Neal Adams R.I.P.

April 29, 2022 11:45 AM

Neal Adams, a hugely influential comic book artist has died at age 80. In the late 1960s, he was instrumental in reviving Batman as the "Dark Detective" in the wake of the campy Adam West television series. With writer Denny O'Neill in 1970, he sparked a trend in socially relevant comics with Green Lantern & Green Arrow's road trip across America. Adams gave many budding artists their start in the business and was a champion of creator's rights.
posted by marxchivist (39 comments total)

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posted by Halloween Jack at 11:48 AM on April 29, 2022

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posted by Inkslinger at 11:53 AM on April 29, 2022

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posted by Faint of Butt at 11:58 AM on April 29, 2022

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posted by Ultracrepidarian at 12:17 PM on April 29, 2022

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posted by Tesseractive at 12:17 PM on April 29, 2022

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posted by skycrashesdown at 12:21 PM on April 29, 2022

Those were the years, I grew up on Adams' Batman, and the Flash. Adams was incredible.
posted by chavenet at 12:28 PM on April 29, 2022 [1 favorite]

I read a lot of Batman as a kid. Long before I ever gave much thought to anything about comics beyond “they’re cool,” I recall encountering this panel and for the very first time thinking that comic art could be beautiful, rather than a workaday illustration of what was going on in the story.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 12:29 PM on April 29, 2022 [9 favorites]

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I fondly remember the large size DC Treasury editions from the mid 70s which featured a lot of his artwork. Also the story "Thrillkill" from Creepy magazine. He's a legend.
posted by Catblack at 12:29 PM on April 29, 2022 [1 favorite]

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The panel posted by ricochet biscuit is absolutely iconic and has been mined by DC for years when the company has been looking for iconic Batman images to promote.

Beyond the GL/GA run, his work pitting Ra's al Ghul against Bruce Wayne (because he was definitely more Bruce when dealing with Talia, and more Bruce when going up against Ra's than he was Batman--a title which Ra's basically never used, in favour of "The Detective") was just so memorable. Jim Aparo was always my personal favourite for the sheer grace his characters exhibited but Adams was, without a doubt, a master who treated readers with every issue and panel.
posted by sardonyx at 12:49 PM on April 29, 2022 [1 favorite]

Some very fondly-remembered images in that link, sardonyx. The tree splash sparked much the same revelation for me as the running Batman one did for ricochet biscuit. Your link's close-up of Ra's face has been burnt into my brain since I first read that issue back in the seventies too. Adams was also DC's superstar cover artist throughout that era - a key role later taken up by Brian Bolland.
posted by Paul Slade at 1:08 PM on April 29, 2022 [1 favorite]

I didn't read much of Adams, but I memorably recall the Comics Alliance review by Laura Hudson and David Wolkin of his Batman Odyssey and whoo, it is a ride.

Incredible art. Bonkers story. Absolutely worth a read.
posted by offalark at 1:16 PM on April 29, 2022 [2 favorites]

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posted by May Kasahara at 1:20 PM on April 29, 2022

I clearly remember one cliffhanger, must have been Adams, that had Batman "dying," falling off a cliff after being shot at, and in the book itself it turned out he survived because he moved out of the way of the bullets underneath his cape. I haven't been able to find this to verify, but the memory is vivid.

What Adams could do, was capes.
posted by chavenet at 1:46 PM on April 29, 2022

Also, he did this Beatles / Paul is Dead tribute, which is ... funny.
posted by chavenet at 1:48 PM on April 29, 2022 [2 favorites]

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posted by Sphinx at 1:50 PM on April 29, 2022

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I remember his wide ranging chat on Kevin Smith’s old Fatman on Batman podcast (including his creators' rights work). It was nice to hear the person behind the art I loved.
posted by jozifd at 1:51 PM on April 29, 2022

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posted by JustSayNoDawg at 2:08 PM on April 29, 2022

Wonderful obituary post, marxchivist, thanks. As a pre-teen kid I loved that series of covers he did for Ballantine Books' Tarzan paperbacks in the 70s. Scroll down this page for a bunch that were never released (because the publisher gave half the run to Boris Vallejo).
posted by mediareport at 2:17 PM on April 29, 2022 [1 favorite]

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posted by LovelyAngel at 2:56 PM on April 29, 2022

Speaking of bonkers, he was also an exponent of the expanding Earth theory.
posted by Paul Slade at 3:09 PM on April 29, 2022 [3 favorites]

I didn't read much of Adams, but I memorably recall the Comics Alliance review by Laura Hudson and David Wolkin of his Batman Odyssey and whoo, it is a ride.

That review is one of my favorite comics-related things ever. Hudson and Wolkin are having their MINDS BLOWN by every page of this comic, in part because the characters in the comic are having their MINDS BLOWN by everything that is happening.

Adams's Batman: Odyssey is bizarre in a way that I've never seen in another comic. It's like from a parallel universe in which Batman comics evolved in a different direction from Adams's prime Batman work in the 1970s than they did in our universe.
posted by straight at 3:41 PM on April 29, 2022 [2 favorites]

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posted by BigBrooklyn at 5:21 PM on April 29, 2022

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A gallery of Neal Adams covers.
posted by LostInUbe at 6:51 PM on April 29, 2022

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posted by tdismukes at 7:35 PM on April 29, 2022

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posted by bryon at 8:14 PM on April 29, 2022

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posted by SonInLawOfSam at 8:56 PM on April 29, 2022

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posted by Joey Michaels at 12:09 AM on April 30, 2022

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posted by Splunge at 4:37 AM on April 30, 2022

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posted by Big Al 8000 at 5:31 AM on April 30, 2022

I really dig what he's done with green lantern and green arrow. It brings back great reading memories. Actually, I think I'm going to re-read the series this weekend. What incredible drawings, what a riveting story arc.

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posted by nicolin at 5:49 AM on April 30, 2022

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posted by EatTheWeek at 9:01 AM on April 30, 2022

I volunteer for a small media convention at which he was a guest twice. I drove him several times, to or from dinner, or to the con venues. He was very nice to all our volunteers, even offering free autographs on the last day of the con to any volunteer who wanted one.

I'm neither a collector nor a comics guy, but the gesture was a kind one.

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posted by Vigilant at 11:15 AM on May 1, 2022 [1 favorite]

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posted by pan at 5:32 PM on May 1, 2022

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posted by detachd at 8:02 PM on May 1, 2022

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posted by filtergik at 7:23 AM on May 2, 2022

I was more into Marvel than DC, and bought more comics based on the art/artist than following a story arc. I admired the work of Gil Kane, David Byrne, Jim Starlin, and Paul Gulacy, among others. That panel with Batman fighting Ras al Ghul? I couldn't help but buy the giant-size DC special with that, and that was my introduction to Neal's work. We have lost a giant talent.
posted by coppertop at 7:27 PM on May 2, 2022

One thing that I also want to mention WRT Adams is that he influenced a generation of comics artists: Jim Aparo, Michael Netzer, John Byrne, and Bill Sienkiewicz, among others. Aparo in particular was always pretty close to Adams, which is probably why he's mostly known for his own work on Batman; Sienkiewicz soon developed his own unique style (although his early work was notably on Moon Knight, basically Marvel's Batman, at least at first), and Byrne described his early art as "Neal" and "Not-Neal."
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:18 PM on May 5, 2022 [1 favorite]

And now George Pérez is gone as well.
posted by Etrigan at 11:27 AM on May 7, 2022 [1 favorite]