Marvel Creator Collection No. 1: “Back to the Savage Land” – Barry Windsor-Smith at Marvel Vol. 1 is the first of a three-volume series. After an introduction to Windsor-Smith by Jon B. Cooke about the Englishman coming to the Marvel Bullpen, the work is presented in non-chronological order. The table of contents provides credits of the artwork and “when Windor-Smith’s tenure on a title ends before the storyline is concluded, a brief summary of the story resolution follows.” The standard comic book size of the Marvel Bronze Age was 7.25″ x 10.5″. This book is 8.8″ × 11.7″, allowing readers to better appreciate the art in the slightly expanded size.
Buy “Back to the Savage Land” – Barry Windsor-Smith at Marvel Vol. 1Starting with artwork from the first half of 1969, his first U.S. art is the cover for The X-Men #53 and he also penciled the interior as the merry mutants in their multi-colored uniforms face “The Rage of Blastaar!” There are black spots in the backgrounds that I thought were some type of Negative Zone cosmic energy since they are first depicted there, but those spots are used when Nick Fury trades gunfire with a HYDRA agent and in other book, so it’s clearly a style technique of his at the time.
After covers of the next two X-Men issues, Captain Marvel #11, and his first Ka-Zar art Marvel Super-Heroes #11, there’s a brief Nick Fury section. Starting with as a three-page sequence that appears in Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. #10, “believed to have been done for another, unused story,” Nick gets suckered into breaking up a mugging by a trio looking to rob him. Nick’s face is redrawn on the cover of #11, but it doesn’t look properly paced on his body. Within #12, I appreciate Windsor-Smith’s use of white space, which drops background details and allows the eye to focus on a specific element within the panel.
There’s an unexpected inclusion of a Marvel Bullpen Bulletin page, which features Stan Lee’s soapbox. It’s an interesting artifact but no clear reason why it’s here as I didn’t notice a mention of Windsor-Smith. Also not mentioned in the table of contents are letters pages where the artist and his work are referred to.
The Avengers portion of the book starts with Issue #66. The cover is listed in the table of contents but it doesn’t appear. Back at the mansion, Iron Man is experiencing a Danger Room-style testing and Windor-Smith’s line work on Ol’ Shellhead is well-detailed. He makes good use of the one-page panel, as seen with the Avengers in their study with overlaid inserts of individuals speaking within the scene, the return of Ultron that closes out #66, and in next issue the backlash caused from Thor striking the adamantium-infused Ultron.
Moving ahead to 1972, he inks the covers and pencils the interiors of #98 and #99, and does pencil and inks on cover of and pencil and partial inks of #100. His depictions of Iron Man, Thor, and Vision are slightly different from before. Clint Barton is no longer Goliath and returned to being the archer Hawkeye but the Grecian outfit he wears isn’t the best choice. An expanded Avengers roster heads to Olympus to rescue Hercules, allowing for a great number of characters to be drawn.
Going back to 1970, Windor-Smith penciled horror stories in Tower of Shadows #5 (and makes a cameo introducing the story) and #7, and fantasy stories in Chambers of Darkness #3 and #4. From Dec. ’70 to Feb. ’72, there was more fantasy in the Edgar Rice Burroughs-inspired Astonishing Tales #3-6, and #10 starring Tarzan stand-in, Ka-Zar, who ruled the Savage Land, which was filled with costumed tribesmen and fantastical animals such as a unicorn and various dinosaurs. Back to Feb. ’71 with Monsters on the Prowl #9, the reproduction isn’t as sharp as the other entries so details are obscured.
Iron Man #47 from ’72 retells the character’s origin story so readers get to see the contrast between the then-modern sleek red and gold suit to the initial gray hulking Iron Man. This book then takes its longest time leap to 1988 with Iron Man #232 where Windsor-Smith also gets plot and color credit in the epilogue to “Stark Wars” where Tony Stark processes his guilt. The red and white armor has what looks like shoulder pads and pieces are slowly broken off, faces are filled with shading lines, and Tony battles a finely detailed technological monstrosity. The following year he returned to Iron Man #243 to ink Bob Layton’s pencils.
He did the cover of Doctor Strange #179 in 1969 drawing the Doctor’s head and the entire body of Spider-Man. After the comic book was canceled a few issues later, Strange starred in Marvel Premiere #3 in 1972. Windsor-Smith drew the cover, wrote the plot, and drew the pencils as Strange has a mystical battle in his mind against Nightmare. There are very good details showing the magic in action. The book concludes with Marvel Premiere #4 where he drew the cover and pencils on first three pages with Frank Brunner takes over the remainder of the book.
Barry Windsor-Smith at Marvel Vol. 1 is a good examination of an artist’s evolution. The impact of psychedelia and Marvel legend Jack Kirby seen in his early work ebbs as his own style comes forth. It’s fun reading (or rereading in some cases) these old comic-book stories from the Marvel archives and am very curious what’s on hand for the second volume of Windsor-Smith at Marvel.
