STRANGE TALES #118 was another book that I got in my Windfall Comics haul of 1988. By this point, it was a decidedly secondary title in the expanding Marvel line, not really possessing the spark of any of the other series of the era. This was really down to the lead Human Torch feature. While … Continue reading WC: STRANGE TALES #118
This was another book that came my way in my Windfall Comics purchase of 1988. As I've mentioned before, the common factor that all of the books in this assortment had was that they were all Silver Age books, but none of them were keys in any way. So while the chunk of STRANGE TALES … Continue reading WC: STRANGE TALES #117
Of all of the early Marvel super hero titles, it must be said that STRANGE TALES was the one that seemed to be running on fumes the earliest. The title would get a little bit of a pick-me-up once Doctor Strange became a regular feature in its back pages, but before that, one gets the … Continue reading WC: STRANGE TALES #113
This issue of STRANGE TALES was another book that was in that long box of about 150 Silver Age comic books that I bought in 1988 for $50.00. As the Marvel super hero line began to expand, certain strips tended to stagnate. They also got used a lot of the time as a place to … Continue reading WC: STRANGE TALES #112
This is a weirdly awkward cover, but one that works nonetheless. And I think it was new to me when I got this book, although I had read the story in this issue both in the third AMAZING SPIDER-MAN Pocket Books collection of classic issues, and MARVEL TALES (where a new cover had been commissioned.) … Continue reading WC: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #17
STRANGE TALES had been a long-running suspense/monster series that transitioned into becoming a super hero title as the Silver Age got under way. But it was a lesser Marvel title, especially at the early part of that transition, and so back issues were relatively plentiful and relatively affordable when compared with FANTASTIC FOUR or AMAZING … Continue reading WC: STRANGE TALES #111
This was yet another back issue that I picked up during my first trip to the Batcave, the very first full-on comic book specialty store that I had ever been in. I was drawn to this issue for a single, specific reason: somewhere in my travels, I had learned that this issue reprinted the 1950s … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL SUPER-HEROES #20
Continuing on with comics I bought during my first trip to Bush's Hobbies in Ronkonkoma. I was a huge fan of the Golden Age of Comics and the histories of the assorted characters that I was following--I wanted to know everything, to read everything. In particular, it had been the original Human Torch who provided … Continue reading BHOC: FANTASY MASTERPIECES #7
Not every idea that gets published in a comic book story is a good one. Especially over the long periods of time that most of the mainstay comic book heroes have been in existence, there have been any number of developments that turned out to be a bad instinct, and which were subsequently either overturned … Continue reading 5BC: Five Best Forgotten Early Marvel Story Developments
We've been talking a lot about the unofficial crossovers between characters and the homages that were done. But beyond that, there's a whole other category of instances in which one company either appropriated or parodied or referenced the characters of another. These instances tended to take many different forms--there was one memorable instance, for example, … Continue reading 5BC: Five Times DC Referenced Marvel Characters in Interesting Ways
The Tom Brevoort Experience 