One of the core components of a good comic book has always been that killer page where the artist really goes out on a limb to create a splash page or a set of panels that sticks in the memory years after you first saw it. Jack Kirby, the Buscema brothers , John Romita and Gene Colan were all master of this craft but few artists surpassed Neal Adams in this arena. The above 2 page spread from the Avengers issue 93 filled me with complete awe when I first saw it as a teenager in glorious black and white in the pages of the UK weekly Mighty World of Marvel comic. The effect was just as strong when I eventually tracked down a copy of the US original a few years ago. The story, an obvious "tip of the hat" to the 1960's SF film "Fantastic Voyage" is encapsulated in this amazing 2 page spread with Ant-Man about to enter the Vision via his mouth to see why he has collapsed. Below are a selection of some of my other favourite pages from the magical pencil of Neal Adams.
The above page is from the same issue of the Avengers (issue 93) and is the second last page of sumptuously illustrated 9 page sequence where Ant-Man is inside the Vision trying to evade the attacks of his android immune system.
This splash page from Conan the Barbarian issue 37 is one of my all time favourite Conans pages and it doesn't even show Conan.
House of Mystery issue 186. HoM was always a great comic to pick up at this time as it regularly featured the art of the likes of Alex Toth, Russ Heath , Nester Redondo and Bernie Wrightson. This issue was a classic as not only did it have a nice little Bernie Wrightson strip it also featured this 11 page Adams story "Nightmare" . It’s been reprinted several times but I never fail to marvel at this atmospheric page. Seemingly the young girl was modelled on Neals daughter.
The above page is from Astonsihing Tales issue 12 featuring Ka-Zar.This was obviouly shoehorned into the main storyline that took place in the Everglades in order to recap the Man-Things origin. This strip was obviosly intended for another comic (perhaps Savage Tales) but was deemed to good not to use.
This page from the Crazy Super Special issue 1 (1975) is a parody of the then popular TV show McCloud featuring Dennis Weaver, and retitled as "McClown" for the purposes of ripping the @+$% out of the TV show. I think Adams is a marvellous cartoonist and while he may not be up there with the likes of Mort Drucker I love this 5 page story (and this page in particular) - that horse is just priceless.
Of course Adams also certainly knew how to draw sexy women as well as monsters as can be seen from the above illustration of Vampirella from issue 44 of her own magazine. This illo appeared only as the front piece for that particular issue and was not part of a comic strip but it is a beautifully drawn piece of art . Adams did draw a full Vampirella tale in issue 1 of her comic but I have yet to track that down.
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Neal Adams rendition of Ant-Man (who had not been seen for quite some time when he popped up in Avengers #93 and made his sojourn into the Vision made for some of the most exciting pages of the era.
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The whole nine or so page Ant-Man segment of Avengers 93 are for me hard to beat. I also like Adams version of the Vision and Iron-Man and would have loved to have seen him draw an Iron-Man comic ( unless he did and I missed it).
DeleteI too remember seeing Adams' Avengers strip in the UK weekly, and I have it reprinted in a Masterworks volume and maybe a special as well. I didn't always like the 'experimental' layouts of Adams and Colan, but no complaints about these pages.
ReplyDeleteI liked a lot of Adams experimental layout pages but I agree some of them were at time difficult to view . I recall a coup!e of Deadman pages that took me a while to work out. But when they worked they were amazing.
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