In the late 1970s, there likely wasn't a format for comic books that I loved more than the Pocket Books series of early Marvel reprints. Getting chronological collections of the earliest Marvel stories was a godsend to me, something that I never quite thought I'd get to experience, and so I pursued them avidly. But … Continue reading BC: SPIDER-WOMAN POCKET BOOKS
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
It was at some point around this time that my local postal carrier delivered my subscription copy of the latest issue of FANTASTIC FOUR--though not before it had already gone on sale and was available at my local outlet. Not buying the book and waiting for my copy proved to be difficult, especially after other … Continue reading BHOC: FANTASTIC FOUR #210
At the beginning of the 1980s, after a number of rough years, DC really began to get its act together and to modernize its approach to doing comic books. The primary instigator of this change was new publisher Jenette Kahn and the vehicle through which it became viable was the emerging Direct Sales marketplace of … Continue reading FSC: OMEGA MEN #1
As I revealed when we covered the previous issue of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, as a young reader I completely bought into the legitimacy of Aunt May's death in this storyline. And part of that was the result of this issue, which does a fine job of making it seem like a real thing (while also dropping … Continue reading BHOC: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #196
My buddy David Steckel and I were both enormous fans of the Fantastic Four, which was one of the things that brought us together in the first place. So we'd regularly let one another borrow and read the assorted issues that we had that he other did not. Which is how I wound up taking … Continue reading BC: GIANT-SIZE FANTASTIC FOUR #3
In 1982, there was no comic book that I thought more highly of than NEW TEEN TITANS. It was a perfect synthesis of all of the elements that I liked in both the Marvel and DC titles of the day, a time when the two had very different flavors. But NEW TEEN TITANS bridged that … Continue reading FSC: NEW TEEN TITANS ANNUAL #1
A year or two ago, I was on a convention panel where I was able to tell former X-MEN editor Louise Simonson just how much she'd screwed all of those X-MEN editors who came after her with her performance in that role in 1982. An incredible number of high-quality releases came out of the X-Men … Continue reading FSC: MARVEL AND DC PRESENT THE UNCANNY X-MEN AND THE NEW TEEN TITANS #1
By the year 1982, there wasn't any writer's work that I was enjoying more consistently than that of Marv Wolfman. I'd liked him at Marvel, where he wrote FANTASTIC FOUR and AMAZING SPIDER-MAN as well as an assortment of other things such as NOVA (though I didn't follow TOMB OF DRACULA, his most respected work … Continue reading FSC: DC COMICS PRESENTS ANNUAL #1
This next issue of SUPERMAN was a bit of a minor milestone and it was heavily promoted in house ads throughout the DC line at the time. It was also the 40th Anniversary Issue of the title, and while it wasn't upsized to mark the occasion, that did provide cover for this story was being … Continue reading BHOC: SUPERMAN #338
