Readcomix

Flame to Pyroman

I love most every often-mentioned character in the thread (Thing, Hulk, Thor, Superman) but want to give shout-outs to some as-yet unmentioneds. I love Martian Manhunter; someone threw out Iron Man earlier the well-rounded strong guy; MM would be that too. Marvel's Hercules -- I love how he begins a battle saying "I give thee the gift." A fun character in any fight scene. The one strong guy that I rarely rooted for was Namor. If he were really as strong as his ego, he would mop the floor with very character cited in this entire chain at once. Sasquatch is a close second to Namor.

Don't forget she was pseudo-Atlantean for a while...

Cap picked it up.

This is what I was thinking as well. Of course inkers can make a difference bad or good, but there may well be no greater drop-off than this guy without Bob Layton.

The face to the brains

Probably on my top 10 list of Marvel covers, too! Early Maximus had Loki-level bad guy potential. Frankly, I think he's the Inhumans' best hope.

We need a Charlton Printing Flubs club!

That's just it, Sqeggs. I'm guessing, but like Richard said, they are all Charlton products, the covers and interiors, but they are mismatched, the inside covers are blank, and the one appears to be yellow plate only. The other, the crossword puzzle book, says in the upper right it's a Charlton publication, but it's clearly not supposed to be a romance comic book. I got them in a lot I bought mostly for s decent copy of First Love 11 (headlights cover), and these were a pleasant surprise when I waded through the stack.

Exactly...but in this case, barely. There's a few Harvey's of this ilk: house style but otherwise as forward as the better-drawn GGA standard-bearers. And some of the storylines are as forward as any of them. Hi-School Romance 24, for example, had a pre-marital pregnancy story, and an underage high school girl falls for her teacher story in the same issue. They had the stories, but the artists generally did not have the same chops.

This just in; another under-the-radar Harvey romance. Blinding high beams cover!

This just in....an underrated Harvey romance gem I have been seeking. How is this not a classic headlights cover?

These Charlton errors (I think) are more early silver than gold but I thought they would be appreciated here.

Wow! I can see a young Robert Crumb plucking that one off the newsstand.

Well, if you have to be in NYS, I'm in the right part, but it's still a state that needs some new thinking IMO. Love the terra, here for family. But probably not forever. But I'd still like a CGC office 90 minutes away by train. Of course, it's probably unaffordable.

Kee-rist, Liz, I know that! I'm just cheap and lazy! I wanna be able to take the train in and drop 'em off myself.

Planet to Planet

How about a New York City office? There would be more drop-off & pick-up traffic than a dry cleaner.

The "junior" version is Vic Gorelick, editor-in-chief at Archie comics. He started at 16 while founder JohnGoldwater was still there, and he's in his 60th year now, from a kid making corrrections in the art department to running the place. Still, that means he started in the 50's, 12 or 15 years into the birth of the Archie universe. But it's the only other remotely similar long run to the top that I can think of.

Queen to sultan

There are golden age books that we don't want????

Cake to wake

Yellow-suited killer to brown-suited kidnapper

Of the three, much as I like Moon knight, that book has baffled me the most. So it seems like the purest spec play of the three. Punisher has always seemed to me to be a two-dimensional (albeit cool) supporting character, but he grew a fan base and carried series. He may not be at his all-time peak, but it's a first appearance of a significant character. I like IM55 as a key, but it's so much more than Thanos (and Drax, for that matter). Yes, the big guy is the lynchpin, but it's the launch pad of all Starlin's cosmic Marvel contributions of the bronze era, and that's pretty far-reaching. I think it's a key, but to view it as a key solely because of Thanos' first app diminishes its importance. I see the FF52 arguments but think it gets more of a pass than say FF45 because it's Marvel's first major black character. Look at Dell's Lobo or GL87; this is enough to buoy it. I still say Josie 45 (first black character in an Archie comic) is underappreciated, given the status of the other three keys in this "first" genre. Fun stuff to kick around. Of all of it, Bats 121 baffles me the most. Sure, tough in grade but many books are. It's status just seems outsized compared to Mr Zero/Mr Freeze's status in the Batman rogues gallery. He's barely an afterthought for a long time. But obviously I'm missing something that the broader collecting market sees.

Yep, I sure did! Red dress game face to red dress no-shame face