I picked up this issue of MARVEL TALES on my regular weekly run to the 7-11 on Thursday, the day when new comic books would be released, as I'd worked out earlier in my travels. These runs were a regular ritual by this point, something that it took extraordinary circumstances to prevent me from doing. … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL TALES #92
Continuing on in our compare-and-contrast between a story originally produced by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby for the inaugural issue of CAPTAIN AMERICA COMICS, cover-dated March 1941, and it's Marvel Age remake, this one in the pages of TALES OF SUSPENSE #64. The prior issue had featured Cap's origin, and so as to cut down … Continue reading Lee & Kirby & Simon: Captain America Before and After 2
This was another comic book that I came into possession of through swapping with my buddy Donald Sims, and it was an acquisition of some great interest. In general, for me during this period, any comic book with a 20 cent price tag seemed old somehow, vintage--even though I had started reading during the last … Continue reading BHOC: X-MEN #87
There really wasn't a lousier time to try to start up a new color comic book line than the very early 1970s, but this didn't stop Skywald. Skywald was a joint venture of Israel Waldman, who had previously been behind the I.W./Super comics line of unauthorized golden age reprint titles distributed directly to department stores … Continue reading Brand Echh – The Heap #1
As the Marvel line began to grow in the 1960s, editor Stan Lee decided that he had a problem. He based this supposition on some of the fan mail that he'd been receiving no doubt--mail that would ask questions about how a given Marvel character could be in the midst of life-or-death jeopardy in one … Continue reading Lee & Kirby & Simon: Captain America Before and After 1
Hey, we were just talking about this issue while discussing PETER PARKER, SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN #2 last week. This was another book that came my way from my school friend Don Sims, who no doubt purchased them both at around the same time. Now that i was starting to follow the character, it was I suppose … Continue reading BHOC: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #164
Here's another book that came into my hands through parlay with my grade school friend Donald Sims. And boy, you can't imagine a cover on a comic today having such an overt plug for a film not connected in any way with the publisher. But in the 1970s, it was fine, all part of the … Continue reading BHOC: PETER PARKER, THE SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN #2
Here is yet another comic that I got in trade with my boyhood pal Donald Sims, a reprint of one of the best issues of the period. And the thing that made it one of the best issues was the inking of John Romita. This was John's first assignment back at Marvel--he had told editor … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL TRIPLE ACTION #17
From time to time throughout the years, writer/editor Stan Lee would attempt to put a particular focus of quality on a given title, and try to make it stand out from the rest of the many offerings being published by Marvel, then Atlas. These efforts typically didn't last long, and one gets the impression that … Continue reading Forgotten Masterpiece: MENACE #7
Behind this excellent Alex Schomburg cover (rife though it is with unfortunate racial stereotypes) lay not only a pair of adventures of the Young Allies, the kid gang team led by Captain America's young pal Bucky and his rival, Toro the Flaming Kid, but an after-the-fact account of Captain America's experiences after the bombing of … Continue reading Captain America after Pearl Harbor
The Tom Brevoort Experience 