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
It must be said, this is a really striking cover to this issue of CAPTAIN AMERICA. And it showed a sort of novelty of approach that just wouldn't have been done only a few years earlier, not showing potentially sales-driving guest-star the Hulk clearly in the image (though his presence in the story is cover … Continue reading BHOC: CAPTAIN AMERICA #230
By the fifth issue of Fantaco's CHRONICLES series, the bloom was off the rose in terms of their relationship with Marvel and Editor in Chief Jim Shooter, and so access to materials and permissions had been severed. This would be the final issue of the magazine devoted to Marvel, although Fantaco would publish one more … Continue reading FANTACO CHRONICLES #5: Fred Hembeck interviews Roger Stern
It's interesting how time will change your perspective on something. When this run of UNCANNY X-MEN was coming out, nobody reading it thought that they were following a stint that would become an acknowledged classic. As a reader, I knew that I liked the series, but if you'd asked me then, I don't think it … Continue reading BHOC: UNCANNY X-MEN #117
Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, INCREDIBLE HULK went through a consistent pattern with me: it would start with some storyline that I was interested in, then segue into a bunch of issues that left me cold, to the point where I'd be on the verge of dropping it, then a story would come along … Continue reading BHOC: INCREDIBLE HULK #231
The next week brought more new comics to my local 7-11 on Thursday, which was delivery day for them back in those days. Among the new offerings was this issue of CAPTAIN AMERICA. The title had stabilized a little bit after a rocky couple of months and was now in the process of pulling the … Continue reading BHOC: CAPTAIN AMERICA #229
The release of this issue of X-MEN represented something of an existential crisis for me. You see, I had somehow missed the previous issue, #115, which was unthinkable to me. What's more, I had dutifully gone to the 7-11 every single week on Thursday in-between when #114 came out and when #116 dropped. I wasn't … Continue reading BHOC: UNCANNY X-MEN #116
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
There was very little that could happen in a comic book at this point in 1978 that was more exciting to me than the prospect of a Thing vs Hulk fight. There had been a number of them previously over the years, but I hadn't yet read any of those earlier stories, though I was … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE #46
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 