richard starkings – Coke & Comics

POSTLUDE: Marvel: Heroes & Legends #1

For Better and For Worse!

Featuring: Everybody
Release: August 21, 1996
Cover: October 1996
$2.95
Scintillating script by Stan Lee
Prurient plot by Fabian Nicieza
Pulse-pounding pencils by Sal Buscema, John Buscema, John Romita, Sr., Steve Ditko, Gene Colan, Marie Severin & Ron Frenz
Incredible inks by Tom Palmer, Joe Sinnott, Terry Austin, Bill Reinhold, Marie Severin & Al Milgrom
Kaleidoscopic colors by John Kalisz (with perfect page one and colossal cover coloring by Paul Becton)
Lascivious letters by Richard Starkings and Comicraft/ad
Effervescent edits by Matt Idelson
Aching assistant edits by Paul Tutrone
Evil editing-in-chiefing by Bob Harras
Very special thanks to: Mariano Nicieza, Darren Auck, Scott Koblish, Gil Kane, The Raiders, and the many terrific talents of the Mighty Marvel Bullpen
Based on Fantastic Four Annual #3 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
48 pages

Previous		Next
Fantastic Four Annual 3	Reading order	X-Men #14

Just between us, Alicia– I’ve been ready ever since I met the man!

I’m not trying to include too many POSTLUDE entries, but don’t have a clear standard for when I do. Having a copy of the comic in my living room as opposed to in storage somewhere is a good motivator. Plus, I actively used this comic as a reference when making my Fantastic Four Annual post, in deciding who might have been present at the wedding but off-panel.

Heroes & Legends is a loving retelling of the wedding of Sue and Reed from 1996, by continuity nerd Fabian Nicieza with a rotating cast of classic artists and a script by Stan Lee.

We know Steve Ditko very well by this point. We’ve seen some early work of John Romita, but he’s just about to join our regular cast of artists. Gene Colan just started drawing Namor’s adventures. Marie Severin has been working behind the scenes, and we’ll see her artwork soon enough. We’ve already seen some artwork of her brother John. John and Sal Buscema will be shaking things up eventually, and Ron Frenz in the more distant future. We’ll see Tom Palmer soon enough. We’ve briefly met Joe Sinnott a couple times, but he’s just about to become a regular. I’d bemoaned he wasn’t the original inker on the annual. It came out just one month too early. The other inkers will be coming along later.

This tells the same story as the Fantastic Four Annual, but with over twice as many pages.

In a short while, we’ll also read Marvels #2, which includes yet another take on this wedding to contrast with these two takes.

We’ll compare the new comic to the original and note the artist on the new comic. The original art is all by Jack Kirby and Vince Colletta. As noted above, for everything but the first page, John Kalisz did the colors in the new one.

The opening page deliberately mirrors the original.

New art by Sal Buscema & Tom Palmer with colors by Paul Becton

The big addition is a kid named Mark, a superhero fan who gets separated from his father in the commotion, and targeted by villains and saved by heroes. He serves as the centerpiece for this retelling.

POSTLUDE: Marvels #1

A Time of Marvels

Featuring: Marvels
Release: November 9, 1993
Cover: January 1994
$5.95
Writer: Kurt Busiek
Artist: Alex Ross
Letters: Starkings w\ John Gauhsell
Editor: Marcus McLaurin
Assistant editor: Spencer Lamm
Editor in Chief: Tom DeFalco
Cover design & logo: Joe Kaufman
Interior Design: Comicraft
45 pages

Previous		Next
Human Torch #5	PRELUDE
Fantastic Four #27	Reading order	Sgt. Fury #8
Marvels #0	Marvels	Marvels #2

When this is over, I’d said. When would that be? It would blow over. The world wouldn’t stay like this. It couldn’t. Could it?

The 4 (or so) issues comprising this series are pretty close to being the best comics I have ever read. They inspire the journey we are taking here, where we read through the entire Marvel Universe starting in 1961, and I want them to frame the journey we are taking.

Through a man named Phil Sheldon, an “ordinary” photojournalist, we see a holistic view of all these many interconnected stories of Marvels, cohesing into a single narrative, leading us to understand that this world is not our own, and helping us imagine what it might be like to live in that world.

The tagline reads: “Experience the Marvel Universe from a whole new perspective– yours.”

We read Marvels #0 pretty early in the project, right after meeting the original Human Torch, who we introduced after meeting the new Human Torch.

Marvels #1 deals with Marvel’s Golden Age, stories from the 1930s and 1940s. We are reading it now in our reading order because we have met enough Golden Age heroes to justify it. Really, it comes down to the big three: Human Torch, Sub-Mariner, and Captain America. But our reading about characters like Angel, Electro and Black Widow will also help us appreciate the details.

And if there’s one word that can describe this comic, it’s “detailed”. Sitting in a hotel room in Dresden with the intent of doing a deep dive into this issue, I have the original comic in my hand, but also the recent annotated edition which can serve as a guide. Plus some Golden Age and other reference material.

With all that in front of me, I would like to look very closely at this comic; consider those details, and try to do so without losing sight of the powerful emotional journey in front of us, one that will seem very familiar in the year 2020.

I think I’ve already gushed at sufficient length over the creators Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross in our recent Astro City discussion, so we’ll jump right into the story.

A Time of Marvels

The bystanders had seen the stories in the paper– seen them, chuckled and dismissed them. But it’s one thing to read about the impossible– and another to look it in the face.

The story opens in 1939 with reporters talking about the tensions in Europe. Phil Sheldon is an ambitious photojournalist looking for an assignment overseas. His fellow reporter–resembling a young J. Jonah Jameson down to a well-placed shadow beneath the nose where Jameson’s mustache will eventually be–muses that one day he will be the one running the Bugle. Phil is off to cover a press conference with a scientist who he expects to be a crackpot, one Phineas T. Horton.

Kurt Busiek’s Astro City #1

In Dreams
by Kurt Busiek, Brent Anderson, and Alex Ross

I can’t save everybody–people die even while I’m saving lives here–but I can still do what I can.

In my dreams I fly. I soar unfettered and serene, laughing at gravity and at care. The clouds embrace me as a friend and the wind lazily tousles my hair. I lose myself in the sun and sky.

“But except in dreams you’re never really free” — Warren Zevon, Desperados Under the Eaves

Today, August 10, marks the 25th anniversary of the introduction of one of my all-time favorite comic book series, Astro City. To mark the occasion, I would like us to read through Astro City #1 together.