by Chris Ryall
RECOMMENDED READING 101
CHRIS CLAREMONT
The Uncanny X-Men Omnibus
Wolverine by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller
X-Men: The Dark Phoenix Saga by Chris Claremont and John Byrne
X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills by Chris Claremont and Brent Anderson
8 John Byrne
Not many creators can lay claim to being a true successor to the legacy of Jack “The King” Kirby. John Byrne, through his decades of impressive output as both an artist and a writer/artist, is one of the few.
Byrne, British-born but Canadian-raised, began his artistic career humbly enough. In the mid-1970s, he worked for Charlton, drawing a back-up strip called ROG-2000 and illustrating licensed books such as Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch and Space: 1999. His work on these titles caught the attention of Marvel Comics, which brought him on to tackle some of its floundering titles such as Marvel Team Up and Iron Fist. Even then, his dynamic, naturalistic linework stood above many of his peers', and he began to elevate these low-selling titles to sales levels Marvel hadn't experienced before. But it was his work on another of Marvel's titles that would produce the first landmark work of Byrne's artistic career.
In the late 1970s, Byrne took over the art chores on The Uncanny X-Men from Dave Cockrum. Cockrum was the artist since the title's relaunch in issue #94, the first to feature the “all-new, all-different” X-Men. Byrne came aboard on issue #108 (December 1977), and his star and that of the title rose together nearly overnight. The creative team on this book, writer Chris Claremont, Byrne and inker Terry Austin, produced one of the most classic runs in all of comics, still the yardstick by which all subsequent X-Men comics (and movies) have been measured. During Byrne's tenure, the team defined the character of Wolverine, making him one of the most popular characters in all of Marvel; they produced “The Dark Phoenix Saga,” a truly epic and shocking story that inspired the plot of the recent big-screen movies; and they introduced the Canadian super-team Alpha Flight, a team that would eventually spin off into its own title written and drawn by Byrne.
An opinionated, outspoken storyteller, Byrne was involved in much of the plotting on X-Men. When he disagreed with the editorial decision to kill Phoenix, he left the book soon after that storyline was complete. Nearly every title Byrne worked on at the time became a fan-favorite — his work with Roger Stern on Captain America, while only nine issues in length, is another such example. But he would take a huge step forward when he began his lengthy run as both the writer and artist on Fantastic Four in 1981.
While Lee and Kirby produced 102 consecutive issues of the title, Byrne stuck around for sixty-two issues (plus a few annuals he either wrote or drew or both). In that time, he returned the title to a prominence it hadn't seen since the Lee/Kirby team broke up (and arguably hasn't seen since Byrne left).
Byrne's work on Fantastic Four showcased his strength as a writer right from the start, and began his habit of introducing lasting changes on a title, a move that would both win over and alienate fans in the years to come. Here, it worked masterfully. He created characters and concepts that not only epitomized the anything-goes era of Lee and Kirby but also moved the title forward, emphasizing both the familial aspects of the team and the huge, innovative ideas that had been long missing. It took him five issues to fully make the book his own. While his first few issues were serviceable, it was the title's twentieth-anniversary issue, Fantastic Four #236 (November 1981), that clued people in that he had bigger things in mind for his run. The extra-length story, “Terror in a Tiny Town,” spent as much time developing the family dynamic of the characters as it did introducing an interesting new threat from a perfectly characterized Doctor Doom.
Byrne's Fantastic Four is second only to Lee's and Kirby's in creativity and adoration.
FANTASTIC FOUR VISIONARIES: JOHN BYRNE, VOL. 1: © 2001 MARVEL ENTERTAINMENT, INC. USED WITH PERMISSION. ART BY JOHN BYRNE.
Byrne took the team in directions that felt organic to what had come before while also being truly innovative. He further mutated the misshapen, tragic Thing; he turned the Human Torch's girlfriend into a herald of Galactus; he even managed to juggle lighter storylines, such as adding She-Hulk to the team alongside his most serious direction for the title, Sue Richards's sensitively handled miscarriage. Nearly the entirety of Byrne's Fantastic Four run has been collected in trade paperback form now, and all are well worth checking out.
When Byrne left the title under circumstances that have never been fully explained — he left his final storyline midstream — he took his revisionist talent to DC Comics, which had just produced the Crisis on Infinite Earths miniseries that effectively reset its universe. Byrne was hired on to relaunch Superman in the form of a miniseries called The Man of Steel, and then a new Superman title or two to follow. His retelling of Superman's beginnings updated some aspects of the origin laid down a half-century before, but it also changed some aspects of the character that fans didn't appreciate.
In the intervening decades, Byrne would alternate between Marvel and DC, revamping titles like The West Coast Avengers and The Sensational She-Hulk for Marvel and Wonder Woman, New Gods and Doom Patrol for DC. He did return to the X-Men titles as writer, too, but his run there was rather short and unremarkable. After working on other Marvel titles, including Namor and Iron Man, Byrne left behind work-for-hire jobs and went off to create some characters of his own.
John Byrne's Next Men was a fitting addition to Dark Horse's Legends line.
JOHN BYRNE'S COMPLEAT NEXT MEN, VOL. 1 © 2008 BY JOHN BYRNE. PUBLISHED BY IDW PUBLISHING. ART BY JOHN BYRNE.
Byrne headed to Dark Horse Comics to help kick off its burgeoning Legends line. His post-superhero title for this line, John Byrne's Next Men, was a true return to form. It was an advancement of his previous work on superhero titles and told a more mature story than people had previously seen from him. The complete series has been collected in two volumes and is an excellent showcase of Byrne's many strengths as a creator.
In 1998, Byrne again returned to Marvel, this time in an attempt to give Spider-Man his own reboot and makeover. Spider-Man: Chapter One managed to change the 1962 origin in unnecessary places while at the same time staying too slavish to what Lee and Ditko created to actually make any substantial changes that mattered to fans. But you can't win 'em all, especially in a career that's lasted more than three decades.
Byrne has produced an amazing amount of pages in his career, working at a pace of two or three finished pages per day. He has written the majority of comics he's illustrated since originally leaving X-Men, and at times he's even lettered his own work. His tendency to change elements in long-running characters (he's working in an industry built on maintaining some form of character status quo, after all) as well as his outspoken, forthright personality have worked to his detriment at times, but in these days of Internet anonymity and an impassioned fanbase, that's not unexpected or even uncourted by Byrne every now and then.
A cover to 2008's FX shows that all roads eventually lead Byrne back to superhero comics.
FX #6: © 2008 WAYNE OSBORNE. PUBLISHED BY IDW PUBLISHING. ART BY JOHN BYRNE.
A long-time Star Trek fan, John has in recent years turned to writing and drawing comics based on that property. He admits his pace has “slowed” to producing two pages of scripted, pencilled and inked pages per day, but that's still a King-ly pace that outmatches nearly every other artist working today.
RECOMMENDED READING 101
JOHN BYRNE
Fantastic Four Visionaries — John Byrne, Vol. 1–8
John Byrne's Compleat Next Men, Vol. 1–2
Superman: The Man of Steel, Vol. 1–6
X-Men: The Dark Phoenix Saga by Chris Claremont and John Byrne
9 George Pérez
When people don't know how else to compliment a piece of comic-book art, many times they fall back on the obvious: the detail. “Just look at the detail…” Nowhere is that somewhat trite piece of praise
more appropriate than when discussing the work of artist George Pérez. He is certainly known for his insanely intricate linework, but to focus on that alone glosses over so much more in the artistic style of the man who has become known as comics' premier “team-book” illustrator, and who has remained a fan favorite for well over three decades.
A self-taught artist from Queens, New York, George Pérez got his start in comics at Marvel in the mid-1970s, providing art for the publisher's kungfu feature Sons of the Tiger, before moving up to more high-profile assignments such as The Avengers and Fantastic Four. Young and eager to work, Pérez often found himself taking on team books that were less popular with the older, more established artists, simply because they had so many more characters to draw each month. Here, especially on The Avengers, is where Pérez first made a name for himself.
Pérez helped ring in the U.S. Bicentennial with this image from Marvel's 1976 calendar.
MARVEL CALENDAR: © 1976 MARVEL ENTERTAINMENT, INC. USED WITH PERMISSION. ART BY GEORGE PÉREZ AND JOE SINNOTT.
Soon other publishers were knocking on Pérez's door, and he made the jump to DC in the early 1980s, first on a well-received run on DC's Justice League of America and then on a book with writer Marv Wolfman that would become DC's biggest hit in years, The New Teen Titans. Suddenly the 800-pound gorillas at DC (and rightfully so — The New Teen Titans was more exciting and vibrant than anything DC had published in years), Wolfman and Peréz, stepped right over to Crisis on Infinite Earths in 1985. This twelve-issue maxiseries set out to redefine DC's universe, and gave Pérez the opportunity to draw every single character in DC Comics history, or at least as close as any one man will ever come.
After a somewhat fallow period in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Pérez came back strong in 1994, providing the art for Peter David's Incredible Hulk graphic novel Future Imperfect. In 1998, he returned to the book that started it all for him, providing the artwork for Kurt Busiek's revival of The Avengers, staying on the series for a critically acclaimed three-year stint. Back at Marvel, Pérez had the chance to return to his dream project that had been aborted decades earlier, the victim of inter-company politics: JLA/Avengers. The long-awaited crossover of DC's and Marvel's biggest superhero teams was larger and more ambitious than anyone could have imagined, with Pérez and writer Busiek managing to include every character who had ever been a member of either team, in a globe-trotting adventure that spanned space and time. It's one of Pérez's most impressive single pieces of work.
RECOMMENDED READING 101
GEORGE PÉREZ
Avengers Assemble, Vol. 1–2 by Kurt Busiek and George Pérez
Crisis on Infinite Earths by Marv Wolfman and George Pérez
The Incredible Hulk: Future Imperfect by Peter David and George Pérez
JLA/Avengers by Kurt Busiek and George Pérez
The New Teen Titans Archives, Vol. 1–3 by Marv Wolfman and George Pérez
So what makes Pérez so great besides the aforementioned intricate detail and willingness to include a cast of thousands? Pérez is not only a great artist, but he's just as great a storyteller, able to convey great emotion in his characters through body language and facial expression. Pérez also is extremely innovative at page layout, often employing dozens of tiny panels on a page to get across a multiplicity of action, yet keeping the storytelling clear and understandable. And there's also Pérez's gift with faces, a skill shown off best in his most recent Avengers run. He often depicts scenes of members Captain America, Hawkeye and Goliath with their masks off: three blonde-haired Caucasian men in their early 30s, but not a moment of confusion as to who is who.
Now back at DC Comics, Pérez works on such comics as the team-up series The Brave & the Bold, another Crisis series and Legion of Super-Heroes, all or which offer the requisite team-book challenges on which Pérez thrives.
10 Frank Miller
Frank Miller has gotten his share of the spotlight in recent years as he's transitioned into film, first as co-director with Robert Rodriguez on the movie adaptation of Sin City, then as the visual inspiration for Zack Snyder's bravura adaptation of Miller's book 300, and most recently for his solo directorial debut on the adaptation of Will Eisner's The Spirit. It's therefore somehow pleasing to realize that it all got started because once upon a time, Frank Miller was just a guy who wanted to draw comic books.
Miller broke into comics in the late 1970s, with a two-issue stint on Peter Parker which led to his assignment as regular Daredevil artist. Not until Frank Miller took over the writing duties on the series did the tone fully shift to what Miller was looking to create: more serious, gritty drama. Miller, a big fan of the 1950s EC crime comics, applied much of that feel to Daredevil. By redefining characters such as the Kingpin and Bullseye to be more realistic and genuinely menacing, and introducing the femme fatale Elektra, inspired by strong female characters P'Gell and Sand Saref in Will Eisner's The Spirit, the ground was set for a landmark run on Daredevil that would influence the series for the next two decades.
Spanning roughly thirty issues of Daredevil (#158–190, 1979–1983), these stories are where Frank Miller truly came into his own as a writer and artist. Here can be found the introduction and loss of Elektra, and the classic clashes with Bullseye and the Kingpin. Everyone who's worked on Daredevil for the past twenty years has done so in the shadow of Miller's remarkable work. Looking back, it may seem a bit tame and melodramatic compared to what's out there today, but it's important to remember that no one was doing this kind of storytelling at the time, especially at Marvel.
While just about everyone considers Miller's first run on the series to be revolutionary stuff, his second stint is much more powerful. In “Born Again” (#227–233, 1986), we see what happens when the Kingpin is handed a slip of paper with that most precious of commodities: information. To be exact, Daredevil's real name. After the Kingpin succeeds in completely destroying Matt Murdock's life, Murdock slowly loses his grip on the world around him and descends into what can only be described as a full nervous breakdown. Miller takes us through hell with Matt Murdock, and sees us through to the other side. Some of the best writing of Miller's career is matched by fantastic pencils and inks from David Mazzucchelli that evoke Miller's style without merely copying it.
Miller's opinionated interviews are as captivating to read as the stories and art he produces.
THE COMICS JOURNAL LIBRARY: FRANK MILLER © 2003 FANTAGRAPHIC BOOKS, INC. PUBLISHED BY FANTAGRAPHICS.
One of Miller's most widely read works is his 1986 graphic novel Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. Miller's conception — Batman as a tersely speaking urban vigilante with a tendency to play a little rougher than longtime Bat-fans were accustomed to — had such an impact on the popular culture that it forever affected the character in whatever genre it appeared in, whether in film, animation or the comics themselves. Driving this four-issue series is a strong, compelling story, one of Miller's best, which holds up more than two decades later, and still has the crackle and spark of a brand-new book.
RECOMMENDED READING 101
FRANK MILLER
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
Batman: Year One by Frank Miller and Dave Mazzucchelli
Daredevil: Born Again by Frank Miller and Dave Mazzucchelli
Daredevil Visionaries — Frank Miller, Vol. 1–3
Elektra: Assassin by Frank Miller and Bill Sienkiewicz
Hard Boiled by Frank Miller and Geof Darrow
Ronin
Sin City: The Big Fat Kill
Sin City: The Hard Goodbye
Sin City: That Yellow Bastard 300
The Dark Knight Returns still stands as a high point in Frank Miller's artistic development. While some of his later work on Sin City revealed a singular, more impressionistic approach some consider more aesthetically pleasing, here Miller is still tempering that with a more traditional mainstream style, which is quite effective for this particular book. Miller also delves heavily into media influence in Da
rk Knight. Much of the storyline's background and exposition are established by the talking heads of network television news anchors and commentators, a device seen so often nowadays it is almost cliché, but which was a bold new approach in 1986. Miller keenly anticipated the overpowering presence of today's media. What then seemed like a parody of television now can pass by the reader practically unnoticed. The notion of a cranky middle-aged Batman coming out of retirement and struggling to do the things that once came so easy is a deliciously appealing one. Miller takes full advantage, both for humor and for drama's sake, as Batman's crusade seems all the more heroic now that it hurts him so much to continue, and he has to try so much harder.
CHRIS SAYS
Miller's Daredevil run was something that snuck up on me when I was twelve. My local retailer told me about this new comic that Marvel was producing, Marvel Fanfare. At $1.25, it was a bit pricey at the time, but “worth it,” he told me, “because the back cover is by the next superstar at Marvel.” It was a dark, sketchy image of Daredevil drawn by Frank Miller, an unknown to me. And it was nothing that spoke of greatness, really. But it was different. I was twelve, I was ready for different, so I gave Daredevil a shot. The first issue I picked up turned out to be issue #181 (April 1982), the monumental death of Elektra issue (talk about coming in at the end of a story). And soon I was spending all my paper-route income on every back issue I could find. This Frank Miller guy blew me away with his darker stories, his ninjas, his ability to turn a character I always remembered as a jokey, blind Spider-Man-type into something totally new and yet totally organic. And he got better from there, with Ronin and “Born Again” and Elektra: Assassin and so many others. Not to mention Dark Knight Returns and Batman: Year One. Even though I came to Daredevil a bit late, I have my retailer to thank for not allowing me to miss all the greatness to come. Listen to your retailer, kids — they really know their stuff.
