Monday 3 July 2017

CRIVENS' ALTERNATIVE COVERS: THE MIGHTY THOR #144...

Images copyright MARVEL COMICS

Above, the published cover of The MIGHTY THOR #144, pencilled by JACK KIRBY and inked by VINCE COLLETTA in 1966.  Below, the rejected original cover, inked and lettered by MIKE ROYER in 2000, followed by a 1975 reprint of the above ish.  Some diehard Kirby fans often criticise any changes to his art, resenting even the slightest variation from the original.  I've even seen the change to the baddie's mace in the above cover being questioned, but to me it's blatantly obvious why - the original looked like a cartoon duck's head!

Thor would've laughed himself to death on sight of it, before it had even hit him.  The fact is, STAN LEE often knew best.  As for the rejected cover, it's a belter sure enough, but perhaps it was felt it made Thor appear to be losing the battle, or was considered just a little too difficult to ink.  (Mike Royer later showed that wasn't so.)  Any theories as to why it was rejected?  Let's read them in our ever-lovin' comments section, frantic ones.



2 comments:

John Pitt said...

You know I love cover comparisons, Kidda, but did you just add the side by side pic today?
Only just seen the first Thor movie the other night and I really enjoyed it, even though it was nowt like the comics! Nice to see that they creditted wordsmith Larry Lieber as well as Stan & Jack!

Kid said...

Yup, because the third cover was originally an afterthought - it was the first two I wanted to focus on. Then it occurred to me that, as I'd added the MS one, I might as well do a side-by-side comparison to the first. Larry came up with Don Blake's name, as well as the name Uru, so he well-deserves a credit.



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