Alpha Flight #1 page 24 by John Byrne

1985 - Anatomy of a Cover - Secret Wars II #1

http://www.coollinesartwork.com/featured.asp?Piece=294191&Details=1&From=Room

And the rejected cover by Sal Buscema.

1982 - Amazing Heroes #13 Star Wars cover by Kevin Nowlan

1982 - A page from Paul Smith's sketchbook

A look at Paul Smith's sketchbook from Amazing Heroes #12, grabbed from the Paul Smith Appreciation Facebook Page:

1982 - Marvel ad in Amazing Heroes - We're Still The Winning Team!

Grabbed from Amazing Heroes #6. Drawn by Dennis Cowan and inked by Bob Layton.

Love how Wolverine's running the race with his cigar!

1985 - The cover to Secret Wars II

According to I Love Comic Covers who was apparently quoting John Byrne:

"Sal Buscema drew [the Secret Wars II cover] originally, but Shooter found fault with his version and called me in to do a "better one". I took one look at Sal's and drew exactly the same thing, just in my own style."

Later, Fantagraphics used the rejected illustration for the Amazing Heroes cover, which was published one month before Secret Wars II #1."

These are the original pencils taken from Amazing Heroes #66. As you can see a whole lot of characters were cropped out of the background, including Dazzler in her old school uniform, Legion, and Magik. And Magneto and Rogue were added in to the final cover below.

Here's the original cover:

1984 - Amazing Heroes #60

Cover art by Rick Leonardi, Terry Austin, and Mike Mignola.

I cleaned it up a little:

1989 - McFarlane's cover for Amazing Heroes #170

 

Which apparently sold for just over $26,000 at Heritage Auctions....

1984 - Mike Zeck's Secret Wars cover for Amazing Heroes #59

1984 - Best 10 Books

From Amazing Heroes #63 – Best 10 Books of 1984 by R.A. Jones

1 – Swamp Thing

2 – Jon Sable

3 – American Flagg

4 – Teen Titans

5 – Fantastic Four

6 – X-Men

7 – Blue Devil

8 – Atari Force

9 – Dr. Strange

10 – Power Pack

If you collected comics in 1984, which ones were you picking up…

I was a little late to the game on Swamp Thing and would pick up Moore’s amazing run through trade paperbacks. I couldn’t get into Sable and Flagg at that age. I was picking up Teen Titans, Fantastic Four, X-Men, and Dr. Strange. Picked up a few issues of Power Pack, but was never into the young kids point-of-view. And I loved the early issues of Blue Devil. It had a fun 1980s storyline with loads of crossovers and wonderful art.