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Post by hondobrode on Feb 19, 2017 14:19:12 GMT -5
Not one of, but indeed the very first mini-series. Wow! I stand educated! Just sayin'
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Post by Hoosier X on Feb 20, 2017 2:53:30 GMT -5
I'm up to #107 in the Spider-Man #99 to #115 run. This has included the infamous three-parter where Peter tries to make a serum to cure him of his spider-powers and instead grows four extra arms! (Well, it was infamous when I was a kid.) He ends up tangling with Morbius and the Lizard. I read it as a kid when it was reprinted in a Marvel Treasury Edition. It wasn't one of my favorites back then. So it's not a storyline that I've read a bunch if times. I don't think I've read it for almost 30 years! I liked it better this time around. It's Bronze Age Bonkers! Great Gil Kane art! Then there's a two-part story where Pete, Gwen and J. Jonah Jameson go to the Savage Land and meet Ka-Zar, Kraven and the tragic giant alien named Gog. Wonderfully silly. And then #105 to #107 features a Spider Slayer storyline. Like, what is wrong with Spencer Smythe? What a jerk! The "next issue" blurb at the end of #107 hints that Spidey is going to Vietnam. Oh, I can hardly wait! I've never read the next two issues. I bet it's going to tackle the Vietnam conflict with tact and an heartfelt understanding of the region's past.
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Feb 20, 2017 3:15:21 GMT -5
Superman: The Krypton Chronicles #1-3 (1981). This was apparently one of the first "mini-series" ever made. Fancy that. Number one was dead boring. Two was somewhat better; I only skimmed it sometimes. Three, though, was flat-out excellent, to the point where I got something in my eye a few pages from the end. Hard to nail the ending, but nail it they did. Worth the hunt. Not one of, but indeed the very first mini-series. Got your Krypton mini-series mixed up The first DC mini-series was the 1979 3 issue World Of Krypton. Guess they liked the sales and eventually did a sequel of sorts. They did another mini series (Vol 2) with the same title almost a decade later
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Post by hondobrode on Feb 20, 2017 19:12:41 GMT -5
As always Mr Ish is correct.
I knew that and got them switched around.
Liked both of those series.
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Feb 20, 2017 19:18:01 GMT -5
As always Mr Ish is correct. If I was always correct, Shax would be forced to create a pudding sub-forum
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Post by Hoosier X on Feb 24, 2017 11:01:46 GMT -5
I'm up to #111 in the Amazing Spider-Man #99 to #115 run. I love this one! It's one of the first back issues I ever got hold of. Back in the mid-1970s, my dad (who loved mystery stories and would read Agatha Christie novels by the barrel) frequented a used-book store called Alma's, a hole-in-the-wall establishment in downtown Anderson, Indiana, run by a sweet old lady (Alma, I presume) and she usually had a box of tattered comics in a box behind the counter. They were ten cents each. That's where I got Spidey #111, #114, #125, #127, #129, #131 and #149 (which was only a few months old at the time). It seemed like quite a haul! Spidey #111 was the first Kraven story I ever read. I knew the character vaguely from the Spider-Man cartoon show. But it was cool to see an actual Kraven story. Kraven was wounded in his last Spider-Man appearance (just a few issues earlier in #103 and #104) when he was knocked off a cliff by Ka-Zar. But he persuades a gullible fellow named Martin Blank (also known as the Gibbon) to help him get his revenge. And he makes the Gibbon his mind-slave with magic jungle potions and takes over the Gibbon's mind to attack Spider-Man. Great story. I took a little break from the #99 to #115 run because reading my first Kraven story made me think of two things. 1. I've heard so much about Kraven's Last Hunt that I've been wanting to read it for some time now. I can hardly believe it's thirty years old! It still seems like a recent comic to me. 2. My favorite Kraven story is the one in Amazing Spider-Man #34 and I haven't read it for quite a long time. So that's what I've been reading the last few days. I've read the first four parts of Kraven's Last Hunt. It's pretty good. Especially the Mike Zeck art. But (so far) it's not making me change my mind about my favorite Kraven story. I read Amazing Spider-Man #34 a couple of nights ago. It holds up so well. Kraven lures Spider-Man into a condemned tenement building that he's filled with traps. Some of the local, ubiquitous, generic, fedora-wearing New York gangsters see Spidey go into the building and they think "Now's our chance to get Spider-Man!" Silver Age bananashenanigans ensue. It's wonderful! One of my Top Five (well, maybe Top Ten because it's all so great!) issues of the Ditko era of Spider-Man.
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Post by Rob Allen on Feb 24, 2017 12:42:43 GMT -5
I really liked the Gibbon when this story came out, and hoped he'd become a prominent Marvel character.
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Post by Cei-U! on Feb 24, 2017 16:54:24 GMT -5
I really liked the Gibbon when this story came out, and hoped he'd become a prominent Marvel character. According to Stan Lee himself, he was inspired to create Gibbon after visiting Tacoma's Point Defiance Zoo, which had (and has) a troop of gibbons among its population. Stan was in town guest lecturing at the University of Puget Sound (the college I would've attended had U-Dub turned me down). Cei-U! I summon the hometown connection! Also, I drew up a proposal back in the day for a mini-series called Force Five that would've teamed Gibbon with Madame Masque, Machine Man, The Missing Link and Stingray. Alas for Marty Blank, he would've been shot down in cold blood by Masque in the final issue. Maybe it's just as well I didn't get a chance to write it.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 25, 2017 0:31:31 GMT -5
I've been reading Amazing Spider-Man Masterworks, and have just finished issues 1-50 and a couple annuals. Now I'm picking Fantastic Four back up, having read the first 30 FFs thanks to the Masterworks program. I have three more FF Masterworks on hand, and when I finish those I'll be through the first 60 issues of Fantastic Four.
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Post by Hoosier X on Feb 25, 2017 13:20:34 GMT -5
I've been reading Amazing Spider-Man Masterworks, and have just finished issues 1-50 and a couple annuals. Now I'm picking Fantastic Four back up, having read the first 30 FFs thanks to the Masterworks program. I have three more FF Masterworks on hand, and when I finish those I'll be through the first 60 issues of Fantastic Four. I have Marvel Masterworks: Amazing Spider-Man, Volumes #1 to #4, and I doubt very much that there's any series of a comparable length that I've read as many times as I've read those issues. Spider-Man #1 to #40 is my favorite run ever! I also have Marvel Masterworks: Fantastic Four, Volumes #1 to #5, and I've read those quite a few times as well. FF from about #36 to ... well, if you're OK with a few wobbles here and there, I'd extend that up to #94, is also phenomenal. (And now that I've read a lot of the late Silver Age and early Bronze Age Spideys that I hadn't read before, I'm thinking that Spider-Man was quite an AMAZING comic from the get-go all the way up to ... I dunno, Ross Andru's last issue?
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Post by Deleted on Feb 25, 2017 15:28:12 GMT -5
I've been reading Amazing Spider-Man Masterworks, and have just finished issues 1-50 and a couple annuals. Now I'm picking Fantastic Four back up, having read the first 30 FFs thanks to the Masterworks program. I have three more FF Masterworks on hand, and when I finish those I'll be through the first 60 issues of Fantastic Four. The first 60 issues of the Fantastic Four were incredible and I do have those Masterworks as well and I often read them on an annual basis just to relive the glory days of Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Girl, Human Torch, and the Ever-Lovin ... Blue Eye Thing. Man, the Comics done in those days were gems.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 26, 2017 23:15:08 GMT -5
I had a chance yesterday to pick up the Masterworks reprinting the Cap stories from TOS 59-91 for just $20, so I took it. Not sure when I'll get around to reading that, but maybe if I feel like taking a break from FF it'll be soon. It's a nice problem to have.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 26, 2017 23:24:49 GMT -5
I'm not working with a large budget, but I only buy hardback Masterworks because that's what I like, so this could be a plodding process. Then again, I only read maybe an average of one Masterworks or one and a half a month, so I'm about reading at the pace my budget can afford to pick them up at.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 27, 2017 9:04:27 GMT -5
I've been reading Amazing Spider-Man Masterworks, and have just finished issues 1-50 and a couple annuals. Now I'm picking Fantastic Four back up, having read the first 30 FFs thanks to the Masterworks program. I have three more FF Masterworks on hand, and when I finish those I'll be through the first 60 issues of Fantastic Four. The first 60 issues of the Fantastic Four were incredible and I do have those Masterworks as well and I often read them on an annual basis just to relive the glory days of Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Girl, Human Torch, and the Ever-Lovin ... Blue Eye Thing. Man, the Comics done in those days were gems. Nice. Those first 40 or so Spideys might be my favorite run ever as well. Having ended my reading at issue 50,:i need to get more of the Amazing Spider-Man Masterworks so I can eventually finish up the Silver Age Amazing Spider-Man Comics and get into the Bronze Age ones. I'd like to at least get through the Andru issues as well. To pick up the next Amazing Spider-Man Masterworks I need looks like it'll set me back about $100 or so, and that's likely to slow me down. Where there's a will there's a way though.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 27, 2017 9:14:39 GMT -5
Somewhere in the first 20 or so Amazing Spider-Man issues it states Aunt May's actual age. She was in her late 50s, I believe. I wish I'd made a note of it. Does anyone know offhand her stated age? I may have to look for it. I think it may have been 58. I think they draw her to look much older than that, and they often refer to how dang old she is. Well, I recently turned 57. I need to find out if I'm older than Aunt May. That'll be discouraging. Lol
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