Monitor Duty by Randy Lander "R.I.P." On Friday morning, I sat down to the computer at work, as I often do, and took a quick look at Newsarama to see what was going on in the world of comics. And I sort of fell back into my chair, because the headline announced the death of comics legend John Buscema. His death shouldn't have been a total shock, what with the rumors of his illness that surfaced last year, but I was still a bit stunned. We've seen a lot of comics artists and writers pass in the last few years, but I think Buscema's loss really hit me, because he was one of the guys who defined super-hero comics for me. My first real exposure to the Avengers came during the Roger Stern/John Buscema run, and to this day, nothing has topped those issues for me. Not even the work of Kurt Busiek, George Perez or numerous other luminaries who have done such fantastic work on the book have ever managed to supplant the images put into my head by the "Mansion Siege" or "War on Olympus" issues. Buscema's work was powerful and exciting, and his storytelling, honed by many years of working on comics, was simply incredible. When I think of Captain America, or Hercules, or the Wasp, or the Black Knight, or any of a dozen other Avengers, it is John Buscema's version of the characters that I see. It wasn't until later in my comics reading that I realized just how much John Buscema had done, and just how good he had always been. Through back issue bin diving at San Diego in 1999, I found the rest of the Stern/Buscema run that I had been missing, and I eagerly devoured the rest of those stories. Through reading Essential Silver Surfer, I realized that Buscema hadn't simply been good because he'd been at it for so long; this guy had started out as an incredible artist. When I started to get to the Essential Avengers that reprinted his first run on the title with Roy Thomas, my opinion of his early artwork was confirmed. Even more recently, while flipping through a store copy of Essential Wolverine, I was shocked to see that he had done a lot of the early issues of that series. I have that series at home, but when I was buying it, I wasn't paying much attention to artists. I knew I liked the art, but it wasn't until a few weeks ago that I realized why: John Buscema had done it. I was thrilled to get the chance to see John Buscema speak at San Diego last year. His panel was raucous and funny, as this was a guy whose opinions were as bold and honest as his artwork. He clearly didn't have much of a love for super-heroes, but he was so good-natured about it that I found his criticism of these characters that I enjoy funny rather than off-putting. I was a bit saddened to learn that he didn't really like a lot of the artwork he had done, but my primary thought was that if his super-hero stuff was artwork that he felt was lacking, what did the artwork he was happy with look like? How great must that be? In these days of artists doing eight issue runs across the space of two years, or doing two issues of a project before moving on to the new one, John Buscema's professionalism stands out all the more. There's a cautionary element to his tale as well, as he didn't seem to enjoy much of what he had done, but there's one thing you can say about John Buscema that you can say about few others: He never let fans of his art down. There's a lot of Buscema work out there: Conan, Silver Surfer, Wolverine and Avengers are just a few examples. This week might be a good time to pick up a trade or pull out some of the old issues and have a private little wake for John Buscema, remembering what he gave the world of comics. I know I will. Email Randy Lander comments about this column, or discuss it on the Fourth Rail message board.