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Post by Prince Hal on Dec 29, 2018 22:02:12 GMT -5
As a new member here, I am not sure if there are any threads specific to asking for help to find old comics. My dilemma is that I am looking for a specific comic from my childhood but I have very few details. I don't have a title, specific characters or any publisher info. All I remember are a few brief storyline snapshots and I can clearly see two images from two separate stories in my mind (but can't translate those to paper). I hope this is an appropriate place to ask, apologize if there is a better route to take and would appreciate any help I can get. The book I had was old even when I was a kid - I was born in 1968 and had it sometime between September, 1974 and August, 1978 - I must have gotten it at a garage sale or something. I believe it was from sometime in the 60's - relatively crude color but excellent art (realistic, not cartoony) and it may have been a digest-sized format as well. It had no cover and was kind of a collection of seemingly unrelated stories - the two I remember took place in WWII and a sci-fi future where the human race is capable of space travel to the edge of our solar system. The war story ends with a US soldier being blown up - one of the final frames shows fire/explosion bursting out of his chest as he is killed. I think it may have been about a premonition he had about dying that way. I know, not much to go on... The sci-fi story ends with an astronaut striking an invisible barrier at the edge of the solar system - much like a goldfish in a bowl. This book has been eluding me for many years - I have had no luck in discovering anything about it - maybe someone here could help? Thanks in advance, Steve Check the Newsstand feature here, nostalgiasteve. Seeing the comics grouped together by date often helps jog a memory loose. www.mikesamazingworld.com/mikes/features/newsstand.php
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Post by Rob Allen on Dec 30, 2018 3:03:29 GMT -5
The Newsstand at Mike's website is an amazing resource, but Steve's question mentions this: "It had no cover...".
So we have to try to find the stories. Steve, were you in the US at the time? If not, do you think it was an American comic?
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Crimebuster
CCF Podcast Guru
Making comics!
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Post by Crimebuster on Dec 30, 2018 4:08:56 GMT -5
I don't recognize the stories, but they sound like the kind of thing that would have been in DC sci-fi from the 50s or 60s, like Strange Adventures. Dc did some reprint series in the early 70s that had a bunch of this sort of thing.
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Post by EdoBosnar on Dec 30, 2018 5:28:05 GMT -5
(...) The war story ends with a US soldier being blown up - one of the final frames shows fire/explosion bursting out of his chest as he is killed. I think it may have been about a premonition he had about dying that way. I know, not much to go on... The sci-fi story ends with an astronaut striking an invisible barrier at the edge of the solar system - much like a goldfish in a bowl. (...) For a second there, I thought it might be an issue of Starstream (published in 1976), as those did have a few, sort of, war stories in them (although they usually take place on different planets), but then I flipped through them and - no dice. The second one, by the way, sounds a lot like the premise of David Brin's short story, "The Crystal Spheres," but that was first published in 1984. I'm wondering, though - given the kind of shock endings described - if this may have been an issue of an anthology book like Twilight Zone or one of many other titles that aped that format.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 1, 2019 21:16:29 GMT -5
It's been bugging me for awhile and wondering why DC Comics and Marvel don't do Crossovers anymore? ... Like X-Men and the Teen Titans, Superman and Spiderman, and Captain America with Batman joining in. I really missed them and wondering why they don't do this anymore?
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Post by Deleted on Jan 1, 2019 22:16:34 GMT -5
It's been bugging me for awhile and wondering why DC Comics and Marvel don't do Crossovers anymore? ... Like X-Men and the Teen Titans, Superman and Spiderman, and Captain America with Batman joining in. I really missed them and wondering why they don't do this anymore? Current administrative staff have no interest in making it happen.
DC comments
Marvel comments
And I miss them too. My favorite comic of all time is Byrne's Batman/Capt America.
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Post by codystarbuck on Jan 1, 2019 23:59:41 GMT -5
It's the same reason why, during the territorial days of professional wrestling, there was never a world title vs world title match that was meant to have a winner. Back in the day, you had the National Wrestling Alliance (oldest conglomeration of promoters), the American Wrestling Association (promoted by Verne Gagne and Wally Karbo, cover Minnesota and the upper plains, across to Northern California) and the World Wide Wrestling Federation (promoted by Vince McMahon Sr, cover the New England states down to Washington DC) and magazines and fans would talk about champion vs champion. There were some matches; but, always booked to end without a winner, because there wasn't going to be a merger. Neither side was willing to come out looking weak, so the matches ended in an inconclusive finish. Eventually, it became a moot point. The AWA went out of business in the early 90s, as the WWF (Vince Jr, having bought the promotion from his father and dropping a W from the name) expansion stole talent away from them and Verne was unwilling to evolve. Many of the NWA promotions went out of business and several sold out to Jim Crockett Promotions, who controlled the tv shows on TBS. They eventually sold to Turner Broadcasting, rechristening it as World Championship Wrestling (after the Saturday tv show title). They went out of business in 2000, when Warner pulled the plug on the show and sold the assets and name to Vince McMahon. By then, no one cared about title vs title.
When they did DC vs Marvel, and had a fan vote, it was only for lower tier characters. All of the big guns were kept out of the vote. Superman and Batman were not going to lose, neither were the Hulk or Spider-Man.
Previous crossovers usually had some contived conflict, orchestrated by villains, which led to a climactic team-up. They varied in quality, because of the politics involved to keep each character strong. The political mess killed the original JLA/Avengers, with Gerry Conway and George Perez handling creative. Jim Shooter kept putting up roadblocks and objections, until Perez walked away from it (he discusses it in Comics Interview #50, with more than a bit of bitterness). Marvel walked away from team-ups, until they were in a more desperate and more cooperative mindset (thanks heavily due to the friendships of Mike Carlin and Mark Gruenwald). That detente didn't last and things turned nasty, from a corporate perspective.
Now, you have Disney and Warner involved and they aren't about to share profits with a competitor nor are they willing to make token compromises. It's the same reason why you don't get crossovers between tv and movies from competing companies. James Bond isn't going to team up with Napoleon Solo (apart from cutesy things, like "JB", in the reunion telefilm); Star Trek and Babylon 5 will not meet, Star Wars will not encounter Predators or Aliens. You see crossovers when one company controls the rights, like Fox and Aliens and Predator and the Universal Monsters.
Look how long it took to work out the Batman tv show morass. The only reason a compromise was reached was that there were too many profits laying on the table to pass up; but, it made the Paris Peace Accords look like a done-in-one deal.
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Post by Chris on Jan 2, 2019 3:00:43 GMT -5
It's the same reason why, during the territorial days of professional wrestling, there was never a world title vs world title match that was meant to have a winner... Neither side was willing to come out looking weak, so the matches ended in an inconclusive finish. That's what I hated about most DC/Marvel crossovers, and even in-house conflicts like Superman vs Captain Marvel... they never say "this person decisively won." For example, one of the Captain's last comics, by Jerry Ordway, had Superman win an arm wrestling match - just to show a page later that Cap Jr. and Mary Marvel had changed into their Marvel identities, thus cutting into Cap's power. So it was inconclusive whether Superman would have beat him or not. Or in JLA/Avengers, where Superman defeated Thor* .... but later Thor is saying he has Superman's measure now, and another fight would be different. I know they don't want to tick off fans of either character, but good grief, just PICK ONE! And stick to it. When they did DC vs Marvel, and had a fan vote, it was only for lower tier characters. All of the big guns were kept out of the vote. Superman and Batman were not going to lose, neither were the Hulk or Spider-Man. Superman did win, and Hulk did lose. And as for the big guns being kept out of the vote... It was the 6 lesser battles that were decided by corporate, each company getting 3 wins. * Which I liked. Supes was in the superhero business long before Thor changed careers from thunder godding to comic booking. Thor never woulda had a comic if Supes hadn't paved the way.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 2, 2019 9:57:14 GMT -5
Marvel walked away from team-ups, until they were in a more desperate and more cooperative mindset (thanks heavily due to the friendships of Mike Carlin and Mark Gruenwald). That detente didn't last and things turned nasty, from a corporate perspective. Now, you have Disney and Warner involved and they aren't about to share profits with a competitor nor are they willing to make token compromises. These are probably the main reasons. And DC still has done some crossovers with other companies so DC/WB probably does not view the other publishers as competition. And Marvel/Disney has not done crossovers so I suspect it is the higher ups at Disney that have no interest.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 2, 2019 10:06:43 GMT -5
I hated the vote and my LCS had a furious debate on this and causes many friendships to be broken ... I did not vote at all and I was ticked off by this nonsense.
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Post by hondobrode on Jan 2, 2019 11:50:12 GMT -5
It's ridiculous that they don't do it.
Even though it's super lame that they end up being neutral somehow to protect their own interests.
It would be much more interesting if they let each other actually win sometimes, like they do their own characters, and then maybe if they match up again, the other character wins.
As long as someone wins, then the other company gets a win as well.
Maybe Batman beats Cap, but the next time they meet Cap beats Bats, or Superman beats Thor but then Warrior Woman beats Diana.
They're silly, but I love crossovers.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 2, 2019 11:55:46 GMT -5
It must be a comic book thing that fans expect crossovers. I mean no one expects Law & Order to cross-over with CSI, or for Conan to show up in Middle Earth. I find most of them to be poorly executed stories based on bad plot ideas simply for the sake of a sales gimmick, so I could care less if they do them or not. There have been a handful of decent stories out of the cross-overs, but for the most part Sturgeon's Law applies in spades and 90% or more of them are just crap. Mostly because they don't start with-I have this really great story to tell but with how can we contrive a mash up of these things to sell more copies where the story itself doesn't matter at all.
-M
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Post by beccabear67 on Jan 2, 2019 13:10:54 GMT -5
I liked the big Amalgam universe mash-up thing myself, or most of it anyway. It made a lot more sense than it really needed to, I would've dug it with no explanations, just here they are...
I never really got excited about any of the straight forward meetings, but it is too mad the JLA/Avengers meeting with Perez art couldn't have happened minus Shooter's input which killed it off.
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Post by codystarbuck on Jan 2, 2019 17:59:25 GMT -5
I liked the big Amalgam universe mash-up thing myself, or most of it anyway. It made a lot more sense than it really needed to, I would've dug it with no explanations, just here they are... I never really got excited about any of the straight forward meetings, but it is too mad the JLA/Avengers meeting with Perez art couldn't have happened minus Shooter's input which killed it off. Perez did get to do the later crossover, with Kurt Busiek. Most of the crossovers were kind of dull,to me. The best ones, for me, were X-Men/Teen Titans, Batman & Captain America, JLA/Avengers and Darkseid & Galactus. The Amalgam stuff was fun, though I thought the first go round with it was better than the second. I always wanted Sgt Rock & Sgt Fury, Batman & Moon Knight, Thor & the New Gods, JSA/Invaders, Sub-Mariner & Aquaman, Hawkeye and Green Arrow (or Hawkeye & Mockingbird and Green Arrow & Black Canary, in a couples' night out), Defenders/JLI (with Giffen, DeMatteis and Maguire), wartime Captain America & Wonder Woman, Rawhide Kid & Jonah Hex and Lockjaw & Krypto. Also, X-men/LSH, which I think had been on the table, before the fallout from the JLA/Avengers first attempt. Beyond that, Dominic Fortune & the Rocketeer (guest appearance by the Scorpion), Captain Marvel and Captain Mar-Vell (two out of three falls, no-DQ), Mighty Crusaders/satellite era JLA, Blackhawk & Captain America, Eternals/New Gods, Inferior 5/Great Lakes Avengers, Doom Patrol/original X-Men, Swamp Thin, Man Thing & the Heap and Red Tornado (Ma Hunkel) & Captain Ultra.
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Post by beccabear67 on Jan 2, 2019 22:16:07 GMT -5
Maybe The Guardians Of The Galaxy with The Legion Of S-Hs would be fun to see, either old comics or movie/tv Guardians could work. If characters are too similar like Swamp Thing, Man Thing and The Heap, it could just be wacky. I usually see the parallels pretty easily, I have to figure Moon Knight was definitely Marvel's Batman with some Shadow tossed in, but I'm only just recognizing how Mockingbird with Hawkeye is so much like Black Canary with Green Arrow thanks to codystarbuck's post. But I don't think they had any intention of that when Mockingbird was first created, not her first appearance under the name in a Marvel Team-Up. There was a Black Canary copy in the Squadron Supreme I remember, and the X-Men did meet a Legion of sorts various times (Uncanny X-Men #107 being the first) which is good enough for me.
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