Jim Steranko

This slim volume gathers all of Jim Steranko's non-Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. work for Marvel. No, there's not a lot of material here, but what you do get is almost uniformly excellent. I'm not even a big fan of superhero comics as such, but it's impossible not to love the three-part Captain America story in which Cap and Bucky #2 (Rick Jones) battle the hordes of HYDRA, with special guest star the Incredible Hulk. Steranko's art elevates this piece from mere comic book storytelling into the realm of the magical; most filmmakers would kill to do something half as interesting as what the artist achieves here on the printed page. While it's always evident that Steranko owed a stylistic debt to Jack "King" Kirby (as, indeed, every comic artist does), it's equally obvious how far Steranko ventured into previously uncharted territory, and how successfully.

An earlier X-Men two-parter is okay, but the art looks like it was dashed off rather hastily. (And it ends on a cliffhanger: disappointing for folks who are reading just for fun and not to analyze Steranko's work.) You also get the award-winning horror story "At the Stroke of Midnight!" from Tower of Shadows #1, and a dated but visually arresting romance tale from the pages of Our Love Story. Adaptability is key for any artist regardless of medium, and it's fascinating to see how Steranko refashioned his style for non-superhero material. Near the back of the book, Steranko's Marvel covers are reproduced (including his archetypal illustration for the cover of Incredible Hulk King-Size Special #1).… (more)

Steranko had a history as a notorious hard worker who earned a lot of opportunities with his capable efforts. He built from Kirby's style (long after it was expected of him), and appears to have inspired Kirby himself to push some of his work into more experimental places. Healthy competition, IOW.
The artwork in this collection represents a new age of expectations for the artwork in comics - and there would be no going back (if artists knew what was good for them).

Sadly, it's really not well written - to the point of being unpleasant to read. There's a lot of timely racism, too - something to accept in historical context, but still cringe worthy when it presents as enthusiastically disparaging.

Some people celebrate Steranko as the best comic artist of all time. I don't think he holds a torch to Kirby (whom he never stopped emulating, and in a less dynamic or consistent way), and I guess the personality quirks show through in ways that make his work end up rubbing me the wrong way sometimes. If he'd been paired with a capable writer on this project it would have been soo much better.

The genre-spanning that closes the book (international, gothic, etc.) feels like flailing - and I never really got to find many redeeming qualities in Nick Fury - which is a problem, in a book about Nick Fury.… (more)

Reading this I can’t help but think there’s a certain something lost from comics since Frank Miller and Alan Moore accidentally set the comic book universe down a dark road. Storytelling has improved, there’s a huge range of lusciously produced art styles to please almost any eye… in terms of technique we’re in a golden age, where comics can almost be machine tooled; beautiful gift-wrapped packages. The trouble is there’s often nothing inside these packages; with darkness combined to decompressed storytelling it’s the same heroes and villaind going through the same moves in slow motion. There are clever creators who can escape these traps – the likes of Fraction, Slot and Gillen – but these are exceptions rather than the rules.

The second half of this reprint collection of Steranko’s stewardship of Nick Fury exposes what’s been lost. It’s overly wordy by modern standards, the writer’s clearly busking it month by month and, as with aging material, the prejudices of the time and relatively unsophisticated cultural understanding can be discomforting but… it’s got a verve, energy and excitement that decompressed storytelling loses. What’s important is the moment, that Nick Fury never stops moving, that there’s always a villain to foil. The last issue’s almost forgotten as soon as the cliffhanger’s resolved and there’s no situation a hero or villain can’t escape by a hitherto unsuspected and unhinted at method. Steranko’s art is equally thrilling, emphasising action and drawing in creative techniques from then contemporary art movements. There are wonderful moments where Steranko’s clearly chafing at the limits of the spy genre, particularly towards the end of the Yellow Claw story presented here, where he runs fearlessly and heedlessly into the realms of sci-fi and fantasy, stretching the creative possibilities of the series. It feels like anything’s possible, rather than narrowly prescribed by genre conventions, as so many of today’s seem to be. It’s a missive from a more innocent time, when the genre was full of possibilities. It’s fuel to the Alan Moore’s notion that it’s unhealthy for past icons to be hogging the cultural stage. Do the heroes of the past have something to say about the modern age or should we have torn down the icons long ago and created new ones for a new age? Perhaps we need to stop admiring the past respond to the times as inventively as the likes of Steranko did.… (more)