In Retroactive I’ll take you on a visual comic cover tour of the past covering all the covers for a particular series. Each entry will cover an entire year and I’ll always have one comic from DC and one comic from Marvel. At the end of each edition of Retroactive I’ll select my overall favourite cover for that year for each series. Last time on Retroactive we covered The Flash 1965 and Uncanny X-Men 1969. If you need a refresher, just click HERE. Below you’ll find the two series that I’m currently covering. Click on that specific logo to be instantly taken directly to that series. The last section is reserved for my Top Picks from each year. Click the logo or travel to the third page to view them.
________________________________________________________
The Flash 1966
___________________________________________________
Uncanny X-Men 1970
________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________
The Flash covers published in 1966 show all the possible gimmicks to raise the sales: fake death (# 159), possible death (# 163), superhero undeservedly charged (# 164), the imposter cliché (# 165)… as you know, I don’t give the gold medal to covers like these as a rule, so I pick issue # 160. I love anthology issues and I deeply appreciate the covers which give a lot of informations about the content of the issue, so it was a quite easy choice for me.
As for the X – Men, I agree with you that UXM # 66 is the best cover of the year. It is full of intense and eye catching colors, and this is the main reason why I decided to give it the first prize. Special mention for UXM # 64, because of the detailed background.
“The Flash covers published in 1966 show all the possible gimmicks to raise the sales: fake death (# 159), possible death (# 163), superhero undeservedly charged (# 164), the imposter cliché (# 165)… as you know, I don’t give the gold medal to covers like these as a rule, so I pick issue # 160.”
Call me a sucker for liking these covers but I’m all for them if they produce a beautiful image as well like the one I chose. My runner-up would be another gimmick cover in the form of #163. The Flash breaking the fourth wall and talking to us grabs my attention and makes me want to find out more.
“As for the X – Men, I agree with you that UXM # 66 is the best cover of the year.”
Wasn’t much selection so us being in agreement is not a shocker. Right now I’m debating what I’m going to do with Uncanny since the next few years are nothing but reprints. Some of the reprints used the same covers from the issues they are reprinting but recoloured while others used new images. What I think I’m going to do is a special edition of Retroactive where I take care of all the new images because I really don’t want to focus on these years one at a time.
Thanks, as always, for offering your selections.
” My runner-up would be another gimmick cover in the form of #163. The Flash breaking the fourth wall and talking to us grabs my attention and makes me want to find out more.” You know how much I love 4th wall breaking, so Flash # 123 was my runner-up as well.
“What I think I’m going to do is a special edition of Retroactive where I take care of all the new images because I really don’t want to focus on these years one at a time.” I think it’s a very good idea.
“Thanks, as always, for offering your selections.” Thank you as well for your reply! : )
In complete agreement with your choice of covers for this instalment of retroactive. They are both really good. I also like the cover of Uncanny XMen #64 as well as it features Sunfire. Always difficult to decide between the X-Men covers as I am such a fan of the series.
UXM #64 is your runner-up, wwayne’s runner-up, and my runner-up. 🙂
Thanks for sharing your picks! Also, be on the look-out for a special edition of UXM Retroactive where I cover the reprint era, all the new covers that is.
Brilliant, I will look forward to that!