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Post by Deleted on May 4, 2018 12:40:49 GMT -5
I liked Metamorpho & the other non traditional heroes from DC like the Metal Men, Challengers of the Unknown & the Sea Devils.
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Post by brutalis on May 18, 2018 8:30:26 GMT -5
Remember When King Kirby left Marvel for DC in 1970? I read some of the New Gods, never owning any of the Forever People or Jimmy Olsen stuff. Never seen much of the final products he made like Kobra, The Losers or Our Fighting Forces before his leaving DC and returning to Marvel. But there were 4 Kirby series I managed to trade for with neighbors and dig up here and there throughout the 70’s either off the rack or used. The Demon, Kamandi and OMAC along with Mister Miracle were his DC efforts that drew my attention in seeking out any issues I might find. Never amassing more than 3-4 issues of any of these series during my early youth before being a serious collector they were very much loved and pored over time and again by me.
Demon had captured the whole monster, historical and horror aspects that I adored from the Universal and Hammer movies. Kamandi followed on the trail of the Planet of the Apes science fiction motif. Omac was the futuristic updating of super soldier and society concepts. Mister Miracle was pure escapism and continued the wild myth and fantasy of the New Gods exploding off the pages in a much more interesting way. No wonder these gems stood out and grabbed me so with the Kirby magic and wonder on full display. It was like the King had his own special Midas touch with these creations. For these 4 along with New Gods have continued being sources of entertainment since they 1st appeared and long after Kirby left them behind.
Colorful, creative, bombastic stories and art combined in ways that were far ahead of the time they appeared in. Jack Kirby was never a man to rely on past accomplishments as he continued to create new worlds and characters to explore. Kamandi captures the inner youth Kirby knew which lurks within us all full of eager anticipation waiting to burst forth away from the restrictions of parents in the adventure of becoming teenagers. Omac is the fulfilment of our secret dreams being granted the incredible power and skill to do or be anything we want to be but at what loss of self? Mister Miracle is the awakening from teen to adult rebelling against parents, destiny and the worlds demands all while trying to escape from the pitfalls/traps in life. The Demon Etrigan forced to survive and endure an endless cycle of his forced captivity by another’s will only for being released servitude to vent his rage, anger, fury and frustrations in an eternal combat to strike against horrors and evils of which he himself is one of.
These are not heroes in the common/general sense but are those whose actions can be interpreted as heroic in their struggles. Which isn’t that we all do in life? Struggling and striving through what our lives or jobs may demand in attempts to better ourselves, our loved ones and those around us for each day achieving new heights of glory…
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Post by sabongero on May 18, 2018 8:42:57 GMT -5
The best part is buying a comic book in the newstands back then and after taking a couple of the spinning rack and going to the cashier to pay, the man behind the counter will hold the comic book and look at it for a while and even open some pages to look inside and then take your money. Then they'll ask something like, "Hey kid, can this guy beat Spider-Man (or Superman or Batman... etc.)?" And he'll look at you with a blank look.
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Post by Hoosier X on May 18, 2018 13:40:50 GMT -5
Remember seeing comments like this on the letters page? (Remember letters pages?)
I was reading Hulk #160 (Hulk fights Tiger Shark, who has been hiding behind Niagara Falls) a couple of nights ago and there was a letter from a guy who had just got a copy of Avengers #1 and he was asking when Hulk went from being a big green tough guy who talked in mostly complete (but rude) sentences and became the "HULK SMASH!" version of the 1970s.
The response congratulated him on getting a copy of Avengers #1 and mentioned that it was going for FIFTEEN DOLLARS!
That's a lot of money for a funny book!
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Post by Farrar on May 21, 2018 19:13:29 GMT -5
Remember When King Kirby left Marvel for DC in 1970? I read some of the New Gods, never owning any of the Forever People or Jimmy Olsen stuff. Never seen much of the final products he made like Kobra, The Losers or Our Fighting Forces before his leaving DC and returning to Marvel. But there were 4 Kirby series I managed to trade for with neighbors and dig up here and there throughout the 70’s either off the rack or used. The Demon, Kamandi and OMAC along with Mister Miracle were his DC efforts that drew my attention in seeking out any issues I might find. Never amassing more than 3-4 issues of any of these series during my early youth before being a serious collector they were very much loved and pored over time and again by me. ... Ah yes I remember it well! What a ripple effect it had, at least for me as a young fan back then. First there was the sickening announcement in the Bullpen Bulletins that Kirby had left Marvel. Inasmuch as I only read three Marvel series on a regular basis--FF, Avengers and X-Men***--and that Kirby-Sinnott provided the only consistent, regular artist team I'd been exposed to (Avengers and X-Men at the time had revolving artists), this was worrisome to me to say the least. I suffered through the four cartoony Romita-illustrated FF issues; and then when Buscema took over the art was better...but it was still not Kirby. This was Buscema lite, certainly not on a par with the superior Buscema work I'd seen in the Avengers, Silver Surfer, and Subby. I know Sinnott was necessary to provide the consistency but IMO his inks here really made Buscema's work look bland. From what I have read over the years Buscema's heart wasn't in the superhero work, and it showed. And Stan was recycling plots and the book became boring. I stopped reading the FF within a year or so. As for Kirby at DC, I tried to get into it: since my preference was for team books, I bought the first three issues or so of Forever People. That cover of the first issue is a classic! And there's some amazing art within as well. But storywise I could not get into it at all; I guess it was too cosmic or ambitious or far-reaching or something for my young brain. I even bought the first few issues of Kirby's Jimmy Olsen. I had no idea who Don Rickles was so the Goody Rickles story just went over my head. Sorry, but I wanted my Superman books illustrated by the likes of Curt Swan, Schaffenberger, even Win Mortimer--I really hated the change in the JO book. I gave up on the Kirby DC stuff pretty quickly back then. One doesn't have to be old to be a curmudgeon! ***And the X-Men comic was canceled earlier that year. 1970 was a terrible comic book year for me!
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Post by brutalis on May 22, 2018 8:22:16 GMT -5
Remember When King Kirby left Marvel for DC in 1970? I read some of the New Gods, never owning any of the Forever People or Jimmy Olsen stuff. Never seen much of the final products he made like Kobra, The Losers or Our Fighting Forces before his leaving DC and returning to Marvel. But there were 4 Kirby series I managed to trade for with neighbors and dig up here and there throughout the 70’s either off the rack or used. The Demon, Kamandi and OMAC along with Mister Miracle were his DC efforts that drew my attention in seeking out any issues I might find. Never amassing more than 3-4 issues of any of these series during my early youth before being a serious collector they were very much loved and pored over time and again by me. ... Ah yes I remember it well! What a ripple effect it had, at least for me as a young fan back then. ***And the X-Men comic was canceled earlier that year. 1970 was a terrible comic book year for me! For me 1970 was the year I began to really appreciate comic books. Only having a handful of issues of various comics given to me or bought but I was now entering a time when the imagery and colors bursting forth in the comics was capturing my attention. I hadn't yet begun to buying comics regularly but was reading quite a few as i visited my cousins or reading from friends. Next up begins my trading and swapping with other kids around my neighborhood as i slowly begin buying my own comics. I was a true child of the 70's comic books. My Kirby world experienced backwards as I traded/found his DC stuff in bits and pieces while reading his FF through reprints in Marvel's Greatest Comics. First up was Etrigan the Demon where I received 3 issues from my uncle who was a barber. He would pass down to me any torn up issues from his shop and it was through these that I soon found some Mister Miracle and Omac's along the way. I had the 1st issue of New Gods and that was all for that series and then a neighbor had a pretty fair run of Kamandi that I would read over and over whenever I could visit him. It was here my Kirby fascination began. These 4 DC series along with his FF cemented my adoration of the Kirby world. It blew my then 8-9 year old mind that the same artist could imagine these insanely creative worlds. Growing up reading newspaper comic strips and seeing artists doing the same series over and over for many years I had never known that they might be capable of doing other things. Kirby was one of the 1st creators I knew of who did other series and characters and worlds. From 1970 on my world of comics exploration began to expand...
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Post by Deleted on May 22, 2018 10:09:46 GMT -5
I became enthralled with superheroes with the 1966 Batman TV show. I started picking out my own comics in 1968 off the news stand.
And the reason I loved reprinted stories in DC's 100 pagers & Marvel's Giant Sized issues? So I could discover stories from the late 30's thru the mid 60's that I would not have read. Back then reprint titles were our trade collections!
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Post by Farrar on May 22, 2018 21:14:43 GMT -5
I became enthralled with superheroes with the 1966 Batman TV show.
Yep, same with me. I obtained my first superhero comic (Batman #181) a few months after the show's debut. Before that I'd been feasting on Casper, Wendy, Spooky, Woody Woodpecker, and various Walt Disney comics.
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Post by Deleted on May 22, 2018 21:27:05 GMT -5
I became enthralled with superheroes with the 1966 Batman TV show.
Yep, same with me. I obtained my first superhero comic (Batman #181) a few months after the show's debut. Before that I'd been feasting on Casper, Wendy, Spooky, Woody Woodpecker, and various Walt Disney comics. Same here. I read whatever my Dad brought home for me until 1968 when he let me pick out what I wanted to read.
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Post by brutalis on May 23, 2018 8:26:01 GMT -5
Yep, same with me. I obtained my first superhero comic (Batman #181) a few months after the show's debut. Before that I'd been feasting on Casper, Wendy, Spooky, Woody Woodpecker, and various Walt Disney comics. Same here. I read whatever my Dad brought home for me until 1968 when he let me pick out what I wanted to read. That was me as well. Most of my reading was from other sources until I bought my own. Reading old torn up coverless Marvel or DC comics my dad brought home from the barbershop where he and my uncle worked or reading Archie and Harvey comics when visiting my younger cousins. Other than that it was the cartoon world of Hanna Barbera heroic adventures Saturday morning and then finding Batman '66 and the Spider-Man '67 cartoon in syndication repeats. From there my love began to blossom...
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Post by bdk91939 on May 23, 2018 9:46:29 GMT -5
I miss the spinning racks. And in newstands and delis where they'll have an entire wall full full of various magazines and at the very end is a single column of comic books. It's funny sometimes they were right next to rows and columns of smut magazines and teenaged boys would have those porn magazines inside a magazine like Time and browse through them. Haha.
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Post by urrutiap on May 23, 2018 13:57:08 GMT -5
Back in the day of my childhool the early 1980s. Newstands in grocery stores and the pharmacy store it was pretty much Mad Magazine, Cracked Magazine and whatever was available at the time for Marvel and DC. Pretty much just Star Wars, Uncanny X Men, Amazing Spider Man, Superman even though I was a really young kid I didnt pay attention to whatever was going on in Superman comics back then. I became a fan of Superman after seeing Superman II and Superman III.
then in the mid 1980s came along NOW Comics of Ghostbusters and Terminator and Fright Night which NOW Comics Fright Night came late to the party around 1988 or 1989 and was still a little popular in the early 1990s.
These days you pretty much have to travel all the way out of town for a road trip to a city just to go to a comic book shop to get comic books
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Post by urrutiap on May 23, 2018 15:09:10 GMT -5
By the way I live in a small town. No comic books at all anymore at the grocery store.
Like I said, I have to go out of town for a 2 hour or even 3 hour road trip to the city just to go to a comic book shop to buy the next new comic book series or to buy old back issues of stuff I grew up with when I was a little kid.
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Post by Deleted on May 24, 2018 1:18:57 GMT -5
I became enthralled with superheroes with the 1966 Batman TV show. I started picking out my own comics in 1968 off the news stand.
And the reason I loved reprinted stories in DC's 100 pagers & Marvel's Giant Sized issues? For me, it was both Adam West and George Reeve (in syndication) shows got me started and the 100 DC Pages were a kid dream to get these books below:
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Post by dbutler69 on May 24, 2018 13:59:32 GMT -5
By the way I live in a small town. No comic books at all anymore at the grocery store. Like I said, I have to go out of town for a 2 hour or even 3 hour road trip to the city just to go to a comic book shop to buy the next new comic book series or to buy old back issues of stuff I grew up with when I was a little kid. That's sad. I was very spoiled in Rochester, NY. There are (or were) 7 or 8 comic shops there. Now that I've moved to central Florida, I've only found a couple of comics shops in the area, and they're not that great.
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