Now this was a thoroughly excellent issue of SUPERMAN, one I acquired as a part of my much-discussed windfall comic book purchase of 1988, wherein I scored about 150 Silver Age vintage comic books for the sum of only $50.00. The SUPERMAN titles during this period were always wildly imaginative, even as they tended to … Continue reading WC: SUPERMAN #159
I have to confess that I've never been particularly enamored of the adventures of SUPERBOY, for all that I own and have read plenty of them. I understand the appeal of the series, but somehow, it's small town atmosphere and small-scale young heroics never really did anything for me. I can be difficult to even … Continue reading WC: SUPERBOY #95
For no particular reason, I've been thinking about SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE recently. It's a film that I first saw new back in 1978 and that has been a favorite ever since. What's more, it is clearly the progenitor for all of the big-budget super hero movies' that have come after it, to one extent or … Continue reading Fifteen Thoughts about Superman: the Movie
These days, the concept of a crossover between two different fictional characters has become so entrenched in popular culture that it's difficult to come across a pairing that is truly noteworthy. In a world in which everybody is exploring a Multiverse, it seems strange to think that there was a time when the idea that … Continue reading 5BC: 5 Most Unlikely and Unprecedented Crossovers
Sheldon Mayer is one of the most important figures in the Golden Age of Comics, though he's one that relatively few people have heard about. An obsessive cartoonist, Mayer broke into the business at a young age, in the era in which comic books were just starting out. For a time, he worked at the … Continue reading Forgotten Masterpiece: Scribbly Returns!
When it came to the organized comic book fandom of the early Silver Age of Comics, there was no character that hardcore audience was more behind than Hawkman. The Winged Wonder had been a favorite of both Dr. Jerry Bails and Roy Thomas during their youth decades earlier as part of the Justice Society of … Continue reading WC: HAWKMAN #2
The Marvel revolution of the early Silver Age took those toiling in the field entirely by surprise. That's entirely due to the fact that, prior to 1961, Martin Goodman's publishing enterprise, whether it was known as Timely or Atlas or Marvel had been producers of enormous amounts of shlock. Goodman's professed publishing strategy was to … Continue reading The First Spider-Man Parody
It would have been at about this time that I read the Pete Hamill column in the New York Daily News that is reproduced at the link below, which had a huge impact on me. As I describe in that piece, while Hamill's writing about his friend Casey was intended to underscore the emptiness and … Continue reading BHOC: SUPERMAN #327
This was another wonderful issue of MYSTERY IN SPACE that I got in my Windfall Comics purchase of 1988. Just looking at the book, you can get a sense as to how much more invested editor Julie Schwartz was when working on science fiction material. He'd started out as an SF fan, and eventually found … Continue reading WC: MYSTERY IN SPACE #68
While my subscription to FLASH had run its course, I still had a few issues of JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA coming to me. And so this one arrived in my mailbox one day, having made the slight transition to the DC Explosion format. Which is to say, it came down in price by a dime … Continue reading BHOC: JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #158
The Tom Brevoort Experience 