The Mad Irishman

Welp, helps if I actually read the full post - apologies! Other than Untold I can’t think of any other series that fits the bill.

One of my pride and joys! First time Pete uses his powers in USM 1 I also have a page from the second issue and a couple from #4 - still one of my favorite series!

I got my copy at my LCS back in late 87 or really early 88, they were store giveaways.

Bought this as a 1.0 from Lone Star - I know they’re strict graders so I’m very pleasantly surprised with the grade!

I don't remember seeing this listed for that much in one of the price guides, but I do remember seeing it listed for a crazy amount around the early-mid 90's. It was one of the mail-order dealers that advertised in the monthly comics, can't remember which one. I just remember seeing this issue for something like $70, which blew me away. I'll keep an eye open for the ad while I'm reading through my floppies.

The three-page introduction of Kaine from Web of Spider-Man 119.

Action 12 hit the stands a week prior to Detective 27.

Fantastic point - makes sense. Still baffles me a little bit, but I’m glad the Tec ad has gotten more attention over the past few years. I think its a fun bit of comic history that was overlooked for decades.

Great point - Overstreet has had its fair share of errors over the years. I knew about the Action 1 ad, but the Marvel 1 ad is something I’d never heard before. Any idea which pulp it’s in? I’d love to check that out.

I should’ve been more specific, sorry. The first Oversteet guide I had was from 1987 and the More Fun 51 ad was called out as the first appearance of the Spectre. The listing for Action 12 has no call out for Batman/Detective 27. In fact it appears that the Batman ad wasn’t called out in the Overstreet guide until the early 2000s. So, I assumed the More Fun ad was better known with casual collectors for years since the Tec ad was not mentioned in the guides. I consider myself a pretty knowledgeable fan (I’ve collected for over 30 years) and I didn’t even know of the Tec ad until it was casually mentioned in Wizard magazine in the late 90s/early 2000s. So, I’m hoping to gain the insight of some golden age collectors to see how these books have been viewed throughout the years. For the record, I don’t consider either one a first appearance but I find it really strange that MF was considered a first while Action 12 wasn’t.

Hey everyone, I figure this is the best forum to discuss these in-house ads. As a kid, I loved reading through the OSPG and learning about books that I had little to no chance of physically seeing back in the pre-internet days. For many many years I thought that MF51 was the first appearance of the Spectre - it wasn't until I saw an image online that I realized how different the ad was from the finished product. I was even more mystified when I saw that the ad for Detective Comics 27 in Action 12 was a unique image and very similar to the Spectre ad. Given their similarities, does anyone have some insight why the Spectre ad got so much recognition when the similar ad of a much more popular character was virtually ignored for decades? I'm attaching an image of both for comparison. Thanks all!

This - and I can’t stress this enough - does not come close to answering my question. All you provided was a condescending description of pages I posted AND stated I owned. You ignored my prior post that pointed out an inaccurate answer you provided while still finding a way to respond in a manner that, frankly, doesn’t surprise me one bit. I knew I should have just kept you on ignore. Back you go. ANYWAYS...I’ll move this to the golden age forum to get a new perspective.

So, I’m guessing this might be better asked in the golden age forum, but does anyone else have some insight into this discrepancy?

I've gotten the OA bug over the last couple of years - here are my key pages...Web of Spider-Man 119, pg 13 with the very first panel of Kaine. Next up, Detective Comics 524 - if we can claim that the black suit Spidey first appeared in the three books that came out the same month, then I'm gonna say this page is the first appearance of Jason Todd! Even if it's technically his second appearance, this is the first time we learn his name. Finally, a page from Sword of Azrael 1. LOVED this book as a kid, really happy to have a page from it. Runner up - Flash 62, page 2, the first of Mark Waid's incredible run.

Now that I'm back home, here are the full pages I mentioned for More Fun 51 and Action Comics 12. Please take a look and judge for yourself - thanks!

I respectfully disagree. The MF 51 ad is not part of the buccaneer story; the previous panel ends the story (and even states “end”). The ad in Action 12 is exactly the same - the story is ended on the prior panel. I’ve added pics for comparison...sorry for the quality, I’m out of town and don’t have access to my copies so I grabbed the Action 12 from one of the posts in the golden age forum.

I’m very lucky in that I have both MF51 and Action 12 - both ads are incredibly similar in that they promote character appearances in upcoming books. If Overstreet was aware of the Action ad, why wasn’t it notated until fairly recently? For a character as popular as Batman, and for how similar the ads are I would imagine it would have been notated much earlier.

I'm not so sure that Overstreet was aware of the Tec 27 ad - the Spectre appearance in MF51 was called out in the first Overstreet I bought (the 1987 edition, I'm sure if must have been listed in previous editions as well). I read that thing from cover to cover as a kid, and I thought that MF51 was THE Spectre book to get. Years later, thanks to the magic of the internet, I was able to see the actual image, and...yikes. But, I digress - the Spectre appearance was called out in the guide, but the Batman preview wasn't. In fact, I don't believe it was added to the guide until the 2000's. Even then, it only lists it as an ad for Tec 27. Personally, I'd love for the label/guide to update it in a similar manner as MF 51. Something along the lines of "Batman appears in one panel ad for Detective Comics 27". I imagine that if a relatively obscure character like the Spectre warranted a callout in the guide, the Batman ad would have as well, unless I'm missing something.

This is a much better explanation of what I was trying to say! I despise the sellers that try to say these appearances are anything other than what they are - previews. I have no illusions that anything other than Spawn 1 is his first appearance, or Batman in Tec 27, ect. But, I love collecting oddball "pre"appearances that are, by and large, much more difficult to track down than the traditional 1st app.

I want to be mad, but I should’ve known better. What’s that story about the scorpion and the frog...? 🧐

I’m both, actually. And, as I’ve said, this is how I view these types of comics. As a collector I want the first time a player appeared on a card, or a comic character appears in print. Again, this is my perception of collecting the things I love and how I correlate them. Nothing more, nothing less.

Disagree, since I said that "I think" of them as pre-rookie cards. You have a different view, cool.

Kind of, yeah - XRC = extended rookie cards. Used to be used for the Topps and Fleer extended sets that came out after the season. Any rookies in these sets weren't considered "true" rookie cards since they weren't available in packs, only sold as sets.

XRCs

These types of appearances are one of my main collecting focuses, and I've thought of them in terms of rookie cards, too. When I was a kid, I wanted the first card a player appeared on which would usually be a minor league card. Definitely not the accepted rookie card, but I loved 'em all the same. I think of these ads/preview appearances/ect the same way. It's still surprising to me how inconsistent our hobby is with defining a first appearance - for example, I finally bought some key Goon books for my PC. The ad in Avatar Illustrated is just that - an ad, but undeniably one of the first initial appearances of the Goon in print. The one that confuses me, though, is the designation of Dreamwalker 0 as a "preview". It's four pages long, and an original story. The comparison that comes to mind is Milk and Cheese...the accepted first appearance is in Greed 6, and for a while the next appearance in Cerebus Biweekly 20 was considered the first. These one pagers were then reprinted in Milk and Cheese 1, so...why is Dreamwalker considered a preview and Greed is a first? I know it's a very specific example, and that what is states on the CGC label isn't gospel, but still....