You never know what's going to turn up in the world of comic books, even after decades have gone by. So I was astonished to see the page I'm about to share with you turn up at one of the comic book auction sites recently. It's an amazing thing unto itself, but it also provokes … Continue reading Lee & Ditko & Orlando & Rockwell: A New Discovery in the Multiple Car Crash of TALES TO ASTONISH #61
It's been said over the years that Marvel's publisher Martin Goodman had an unwavering faith in the sales appeal of Ant-Man. How much of that was due to him hearing about the sell-through numbers on the earliest appearances of the Atom over at rival DC I do not know--but it does account for the reason … Continue reading WC: TALES TO ASTONISH #38
One of the things that I tell people when we're talking about the history of Marvel Comics is that one of the amazing things about what those earlier pioneers created is the fact that, if you wait long enough, even the failures become successes. It was true of the Hulk, it was true of the … Continue reading WC: TALES TO ASTONISH #37
From the vantage point of hindsight, we view the Hulk as a super hero, the second in a string of new creations unleashed in the earliest years of the 1960s on an unsuspecting public, the building blocks for what would become known as the Marvel Universe. But that's really an impression that has been colored … Continue reading Lee & Kirby & Ditko: The Development of INCREDIBLE HULK
Continuing on with the review of books that I acquired in trade with my grade school friend Donald Sims, that's how I laid hands on this issue of MARVEL SUPER-HEROES. I've mentioned this fact before, but just to reiterate: Don and I were friends for a few years, from the start of 5th Grade to … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL SUPER-HEROES #44
Even with the limited output allowed to them under the terms of their distribution deal with Independent News (which only permitted the Marvel of the 1960s to release a certain number of titles every month), Marvel often ran into situations where the talent they had on hand in order to complete everything wasn't enough. During … Continue reading Lee & Kirby & Everett & Grandinetti & Friends – The Messy Story of Tales to Astonish #84
I think it's no great secret that for a good portion of its run, the Ant-Man/Giant-Man strip in TALES TO ASTONISH was troubled. Struggling, really. More so than any of the other Marvel characters of that era, Hank Pym's series, borne out of a one-off fantasy story, was retooled and reworked far more often than … Continue reading Lee & Ditko & Orlando & Rockwell: the Multiple Car Crash of TALES TO ASTONISH #61
A post from my old Marvel blog re-presenting a story by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko from TALES TO ASTONISH #26 Dream World! April 28, 2007 | 1:00 AM | By Tom_Brevoort | In General As a little treat/follow up to our coverage of Jonathan Ross's Steve Ditko documentary, here's a five-page story from one … Continue reading Blah Blah Blog – Dream World
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
I wrote this post twelve years ago, on my 40th birthday. 40 April 28, 2007 | 1:00 AM | By Tom_Brevoort | In General Today I am 40. It doesn't feel like all that long a time, certainly no longer than it felt a week or a month ago. At the same time, it's one … Continue reading Blah Blah Blog – 40/1967
The Tom Brevoort Experience 