Monday, March 30, 2009

Wood's Daredevil Covers

Wally Wood was touted highly by Stan Lee as THE next big thing at Marvel and while he certainly had a lasting impact, his initial stay in 1965 was sadly brief. He did the art for only seven issues of DAREDEVIL (two of those inking Bob Powell who, like Wood, had helped design the MARS ATTACKS cards around the same time). He was even allowed script credit by Lee at one point--always a bone of contention with others such as Ditko and Kirby! Woody also inked the Daredevil figure in the classic FANTASTIC FOUR # 39 over his old SKY MASTERS collaborator Jack Kirby--presumably because Kirby couldn't get the black shadows right. In fact, I recall letters at the time complaining that Wood never drew the blacks in the same place on the costume from one panel to the next. Some fans apparently didn't get that the blacks were SHADOWS, not part of the color scheme! Many years later, the story goes that Wood happened by the Marvel office one day in early 1980. He was already dealing with some of the physical effects of his various health issues but he was given a cover to ink (perhaps for old times' sake)--the cover for DAREDEVIL # 164. Wood's distinctive touch is still evident over Frank Miller's pencils, particularly in the boots. Presented here are ALL of Wood's DD covers. Woodwork on DAREDEVIL was later reprinted in DAREDEVIL ANNUAL # 2 and various issues of MARVEL SUPER HEROES but he did not do the covers.

5 comments:

  1. the cover to # 5 is beautiful, and no # 9's one of favourite Wally Wood covers. I've never seen the Miller one before. I wish now that they'd done a full issue of Daredevil together. it would have been nice to see.

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  2. A little bit of personal history if I may be so bold. DD vs. The Masked Matador was the first Woody art I ever saw, as it was reprinted in an early issue of the UK weekly The Mighty World Of Marvel. It was that classic moment of " Who IS this guy and why have I never heard of him before?!"
    Also loved the FF where he inked DD. Fantastic
    ( literally! )

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  3. DD was the first exposure I had to Wood's art as well, as a 5-year-old in 1965. I had #'s 6-8, and enjoyed them very much. Also, I did not know until now that Wood inked that Miller cover!

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  4. One of my earliest Wood memeories is the cover of DD # 9 "That He May See". There was something about his work that stood out, even in the eyes of a child. I'm a lot older now but still appreciate Wally Wood as being one of the exceptional talents in comics.

    As far as Wood inking the DD figures, I suspect it was because Stan wanted the look consistent with the DD strip.

    You have a wonderful, informative site devoted to Woody. Thanks.

    Nick Caputo

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  5. As Steven know, I just recently did a overview of the early issues of Marvel's DAREDEVIL at my blog. The 2nd page is dedidcated to the Wally Wood era, but his design sketches also spilled over onto the 3rd page. Here it is from the beginning, each page is linked to the others in sequence so you can follow along. Enjoy!

    http://professorhswaybackmachine.blogspot.com/2013/01/daredevil.html

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