The MAN CALLED NOVA COVER & SPLASH PAGE GALLERY - PART ONE...

Images copyright MARVEL COMICS

Looking back, it seems to me that the sizzlin' '70s was a great time to be a teenager.  Great movies, great programmes - and great comics.  Whether NOVA was one of them, I'll leave you to make up your own mind, but it sure is one which conjures up images of long, hot, seemingly never-ending summers in the myriad mazes of my memory.  Surprisingly, Nova, created by MARV WOLFMAN & LEN WEIN, first debuted in a fanzine called SUPER ADVENTURES back in 1966, before his MARVEL COMICS appearance ten years later.

JOHN ROMITA Sr. tweaked the costume design, though it was JOHN BUSCEMA who performed the art chores for the first two issues.  RICHARD RIDER, Nova's teenaged alter-ego, bore similarities to SPIDER-MAN, although his origin appears to have been 'borrowed' from GREEN LANTERN.  The comic lasted for 25 issues, of which I have the first dozen, so let's now wallow in nostalgia for our lost youth as we gaze again upon the cataclysmic covers and sensational splash pages of - The MAN CALLED NOVA! 

See you in Part Two - coming soon!

Not one of Kirby's best, it has to be said...

...nor is this one.  Jack had lost his magic, alas

HOWARD The DUCK COVER & SPLASH PAGE GALLERY - PART ONE...

Images copyright MARVEL COMICS

He had a 'walk-on' part in a MAN-THING tale in ADVENTURE Into FEAR #19 in 1973, appeared next in a couple of back-up stories in GIANT-SIZE MAN-THING #4 & 5, and was then awarded his own comic mag in 1976.  Created by STEVE GERBER & VAL MAYERIK, he eventually underwent a slight revision in appearance when DISNEY (who ironically now own MARVEL) objected to the character on the grounds that he was too similar-looking to DONALD DUCK.

The rest, as they say, is history - and it's a history we're now about to re-live by looking at the covers and splash pages of the first dozen issues (in two parts) of his own magazine.  Incidentally, I'll have to re-read these mags again as I don't recall too much about them - apart, that is, from #3, which is an absolute classic in comicbook entertainment.  A word to the wise - track one down on eBay right away - you'll be glad you did!

See you in Part Two - coming soon!

ADIOS AMIGO...

Here's JIM REEVES singing ADIOS AMIGO

at a concert in Oslo, Norway, 1964.  They sure don't
make singers like this any more, alas.  Enjoy!

1966 AURORA AD...

Click to enlarge, then click again for optimum size

Remember all those great AURORA superhero and glow-in-the-dark monster kits from the '60s & '70s.  You probably won't if you're under 35, but to people my age, these plastic assembly kits were one of the things that made childhood so much fun.  Building things doesn't seem to be something that modern kids are interested in - they'd much rather be out destroying bus shelters and park benches than know the joy of actually creating something with their own two hands.  Instead of proudly holding up a model kit and saying to their friends "I built and painted this!", they much prefer to point out their latest act of vandalism and crow "That was me and big Stef - we wuz out our effin' heads man. Effin' brilliant fun!"  Oh, don't get me started.

I'm lucky enough to own several original Aurora kits, plus quite a few of the reissues by MONOGRAM, MOEBIUS and POLAR LIGHTS that have been made available over the years since the sad demise of the original manufacturer in the dim and distant days of 1978.  One day I may even get around to assembling and painting them.  Anyway, for all those nostalgic old fogeys like myself, here's an ad that appeared in The NEW YORK TIMES way back in 1966.  Truly, it only seems like yesterday that such great kits could be seen in toyshops the length and breadth of Britain (and other countries of course).  Ah, for such great and glorious days again!  Anybody got an old time machine they don't want?  And I ain't talkin' clocks or watches.

PART TWO Of KIRBY'S VICTORY...

Copyright relevant owner

As noted in part one, CAPTAIN VICTORY & The GALACTIC RANGERS lasted for thirteen issues and one Special.  I have the first three plus the Special, so that only leaves ten issues I need to complete the set.  Trouble is, the issues I've read simply failed to maintain my interest, due to JACK KIRBY's fading abilities not only in his art, but also in being able to make characters speak in a realistic manner.  True, the latter had never been his strong point anyway, but either he had got worse or I'd become harder to please.  Either way, it made reading his later works a bit of a chore rather than the pleasure his earlier mags had been.

So, it's highly unlikely I'll ever bother trying to complete the set - unless I manage to obtain the remaining issues for am absolute song or they're issued in an inexpensive collected edition.  Incidentally, on the covers, note that it says 'the' Galactic Rangers, yet on the splash pages it's 'his' Galactic Rangers.  Why the difference I wonder?

However, Crivvies, don't let me spoil your fond recollections of these issues if you happened to have them back in the day.  Just immerse yourself in the images which now follow and lose yourself in the past of thirty years ago.

KIRBY'S VICTORY - PART ONE...

Copyright relevant owner

It was in the VIRGIN MEGASTORE in Glasgow where I first laid eyes on the debut issue of a brand-new comic by an equally brand-new publisher in 1981.  I just loved the splash page (aside from that seriously dodgy left shoulder and the underwhelming masthead), as there was just something about the colouring that reminded me of MARVEL mags from the 1960s.

Unfortunately, the series never really grabbed me - it was Kirby on autopilot doing just another riff on things he'd done before.  I bought the first three issues (I think I got #3 a little while after it had come out, if I recall correctly) and later bought the 1983 Special Edition a year or two after it was released. 

CAPTAIN VICTORY & The GALACTIC RANGERS lasted 13 issues and one special between 1981-'84.  It failed to set the comics world on fire, like so many of Jack's post-Marvel comicbooks, proving to many that STAN LEE was not just an important factor, but also an essential one in Kirby's success at the 'House of Ideas' during his first tenure there in the '60s.

Interestingly, in Cap's final issue (#13), it was strongly indicated that he was the son of ORION Of The NEW GODS.  Given that the new gods had arisen from the twilight of the old (Asgardian) gods, it suggests that Kirby had a predilection for keeping things connected. 

Anyway, Crivs, here's a brief look at several images from the first couple of issues.  Unfortunately, the margin of a name and address label (mine) obscures a small part of the art on the left-hand lower corners of the back pages, but hopefully it won't upset you too much.

Part Two coming soon! 

  

FAREWELL To A HERO! The FINAL FANTASTIC JOHNNY FUTURE - SUPER SPECIAL SEVEN PAGE SAGA...

Copyright REBELLION

There's no point in delaying the sad moment any longer.  It's time to break out the black armbands and shed a tear or two for the demise of JOHNNY FUTURE.  This was his final weekly appearance in FANTASTIC, the fondly-recalled comic for boys back in the 1960s.  He had one final fling in the pages of the Fantastic Annual for 1969 and then it was curtains for ol' JOHN FOSTER.  (Given just how far in advance Annuals were prepared, the story could've been drawn before the last weekly episode.)

And so we look upon Senor LUIS BERMEJO's awesome and astounding art for the final time - except for occasional revisits to this blog, or in back issues of the periodical in which he originally appeared.  Hopefully, some enterprising publisher will see these posts, and decide to reprint the complete collection* of ODHAMS PRESS' Power-Pack classics - sensitively coloured for modern readers, with copious notes on the origins and history of the character.

Well, we can but dream, can't we?

Farewell, Johnny - see you in the future!

(*Update: Which REBELLION have now done since this post was first published.)