Continuing our look at the two-volume X-MEN COMPANION published by Fantagraphics in 1982, just as X-MEN was expanding from being the darling of the Direct Market to a full-on juggernaut across the whole of the industry. Writer and historian Peter Sanderson interviewed pretty much all of the principle writers and artists involved in the creation … Continue reading THE X-MEN COMPANION #1: Len Wein Interview
In 1982, there was simply no hotter book in the Direct Sales marketplace than UNCANNY X-MEN. Riding off of the tremendous success of the Dark Phoenix Saga, the series was rocketed to the absolute pinnacle of the sales charts, at least in comic book specialty shops. X-MEN was super hot, and so the publishers of … Continue reading THE X-MEN COMPANION #1: Roy Thomas Interview
This issue of BRAVE AND THE BOLD was the first released under the auspices of the DC Explosion, which saw the line increating its cover price to 50 cents a copy from 35 while adding additional pages of material. Here, the Human Target, a feature that briefly ran in the back pages of ACTION COMICS … Continue reading BHOC: BRAVE AND THE BOLD #143
One more comic book that came to me in a plastic 3-Bag bought at either a toy store or a department store. It has a very typical cover for the era, one in which all of the characters have word or thought balloons explaining everything that is going on, and on which the hero is … Continue reading BHOC: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #175
It's more of the same story. This issue of THOR I got in another one of those 3-Bag bundles of recent comic books that were sold through toy stores and department stores during this period. I was still on the fence somewhat as a THOR reader--over the next couple of years, I would fall off … Continue reading BHOC: THOR #265
I got this issue of INCREDIBLE HULK, with its very nice Jim Starlin-drawn cover, in one of those 3-Bags sold in department stores and toy stores. The books in those bags were always about nine months old, so this was a way, at least during the first year of my starting to read Marvel books, … Continue reading BHOC: INCREDIBLE HULK #217
It seems like forever since we spoke about the issue of FANTASTIC FOUR that came out before this one. A side effect of me starting to find comic shops and regularly buy back issues as well as new books. But FANTASTIC FOUR was still my favorite series at this point, and I was very much … Continue reading BHOC: FANTASTIC FOUR #197
It's one of the great unfinished symphonies in the history of comics. After having successfully teamed up Superman and Spider-Man twice, Batman and the Incredible Hulk, and the X-Men and the New Teen Titans, in 1983 Marvel and DC were prepared to release JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA VS THE AVENGERS, uniting their two flagship teams … Continue reading The Original Plot For The Unfinished JLA/AVENGERS Crossover
A long time has passed since I first bought the comics that I talk about here, so sometimes the details of their acquisition become vague. I do remember that I got this issue, THOR #259, the same day that I got the previous one, discussed yesterday. But I don't think they were in the same … Continue reading BHOC: THOR #259
This issue of THOR was another book that I got coverless in one of those plastic-wrapped bundles of supposedly-destroyed comics that my drugstore was selling. That's a Jack Kirby cover on this issue, but one that's a little bit difficult to recognize as the King's work given all of the changes and corrections that were … Continue reading BHOC: THOR #258
The Tom Brevoort Experience 