Posted By Dan Greenfield on Feb 16, 2025 | 13 comments

BRONZE AGE BONANZA: Big months for Kubert and Giordano! PLUS: Boris! Adams! Kirby! MORE!

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Welcome to BRONZE AGE BONANZA — our monthly series that looks at the greatest covers of the Bronze Age — exactly 50 years later. For more info on this feature, click here.

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Standard comics have their work cut out for them against a classic treasury and couple of magnificent mags.

Dig the TOP 13 COVERS OF FEBRUARY 1975 — RANKED:

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13. Plop! #12, DC. What I wrote last month: “With the number of times Basil Wolverton shows up in BRONZE AGE BONANZA, you’d think I was a fan. I’m actually not. I find his work so grotesque that it’s repellent. But, like a car crash, I cannot look away — and it always gets a reaction out of me. I also marvel at his precision and outrageously bizarre inventiveness. And, that my friends, is art.”

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12. Weird Suspense #2, Atlas/Seaboard. Atlas gonna Atlas. This is just a Spider-Man cover, right down to the hero’s worried stammer. Except those two are TOTAL FREAKS. Especially her — with that extra I-don’t-know-what-it-is sticking out her back! Gah!

Larry Lieber pencils, Frank Giacoia inks

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11. The Flash #233, DC. Two things: 1) Eobard Thawne really is one of the most fucked up characters in comics. 2) Why doesn’t Dick Giordano have a Facebook group of his own? He was one of the greats! Someone should set that up. Maybe you!

Dick Giordano

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10. Batman #263, DC. Giordano again. This one is a total sentimental pick because, honestly, this is a pretty standard cover. But this came out when the Riddler was still my favorite villain (thanks to Frank Gorshin) and I read this over and over and over again. Really fun, memorable comic.

Giordano

A few months later, after the Riddler-less Limited Collectors’ Edition #C-37 — the Special All-Villain Issue! — came out, I would carry that, this and the Batman #1 Famous First Edition around. It was my portable pile of essential Batman. (Side note: Great Cheops! The first DC Twinkies ad — Batman and the Mummy — appears in this ish. Also with art by Giordano.)

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9. Justice Inc. #1, DC. DC was hyping the hell out of a bunch of new series this month — Claw the Unconquered and Tor, among them — that it felt like I saw the ad for this everywhere. But when you take a moment, you realize how good it is. It grabs you in that particularly Joe Kubert way. Tatjana Wood’s colors are a big part of why this works, too.

Joe Kubert

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8. Daredevil #121, Marvel. Great Gil Kane motion and action scene, set off by all the flames. But the real star is that punch-in-the-face use of the Hydra emblem, all red, white and black of it.

Gil Kane pencils, Joe Sinnott inks

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7. Kamandi #29, DC. Seeing Superman’s suit here is the post-Great Disaster equivalent of seeing the Statue of Liberty in Planet of the Apes. Not the same shock because you knew it was DC’s Earth all along, but the Man of Steel’s outfit there puts it all into perspective. Also, I hate to say it, but I think Jim Aparo may have swiped the battle-scene layout for the cover to 1981’s Batman #335 — one of my all-time faves.

Jack Kirby pencils, D. Bruce Berry inks

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6. Star Spangled War Stories #187, DC. Good month for Joe Kubert.

Kubert

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5. Our Army at War #280, DC. Really good month for Kubert. This is just a flat-out great Sgt. Rock cover, befitting the hard-bitten soldier’s 200th appearance in the series. (He debuted in 1959’s Issue #81.)

Kubert

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4. The Joker #1, DC. I remember my just-about-8-year-old mind being blown by the idea of a bad guy having his own comic. It was so counterintuitive. (Turns out other readers felt the same way because the series only lasted nine issues.) Anyway, I love this cover — my collection of Mego villains is splashed all over it! And, if memory serves me right, this was my introduction to Two-Face.

Giordano

Plus, that logo! As I said last month, it never should have been replaced — it’s still the best one the Joker’s ever had. Also: More Giordano! It pains me to put this so low because it means it won’t be in contention for the TOP 13 of 1975, but I have to be as dispassionate as I can.

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3. Marvel Treasury Edition #4, Marvel. The illustration was repurposed from a portfolio published by Barry Windsor-Smith but so what: It’s perfect for this treasury — a format befitting this gloriously gory and intensely dramatic art.

Barry Windsor-Smith

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2. Marvel Preview #1, Marvel. Remember when we were all into Erich von Däniken and Chariots of the Gods and stuff? The Nazca Lines still freak me out! Well, as usual, Marvel knew how to get into kids’ heads — and gave us this, complete with a tremendous painted cover by Neal Adams, who seems to think the aliens were Thanagarians.

Neal Adams

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1. The Savage Sword of Conan #5, Marvel. I know I’m courting trouble by putting two magazines and a treasury in the top three slots. They get an unfair advantage over, say, The Joker #1 and Our Army at War #280. But, as I’ve said many times, they were fighting for the same rack space and eyeballs, so you have to include them in the mix. In any event, this Boris Vallejo cover (from a John Buscema layout) is well beyond anything on this list, taken on its own merits. Extraordinary.

Boris Vallejo, from a John Buscema layout

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MORE

— The TOP 13 COVERS of JANUARY 1975 — RANKED. Click here.

— BRONZE AGE BONANZA: The 1975 INDEX. Click here.

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Comics sources: Mike’s Amazing World of Comics and the Grand Comics Database.