That was then: Bring on the Back ups: When John Buscema drew Batman......and Superman

Tuesday, April 2, 2024

Bring on the Back ups: When John Buscema drew Batman......and Superman

A big fantasy of my early fanboy teen years (mid-late 1970s) was the thought of some of US comics greatest artists working for both Marvel and DC on some of their top characters. Of course, it wasn't the case that this never happened back in the 1970’s as artists like Neal Adams, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Gil Kane, and others successfully worked to some extent for both companies. However, artists like John Buscema (who I imagine Marvel had under contract) didn’t make the move to try their hand at working on characters like Batman, Superman. Green Lantern etc. Well, that wasn’t until 2000 when Big John eventually took the opportunity (as did many others ) to work for DC. Although he did work on Superman (of sorts ) in the “Just Imagine Stan Lee creating….” series and provided (very) rough pencils for Gil Kane on the posthumously published “Superman: Blood of My Ancestors” book, he did provide full art on a one shot Batman black and white back up tale that appeared in "Batman: Gotham Knights" #7 (2000) -the the result as you would expect were pretty impressive. Sadly Big John passed away in 2002 only a couple of years after this was publsihed. Enjoy some of the last work of a comic book genius:

Above:The cover to "Batman Gotham Knights" #7 (2000) -Cover by Brian Bolland.

Above: The cover and splash page to "Just Imagine Stan Lee with John Buscema creating Superman" (2001) - Cover byJohn Buscema.

Above:The cover to " Superman - Blood of my Ancestors" - Cover image taken from the Grand Comics Database.

6 comments:

KidApril 3, 2024 at 1:26 AM
I don't have that Gotham Knights issue, McS, so that's another comic I'll have to track down. Or you can just send me yours - isn't that kind of me? Big John, of course, drew Superman in the 2nd Supes/Spidey team-up, as well as Wonder Woman who also made an appearance.
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Rip JaggerApril 3, 2024 at 5:58 AM
"Big" John Buscema is my favorite comic artist, which I've declared on several occasions. He seemed quite content just waiting for the next assignment from Stan. That was a blessing for Marvel because they needed a tentpole artist after Kirby departed and Buscema became "the Man". We are lucky that Roy Thomas was at long last able to get him to do Conan the Barbarian, his masterpiece. His Batman is rugged as you'd expect. I love how Buscema draws hoodlums with expansive and hideous faces.
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McSCOTTYApril 3, 2024 at 8:36 AM
That man could draw anything and draw it well. For me Buscema was Marvel and Conan , but I have to say his Batman is pretty good.
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baggseyApril 4, 2024 at 6:22 PM
I was not aware that this even existed, so like Kid (above) I'll try to track down a copy. This came out in the period 1990-around 2003 when I was not collecting comics - I'm sure I missed out on a lot of good stuff at that time.

Was this the only time he drew Batman? On the evidence of the few panels Batman appears in, Batman is immobile in every panel. I'd like to have seen how Buscema drew Batman in action.

Back in the 70s I always wondered what it would be like if Gene Colan (my favourite DareDevil artist) ever came to draw Batman - which of course he did eventually, and brought that DD dynamism to the strip.
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McSCOTTYApril 5, 2024 at 8:27 PM
I think this was his only Batman work for DC Ian. I only found out about these when I was given a collected edition of these B&W tales around 2009 by my mum as part of a Christmas pressie. Like yourself i gave up on comics mid 1990s to 2005 ish (still don't really buy new conics that often(. I found the actual comic it came from in a back issue bin for £1. I missed Colans Batman when it came out but have picked up a few of his Batman comics, brilliant stuff
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