Below you’ll find our reading selections for the year of 1976, and once we’re finished reading, I’ll post the winners for hero, villain, issue, artist, and writer.
Feel free to discuss the comics and any related thoughts below in the comments!
1976 Comic Reading List
1976 | Comic Book Title | Issues |
1 | Captain America | #193 to #196 |
2 | Howard the Duck | #1 to #3 |
3 | Nova | #1 |
4 | Warlock | #12 to #15 |
5 | Daredevil | #131, #132 |
6 | Omega: The Unknown | #1 to #3 |
7 | Fantastic Four | #168 to #170 |
8 | Uncanny X-Men | #98, #99, #100, #101, #102, #103 |
9 | Tomb of Dracula / Dr. Strange | #44 / #14 |
10 | Eternals | #1 to #3 |
Hero of the Year: X-Men
Villain of the Year: Bullseye
Issue of the Year: Uncanny X-Men #101
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Write of the Year: Chris Claremont
Artist of the Year: Dave Cockrum
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Another great year for Marvel comics. It felt like luxury to overlook Starlin’s work (since it has dominated my voting the previous two years), and spread the love to deserving candidates: Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum for writer and artist of the year, respectively. Correspondingly, Jean Gray got my vote for hero of the year, closing it out in “Like a Phoenix, From The Ashes,” my issue of the year, X-Men 101. It was brilliant to not end the issue with a cliffhanger of Jean’s apparent death, but to finish with her transformation into Phoenix, very dramatic!
Like Claude, I found that villain of the year harder to pin. I also thought The Star Thief was a compelling, albeit unconventional villain, so I wrote him in as well.
Kirby’s work was so Silver Age, interesting, but just not competitive with Bronze Age storytelling on display elsewhere. The Eternals, like the Englehart Avengers stories, are critical in that a large portion of Marvel history is illustrated, but read too much like a history book than enjoying a fun comic. The Gerber stories just left me cold. Perhaps if I had read Howard the Duck in my youth, I would have more nostalgia for the work, but I didn’t, so it just seems indulgent. Omega will just stay unknown to me, failed to hook me in the slightest.
The Dr. Strange/Dracula story was very good, as was the team of Roy Thomas and George Perez on Fantastic Four, but they just don’t compare to Claremont/Cockrum in 1976. Claremont hasn’t even begun to reach his heights yet! I expect that Uncanny X-Men will figure prominently in voting here for many years (weeks).
Good golly, we’re looking at a people’s movement for Star Thief!
I did not have my finger on the pulse of this year’s Villain of the Year voting. I figured some combination of Black Tom/Jugs would take home the prize, but it’s anyone’s game.
A hard year to judge overall. Starlin and Warlock get Writer Artist and Hero as they are the only real stand outs for me. The art and story telling are just light years ahead of almost everything else in ’76. I hate to say it, but Starlin makes Kirby look like a dinosaur here. And if you compare the wackiness of Starlin to Gerber, you can see an overall plan in Warlock that is sorely lacking in Howard the Duck and Omega.
Claremont and his X-Men haven’t quite come into their own yet. The Sentinels are good, but have lost there luster and I’ve never felt that Black Tom was a viable villain. Working with the Juggernaut is his only saving grace. But Juggy generally feels more like a supporting character than a villain. That being said, issues 100 and 101 are really key, and issue 101 gets issue of the year, but upon re-reading them this time I feel that they are a little rough around the edges. Looking forward to Byrne in ’77, though we’ll have to wait until December to see him. I’m kind of surprised we haven’t seen him yet, considering he is penciling Iron Fist and it will soon be adapted on Netflix. (Maybe Dave will include some Marvel Team Ups next year? warlock appears in 55, drawn by Byrne…)
The Gerber and Kirby issues were good history lessons, but largely a waste of time. Daredevil wasn’t bad at all, with Marv Wolfman doing a fine job writing, and with Klaus Janson on inks it is starting to look like the Daredevil we all know and love.
Villain of the year was a tough choice, with none on the list catching my eye, so I wrote in Star Thief just because of how I liked his death and how he left Adam too big to go home.
Onward to ’77!
FYI I added Uncanny X-Men #103 to this year’s list – it’s been in the Google list, but I just added to this page today. Realized it didn’t make much sense to stop at #102!
I enjoyed this year, but I think we’re starting to see diminishing returns with some of the new series being introduced. Both Gerber series were solidly “meh” for me; I didn’t find any of Howard the Duck funny or even particularly coherent, and while I liked the mood of Omega, the plot and character development moved so slowly that I was getting very bored by the 3rd issue and was glad to move on. I also agree with BrandonH about Kirby’s return; Cap felt stagnant and very, very overwrought. I did enjoy Eternals though, especially the amazing Kirby Inca artwork. Kirby returning also gave us that nutty Stan/Jack fourth wall breaking cameo in I think it was Avengers, so there’s that.
My clear standout this year is Uncanny X-Men, which is just at a different level than everything else. Both the writing and the artwork are phenomenal; everything’s clear and easy to follow, characters are distinct and show vulnerability (I loved Colossus being afraid of space for example), and the artwork is inventive and epic. Time flew by while I was reading these.
In terms of the other issues, I very much enjoyed the beginning of Bullseye, who comes across as nuts but certainly not as unhinged as he would later be. Warlock, FF, and Marvel Spotlight were all good but not great; nothing really stood out to me about any of them except for Starlin’s continued wild artwork. I’m still unclear about how Strange “killed” Dracula, Nova’s origin was solid, Avengers was pretty good but was a little weird without the context with how we got to the serpent governments, and the Spidey issues were excellent just for the amazing title “Let the Punisher Fit The Crime!”
I’m only 2/3 of the way through, but i have to agree. I love Kirby’s the two page splashes, but apart from that there is little to like in the Cap issues. And Gerber was never my cup of tea. The art in Howard the Duck is cool, but the art in Omega is pretty poor.
More comments once I’ve finished the weeks’ “assignment”
Side note: I found a few 1976 issues of Marvel Feature with Frank Thorne drawing Red Sonja…haven’t had a chance to read them yet, but the art is a pretty neat example of early “good girl” art..
1976 had a bit too much Jack Kirby for my taste. He was innovative and exciting in the 1960s, but he seemed to stagnate and did not change with the times by the time the mid-1970s arrived. I am thankful for the bonus picks because Omega the Unknown, Kirby’s Cap, and Gerber’s Howard the Duck absolutely do not need to be read.
Eternals is a cool concept with some impressive Kirby art, but the concept flounders a bit after the first few issues.
Claremont’s X-Men run continues to impress. I have the omnibus that goes from Giant-Size X-Men #1 to X-Men #131 (middle of the Dark Phoenix Saga), so I have read these issues many times. My favorite part of these five issues is the space mission after the fight with the robot X-Men in #100 and the aftermath in #101. #97 is also a very worthy issue. Almost all of my votes went to these issues (#101, Claremont, X-Men, and Cockrum).
Not included on the group list but also recommended by me are Amazing Spider-Man #157-159. It does not have far-reaching consequences or anything, but it is a fun trilogy featuring Doctor Octopus. I gave the good doctor my vote for Villain of the Year for those appearances.
1977 brings us the original Phoenix saga! I’m looking forward to that one a lot.