Review: 'The Alex Ross Marvel Comics Super Villains Poster Book'

 

In 2019, Marvel artist Alex Ross created a mural of heroes for the comic giant's NY offices. A few years later he followed it up with the natural dark counterpart, and now Abrams ComicArts has compiled these portraits in The Alex Ross Marvel Comics Super Villains Poster Book. 

Because Ross created each painting individually before situating it in the larger work, he is able to give each baddie his or her own page to be pulled out and pasted on your wall. With nothing but a plain white field for background, each colorful creep is free to pop from the book's 11" x 16" pages. 

Review: 'The Team-Up Companion'

In 1954, DC halved the page count of its World's Finest Comics and forced Superman and Batman into the same book as if they were a couple of recently divorced bozos sharing a flat. They mostly kept to their own sides of the room, but a new format was inadvertently born: the team-up. This was distinct from crossovers or guest appearances because both heroes were on equal footing in a shared title with both their logos on display. Pretty soon, team ups of everyone from Green Arrow and Martian Manhunter to Supergirl and Wonder Woman to Aqualad and Robin to Richie Rich and Casper to Spider-Man and Dracula (!) began proliferating funny books. 

Marvel Comics Artist's and Artisan Editions

Before the colorists have their ways with comic book pages, line artists conceive and perfect the contours of the superheroes who swing across skylines on their webs or smash through brick walls. For some aficionados, pre-colored pages are the purest products of the central artist's vision, hence the existence of "Artisan" and "Artist's" editions of iconic comics. 

IDW's latest additions to its "Artisan" and "Artist's" library showcase Jack Kirby's unpretentious illustrations for Fantastic Four issues #71, #82-84, and Annual #6 (in which the Invisible Girl brings down an android and the FF put Maximus's hypno-gun out of commission), John Romita's similarly bold and basic work for Spiderman #67-69, #71, #75, and #84 (in which Spidey finds himself shrunk down to 6 inches and grapples with the Kingpin), and a random assortment of pages depicting Jim Lee's comparatively complex work on X-Men. 

Unlike the "Artisan" homages to Kirby and Romita, Lee's Artist's Edition makes no attempt to spin stories. It's all about the art, which appears on astoundingly huge 12" x 17 1/2" pages in a hardcover package with giant centerfold. When the illustrations are blown up to such proportions and drained of color, the eye is drawn to unexpected spots on the page. The central images that register with perfect punch on standard-sized pages step aside to allow the small details to swoop out: the tirelessly applied hatching, the wrinkles of a furrowed brow (there are a lot of those), the stubble on a square jaw (lots of those too). 

The pages of Jack Kirby's Fantastic Four: Artisan Edition, John Romita's The Amazing Spider Man: Artisan Edition, and Jim Lee's X-Men: Artist's Edition are also uncommonly tactile despite the absence of consciously applied color. Taped-on typed page numbers, globs of white paint, penned notes in margins, and even dirty fingerprints humanize comics that always seemed a bit like they slipped in from some more perfect dimension.