Friday 5 December 2014

Black Max loses, Adam Eterno wins.



Lion & Thunder, 22nd May 1971.
Again, a pretty duff episode of Black Max - lots of taking off, landing and taking off again, with not much else. Apart from the fantastic notion yet again, done with seemingly no sense of irony whatsoever, of Max storing his massive Giant Bat in the very slim, narrow rear fuselage:



The rest of the issue has the customary for the period titles: "Carson's Cubs", "Spellbinder", "Fury's Family" etc, and sometimes there's something in them to make me take note, but not here.
Not the case with "Adam "Eterno" - a terrific mid tale episode that finds the fella in 11th century Europe, falling off a cliff after being shot in the leg by a golden arrow. Being helped by a boy living out in the woods, he learns that the area is being stricken by more and more savage wolves, with tales of a man leading them.
We then get this fantastic two panel study of Adam, possibly the best i've ever come across, where the penny starts to drop for the guy - can you guess where this story might be leading?



Next up, we get some just stunning black and white, dead moody artwork along the way to the patently obvious who is the bad guy cliff-hanger, which has the very rare sight of Adam being threatened by a non-gold menace:



"AIEEEE!" WATCH = Still nothing



Wednesday 3 December 2014

Thunder - 12th December 1970 - Black Max revisited



Okay, here we go again back with the Bad Boy, and really the only thing that looks like reading in this issue.
And even then, Black Max isn't exactly up to scratch - four pages given over to Max pining that his Bat is wounded and in no fit state to go after the cursed Wilson, Wilson pining that he can't find Max, while a crashed German airmen discovers the Bat, gets shot by Max for discovering it, is witnessed by Wilson, who goes back to his base and nicks a bomber to return and kill them both.
The above reads more exciting than it actually is.
Biggest thing of note, is this strange depiction of the Bat's face - its gone from that long, almost cat/bat-like appearance, to something more real bat-like.
AIEEEE!-WATCH = Zero.