This was a cool surprise to greet me at the 7-11's spinner rack that Thursday afternoon. I had taken to following MARVEL SUPER-HEROES regularly by this point, but a story that guest-starred the Fantastic Four was incredibly welcome. Even though I'd never experienced one firsthand, the concept of a Thing vs Hulk fight being something … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL SUPER-HEROES #74
I've spoken before about how the very first comic shop I ever encountered, the Heroes World outlet in Levittown, New York, was situated in the same shopping complex where my father worked for Chase Manhattan Bank. What this meant practically is that I could occasionally prevail upon him to stop by the store on his … Continue reading BHOC: FANTASTIC FOUR #102
A post from my old Marvel blog detailing the end of my Take My Trade experiment where I started with five random junk comics and traded with fans to the point where I acquired a copy of FANTASTIC FOUR #1, all to benefit the Hero Initiative. I don't still have a copy of the video … Continue reading Blah Blah Blog – Trading Update #18 – For The Win!
This issue of FANTASTIC FOUR, #31, was another book that I got in my Windfall Comics purchase of 1988, in which I wound up buying a long box of about 150 Silver Age comics for the dirt-cheap price of $50.00. I had read this story previously in its later MARVEL'S GREATEST COMICS reprinting, but it … Continue reading WC: FANTASTIC FOUR #31
If there's a moment that truly crystalized the Direct Sales marketplace and helped to forge it into a meaningful distribution pipeline for comics, it was with the release of X-MEN #137 in which creators Chris Claremont and John Byrne wrapped up what is today known as "The Dark Phoenix Saga" in a double-sized issue that … Continue reading FANTASTIC FOUR #286 John Byrne’s Way
So this was another issue that I got in a plastic 3-Bag at either a department store or a toy store, and it was the last part that I hadn't read of this four-part Skrulls storyline--a storyline that I read entirely out of sequence, beginning with the concluding chapter. It was the last multi-part storyline … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL’S GREATEST COMICS #74
I was strangely super-excited when I got this issue of MARVEL SUPER ACTION in a 3-Bag at a department store or a toy store. I don't know what motivated Marvel after three issues featuring reprints of Captain America stories (which the title would return to the following issue) to devote this one to reprints of … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL SUPER ACTION #4
So as I've related before, it came out at some point that the branch of the Chase Manhattan Bank that my father worked out of was situated in the Levittown Mall--the same Mall that contained the first comic book shop that I ever went to, Heroes' World. What this amounted to in practice is that, … Continue reading BHOC: FANTASTIC FOUR #107
It seems like forever since we spoke about the issue of FANTASTIC FOUR that came out before this one. A side effect of me starting to find comic shops and regularly buy back issues as well as new books. But FANTASTIC FOUR was still my favorite series at this point, and I was very much … Continue reading BHOC: FANTASTIC FOUR #197
These days, the name John Byrne is synonymous with that of the Fantastic Four. His run both writing and penciling the series in the 1980s is held up as a high water mark for the title, and typically regarded as being second only to that of FF creators Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Byne had … Continue reading The Unused Fantastic Four Sample Story by John Byrne
The Tom Brevoort Experience 