MARVEL TEAM-UP had been practically from its inception a meat-and-potatoes sort of a comic book. Which is to say that it's aspirations were rarely higher than just entertaining an audience for twenty minutes with a solid story. It wasn't trying to stretch the medium or produce works for the ages. MARVEL TEAM-UP was a product, … Continue reading GH: MARVEL TEAM-UP #130
As I talked about yesterday, for Christmas 1978 I was given the four existing volumes in the Marvel Origins trade paperback collection that up to that point existed. I had read SON OF ORIGINS OF MARVEL COMICS at my local library, but I was happy to have my own copy to go back to and … Continue reading BHOC: BRING ON THE BAD GUYS
I wasn't yet sophisticated enough in my knowledge of and contact with the comic book industry to be able to tell when a title that I was following was in trouble. While there were places even in those pre-internet days where more plugged-in fans could learn such information, I had no awareness of them. So … Continue reading BHOC: NOVA #24
Over the years, both Marvel and DC have built up a steady stream of ancillary income by licensing out their characters for what are known as "custom comics"--comics dedicated to promoting a company, a perspective or an ideal (or sometimes a specific product or individual.) These books are produced to-order for the client, meaning that … Continue reading The Amazing Spider-Man vs The Prodigy
ROM, SPACEKNIGHT is one of the better-remembered series of the early 1980s, this despite the fact that it was a toy tie-in comic. The toy was a bust, but the comic wound up running for 75 issues, a respectable run by any metric. Along with MICRONAUTS, it was writer Bill Manto's greatest success in this … Continue reading GH: ROM #43
This issue of INCREDIBLE HULK was the conclusion of the two-part Corporation saga that had begun in CAPTAIN AMERICA #230 a couple of weeks earlier. Though the roots of this saga had been developing for years, all the way back to a number of Jack Kirby's final stories for Marvel, in which he introduced the … Continue reading BHOC: INCREDIBLE HULK #232
This next issue of AVENGERS was the second half of a two-parter that editor in chief Jim Shooter commissioned from Tom DeFalco in order to help him get ahead on the title, which was suffering as Jim's day job was eating up all of his time. I believe that this was the first story DeFalco … Continue reading BHOC: AVENGERS #180
David Steckel wasn't the only new person I met during those weeks in the Sachem Gifted Program that I went to every Friday. I also made the acquaintance of Frank Torres, who was similarly a comic book reader. While I was never quite exactly as tight with him as i was with Steck, he remained … Continue reading BHOC: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #188
There was a slow but steady transformation of the Marvel titles under editor Jim Shooter. When he was given the job, Shooter realized that no single editor could shepherd the huge number of releases that Marvel was then putting out. So he went about slowly building up a staff of editors, each one of whom … Continue reading BHOC: CAPTAIN AMERICA #228
Picked up this issue of INCREDIBLE HULK on that week's Thursday trip down to the 7-11 for the new comics, a trip I made like clockwork every week. While I was still a bit lukewarm on the character, the series as a whole had been growing stronger, mainly as new writer Roger Stern began to … Continue reading BHOC: INCREDIBLE HULK #229
The Tom Brevoort Experience 