The question of who did what on the early Marvel books is going to be something that's debated and argued ad infinitum, so long as the characters remain worldwide icons as they've become in recent years. Speaking for myself, while I enjoy weighing in on certain aspects of these questions, I'm of the broad belief … Continue reading Lee & Ditko: The Storytelling Snafu of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #30
On my unanticipated trip to the Batcave comic book shop that weekend, I needed to make my meager funds stretch to their furthest. There was a cornucopia of back issues laid out before me. But I had only limited money with which to make my purchases. And so one of the books I wound up … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL TALES #20
The second release from Jim Shooter's new company DEFIANT was DARK DOMINION, which seemed like it might prove to be something interesting. The series was co-created by Shooter and legendary creator Steve Ditko, and it's clear that Jim was intending to build a title that would allow Ditko to flex the same kind of visual … Continue reading Brand Echh: DARK DOMINION #1
At the time when I started getting into Marvel Comics in the late 1970s, WHAT IF was considered something of a special book, at least among my small circle of comic-reading acquaintances. For one thing, it was oversized, meaning that it was both thicker and meatier than the average comic of that period, more like … Continue reading BC: WHAT IF #1
Here's another book that I picked up on my post-grade school graduation trip to Bush's Hobbies in Ronkonkoma. I had been slowly filling in a complete run of MARVEL COLLECTORS' ITEM CLASSICS, the title that eventually changed its name to MARVEL'S GREATEST COMICS and in which the earliest FANTASTIC FOUR stories were reprinted. I wanted … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL COLLECTORS’ ITEM CLASSICS #19
As I've spoken about numerous times on this page, I was relatively limited in what I was looking for in my comic books. I was a super hero guy, and so none of the other genres which were then still readily available when I started reading the books in the 1970s were of any real … Continue reading BC: GIANT-SIZE SPIDER-MAN #1
Now this was a book that we fans had been waiting for ever since the Rocketeer had first debuted in the back pages of STARSLAYER #2 and #3 a short while previously. https://tombrevoort.com/2021/06/19/brand-echh-starslayer-2/ The strip had caused a huge stir in fandom, largely because it came seemingly out of nowhere and was so accomplished. Rocketeer … Continue reading FSC: PACIFIC PRESENTS #1
X-O MANOWAR #1 introduced another entirely new character to the burgeoning Valiant super hero universe, that being Aric of Dacia, a Visigoth from the 5th Century who was captured by aliens, and who escapes from them by stealing their greatest weapon, the X-O Manowar living armor. Due to the time dilation involved in faster-than-light travel, … Continue reading Brand Echh: X-O MANOWAR #1
There were other concepts that were originated with the intention that they would be a part of the New Universe initiative but were left by the wayside as the parameters of that concept changed and evolved. One of them went on to become one of the lesser lights of the Marvel Universe. This was Speedball, … Continue reading Brand Echh: SPEEDBALL #1
I don't know that I ever borrowed this first MARVEL TREASURY EDITION from my grade school friend Donald Sims, but I definitely read it over at his house during one visit or another. And I can recall seeking him out a year or two later, when I was in Junior High, to offer to buy … Continue reading BC: MARVEL TREASURY EDITION #1
The Tom Brevoort Experience 