The Marvel Annual for 1972/1973. At last, a mystery solved!

Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon. 

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The autumn of 1972 was a momentous time in the life of any UK comics fan.

One reason for that was the launch of The Mighty World of Marvel, a brand-new periodical which introduced us to the wonders of the House of Ideas.

But the second reason was the arrival of an annual we'd all be getting in our stockings that Christmas.

Granted, if we did find it in our stockings, we'd struggle to get our legs into them, as it was a sizeable beast, cramming a whole multitude of Marvel reprints into its 100-plus pages.

Who'd created those interior tales was no mystery at all. As any fool knew, they were brought to us by Stan Lee, Roy Thomas, Jack Kirby, Barry Smith and Steve Ditko.

But, in truth, there was one enigma. A mystery that could foil the wit of Sherlock Holmes, Jessica Fletcher, Father Dowling, Nancy Drew, both Hardy Boys, Velma, Shaggy, Freddie, Daphne, Scrappy and Scooby, all combined.

And that was the question of who painted its fabby cover?

Clearly, it was based on a panel from The Incredible Hulk #2, in which the green goliath battled the terrifying Toadmen.

However, that picture was by Jack Kirby, and this new one clearly wasn't.

For many a year, I've assumed the artist to be perhaps Mediterranean. This was based entirely on the uniforms of the soldiers, especially their helmets which, to my eagle eyes, didn't have a British or American look to them.

Thus it was that I wondered if the artist was Rafael López Espí, the man who produced a seemingly infinite amount of material for Marvel's reprinted output in Spain. In Britain, his greatest claim to fame was having painted the legendarily magnificent posters one could, for a spell, buy from the back covers of the company's UK mags.

However, it seems I was wrong to suspect that.

For, verily, at last, I seem to have an answer.

Or, at least, the Albion British Comics Database does - by naming the artist as James E McConnell, a man who also contributed covers to the likes of Super Detective Library, Thriller Picture Library, Cowboy Picture Library, Look and Learn, Lion and Ranger, as well as Hurricane annuals.

According to Wikipedia, McConnell was born in 1903 and died in 1995 and, over the years, painted more than 1000 covers and frontispieces.

As if that wasn't enough, he also contributed artwork to the American Roll of Honour in the American Chapel of St Paul's Cathedral, London.

I can't find any sign of him having done any other super-hero work - or of him ever having worked again for Marvel. So, it seems his presence on that annual's cover was a unique honour for us all indeed and, thus, an event to be treasured.