Every Sunday morning we showcase a classic comic cover, complete with compelling commentary, for your cordial contemplation. It’s the Classic Comic Cover Corner!
Avengers #75 – April, 1970
Cover Art by John Buscema
The latest X-movie, X-Men: Days of Future Past, hit theaters last week, and it’s a thrilling mix of time travel and mutant adventure; and the most marvelous mutant appearing in the new film is easily Quicksilver, the arrogant speedster and son of Magneto. (Even though that paternal relationship is only hinted at in the movie.)
Quicksilver first appeared in X-Men #4 (March, 1964) as part of Magneto’s “Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.” So the speedster has been around almost as long as the rest of the world’s “strangest teens” (that’s 50 years now.) But it wasn’t long after his appearance in X-Men that Pietro Maximoff and his twin-sister, Wanda (The Scarlet Witch), changed their evil ways and joined the Avengers (see Avengers #16, May 1965.)
by Jack Kirby
While the Jack Kirby covers of X-Men #4 and Avengers #16 are awesome and of historic value, they’re just not as much fun as our classic cover pick for this week, Avengers #75, which has the super-team trying to catch the speed-demon before the world blows up. (Don’t you hate it when that happens?)
In the Roy Thomas penned story, “The Warlord and the Witch,” the Avengers go up against an alien being, Arkon, who is from the “extra-dimensional world” called, Polemachus. The villain was accidently unleashed by Pietro and his sister and the somewhat noble warlord threatens to destroy the Earth in order to save his own planet.
Avengers #75 marks the first cover appearance of Quicksilver in his silver costume (prior to this it was an emerald green), and the classic Quicksilver running stance, as illustrated by John Buscema, even made it on to a 7/11 Slurpee cup in the mid-seventies. Legend has it that drinking from one of these cups would give you an extra-fast brain freeze.
It’s been said that for Quicksilver the rest of the world is in slow motion, and if you haven’t seen it yet I highly recommend that you check out the new X-Men movie where the hero’s amazing slow-motion sequence is one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen on film. It’s that good.
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