PETER PARKER, THE SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN had, for most of its run, been a weak sister second title to the main Spidey series, AMAZING SPIDER-MAN. While there had been some good stories along the way, PPSSM operated in the shadow of ASM, never entirely carrying its own weight, and inevitably staffed by talent that wasn't yet … Continue reading GH: PETER PARKER, THE SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN #79
This was the second of two issues of THOR that were contained in the SUPERHERO GIFT PACK that I received for Christmas in 1978, and its story picked up where the preceding issue had left off, fortunately. So I rolled right in, interested to see what would become of Thor and his posse as they … Continue reading BHOC: THOR #263
This was clearly the most typical episode of DOCTOR WHO we've gotten in a while, one in which the Doctor and Ruby journey to some moment in space and time and then get swept up in an adventure happening within that time period. so on that level, I feel as though I should have enjoyed … Continue reading Doctor Who: Rogue
This issue of THOR was one of two that I got in my Christmas gift of the SUPERHERO GIFT PACK. While I was reading the series at this point, it wasn't truly one of my favorite. Mostly that was due to the extended periods the book would spend in Asgard, where it often felt more … Continue reading BHOC: THOR #262
Okay. Well, this one I really didn't like. Which seems to be a bit at odds with the general consensus of this story. And I think that it simply boils down to the fact that I'm just not a good person, nowhere in the Doctor's league. Within the first five minutes of the episode, both … Continue reading Doctor Who: Dot and Bubble
Another gift that I received on that Christmas of 1978 was this SUPERHERO GIFT PACK. Ordered from I believe the Sears Catalogue, this Gift Pack was essentially a box containing ten recent-but-not-new Marvel Comics. There may have been a poster as well--I had a Sal Buscema-illustrated Marvel poster that hung in my bedroom at around … Continue reading BHOC: SUPERHERO GIFT PACK
MARVEL TEAM-UP had been practically from its inception a meat-and-potatoes sort of a comic book. Which is to say that it's aspirations were rarely higher than just entertaining an audience for twenty minutes with a solid story. It wasn't trying to stretch the medium or produce works for the ages. MARVEL TEAM-UP was a product, … Continue reading GH: MARVEL TEAM-UP #130
As I talked about yesterday, this was the second of two magazine-sized issues of THE SPIRIT that I got for Christmas 1978, ordered out of the Superhero Merchandise catalog. And like yesterday's issue, this one offered a batch of classic Will Eisner Spirit stories from the long-running Newspaper circular that had run in the Golden … Continue reading BHOC: THE SPIRIT #18
I had heard a bit about this episode ahead of time, so I wasn't caught as flat-footed by it as many seemed to be. And I was given a warning: it's a Twilight Zone episode, my source said, but once you work out the ending beat, the whole thing kind of falls apart. And I'm … Continue reading Doctor Who: 73 Yards
My Christmas gifts for the Christmas of 1978 weren't exclusively Marvel based, though they were pretty much all comic book based. I had also asked for and received two issues of Kitchen Sink Press's magazine devoted to Will Eisner's THE SPIRIT, #17 and #18, their two first. Prior to this, I had read one Spirit … Continue reading BHOC: THE SPIRIT #17
The Tom Brevoort Experience 