George Perez's X-Men

Welcome to Super Blog Team Up!

This time your favorite bloggers and podcasters have teamed up to say THANK YOU to the beloved comic book creator George Perez! Late last year, George announced the heart breaking news that he was dying from cancer.

For decades, the X-Men have been Marvel Comics best selling line of comics, so I wanted to focus on the time George Perez teamed up with Chris Claremont and Terry Austin on Uncanny X-Men King Size Annual 3.

Between the pages is a pop culture cake blog, So, in addition to featuring stunning artwork by George and Terry, I’ll be mixing in some astonishing X-Men cakes and wedding cake toppers.

This is the first image of the X-Men in this comic book, and it is such an attention getter. It is an action scene with seven different characters and each character looks perfect. The focal point of this panel is Colossus battling the robot. Those two characters are the largest and take up half the panel. The further we get from these two, the smaller the characters are. Cyclops and Banshee (in the control room) are the smallest. Terry Austin is one of the best inkers to have ever worked in comic books. Here, he and George Perez are a dynamic duo. The danger room’s walls look almost featureless while the control room is filled with machinery. Colossus and the robot are metal and shine. Even Storm’s cape has texture.

Carla Puig made this amazing Storm Cake for Cake Con International. This is Carla’s 3rd X-Men themed cake for CCI. In previous years she has made stunning cakes featuring Mystique and Magneto.

One of the reasons that super hero comic books made such great source material for movies and TV shows is that they contain so much action. The irony is that comic books are static images that don’t move, so the artist has to create a sense of motion.

On this page, George uses motion lines to show the action. Each of the six main panels have motion lines. The motion lines beneath Storm look like air because she is flying. The panel where Nightcrawler is falling up, George puts the sound effect balloon inside the motion lines. The panel after that, he chooses a simpler motion line to show debris bouncing off Colossus. On this panel and the last panel, he uses two motion lines to show things ricocheting.

Gambit and Rogue Wedding Cake Topper

This marvelous Gambit and Rogue Wedding Cake Topper was made by Genefy Playground. Gambit and Rogue are one of the most popular couples in Marvel Comics.

These four panel of Scott and Ororo talking is my favorite sequence in the whole book. Having just two people talk to each other for multiple panels is really hard to make visually appealing. By adding, the sequence of Scott taking off his visor and putting on his glasses, these panels really grab your attention. I really like the second panel where Scott is really concentrating to keep his eyes closed after taking off his visor.

Hulk vs. Wolverine Cake — Wolverine vs. Hulk Cake

This amazing Wolverine vs. the Hulk Cake made by Sirac Cicek.

George Perez is master story teller. Ignore the words on this page and just look at the eight panels. They tell you everything you need to know about what is happening. My favorite panel is the 3rd panel where Storm is looking at her plants. If you look above Storm, you’ll see Arkon in the skylight.

Black Panther and Storm Wedding Cake Topper

This adorable Black Panther and Storm Wedding Cake Topper was made by Little Vows.

I chose this splash page because it includes two of my favorite things that George Perez’s draws – architecture and pages with tons of characters. There is so much on this page. An elaborate hall with an ornate ceiling, columns, and a stairs case, statues, countless warriors and the X-Men.

The layout of this page is amazing. The X-Men are in the middle of the page. The glow around them and the smoke behind them draws your eyes to them. This is the least detailed part of the page. All of the details surround the X-Men.

George picks a unique camera angle for this page – from the top of the stairs looking down. This works extremely well because the top two thirds of the page are the statues, columns, archways and ceiling. The architecture isn’t cluttered, so you can see how breathtaking it is. The bottom third of the page is claustrophobic because it is filled with tons of warriors. Making it so crammed makes the architecture stand out even more and gives a real sense of danger because the X-Men are so out numbered.

Terry Austin, who inked this annual, is one of the greatest inkers to ever work in comics. This page is a perfect example of why. There is so much detail on this page, yet ever single line is PERFECT. I cannot image the work, skill and attention that goes into inking a page like this.

This amazing Dark Phoenix Cake was made by Massimiliano Colla for Cake Con International.

This two page spread is amazing! It consists of twelve panels. The top row is six panels. Each panel switches the focal character and switches the camera placement. Some of panels are close-up and others are more distant. These panels ratchet up the tension… so the middle row is a single panel fight scene. I gave up counting the number of characters in this panel. There has to be a least 25 characters. George, Terry and the colorist Glynis Wein all do amazing work on this panel.

The bottom row calms things down. It has two panels of characters talking, a panel showing that the fight is still going on, and two panels of a character walking down stairs and being followed by Nightcrawler.

If you’ve never read Uncanny X-Men King Size Annual 3, you are in for a treat. This is Chris, George and Terry all at the top of their game. This issue runs between 16 & 60 dollars depending on condition. It is also reprinted in Uncanny X-Men Masterworks Volume 4 and X-Men Epic Collection: Proteus.

I hope you enjoyed this post and will come back tomorrow for more amazing pop culture cakes and cookies. For more Super Blog Team Up, please check out: