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Post by Roquefort Raider on Apr 1, 2020 16:14:26 GMT -5
That's funny, as for me it was the opposite: I missed Untold Legend of the Batman #1 but landed issues 2 and 3 in the following months. It took me decades to finally find and read issue #1!!!
April 1980...
Conan the barbarian #112, my first subscription issue! But not a great comic. Barely passable. Mind you, a passable Roy Thomas Conan comic is still better than anything done by the DeMatteis, Jones and Fleisher that would follow on this title.
Fantasy Masterpieces #8, and more Silver Surfer goodness! There was a time such reprint comics were the only possible way for the hoi polloi to read those true classics.
Man-Thing #5. I had subscribed after reading older issues (in French reprint comics) and was hoping for Mike Ploog art. I got Don Perlin. I liked Perlin’s art on Solar, many years later… but Swamp Thing wasn’t really suited for him.
Marvel Spotlight #7. starring Star-Lord. I remember buying that on the same day I took my grandma to Ponderosa, a steak house she really liked. Happy memories.
Master of Kung Fu #90. After what I saw as many years of meandering, the book was starting to find its new identity. Not a retread of the Starlin or Gulacy years, but its own new thing.
Micronauts #19. Yay!!! Pat Broderick’s detailed art (that I knew from an issue of Marvel Spotlight with Captain Marvel) replaced the uninspired Chaykin breakdowns that had been such a disappointment after Golden’s magical run! (I confess I would tire of Broderick’s art after a while, probably because of Danny Bulanadi’s inks which didn’t suit Pat’s pencils… but at the time, I was cheering!)
Rom #8. I would have bought it, at that price, even if all I got was the cover. Michael Golden!!!
Savage She-Hulk #6. That comic was actually a lot of fun, despite my lack of enthusiasm for Mike Vosburg’s super-hero work. (I preferred his work on John Carter and, later, on Archer & Armstrong).
Savage sword of Conan #53. It’s so good that “Conan the liberator” is finally over!
Star Trek #4. That’s the Marvel series that followed the film’s adaptation in a Marvel Super Special. It was far, far less interesting thatn the DC book that came later. Haunted Houses in space? Oy… what’s next, a space pirate with a robot parrot on his shoulder?
X-Men #135: one of the very best comics of its era. I bought an extra copy, not to slab it (slabbing didn’t exist back then anyway) but because I couldn’t wait for my subscription issue to arrive!!!
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Post by berkley on Apr 1, 2020 16:31:50 GMT -5
Man-Thing #5. I had subscribed after reading older issues (in French reprint comics) and was hoping for Mike Ploog art. I got Don Perlin. I liked Perlin’s art on Solar, many years later… but Swamp Thing wasn’t really suited for him. More importantly to me, it really was not suited to Chris Claremont either.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Apr 1, 2020 20:25:29 GMT -5
Man-Thing #5. I had subscribed after reading older issues (in French reprint comics) and was hoping for Mike Ploog art. I got Don Perlin. I liked Perlin’s art on Solar, many years later… but Swamp Thing wasn’t really suited for him. More importantly to me, it really was not suited to Chris Claremont either. At the time I didn’t mind because I was a Claremont (X-Men!) groupie, but upon re-reading those issues a few years back I found them rife with Claremontisms...
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Post by EdoBosnar on Apr 2, 2020 4:31:13 GMT -5
Man-Thing #5. I had subscribed after reading older issues (in French reprint comics) and was hoping for Mike Ploog art. I got Don Perlin. I liked Perlin’s art on Solar, many years later… but Swamp Thing wasn’t really suited for him. More importantly to me, it really was not suited to Chris Claremont either. I never read the revived Man-Thing back then, rather I read them more recently, as they are included in the second Man-Thing Essentials volume. Those are ... not very good stories. It's not so much that they're bad, they're just entirely forgettable.
Otherwise, April 1980 was another big month for me in this regard, as I was right in the thick of my personal Golden Age for comics reading. I easily had over 20 titles that month, including, obviously, X-men #135, Untold Legend of Batman #1 (still the definitive canon for Batman as far as I'm concerned) and the TRS-80 Superman comic - that one was handed out in school, because our little 4-classroom parochial school bought one of those computers. Looking over the covers at Mike's Newsstand, a few that catch my eye and spark memories now include a few of DC's offerings:
Normally, I didn't get either Superman or Action Comics off of the spinner racks; in the preceding years, all of my issues of those series were from Whitman 3-packs. However, those gender-swapped characters on the cover really caught my eye and I had to see what it was all about. I still kind of wish that it was a regular alternate Earth that would have been revisited, instead of *spoiler alert* an elaborate ruse devised by Mr. Mxyzptlk. DC's digest program, meanwhile, was in full swing and I was loving it. Of course, most of the stuff I got was Marvel, so besides the usual suspects like X-men, Avengers, Iron Man, Daredevil and several Spider-man titles, there was also these: I was loving all of Marvel's reprints; like Roquefort Raider noted, it was a very cheap way to get some classic stories, and also some gorgeous classical art by John Buscema: besides the issue of Fantasy Masterpieces he mentioned, there was also these Sub-mariner and Avengers stories. In the wake of the preceding year's Project Pegasus saga, Marvel 2-in-1 was still going strong as far as I was concerned.
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Post by brutalis on Apr 2, 2020 7:55:04 GMT -5
April 1980
Spider-Man 206 Avengers 197 Batman 325 Battlestar Galactica 17 Captain America 247 Cerebus 15 Daredevil 165 Defenders 85 FF 220 Iron Man 136 JLA 180 LOSH 265 Marvel Spotlight 7: STARLORD MTU 95 MTIO 65 MOKF 90 Micronauts 19 ROM 8 Shogun warriors 18 Spect Spider-Man 44 Star Trek 3 Star Wars 37 Thor 297 Warlord 35 Weird War Tales 89: Starlin WWII Gorillas in Nazi uniforms with rifles? Gotta HAVE it X-Men 135
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Post by beccabear67 on Apr 2, 2020 15:36:26 GMT -5
I remember buying X-Men #135 and then hiking around some wooded area for awhile with it. The one and only time I folded a comic and put it in my pack pocket. Could I really have ever been that sort of primitive creature? I guess so. I did not want to wait to buy it after or later and not be able to find a copy, not with that dramatic cover!
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Post by realjla on Apr 2, 2020 20:38:00 GMT -5
I remember buying X-Men #135 and then hiking around some wooded area for awhile with it. The one and only time I folded a comic and put it in my pack pocket. Could I really have ever been that sort of primitive creature? I guess so. I did not want to wait to buy it after or later and not be able to find a copy, not with that dramatic cover! Not even folding in half could contain the power of PHOENIX!😁
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Post by realjla on Apr 2, 2020 21:02:06 GMT -5
More importantly to me, it really was not suited to Chris Claremont either. I never read the revived Man-Thing back then, rather I read them more recently, as they are included in the second Man-Thing Essentials volume. Those are ... not very good stories. It's not so much that they're bad, they're just entirely forgettable.
Otherwise, April 1980 was another big month for me in this regard, as I was right in the thick of my personal Golden Age for comics reading. I easily had over 20 titles that month, including, obviously, X-men #135, Untold Legend of Batman #1 (still the definitive canon for Batman as far as I'm concerned) and the TRS-80 Superman comic - that one was handed out in school, because our little 4-classroom parochial school bought one of those computers. Looking over the covers at Mike's Newsstand, a few that catch my eye and spark memories now include a few of DC's offerings:
Normally, I didn't get either Superman or Action Comics off of the spinner racks; in the preceding years, all of my issues of those series were from Whitman 3-packs. However, those gender-swapped characters on the cover really caught my eye and I had to see what it was all about. I still kind of wish that it was a regular alternate Earth that would have been revisited, instead of *spoiler alert* an elaborate ruse devised by Mr. Mxyzptlk. DC's digest program, meanwhile, was in full swing and I was loving it. Of course, most of the stuff I got was Marvel, so besides the usual suspects like X-men, Avengers, Iron Man, Daredevil and several Spider-man titles, there was also these: I was loving all of Marvel's reprints; like Roquefort Raider noted, it was a very cheap way to get some classic stories, and also some gorgeous classical art by John Buscema: besides the issue of Fantasy Masterpieces he mentioned, there was also these Sub-mariner and Avengers stories. In the wake of the preceding year's Project Pegasus saga, Marvel 2-in-1 was still going strong as far as I was concerned.
I had the Superman issue, Untold Legend of Batman, and the two digests, plus: Batman # 325(which had an even better splash page, showing a swinging Batman kicking Gordon off a rooftop, while saying, '-DIE, COMMISSIONER!' DCCP # 23(more of a 'non-team-up') JLA # 180(part 2 of the story where Firestorm joins) Jonah Hex # 38(a rare instance of me getting that title, but a good 'treasure hunt' tale) Wonder Woman # 269(also not a regular title for me, part 1 of a 'WW quits' 3-parter). Adventure # 473(got it more for Plastic Man) Action # 509 (had the Radio Shack story as a 'special insert', most likely as a test run for other instances of that format which soon followed(like DCCP #26). Brave and Bold # 164(not by Aparo, due to 'Untold Legend', more of a sci-fi story better suited to Hawkman) Detective # 492(no, Batgirl didn't die) Super Friends # 34(I eventually traded it for some 1970s MAD issues) Richie Rich Digest Stories # 7(I actually still have it). Marvel Team Up # 95(later back-issue purchase).
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Post by dbutler69 on Apr 3, 2020 16:43:13 GMT -5
Bought back in the day: Avengers #197 Fantastic Four #220 Justice League of America #180 Legion of Super-Heroes #265 Micronauts #19 X-Men #135
Bought much more recently: Defenders #85 Incredible Hulk #249 Marvel Team-Up #95 Marvel Two-in-One #65 Master of Kung Fu #90 Rom #8 Shogun Warriors #18 Thor #297
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Post by Ozymandias on Apr 7, 2020 10:03:20 GMT -5
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Post by dbutler69 on Apr 7, 2020 18:39:46 GMT -5
That's funny, as for me it was the opposite: I missed Untold Legend of the Batman #1 but landed issues 2 and 3 in the following months. It took me decades to finally find and read issue #1!!! April 1980... Conan the barbarian #112, my first subscription issue! But not a great comic. Barely passable. Mind you, a passable Roy Thomas Conan comic is still better than anything done by the DeMatteis, Jones and Fleisher that would follow on this title. Fantasy Masterpieces #8, and more Silver Surfer goodness! There was a time such reprint comics were the only possible way for the hoi polloi to read those true classics. Man-Thing #5. I had subscribed after reading older issues (in French reprint comics) and was hoping for Mike Ploog art. I got Don Perlin. I liked Perlin’s art on Solar, many years later… but Swamp Thing wasn’t really suited for him. Marvel Spotlight #7. starring Star-Lord. I remember buying that on the same day I took my grandma to Ponderosa, a steak house she really liked. Happy memories. Master of Kung Fu #90. After what I saw as many years of meandering, the book was starting to find its new identity. Not a retread of the Starlin or Gulacy years, but its own new thing. Micronauts #19. Yay!!! Pat Broderick’s detailed art (that I knew from an issue of Marvel Spotlight with Captain Marvel) replaced the uninspired Chaykin breakdowns that had been such a disappointment after Golden’s magical run! (I confess I would tire of Broderick’s art after a while, probably because of Danny Bulanadi’s inks which didn’t suit Pat’s pencils… but at the time, I was cheering!) Rom #8. I would have bought it, at that price, even if all I got was the cover. Michael Golden!!! Savage She-Hulk #6. That comic was actually a lot of fun, despite my lack of enthusiasm for Mike Vosburg’s super-hero work. (I preferred his work on John Carter and, later, on Archer & Armstrong). Savage sword of Conan #53. It’s so good that “Conan the liberator” is finally over! Star Trek #4. That’s the Marvel series that followed the film’s adaptation in a Marvel Super Special. It was far, far less interesting thatn the DC book that came later. Haunted Houses in space? Oy… what’s next, a space pirate with a robot parrot on his shoulder? X-Men #135: one of the very best comics of its era. I bought an extra copy, not to slab it (slabbing didn’t exist back then anyway) but because I couldn’t wait for my subscription issue to arrive!!! Yeah, I definitely agree with you on Micronauts and X-Men. The highlights of this month!
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Post by Ozymandias on Apr 8, 2020 3:16:27 GMT -5
Conan the barbarian #112, my first subscription issue! But not a great comic. Barely passable. Mind you, a passable Roy Thomas Conan comic is still better than anything done by the DeMatteis, Jones and Fleisher that would follow on this title. Micronauts #19. Yay!!! Pat Broderick’s detailed art (that I knew from an issue of Marvel Spotlight with Captain Marvel) replaced the uninspired Chaykin breakdowns that had been such a disappointment after Golden’s magical run! (I confess I would tire of Broderick’s art after a while, probably because of Danny Bulanadi’s inks which didn’t suit Pat’s pencils… but at the time, I was cheering!) Savage sword of Conan #53. It’s so good that “Conan the liberator” is finally over! X-Men #135: one of the very best comics of its era. I bought an extra copy, not to slab it (slabbing didn’t exist back then anyway) but because I couldn’t wait for my subscription issue to arrive!!! Yeah, after Belit's death, the comic entered a slumber from which it wouldn't recover until Jim Owsley took the writing reins. Mind you, I didn't say Christopher Priest!
Honest question, can you think of an artist that benefited from Bulanadi’s inks? Somebody lacking on the most basic skills I would guess, but style wise, he destroyed any pencils he laid his hands on.
SSoC #52 is the last one in my collection, 'nuff said!
The X-Men were know in Spain as "the damned X". The publisher that had the rights to Marvel comics since the 60's, after several attempts, finally went belly up at the end of 83', but the publisher that followed (they actually co-existed for over a year), couldn't get X-Men, Iron Man or Captain America out. Among other comics that had been on the stands during 83', those main titles wouldn't be free of contractual obligations for a couple of years. Even then, X-Men had to continue where the previous publisher had left, with #138, and all the Dark Phoenix saga would remain unavailable until the 90's!
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Apr 8, 2020 5:26:53 GMT -5
Yeah, after Belit's death, the comic entered a slumber from which it wouldn't recover until Jim Owsley took the writing reins. Mind you, I didn't say Christopher Priest! Agreed! There were a handful lf good issues in there (the one by Zelenetz and one by DeMatteis come to mind), but the book was treading water (and pretty much sinking) until Owsley showed up and turned it around instantly. I hate to say this, but... no. On most pencils, I downright hated his inking. Augh!!! I had never heard of that, but I feel for all our Spanish friends. The frustration must have been terrible! (or X-cruciating, to make a bad pun).
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Post by Ozymandias on Apr 8, 2020 12:07:10 GMT -5
You can bet it was, prices for the Byrne run (old publisher) reached the stratosphere (30€ for #137*) and to make matters worse, issues before 127 were in B&W. Not to mention none of them had the original covers, as you can see from the pictures I've posted before in this thread. Despite all of those shortcomings, the few second hand copies that appeared every now and them, disappeared almost instantly. Because the publisher wasn't around anymore, there was no back issue service, and because their warehouse had burned up (as rumor had it), there was also no stock left (only a part of that was cleared out in sales). Given the situation, I never could track most of them down and ended buying the TPB, way before I started buying the original editions. It cost me a pretty penny, but it was way cheaper than the alternative. (*) 5000 pesetas, back then (would translate to around 150€ today), and not for an old comic but one that had been on the stands, just a couple of years ago.
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Post by EdoBosnar on May 4, 2020 12:49:47 GMT -5
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