*War: Our event spotlighting significant Marvel debuts continues in our war category. Following their success at revamping the superhero genre, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby turned their hand to the war comic, transplanting their bravura, over-the-top style to the WWII arena by creating Sergeant Nick Fury and His Howling Commandos, seven larger-then-life personalities, who, given their phenomenal combat skills and resistance to massive amounts of gunfire, were super-heroes in all but name. Sgt. Fury was one of Marvel’s earliest characters to star in two separate franchises – in World War II, and in the ‘present day’ as head of SHIELD. Sgt. Fury #1 had, we suspect, a significantly smaller print run than its stablemates – certainly, while no early Marvel Universe #1 is in plentiful supply, we see this one much less frequently than most of its superhero brethren. This is a very desirable copy, with only a tiny chip in the upper left corner and a small scuff on the ‘A’ of the logo precluding a higher grade. GD/VG p £425. SORRY, THIS HAS NOW SOLD

*Undergrounds: After his reputation was established, Robert Crumb used his notoriety to leverage a regular publication from Last Gasp to showcase his and other underground cartoonists’ works. Weirdo launched in 1981 as Crumb’s answer to Spiegelman’s Raw, which had attracted controversy because of its non-linear storytelling and (some said) pretentious attitude. Introducing Peter Bagge and Dori Seda, amongst others, to professional publication, Weirdo continued to have substantial input from Crumb, even when he relinquished editorship first to Bagge and then to Aline Kominsky. The series ended in 1993, having presented a cavalcade of underground stars on its pages. We have issues back in stock from #4 to #27.

*Marvel UK: Filling many gaps from #6 to #66, more vintage inventory of Marvel UK’s premier weekly, featuring the Hulk, Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four in their earliest adventures, cut & repasted with (very often) brand-new covers and splash pages by Jim Starlin and other Marvel ‘noobs’ at the beginning of their careers! These re-packagings of the early Marvel Universe (stories which, to be fair, were barely a decade old when Marvel UK started) are increasingly popular as ‘variants’ by our American chums – yes, we know – and once 10p box fodder everywhere, are now keenly sought collectables in their own right!

*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: You might think that the long hot summer is far away, but we’re still basking in the glow here at 30th C. After graduating from Tiger to his own eponymous weekly in 1976, it was a dead cert that he’d soon get his own series of Holiday Specials, and that prophecy was fulfilled the next year, with the release of the first extra-thick Roy Of The Rovers Special, destined to be lost/left behind at seasides nationwide. The implausibly-coiffured star of Melchester Rovers was joined by other soccer stars such as ‘Mighty Mouse’, ‘The Hard Man’, ‘The Footballer Who Wouldn’t Stay Dead’, and, erm, Gary Lineker. The first Special from 1977 is pictured here FN £25, as well as the 1978 and 1979 Specials FN £15 each. For prices on the other new additions (up to 1991), see our catalogue listing.

*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: Two short bursts of the popular adventure weekly Lion added to our stocks: a range from 1954 to 1955, when Captain Condor and the Amazing Mr. X held sway, and a smaller selection from 1973 (including the Christmas issue) and 1974, when the Spellbinder, Steel Commando and Adam Eterno ruled the roost.

*TV & Film Related Comics: In 1978, Polystyle, publishers of TV Comic, decided to launch an all-action weekly devoted to the popular UK and US detective programmes of the day. Prominently featured were Kojak and Charlie’s Angels, as well as, oddly, post-watershed fare like the UK’s Target and Hazell… or approximations thereof, as for some reason the publishers decided to hire all the artists from the Matt Murdock Art School. Not only did the comic-strip stars not resemble the actors from the shows, but they bore little likeness to the conventional depiction of human beings! It’s probably the most consistently inept artwork ever presented in an allegedly professional publication, certainly from Polystyle, who only a few years previously had been publishing the slick and polished TV Action. However… what can we say about these? Well, new listed stock #2 to #16 and #18, giving us a virtually complete run, as, after #18, the entire venture collapsed without so much as a “Great News, Chums!” on the cover. Issues #2 and #3 come with their original Free Gifts and are FN £15 each (the gifts – Supercars poster in #2, Charlie’s Angels Poster in #3 – being VF). It’s… a short achievable run, and.. no, no, that’s all we’ve got. (Shrugs helplessly) Buy them or don’t – must be seen to be disbelieved!

*Humour Comics: From 1974 to 1985, Whoopee, a companion to Whizzer & Chips, gave its stablemate a good run, vying for the pennies of the nation’s urchins with a line-up including ‘Bumpkin Billionaires’, ‘Evil Eye’, and ‘Sweeney Toddler’ a refugee from the cancelled Shiver & Shake who rapidly became Whoopee’s star turn. This new selection ranges from the years 1976 to 1984, spanning eight years of merriment, and includes two special Christmas numbers from 1982 and 1984 and the Silver Jubilee issue from 1977.

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*DC: One issue of the 1970s amiable but generally nondescript Shazam! series has mushroomed in popularity and price over the last few years. Issue #28 from 1977 featured the return of one of Captain Marvel’s most powerful nemeses, Black Adam, who gained his mighty powers from the same source as the Captain himself. Having only appeared previously in the Golden Age Marvel Family #1 (1945), this modern-day debut was the second-ever appearance of Teth-Adam and his super-powered alter ego, but what has caused the spike in interest is the casting of grappling thespian Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as Teth-Adam/Black Adam in a forthcoming cinematic blockbuster. The considerable star power of Mr. “The Rock” has caused such anticipation that copies of this issue are going for crazy money – so, in a spirit of compromise, we’ve settled on a price that’s only a bit eccentric, rather than outright insane. This VF- copy of Shazam #28 can be yours for £90. SORRY, THIS HAS NOW SOLD

*DC: Just short of 100 new issues of Superman added to our lists, in the number range from #234 to #325 (1971 to 1978), an area in which we were previously under-represented. Averaging FN+ or better, with many VF or higher, the early part of this run is by O’Neil, Swan and Anderson, a period when the Man of Steel lost much of his vast powers temporarily, and had to relearn what it meant to be a superman. Other highlights of this run involve the return of Krypto to the Superman mythos after a long absence, the debuts of various villains – Terra-Man, Vartox, Atomic Skull – and a plethora of guest heroes and villains, including Star Sapphire, Batgirl, Green Lantern, the Flash, Solomon Grundy and more! This run also had a great many stunning Neal Adams covers, two of which are pictured here: #243 VF £21, and 252 FN+ p £27. For prices and grades on the rest, please check our catalogue.

*Marvel: The latest sensation in our weekly Mighty Marvel Firsts event! In 1964, the adventures of Iron Man were enlivened by the appearance of the lovely but lethal Natasha Romanoff, code-named the Black Widow, one of the Kremlin’s deadliest operatives. Originally an appealing but unoriginal femme fatale in modern dress, inspired by Caniff’s Dragon Lady and other Mata Hari wannabes, Natasha proved surprisingly adaptable, allying herself first with the second Crimson Dynamo (also premiering in this issue) and later Hawkeye, and trading her cocktail dress and veil for the first of many costumed ‘looks’ as she switchbacked from villainess to heroine, culminating, of course, in her on-screen embodiment by Scarlett Johansson in the Avengers and other Marvel movies. This issue is where ‘Tasha’s career kicked off, and it’s a beauty; cents copy with no pence stamp or overprint, flexible white interiors, firm staples at cover and centrefold, deep cover colour and gloss, minimal corner and edge wear. The only flaw is a sadly unremovable label with the previous owner’s name and address at the upper left corner, so David R. Ward of Lebanon, Connecticut, if you’re still out there, shame on you. If it wasn’t for that, this would be an easy VF or better, but as it is, we are grading it as FN-, with a price of £225.

*Marvel: A huge update to Marvel’s premier Blaxploitation superhero, Luke Cage (a.k.a. Hero For Hire, Power Man, et al.), who started as a mash-up of clichés but rapidly evolved into a mainstay of the Marvel Universe, and currently the star of not one but two Netflix TV shows – his own eponymous series, and the Defenders. This massive restock, more than 100 issues, takes us from Luke’s second issue (pictured VF £32) through his ‘merger’ with Iron Fist with issue #50, and the final issue of that series, Power Man & Iron Fist #125. Many of these are high-grade, and the earliest issues were never distributed in the UK. All of these may be found under ‘Power Man’ in our listings.

*Miscellaneous 1940-1959: A diverse representation of the range of genres on sale on the crowded newsstands of the 1940s and 1950s. We open with the crime/action anthology Crown Comics, with a nifty ‘cursed brides’ cover, a new issue of Comic Media’s Dynamite, featuring Pete Morisi’s hard-boiled eponymous detective, Timely’s ‘Classics Illustrated’ wannabe, ideal, with the tale of Richard the Lion-Hearted, Star’s Shocking Mystery Cases (crime thrillers with an L. B. Cole cover), Timely’s Sports Action, and two outstanding oddities: Vic Verity #1 from 1945 (pictured), by Captain Marvel co-creator C C Beck, VG+ at £69, and Your United States from 1946, an edu-comic cited by Wertham in his infamous anti-comics tome Seduction of the Innocent – GD/VG £30.

*Annuals: Around the festive season, many Annuals are purchased as novelty gifts, and we replenish our depleted stock now with an influx of classic titles and a few esoteric additions. In Boys’ Adventure and War Annuals, the leader of the flock, appropriately, is Black Bob, the Dandy Wonder Dog, whose 1955 Annual, VG £30, is pictured here. Other new entries include top-ups of the popular series Hotspur, Lion, Smash, Tiger and Valiant from the 1970s, the 1983 Dracula’s Spinechillers one-off, and the Big Battle Annual from somewhere in the early 1960s – no relation to the later more famous series from the 1970s. In TV & Film Related Annuals, we have new entries for Captain Scarlet, Countdown, TV Century 21 and the 1966 Thunderbirds Television Story Book; our solitary Western Annual this time is The Dakotas (1963), “from the thrilling television series”, as it asserts on the cover (blank looks all round).

*Boy’s Adventure & War Comics: Another 2000 AD update, this time covering progs #201 – 300. This turbulent era includes Bolland’s Judge Death, the ‘possible death’ of Judge Dredd (#262), as well as #212 with a Free Gift of a Buck Rogers sticker album,  #213 with a Free Gift of more stickers, first appearances of Rogue Trooper (#228) and the Ace Trucking Co (#232) and, in the spirit of the season, a Christmas issue (#296).

*TV & Film Related Comics: The 1971 successor to TV Century 21, Countdown, launched with a heady mixture of new Gerry Anderson material – led by a comics adaptation of the brand-new series, ‘UFO’ – as well as ‘Doctor Who’ (shoplifted from stablemate TV Comic, where it had been running from 1964) and the rather handsome eponymous space opera ‘Countdown’, illustrated by John M. Burns. The Gerry Anderson material, ‘UFO’ excepted, soon reverted to reprints from TV 21, but nevertheless this weekly dose of sci-fi action continued unabated until issue #35, when the Persuaders joined up, and the weekly began its transition from a purely science-fiction comic to a more generalised adventure anthology. This selection, a lacking only a handful of issues, opens with #1 in GD £30, #2 VG £15 (pictured), #3 VG/FN £17.50 (pictured) and runs through to #58, the last issue before rebranding itself as TV Action. The scarce 1971 Holiday Special is also included FA/GD £12.50 (pictured).

*Magazines/Books About Vintage UK Comics: A diverse selection in this popular and seldom-updated category. From an unknown year – we suspect 1971, but aren’t certain – a copy of Astral, the Official Journal of the International Dan Dare Club, one of the first mags devoted to the Eagle’s space guardian; Dan Dare is also spotlit in the later Phoenix #1, undated but from some point shortly prior to 1990, from internal evidence. From circa 1998 (what is it with these folks not dating stuff?), Class of ’79 #1 focuses on Judge Dredd and other 2000 AD alumni, while the 2006 hardcover Sporting Supermen, by Brendan Gallagher, explores the history and background of iconic characters such as the Tough of the Track, Wilson, Roy Race, Johnny Cougar, Skid Solo and more. Finally, a pair of the coveted CJ Publications indexes by Steve Holland and David Ashford – the Cowboy Comics Library Illustrated Guide, and the Thriller Comics Library Illustrated Guide, from 1993 and 1991 respectively, with a wealth of information on those cult titles.

*Humour Comics: In 1963, D.C. Thomson of Dundee, publishers of the successful Dandy and Beano humour weeklies, put together an oversized ‘combo’ of the two titles for the lucrative Summer Holiday market. A huge success, this groundbreaking edition started a tradition of separate Summer Specials for each title the following year, and was widely emulated, becoming the industry’s standard practice for a plethora of series from Thomson and their competitors in the following decades. This is one of the rarest and most sought-after items ever through our hands, certainly on the UK side, and the first copy in any condition we have seen in our close to 25 years of trading. This copy is graded GD. It has a triangular tear in the upper front cover staple area, wear at the centre spine where, owing to its size, it has been stored horizontally folded for a long period, a 1″ tear at lower mid back cover, and slight grubbiness lower mid-spine and mid-edge on the front cover. Offsetting that, however, is the clean, unmarred condition of the interiors, firm staples at centrefold, and, as previously noted, the extreme rarity of this item in any condition. On sale at £750.

On a regular cycle, we sweep through our entire stock to delete sold items and keep our listing as up to date as possible. We’ve just finished deleting sold items from the following files in our American section:
*Archie
*Magazines/Books About Vintage US Comics
and in our American/British section:
*Classics Illustrated
and in our British section:
*Collected Editions
As of the time of writing, these categories are bang up to date, with every item listed available.

*DC: Another more ‘modern’ addition to our listings is Preacher #1 from DC’s Vertigo imprint. A mere 23 years ago, Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon brought us the tale of the eponymous Preacher, Jesse Custer, who travels across America on a mission to track down God with the assistance of his gorgeous hitwoman girlfriend and his best friend, an Irish vampire. As you do. Sexist, racist, violent, twisted, homophobic, misogynist and thoroughly, thoroughly blasphemous, Preacher was also intelligent, viciously insightful, and outrageously funny. Lasting 66 issues and a handful of Specials, Preacher broke boundaries and won both acclaim and controversy in abundance. Recently made into a TV show which has attracted a cult following, readers should be advised that the TV series is restrained and discreet compared to the original comic! No, really. This copy of #1 is VF- p £60. SORRY, THIS HAS NOW SOLD

*Marvel: New Mutants, the ‘X-Men In Training’ series of the 1980s, launched two latter-day super-stars of the Marvel Universe as guest-stars in its pages; in issue #87, readers were introduced to perma-grumpy future-warrior Cable, who came back to the past, Terminator-like, to affect the events of his own future. Cable’s never-quite defined powers mostly consisted of shouting at people a lot (kind of like a cyborg Gordon Ramsay), but that didn’t stop him having a long career as the star of several series of his own title, as well as taking over the New Mutants and rebranding them as X-Force. In New Mutants #98, Deadpool made his first appearance, and caught on with a vengeance; originally a fairly generic assassin for hire, it took a little while for the Merc-With-A-Mouth to evolve into the wisecracking, loveable, multi-personality psychotic he’s known as today, but he has become a phenomenon of the 21st century, hero of his own series and countless spin-offs, and of course starring in one of the highest-grossing movies ever. Deadpool 2 is due in the cinemas soon – co-starring Cable, what a coincidence – and we have both #87 and #98 to offer you, in affordable mid-grades. #87, technically Cable’s first full appearance (he stuck his face into the previous issue for a panel or two) is FN+ p at £40; Deadpool’s debut in #98 is FN p £65. SORRY, THESE HAVE NOW SOLD

*Marvel: Before the Marvel Universe, the company sustained itself on mystery titles such as Journey Into Mystery, Tales to Astonish, and so on, which fell into an enjoyable formula: a huge monster threatening the Earth (clad, for the sake of decency, in mysteriously-obtained enormous knickers!) by Lee and Kirby, a sci-fi tale usually drawn by Don Heck, and a twist-ending tale by Lee & Ditko. These ‘Big Panty Monster’ comics, as we dubbed them, are very popular as ‘prequels’ to the Marvel Universe proper, and two fine examples are new to our lists this week Journey Into Mystery 69, VG+ p £58, with ‘Korilla’ and ‘The Iron Giant’, and Strange Tales #95, an extraordinarily bright & tight FN/VF p £75, starring the “Two-Headed Thing!” Grab your gargantuan underwear for fast-paced adventure in the nearly-Marvel manner!

*Marvel: Another jaunt through the Silver & Bronze Ages of Marvel, with well over a hundred new issues added from the following titles: Amazing Adventures (Beast issues, including 1st mutated Beast in #11), Avengers (inc #55 1st full Ultron, #59 1st Yellowjacket, #87 origin Black Panther & anniversary #200), Captain America, Conan, Contest Of Champions, Daredevil, Dazzler, Dr Strange (2nd series), Fantastic Four (inc #129 1st Thundra), Ghost Rider (from #2), Inhumans, Iron Man, Machine Man, Marvel Spotlight (2nd series Star-Lord issues), Marvel Super-Heroes (Spider-Man & Medusa issues), Marvel Tales (Giants #1 & #2), Marvel Team-Up, Marvel Two-In-One (from #2 plus Ann #2 Starlin Thanos saga), Nova, She-Hulk, Silver Surfer (1st series and Moebius two-parter), Spidey Super Stories, Spider-Woman, Strange Tales, Sub-Mariner, Thor (inc Journey Into Mystery With) & Wolverine (early issues from 1988 ongoing). Whew!      

*Phantom: A more slender update than we usually like to bring you, but after significant sales on the Ghost Who Walks, we wanted to get more out as soon as possible, so just a touch of new Phantoms to our backlist, from the Gold Key and King eras of Africa’s mysterious guardian.