October 1967

A few firsts this month: my first Gold Key Tarzan.



Liked it immediately. Gold Key was also low-key, certainly compared to Marvel’s exuberant style, but maybe it was the seriousness and formality of the Gold Key approach that was appealing.

The problem was that after just a few issues, the sameness of Gold Key comics, from the unvarying layouts, to the general stiffness of most of the art, the lack of even DC-level characterization and the lack of humor made them a disappointing read compared to marvel and DC books.

I really wanted to like them, I did, but 12 cents could buy a lot more excitement elsewhere.

Many a nice painted cover, though.

I loved the cover on Spider-Man 56 and had to have it.

   

And at last, I saw an issue of Thor, and was ticked that I couldn’t find the next couple of issues on the stands. As of #150, I could… just in time for one of my all-time favorite sagas: the fight to the death with Mangog!

I also nabbed my first reprint title, Marvel Super-Heroes (previously Fantasy Masterpieces) 12, which also featured the debut of the new Captain Marvel, but for the juicy reprints of Cap, the Torch and Sub-Mariner, but most especially for the Black Knight, so beautifully illustrated by Joe Maneely.

I was becoming a great lover of Marvel Comics…

Over at DC, another first: finally, I saw and immediately bought, a copy of Doom Patrol! And it was no disappointment. I loved it! Little did I know that the book was on its last legs and would only be around till the momentous #121. But, for the next few months, I had a comic book I couldn’t wait to read.

   

Superboy 143, with a great Neal Adams cover, also made it into my grubby little hands, as did another comic that remains a sentimental favorite: World’s Finest 172.

The latter is a perfect example of a story that should have been told in a couple of issues, but was done in 18 by Boy Wonder Jim Shooter. Even so, it was a fine story that showed the Kents at their noblest, cut to the essence of Bruce Wayne as a wounded boy desperately trying to make sense of his shattered life.

SPOILER! SPOILER! SPOILER!









In fact, we see Bruce crying in his Batman costume after he fails to save his adoptive parents from cruel death at the hands of a particularly evil Lex Luthor. He takes a horrible beating as he smashes his way through a gauntlet of powerful androids to free the Kents, and then nearly kills Luthor with his bare hands. (The cops have to stop him from killing Luthor.) This was a shocking, emotional moment, especially in a Silver Age book. Most effective and affecting. Shooter at his best.

This is the time when I really was able to immerse myself in comics. I was able to go to more stores and had an emergency dollar in my pocket because I’d just started high school, seven miles, four towns and a universe away from home.

Great times!

I actually have a couple of comics from October 1967. I haveBrave & the Bold #75 with the Spectre/Batman team up that I bought inthe 90s afte rI was turned onto the Spectre by the Moench and Ostrander series.

I also have Judomaster #98, which I first discovered as a Modern Comic reprint in the 70s, but later picked up the Charlton original at a show long after the Modern reprints had fallen apart and been tossed.

Neither was bought at the time, as I wasn't quite around for a couple years yet.

-M

Great choices, hondo! Here's a link www.dialbforblog.com/archives/649/ to Dial B for Blog's handy guide to the faces Neal Adams drew for that Alley Award-winning cover for SA 207.

October 1967 and 5 year old me probably saw superhero cartoons but had no clue about comic books yet. I have managed to purchase a few for my collection as I got older.

Avengers 47. part of completing my run of Avengers. My team supreme.

Doom Patrol 116. I remember having this issue as a child around age 7 or so when bought without a cover from a Salvation Army store for 5 cents. Later on seeing the issue up on a wall at a local LCS in the early 80's I traded in a few issues of some other comics (forgotten in memory and time) to the owner and this went home with me

Flash 175. Flash racing against Supes? Infantino and Anderson? Yep i had to have it! Again thank you LCS.

Marvel super Heroes 12: I had a few of the early issues of Mar-vell bought used from of all places an old magic/toy shop that kept a wall of used comics for sale. Once I was hooked on the good captain when Starlin came on board it became one of the prime series which I searched for in the early 80's with the advent of the LCS. Always loved the green and white uniform and the 50's alien invasion vibe. Where I first fell in awe of Colan's pencil power!

Still no allowance, so my comics-buying was very sparse.

DC
I was still a huge fan of the Batman TV show and I loved the TV Batgirl (who'd just been introduced on the series) so this was a comic I had to have. And thanks to my paternal grandmother's generosity, I did!   



Marvel
In addition to the aformentioned allowance issue, there was also the fact that the candy stores in my neighborhood didn't seem to carry Marvels on a regular basis.  So when I saw not only the current issue (#47) right there on the racks, but also an older issue, #44, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven! To this day I remember how giddy I felt buying not one but two Avengers issues at the same time. I think I must've used "candy money" to buy these two.

#47-the issue on sale in Oct. 1967                        #44 -the unexpected bonus!


So as of that point in time, I owned three Avengers comics : #45 (which I'd bought two months earlier), and then #47 and #44.  A year or so later I would start frequenting a collectibles store and buying back issues and managed to amass a pretty complete collection of the Avengers from #14. 

And thanks to my new schoolmates, I managed to read (though not own) these two issues. I was so glad to discover that some of the kids in my class read Marvels--at my old school most of them were just into the Archie comics.