Time has moved on and the wheel has turned for the character a little bit, but it can't be overstated just how popular the Thing was during the 1970s. He was just behind Spider-Man in terms of his draw power, the Wolverine of his era. And unlike Wolverine over the past few decades, if you … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE #30
This was another issue that I got in a 3-Bag--possibly even the same 3-Bag as yesterday's issue of AVENGERS. I had sampled DEFENDERS a little bit before this but still wasn't picking it up regularly. In part this was because DEFENDERS was weird. The best analogy I can give you is that to me it … Continue reading BHOC: DEFENDERS #50
Another month led me to another 3-Bag and another classic issue of AVENGERS. This period has to be considered one of the high points in the series' run, with writer Jim Shooter being backed up on artwork by George Perez (and John Byrne for a storyline.) Coming into the book at this point, it definitely … Continue reading BHOC: AVENGERS #162
This is one of those comics where I'm not 100% certain where I got it from, or when. But I think it turned up in a 3-Bag at around the same period as IRON MAN #100 and AVENGERS #161--it's of the same relative vintage anyway. So let's go with that. During the 1970s, as a … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL SUPER ACTION #2
Here's another issue that I got out of one of those 3-Bags that toy stores and department stores carried in the 1970s. The books therein were always about nine months old once those bags hit the racks, which was a godsend for me, as they provided a way in which I could get my hands … Continue reading BHOC: IRON MAN #100
Now this was a great issue, a classic entry in the history of AVENGERS. I picked it up in a 3-Bag, having only started to follow the title a number of months after this. But I was excited about it just from this cover--you see, I recognized Ant-Man from his appearance in the first AVENGERS … Continue reading BHOC: AVENGERS #161
This was another book that I pulled up out of my local drugstore's Big Bin of Slightly Older Comics, and just like the issue of SUPER-VILLAIN TEAM-UP we talked about last week, this issue was definitely purchased to round out a stack, to get me to that magic number of 5 where each book would … Continue reading BHOC: SON OF SATAN #1
This was another issue that I pulled out of my drugstore's Big Bin of Slightly Older Comics, which was filled with books that had been reported destroyed to the distributor but had instead been sold off to the drugstore chain at a cut-rate price. This manner of double-dipping, the "affidavit returns" system, is one of … Continue reading BHOC: SUPER-VILLAIN TEAM-UP #3
As tended to be my custom, as soon as I started buying a new Marvel series I'd be driven to dig around in my local drugstore's Big Bin of Slightly Older Comics to see if any earlier issues could be found and purchased, five for a dollar. And so it was that I came into … Continue reading BHOC: IRON MAN #92
The distribution of new comic books in the late 1970s wasn't so wonderful. Only a couple of years earlier, it was possible to find comics in several local locations, and the number of titles available were plentiful. But somewhere along the way, comics began to lose their status, and disappeared from a lot of storefronts. … Continue reading BHOC: MACHINE MAN #3
The Tom Brevoort Experience 