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
Throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, Marvel Comics carried with it a certain amount of counter-culture cache. This was due in part to the new faces coming into the business sharing some of those sensibilities naturally, as they were then the same relative age as most members of that youth group. But also, in … Continue reading CREEM v4 #11: And Now, Spider-Man and The Marvel Comics Group
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
This latest issue of MARVEL TALES that showed up at the 7-11 was the wrap-up to the three issue reprinting of a trio of issues of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN in which new writer Gerry Conway had repurposed the story originally produced for SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN magazine several years earlier and transformed it into a new story. In … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL TALES #97
I picked up another issue of MARVEL TALES on my latest weekly jaunt to the local 7-11, the ongoing reprint series re-presenting stories from earlier issues of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN. This one, though, was a double reprint. You see, in order to pick up some time on the schedule, new ASM writer Gerry Conway had decided … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL TALES #96
Next we come to a somewhat seminal issue of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, the story in which Peter Parker finally graduates from college. Peter had begun his sojourn in Higher Education back in AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #31 in 1965, so writer/editor Marv Wolfman may have thought that it was time to move his life ahead a bit. In … Continue reading BHOC: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #185
This was the second issue of FOOM, Marvel's fan magazine for its in-house fan club of the same name. Established in the early 1970s, the initial four issues of FOOM were produced by Jim Steranko and so contained a variety of graphics from him seldom seen elsewhere. By the fifth issue, production of FOOM was … Continue reading FOOM #2
As usual, I also picked up this issue of MARVEL SUPER-HEROES, the regular reprint series that dusted off stories that had appeared in INCREDIBLE HULK a few years earlier and put them in front of a contemporary audience. Marvel kept up a full reprint line for most of the 1960s and 1970s, with these earlier … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL SUPER-HEROES #75
During that same weekly run to the 7-11 on Thursday for new comics, I bought this issue of MARVEL TALES. This was a strange story, almost a reprint of a reprint in a way. When it was originally released in AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, Gerry Conway had just stepped onto the title as the new regular writer, … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL TALES #95
