Arcs & Runs #51. It’s time to take my semi-annual look at another segment of the landmark Kirby-Lee run on the Fantastic Four issues #1-67. We are on segment number five if you are counting (and I am). Early Fantastic Four comics are a real treat to read and re-read as you get older. They don’t get stale. I once…
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Arcs & Runs
This month we feature the beginnings of the most popular new super-hero of the Silver age of comics The Amazing Spider-Man. I can say that just about as brashly as Stan Lee did calling The Fantastic Four The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine. Over a fifty year plus time frame Spider-Man has become Marvel’s most popular character overall. There are plenty…
We are in the month of June with the last vestiges of spring, the flowers are blooming, the bees are buzzing, and a young couple’s thoughts turn to marriage and a life lived happily ever after… (insert screeching brake sound here)! Well that might have been the norm in days gone but today it’s just a wee bit different. In…
We are going to take Arcs & Runs in a slightly different direction this week and look at a Silver Age run of issue #4’s. Yes #4. I have listened to all the love and support for issue #2’s and their value relative to #1’s. I think many of them overvalued. I have always believed that issue #4’s only bent…
We are finally back in the saddle here on Arcs & Runs and we will start the year with a look at some comic books that were connected from their first publishing date or “birth”. Twins if you will. In today’s post, the two titles both began in September 1963 and through a few fits and starts are still running…
This week we take another look back at the Fantastic Four and another small run within opening #1-67 run of this fabulous book. This is part four if you are counting. Stories by Stan Lee, awesome art by jolly Jack Kirby, with inking chores spread amongst Chic Stone, Vince Colletta, and Dick Ayers. We’ll start by meeting a Dragon of…
This month we feature a classic bronze-age arc from the pages of Captain Marvel. The Captain Marvel #25-34 storyline is the highpoint Marv-ell’s comic career, and introduced us to the full mad cosmic villainy of Thanos. Captain Marvel was first introduced to us in Marvel Super-Heroes #12. He soon had his own book (Captain Marvel #1 May 1968), but the…
This month we feature a look back to the late sixties and early seventies and Marvels venture into horror comic reprints and my favourite title from the period: Where Monsters Dwell. We’ll begin with a quick overview of this period which ran from 1969-1976. Marvel’s first two titles in their return to horror, Chamber of Darkness and Tower of Shadows,…
We continue our look at one of the greatest runs of comics in Marvel’s super-hero history: Jack Kirby, Joe Sinnott, & Stan Lee’s Fantastic Four. This is part three of the series and today we feature the tail end of the run, and we pick-up after the events in Fantastic Four #60. Doctor Doom has been vanquished, and the Inhumans…
In this week’s Arcs & Runs we will follow up our Human Torch piece from last post with another of the most popular and highly sought after characters in the Marvel stable of super-heroes – Prince Namor the Sub-Mariner. This introduction has been paid for by comic shop owners almost every where. Well maybe I am being a little hard…
In the early days of Marvels return to super-hero comics, old horror titles all gradually turned the page to the new genre. New characters were introduced in Tales of Suspense (Iron Man), Tales to Astonish (Ant-Man), and Journey in to Mystery (Thor). Marvel’s flagship horror comic Strange Tales received a recently developed teenage Human Torch from their new smash hit…
We continue our story of Marvel Tales #1 and we have moved 35 years in to my future and late 1999. My brother and I have amassed nearly complete runs of all Marvel comics and sold them in this time frame, some more than once. Through all of this the only book that survived is my beat-up very well read…
Last updated on June 24th, 2016 at 11:24 amThe lazy hazy days of summer have arrived and it is time to give our regular Arcs & Runs feature a little time off. Well just the month of June. This month’s Arcs & Runs is about just one book, Marvel Tales #1, how I first encountered it, and some of the…
This month’s Arcs & Runs looks at a famous Spider-Man versus Doctor Octopus story that ranks amongst Spidey’s best. This fan favourite has been on my “to do” list for some time. It has been covered already in part by CBD writers Peter Chin (Why Comics Rule) and in Walt’s Undervalued Spotlight #276. Time to give the books the full…
In today’s installment of “The First Six” we will take a look at the start of The Mighty Thor in the Journey Into Mystery title. About a month ago I was researching Marvels early beginnings and use of Norse Mythology and how it has played out in the Marvel Universe. I found out about early Loki and Thor appearances in…
This is our first look at Marvel’s long running title Strange Tales (well, we did do the annuals). It actually started as an Atlas title in 1951 as a horror book. It ran for an incredible one hundred issues in this format. It then changed to a super-hero book starring the Human Torch and turned into a “split book” with…
We will begin this month with the start a new series in Arcs & Runs focusing on the first six issues of some of Marvel’s long-time super-heroes. There is no order here, these will be sprinkled intermittently amongst other posts. In todays comic world, stories are usually written in 4-7 book arcs and then they are packaged in to trade…
We continue our look at Bronze Age Hulk with Part 2 of this forty issue run. There are some similarities to the first twenty issues. The Hulk fights the Rhino/Abomination combo once again, and we have return trips to Counter-Earth and Canada, plus a lot more. Let’s get back to it! Incredible Hulk #168 October 1973 The hate of the…
