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Post by Roquefort Raider on Sept 1, 2020 11:58:57 GMT -5
September 1980... Back to school for the last year of High School (which ends a year earlier in our system) and the chance to buy some comics from the newsstand across the street.
Slim pickings, though.
Conan the barbarian #117, written by Larry Hama as I recall, since the book waited for its next regular writer. Conan's mom was at least drawn correctly... but the Cimmerian was overly verbose and philosophical.
Howard the Duck magazine #8. Nice Marshall Rogers art, fitting what is essentially a Batman spoof.
King Conan #4, the conclusion of the long conflict between the Cimmerian and his perennial enemy, the wizard Thoth-Amon. It's a fair conclusion, if a completely unimaginative one. It was adapted from a story by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter, so don't blame Roy Thomas.
Micronauts #24. Great Golden cover still, and a back-up feature gives us more of the Microverse. The book was definitely improving after the dismal months that followed the initial 12 issue run.
Savage Sword of Conan #58. Lots of nudity! Bondage! Violence! Antisocial behaviour! A comic after Dr. Wertham's heart!
Savage Sword #59 (I wasn't aware two issues had come out the same month). This one is a "What if..?" of sorts, and doesn't count in Marvel's continuity. It 's a different take on a previous adaptation that had seen print in Conan the Barbarian #37 (the one with the famous Neal Adams artwork). This new take has remarkably good art by Mike Vosburg and Alfredo Alcala (I wasn't a fan of Vosburg in those days).
X-Men #140, another brilliant instalment in the Claremont-Byrne-Austin-Wein run. They were the Beatles, man.
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Post by Ozymandias on Sept 1, 2020 15:07:24 GMT -5
Conan the barbarian #117, written by Larry Hama as I recall, since the book waited for its next regular writer. Conan's mom was at least drawn correctly... but the Cimmerian was overly verbose and philosophical. King Conan #4, the conclusion of the long conflict between the Cimmerian and his perennial enemy, the wizard Thoth-Amon. It's a fair conclusion, if a completely unimaginative one. It was adapted from a story by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter, so don't blame Roy Thomas. Savage Sword of Conan #58. Lots of nudity! Bondage! Violence! Antisocial behaviour! A comic after Dr. Wertham's heart! X-Men #140, another brilliant instalment in the Claremont-Byrne-Austin-Wein run. They were the Beatles, man. Around here, we were quite close to the American edition (albeit still in B&W). Issues 111 and 112 came out with this curious cover:
I'm not entirely sure whether I bought it in September or later. The color edition by the subsequent publisher I bought and read for sure in the 80's, and tthis comic was in my collection, but I can't say if the version I originally read was in color or in B&W, so this one should get a question mark.
L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter were kind of hit and miss, but it was preferable to what the comic writers concocted on their own.
SSoC #58, let me check... yep, the last issue in my collection.
They were the Beatles, indeed, but just about to pass the torch to Michael Jackson.
These two I bought along with the rest of the collection (just 15 issues) directly from the publisher, my first ever mail order. I still remember when I found them in the mailbox (it would be more precise to say that I remember the memory).
The last one from this publisher, just two months later, a new one would take over the rights of the character, and they really messed it up.
The cover looks "inspired" on FF #1, but the comic actually contains material from FF #54-56.
This looks like and original cover for issues 110 and 111 (Iron Man).
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Sept 1, 2020 15:22:05 GMT -5
L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter were kind of hit and miss, but it was preferable to what the comic writers concocted on their own. Not including Roy Thomas, I hope! It's only after his departure that we saw how bad a Conan comic could be. But I'm not a de Camp and Carter hater either. Many of their Conanizations of Howard stories work for me, and apart from the utterly dreadful "Conan and the Spider God" (on which Carter didn't work), their pastiches were better than Offut's and most of the TOR books that came out in the '80s and '90s. I think de Camp is vilified by Howard fans more for his opportunistic and unwarranted alterations of the originals than because his stuff was actually unreadable.
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Post by Ozymandias on Sept 1, 2020 15:30:27 GMT -5
Not including Roy Thomas, I hope! It's only after his departure that we saw how bad a Conan comic could be. Thomas was better than the writers who came after, he at least had a good measure of the character, but without a good literary substrate, his comics dropped in quality. And then Owsley came along, and he was just as good as much of the adapted material.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Sept 1, 2020 15:40:33 GMT -5
I haven't done this in a while, but what the hey.
I bought a LOT of books 40 years ago. I'm honestly not sure where I came up with the money.
Adventure Comics #478 Amazing Spider-Man #211 Amazing Spider-Man Annual #14 Avengers #202 Batman #330 DC Comics Presents #28 Detective Comics #497 Flash #292 Legion of Super-Heroes #270 Marvel Team-Up #100 Moon Knight #2 New Teen Titans #2 Warlord #40 X-Men #140
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Post by tonebone on Sept 2, 2020 14:18:02 GMT -5
Star Trek (Marvel) #9 Micronauts #24 ROM # 13 Marvel Premiere #57 (Doctor Who!!!) JLA # 185 DC Comics Presents #28
This was well-before I went nuts and every scraped-together dime was spent on comics. If I remember correctly my mom had subscribed me to Star Trek and Micronauts.
I bought JLA because of Darkesid, DC Comics Presents because of Mongul. ROM I bought whenever I found it.
The Marvel Premiere I bought because it was the first time I had seen or heard of Doctor Who outside of my local PBS station. It never occurred to me that anyone else in the world would be a fan.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Oct 1, 2020 12:06:03 GMT -5
October 1980! This getting older ain't gonna end well, I tell ya!
Captain America #253, in which I was blown away by Byrne and Rubinstein's brilliant rendition of the good Captain. It's amazing how they convey depth, light and shadow in this spooky vampire tale. Great, great take on the character!
Conan #118, in which Jenna, a supporting character from issues 6 and 8 to 11, returns. While not having been seen much, Jenna had made quite an impression; she was always mentioned whenever Conan remembered the women of his past. Alas, this story is pretty generic.
Man-Thing #8, in which we revisit a classic from the Gerber era. In a less classic way.
Micronauts #25, without a Michael Golden cover... Oh. no! The final reminder of the title's glory days is not there any more!!!
X-Men #141, part 1 of Days of Future Past. That storyline was later milked, exploited and abused for all it was worth, and then its corpse was exhumed and abused again until it was reduced to tatters, and then it was cloned and exploited to death the same way again... but BOY! did the original deliver. An absolute classic of a bronze age comic.
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Post by beccabear67 on Oct 1, 2020 13:28:40 GMT -5
October 1980 cover date
Amazing Adventures (X-Men reprints) #11 Amazing Spider-Man #209 (the start of my Kraven infatuation?) Avengers #200 Batman #328 Captain America #250 Defenders #88 Fantastic Four #223 Fantasy Masterpieces (Silver Surfer reprints) #11 Flash #290 Ghost Rider #49 Iron Man #139 Marvel Super Action (Avengers reprints) #24 Marvel Two-in-One #68 Marvel's Greatest Comics (F4 reprints) #93 Micronauts #22 Rom #11 Savage She-Hulk #9 Spider-Woman #31 Star Wars #40 (last issue of the title I would buy new) Tales to Astonish (Sub-Mariner reprints) #11 X-Men #138
And a little later as a back issue: DC Comics Presents #26 Doctor Strange #43 Ghosts #93 Green Lantern #133 Legion of Super-Heroes #268 Marvel Team-Up #98 (much later) Micronauts Annual #2 Mystery in Space #112 Thor #300 (much later) Wonder Woman #272
On sale October 1980... Amazing Adventures (X-men reprints) #14 Amazing Spider-Man #212 Avengers #203 (having missed #202) Best of DC #9 (Batman digest reprints) Captain America #253 Daredevil #168 Detective Comics #498 Ghost Rider #52 Iron Man #142 Marvel Super Action (Avengers reprints) #27 Marvel Two-in-One #71 Marvel's Greatest Comics (F4 reprints) #96 Micronauts #25 Rom #14 Spider-Woman #34 Tales to Astonish (Sub-Mariner reprints) #14 X-Men #141
And a little later as a back issue: Green Lantern #136 Legion of Super-Heroes #271 New Teen Titans #3 Secrets of the Legion of Super-Heroes #1
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Post by codystarbuck on Oct 2, 2020 0:18:04 GMT -5
Amazing Adventures came to an end with this issue, which I had wanted to see since seeing a house ad in Avengers #10 (that was before my time, but my neighbor had a beat up copy, from a garage sale). Battlestar Glactica was also coming to an end. I only saw the pilot adaptation, then the Kobol issue and a couple right after (with Adama trapped inside some memory machine fishtank). So, I was wondering why the hell Jolly looked like that, on the cover, instead of like the guy on tv. I wasn't a Ditko fan, then, but I kind of liked what he did on Captain Universe, up to a point. The story wasn't that great. I had missed the debut of the character/concept in Micronauts and had these expectations and this wasn't what I expected. Kind of generic Marvel stuff. Micronauts had gotten good again and Fixee abd Mentallo made interesting foes, leading the Endeavor crew into the fight between SHIELD and HYDRA, which was a big plus, in my book. Missed Moon Knight 2, so the third issue was a no-brainer when I saw it. Conversely, I had gotten the first two New Teen Titans issues, but missed number three, this month. I did get Superman, with the pseudo-Asimov appearance. That was my first Superman comic in a year and a quarter. Aside from the two-part Omega Men crossover, down the road, it would be my last, until #400 and then the Moore finale and Byrne revamp.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 2, 2020 1:09:56 GMT -5
The only thing I bought off the racks at the time was Star Wars #43, continuing the Empire Strikes Back adaptation.
-M
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Oct 2, 2020 10:02:13 GMT -5
At this point I was buying a lot of comics. Certainly with less discernment than I should have.
Avengers #203 Batman #331 Brave & the Bold #170 Captain America #253 Daredevil #168 DC Comics Presents #29 Detective Comics #498 Justice League of America #186 Moon Knight #3 New Teen Titans #3 Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #50 Secrets of the Legion of Super-Heroes #1 Tales to Astonish #14 Thor #303 Warlord #41 X-Men #141
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Post by EdoBosnar on Oct 3, 2020 4:43:37 GMT -5
Still smack dab in the middle of my personal comics golden age at this point; I bought about 15 titles this month. Of course, Marvel boy that I was at the time, I definitely had the issues of my very favorite titles at the time, X-men #141, Captain America #253, Daredevil #168 and Iron Man #142, plus all three of Spidey's titles, ASM #212, PPSSM #50 and MTU #101. But there were a few gems from DC that I recall really liking that month: Flash #293 The cover story is actually the expanded "back-up" Firestorm feature in which he teams up with the Flash. Fun little story, with art by Perez to boot. JLA #186 More art by Perez! And a thoroughly enjoyable done-in-one story. Secrets of the Legion of Superheroes #1 Right on the heels of the recently concluded Untold Legend of Batman - which I ate up completely (and it's still my head canon for Batman). I was so on board for a similar deep dive into Legion history.
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Post by berkley on Oct 3, 2020 13:27:38 GMT -5
Daredevil #168 - was this the debut of Elektra? I didn't mind the character but she never really clicked with me the way she seemed to with a lot of fans. Still, this was overall a very good period for the series.
New Teen Titans #3 - I was very interested in seeing what Marv Wolfman was going to come up with at DC and followed this series from near the beginning. Perez was a bonus, though I still don't like his work from this period as much as his earlier stuff for Marvel.
X-Men #141 - I know this has become one of the most popular stories from the Claremont/Byrne X-Men but I can't recall much about it now, apart from that I enjoyed it at the time.
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Post by tonebone on Oct 7, 2020 14:10:23 GMT -5
Summer meant I was earning money; but, not much in the way of comics, yet. X-Men was one of my earliest issues that I bought myself (my cousin had some of the very early Cockrum issues) and the history of the X-Men was very well done by Claremont and Byrne. Micronauts had Pat Broderick livening up the art and we were getting into a great storyline, returning to form (though by pretty much rehashing the plot of the first year, which became a pattern). The annual was forgettable and I hated the Ditko art, then, and am not much of a fan of it now. I appreciate Ditko's style more, now; but, don't care for most of his output from this era. Loved Broderick on Micronauts! And, yeah, Ditko's output at Marvel in that era was weak, but the Micronauts annual might have been his worst published work. Ever.
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Post by Ozymandias on Oct 12, 2020 15:00:48 GMT -5
X-Men #141, part 1 of Days of Future Past. That storyline was later milked, exploited and abused for all it was worth, and then its corpse was exhumed and abused again until it was reduced to tatters, and then it was cloned and exploited to death the same way again... but BOY! did the original deliver. An absolute classic of a bronze age comic. My main complain at the time, was that it got me hoping for another lengthy saga, and next month it was over and then Byrne left
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