BHOC: FLASH #179

A good deal away from my family's home in Farmingville was the Sun-Vet Mall, situated at the intersection of Sunrise Highway and Veteran's Highway. It was too distant to be any sort of regular shopping destination for my parents, but they did wind up going there occasionally despite the distance--there must have been some specific … Continue reading BHOC: FLASH #179

BHOC: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #185

Next we come to a somewhat seminal issue of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, the story in which Peter Parker finally graduates from college. Peter had begun his sojourn in Higher Education back in AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #31 in 1965, so writer/editor Marv Wolfman may have thought that it was time to move his life ahead a bit. In … Continue reading BHOC: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #185

WC: WONDER WOMAN #107

If there was a super hero title during the Silver Age of Comics that organized comic book fandom just didn't care for, then WONDER WOMAN was that series. Year after year, it would be voted the title most in need of improvement, its silly and often hallucinatory stories not really appealing to the slightly-older fan … Continue reading WC: WONDER WOMAN #107

BHOC: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #184

Fifth grade had just ended and I was staring down the pleasant runway of a well-cherished multi-month vacation from schoolwork. As anybody who has grown up knows--and statistics show that most of you readers fit that category--nothing was more welcome for a kid than the prospect of a long summer vacation ahead. A time without … Continue reading BHOC: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #184

WC: SHOWCASE #40

Among the more memorable strips DC launched during the Silver Age of Comics was Metal Men. The brainchild of writer Robert Kanigher and artists Ross Andru and Mike Esposito, the Metal Men was a team of robots, each one crafted out of a particular element, who battled super-scientific menaces under the direction of their creator, … Continue reading WC: SHOWCASE #40

The Outline for SUPERMAN VS THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN

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

BHOC: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #183

This was another issue of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN that I bought new during one of my weekly trips to my neighborhood 7-11 on the Thursday when new comic books were put out. It's the first book I encountered where Marvel has restored the cover months to its covers, a change I was in favor of for … Continue reading BHOC: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #183

BHOC: PETER PARKER, THE SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN #6

Here is another comic that I got coverless out of one of those plastic-wrapped bundles of coverless books whose covers had been sent back for credit, sold by my local drug store. And in fact, I think I wound up with two coverless copies of this same issue if memory serves, though how that happened … Continue reading BHOC: PETER PARKER, THE SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN #6

BHOC: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #173

The 3-Bag package was a godsend to me, at least during the year or so when the books so packaged were from a point before I had started reading Marvel titles. It gave me an easy (if somewhat inconsistent) way of catching up on recent books that I had missed. There was a period in … Continue reading BHOC: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #173