I bought this issue of MARVEL'S GREATEST COMICS on one of my regular weekly 7-11 runs, and I can remember having it with me and being over at the house of my neighbor and sometimes-friend Charles Grella down the block. As usual, it reprinted an issue of FANTASTIC FOUR from a few years earlier (9 … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL’S GREATEST COMICS #77
Comic books for years were considered a juvenile medium, and that sensibility often extended to the behavior of the practitioners in the field. Like those who work in any other industries, not all comic book creators get along, and on occasion some of them have felt the need to take their aggression out in public, … Continue reading 5BC: Five Mean Caricatures of Comic Book Creators
This was another book that came out of the drugstore's Big Bin of Affidavit Return Comics and the first point when I learned that before it had featured the Hulk exclusively, MARVEL SUPER-HEROES had been split between the Green Goliath and the Sub-Mariner just as TALES TO ASTONISH had been years before. More than anything, … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL SUPER-HEROES #55
Back at the drugstore, I pulled this book out of my usual haunt: their large bin of comics that had been reported destroyed, but which instead had been sold off the back of the truck. As I've talked about many times here, that bin was a welcome source of comics that I had missed for … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL TRIPLE ACTION #25
Pretty sure that this was another issue that was bought by my brother Ken. He continued to follow the Hulk's adventures regularly for a few months before his attention shifted elsewhere and I wound up picking up both the baton and the issues he'd already bought. It's another reprint of a nine-year-old story from 1969--throughout … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL SUPER-HEROES #71
Let's face it, lightning doesn't strike every month, and sometimes inspiration can be difficult to come by. But comic books still had to come out, ready or not. And so, occasionally, our favorite heroes of Marvel's silver age would find themselves contending with opponents who--well, let's just say they weren't quite up to the usual … Continue reading 5BC: Five Best Dopey Marvel Silver Age Villains
This was another book that I got out of a 3-Bag at the Two Guys discount store, and a book that would have made such a bag a must-buy for me. Because at this time, FANTASTIC FOUR was my favorite comic book series, and so an opportunity to get another new-to-me issue was something I … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL’S GREATEST COMICS #71
Another Marvel reprint title that came out of a 3-Bag. I seem to recall getting this particular issue at the Two Guys discount store, where they carried 3-Bags and to which my family would regularly go when we needed household goods. On this particular day there were a few 3-Bags in the batch on that … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL TALES #81
I've gone over this before, but it bears repeating. In 1978, there were no trade paperbacks, no Marvel Masterworks, no organized system reprinting the comic books of earlier days. There were a few scattered and irregular collections and that was about it. But Marvel, at least, maintained a regular and robust reprint program as a … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL SUPER-HEROES #65
In response to having serialized his final Fantastic Four story, the wonderful Leonardo Ortolani sent me over an additional tale very much in the same spirit which I had never seen before. He told me that he had done it in early 1994, right after Jack Kirby passed, and that it ran in a fanzine … Continue reading Lee & Kirby & Ortolani: Farewell to the King
The Tom Brevoort Experience 