This INCREDIBLE HULK ANNUAL (or KING-SIZED SPECIAL as it was blurbed this particular year) was yet another book that had been given to my friend David Steckel by an older cousin who had outgrown comic books some time earlier. The books David got from this relative were pretty haphazard--it's clear that his cousin wasn't really … Continue reading BC: INCREDIBLE HULK ANNUAL #3
On that same trip to Ed's Coins and Stamps in the Sun-Vet Mall, I purchased this back issue of SUPERMAN'S PAL, JIMMY OLSEN. I didn't buy it for Jimmy, nor for the big guy. Rather, I had discovered that this issue had reprinted a classic Plastic Man story from the Golden Age and I was … Continue reading BHOC: SUPERMAN’S PAL JIMMY OLSEN #150
Both my friend David Steckel and I were huge FANTASTIC FOUR fans--it was our favorite comic book series at the time we met, and one of the things that bonded us together. So in particular, it was issues of FANTASTIC FOUR and its reprint title MARVEL'S GREATEST COMICS that we borrowed back and forth, broadening … Continue reading BC: MARVEL’S GREATEST COMICS #64
In the early 1980s, after having spent a couple of years working outside of the field in animation, Jack Kirby was making a bit of a comeback. Pacific Comics, one of the new independent publishers that had begun releasing titles into the emerging Direct sales market of comic book specialty stories had agreed to publish … Continue reading FSC: SILVER STAR #1
In addition to now being able to regularly get my hands on Annuals and other oversized comics such as Anniversary issues or WHAT IF and the like, my new Stationery Store outlet also gave me access to titles that I didn't even know existed, such as this revival of MACHINE MAN. I had sampled one … Continue reading BHOC: MACHINE MAN #11
We'd previously devoted a piece to spotlighting and examining two of the lost pages from a story intended for INCREDIBLE HULK #4 that Marvel mainstay Larry Lieber had fished out of the trash after an irate Jack Kirby had torn them in half and discarded them back in 1962. https://tombrevoort.com/2026/08/01/lee-kirby-the-discarded-pages-from-incredible-hulk-4/ They turned up in an … Continue reading Lee & Kirby: More Discarded Pages from INCREDIBLE HULK #4
Marvel veteran Larry Lieber has been divesting himself of portions of his collection, and the bounty, listed at Heritage Auctions, has uncovered some amazingly wonderful things. Most recently, a heretofore-undiscovered third penciled page for Jack Kirby's pitch story for what became the NICK FURY, AGENT OF S.H.I.E.L.D. strip in STRANGE TALES. The first two pages … Continue reading Lee & Kirby & Steranko & Lieber: The Birth of S.H.I.E.L.D. and The Man Called D.E.A.T.H.
I also bought TALES OF SUSPENSE #66 during that trip to the Batcave comic book shop, and I did so for the most obvious reason: the copy I picked up was cheap. I bought it despite the fact that I already owned copies of the two stories that were published in it, in an issue … Continue reading BHOC: TALES OF SUSPENSE #66
One of the things that I was very obsessed with as a young comic book reader was age. Specifically, how old the comics that I was purchasing were. As much as anything, that's what led me to pick up this copy of STRANGE TALES #87 on my trip to the Batcave comic book store that … Continue reading BHOC: STRANGE TALES #87
One of the calculations that I had to make whenever I found myself in a place like the Batcave, the South Shore Mall-located comic book shop, was how to make the most of my meager funds. The Batcave had a huge selection of back issues, but even though many of them were more well-worn reading … Continue reading BHOC: SPECIAL MARVEL EDITION #3
