Ken Aldred

The Tom Sutton inking over Kane’s pencils in the first couple of Giant-Size issues is gritty and looks quite brilliant. As does the more familiar Kane / Adams combination elsewhere.

Yup. It’s so popular there was even a Dark Horse comic and film.

More entertaining than Left Behind.

Razor-sharp focus by my standards.

Interesting to read from someone else with attention deficit, although mine's autism rather than pure ADHD-related. For me, the pull list was, in the end, nothing more than a typical routine which those with my condition tend to adhere to, even though the journey to the LCS each week was becoming more and more difficult to make, and eventually it was a relief to break the cycle and move on. Sounds simple, but I'd been doing it for nearly three decades and it wasn't an overnight transition. As you said, with a neurotypical focus I could've got my back issue collection finished ages ago, but at least luckily I just about managed to get my most important single issues purchased before prices went insane. Unfortunately, I'm just total, disorganised, entropic chaos. Appallingly bad. It's been a hard question for me to answer as well, because there've been many on-and-off realisations across the years, not just sudden clarity.

I'm attention deficient and have no focus whatsoever. With anything, including comics. I'm all over the place; Golden to Modern Age, cartoony art to realistic art, super-heroes to slice-of-life. Total chaos that, for me anyway, works to my advantage by preventing me from becoming bored with comics, and has consistently done so over a very long haul of close to 5 decades. Now, it's reading rather than adding to the collection, but the same approach holds firm.

Brain-numbing CGI overkill.

Never heard of that one. Sounds like there’d be a film involving liver, fava beans and Chianti, and then that would be the title of the sequel. I could be wrong.

The Vision series is rightfully very popular here on the boards. Great story.

Strangely enough, I'm just in the process of reading Planet Hulk and World War Hulk again. (Another pure coincidence, as with X-Statix before.) They are good books. Interesting version of The Hulk, with a strong resemblance to Tor Johnson in some panels.

For the Bronze Age, Richard Corben...

We've been in that zone, on-and-off, since at least 2012.

362 to 380 Secret Wars Part 4 - Avengers World 1 to 14, 17 to 21 (19 issues) A series co-written by Jonathan Hickman and Nick Spencer, basically emphasising the bigger, more powerful, more varied evolution of the team throughout the build-up to Secret Wars, with three world-level events, different in nature, occurring simultaneously; one science-based, another a magical threat, and finally a gigantic Marvel Monster. The best story is the struggle between Roberto da Costa, Sunspot, together with his bro, Sam Guthrie, Cannonball, against Andrew Forson, Scientist (and megalomaniac) Supreme of AIM. The magical threat story is okay, the giant monster’s a bit silly, although in the latter Shang-Chi kicks arse, something you can always depend upon. Two issues, 15 and 16 were missed out as they digress away into another event series, Axis. Worth a read.

Despite reading them in British reprints as a kid in the 70s, I pass on most of them these days, especially once Roy Thomas takes over. I still find his Avengers very readable, less so his X-Men. For me, there's the early Stan Lee / Jack Kirby issues, Thomas' introduction of Banshee, the introduction of Polaris with Jim Steranko art, and then issue 54 with the introduction of Alex Summers / Havok, and finally from there through to the end of the classic Neal Adams run. Still, a lot's left out.

For me, the Claremont run is extremely readable from beginning to end; 70s all the way through to early 90s.

As a big John Byrne fan I like his She-Hulk series. Story-wise it's very silly, with lots of fourth wall breaking. The artwork, as well as his usual strong visual storytelling, is also unashamed GGA. A fun series.

I bet they're all 'unread' as well.

There’s a degree of truth to this. Back in the late 70s I received a Silver Surfer 1 in much the same condition as the Fear book from a hippyish type who’d graded it mint. (No, not Chuck.)

There’s always the possibility of clarification. Message them that ‘very high grade’ is not actually a guide-recognised grade, and, do they mean very good or very fine?

Perhaps there was simply a period of adjustment to working with those limitations, figuring out what could be done inventively within the new, censored system? At first you might expect there to be lots of misfires. Eventually you got the often EC-like stories of Twilight Zone, without the comics' pre-Code excesses, and, after only a half-decade or so, the Marvel super-hero renaissance. The better, more adaptable writers could make that transition.

- Pre-Code New Trend ECs. (Before this classic period, ECs were very run-of-the-mill, after it, the New Direction stories were neutered by the imposition of the Comics Code.) - Plastic Man - The Spirit

Both Spidey and Thor are known to pull their punches when fighting opponents without superpowers. Maybe Spidey’s doing this with Kingpin.

He has a special kind of muscle called Marvel Muscle. Easily explained.

It’s best to view Uranus through a telescope.

A common underestimation. Kingpin’s supposed to be solid muscle.