As to why no X-Men... that would be adding seven characters to a drawing that was pretty full, and the X-Men were VERY minor characters at that time. There's also no Hawkeye, Two Gun Kid, Iron Fist, Nighthawk, Valkyrie, Giant-Man, Wasp, etc. Ya gotta draw the line at some point...
I was just about to post a comment that the Buscema piece was for a comic convention or program book, and then spotted the small print on the piece itself explaining that very info.
I've never seen the pencil version before. Thanks for posting it Eric L.
As to why no X-Men... that would be adding seven characters to a drawing that was pretty full, and the X-Men were VERY minor characters at that time...
The drawing is from 1975, the same year that "Giant-Size X-Men" #1 was published introducing the new team. My guess would be the John Buscema piece was from earlier in the year when the team's book was still in publishing limbo.
That Steranko is very nice. I wonder why the swastikas are facing the wrong way on the bottom of the image. The large symbol on the flag is not. For a moment I thought the image was mirrored