tomo

While I was thumbing through the collection, looking for more odd cover appearances by D-List characters, it turns out there was another one in the wall display that I highlighted a few days ago that started me down this path. In Adventure Comics #346 from July 1966, we are introduced to four new recruits for Legion membership. But alas, one of them is a traitor! Who could it be? Karate Kid? Princess Projectra? Ferro Lad? Or err...ummm...Nemesis Kid?! Spoilers from here on out for anyone who hasn't read this yet, but the only worse name that Nemesis Kid could have chosen would've been Traitor Lad. This issue ends in a cliffhanger, with all of the super-obvious clues pointing at Karate Kid as the Legion traitor. Now I don't have the next issue yet, so I don't know for sure, but I'm going out on a limb here to say that Nemesis Kid is the actual traitor. I mean, it's right there in his name!

Yesterday we looked at a rather curious cover appearance by a super-villain wannabe. Let's keep the theme going and take a look at another, this time from Superman Annual #2 from 1960/1961. This collection of reprints celebrates some the greatest super-villains ever featured! Naturally, we see Brainiac, Bizarro, and Titano. All three of these villains had been in about a half-dozen stories each, up until this book came out. They've also gone on to more than stake their claim as iconic Superman adversaries. Titano less so, but this was DC in the 60's, so of course a gorilla gets top corner billing! More curious, however, is the inclusion of Metallo, The Invulnerable Enemy, and The Thing From 40,000 A.D. In retrospect, the inclusion of Metallo seems like a no-brainer, but at this point his first (and only) appearance was overshadowed by Supergirl's first, as they shared the same debut issue with Action Comics #252 from May 1959. That's my newest holy grail book that I bought off the boards earlier in the year. But that's not really what we are here to talk about. Back to the nobodies... Metallo would have no other appearances until his brother picked up the Metallo moniker in 1977 and proceeded to turn him into one of Superman's A-List villains. Or at least a B+, if not an A. In retrospect, they got lucky here with Metallo as he would go on to become a player. So what happened to The Invulnerable Enemy and The Thing From 40,000 A.D.? The Invulnerable Enemy had one, and only one, in-continuity appearance back in 1957 from Action Comics #226. I don't have a copy of that issue yet, but it does sport a great looking cover if you get the chance to look it up. The Thing From 40,000 A.D. had one more shot at notoriety, but alas he never caught on. His first appearance was from farther back in Superman #87 from 1954. That story was reprinted in Superman #196 from May 1967, with a new cover by Curt Swan. I love the Superman vs. Superman covers, and while this one is fun, it doesn't hold a candle to the original cover by Wayne Boring. It's on my short list of books that I'm focusing on currently, so hopefully I'll find the right copy to add to my collection soon. And that was the last we saw of The Thing From 40,000 A.D. for another two decades until he was featured in DC Comics Presents #89 from January 1986. He even gets a cover appearance, beating up the Omega Men! Alas, he gets caught in a disintegrator beam before the issue's end, and winds up as some sort of repentant, sentient thought cloud...never to be seen again. In retrospect, I guess you can never discount anyone. While TTF40000AD (that acronym really didn't save me much time, did it? Especially since I've now typed more letters in this parenthesis than I would've if I just typed out his full name to begin with.) would never capitalize on his second chance like Metallo, maybe there's hope for The Invulnerable Enemy yet....it's only been 60 years, there's still time...

When it comes to comic book storage, I don't really have a man-cave full of items on display. I did build custom shelves fit to hold long-boxes that currently take up one wall in my office. I work out of my home, so my office is shared between my work and my hobby. It's not the greatest of solutions, but I'll do the whole comic book room when I retire and move out to the country! In the meantime, however, I did pick up a couple of picture frame shelves from Ikea that I use to display about a dozen books at one time. I like to pick a theme and swap out the books on display every couple of weeks or so. This is this week's selection... The picture is not the greatest, as this room doesn't get a whole lot of natural light, but you get the idea. I decided to go with a Superman on trial theme, after realizing how many of those covers there were after looking for books for a previous journal entry. My son doesn't really have the comic book collecting passion just yet, but he does enjoy trying to guess the theme every time I change it up. This theme was relatively easy, but he did notice something that I didn't (aside from the shame of only having a reprint of Adventure Comics #247 so far). Who the heck is Electro, the glowing frog skeleton? He must be pretty important, right? He is, after all, a member of the Jury of Super-Enemies. It turns out I haven't read this story yet from Action Comics #286 from March 1962. I did, however, remember this guy from an earlier cover... This story from Action Comics #271 from December 1960 I do remember quite well, as it features a great Lex Luthor scheme. Spoilers for anyone hoping to read this themselves one day, but there is no light ray creature from Dimension X. In reality, it's one of Luthor's goons projecting an image of a man made from neon-tubes! It was all a ploy to get Superman trapped inside the fake "spaceship." Thinking he was getting transported to Dimension X, he was instead trapped on Earth inside a lead sphere while Luthor attempted to swindle the world's governments out of their stockpile of nuclear weapons. Superman eventually breaks free of his lead cage and reveals Luthor's scheme to the world. So all this time, there never was a dimension X, nor were there any light ray creatures. If that's the case, how did a figment of Luthor's imagination end up on the Jury of Super-Enemies? It turns out that the cover for #286 was part of dream sequence caused by Red Kryptonite induced nightmares! Makes sense. Electro never speaks, nor is he ever addressed by name in the issue. He does get to put a Superman doll in a bowl labeled "DOOM" (why not?) and he leads a shackled Supergirl to the arena where she will fight Superman. If it wasn't for the cover of this issue, we would never be able to associate the name Electro to this type of rampant villainy! It does beg the question, where were all the other actual super-enemies when they commissioned this cover? It did get me to reread a classic Superman story from earlier in the run, so mission accomplished...I guess.

That's such a great cover, congrats on acquisition! I know exactly what you're talking about with reading the old books. I do have to be in a certain frame of mind when I crack open some old silver and bronze age books. You of course have your evergreens, which are timeless, and with which I would include the Hex books overall. Those are read for pleasure, as opposed to some of the others which are read to keep the hobby going for posterity's sake. I did score a half-dozen early Weird Western Tales on eBay last week, so I'm definitley looking forward to getting a new batch of reading material in the mail this week!

I'm working on it. Thanks for another great sales thread this week!

Finally, for this week, we're delving into the Justice Society of America! I've always had a fondness for time travel and alternative universe storylines, so naturally the JLA/JSA stories from the 60's and 70's caught my attention when I started to collect DC back-issues. I started out big, right out of the gate, with this one... ...Justice League of America #21 from August 1963. Aside from having one of the best covers from the Silver Age, this issue is the proper introduction of the JSA from Earth-2 into the modern day DC continuity. This issue I picked up from the Motor City Comic-Con back in 2013 of $30, and it's a pretty sharp looking low grade book. I don't really collect the Justice League of America title per se, but do pick up issues from time to time. With that said, I'm not a stickler for condition on these, and would rather just be able to read the stories. These three I picked up just recently at my LCS' monthly auctions. A great collection of covers all around, although that #46 is extra cool with the Batman '66-esque sound effects! That issue itself is from the summer of '66...coincidence? Naturally, I followed the JSA into the Bronze Age as well, with the relaunch of All Star Comics. Not only were the Justice Society back in their original title with All Star Comics #58 from February 1976, but it also features the 1st appearance of the Earth-2 Supergirl...Power Girl! I picked up this issue about 10 years ago on eBay for a whole fourteen bucks. Up until recently, the big hole in my collection of Bronze Age JSA were the Huntress issues. Within the last year, I was able to rectify that, but I did have to pay up for them. These were issues that I always said I'd get around to sooner or later, as they were more Batman issues than Superman. Oops. Oh well, they are mine now... The All-Star Comics #69 I got off of eBay, while the DC Super-Stars #17 I got from my LCS's monthly auctions. I kinda felt bad on that last one, as I had to out-bid a father-son collecting team, but it's war out in the auction room...you do what you gotta do! My favorite run of JSA bronze books are the short run of issues in Adventure Comics from #461-466 from 1979. Such great stories in those. In fact, the whole 1970's run of Adventure Comics features some great gems. Finally, we get the long awaited first appearance of one of my CGC slabs. I was waiting for a time when I could get proper pics and scans of these, as they are a pain, but this will have to do. But first, I must set the narrative... About 5 or 6 years ago, a lady walked in to my local comic shop with a box full of books that her aunt was going to sell at their garage sale. Lucky for he Aunt, she snagged them before the garage sale started and brought them to my LCS to see if they were worth anything. Her uncle had passed some years prior, and these were his original owner book from the early 1940's. Needless to say, it was a wise decision on her part, as they did a lot better with their books in an auction than they would've gotten at the garage sale. I think they ended up getting close to $10k for her box of books that were underneath the basement staircase for decades. Unfortunately for me, there were no Superman books in the bunch, so I had to set my sights elsewhere if I wanted a piece of this collection. Included in the batch were some great early Batman and Detective Comics with the 1st Alfred and early Penguin issues. There was also a Green Lantern #1 in sharp VG condition. But what caught my eye was the collection of All-Star Comics that he had. My memories a little hazy, and I seem to have misplaced my auction catalog from that event, but he had at least 5 different issues from #5-12. There was no #8, or at least it was never made available in the sale if it was there...who knows, maybe my LCS owner is sitting on that one still? For my money, I decided to go for All Star Comics #12 from August 1942, as it had a great cover. Seriously, look at that cover! Great patriotic stuff, with Wonder Woman front and center, and the rest of the Justice League fanned out behind her. I ended up subbing this one to CGC last year, and it came back a universal 4.0 grade. The auction was packed and the bidding was fierce, so in the end I paid close to $400 for this one. I probably overpaid at the time, but you know how auction fever goes. I think in the end I'm going to come out ahead, as this is the issue where Wonder Woman is elected as the secretary of the Justice Society. Word on the street is that Gal Gadot will be assuming the secretary post in the new Justice League movie...fingers crossed!

I love a good hobo cover!

Presently, not much...

Does "present" count?

These boards, and the fine folk who hang around here are the best!

Because it's Thursday?

Missed it by that much. No worries though...

SM #171

SM #174

SM #180

To be back in the days of old when alcohol didn't put me to sleep...

I got my fresh pot of coffee, so I should be good until at least 12:30am or so...

I'll take these 3 @ 30% off. Here's hoping another Super/man/boy/girl/pal/girlfriend that I don't have sneaks it's way into tonight's books!

Continuing our look at the non-Superman titles that I still actively collect, we have the newest title that I've decided to fill out a run on...and that is Jonah Hex! As far back as I can remember I've always been a fan of westerns, much to the chagrin of my wife and son who sigh and roll their eyes when I come across one while flipping through the t.v. listings. Although I do the same to my wife when Grease is on, so I suppose it's all good. Anyways, with as much as I like a good western movie, I never did really give the western comic book genre much of a shot. I remember sampling the Joe Lansdale/Tim Truman/Vertigo mini-series from the mid-90's, and they were all right. It wasn't until the Palmiotti/Gray run from 2006 that I really started to appreciate the beauty of the done-in-one, grizzled, morality plays set in the old west. There is also something about this genre that brings out the best in artists, similar to the beauty that cinematographers are able to capture in their movies. I also enjoyed the heck out of the New52 run, even when they went modern day and had Booster Gold along for the ride. It was a nice nod the Hex series from the mid-80's. I've since eBayed off those runs, and put the funds into putting together a collection of vintage Hex. All-Star Western #11 from May 1972, featuring the 2nd appearance of Jonah Hex, is my newest acquisition that I picked up earlier in the month. Thanks to Hero Time Comics in Southgate, MI for this book. It's rare when you have a comic book store that has a good selection of back issues for sale at a decent price point, so I usually try to stop by when I'm visiting customers on his end of town. Hex's third appearance in Weird Western Tales #12 from July 1972 I picked up on the boards a couple of months ago. Thanks to @SOLAR BOY for the killer sales threads from earlier in the year, as he also helped me fill out my Doom Patrol run as well. I was also able to pick up a lot of the first 8 issues of his solo title from the boards as well, but it's been a while and I can't remember who I picked them up from. Jonah Hex #1 from April 1977. I could look at Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez drawn Jonah Hex all day. Such good stuff! Classic Bernie Wrightson cover of Jonah Hex #9 from February 1978. Unfortunately, after this issue, I have a big old hole in the run up leading up to issue #72. I picked up a great high-grade run of the last 20 issues of this title from an auction at my LCS, and I ended up paying about fifty cents a copy for those. Such good stuff for an insanely low price! I love the tag line at the top of the cover..."You liked heroes as a kid? Great! Now maybe it's time you grew up!" Yeah, grow up a drink a couple bottles of whiskey, you no-good freeloading kids! ...and since you're all grown up now, you should enjoy this cover of this nice lady getting dressed for work. A fitting final cover for the Jonah Hex series. Since this is in theory a Superman-centric journal, how about this cover of Jonah Hex #91 from June 1985... ...which is a classic homage to Superman #243 from October 1971.

Just woke up off the couch and Solar's doing a thread...happy days! I'm too scared to look back, however, to see what I missed.

For the first two days of this week, we've had a look at the two Marvel titles that I still maintain a collection on, so let's take a look at a DC one now. I've mentioned previously how I was a big fan of The Sandman back in the early-to-mid 90's as it was coming out. Naturally, I sampled some of the other titles and quickly fell in love with the Grant Morrison and Richard Case run of Doom Patrol. It's a helluva 40+ issue run, and definitely rewards repeat reading. When I started reading this, I had no prior experience with either the Doom Patrol or Grant Morrison, so it was a bit of a baptism by fire. Needless to say, they hooked me deep and I've been following every iteration of them since. The back half of that volume with Rachel Pollack writing sorta peters out, but it was all right. I was probably one of the only few who enjoyed the John Arcudi/Tan Eng Huat run, as I appreciated the unique visual look of the art. The John Byrne run is typical past-his-prime Byrne. I also rather liked the Keith Giffen/Matthew Clark run as I really enjoyed that post Infinite Crisis/pre-Flaspoint era of the DCU. I think the DCU is just now getting back to the same cohesive universe feeling that made the books from that era a lot of fun, but that's a post for another day. It wasn't until the last 4 or 5 years that I started to seriously address finishing out the Doom Patrol collection with the original run. I finally was able to secure a copy of My Greatest Adventure #80 from June 1963. I picked this one up at a recent auction a few months ago at my LCS, and probably paid full retail for this nice-lookiing VG copy. I've picked up enough bargains at their auctions over the years, however, that I don't mind occasionally paying up for the books I really want. The majority of my DP collection also came from an auction at my LCS in 2015, as they were auctioning off a 30 issue lot. I ended up paying about $200 for that lot, and did all right considering these two were in it... A nice looking copy of their first self-title issue with Doom Patrol #86 from March 1964... ...and the first appearance of Beast Boy in Doom Patrol #99 from November 1965! I'm down to missing only six issues at this point, and it's getting to the point that I just need to pony up and pay full retail to finish this run out, rather than waiting to stumble across some more bargains. This title has been under-appreciated at large for too long, so I need to lock this one down while it's still relatively cheap. Besides, this title has some of the greatest covers from this era. Great stuff all around!

Aside from The Avengers, there is one Marvel title that I still collect, and that is Dr. Strange! I'm an old school D&D player from back in the day (started playing in 1982), and among my friends, no one ever wanted to play the Magic-User character. That usually left me to play that character class by default as I was the only one who didn't mind the inherent weakness at the beginning. So naturally, when I started reading comics I found myself gravitating to the magic side of the universe. His original self-titled series had just about ended right when I started reading comics, so it would be a few years before I really became a fan of the character with the Sorcerer Supreme title that started up in '88. I finished up the volume one run in the early to mid '90's with no problem, as most of those issue were pretty cheap and readily available. I never really went any earlier than that until recently, however, as my collecting focus drifted a bit as the '90's went on. I've since started filling out those runs, but it's moving at a snail's pace. I'm not holding out for pristine copies at this point, so I pick up nice looking beaters as they present themselves. I had the opportunity to pick up a Strange Tales #110 last year, but there was someone who wanted it more than me at the auction who was willing to pay above current market value. This was also about 6 months before the movie, so the price was already inflated. Dr. Strange is also the only Marvel title that I still currently read on a monthly basis. Marvel pretty much killed whatever interest I had left in continuing to follow their universe with Civil War and the advent of the $4 comic book. I still refuse to pay $4 for a new book, so it's a good thing discounted mail order services are a thing. Enough words, let's look at some kickass covers. Strange Tales #150 from November 1966 has one of my favorite covers by Bill Everett. You gotta love that classic 1960's stance from Dan Adkins on Strange Tales #160 from September 1967. My copy of Dr. Strange #169 from June 1968, featuring the first solo title for the doctor came rather recently, well after the price for these jumped dramatically. My copy only cost me $20, and it looks it! It actually presents well for a $20 book, but it does have this arts and crafts project happening on the inside... It looks like the original owner had carefully clipped this picture of Dr. Strange from out of the letters column in the back and put it in a scrap book of some kind. You can see where the adhesive he/she used discolored the corners of the picture. I'm fascinated that they then carefully taped the picture back into the book, albeit without the missing right hand side margin. That just makes me appreciate this copy even more, after getting a glimpse of how well loved this book was back in the day! I could look at Frank Brunner Dr. Strange covers all day long, and the cover for Dr. Strange #1 from June 1974 is one of his best. I picked this copy up at the Motor City Comic-Con in the mid-to-late 90's for a ten spot, and it was the last issue that I needed to complete the run. Brunner doesn't get much better than this, with the cover for Dr. Strange #4 from October 1974. It's too bad he didn't have a longer run on this title, but I treasure these and the Marvel Premiere issues just the same. Gene Colan was a good follow up to Brunner, and had some killer covers himself. The cover for Dr. Strange #14 from May 1976 is probably my favorite. Probably my favorite Dr. Strange artist of all time is Jackson "Butch" Guice, as his run is the one that I started reading Dr. Strange with, so I'm sure it has that emotional attachment going for it. He had a nice, long 20-some issue run with Roy Thomas that pretty much turned me into a lifelong Dr. Strange fan. Plus, he had some great covers himself... I'm sure the fact that he also drew a fine looking female form didn't hurt either!

Since we spent the last month pretty much firmly entrenched in the world of Superman, I thought it might be fun to look at some of the other non-Superman titles that I collect. This will almost always be a Superman-centric journal, as that is where my main interest lies these days, but I'll allow myself the occasional diversion as I see fit. As I mentioned way back in my first journal post, the first title I started collecting back in 1985 was The Avengers. So the very first back issue I ever bought was The Avengers #138 from August 1975. The Vision soon became my favorite character, so I specifically started collecting his key issues and cool covers. I remember I had to pay a whole $5 for The Avengers #134-135, featuring the revised origin of The Vision! That was quite a princely sum back in the days of having to rely on allowances, and not summer jobs, for my funds. Even so, I was soon able to fill out the run from issue #134 up to current. I started buying off the racks at that same time with issue #256, so that was a solid 120 issues of back issue collecting that I set for my first goal. I've since eBayed off #211-402 and the awesome Busiek/Perez volume three run. The selling off was all post-Marvel Cinematic Universe, so I was able to get a nice price for a couple of runs filled with non-key after non-key. I still have my run of #8-210, but it's pretty spotty for issues before #100. I don't really actively collect the title anymore, but I'll still pick up the occasional issue if the price is right or it has The Vision standing tall with arms crossed in the upper left! This issue cost me a whole $8 back in 1985. I vividly remember standing in front of the glass case at Reader's Comics in Westland, Michigan staring at The Avengers #57 from October 1968. My friend and I were going back and forth on wether or not it was worth the eight bucks, or if I was going to be paying too much. As you can see from the scan above I did buy it, and it has been a valued book ever since. I've sold an awful lot of books over the last ten years, but this one will more than likely be one of the last to leave my collection. The Avengers #16 from May 1965 was always out of my price range growing up. I never did come across a copy until a few years ago when I snagged this copy for $5 at the Oddball: Emporium of the Weird show in Akron, Ohio in 2015. It's beat to hell, but I don't care...look at that cover! That's a keeper in any condition, and I just wanted a copy for the collection. The same goes for Kang's first appearance in The Avengers #8 from September 1964. This was one of my last purchases as I was leaving the Motor City Comic-Con in 2013 and cost me $10. Something else that I just noticed while filing these issues away, this run also contains my first ever tape pull! Increasing the value of everyone else's comic book collection one book at a time since 1986! So those are my personal favorites from my Avengers run. Tomorrow, we'll take a closer look at the other Marvel title I still maintain a collection of.