I don't remember at all what prompted it at this late date, but for some reason my family wound up going to the far-off mall that housed the Heroes World store once again. Possibly my father needed to get something he'd left at his office, which was in the same complex. Or maybe I just … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL COLLECTORS’ ITEM CLASSICS #6
I bought this issue of MARVEL'S GREATEST COMICS on one of my regular weekly 7-11 runs, and I can remember having it with me and being over at the house of my neighbor and sometimes-friend Charles Grella down the block. As usual, it reprinted an issue of FANTASTIC FOUR from a few years earlier (9 … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL’S GREATEST COMICS #77
We've been talking a lot about the unofficial crossovers between characters and the homages that were done. But beyond that, there's a whole other category of instances in which one company either appropriated or parodied or referenced the characters of another. These instances tended to take many different forms--there was one memorable instance, for example, … Continue reading 5BC: Five Times DC Referenced Marvel Characters in Interesting Ways
This was another book that I got out of a 3-Bag at the Two Guys discount store, and a book that would have made such a bag a must-buy for me. Because at this time, FANTASTIC FOUR was my favorite comic book series, and so an opportunity to get another new-to-me issue was something I … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL’S GREATEST COMICS #71
In response to having serialized his final Fantastic Four story, the wonderful Leonardo Ortolani sent me over an additional tale very much in the same spirit which I had never seen before. He told me that he had done it in early 1994, right after Jack Kirby passed, and that it ran in a fanzine … Continue reading Lee & Kirby & Ortolani: Farewell to the King
Another book that came to me out of a 3-Bag, this issue of FANTASTIC FOUR would have been the reason I bought the 3-Bag in question, regardless of what other titles might have been inside it. FF was, by this point, my favorite comic book series, and so an opportunity to fill in another missing … Continue reading BHOC: FANTASTIC FOUR #184
I recently got an e-mail from Glen David Gold, the fine writer and Kirby enthusiast, who had a few additional thoughts about FANTASTIC FOUR #1 and how it may have been put together. We ended up corresponding a bit dissecting these questions, and so with Glen's permission, I'm going to post some of that correspondence … Continue reading Lee & Kirby: More Thoughts on FANTASTIC FOUR #1
This is the back half of the fourth and concluding installment of the Final Fantastic Four story that Italian creator Leonardo Ortolani produced for the tenth issue of the Italian fanzine MADE IN USA in 1994. It was set immediately after the last FF issues produced by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and was intended … Continue reading Lee & Kirby & Ortolani: The Last Fantastic Four Story, Part Five
This is the fourth and final installment of the final Fantastic Four story that Italian creator Leonardo Ortolani produced for the tenth issue of the Italian fanzine MADE IN USA in 1994. It was set immediately after the final FF story produced by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and was intended as a climactic finale … Continue reading Lee & Kirby & Ortolani: The Last Fantastic Four Story, Part Four
This is the third installment of Italian creator Leonardo Ortolani's fan-created wrap-up of the FANTASTIC FOUR mythos created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. This chapter was published in the fanzine MADE IN USA #9 in 1993. We're getting to the meat of Leo's Alan Moore-style reinterpretation of the events of the series here. As … Continue reading Lee & Kirby & Ortolani: The Last Fantastic Four Story, Part Three
