Free your mind, and your spirit will follow

It's Common Elements time again, here on Comic Art Friday.

For the benefit of any newbies in the audience, Common Elements is my series of commissioned drawings spotlighting unrelated comic book characters who are connected by some — you're way ahead of me — common element.

Today's featured item brings together a couple of comics' favorite redheads: Jean Grey (originally codenamed Marvel Girl, later called Phoenix) of the X-Men, and Emily "Lia" Briggs, better known by the superhero handle Looker. The artist charged with depicting this tempting twosome is Dave Hoover, one of the industry's most adept practitioners of "good girl" art.



Beyond their striking red tresses, Jean and Lia share a pair of more significant commonalities:

• Both Phoenix and Looker possess psionic powers — comic-book-speak for a skill-set that includes telepathy (the ability to read others' thoughts) and psychokinesis (the ability to affect matter using the power of the mind).
  
  
• Each also underwent a dramatic metaphysical transformation. In a now-legendary 1980 X-Men storyline, Jean morphed into the psychotic, supremely powerful Dark Phoenix (as anyone who saw the film X-Men: The Last Stand knows, although the events surrounding the Dark Phoenix were altered significantly for the movie). Emily, in a 1993 Outsiders tale, was bitten by a vampire and ultimately became one herself.

As for our artist, Dave Hoover has penciled dozens of comics since the mid-1980s. He's most closely identified with runs on DC's Wanderers and Starman, and Marvel's Excalibur, Night Thrasher, and Captain America. He's also worked extensively in the animation field.

During his two-year hitch on Captain America, Dave cocreated Cathy Webster, also known as Free Spirit, Cap's female protégé. I always enjoyed the character, and I keep hoping that someday someone at Marvel will revive her and give her a major plotline in which to develop.

While I'm waiting, I can admire this terrific Dave Hoover-drawn page from Captain America #438, which features Free Spirit and her partner, Jack Flag, in action. Check out Dave's splendid figure work in the top panel, and that gorgeous close-up of Cathy at bottom right.

As it happens, Free Spirit also makes an appearance in one of my Common Elements commissions, alongside Mister Miracle (whose real name is Scott Free — see the connection?).

This dynamic duo is magnificently rendered in tonal pencil by the incredible Geof Isherwood.



Here's a smidgen of historical trivia: Free Spirit was not Captain America's first woman partner.

Everyone remembers Cap's skein of male backups, including James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes (who in current Marvel continuity has become the new Captain America); Sam Wilson, a.k.a. The Falcon; Lemar Hoskins, a.k.a. Battlestar; and the aforementioned Jack Flag. In the late 1940s, however, Bucky was replaced at Cap's side by a young woman called Golden Girl (whose real name was Betty Ross, not to be confused with the Hulk's longtime paramour). One of these days, I'll work her into a Common Elements scenario, too.

And that's your Comic Art Friday.