tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5293155946761960913.post6666885952802015038..comments2024-03-19T10:41:35.976-05:00Comments on Bronze Age Babies: Marvel Firsts: The Bouncing GREY Beast!Doughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04248324005584963229noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5293155946761960913.post-61579401490209498872012-02-29T09:07:14.641-06:002012-02-29T09:07:14.641-06:00Skin tight costume?? How about just putting on a p...Skin tight costume?? How about just putting on a pair of glasses? <br /><br />RichardAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5293155946761960913.post-8497512377937069842012-02-28T10:27:19.544-06:002012-02-28T10:27:19.544-06:00"Especially cringe-worthy are the laughably i..."Especially cringe-worthy are the laughably impractical rubber masks and prosthetics that Hank devises to ape (ha!) a human appearance..."<br /><br />Hey, it worked on tv shows like <b>Mission: Impossible</b>, <b>Batman</b>, even <b>Buck Rogers</b>!<br />And in the recent <b>Captain America</b> film, the Red Skull's "Johann Shmidt" mask was pretty convincing! ;-)<br /><br />It's like accepting that wearing a skintight costume will fool those closest to you into thinking you're someone else.<br /><br />You just go with it to get on with the story.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5293155946761960913.post-57473523074688935402012-02-28T09:58:54.363-06:002012-02-28T09:58:54.363-06:00I never read this issue as a kid but read it in an...I never read this issue as a kid but read it in an Essentials volume last year, so I missed out on the purply-grey color mess.<br /><br />First let me say that I love the blue ape-like Beast that was a member of the Avengers of my youth. The cat-beast is not my Beast, though I understand for a generation of readers he is _the_ Beast.<br /><br />I agree on the art for this issue; not my cup of tea to be sure. The storyline remains confused and uninspired for the rest of the run as I recall. Especially cringe-worthy are the laughably impractical rubber masks and prosthetics that Hank devises to ape (ha!) a human appearance... In some scenes he is up close to other folks -- I think even kissing a lady -- and they DON'T NOTICE HE'S WEARING A BIG HALLOWEEN MASK! Ug.johnlindwallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11742041159952441523noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5293155946761960913.post-34352500247931147942012-02-28T02:49:32.750-06:002012-02-28T02:49:32.750-06:00Re: Tom Sutton's art, I generally like it alth...Re: Tom Sutton's art, I generally like it although the panels here are rather unattractive. I agree that it depends on the inker, and would add that he was usually his own best inker. Also, I don't agree that he's only suited to humorous work. He did a lot of beautifully drawn horror and romance stories for Charlton and there's also the unforgettable (to me, anyway) Seeker 3000 and Paladin stories in Marvel Premiere (which he inked himself).Edo Bosnarnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5293155946761960913.post-23077869634201872392012-02-28T01:44:16.767-06:002012-02-28T01:44:16.767-06:00"Did NOT know that trademark-protection windo..."Did NOT know that trademark-protection window was a mere two years long, though! Wow-- I would've guessed maybe five."<br /><br />Trademarks with a "TM" (which means an unregistered trademark) are good for two years.<br />Trademarks with an "R in a circle" are registered and have a longer life-span before being declared "abandoned".<br />Since it costs money to register a trademark, many just use the "TM" unless the property becomes a hit, in which case they register it post-haste.<br /><br />The Golden Age <i>Captain Marvel</i> had been registered, so the name didn't become available until 10 years after his last appearance in comics or on merchandise in 1954.<br />The 1966 Cap didn't have a registered name (in fact, he didn't even have a "TM"!), so it was available only two years after it's last use, at which point Kree Captain Mar-Vell made his debut.<br /><br />If you look at the logos for the various MTU and MTiO guest-stars, almost all have "TM"s.Britt Reidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07245579677452948620noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5293155946761960913.post-75595298395456636912012-02-28T01:19:49.901-06:002012-02-28T01:19:49.901-06:00With Sutton's work, I find it's sometimes ...With Sutton's work, I find it's sometimes a matter of who's inking it...this particular issue looked a little patchy, but the next issue, inked by Mike Ploog, was great!<br /><br />The next issue was also the first regular series work by Steve Engelhart...perhaps you should have covered that one instead :-)B Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18016629838915185467noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5293155946761960913.post-64698055966344346012012-02-27T20:08:23.277-06:002012-02-27T20:08:23.277-06:00I got this issue off the rack when I was 9 or 10, ...I got this issue off the rack when I was 9 or 10, although it disappeared from my collection sometime later. Anyhow, this was really my introduction to the character and it rather intrigued me. Within the next year I became more familiar with his previous guise through those X-Men reprints. I liked both versions of the Beast, although his attempts at trying to disguise his new, furrier, more animalistic self didn't quite work for me and it made sense when Steve Englehart had him drop it when he brought him to the Avengers. It was natural in this first appearance of the revised Beast, Hank McCoy had trouble adjusting psychologically, but I'm glad they didn't have him become yet another tormented man-monster (as seemed the slant of the first two issues), instead having him maintain his keen intelligence and sense of humor.<br />As to Sutton's art, I preferred his humorous work but he seemed ill-suited to more action-orientated work.Fred W. Hillhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07602124919964053532noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5293155946761960913.post-88461914524390648062012-02-27T18:04:48.001-06:002012-02-27T18:04:48.001-06:00@ BrittReid (Didja know that the guy that voiced h...@ BrittReid (Didja know that the guy that voiced him on the radio program was, like, 19 years old when he started-??)<br /><br />This is certainly a tangential topic, but THANK YOU for confirming specifically a trademark rule that I had always just assumed to be true. Did NOT know that trademark-protection window was a mere two years long, though! Wow-- I would've guessed maybe five. That, of course, explains why Marvel was always delighted to have Fred Hembeck drag Brother Voodoo back into the light every so-often. And, of course, why we kept getting so many iterations of Captain Marvels. And Spider-Woman(s). And why not too long after Adam Warlock died/disappeared, we got a New Mutant techno-being named. . . Warlock. Who ultimately sort of died just in time for the ORIGINAL Warlock to make a return. Or why every couple of years SOME title will feature a battle with a variation of a "Legion of the Unliving".<br /><br />It's like there's a big calendar with inactive characters' expiration dates pasted in, and Marvel has a mandate to stick them in SOMEwhere before they can be poached. . . <br /><br />HBhumanbellynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5293155946761960913.post-20492536435252990552012-02-27T15:34:21.083-06:002012-02-27T15:34:21.083-06:00"I think a smarter way to go would be somethi..."I think a smarter way to go would be something the Bronze Age did which was to use books like Marvel Team-Up and anthology titles to showcase characters that people do really enjoy but just not enough to buy a solo title featuring that character."<br /><br />Team-Up and Two-in-One were primarily used to keep trademarks active for characters who may not have appeared anywhere else in the line for a given period.<br />(If you don't use the trademark on a product available for sale to the public for two years, you lose it.)<br />That's how Marvel ended up with the TM for Captain Marvel, despite DC's owning the original character, and there being <i>another</i> short-lived Captain Marvel in 1966.<br /><br />Marvel also took names of other companies' Golden Age characters like <i>Daredevil</i> and <i>Ghost Rider</i>, and did <i>new</i> characters with those names.Britt Reidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07245579677452948620noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5293155946761960913.post-13729253530304929742012-02-27T15:26:48.839-06:002012-02-27T15:26:48.839-06:00Myself I like the Beast in blue fur but maybe it&#...Myself I like the Beast in blue fur but maybe it's because that's how I first saw him. It wasn't until I read Marvel Comics: Bring On the Bad Guys which had X-Men no.1 in there for Magneto's first appearance that I knew he was ever furless. <br /><br /> ..and it also looks like wanting to give various X-Men solo titles goes waaay back. My god the idea of there being exactly one X-Men title feels like an apparition spoken of in whispers and legend by this point. <br /><br />I realize that spinning a character off into a solo title goes back in further than the Bronze Age but I think there are a lot of good characters that don't work in solo books and it's not because of anything actually wrong with them. Beast for example, is interesting in relation to the other members of the X-Men. <br /><br />I think a smarter way to go would be something the Bronze Age did which was to use books like Marvel Team-Up and anthology titles to showcase characters that people do really enjoy but just not enough to buy a solo title featuring that character.MattComixhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14015552734150732758noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5293155946761960913.post-3649590889111100482012-02-27T15:07:17.241-06:002012-02-27T15:07:17.241-06:00About the sequence with the X-Men team: During tha...About the sequence with the X-Men team: During that interim, Marvel was indecisive about which costumes they should wear.<br /><br /> In the flashback here, they wore the costumes from the end of their run, while in other issues, they were back in their black/yellows.<br /><br /> J.A.P.Jeremy Aron Patterson.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5293155946761960913.post-37108277773593770912012-02-27T13:42:47.761-06:002012-02-27T13:42:47.761-06:00Thanks to Britt for that explanation of the colori...Thanks to Britt for that explanation of the coloring. Every time I see Batman, I think back to how I colored him in coloring books when I was a kid in the '60s: that purplish tone. I loved that coloring.William Prestonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07896164917625191919noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5293155946761960913.post-46492679346482483852012-02-27T12:06:16.791-06:002012-02-27T12:06:16.791-06:00LOL - regarding our conversation about Hank's ...LOL - regarding our conversation about Hank's reversion to animalism, I just looked on the Marvel database for Am Adv #11. It says: <br /><br />'First appearance in fury form'. <br /><br />RichardAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5293155946761960913.post-73937904793197535842012-02-27T09:11:40.227-06:002012-02-27T09:11:40.227-06:00Britt - really interesting points about the colou...Britt - really interesting points about the colour process. Thanks.<br /><br />D & K - I kind of agree about the art, although there were things I did like about it. I agree, it’s got a bad problem in that it’s too ‘stick-man’. You can get away with this on some strips, but where you have a character who is specifically meant to be agile and acrobatic, you need fluid, flowing pencils. Or that Kane / Miller touch, where the figure is static, but you show him in ‘ghost form’ as he flows from pose to pose. What I did like was that it captured the savagery of new Beast and the solidity of his new body. When he brings that door down, you feel it smashing into matchsticks. And you easily believe he could break someone’s neck before he got a grip on himself. <br /><br />Thomas / Conway / Englehart clearly wanted to get Hank away from sounding like his mutant power was changing into a thesaurus and they (probably Roy) chose to do it as part of the mutation, which I thought was good. <br /><br />Doug – to your point about why didn’t they just invent a new character? I think the whole point was to keep the Xmen on the radar: <br /><br />“Believe it or not, there once was a time when the X-Men couldn't support their own book. Despite a wonderful run, capped off by some classic Roy Thomas-Neal Adams issues, X-MEN had died and gone to reprint heaven. But Roy thought maybe a series starring one of the X-Men, with the others guest-starring, would work. Gerry Conway kicked it off, in AMAZING ADVENTURES #11, and then the series was handed over to a brand-new writer for his very first superhero. Over the next year I wrote the only X-MEN there was.” (SE) <br /><br /><br />Karen – I agree about the great cover, but.....is it just me or is Bill Everett doing an impression of Klaus Janson?<br /><br />RichardAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5293155946761960913.post-40644560872643526582012-02-27T09:11:05.818-06:002012-02-27T09:11:05.818-06:00I was never much of a fan of the furry Beast, blue...I was never much of a fan of the furry Beast, blue or gray. (It's like he was fighting a civil war against his animal nature! Ba-dump-bump! Thanks, folks, I'll be here all week. Enjoy the veal.)<br /><br />Hank McCoy was a much more interesting character, visually and otherwise, when he was human yet oddly simian in appearance. It was a nice contrast to his braininess and all the more effective because it was fairly subtle. I liked the blue and red costume too. <br /><br />The furry version struck me as just too much and ultimately kind of boring.<br /><br />Like david b, I never did care much for him as an Avenger either. He seemed to be little more than comic relief and not very funny at that. You'd think a guy transformed into a furry monster would be a little more complex and at least ambivalent about his appearance, but the writers never brought that out. I was glad when they wrote him out of the series.<br /><br />One final thought: Didn't the Beast's change to a furry creature occur right around the same time that interest in finding Bigfoot/Sasquatch was becoming an obsession in 70s popular culture? I think this comic came out a just few years after that famous footage supposedly showing Bigfoot walking through a northwestern forest. I remember it being a big deal at the time, filling up books, magazines and TV shows like In Search Of ...<br /><br />My guess is that Marvel was trying to get in on some of that action by creating their own Bigfoot superhero and Hank McCoy was drafted for the cause.Inkstained Wretchnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5293155946761960913.post-9832527421405269552012-02-27T07:58:43.018-06:002012-02-27T07:58:43.018-06:00Interesting column today, great idea. I do recall...Interesting column today, great idea. I do recall seeing this title on the racks when I'd walk into a new store scoping out Marvels, but was typically left mangled in the racks along with Two-Gun Kid and other non-flagship titles.<br /><br />I don't know a lot about pre-Avengers Hank in the 70s, but I remember actually groaning when he joined the team as a regular. Then as an Avenger, I frankly never saw him offering much besides some comic relief and later, a buddy for Simon.<br /><br />I started liking him more when he reverted back to his former self in X-Factor, but like WCA, couldn't stomach more than the first dozen issues...: I was looking for a return to the classic 60s team, but was disappointed when it ended up more as 'just another mutant book'.<br /><br />As for his coloring, I'm assuming it was an editorial decision, much like the once-grey Hulk.. Grey monsters don't stand out much on comic covers.david_bhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00218727673816200051noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5293155946761960913.post-42531809989361666302012-02-27T07:57:47.862-06:002012-02-27T07:57:47.862-06:00With changes to the Comics Code once more allowing...With changes to the Comics Code once more allowing horror elements in mainstream comics, Marvel was going thru their "Monster" phase with Dracula, Werewolf by Night, Frankenstein, Man-Thing, etc. all making their premieres during this period.<br />I suppose they thought a monster-hero would be more marketable than just a solo X-Man strip.<br /><br />The reason The Beast looks "purple" rather than "grey" is because the "grey" <i>isn't</i> a black ink screen, but a combination of the printing colors 25% Cyan (blue) 25% Magenta (a pink-red) and 25% yellow.<br />The "purple" is what you get when the yellow screen isn't added.<br />It's the same "grey" used on Batman's costume pre-1990 or so, and on Marvel characters like the Grey Gargoyle and Asgardian Destroyer as well as Iron Man's first armor!<br />Since the advent of computer coloring and better printing, comic book grey is usually a black ink screen.<br />That's why tv's <b>Batman</b> wore light purple and blue.<br />Some of the comics the producers had as reference lacked the 25% yellow screen!Britt Reidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07245579677452948620noreply@blogger.com