05th May2022

A Memoriam In Four Colours: Neal Adams

by Ian Wells

Legend. Pioneer. Innovator. Influencer. These are all admirable words to describe Neal Adams, but I think there is one that is all-encompassing of the man and the talent and that word is; Giant. In one of the first Wizard magazines I read they were doing a retrospective on his Batman work. The piece opened by describing Adams as barrel-chested and saying how much they thought he could still bench press despite his advancing years. This always stuck with and then the more I learnt about him and saw him speaking online he became a gentle giant to me.

Neal Adams had a long career taking in a number of interesting stops as well as all the well known comic work. A New York native who grew up all around the globe, by being the son of a military family. He would return to The Big Apple to graduate from the School of Industrial Art in 1959. Archie Comics is where he would next show up on the map. Wanting to work on its new superhero line under Joe Simon, he sent sample pages for The Fly. While he didn’t get the work on The Fly as he wanted, he did get a steady gig on Archie’s Joke Book Magazine. The early ’60s saw him move into commercial art that would remain a constant throughout his career, as well as getting more established comic work. At Newspaper Enterprise Association he got a real education working alongside and often ghosting for Al Cap and Lou Fine. The latter half of the decade saw him working at Warren Publishing and then DC Comics. Despite being anti-war, war-related comics were a very viable entrance to comics and his DC debut came in Our Army at War #182. A selection of cover and backup assignments followed, including work on Batman and Deadman. He would leave a huge mark on both characters over two spells at DC.

In 1969 he freelanced for both DC and Marvel. His most notable work at Marvel was on X-Men #56-#63. Sales for the Merry Mutants were dwindling but Adams’ detailed figure work brought a new audience and an increase in sales which would eventually lead to a reboot. Just another example of Adams chalking up another significant contribution to comics history! He jumped around titles at Marvel never staying for more than a handful of issues. But as well as saving the X-Men he pencilled the Kree/Skrull War in Avengers #93-#97. So not a bad body of work before returning to DC full time in 1972. His work on Batman is enough to secure his legendary status alone! We are talking co-creator credits for Man-Bat and Ras Al Ghul, as well as reinventing Two-Face and Joker. Batman #251 has to have one of the most instantly recognisable covers of all time. A treasure for all Batman and Adams fans alike. His second significant work during his second spell at DC was with frequent collaborator Denny O’Neil when they teamed Green Lantern up with Green Arrow and the pair became the Hard Travelling Heroes. It was a more grounded approach to storytelling for DC with these larger than life characters facing real-world situations. Most memorable of all is #85-#86 when Speedy was revealed to be a heroin junkie. Adams’ cover really sells the shocking nature of the story and it rightfully has its place in the comics cover hall of fame. Rounding out this era was art duties on two of the biggest, if not the biggest crossovers in comics. First was the inter-company crossover Spider-Man vs Superman, where Adams’ re drawings of Superman were actually uncredited. Then his photo-realistic art came to the foreground in Superman vs Muhammed Ali complete with a celebrity-packed ringside audience.

Perhaps most importantly in the 1970s was his work for creator’s rights. An important and completely selfless act. Standing up for the little guy when no one else would, made him a real-life hero in the world of comics. He got involved in a number of disputes including getting decades-old overdue payments for Siegel on Shusters’ past work on Superman. In 1978 he formed the Comics Creators Guild. Neal Adams has left a huge footprint on comics history, influencing generation after generation. Just think about the artists that worked in the Continuity studio space, what an education that must have been! Bill Sienkiewicz himself has stated he got into comics as an Adams clone. Later all of the Image Comics founders stated love and appreciation for his work. Even today you still read reviews talking up the likeness of the figure work to that of Adams. At this time my thoughts are with his family and friends and I urge people to seek out his work.

Neal Adams RIP
June 15th 1941- April 28th 2022

Off

Comments are closed.