Despite the fact that it was a reprint title, MARVEL TALES didn't miss the opportunity to go oversized for its 100th issue, a trend that had started with the centennial issues that Marvel and DC were putting out. It's kind of a mixed bag, in that one of the secondary features doesn't have any relation … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL TALES #100
I have to confess that I found the next three issues of JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA pretty dull and forgettable. Which is unfortunate, as this was the last storyline edited by Julie Schwartz in this series that he'd brought back in the extremely early 1960s. As with THE FLASH, which Julie exited this month, his … Continue reading BHOC: JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #163
I remember that I passed up this issue of SUPERMAN FAMILY for weeks after it first came out, and for the most minor of reasons. I was a fan of the New Doom patrol, who were guest-starring in the Supergirl story across these three issues. But in this middle one, the chapter is only a … Continue reading BHOC: SUPERMAN FAMILY #192
I've always liked the concept of the mystery villain. The notion that there'd be some figure in a story who was pulling the strings and whose identity you might be able to work out if you were clever enough and could make sense of all the clues. This is pretty much the premise behind any … Continue reading BHOC: PETER PARKER, THE SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN #26
I'd been waiting for this one, the second half of the Death of Gwen Stacy storyline, a saga that was already legendary by 1978 when I first got to read it. With Stan Lee having retired from scripting AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, incoming writer Gerry Conway and plotter and artist John Romita were looking to do something … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL TALES #99
I had skipped buying SUPERMAN FAMILY #192 the previous month, for reasons that I'm not quite certain of apart from just a general dissatisfaction with the title. That was the problem with DC's Dollar Comics anthologies, they were wildly inconsistent. While any given issue probably had something in it that you thought was pretty great, … Continue reading BHOC: SUPERMAN FAMILY #193
It was at around this time that JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA had begun to feel tired to me. It had once been a favorite series, but in recent months, coupled with a growing interest in the Marvel style of storytelling, the venerable JLA had seemingly been slowing down, becoming a bit trite and simplistic and, … Continue reading BHOC: JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #162
Now this was a comic book that I had been eagerly anticipating for several months once I had realized that its reprinting was approaching in the sequence. By 1978, the demise of Gwen Stacy was established canon--even the original Clone storyline was finished by then--but the story of her death was still referenced and talked … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL TALES #98
On that same trip to that Ronkonkoma Stationary store, I also picked up he next issue of JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA, the first post-implosion issue. This was an issue that had been built up to in the background for a while now. You see, on the letters page, editor Julie Schwartz had been running a … Continue reading BHOC: JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #161
This latest issue of MARVEL TALES that showed up at the 7-11 was the wrap-up to the three issue reprinting of a trio of issues of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN in which new writer Gerry Conway had repurposed the story originally produced for SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN magazine several years earlier and transformed it into a new story. In … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL TALES #97
The Tom Brevoort Experience 