My favorite LUKE CAGE ~ POWERMAN covers

He started out as a Hero for hire then worked his way into his own title then he became a member of the FANTASTIC FOUR and to this day is among my pantheon of Heroes from the 1970's....Check out these cool..favorite covers from his early days before he became just CAGE...a guy with jeans and a t-shirt. One of the best super hero creations ever and he wore a pretty cool costume too. A combination of street clothes and super hero duds..the chain the head band the gauntlet cuffs the boots....the flipped up collared shirt. COME ON MAN!!! That was a cool design.

But...they changed it and ruined an otherwise very cool character with a distinctive look.

Anyway...I took these pics from around the web...because once again. I don't own a scanner and am not bringing my comics to work to scan them they'll get ruined. But I do own copies of these and I treat my comics with care.

The first issue 's cover was drawn by John Romita and # 17 was by Gil Kane and I do believe the artist on the covers for the other issues are done by the series early issues interior artist and another legendary icon of the 1970's

Billy Graham... No not the preacher and the not the SUPERSTAR pro wrestler.

a man of the same name and of equal historical importance in my eyes. ENJOY!!!

My favorite 4 color comics covers.

Super heroes....we know who they are. The entire list we can run down it and name dozens of super heroes right off the bat. But when your favorite movies as a kid have comic book adaptations...well that makes them an even more treasured item. Such as the case with these particular comic books here.

I got SPARTACUS maybe 24 years ago and read it and looked at the mighty art of John Buscema on the interiors and was taken right back to the movie. SPARTACUS also happens to be one of my favorite movies of all time. Great Stuff.

HERCULES came next...ABOUT 10 YEARS AGO I was hanging out in my local comic book store ( LONG ISLAND COMICS ) just rummaging through boxes and came across it and the owner of the store sold it to me for a really fair price considering the condition. Now I had seen these comics at conventions but was never able to afford the inflated prices of these swap meet style comic cons. WAY too much money. You go to those things to find good deals...not over pay.

Well I needed them all. Luckily for me we have Ebay. I then added HERCULES unchained , The VIKINGS and SINBAD to my collection all within the last 2 years. All the images here are taken from EBAY. These particular comics are not mine. But I do have nice quality copies of each of them. Hope you enjoy. :)

CONAN vs TARZAN

Another noodling around practice job. I wanted to give it that British reprint look that you used to see in those old B/W mags from merry old England. I was looking for the perfect images to put together and I came up with the idea that I wanted an old fashioned look. KUBERT? BUSCEMA? BARRY SMITH? I chose a BUSCEMA Tarzan image and The SMITH images because I had a composition in mind and they seemed to fit. The dimension and size of TARZAN was perfect ( TO ME ) for a flying through the air and just a few feet away from CONAN who will barely have time to swing his sword before TARZAN pounces on him. Creates a scenario in your imagination don't it? Well..this will be my last Paste up mock cover that I will share for a while.

Gotta post my favorite covers...ya know?

CONAN / KULL

One of the most iconic images in the entire run for CONAN when he was being published @ Marvel comics. Add King Kull to the mix and you get a double dose of babrbaric imagery.

Many times as a kid I'd buy comics only if the cover looked cool. Not because the story ran in consecutive order. I bought the comics originally for the art. At one time I did not know that KULL was also created by REH so when Marvel started publishing KULL the Conqueror I thought it was stupid. But at some point I realized he was also a creation of Robert E. Howards so I then had to go out and seek the first bunch of issues and boy was I feeling stupid.

KULL offered up the same excitement and suspense CONAN did. Before I knew it I had the first 15 issues of KULL and then sought out any other KULL stories I could find. " Creatures on the loose " " Monsters on the prowl " " Marvel Preview " and so on. As much as I love CONAN...KULL came first. There were even adaptations Roy Thomas made in the comics. He transposed KULL stories into CONAN stories.

Then later on those same stories saw print in their original form as KULL tales.

I love comics. This is one of my favorite covers.

Art by John Buscema and Ernie Chan.

CONAN vs BATMAN

Don't get confused this is not going to be another style of blog where I post mock up covers I created myself by pasting art together on my PC.

I am noodling around and teaching myself and I came up with another Cover. I'm getting a bit better. Now I need to work on resolution. Hope you like it.

The art for this one is by John Buscema , Ernie Chan and MW. Kaluta. and it's a straight up mock up just for fun. I am not selling it nor am I making any money by posting it here. Just sharing my progress with my PC's paint program...and I need to upgrade.

The Team up that will never be....

I created this cover by pasting art together from different comic book covers and then playing with the digital paintbrush on my PC.

You may from time to time catch some of my own work or maybe an homage or two and yes even a wonderful recreation. But so far out of all the paste up / slapped together bogus and dummy covers I've created. This one is my favorite. The figures are by none other than Big John Buscema. The art is not mine...it is a mish mash mock up of a WHAT IF style TEAM UP cover and it was strictly for my personal enjoyment. Hope you dig it. More to come on Favorite covers in the near future. :)

X-Men # 45 ( original art )

This scan of the original art for the cover of X-Mem 45 provided by fellow John Buscema fan. Michael Maikowsky. It's as glorious in B/W as it is in color....I like all the little paste up bits for the title and so on too. Gives it that real original feel and gives you a good idea about how they did things in those days. Now it's so much easier. They scan the art and then using a program slap on the logos and blurbs.

Cover art by John Buscema.

CYCLOPS vs QUICKSILVER

When I was just an itty bitty boy...I saw "Marvel Triple Action" on the rack and immediately noticed that the figure work was awfully familiar. JOHN BUSCEMA my favorite artist draws X-Men too? I snatched that bitch right off the rack plopped down my quarter and dime and got home as fast as I could. I found that the comic was actually a reprint of an original X-Men book from several years before. But that did not stop me from staring at the art and the cover and the poses and the fists and the machinery and the wicked ass color scheme. I could not get enough of it and wished that it was gigantic....SO...I got hold of some poster board a teacher at school let me bring home to draw on and did my best to try to copy the drawing and recreate the simply amazing art. GUESS WHAT?...yeah it didn't work. ( I flipped over the poster board and drew one of my big giant typical CONAN with a axe drawing in marker and put bodies and vultures and blood on his axe and amazed myself...I thought it was pretty good. I put it on the outside of my bedroom door.) I never did get a big picture of that X-Men cover...but I put a tack right through the top of the comic and stuck on my wall near my bed. ( Ruining the comic ) lol.

I didn't care. I was happy. I looked at it every day. Definately one of my favorite covers.

( Whatever became of my CONAN poster? )...My brother ruined it. He went over my drawing

with a thicker marker to fatten up the line work and colored in area's that should not be colored in. I was 12 or so. He was 19. So I could not kick his ass.

I ripped it down and threw it away. He ruined it. Lot's of stuff gets ruined when you're young. :)

Art by John Buscema

SUPERMAN?

I was thinking about covers while doing my data entry clerical work at my place of employment today. Covers that stand out in my mind.....hmmmm....covers that hold up after many years. Covers that create an extension to you imagination. A cover so stupendous it's unbelievable. GOT IT!!! FF 249 !! GLADIATOR comes to earth he can't speak our language and he kicks the living spit out of the FF. He lifts the BAXTER BUILDING off the foundation and shakes it like a cracker box!!!! It all leads into another plot with a twist and an interesting story arc involving SKRULLS and the X-men.....This here is FANTASTIC FOUR # 249...and it is one of MY FAVORITE COVERS - Art by John Byrne.