Zonker

For a while, I have been wondering about the blurb at the end of issue #14. Had Jack originally planned to do another flashback story (similar the "The Pact" or "Himon"), this time filling in some more of Barda's history? But reading this issue's lettercol seems to squash that idea. If the plan had been to do such a flashback, this would have been the perfect opportunity to promote it. For whatever reason, the planned Barda-centric story for #15 was shelved in favor of introducing a new character (as we'll see here soon enough). They did keep "The Real Big Barda" as one of the interior chapter headings for #15, but it doesn't really fit the narrative at that point.

Mid '70s - 1980s Lot of 9: All Star Squadron, Teen Titans, Mister Miracle George Perez, Mike Golden, Jerry Ordway, Steve Rude & more.

Detective Comics #880

Rewind back to the beginning of the hobby: First and foremost, the reason back issues of comic books originally had any value was that readers of the current issues wanted to see what happened in the stories they missed, either because those issues came out before the readers' time, or because of inconsistent comic book distribution, a factor that existed for most of the first 50 years of what we think of as the modern comic book industry. So you had people willing to pay more for an older issue, and the more perceived importance of that older issue, the more one was willing to pay. When I first started collecting, origin issues were a much bigger deal than they are now. Because an origin can always be updated, changed, or ret-conned. But a first published appearance is always that first appearance (at least until we start to change our minds about "cameos," previews or ad appearances). Likewise, the advent of slabbing has increased the demand for the cool cover image, as opposed to the short story drawn by a legendary artist like Frank Frazetta, but buried as a back-up feature in the book.

Good catch! That is most definitely another exception to my Vertigo miniseries rant.

Vertigo did have a very high hit rate for its time, including all the ongoing series mentioned so far. But I think the vast majority of their miniseries were forgettable, at least to my taste: Sebastian O, Enigma, American Freak, Chiaroscuro, The Extremist, Nevada, Seekers into Mystery, Skin Graft. I think I sampled all of those, and found them all pretty (I'm excluding the excellent Death and Books of Magic mini-series as basically spinoffs from Gaiman's Sandman).

Is this the first instance of the Hulk transformation triggered by Banner's emotional state? Whose idea do we think that was?

NOW SOLD! DC 20-cent Cover Lot: Shadow, Kamandi, Mister Miracle, The Demon, Superman, Superboy/Legion, Sword of Sorcery, Black Orchid in Adventure Comics Mister Miracle #13 Sword of Sorcery #2 featuring Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser Demon #12 Adventure Comics #429 with the Black Orchid & Captain Fear The Shadow #1 Superman #269 Superboy #201 starring the Legion of Super-Heroes Kamandi #19 Kamandi #20

"Nominating Ken but not Barbie is literally the plot of the movie." -bradmeltzer He kind of has a point...

I was surprised to find the Ace Doubles continuing into the 1970s. And happy to see this particular edition has back-to-back PKD novels.

NOW SOLD! Detective 481 & 482 - First Dollar Comics issues, post Batman Family merge From 1978-1979: these are the first two Dollar Comic sized issues of Detective Comics, as it merges with the Batman Family magazine. Detective Comics #481 features a cover by Jim Starlin. There are 2 Batman stories in this issue, one written by Denny O'Neil with Marshall Rogers artwork, and one written & laid out by Jim Starlin, with finished art by P. Craig Russell. Also included in this issue are stories featuring Batgirl, Robin, and Man-Bat, the latter two stories featuring Don Newton artwork. Fine / Very Fine condition: both staples are intact, free from rust, and holding all pages and covers together. No water damage, no staining. There is a very slight amount of spine roll, and a production crease running horizontally across the lower third of the front cover. The upper left-hand corner of the front cover has some slight chipping. Detective Comics #482 provides the second part of the Starlin/Russell Batman story, as well as 2 stories with artwork by Michael Golden: a story featuring Jack Kirby's creation Etrigan the Demon, and another featuring Bat-Mite. Batgirl and Robin appear in solo stories as well. Cover by Rich Buckler & Dick Giordano. Fine Plus condition: both staples are intact, free from rust, and holding all pages and covers together. No water damage, no staining. The lower left-hand corner of the front cover is chipped. There is a 1/8 inch tear about 2 inches up from the lower left-hand corner of the back cover. Mild production creases run horizontally on the front cover (through the Demon's face) and the back cover (at about the same location)

"We promise-- you won't have to read any other issue to understand this one..."

I have mixed feelings about the man as publisher. On the one hand, I admire the spirit of experimentation at DC during his 1968-1974 years, as he tried to respond to Marvel's emerging success. Elevating artists like Kubert, Sekowsky, Orlando and yes Kirby to editorial positions gave the DC books a more dynamic look than they had before. Bringing over the Charlton creators (Skeates, Aparo, O'Neil, Giordano) provided a shot in the arm to previously languishing series like Aquaman & Teen Titans. And opening up the files to reprint all that classic Golden Age material made me a fan of DC's history, extending decades before my birth. But he never gave those experiments room to breathe, cancelling so many books before they could really find their audience. And he alienated some of his artist/editors like Giordano and eventually Kirby. I think it likely it was difficult for him to manage upward, that is, to keep the suits from demanding ill-advised course corrections in search of immediate results. I'd be willing to bet his successor Jenette Kahn was more successful in that regard, as she came from outside the comics world, and could credibly threaten to quit if she wasn't given room to do her job as she saw fit. The guys at the top of National Periodical Publications in those days probably saw Infantino as a comic-book-lifer with limited options outside the field, and so walked all over him.

The last appearance of the Apokolips villains until the finale in #18. Apart from cameo appearances by the Furies, Mister Miracle essentially stops being a Fourth World book after this issue. I think this tagline is significant: Likely mandated by Infantino-- Kirby can keep doing Mister Miracle, but only as a series of done-in-one single issue stories.

Speedy recovery Jimbo! Your contributions to the threads always make them better.

SOLD! Last Half of Steve Englehart's JLA Run: 144 145 146 149 150 Contemporaneous with his classic collaborations with Marshall Rogers on Detective Comics and Mister Miracle, Englehart's Justice League of America run is often overlooked, but it is one of the best JLA storylines between those of Gardner Fox and Grant Morrison! Each issue Giant sized. Each has artwork by the regular 1970s team of Dick Dillin & Frank McLaughlin. Note #147 & #148 not by Englehart (and therefore not included here)

The "Head" in this issue served as an inspiration for Mike Baron & Steve Rude's Nexus series

NOW SOLD! Uncanny X-Men Claremont/Cockrum Lot: 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153

Rumor has it the original artwork shows Kirby's 1st draft dialogue read "Eff You, Stanley! I'm Outa Here!"

indeed. Makes you wonder if Steve's idea of the gag went something like: Steve: "Glad that crazy idea is done. Fortunately, I'll never have to deal with that again!" Narrator: "But, the very next month..." Then Stan realized the joke worked better if it was timed to land immediately after Steve completed drawing the previous brainstorm.

8 DC 1970s Number 1 Issues

Well, if we're going strictly by Marvel Method forensic analysis, it must have been Steve who came up with the visual gags of poor overworked Stan having all those Marvel characters crowding around his typewriter, while dozing Steve lets the spiders do the artwork for him (which I think is a really funny self-deprecating gag coming from Ditko). Stan does use his captions to puff up his "scripting" contributions, and maybe that does indeed rub Steve the wrong way. But Stan also uses his dialogue to have some fun at his own expense here: "you practice signing your name all over" "it sure wasn't you, Lee" "I copied it from one of the best classics I could find" "Lee's swelled head"

Jack's most "Fourth-Worldish" issue of Mister Miracle to date. Great stuff!