The TITANS COVER GALLERY - PART FIVE...

Images copyright MARVEL COMICS

So, what can I say about The TITANS that I haven't already said or that you don't already know?  Nothing, actually, apart from the fact that I'm surprised, looking back, to note that it lasted for just over a year.  In keeping with quite a few other titles of their time (like FANTASTIC, TERRIFIC, SUPER DC, The CRUNCH, etc.), it seems, in memory, to have been a much more significant feature of my life and around for far longer than it actually was.  Strange, eh?

However, we're not here to ponder that particular paradox (though you can if you want to), but to go on a whistle-stop tour of nine issues of what was supposed to be MARVEL's flagship title in their fleet of British weeklies back in the 1970s.  Like I said in an earlier post, I feel that, had just a little more care and attention been lavished on The Titans (and that goes for some of the other comics too), then it may well have lasted for longer than the 58 issues it managed to hang on for.

But that's enough pontificating from me, you'll be glad to hear.  Now it's time to lose yourself in the pretty pictures that follow.  Don't hog them all to yourself now - leave a space and let other Criv-ites cop a gander as well. 

Oh dear, the layout and perspective of this page is all wrong

PART TWO Of STRANGE TALES COVER GALLERY...

All images copyright MARVEL COMICS

And now, a leap back to the 1960s, to take a look at an earlier, more innocent age, when comicbooks sold in far greater numbers than they do today.  On the whole, I think I preferred these more basic tales, which one could read in 20 minutes without getting bogged down in a multi-part serial consisting of talking heads - where nothing very much happens in a story you can't fully understand until you've read the collected edition many months down the line.

That's the difference between these comics and today's crop:  All the writers and artists wanted to do back then was entertain the readers for a short while.  Today's current creators seem far more interested in demonstrating how clever they are, and using comics as a showcase for how suited they'd be working in more 'mature' mediums, like movies or TV. With a few exceptions (like FRANK MILLER's DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN, for example), give me the 'cheap and cheerful' comicbooks of the '60s and '70s any day.

With that in mind, let's now enjoy these STRANGE TALES covers together, as we return once again to yesteryear.  Anyone else miss these simpler types of comics as much as I do?