One of the true failings of modern comic writers is the ability to use the art form to explain exactly what kind of person the average hero is.  The best example of a true, breakout moment in comics is The Amazing Spider-man 33.

Let me break it down for you: Peter Parker once gave a blood transfusion to his Aunt May, and now she is sick with radioactive toxicity. The only cure has been stolen by the Master Planner's gang, and has been taken to their underground/under water lair. During the previous two issues,  Spider-man has been franticly chasing and beating tail, only to end up crushed under a giant machine.

You don't have to read the captions, but if you do, you see that its Peter Parker who digs deep to overcome his obstacles. Peter was never more focused on his goal than he was in this story, which spans three issues. 

This story elevates Spider-man to legendary status. I would encourage any fan to read these three issues if you want to understand what the Lee-Ditko era was all about. Steve Ditko's run on Spider-man has been reprinted in several ways, including the Marvel Masterworks editions. Steve is one of the architechs of the original Marvel Age of Comics.

Please STOP slabbing the REPRINTS!

Its a weakness of Marvel during the late 1970s that the Dreaded Deadline Doom caused so many interruptions in the publishing of their regular books. 

These books always came with an apology from the writer or editor on the letters page. This is one of those issues where a reprint story had to be hastily pushed out to get the book out on schedule. The reprints were usually more welcome than the badly crafted fill in stories that someone thought was a better alternative. So whats a reprint worth? 
In fair condition, about a buck. In near mint? About 5 or 6 bucks, but because its a reprint, but usually you can pick it for a lot less if you look around. Don't believe the inflated hype about what the guide says its worth; the guide was and is, a tool for comic book dealers and speculators to inflate the price of a comic book. 

Some reprints have a framework story of a page or two while presenting a reprint somehow revelant to the current storyline, such as the case with Avengers 150. 
there is a partial reprint of Avengers 16, the first time the roster changed for the book. Fantastic Four 154 is another such example, reprinting an old Strange Tales story, with a framework added.

If you really want or need this issue, find a medium grade that looks good, buy it, read it, bag it, and forget it. Its a reprint, so try to get a good price. 
And for God's sake, do not slab a reprint book, even if its a part of a comic's regular run! Save the slabbing cost for something that is rare!

Please consider that Marvel already had several reprint titles that churned out some great reading matter during the 1970s, so slabbing a reprint should only happen to the 1960s run of Marvel Tales and Marvel Collector's Item Classics. The reprints of the 1970s were generally thinner than these books and, were and are, not particularly rare.

What my Dad gave me and why I cannot let it go! SPIDER-MAN TREASURY NUMBER ONE!

Its true. I lived in a different world, in a different time.... But my parents were alive back then, and they had introduced me into the world of comics in hopes I would learn to read a little better. It worked, too well for their frugal tastes. So when we moved into Bristol, Tennessee, on a block facing my school,  I was pretty happy as a kid. Then the day came at the 7-11 that I begged my dad  for a really big, over-sized comic book; the first Spider-man treasury edition.....

It was worth all the begging. I was so happy Dad got it for me. It reprinted stories that were expensive to buy in the adult world of comic books, and the scale... well it was huge. 

Dad and Mom suggested, no doubt from this encounter, that I find  some ways to earn my comics, this of course led to me pilfering for change in couches and chairs, and to loading up bottle after glass bottle of Pepsi cola to turn into comic book gold. I could get a fair exchange at the 

7-11 by loading up my bottles into my sturdy red wagon and pulling it to the store, about six blocks away. I stayed outta trouble a lot so I could get an extra book now and then, just for being less of a problem than my siblings. It was an adventure that paid off, well worth the walk. Candy was not my friend anymore, just comic books. I learned the value of a dollar, plus tax. 

My daughter pointed out to me a year or so ago, that I really did love comic books, and she was right. I do not think she fully understands why. Comic Books were not just a tool to improving my reading, it was a way to get out of a world  I did not always comprehend, into a world where the lines were a little more defined by good and evil. Aside from Dad, I needed all the heroes I could get. I am forever grateful for Dad and Mom relenting and putting up with my pastime. As an adult and a teen, I had the comic book bug very bad.  Video games were on the horizon, but really good consoles were far off from my childhood. 

And so my life was enriched by comic books. Spider-man and Peter Parker both had more problems than I did, and yes, it did make me feel better.  Even my sister indulged me occassionally, as she sweet and was really the first person to realize how much   I needed them in my life. My brother never got it, but then, a lot of older brothers never got it, so that was okay i guess. So, if you run across this book, as well as its giant cousins, indulge yourself in some oversized fun.  I still have my copy. One day I will put it in a frame, though not a slab. I couldn't re-read it now and then if I decided to slab it.

MARVEL TREASURY EDITION 1

THE SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN

REPRINTS  The Amazing Spider-man #8, 14, 42, and 90 and Marvel Superheroes #14 and with excerpts from The Amazing Spider-Man #72 and The Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1.

The Original DEFENDERS : Strange Days and Stranger Nights

The Defenders were a bronze age book created by Roy Thomas for Marvel Comics that featured Dr. Strange, The Hulk, Silver Surfer, and Submariner. As a superhero team, The early Defenders were pure power, second to none.

They  were designed to be the ultimate team of non-grouped super beings. As opposed to the Avengers, The Defenders were a loose knit group of people who handled some major threats from some of most powerful and insidious villains ever dreamed up at Marvel....

Their existance was a secret at first, and covert for the most part, as Dr. Strange could make you forget the Defender's existance as easily as he could make you forget where you parked your car at the local mall. This was not the de-powered Dr.Strange from recent years. 

This was the original Sorcerer Supreme.

The Defenders fought a now-legendary cross-over battle with the Avengers, wherein the real baddies were revealed as Dormammu and Loki. It was an epic storyline, well worth the time reading and collecting, in both original form or reprint volume.

The Defenders book would frequently lose members, as the individual characters would often drift in and out of the book, depending on the storyline. This meant the addition of Valkyrie and Nighthawk to the regular book, as Submariner and the Surfer popped in as needed. 

This instability lead to a core roster, at least for a long time, of Dr.Strange, Nighthawk, Valkyrie, and The Hulk; but guest-stars had a habit of becoming Defenders, and often showed up in later stories. It was a chaotic, wonderful time to be a fan.

The original series hit its stride during the Steve Gerber run on the book. Steve, the Man-Thing scribe and Howard The Duck creator, brought in a touch of controversy and quirkiness that set The Defenders apart from every other team book published at the time.

Considering that the original run of the Defenders is only about 152 issues, plus the three Marvel Feature appearance , 5 Annuals, a Giant-Size comic, and a story in the Howard The Duck Treasury Edition, means that the Defenders is an attainable, collectible series to enjoy.

   The Defenders is an enjoyable read. After cancellation, I discovered that there were a legion of Defenders fans out there that still loved the old book. I count myself lucky to be among those legion of fans who discovered the joys of this book the first time around.

So, in the end, The Defenders were lightning in a bottle; a non-team that ended up being re-organized into a team, which killed the entire concept. The so-called New Defenders , starting with issue 125, is readable, but is the closeout era in the book's history. I really do not think that younger writers really ever got the concept of the group. The Defenders is not about decorum and having a head quarters or voting in a new members; the book was about a bunch of folks who banded together with a purpose, and who could hang out with each other, when not beating the daylights out of evil doers. The Defenders were not the Avengers, the F.F., or even the Champions.

The Defenders were unique. They were friends.

Collecting the FANTASTIC FOUR from the sixties.....

Jack Kirby's run on the Fantastic Four is legendary; he came up with some truly incredible stories and concepts for the book, but was aided by some really wonderful inkers on his run, including the two men I am naming in this article.

As I get older, I find Chic Stone's inks on the Fantastic Four to be more appealing to me. I started reading the FF through a reprint mag called Marvel's Greatest Comics, picking it up at a time when they were reprinting F.F. 69, which was inked by Joe Sinnott...

...to me, this was a great story to read, and from a period of the Fantastic Four that I would later collect as an adult. The storyline is probably the best Mad Thinker story ever, and a really intense one at that.

Whenever I would pick up a reprint or earlier issue of FF, I would often see Chic Stone's inks over Jack Kirby and find that he and Joe Sinnott had two definitely different styles of inking. In the issue below, the Fantastic Four get beaten, yes, beaten by Frightful Four in their second appearance in the book. Chic's ink work is fairly awesome....

Chic's inks was a bit more minimalist than I expected; it was good, clean, and classic, but very much different from Joe's run on the flagship Marvel title.

As I grew older, I appreciated both styles of inking, and there is a certain innocence and simplicity to Chic's work that makes it seem very sixties in its look. When Joe took over the inks, the FF got a real serious look to it, going first into the lost realm of the Inhumans and then into the cosmic odyssey of the first Galactus Trilogy......

Joe's inks gave the book a sort of grandeur unmatched at the time, with an incredible amount of detail and a powerful special effects budget that, if filmed, could only be reproduced on film by the best digital effects artists. 

The composition of the panels in the first Galactus story is incredible, and Joe really gets to push himself into some of his greatest work ever....

If you have the opportunity to read any of the classic FF from the 1960s, either in reprint or original form, I don't think you will be disappointed. There are so many good points to start at. I am gonna post a few more covers for those of you who want to look up a good era to start reading or collecting at. There are so many good places to start that I cannot list them all in one article, but here are a few favorites:

The story that started the Marvel Age of Comics......

The first Watcher story, which includes also the Red Ghost and the mysterious Blue Area of the moon. Inked by Steve Ditko, of Spider-man fame......

Not the first outing for the Thing vs. the Hulk, but one of the best, and this two part story guest-stars The Avengers.

This one issue story asks the question: what would the Thing do if he thought the Silver Surfer was trying to steal his girlfriend? 

A truly awesome story, built on a misunderstanding, that draws Spider-man and a slightly under powered Thor to the side of Daredevil who is clearly in a lot of trouble with Fantastic Four.

Postscript : For those of you who care about such things, Joe Sinnott has a Facebook page, so anyone who wants to add him and give him some love for his great work, please look him up. Joe inked the F.F. after Jack left, making many an artist look better than they actually were. 

THE STRANGE TALE OF CAPTAIN AMERICA 216 ....

The comic book pictured above, Captain America 216, 
is was not a new comic, even when it first came out. 
Oh, the cover was new, and very exciting and it sold the book to me, even though i soon discovered it was actually a reprint.  Marvel did this a lot in the 70's, whenever they did not meet the deadline for the regular book, they found a decent or obscure reprint to pop in there.

 The reprint in question is from a Silver Age Strange Tales starring The Human Torch. Since I had not read the original, I was not too disappointed with the reprinted story, even if the Captain America was not the real Cap. Turns out, it was the Torch's old nemesis, the Acrobat.

This appearance, or non-appearance of Cap pre-dates his return in the Avenger's fourth issue. Apparently Stan and Jack were selling people on the idea, before actually bringing the real one back. A pretty good idea, but somewhat confusing to people wanting to collect old Captain America books. Cap also showed up again, fighting Iron Man in Tales of Suspense, only this time it was not the Torch's whats his name nobody criminal. This time, it was The Chameleon, Spidey's old nemesis in the red, white, and blues.

All of this is good and well, as it helped reignite interest in Cap. Strangely enough, Captain America debuted in the very next issue of Tales of Suspense, and yes, its the real one, the one The Avengers fished out of the frozen waters of the north. If you are looking to buy Cap's first re-appearance start with Avengers 4. If you are looking for Cap's first new solo strip since the Golden Age, that starts in Tales of Suspense 59.

For those who read or collect comics from the Silver Age, you really won't be disappointed with Marvel's cliffhanger superhero serials Strange Tales, Tales of Suspense, or Tale to Astonish.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Strange Tales:
Doctor Strange starts out in this book, ends up sharing space with the Torch for a while, until Nick Fury starts in issue 135. Torch had a good run, and his appearance in Strange Tales could be really called Fantastic Four 2.0, as the Sue, The Thing, and Reed are frequent guest-stars.

Tales of Suspense:
Iron Man started in this book, and gets some real company when Captain America shows up in issue 59. Now the book gets really cool, as Jack Kirby does most of the artwork on the Cap series, including several issues past the title's name change with issue 100.

Tales to Astonish:
The title says it all. Ant-man starts out in this book, ends up becoming Giant-Man, and is later joined in issue 60 by The Incredible Hulk and is replaced by the Sub-mariner in issue 70. This book runs up to issue 100, changing its name in the next issue to The Incredible Hulk in issue 101.

All of these books are highly entertaining and very collectible, both in the original form, and in bound volumes offered by Marvel in their Masterworks series.

COMIC BOOK GUYS WILL GET THIS POST RIGHT AWAY.....

There is feeling a comic book guy gets when he finds a book. There is a smell to old comic books that is intoxicating. A piece of a olfactory memory in pulp paper. A once lost treasure that makes you feel like jumping up and down like a child. Its like finding a time machine that can take you back to when you were that child.   It is satisfaction without work or romance;  the sexless sex of the innocent mind, discovering a new world outside the parameters of the real world... 

Sure, pulp wood paper tended to yellow more from age, but if you found a copy of Fantastic Four 13 in your grandma's attic, would you turn your nose up and throw it way, because its not fine quality white paper with a card stock cover?

Only if you were a complete fool.....

I have been fortunate to have made a true online friend in the internet age. My friend, Richard and I both met on Yahoo and Ebay, when we were trying to make a buck on old comics, and improve our own collections. We sold stuff to each other. He is great guy to buy from sell to, but in real life, he's really just a great guy. You see, Richard and I are respectively ten years apart, with him being older, and somewhat more literate. I wax poetical on here about comics, but Richard is a real life writer of books and newspapers; he paints with words. Now, long after Yahoo Auctions turned to dirt, and Ebay saunters toward its declining years, Richard and I are still in constant contact. Our love for comics is one of the ties that binds us together. 

Together, we are living fans representing the Silver and Bronze Age of comics. He is probably the best friend I have right now, even though, we have never actually met in person.

The morale of this story? Comic Books bring people together. 

ROCKING WITH THE AVENGERS IN THE 1970s

This is the first Avengers book I read. Turns out, its a good one.....

Written by Steve Englehart, this issue with the slam-bang cover was a great introduction to these myriad Iron Man villains, and big vacuum pull into the second Kang war at the end of the story. Turns out,  Kang is probably the best Avenger's bad guy. He does not just cause a skirmish or a fight, he goes to a war over multiple issues every
time he comes around.

Issue 130 is a good jumping on point for the Avengers, but not a great one. There are so many good Avengers storylines after Englehart took over around issue 100. This is including three Kang Wars, a Thanos story, a multi-issue crossover with The Defenders, a couple of major weddings, a trip to counter earth, a new origin for The Vision, the return of Captain America, and the addition of several new Avengers.

 Issues 101 through 151 would be ideal to collect from this period, if you want to get the most out of this run. The art is done by several hands, but artists during this period include Dave Cockrum, Sal Buscema, and George Perez, among others.

One of the coolest things about Avengers 130 is that the Dave Cockrum cover is a kind of homage to a Mike Seikowsky JLA cover done in the 1960s. 

PLEASE THROW GWEN FROM THE BRIDGE

Sporting one of the least imaginative covers ever...is The Amazing Spider-man 121....The legendary end of Gwen and the last story signifying the end of the Silver Age Spider-man.

In case you don't know the story, or you base your history on the film based on the story, Gwen, Spidey's long time ball and chain, gets knocked off the Brooklyn Bridge by the Green Goblin, who laughs maniacally after Spidey's webbing snaps Gwen's neck.

As horrible as it seemed at the time, I kinda wished she would have got tossed off twenty issues earlier.
Why?
Because non-superhero girlfriends (and wives) are a drag in every male superhero's life. They just complicate things, and the whining, the constant railing about running late, blah blah blah.  Superman has it worse. By the time Gwen took the plunge, Lois Lane had be dragging him down for over 30 years. I guess it took me a long time to realize, but if your girl has no super powers except super bitching, you might want to see if Wonder Woman is busy Saturday night.

Spidey loses his girl in this issue, but regains his freedom for a while, ends up with Mary Jane, and starts that on again, off again cycle that defines their relationship. A few years ago, someone decided that a married Peter Parker was not appealing to teens, especially teen girls, so MJ went away again. The 1970s was really the best time of Pete's romance with Mary Jane. But then, everyone loved Mary Jane back in those days....

Giant Size Pissed Off Super Villain Team Up

Back in the 1970's, Marvel was trying all sorts of things in their comic book line....including the unlikely book pictured here.

I can understand the thinking here: two of Marvel's best characters, a Anti-Hero and a Supervillain, teaming up to fight...each other.

Well, it's more complicated than that, but really, thats what the cover is about...and the title of the short-lived series....

The Marvel giant-sized series are worth collecting and reading, in case none of you have heard about GS Xmen ;
And I do mean, all of them. For one thing, its a lost format, and one that I loved as a kid. You get a kick ass new story, and then at least one or two rare or obscure reprints about the main characters, for about twice the cost of a regular comic.  And yes, I really did like the reprints, cause i was not around to collect Marvel in the silver age sixties.  I especially like this version of Sub-Mariner because he is wearing the special armor created for him by Reed Richards to keep him wet and wild. It's a lot cooler than his green Aquaman trunks he got stuck wearing for years in his own book. I mean, does he like, have a whole closet full of green swim trunks? No sweatshirts? No socks with holes for his footwings? And look closely at the selfie pic circle on the cover of this first issue: Doc Doom is kinda like, 'hey, i am so tangled up in my cloak, so don't take that pic' and Namor just stands there looking like 'yeah, i'm kinda pissed off' so take your damn picture....

 I never really considered Namor a SuperVillain, and instead will refer to him as a Anti-Hero, cause he really is just kinda pissed off all the time. The good thing about Marvel and DCs' failed book lines of the 70s is that you can go back collect every issue if you like. There is only so many issues, so its a book you can actually say, 'Hey, I own every issue of that series'!

Everyone remembers their first time......

I know a lot of my time growing up was spent reading. I was raised in the days before game consoles, and not being the perfect athlete my brother was, i spent a good amount of time in front of the television or with a book in my hand.  The book pictured on the right was not the first book i read, but its one of three comic books my mom brought home to me from a flea market to read.  The other two,  a large Fantastic Four reprint book, and a Nick Fury, Agent of Shield King-size compilation, were actually more interesting to me...at first.  I remember the FF book was great, and the Shield very satisfying, but when I got to this one....

 I really liked it, especially the 'features' pages inside, where i learned: Matt Murdock is blind, he's a lawyer, he's got radar, and he's a bad ass.
The thing that impressed me about Daredevil was that, like Batman, he could really get messed up if he screwed up. Unlike Batman, that layabout millionaire with nothing to do but sleep all day, Daredevil had a day time job.  All of the villains pictured on the cover could put DD into the hospital, but honestly, Gladiator scared the living hell outta me. I mean, he has freaking saws on his arms! The art by Gene Colan only intensified the freak out, because Gene had such a realistic style. To a six year old, Gladiator is terrifying. The story is really not the best Daredevil story ever done, but it was a great introduction to the character. This book is really my first Marvel.  And I own it to this day. Along with a few more books......

Why would this story be important to you or anyone else who reads this? Because people who love comics, always remember the first ones they read. And the best ones. I guess I am writing this to tap into that feeling. Aside from my kids, comic books are one of few things I really feel good about...........