SHOWCASE was a bit of an institution in the latter half of the 1950s and the 1960s. It was a series that birthed a great number of characters and series that would go on to star in their own titles. It was the experimental laboratory in which DC tested out new ideas for comic books, … Continue reading WC: SHOWCASE #39
At this point, there'd been another cycling of the 3-Bags of comics available at department and toy stores, and so I wound up over the course of several weeks picking up a number of recent books that I had earlier missed; in most cases because I hadn't been reading Marvel titles yet. The window on … Continue reading BHOC: IRON MAN #99
While suprise reprints were something of a scourge over at Marvel Comics during the in 1970s, they were an almost unheard of occurence in rival DC's titles. Which is what makes this issue of ACTION COMICS such a surprise. Behind a dynamic new cover by Neal Adams (a different version of the image that he … Continue reading BHOC: ACTION COMICS #485
At this point, there's interest in pretty much any comics from the 1960s and the early Marvel period, but that hasn't always been the case. In particular, the western and girl humor titles of that period remained affordable for years, as did the pre-hero monster/suspense books. As did this series, SGT. FURY AND HIS HOWLING … Continue reading WC: SGT. FURY AND HIS HOWLING COMMANDOS #8
There was no question for the first bunch of years after it launched that PETER PARKER, THE SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN was, at best, a secondary title. While it contained adventures of the popular wall-crawler, it wasn't the book that was driving the character's narrative. At best, it was operating around the fringes, and at worst it … Continue reading BHOC: PETER PARKER, THE SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN #20
This was the second issue of IRON MAN that I bought new off the spinner rack at my regular 7-11, and it wasn't a book that I particularly cared for. I know this, because a few years later I traded it away for something else. Of the classic Marvel characters, Iron Man was perhaps the … Continue reading BHOC: IRON MAN #112
Another title that I got a few issues of in my Windfall Comics purchase of 1988 was MYSTERY IN SPACE. It was one of a pair of titles edited by Julie Schwartz (the other was STRANGE ADVENTURES) devoted to science fiction adventures, a big genre in the late 1950s. This was the earliest one in … Continue reading WC: MYSTERY IN SPACE #54
On Thursday it was back to the 7-11 for a look at what new comic books had appeared upon the spinner rack in the back corner. This had become a regular weekly pilgrimage for me, one that I took with absolute regularity barring those times when some other requirement or responsibility prevented me from doing … Continue reading BHOC: GREEN LANTERN #106
When we left things off last week, we were talking about a pair of issues that I got in those plastic-wrapped bundles of coverless comics my local drug store had begun to sell. When this story was originally printed in the pages of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, the Comics Code Authority of the time wouldn't approve it, … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL TALES #79
Just as with Jimmy Olsen, whose title we covered here a few weeks ago, so too was Lois Lane popular enough throughout the 1960s to headline a series all her won. This is thinks in no small part, I expect, to the portrayal of actress Noel Neill in the ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN television series, which … Continue reading WC: SUPERMAN’S GIRL FRIEND LOIS LANE #24
The Tom Brevoort Experience 