This is another unfamiliar cover for me. Unfamiliar because the copy of this book that I got had been stripped of its cover, which was sent back to the distributor for credit. However, rather than destroying the remainder of the book as he was required to do, the wholesaler instead sold it and a mountain … Continue reading BHOC: DAREDEVIL #144
The original artwork for classic stories is always of interest to me. There's a bunch of information that we can discover from it. And even apart from that, it's often fun just to see how these stories were originally drawn, without the added intermediary step of them having to be reproduced and printed in a … Continue reading Lee & Kirby: The First New Captain America Story – From The Original Art
Here's another interesting find that I came across and for which I've been able to locate very little reliable information. As with the issues of EL SORPRENDENTE HOMBRE ARANA that we've been looking at from time to time, this issue of LOS 4 FANTASTICOS contains an original never-printed-in-the-United-States story featuring the Fantastic Four created by … Continue reading Forgotten Masterpiece: LOS 4 FANTASTICOS #11
The All-New, All-Different X-Men hit like a lightning bolt out of the blue when the new iteration of the team debuted in GIANT-SIZE X-MEN #1. The title had been a reprint book for several years, and so the quantities of the early new issues that made it to the stands were much smaller than most … Continue reading BHOC: X-MEN #103
With the fact that Maus was banned from circulation in some school districts making national news this past week, the time seemed to be good to discuss COMIX BOOK, the short-lived Marvel magazine that published work by underground cartoonists--including the prototype short story for Art Spiegelman's Maus. COMIX BOOK was an outgrowth of Marvel's concerns … Continue reading Forgotten Masterpiece: COMIX BOOK #2 and the first Maus
I hadn't really thought about it this way before, but as things turned out, I wound up getting both the beginning and the end of the initial Masters of Evil cycle in my Windfall Comics purchase of 1988. For, like AVENGERS #6, this issue also features Zemo and the Masters, and begins to bring their … Continue reading WC: AVENGERS #15
Marvel's decision to launch a licensed comic dedicated to 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY in 1976 is a bit of a mysterious choice. Clearly, the outfit was trying to move into licensed properties--in addition to 2001, they did STAR WARS and LOGAN'S RUN at about this time, and had great success with expanding on the mythology … Continue reading BHOC: 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY #5
While it's perhaps lost its uniqueness a little bit given the sheer number of latter day crossovers between characters originating at different companies (and in some cases, in different forms of media) it would he difficult to understate the significance of SUPERMAN VS THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN. For those who were there when it came out, … Continue reading The Outline for SUPERMAN VS THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN
This was the very last issue of TWO-GUN KID that Marvel published. A string of issues that went back to 1948 (with admittedly several gaps) came to a final end here. I wasn't aware of that when I got this comic, nor did I get to enjoy this great Gil Kane cover--Kane was doing new … Continue reading BHOC: TWO-GUN KID #136
Ever since the departure of Jack Kirby some months earlier, CAPTAIN AMERICA had been a title that had struggled to maintain its schedule. Between then and here, there'd been unannounced reprints, and emergency back-up stories dropped in when full issues hadn't been completed in time. And now this time, an out-and-out fill-in story. It was … Continue reading BHOC: CAPTAIN AMERICA #224
The Tom Brevoort Experience 