Action Comics 419 Cover by Neal Adams: Superman streaking into the sky! (Updated Oct 2017)

I am a Neal Adams fan as I am sure many of you are. I love his Superman covers, he did dozens from the late 60s to the early 70s. My favorite cover is a 100 page Super Spectacular that I wrote about here, but a close second is this Action Comics cover.

Action Comics 419, drawn by Neal Adams, inked by Murphy Anderson, and some collage work by Jack Adler using a real photo. It's a super (pun intended) cover showcasing the classic Man of Steel. The image of Superman has been lifted off this cover and used in all kinds of merchandising. I believe this issue of Action Comics is the first one edited by Julius Schwartz, who took over from Murray Boltinoff.

Update October 2017: I met Adams at a con 2 months ago & asked him about this cover. He said Jack Adler did not provide the photo background, it was Adams himself who did the collage. Also he didn’t really like Murphy Anderson’s inks, too slick in his opinion.

Here is the original art to the cover with notes to the letterer about the cover blurbs below. One interesting thing about this original art is that it is now owned by David Mandel, a veteran writer in Hollywood who has worked on Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Veep and many other shows. He owns many other classic original art covers from the Bronze Age as well as this one.

In addition to a new editor, the letter column header also changed, showing Clark Kent changing into Superman through a phone booth (remember those?) at super speed!

How many times have you seen the image of Superman from Action Comics 419 used in merchandise? Cups? Books? I would love to know. Please leave a comment if you had ever seen this elsewhere.

Update October 2017: At the convention where I met Neal Adams, he had a huge booth with posters for sale, including this new take on the Action Comics cover, pencilled and inked by Adams. The city scape below is also redone.

Nuff Said!

Neal Adams Green Arrow 44 variant cover

This variant cover by Neal Adams makes me feel nostalgic...

I miss this version of Green Arrow. He was bull-headed, liberal, outspoken, courageous and ready to take action for the poor. And always ready to take a swing at Hal Jordan! Nuff Said.

Neal Adams draws the team-up we longed for: Deadman and Spectre

Here's a team-up I wish would have occurred during the Bronze Age.

Deadman and The Spectre drawn by Neal Adams!  If any two characters should have met, it would have been these two dead, ghostly heroes.  Throw in the Phantom Stranger and you might even have a team.  Nuff Said!

Buscema, Adams, Kubert, Garcia-Lopez, Kane on a Silver-Bronze Age Jam!

I love finding comic art jams where a die-hard fan was able to get the most famous comic artists to draw characters together in one big illustration.  Last year I featured one with Wrightson, Ditko, Infantino and many more great artists.

This one features a number of equally great artists.  Here is a rundown:

• Wendy Pini - Elfquest
• Joe Kubert - Hawkman
• Rudy Nebres - Doctor Strange
• Frank Thorne - Red Sonja (modeled on Wendy Pini?)
• José Luis García-López - Deadman
• Neal Adams - Conan the Barbarian, note Roy Thomas' signature next to Adams
• Gil Kane - John Carter, Warlord of Mars Gulliver Jones, Warrior of Mars!
• Dave Cockrum - Sun Boy Human Torch (Golden Age)
• Ross Andru & Bob Layton - Sub-Mariner
• Dick Dillin & Dave Hunt - The Flash
• John Buscema & Joe Sinnott - Silver Surfer

An impressive piece!  Martin Greim has to have been the original owner.  The fact that the owner got these inkers is also remarkable.  Who knew Bob Layton inking Ross Andru would be such a great combination?  Nuff Said!

Conan the Barbarian and Red Sonja by Neal Adams

I saw this Neal Adams illustration on Facebook the other day, a 1970s piece featuring Conan the Barbarian and Red Sonja on a battlefield.

I was certain this had been used on an early issue of the Savage Sword of Conan magazine by Marvel. But after double checking the first few years of that mag, it wasn't there.  This piece appeared on the cover of the 1978 Cartoonists and Illustrators Portfolio, published by Supergraphics (Steranko's company). 

A fine piece, makes me wish we had seen Adams illustrate more Conan comics.  Nuff Said!

Monster Monday: Neal Adams Deadman

Here is a commission that Neal Adams did some time ago, featuring Boston Brand.

Did anyone draw agony better than Adams?  Carmine Infantino created the costume, but Adams made it work!  Nuff Said.

Black Canary on a Motorcycle by Neal Adams

Remember when Dinah Lance drove a mean motorcycle to fight crime?

Neal Adams remembers.  Nuff Said!

Neal Adams and John Carter of Mars

I am eagerly awaiting the John Carter movie coming out next month.  I read the first three novels last year and liked them a lot; the first novel in particular was quite amazing for having been written in 1911.  I read the Marvel Comics adaptions in the 1970s and liked those, too.  I always wondered what an artist like Neal Adams would do with the John Carter material.  There following illustrations give us all a clue as to what that would have been like.

These illustrations come from Heritage Magazine from the 1970s.  Was this a preview of a longer story planned for a future issue?  Or a graphic album for a publisher?  Not sure at all!  But the first illustration shows the crash of a spacecraft on Mars.  I read that this fellow is Flash Gordon--didn't get that right away but it makes sense.

Second illustration shows Flash getting saved from a sneaky Red Martian.  His savior is none other than John Carter of Mars!  But wait, what is in that container that Flash is standing over?

It turns out the none other than Tarzan of the Apes is somewhat comatose inside that container!  What an awesome team-up adventure this would have been, if Neal Adams had drawn that at the height of his artistic ability!

Questions: do any super-fans out there know why Neal Adams had created these illustrations and what his ultimate plan was?  Have John Carter of Mars and Tarzan ever met in any work of fiction?  (I know that Philip Jose Farmer had his Tarzan and Doc Savage analogs meet in A Feast Unknown.)  Please let me know!  Nuff Said.

Neal Adams Marvel Variant Covers: Captain America, Daredevil and Ghost Rider

Neal Adams is really gearing up for a lot of new Marvel work.  I’ve totally lost track of Batman: Odyssey after reading the first two issues.  This article from Comics Alliance sums up the madness behind that series quite nicely.  But these new Marvel covers have a lot to offer…

Captain America #1 variant, a straightforward shot of Cap hurling his mighty shield at the reader.  Very nice.

Daredevil #1 variant.  I was blown away by this cover, love the perspective on Daredevil and the classic use of old Hornhead’s radar sense.

Ghost Rider #1 variant.  Always wanted to see Neal’s take on this character and here it is, after 40 years!

Good luck on actually buying any of these variants.  The prices at DCBS were already in the $40-50 range.  Nuff Said!

Six Silver Age Superman Covers by Neal Adams that make you say…wha-huh?

Julius Schwartz and many other great DC Comics editors had a knack for commissioning covers so wacky that you had to buy them.  Here are 6 covers by Neal Adams that definitely grab your attention.




Action Comics #402, July 1971.  As I came into comics, I was also watching Western TV shows and movies.  As silly as it sounds, from those pop culture outlets, I was enamored with TV-fake American Indian culture, and whenever they popped up on a comics cover, I was all over that.  When a group of Indians were able to subdue Superman with magic and burn him at the stake, well, that was a must buy!  A silly story inside, but beautifully illustrated by Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson.  Indians also appeared in Green Lantern / Green Arrow, in a story also drawn by Neal Adams.  I was also a big fan of Super Chief and got excited for about 5 minutes when he briefly appeared in 52.




Action Comics #400, May 1971.  Any cover with Superman having a son, like those World’s Finest super-sons stories, were instantly on my buy list.  How could I pass up this cover, with Superman having a super-freak son that turns into a beast?  Put this into the “apes sell covers” philosophy the DC editors had.




Action Comics #399, June 1971.  Death and mystery were also two good hooks on a cover.  The idea that there were previous Supermen who died makes Kal-El’s whole existence come into question.  Do you remember the Matrix Reloaded, when the Architect told Neo there had been multiple versions of Neo in the past, all making the wrong choices?  Yeah, when I saw that, I thought of this cover.  Were the Wachowski brothers Superman fans?




Action Comics #395, December 1970.  OK, I lied.  This cover isn’t by Adams, it was drawn by Carmine Infantino, but it’s so wacky I had to include it.  A Girl Mightier Than Superman?  How could any member of the lesser sex :-) be stronger than DC’s greatest superhero?  I always wondered why they didn’t have Wonder Woman on the cover, she seemed the natural choice to have a challenge Superman in strength.  A Kryptonian looking woman would have been another choice.  But this lady looks kind of like a grown-up Girl Scout in a Roman Halloween costume.




Action Comics #374, March 1969.  Neal Adams could draw the emotions of shame and guilt better than anyone.  On this one, Superman has a secret…he’s really Public Enemy #1.  A rubber mask is all it took to impersonate a new man—everyone knew that in the 1960s because they saw it every week on Mission Impossible!  Any twist with Superman becoming a criminal was a good way to hook in the kids, too.  He was assuming this identity due to a bad case of amnesia.




Action Comics #371, January 1969.  This cover looks unmistakably Neal Adams to me, but it was penciled by Curt Swan and inked by Adams.  Superman is confused about his identity once again, but this time he assumes the role of the President of the the United States!  Something about the way Superman was drawn here reminds me of Lyndon Johnson.  Frightening to think of LBJ with super powers!  For another 1960s story, check out Dial B for Blog’s excellent article on Superman’s Mission for President Kennedy!  Nuff Said.

DC Comics Wallpapers for the Sony Reader and Amazon Kindle: Superman, Batman, Flash, Green Lantern

Here are some wallpapers that look great on Pearl E-Ink readers for DC Comics fans.  They work fine for both the Sony Reader and Amazon Kindle!

 

Two of my favorite Superman covers, by Neal Adams.

 

Batman covers, also by Neal Adams!

 

Flash covers by Brian Bolland.  The first one is Bolland’s rendition of the Flash’s first appearance from Showcase #4. 

 

Neal Adams again, on the first issue of Green Lantern / Green Arrow.  The second cover is by Gil Kane, Justice League of America #78, not a classic issue by any means, but this cover has always stuck in my memory.

 

Swamp Thing covers by Berni Wrightson.

You can find my entire collection of wallpapers over on Flicker.  You can also see my previous post, Marvel Comics Wallpapers for the Sony Reader and Amazon Kindle.  Nuff Said!

Will Eisner’s The Spirit, rendered by Neal Adams

Neal Adams liked to take on classic characters and render them in a style that was similar to the original artist.  This illustration of Will Eisner’s The Spirit is a perfect example.  A great depiction of the grime and mayhem in Central City, complete with floating newspapers and signs.  I forget where this picture originally came from—the Spirit Jam, perhaps?  Nuff Said!

Neal Adams Tarzan Paperback Covers

If you were around in the 1970s, you might remember the Great Paperback Resurgence of the Pulp Heroes.  This happened early in the decade with the return of Conan and Doc Savage, followed by the Avenger, the Shadow, and then Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan novels.  The covers to the Tarzan novels were beautifully illustrated by Neal Adams.  In 1978, Sal Quartuccio released several Neal Adams portfolios containing these cover images.



This image was used as the cover The Beasts of Tarzan, showing the Jungle Lord’s companions coming out of the jungle to rescue him.  I like the look in Tarzan’s eyes—he can’t wait to unleash those beasts on his captors!



The original paperback cover, courtesy of the Dark Worlds blog.  I collected these paperbacks just for the covers alone, because I was such a fan of Neal Adams.



Looking at these illustrations, you can get a taste of the entire mythology that Burroughs had created for Tarzan.  The movie adaptations that have been make little headway beyond the origin story.  Nuff Said!

Link:  Dark Worlds Blog – lots of Pulpy Goodness.
Link:  Cap’N’s Comics Blog

1970s era Neal Adams poster featuring Batman, Deadman, The Spectre & Green Arrow!

Here’s a poster that I lusted after in the 1970s: DC Comics characters from the Silver Age that Neal Adams put his mark on.

Batman, The Spectre, Green Arrow, and Deadman!  Besides being a poster, I think this was also used on a book about Adams.  It’s just terrific, especially that image of Deadman—so glad that he is getting some attention in Brightest Day.  Nuff Said!

Four Batman covers by Neal Adams that remind me of Halloween

No other mainstream superhero has appeared in more spooky and tense covers than Batman.  Neal Adams illustrated quite a number of them in the early 1970s.

Batman #237, from 1971, featured the classic story "Night of the Reaper" that took place at the annual Halloween parade in Rutland, Vermont.  This parade was featured in a few other comics, such as Marvel Feature #2 (featuring the Defenders).  Comic Book Legends Revealed wrote a recent article about it.  And there is another article featuring the plot here.

The image of the Grim Reaper, dressed in white, about to cleave off Robin's head, made me a nervous wreck.  The red background was quite alarming too!

Confession: I never read either the House of Mystery or the House of Secrets.  But when I saw the cover to Brave and Bold #93 featuring Batman and the House of Mystery, I had to buy it!  That creepy cloaked figure taking the little boy in the house was just too much.

The bigger mystery was how Batman was going to meet the character of an anthology title.  They solved that by having Cain, the narrator of HoM, talk to the reader directly, commenting on all of Batman's actions.

I did read the Phantom Stranger comic and for some reason loved it whenever he teamed up with Batman and the Justice League.  Those ghostly arms weren't as weird as a comatose Robin in the Stranger's arms.

Detective Comics #413 makes a good case for staying the hell away from Scarecrows, especially at night!

You can see in these Adams DC Covers, over and over again, a theme of kids in jeopardy.  It was used in other DC Comics silver age covers.  The theory being, if you're a kid seeing the cover, you would identify with those youngsters.  It won't work today--there are too few kids reading comics.  Perhaps we should see middle aged men in terror of losing their homes?  Nuff Said!

Six Million Dollar Man by Neal Adams and Mike Hinge

The Six Million Dollar Man owned sci-fi TV in the 1970s, when Steve Austin was the biggest and most expensive hero on the tube.

Neal Adams did this painting for a magazine sized Six Million Dollar Man comic published by Charlton.  It appeared on newsstands right next to Creepy, Vampirella, Dracula Lives, and Mad.  Adams gave a pretty awesome display of Austin's bionic strength, ripping that engine out of the hood like it was made of tin foil.  If only the TV show had been able to display that!

Mike Hinge did this double page splash poster (for Jim Steranko's MediaScene magazine #10 in 1974) that makes Steve Austin look more like Nick Fury 2.0.  The cool element here is that raw metal cyborg hand holding out the watch on the left. 

If only they had painted the Bionic Woman, too.  Nuff Said!

Superboy and Legion of Super-Heroes by Neal Adams

A post we featured last week focused on Neal Adams Superman 252 "Flying Heroes" cover.  This cover to a Legion of Super-Heroes collection (1050 Years in the Future) is a spiritual successor to that earlier one.

Superboy, leading his friends off into an intergalactic horizon.  But wait, what era is this Legion from?  Saturn Girl is wearing her 1970s costume; this isn't a recent drawing.  Like the Superman cover, we can view this in a different form.

The Legion hardcover image was photo shopped from the DC Calendar 1976, where many of the images were produced by Adams and Dick Giordano.  The original is much more pleasing and there are many more Legionnaires in their Dave Cockrum designed costumes.  Too bad Neal Adams never drew a full length Legion story.  Nuff Said!

A Cute Wonder Woman Drawing by Neal Adams

Here's a nice little drawing that Neal Adams did of Wonder Woman.  I believe I found this on Facebook or the Neal Adams store.

I can't imagine this pose working as well in the WW pants suit, can you?  Now I'm hoping Diana Prince will show up in Batman Odyssey.  Nuff Said!

Superman 252, A Super Spectacular Cover by Neal Adams

The cover to Superman V1 #252 (1972) may be my favorite Man of Steel cover of all time.  It's a great display by Neal Adams, showing the heroes of DC Universe flying off into the horizon.  The cover scan is imperfect because of the square-bound nature of this 100 page giant comic, but it's still impressive.



There are several things that make this cover phantasmagorical:

1. The way Neal Adams posed Superman was so perfect that it was used on other covers and products.
2. The Golden Age DC Heroes, who were featured in the majority of the reprints.
3. Spectre!  Shining Knight!  Silver and Golden Age Green Lanterns!  Doctor Fate!  The Ray!  Johnny Quick!
4. It was the first appearance of Roy Thomas' All Star Squadron. Ok, only in my imagination.
5. Neal Adams included two Jack Kirby characters: Black Racer and Lightray. The New Gods had arrived!
6. It's the cover a 100 page Super Spectacular and it only costs 50 cents.  Multiple bonus point multiplier!!!

Here is another version of this cover, without the logo/copy and re-colored to make the sunset effect more pronounced.  I have no idea where this version was published; I give credit to FanPop for the image.  I suspect it must have been used in a DC Calendar.  If you have an idea, please let me know.



The inside back cover of Superman #252 had the index key to the flying heroes.  I went over this many times, figuring out what hero belonged to Earth-1 and the Justice League, and which heroes belonged over on Earth-2 with the Justice Society.  Which heroes were the dead ones?  And what heroes were powered by magic versus science?

Update: Here is a scan of the original art used for Superman #252.  Obviously someone at DC Comics took off the original logo and pasted in a salute to the 1972 Comic Art Convention. 

I own a copy of this now, but back in the 90s, I had trouble recalling the issue number.  I went to the Usenet forums (pre-Internet days, yeah, I'm frackin' ancient) and vaguely described the cover.  I thought no one would be able to help me.  The answer came within an hour, and the guy who replied was a complete shock.  It was none other than Marvel's own Tom Brevoort!  A walking encyclopedia of comic history who doesn't hesitate to help a Dude in need.  Thanks, man!  Nuff Said!