This issue of MARVEL TALES presented me with a slightly more manageable conundrum. I didn't own a copy of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #124, the issue that was reprinted here, but I had read it. I believe my school buddy Don Sims had a copy, and I'd read it at his place at some point. Consequently, this … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL TALES #101
At this point, so long after the fact, and with a bevy of films reinforcing the essential ideas of the character, the specifics of who and what Wolverine are have been very well established. But for a very long time, that simply was not the case. And in fact, it would be almost six years … Continue reading When Was Wolverine Wolverine?
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
Well, from the looks of this cover image, we're about to get a bit more action in this issue of ACTION COMICS. I'm not 100% certain who would have been responsible for it. The actual cover art was done by Curt Swan and George Klein, but they likely would have been working from a sketch … Continue reading WC: ACTION COMICS #343
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
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
Taking a look here at the back half of FOOM #3, the third issue of Marvel's in-house fan club magazine as packaged and produced by Jim Steranko. In the days before formal indexes and Marvel Masterworks volumes and the internet, these Indexes to the major titles were a bit of a godsend for information freaks, … Continue reading FOOM #3, Part Two
FOOM #3 was the third issue of the fan magazine put out by the Marvel fan club of the same name, edited and composed by Jim Steranko and evidencing his design sensibilities. It's a window into the world of the Marvel-that-was, the Marvel of yesteryear. When the venture was started, nobody involved was quite sure … Continue reading FOOM #3
In 1972, Marvel Comics entered its second phase. Editor Stan Lee had been promoted to Publisher and, momentarily, President, and Roy Thomas had been made his successor. What's more, former owner Martin Goodman was gone, as was the limitation on how many releases the company could put out which had been imposed upon them by … Continue reading THE CLAWS OF THE CAT #5: The Lost Issue
It's maybe hard to believe when viewed from the vantage point of 60 years of additional history, but heading into the Silver Age of Comics, the Atom was at one point a successful and viable character--more viable than, say, Hawkman, whom he beat to having a series to call his own and in gaining membership … Continue reading WC: THE ATOM #16
The Tom Brevoort Experience 