artist to be able to see the script and place it properly, but at Marvel they did the script after the art, right? So if I found a DC Neal Adams comic confounding... or maybe Marvel had very smart letterers or else Roy Thomas took extra pains with the space and directing the letterer? These days I have the three 1983 Classics on baxter, I could go and reread and see how they did on that score... used to have some of the originals, they were always in very high demand from collectors.
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Post by EdoBosnar on Nov 18, 2019 4:59:53 GMT -5
My first experience with this issue was a thin hardcover book which covered just these issues. Of course, I simply loved the look! Was it this book? I used to have it and it was my first taste of the Thomas, Adams & Palmer X-Men as well. I think it was on sale late 1981-early 1982. Apparently there was another volume right after it with the savage land stories, but I never ran across that one. (...) Had that one, plus a similar Captain America book that collected the three Steranko stories, and a Spider-man volume that I don't recall as well. I ordered them in late 1981 from Lone Star Comics (better known now as mycomicshop.com) for a few dollars each. They were listed in the catalogue as 'British annuals.' Those are really nice books, and - together with the various Fireside reprint books like Son of Origins and Greatest Superhero Battles - the ones I miss the most from my original, now long-gone comics collection.
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Post by dbutler69 on Nov 18, 2019 7:15:00 GMT -5
My first experience with this issue was a thin hardcover book which covered just these issues. Of course, I simply loved the look! Was it this book? I used to have it and it was my first taste of the Thomas, Adams & Palmer X-Men as well. I think it was on sale late 1981-early 1982. Apparently there was another volume right after it with the savage land stories, but I never ran across that one. I loved the way Neal Adams did Polaris for some reason, maybe one of the few people who could do a green haired character in then current clothing without them looking in any way ridiculous. John Severin (in Hulk #150), and John Byrne (circa X-men #125-128) were also able to pull it off. Yes, that's the one! I still have it, too. Yup, 1981-82 sounds about right for when I'd have gotten it. And I never knew that there was another volume with the Savage Land issues. I'd have gotten that too, if I'd have seen it!
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Post by Rob Allen on Nov 18, 2019 12:15:28 GMT -5
I was buying X-Men off the stands in this era and I remember being absolutely blown away by Neal Adams' art. I wasn't confused by it at all, it was a real breath of fresh air. I didn't know that that was what I was looking for until I saw it.
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Post by electricmastro on Nov 18, 2019 13:43:07 GMT -5
I was buying X-Men off the stands in this era and I remember being absolutely blown away by Neal Adams' art. I wasn't confused by it at all, it was a real breath of fresh air. I didn't know that that was what I was looking for until I saw it. Indeed, and I think that art and plot are usually thought of as separate, but with the way Neal laid everything out gives the feeling of more drama to the plot somehow. He definitely has a different approach compared to how Jack Kirby approached the series.
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Nov 19, 2019 4:02:07 GMT -5
I'm not even a huge Adams guy but MGod, this was so. much. better. than the last few years of X-men stories. I can definitely see how they'd be hard to follow - I think Adams was a fairly poor storyteller in this stage of his career - but this was the first time I felt the creative team was turned on and interested in making X-men comics since.... well, ever.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Nov 19, 2019 8:18:33 GMT -5
I love seeing those old pre-trade era trades.. they are so.. less standard then now, makes it kinda fun. I have one for the Dark Phoenix Saga, and one for the Black Costume Saga from Spider-Man... good stuff, especially when it's an original cover and not just a panel blown up.
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Post by brutalis on Nov 19, 2019 8:39:39 GMT -5
Yeah, I had never bought an issue of X-Men in my youth but read quite a few from visits to my cousin's or trading over the fence with kids in my neighborhood. That changed though when in junior high (7th Grade) I found a reprinting of the Adam's X-Men in Giant Size X-Men #2 (under a Gil Kane cover?!?why?) which quickly became one of my favorites! Sentinels, X-Men, Cyke and Jean posing as Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch (dumb ass Sentinels believing their optics input) with wild layouts and amazing art in comparison to the reprints I had been seeing. Of course I looked and looked but at this point there was no more X-Men series to find. Until the summer of 1976 when I find X-Men #98 on the spinner rack with the Sentinels and a bunch of different folks calling themselves X-Men. I was a happy camper from there on with collecting X-Men. Claremont and Cockrum captured my teen attention and there was no stopping for many years to come.
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Post by dbutler69 on Nov 19, 2019 9:38:31 GMT -5
Yeah, I had never bought an issue of X-Men in my youth but read quite a few from visits to my cousin's or trading over the fence with kids in my neighborhood. That changed though when in junior high (7th Grade) I found a reprinting of the Adam's X-Men in Giant Size X-Men #2 (under a Gil Kane cover?!?why?) which quickly became one of my favorites! Sentinels, X-Men, Cyke and Jean posing as Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch (dumb ass Sentinels believing their optics input) with wild layouts and amazing art in comparison to the reprints I had been seeing. Of course I looked and looked but at this point there was no more X-Men series to find. Apparently, Gil Kane was pretty much Marvel's house cover artist for much of the 70's. I don't know why, but that's what I've heard.
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Post by Cei-U! on Nov 20, 2019 8:23:48 GMT -5
Yeah, I had never bought an issue of X-Men in my youth but read quite a few from visits to my cousin's or trading over the fence with kids in my neighborhood. That changed though when in junior high (7th Grade) I found a reprinting of the Adam's X-Men in Giant Size X-Men #2 (under a Gil Kane cover?!?why?) which quickly became one of my favorites! Sentinels, X-Men, Cyke and Jean posing as Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch (dumb ass Sentinels believing their optics input) with wild layouts and amazing art in comparison to the reprints I had been seeing. Of course I looked and looked but at this point there was no more X-Men series to find. Apparently, Gil Kane was pretty much Marvel's house cover artist for much of the 70's. I don't know why, but that's what I've heard. If memory serves, Kane was going through an emotionally painful, financially disastrous divorce at the time. EIC Roy Thomas assigned all those covers to Kane to help him keep his head above water, monetarily speaking.
Cei-U! I summon the life preserver!
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