Steve Gerber. Definitely one of the finest writers during Marvel's halcyon and heady Bronze Age.
I picked up Giant-Size Defenders #5 at a comics convention in the mid '90s (along with Giant-Size Defenders #3 and #4) because the ish's were thick, GIANT-SIZE (if you will), a good bang for a buck. I had absolutely no idea who the Defenders were, I just thought it was cool to procure a few older comics, those that I could afford with my meager purse. I always had a thing for Bronze Age art, too, when superheroes looked like superheroes.
Back to stunning Steve. The first few pages are doused in atmosphere as brigands stalk a hapless victim along alleyways nocturne. The captions married with art during the opening sequence left an immediate impression. I flipped back to the comic's credits: Steve Gerber, scripter. Damn, he's good (as pictured in the prodigious credit box below, this ish was plotted by a jolly jam session of nearly the entire 1970s stable of Marvel writers).
Over the years I've sought and read a chunk of Mr. Gerber's oeuvre (admittedly, I've a lot more to go), and throughout his body of work he writes from the inside, some intangible place far below the surface while many books of the Bronze Age merely lingered along the superficial. Steve consistently executes the central idea, theme, and beats, which I reckon causes me to feel that certain gravitas. But what is the reason underlying my attraction (and many others) to Steve's work? Upon a reflection worthy of being meditated among the coiling incense of Dr. Strange's sanctum sanctorum, I believe it's Steve Gerber's deliberate effort to strike a balance between the serious and absurd.
Immediately, one notices Steve’s knack for writing good captions (and there are captions a plenty in this ish). All too often during the Silver and Bronze Age, we had to endure captions with such groaners as “moonlit night”, “shimmering lake”, “hot as fire”, or something along the lines of “the gangster unfurls a pistol!” when the art alone clearly shows the villain with a gun in hand. Steve was hip to steer clear of such cliché and blatant redundancy before these weak narrative devices became widely avoided. This issue is caption heavy, however, and in many instances the yellow boxes of narrative are unnecessary and indeed a trifle redundant. A saving grace is that Steve consistently composes captions from an angle slightly off-kilter and unexpected. I feel his effort in doing so stokes reader interest instead of lapsing into the mundane.
Speaking of off-kilter, Steve was never afraid to get more than a little weird, and I dare say that this was his bread and butter. He is keen to play with reader expectations, eager to bend comicdom's precedents and norms. For a subtle yet illustrative example, in a brief obligatory “roll call” caption, his introductions are as follows:
“Dr. Strange, mystic master - - Valkyrie, woman
warrior - - the Hulk, big green strong guy…”
His dialogue consistently maintains a fine rhythm, syncopated syntax conducive to a smooth flow. More importantly, Steve employs a very effective and satisfying contrast of the severe:
and the bizarre:
Dazzlin' Don Heck is no slouch either, who draws a mean comic in Giant-Size Defenders #5 (and #4, for the matter). I always liked how Don drew the beefy characters in this issue, notably Charlie-27, card carrying member of the Guardians of the Galaxy, and Hyperion, leader of the Squadron Sinister/Supreme in Giant-Size Defenders #4 (though not contained within the ish we're presently examining, I couldn't resist throwing in a pic of Don Heck's Hyperion!).
This is one hell of an issue and it certainly got my attention: Charlie-27 broods upon humanity’s penchant for wanton violence, a temporal disturbance activates an alien device to spawn an ebon menace, a young Vance Astrovik asks himself "What would Cap do?", and the corpses of dead fish prove to be a weapon most formidable.
Giant-Size Defenders #5, a work of stapled paper and ink whose vibrations summoned me to examine the words and art immortalized therein time and time again. This comic is one of my personal legends from the longbox, but I believe Steve and Co. delivered something weird for everybody.
