This era of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN is often overlooked but I remember enjoying it tremendously. Part of the reason for that is that once he got his sea legs under him, writer Marv Wolfman began to focus on running plotlines based more around the character's life as Peter Parker than his costumed alter ego. I also … Continue reading BHOC: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #193
In the late 1970s, the Marvel Universe found itself inundated with visitors from the nation's toy aisles, as the company licensed property after property in the hopes of landing on another hit the scale of STAR WARS. They wouldn't quite get there until the one-two punch of G.I.JOE and TRANSFORMERS in the 1980s--by which point, … Continue reading BHOC: SHOGUN WARRIORS #5
As I've recounted before, during this period my younger brother Ken had developed a passing fascination with Conan the Barbarian, such that he'd begun to follow the regular monthly comic title. But he also branched out to the other regular source of Conan material available at this point: the black and white magazine SAVAGE SWORD … Continue reading BHOC: SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN #40
I picked up this issue of MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE during my regular weekly comic-buying run to my neighborhood 7-11 on Thursday, another issue of a book that was mostly just there, and which I kept buying largely because of how much I loved the Fantastic Four. In just a couple of years, Moon Knight would become … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE #52
As a kid, I didn't really have any way to get information about what new comic books and related publications would be coming out when. I was dimly aware of fanzines, but I never tried to purchase any on the regular--my meager funds were needed to buy actual comics, after all. So I had no … Continue reading BHOC: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN POCKET BOOKS Volume 3
It was clear early on that the most important and successful new super hero character introduced during the Silver Age of Comics was Spider-Man. The work that Stan Lee, Steve Ditko and John Romita had put into the series had paid dividends, and the wall-crawler was soon a worldwide icon able to stand shoulder-to-shoulder against … Continue reading 5BC: Five Attempts to Replicate Spider-Man
I have a vague memory of running across this issue in a candy store far from my usual haunts in a shopping mall where my parents had gone to get something. I was very much invested in the ongoing storyline featuring Carrion--probably the first such "mystery villain" plotline that I'd ever read--so i was excited … Continue reading BHOC: PETER PARKER, THE SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN #30
It's no great secret that the relationship between editor and scripter Stan Lee and artist and plotter Jack Kirby had grown fraught by 1969. Having at least co-invented the characters who ad saved the company and done the lion's share of the story work that continued to make the Marvel books he worked on shine, … Continue reading Lee & Kirby: THE TROUBLED BIRTH OF THOR #169
This next issue of IRON MAN was something of a pause in the run, a fill-in issue albeit one that had been integrated into the ongoing story narratives. It was also something of a throwback, recounting the events of Iron Man's origin and updating them slightly. I had already read Iron Man's origin in SON … Continue reading BHOC: IRON MAN #122
Every once in a while, my mother would go to a more outlying supermarket when she needed something in particular, something that apparently wasn't carried by our local store. In that same shopping mall there was a card store or a candy store that sold comics. And that's where I came across this issue of … Continue reading BHOC: HOWARD THE DUCK #31
The Tom Brevoort Experience 