Mon 28 Feb 2005
Themeless Cover Gallery (BoyC, Fury, Defenders)
Posted by Bob under Gallery
BOY COMMANDOS #7, 1944. After six issues doing interiors, Kirby is off to the army, with just covers for the next two years. A great vintage S&K cover, lots of movement, nice details on the motorcycles.
SGT. FURY #15, 1965. Dick Ayers inks. Fury and the Howlers taking care of business in Holland, in a nice dramatic cover. I don’t usually mention anything about the non-Kirby interiors of these things, but this one has a gorgeous unusual combination of Dick Ayers pencils with Steve Ditko inks.
DEFENDERS #42, 1976. Klaus Janson inks. Hulk versus the Rhino. That’s okay. I also always like the way that Kirby draws Doc Strange for some reason.
March 1st, 2005 at 12:49 pm
I like the way Kirby draws Doc Strange as well. IMO, Kirby couldn’t draw Spider-Man very well most of the time, and Ditko couldn’t get the Thing down, but Ditko did a nice version of the Torch, while Kirby had a good take on Doc Strange on many a Strange Tales cover.
March 2nd, 2005 at 11:41 pm
I love the earlier Defenders issues. If I remember Keith Giffen was drawing in Kirby style in those issues. I did not like the surreal tone the book taken in later years and stopped buying it. The Defenders were best with the orginal lineup.
Remember the first issues with Sub-Mariner, Dr. Strange, Hulk and Silver Surfer? Those were the better ones.
Had the book left the lineup alone I believe it would have been more popular. Instead the book deteriorated to nonsense. At that point I just bought more of the traditional super hero material. Why the Defenders took the direction it did…I’ll never know what Marvel had in mind.
It’s too bad because the Defenders original line up had so much conflict to offer..and it was diluted with secondary characters that didn’t have the interesting qualities of Subby and Silver Surfer….