A THIEF, A REAVER, A SLAYER...

Copyright MARVEL COMICS, CPI, and GOR BLIMEY PRESS

For those of you who enjoyed the recent selected MARVEL TREASURY EDITIONS post, #4 has now been added.  Check it out here, CONAN fans!

REMINISCING REPOST: STRANGE BUT TRUE DEPT...

Actor Robbie Coltrane

Isn't it funny the things that stick in your head as the years go by?  I remember one day, back in the late 1960s, my brother asking our parents about his middle name.  It turned out he shared the same middle name as our grandfather on my mother's side.  This led me to ask from whom mine had come.  "You're named after Doctor McMillan", I was told.

DOCTOR McMILLAN - Doctor IAN McMillan - (now sadly deceased) was our family doctor whose Practice was in Rutherglen.  I remember him as a tall, thin, kindly-faced gentleman, with grey or white receding hair and spectacles.  I also recall sitting in his waiting room on occasion, and, before that, him coming out to our house to attend to me when my mother splashed a kettle of boiling water on me when I was an infant.  Don't worry, it was an accident.  (Well... that first time anyway.)

Doctor McMillan was the kind of doctor older people often lament doesn't exist anymore.  On many an occasion, I'd hear my mother extolling his virtues as a doctor and as a person to visiting friends.  Both of my parents thought extremely highly of him and were much saddened when he died.  They held him in such genuine regard and affection he must've been a very fine man indeed.  It's safe to say, as far as my parents (and doubtless his other patients) were concerned, a lot of doctors have since been measured against him - with no doubt quite a few found to be severely wanting.

Imagine my surprise then, when, sometime in the early '80s, I read a profile about actor ROBBIE COLTRANE in a local newspaper and discovered he was the son of our old family doctor.  Robbie's real surname is actually McMillan - he took the name Coltrane from the famous jazz saxophonist JOHN COLTRANE.  I wonder if John put up much of a fight?  (Little joke there.)

So there you go.  I'm named after Robbie Coltrane's dad.  What's even more strange is my father was called Robbie.  Thoughts of a NEW GENESIS-APOKOLIPS 'pact' spring to mind, but as to which one of us is ORION and which is MISTER MIRACLE I'll leave for others to decide.

(You must've known I'd squeeze some kind of tenuous comicbook link in there somehow.)

(BOND) BABE Of The DAY - CAROLINE MUNRO...

I only asked the sultry CAROLINE

MUNRO for one of her Jelly Babies, and

she instantly assumed a threatening posture.

"You'll have to prise these Jelly Babies from my

cold dead hands!" she growled.  A bit cheeky, I

thought, seeing as I'd bought them for her just

a few minutes before.  Never mind, I got my

own back - I kept my Liquorice Allsorts

 all to myself.  (That'll teach her.)

DC COMICS LIMITED COLLECTORS' EDITIONS SELECTED COVER GALLERY... (Updated)

Copyright DC COMICS & MARVEL COMICS

Okay, so I know the DC COMICS large-sized Specials were (usually) actually called LIMITED COLLECTORS' EDITIONS, but they were essentially the same as TREASURY EDITIONS, weren't they?  So we'll start off with DC/MARVEL collaborations, of which there are four here 'cos that's all I've got of the big 'uns.  I remember being ill in bed one day and waiting for a pal to finish work in Glasgow, as he was going to drop in on his way home and deliver my SUPERMAN Versus SPIDER-MAN.  I was so excited, I actually forgot I was ill.

I've got memories associated with the other ones too, but I won't bore you with them as I'm sure you'll have your own.  Anyway, enjoy recalling these great issues if you were lucky enough to have had them originally.  Regarding the FAMOUS 1st EDITIONS, some of them were also available in hardback and probably command a small fortune these days.  I've only shown the front cover of The AMAZING WORLD Of SUPERMAN, 'cos the back cover was the exact same, except that it didn't have the price.

Did you have any of these over-sized publications, Criv-ites?  Then let's hear what you thought of them and whether you've still got them.  As for the next post, I've got a few surprises for you in a similar vein - don't miss it!

******

Update: I've now added the SUPERMAN Vs. MUHAMMAD ALI Collectors' Edition, but I'm cheating a bit, as I've used the hardback facsimile edition, which I received earlier today (April 18th).  I never bought the original back in 1978, but purchased the smaller deluxe edition around 2010, which had bonus features (pencil art, etc.).  However, I kind of hankered over the facsimile as it's the same size as the original, and when I saw a shrink-wrapped copy on eBay recently for a mere £15 (post free), I snapped it up.  (Another eBay seller is currently asking £168.28 for the same volume.  No, not for the original - for the facsimile.  Unbelievable, eh?)   

This is actually a numbered Marvel Treasury Edition, but I've included it anyway 

Copyright from this point on, DC COMICS

And below is what the original looked like.  Have fun comparing.

Purchased in a Southsea or Portsmouth newsagent's in 1981 for a mere 50p.  Ah, memories

Update: Below is the latest Famous 1st Edition from 2020, in a (one-off?) revival - NEW FUN #1.  This is a hardback edition with dustjacket.

Yet another update: Below, three recently acquired Facsimile Editions to add to the party.

MARVEL TREASURY EDITIONS SELECTED COVER GALLERY... (Updated)

Copyright MARVEL COMICS

I bought at least the first dozen of these titles as they came out, but I didn't always keep the previous one(s) until the next one, so I have only three actual issues of my original MARVEL TREASURY EDITIONs from the time of purchase back in the '70s.  However, I replaced some of them around 30-35 years ago, and others maybe around ten years after that, so not only have I had the replacements longer than I had their originals, but also longer than I didn't have them (if you catch my drift).

One of them I obtained only recently (2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY), and I'm currently waiting for #4, CONAN The BARBARIAN, arriving anytime soon.  (Update: Now received and added.)  Then I'll get #5 (HULK), #6 (Dr. STRANGE), #7 (The AVENGERS), #9 (GIANT SUPERHERO TEAM-UP), and #10 (THOR), which will restore to me the first 12 numbered issues again.  (Incidentally, the friend to whom I gave my original copy of #9 (many, many years ago), says that he should still have it somewhere and that I can have it back if I want should he ever find it.)  (Update: #s 5, 6, 7, 9 & 10 now added.)  

There were also one-shots, like the first GIANT SUPERHERO HOLIDAY GRAB-BAG (1974), which was labelled as a Marvel Treasury SPECIAL rather than an 'Edition', as was the Space Odyssey and CAPTAIN AMERICA BICENTENNIAL BATTLES issues.  I probably also bought an occasional later TE if the contents appealed to me, but the first 12 will suffice to complete my collection.  Truth to tell, I don't even need them as I already have the stories in other reprint collections, but I get a feeling of immense satisfaction from plugging gaps in a series.

One thing about the Treasury Editions that irked me was that the pages were routinely resized and, sometimes, even abridged by having pages edited out.  (FF #4 in TE #2 is one such example).  Although larger than a standard comicbook, the TEs weren't of the same proportions, so in order to fit the different dimensions, tiers of panels were cropped in places so that there wasn't too large a margin around the top, bottom, or sides.  This sometimes resulted in uneven-sized gutters between tiers, and cropped panels occasionally had no bottom borders.  (Exactly like what was done in early issues of The MIGHTY WORLD Of MARVEL and SPIDER-MAN COMICS WEEKLY UK periodicals.)

I'll update this post as I re-acquire the missing editions (now done), but in the meantime, feel free to share your memories (if any) of these over-sized publications with your fellow Crivvies.  Did you like them, or did you prefer the regular monthly issues?  'Fess up now, while I start scanning my DC COMICS equivalents - coming soon in an upcoming post.    

Although not numbered on the front cover, the interior indicia reveals it to be #8

The soldiers with the flag on Cap's right were drawn by JOHN ROMITA

Although the mag below is also included in our DC post, I've added it here as it's actually a Marvel Treasury Edition (#28).

And although the following 'Book' isn't quite a Treasury Edition, I thought you'd all like to see it anyway, so here it is.

The MTEs were revived a couple of years back, so here are the front and back covers from a couple of them just in case you missed them at the time.