Ken Aldred

So, he has a costume that, after transit, will be stored in a Kryptonian ‘Prison Pocket’?

Another of my favourites, Jaime Hernandez...

Nothing much representing the Bronze Age, so here’s some Richard Corben... And a rude one... For a creator renowned for his female figure work in his interior art, difficult to find a cover.

Given the Golden Age time period, I suspect it was Veronica Lake?

I had to check that because it sounded like a plausible What If? Looks like it’s a Moon Knight story, though.

Ah, I remember this one. The issue where Green Lantern joined.

It’s great to see that you can find comic shops with such large, restocked, older back issue inventories like these, as it’s become a rarity here in the U.K.

Sounds plausible.

If Sgt Rock had been on there, they'd make extra effort, I'm sure. After all, Dum Dum Dugan took out a flying German fighter plane by throwing a grenade at it, while he was parachuting to the ground.

If it had Sgt Rock on it, maybe?

186 to 195 Young Avengers 2nd series Children's Crusade 1 to 9, plus one-shot Good story, but with padded-out fight scenes towards the middle, and again some muddled choppiness to the scene progression. Although done several years after the first series, it feels like a direct continuation of the formula; teenagers resembling core members of The Avengers, but actually being related to Avengers in other ways that are not always immediately apparent. The first series examines the actual connections, the real parentage of the characters, and, despite Civil War and Secret Invasion intervening, the second series just picks up its unfinished plot threads, tying them into House of M. Nice art from Jim Cheung in the main series and Alan Davis in the one-shot. As well as ethnic and religious inclusivity, the series has also had a lot of praise for its liberal attitude towards the relationships of the team members. At the end, the story formula has really run its course and a fresh approach is needed, and the next series is a necessary new direction. Worth a read.

I concur. It’s just brilliant.

Quite a few crystal balls here.

Good taste, anyway. Starting strong with the Hughes Legion variant.

Plastic Man

So, it looks like he's being shot at by high-calibre machine gun cannons, and his costume alone, not he himself, is being shredded by gunfire. I wasn't aware that Moon Knight was so resilient. Kryptonian level.

At the time, reviews in our UK magazine, Comics International, described his artwork as 'incredible". Definitely a style that hasn't aged well.

That’s why I suggested Cassandra Nova. Neither human nor mutant in origin, used the Sentinels to kill 16 million mutants in one go, something that baseline humans never achieved with that rapidity.

Rover doesn’t seem to have made an appearance yet...

Hoops, stilts, big wheels; it's all a bit silly.

Cassandra Nova hijacked control of some Sentinels to destroy Genosha and kill 16 million mutants. Up there with the Days of Future Past genocide but in Earth 616 continuity, unless that was altered by Secret Wars.

Very nice looking copy !

I ran out of it.

183 to 185 Young Avengers Presents : Patriot, Stature and Hawkeye. All good stories. Makes a nice, quieter interlude, focusing more on character, before going back to the more action-intense main series.

The unveiling of the contents of mystery boxes is an interesting alternative, as quite often it's just overpriced rubbish.