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Post by berkley on Jul 10, 2019 2:54:58 GMT -5
July 1979: Amazing Spider-Man #197 I forgot that I was reading Spider-Man around this time and that Marv Wolfman was writing it. I recall it as competent but not a stand-out - something like his FF, only more so. I consider myself a Keith Pollard fan, but his artwork only ever looked distinctive and special when he inked himself - inked by anyone else, it usually looked kind of generic, though never objectionable in any way. Avengers Annual #9Not 100% sure why I bought this at a time when I was no longer reading the regular Avengers series, but my guess is that I probably liked the look of Don Newton's artwork, because that's mostly all I remember about this issue. I see that it was written by Bill Mantlo, so the absence of Shooter might have been an added incentive, as I was already starting to feel a little turned off by his stuff. Conan the Barbarian #103I remember this issue pretty well, even though I didn't really like it much, as the writing and artwork continued to feel a bit tired to me. Maybe Roy Thomas felt the same way, because this was kind of an odd idea, with some gender role-reversal for Conan - he's the "Bride of the Vampire" and even some of the imagery had him playing that part. Nice try, I suppose, but none of it really worked, from memory. Still, it's stuck with me, so it must have made some kind of impression. Eerie #104'The Trespasser', bu Moench and Gulaccy, was the main draw here. Check it out, if you've never read it - really nice piece of work by both creators. Pablo Marcos and Alfredo Alcala were added attractions, though their artwork wasn't supported by anything particularly memorable in the way of writing. Fantastic Four #211I have slightly more positive memories of Wolfman's FF than of his Spider-Man, but they were about on a par. Pretty solid, but nothing special, for me. Machine Man #11I followed this series out of a kind of momentum, more than anything else, following on from the Kirby series, though I was never a huge fan of Machine Man, even when Kirby was drawing and writing him. Ditko was an attraction as well - even then, you kind of had the feeling that you should probably enjoy his mainstream stuff while it was still happening, because it might not be for long. Marvel Team-Up #86I usually bought (or not) MTU based on the guest star and the creative team - or, I should say, artist, since Claremont was the regular writer and he was pretty dependable for this kind of stuff. I grabbed this one because of the Guardians and Bob McLeod's art - and it was cool to see him doing pencils, and doing them well, to my eyes - since I only knew him from his ink-work, which I really liked. Marvel Two-in-One #56Like MTU, this was a series I read based on the guest star and creators involved. Mark Gruenwald's name meant nothing to me at the time and I was more or less neutral on Thundra, so Perez and Day were the motivation in this case. Master of Kung Fu #81This was near the beginning of what turned out to be a huge, multi-issue MoKF epic. It felt like a new era for the series and it was. Mike Zeck, with various inkers, had already brought some much-needed stablility to the artwork for the series but Gene Day's arrival as regular inker took it to another level: the "Classic". Thor #288See the Jun 1979 comments. Great Thor epic, and it was exciting for me at the time to see the Eternals continue to have a kind of life, even if their presence in the MU caused all kinds of contradictions and problems. I complained a bit about Pollard's art being stifled by other inkers above, but the combination with Chic Stone was better than most. Gene Day was another exception. BTW, that silver/white with purple trim "space-armour" is by far the best costume ever created for the Forgotten One, so I'm glad Pollard and/or Thomas had the sense to make use of it. Why no one thought to do the same when the character joined the Avengers later on in the 80s is beyond me.
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Post by MWGallaher on Aug 6, 2019 8:03:33 GMT -5
Here's what I bought off the stands in August 1979: Adventure Comics #466 ($1.00): I had to keep up with the JSA in this Dollar Comic, even though I never warmed to Joe Staton on the series. Deadman was also a big draw, one of the most reliable characters (for me) in comics. Garcia-Lopez was a satisfactory replacement for Aparo. Defenders #77 ($0.40): I not only was devoted to the Defenders, but I'd bought the entirety of Omega the Unknown, and wanted to see the end of the story. I couldn't appreciate at the time that I wasn't getting the "real" ending with Steven Grant's story here. Man-Thing #1 ($0.40): I was a sucker for swamp monsters, and was excited to see Man-Thing back in his own title (although I'd have preferred Swamp Thing at DC instead). I recall being disappointed by the pedestrian Jim Mooney art, and writer Michael Fleisher didn't deliver the kind of stuff I'd loved in his Spectre and Jonah Hex work. Shogun Warriors #10 ($0.40): All I can say, again, is that this was my replacement for the much-missed Godzilla. This time even more Godzilla-y than ever, with our giant robots fighting--get this--a giant flying hand with lizard heads instead of finger tips that could all SPLIT! off (shades of my beloved M.F. Enterprises Captain Marvel!!!) and fly around as distinct weapon types! Doug Moench and Herb Trimpe delivered the goods! Tomb of Dracula #1 ($1.25): I was excited to see Wolfman and Colan reunite to bring this back as a b&w magazine. Alas, they couldn't recapture the magic or hold the team together for long. X-Men #127 ($0.40): More Byrne and Claremont and Austin good stuff. Pretty slim pull as I prepared for my sophomore year of college back in Memphis. Not working, I didn't have much scratch to spend on comics, shelling out only $3.85 + tax this month, to the best of my recollection (there's a possibility I picked up Iron Man, Marvel Super Special, and the Hulk magazine, but I'm not confident that I really did). I skipped Brave & Bold #156, guest-starring Dr. Fate. I was a Jim Aparo fan, but never bought books just because he did the cover, and I was usually turned off by any non-Aparo-drawn issues of B&B. I liked Dr. Fate, but not enough to part with four dimes for this. It looks like Thor Annual #8 might have been one of the stories intended for the aborted Mighty Thor magazine, so that would have interested me (and still does; as I mentioned in another thread, the unrealized plans for Marvel's magazine line are fascinating). I might have considered Marvel Two-In-One #57, because I got a huge kick out of the character Wundarr when he debuted earlier in Man-Thing. But he was clearly being remolded from the original Superman pastiche (in the days when that was a genuine novelty). Cover of the Month: To my mature eyes, the most striking thing on the stands was Warren's The Rook #1. I would never have considered buying the series, but that sunburst background is a real eye-catcher. Comic I Don't Have But Would Most Like to Have: I'd probably be disappointed, but if I could pick one from this bunch, I'd take Gold Key's UFO and Outer Space #23. Cool painted cover, and I haven't sampled much of Gold Key's adventure output from this era.
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Post by beccabear67 on Aug 6, 2019 12:02:19 GMT -5
Marvel Team-Up #86 was my intro to the Guardians Of The Galaxy. I think inherently I liked any comic with a bunch of super characters to organize and learn about. Once I'd gotten them sorted and learned about them the charm might wear off though without interesting character interactions. I had one regular Spider-Man and one Marvel Tales from this time and both being part of a story I didn't have the earlier parts of didn't grab me much, but the paperback-sized early Ditko collections did. I really liked Pollard on Thor around this time, but it was Rom that got me as a regular reader. I was in an experimental try a copy of this and a copy of that phase... for some reason X-Men was one of the last titles I tried starting with #131 dated March, and Amazing Adventures #4 (second half of 1963's #2) and then I bought every copy I found from those issues on.
Somewhere in here there was a comic book format reproduction of Crazy #1 in a Crazy magazine and I found the Not Brand Ecch portrayals of how the characters looked in the '60s in it really fascinating; my second hit of the past Marvel world after the various reprint comics and paperbacks.
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Post by codystarbuck on Aug 6, 2019 12:28:15 GMT -5
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Post by EdoBosnar on Aug 6, 2019 13:29:20 GMT -5
Also looked at Adventure #466 on the stands (no money, at the time), which featured the story of how the JSA disbanded, in the wake of the McCarthy Hearings. In that same issue is a Deadman story that was featured in the Years Best digest, where Deadman stops a suicidal old man, then tries to help him, with it all falling apart. Yep, I had that issue and just re-read that specific story last week; I really loved the Deadman shorts penned by Wein in Adventure, they're my favorite Deadman stories. Otherwise, as usual for 1979, I had most of the books you posted - Avengers, Micronauts and X-men are particularly notable for both great stories and art - plus a bunch more. Some others worth highlighting are Fantastic Four #212, the continuation of the space-opera arc with Galactus fighting a ramped-up Sphinx, Iron Man #128, the conclusion to the "Demon in a Bottle" story arc, Hulk Annual #8 (the fight with Sasquatch) and Spider-man Annual #13 (vs. Doc Ock, art by Byrne and Austin). 1979 kept on delivering the hits...
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Post by beccabear67 on Aug 6, 2019 15:57:33 GMT -5
Rom, Battlestar and Star Wars were my monthly must buys. I got Avengers #189 and Justice League #172 not too long after they had come out through trading at school. I thought maybe the Avengers was the first John Byrne comic I had seen but that could've been Fantastic Four #213, or even Amazing Spider-Man Annual #13 from the spinner racks. That particular Avengers knocked me out and it and the Super Action reprints became a must buy starting with #192/#16. I think maybe the checklist starting to appear regularly also fueled my interest in buying Marvels at this time. I tried one Power Man/Iron Fist, one Ghost Rider, one Daredevil, one Defenders, one Two-In-One, one Micronauts (#11, very confusing for a new reader and didn't come back until #18)... but most of them didn't stick and become must buys. I did buy the regular Hulk title for a few issues in a row and then dropped it when that Tyrannus story had ended, only tried the reprint title of him once and it had the Avengers in it so that might've been the draw more than Hulk though I avidly watched the tv series (it was weird that the comic book Hulk talked at all to me, but there had been Donald Duck and even the Road Runner talking in comics I had before this).
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Post by dbutler69 on Aug 7, 2019 14:17:14 GMT -5
Bought back in the day: Avengers #189 Fantastic Four #212 Justice League of America #172 Micronauts #11 Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #257 Wonder Woman #261 X-Men #127
This is the only issue of Wonder Woman that I ever bought off the spinner rack back in the day, for whatever reason.
Bought much more recently: Defenders #77 Marvel Two-in-One #57 Master of Kung Fu #82 Shogun Warriors #10
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Post by lordyam on Aug 7, 2019 14:30:07 GMT -5
Tomb of Dracula released it's final issue as well. Great ending to a series that had been declining
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Post by brutalis on Aug 13, 2019 8:30:11 GMT -5
August 1979: Starting my Senior Year of Highschool, big time collecting going on with weekly stops at ALL the local Circle K stores around the school neighborhood and 2 used bookstores near the school as well where I would find back issues cheap of Spirit and Warren black and white magazines. Good times and fond memories. Also found my 1st LCS across from the community college I was signing up for advance classes. This is where I found out about Cerebus and the joys of what seemed to be endless rows of back issue long boxes. Amazing Spider-Man 198 Amazing Spider Annual 13 Avengers 189 Batman 317 Battlestar Galactica 9 Captain America 239 Cerebus 11 Daredevil 161 Defenders 77 FF 212 Iron Man 128 Man Thing 1 Marvel spotlight 3 Marve lSuper special 12: Warriors of the Shadow REalm MTU 87 MTIO 57 MOKF 82 Micronauts 11 Shogun Warriors 10 Spectacular Spider-Man 36 Spider-Woman 20 Star Wars 29 Thor 289 Thor Annual 8 X-Men 127 Warlord 27
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Post by codystarbuck on Sept 2, 2019 21:08:14 GMT -5
Boy, sucky month for me!
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,352
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Post by shaxper on Sept 2, 2019 23:19:13 GMT -5
Comics I own from September of 1979:
Avengers #190 Batman #318 Brave & the Bold #157 Detective Comics #487 House of Mystery #275 Master of Kung Fu #83 Savage Sword of Conan #46 Shogun Warriors #11 X-Men #128
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Post by beccabear67 on Sept 3, 2019 0:08:50 GMT -5
Through the magic of Mike's I figured out the comics I actually bought at the time via spinner-rack and the like, *asterisk are got in trade not too long from when they were new. Amazing Spider-Man 198 Avengers 189* Battle of the Planets 3* Battlestar Galactica 9 Justice League of America 172* Micronauts 11 Star Wars 29
Amazing Spider-Man Annual 13 Fantastic Four 213 Incredible Hulk 242 Marvel Premiere 51 (Black Panther) Marvel Two-in-One 58 Rom 1 Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos 155* Star Wars 30
I remember I missed Battlestar #10 and could not find it anywhere. I made the trade with a boy in my class who had been failed a grade and was well over a year older than myself. I know there was a Conan too from him but it wasn't the ones from the two months we're looking at. I was really getting hooked on trying various Marvels at this point!
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Post by EdoBosnar on Sept 3, 2019 5:49:26 GMT -5
Not for me; there were no sucky months in 1979 as far as I'm concerned. Looking over the covers at Mike's Newsstand, I know for certain I picked up well over 20 titles that month. Besides some of the usual suspects, i.e., X-men, Avengers, Iron Man, Micronauts, Fantastic Four, some other highlights include the re-launch of Amazing Adventures, Fantasy Masterpieces and Tales to Astonish, all containing, respectively, reprints of the original X-men, Silver Surfer and Sub-mariner from the 1960s - I liked the latter two in particular because of the gorgeous art by John Buscema. Also: Rom #1 Marvel 2-in-1 #58 (conclusion of the excellent Project Pegasus saga) Marvel Premiere #51 (starring Black Panther and the first-installment of the long-awaited and ultimately unsatisfying conclusion of the Klan saga from Jungle Action; however, this story was important for me because it prompted me to track down those issues of the aforementioned Jungle Action, and that's how I discovered McGregor's run with the character...).
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Post by MWGallaher on Sept 3, 2019 14:29:12 GMT -5
In September 1979, I was starting my sophomore year in college, having transferred to Christian Brothers College in Memphis, and I began to ramp back up my comics buying. Off the stands, I bought: Brave & Bold #157 ( $0.40): Batman and Kamandi meet for the second time, courtesy of Haney and Aparo, this time with Kamandi coming to Batman's time. Another oddball issue. Defenders #78 ( $0.40): My favorite Marvel title features the return of the original Defenders trio, something I was certainly all in favor of. Green Lantern #123 ( $0.40): The return of Hal Jordan to solo adventures was too appealing to pass on, although I never warmed to Joe Staton's art. Rom Spaceknight #1 ( $0.40): I liked robot toys since I was a kid, so this seemed worth picking up. I didn't stick with it for long, though. Shogun Warriors #11 ( $0.40): Stubbornly sticking with this one, for some reason I can no longer justify, but I have always dug Moench, and liked Trimpe. Tales to Astonish #1 ( $0.40): I took the opportunity to get reprints of the first issue of Sub-Mariner, one of my favorite characters, but it didn't really satisfy me. What If? #18 ( $0.75): Dr. Strange as a disciple of Dormammu. Not the most irresistible premises to headline this series, but I usually enjoyed anything published here. This one wasn't memorable enough for me to recall anything about it, though. X-Men #128 ( $0.40): This was still one of the most engaging comics month-to-month. Total: $3.55Cover of the Month: I'm not seeing a lot I really love just browsing through the newsstand at Mike's Amazing World, but darned if Al Milgrom's cover to Marvel Premiere #51 (with the Black Panther) isn't quite striking! Comic I'd Most Like to Have But Don't: I'd appreciate the hardcover collection Heart Throbs: The Best of DC Romance Comics. Hardcover collections like this were a rarity 40 years ago, and I wouldn't have been caught dead even looking at this back then, but I'd love a copy now!
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Post by berkley on Sept 4, 2019 2:00:58 GMT -5
August 1979Amazing Spider-Man #198Amazing Spider-Man Annual #13Conan the Barbarian #104Daredevil #161Eerie #105Fantastic Four #212Hulk magazine #17Marvel Preview #19: KullMarvel Spotlight #3: Captain MarvelMarvel Super Special #12: Warriors of the Shadow RealmMarvel Treasury Edition Featuring Conan the Barbarian #23Marvel Two-in-One #57Master of Kung Fu #82Thor #289Thor Annual #8Tomb of Dracula #1X-Men #127(will add comments later)
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