I was born in 1972, and like many of you grew up watching "Superfriends" and the like before I ever got into comics.  I do recall getting a couple of 3/bag comics one Christmas, Marvel & Whitman stuff.  In 1982, my older brothers were into comics a few months before I was, so I was familiar with them, but not ga-ga.  The first comic that I bought with my own money was 'Star Wars' #60, because I was curious about comics and curious how this fit in with one of my favorite movies.  I quickly branched out into Captain America, Iron Man, and, yes, Captain Carrot.

Kubert, however, was and is an extraordinary fushion of both. A superb artist, and one of the best comicbook artists ever to work in the field.

The 1960s Spider-Man cartoon, Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends and Super Friends were probably my first exposure to comic book characters.

Where do you think Alex Ross lies on that spectrum ?

[QUOTE=John Mietus]That Joe Kubert Hawkman cover really stands out in that group, doesn't
it?

QUOTE]

I love Kubert, and it's a nice cover, but I don't think it's head and shoulders over the rest of them--there really isn't a bad one in the bunch, though the Batman is pretty standard stuff.  In fact, if I were to pick a favorite, the nod would go to the Gil Kane Atom cover, which I think is one of the great covers of the silver age. 

Because I'm about the same age as JB, we share some of these firsts--i.e., the Flash, B&B JLA, Hawkman, and Metalmen.  He beat me on Green Lantern, which I didn't find until his final tryout appearance with the Invisible Destroyer on the cover.

The Kubert cover raises another point for me though, which is that I always thought that the mask without wings was the best--the most birdlike, Hawklike.  I understand the wings as a decorative element, but I still prefer the character as Kubert originally (re)designed him.  This book was really my introduction to Kubert, as I wasn't a fan of war material at the time--his rich blacks and versatile textures were a revelation to me.  As quite a young kid I had seen and liked the Viking Prince, but had little awareness of artists at that point. 

Much the same position as Kirby. On a purely technical level Ross' work is fairly pedestrian (tho vastly better than anything I could do), but as The-Guy-Who-Paints-Superheroes, clearly he is far above most others in the field.

I first encountered Superheroes via The Superman/Superboy cartoons (by Filmation I believe) in the early 70's and Batman and Robin believe it or not as guest stars in Scooby Doo.