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
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
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 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
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
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
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.)
In the early 1940s, as a myriad of would-be publishers heard about the overwhelming success of Superman nd rushed into the marketplace offering their own get-rich-quick versions of a comic book super hero, the reality is that nobody quite understood just what factors made Superman work. And so, everything was tried, and creativity--both good and … Continue reading 5BC: The Five Most Unique Super Heroes of the Silver Age
1989 was the year in which I entered the field, so this will be the final installment of this topic, as I don't think it's possible to be objective past this point. Grant Morrison begins his revelatory run on DOOM PATROL by hearkening back to the earliest stories and remembering that thees characters are more … Continue reading 5BC: Five Best Comics of 1989
This one's a little bit of a cheat, as the story I'm about to share with you doesn't concern Robotman, Elasti-Girl or negative man in any way, nor does it have any direct relevance on the World's Strangest Heroes apart from the similarity of name. But as the Doom Patrol's creators seemed to take inspiration … Continue reading The First Doom Patrol
The Tom Brevoort Experience 