Spy Smasher was introduced in the first issue of Fawcett's WHIZ COMICS (numbered as #2 so as to account for an ashcan edition created solely to secure copyright to the title.) The brainchild of Bill Parker and C.C. Beck, he became one of the most popular characters in the Fawcett publishing line, appearing in his … Continue reading Spy Smasher in Peacetime: The Last Spy Smasher story
SUPERMAN VS THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, the first of the real DC and Marvel crossovers (putting aside the WIZARD OF OZ co-produced Treasury) was an enormous success for both companies. Despite being priced at $2.00 as a time when regular comic books were only 30 cents, it sold in huge quantities--enough to make DC look for … Continue reading Lost Crossovers: The Lost and Most Obscure Marvel/DC Crossover
An entry from my old Marvel blog concerning Peter Parker unmasking himself to his fellow Avengers following the events of "One More Day" Life Behind The Mask April 9, 2009 | 1:00 AM | By Tom_Brevoort | In General I should never be surprised by how certain readers react to some of the stories we … Continue reading Blah Blah Blog – Life Behind The Mask
I was strangely super-excited when I got this issue of MARVEL SUPER ACTION in a 3-Bag at a department store or a toy store. I don't know what motivated Marvel after three issues featuring reprints of Captain America stories (which the title would return to the following issue) to devote this one to reprints of … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL SUPER ACTION #4
FOOM, a.k.a. Friends Of Ol' Marvel, was the successor operation to the haphazard Marvelmania International once teh latter had gone belly-up. Stan Lee, now Marvel's publisher, still saw value in having a fan publication that could further ingratiate the readership with Marvel, as well as a place where the assorted licensing efforts that they'd begun … Continue reading FOOM #1
This issue of SUPERBOY was another book that came to me in 1988 as a part of my purchase of a box of around 150 Silver Age comics for $50.00, the result of a chance meeting at the Post Office. And it was one of the more noteworthy issues in the bunch, given that it … Continue reading WC: SUPERBOY #89
A posting from my Marvel blog of long ago, polling the audience as to what their first remembered encounter with Marvel in any form was, and talking about my own. My First Marvel April 20, 2009 | 1:00 AM | By Tom_Brevoort | In General By now, I'm sure that everybody has been suitably stunned … Continue reading Blah Blah Blog – My First Marvel
This issue of IRON MAN was yet another book that I wound up with after getting it in a plastic 3-Bag purchased at a department store or a toy store. I had only recently begun to follow the series, and I wound up reading all of the issues during this period in a weird, backwards, … Continue reading BHOC: IRON MAN #104
MARVELMANIA was a short-lived operation set up in 1969 to sell licensed merchandise of the Marvel characters. It was positioned in the books as a spiritual successor to the Merry Marvel Marching Society, Marvel's in-house fan club, but in fact it was a separate fly-by-night organization entirely, one set up and licensed by Don Wallace. … Continue reading MARVELMANIA CATALOG #1
The original Ghost Rider made his debut in 1949, in the pages of Magazine Enterprises' TIM HOLT #11. Nobody involved could have anticipated that the character, in a series of transformative forms, would still be a going concern today--and might have starred in a pair of big budget movies. While the publishers at Magazine Enterprises … Continue reading The First Ghost Rider Story
The Tom Brevoort Experience 