shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Nov 17, 2016 16:41:44 GMT -5
Strange Tales #146 "When the Unliving Strike!" script: Stan Lee layouts: Jack Kirby pencils: Don Heck inks: Mike Demeo letters: Sam Rosen grade: A- Despite the credits, I don't feel much of Kirby in this story. The sci-fi gadgetry that he usually has the most fun with is relatively uncreative this time around and given no visual prominence, and the layouts are pretty boring to boot. Add to that a little evidence that Stan may have steered this script on his own, as the most recent issue of Sgt. Fury opened with an underwater scene because Stan requested one, and now this issue's first major action sequence occurs underwater as well. Normally, didn't Stan offer the big idea for the issue and then leave Jack to work out the rest? Just a really strong and fun installment all around, even without Kirby's presence being felt. Important Details:- First mention of AIM (Advanced Idea Mechanics) - Revelation that THEM is AIM Plot synopsis: Fury and the core SHIELD agents manage to find and invade a THEM installation, only to discover just how advanced their technology is and how ready they are to take over the world, while Count Royal, ambassador for AIM, attempts to convince SHIELD to remove Fury as its director in order to receive technology and weapons from them. Fury figures out that THEM is likely AIM.Even before I read the credits, I saw the art and thought it was Andru and Esposito. I saw no Kirby at all at first. It looks like Kirby gave Espo very little to go on. Nothing really wrong with the art, just looks like standard, generic Andru and Esposito, like any one of those Spider-man issues they did. I have to find some examples of Andru inked by someone else to compare it. I have to say this, though. It always seemed to me that the A and E team looked way better at Marvel than they did at DC. Their Spider-Man was worlds beyond their Flash, for instance. Maybe they filled in the pupils at Marvel? Or maybe Andru felt less restricted doing books by the Marvel method?  Posts like this one remind me I have so much more to learn about comic book art and comic book artists  |
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Post by Prince Hal on Nov 17, 2016 16:56:06 GMT -5
shaxper, I'm just an old cranky b@st@rd.  Oh, and I didn't mean to neglect Don Heck here. There are times that the art looks more like his than Espo's, especially the face of the AIM leader. Just that "Demeo" seems to overpower his pencils in those other panels. It's funny, I can't even imagine Kirby doing a panel like that final one where the SHIELD guys are facing down the bad guys. And the one with the guy restraining the AIM leader. All Heck there. Don't mean to dis him, but when you look at them, you realize that Kirby never drew such static panels. Random search showed me both of these panels on the same blog page. Here's Heck over Kirby on Avengers (Not sure whether this Jack pencilling or laying out; I'm inclined ot think the latter, but others know more about The Avengers than I):  And Jack drawing a "faces-out" panel 
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Dec 15, 2016 13:12:54 GMT -5
Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos #32  "A Traitor in Our Midsts!" writer: Roy Thomas pencils: Dick Ayers inks: John Tartaglione letters: Sam Rosen grade: C A simple issue that, for the first time in a while, gets back to the ideas that really make this title work. One of these is the sharp contrast drawn between Americans and Nazis. Thomas (as with Lee and Kirby before him) is quite comfortable conceding that, in areas of scientific progress, the Germans truly were ahead and, in a sense, the Master Race. And yet, its their lack of honor and morals that proves their downfall. This struggle is illustrated in this issue as the Nazis have found a way to hypnotize Izzy into being a sleeper agent with their advanced technology, and yet did not count on his moral integrity coming through in the end:  Americans have honor, and that's how we win against the odds. It's stereotypical propaganda fluff, but it's at least more substantial than a story about fighting and nothing else. What I enjoyed more was the other idea at the heart of this series: that beneath the tough talk, this is a team that truly cares about and shows loyalty to each other; a true band of brothers. In this case, after Izzy has just tried to kill the entire squad while hypnotized by The Nazis, we get this exchange:  It's touching enough to get this kind of a moment for any character, but it gets me all the more whenever these moments are given to Gabe or Izzy, as they are the two who, in any other aspect of American society, would be eyed with suspicion and mistrust by other Americans. The Howlers do not see him as a Jew; they see him as a brother. I'm less sure how they feel about "Pinky," whose "otherness" Ayers seems to enjoy playing up repeatedly in this issue, with limp-wristed action shots and unusual accessorizing choices while posing half-nude with the gang:  No one harasses him for this any more than they would harass anyone else in the squad, but whereas Izzy and Gabe are presented as being no different from anyone else, Ayers works hard to remind us that Pinky most certainly is different, using all the most blatant stereotypes available in order to do so. I become less a fan of Ayers with each passing issue, actually. His art is woefully inconsistent, for example. Just take a look at his awkward dancing Hitler:  or this shot of Fury, which I absolutely did not recognize as being Fury at first:  And Ayers' tendency to plan his layouts poorly gets ridiculous with the final random panel of the story, in which Roy struggles to insert Bull McGivney via dialogue balloons (Bull isn't even there in the previous panel):  I know the man I'm really waiting on right now is Gary Friedrich, but I swear Ayers holds this issue back far more than Thomas at this point. In fact, Thomas is downright funny a few times in this issue: Plot synopsis: A Nazi posing as an army doctor hypnotizes a Howler to obey Nazi commands. While on mission to stop the Nazis from transporting heavy water, the sleeper agent is revealed to be Izzy, and he comes close to killing the Howlers but ultimately decides he cannot do it, helping The Howlers to save the day. |
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Dec 15, 2016 14:39:33 GMT -5
Strange Tales #147  "The Enemy Within!" script: Stan Lee layouts: Jack Kirby pencils: Don Heck inks: Mickey DeMeo letters; Sam Rosen grade: B+ Layouts for this issue continue to be credited to Kirby but, once again, I remain unconvinced. The panel arrangements, poses, and general art are conventional, and Kirby's trademark crazy sci-fi gadgets that are usually the true stars of this feature are either retreads from earlier stories or entirely unimaginative. Case in point:  Not Kirby. The story itself shows a surprising amount of progress for the feature, as this is our first real down-time story, largely devoted to clean-up from the last adventure and the developing of interpersonal relationships and future threats. A lot of attention is given, for example, to the idea that Fury's troops are TIRED after taking on THEM, a bit of reality you don't usually see in comics. After that, the focus moves to Jasper Sitwell and his place in the organization, as Fury begins by treating him like the pest he has been up to this point but then takes it too far:  After which he decides to allow Sitwell to work closer to him, and a synergy between the two develops instantly:  By the end of this story, Sitwell is a wiser and more capable agent, having borrowed much from Fury:  And thus, at the climax, we get a truly fun obligatory fight scene in which Fury, Dum Dum, and Sitwell work together with more comradery than is even portrayed with The Howling Commandos. It's impressive and FUN. ...until it goes too far.   Oh, c'mon! It was the 1960s. Her feelings didn't matter as much as their urges or something.But the worst part is that she's no captured THEM agent. That was one of SHIELD's top three agents (Fury's words) that they were supposed to be rescuing. Seriously wrong. But I digress. This deeply upsetting moment aside, this was a very successful twelve pages with lots of reality and development for the outfit, a building menace from Count Royale and THEM (who are working to discredit Fury from within), and a fun action scene full of compelling characters at the same time. Plot synopsis: Fury gives his troops leave after their last adventure but retains Dum Dum and Sitwell. THEM launches an attack on the SHIELD barbershop front and captures three top agents, forcing Fury, Dum Dum, and Sitwell to rescue them, but this leaves Fury in a trap as it is against regulations for the SHIELD Director to personally undertake such a reckless mission. Thus, while they are successful, Fury has just played into the hands of Count Royale, who has been trying to prove to SHIELD that Fury is unworthy of his position. |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Dec 15, 2016 19:29:57 GMT -5
Any time you can work 80s sitcoms into a comic book review, it's a good day.
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Post by Farrar on Dec 19, 2016 18:23:34 GMT -5
shaxper , I'm just an old cranky b@st@rd. Oh, and I didn't mean to neglect Don Heck here. There are times that the art looks more like his than Espo's, especially the face of the AIM leader. Just that "Demeo" seems to overpower his pencils in those other panels. It's funny, I can't even imagine Kirby doing a panel like that final one where the SHIELD guys are facing down the bad guys. And the one with the guy restraining the AIM leader. All Heck there. Don't mean to dis him, but when you look at them, you realize that Kirby never drew such static panels. Random search showed me both of these panels on the same blog page. Here's Heck over Kirby on Avengers (Not sure whether this Jack pencilling or laying out; I'm inclined ot think the latter, but others know more about The Avengers than I): Actually that's just Heck (Avengers #9), no Kirby involved. Kirby wasn't doing the layouts for the Avengers at that time. But I can see why you'd think Kirby had a hand in it, as its composition/positioning is quite similar to a Kirby panel of Cap being restrained in Avengers #4 (when Cap wakes up from his deep sleep). Obviously Heck had Kirby's Avengers mags at hand as a guide. |
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Post by Cei-U! on Dec 20, 2016 10:06:21 GMT -5
Regarding Kirby's layouts: as I learned firsthand from John Romita a decade or so back, Jack laid the stories out directly on the art boards, usually only lightly indicating figure placement and backgrounds while sometimes, not always, rendering monsters and machinery in more detail. If you've ever seen his pencils from the period, you know Jack included notes indicating what's going on. The actual pencillers had considerable leeway in interpreting these layouts. Stan Lee trusted Don Heck as an artist enough to allow him to rework panels in his own way, which is why the actual composition of many individual panels don't look especially Kirbyesque (Steranko, by contrast, was new to the industry and expected to follow the layouts more closely, at least until he'd proved himself). It was Jack's storytelling Stan valued so highly, more so than his actual draftsmanship.
Cei-U!
I summon the peek behind the curtain!
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Post by Prince Hal on Dec 20, 2016 10:33:26 GMT -5
Well, Farrar, this should teach me to double-check my sources!  Of course, the more I look at that panel, the more it looks like Heck through and through (unintentional pun now perhaps intended). I wish your noble attempt to bail me out was based on fact. I was simply going on something I read and saw elesewhere. Maybe he did lift it form Kirby, whihc would go a long way to explaining its un-Heckish look. Plus it just goes to show that you can always bend the research to prove your point, especially if it's lousy research. BTW, I'm not one of those heck-haters, but I have to admit that I much prefer his work on non-superhero stories. |
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Post by Farrar on Dec 20, 2016 15:46:02 GMT -5
^^^ Hal--sorry if I came across as singling you out. You certainly mentioned you got the info from another source and I should have acknowledged that. I loved Heck's romance work(and apparently he did some uncredited layout work for Romita Sr. on some of those) but I also loved his early Iron Man work, which always had a film noirish quality to me. I was slightly less crazy about Heck on the Avengers until later on (Kooky Quartet and after era). OK, tangent over. Back to Nick! |
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Post by Prince Hal on Dec 20, 2016 17:29:57 GMT -5
^^^ Hal--sorry if I came across as singling you out. You certainly mentioned you got the info from another source and I should have acknowledged that. I loved Heck's romance work(and apparently he did some uncredited layout work for Romita Sr. on some of those) but I also loved his early Iron Man work, which always had a film noirish quality to me. I was slightly less crazy about Heck on the Avengers until later on (Kooky Quartet and after era). OK, tangent over. Back to Nick! Oh, my God, no! I was feeling lucky when I found that site (can't remember now which it was and have had no luck Googling combinations) and saw it was dealing with the very thing we were talking about. Forty lashes with a wet paintbrush for me! And, yes, back to Nick! |
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Crimebuster
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Post by Crimebuster on Dec 20, 2016 19:56:17 GMT -5
I also loved his early Iron Man work, which always had a film noirish quality to me. I never really appreciated Heck's work until I saw some of his pre-code crime/adventure comics, which look very noir indeed.   |
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Sept 4, 2020 8:39:28 GMT -5
Count another shaxper review thread finally restored after years of neglect! I've finally fixed nearly every thread that was damaged by the Photoshop debacle three years back.
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Sept 4, 2020 10:16:58 GMT -5
Whoops. The review for Sgt. Fury #1 had apparently vanished. It is now back where it belongs. Let me know if you see any other issues!
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Post by profh0011 on Sept 5, 2020 21:14:54 GMT -5
It's very possible that Kirby was doing STICK FIGURES when he did layouts. After all, he was the WRITER, he was letting the illustrators know what was going on and what camera angles to use, pacing, you name it.
I've long felt that more than any other series he ever did for Marvel in the 60s, "NICK FURY" was 100% Jack Kirby's baby. The concept, the characters, the stories, everything. It's a shame that he was so over-worked on so many different books at the time, that he only did full pencils on 3 episodes on his run, inked by Dick Ayers, Frank Giacoia & Mike Esposito, respectively.
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Post by chaykinstevens on Sept 6, 2020 7:16:47 GMT -5
Before Marvel found a hit with Fantastic Four #1, it had already developed a following around Sgt. Nick Fury and his Howling Commandos.
I think Fantastic Four had reached #14 by the time Sgt. Fury began. |
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