Here´s the original cover from the HULK ANNUAL 1 by Jim Steranko.
As with all Deja Vue sections we first start with the Marvel´s own versions and first off is Kaare Andrews´ cover for issue 34 of the Bruce Jones run.
I have read the whole story and while I´m not entirely sure where it fits into continuity exactly ( if it does at all and you care about it ) you can´t deny that´s it´s a captivating read with brilliant art by Mike Deodato Jr
and the sadly often under appreciated Lee Weeks. One of these days I got to get the DAREDEVIL - DARK KNIGHTS collection and the only reason why I haven´t done that yet is that it also has issues done by other artists.
And I have to mention that Lee Week´s art on THE IRON AGE was one of the selling points. A recommended read that somehow got overlooked.
But let´s get back to our Deja Vue section. The always great Arthur Adams did this brillaint hommage, this time with the Avenger´s own Hercules standing in for Hulk on the cover of issue 112 of THE INCREDIBLE HULK, a WORLD WAR HULK : AFTERSMASH issue.
As I have mentioned in my last Hulk - centric post, WORLD WAR HULK was one of the last great Hulk storylines and all the fallout from the story like the WARBOUND was just a joy to read. I especially liked the parts that involved Hercules, one of the characters with the most potential and as usual one of the heroes Marvel doesn´t know what to do with. Luckily there were Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente who knew exactly what to do with all his greek mythology background in his own spin off series although the whole " Herc playing Thor " thing was totally silly and not in a good way.
Speaking of Hercules, Jim Steranko did this variant cover for RADICAL´s issue 1 of HERCULES - THE THRAKIAN WARS ( wasn´t easy to find out ).
Back to Marvel again for Ariel Olivetti´s cover for CABLE issue 9, a series I keep hearing good things about. Who knows, the way their books keep getting worse I might find the time and money to finally start reading it.
And speaking about series worth reading, Peter David´s X - FACTOR book is definitely on that list although this is from the later issues penned by Howard Mackie, issue 135 that features the return of Strong Guy.
Our last Marvel related piece of artwork is by Cavewoman creator Budd Root and while I´m not sure for which occasion it was done I like it so much I just had to include it. Hey, it has She Hulk AND Spider - Man.
Next we come to the independent section, JOHNNY MONSTER 3 by iMAGE
and issue 40 of TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLE ADVENTURES from Archie Comics. The cover was done by Turtles co - founder Peter Laird.
Sadly I could only find 2 indie covers, but as always, if you know of any covers I might have overlooked or you think I should include contact me.
BUT WAIT, THERE´S MORE !
Yes, there are a few more things I wanted to include in my last post about the Hulk and the first one is this gorgeous splash page courtesy of Sal Buscema and Ernie Chan from issue 220 of THE INCREDIBLE HULK.
I also mentioned Alan Davis´new Hulk title in my last post, a book which of course is not the regular series but SAVAGE HULK, a new title where Alan Davis is doing the first story arc followed by the great Jim Starlin.
I don´t know why comic companies always do this, they always offer creators their big properties but then it´s like " Your doing Batman, but it´s on Detective Comics. " and that´s what you read in interviews afterwards as the reason why such and such quit the company and got back to the competition. But let´s be glad we get those great artists to do the heroes we all like - no matter in which from - and at least Alan Davis is enthusiastic about drawing again as you can see on the cover of issue 2 or the preview pages included in this interview by ComicBook Resources.
And to give you a taste of what the man´s capable of here are 3 splash pages from the Galactus / Phoenix battle from the EXCALIBUR series.
Now I also wanted to include something about the Hulk´s favorite cousin the Sensational She Hulk, but the less said about her current series, the better. Man, it´s so bad cosplayers all over the world are peed off.
And because I hate to leave things at a sad note here´s Joe Jusko´s great pin up of Jennifer Walters a.k.a. She Hulk at Muscle Beach from happier times. I´m not sure if I haven´t posted this before but what the heck.
So that´s it for Today´s post, time to put the chairs up and one last call.
If things go as planned - which they seldom do on this blog - we will get to the ALL STAR SQUADRON in our next post and more parallel Earths and World War II craziness than you can shake a magical boobie window at.
Now since I have no Hulk video for this post we´ll continue with the comic documentaries. I thought I already posted this but since I didn´t here´s OVERSTREET´s WORLD OF COMIC books from 1992. Since it´s from the Overstreet guys it has a big focus on the collecting aspect of comics ( one of the best things is that of all the people that are interviewed only the kid asks what this is for ) but it is interesting to see creators like Todd McFarlane and Joe Quesada when they were still drawing comic books. It also has some rare interviews with Julius Schwartz, Murphy Anderson, Jack Kirby or Carl Barks. Especially the last one was very surprising for me - I didn´t know he created Uncle Scrooge as just a throw away character.
New to the blog ? Everything you need to know about TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN : top ten posts / more posts of interest / best of the best
No comments:
Post a Comment