4-15-20: NOTE - In refreshing this post, I inadvertently chose cover images in the "on sale" category at Mike's. All other links in this post point to the original direction originally intended. Thanks for your understanding.
Doug: Hey, it's August's trip to the corner store for some old comics! Today we'll check out books that would have hit the stands right around the time I turned 12. Prime comic buying time, those days were... Hop over to Mike's Amazing World of Comics to see all the fare, then click on the date below for a jump to the Comic Book Database for more details. Thanks in advance for sharing your memories.
11 comments:
Ah, the beginning of Summer, 1978. I was graduating from high school, getting over my first big crush, and buying about 15 comics for the month. I had a lot going on, not the least of which was getting prepared to start art school in the fall. But my comics addiction continued unabated.
High points: X-Men, of course. That Hulk Annual was pretty nice too. Spectacular Spider-Man was a good read, with the Scorpion. And Avengers was building towards the climax of the "Michael" saga.
Low points: Mainly Spider-Man. In Amazing, we had the nadir of a pretty unremarkable streak. Rocket Racer and the Big Wheel? Give me the Scorpion (or Ock, or Mysterio,or just about anyone else). Pretty sad that even the Annual that came out that month was preferable to Amazing, and it was all reprint...
Two of those covers, Avengers #174 and Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #242, bring back some wonderful memories for me. I remember buying those on the spinner rack at the local Convenient Food Mart. I was still pretty early on in my comic collecting career at this point, being 9 years old.
The Avengers issue was was awesome, with that huge cast of Avengers, some of whom I'd never seen before, plus the excellent artwork. Being in the midst of the Korvac Saga (somebody else I'd never heard of) made it even better, but I've always had a fondness for the Collector since this issue, perhaps because he appeals to the collector in me. The's the Elder that I could be!
As for that Legion of Super-Heroes issue, well, this is in the midst of Earthwar, which is when I started collecting the Legion, and I was forever hooked. The huge case, the sci-fi angle, the artwork, it have it all!
I'd also picked up Fantastic Four #197, Justice League of America #157, Marvel Triple Action #43 off the spinner rack that month.
I pick X-Men #112 probably around 1980 as a back issue (at no small cost!) after having discovered the X-Men with #117, as well as with Marvel Triple Action #45.
In more recent years, I've picked up Master of Kung Fu #67 (what took me so long to start reading this title?) and Captain America #224.
Unimpeachable classic of the month - Devil Dinosaur 5. Fantastic.
Also enjoyed Dr. Strange - Roger Stern and Tom Sutton getting the book back on track - and (inevitably) the X-Men. But otherwise, a bit too much formula across most of the Marvel line for me.
Still better than the woeful state of affairs at DC though.
Btw, Doug - good pick with that John Carter cover. Gil Kane and Rudy Nebres made for an exceptional team.
-sean
'Earthwar' is still my favorite Legion continued story. I much prefer it over 'The Great Darkness Saga.' I sure wish DC would collect it in a trade. My comics are in pretty bad shape!
I really got into Elfquest for a couple of years and devoured it. But I never went back to it; it was a title I read at the time, but never picked back up again with any nostalgia and re-read. I think it just appealed to me in my early teens, for a variety of reasons, but looking at it now, it doesn't do anything for me. That's not a knock against Wendy Pini and her work -I think she created a wonderful fantasy world. But it was not one that I continued to revisit, like LOTR.
I agree, Karen. 'Earthwar' is my favorite Legion story too, though The Great Darkness Saga ain't exactly chopped liver, either.
I was just getting into comics at this point, so I'm not sure what I would've had back then...maybe Amazing (who can forget the Big Wheel?), Spectacular (I always liked Scorpion), Batman, and maybe a couple of others. It's hard to separate what I've read in the intervening years from what I read back then!
Mike Wilson
I had 15 of the mags pictured at Mike's, including the Hulk magazine. I was really into the storylines in both Avengers and the FF, each leading to a thrilling conclusion in only a few months. Unbelievable misses include Hulk Annual #7; given that I bought the Spidey Annual that reprinted ASM #s 119-120, I'd sure have traded that for the glory that I now know to be within the covers of the Hulk Annual.
The Ms. Marvel cover was certainly a favorite of 12-year old me. "This Cover Made Me Buy This Book", indeed.
And hey -- Richie Rich was certainly well represented on the shelves and spinner racks, but how about Archie's output? I didn't count, but they had to rival whatever Marvel and DC had out that month.
Enticing cover on Batman Family, too, but I did not have that issue.
Doug
I was nearing the end of my heavy Marvel collecting days at this point. But, the only title that I was still really "into" was the X-Men. I get a kick out of the banner across the top of that month's issue "NOW ON SALE MONTHLY". Hard to believe there was a time when they weren't ubiquitous.
Tom
I didn't realize until today that the first Firestorm series ran so late in the 70s. For some reason I had it in my head that this series occurred much earlier in the Bronze Age. It had almost a late DC silver age feel to it I thought. What the heck is Jaws vs Ape? That would have caught my eye as a youngster. I really like that MTU cover and the Captain America cover. And that Invaders cover was suitably bizarre enough to make me buy it. The What If issue was quite prescient with Jane Foster as Thor. A good month from what I recall from 38 years ago.
Gah! Late to another one - this has turned out to be a really crappy summer, work-wise.
Anyway, except for Marvel Premiere #43 (not a bad issue), I don't recall getting any of the Marvel and DC offerings from this month off of the spinner rack. I bought a bunch of them as back issues a few years later, though.
At this point, I was still in my mainly Archie and Disney ducks phase. Doug, you're right about Archie: the number of titles with Archie's name in them matches this month's Richie Rich tally - 10! Funny thing, though: although I'm certain I had a few of these Archie comics, none of the covers really ring a bell. Same thing with Gold Key's Disney books. Only the Uncle Scrooge cover is vaguely familiar. That's in such stark contrast to the covers of the super-hero books, of which I always have vivid memories, and can sometimes even recall exactly where I bought them...
Edo- you make an interesting point about recalling super-hero covers, but not the humor ones. I've found this to be true, also: I had many, many Archies, and Disney books (particularly Walt Disney's Comics and Stories), but actually recall only a few specifically. Whereas practically every heroic book stays in my memory. Perhaps it stems from the way so many humor book covers featured a 'joke of the day' kind of a theme; they tend to blur together...
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