If you were a Conan fan in the early 1970s, most likely you wailed when Barry Smith left the series, no matter how much you liked John Buscema.  Where there are a large number of fans who feel Buscema is the superior Conan artist, he was always a strong second choice for me.  Barry Smith left the color comic with the Song of Red Sonja, then he returned briefly for the epic Red Nails in Savage Tales.  After that, aside from pinups and posters, we never saw Smith on Conan again.

Roy Thomas found another artist—Tim Conrad—who briefly appeared to be Smith’s successor.

Conrad made a splash in the Savage Sword of Conan with a two part Bran Mak Morn story that blew us all away.  I kept hoping that Conrad would eventually draw Conan regularly—but all we got was this cover from the Marvel Comics Index series.  What happened to Tim Conrad after his Savage Sword stories?  I’ve lost track.  Nuff said.

In 1981, Brent Anderson provided this nifty wraparound cover to the X-Men Marvel Comics Index.

I love this cover because it features the classic X-Men on the left in their yellow and black uniforms.  The new X-Men are gathered around Charles Xavier on the right.  The logo is used as a prop for Nightcrawler to dangle overhead.  Terry Austin did a superb job on the inks, and they corralled Steve Oliff for the coloring.

Brent Anderson was the artists of the classic God Loves, Man Kills graphic novel.  He illustrated many other Marvel comics, including Ka-Zar and one of my favorite non-universe series, Strikeforce Morituri.  Check out Brent’s website.  Nuff said.

How many Fantastic Four covers did Jim Steranko produce in the 1970s?  Only three to my knowledge.

Fantastic Four #130 was produced during Steranko's flurry of 1972 covers for Marvel.  This issue featured the return of the Frightful Four, with an interesting twist.  Medusa, once a member of the Frightful Four in 1960s, had switched sides and become a member of the FF.  Taking Medusa's place?  Thundra, the Femizon who wanted to make babies with Benjamin J. Grimm.  The Thing looks great on this cover.

Fantastic Four #131 featured the answer to a mystery that began in Avengers #104--whatever happened to Quicksilver?  The last we had seen of the silver speedster, he had heroically sacrificed himself to defeat a Sentinel.  Seriously injured, Pietro saw something horrible approaching him.  Then he vanished, leaving the Avengers and his sister Wanda to wonder where he had disappeared.

This issue gave us the answer!  Quicksilver had been approached by Lockjaw, the teleporting giant bulldog from the Inhumans.  Lockjaw brought Pietro to Attilan, where he was nursed back to health by Crystal.  Crystal melted Quicksilver's icy exterior and he fell in love.  Naturally, when Johnny Storm discovered them together, a massive fight ensued.

It was a pretty darn good soap opera moment in the Marvel Universe.  Unfortunately, it had the side effect of removing Quicksilver from the Marvel playground for a number of years.

While the 1972 FF covers are good, they don't seem like iconic Steranko.  But the cover to the Fantastic Four Marvel Comics Index in 1977 is really groovy and psychedelic, man.  Nuff said.

Now here’s a blast from the past—anyone remember artist Ken Steacy?

Steacy worked on a number of remarkable comics in the 1970s and 80s.  He started off at Comico and later did work for Marvel—one Iron Man story in Marvel Fanfare stands out in my memory.  Since 2004, Steacy has been running his own publishing company.

What I find impressive about this cover is not the Hulk—he looks a bit ragged here.  It’s Ant-Man who really stands out on the left.  What could be more imaginative than Kirby’s costume design, the nutty antennae helmet, and steering an airborne insect like it was a flying horse?  And the lovely Janet Van Dyne for company.  Just think, if Marvel could produce computer animated movies, Ant-Man would be a perfect character for that medium.  Nuff said.

In 1982, George Olshevsky snagged Frank Miller for the cover to the Marvel Comics Index featuring Daredevil.

This dynamic cover features Daredevil and Elektra on a NYC rooftop, ready to fight the Hand.  Black Widow, in her new Miller-designed costume, hangs off the building on the side.

What’s really incredible is that this index also covered Black Goliath, Black Panther, Dazzler, and the Human Fly!  I could not believe fans were dying to know who wrote/drew each issue of the Human Fly!  Miller does his best with these side characters—his rendition of Black Goliath makes that character cool.

Not only did Miller draw this cover, Joe Rubenstein inked it, and Steve Oliff did a superb color job.  Nuff said.

Here’s an interview, taken from last June’s E3 2009, with Guha Bala (president of Vicarious Visions) on the new features in Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2.  There’s loads of footage on the Thunderbolts (Venom, Songbird, Green Goblin, etc) in the game.  I like what I’ve seen of the game environments, and the character detail is greatly improved as well.

Since this game is loosely based on Civil War, I wonder if it ends the same way?  I’d love to control Steve Rogers and have Captain America peel off Tony Stark’s armor.  Nuff said.

My retrospective look at George Olshevsky’s Marvel Comics Index covers continues, with this Doctor Strange cover by Tim Conrad in 1977.

The groovy thing about this cover is the way that Conrad rendered Stephen Strange’s face—it closely resembles Steve Ditko’s version of the character.  Nuff said.

No matter how critical you are of Marvel (and judging from the message boards on various websites, fandom is very critical), you've got to admit that Marvel has their shit together about shipping comics.

Captain America #600 was released on June 15th and now Captain America Reborn #1 was released on July 1st.  There were many covers released for this one--my favorite was the Bryan Hitch cover that you see above.

The story by Ed Brubaker weaves together a lot of dangling plot threads from the regular Captain America series.  In the conclusion of the Red Skull arc, we saw that Arnim Zola had attached Sharon Carter to a crazy device.  I was left with the impression that this machine had something to do with Steve Rogers...and Reborn proves that I was right.  The device was a Doc Doom style time machine designed to bring Steve Rogers back from the past into the present.  Sharon upset their plans in that story, and now Rogers is unstuck in time--shades of Slaughterhouse Five, as Brubaker mentioned in a tweet this week: "Trying to remember if Vonnegut wrote Final Crisis or Lost... or was it Slaughterhouse Five?"

This is a really top notch comic book, with great artwork by Hitch and Guice, and superb color.  The opening scene of Cap in World War 2 (on D-Day) makes me think that there isn't that much difference now between the Ultimate Cap and the regular Marvel 616 Cap.  I also liked how this story involves the rest of the present Marvel Universe, including HAMMER and the Dark Avengers.

I'm wondering if the secret to Captain America's return is to pull him out of the past into the present?  That would kind of push the big reset button, having Cap experience that fish out of water feeling all over again.  Lots of problems to solve there, although I am sure Brubaker could pull it off.  I could be wrong--Marvel tried this stunt with Captain Marvel during Secret Invasion.  I was excited about that gimmick as well.  I guess I'm easy--any excuse to bring my favorite characters back and I'm happy.

Marvel's cosmic event, War of Kings, has also been well orchestrated, with new chapters being published every one to two weeks.

War of Kings #5 propels this story to its climax.  Lilandra really is dead and riots are erupting all over the Shi'Ar homeworld.  Vulcan's megalomania has threatened his throne--now his allies, such as Talon (from Darkhawk) are ready to withdraw their support.  On the other front, Black Bolt has decided to end the war by launching a T-Bomb (Terrigen powered) at the Shi'Ar.  It's a crazy plan.  The bomb will uplift the Shi'Ar and somehow this will transform them into a peaceful society.  And Black Bolt has to commit suicide in order to launch the bomb.  It's crazy, but really imaginative.  You have to give Maximus a lot of credit!  He's become my favorite nut in the Marvel U.

On the very last page of this issue, we are teased with the big showdown we've been waiting for, when Vulcan finally meets Black Bolt.  Next issue we'll see those two powerhouses duke it out.  It should be a great fight, although Vulcan seems much more powerful than Black Bolt.  Wouldn't he win easily just by dragging the Inhuman king into outer space, where his voice would be useless?

We've certainly seen a lot of Matt Fraction's X-Men recently--almost one new issue every week!  Last week's Uncanny X-Men #512 was an excellent done-in-one story about the Beast's team travelling back in time to discover the origin of the mutant species.  And causing the 1906 San Francisco earthquake in the process! 

Uncanny X-Men #513 is a good first act to the war between Norman Osborn and Scott Summers.  This is really a great excuse for Fraction to turn Cyclops back into bad-ass Mr. X-Man.  However, in this chapter, Cyclops pretty much watches the TV coverage of Osborn's mutant crackdown on TV.  He even applauds Osborn for being an excellent chess player.  Hopefully he will spring into action in the next chapter.

Chapter 2 of Utopia (the Dark Avengers vs X-Men event) introduces the Dark X-Men: Emma Frost (now wearing black instead of white), Daken, Cloak, Dagger, and Namor were all evident from the cover.  The Angel looking dude is really Cal Rankin (surprised that he is still alive), and if you think about mutant shape-shifters, you will realize who is impersonating Charles Xavier.  I have to believe that Emma has a plan for undermining Osborn--why else would she bring the Sub-Mariner on her team?  Namor has got it in for Osborn as well.

There are many cool elements in the Utopia storyline.  Setting it in San Francisco, where people protest at the drop of a hat, makes it a natural place for people to protest for Mutant rights.  The initial mutant confrontation with the Dark Avengers takes place in the Castro district.  A curfew in San Francisco?  No way that people would obey that.  Simon Trask is also running around, turning people into human Sentinels.  But worse than Sentinels--Norman Osborn may be the greatest enemy the X-Men have ever faced.  Because he's not only using force against them, Osborn is also using public opinion and political forces.  He's worse the Magneto.  Fraction has really concocted a great threat here, let's see if he can pull off a good second and third act as well.  Nuff said.