We've spoken in the past about Harvey's short-lived attempt to jump on board the super hero bandwagon of the mid-1960s, and how despite hiring industry legend Joe Simon to put together a slew of new titles for them, the work was ultimately underwhelming and swiftly vanished with a scant track. Well, among that short batch … Continue reading Brand Echh – Fighting American #1
These days, thanks especially to the global reach of the Marvel Studios films, you can't turn around but for bumping into some piece of merchandise based on the Marvel characters. There truly is a cornucopia of stuff out there, both wonderful and less-than-wonderful. But in the early days, before the characters had exploded in popularity, … Continue reading Make Mine Marvel Memorabilia
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
Reader Steven Thompson asked me a question about this recently, so this piece exists entirely due to his interest--you can thank him if you find anything here of value. There was a time-honored tradition of writers and artists inserting themselves into their stories, and Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were no different. In general, the … Continue reading Lee & Kirby & Goldberg & Hartley: The Unlikely Cameos of Jack Kirby
It's been a while since I did one of these, and since I still find the subject interesting, let's take another look at assorted Marvel titles from the past as they were imported into assorted countries around the globe. This Spanish version of FANTASTIC FOUR #1 dates to 1968 and sports a home-grown cover painting … Continue reading Great Covers: Marvel Around The World 2
I ordered a copy of this MARVEL TREASURY EDITION featuring the Fantastic Four from the Superhero Merchandise catalog--or as the firm would later be known, Heroes World. They had bought out Marvel and DC's back-stock of their various Treasury Editions and would sell them for years thereafter, often advertising in the comics themselves. I eventually … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL TREASURY EDITION #2
Another regular issue of INVADERS that I purchased off of the spinner rack at my local 7-11. This was another book that I believe my younger brother Ken eventually bought himself a copy of as well--why he would do this I have no real idea, but he did it semi-regularly. INVADERS was something of a … Continue reading BHOC: INVADERS #26
Captain America was not the first patriotically-themed super hero to appear in comic books. That honor is reserved for The Shield, headliner of PEP COMICS for MLJ (eventually ARCHIE) who first appeared in the inaugural issue of that series, the creation of Harry Shorten and Irv Novick. Like most of the early super heroes, the … Continue reading Making The Shield Into Captain America
This one really should have been the blockbuster that Stan Lee and Martin Goodman feared that Harvey was going to produce with Joe Simon heading up their attempt to jump onto the super hero bandwagon in 1966. Spyman was the brainchild of future Marvel superstar Jim Steranko. But apart from the odd spot illustration (such … Continue reading Brand Echh – Spyman #1
In the mid-1960s, Joe Simon was in the middle of a court battle attempting to recapture the rights to Captain America, an effort which would eventually come to nothing in part thanks to an affidavit made out by his old partner Jack Kirby specifying that he was aware at all times that everything created for … Continue reading Brand Echh – Sick #48
