RockMyAmadeus

Great, now it's stuck in my mind, and I didn't even play it.... Groove is in the houuuusssse, ou ou ou house....groove is the houuuusssse..."

That was a tough signature. I'm an insufficiently_thoughtful_person. I KNEW it was Chaykin, I HAVE Chaykin. Good job, Ken!

Bernie Wrightson again, Twisted Tales #2

True...but at least he wrote most of them, and worked on all of them except Spidey #121. And MSH18 which he openly said he had nothing to do with... ...he was still EIC at the time, and he IS 92, so he may not remember...

Of course, many, many thanks to Sharpcomix and Richie, without whom, none of this would have happened.

And last, for now, one of my most treasured sets...slowly but surely, finishing them off...one...by one...by one... (one of one!) (one of one!) (one of one!) (I cannot stop slabbing this book. There are 5 9.8 SS, and I own 4 of them!) (The ONLY Batman cover Totleben ever did!) (one of one!)

Little story on the Strange Tales/Warlocks. When I first started collecting, I didn't know anything about Starlin. But then, Silver Surfer, and then, Infinity Gauntlet, which was the huge #1 crossover of 1991. Huge. So, by the time I A. had any money, and B. got around to it, all these Starlin books from the 70's were all $20-$30-$40 EACH. Ugh! Fast forward to 1999...the comic market sucks, everyone's forgotten about Starlin again, and all these Warlocks that didn't sell are now back to reasonable prices. Well, on eBay, Lange's Sports apparently bought a collection with multiple copies of all of these books...and started listing them....and I started bidding on them...and they sold for $3, $4, $5 each...but I was only willing to buy the "NM- or lower" copies, because the NM, NM+, and NM/M copies were selling for $10, $15, $30 or so. All of the Starlins you see, with the exception of the #11s (and I think one of those was, too) I bought from them in the years 1999-2001. All of them..every one of them...was not graded better than NM-. In fact, many of them were VFs and VF-s (the #179 was a F/VF.) Now, granted, I pressed these...but there's only so much you can do if the raw book has no potential. A Todd Lange 2000 "VF-" turned into a 9.6. A F/VF became a 9.4. Back then, it was simply magic, and if I hadn't been so cheap, I would have had a lot more 9.8s. Those were the days....

And the crown jewels of the set.... (Ok, so the story behind this one goes like this: Starlin did everything on the book except edit it and letter it. -script, pencils, inks, colors, Starlin did it all. But in the credits on the title page, there are....other people...listed there. Why...? I'll let you figure it out. I asked Starlin if he could do this one for me, and he said "ok, but just this ONE, I won't be making a habit of this!" One was fine...it's not a 9.8, but it's close enough.)

A few odds n' ends....

Add a little KGBeast into the mix... (#419 and 420 are a BEAR to get in 9.8.)

Plus a little Herb goodness... (That #182 is undergraded. It is flawless.)

True...but at least he wrote most of them, and worked on all of them except Spidey #121.

Plus, a little Wagnerian opera...

I would guess there are no more than 200-300 or so raw copies out there that are high grade (8.0 or higher.) 1962 was still the "let's read everything to death" era.

How is it "disingenuous"...? Is there some sort of intent to deceive involved in using the term "flashback"? There isn't any on my part. Are you sure that's the word you mean to use? In any event, yes, they are, properly, flashbacks. In the narrative form, whatever is the latest event to happen is what is "now" (unless explicitly said otherwise), and everything that takes place before that, but presented to the reader after that is, properly, a flashback to a story that takes place earlier in continuity. At the time of publication, the Annual was the latest story told, and therefore, anything published after the Annual that referred to events before the annual was a flashback. As far as "pertinent to understanding the events currently at hand"....that's precisely what happened, in shortened form, in Storm's exposition, with the footnote to refer to the issues in question for more information. Flashbacks don't necessarily have to explain or bring the reader "up to speed" to be a flashback. In fact, flashbacks are often used to add to the mystery of the current events (see: pretty much any criminal investigation procedural show.) Whether that event takes place 30 minutes, or 30 years, before the current events, if it is presented afterwards, it is a flashback (although, to be fair, as I said before, it could also be called a flash sideways if it refers to relatively concurrent events.) This was indeed the case, and has already been gone over in great detail in this thread. The use of the word "significant" should be discouraged as much as possible, because it is qualitative, and not quantitative, and thus subject to the personal interpretations of whomever is discussing it. What is "significant" to one is not "significant" to others. I don't think many people would agree with your definition of a "significant appearance", in any event. Why does the character have to be central to the story? There are several instances where characters have made full appearances, which weren't necessary to the story. Case in point: Wolverine's second full appearance is GSXM #1. The entire story could be told without him. He makes very little difference in the outcome of the story. There are a couple of panels throughout where he is the focus, but for the most part, he is a background, ancillary character. In fact...Wolverine doesn't make a significant (there's that word again) impact on ANY story until X-Men #109, where he is the central focus of Weapon Alpha. Up until then? Could have completely done without him, and whatever he did do could have been done by any of the other characters with no problem.

And, honestly, until Thanos Quest, he was a fairly two-dimensional villain, at that.

The Winter Soldier stuff brought Bucky back in a pretty cool way. We cannot say that for most characters who return from the grave. I totally agree with that. Bucky's return had to be done in a flawless way, not many writers could've pulled it off. I think more writers could if editors would leave them alone. When it came to Thanos, Marvel didn't do it for 10 years and let Starlin do it properly. Nobody cared about Thanos. He was a villain, in a time when villains weren't glorified, in a couple of series that didn't exactly set the world on fire. If Marvel thought they could have made money from Thanos, out Thanos would have come. I doubt anyone gave it a second thought until Starlin himself resurrected him, 13 years later.

These scans initially came from me, and I have a bunch more issues scanned (pages about Valiant, the Top 100 and Top 10 back issues lists), and a bunch more to do. I have issues through 109, missing only 2-9, 25, 28, 29, 32, 46, 52, 54, 91, 98, 105 & 106. I'm putting them on eBay soon, so I'll scan those pages before selling them. So, are you someone from the Valiantfans board...? Yep. My understanding is that you're a former member? I joined back in 2008 but only became active on the boards in late 2012. Oh, then you wouldn't be anyone I know. Nevermind.

Damn it. I know that sig. PS. I knew all the other sigs at sight. Good thing I wasn't around.

john carter 18 frank miller

Gah. I know this one. I know it. It's early 80's, but I can't place it. GAH!

I try to make it challenging. Yes, by expanding down and to the right, when expanding up would have been better. Curses! Foiled again!