Doug: I'm sure for several of our readers, today's month and year will predate our regular comics buying. But, as we're all well-read Bronze Age Babies, I'm positive we'll be able to generate some conversations on favorite mags read or owned at a later date. You know the rules -- the big date below will link you to Mike's Amazing World of Comics and to books on sale with a cover date of October 1974.
24 comments:
What's really interesting about those covers is just how many horror/supernatural comics Marvel had at that time - I didn't realise there were quite so many. Nice to see #2 of the Planet of the Apes magazine - next Monday is 40 years since the POTA TV show began on British TV and 6 days later is 40 years since No.1 of the Marvel POTA weekly went on sale and 4 weeks after that is 40 years since I discovered Marvel comics - woo-hoo !!
Good call, Colin. That DD cover AND story were outstanding (sorry you DD-Miller purists, DD was a cool title before ish 158..), but I couldn't find it at the time due to those nasty distribution issues. Simple Bronze design, yet creepy.
That Ghost Rider cover's pretty dynamic as well.
This was near the end of my initial Zuvembie collecting, again due to not finding my issues, plus my family moving around the country a bit.
My first excursions to the spinner racks came a few months after this, some time in 1975, so obviously I had none of these at the time. However, thanks to various Marvel Essential volumes and other reprint books, I have read quite a few of the Marvel books (including quite a few horror titles, as Colin noted: Man-Thing, Son of Satan, the Living Mummy, Golem...).
Otherwise, I see that this month's issue of Detective Comics included the conclusion to Goodwin & Simonson's excellent Manhunter story.
And I continue to be amazed at the apparent popularity of Richie Rich - nine titles this month. Also, even the great Gazoo had his own comic!
I had three THREE comics from this month. I may have used birthday money at that. They were Amazing Spider-Man 137, Marvel Tales 54 (Man Mountain Marko) and .........(drum roll)......Incredible Hulk 180! Yep, I was so impressed with the debut of Canada Greatest Super-Hero Wolverine that I didn't buy Hulk 181. I've said it before and I'll say it again, c'est dommage.
The Prowler (dancing girls, silly girls, all kinds of girls and it was loud tuning up to madness in the back room candles burning present the Stinking Hippy and throw the naked thunder to the crowd in the Hungry Daze).
That Daredevil issue is a good one, part of a 3-part saga that featured Gladiator, Man-Thing and Deathstalker!
I can't believe how many of those issues I had.
Of the ones on that page, I had the Action Comics, Black Magic, Ghosts, Haunted, House of Secrets, Kamandi, Midnight Tales, Phantom Stranger, Secret Origins, The Shadow, Superman, Weird War Tales, Weird Mystery Tales and the Witching Hour. And to think, when I was a kid, I thought American comics were hard to find.
I remember that Marvel Tales 54 well, when I brought it home my dad was hassling me about still buying comics when I was starting high school in the fall. Little did he know the hundreds I was yet to buy, or that I would still be reading comics 40 years later.
I actually had that issue of the Harlem Globetrotters! That was a different era in comics for sure.
Alan
I was only 2 at this point, so I don't actually remember any of these, but I've read some of them since then. I love that Giant Size Spidey with Shang Chi...and the wrap up of the Manhunter storyline in Detective by Goodwin/Simonson was pretty good too.
@david_b Was Gerber still writing DD then? With Man-Thing guest starring, I figured Gerber was probably the writer on that one. I've read all the Daredevils at some point, but I don't remember that specific issue.
Mike W.
I was about a year into heavy Marvel buying at this point. I probably have 20 some-odd of those issues, along with a few DCs.
I remember liking what was going on in a lot of the major Marvel titles like Spidey, Cap, the Avengers. That Spidey was the 2nd of a 2-part Harry becomes Green Goblin story. Cap had "quit" after the Secret Empire events but had not yet become Nomad. The Avengers were just about to embark on the Celestial Madonna/Kang storyline that went on for the next 6 months or so. Cool stuff.
But I was also into the Silver Age reprints - Spidey, FF, Thor, TOS, TTA. I was enjoying connecting the dots between the history of the 60s and what was currently going on in the 70s.
And those Giant Sizes were cool too. The Spidey giants always featured a team-up and I loved that one with Shang Chi. My buddy was a big Shang Chi fan and we used to argue about who would win. And in typical team up fashion they had a dust up before becoming buddies. I don't remember the details but I'm pretty sure it was a draw. :-)
And, speaking of connecting the dots between Silver and Bronze, the Time Platform says the GS Spidey #2 backup story was "...to Become an Avenger", which if memory serves is the one where Spidey can become an Avenger if he brings the Hulk back to them. Spidey sees the Hulk as a soul in torment and decides to leave him alone and what's the big deal with being an Avenger anyways. A typical contrived Stan plot but served to keep Spidey a loner. Now freakin' everybody (including Spidey) has been an Avenger.
Tom
Mike, yes he was..
Unlike a few readers who didn't enjoy Gerber's writing on more conventional titles, I loved him on DD. He wrote fun, yet creepy stories ~ I'm still surprised that the Gladiator's violent stomach ripping scene passed the comics authority back then.
I enjoyed the entire Mar-Vell/Moondragon storyline before that, but apparently I was in a minority.
Tom, you and I were most likely on the same plane of existence.
I was as well excited about Marveldom at this point, with Harry's premiere as the new Goblin, Cap's Empire saga and the Avengers all representing creative highpoints for me.., I fondly look back at these months as being what I loved about Marvel most of all.
This was actually sort of a landmark month for me! For about four or five months I'd been regularly buying Hulk, WWBN and Kamandi (and loved them all), but somehow this month was the advent of a buying explosion, PLUS my buddy Bryan's brothers went through a possibly-final purge of their own, which I was the beneficiary of. That issue of the Avengers was what tipped me over the precipice, though. Although I wasn't fully sure what was going on, the book still felt as familiar as it always had-- and the cover pulled me right in.
Hunh-- and you know what other cover got me to purchase the book? The X-MEN reprint!! What do they both have in common? Hugely dramatic floating heads!!! Could I be THAT susceptible???
So many enjoyable titles that I have such fond memories of. This is kind of a "forgotten" period for Spidey, but I recall that the book was still quite good. All the GS titles were like a valentine for the faithful readers. Defenders was such a neat, neat book back then. FF, IIRC, was sturdy, dependable reading during this (Buckler/Sinnott?) period, and before too long would give us unbelievably flaky stories that were grounded w/ an early Perez/Sinnott team (I believe). These all bring to mind sitting in the backyard late in the summer afternoon, after having mowed the behemoth, and reading my stack in the lawn chair while eating a cup-full of Nestle's chocolate chips. . .
HB
david_b,
Indeed!
Tom
First thing I notice: I miss word balloons on comic covers.
This is my favorite period for Conan, #43 here. The wacky Brave and Bold 115, where Batman's corpse continues to fight crime. Detective 443, great Manhunter series, great Aparo cover, plus Golden Age Green Lantern, Spectre...great stuff.
Captain Marvel--it's not in this Whiz edition, but I was surprised recently when I picked up an Archives book and found that Jack Kirby penciled Captain Marvel Adventures #1. He mimics CC Beck's style but adds more muscular action.
Kamandi 22--I bought the second Omnibus of Kamandi, and found the stories are still good from about issues 20-30, but after that I started to lose interest, maybe as Kirby was losing interest too.
Savage Sword #2--Black Colossus! Love that J. Buscema/Alcala art. Exciting time to be a Conan fan. I also liked Tony DeZuniga inking Conan.
Iron Wolf in Weird Worlds #10-- like most of these, I first saw this one in a reprint. Exciting early Howard Chaykin! Much looser than his later '80s style, but I like it--wish he could've done more of these. On a tangent, I recently read an adaptation of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser written by Chaykin and drawn by Mike Mignola. Well done and worth reading.
Where are Batman and The Justice League? They seem to be missing from that spread at Mike's.
I had that giant-sized Brave and the Bold, and I remember reading the dead-Batman story while sitting in a restaurant with my parents. Loved it.
I also had those collector edition oversized books: The Whiz comics and the Superman.
The one other thing--and I remember it blowing me away--was that issue of Astonishing Tales, with Deathlok. I don't know why I picked it up (and maybe two other issues in that run), but it was quite a shift from what I'd been reading.
What a great time to be a comic reader that was! I had been at it for just a couple months, and was really starting to get into the hobby. I count about 20 books this month, as well as numerous others I'd have liked but no doubt had no funds for. Can't imagine being able to buy 20 comics a month now...
David_b, we agree on the appeal of Spider-Man at that junction. At the time, the Goblin's return was a huge deal. They had been hinting at it for months; you could see Harry deteriorating before your eyes. Then there were all those fine Romita covers during that era!
Garett, interesting that you mention Chaykin's Ironwolf stories - I also came across those later in a reprint book done in the early '80s (which I reacquired much later and which was then signed by Chaykin himself when I met him). He wrote a follow-up/sequel to the Ironwolf story in the early '90s, also with art by Mignola (and P. Craig Russell). It's quite good as well.
By the way, I also have the tpb of the Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser adaptation you mentioned - but it's still in my massive "to read" stack...
Thanks Edo, I'll have to check that Mignola Ironwolf out! How was your meeting with Chaykin?
Garett, meeting Chaykin was super-cool, since he's one of my favorite comics artists. And he's a really fun guy to talk to.
In fact, here's a comment I made about it in the "In Appreciation of -- Meeting Our Favorite Creators" post a few years back.
That's awesome Edo! I'd like to see your sketch of Monark Starstalker.
Cool, thanks Edo! I see by Wikipedia that Monark Starstalker has appeared again in a few comics in the last few years.
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