*Marvel: What’s Old is our feature where we highlight stuff from our catalogue that you may have missed. A personal favourite from the distant childhoods of the 30th Century team, these classic issues pit the Green Goliath against Marvel’s First Family in a long-promised but oft-deferred fight to the finish. When three of the Four rapidly succumb to the Hulk’s irresistible force, it falls to the Thing, outclassed despite his own formidable strength, to hold the line in an epic, desperate struggle to protect the city. And when the combined powers of the FF fail, who better to step up to help out than the Hulk’s former teammates, the ever-Assembling Avengers? Powerful and gripping, this remains, decades later, one of the best-remembered battles of the early Marvel Age! FF #25 is a solid VG pence printed copy with moderate spine and edge wear and corner blunting, but nice unmarred cover image with deep purple background, tight, firmly attached staples and creamy-white pages. FF #26 has a few creases, but also an unmarred cover image, spine wear and corner blunting; very slight looseness of the staples at cover, and a slight dinginess at cover edges on the white background; decent pages, also pence printed.
PICTURED: FANTASTIC FOUR
#25 VG p £135
#26 GD/VG p £70

*Marvel: One of Marvel’s long-running and more beloved villains, Crusher Creel, the Absorbing Man, premiered in this issue, with his ability to absorb and replicate the properties of any person, object or substance causing quite a headache for our favourite Thunder God! Despite his surly mien, many folks feel that Crusher Creel is, to quote the Shangri-Las, ‘Good-bad, but not evil‘, and he has quite the fan-base, especially in latter decades since he married Titania. This first appearance of an enduring villain is a classy Fine, pence stamp in upper corner, minimal edge wear, unfaded red background, tight staples.
PICTURED: JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #114 FN p £115

*Annuals: Another selection of these wonderful science fiction compendiums. If you’re like me, you just love these imagined futures from the 50s and 60s, when spaceships had rivets, saucers were flying, women were princesses and aliens were green. Four great examples in this update. The All Worlds Album (softcover), has a mixture of sci-fi, western, adventure, funnies and features, the star attraction being Swift Morgan and the Feathered Serpent by Dennis McLoughlin. The Other Worlds Album (softcover) has a mixture of science fiction, horror, mystery and adventure and features a lot of Ditko stories, as well as other US and UK strips. Under a Ditko cover, Mysteries of the Unexplored (softcover) is all sc-ifi and all British strips, with work by Norman Light and Ron Turner on Captain Future, the Buccaneers of Space etc. Finally, Outer Space (softcover) is more of the same with the same creators and characters.
PICTURED:
ALL WORLDS ALBUM GD £12.50
OTHER WORLDS ALBUM VG £20
MYSTERIES OF THE UNEXPLORED FN £25
OUTER SPACE FN £25

*Boys’ Adventure & War Picture Libraries: Following on from previous releases of earlier numbers, we now have issues #8, #9, #13, #15 & #16 of Commando War Stories In Pictures from the same source. A previous owner at some point decided to place two to four reinforcing staples through the spine, quite skilfully so as to not hamper the opening of the item nor hide any of the content; there is minimal bleed from these staples and the page quality is really rather nice. As we move up the numbers, the overall condition quality improves, so in most cases, the grade is assigned through wear rather than specific defects.
PICTURED: COMMANDO
#8 FA/GD £35 Once this had a heavily taped spine, but now tape removed with some marks left
#9 GD+ £70
#13 VG- £55
#15 VG- £55
#16 VG £60

*Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror: Philip K Dick is one of our best-selling authors. I guess his themes of religion, drugs, counter culture and destructive relationships appeal. So we’re pleased to present five of his works this week in paperback. A Maze Of Death is a surrealistic murder mystery on a mysterious alien world; the classic Martian Time-Slip is about the material and mental struggle for survival in the Martian colony; Radio Free Albemuth (his last posthumous novel) touches on paranoia, political repression, the decay of American society and the plastic nature of reality (I guess you could call these his themes too); The Divine Invasion has at its centre the Second Coming; and The Golden Man is a collection of 15 short stories. Full details of all in our catalogue.  
PICTURED:
A MAZE OF DEATH VF £15 2nd UK PB
MARTIAN TIME-SLIP VG/FN £10 1st UK PB

*DC: Joker appearances are always highly prized and collected, and here in Detective #341, we have a rare depiction of him by Carmine Infantino, who captures his wildness in a way perhaps few former artists had done in ‘The Joker’s Comedy Capers’. There’s also a lovely Elongated Man back-up, also by Infantino. A lovely superior-graded copy, pence stamped, great cover colour and gloss, white to off-white pages, tight and firmly-attached staples. Edge and handling wear are minor; there are a couple of small stamped numbers above the logo, which do not detract from the cover image.
PICTURED: DETECTIVE COMICS #341 FN/VF p £55 SOLD

*Marvel: X-Men issue #129 introduced not one, but two, characters who were to become major players in the lives of the X-Men. Kitty Pryde, the young immaterial ingenue, made her debut as a pupil at Xavier’s school, and went on to become a central part of the series, eventually becoming the leader of the team, while Emma Frost, White Queen of the Hellfire Club, dedicated her telepathic prowess to the X-Men’s destruction – though that dedication hasn’t prevented her from occasionally joining the group herself, and seducing Cyclops whenever Jean Grey happens to be dead for a while! Our latest #129 is a fabulous cents copy, looks as good as new; extremely minor stress marks to the bottom of the spine (I’m being really picky here) and a small faint crease at the top left back cover are the only signs this has ever been handled and read.
PICTURED: X-MEN #129 VF+ £120 SOLD

*Marvel: Issues #86-88 of New Mutants featured the earliest appearances of Cable, a man from an apocalyptic near-future, son of Scott Summers by a cloned replica of Jean Grey, who came back in time to prevent his own future from coming to pass. Or something like that. His powers include metal bits, a strappy costume, really big guns, and glaring a lot. With a shiny eye, for no very good reason. Anyway, he took over the stewardship of the New Mutants from Magneto, and eventually honed the survivors into X-Force, a dubious achievement for which no-one should thank him. He’s since bobbed back between ‘now’ and the future, interfering with his own and the world’s time stream, and accosting various mutant children to become the Hope of the World. Kind of a perma-grumpy Mary Poppins, he’s a super-powered nanny with metal limbs. Confusing back history and ambiguous abilities or not, his co-starring role in the record-breaking second Deadpool film has caused interest in the character’s early appearances to peak. #86 is a cameo appearance, #87 his first full appearance and #88 his second. All nice copies as you might expect of this vintage, the #87 has minor stress marks at the spine and a little handling wear at the right edge. See our catalogue for full details.
PICTURED: NEW MUTANTS #87 VF- £70 SOLD

*Horror 1940-1959: What’s Old is our feature where we highlight stuff from our catalogue that you may have missed. This week, one of the most famous horror titles of the 1950s. Confident of the success of their horror showcase, Avon Publishing followed up their 1951 debut issue with an ongoing series. Always a quality title, showcasing the work of Wally Wood & Joe Kubert, among many others, with evocative preludes in moody black and white on the inner front covers. Issue #3 is structurally sound but with mild ‘rippling’ and very faint cover image erosion from historical moisture exposure. Issue #4 has a chip missing at top of spine and a few chips out upper edge. Issue #6 #6 has quite a worn spine, but okay in other respects. Despite these flaws, the striking quality of the work remains undiminished.
PICTURED: EERIE
#3 FA/GD £150
#4 FA/GD £120 SOLD
#6 GD/VG £200

*Vintage UK/Australian Reprints of US Material: In the years before Alan Class got going, Len Miller was the big name in ‘faux’ American comics in the UK, reprinting much material that would otherwise not have seen the light of day on our shores. Prominent among his offerings were four horror titles, reprinting Atlas and early Marvel horror/mystery tales: Mystic, Spellbound, Voodoo & Zombie, all keenly collected these days. We have two #1 issues in this update: Spellbound & Voodoo, plus a smattering of Mystic (#30), Voodoo (#3) and Zombie (#2) all in decent shape.
PICTURED:
SPELLBOUND #1 VG/FN £80 SOLD
VOODOO #1 VG+ £40

*TV & Film Related Comics: When the first series of TV Century 21 faltered, competitors Polystyle were quick to generate a successor in ‘Countdown’, featuring many of the most popular Gerry Anderson TV shows in comic strip form. Fireball XL5, Captain Scarlet, Thunderbirds, Stingray all graced its pages, plus a brand-new sci-fi strip ‘Countdown’, illustrated rather spiffily by John M. Burns, and the star power of a Doctor Who comic series imported from TV Comic! This classy, slick package is fondly remembered and avidly collected today. Our latest copy of Countdown #1 is an exceptional VF, a high grade for a British comic only possible because of the superior paper quality, tight staples, flat white pages, vibrant colour, sharp corners; minor stress marks at the spine. Please note this copy does not come with Free Gift.
PICTURED: COUNTDOWN #1 VF £70 SOLD

*Girls’ Picture Libraries: Aimed at the adult female reader (or older adolescent), these often beautifully drawn romance comics from Amalgamated Press (later Fleetway) dealt with slightly more mature themes such as infidelity, divorce, or marital discord — though always discreetly alluded to, and with the inevitable happy ending! We have nearly 50 new issues this week, from #151 up to #199, almost complete. While these are overall in a remarkable state of preservation for their age, with mostly glossy covers and bright interior pages; staple rust has unfortunately affected most of them to some degree, and we have adjusted the grades accordingly. In general, they’re averaging VG, with several FN and a few dropping to GD, though it must be observed that, staple rust aside, most of them would achieve a full grade higher.
PICTURED: TRUE LIFE LIBRARY #167 VG £7 SOLD

*DC: It’s a funny old game, this hobby. You can have a perfectly good issue of Batman, featuring a tussle with one of his major foes (Two-Face) which has been around for 40 years and only accumulated a modest value, then suddenly, overnight, DC announce that a hitherto minor character incidentally introduced in that very issue is to become the new Batman in their current Future State storyline, and the collectors and speculators go wild. So, we offer a chance to get a decent copy of the first appearance of Tim Fox (#313) in lovely condition, with just a tiny amount of edge wear, plus his second appearance (#323 FN/VF p £28), minor creasing to back cover and minor handling wear, at the current market values. Are they good investments? Well, the last copy we had of #313, just three weeks ago, sold instantly…
PICTURED: BATMAN #313 VF £150

*DC: The tabloid-sized DC Limited Collectors’ Editions from the 1970s are all uncommon in the UK, but we’re lucky enough to have a find of several new in, including many duplicates in a choice of grades. See our catalogue for full details — a selection of our stock is shown here:
PICTURED: LIMITED COLLECTORS’ EDITION
C21 VG+ £15 SHAZAM SOLD OTHER COPIES AVAILABLE
C37 VF+ £50 BATMAN ALL-VILLAIN SPECIAL SOLD
C38 VF £25 SUPERMAN SOLD OTHER COPIES AVAILABLE
C39 VF/NM £40 SECRET ORIGINS OF SUPER-VILLAINS SOLD
C47 VF £20 SUPERMAN SALUTES THE BICENTENNIAL SOLD OTHER COPIES AVAILABLE

*Marvel: Amazing Spider-Man #252, like many Secret Wars ‘epilogue’ issues, featured a major ‘twist’ only explained retroactively. In Spidey’s case, it was a dramatic black & white costume which would eventually be revealed as an alien symbiote, which in turn would evolve into Venom, who eclipsed most longer-established villains to become Spidey’s crucial nemesis for the modern era. Although the first appearance of the symbiote in internal continuity was Secret Wars #8, its joint debut in real time was this very issue. This is a lovely high grade issue, tight, flat and glossy with good staples and nice pages; only minor edge handling wear and tiny stress marks at spine (non-colour breaking) stop us awarding an even higher grade.
PICTURED: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #252 VF+ £100

*Marvel: Stan and Jack pulled out all the stops when it came to the fifth annual for the Fantastic Four. Not only the debut of a new villain – the Psycho-Man – and his flunkies Live Wire, Ivan & Shellshock, not only guest shots by the Black Panther AND the Inhumans, not only a back-up story with the Silver Surfer’s encounter with Quasimodo, not only a Stan & Jack vignette about them creating the FF, not only a pin-up gallery of the FF’s friends and foes, but also a special announcement about a happy event for Sue and Reed, which would culminate in the advent of Franklin Richards in Annual #6 a year later. Quite a package. This is a lovely cents copy, with great squarebound spine, excellent cover colour and gloss, nice tight staples and decent pages; no specific defects.
PICTURED: FANTASTIC FOUR ANNUAL #5 VF £90 SOLD

*Marvel: One of a series of Hologram Specials released to celebrate Spidey’s 30th Anniversary, the super-sized Amazing Spider-Man #365 bears a hologram re-creating the cover to Amazing Fantasy #15. Chock full of special features, this is a copy in great shape. 
PICTURED: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #365 NM £30 

*Horror 1940-1959: Superior was a Canadian publisher active from 1945-1956 who mostly reprinted American comics from the same time period. They also published a number of original series that were distributed in the United States. Among these were three horror titles famous for their hallucinogenic covers and accomplished Fiction House style interior art. When you see a lot of these together, they have an almost hypnotic and uncomfortable effect. This week we feature Journey Into Fear #7-9; the defects on #7 are noted; #8-9 are mid-grade without specific defects other than general wear.
PICTURED: JOURNEY INTO FEAR
#7 FA £50 Cover almost detached and separated, barely hanging on SOLD
#8 GD/VG £145 SOLD
#9 VG £195 SOLD

*Alan Class Reprints: A chunky update to our regular stocks of Astounding between #3 and #153, mostly pre-decimal issues, including a Human Torch reprint in #3 & #59 (the same one), and the Torch and Dr Strange in #6. See our catalogue for full details. 
PICTURED: ASTOUNDING
#3 VG £35
#6 FN £35

*Boys’ Adventure & War Picture Libraries: Following on from #1 a couple of weeks ago (now sold), we’re now releasing issues #3-6 of Commando War Stories In Pictures from the same source. A previous owner at some point decided to place two to four reinforcing staples through the spine, quite skilfully so as to not hamper the opening of the item nor hide any of the content; there is minimal bleed from these staples and the page quality is really rather nice. Nevertheless these are low grade copies anyway with defects as noted. #3 (£25) is coverless but otherwise complete; it’s unusual for us to list a coverless item, but when it’s of this rarity, we figure someone will want it to fill a gap.
PICTURED: COMMANDO
#4 FA+ £65 Back cover detached; thumbnail size chip out right edge front cover centre.
#5 GD- £90 Long cover tear (7 cm); corner off back cover
#6 GD- £50 Back cover stain (5 x 5 cm)

*Humour Comics: From 1970, two consecutive issues of the tabloid format Topper, both with their Free Gifts. Both comics have been folded horizontally (we’ve yet to see a large Topper that hasn’t been), but despite that are in better than usual condition, with virtually no wear at the folds. #923 has the ‘Twin Spin’ toy, still sealed in its original envelope — this gift is quite rare; #924 has the ‘Topper Glow Mask’, still complete with original packet of eyelets for elastic headband still attached — slightly less uncommon, but we’ve never seen these before in 30 years.
PICTURED: TOPPER
#923 VG/FN WITH FREE GIFT VF £60 SOLD
#924 VG/FN WITH FREE GIFT VF £45 SOLD

*Girls’ Picture Libraries: …to give it its full title. A huge update to this popular title, with dozens of issues added between #7 & #300, including very many previously missing from our catalogue. These lovely done-in-one tales are great fun and great value.  
PICTURED: BUNTY PICTURE LIBRARY #7 VG £12

*DC: Personally, I’ve always counted the four main villains from the 1960s Batman TV show (and film) as Batman’s main foes, the Joker, the Penguin, Catwoman and the Riddler, so it came as no surprise when the latter three were revived in the Silver Age to tie in with their on screen appearances (the Joker never really having been away). This update we’re concerned with the first two Silver Age appearances of that fowl fiend the Penguin, which spanned both the old and new look in Batman. The first appearance of the Penguin in the Silver Age came in Batman #155, with its dramatic fire-breathing dragon cover. Our copy is a solid mid-grade pence stamped example, with some spine and edge wear, but good tight staples and decent off-white pages. One or two of the spidery wear marks at the spine break colour, as does a tiny crease across the bottom right cover, but all in all a very presentable copy. Pengy next appeared in #169, a favourite Carmine Infantino cover as I’ve mentioned before with a rich purple sky background. Our latest copy is a superior unmarked copy with just slight edge wear, pence stamped, flat and tight with staples firmly attached and nice off-white pages. What could be better than a pair of Penguins?
PICTURED: BATMAN
#155 VG+ p £200 SOLD
#169 FN/VF p £110

*DC: We continue our epic trawl through the DCU alphabet as we reach the letter ‘F’. Alongside almost a complete run of First Issue Special (featuring Kirby & Ditko try-outs), almost a complete run of Kirby’s Forever People, and top-ups to both the Bronze Age Freedom Fighters and reprint sci-fi anthology From Beyond the Unknown, there is a mammoth update to the Fastest Man Alive, with dozens of issues of Flash between #125 and #314, including lots of issues previously missing from our listings. See our catalogue for full details. 

*Marvel: What’s Old is our feature where we highlight stuff from our catalogue that you may have missed. Most collectors will be aware that the first six issue run of the Incredible Hulk is tough to come by; harder still is it to get them in decent shape, so we’re particularly pleased that the Square Mile Collection brings us a copy of #6 in FN+ (pence printed) grade. (You can read about the Square Mile Collection here.) Whilst the Hulk was very definitely a Kirby designed creation, you can get a real kick out of seeing how Steve Ditko tackled ol’ green-skin in this full length adventure up against the Metal Master. Great cover colour and gloss, tight, flat and fresh, excellent staples, sharp corners, with just minimal spine creases and a very faint suggestion of slight historic stain in a 5p sized area above the number box; there is also the slightest sign of a very faint small crease across the bottom right corner with just the faintest trace of a colour break across 1 cm of the Hulk’s foot, but I’m being really picky here! A beautiful addition to any Hulkophile’s collection! High resolution images are available on request.
PICTURED: HULK #6 FN+ p £750