Let's face it, lightning doesn't strike every month, and sometimes inspiration can be difficult to come by. But comic books still had to come out, ready or not. And so, occasionally, our favorite heroes of Marvel's silver age would find themselves contending with opponents who--well, let's just say they weren't quite up to the usual … Continue reading 5BC: Five Best Dopey Marvel Silver Age Villains
Thanks to an observation by reader Ben Herman we can take a bit of a closer look at the question of the lead story in STRANGE TALES #119, which appeared to have been retooled from being a Hate-Monger adventure into one pitting the Human Torch against the new-but-similar villainy of the Rabble Rouser. After yesterday's … Continue reading Lee & Kirby & Ayers: More on the Strange Case of STRANGE TALES #119
This is a sort of an odd situation, as I haven't even completely worked out an operating theory on just what was behind the decisions I'm about to lay out for you all. So this is still a bit of a puzzler. But it concerns a significant change that was made to the lead story … Continue reading Lee & Kirby & Ayers: The Strange Case of STRANGE TALES #119
By the late 1960s, a whole new niche market had opened up on the newsstand for comics. That was the niche of the black and white magazine, a format primarily pioneered by Warren Publications but one that almost every publisher and would-be publisher would experiment with. The great value in producing a black and white … Continue reading Brand Echh – Hell-Rider #1
I've seen different bits and pieces of this story told in assorted places, but I cannot recall anyplace where the entire sequence of events was laid out in a single recounting, so I thought that was worth doing. In the spring of 1963, with the super hero titles that his firm had been producing doing … Continue reading Lee & Kirby & Ditko & Everett: The linked stories of X-MEN #1, AVENGERS #1 and DAREDEVIL #1
In an article printed in THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #61, a writer by the name of Michael Breen makes the assertion that FANTASTIC FOUR #6 had not only been penciled and largely plotted by Jack Kirby, but the final lettered script was written by Jack as well. This was at a point before the Marvel … Continue reading Lee & Kirby: The Mystery of FANTASTIC FOUR #6
The Ghost Rider was a popular character in the later days of the Golden Age of Comics. He successfully combined several genres--super hero, western, supernatural--in a single series. It was an outgrowth of another strip entirely, the Calico Kid--at a certain point, Rex Hart (later Rex Fury) abandoned his guise as the Calico Kid in … Continue reading The Last Ghost Rider Story
This was another book that I got out of the local drug store's Big Bin of Slightly Older Comics. I'd had no idea that there had even been a HUMAN TORCH series--and in truth, it turned out to have been a short-lived reprint title. Still, it was another Fantastic Four-related book--and as the Torch was … Continue reading BHOC: HUMAN TORCH #7
Another issue of SGT FURY that my younger brother Ken bought out of the drugstore's Big Bin of Slightly Older Comic Books, likely at the same time he got yesterday's issue. The series had a more attractive logo by this point, but I must confess that, in this era of reprint titles and with SGT … Continue reading BHOC: SGT FURY #138
Like me, my brother Ken would occasionally pull books out of the Big Bin of Somewhat-Older Comics at the local drugstore. As he was into war comics at this time and the bin held only Marvel books, there was only one place for him to turn: SGT FURY AND HIS HOWLING COMMANDOS. It was a … Continue reading BHOC: SGT FURY #134
