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Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Super Powers 1984 Calendar Page

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This is from the 1984 Super Powers calendar, back when they released calendars tied in to toylines. This piece is of course by the maestro Jose Luis Garcia Lopez.

It's worth noticing that when you have all the Super Powers characters together, the fight looks a little unfair--not only is it seven against four(it would've been even worse if they hadn't left out Robin!), but two of the villains can basically taken out with one punch. I'd say Supes and Lantern could handle this by themselves, leaving the other JLAers to stand around discussing toy risiduals.

The most specific fight pictued above is Aquaman vs. Joker, a fight I would love to see in the actual comics. Arthur would take the Joker Fish really personally.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Rob!,

They actually did an Aquaman versus Joker story in legends of the DC Universe #26-27. It happened directly after the joker fish story, Joker took over Atlantis, and Batman beat up Aquaman. It was terrible, the covers were horrid, and I hated it. Steve Englehart definitly has some sort of problem with Aquaman.

Scurvy said...

Yep, what he said, only I didn't hate it. :)

I love seeing these Super Powers items. I get an instant flash of nostalgia from when these were new, and how excited I got about them them. Toys that moved when you squeezed their arms or legs. How genius. And the JGL artwork was perfect! So bright and colorful. I think he did the animation of the comercial as well.

Luke said...

The Super Powers stuff always brings me back to my youth. I had a weird menagerie of characters, so my version of the Justice League was always a little odd. Namely Flash, Aquaman, Dr. Fate, and the Martian Manhunter, battling against the legendary team of Darkseid, Lex Luthor, and the Penguin. (My brother had the other, more mainstream characters.) And I have always been, and will probably always remain, a fan of the clean, fresh, and (as scurvy said) bright style of the Super Powers artwork. That's the DCU I remember!

chunky B said...

Yeah! Superpowers! What a great piece and great timing! I agree with all above on the clean style!

Anonymous said...

I agree that the Aquaman/Joker/Batman Legends storyline was terrible, but Steve Englehart DID write some great Aquaman scenes when he wrote JLofA back in the late 70s, so I'm not sure he hates the character.... also, Rob, are you sure this is JGL? It looks more like the artist who did the comics that came with the toys, Paris Cullins or somebody, with strong Mike DeCarlo type inking.

rob! said...

hmm...upon closer inspection you might be right. it looks JLGL-ish, and i think they had DeCarlo ink a lot of it so i could be wrong...

Anonymous said...

A bit late to the party, but I detect the artwork of Eduardo Barreto, who has been doing some licensing work for DC since the mid 80s. He actually followed up JLGL on New Teen Titans in the 80s. He also did licensing art for other properties, such as illustrating Masters of the Universe storybooks around the same time.

Chris