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Post by Prince Hal on Feb 29, 2020 16:48:07 GMT -5
March 1970 ("Leaping" ahead because I thought today was tomorrow) Batman 221 Great cover! Don’t recall the story, but I do remember that Irv Novick was doing pretty well capturing the Adams “Creature of the night” by now.  Challengers of the Unknown 74 The death-throes of one of the great Silver Age adventure teams. Even Neal Adams doing the pages where Deadman appears aren’t enough to save the Challs from the tide of horror books on the racks. They tried to join ‘em since they couldn’t beat ‘em, but even that didn’t work.  Detective 399 Again, a fine Golden Age-y Adams cover, but no memory of the story.  Flash 197 I rarely bought an issue of the Flash, but this superb cover grabbed me right away. Leave it to Gil Kane to show Flash’s costume emerging like some sinuous ghostly figure! The bonus for nerdy me was that the first story featured Barry Allen on stage in a performance of Hamlet, playing Horatio!  Turns out that Barry has to play every single role on opening night because the entire cast has come down with the Central City Crud, or whatever they call it put there. Mike Friedrich, you are forgiven for the hot mess that will be JLA 89 one year from “now.” Justice League of America 80 How many more issues of this are going to feature a completely ineffective, helpless JLA on the cover? It’s been going on for months and will continue for months more! WTF?  Our Army at War 220 A Joe Kubert (writer and artist) masterpiece about the endless cycle of violence. Was there a more consistently good comic than OAAW?  Teen Titans 27 This title went off the rails repeatedly looking for a direction. Nobody seemed to know how to write a compelling book about teenaged heroes. And certainly not Bob Kanigher. Here it looks like he was mashing together a horror comic and a Mystery in Space from the 50s.  World’s Finest 193 The Silver Age hung around here way past its shelf life, thanks to Weisinger and Bob Haney. Don’t know if Weisinger was creating covers before the stories in the Schwartz fashion, but it sure looks like it. Still, it's a cool cover, and a great example of what Farrar was saying a few posts above about Swan and Anderson's ability to sell a story.  Comic I wish I’d seen because I would have bought it: Goodbye, Mr. Chips 1 (Gold Key) A comic based on a musical? I loved the famous MAD parodies like “East Side Story” and “the Sound of Money,” but this would have been worth more than twice the cover price! 
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Post by Farrar on Mar 1, 2020 16:53:39 GMT -5
I always thought Arkon was a great character. I've never read this particular issue but did read the main story when I was a kid, and also his return a year or two later. The first story in particular made a big impression on me. Having learned something of Roy Thomas's literary interests in later years, I think of him now as Roy's attempt to create an Achilles or Conan type character as an Avengers antagonist. Yeah, Marvel and Roy weren't all that hopeful that they'd be able to secure the rights to Conan, so in the meantime there was Arkon. But they managed to get the rights after all and in that July 1970, Marvel's Conan debuted. Thomas originally wanted Buscema wanted to do it, as did Buscema himself (he's famously said he hated the superhero stuff) ...but Martin Goodman deemed Buscema's page rate "too expensive" especially for a new book featuring a non-superhero so the assignment went to the cheaper  Barry (Windsor-)Smith. Well, we all know how that turned out  Back to Big John: a few years into the Conan run, Buscema got his wish and became the regular artist. The rest is history. I like Palmer's style, myself, and thought he was a good fit with Buscema, though George Klein is my favourite inker for Buscema on the Avengers. Right, that's what is was for me at that time: I was comparing Buscema-Palmer to Buscema-Klein. I considered Klein on Buscema for the Avengers ideal, very crisp and classic. Initially Palmer's Avengers work with Buscema seemed too, I don't know, dark (btw Palmer was also the colorist on those Avengers issues) and exaggerated. However, within a few Avengers issues I did grow to admire the Buscema-Palmer combo. And I'd always liked his work on Neal Adams. |
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Post by Farrar on Mar 1, 2020 17:02:05 GMT -5
...Flash 197 I rarely bought an issue of the Flash, but this superb cover grabbed me right away. Leave it to Gil Kane to show Flash’s costume emerging like some sinuous ghostly figure! The bonus for nerdy me was that the first story featured Barry Allen on stage in a performance of Hamlet, playing Horatio! Turns out that Barry has to play every single role on opening night because the entire cast has come down with the Central City Crud, or whatever they call it put there. That Gil Kane cover? Barry as Horatio? I never read many Flash issues either but now you've got me thinking I need to get this comic! ... World’s Finest 193 The Silver Age hung around here way past its shelf life, thanks to Weisinger and Bob Haney. Don’t know if Weisinger was creating covers before the stories in the Schwartz fashion, but it sure looks like it. Still, it's a cool cover, and a great example of what Farrar was saying a few posts above about Swan and Anderson's ability to sell a story... Yes, the covers came first, or at least the cover premise. Weisinger would have his writers (Bates, Shooter, et al.) submit cover ideas/sketches. Then he'd decide what should fleshed out into a story. According to Bates, Shooter and others, sometimes he'd nix an idea but then go to a different writer and say, hey, here's an idea for you... |
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Post by Prince Hal on Mar 1, 2020 23:45:22 GMT -5
...Flash 197 I rarely bought an issue of the Flash, but this superb cover grabbed me right away. Leave it to Gil Kane to show Flash’s costume emerging like some sinuous ghostly figure! The bonus for nerdy me was that the first story featured Barry Allen on stage in a performance of Hamlet, playing Horatio! Turns out that Barry has to play every single role on opening night because the entire cast has come down with the Central City Crud, or whatever they call it put there. That Gil Kane cover? Barry as Horatio? I never read many Flash issues either but now you've got me thinking I need to get this comic! ... World’s Finest 193 The Silver Age hung around here way past its shelf life, thanks to Weisinger and Bob Haney. Don’t know if Weisinger was creating covers before the stories in the Schwartz fashion, but it sure looks like it. Still, it's a cool cover, and a great example of what Farrar was saying a few posts above about Swan and Anderson's ability to sell a story... Yes, the covers came first, or at least the cover premise. Weisinger would have his writers (Bates, Shooter, et al.) submit cover ideas/sketches. Then he'd decide what should fleshed out into a story. According to Bates, Shooter and others, sometimes he'd nix an idea but then go to a different writer and say, hey, here's an idea for you... Another interesting touch on that Flash issue was that it took place during the winter. I remember when I read it that it hit me that so few superhero stories (at DC anyway) took place in snowy settings. I only wish Kane had inked himself in this story.  PS: Barry's hair finally left the fifties behind, too!  |
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Post by kirby101 on Mar 2, 2020 9:10:05 GMT -5
Almost all Marvel Superhero books, but bought later from back-order companies in the mid 70s.
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Post by brutalis on Mar 2, 2020 9:55:07 GMT -5
March 1970 and my usual bought later back issues:
Avengers 76. Arkon must have just recently seen King Kong? What a fun issue!
Captain Marvel 20. Kane giving us a lean and mean Kree Captain. Meh issue but what artwork!
FF 99. Kirby and FF and Inhumans. What more need be said?
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Post by Farrar on Mar 24, 2020 21:20:10 GMT -5
March 1970
DCJust this one DC for me that month: Adventure #393, from my subscription. Another unmemorable issue.  MarvelIt was a different story when it came to Marvel. That year Easter was in March so as per family tradition my sibling and I spent part of spring vacation at my grandparents. I always loved visiting them, not the least because there was a great stationery store in their neighborhood that had a spinner rack. My proud mother didn't want my well-off, generous grandmother to spend a lot of money on us, so my mom gave me, the elder sibling, a whopping 5 dollars with strict instructions that it should be used to "help out" our grandma. Well, you can guess the rest. Armed with unexpected $$$, the minute we encamped at our grandparents' house, I promptly excused myself and made a beeline for the stationery store where I bought 3 count 'em 3 Marvels! And what a haul: Avengers #76 (second part of Arkon's arc) and Fantastic Four #99 (guest-starring the Inhumans, but in a blah story) -- and what else? Well, Wanda and Pietro had just rejoined the Avengers and now they, the Panther, the Vision, and Clint-Goliath--the new core team--were appearing in the latest Hulk issue (not a series I normally read). Hulk #128 was written by Avengers writer Roy Thomas so it flowed nicely from what had just happened in the Avengers comic. Yes, I felt a bit guilty that I used some of that extra money on myself, instead of offering it to my grandma; but hey, I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. And fwiw, to this day that particularly bountiful purchase remains one of my favorite memories from my youth.  Later that month (and back at home), I also bought Marvel's Greatest Comics #27--I'd skipped MGC #26 because it contained a reprint of Fantastic Four #34, which I had; and I also had FF #36. But I didn't have #35, which was included in this issue of MGC, so buying this comic was a no-brainer. At the end of FF #35 Sue and Reed got engaged--awww! I really enjoyed the older FF stories--the MGC reprints and my back issues--much more than what was being printed in the new FF issues. And I also made an unusual (for me) purchase that month--for some reason I picked up Sub-Mariner #26. Now I'd never bought or read a Subby comic prior to this one, but that cover--with those two beautiful-bodies-drawn-by-Sal, against a cityscape backdrop--wow. And I recognized the Red Raven from X-Men #44. So this comic marked a new Marvel series for me, one that I would try to follow as best I could (remember distribution was spotty back then, at least in the stores I usually went to). All in all, a great month of Marvels for me. 
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Post by Prince Hal on Apr 1, 2020 13:04:28 GMT -5
April 1970
   Aquaman 52 What a great cover! Cardy at his peak. Not sure who colored this one (Nothing on the GCD), but it’s a just perfect. Extra bonus: Deadman is in the back-up story for the third issue in a row; so glad they didn’t announce it on the cover. Giordano was obviously trying hard to keep readers aware of him, so it must have been a tough call not to mar this cover with a blurb. Batman 222 Not my favorite kind of Batman story; he didn’t mesh with the “real world” too well, and by this time the “Paul is dead” bit had aged out. Fads don’t do well in comics because of the long lead time., and at DC, it was an unfortunate reminder of how out of it they seemed by the end of the go-go checks phase. Brave & the Bold #90 Loved the cover, with a few names hidden in the newspaper stories, but the Andru-Esposito art was as jarring as it had been when they took over the Flash from Infantino. At least DC was trying some things by bringing back Adam Strange, but he was such a creature of the Kennedy era that it just wasn’t time for him again.    Detective 400 This special issue was special primarily for the cover and the interior art. The story? Meh. Man-Bat would have been fine for this one appearance, but I never warmed to him as a character, and DC was determined to make him a regular. How many more tortured transformers and were-creatures did we need? GL/GA 77 Ugly color, that pink. Denny O’Neil just can’t help it. A town named Desolation. Just how many blows to the head did he think we needed to get his point? I was their target audience, a young anti-war, anti-Nixon, pro-long hair, rock music, and “Make Love Not war” sympathies, but even I was running out of patience with the ham-handedness and the “Issue-of-the-Issue” approach. Still it was more than you’d ever have expected form DC, and it did shock friends of mine who saw me reading them and didn’t realize comics were raising a little hell. Justice League of America 81 A habit buy. Yet another cover with the JLA reduced to babbling idiots, this time literally. O’Neil tries to make JLA more like Avengers, but can’t really pull it off. Too many of the heavy hitters have their own comics. DC probably knew the book would nose-dive without them around, but that causes continuity and characterization problems. And they really couldn’t trust the book to the likes of Atom, Hawkman, Aquaman and the other B-listers. And those are finally becoming a problem at DC.   
Showcase 91 Manhunter 2070 Mike Sekowsky gets a shot at science fiction and turned in something that was a bit like a Western, a bit like s-f and a bit like the cantina scene in Star Wars, seven years ahead of time. Fun, despite the unavoidable clichés and Colletta’s inks. (Oddly enough, I just found out, Manhunter 2070 first appeared in the previous issue of Showcase (Jason’s Quest… never have even seen an issue) as a two-page preview. I’m guessing some of our younger posters will live to see if a Manhunter does show up in 50 years. ☺ Tomahawk 129 Boltinoff throws all semblance of historical accuracy to the winds as he takes the Revolution to the Southwest. WTF? Tower of Shadows 6 I think I bought this when I was hanging out at Tony’s Hi-Way Sweet Shoppe (and bookie joint) looking for something to read with my Coke before I went to work at the shoe store where I was a stock clerk. But I would have bought it in May or June, because I didn’t start there till May, and Tony was notorious for having months-old comics on his newsstand. Loved that cover, though! PS: Oh, and I also picked up a pretty good copy of this in a bin of old comics for 35 cents. The first story was so-so. Wish I still had it, but I lent it to a buddy after I read it, and I don't think he ever returned it. Oh, well. Happy April First, everybody. 
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Post by brutalis on Apr 1, 2020 13:38:24 GMT -5
April 1970 and summer of 1980 bought used Avengers 77 and FF 100.
This last summer 2019 bought online and used: Ringo Kid 4, Texas Rangers 78 and Two Gun Kid 93.
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Post by Farrar on Apr 2, 2020 11:46:00 GMT -5
What an exceptional panoply of covers, all so eye-catching. I know in some cases the interior art wasn't of the same quality, but still, if I had seen these on the stands back then I would've bought that Aquaman comic, or that Batman comic because of the Beatles, or some of the others. The covers are just that striking. But I NEVER saw any of these on sale in my neighborhood candy stores, except for Detective #400 (which I'll post about later on). Maybe they were sold out before I got a chance to get to the stores in question; or maybe my stores just didn't stock these comics (Archies and Harveys were plentiful). I guess I should be grateful that one of my neighborhood stores regularly carried the Marvels I read, but it sure looks like I missed out on a lot when it came to DC back then. |
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Post by Farrar on Apr 8, 2020 13:02:28 GMT -5
April 1970
DC My Adventure subscription had ended, so the only DC I had from that month off the stands was Detective #400. I was buying this comic on a regular basis for the Batgirl back-up feature, but I would also read the Batman story too. This was the debut of Man-Bat...he reminded me of Sauron from last year's X-Men. Gotta love Neal Adams. But I have to admit this was a touching story on its own, with great (of course) Adams-Giordano art. And for this 400th celebration issue, the Batgirl feature was actually a team-up story with Robin (at the time Batgirl's feature alternated with Robin's). However he's only in this story for one panel, as Dick. So for all intents and purposes it's really a Batgirl story, or at least this issue's installment, part one, is. The story continues into next month's #401. Gil Kane was still penciling the Batgirl feature, but I missed Anderson's inking; here we get Vinnie Colletta. Now, I am a Colletta fan, but by this time (1970) his work wasn't as effective (IMO) as it had been in the mid-late 1960s. Oh well. Anyway, back then thanks to the photos I'd seen in 1969's Fantastic Four Annual #7, I readily recognized Kane's face in this panel:  I think Gil also snuck himself into Detective #397. And looking at this today, I believe the guy with the glasses is Julius Schwartz, 'Tec's editor (I didn't know what he looked like back then).
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Post by chadwilliam on Apr 8, 2020 20:23:07 GMT -5
April 1970
Batman 222 Not my favorite kind of Batman story; he didn’t mesh with the “real world” too well, and by this time the “Paul is dead” bit had aged out. Fads don’t do well in comics because of the long lead time., and at DC, it was an unfortunate reminder of how out of it they seemed by the end of the go-go checks phase. I don't think I ever realized before that when this issue hit the stands, The Beatles were still together as far as the world knew. Though they had broken up in 1969, that story wouldn't break until Paul announced it on April 10, 1970. Sure the "Paul is Dead" bit/Sgt Pepper uniforms might have seemed dated even then, but to have this on the stands a week and a half before the break up doesn't actually sound like bad timing to me. Incidentally, I love the twist in this story (actually, the band is called The Twists which I'm now starting to wonder if this was meant as a clue of sorts...) that their Paul McCartney stand-in is just fine... it's the other three who are dead. One of those "if you want to hide something, hide it in plain sight" mysteries where we learn that these pseudo-Beatles don't want anyone to glom on to the fact that it's the erstaz-John, George, and Ringo who died in a plane crash, so they start dropping clues that it's their only surviving member who's a fake. Everyone's too busy looking at "Saul" to notice the others. Pretty clever! |
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Post by Prince Hal on Apr 8, 2020 21:27:11 GMT -5
Well, it was a nice bit of serendipitous luck about the break-up, but that wasn’t the come-on in the story or on the cover. “Sgt. Pepper” came out three years previous to this issue, so featuring the Twists’ version was kind of tone-deaf. An “Abbey Road” take-off would have been more apt, especially because it, too, contained clues to Paul’s being dead and was part of the impetus for the whole fad. You’re right, though, chadwilliam, the “twist” is actually pretty clever. |
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Post by chadwilliam on Apr 9, 2020 0:21:06 GMT -5
Well, it was a nice bit of serendipitous luck about the break-up, but that wasn’t the come-on in the story or on the cover. “Sgt. Pepper” came out three years previous to this issue, so featuring the Twists’ version was kind of tone-deaf. An “Abbey Road” take-off would have been more apt, especially because it, too, contained clues to Paul’s being dead and was part of the impetus for the whole fad. You’re right, though, chadwilliam , the “twist” is actually pretty clever. Not quite Abbey Road, but I just noticed that like Paul, Glennan isn't wearing any shoes on that cover. Too subtle to be instantly recognizable as an Abbey Road homage, but it's nice that it's there. While Sgt Pepper was three years old at this time, the whole Paul is Dead thing didn't actually start until Oct, 1969. For this to come out six months later actually seems pretty on the ball for a company like DC. And, wow, I also hadn't realized that this issue coincided with the first Man-Bat appearance over in Tec. Pretty great showing for the Gotham Guardian that month! |
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Post by Farrar on Apr 11, 2020 12:10:34 GMT -5
Chad and Hal, great comments! I don't think I ever realized before that when this issue hit the stands, The Beatles were still together as far as the world knew. Though they had broken up in 1969, that story wouldn't break until Paul announced it on April 10, 1970. Sure the "Paul is Dead" bit/Sgt Pepper uniforms might have seemed dated even then, but to have this on the stands a week and a half before the break up doesn't actually sound like bad timing to me. Fwiw according to Mike's, this issue hit the stands on or around April 21st...so, after the break-up announcement. Here's a house ad from that time  As mentioned, I never got this issue when at the time of its publication, but I certainly would have picked it up had I seen it back then--that cover! In April 1970 I had just gotten a transistor radio and "Let It Be" (the single) was all over the AM stations, so seeing the "lads" on a cover like this would have been irresistible to me. Also I love that the band's full name was the "Oliver Twists." Oliver! the movie was a big hit, released in 1968 but even in 1970 it was still playing in some neighborhood cinemas, at least in my neighborhood and some surrounding ones. My family wasn't well off financially at all, so we didn't go to movies--but Oliver! was an exception and my parents took us kids to see it. It was the first movie I ever saw in the movie theatre. And then it became a staple at my elementary school; we students must have presented the play for 2 or 3 years in a row. Lots of great songs. Also interesting to me in hindsight how at the end of the story it's Saul who's the sole survivor; in 1970 Paul had just released his first solo album (April 17). And then there's Saul and his new band, Phoenix...that name reminds me of Paul's (later) Wings. 
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Barry (Windsor-)Smith. Well, we all know how that turned out 
