That's right! It was indeed four decades ago the world saw the original release of that hard-hitting box office smash The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams. How we thrilled as Dan Haggerty grew his beard, stared at logs and, erm, breathed in and out and things.
But will our favourite Marvel heroes of forty years ago be feeling a little grizzly?
Or will they instead be celebrating a short-lived paws in their battle against evil?
The Vulture's still back - and he's still out to get Mary Jane for seeing him commit a murder.
Or is he?
I could be wrong but I think this tale was the first Whodunit The Amazing Spider-Man comic ever attempted.
It certainly wasn't the last. After this, there seemed to be a spell when Peter Parker's alter-ego couldn't stop acting like an adolescent Columbo.
It's Halloween, and the Collector's back.
To be honest, he's not my favourite villain. He's too badly dressed, ugly and annoying for that.
I'm pretty sure that, in this tale, he tries to defeat the world's mightiest super-team by firing bats at them.
You see? That's not my idea of a classy villain.
Cap finds himself up against the only super-criminal ever to have been named after a social networking site.
Conan's got a stabbing pain in the temple again.
Putting my critic's head on, I'd say there's far too much going on on this cover. Exactly what are we supposed to be focusing on?
Still, it's always nice to see Captain Marvel back.
Darkoth the death demon shows up from the very bowels of hell.
It's another belter as the Rhino and Abomination take over Gamma Base - and only the Hulk can stop them.
But will he actually need to?
Thor's still battling against those aliens armed with giant vacuum cleaners.
And will wonders never cease? He's actually managing not to be defeatist on the cover of his own comic!
Okay, there's a few low cards in this hand. But you've got an issue from the classic Englehart-Sal Buscema run on Captain America.
ReplyDeleteThe Tumbler turned out to be a patsy in a larger insidious government plot that ended up going all the way up to Richard Nixon!
Those incompetent Watergate conspirators!
Not only a bungled burglary and cover-up, but they couldn't even hire a decent super-villain. Maybe Stilt-man turned 'em down.
Strange one, that Spider-Man cover: it's set up to have us guessing who the shadow belongs to (even though it's obvious), and then they tell us not once but twice that it's The Vulture; sorta spoils the concept, although the drawing is nice.
ReplyDeleteSpidey 128 was the first Marvel Comic I bought. Regrettably missed the subsequent Punisher debut that probably would have financed my retirement.
ReplyDeleteI've got that Daredevil comic, and selling it probably wouldn't finance more than a couple candy bars, so I'll hang on to it for now. It is sorta interesting, a nice piece of Bronze-age bombast.
ReplyDeleteDaredevil has a brush with the cosmic, here, courtesy of Moondragon (who had been hanging around the title for a while, creating third-rate super-villains, for some reason) and Captain Marvel. There are some references to the ongoing war with Thanos, and a fairly scary monster.
I got the feeling Daredevil was uncomfortable and wished all the weird cosmic people would just go away and leave his comic in relative peace.
The title is interesting; apparently Marvel was experimenting with making Daredevil a double-bill comic with the Black Widow like Captain America and the Falcon. I wonder why it didn't take. I thought bringing in the Falcon made Captain America a much better book. Maybe Daredevil was just cut out to be more of a lone wolf.
I always love these posts. It's like a grand house ad from those '60s and '70s Marvels. I love seeing what was on the stands at the same time (and I actually bought a few of the books pictured).
ReplyDeleteThanks!
Doug
And thanks to you for reading, Doug.
ReplyDeleteThe Collector is the second Avengers villain I ever read about-from the debut of Goliath in a b/w Power comic. The first was the Swordsman,the third was Typhon. Otherwise, they appeared to share their enemies with other Marvel titles. I was pleased therefore to see a bouffant Taneleer Tivan at the end of the otherwise tedious Thor 2.
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