As I've mentioned before, my friend David Steckel had inherited a chunk of his comic book collection from older cousins who had outgrown comics, so he owned a handful of issues that dated back to the 1960s. He didn't have many of them, and they were a bit scattered, but they represented a bit of … Continue reading BC: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #67
The question of who did what on the early Marvel books is going to be something that's debated and argued ad infinitum, so long as the characters remain worldwide icons as they've become in recent years. Speaking for myself, while I enjoy weighing in on certain aspects of these questions, I'm of the broad belief … Continue reading Lee & Ditko: The Storytelling Snafu of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #30
On my unanticipated trip to the Batcave comic book shop that weekend, I needed to make my meager funds stretch to their furthest. There was a cornucopia of back issues laid out before me. But I had only limited money with which to make my purchases. And so one of the books I wound up … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL TALES #20
I continued to pick up MARVEL TALES every month to help fill in the gaps in my knowledge of Spider-Man's history. By this point, the series was only reprinting issues that were a couple of years old--there were a bunch of issues from around this period that I'd already read, borrowed from like-minded comic book … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL TALES #107
As I revealed when we covered the previous issue of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, as a young reader I completely bought into the legitimacy of Aunt May's death in this storyline. And part of that was the result of this issue, which does a fine job of making it seem like a real thing (while also dropping … Continue reading BHOC: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #196
There were other concepts that were originated with the intention that they would be a part of the New Universe initiative but were left by the wayside as the parameters of that concept changed and evolved. One of them went on to become one of the lesser lights of the Marvel Universe. This was Speedball, … Continue reading Brand Echh: SPEEDBALL #1
Marvel's long-running line of reprint titles was slowly diminishing as the 1970s reached the end of the decade and the mainstream newsstand outlets that were the lifeblood of comic book sales began to steadily be replaced by a greater reliance on the nascent network of comic book specialty stores. The idea behind such reprint titles … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL TALES #106
I was very much enjoying AMAZING SPIDER-MAN at this point. Under writer Marv Wolfman, the character's harsher, more anxiety-ridden bad behaviors had been toned down to a level where it was easier to connect with him. Part of this, no doubt, was that I'd by this time read the earliest Spider-Man stories and so felt … Continue reading BHOC: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #195
This issue of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN was another one that I read courtesy of my grade school friend Donald Sims, who lent me his copy for a day or two. Already by this time, the Green Goblin had become somewhat legendary as Spider-Man's greatest foe, his reputation somehow enhanced due to the fact that he wasn't … Continue reading BC: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #136
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN continued to be Marvel's most popular and consistently best-selling title throughout the 1970s, as the character began to have a larger footprint across popular culture. So it wasn't any surprise that my grade school buddy Donald Sims had a number of issues in his comic book collection. Like the couple of Fourth World … Continue reading BC: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #134
The Tom Brevoort Experience 