Gene Colan - Daredevil 73 Page 15

Certainly a contender for the award of the most-obscure arc of the Silver Age, the Zodiac storyline is a mismatch of great ideas and missed opportunities...

Starting with utter brilliance in Jim Steranko's Nick Fury Agent of Shield's first issue, it then finds a resolution of sorts in the pages of Avengers 82 before linking with the nice Iron Man/Spymaster epic and going... into chaos!

Now, if anybody out there can give me an explanation of what happened with that Zodiac key, I would certainly be happy!

But, hey, there are compensations! Like this sequence in Daredevil 73 where heroes and assorted Zodiac members get into a free-for-all. And, with Gene Colan and Syd Shores at the helm, you easily forget the story doesn't make any sense at all!

And, when you get both Iron Man and Daredevil fighting side-by-side on the very same page (2 heroes on which Gene Colan did leave a permanent mark!), there is simply no doubt left!

One interesting aside is the way the page is constructed. Notice how both panels on the right are strangely cut, with figures almost begging to be completed. It appears Gene Colan was adamant to stick to very classic grids on this series, unlike, say, Dr Strange, where he really went for explosive layouts. As a result, both left panels, where he takes more space, are wonderfully balanced, leaving less space for the rest, but with the added advantage that it accelerates pace as action gets more intense, which certainly would not have been the case with a more balanced picture grid...