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Post by EdoBosnar on Jan 3, 2020 4:29:26 GMT -5
Well, we're past the magical year of 1979, but 1980 was still right in the middle of my peak comics buying/reading years. Based on the covers at Mike's Newsstand, these are the ones I remember having for sure: (Marvel) Amazing Adventures #5 (feeding my X-men addiction from both ends) Avengers #194 FF #217 Iron Man #133 Marvel Premiere #53 Marvel Super Action #18 (reprinting the 'Behold the Vision' story) Marvel Team-Up #92 M 2-in-1 #62 Spider-Man #203 Spectacular Spider-Man #41 Spider-woman #25 Tales to Astonish #5 (Subby stories with gorgeous art by John Buscema) What If #20 (first Kree-Skrull war story I ever read) X-Men #132 (DC) Adventure Comics #470 DC Comics Presents #20 Green Lantern #127
I might have had a few more, esp. DC titles, as at the time I was pretty regularly reading the Flash, Legion, World's Finest and even Super Friends, but the covers for Jan. 1980 don't look familiar to me.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Jan 3, 2020 5:07:37 GMT -5
It was still hard to get American comics in those days, but a newsstand had just opened in front of our school and it sometimes carried a few titles. The previous month had been a golden one, with five king-sized Marvel comics.
Avengers 194: Lovely George Perez artwork, and a discussion between Jocasta and Vision. I loved Marvel’s robotic heroes. Is that the issue the Wasp got her white and blue outfit with an elaborate W over one shoulder, and in which Stark could tell the vintage of a Dr. Pepper?
Fantasy Masterpieces #5: the Silver Surfer was my favourite hero at some point, and although I always preferred him as a supporting character than in his own adventures, I couldn't get enough of this reprint title. Nice and extremely melodramatic tale of heroism in this one.
Howard the duck#4. I forget what happened in there, but at the time I quite enjoyed Bill Mantlo’s HtD.
Marvel Team-up #92. I didn’t care for Carmine Infantino’s art, but Hawkeye was a favourite.
Micronauts #16, with a lovely Michael Golden cover and what is possibly Howard Chaykin’s worst penciling run ever. Mantlo’s story was also disappointing, and the series would never regain the greatness of its first 12 issues. Still, I sticked with Micronauts through thick and thin (and would even subscribe shortly thereafter).
In hindsight, it feels as if most of my collecting days in the 80s consisted in waiting for a mag to become as good as it once had been.
Rom #5: I didn’t much care for Rom, but it was available!
Savage Sword of Conan #50: oh, my, so much gratuitous nudity... Plus, the adaptation of de Camp's Conan the Liberator couldn’t be blamed for not being able to turn a rather boring story into anything better than a merely adequate comic.
Stat Wars #34: more Infantino art, but as a huge SW fan I would have bought the book no matter what. Goodwin was an excellent Star Wars scribe. Those are the real Star Wars expanded universe stories, as far as I am concerned!
Time Warp #4: as much fun as an issue of Amazing Stories, and as diverse too... with yet another lovely Kaluta cover. I remember bringing that issue to class, for a Show & Tell activity where I spoke about American comics. (Somehow it looked more adult than an issue of Spider-man).
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Post by EdoBosnar on Jan 3, 2020 6:17:50 GMT -5
Avengers 194: Lovely George Perez artwork, and a discussion between Jocasta and Vision. I loved Marvel’s robotic heroes. Is that the issue the Wasp got her white and blue outfit with an elaborate W over one shoulder, and in which Stark could tell the vintage of a Dr. Pepper?Yep. I recall that this is one I just grabbed off of the spinner rack without opening it, as I was a pretty steady reader of MTU at the time, and I liked Hawkeye, too, but then being disappointed when I got home and saw the art inside.
I actually liked Rom, but didn't have this issue, as it was one of those series that I was following sporadically at the time. I was a huge SW fan back then, too, but the art usually kept me away from the series. It's too bad, because as you say, Goodwin was (as usual for him) writing some outstanding stories.
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Post by MWGallaher on Jan 3, 2020 8:48:03 GMT -5
In January 1980, I bought these, probably most of them at Memphis Comics & Records: Brave & Bold #161 ($0.40): Haney had been gone for a few issues, but Jim Aparo was still there, illustrating, this time, a team-up of Batman and Adam Strange penned by Gerry Conway. Aparo hadn't been there for Adam's first B&B team-up, so I believe this was his first time drawing the character. Aparo was a science fiction fan, but he got to draw far too little of it. With this adventure primarily on the planet Rann, we see just how good he would have been if SF had been a more popular genre during his prime career years. Charlton Classics #1 ($0.40): Sam Glanzman's bizarrely psychedelic Hercules is a real trip! Defenders #82 ($0.40): Don Perlin begins his fairly long run on the book. I liked it, but I was an easy sell on any Defenders material. Fantasy Masterpieces #5 ($0.75): More Silver Surfer reprints that I figured were my only chance to read at a reasonable price, ever. Howard the Duck #4 ($1.25): I was a devoted Howard fan, but the B&W magazine wasn't doing it for me, no matter how much I wanted it to. Obviously, the other fans felt the same. Shogun Warriors #15 ($0.40): I kept buying this, despite this fill-in lacking both Moench and Trimpe. What If (the Avengers fought the Kree-Skrull War without Rick Jones)? #20 ($0.75): Despite this revisiting the events of the first Marvel comic I ever bought, this title was losing my previously enthusiastic interest, as it began to delve more and more into less fundamental points in Marvel chronology. X-Men #132 ($0.40): I remained enthusiastic about this title, going strong under Claremont and Byrne.
It appears that I was finding DC pretty week going into 1980. From Marvel, I was sticking to a few oddball favorites while staying on the bandwagon with X-Men.
Total cost: $4.75
Cover of the Month: Honestly, not a strong month. Even the dependable Mike Kaluta turned in a weak one on this month's Time Warp. I'll give the nod to Nestor Redondo's painted cover for Savage Sword of Conan #50.
Comic I Most Want But Don't Have: Very little this month is especially tempting, but if I had my pick, I suppose I'd take a copy of G. I. Combat #219, with three Kanigher/Glanzman Haunted Tank stories (plus "Women at War" featuring "Booby Trap for a General"!)
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Post by dbutler69 on Jan 3, 2020 10:16:24 GMT -5
Amazing Adventures #5 Avengers #194 Fantastic Four #217 Justice League of America #177 Legion of Super-Heroes #262 Marvel Super Action #18 Micronauts #16 X-Men #132
More recently, I've bought Shogun Warriors #15 and completed my run of that title.
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Post by berkley on Jan 3, 2020 12:28:55 GMT -5
Savage Sword of Conan #50: oh, my, so much gratuitous nudity... Plus, the adaptation of de Camp's Conan the Liberator couldn’t be blamed for not being able to turn a rather boring story into anything better than a merely adequate comic. I didn't read SSoC #50 but it just occurred to me: they don't seem to have treated it as an anniversary issue in any way. Was there anything inside, any special features or even just a bare acknowledgement of having reached the milestone of 50 issues?
If not, who do we get to blame - was it Shooter? Because I like blaming Shooter for everything I dislike about the Marvel comics of this era.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Jan 3, 2020 13:37:42 GMT -5
Savage Sword of Conan #50: oh, my, so much gratuitous nudity... Plus, the adaptation of de Camp's Conan the Liberator couldn’t be blamed for not being able to turn a rather boring story into anything better than a merely adequate comic. I didn't read SSoC #50 but it just occurred to me: they don't seem to have treated it as an anniversary issue in any way. Was there anything inside, any special features or even just a bare acknowledgement of having reached the milestone of 50 issues?
If not, who do we get to blame - was it Shooter? Because I like blaming Shooter for everything I dislike about the Marvel comics of this era.
It wasn’t a special anniversary issue by any means, but it did have an article titled “Conan at fifty” which gave a very cursory overview of Conan’s career at Marvel. I don’t know why it wasn’t more of an event. The strained relation between Roy Thomas and Jim Shooter might have put a damper on the enthusiasm required to produce an anniversary issue, or perhaps Roy was just overworked with the new King Conan mag and Annual #5 that had just come out. Or perhaps it was harder to make a magazine-sized comic “special”, apart from printing it in colour (which probably wasn’t in the card). SSoC #100 and 150, years later, were also plain ordinary issues; only #200 really qualified as a special anniversary issue, since it teamed up Conan and Robert E. Howard.
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Post by beccabear67 on Jan 3, 2020 14:25:35 GMT -5
Those March and April cover dated Marvels hold the strongest memories and even emotions for me, when so many characters were new and fascinating to me, including the reprint titles.
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Post by codystarbuck on Feb 1, 2020 23:01:03 GMT -5
Not much. Micronauts was in a Whitman pack. The Best of DC digest was excellent, reprinting a Deadman story, where he stops an old man from committing suicide and tries to help him out, but it still doesn't go right (JLGL art, PBHN); an excellent Jonah Hex tale, where he has amnesia and thinks he is a minister (way before Pale Rider); a Haunted Tank story with a WW2 Romeo and Juliet; the Superman and Sgt Roky story, from DC Comics Presents #10; a story where Jonathan Kent feels that he doesn't live up to Jor-El, until his special knowledge saves the day; The Curse of Crime Alley, with excellent Don Newton art; and a Clark Kent story, with a pesky mynah bird.
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Post by EdoBosnar on Feb 2, 2020 12:17:41 GMT -5
Had about 15 titles this month, near as I can tell based on the covers posted at Mike's. Some highlights for me: The aforementioned (by codystarbuck) Best of DC Digest #5, and also Special Blue Ribbon Digest #2 Spectacular Spider-man #42, with the story continuing into Fantastic Four #218 (Spidey gets konked on the head by the Frightful Four, and then Paste-pot P, er, Trapster wheedles his way in the Baxter Building by pretending to be Spidey. It's a fun little caperesque story with the always incompetent Frightful Four.) Daredevil #164, in which intrepid investigative reporter Ben Urich confronts Daredevil, recovering in a hospital after getting busted up by the Hulk in #162, with the fact that he's figured out that DD is Matt Murdock. Includes a retelling of DD's origin; a really well-done story. And, of course, much X-goodness; X-men #132 features the excellent "Wolverine f***s up the Hellfire Club" story (which, in retrospect, marked the beginning of that character's journey to becoming Marvel's unbeatable and way overexposed bada$$), while Amazing Adventures #6 has the conclusion to the first encounter with Blob from X-men #3 (loved that cover by Byrne).
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Post by beccabear67 on Feb 2, 2020 14:12:11 GMT -5
So many of these covers are great blasts from the past! I think that Year's Best DC digest was the first DC digest I ever bought! Now I have the dollar Adventure that Deadman was from... such great art deserved to be full page sized too! What an amazing thing to find the new Byrne covers on the old X-Men at the time too!
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Post by brutalis on Feb 3, 2020 7:49:43 GMT -5
February 1980:
Amazing Spider-Man 204 Avengers 195 Batman 323 Battlestar Galactica 15 Captain America 245 Daredevil 164 Defenders 83 Epic illustrated 1 FF 218 Iron Man 134 LOSH 263 Marvel Spotlight 6 MTIO 63 MOKF 88 Micronauts 17 ROM 6 She Hulk 4 Shogun Warriors 16 Spectacular Spider-Man 42 Spider-Woman 26 Star Trek 2 Star Wars 35 Warlord 33 X-Men 133
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Post by Icctrombone on Feb 3, 2020 8:34:31 GMT -5
Spider-man 204 Avengers 195 FF 218 Iron man 134 Marvel Two in one 63 Spectacular Spider-man 42 Thor 295
Best read of the month was SS # 42
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Post by MWGallaher on Feb 3, 2020 9:34:04 GMT -5
In February, 1980, here's what I bought off the shelves at Memphis Comics & Records: (not pictured: Epic #1) From DC, I only got Brave and Bold #162($0.40): Haney's been out for a bit at B&B, and new writers are being rotated. This time, Bill Kelley, who DC had been using for war comics and spooky comics, had what appears to be his only shot at superhero stuff, but it is a team-up with Sgt. Rock. I don't remember anything about it, but the Rock team-ups were usually good. JLA #178 ($0.40): I was no longer a regular on JLA, probably because of Gerry Conway's lackluster scripting, but I bought this one to see the wrap-up of J'onn J'onnz's comeback, which I'd been following since the trio of backups in Adventure Comics. DC's output in this era must have seemed weak to me, as I'd always tended to be a bit more partisan to the Line of Super-Stars rather than the House of Ideas. Marvel got me to buy Daredevil #164 ($0.40): I got this issue, although I wouldn't get fully on-board until a few issues after Miller had taken over completely. Defenders #83 ($0.40): I never missed an issue. I was continuing to dig having the original trio back, but I don't think I much cared for the fantasy setting. I do remember kind of liking this new Aeroika character, one of the more obscure Defenders. Epic #1: I bought this purely for the Lee/Buscema Silver Surfer short. Fantasy Masterpieces #6 ($0.75): Because I liked the Silver Surfer, and, of course, because there would never be another opportunity to get these stories without paying back issue prices. Man, this reprinted cover has to be one of John Buscema's laziest jobs ever. I'm surprised that Stan let it go out on his pet series! Marvel Preview #21 ($1.25): I only know I got this because I remember seeing it in one of my boxes recently. I was always bored with the Moon Knight back-ups in The Hulk! (which I'd abandoned), so I don't know what the pull was for me. What a boring logo! Marvel Two-In-One #63: As a big fan of Starlin's Warlock, I had to buy this, although I was not a regular purchaser of MTIO by now. I remember thinking it was kind of cool how they'd added a question mark to the Warlock logo. Shogun Warriors #16 ($0.40): This kiddie ride was not quite over, and I stayed on board. Tomb of Dracula (magazine) #4 ($1.25): And now Marv Wolfman was gone. This magazine had never recaptured the magic of the color comic, and I was very aware of its weakness. I'd bail after this issue, and it would soon be cancelled. X-Men #133 ($0.40): I still thought this was a consistently enjoyable title. Total cost: $8.05Cover of the Month: Scanning this month's offerings, the one that really jumps out to me is...well, dang, not much is jumping out at me. I guess I'd go with Earl Norem's Savage Sword of Conan #51. Comic I Don't Have But Would Most Want: If someone offered to give me any American comic published in February 1980, I suppose I'd ask for Wonder Woman #267, just to get a rare-for-the-era Animal Man appearance. I probably wouldn't like it, though.
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Post by dbutler69 on Feb 3, 2020 9:52:26 GMT -5
Avengers #195 Best of DC #5 Fantastic Four #218 Justice League of America #178 Legion of Super-Heroes #263 Marvel Super Action #19 X-Men #133
I also bought Shogun Warriors #16 a few years ago when I was completing my run of that book.
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