*DC: After #123 (‘Flash of Two Worlds’, as if you need telling), and the premier issue (#105), probably the most in-demand issue of the Silver Age Flash is #139, which featured the first appearance of Professor Zoom, the Reverse-Flash, Barry Allen’s super-swift nemesis from the far-flung future, whose appearances in the popular Flash television series caused his early appearances to zoom (sorry) upwards in value. We are delighted to welcome a nice mid-grade pence printed copy to our inventory this week. It has the rich colours that DC did so well, an unmarred cover scene, tight, firm staples and supple white to off-white pages. There are three very small colour-breaking creases across the bottom right cover corner, and some handling wear at spine and around bottom staple, but overall a sound copy that would be a joy to own.
PICTURED: FLASH #139 VG+ p £300

*DC: A sextet of the best of the Man Of Steel from the Silver Age this week, between #186 & #196. Krypton, new enemies and an 80 Page Giant issue featuring the Fortess of Solitude. Art by Swan, Boring and Plastino. Plenty to enjoy.
IN THIS UPDATE: SUPERMAN
#186 VG p £13.25
#187 FA p £4 Eighty Page Giant, Fortress of Solitude; long spine split
#189 VG+ p £12.25 Book-length Krypton’s Second Doom
#190 VG/FN p £14
#191 VG+ p £15
#196 GD p £6.75 Large red felt tip ‘6d’ centre cover

*Marvel: If you’re looking for really nice copies of Amazing Spider-Man for your collection, then look no further than this Collection. All high grade; even the few that fall below VF (and most are above) are really good-looking copies – no duds here, and nearly all cents copies. Smack in the middle of Todd McFarlane’s run on Amazing Spider-Man comes issue #316, featuring the first cover appearance of Venom, the character that defined this period. The cover image portrays what the character is all about. There’s little doubt that Venom is one of the Marvel characters originating later than the Bronze Age who has gone on to become a cornerstone of the Marvel Universe. This is a beautiful high grade copy, great colour and gloss, tight and firm staples, white to off-white pages, square corners. Tiny handling marks at the right edge and the merest suggestion of a tiny dink at base of spine are the only defects. 
PICTURED: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #316 VF+ £90 SOLD

*Marvel: Not only is this week’s Marvel #1 (Skull the Slayer) accompanied by issues #2-8 to round out the complete set, but we’ve also added Marvel Two-In-One #35 & #36, in which the Thing comes on board to complete Skull’s story. Action! Dinosaurs!| Lost Lands! Cavemen! Aliens! This One’s Got It All! – as this series proudly proclaimed. Thus went the story of Skull the Slayer, a fugitive from a concrete jungle thrust into a world of prehistoric fury.
PICTURED: SKULL THE SLAYER #1 VG/FN; Complete Set #1-8 plus Marvel Two-In-One #35 & #36 Av. VF £50 SOLD

*Spirit: Something rather special from the Bute Collection this week, some of the earliest Sprit comics ever published, following his debut as a newspaper strip character. The original series from 1944 was published by Vital/Quality and the second issue (unnumbered but entitled Crime Does Not Pay) was the second Spirit comic. We also have four other issues from this series. The second series from Fiction House in 1952 is represented by #1. Your chance to acquire a good sample of Will Eisner’s classic crime-fighter from his earliest comic appearances.
ALL SOLD
IN THIS UPDATE: SPIRIT 1944
NN (#2) VG/FN £115 (PICTURED) Solid unmarked copy with good staples and pages, just minor edge and handling wear. Art by Lou Fine. Unverified Eisner signature on splash. 
#8 GD £30 Grubby copy with water-stains throughout, but flat. Staples solid but a little rusty with short horizontal tear at bottom staple. Art by Lou Fine and others. 
#9 VG £60 (PICTURED) Decent copy with minor edge wear, good colour and a couple of soft vertical creases not breaking colour. Unverified Eisner signature on splash. Art by Lou Fine, Jack Cole, Robin King and others.
#17 FA+ £25 A bit grubby with some creasing at edges and along spine, breaking colour. Large corner off back cover. Art by Eisner, Lou Fine and others.
SPIRIT 1952  #1 VG £95 (PICTURED) Decent solid copy with minor edge wear breaking colour at spine. Art by Jim Dixon.

*Boys’ Adventure & War Picture Libraries: A chunky update to this most long-lived of Picture Libraries as we add around 50 issues between #530 and #1078 to our stock this week. These are from a newsagent’s uncirculated stock and have never been read; they are mostly in a FN/VF grade. Full listings in our catalogue.

*Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror: We’re continuing to introduce the new layout for our books categories, with an image for each book. This week, we return to our Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror category for the fifth of several updates spotlighting the Master of Adventure, Edgar Rice Burroughs. Burroughs was very prolific, and wrote in several series, in addition to his most famous creation Tarzan of the Apes. His style and settings set the tone for a whole library full of imitators/homagists in jungle, interplanetary and exotic locales. We shall be covering our ERB stock in a number of updates over the coming weeks, continuing this week with his tales of Venus. Like his more famous predecessor, John Carter, Carson Napier was an Earthman transported to an alien world for adventure and romance among fearsome beasts and weird peoples. ERB’s Amtor was every bit as well realised as his Barsoom had been. We have all five of the Venus volumes in stock in a variety of editions. Full details of all our stock in our catalogue.
PICTURED: ALL BY EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS
VENUS #1: PIRATES OF VENUS Four Square 1963 UK PB VG/FN £5
VENUS #2: LOST ON VENUS Pinnacle 1950s UK PB VG £7
VENUS #3: CARSON OF VENUS NEL 1971 UK PB VG £4
VENUS #4: ESCAPE ON VENUS Four Square 1966 GD £3
VENUS #5: THE WIZARD OF VENUS Ace 1970 1st US PB FN £5

*DC: Another Golden Age Batman from the Bute Collection this week. This time, it’s #36, with three excellent stories pencilled by Paul Cooper and inked by Ray Burnley. Jerry Robinson also contributes an Alfred short story. The opening story is a clash with the Penguin, the second a tale of danger set in the world of movies, focusing on a stunt man, and the third, cover-featured, has Batman and Robin travel back to the time of King Arthur’s court, where they encounter all the famous denizens of those fables. This is a very nice copy, featuring an unmarked cover with rich colour and a vivid yellow background against which the figures of our heroes and the mounted knight really stand out. Staples are tight and firm, page quality a supple off-white. Wear is restricted to a very minor amount at top right edge, a tiny nick at base of spie and a small tear of 1.5 cm at top of spine. The staples are positioned slightly behind the left cover line, which appears to give the comic a very slight spine roll, but this is not really the case. An excellent edition for the vintage Batman collector.
PICTURED: BATMAN #36 VG £350 SOLD

*DC: In our recurring feature for tabloid-sized editions, we have three Superman titles. Limited Collectors’ Edition C-38 reprints 5 classic Superman stories from all periods and is chock full of special features to boot. LCE C-47, with a classic Superman cover, reprints six classic Tomahawk stories, with Superman framing sequences to salute the Bicentennial, and lots of celebratory features. The Amazing World Of Superman (slightly larger than a regular tabloid), is absolutely crammed full of Superman stories and loads of features, all in crisp black and white except for a giant colour map of Krypton at the centrefold. 
PICTURED: ALL SOLD
LIMITED COLLECTORS’ EDITION
C-38 FN £15 Superman
C-47 FN £15 Superman Salutes the Bicentennial
SUPERMAN, AMAZING WORLD OF GD £15 Chip out base spine, cover creasing, edge wear, centrefold poster present but detached with some mottling to edges.

*Marvel: Also from the Bute Collection this week, a tough one to get in any sort of reasonable condition due to the surrounding black background which highlights any flaw. Evoking the classic two-parter of issues #25 and #26, Fantastic Four #112 pits the FF’s Ben Grimm against Bruce Banner, the Incredible Hulk, for a no-holds-barred battle by Stan Lee and John Buscema. Highly sought-after these days, primarily for the dynamic Buscema cover starkly spotlighting the two contenders. This is a decent pence printed copy, with minor wear at edges and corners (tiny colour breaking crease top right), corner blunting and small non-colour breaking creasing at centre spine. There is also a very soft crease across bottom left corner which does not break colour. Staples are tight and firm; supple pages are an excellent off-white.
PICTURED: FANTASTIC FOUR #112 VG+ p £70 SOLD

*Marvel: From the Good Doctor Collection this week: A lot was going on between Tales To Astonish #59 and #69. Giant-Man and the Wasp (then the regular lead feature) fought the Hulk in #59, leading to the Hulk sharing the title with them an issue later. The Hulk’s nemesis, the gamma ray-powered Leader made his first cameo appearance in #62 and first two full appearances in #63 & #64 (these three Leader issues seem particularly uncommon – we don’t see them often). There’s a new costume for Giant-Man in #65, but that didn’t help to revive the popularity of his strip, which was on the wane by this time and phased out after #69 (but Hank & Jan fans – including us – didn’t have long to wait until they turned up again in Avengers). That left the field clear for a certain monarch of Atlantis to take over with #70, but that’s a tale for another update. The most significant issues are pictured here; full details of all issues from #59 to #69 can as usual be found in our catalogue.
PICTURED: TALES TO ASTONISH ALL SOLD
#59 VG+ £120 Giant-Man Vs the Hulk. Nice clean copy with short non-colour breaking creases at base of spine; minor indentations to centre cover, barely visible. Firm, tight staples, nice supple off-white pages. 
#60 VG+ £65 Hulk series begins by Ditko. Unmarked cover with a couple of very faint diagonal creases bottom right, which barely break colour. Short reading crease at centre spine breaks colour; minor edge wear. Tight firm staples and decent off-white pages.
#62 FN+ £165 1st Leader cameo. Glossy cover with vivid lime green background. Unmarked but for tiny pencil arrival date on ‘H’ in logo. Tiny dink at base of spine, but no other wear. Tight, firm staples; supple off-white pages.
#63 FN £165 1st full Leader. Glossy cover with great colour. Minor handling wear; very slight redaing crease and small ticks at spine; tiny nick at top. Tight, firm staples; supple off-white pages. 
#64 FN £150 2nd full Leader. Shiny and glossy with deep black background. A couple of short handling creases towards the bottom of the spine do not break colour. Otherwise just minor edge wear. Tight, firm staples; supple off-white pages. 
#65 FN/VF £52 New Giant-Man costume. Great copy with rich colour and cover gloss. Tiny amounts of edge wear at op and top right edge. White to off-white pages; firm, tight staples.

*Horror 1940-1959: L B Cole was one of the most famous of Golden/Atomic Age cover artists. He drew in a variety of genres, and was artistic director at Star, illustrating 95% of the company’s covers; his lurid, feverish style, almost hallucinogenic, graced horror, science-fiction, jungle and romance alike. Star took over the venerable title Blue Bolt in 1949 (previously it had been a classic anthology title starring the titular character, with much work by Simon & Kirby, Everett etc, lasting throughout the war years and beyond). By the time we got to the #112, Blue Bolt himself was long gone and the emphasis of the series had changed to horror, according to the zeitgeist of the time. Indeed, the title was rebranded as Ghostly Weird Stories from #120 onwards. Contents include three stylish horror shorts by Jay Disbrow plus a Torpedoman story from Captain Flight and a jungle story from the same source, both with horror overtones. But it’s the wonderful L B Cole cover for which this issue is prized, showing a monstrous beast erupting from a fiery pit below. A nice copy with a clean cover and bright colours. Some edge wear with tiny creases breaking colour, but a solid spine and very nice pages. We have given this an Apparent grade; there is just a suggestion of staple rust migration, but the staples themselves, although not appearing new, show little sign of rust. There is a possibility that the original staples have been replaced, although the evidence for this is inconclusive. We have taken this into account in the pricing. 
PICTURED: BLUE BOLT WEIRD TALES #112 App VG £450 SOLD

*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: …well, it’s not long before you become a Buster, as it happens; but Jet, the 1971 adventure weekly launch from IPC/Fleetway, started strongly, with a line-up of well-crafted series along the well-trod path of war, sci-fi and sport, along with Ken Reid’s superb Faceache. For some reason, however, the series just didn’t ‘take’, despite other stellar contributors such as Solano Lopez and Eric Bradbury, and after a short run of 22 issues, it was inexplicably merged with the humour weekly, Buster, rather than another adventure series. The Sludgemouth Sloggers, Von Hoffman’s Invasion, Faceache, and The Kids From Stalag 41 made the leap. For a long time Jet languished forgotten. Recent interest in short-run titles has increased, however, and here we have an opportunity for you to sample Jet with half the run added in a consistent VG grade. See our catalogue for full details. ALL SOLD
PICTURED: JET 11/9/71 VG £5

*Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror: We’re continuing to introduce the new layout for our books categories, with an image for each book. This week, we return to our Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror category for the fourth of several updates spotlighting the Master of Adventure, Edgar Rice Burroughs. Burroughs was very prolific, and wrote in several series, in addition to his most famous creation Tarzan of the Apes. His style and settings set the tone for a whole library full of imitators/homagists in jungle, interplanetary and exotic locales. We shall be covering our ERB stock in a number of updates over the coming weeks, continuing this week with the third and final tranche of our extensive Tarzan stock. Tarzan is one of the most iconic literary characters of the 20th Century, is a household name and has had wonderful success in multi-media adventures, stemming from these exciting books. Selections here from the later numbers of this 24 volume set. As well as 1964 UK Four Square editions with the atmospheric cover art of Edward Mortelmans, we also have some NEL/Four Square editions from 1967, where Tarzan on the cover resembled Ron Ely, who was playing him on our TVs at the time. Full details of all our stock in our catalogue.
PICTURED: ALL BY EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS
TARZAN #18: TARZAN AND THE LEOPARD MEN NEL/Four Square 1967 UK PB GD £3
TARZAN #19: TARZAN’S QUEST NEL/Four Square 1967 UK PB GD/VG £3.50
TARZAN #21: TARZAN THE MAGNIFICENT Four Square 1964 UK PB FN £5
TARZAN #23: TARZAN AND THE MADMAN Four Square 1966 1st UK PB FN £5
TARZAN #24: TARZAN AND THE CASTAWAYS Four Square 1966 UK PB FN £5

*DC: From the Bute Collection, an early war-time issue of World’s Finest, #13 from 1941 with a great Jack Burnley cover featuring Superman, Batman & Robin on a ‘fight paper waste’ drive and planning to ‘hang-one on the paper hanger of Berlin’. Inside, in a one page feature, Alfred, Bruce Wayne’s butler, explains the importance of recycling paper for the war effort (we could do with him today!). In these early days for the title, Superman and Batman appeared in separate stories and had a variety of back-ups, in this case the Star-Spangled Kid, the Boy Commandos (by Simon & Kirby), Green Arrow and Zatara, an all-star line-up in its giant 84 pages. The firm cardboard covers on these early issues helps keep them in a good state or preservation, as is the case here. Apart from a small grubby mark or two, the cover is flat and clean; one small crease at spine does not break colour. The spine is solid, with just a tiny tear at the base. The inside pages are firmly attached (except that the final page is detached from the single central staple, which is otherwise secure). Pages are a supple cream, with just hints of tan at the extremities. 
PICTURED: WORLD’S FINEST #13 VG+ £400 

*DC: We continue our Legion of Super-Heroes spotlight with more classic early stories from Adventure Comics between #331-340, after the Legion started their own feature there and, by this time, had fully taken over the title. With the last issue of this run, Curt Swan took over the artistic helm from John Forte) both classic Legion artists IMHO). Full of Legion lore: the Legion of Super-Villains, the Super-Moby Dick of Space, the debuts of Starfinger and Computo, the showdown with the Time Trapper and the sinister Super-Babies (!) and much more. All from a mostly high-grade collection, some really nice-looking cents copies of these beloved adventures. Full details as always in our catalogue; highlights below.
PICTURED: ADVENTURE COMICS
#332 VF £40 SOLD
#334 VF+ £60
#338 VF £40
#340 VF £40

*Marvel: Your chance to grab a sensational six Bronze Age Marvel #1 issues, many featuring character debuts.
IN THIS UPDATE:
DEVIL DINOSAUR #1 VF £30 (PICTURED) Kirby Kaos, also featuring Moon Boy, the first human
HUMAN FLY #1 VF £20 (PICTURED) The wildest super-hero ever – because he’s real! SOLD
MACHINE MAN #1 NM- £25 (PICTURED) More Kirby — the Living Robot
MARVEL SPOTLIGHT #1 VF p £7.50 2nd series, Captain Marvel
MICRONAUTS #1 NM £50 (PICTURED) They Came From Inner Space
OMEGA THE UNKNOWN #1 FN+ p £15 The last survivor of an alien world SOLD

*Marvel: We’re very pleased to present the complete seven issue run of Frank Miller’s second stint on Daredevil from #227-233. This time Miller scripted the stories, but the excellent David Mazzuchelli handled the pencilling, which captured the mood of Miller’s stories beautifully. The ultimate confrontation between DD and the Kingpin in this harrowing, dark tale, powerfully told, known as Born Again. Nearly all newsstand copies. Highly recommended.
IN THIS UPDATE: DAREDEVIL ALL SOLD
227 VG/FN £30 (PICTURED) Miller script, newsstand copy. Slightly off-centre printing.
228 FN/VF £10 Miller script, newsstand copy. 
229 FN/VF £10 Miller script, newsstand copy. 
230 FN/VF £7 Miller script, newsstand copy. 
231 VF £8.50 Miller script, newsstand copy. 
232 FN/VF £5 Miller script
233 VF £7 Miller script, newsstand copy. 

*Horror 1940-1959: From the Bute Collection, two issues of Beyond and one of Hand Of Fate from Ace. While a relatively minor publisher, Ace’s horror had a consistent standard of art and a quirky, weird edge to its stories, even bearing in mind the nature of pre-code horror material.
PICTURED: BEYOND
#10 PR £15 Pre-code. Art by Lou Cameron, Chic Stone and others. Covers detached and separated. SOLD
#19 PR £15 Pre-code. Covers detached and separated; front cover with lots of chips out at edges SOLD
THE HAND OF FATE #16 GD/VG £105 Pre-code. Art by Mike Sewowsky and others. Some edge wear and colour-breaking crease across top right corner. Small tear at right cover edge. Good staples and pages. SOLD

*Marvel UK: Mighty World of Marvel #1 was the very first comic published by the UK division of Marvel. And they couldn’t have started with three stories more classic than these: Spidey’s debut from Amazing Fantasy #15, Fantastic Four #1 and Hulk #1 (first parts of latter two, concluded in #2). All reprinted in black, white and green. This update also features #2 and #3. Although there are no Free Gifts present, all three, from an original owner collection, are complete with their coupons that you could save up and send off for the mystery free gift (probably you can’t do that now); so often these are missing. All in great condition, flat with great paper quality; just slight tanning at the margin edges precludes an even higher grade.
PICTURED: MIGHTY WORLD OF MARVEL ALL SOLD
#1 FN £75
#2 FN £25
#3 FN £25

*Boys’ Adventure & War Picture Libraries: This digest-sized comics series, most famous under its later title of Thriller Picture Library, ran for 450 issues until 1963, and while it featured a plethora of characters during its lengthy run, the trend for the early years was for historical swashbucklers based on fictional (but serendipitously copyright-free) characters, but also featuring crime, war, western and science-fiction adventures. The artists were all accomplished Fleetway professionals, and readers thrived on these beautifully-illustrated pocket adventures. Issues #6-10 fresh in this week, all low grade with taped spines and varying degrees of staple rust, but all complete with clean pages; a couple with loose covers.
PICTURED: THRILLER
#6 FA £20 Swords Of The Musketeers
#7 FA £20 Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. Cover loose
#8 FA £20 Dick Turpin
#9 FA £20 Hunted On The Highway. Cover loose
#10 FA £20 Robin Hood

*Children’s Books: We’re continuing to introduce the new layout for our books categories, with an image for each book. This week, we return to our Children’s Books Category for the classic Chronicles of Narnia by C S Lewis. We have several volumes of this much-loved seven book series in stock in cheap paperback editions (I fondly remember the Puffins), sadly missing at present the first (The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe) and the last (The Last Battle). In my opinion, the series started brilliantly, and the second and third volumes, Prince Caspian and The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader, maintained the high standards of the beginning. After that, the quality dropped off somewhat, although I do have a soft spot for The Horse And His Boy. I’m afraid the Last Battle descended into a quasi-mystical melange of religious mumbo-jumbo that made about as much sense as the last episode of Lost. There is however, much to enjoy in the earlier volumes. All illustrated by the estimable Pauline Baynes.
PICTURED: ALL BY C S LEWIS
THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA #2: PRINCE CASPIAN Fontana Lions 1990 UK PB VF £3 
THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA #3: THE VOTAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER Puffin 1971 8th UK PB VG £3
THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA #5: THE HORSE AND HIS BOY Puffin 1977 UK PB VG £3
THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA #6: THE MAGICIAN’S NEPHEW Fontana Lions UK PB VF £3

*DC: Carmine Infantino pencilled a killer of a Joker cover for Detective Comics #332 featuring the story The Joker’s Last Laugh from 1964. A great one for Joker collectors. Also, the Elongated Man back-up, also by Carmine Infantino, is a doozy. This is a wonderful cents copy, with a vibrant colour cover, nice and glossy. Black backgrounds are notoriously problematical, showing every flaw, but here there are just a couple of short stress marks at upper staple which do not break colour. One or two tiny ticks further down the spine. Flat with firm, tight staples and white pages; a gem.
PICTURED: DETECTIVE COMICS #332 VF £150

*Marvel: If you’re looking for really nice copies of Amazing Spider-Man for your collection, then look no further than the Totally Amazing Spider-Man Collection. All high grade; even the few that fall below VF (and most are above) are really good-looking copies – no duds here, and nearly all cents copies. In Amazing #63, Adrian Toomes, the original Vulture, returns to deal with the upstart Blackie Drago who took over the Vulture identity back in #48. The superb cover on this issue shows off the remarkable design skills of the late John Romita. The following issue, having disposed of his successor, the Vulture takes on Spidey.
PICTURED: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN
#63 VF £130 Shiny, glossy copy with brilliant cover colour and black background. Just minor handling edge wear and a couple of minute ticks at the spine preclude a higher grade. Tight, firm staples and supple white to off-white pages.
#64 VF+ £140 Brilliant bright cover with sharp white background. Square corners, tight and flat. An absolute minimum of  edge wear on this wonderful copy. Tight, firm staples and supple white to off-white pages.

*Marvel: We continue our Treasury-Sized feature with three Marvel entries, all drawn by Jack Kirby.  Marvel Treasury #2 reprints Fantastic Four #6, #11 and edited versions of the Galactus Saga from #48-50. Marvel Treasury #11 reprints #4, #23, #51 and #94. The one-shot Captain America’s Bicentennial Battles has all new material as Kirby celebrates two hundred years of American history and Cap’s role in it.  
PICTURED: ALL SOLD
MARVEL TREASURY
#2 FN £15
#11 FN £15
CAPTAIN AMERICA’S BICENTENNIAL BATTLES FN/VF £20