I know that I say this every time we roll around to another issue, but it's positively baffling to me just how long I continued to buy DEFENDERS despite not really enjoying the title for years. I'm sure that some of this was simply having the available funds--I was never confronted with a need to … Continue reading BHOC: DEFENDERS #73
I wasn't used to Marvel titles wrapping up their runs cleanly. In my experience, when a Marvel book would come to an end--such as CHAMPIONS or NOVA--the series would be left in a cliffhanger state with outstanding business left to be wrapped up. That business would generally get tied off in some other Marvel book … Continue reading BHOC: GODZILLA #24
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Marvel Comics had a thriving business licensing properties from outside of the field--movies, television shows, toy lines and the like--and turning them into comic books. Some of these titles were remarkable successful and functioned as a gateway into the wider Marvel line. Others disappeared quickly when the material they were … Continue reading BHOC: SHOGUN WARRIORS #6
There was something in the air in the late 1960s and early 1970s that made the idea of a swampy muck-monster a thing that several different people were simultaneously thinking about. This sort of thing tends to point to some influence from the mainstream media, but I'm not sure just what that might have been … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL SUPER-HEROES #81
This is going to become a common refrain as we move through the next couple of years or so: another blah issue of DEFENDERS came out and was bought by me. It truly is a testament to just how well the mythology that all of the books that were a part of the Marvel Universe … Continue reading BHOC: DEFENDERS #72
GODZILLA was a book that was probably more my younger brother Ken's speed than mine. he was the one in the family who was a fan of monster movies and the like, whereas I couldn't be bothered with them. Still, I wound up as a regular reader of the title for its final five issues, … Continue reading BHOC: GODZILLA #23
In the late 1970s, the Marvel Universe found itself inundated with visitors from the nation's toy aisles, as the company licensed property after property in the hopes of landing on another hit the scale of STAR WARS. They wouldn't quite get there until the one-two punch of G.I.JOE and TRANSFORMERS in the 1980s--by which point, … Continue reading BHOC: SHOGUN WARRIORS #5
Well, we're at the point where DEFENDERS became a series of few joys, an interminable slog to get through for the next two years or so. Despite this fact, I never once toyed with dropping it, as I would occasionally do with other books. Why? Beats the hell out of me! I really wasn't enjoying … Continue reading BHOC: DEFENDERS #71
It had been two issues since I first took a real look at Marvel's GODZILLA comic book, dedicated to the colossal creature from the Toho films. And I was still buying it. But, you see, I had little choice. As with the previous installments, the Fantastic Four guest-starred in this issue, and my attachment to … Continue reading BHOC: GODZILLA #22
The 1970s were a tough time for comic books. The mainstream Newsstand circulation business was shrinking and changing as a result of rising competition and population migration, and comic books with their low cover prices didn't bring in enough revenue to compete for the space--especially as most kids began spending more of their time and … Continue reading BHOC: SHOGUN WARRIORS #4
The Tom Brevoort Experience 