Sunday, July 15, 2007

Adventure Comics #499 - May 1983

"Who is the Legion's Traitor?" Well, it could be Chameleon Boy, Saturn Girl, or maybe Mon-El...or maybe even the shifty-eyed alien right in the center of the picture! Another Gil Kane cover, with...unusual poses, to say the least. When have you ever seen Saturn Girl from that angle? Has anyone, except for Lightning Lad?

Stories include:
Plastic Man in...um, well..."Plastic Man", apparently, since the story has no title, by Len Wein, Joe Staton, and Bob Smith
The Legion in "The Fantastic Spy!" by Jerry Siegel and John Forte
Aquaman in "A Kingdom To Rebild" by Steve Skeates, Jim Aparo, and Dick Giordano
Captain Marvel in "The Talking Tiger" by Otto Binder and C.C.Beck
The Sandman in "The Villain From Valhalla!" by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby
The Legion in "The Stolen Super-Powers!" by Siegel and Forte
Captain Marvel(again!) in "The Man in the Moon" by Binder and Beck
The Spectre in "Pilgrims of Peril" by Gardner Fox, and the unusual art team of Jerry Grandinetti and Murphy Anderson(!)

I've said before, I think Jerry Grandinetti is very underrated, both for his storytelling and his page layouts--he crams more into a panel than Evan Dorkin, yet it doesn't ever look crowded; instead it gives his work a weird, dream-like quality, perfect for Spectre stories.

There's also the Legion text page by Paul Levitz, as always. I guess the Legion was the engine driving this particular series, since they always got two stories per issue, Captain Marvel being the only other feature to do so, just this once. And fans of the Legion would be even more thrilled with Adventure's 500th issue celebration coming in two days!


 

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