Farewell, Carmine Infantino

Carmine Infantino passed away last Thursday at the age of 87. I mostly knew of him as the comic book artist on the Flash. As such, I’m unqualified to eulogize him, because according to the New York Times obituary, he apparently was art director, editorial director, and the publisher at DC at various times in the 1960s and 70s.

I first remember recognizing Mr. Infantino’s name when he returned to become the primary artist on the Flash in the early 1980s, starting (according to my archives) around issue 297. I particularly recall his artwork on the Cary Bates story in Flash #300, which basically served as a Flash history lesson, set in a frame story where a villain tried to convince Barry Allen that he had just imagined being the Flash all these years. Here’s a panel from near the end.

I didn’t realize at the time that Mr. Infantino was the original artist on many of the stories that were being retold in this issue. Among the best known stories that I think he drew was a story that was part of the Flash canon before I was born, Flash of Two Worlds in issue 123.

Flash of Two Worlds, Flash #123

This picture of the cover comes from DC’s “Millenium Edition” reprint of the issue: I don’t own the original issue. I particularly love the phrase “…sure to become a classic!” on the front cover — shameless promotion in the Mighty Marvel Manner, except that I didn’t realize DC did it too!

When Mr Infantino returned to the Flash, I don’t think I recognized immediately that he was also the writer on another title I read regularly in the early 1980s: Marvel’s Star Wars comic. Here’s the cover of #25, for which I own the original issue and the collected edition published by Dark Horse Comics a few years ago.

Cover of Star Wars 25 by Carmine Infantino.

Between these two titles, Carmine Infantino provided the visuals for quite a bit of my adolescent reading, and I’ll remember him fondly for that.

The Ten Best Iron Man Stories I Already Read

Comic book resources just published their list of the 10 best Iron Man stories. I was looking forward to this list because I was given the Marvel DVD containing 40 years of Iron Man comics back in October (thank you, Devoted Wife). I’ve been making my way through them — I’m up to issue 210 — and was looking forward to a list of, well, what I have to look forward to as I continue.

From my perspective, there’s just one problem with this list: I’ve already read all of the stories.  I’ve read a bit of Matt Fraction’s run on the title, and I like both of his arcs that made it into the top 10. I’d heard great things about the ‘Extremis’ storyline by Warren Ellis and so it was one of the first stories I read off the DVD — right after I read the “Doomquest” story from Iron Man 150. [Side comment — I read a friend’s copy of that issue back in high school, and  it has to be one of the cheesiest ever printed, and I just love it. I mean, Iron Man and Doctor Doom travel back in time to Camelot! Now THAT’S a comic book plot!] I bought the Armor Wars TPB off Comixology over a year ago, and I just finished Denny O’Neil’s run on the title from 160-200 that included two stories in the top 10. So while I’d agree with most of the items on the list, I’m a little disappointed that it didn’t give me pointers to at least one story I haven’t read yet. I know no one actually reads this blog, but if anyone felt like leaving a recommendation in the comments, I’d be more than grateful.