Jack Kirby, the legendary king of comics, was one of the most imaginative, prolific creators who ever lived. Even towards the end of his career in comic books in the mid-1970s, when he was in his late 50s, he was doing really great work. One of the stand-out projects of this era was The Eternals, published by Marvel Comics.
The Eternals is a series I’ve wanted to read for quite some time now. Back in 2020 Marvel released the trade paperback Eternals by Jack Kirby: The Complete Collection, and at last I’ve obtained a copy.
The Eternals was written, penciled & edited by Jack Kirby. John Verpoorten inked the first four issues and Mike Royer inked the remainder of the series. It was lettered by Gasper Saladino, John Costanza, Irving Watanabe & Mike Royer and colored by Glynis Wein.
It’s important to put The Eternals within the context of Kirby’s career. He had departed Marvel in 1970 under a cloud, unhappy with the lack of creative control, accurate credit, and fair financial compensation. Kirby had hoped to find all of these things at DC Comics, Marvel’s chief competitor. And while he did indeed create some of the absolute best work of his career at DC during the first half of the 1970s, ultimately his tenure there proved to be a very frustrating & disappointing experience, so much so that he eventually felt forced to return to Marvel.
The Eternals was one of the projects Kirby worked on during his mid-1970s tenure at Marvel. The first issue was released with a July 1976 cover date. The Eternals would ultimately run for 19 monthly issues, with an Annual also being produced by Kirby during this time.
With The Eternals, Kirby was very much tapping into the pseudoscientific theories of Erich von Däniken, who popularized the idea of “ancient astronauts” in his book Chariots of the Gods? Running with the idea that primitive human civilizations had been influenced by alien visitors, Kirby devised the Celestials, towering, mysterious “space gods” who periodically visited Earth throughout the millennia.
During the Celestials first visit, the space gods experimented on apes and created three separate branches of human evolution: ordinary human beings, the genetically unstable, warlike Deviants, and the super-powered, immortal Eternals. The Deviants are responsible for humanity’s superstitions about the Devil, demons & other monsters, while the Eternals are the sources of inspiration for mythological gods & heroes around the globe.
Kirby was setting up some ambitious, wild concepts & ideas. What happens when humanity discovers that they are not alone, that in fact they share the planet Earth with two other intelligent species? What happens to all three groups – humans, Eternals and Deviants – when they are faced with the fact that the “gods” who shaped their development countless thousands of years ago have returned to judge if their “experiment” is a success or failure?
At this point in time Kirby very much just wanted to do his own thing. He wanted the freedom to write, illustrate & edit his own titles, without any outside interference. And it seems pretty clear that Kirby intended for The Eternals to take place outside the regular Marvel universe. After all, the entire concept really doesn’t work if you already have godlike beings such as Thor, Loki, Hercules and Galactus showing up on Earth like clockwork.
Unfortunately, Marvel editorial reportedly pressured Kirby to begin using characters & concepts from other titles in The Eternals. Early on a few agents of SHIELD show up and Nick Fury’s name gets dropped, but it’s not really intrusive, because these guys might as well be working for the FBI or CIA or some other agency.
No, it’s what happens next that really causes problems.
For the first 13 issues The Eternals really hums along nicely, with Kirby coming up with all sorts of great new characters, exploring the Eternal and Deviant civilizations, hinting at the mysteries of the Celestials, showing humanity’s reactions to all of this craziness. I found it absolutely riveting.
And then the Hulk shows up. Except that it’s not the really Hulk; it’s a robot duplicate of the Hulk created by a couple of college students which accidentally gets imbued with cosmic energy from the Eternals’ mental gestalt “uni-mind” and goes on a rampage. We then get two and a half issues of the Eternals fighting this “cosmic powered Hulk” and while it’s well-drawn (it IS Kirby artwork, after all) it just completely grinds the story to a halt. The momentum that Kirby was barreling along on just goes totally off the rails, and in the remaining few issues after the “Hulk” there’s just something lacking. It was as if the whole thing threw Kirby off his balance, and in the short time he had left he didn’t have the opportunity to regain it.
In spite of its flaws, though, I really enjoyed The Eternals. I think it speaks to Kirby’s immense creativity & imagination that even in this period of time when he was deeply dissatisfied, he could not help but create an amazing cast of characters. Ikaris, Sersi, Makarri, Thena, Kro, Karsas and the Reject were all interesting & full of potential.
I also want to offer up The Eternals as evidence that Kirby really could draw beautiful women. I’ve heard it argued that his women were unattractive, but just taking a quick look at Sersi and Thena will put the lie to that scurrilous accusation.
I’m not certain if The Eternals was cancelled due to low sales, or if Marvel simply decided to end it after Kirby made the decision to leave for the greener pastures of the animation industry, where at long last he was able to obtain health benefits & a pension. Whatever the case, within a few years the characters & concepts from The Eternals were fully integrated into the Marvel universe. Like a lot of people, I feel that the execution of this was a case of trying to put a square peg into a round hole. But after the fact the Eternals, Deviants and Celestials have regularly appeared throughout the Marvel titles.
In 2021 an Eternals movie was released by Disney as part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I watched it after finishing the comic book series. While I liked parts of it, I felt in a lot of areas it strayed too far from the original Kirby concepts & designs, so ultimately it was something of a disappointment. But I hope that at the very least it led to Kirby’s family getting a nice fat check from the House of the Mouse.
If you haven’t read The Eternals, then I definitely recommend picking it up. It really shows the boundless imagination of Jack Kirby, and features some incredible artwork by him.
I was all of one year old in late 1977 when the historic Superman vs. Wonder Woman treasury edition was published by DC Comics, so obviously I wasn’t able to purchase it when it was first released.
As I’ve explained before, I did get into comic books in the early 1980s, and by 1989 I was reading a number of titles regularly. I expect that I must have first heard of the Superman vs. Wonder Woman special a decade or so later, some time in the late 1990s. I had by this point become a huge fan of the work of artist Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, and this treasury edition apparently contained some of the best work of his career.
I was never able to find any affordable copies of the Superman vs. Wonder Woman book. A halfway-decent copy of it regularly goes for $50 or $60 on eBay, which was a bit too steep for me. DC did release a hardcover reprint in 2020, but that was priced at $40, which again I felt was somewhat high, so I didn’t get it.
However, late last year DC finally published a “facsimile edition” of Superman vs. Wonder Woman which was priced at $14.99. That seemed a lot more reasonable to me. The original cover price of the treasury edition in November 1977 was $2.00. Checking the official US Government inflation calculator, that comes out to $10.19 in November 2024. Okay, that’s close enough to $14.99.
In any case, the Superman vs. Wonder Woman facsimile edition was a generous gift from my girlfriend Michele, who knew I was interested in the book. Thanks, Michele.
By the way, the actual, official title of the Superman vs. Wonder Woman book is All-New Collectors’ Edition #C-54. That’s a bit of a mouthful, isn’t it? Let’s just stick with Superman vs. Wonder Woman.
Now that we’ve finally gotten the preliminaries out of the way, what is Superman vs. Wonder Woman about? The book is written by Gerry Conway, penciled by Jose Luis Garcia Lopez, inked by Dan Adkins, lettered by Gasper Saladino, colored by Gerry Serpe, cover colored by Tatjana Wood, and edited by Joe Orlando.
Superman vs. Wonder Woman is set on Earth-Two in June 1942. That’s another reason why I wanted to get this one, since it’s tangentially related to the World War II adventures of the Justice Society of America, a team both Superman and Wonder Woman belonged to in the Earth-Two reality. I’m definitely a fan of the JSA.
Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, learning of the Manhattan Project, set out to steal the secrets of the atomic bomb from the United States, dispatching the villainous Baron Blitzkrieg and Sumo the Samurai respectively. Superman and Wonder Woman separately encounter elements of the Axis plot to acquire the bomb.
Wonder Woman is horrified to learn about the efforts to develop the atomic bomb, seeing it as further evidence of the warlike ways of “man’s world.” She becomes convinced that no one, not even the United States, can be trusted with such awesome destructive power, and decides that she must destroy the Manhattan Project. That puts her in direct conflict with Superman, who believes America will wield atomic weapons wisely, and the two come to blows.
Eventually, though, the two heroes must set aside their differences and work together to stop Baron Blitzkrieg and Sumo the Samurai from stealing the bomb, because whatever the moral failings of America, they pale before the evils of the Axis powers, who will certainly try to use the bomb to win the war.
It’s interesting to look at the debate that Conway has between Superman and Wonder Woman. I don’t know how I would have felt when I was younger, but reading this book in 2024 as an adult, my sympathies lie with Princess Diana of the Amazons.
The United States did eventually use the atomic bomb, dropping it on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, resulting in over 200,000 deaths. It has long been debated if the bomb was truly needed to compel Japan to surrender, or if they were ready to capitulate once the Soviet Union entered the Pacific theater of war. Whatever the immediate results of the bombs, their existence provoked the incredible arms race between the USA and the USSR, with the shadow of nuclear annihilation hanging over the world for decades.
Setting aside real-world politics, Superman vs. Wonder Woman offers an exciting, thought-provoking story. Conway had entered the comic book industry at the very young age of 16, and his first several years of work were perhaps not as polished as they could have been. By the time he worked on Superman vs. Wonder Woman, Conway was 25, with almost a decade of experience under his belt, and I feel he was beginning to hone his craft. Although still a bit raw, this treasury edition is fun & entertaining.
The highlight of Superman vs. Wonder Woman is undoubtedly the penciling of Garcia-Lopez. The larger size of 10 inches by 13 ½ inches really allows his artwork to be seen in all its glorious, dynamic detail. Garcia-Lopez contributes several double-sized spreads that look absolutely gorgeous in the treasure edition size.
This book confirms for me that Garcia-Lopez, even though he only drew the character a relative handful of times, is one of the definitive Wonder Woman artists.
Adkins, a former assistant of Wally Wood, provides some very slick, polished inking over Garcia-Lopez’s pencils. I’ve always appreciated Adkins’ inking, and I feel that pairing him with Garcia-Lopez was a brilliant idea.
By the way, Superman vs. Wonder Woman is a whopping 72 pages long, so you really get a lot of story & artwork in this treasury edition.
It is interesting to note that both the story and the art somewhat fudges the details of the setting. Conway’s script never specifically identifies the setting as Earth-Two, although it very clearly must be set there. He also shows Clark Kent & Lois Lane working for editor Perry White at the Daily Planet newspaper, rather than for George Taylor at the Daily Star. Superman and Wonder Woman are both drawn to look like their modern-day Earth-One selves rather than their original Golden Age appearances. And Superman flies to the Moon under his own power, something that the Superman of Earth-Two, the guy who could only leap an eighth of a mile, probably wasn’t capable of doing. Conway probably should have scripted him hopping a ride to the Moon with Wonder Woman in her invisible plane.
And, yes, I AM nitpicking the continuity details of a 47 year old comic book! What of it? 😊
Conway also has Wonder Woman and Superman discovering the ruins of an extinct civilization on the Moon that wiped itself out in an atomic war. I don’t think that detail was ever followed up by any other writers at DC. Sounds like it could make for an interesting story.
I definitely recommend picking up the facsimile edition of Superman vs. Wonder Woman, particularly if you’re a fan of Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez. I have to agree with the assessment, it does indeed contain some of the best work of his early career. And it really is glorious to see it at such a large size.
By the way, the Superman vs. Wonder Woman book is much too large for me to make scans of the pages, so for this review I’m utilizing scans of the original comic book that I found online. Thanks for your understanding.
I discussed writer & editor Roy Thomas’ great fondness for the Golden Age of comic books when I took a look at The Invaders miniseries published by Marvel Comics in 1993. That four-issue series brought back the World War II era team of superheroes whose adventures Thomas had previously chronicled in the mid to late 1970s.
Penciled by Rick Buckler, inked by Dick Giordano, lettered by Gasper Saladino and colored by Tatjana Wood
As much as Thomas liked the original Timely / Marvel superheroes from the 1940s, he has an even greater fondness for the Justice Society of America, the original superhero team, who were published by DC Comics in the pages of All-Star Comics from 1940 to 1950. In fact, Thomas was born on November 22, 1940, the very same day that All-Star Comics #3, the debut of the JSA, went on sale. Perhaps he was destined to become one of the JSA’s biggest fans. Whatever the case, some of the earliest comic books Thomas read were the All-Star Comics issues featuring the JSA which were published in the second half of the 1940s, and they made a huge impression on him.
It had long been Thomas’ ambition to write the JSA, but working at Marvel for the first decade and a half of his career he never had the opportunity. A dispute with Marvel editor-in-chief Jim Shooter led Thomas to seek work with DC and beginning in 1981 he wrote & edited several titles for them. Among these was All-Star Squadron, a series set on the parallel reality of Earth-Two during World War II that featured not just the JSA but nearly every single costumed crime fighter from that era.
By the late 1980s Thomas was back at Marvel. I didn’t begin following comic books regularly until that time, and so I unfortunately missed all of the books Thomas did for DC, instead becoming a fan of his via his new work for Marvel. I also spent most of the 1990s searching through the back issue bins at comic shops and comic cons to assemble a complete run of The Invaders.
Written by Roy Thomas, penciled by Rich Buckler, inked by Jerry Ordway, lettered by John Costanza and colored by Carl Gafford
I’m surprised it took me this long to seek out Thomas’ work on All-Star Squadron and its two spin-offs, Infinity Inc. and Young All-Stars. There’s a thrift store in my neighborhood that regularly has comic books for sale for a dollar each, and I’ve discovered some great stuff there. Well last November I came across a few issues of All-Star Squadron at that store. I really enjoyed them, and that really whetted my appetite for the series. Since then I’ve been working on assembling a complete run of the series. I acquired the early issues on eBay, but for the later ones I’m trying to see how many I can find the old-fashioned way. It’s a fun challenge.
The series actually made its debut in a special 16-page insert included in Justice League of America #193, cover-dated August 1981, which led directly into the first issue of All-Star Squadron a month later.
I commute to work on the subway, and my trip is usually about 45 minutes each way. After I acquired the first few issues of All-Star Squadron, I brought them with me to read, and I just barely managed to finish the first issue in the time it took to get from Queens to Midtown Manhattan. Thomas wrote very dense, verbose scripts for this series! Look at all that text!
Written by Roy Thomas, penciled by Rich Buckler, inked by Jerry Ordway, lettered by John Costanza and colored by Carl Gafford
Seriously, I really lament the trend of decompressed storytelling at both DC and Marvel, especially as individual issues continue to have increasingly-higher cover prices. I definitely miss comic books like this where you more than got your money’s worth. I don’t think I’d mind comics costing so much nowadays if we still got this sort of value.
The initial All-Star Squadron storyline takes place on December 7, 1941, with Imperial Japan’s attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor serving as the backdrop. Per Degaton, the time traveling fascist, intends to utilize the chaos of that “day of infamy” in order to alter history and conquer the world.
I have to admit, I found it an odd decision for Thomas to launch the series with this story. Due to the JSA not encountering Degaton for the “first” time until 1947, all of the characters end up forgetting almost everything that takes place in the first three issues. That’s such a weird way to kick off your series!
Written by Roy Thomas, penciled by Rich Buckler, inked by Jerry Ordway, lettered by John Costanza and colored by Carl Gafford
Thomas endeavored to have the history of Earth-Two remain as close as possible to our own real world. As such, he detailed why, following Pearl Harbor, the JSA and the rest of the newly-formed Squadron didn’t simply use their fantastic abilities to quickly win the war. Certainly when you have a series set in a world where Superman, Wonder Woman, the Spectre and Doctor Fate exist, you’re going to need to address that!
The explanation Thomas devised was that Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan acquired the Spear of Destiny and the Holy Grail, respectively, and the mystical energies of those two artifacts prevented the All-Stars from entering any territory occupied by the Axis powers. That meant they were forced to operate in the Western hemisphere and other unconquered countries, where they would only be able to prevent the Axis from advancing any further. Obviously still a formidable task, especially as the Naxis are revealed to have their own super-powered agents, but one that meant that, just as in actual history, the war in Europe and Asia would have to be won by ordinary men & women on the battlefield.
Issues five and six see a contingent of the All-Stars travel to Mexico to prevent a Nazi-backed coup that would install a fascist puppet government controlled by the Third Reich. This is then followed by a three issue arc in which the armored Baron Blitzkreig infiltrates the United States to stage an assassination attempt on President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill during a summit meeting in Washington DC. This later story enables Thomas to utilize a number of pages of artwork from the unpublished sixth issue of Steel, the World War II series created by writer Gerry Conway that was abruptly canceled four years earlier during the infamous DC Implosion.
Written by Gerry Conway & Roy Thomas, penciled by Don Heck, inked by Jerry Ordway, lettered by John Costanza and colored by Carl Gafford
All-Star Squadron #10-12 (June to August 1982) are, with the benefit of time, quite interesting. A group of well-intentioned scientists fakes an alien invasion in an attempt to bring an end to World War II and unite the world. Yes, it’s the same basic concept that Alan Moore would famously utilize five years later in Watchmen. It’s also the plot to The Outer Limits episode “The Architects of Fear” broadcast in September 1963, as well as “The Last War on Earth” in Weird Science #5 published by EC Comics in January 1951. And I’m sure there are few other examples of the trope out there. In Thomas’ version for All-Star Squadron, though, the scheme is subverted by Hawkman’s immortal arch enemy Hath-Set, who wants to rule the world himself.
Thomas ties a bow on the first year of All-Star Squadron with issue #13. “One Day, During War…” is set a month after Pearl Harbor, in mid-January 1942. The various All-Stars are afforded a brief pause in the ongoing hostilities of the war to take stock of all that has happened to them recently. It’s a very well-done character piece. When I met Thomas at Big Apple Comic Con a few months ago this was one of the issues I got autographed by him.
Thomas also utilizes this story to address the virulent anti-Japanese sentiment that erupted following Pearl Harbor, which led to the shameful interment of over one hundred thousand American citizens of Japanese ancestry. That is one of the qualities of All-Star Squadron that I appreciated, namely that while Thomas does utilize somewhat idealized depictions of real-life figures such as FDR and Churchill, he also did not shy away from the morally complex areas of the era.
Penciled and inked by Joe Kubert
Although various members of the JSA appear throughout the run of All-Star Squadron, Thomas very quickly placed the focus on much lesser-known Golden Age superheroes such as Johnny Quick, Liberty Belle, Hawkgirl, Robotman and the Shining Knight. He also soon incorporated Conway’s character Commander Steel into the cast, as well as introducing Danette Reilly, a female version of the ultra-obscure 1940s costumed crime fighter Firebrand. With her red hair and that first name, Firebrand was undoubtedly based on Thomas’ wife & writing partner Dann (formerly Danette) Thomas.
Thomas sought to place his own All-Star Squadron stories as smoothly as possible in-between the original JSA adventures. All-Star Comics had been published on a quarterly schedule for much of the 1940s, and that gave Thomas plenty of space in which to insert his new stories. Nevertheless, having the primary focus on Johnny Quick, Shining Knight, Robotman et al enabled Thomas to really develop those characters, and to plot out their story arcs, in a way that was not possible for the JSA members who had well-established histories to take into account. I also get the feeling that Thomas very much enjoyed developing the relationship between Johnny Quick and Liberty Belle, playing them off one another and giving them a real sexual tension.
One other note on these stories: While reading through the early issues of All-Star Squadron it suddenly occurred to me that those comic books are now as old as some of the issues of All-Star Comics were at the time when Roy Thomas was referencing them in his stories. Yeah, it sort of blows my mind that we are now as far away from the 1980s and the 1980s were from the 1940s.
Forty years ago is a long time ago, right? Right?!?
The initial art team on All-Star Squadron was penciler Rich Bucker, inker / embellisher Jerry Ordway, letterer John Costanza and colorist Carl Gafford. Buckler had already been working regularly for a decade at this point, having established himself at Marvel both on the flagship series Fantastic Four and his own creation the cyborg anti-hero Deathlok in Astonishing Tales. Buckler was definitely an artistic chameleon. His penciling on All-Star Squadron is very much reminiscent of Neal Adams’ style.
Ordway, in contrast to Buckler, was very new to comics, and All-Star Squadron was his first ongoing assignment. It’s interesting to look at the evolution of Ordway’s style. His inks on the JLA #193 preview and the first issue of All-Star Squadron are very muted (part of that is probably due to several of Buckler’s penciled pages from the first issue getting lost in the mail, requiring Ordway to ink photocopies of them on vellum).
By the second issue, though, you can really see Ordway’s characteristic style & flourishes beginning to appear. Ordway was often required to bring Buckler’s pencils “on model” by making certain the clothing, vehicles, buildings, historical figures and other real-world elements were all accurate for the early 1940s.
Written by Roy Thomas, penciled by Adrian Gonzales, inked by Jerry Ordway, lettered by Ben Oda and colored by Carl Gafford
Adrian Gonzales becomes the new regular penciler with issue #6, and Ordway remained on as inker. The two made a very effective art team. Initially I wasn’t sure how I would feel about Buckler departing the series so early in its run, especially as offhand I was unfamiliar with Gonzales’ work. But I found myself appreciating the collaboration of Gonzales & Ordway even more than I had the issues by Buckler & Ordway.
The unpublished Steel #6 had been penciled by the very underrated Don Heck and inked by Frank Chiaramonte. To be honest, I’ve never been overly fond of Chiaramonte’s work, and as such I’m glad the Heck pages were re-inked by Ordway when they were incorporated into All-Star Squadron #8-9. The combination of Heck’s solid, effective storytelling and Odway’s very polished, slick inking worked very well indeed.
Mike DeCarlo guest inked All-Star Squadron #13 over Gonzales’ pencils. The result is finished art rather different than when Ordway provided inks. But it suited the quieter, character-driven nature of that particular issue.
Written by Roy Thomas, penciled by Adrian Gonzales, inked by Mike DeCarlo, lettered by Ben Oda and colored by Carl Gafford
Finally, looking at the covers, a few of them were penciled by Buckler and inked by Dick Gordano, another solid collaboration. Veteran artist Joe Kubert illustrated the covers for #2 and #7-13. Some of Kubert’s earliest work was drawing the Seven Soldiers of Victory, a team that included the Shining Knight, in the early 1940s. A few years later he regularly worked on the Hawkman chapters of the JSA stories in All-Star Comics. Given Kubert’s historic connections to those two Golden Age heroes, Thomas was undoubtedly happy to have him contribute to this series.
Kubert’s covers with their raw, shadowy inking definitely stand in contrast to the slick finishes Ordway was providing on the interior art, but I nevertheless liked them. He contributed several striking images.
Penciled and inked by Joe Kubert
As I continue in my quest to put together a complete run of All-Star Squadron — 67 monthly issues and 3 annuals, for those who are counting — perhaps I’ll take other looks back at this great series.
Joe Giella, a comic book artist whose career stretched back to the mid-1940s, passed away on March 21st. He was 94 years old. Alex Dueben of The Comics Journal referred to Giella as “one of the creators synonymous with the Silver Age of comics.”
Giella was born on June 27, 1928. He grew up in Astoria, Queens. He attended the School of Industrial Art in Manhattan. Giella was only in his teens when he began working in comic books, as his family was experiencing financial difficulties and the extra income he could bring in was desperately needed. His first credited work was for Hillman Publications in 1946. Soon after he was one of the many artists assisting on the Captain Marvel feature published by Fawcett, as well as working on staff at Timely Comics, the precursor to Marvel. By 1948 Giella was freelancing for DC Comics, where he would spend the majority of his career.
Alter Ego #52 cover drawn by Joe Giella and colored by Tom Ziuko, published by TwoMorrows Publishing in September 2005
Giella was initially doing full artwork, but he soon began to specialize in providing inks / finishes over the pencils of other artists. In an interview with Jim Amash that appeared in Alter Ego #52 from TwoMorrows Publishing in September 2005, Giella how this came about:
“None of us started out intending to become inkers; we started out penciling. I was inking two to three pages a day, but I couldn’t pencil more than one. And you know, when you need money, you kind-of lean towards the inking. I could bring home $90 a week instead of $40. And after a while, you kind-of get typecast. To this day, I’m still slow at penciling, and I make up the time on the inking.”
Giella regularly worked for editor Julius Schwartz at DC. He was an inker on some of the last stories DC published featuring the original versions of the Flash and Green Lantern, and when the Golden Age superhero trend finally ended in 1950 Giella worked on a number of Westerns published by DC. He inked Gene Colan on Hopalong Cassidy, and inked Gil Kane on both the Trigger Twins feature in All-Star Western and the quite unusual The Adventures of Rex the Wonder Dog.
Mystery in Space #32, written by Gardner Fox, penciled by Sid Greene, inked by Joe Giella and edited by Julius Schwartz, published by DC Comics in June-July 1956
Another penciler Giella regularly worked with was Sid Greene, on the anthology titles Mystery in Space and Strange Adventures. The later title also occasionally had Giella inking Carmine Infantino on the sci-fi adventure feature Adam Strange.
In the second half of the 1950s, when Schwartz spearheaded the sci-fi tinged superhero revival of the Silver Age, Giella was once again one of his go-to inkers.
The Flash was reimagined as police scientist Barry Allen by Schwartz, writer Robert Kanigher and penciler Carmine Infantino in the pages of Showcase #4, which was cover-dated Sept-Oct 1956. That initial tale was inked by Joe Kubert, but when the Flash returned in the pages of Showcase #13 in 1958 inking chores were assumed by Giella and Frank Giacoia, and John Broome took over as writer with issue #14. When The Flash became an ongoing series again in early 1959 (beginning with issue #105, as it continued the numbering of the original Golden Age series) Broom, Infantino and Giella were the regular creative team.
The Flash #107, written by John Broome, penciled by Carmine Infantino, inked by Joe Giella and edited by Julius Schwartz, published by DC Comics in June-July 1959
Later in 1959 another Golden Age superhero, Green Lantern, was rebooted by Schwartz, writer John Broome and penciler Gil Kane, who introduced test pilot Hal Jordan as the new emerald ring-slinger. Giella inked Kane’s pencils, first on the three issue “tryout” run in Showcase #22-24 and then on the new, ongoing Green Lantern series that began in 1960.
Giella had also been inking both Sheldon Moldoff on the Batman and Detective Comics titles, although as with everyone else involved with the Dark Knight at the time they had to work anonymously, with Batman co-creator Bob Kane receiving the sole contractually obligated credit. Due to his work on the character, Giella was hired to provide the full artwork for the Batman newspaper strip in the mid-1960s.
Giella found the Batman strip to be a simultaneously enjoyable and frustrating experience. On the one hand, he very much liked Batman, a character he himself had grown up reading in the 1940s. On the other hand, the pay was low, the deadlines were brutal, and once again Giella was working uncredited, with “Bob Kane” appearing on the strip’s byline. As a result, he remained on it for only four years.
Giella continued to work for DC Comics on a variety of titles until the early 1980s. He also did the occasional job for Marvel Comics during the 1970s. In addition, Giella assisted Sy Barry on The Phantom newspaper strip for 17 years.
Giella became the artist of the Mary Worth newspaper strip in 1991. As he explained to Jim Amash, one of the appeals of taking on the assignment was that unlike on the Batman strip a quarter century earlier, this time he’d be receiving a byline on the feature.
Batman: Turning Points #2 written by Ed Brubaker, drawn by Joe Giella, lettered by Willie Schubert and colored by Shannon Blanchard, published by DC Comics in Jan 2001
In 2001 Giella returned to Gotham City with issue #2 of the five-issue miniseries Batman: Turning Points. Written by Ed Brubaker, the series explored the evolving relationship between Batman and James Gordon throughout the years. As the second issue was set in an era analogous to the Silver Age, and Giella was one of the oldest-living Batman artists, it was a nice touch to have him illustrate that chapter.
After retiring from the Mary Worth strip in 2016, Giella continued to draw. He was very much in-demand for commission illustrations and recreations from fans.
At times I feel Giella’s work was underappreciated. Gil Kane, who was notoriously critical of the inkers he was assigned, was not at all fond of Giella’s work. I’ve also heard a number of fans over the years refer to his inking as “flat.”
However, I certainly have a great deal of appreciation for Giella’s work. He’s one of those comic book professionals who I like to classify as “a good, solid artist.” He knew how to draw, he always turned in work of a professional quality, and he could always be counted upon to meet deadlines.
I also feel it speaks volumes that during his lengthy career Giella was called upon to provide inks / finishes over a wide selection of pencilers with very different styles, and he demonstrated the versatility necessary to do so. In addition to the aforementioned Colan, Greene, Infantino, Kane, and Moldoff, among the various pencilers Giella inked were Bob Brown, Dave Cockrum, Jose Delbo, Dick Dillin, Don Heck, Irv Novick, Bob Oksner, Frank Robbins, Kurt Schaffenberger, Joe Staton and Curt Swan.
Showcase #24 written by John Broome, penciled by Gil Kane, inked by Joe Giella, lettered by Gasper Saladino and edited by Julius Schwartz, published by DC Comics in Jan-Fen 1960
Looking back at the work Giella did over Infantino and Kane on those now-classic Flash and Green Lantern stories in the late-1950s and early-1960s, I quite like the tone & atmosphere his inking provided. I feel it gave a smoother look to the stories which John Broome & Julius Schwartz had imbued with a decidedly mid-20th Century “space age” sci-fi tone.
On those occasions when Giella was called upon to produce full art, he did very clean, polished work. His art on the Batman newspaper strip, Batman: Turning Points #2, the various commission illustrations he drew, and even a relatively staid soap opera like Mary Worth was all solidly done.
There are comic professionals who have expressed an appreciation for Giella’s work. On his Instagram account, the acclaimed, prolific artist Butch Guice posted a tribute to Giella that included this remembrance:
“Mr. Giella’s slick fluid ink lines graced many a favorite comic story from my youth, including a fond series of Batgirl stories (with pencilers Jose Delbo and Don Heck) he lent his inking skills in helping produce.”
June Brigman, who succeeded Giella on Mary Worth, also offered praise for the artist on her Facebook page:
“Joe was a consummate professional and an excellent draftsman. He did exciting, dynamic superheroes as well as the endless repetition of a syndicated comic strip and always maintained a high standard of quality.”
Detective Comics #502 written by Cary Burkett, penciled by Jose Delbo, inked by Joe Giella, lettered by John Costanza and colored by Gene D’Angelo, published by DC Comics in May 1981
I am genuinely grateful to Giella for allowing me to interview him for the article I wrote about artist George Klein, which saw print in Alter Ego #179, released in December of last year. Giella was one of the very few contemporaries of Klein who was still alive when I was preparing the article back in 2019, and as such he offered some valuable memories of his friend & colleague. I also appreciate that in 2020 Giella was kind enough to autograph a few comic books for me that I sent to him via his son Frank, who I’ve known for a number of years.
That’s something I noticed in practically every remembrance of Giella that has been written in the past week, the fact that the people who knew him came away with a uniformly positive view of the man. He really was a good person, and he will definitely be missed by friends and colleagues, as well as the fans who grew up on his work.
In My Not So Humble Opinion 
