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Years ago, there was a series called Hellstorm: Prince of Lies, starring Daimon Hellstrom. I collected more than half that series, starting from the very first issue. Then, for some reason, I left off right after issue 12.
I had forgotten about it until just recently, when I came across those first 12 issues during my cataloging. So today I ordered the remaining issues 13-21. Just because.
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After cataloging two more long boxes last night, I'm 53 shy of 7000 books cataloged. So, I took stock of what was left.
I've still got 7 long boxes and about 12 short boxes to go through. In addition, most of the drawers of all my storage cabinets. I've already worked through 3-1/2 of those. So, I've got about 18-1/2 to go.
It's possible I was off on my initial assessment of how many books I have.
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Woot! After last night's cataloging, I'm at just over 7300 books. I'm hoping to knock out three more long boxes today.
Even better, the Hellstorm comics I ordered are looking like they'll arrive today. The initial tracking showed not until next Tuesday, so I was happy (but not surprised) to see the status update this morning.
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I remember, 20 years or so ago, after I got married and could no longer hang out at my friend's house to read his comics, I asked to borrow from his Green Lantern collection. He loaned me a HUGE number of issues, far more than I expected to read. But I started on it.
I particularly remember issue #3, where Hal Jordan and Guy Gardner get into a fistfight and get arrested. Some other guys use the rings to make trouble, Hal takes care of it, and Guy admits that Hal was the best damn Green Lantern he'd ever seen.
So I was still READING it at that point. But as I proceeded through the series, I gradually lost interest, reading less and less thoroughly, until I was only skimming through it...
...but then came Emerald Twilight! Damn! That story forced me out of "skim" mode and made me start actually READING again! And I continued actually reading for dozens of issues, from that point.
I suppose I might focus more on specific issues if I knew which 7 issues you were talking about.
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I did check yesterday to see if my store had any back issues for stuff I recently added to my gap list. I had hopes for one, but wasn't going to hold my breath on the other.
The one I had hopes for was Ghost Rider. This was the Danny Ketch series. I'm missing just a handful from much later in the series. Somewhere in the 80s and 90s.
The other, that I had pretty much no hope on, was Elementals from Comico. I've got most of the second volume. Missing some of the earlier ones.
Well, I just learned something from a comic book. It was only a week or so ago that Aberzombie brought up the Iron Man story Demon in a Bottle by David Michelinie, the story that first established that Tony Stark - Iron Man - had a drinking problem. Back in 1979, I expect portraying alcohol abuse must have seemed a shocking, risqué subject for a comic book. And... a superhero? In the real world, drunk DRIVERS cause such terrible accidents; imagine operating a suit of Iron Man armor while under the influence! The premise so fascinated me, I later got the whole "Stane Saga" in which Tony Stark relapses.
And one issue of that later story featured a villain - Firebrand - who made me curious to see his earlier appearances. So I asked my friend to lend me Essential Iron Man volumes 3, 4, and 5. Those reprint a whopping SEVENTY-SEVEN issues, far more than I would want to read, particularly in light of my view that the writing for Iron Man at the time was... kind of sub-par. But I started on the Firebrand stories this weekend, including issue 48, which came out in 1972...
...and which just happened to include a relevant scene that had nothing to do with Firebrand. Seeing Tony Stark reach for a cocktail, Marianne, his fiancée at the time, thinks - and I quote: "I'm WORRIED about Tony -- That's TWO DRINKS more than he EVER has at a party!"
Um... ho-o-okay. I don't know what his usual limit is, but from the context, I'm guessing quite a few. And when Tony overhears a man at the party say something offensive, Tony makes a fist, looking ready for a fight.
Now pause for a moment and think: if you're concerned about your loved one who's been drinking, what's the last thing you would say to him? Marianne grabs him and says "TONY! STOP! You're too TENSED UP! Let's get OUT of here -- Go for a DRIVE!"
Yes. A DRIVE. What a brilliant idea. Soon we see him careening down the road, with Marianne protesting "TONY -- SLOW DOWN! You're going MUCH too FAST! You'll KILL us both!"
Gee. Maybe his judgement is impaired at the moment. Who'd'a thunk it? Then the cops pull him over. Again, what a shock. Okay, now the cops will tell him...
Uh, wait. What do they tell him? "--so I'm lettin' you off with a WARNING, Sir -- considering the SPEED LIMIT wasn't POSTED! Next time, take it EASY, huh?"
Next time, take it easy. Unbelievable. Even for a comic book.
I just Googled it, and apparently, before 1980, drunk driving wasn't widely considered a serious threat, and was sometimes tolerated! I'm thinking that even in 1972 - long before Michelinie started writing the book - Tony was already starting to develop a problem with alcohol, and the writer at the time might not even have been aware of it!
(I might comment on the "Firebrand" aspect, which is - after all - what led me to read the issue, but I think I've rambled on long enough.)
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Although, I've already got an order being shipped from the website - some back issues of Suicide Squad. Back in the Ostrander days.
Speaking of this order. When I received the tracking number, the package was in the hands of UPS and showed as being delivered tomorrow. Then it was turned over to the USPS and immediately shifted to a delivery date of Friday.
Five days to go from the Dallas area to the Houston area? Yeah, that sounds like the wonderful efficiency I've come to expect from the USPS.
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Although, I've already got an order being shipped from the website - some back issues of Suicide Squad. Back in the Ostrander days.Speaking of this order. When I received the tracking number, the package was in the hands of UPS and showed as being delivered tomorrow. Then it was turned over to the USPS and immediately shifted to a delivery date of Friday.
Five days to go from the Dallas area to the Houston area? Yeah, that sounds like the wonderful efficiency I've come to expect from the USPS.
AND...then it showed up last night. In my neighbor's mailbox. Huzzah for the wonder and efficiency of the USPS.
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Commenting on something elsewhere, and I came to a realization about the Batman villain Hush. I find the character to be exceedingly lame. The more I look at the character, the more it seems to be Loeb just took pieces from a bunch of different (and better) villains, then cobbled them together into this sad monstrosity of a character.
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If I hadn't already said it, my thanks to you, Aaron Bitman.
As I recall, it was you who told me about mycomicshop.com. I've made good use of that website, off and on, for about a year now. It's helped me fill in some gaps my brick-and-mortar comic store has been a bit weak on. Since the end of August alone, I've placed three different orders. And since I believe the place is also in Texas, my stuff gest to me pretty quickly.
Now I've put together a spreadsheet with pricing and grades on some stuff I'm still missing. Not everything. I'm focusing more on smaller batches first.
And you're reminiscing is interesting to read.
Again, thanks.
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Huzzah! Ordered some more back issues from mycomicshop.com a few days back, and they arrived today. What I got:
The final two issues I needed for the original 1978 Firestorm five-issue series.
All six issues of the Batman: Dark Detective miniseries.
Four of the six issues of the Batman and the Mad Monk miniseries.
Three of the six issues of the Batman and the Monster Men miniseries.
Ah, Age of Apocalypse. I remember back in the 1990s, I was reading my friend's X-Men comics, suffering delusions that I could catch up to - what was then - the present day. It could never have happened; there was simply too much material! In 2000 I got married and stopped. But I left off at a good point, with the Age of Apocalypse all wrapped up. Actually, I think that even after getting married I borrowed a bit of X-Men material continuing after Age of Apocalypse, but I don't remember anything from it. Maybe I'm mistaken.
But anyway... yeah, Age of Apocalypse. Perhaps the most memorable moment was the one when we find out what the Madri really are. I had no idea. If the series had ever stated it, then I must have missed it. Perhaps Aberzombie or someone might tell me that it was obvious, or hinted at, or something. But all I know is that when...
Good stuff.
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Huh! Talk about a trip in the way back machine.....
According to Bleeding Fool, DC might be including the previously unpublished final four issues of Rick Veitch's Swamp Thing run. That was the story where he was supposed to go back in time and become the cross upon which Jesus was crucified.
I wasn't collecting Swamp Thing at the time, but vaguely recall hearing people discuss in the comic book store. Maybe. I mean, that was a long time ago. I was a wee lad, not yet out of high school.
I wasn't collecting Swamp Thing at the time either, but I remember reading a newspaper article at the time reporting that the story got cancelled.
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Going through my old comics, and I found both the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons and Forgotten Realms comics from back in the day. They were from the late 80s/early 90s, done by DC. So, I'd guess some people around here might have still been in diapers. Or not born yet. Except Aaron, though. We're old.
Anyway, I'm pretty sure I also have some of the Dragonlance comics in my collection as well.
There was also a Spelljammer comic as I recall. I remember when the shift to 3rd edition happened it was reflected in the comics too. They had a scene where the Party Wizard was muttering about how Magic Missile was less effective now and other changes to magic with the shift from Mystra to Midnight
The AD&D comic ended before they managed to rescue a character who got kidnapped by a lich. Major bummer
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Ah yes, those darned dangling plot threads.
I remember when the Superboy series was about Superman when he was a boy in Smallville. Jonathan Kent (Superboy's foster father) decided to run for the city council to help fight a scheme to build a shopping mall outside of town... and he started getting death threats. At first, Jonathan kept this a secret from Clark. Then someone blew up Kent's General Store. Jonathan still tried to keep the threats a secret from Clark, who knew that Jonathan was hiding something from him, but Superboy was too busy with cosmic threats to have much time to think about it. Later, hired assassins presumably tried to kill Jonathan.
The predictable conclusion to this subplot was that Clark would find out what's going on, track the problem down to the president of the city council, get the dirt on him, and put him in prison. Yet the series kept implying that Jonathan would solve the problem himself - as he seemed determined to do - which would have been so cool!
I found the idea so intriguing that I ordered the last Superboy issue (number 54 from 1984), although at the time it was a tad pricey by my standards, because I thought it would resolve that subplot. And in that final issue, the president - having failed to scare Jonathan - tried to bribe him, obviously unsuccessfully.
And that was it! The subplot obviously wasn't over, but the series got cancelled. The letters page said that Superboy and Supergirl would soon share a series, tentatively titled DC Double Comics, but I'm not aware that any such series materialized. I must leave it to my imagination. And maybe it's just as well, because maybe that subplot would have disappointed me with the predictable Superboy-saves-the-day resolution. Now I can imagine that instead, Jonathan got that city council seat, dug up some dirt on the president, and worked with the police to put him behind bars. Hey, all that experience he had helping Superboy must have taught him a few things about crime and law enforcement to help him fix the problem on his own. At least, I'd like to think so.
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Bought a handful of back issues this week:
Detective Comics #240 (from 1957). Because why not?
Also Batman and the Monster Men #’s 3 & 4, and Batman and the Mad Monk #5. Those were on a list I gave the comic shop, and asked them to keep an eye out for me. So now I’m just missing the final issue of each series.
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My store is currently in the midst of a big Halloween sale. So when I stopped in today I took advantage of the discounts to pick up a couple of items I’d had my eye on:
Moon Knight Volume 1, #’s 3 & 4
Iron Man and Sub-Mariner #1, a one-shot from 1968.
And while perusing their dollar bins, I came across a copy of Comico’s Elementals Special #1. Woot!!!
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Some interesting back issue purchases today....
Chilling Adventures in Sorcery from Red Circle Comics (70s and 80s). I liked the cover.
Swamp Thing #'s 8 & 10, with some awesome Bernie Wrightson covers.
Conan the Barbarian #21, with a sweet Barry Windsor-Smith cover.
And the big one...Avengers #57! Behold...The Vision!
I ought to cite Swamp Thing #10 for Arcane's first return, particularly after you mentioned picking up #2 - with the first "Arcane" story and his first (temporary) death - in this thread last year. But for some reason, a different character from #10 has stuck in my mind a lot more sharply, in all the decades since I read it. Well, I never knew the meaning of the word "antebellum" until I read that issue. And since you mention Bernie Wrightson, yeah, that issue saw his exit, so that's significant too, for those who appreciate art.
As for Conan the Barbarian, the Turanian / Hyrkanian war gave us the first long Conan epic in comic book history. And that particular issue - in which Conan switched sides in the war - showed that a sellsword will fight for anyone if the price is right; which side scarcely matters. Hey, Conan would later fight for NUMEDIDES for Crom's sake!