This is the single greatest issue of SUPERMAN ever put together in the character's 80 year history. Closer to home, it's the special Anniversary issue that I'm always jockeying against in my own mind when it comes to put together a book of this sort for the Marvel characters. Of course, I fail to clear … Continue reading Perfect Game – SUPERMAN #400
Stan Lee, Larry Lieber and Jack Kirby famously introduced the mighty Thor in JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #83 in 1962. But before that, there were a number of antecedents for that story and that character, based as he was on actual Norse mythology. For example, here's an obscure story from OUT OF THIS WORLD #11 in … Continue reading The Hammer of Thor
In 1973, Charlton took one last late stab in getting a foothold into the super hero market with the publication of E-MAN, a light-hearted and whimsical super hero series about an energy being birthed in a star who came to Earth and became a costumed adventurer. It was a fun title and well-remembered, but it … Continue reading Brand Echh – E-Man #2
By 1967, Steve Ditko had become an industry legend. By this point, he had left Marvel and his two best-known creations, Spider-Man and Doctor Strange, behind. But he was on the cusp of revealing the character whose outlook and point of view most closely resembled his own--and he did it in the third issue of … Continue reading Brand Echh – Witzend #3
I've seen different bits and pieces of this story told in assorted places, but I cannot recall anyplace where the entire sequence of events was laid out in a single recounting, so I thought that was worth doing. In the spring of 1963, with the super hero titles that his firm had been producing doing … Continue reading Lee & Kirby & Ditko & Everett: The linked stories of X-MEN #1, AVENGERS #1 and DAREDEVIL #1
Once we get to the 1960s, the deaths of super hero characters becomes a more frequent occurrence, though still relatively a rarity (and usually the characters who meet their end--Lightning Lad, Junior Juniper, Ferro Lad--either aren't the headliners of their series but rather one member of an ensemble. And some of them, like Lightning lad, … Continue reading The Death of Menthor
Attempts to tap into the Marvel style weren't limited to only the 1960s. One of the most blatant attempts happened in the 1970s, and represented a tragedy of unfulfilled potential. In 1974, after he had sold Marvel and thereafter his son Chip had been pushed out of the company in favor of Stan Lee, Marvel … Continue reading Brand Echh – The Destructor #1
1989 was the year in which I entered the field, so this will be the final installment of this topic, as I don't think it's possible to be objective past this point. Grant Morrison begins his revelatory run on DOOM PATROL by hearkening back to the earliest stories and remembering that thees characters are more … Continue reading 5BC: Five Best Comics of 1989
At this point, you'd be right to detect a pattern here. We're still talking about the comics I purchased during my very first visit to my very first comic book shop, Heroes World in Levittown. I had bought the earliest issues of FANTASTIC FOUR and FLASH that I could manage, and so I turned my … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL’S GREATEST COMICS #24
In the mid-1960s, Joe Simon was in the middle of a court battle attempting to recapture the rights to Captain America, an effort which would eventually come to nothing in part thanks to an affidavit made out by his old partner Jack Kirby specifying that he was aware at all times that everything created for … Continue reading Brand Echh – Sick #48
