Comic Book Coloring Appreciation Post: Tom Vincent's Silver Surfer (over Ron Lim & Tom Christopher)

 

Thanks to the Marvel digital app, I've been re-reading the 1987 Silver Surfer series, started by Steve Englehart & Marshall Rogers, and it has been a blast. I read these when they were originally published, and those early issues were fun, but for me, things really kicked into high gear when Ron Lim started as regular artist. Lim was the first artist, with inker Tom Christopher, to make the Surfer actually look metallic, with skin that reflected light. Before then, the Surfer was merely a white figure who surfed in space -- a pretty cool character, no doubt, but not 'silver,' as far as I could tell. 

Note the pink highlights on the Surfer, as he stands across from Galactus

Something I don't remember, though, but which really stood out to me during this read-through, was the coloring of Tom Vincent. He really took the reflective surface to a new level with his work, subtly coloring the Surfer to reflect not just light but also the coloring of his surroundings, at times, particularly if those surroundings were hulking antagonists like Galactus. 

  

And notice the brown highlights...

...mirroring the color of the Surfer's opponent

I only noticed this coloring toward the end of my read-through of those first 50 issues, but I have to guess that Vincent was doing this for far longer than the images I took from the last couple of issues, here. Regardless, it's an attention to detail that strongly appeals to me and makes me appreciate this fun series even more. 

And one last time, note the surface of the planet reflected on the Surfer's skin. Just fabulous!

My favorite run of Daredevil

Frank Miller defined Daredevil. . .

. . . and with Mazzucchelli broke him down and redefined him. 

Kevin Smith revived him. 

Mark Waid, arguably, did the same. 

Seminal runs, all. 

That stated, my favorite run on Daredevil was by Ann Nocenti, John Romita, Jr., and Al Williamson: issues 250-282. There's a fair bit of nostalgia attached to that run -- this was early in my time as a comic reader/collector and shortly after the point where I started buying Daredevil regularly -- but, for me, this run stands the test of time and is a collection of comics that I can return to and enjoy, without fail. I love this run! 

But what is it about this run that stands out for me? (Especially, as I learned on a recent episode of CGS, when there is an apparent backlash against it from DD fans). 

Plenty! 

First and foremost, the art from JRJr & Williamson really stands out in this run of comics. I am a fan of Romita Jr. -- especially when he's drawing Spider-Man . . . or ol' Hornhead -- and his dynamism is on full display in these comics. Williamson, a classic comic artist in his own right, adds another dimension to Romita Jr.'s art. Williamson's slick linework softens the characters, while also adding more depth to the imagery through his use of blacks. It's a matter of two artists I love collaborating to craft artwork that is beyond what either have done on their own. There's a litheness to the figure of Daredevil that comes from Williamson's inks, while still retaining the physicality epitomized by Romita Jr.'s pencils. 

This art team also innovates: delineating new characters like Number Nine, Bullet, Blackheart, and most notably, Typhoid Mary, while also crafting a Mephisto the likes of which had never seen, before or since. The excess bulk of Mephisto, as drawn by Romita Jr. & Williamson, with a face unrecognizable to what readers were accustomed, and stringy hair(?) cascading from his head and arms, is overwhelming and otherworldly, befitting the demon lord of Hell in the Marvel universe. The grotesqueness of this iteration of Mephisto adds to the unsettled feeling we, as readers, should experience whenever this character enters a story. It's inspired and ugly and wonderful, all at once. 

Equally important to me in this run is the writing of Ann Nocenti. Nocenti followed the classic (and my all-time favorite superhero story) "Born Again," by Frank Miller & David Mazzucchelli. She smartly opted to take the character in a different direction, getting back to DD's superheroic roots, rather than trying to play in the noir setting that Miller, with the likes of Klaus Janson & Mazzucchelli, so artfully exploited. It was a wise decision on Nocenti's part, which does not mean it's all spandex, purple-and-green clad villains, and biff, bam, pow! Nocenti is anything but a safe, traditional comic creator. 

Nocenti brings a quirky sensibility to everything she writes, and being someone who entered comics from outside the field, she was not hampered by a decades-long reverence to these heroes, like many of the fans turned creators have. Nocenti infused her run on Daredevil with social commentary, tackling gun violence and sexism, while also creating characters like Blackheart and Typhoid Mary. She utilized the Inhumans -- lesser-known ones, Gorgon and Karnak -- as companions for Daredevil, as she took him out of New York, putting even more distance between her run and previous iterations of the character. There are some wonderful stories during DD's road trip, and in the end he finds he must confront Mephisto in the demon's realm, as the lord of Hell and his lackey, Blackheart, have been harassing and haranguing Daredevil throughout much of this run. Daredevil descends to Hell and battles hordes of demons, trying to keep alit the torch he has carried through the snows unleashed by Mephisto. DD laments what his life is, "endless fighting," and wonders if he can change. He asks himself: "What if I just stopped? If I just stopped fighting. If you stop fighting, isn't the fight over?" This sequence emblazoned this Daredevil run on my heart as a favorite, and it has only risen, in my estimation, through the years. 

Oh, and he also gets a helping hand from the Silver Surfer, with Nocenti doing her best Matt Fraction captions years before Fraction was lauded for his quick, sharp descriptive phrases. Just glorious!

This run was unconventional, even while returning DD to his roots as a superhero, with engaging characters, influences from outside of comics, and lovely art that hit me at just the right time in my comic-reading life. And it is a run that I have enjoyed many times since. It's the quirkiness -- grounded in good writing and good character work, along with character defining art from Romita Jr. & Williamson -- that appeals to me most about this collection of issues. 

They're fantastic!
Or amazing!
Or, possibly, uncanny!
Regardless, I think they're great. 

-chris

ANNIHILATION books 1-3

Another series (or group of series) I'd heard a lot of good things about was the "cosmic Marvel" stuff of a few years ago.  Spear-headed by editor Andy Schmidt and writer Keith Giffen, followed by DnA (Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning) this set of books - including Nova, Guardians of the Galaxy, Annihilation, and a series of mini-series and one-shots - got a lot of attention on podcasts I listened to and boards I visited online.

But my budget was slim and I never knew where to jump on board.  So I never checked it out.

Now that those series seem to have ended, I have decided to go back and check out the collections.  So I jumped in the deep end of the pool and requested the first three collections - Annihilation books 1-3 - through the library.

And I was impressed, overall.  These three collections encompass the series:  Drax the Destroyer, Annihilation: Nova, Annihilation Prologue, Annihilation: Ronan, Annihilation: Silver Surfer, Annihilation: Super-Skrull, Annihilation, and Annihilation: Heralds of Galactus.  And they are some hefty books.

The first collection started slowly for me with the Drax the Destroyer mini-series.  Four issues set on Earth, in order to set up this character for what he needed to be in the coming event, it moved along at a slow pace, for me, and I found it a bit of a chore to get through.  I think some of this can be chalked up to a point made by Peter Rios, late of CGS, that cosmic characters don't work well when they are earthbound.  These are aliens that belong in the stars where they can have cosmic, epic battles and storylines rather than what inherently becomes the focus when these characters are planet-bound, the banality of their "human" side.

We aren't reading these books to see how they interact with ordinary people.  We want the stakes to be high, the battles to be blazing, and the canvas to be infinite.  As an example, look at the Silver Surfer.  His original series (much-beloved, in hindsight), which was written by Stan Lee and drawn by John Buscema (a pretty good creative pedigree, there) only lasted 18 issues.  And it was all set on Earth.  When Steven Englehart and Marshall Rogers relaunched the Surfer in the mid-80s, the very first thing they did was to get the Surfer off Earth.  And his series then went on to a run of over 150 issues, if you include the 7 annuals.

But I digress.

Anyway. After we get off Earth and into space where the "Annihilation Wave" is running rampant through the galaxy, taking out Kree and Skrull worlds and anything else in its way, things get interesting.  And, from her on out, it's basically the story of this giant war that rages across the cosmos, bringing with it the destruction of the Nova Corps (except for our local Nova Corps warrior, Wendell Vaughn), the death and rebirth of the super-skrull, the betrayal of and hunting down of Ronan the Accuser by his fellow Kree.

We meet a huge collection of characters throughout these three books, and one of the things that was nice about these books was that the editor chose to include short bios of the main characters in the story, like the Who's Who or Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe entries I read, as a kid.  It helped a lot.

This was a massive story that encompassed 30 issues, and the most impressive thing, for me, is how the creators managed to keep the story moving forward without it feeling as if they were just treading water.  I fully expected to be tuning out by the time I reached the midway point, but I just wanted to keep on pushing through.  I burned through the bulk of the second trade on a single Sunday morning.  It was that captivating for me.  Certainly there were a few slow spots - the aforementioned Drax mini and the Ronan mini-series, which was similarly planet-bound - but for the most part, the writers and artists kept me interested throughout the bulk of the story.

And they did some things that seem obvious, in hindsight, but which are generally out of character for comic stories.  One thing was that, in the timeline they included at the opening of chapters and scenes, they had this war take place over the course of many, many days - hundreds of days.  Typically, due to the nature of serialized comics and the limited space within a single issue, the battles - and even the "wars" - feel as if they take place over the course of only days, or even within a single day.  It seems to be the nature of the beast, but I appreciated the fact that these creators chose to add a bit of realism to this "Annihilation Wave" threat.  It helped to ground things, as well as imbuing the struggle with more tension than one might have if it seemed to be truncated, time-wise.

And secondly, they didn't have any clear cut winner at the end.  This story ended with concessions given on both sides, so that they could end the bloodshed.  It was a smart way to go because, again, it was not the expected way to go.  And, it opened up future storylines for these characters, on both sides, since we all know evil doesn't like to be kept down.

Overall, this was a great introduction to the recent "Marvel Cosmic" books, and I am looking forward to continuing with future trades.

chris