WHAT IF #11October, 1978 This is probably the most blatantly self-indulgent story Marvel ever published. It also has the dubious honor of being the last Fantastic Four story Jack Kirby ever illustrated. I can’t imagine what Roy Thomas was thinking when he came up with this premise, nor how he inveigled Kirby into doing it. … Continue reading BHOCOS: WHAT IF #11
FANTASTIC FOUR #200November, 1978 One of the supreme frustrations of collecting comics back in the 70s was the fact that you could never be sure that you’d be able to get every successive issue of a given title. I was a major, major Fantastic Four fan by the time #200 was to be released, and … Continue reading BHOCOS: FANTASTIC FOUR #200
MARVEL COMICS INDEX #4 1977 On that same first comic shop trip to HEROES WORLD, I discovered and purchased the Fantastic Four volume of the George Olshevsky MARVEL COMICS INDEX. These handsome tomes reproduced the covers to every issue of a given series, and indexed their contents as well. I spend literally hours poring over … Continue reading BHOCOS: MARVEL COMICS INDEX #4
FANTASTIC FOUR #51 June, 1966 In 1978, I went to my first comic book shop–ironically, a recently-opened HEROES WORLD in Levittown. (Similarly ironic, my father ended up being transferred to the bank branch in the same mall, which made access to the store–which was 45 minutes away from our home by car–a regular possibility.) I … Continue reading BHOCOS: FANTASTIC FOUR #51
FANTASTIC FOUR POCKET BOOKS 1977 I was still looking for a copy of ORIGINS OF MARVEL COMICS when this little paperback came out from Pocket Books, part of a new line which would reprint the earliest stories of the various Marvel properties that were now on television. It collected the first 6 issues of FF, … Continue reading BHOCOS: FANTASTIC FOUR POCKET BOOKS
POWER RECORDS FANTASTIC FOUR 1974 Having become a fan of the Fantastic Four, I was hot to read the first FF story–FANTASTIC FOUR #1. My quest to do so had already met one dead end, in that I couldn’t locate a copy of ORIGINS OF MARVEL COMICS anywhere. Instead, I turned to this item, the … Continue reading BHOCOS: POWER RECORDS FANTASTIC FOUR
Discovering Marvel When I was young, I didn’t like Marvel comics. There are a couple of reasons for this. In my early comic book reading days, I’d sampled a number of Marvel titles on occasion. And none of them did anything for me—in fact, I often found them ugly and awful, a far cry from … Continue reading Life In A Four Color World column on FANTASTIC FOUR, 2003
MARVEL’S GREATEST COMICS #58September, 1975 After becoming enamored of the Fantastic Four (see FANTASTIC FOUR #177), I went looking for more of the same. And, inevitably, my search led first to that same big bin of off-the-truck comics at the Genovese Drug Store. This time, I pulled forth three issues of MARVEL’S GREATEST COMICS featuring … Continue reading BHOCOS: MARVEL’S GREATEST COMICS #58
FANTASTIC FOUR #177December, 1976 FF #177 was the first Marvel comic I truly went out and bought. I’d had bad experiences with the Marvel books that had made their way to my hands earlier. (see CAPTAIN AMERICA #183) But by 1977, I was becoming more and more interested in the history of comics. And in … Continue reading BHOCOS: FANTASTIC FOUR #177
The Tom Brevoort Experience 