These books came out right when I had switched from DC to Marvel,and I thought Steranko's work in them was the best of the day. Looking at them recently I still think they are one of the best runs of a single artist in a title ever.. Like Steve Ditko's run on Doctor Strange. Unfortunately, Marvel would soon become successful enough to be able to distribute more titles than they had been allowed to at the start of the decade, and would give all their characters their own books. So Iron Man, The Hulk, Fury and the rest would no longer be featured in half a comic but would have have book length stories. Steranko would only lasted six issues of the SHIELD comic,I'm guessing because he had to do twice as much work and couldn't meet the deadlines. In spite of a few appearances since, and starting his own publishing house, he's never gotten back to that same level of creativity he'd had in those final issues of Strange Tales and those first six issues of the SHIELD comic.
True, Matthew. Steranko's next three (and last three) Fury covers on Strange Tales - which I'll be posting soon - are where he came out from under Kirby's shadow as a cover artist. Stay tuned.
These books came out right when I had switched from DC to Marvel,and I thought Steranko's work in them was the best of the day. Looking at them recently I still think they are one of the best runs of a single artist in a title ever.. Like Steve Ditko's run on Doctor Strange. Unfortunately, Marvel would soon become successful enough to be able to distribute more titles than they had been allowed to at the start of the decade, and would give all their characters their own books. So Iron Man, The Hulk, Fury and the rest would no longer be featured in half a comic but would have have book length stories. Steranko would only lasted six issues of the SHIELD comic,I'm guessing because he had to do twice as much work and couldn't meet the deadlines. In spite of a few appearances since, and starting his own publishing house, he's never gotten back to that same level of creativity he'd had in those final issues of Strange Tales and those first six issues of the SHIELD comic.
ReplyDeleteThe good old days, when Nick Fury was a honky.
ReplyDeleteTrue, Matthew. Steranko's next three (and last three) Fury covers on Strange Tales - which I'll be posting soon - are where he came out from under Kirby's shadow as a cover artist. Stay tuned.
ReplyDelete