There were a brief few months in the mid-Sixties when Marvel's comics featured not just the work of Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, but that of Wally Wood too. It's scarcely conceivable that 47 years have passed since Wood and Lee's masterpiece "In Mortal Combat With ... Sub-Mariner" was first published in Daredevil #7. It was the high summer of the Marvel Revolution, and within a year both Ditko and Wood would be gone. This week's The Year In Comics piece over at Sequart - to be found here - focuses on Wood's short but glorious spell on Daredevil, and considers what it was that Wood brought to the company's books, and what may have been lost when he moved from what really was The House Of Ideas back then to the relative autonomy of Tower Comics.
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Very nice article about an excellent issue. Hope you got a chance to read this week's Daredevil from Waid and Rivera--possibly my favorite issue of the rebooted series yet, both for art and writing!
ReplyDeleteHello Rob:- Thank you. My mail-order copy of this week's Daredevil has, my e-mail tells me, left 30th Century Comics today. Great to hear that it's worth the waiting for :)
DeleteAh, Wally Wood art. Pretty. So very very pretty.
ReplyDeleteHello Sally:- Pretty IS often the word. And Wood's Sixties NYC can transmit a sense of endless summer afternoons. Instant nostalgia for an imagined Wally Wood world ...
DeleteIt's interesting to think of Wood as potentially rivaling Kirby & Ditko's influences; then again, John Severin remained with Marvel for years and years, seemingly without inspiring legions of ghosts. If there ever was a fourth power in those days it would be John Buscema, although he didn't arrive until years after the period you're discussing.
ReplyDelete>Any collection of the finest dozen Marvel stories from the company’s half-century and more of trash and diamonds which fails to contain In Mortal Combat With … Sub-Mariner! simply isn’t doing its job.
Hear hear! In fact, I first read it within the pages of a TPB called the Very Best of Marvel Comics. Despite the presence of Toddy Mac & Rob Liefeld on the selection committee, the collection lived up to its title. Klaus Janson selected Daredevil#7 and spoke of Wood's influence on his work... although he didn't bring up how much of his own DD#163 was a retelling of the same story.
This was a terrific article Colin, Wood is always worth revisiting.
Hello Mike:- As always, your questions and points are hum-dingers. I think the differences between Wood and Severin - and I relying on you to correct me - were significant even though I adore both men's work. Wood had, despite the hard times he'd fallen into, a tremendous reputation in the industry as a plotter/storyteller as well as an artist. Severin's work was always excellent, but there was a great degree of respect for Wood. That can be seen in how fast Stan granted him a co-plotter credit when Kirby and Ditko had to fight for a long time to win any such thing. Secondly, I'd argue that Wood's work was stronger than Severins. I probably prefer the latters work to the former, but Wood's work is so objectively good, is so fundamentally appealing despite one's personal taste, that I think he might have been far more influential had he stayed than JS would ever be. I'm crushing a huge essay into a few lines, but I think Wood's artistry combined with the respect Lee granted him gave him a fair to good chance of influencing the company. But I concede, it is all just amateur counter-factuals on my part. And I do have a piece about Severin's Kull and his wonderful, wonderful inks on Herb Trimpe's Hulk that I've been meaning to turn from notes into proper sentences too. Time for that soon, I think. (Was there ever a better Atlantis than that he and his sister provided - I believe - for the Wedding/no-Wedding issue of Sub-Mariner?)
DeleteNo arguments about John Buscema's influence. I think it's remarkable how he was influenced by Stan Lee to join the School Of Kirby, and yet after a while, the school of Buscema in some ways superseded JK's. Of all the lost comics projects, his Lee-aborted work on Silver Surfer #4 is one of the most regretted.
It IS such a wonderful story, isn't it? I had to edit a second essay out of the piece about the influence the story has had on later generations. (That's a wonderful point about KJ!)
Thank you for the kind words!
Wow, I read that story, in the Essential volume a year or so ago! And I definitely remember it making an impact. You're absolutely right, Daredevil's bravery, his Daredevil-ness, is reinforced by his vulnerability. And the fact that both Namor's words and Wally's art reinforce that is an excellent example of craft.
ReplyDeleteBetween this and the Fantastic Four I've been reading recently, it really jumps out at me how interesting Namor is as a character. He's so much more than just Marvel's Aquaman, or something as silly- he's really his own archetype, one that very few if any other characters have followed. He can be angry and vengeful, but also has a soft spot for underdogs-- and Invisible Women, though it's also significant that the situation with Sue Storm is not merely one-sided. I don't know exactly what I'm getting at, but he's an odd and compelling character, who is perfectly drawn (literally and figuratively) in this story.
Your statement about how Wally didn't make his heroes the center of the frame/panel also was pretty important- in an age nowadays where we'll get a giant spread of Superman elbowing Darkseid in a grey void, a scene where the focus is the construction site, with a tiny DD swinging on the wrecking ball, is perfectly effective.
I'm sure you've seen Wally Wood's "22 Panels Any Comic Artist Should Be Aware Of", and I've already put that to good use- but I can see that just looking at art by the guy is just as valuable.
Hello Historyman:- I'm glad those Essentials are working for you. Of course, there are titles and collections which are anything other than must-reads, but the Wood Daredevils, for all the daftness of some of them, don't fall into that category.
DeleteI've never had the sense to take the time to think it through, but you're right that that early take on Namor is a wonderfully interesting one. The only other period that I can think of which captures the character so convincingly was the early 70s, when Namor's creator Bill Everett produced some splendid tales while Steve Englehart's take on Subby in the Defenders was equally compelling. I don't mean to suggest that there's not been fine work done with the character elsewhere. There was a lovely issue of Uncanny X-Men with Namor, Kitty and Peter on a beach in Utopia by Kieron Gillen and the Dodsons which I thought was splendid. But on the whole, he's a tough character to make work. It's easy to play him in a way which accentuates just one aspect of his personality, whereas his appeal, I think, lies in the fact that he's a very complex character indeed.
I adore the ability of Wood to place the superhero into a dramatic context rather than making the dramatic context the superhero and little else. I just adore it. So few artists ever think of doing that these days, and fewer have the chops to make it work.
Wood's 22 panels is one of those resources which any book about comics storytelling out to feature if the rights are available. I really ought to take a look at it and see which of his options are "in" and "out" in the mass of modern-era comics.
Colin,
ReplyDelete1965 was indeed a high water mark for Marvel. the Kirby, Ditko, Wood triumvirate, combined with Stan Lee's writing, editing and promotional skills set the company at an all time high. I can certainly see Wood being an instrumental part of Marvel had he stayed. It was rumored that Wood was going to draw the Sub-Mariner strip in Tales to Astonish, thus this "try-out", and Wood even entertained taking over the Human Torch strip in Strange Tales. Alas, Wood, like Ditko, was very independent and loathed what they considered editorial interference. By 1966 both would be gone from Marvel.
Stan Lee obviously elevated Wood to a high plateau, mentioning him on covers, splash papes and letters pages. Lee even went so far as to credit his inking on an Avengers cover, which I don't believe he ever did with anyone else, including Joe Sinnott.
Re: John Severin. He was a tremendous talent, but would never have gained the reputation of Kirby, Ditko or Wood at Marvel, not because he wasn't incredibly skilled, but because he had little interest in superheroes. Some of his most inspired work at Marvel was pencilling a few issues of Sgt. Fury, although Lee reportedly didn't think it dynamic enough and relegated him to inking (and quite nicely) Dick Ayers pencils. Severin excelled at western and war stories, and although those genres were falling out of style by the mid-1960s, they were selling well enough to last into the late 1970s. Severin pencilled so many magnificent covers for Rawhide Kid, Kid Colt, Two-Gun-Kid, Mighty Marvel Western and Western Gunfighters that I often buy the books even though many are reprints and I have some of the originals (I just bought a batch at a con this weekend). I've always admired Severin's work, but he is of that group of artists, such as Russ Heath, that had little affinity for costumed characters and was ignored by the superhero contingent over the years.
http://nick-caputo.blogspot.com/
Hello Nick;- I didn't know about Wood considering taking over the Namor and/or Torch strips. Mind you, when I was reading up and then writing this piece, I admit to hoping I wasn't typing out something which Mr Caputo would disapprove of :) I'm tremendously pleased that somebody else thinks as highly of the era of the "Quartet" as I do.
DeleteThank you for your opinion on the Severin issue. I agree with you that his personal interests kept him out of the mainstream. Yet he did make some telling contributions as an inker to the super-genre, didn't he? His finishes over Trimpe's pencils for the Hulk were wonderful. I loved his Havik, Polaris, Iron Man and Daredevil. But of course that's a minor if gorgeous business in terms of influence.
I regret that there's so little of Severin and Heath in the common DNA of today's book. I suspect that if Wood had remained, both artists might have been considered more typical. To be honest, I adore their work.
From what I've read Wood was scheduled to draw the then-new Sub-Mariner strip that was to appear a few months after DD # 7. Unfortunately he had a falling out with Lee, apparently about more pay for plotting, and began to only ink (Wood was also set to ink over Kirby layouts on the X-Men before he got a better deal at Tower comics and took off).
ReplyDeleteSeverin's inking over just about everyone was superior. On Trimpe's Hulk he definitely added another layer of quality. And lets not forget his work over Kirby's layouts on SHIELD. Not exactly superheroes, but sensational work. Oh, and his one inking job over Ross Andru on Sub-Mariner was quite nice,
Hello Nick:- Wood's finishes were of course wonderful, and that's as true for the young Giffen on the mid-Seventies Justice Society as for the last few DDs he was associated with. Yet there's a world of difference between his finishes and the product guided by his hand from the layouts up. Having said that, I give a lot to slip into the parallel world where Kirby/Wood X-Men issues are available.
DeleteI agree entirely with your nominations for Severin ink-jobs of note. Can I add the Severin's collaborations on Kull and, a personal favourite, Sub-Mariner #38. which presented one of the few convincing versions of the MU's Atlantis.