Tagged: John Byrne
Comic Cover of the Week: When John Byrne Tried to Draw Every Marvel Character EVER!!
One of my favorite comic books of the 1980’s was “The Official Handbook of The Marvel Universe” (Deluxe Edition)! Yeah it wasn’t a real comic book per say but damn was it amazing! Back in 1985 all the way through 1988 Marvel released this 20 issue deluxe edition which featured EVERYTHING you could ever want to know about pretty much EVERY character in Marvel comics. This included their real names, specific powers, how much they could bench press, their history, their hometown, yeah I mean EVERYTHING. I spent hours and hours of my time reading these and brushing up on my favorite characters history. This must have taken some serious time to document as it listed the main life events of the heroes and villains that took place in the pages of the comic books. A complete history up until that point. This was a time when Marvel was truly an amazing company…
Each character was drawn by a different comic book artist and it included pictures of the characters in action taken from panels in the comics they’d appeared in. But my whole point here was to talk about the covers which the majority of them were drawn by my personal favorite John Byrne! The cool thing about the covers was that they could all be connected as one super duper long cover of the characters running. So Byrne pretty much tried to include all the characters from each alphabetical issue!! I’d love to see a video montage that follows each issue until it’s end! But until then I’ll include as many of these covers I can find right here! Check this out!
Comic Book Cover of the Week: Dale Keown Rules The Hulk!!!
We’ve got some artists in the comic book industry who really were meant to draw certain characters and one who always needs mention when it comes to The Incredible Hulk is Dale Keown!! Yep it really doesn’t get much better than Keown’s version of the Hulk & from 1990 to ’92 when he took over the art on the title it was clear his version of the Hulk would go down in history as one of the best. He’s right up there with Sal Buscema and John Byrne in my book as all time best Hulksters. In fact back in 1990 his artwork on Hulk reminded me a lot of Byrne’s version of the character. Keown would go on to Image to introduce us all to his own “Hulk” type character, “Pitt”. Anyway Here’s a great Keown cover from 1990 that shows he’s one of the best Hulk artists of all time!!
Oh and if you still don’t think Keown was one of the best Hulk artists ever here’s a few more images to prove my point!
Comic Book Cover of the Week- Puck the Pint Sized Powerhouse!
It’s no secret here – I love Alpha Flight! I love John Byrne too who’s the man behind the Canadian supergroup, heck I’d go as far as to say that he’s my favorite comic book artist of all time! So today I’m showcasing his amazing cover from Alpha Flight #5 way back from 1983. This one features a cool solo story with none other than Puck the coolest little superhero of all time and quite possibly hairier than Wolverine!! I’m so bummed that Marvel can’t seem to come up with a good ongoing series for the team. If you want a great run of comics to read check out John Byrnes run on the book (issues 1-28) you get great art and lots of drama and then some. This rad cover proves sometimes simplicity is the best approach!! I love how he’s jumping out of the price box-brilliant!
Comic Book Cover of the Week: She-Hulk’s Racey 80’s Centerfold!
This particular cover for Fantastic Four # 275 has always been a total favorite of mine! In fact when the Thing left the Fantastic Four back in the early 1980’s I was at first super pissed! But then he got his solo book which ended up being one of my favorite titles as a kid and I was totally thrilled when the FF got their replacement for The Thing- The Sensational She-Hulk!! The Hulk was my all time favorite superhero so of course I was always totally crazy (and a bit crushed out on) about She-Hulk! So apparently was John Byrne-as he gave her a shot as a member of the team and eventually gave her a solo comic series and a graphic novel of her own! This Byrne cover shows an enraged She-Hulk as she get ready to confront a sleazy magazine publisher who took candid photos of her sunbathing topless!! Bad bad move my friend!!
Comic Book Cover of the Week: Brian Bolland’s Cyborg Superman!
It’s a fact, Brian Bolland is probably one of the BEST comic book artists of all time-his most famous work on The Killing Joke proves that, giving us arguably the most awesome representation of The Joker ever. He was also very popular for his comic covers, his work on the Flash are easily some of the best covers of all time. This particular issue # 571 of Action Comics from 1985 remains one of my favorites! Super simplistic but totally awesome as we get malfunctioning robotic version of Clark Kent on the cover, Bolland’s eye for detail always shows and this one is a classic!
Comic book Cover of the Week: The Blob’s Ultimate Dream Babe!
I always loved this particular comic book cover by John Byrne way back from 1985! Alpha Flight #22 is a fun issue with a great simplistic cover. I love when team titles have issues where you get either a solo adventure or a pair together, in this case two of my favorites the mutant twins Northstar and Aurora! I love how frustrated they both look while in the clutches of The Pink Pearl.
Alpha flight was an excellent title and I highly suggest the entirely charming John Byrne run of the series. Now the cool thing about this is that you might think the Pink Pearl was simply a one off villain but in fact she has sine appeared several other times through the years most recently briefly in The Logan Legacy. John Byrne too had his act fully together with these 80’s Alpha Flight comic covers too! This one though has always been a fav of mine!
X-men: Days of Future Past – The Best Comic Book Flick Ever?!
I was beginning to lose hope this year for the summer blockbusters, after two big duds being The Amazing Spider-man 2 & Godzilla I was quite certain things weren’t going to shape up to much of anything memorable for the rest of the season. However, I was proven quite wrong as I’ve come to believe that X-men Days of Future Past is not only the best X-Flick but quite possibly the best superhero movie of all time. Yeah, it was that good! It finally brings things back full circle with the X-men franchise and is a superior sequel to the fine X-men: First Class. It rights many of the wrongs of “The Last Stand” & “X-men Origins: Wolverine” and brings us back to the fresh start that we all wished for. We’ve got an incredible X-movie headed by but not over powered by Wolverine, played excellently once again by Hugh Jackman.
The movie loosely follows the classic 1981 comic book story line of the same name but adds it’s own flare as it keeps up with the continuity of the movie universe that has been set up. What we ultimately get is a incredibly engaging time travel adventure back to the early 1970’s (which alone in itself is a great deal of fun) filled with wonderful set pieces, groovy clothes and ultra impressive cast. It really shows here how important a cast full of great actors, who clearly care about the characters they’re playing can really make a movie. Plus having director Bryan Singer back, despite all of the controversy surrounding him at the moment, turned out to be a great thing. It makes me even more upset though that he flaked on “The Last Stand”, however if this was his way of redeeming himself to all the X-fans then so be it!
Now I feel I have to say something here about one of my favorite moments in the movie that involve….Quicksilver. Yes, I ripped on his movie look and ridiculous clothing here many times. Somehow though, his all too short role in the movie was one of the best sequences I’ve ever seen in a superhero flick! It’s the same feeling I got during the opening Nightcrawler sequence in X2. Yeah, crazy as it is Quicksilver kinda stole the show! Don’t get me wrong, he still desperately needs a full on makeover! He looked incredibly out of place in his lame ass late 1990’s hot topic attire!
Lastly I wanted to state that the movie looked great, the special effects were wonderful. CG was used tastefully here and the outcome made for an incredibly believable adventure visually. It’s final after credits sequence gives us a good glimpse of what’s next to come in Age of Apocalypse which is planned to be set in the 1980’s. I hope the whole crew will somehow be back for it, and Hugh Jackman better be back for at least one more X-men movie! Go check this out if you want to know what a true summer blockbuster should look like!!
Now seems like the perfect time to read this classic story again!
I however still do NOT condone this Carl’s JR Quicksilver bullshit!
Live Action Quicksilver vs. Quicksilver vs. Flash!!!
Today we got a sneak peak at some pictures of The Avengers: Age of Ultron Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. There was some serious outrage there on The X-Men: Days of Future Past version of our favorite speedster-I can’t say I was too impressed with him! So we now get a look at the Whedon version, who to me looks kinda like a regular dude with some fancy Nike running shirt on. So I can’t say he looks great, I can’t say that he looks like a complete D-bag, well maybe a little. But first lets refresh our memories of what Quicksilver really looks like:
Here’s another older Quicksilver pic, by the master John Byrne:
Now let’s refresh our memory with the dip shit rollerblader from 2001 Evan Peters’ Quicksilver, wow I’m still amazed at how fucking stupid he looks:
Now the new pic of Avengers: average Joe too much hydrogen peroxide hair Nike neighborhood jogger dude Aaron Taylor-Johnson version:
What do you think? Is the Avengers version better? I’ll have to say yes, though it’s far from wowing me. Personally I’d have to say this one here impresses me most! DC wins this time with a great looking live action rendition of their own speedster The Flash!!
Hell, DC’s 1990 version of The Flash looks better than both of the Quicksilvers! This guy really looks like the Flash! And he’s got a huge bulge!! Way to go again DC!
What do YOU think?!!
Comic Book Cover of the Week: Jarvis Leads The Avengers?!
Avengers #201 from 1980 has a truly memorable cover by George Perez & Terry Austin! It’s not often you see Jarvis showcased as the lead in any comic book much less and Avengers issue. This however features the legendary butler ready to action telling the Avengers to “stand back”! So just what is it that Jarvis feels is a job only he can handle? Well it turns out that he takes on an adult bully named “Bruiser” while he visits his mother! Bruiser is terrorizing her neighborhood when Jarvis decides to take matters into his own hands. Yep Jarvis finally gets his own arch nemesis which he makes short work of! I always liked the Jarvis character and it’s too bad they decided to make him an “operating system” to Tony Stark in the movies. Perhaps they were afraid he’d just come off as a cheap version of Batman’s Alfred? Also, Captain America kinda pisses me off as on the cover of issue #201 he’s clearly laughing at Jarvis-what a dick!! Show some respect Rogers!
Modok Exposed! Sexy Comic Book Cover of the Week!!
Modok is easily one of my fave Marvel villains of all time and that’s why I had to add this awesome cover for Captain America #313 from 1986 by probably my fave comic book artist of all time Mr. John Byrne! This one always kinda gave me the creeps because it showed Modok who’s easily one of the strangest Marvel villains with his pants down! By that I mean we see the guy without his armor chair which normally covers most of his body. This story was titled “Mission: Murder Modok!” and it featured one of my personal fave super villain teams the “Serpent Society” as they attempted to assasinate him! Seeing Modok on the cover laying on his back like a big cryin’ baby with his little body(he can’t walk because his head is too big) was kinda like when as a kid I’d see my pet hermit crab walking around at night without his shell searching for a larger one. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a hermit crab without it’s shell, but it’s pretty weird, It freaked me the fuck out! This is a cool cover and a rare glimpse of Modok “undressed”!!!
I really hope that Modok makes it into the Marvel cinematic universe-he’d be such a fun villain to see on the big screen! Hopefully they would go with animatronics and puppetry rather than CG, it’d be quite a site! If hadn’t already noticed someone did indeed put a Modok inspired character into a movie already – the 1996 flick “Head of the Family” !
Total Modok rip-off!!! But you can see how cool of a villain he would be on the big screen!!
Oh yeah and then there’s THIS!
Universal Dork 