Same Story, Different Cover: Lord Almighty, I feel my temperature rising

L: Marvel Spotlight #36 (June 1973), art by Herb Trimpe, Frank Giacoia, and Mike Esposito
R: The Original Ghost Rider #74 (December 1992), art by Mark Pacella and Brad Vancata

(Click picture to Nicolas Cage's ego-size)

365 Days with the Warriors Three, Day 64

Panels from Incredible Hulk #422 (October 1994), script by Peter David, pencils by Gary Frank, inks by Cam Smith, colors by Glynis Oliver, letters by Joe Rosen

I think we can pinpoint the exact moment the artist lost interest in portraying the main characters

Panel from David Cassidy #6 (September 1972)

365 Days with the Warriors Three, Day 63

Back cover of Marvel Treasury Edition #10 (1976), art by Jack Kirby. And hey! It's a mural with the front cover!

Thursday Night Murals: Hey, Sentinels! Leave those kids alone!

He has his followers as well as detractors, but I'm a big fan of the comic book artwork of Chris Bachalo. Although I first discovered his work on Sandman and Shade The Changing Man, it's his quirky and distinctive artwork for issues of Generation X that made me a fan.

Two-page splash spread for Generation X #29 (August 1997), script by James Robinson; pencils by Chris Bachalo and Pop Mhan; inks by Al Vey, Eric Cannon, Tim Townsend, and Al Milgrom; colors by Marie Javins; letters by Richard Starkings and Emerson Miranda
Click image to Mondo-size

A quick Bullynote: this issue is pencilled both by Bachalo and by Pop Mhan (Spyboy, Blank). I'm gonna admit it: I can't really tell which pages are specifically by Bachalo or which ones are by Mhan. (Well, this one's definitely by Pop Mhan.) So if the panels and pages I'm pointing to turn out to be Pop Mhan rather than Chris Bachalo...boy, is my fuzzy face red. But just because I'm having trouble distinguishing between two similar manga-styled artists doesn't, I hope, distract from my appreciation for the art.

Bachalo's style had evolved by this time into an exaggerated bigfoot cartoon style that perfectly fit the young adolescents of Generation X: M, Husk, Skin, Chamber and everybody's favorite not-yet-vampiric and the aptly-not-appearing in this issue Jubilee. Big round heads, rubbery faces (and I'm not just talking about Skin), oversized feet—not quite manga, not quite western comic art, but a look that would become more prevalent in superhero comics over the next several years, paving the way for artists like Humberto Ramos and Joe Madureira. Some fans hated it, others lapped it up like chocolate milk. Mmmm, delicious chocolate milk. I'm not a blindly slavish Bachalo fanbull—his adult figures like Emma Frost looked like teenagers as well—but he took the strictly structured world of the X-Men franchises and brought a gleeful, colorful hallucinogenic quality to it. It was no stretch to believe that Howard the Duck or Spider-Ham existed in the world of Generation X. I love the two-page Where's Waldoesque (Where's Waldoish? Waldoiffic?) splash page to ish #29 (above). He's got the title team in there lost among the hurly-burly eccentric circus of Venice Beach, filled with inside jokes (is that Neil Gaiman's Death over there?). It's the kind of landscape and range of human figure we might expect the X-Men and Generation X to exist in...sure, they're mutants and they stand out among us...only, some places, less than others.

What's this got to do with Monday Night or even Thursday Night Murals? The cover's not part of a mural. We're smack-dab in the middle of the "Operation: Zero Tolerance" crossover in the X-books, where Sentinels are tracking down every one of the X-Mutants to totally eliminate and crush them...wait a minute. Just like Kid's Day, isn't every day in the Marvel Universe "Operation: Zero Tolerance"? Except for that time Rogue was flying over the military air show in her Daisy Dukes and a tube top...that was "Operation: A Little Bit of Tolerance."

Nope—unlike most of the examples in the Murals category you'll find on this little stuffed blog, I'm gonna show you an internal mural that I'm fascinated by. Here's two facing pages from the same issue, Generation X #29. Now, do I need to set up this clip for you? Gen X is being chased by Prime Sentinels through the streets or Los Angeles. You don't need to know much more than that, So, put on your widescreen glasses to get ready!

Click picture to Sentinel-size

Not a mural either, huh? But the cleverer among you (see how I keep my blog audience by giving them sneaky compliments, huh?) will have noticed that if you take your scissors and cut along here...and then snip this page off and apart like this...and you get your glue stick out and liberally apply here...and here...and then sit in a warm bath for a while so you can get the gluestick out of your fur...you might just wind up with something like this:

Click picture to Generation-size. You might need to click the resulting image to blow it up, too!

The six page-wide panels combine into one ultra-wide adventure chase mural. Unlike most of the murals I spotlight in this feature, this sextuple-wider combines a mural landscape with successive actions in time—in other words, as Scott McCloud would tell ya in his multi-billion selling Understanding Comics, Bachalo is using action moving across panels to show movement in time as well as space. (And without Doctor Who showing up, either!) As we an to the right on the long glued-together mural, the actions in each section are successive, not simultaneous; we see them across a moving landscape but not at one time. To simplify, our eyes are moving from left to right, but not as fast as the Gen X kids and their pursuing Prime Sentinels and the little skateboarding kid caught up in their chase, riding out the explosion like a wave.

I've had to fudge a little bit with pasting together the images: you'll spot that the first and second panels contain the same "no parking" sign at a slight different angle. Theoretically, you might get that same parallax view if you were running more slowly alongside the action from across the street...but I'm gonna guess that Chris Bachalo threw the sign in again to give us a visual clue that the panels were all part of one landscape. I chose to do it this way because pasting one sign on top of another would obscure the graffiti behind it; but between four and five I've cut out the second set of figures of the woman in black and her bald-headed boyfriend (and his punch line) to better preserve the visual continuity of the background. Bachalo's mural design isn't impeccable, but it's inventive and energetic, and I love the way he draws your eye from left to right across each separate panel in our natural reading direction, at the same time moving the characters and action and background in the same fashion. While the physical limitations of the comic book page have prevented him from actually creating a 48-inch wide comic panel—I picture a horizontal version of Vertigo's 2003 Vertical comic book—but Chris Bachalo has certainly done more with his own improvised "widescreen" format than most of the visual artists of the short-lived "Marvelscope" sideways-bound comic experiments like the New X-Men Annual and X-Treme X-Men Annuals of 2001.



And he did it without using the word "Marvelscope."

Or "X-Treme."

365 Days with the Warriors Three, Day 62

Panel from Avengers/JLA #2 (November 2003), script by Kurt Busiek, pencils and inks by George Pérez, colors by Tom Smith, letters by Comicraft

365 Days with the Warriors Three, Day 61

Hasbro's "Ram Smash Volstagg" action figure (2011) from Thor: The Mighty Avenger, Series 2

"Volstagg the Valiant is famous across Asgard for his boundless bravery, mighty axe, and endless appetite. It is rare, even in battle, to find him without food in his hand, or at least a pouch full of snacks. His hunger never distracts him from a battle, however, and his brother warriors are always glad to have his axe at their sides.

Defeat the forces of evil wherever you and your Volstagg figure find them. This fierce, determined hero has proven himself on many fields of battle, and his spinning axe ram accessory makes him especially prepared for crushing his foes and gaining victory for Asgard! The battles you and your mighty Volstagg figure fight are sure to become legendary."

Also, he guest-hosted on Leno for a week

During his year away from Gotham City, Batman found some time to pursue a few of his side projects:



(See if you can spot him!)

365 Days with the Warriors Three, Day 60

Hasbro's "Blade Battle Hogun" action figure (2011) from Thor: The Mighty Avenger, Series 2

"Hogun the Grim rarely smiles, and never laughs. He finds his own quiet joy in victory over the enemies of Asgard, but he leaves the celebration to Volstagg and Fandral. His skill at hand-to-hand fighting makes him an invaluable comrade in arms to the mighty Thor.

"Defeat the forces of evil wherever you and your Hogun figure find them. This quiet but determined hero has proven himself on many fields of battle, and his detachable 'blades' accessories turn into fist 'blades' to make him even more powerful! The battles you and your mighty HOGUN figure fight are sure to become legendary."

Drop the pedal and go...go...go!

Please excuse me for not having a comics-related post tonight. I'm a little too excited to write one because I'm driving around in my brand-new 1956 Chevy Bel Air!





C'mon, follow my tailights to the drive-in! And let's listen to Miss Aretha on the radio!

365 Days with the Warriors Three, Day 59

Hasbro's "Harpoon Blade Fandral" action figure (2011) from Thor: The Mighty Avenger, Series 2

"Fandral the Dashing is known as much for his skill with a blade as for his striking good looks. Many have swooned at his attention, but many more enemies of Asgard have fallen beneath his furious attack. There is no edge Fandral cannot turn into a weapon, and no clash that does not go exactly as he plans.

"Defeat the forces of evil wherever you and your Harpoon Blade Fandral figure find them. This handsome hero is already a skilled warrior, but his harpoon accessory makes him especially prepared for crushing his foes! The battles you and your mighty FANDRAL figure fight are sure to become legendary."

Ten of a Kind: The Most Beautiful Fraud in the World

See also.

(More Ten of a Kind here.)

365 Days with the Warriors Three, Day 58

Panel from Marvel: The Lost Generation #5 (October 2000), script and co-plot by Roger Stern, co-plot and pencils by John Byrne, inks by Al Milgrom, colors by Glynis Oliver, letters by Jack Morelli

Same Story, Different Cover: Pretty Mole Man, Walkin' Down the Street

L: Avengers #12 (January 1965), art by Jack Kirby and Chic Stone
M: Marvel Triple Action #6 (October 1972), art by Sal Buscema and Frank Giacoia R: Avengers Classic #12 (July 2008), art by Art Adams and Laura Martin

(Click picture to pot-belly-size)

365 Days with the Warriors Three, Day 57

Splash page from Thor #135 (December 1966), script by Stan Lee, pencils by Jack Kirby, inks by Vince Colletta, letters by Artie Simek

Because Sometimes You Have to Post Panels of the Severed Hand of Thor Punching a Guy off a Building

Panels from Thor 223 (May 1974), script by Gerry Conway, pencils by John Buscema, inks by Mike Esposito, colors by Petra Goldberg, letters by Artie Simek

365 Days with the Warriors Three, Day 56

Panels from Thor #340 (February 1984), script, pencils, and inks by Walt Simonson; colors by George Roussos, letters by John Workman

They'll never kill the thrills we've got burning up to the Crocodile Rock

Hey, remember Steve Austin versus a crocodile?


Sure, that was exciting...and bionic...but pound for pound, moment for moment, croc for croc, it's not as repthrilling as Captain America* versus a crocodile! (*And Bucky.)

As befits America's most vital and powerful secret weapon against the Axis, Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes are naturally deployed to...well, a swamp somewhere in the deep South. Now that's the quicksilver logic and precise military planning that got America ahead in World War II...and, uh, Vietnam.

While this would have been a dandy place for the young Stan Lee to introduce the Golden Age Man-Thing ("Whosoever lives in the 1940s and knows mid-century fear burns at the World War II-era touch of the Golden Age Man-Thing!"), instead Privates Rogers and Barnes wander straight into the lair of a...well, you've probably guessed by now, but check it out for yourself:


Panels from "The Crocodile Strikes!" in Captain America Comics #19 (October 1942), script by Stan Lee, pencils by Al Avison, inks by Syd Shores and George Klein
While the captions are careful to point out that Cap and Bucky are too far away from the croc and its prey to do anything about it, the same Super Soldier serum that turned 4-F Steve Rogers into He-Man Captain America enable him to spy the crocodile strangling a man with his tiny, spindly arms. Dude, you've got massive jaws with the crushing power of two trains...use 'em!


Nearby, in the once-proud but now rundown and ramshackle Killer Crocodile Plantation, once home to the beautiful Southern Belle Crocklett O'Hara (before she ran away with Yankee rascal Rhett Alligator), Cap and Bucky inform the mother of Dick Tracy's criminal nemesis Pruneface that she's going to have to call Easi-Temps to get a replacement crocwrangler. So intent on keeping Steve from prying into her business is Mrs. Pruneface that she not only doesn't notice the bizarre perspective of her side table, but also the severed human hand dangling from the panel above!


Now, you can't chase Captain America away that easily. (Namor, on the other hand, would be halfway to Miami at this point.) Donning their Cap and Bucky costumes which will surely fool the residents of a remote mansion who recently met Steve Rogers and his partner, the Earth-616 Dynamic Duo crosses paths with the Killer Croc again, who attacks Steve...um...by pushing over a giant statue of Oprah Winfrey onto him. And then taunting him with laughter. That's one intelligent super-croc! I sense the strange hand of bio-geneticist Arnim Zola, created by Jack Kirby, is behind this whole plot! Yes, yes, of course Arnim Zola debuted in 1977's Captain America #208, you say? Sure, but that only goes to prove just how amazingly awesome Jack Kirby is!


Midnight at the plantation (not to be confused with midnight at the oasis) finds Cap and Bucky standing guard with Blinky, their faithful watchcat, until the alarm is given and Cap springs up from his tiny, tiny armchair! Darting through the electrified panel borders, they arrive just in time to encounter the crocodile attacking with a dagger (jaws, pal, jaws!) as well as yet another horrifyingly racist portrayal of a black man. Oh dear oh dear oh dear oh dear. The "good old days," folks. The "good old days."


From here it's a maddeningly high-paced chase through the mansion's rooms, likely set to the theme from The Benny Hill Show. I'm sorry I had to edit out the three or four pages that featured the crocodile and Cap and Bucky chasing each other in and out out of doorways across and around a single corridor. Luckily for Cap, when the croc emerges from behind the clock and out of the Batcave, there's a banister he can slide down to attack the ravenous reptile. Even luckier: there's not a wooden ball at the bottom of the banister.


Cap and the croc trade witty repartees as they slug it out on top of Mrs. Pruneface's bed. I bet that's the most action that's happened in that bed has had since the Taft administration, am I right, huh huh? Seriously, this thing goes on for another six or seven panels of Cap saying "No, this is your end!" and the croc shouting back, "No, this is your end!" Stan Lee: definitely not being paid by the word.



But watch out! Cap hits the amoral amphibian with his specially patented "sleeper punch," which apparently involves standing with your boots five feet apart. Then Bucky pulls off the rubber mask to reveal it was the plantation's gardener all along, trying to frighten everyone off so he could get himself those secret hidden Confederate jewels! It's only one "And I would have gotten away with it too if it wasn't for you meddling superheroes!" away from being an episode of Scooby-Doo '42.


He wasn't the first superhero to fight an evil crocodile, and he won't be the last. But you definitely must agree...Captain America fought a evil crocodile..

Play us off, Elton John and the Electric Mayhem!

365 Days with the Warriors Three, Day 55

Page from Warriors Three #1 (January 2011), script by Bill Willingham, pencils by Neil Edwards, inks by Scott Hanna, colors by Frank Martin, letters by Clayton Cowles

What's in the box?

What's in the box?


Panels from Justice League of America #62 (May 1968), script by Gardner Fox, pencils by Mike Sekowsky, inks by George Roussos



What's in the box?





What's in the box?





What's in the box?





What's

in

the

BOX?





What, you were expecting Gwyneth Paltrow?




Oh, there she is.