I'm just going to borrow these from Artastic Avenjer's blog. These are some VERY sexy images of male super heroes by Joe Phillips.
I LOVE Joe Phillips' style! If I could draw LIKE anyone, he is my pick. He doesn't do a lot of actual comic work. Usually, he does these awesome gay themed illustrations that are published in books or calenders and lots of merchandising.It's like hot and cute at the same time. One thing he does really well is capture age. He draws clear adults or younger characters. Not every illustrator does that. But anyway, enjoy!












This one's my favorite. It's so hot! Although I think Beast should be bigger. Ice Man looks like a young Ben McKenzie and ain't nuthin' wrong with that! Also Angel seems to be the least endowed and when I think about it... that sounds about right. Ha ha!

Wonder Wednesday - Props! - Phil Jimenez

Today, I wanted to pay my respect to another of my favorite creators in comics, super star illustrator Phil Jimenez!
Jimenez's hyper detailed line work, without a doubt makes him the heir-apparent to George Perez, whom Jimenez is unabashedly inspired by. Like me, Perez's New Teen Titans run was a huge influence.
One of Perez's most legendary runs as a creator was on Wonder Woman, and like his idol, Jimenez also enjoyed a celebrated run on that title. (More on that later...)
And also like me, Jimenez is actually an even bigger fan of Donna Troy, originally Wonder Girl, and has shepherded her through many of her recent travails at DC, including returning her to life after she was unceremoniously killed off in a Teen Titans miniseries.
He redesigned her costume, melding the lines of her old Wonder Girl costume with the "space"/"stars" motif she'd worn in more recent years, in her identity as Troia. As a fan of hers, it makes me happy that she has such a champion in comics looking out for her.
This is one of his earliest published works for DC, a pinup from the 80s miniseries War of the Gods, depicting Wonder Woman, Troia and Captain Marvel, the three biggest name heroes to derive their powers from the gods of legend.
It was, however, another former sidekick/Teen Titan, that helped Phil make one of his earliest big splashes, Aqualad.
In 1986, DC exec Neal Pozner wrote a miniseries starring Aquaman, in which, he ditched his classic orange and green suit for a mostly blue "underwater camouflage" costume. Despite the audacity, the look was embraced by fans and the miniseries sold well enough that a sequel was developed but due to editorial shifts, was ultimately scrapped. As beautifully rendered as the camouflage suit was, by Craig Hamilton in the miniseries, it was too complicated for most artists, and in his subsequent appearances, Aquaman reverted to his classic costume.
Phil Jimenez and Neal Pozner were romantically involved until Pozner's death in 1994. Jimenez dedicated the miniseries Tempest to his memory. By this point, many of the original Teen Titans had grown up. Robin became Nightwing. The Flash died and Kid Flash adopted his mentor's role and as previously stated, Wonder Girl became Troia (and lost all connection to Wonder Woman, due to continuity conflicts). Now, Aqualad became Tempest and gained vast magical powers, differentiating him from his mentor. His new suit, though, is an obvious homage to the blue camouflage suit worn by Aquaman in Pozner's miniseries.
His intricate art style continued attracting fans, despite it not fitting the normal exaggerated art style popular during the 90s. He achieved a career high drawing the massive Justice League vs. Titans miniseries that found two generations of heroes battling it out, with either the fate of the world OR Titan Cyborg's life on the line.
The above image is an homage to Perez's original illustration for Justice League versus Avengers from the 80s, before the project was scrapped. That image however had been reprinted often over the years. I think George would've been proud.
As I said, a crowning moment came when Jimenez took over both writing and drawing Wonder Woman, after a lackluster run in the late 90s. His love for the Amazon Princess was obvious on the page as he lovingly rendered her and her cast, drawing on characters from throughout her history, including of course, Perez's run.
In one cool move, he redesigned Themyscira into this magical fantasy locale, not just an island in the ocean.
While his run was respectable and vastly superior to the run before it, it had its problems. One was that during an important storyline, he was forced to suddenly deviate from his plot to tie into a company-wide crossover featuring The Joker. That was out of his hands, really, but even so, one thing that may have hampered him was his sheer love and respect for Wonder Woman, which sadly came across as him making her his "darling," completely flawless and yet uninteresting. It's a matter of taste, I suppose. A lot of fans seemed to hate how curly he drew her hair, calling it "mall hair." I... I mean, I've seen worse and it's not like it was all poofed in front! It was just curly band long!
In another Perez-like move, Jimenez drew Infinite Crisis, the sequel to Perez's 1984-85 history-changing Crisis on Infinite Earths. Possibly the most controversial moment from the story (which actually occurred BEFORE the series began) was Wonder Woman killing criminal mastermind Maxwell Lord on live television. The move haunted Wonder Woman for years and soured many in the public's perception of her. Then she started wearing pants and I think this all went away... maybe?
His most recent work was on Legion Academy, a Legion of Super Heroes tie-in, featuring the homolicious Power Boy and Gravity Kid.
Once again, JUST LIKE ME, Storm is his favorite X-Man, so when he became the artist on one of their 27,000 books, he reintroduced her as part of the team, after she'd been absent for several years.
In this image, he pays tribute to one of John Byrne's legendary classic X-Men covers... although why the fuck is Iron Man on there?!
He also took a stab at the X-Men's Canadian counterparts, Alpha Flight.
Phil Jimenez is one of the most skillful and respected illustrators out there. His work isn't flashy or stylized, it's hyper detailed and realistic. I think sadly, though, that because his work is so similar to Perez's fans haven't quite embraced or recognized the quality of his work, because they see him still as a student to the master.

But regardless, he IS a master on his own and I will continue to look forward to whatever work he puts out!

Wonder Wednesday - More Thoughts on the X-Men

I've been a tad busy. Had a lot going on. Sorry I haven't blogged. I can't believe I didn't even do a Manic Monday! Oh fine, here:There, happy? His name is either David Jones of Adam Cousins, depending on the website. Happy Googling!
Anyway, I was thinking that The X-Men are always the "odd" property at Marvel when it came to merchandising. So much merch uses classic 60s artwork, classic Ditko and Kirby stuff, but then you see like Cochrum or Byrne Wolverine or Storm tossed in, incongruously. Well, incongruously to me anyway. Joe Schmoe off the street probably doesn't think twice about it and probably thinks Wolverine and Storm WERE original X-Men.

That's another challenge to the X-Men First Class movie. No Storm. No Wolverine. None of the cool characters people, y'know, like!

This isn't the "First Class" from the comics, either. It's a precursor to that even! The X-Men comic was one of the rare misfires in the early Marvel pantheon. It just never took off like other properties like the Fantastic Four or Spider-Man. That's possibly because it was just a knock-off of the Fantastic Four to begin with.

To begin with, the ONE thing people gravitate toward with the X-Men is the cool, pop-out metal claws idea of being an outcast. But look at these guys! They're like the Legion of Super WASPs! What are they outcasts from? Boy Scout Pack 36? Let's examine them one by one:

The Beast - The Ben Grimm knock-off. Tough, cranky, thick. At least Stan Lee realized he was just a Ben Grimm knock-off and early on switched his personality to that of the "brain" of the group. His "grotesque" mutation that made him an outcast was his huge hands and feet. Today, that would just make him super popular with the ladies. Have you seen Kim Kardashian's boyfriend? He could palm a watermelon!
Eventually, The Beast morphed into this form, which became his most famous look, living up to his name. But strangely, he was never depicted as being any MORE of an outsider like this. In fact, he became even more mainstream, joining the Avengers for a lengthy run. And in a silly move that will be repeated again later, in the 80s, they decided to reform the original vanilla X-Men under the name X-Factor and for old-times sake, Beast reverted to his old big hand/footed human look. It was temporary as EVERYONE thought he was cooler looking like a bad-ass Cookie Monster.

Just as Beast was initially the Ben Grimm-lite of the X-Men, Iceman was the Human Torch knock-off, the pain-in-the-ass kid brother who annoyed everyone else and was a hot-head who charged into battle without thinking. Also... he looked more like Snowman back in the early days. And his whole costume consisted of pirate boots. That's all. If you're gonna run around in just one article of clothing, PANTS are the only option! Anything else just looks pervy.

Eventually, someone had the bright idea to throw Iceman against the Human Torch and they teamed up/fought off and on for years (in the Mighty Marvel Manner!). In fact bother were supposed to be featured on Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, but Human Torch was bumped in favor of new character Fire-Star. Thus, Iceman became the original X-Man with the highest profile.

So you might think being made of snow ice might qualify you for misfit status.But wait, that was only when he was in Super Mode. Otherwise, he was just an ordinary dude.
The generically-named Marvel Girl was "the girl" of the group and somehow had the least personality of anyone in the group. That was kinda common back then. Being a "girl" was considered a personality trait. She was there to be lusted after by the boys, particularly sulky, stoic leader Cyclops and carefree pretty boy Angel. And in one particularly creepy tale, Prof. X. No, for serious!

Powerwise, she sucked and spent her time sweating and fainting in order to move the slightest object with her telekinesis. Ironically, she went on to become the omnipotent Dark Phoenix.
Her powers were purely invisible. She was a pretty red head. What made her such an outcast? Because they said so, that's why.
Blond millionaire Angel had almost less personality than Marvel Girl. He was rich. Handsome. Must be torture. Oh, but he had those grotesque wings! He could never fit into polite society!
Oh except he could harness them and tuck them away, so problem solved. Poor outcast.

Not only is his personality on the dull side, his powers were pretty boring too. I mean wings and flight? Like 75% of heroes can fly! But the majority of them can do other stuff as well! Not this guy. Eventually, someone wised up and in the 80s, he was reinvented as Archangel, with razor sharp metal wings that could fire dart-like feathers. Bad ass! And then some old fart was like, "I like him better the way he was before." And like with The Beast, they removed his only offensive powers and gave back his regular feather wings. He was stuck that way for ages, but they've recently given him back his Archangel look and metal wings.

And finally, the team was led by Cyclops, the one member who might have actually had trouble fitting in at the tea party at the country club. His eyes constantly emitted powerful energy blasts that he had to wear ruby quartz glasses to absorb. So, he was constantly rocking these funky red glasses, or an adjustable visor in Super Mode.

Cyclops sulked a lot. Carried a lot of responsibility and was a general stick-in-the-mud. He pined for Marvel Girl. (He was like the Nick Jonas of the team.) They eventually got married in between all her dying and coming back. He's currently banging sexy Emma Frost. Marvel Girl/Jean Grey/Phoenix/Dark Phoenix is currently dead.
The team, of course, was assembled and commanded by scary telepathic taskmaster, Professor X. Nowadays, Charles Xavier comes across as a loving, fatherly leader, but back then, he was just bald and creepy. (I mentioned that he hit on Jean, right?)

Comic fans love to point out one of those cosmic coincidences, in that around the same time Marvel debuted the X-Men, DC also had a group of misfit heroes led by a creepy guy in a wheelchair, The Doom Patrol. These outcasts were actually much more "weird" than the original X-Men. Robotman was a race car driver whose body had been destroyed and his brain transplanted into a copper robot body. Negative Man's skin was destroyed and he was wrapped in mummy bandages. Beast Boy had green skin. Elasti-Girl... could shrink and turn giant. Otherwise, she was still pretty. Well... I mean no one wants to read a comic with an ugly girl in it! It's The Munsters Rule.

Like the X-Men, Doom Patrol wasn't all that successful either and was eventually canceled... in grand manner! The four adult members sacrificed their lives to same a New England town from destruction! The X-Men chugged along into the early 70s but was eventually canceled as well, before the concept was completely overhauled with an all-new, diverse team in 1978.
But, the producers of the movie chose not to focus on this particular team and instead a younger Charles Xavier, Magneto, Mystique, Emma Frost and some others. Some younger X-Men have been retconned onto this team, like Havok who is Cyclops' younger brother in the comics and Banshee who joined the team at the same time as Storm, Wolverine, et al.

I'm gonna admit, I have a soft-spot for Banshee. Must be my weakness to Ginger Kryptonite. Plus he really filled out that Jim Lee-designed team uniform from the early 90s.

I've never heard of some of the characters like Azazel... a red "demonic" looking character. From the brief glimpses in the trailer, he might be able to teleport, so I assume there's some tie to Nightcrawler. Maybe he and Mystique hook up and he is their child? Zoe Kravitz plays a character named Angel... Salvadore. So Angel is her real name. Is she a new character? She appears to have fairy wings, like Pixie from the modern comics.

So yeah, there's my little commentary on the original X-Men.