BHOC: DOOM PATROL #101

When I was a kid, my grandparents would come to our house practically every Saturday. They lived just about an hour away and were close with my mother, so they'd make the drive and arrive, donuts in hand, for whatever the family wound up doing that weekend day. You could make our family dog at … Continue reading BHOC: DOOM PATROL #101

5BC: The Five Best Comic Books of 1990

While Grant Morrison and Richard Case's reinvention of the DOOM PATROL had begun in the manner of a more traditional super hero title, it swiftly morphed into something a lot more strange and wonderful, while never entirely throwing off its super hero roots. This issue is another step in that direction, as Robotman's new more … Continue reading 5BC: The Five Best Comic Books of 1990

5BC: Five Best Silver Age Character Resurrections

During the Silver Age of Comics, it was still a rare thing for a character of any significance to be killed off in super hero comics. Only two decades later, having realized the audience appeal that the demise of a beloved favorite would have, companies would turn death into a revolving door situation more promotional … Continue reading 5BC: Five Best Silver Age Character Resurrections

BHOC: DOOM PATROL #100

For whatever reason, Ed's Coins and Stamps seemed to have a much greater variety of old DC titles than he did Marvels, and so much of what I bought from him on this first trip followed suit. This issue of DOOM PATROL was among them. I had never seen a copy of DOOM PATROL before … Continue reading BHOC: DOOM PATROL #100

BHOC: DOOM PATROL #91

I've mentioned before that my father worked at Chase Manhattan Bank out of a branch in the same Levittown Mall location that housed a Heroes World store. And so, needing somebody to perform a massive data-sorting project, one day he made a deal with me: if I would go to work with him on a … Continue reading BHOC: DOOM PATROL #91

BHOC: SUPERMAN FAMILY #191

It was time for a new issue of SUPERMAN FAMILY to drop, and so I dutifully purchased this Dollar Comic from the 7-11 that week. SUPERMAN FAMILY was a bit of an inertial pick-up from me--I wasn't particularly or especially drawn to any of its myriad of strips, and yet I liked Superman and his … Continue reading BHOC: SUPERMAN FAMILY #191

The First Spider-Man Parody

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

5BC: Five Best Silver Age Character Deaths

As Dave Lister explains to Arnold Rimmer in an early episode of the British science fiction comedy series RED DWARF, "Death isn't the handicap it used to be." Today, it's a given that, in the world of super heroes, death is, at worst, a revolving door, and any character who breathes his or her last … Continue reading 5BC: Five Best Silver Age Character Deaths

SHOWCASE #50 and the Non-History of Yankee Doodle Dandy

This one isn't about a comic book feature that saw print but rather one that didn't--at least not in its original intended form. SHOWCASE was the round-robin series that would move from editor to editor throughout the DC stable, each of whom was expected to debut some new feature within its pages as a try-out … Continue reading SHOWCASE #50 and the Non-History of Yankee Doodle Dandy

TBTV: Five Super Heroes Who Should Have Stayed Dead

https://youtu.be/ep24HnqQKus Here's the first video of all-new content that isn't based on a piece that previously ran on this site (though it could have.)