Ken Aldred

For me, a little harsh. A group of gigantic space gods that see three genetically-modified variants of a common anthropoid ancestor as nothing more than test organisms on an oversized, rocky, spheroidal Petri dish that they could sterilise at will. The extremely dark and emotional issue 8 featuring the Deviant Holocaust, referred to as Purity Time, as they exterminate the unluckiest, most deformed, 'most monstrous' of their society, with obvious real world parallels, and preceded by a scene of extreme abuse of one of these Rejects, witnessed by Thena. One of the most powerful Kirby stories of all. Hardly what I'd consider vapid.

Kamandi was fantastic.

Completely agree. Happy memories tend to become more euphoric and intense, traumatising memories tend to become increasingly buried and distant. One reason that I proceed with caution when nostalgia is evoked, especially when it comes to purchasing newsprint "mementos".

We only ever used sulphuric acid, which was colourless rather than colorless.

I think I’ll quite like this one. It sounds as if it’s going to be a Batman equivalent to Logan, which is my favourite X-Men film. Similarly story-driven, without over reliance on bombastic CGI.

I remember tasting distilled water in the chemistry lab at school. Tasted horrible; harshly metallic.

In England, tap water is safe to drink and fluoridated. In addition, the water in my area has flowed over non-soluble rock, and so it’s crystal clear.

You weren’t alone. Up until the Hulk storyline (editorial interference to bring the series into the mainstream Marvel universe) I thought it was excellent.

It’s a market that’s already desperate and insane enough that if it was alive it would’ve been placed on depot antipsychotic medication years ago. Scraping the barrel even more aggressively would be profoundly sad.

When this was new in, a London store manager asked me how many copies I’d purchased, so clearly there were many customers buying quite noticeably large numbers of them and obvious speculation going on. I ended up with three, one from each shop I went to.

I make a point of not looking at those threads anymore. On a limited budget and with a poor exchange rate, quickly frustrating, depressing and quite futile.

Never heard of that place. An early London comic shop?

Something I've never really thought about. At least in the main comicbook-obsessed countries we have a degree of stability and don't experience the kind of extreme hyperinflation seen in Weimar Germany and Zimbabwe, and consequently need to use wheelbarrows filled with banknotes - unless you're purchasing a Tomb of Dracula key in ultra high grade, so it would seem this week.

As a Kirby fan, I’m running out of likes for this thread.

It wasn’t explained in the Nova series during the Annihilation storyline. If it was me, I’d have a Cosmic version of Devil Dinosaur responsible.

It's possible that someone like myself who finds keys presently unaffordable, or is simply unwilling to pay the prices asked even at the lower end, might be seen by the current market's proponents as not being as committed to the hobby as they are, perhaps not even a diehard or real collector. To a degree, that's a hurtful thought. Just trying to understand an alternative, polarised perspective, I suppose.

Compared to what I paid for my 9.6 copy, I thought the run up in price on my cheaper, "lowly" NM+ had itself been insane. 170 x difference, all for timing and avoiding a couple of barely visible, non-colour-breaking spine ticks, and a perfectly-registered copy in my case. Yup, it's gone a bit mental.

I've reached a similar conclusion about the keys that I didn't manage to acquire before the recent price rises. I read digitally now and have encountered some of these books along the way. I discovered that the stories and / or art didn't match up to my fondly-recalled 'memories' of them, didn't then view the issues as anything special or sacrosanct and feel any drive to acquire them, any sense of loss or that there would be significant gaps in the collection by not having physical copies, especially at the punitive, nosebleed prices being demanded. Another process of moving on, letting go.

Kirby certainly captures a battle-hardened, shell-shocked, numbed, PTSD look there.

I've never seen that. I only remembered the excellent Daredevil Visionaries : Frank Miller trade paperbacks, which, of course, didn't include issue 131, as this one does.

That issue's from a particularly weak period in the Daredevil run, and the Masterwork volume is far too expensive and mediocre to buy just for one story.

For a 9.9, I don't like the slightly bent look of the white at the top of the spine. Should do better at that grade.

Yup. A masterpiece in the artistic utilisation of negative space.

You're a maverick, a wildcard.

Here's my copy. Not too different to the previous one.