Continuing with more comics that I bought in plastic 3-Bags from either a local department store or else a toy store in the area. This issue of MARVEL TALES, reprinting an issue of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN from only a few years earlier, was one such book. I had read the first part of this story the … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL TALES #85
Continuing our look through the first issue of FOOM, aka Friends Of Ol' Marvel, the fan magazine published by the House of Ideas throughout much of the 1970s. The first four issues were put together by artist and graphic designer Jim Steranko, and his visual approach is apparent throughout. Having failed twice under publisher Martin … Continue reading FOOM #1, Part Two
This issue of MARVEL SUPER-HEROES featuring the Incredible Hulk was another book that I got in a 3-Bag purchased at one of the department stores or toy stores that my family visited on one of our shopping expeditions. While the Hulk wasn't my favorite Marvel character, I enjoyed his escapades well enough--in particular when scripted … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL SUPER-HEROES #67
SUPERMAN VS THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, the first of the real DC and Marvel crossovers (putting aside the WIZARD OF OZ co-produced Treasury) was an enormous success for both companies. Despite being priced at $2.00 as a time when regular comic books were only 30 cents, it sold in huge quantities--enough to make DC look for … Continue reading Lost Crossovers: The Lost and Most Obscure Marvel/DC Crossover
I was strangely super-excited when I got this issue of MARVEL SUPER ACTION in a 3-Bag at a department store or a toy store. I don't know what motivated Marvel after three issues featuring reprints of Captain America stories (which the title would return to the following issue) to devote this one to reprints of … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL SUPER ACTION #4
FOOM, a.k.a. Friends Of Ol' Marvel, was the successor operation to the haphazard Marvelmania International once teh latter had gone belly-up. Stan Lee, now Marvel's publisher, still saw value in having a fan publication that could further ingratiate the readership with Marvel, as well as a place where the assorted licensing efforts that they'd begun … Continue reading FOOM #1
This issue of IRON MAN was yet another book that I wound up with after getting it in a plastic 3-Bag purchased at a department store or a toy store. I had only recently begun to follow the series, and I wound up reading all of the issues during this period in a weird, backwards, … Continue reading BHOC: IRON MAN #104
MARVELMANIA was a short-lived operation set up in 1969 to sell licensed merchandise of the Marvel characters. It was positioned in the books as a spiritual successor to the Merry Marvel Marching Society, Marvel's in-house fan club, but in fact it was a separate fly-by-night organization entirely, one set up and licensed by Don Wallace. … Continue reading MARVELMANIA CATALOG #1
The original Ghost Rider made his debut in 1949, in the pages of Magazine Enterprises' TIM HOLT #11. Nobody involved could have anticipated that the character, in a series of transformative forms, would still be a going concern today--and might have starred in a pair of big budget movies. While the publishers at Magazine Enterprises … Continue reading The First Ghost Rider Story
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
The Tom Brevoort Experience 