MIGHTY MARVEL CHECKLIST - ON SALE NOW!

Images copyright MARVEL COMICS.  Published by PANINI

MIGHTY WORLD OF MARVEL #9

100 PAGE SPECIAL!

We celebrate the life and art of MARIE SEVERIN, MARVEL's First Lady!  Don't miss a special feature on her career, rare artwork and some of her best humour stories!

A new series begins!  The THING, and the HUMAN TORCH are still in despair over the end of the FANTASTIC FOUR - but DOCTOR DOOM has plans for them both!  By CHIP ZDARSKY and JIM CHEUNG!

The GUARDIANS Of The GALAXY go in search of the INFINITY STONES - with a couple of unexpected stowaways!  By GERRY DUGGAN and ROD REIS!

HAWKEYE enters the lair of the TAKE BACK CONTROL cult!  By KELLY THOMSON and LEONARD ROMERO!

A Marvel classic!  DOCTOR STRANGE confronts the DREAD DORMAMMU for the first time!  By STAN LEE and STEVE DITKO!

The AGING SPIDEY-MAN battles GNATMAN and ROTTEN!  By STAN LEE and MARIE SEVERIN!

The INEDIBLE BULK tries to remember his own origin!  By GARY FRIEDRICH and MARIE SEVERIN!

Plus Marie Severin reveals all her secrets in... "HOW To Be A COMIC BOOK ARTIST!"

Featuring material first printed in MARVEL TWO-In-ONE #1, All New GUARDIANS Of The GALAXY #12, HAWKEYE #32, STRANGE TALES #126 and NOT BRAND-ECHH #2, 3, and 11.

On sale 15th November.

£4.50.

ESSENTIAL X-MEN #8

100 PAGE SPECIAL!

The 'MOJO WORLDWIDE' saga begins now!  The maniacal madman kidnaps both the Gold and Blue X-MEN teams, and throws them into a nightmarish series of their greatest battles!

Featuring material first printed in X-MEN:  GOLD #13-15 and X-MEN:  BLUE #13-14.

On sale 15th November.

£4.50.

DEADPOOL UNLEASHED #21

76 pages of the MERC with the MOUTH!

DEADPOOL makes a deal with CABLE to take down STRYFE - but the sinister clone has a few tricks of his own!  Also:  will Deadpool actually kill Cable for real this time?!  By GERRY DUGGAN and SCOTT KOBLISH!

The conclusion to 'TOO SOON?' is here!  Deadpool teams up with the PUNISHER, DOCTOR STRANGE, SQUIRREL GIRL, SPIDER-HAM and HOWARD The DUCK to take on a shadow demon!  By JOSHUA CORIN and TODD NAUCK!

Featuring material first printed in DESPICABLE DEADPOOL #289-290 and DEADPOOL:  TOO SOON? #4.

On sale 15th November.

£4.50.

HEY, LOOKEE HERE - IT'S THE ETERNALS ('85/'86) COVER GALLERY...

Images copyright MARVEL COMICS

Believe it or not, images possess a great power - the power to return a person to the time and place they first saw them.  And so it was that I found myself transported 30-odd years into the past when I rediscovered this 12-issue series in a cardboard box earlier tonight.  Once more I was in my room in the house I lived in at the time, and once again I was standing in the large cupboard that contained my black metal filing cabinet in which I kept most of my comics.  (I'd probably need around 20 filing cabinets now, and that's just a conservative estimate.)

So strongly do I associate these dozen mags with the house I was then living in that I almost feel out of place in my present surroundings, as if I've suddenly been transported into another dimension.  However, I'm sure you're not here to read my self-indulgent ramblings, you're here for the pretty piccies.  So here's 12 of them to either remind you of comics you had back in the mid-'80s, or to show you what you missed if you weren't around at the time.

The ETERNALS, of course, were created by JACK KIRBY in the mid-'70s and I have all 19 issues plus the Annual, but it was never really a major success for MARVEL.  However, such is the reverence that some fans and comic pros have for all things Kirby, it was decided to revive them in this limited series.  SAL BUSCEMA handled the internal art chores, echoing WALT SIMONSON's style on THOR, but I can't remember anything else about the run.  If I ever get around to re-reading the issues, maybe the memories will come flooding back, but if you're looking for a detailed review of the plot then you've come to the wrong blog, Charlie.

They've more than likely been reprinted in a collected edition by now, so if you're interested in finding out what the storyline was all about, you could try tracking down a copy on eBay.  In the meantime, feel entirely free to enjoy Crivens' cataclysmic cover gallery. 

(BOND) BABE Of The DAY - VALERIE LEON...

With the recent sad news about STAN LEE,

it's time for a bit of humour to alleviate the gloom.  So

here from 1970 is one of the famous HAI KARATE TV

ads starring voluptuous VALERIE LEON.  This is the

very first 'moving' Babe post - I'll maybe do more in

the future.  Isn't Valerie absolutely stunning?

STAN LEE PASSES AWAY...

I've just learned that the chief architect of the MARVEL Universe, STAN LEE, has passed away.  There will be many fine tributes on other blogs to 'The Man' I'm sure (as well as some scurrilous comments from the anti-Stan brigade), but all I want to say at this time is that I was privileged to meet him, shake his hand, and have a chat with him as he signed autographs.  All sensible people know that, without Stan, US comicbooks may not have been around today, so we owe him a great deal of appreciation and a huge debt of gratitude.  Condolences to his family, friends, and fans.  The world will never again be the same.

Hey, ANYONE REMEMBER TONIBELL?

Remember the TONIBELL Miniball?  As far as I can recall, that was the only time I ever saw mention of the Tonibell name, but I spotted this toy ice cream van being sold on eBay recently, so obviously it was once a well-known company for SPOT-ON to make a die-cast van with the name on it.  I did a little light digging and discovered the following photo of a real Tonibell van on the Internet.  Below that is some info about the company, which I found shortly after.

Click to enlarge

And below is an ad for the aforementioned Miniball, plus a photo of my very own, purchased back in the late '60s.  I took the photo seconds before retrieving the ball from the attic of my former home, 19 years after having inadvertently left it there in 1972.  I've now had it back in my possession for 27 years.

TV TOPS - EVER HEARD OF IT?

Copyright D.C. THOMSON & Co., Ltd

Much as I hate to admit it, there are some things I do not know.  The existence of this comic was one of them until a few moments ago, when I saw it on sale on eBay.  I don't know who the publisher was (though going by the type-set lettering on the strips, D.C. THOMSON is the most likely suspect) and there's not even a mention of it in the late DENIS GIFFORD's COMPLETE CATALOGUE OF BRITISH COMICS (which makes it incomplete), so I can't say how many issues there were or anything else about it.  If you bought this comic back in the day and can reveal any info behind its existence, please enlighten your fellow Criv-ites.  (It's clearly modelled after LOOK-IN, but that's about all I can contribute.)

GREAT NEWS INSIDE, PALS! (YEAH, RIGHT!)...

Images copyright relevant owner

I showed the above cover a few posts back, but cop a gander at the interior page below.  Out of the five titles listed, four of them are combined issues, while TIGER is the only one which remains un-merged.  Nowadays, publishers would love to have even half the sales that these comics had back then, but at the time, the circulation wasn't considered high enough to continue the subsumed weeklies as individual titles.  Makes you think, eh?  

BABE Of The DAY - DON'T ASK ME WHO...

Here's today's 'Babe', fellas.  I can't tell you

her name 'cos I never asked her for it.  Well, do

you blame me?  She never asked for mine.

RUMINATING REPOST: TO SLEEP, PERCHANCE TO DIE...

When you're young, you have absolutely no concept of never having existed.  On an intellectual level (if you ever felt disposed to consider the matter), you know there was a time when you weren't around, but you can't truly conceive what it was like because non-existence is a difficult if not impossible state to imagine.

Think of any period in mankind's history from before you were born; the Old West, the Victorian Era, the 1920s or '30s - whatever.  Even though you never experienced them, you almost feel as if you have, thanks to history books, old photographs, artists' impressions, TV shows, historical fiction, movies, etc.  And because you can't remember your beginning, it seems as if you never actually had one and that you've been around forever.  At least, that's what it seems like to me.

Consequently, when I was a teenager of 14, I subconsciously laboured under the impression that I had always been.  (Though the same perception also applies to any point in my childhood from when I first became aware of my surroundings.)  It's unlikely that I was alone in that regard, and it's surely the same for 14 year-olds today.  It's only because fourteen years to someone of my age passes so quickly that I finally realized just how inconsequential such a period of time actually is.  I've got things lying around the house which have never been out of the wrappers since I bought them that are older than that.

As you inexorably inch closer to that time when the condition of non-existence threatens to once again engulf you, it's a prospect you tend to contemplate more than you did (if at all) in your younger days.  Finally, you begin to be able to nearly catch a glimmer of what extinction might be like, and the prospect isn't a pleasant one.  I recall waking up in hospital one day after a procedure which required my unconsciousness, and was alarmed to find I had no recollection of even a half-sleep-like state between being knocked out and coming to.

As I said, no half-remembered thoughts, vague dreams, or hovering on the edge of awareness to connect me to my pre-anaesthetised self - only an absolute absence of even the slightest sense of continuity between the two conditions.  It was then that I realised what oblivion must be like.  It was as if I'd been dead for however many hours I'd been out, and, although my body was still functioning, as far as my mind was concerned, there was no discernible difference between death and unconsciousness.

So, death is not merely a case of not waking up, it's also not even being aware of going to sleep or being asleep at any stage in the process.  Shakespeare was wrong; there are no dreams in the sleep of death, only a blackness and silence from which we never awaken - an eternal nothingness, an everlasting night.

That's no doubt why I often find myself wishing I was only 14 again.  The illusion of no beginning (and, by extension, no ending), while temporary, is a comforting and necessary notion, otherwise we'd probably abandon our journey before we were very far into it.  After all, what's the point of taking a road to nowhere?

Come to think of it, I wouldn't even mind being half that age.  Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to work on that elixir of life I'm developing.  I just can't afford to relax if I want to be here in 2118.

******

We are but older children, dear,

Who fret to find our bedtime near.

Lewis Carroll.

BUSTER GETS A 'ROCKET' FOR HANDLING FIREWORKS...

Image copyright relevant owner

Here's an evocative firework image for tonight, but be sure not to copy what BUSTER and his pal are doing above (handling fireworks and setting them off in close proximity to others) as someone is likely to get badly hurt if they imitate their hijinks.  This comic was pulled at the last moment because of the cover (a few got through), which shows that the possibility of comics setting a bad example for kids (even inadvertently) is a reality recognised by publishers, not a figment of the imagination of readers like myself.  It always amazes me when people who claim that comics can have a positive effect on readers (and they can) then deny the possibility of the reverse being equally as true.  Logic dictates otherwise.

PENNY FOR THE GUY? SURE - IF THAT GUY'S BUSTER...

Copyright REBELLION

BUSTER had several good artists in his time, but possibly the best remembered (to those of a certain age) is the late ANGEL NADAL, who drew the strip from 1962 to '74.  (REG PARLETT took over when COR!! was merged into the comic.)  This particular page is from an issue dated October 29th 1966, and is relevant because it's all about 'Firework Night'.  (Or 'Bonfire Night' or 'Guy Fawkes Night', or whatever it's called these days.)  This is scanned, panel-by-panel, from the original art, which I own - and very glad am I to have it to be sure.  (And it's not for sale.)

Thanks to PHILIP CRAWLEY for alerting me to where I could find an image of the published page (www.bustercomic.co.uk), but I've now replaced it with a scan from my very own, newly-acquired copy.

TIME For An AMAZING TALE In A CREEPY WORLD - And IRON MAN And CLEOPATRA Are ALONG For The RIDE...

Images copyright MARVEL COMICS

The year?  I can no longer recall with any certainty - probably 1968 or '69.  A girl in my class by the name of Lynne Speed took a fancy to a little notebook my father had given me and swapped me the above comic for it.  We swapped back a few days later when guilt at so callously parting with the book began to nag at my conscience.  However, I've told that story before and it's not the point of this post.

I only had the comic for a few days at most.  I'd already read the tale in an issue of FANTASTIC, but that comic hadn't used the cover art, and there was just something about that great JACK KIRBY illo that grabbed me.  I've just re-acquired the comic tonight, and it strikes me that, even if I live for another 30 or 40 years and keep the comic for that length of time, it won't seem anywhere near as long as the few days I temporarily had that first copy back in the '60s.

It's not as though I even need it, as I have the original ish of TALES Of SUSPENSE which the story came from, plus numerous reprints.  Yet I saw it in an auction and it called out to me, and memories of my old playground and school, demolished a few years back, were resurrected in the recesses of my mind.  So I bid on it and won, and soon it will join all the other clones of my childhood comics and toys, and I'll feel reunited with my past - even if only for a short time.

Just think though; as I said, when I've owned this comic for a week or two, that'll be a longer period of time than I had it the first time, which is something I find amazing.  I often look at replacement items I've owned for many, many years longer than I ever had the originals, and wonder where the time went.  It's ironic that this IRON MAN adventure involves time travel, because just looking at it takes me back in time over 50 years.

Anyway, here's hoping I've got at least another 50 years ahead of me.  That would be nice, however unlikely the prospect may be.

******

Incidentally, that Cleopatra gets around!  As well as meeting Iron Man, she also met DOCTOR STRANGE.  Bit of a MARVEL 'groupie' if you ask me.  (And I'm surprised that ALAN CLASS didn't spot the misspelling of 'Pharaoh' and correct it.  Tsk, tsk!)

'BOT OF THE DAY - TOMY...

'Bot as in abbreviation of Robot obviously.  I had this little fella when I was a kid, and managed to obtain a replacement a few years back, box and all.  This one I got recently, no box, no key (update: managed to acquire a key), but otherwise fully functional.  (So now I've got two.)  For some reason I once thought it was manufactured by MARX TOYS, but no - it's by TOMY.  The arms used to remind me slightly of B-9 from LOST In SPACE - still do in fact, but that's where any resemblance ends.  Any of you Criv-ites have one of this little chap's pals when you were young?  Do tell.

(Incidentally, I carefully removed that little piece of 'flocking' on top of his right arm.  Couldn't have him looking anything less than perfect.)

MIGHTY MARVEL CHECKLIST - ON SALE NOW!!!

Images copyright MARVEL COMICS.  Published by PANINI

WOLVERINE & DEADPOOL #11

100 pages of claw-popping action!  Three awesome adventures!

A new story begins!  Deadpool meets Old Man Logan and tries to give him a helping hand - but a team-up with Deadpool can look an awful lot like a fight to the death!  By Declan Shalvey & Mike Henderson!

Wolverine and her family are being hunted by the Orphans of X - and they now have a weapon that can kill mutants with healing factors!  By Tom Taylor & Juann Caball!

Old Man Logan has found his former love Mariko Yashida, but the deadly Gorgon wants to make it a very brief reunion!  By Ed Brisson & Ibraim Roberson!

Featuring material first published in Deadpool vs Old Man Logan #1-3, All-New Wolverine #28, and Old Man Logan #35.

On Sale 1st November.

£4.50.

AVENGERS UNIVERSE #12

100 pages of Earth's Mightiest Heroes!  Three great stories!

A new epic adventure begins as the Avengers join forces with the Champions!  Don't miss the earth-shattering 'Worlds Collide' by Mark Waid, Jesus Saiz, Humberto Ramos, Javier Pino & Paco Diaz!

The Human Torch has inherited the legacy of the Fantastic Four - but he doesn't want it!  Meanwhile, Doctor Voodoo attempts to rebuild Avengers Mansion, with shocking results!  By Jim Zub & Sean Izaakse!

A classic piece of Avengers history!  The original Avengers step aside and welcome the second generation:  Hawkeye, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch!  By Stan Lee & Jack Kirby!

Featuring material originally published in Avengers #672-673, Champions #13, Uncanny Avengers #28, and Avengers (vol 1) #16.

On sale 1st November.

£4.50.