Classic Comic Fridays: Savage She-Hulk #1

On January 7, 2011November 23, 2014 By UncannyDerekIn Classic Comic FridayLeave a comment

It’s been over a month since I last did one of these. Because of how life is, I’ve decided to change the Classic Comic Friday’s to the beginning Friday of every month – only because I cannot guarantee a regular Friday update it seems.

As for the unfamiliar, Classic Comic Fridays are comics pulled from my own personal collection which I then decide to review – for whatever reason.

The Savage She-Hulk #1 (1980)
Stan Lee (writer), John Buscema (penciler, cover), Chic Stone (inker). 40¢

Branching off from the Hulk comics, the story starts off with Bruce Banner trying to find a place to hide. Thankfully, his cousin Jennifer Walters, is a criminal lawyer who works nearby in Los Angeles.

Jen decides to take Bruce to her house for safe-keeping, and the two catch up with each other in the car. There, Jen reveals she is working on a high-profile case which Bruce thinks may put her in danger. After Jen suggests to Bruce that those types of things only happen in movies, they arrive to Jen’s home to be fired upon some thugs. Jen is hit, and Bruce tackles them away – avoiding turning into the Hulk. He realizes Jen is gravely injured, so he rushes her to a closed practitioners office and does a quick blood transfusion to help her until an ambulance arrives.

At the hospital, Bruce is held for questioning because he has no ID and is considered a suspect. He Hulks-out and escapes the hospital while Jen recovers. While recovering, the thugs who tried to kill her before reappear dressed in doctors costumes. As they try to chloroform her, she gets angry and transforms into – what the thugs call her – a She-Hulk!

They escape the hospital and She-Hulk chases them to their car where she off-roads it and gets information on who hired the hit on her. She then escapes back to the hospital – winding down in energy to turn back into Jennifer Walters. The goes into another hospital bed and tells a nurse she left her old room because she was scared of the noises she heard. Relaxing, she realizes the blood transfusion would have caused the change and proclaims, “Whatever Jennifer Walters can’t handle – the She-Hulk will do!”

Although I gave it a very fast-paced summary, it was a very fast-paced book. I couldn’t believe the story was over as it felt it just began – which I guess may be a sign of good story-telling.

Stan Lee dedicates the first six-or-so pages to the history of Jen and Bruce – revealing they are cousins and also giving a brief reasoning through their dialogue on why Bruce would trust Jen. We also get a lot of information about Jen within those pages, setting up the character to exactly how she is even now in comics. These few pages were essential to the book and really shaped how She-Hulk would appear in later comics.

However, from there-on, the book really picked up in pace, and I felt a bit over-whelmed in how quickly everything was going. Bruce turned refused to turn into Hulk when Jen was shot, but once arrested it was no problem? How does a blood transfusion save bullet wounds with the bullet still inside? Although the answer may be “it’s just a comic book,” I feel as if they were still somewhat cop-outs to how the book could have went. Given Lee only did this one book, I can understand why he wanted everything to be wrapped up so quickly.

John Buscema’s take on She-Hulk was superb. Considered one of the best artists in the industry, Buscema’s take on She-Hulk was done surprisingly tasteful – especially considering how She-Hulk looks now. Great detail was placed throughout the book to give an idea of the surrounding location, as well as detail to character.

Overall, it was an impressive start to begin a career for Jennifer Walters. It may not have been Stan’s best start to a new character, but She-Hulk definitely found a place for herself within the Marvel Universe.

Grade: 6/10

Until next time, keep on Space Truckin’!

Quesada No-More!

On January 4, 2011 By UncannyDerekIn Comic BloggingLeave a comment

In case you haven’t heard yet, Joe Quesada, Marvel Comics’ Editor-in-Chief has stepped down to promote Axel Alonso to the position. You can read all about it here.

Quesada, of course, is still with Marvel. He was promoted to Chief Creative Officer back in June, which of course, you can read about it here.

What I want to simply say is that Mr. Quesada’s tenure with Marvel was triumphant in my eyes. I absolutely loved everything he did with Marvel – despite all the issues everyone else seemed to have with him. Obvious ones is how he completely flipped Spider-Man upside-down in the post-Civil War storylines. Of course, the increase in price for Marvel’s comics were also a bit of a hassle – but to me, they were small in comparison to other problems.

The number one thing which stood out for me with Joe, was his Cup O’ Joe column at Comic Book Resources, where he literally spoke to the fans through columns, as well as address important issues within stories. For that, he really made a society with Marve – something which started with Stan Lee, and continued because EiC’s like Quesada made it live on.

So with that, I’m honoured to say that I’ve met the guy (three times in a weekend) and I’m happy to see him move on to greater things.

JoeQuesada

Keep on Space Truckin’, Joe, and good luck Mr. Alonso!

Porno, Crooks, and Comic Books

On December 19, 2010December 11, 2019 By UncannyDerekIn Comic Blogging, Comic Talk16 Comments

I’ve been aware of Marvel artist, Greg Land, for quite a few years. He has a very particular style of drawing – especially when it comes to facial expressions and body positions. He is currently working on X-Men-related stories, but has worked on Ultimate Fantastic Four and the Ultimate Power mini-series. Land also has a long history working with DC books, such as Nightwing and Birds of Prey. He also had a long run with the CrossGen’s series, Sojourn. Needless to say, Land has a great amount of experience with his short-time being in the comic drawing business.

However, it does not take a rocket scientist to see Land’s work as questionable.

But let’s backtrack slightly for a little bit of comic book art history and law suits.

You may notice the likeliness of other celebrities in things, such as Arnold Swarchenegger in the newest rendition of Terminator: Salvation, or Carrie Fisher as a pez dispenser as Princess Leia. Needless to say, the celebrities do not have a problem with this because the movie studios and a few others own the rights to the likeliness of their characters. The celebrities “look” in those movies, for those specific franchises, are owned. It’s like Warner Brothers owning the rights to Batman movies. Fox cannot make a movie with even a hint of Batman in it because Warner Brothers own Batman and most things related to him. It sounds pretty standard and easy-peasy.

When looking at comics, it has been well-documented that artists have used other photographs, as well as celebrities, commercials, movies, and so on, as photo references. It has been done for decades in comic books. One book in particular dealt with a lawsuit, being Marvel Comics’ Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme #15, where the likeliness of Christian musician, Amy Grant was used on the cover. The lawsuit ended with “a US District Court seal[ing] an out-of-court settlement between Grant and Marvel in early 1991, with a consent decree that Marvel did not admit to any liability or wrongdoing.”

The question is, how far can this go? Enter: Greg Land.

I’ll start right off-the-bat, stating that I am not accusing Greg Land of anything. I am just simply providing material which has been found via the internet. What I would like to bring forward, is the accusatory remarks placed on Land about his work. He has been accused by folks on the internet for copying other artists’ work, as well as his own. He is also known for presumably taking a lot of images from pornography, which even you may believe with the images provided, such as the many orgasm-esque shots women give (ie. the one above). Why he would trace his own work, I can assume is for one of two things: First is with the “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it” argument, while the second is that he is lazy. You can read about the controversies with Land’s work here and here.

From a MyCup o’ Joe interview with Joe Quesada, he discusses Land’s work: “What’s happened with Greg is that it’s become a witch hunt and way too many people are having way too good a time hurting a tremendous artist’s reputation when he isn’t doing anything that is any different than any of us. Every line he draws now comes under scrutiny and in so many cases, people are ‘seeing’ things where are none.” Quesada also goes on to state: “I could go on and on about how many times Greg has bailed us out from some very bad deadline crunches.”

Comic critic Brian Cronin from Comic Book Resources, states about Land’s work on Uncanny X-Men #510: “People speak often about the ethical issues of someone copying a drawing directly from an image, and those concerns are likely fair enough, but when I think of Greg Land, my problems are not so much ethical ones, but the fact that his process results in terrible art and particularly terrible storytelling. When you only have a certain amount of poses to work with, you just can’t tell the story the correct way. And when the characters all look more or less the same (as they’re all based on the same small set of models/”actresses”), it just makes the book that much more incoherent.”

Needless to say, we have two well-established comic book people arguing two different points. One says what he does is okay, while the other suggests that he is blatantly copying other images and recycling older sketches.

I will leave you with these images pulled from many of his comics. I do not know all of the “authors” that made some of the GIF or JPEG images, but thank you. I did however, use some of the photos (most notably, the X-Men #500 ones) from an awesome blog named JimSmash. His blog is hilarious and well thought-out, so go there now! (Or after you finish reading this one). He also gave me great permission to use his photos. So thank you, Jim! He also referenced me to the 4th Letter.net blog, where they came up with an animated GIF image of the Uncanny X-Men #500 cover you’ll see below. As for the rest of the pictures, I found them through various Google searches leading to message boards. There are more photos like these too – I just have not uploaded them all.

Also look at ComicVine here, for more examples.

As for Land, you can assume what you will. Is it coincidence, actual recycling, or are people looking too far into his art?

If you do believe he is recycling or copying – is he being lazy, or is it because the drawing works so well on many different levels? If you don’t, then why not?

View the pictures here and sound off below. If you’d like, you can also follow me on Twitter and Instagram!

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Uncanny X-Men #500 Variant Cover

Is Sandra Bullock Psylocke?

Photo Tracing and Recycling?

The many faces of The Thing

What pose is this, anyway?

An “Oh” Face and Some Recycling.

Is Jessica Alba a Trace or from Photo Reference?

Black Canary?

Other Celebrity Coincidences
On the left, think of a young Neal McDonough, while Ben Afleck on the right. Beneath them, it is suggested that it is Topher Grace.

Are You an Oakland Raider’s Fan?
From Uncanny X-Men #509.

Enjoy Starbucks

Possibly a Pornography Image?

Hugh Jackman is Still Wolverine

Until next time, keep on Space Truckin’!

Classic Comic Fridays: Daredevil #181

On November 19, 2010January 6, 2011 By UncannyDerekIn Classic Comic FridayLeave a comment

Happy two-month anniversary to my blog! It’s been fun so far. I’ve had over 1,100 views – all showing me that people actually want to read about comics. Who knew?

As for today, every Friday, I will yank out an old comic from my personal collection and review the crap out of it. So why not do something epic?

This week, I am going to review one of the greatest Marvel stories, Daredevil #181, from April of 1982. Also, I will be bringing up the Marvel’s current Shadowland story arc. If you do not want to read spoilers, stop reading here.

Daredevil181

The story was done by legendary writer and artist Frank Miller – guilty of making Daredevil ridiculously popular, while also teaming up with Chris Claremont to create the awfully popular Wolverine limited series. One day I’ll review that here, too.

Colours, inks and some finishing art was done by Klaus Janson, arguably a great artist with little credit given to him – especially noted with his run on Daredevil here.

This double-sized issue of Daredevil features a showdown by two of Marvel’s greats – Elektra and Bullseye, with the subtitle, “One wins. One dies.” Needless to say, this story would easily draw any reader in even if it was to just look at the conclusion.

In case you haven’t heard, Elektra is the one who dies (sorry, folks). But that’s not nearly the part of the story that gets me excited. It is entirely on the build-up.

The story begins with Bullseye in jail – Daredevil having him put there. He’s suffering from headaches, requiring the guards to give him pills to stop the pain. While in jail, he pushes himself to workout and plot his revenge, and while in a courtyard, he runs into Frank Castle, the Punisher who also is in jail, and says that the Kingpin has replaced Bullseye for another assassin. Soon after, Bullseye is put on television for an interview about his murders. While having another headache, the guard gives him another pill which Bullseye promptly spits in the guards eye, allowing Bullseye to jump free, hold hostages, and eventually escape through a helicopter. Brilliant.

While off to find the hired assassin, he runs into some thugs, telling him that the assassin Elektra is hired to kill Daredevil’s lawyer partner, Foggy Nelson. Recognizing that Dardevil could possibly be Matt Murdock, he follows Elektra as she hunts for Foggy.

Elektra runs into Foggy, and shortly after, Foggy recognizes Elektra as Matt Murdock’s old girlfriend. Sensing Bullseye nearby however, she allows him to escape and waits for Bullseye to show himself.

The two begin a monumental battle with cuts and bruises on both sides. Miller’s beautiful artwork shows both combatants nearly at an equal match – each using the environment to pull of fighting moves. The colours of red and blue splash on the page with the two fighting to their death. Trapping Elektra in a corner, Bullseye pulls an ace of spades and whips it at Elektra’s neck. She fumbles, loses her sai, and is prompted by Bullseye to be stabbed in the chest. Crawling back to Murdock’s house, Elektra dies on his footsteps.

Back at the Kingpin’s, Bullseye tells the Kingpin that he has found out Matt Murdock’s secret identity. After some convincing, Bullseye is sent off to murder Murdock.

Planning the second assassination, Daredevil places a dummy Matt in the house, forcing Bullseye to be fooled about Murdock’s real identity. Daredevil appears behind Bullseye, and the two battle it out for the exciting showdown. Falling off a building, Daredevil catches Bullseye and listens to him plead for his life. Daredevil thinks otherwise and refuses to let Bullseye kill again – dropping him to his death.

Murdock goes to Elektra’s grave site to mourn, while the final page shows Bullseye in the hospital with broken bones – plotting his revenge.

When I first picked up this book, I had no idea what would actually happen. I mean, I knew that Elektra would die, but I never would have figured Daredevil for a murderer at the time. It was out of character for Daredevil – but that is what’s best about the comic. It is not a traditional story for Daredevil.

Miller’s change of attitude for Daredevil opened up doors for the character which were never explored before. The rage and revenge Daredevil had towards Bullseye overshadowed his own morals and beliefs. It truly changed the character all together.

The dark tones with sinister themes and little dialogue with the characters really pushed the story to become an iconic issue for both Daredevil and Marvel. I have to say both story and art are not separated as two individual items for they are one in the same with Miller’s work.

For me, this also is one of my first comics I’ve read where the villain was the primary character. Most of the focus was on Bullseye and part of me always wanted to see more of his sadistic self run rampant. Fortunately, I did get that much later on, thanks to the Dark Avengers. But none of that would have started had Miller not written such a brilliant story.

Grade: 10/10

Of course, the idea of Daredevil being a true hero remained the same. That is, until the Dark Reign. Norman Osborn tried to have Bullseye finally kill Daredevil once and for all, but it ended with Bullseye leveling a apartment, killing hundreds of innocent people. Snapping from allowing Bullseye to get away with so many deaths for so many years, Murdock became tied up with The Hand and in Shadowland #1, his dark side appeared. As you can see, Bullseye had what was coming to him.

Keep on Space Truckin’!