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Clip 'Em and Collect 'Em--Marvel Value Stamps!
In 1974, you may recall seeing the beginnings of a curious promotional concept popping up in the letters pages of Marvel's line of comics:Thus began the push to "clip and collect" Series A of the new...
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The Rise and Fall of Sam Bullit
An issue where a major, long-standing character unexpectedly meets their end, either tragically or through an act of malice, has more often than not made for high drama in a comics story--particularly...
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It's All In the Wrist: Gladiator vs. Iron Man!
If you weren't impressed by the debut of the bruiser named Gladiator in the pages of Daredevil, including his performance as part of Electro's Emissaries of Evil, you might have shrugged when you...
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Evil-Doers, Beware... The Sign of the Spider!
As often as it came to be used in stories, it still took some time before the name of the miniaturized belt-light which announced the presence of Spider-Man at a crime scene would be settled on, or...
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Mayhem on Monster Isle!
At the end of 1982, when Fantastic Four artist/writer John Byrne had hit his stride with the book and introduced the team to the might of the Shi'ar warrior named Gladiator, another Byrne-produced...
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The Minions of Mordo!
Following his hard-fought and almost unbelievable victory over the dread Dormammu (and on his foe's home ground, at that), a weary Dr. Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts, returns to his sanctum...
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"Come Into My Sanctum, Said The Sorcerer..."
OR: "Second Time's The Harm" Previously we were witness to a Stan Lee/Steve Ditko tale from 1966 which featured a life-and-death struggle between the Master of the Mystic Arts, Dr. Strange, and the...
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You'd Better Shape Up At Camp Hammond, Ladies
As my interest in collecting comic books started to wane sometime around the mid-1990s, I found myself beginning to "taper off" the habit of steadfastly sticking with a complete run of a series and...
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Tempests In Time!
In 1974, Marvel's House of Ideas was brimming with them. The company's fan magazine, FOOM, remained a hit, reaching 25,000 members; the first issue of Spidey Super-Stories went on sale; Stan Lee would...
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Fifty Years of Marvel Comics
What were some of you doing five decades ago? It's funny when you reach certain points where you find yourself recalling the world as it was then, and the realization hits that you lived during that...
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All Hail Attuma--Ruler of Atlantis!
One villain whom we can always count on to remain a villain and never be reformed is surely the undersea barbarian known as Attuma, who goes as far back in Marvel history as late 1964 when he made his...
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Marvel Comics: The End Of The Century, Part 1
Having traveled back fifty years to get a look at the comics which were showing up on Marvel's checklist in April of 1972, let's now be drawn forward again until we arrive just twenty-five years in...
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Marvel Comics: The End Of The Century, Part 2
In Part 1 of our look at Marvel's line of books published prior to the close of the 20th century--specifically, April of 1997, twenty-five years ago this month--we covered a number of titles which...
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An Eye For An Eyepatch
In April of 1987, two months after the second volume of Doctor Strange came to an end, writer Peter Gillis, who had succeeded Roger Stern to script the final eight issues of the series, would continue...
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Heroes Recycled
Having flipped through the pages of a crossover story from the "Heroes Reborn" books of 1996-97, we left the mighty Avengers at a crucial point in their brief history--albeit a history more brief than...
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Favorite Scenes: The Vision!
Today's rundown of favorite scenes could just as easily have been expanded to the Avengers themselves, and may indeed be the case at some future point; but for whatever reason, the Vision took...
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Invoke The Planes of Pohldahk At Your Own Risk
Mid-1984 saw the first volume of Doctor Strange arguably at the height of its acclaim and pivoting toward a new chapter in its run, with writer Roger Stern continuing in the series after taking a...
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Silver Surfer: Judgment Day!
One project from Marvel which completely slipped under my radar in 1988 was the Silver Surfer: Judgment Day graphic novel--plotted by artist John Buscema and Marvel Editor-In-Chief Tom DeFalco,...
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Intimate Enemies
As an epilogue to the 1988 Armor Wars storyline in Invincible Iron Man, the sole purpose of "Intimate Enemies" by David Michelinie, Barry Windsor-Smith and Bob Layton appears to be to provide closure...
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In Our Midst... Two Immortals!
After squaring off on Earth with two of Marvel's heaviest hitters--the mighty Thor in March of 1966 and, two months later, the Incredible Hulk--Hercules, the Prince of Power, apparently decided to...
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