So now we come to a momentary diversion, as a new monofocus cropped up that took some of my attention and a lot of my funds away from comic book collecting. Since relocating to Delaware with my family, I had started watching STAR BLAZERS, this science fiction cartoon that aired on WTAF Channel 29 at … Continue reading FSC: BIG-100 SPACE BATTLESHIP YAMATO MOOK & PERFECT MEMORY BE FOREVER YAMAO
This issue of LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES was the culmination of the Great Darkness Saga, a storyline that had been building in the tile over the preceding couple of months. It was the storyline that really put the Legion on the map in terms of becoming an enormously popular fan favorite series. Prior to this, the … Continue reading FSC: LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #294
My buddy David Steckel and I were both enormous fans of the Fantastic Four, which was one of the things that brought us together in the first place. So we'd regularly let one another borrow and read the assorted issues that we had that he other did not. Which is how I wound up taking … Continue reading BC: GIANT-SIZE FANTASTIC FOUR #3
Every time that I'd gone to Ed's Coins and Stamps in the Sun-Vet Mall, I had availed myself of their back issues of DOOM PATROL. They had an extensive run of issues, and I had started out by buying #100 and continuing forward chronologically. But the next issue of DOOM PATROL that I was to … Continue reading BHOC: CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN #48
The next new character and series that Valiant introduced to its growing line of interconnected super hero titles was SHADOWMAN. As they'd started to do previously, the creators seeded lead character Jack Boniface into the background of another earlier title--in this case, X-O MANOWAR #4. In doing so, they gave readers a bit of an … Continue reading Brand Echh: SHADOWMAN #1
Ed's Coins and Stamps, the collectibles dealer whose shop was in the Sun-Vet Mall where I had gone to spend a bunch of my sixth grade graduation money was more of the DC shop than a Marvel one in terms of the back issues they had in stock. They weren't entirely bereft of Marvel material--I … Continue reading BHOC: THE FLASH #139
In 1982, there was no comic book that I thought more highly of than NEW TEEN TITANS. It was a perfect synthesis of all of the elements that I liked in both the Marvel and DC titles of the day, a time when the two had very different flavors. But NEW TEEN TITANS bridged that … Continue reading FSC: NEW TEEN TITANS ANNUAL #1
In the fall of 1975, SHAZAM continued to limp along. The once-promising launch of one of the greatest and best-remembered comic book characters of the Golden Age had been reduced to being a quarterly reprint title, kept alive only due to the success of the similarly-named Saturday Morning live action television program. This was something … Continue reading BC: SHAZAM #22
It was at this point that I graduated from sixth grade and from grade school entirely. This was considered a bit of a momentous occasion, and so I wound up getting gifts from many of my relatives--gifts that mostly amounted to cash. I wound up with over $100.00 in my pocket, more money than I … Continue reading BHOC: JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #8
X-O MANOWAR #1 introduced another entirely new character to the burgeoning Valiant super hero universe, that being Aric of Dacia, a Visigoth from the 5th Century who was captured by aliens, and who escapes from them by stealing their greatest weapon, the X-O Manowar living armor. Due to the time dilation involved in faster-than-light travel, … Continue reading Brand Echh: X-O MANOWAR #1
The Tom Brevoort Experience 