The Legacy of Comic Books

Well, a lot has changed in my life.

On a personal level, I have faced a great deal of upheaval in my life. I'm sure this happens to everyone eventually.

I have enjoyed collecting for most of my life. If you read anything I wrote, you already know that. In that time, family has passed on, friends faded away, and significant others departed for greener pastures. I remain.

And the books remain, too...

Not just comic books. Pulps and novels too. Paper and Hardback. I have read more than I own, in almost every genre. Even Manga.

Along the way of my life's journey, Comics Books became huge in the movie and television business. This left some people, those without a sense of wonder or imagination, wondering what the allure was for the public. If they don't get it, they likely never will.

My feelings about it are pretty simple: we need heroic tales to give up hope and courage to face life. We need escapism from the slavery of working. We need to evolve into our best selves, and comic books generate ideas.

 Comic Books did all these things for me growing up.
 And they still do.

How long will comic books last?

Forever.

 Just like any other form of art, Sequential Art is eternal. Putting pictures with words started in caveman days.

Oh, publishing will always be struggling. The fortunes of that profession changes with every generation. Digital media will ensure that comics live forever. There will always be  a store somewhere that sells comic books.And some people will always want to collect comic books.

Books are tangible.

They have value to the reader or collector, whether they are valuable in a monetary sense or not...

I am humbled by this lightning in my soul that comic books created...

Finding that jumping on point in collecting comics.....so many choices!

Okay, I am the first to admit, its hard to choose a point to jump onto an established comic book. I collect mostly bronze and silver age books, so I am naturally biased; the point being I will not promote a book I  have not read, and I have read a lot more comics than I currently own. So I am gonna stick to what I know is good.

Avengers 16 : a great silver age turning point for the book and the characters as its the first time the group brought in new characters to fill its ranks. In this case, Hawkeye, Quicksilver, and the Scarlet Witch. The angle? A group of upstart heroes led by Captain America and a radical change in the power structure. The original Avengers team was over powered, both with and without the Hulk, so now any one of their old villains could pose a greater threat.

Fantastic Four 44 : With the addition of Joe Sinnott's inking Jack Kirby, the book sustains a new, polished look starting with this issue, the introduction of the Inhumans. The issues that follow are incredible, as the art is crisp and storylines great. Following the Inhumans is the added attraction of the first Galactus-Silver Surfer saga, and the introduction of The Black Panther.

Spider-man 39 : The new artistry of John Romita ushers in a new, more streamlined look to Spidey, taking the book in different, if not better, direction from the Steve Ditko era.
This issue also begins the long awaited reveal of The Green Goblin as the father of Peter Parker's friend, Harry Osborn.

Thor 130: The beginning of a truly cosmic saga for the thunder god. It introduces the Colonizers of Rigel , followed by Ego, the Living Planet, and The High Evolutionary. The art is by Jack Kirby, this time inked by Vince Colletta, in a bold, mythic style.

There are more jumping on points to catalog, but I will stop here today, and follow up with more posts later.

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.