*Marvel: From the Good Doctor Collection this week, five consecutive issues of the Mighty Thor by Lee & Kirby, in which the God of Thunder battles Ulik as the trolls invade Asgard, encounters the omniscient Orikal, faces Kang and his Growing Man, as well as Replicus and the Super-Skrull. All the pomp and grandeur you’d expect of this title at its finest.
IN THIS UPDATE: THOR
#138 VF+ £70 (PICTURED) SOLD
#139 VG/FN £18
#140 VF- £40 (PICTURED) SOLD
#141 FN/VF £28
#142 FN/VF £28

*Charlton: After debuting in Steve Ditko’s Blue Beetle in 1967, the Question, Ditko’s own creation, went on to star in his only Silver Age solo comic, Mysterious Suspense #1, a full length story by Ditko of his urban vigilante. It’s a great shame that Charlton cancelled their ‘Action Hero’ line at this stage, robbing us a possibly a whole universe of heroes drawn by Ditko. This is a very nice copy of the Question’s only solo outing, with vivid colour and an unspoilt cover image. There is some corner blunting and very minor wear along the right edge with faint colour-breaking marks. Tight, firm staples and supple off-white pages.  
PICTURED: MYSTERIOUS SUSPENSE #1 FN £70 SOLD

*Western: 10 issues of Marvel’s Western anthology series from 1960-1963, the dawn of the Marvel Age of Comics. Each issue features Kid Colt; the earliest three here also feature the original Two-Gun Kid. Plus a whole horde of tales from the Old West, with art by Kirby, Heck and other stars of the Marvel Bullpen. Grades are mixed, but mostly towards mid-grade. 
IN THIS UPDATE: GUNSMOKE WESTERN ALL SOLD
#59 VG+ p £23 (PICTURED)
#62 GD+ £8.25
#63 GD £6.75 Cover tear
#65 VG+ £14.75 (PICTURED)
#66 VG p £11.75
#67 VG p £11.75
#69 VG p £11.75
#70 VG p £10.25
#73 GD/VG p £7.75 Book shop stamps
#77 VG p £10.25 

*Humour Comics: Gerald G Swan was a very prolific British publisher active between the late 1930s and the early 1960s. He produced works in virtually every fiction genre and in every format – comics and story papers, annuals, pulps, magazines, books etc. He started out just before WWII, and because he had bought up significant paper stocks before the war, was able to produce a good quantity throughout the conflict and beyond. This update, we have four issues of Swan’s Cute Fun, a series published from 1946-1953. Part humorous picture strips and part illustrated text stories, Cute Fun was described by Swan as “Eight pages of laughter-producing comic strips and 5,000 words of short, complete, illustrated stories of College life as well as adventure”. We have four issues, all in nice shape. Special thanks to friend of 30th Century Nigel Fletcher, whose wonderful website Publications of Gerald G. Swan provides a wealth of information on this publisher.
IN THIS UPDATE: CUTE FUN
#5 FN £10 (PICTURED)
#9 VG £8
#24 FN £10
#25 VG/FN £9

*Pulp Fiction:
SCIENCE FICTION MONTHLY (UK)
COMPLETE RUN £300 SOLD
VOL 1 #1-12
VOL 2 #1-12
VOL 3 #1-4
PLUS SF DIGEST #1
All 28 issues of this tabloid-sized magazine published from 1974-1976 plus the one and only issue of its successor. A UK publication from New English Library. 
All flat and unfolded with all centrefolds present. Condition is really nice, mostly FN/VF; a few have specific defects as follows:
Vol 1 #1 Small tear with small chip missing upper centre back cover
Vol 1 #7 Cover scuffs and small tear with loss bottom centre front cover
Vol 1 #12 Spine scuffs and tears
Vol 2 #4 Spine scuffs
Vol 2 #5 Coupon out, affects one page of art, not story.
Vol 2 #6 Back cover crease
Vol 2 #7 Small cover scuff
Vol 2 #8 Cover half split with chips out
Sample covers below, #1 issues of all three volumes plus SF Digest 

If, like me, you were a fan of the fabulous artwork being produced for science fiction paperbacks in the early 1970s, this is the mag for you. Launched in response to demand from readers for posters of the cover art of New English Library’s science fiction paperbacks, it reprinted artwork in large tabloid format by Chris Foss, Jim Burns, Bruce Pennington, Roger Dean, Josh Kirby, David Pelham and many others, usually without the word copy that appeared on the book covers. Stories and features/articles on science fiction books and film/TV also appeared. Well-known writers who appeared in its pages included Brian Aldiss, Christopher Priest, Frank Herbert, Robert Heinlein, Bob Shaw, Robert Silverberg, Anne McCaffrey, Arthur C Clarke, Ray Bradbury, John Wyndham, E E Doc Smith, Olaf Stapleton, John W Campbell, Eric Frank Russell, Edmund Cooper, Thomas M Disch, Stanley G Weinbaum, Harlan Ellison, Stanislaw Lem, J G Ballard, Harry Harrison, Keith Roberts, Jack Williamson and many others. 

*DC: From the Midas Collection this week, three consecutive issues of Batman from 1959, leading up to regular UK distribution of the title later in the year. 
PICTURED: BATMAN
#122 FA/GD £40 Cover features the marriage of Batman & Batwoman, plus a pirate story and an encounter with the costumed villain Hijack. A lower-graded copy, with some water damage and wear at edges. Off bottom staple.  
#123 FA/GD £40 A Joker story, an adventure in the Everglades and The Fugitive Batman, featuring Ace, the Bat-Hound. Lots of wear with many colour-breaking creases of various sizes. 
#124 FA £25 SOLD Batman turns invisible, the return of the Signalman and a cover-featured science fiction story. Very worn at spine and all edges, with many colour breaking creases; tired and thin. 

*DC: Six issues spanning the DC Silver/Bronze Ages as follows:
IN THIS UPDATE: ALL SOLD
ADVENTURE COMICS #358 FA p £3 1st Hunter
ATOM #5 GD- p £9
BRAVE & BOLD #88 GD/VG p £4.75 Batman & Wildcat
JIMMY OLSEN #141 GD+ p £4 Jack Kirby
PLASTIC MAN #5 GD p £4
SUPERMAN #164 GD+ p £11.25

*Marvel: After 82 issues of pre and post code horror, science fiction and Big Panty Monsters, the venerable Journey Into Mystery title bowed to the inevitable Marvel Age Of Comics with #83 and introduced the Mighty Thor, God of Thunder, and eventually, the entire pantheon of Norse Gods. You can see it all developing in these three earlyish issues.
IN THIS UPDATE: JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY WITH THOR
#101 GD+ p £45 (PICTURED) 1st Zarrko, the Tomorrow Man; 2nd Avengers crossover. Worn but solid pence printed copy with good staples and pages.  
#102 FA p £25 1st Sif, 1st Balder, 1st Hela. Low grade pence printed copy with book shop stamp, tear at lower spine with thumbnail size loss and small cover graffiti. 
#108 GD £30 (PICTURED) SOLD Vs Loki. Guest-starring the Avengers and Dr Strange. Worn but structurally intact pence printed copy with minor spine roll, a few corner cover creases breaking colour, decent pages with small corners off some top right margins (stories not affected).  

*Marvel: The Claremont & Cockrum New X-Men was already a critical hit when #101 turned up, and in a dramatic turn of events, Jean Grey, former weak sister of the team, was elevated into a powerhouse when a cosmic ray storm seemed to transform her into the entity known as Phoenix – and a major, ultimately tragic, story arc for the X-Men began. The legend was somewhat tarnished in later years by Marvel’s back & forth position on whether Jean actually was the Phoenix, or whether the Phoenix force just manifested itself in her form (with a swingin’ new costume), but nevertheless, this remains a key and highly sought after issue. The Good Doctor Collection copy is mid-grade pence printed, suffers from some handling wear and creasing which does not break colour, plus a tiny nick out at the bottom edge. It retains vibrant colours and high glass, as well as firm staples and lovely white to off-white pages. 
PICTURED: X-MEN #101 VG+ p £150 SOLD

*Horror 1940-1959: Journey Into Mystery started life in 1952 as part of Atlas’s horror line in the days before the Comics Code Authority. This Bute Collection issue #10 from 1953 features a Carl Burgos cover (probably) with interior art by Jerry Robinson, Ben Benulis and others. This is a reasonable lower-graded copy with rich colour cover and gloss. The cover has some wear and creasing, with small nicks and a larger tear on back cover. Very tip of top right front cover corner missing. Small split upper spine. Staples are reasonably firm at spine and centrefold. Pages are a nice off-white to cream with a short tear from right edge across first few pages without loss. 
PICTURED: JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #10 GD £150

*Romance: Also from the Midas Collection this week, we feature three more early issues of Girls’ Love Stories, one of DC’s longest running romance titles, which started in 1949 and finished in 1973. Although mostly drawn by unknown artists, DC’s romance comics from this period featured a good standard of appealing art, and often very well composed and executed covers (in particular #31 here). All worn but in solid, decent mid-grade condition without significant defects. Seldom seen, particularly over here in the UK, the Midas Collection is quite rich in this genre. ‘True To Life!’ as the covers proclaimed. 
PICTURED: GIRLS’ LOVE STORIES
#26 VG+ £28
#31 GD/VG £19 Off top staple
#33 VG £24

*Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror: We’re continuing to introduce the new layout for this books category, with an image for each book. This week, we reach the second and concluding part of the works of that very versatile and stylish American author Fritz Leiber, who was equally at home in science fiction, fantasy and horror. Here we concentrate on his work in the fantasy/sword and sorcery sub-genre, with his Swords series featuring the adventures of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. Fafhrd is a very tall and strong northern barbarian, skilled at both swordsmanship and singing. The Mouser is a small mercurial thief, gifted and deadly at swordsmanship  as well as a former wizard’s apprentice who retains some skill at magic. Fafhrd talks like a romantic, but his strength and practicality usually wins through, while the cynical-sounding Mouser is prone to showing strains of sentiment at unexpected times. Both are rogues, living in a decadent world where only the ruthless and cynical survive. They spend a lot of time drinking, feasting, wenching, brawling, stealing, and gambling, and are seldom fussy about who hires their swords. Still, they are humane and—most of all—relish true adventure. A nice uniform paperback edition of the first six books in the series was published in the UK by Mayflower in 1979 (several years before the final seventh volume was published), and we have volumes 2-6 in really nice shape. NB all volumes are short stories, except The Swords Of Lankhmar, which is the only Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser novel. (Dr Evilla, our web and post mistress, has pointed out that the characters were lampooned by Terry Pratchett in The Colour Of Magic, the first of his Dicsworld novels as Bravd the Hublander and the Weasel).  
PICTURED: ALL BY FRITZ LEIBER
SWORDS 2: SWORDS AGAINST DEATH Mayflower 1979 UK PB VF/NM £10
SWORDS 3: SWORDS IN THE MIST Mayflower 1979 UK PB VF/NM £10
SWORDS 4: SWORDS AGAINST WIZARDRY Mayflower 1979 UK PB VF/NM £10
SWORDS 5: THE SWORDS OF LANKHMAR Mayflower 1979 2nd UK PB VF/NM £10 SOLD
SWORDS 6: SWORDS AND ICE MAGIC Mayflower 1979 1st UK PB VF/NM £10

*DC: From the Midas Collection this week, a fabulous issue of Batman from 1950, featuring the debut of a character who would later go on to become famous in the DCU, and an iconic science fiction cover. Deadshot first appeared as an apparent rival to Batman, before his true motivations were revealed. It was 27 years before he would again appear in 1977, but from there went on to become a regular in Suicide Squad and elsewhere. The second story has horror overtones and the third is the cover feature, ‘Batman Of The Future‘, where Batman and Robin travel 100 years into the future (as you do) and meet the Joker’s descendant Rokej who is a police chief, and help him stop space pirates and a space-ship saboteur. Wonderful outer space cover with the Batship. Stories by David Vern and Bill Finger, art by Bob Kane, Lew Sayre Schwartz and Jim Mooney. Nice cover image with good colours, with a corner chunk out at top spine (see scan). Off lower staple; tears around upper staple which remains in place. The centrefold is off at both staples. Wear at edges, with colour-breaking creases; tiny chips out at bottom corners, with a 3 cm tear at bottom spine sealed by tape on inside cover. Another short tear at right centre edge, also sealed on the inside. Page quality is a supple off-white. An acceptable and relatively affordable copy of this key issue. High resolution images are available on request. 
PICTURED: BATMAN #59 GD £650

*DC: From the Midas Collection, a squarebound issue of World’s Finest Comics with Superman, Batman, Green Arrow, Zatara, Boy Commandos and more. A lowish grade copy with severe spine damage, although the comic holds together well. Small front cover edge tears and a longer tear on back cover. Top of spine missing, cover seems glued in place. Decent cover image and okay pages.
PICTURED: WORLD’S FINEST #39 FA/GD £125

*Marvel: In the second issue of Daredevil, the sightless swashbuckler comes up against Spidey’s foe Electro in the villain’s second appearance (with a cameo from the bashful Thing). Daredevil #1 was drawn by Bill Everett, whereas the pages of this issue were graced by another Golden Age great Joe Orlando. This is a very superior copy from the Bute Collection, with strong cover colours and reflective gloss. Flat and firm with staples tight at spine and centrefold and beautiful white to off-white pages. Very minimal wear at some corners and edges, and a narrow band of marking central top edge rear cover (see scan), but an outstanding example. High resolution images are available on request.   
PICTURED: DAREDEVIL #2 FN/VF £600 SOLD

*Marvel: The Big Panty Monster sub-genre was still developing by the time of Tales To Astonish #6, but the cover-featured Stone Men certainly qualified and are regarded as a prototype for the creatures featured in Thor’s later debut. By the time of #14, we are in Full Panty mode, when ‘You’ll Never Forget Krang!’ (Who?) 
IN THIS UPDATE: TALES TO ASTONISH
#6 GD/VG £130 (PICTURED) Kirby cover. Lead story by Ditko, also featured on interior art are Sinnott, Kirby, Reinman & Forte. Nice solid copy with good colours, black skyline, tight, firm staples and supple white to off-white pages. Marred slightly by some Marvel chipping to right edge, but not too bad. Otherwise only minor edge wear and corner blunting, with a couple of very faint colour-breaking lines near the ‘A’ in ‘Astonish’. SOLD
#14 FA/GD £18 SOLD Kirby cover and lead story. Other stories by Ditko and Heck. Krang is a giant intelligent ant (of course). This is a low grade copy with much wear. A narrow strip is missing from the top left cover, cutting off the letters ‘T’ and ‘A’ from the word ‘Tales’ in the logo. Cover detached from staples, and spine with long splits. Much wear, including long colour-breaking creases. Chips out and nicks. Off-white to cream pages are okay. 

*Miscellaneous 1960 Onwards: One of the benefits of running your own comics business is that you’re able to play favourites. In the 1980s, there were a number of series produced by the smaller independent publishers that I followed avidly and which still remain firm favourites. An example of such is Aztec Ace by writer Doug Moench and usual artist Dan Day. A heady mix of time travel, aviation, ancient Mexico, Hollywood, gangsters, Cleopatra, aliens, crocodiles, a disembodied head and a very unusual cat makes this one of the most intriguing tales in comicdom, even if you have to read it a few times to figure out what’s going on. The stylised art by Dan Day is almost Steranko-like in layout, and the series maintains a unified look despite occasional fill-in artists. Moench’s finest work, in my humble. We have the complete set of the 15 issue run new into stock in great shape. Highly recommended. (And I got all the way through this without mentioning Dr Who!)
IN THIS UPDATE: AZTEC ACE COMPLETE SET #1-15 Av VF/NM £50; #1 PICTURED. SOLD

*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: Following strong sales and a big influx of new stock, we’re totally overhauling and relisting our Eagle stock: many additions and deletions and new streamlined pricing. One of the icons of British comics’ history, Eagle started up in 1950; every issue of its twenty year run starred Dan Dare, its most famous son, as well as loads of other strips, featuring the cream of British artists and superior quality printing and paper. Volume 16 is now processed and re-listed, continuing from earlier volumes previously done. Please refer to our catalogue for details. Volumes from 17 upwards will be dealt with over the coming weeks, but for now they remain at half the old prices in our half-price sale.

*Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror: This week we feature some of the non-Holmes fiction of Arthur Conan Doyle: a Professor Challenger volume (The Poison Belt), short horror stories (Tales Of Terror & Mystery) and a volume of science fiction and adventure (When The World Screamed). 
PICTURED: ALL BY ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE ALL SOLD
THE POISON BELT Berkley Medallion 1969 2nd US PB thus VG £5
TALES OF TERROR AND MYSTERY John Murray 1963 UK PB GD/VG £6
WHEN THE WORLD SCREAMED Pan 1979 1st UK PB thus VG/FN £6

News has reached us this week of the death of Jim Shooter, an outstanding figure in the history of American comics. Jim came to fame in 1966, as the 14-year old writer on the Legion of Super-Heroes in Adventure Comics, going on to become editor in chief at Marvel in 1978, later the creator of Valiant Comics, Defiant Comics and Broadway Comics. There are lots of obituaries all over the internet, so all I want to add here is a personal remembrance. 
I recall reading his early Legion stories as they were published, and noticing the new direction they were taking for my favourite characters, really bringing them to life. It could be said that without his ground-breaking run on the Legion, they would not have achieved their lasting popularity and ardent fan-base that the Legion still maintains today. And without that, 30th Century Comics would not have come into being, since three of our four founders met through Legion fandom. So, in a manner of speaking, Jim Shooter changed my life. 

Adventure Comics #359, my favourite Shooter Legion story

I met Jim just once, at a Glasgow Comic Convention in 1993, for drinks at the bar and later, my good friend Hass Yusuf (co-organiser) had set a room aside where we Legion fans had an extended question and answer session with Jim. I have to comment that he was a congenial and informative speaker, with a lot of patience for questions from we rabid fans. I know Jim had a reputation for being controversial, but on that night he just came across as a really nice guy with a love for the medium he had worked in all his life. 
For another personal view from someone who knew him well, you can listen to the radio show from New Yorker Ken Gale (Legion fan and friend of 30th Century) at this link: 
https://www.wbai.org/archive/program/episode/?id=58307 (Hour Of The Wolf) 
So, the comic world has lost one of its greats, and all of us in it are a little bit poorer for our loss. 

Rob Rudderham

*DC: Star Spangled Comics was one of DC’s anthology titles, starting in 1941, with Robin added to the roster with #65 in 1947. By the time of this issue from the Midas Collection, #84 from 1948, Captain Compass, Star Spangled Kid (starring his sister Merry) and Tomahawk were the stars alongside the Boy Wonder. Robin tackles juvenile delinquency in a story probably written by Bill Finger with art by Jim Mooney. This copy has significant spine roll with a 5 cm spine split at bottom, which carries through into the last few pages to a lessening degree. Right edge has some wear with the odd nick, and a small crease across the bottom right corner. Staples are firm and pages decent (one page with margin stains). 
PICTURED: STAR SPANGLED COMICS #84 GD £80 

*Marvel: By the time of Spider-Man’s 50th issue, ‘new’ artist John Romita had made the series his own, and this milestone number was marked with the debut of a new villain, the Kingpin – so long associated with Daredevil, in the post-Miller years, that younger readers may be  unaware that he originated in Spider-Man’s Rogues’ Gallery! The cover of #50, with Peter temporarily abandoning his Spider-Man identity, has become etched in the minds of a generation, endlessly imitated and ‘homaged’, in comics and other media. A classic design, shown off here in a really nice above average condition pence printed copy with vibrant colours, an unspoilt cover image, tight, firm staples and supple, near white pages. Slight corner blunting and minimal edge and handling wear, a soft, tiny crease just breaking colour at the very corner of the bottom right. High resolution images are available on request. 
PICTURED: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #50 FN/VF p £1,000

*Marvel: From the Bute Collection this week, a fabulous foursome of classic Daredevil. Starting with #18, where the Gladiator made his debut in a story dripping in atmosphere, standing out due to his sinister spinning wrist buzz-saw blades. Drawn and designed by Jazzy John Romita in one of his last outings on the title before switching to Spider-Man. The Gladiator featured again in the following issue alongside the Masked Marauder as DD fought the underworld, and issue #20 featured the return of the Owl, as Gene Colan took over the pencils for a long run. Colan was also at the helm on the first Daredevil Annual, featuring a ’39 page slam-bang action thriller’ as DD faced off against Electro and his Emissaries of Evil. 
PICTURED: DAREDEVIL ALL SOLD
#18 VF £100 (PICTURED) Beautiful clean copy with just a tiny amount of wear at spine and corners. Great colour, tight, firm staples and white pages. 
#19 FN/VF £30
#20 VG+ p £19.75
Annual #1 FN- £24.75 (PICTURED) Solid squarebound copy with a couple of cover marks and a pencilled price. 

*IW/Super: We continue with our series of updates from that most esoteric publisher IW/Super. IW Publications was a short-lived comic book publisher in the late 1950s and early 1960s, named for the company’s owner Israel Waldman. Comics were published under both the IW and Super imprints and were notable for publishing unauthorised Golden Age reprints of other company’s properties. Usually these companies were out of business, but not always. Basically, it seemed to be whatever they could get their hands on that determined the esoteric nature of their output. Thus you get super-heroes, war, romance, western, funny animals, crime, horror, science fiction and just about every genre within their pages. Full details of what was reprinted in what are listed in our website catalogue. NB usually with newly-drawn covers. Over the next few months, we’ll be presenting a series of issues from this publisher; this week, two classic Quality super-heroes, both in the only three of their IW/Super issues (ignore the esoteric numbering!).
IN THIS UPDATE: ALL SOLD
DOLL MAN
#11 GD £3.50 Reprints Doll Man #20 (Quality 1949). New cover by Ross Andru.
#15 VG £6.75 Reprints Doll Man #23 (Quality 1949). New cover by Ross Andru.
#17 VG+ £7.50 (PICTURED) Reprints Doll Man #28 (Quality 1950). New cover by Ross Andru. 
PLASTIC MAN 
#11 GD £3.50 Reprints Plastic Man #16 (Quality 1949). New cover by Jack Abel (?)
#16 VG/FN £8.25 (PICTURED) Reprints Plastic Man #21 (Quality 1950) New cover by Gray Morrow.  
#18 GD/VG £5 Reprints Police Comics #95 (Quality 1949) New cover by Ross Andru. 

*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: First series Eagle Specials are rarae aves in the comic world; in fact, there are only two of them: 1962 and this one, 1966, the latest in our Long Hot Summer feature. 48 pages packed full of stories and features, including regular Eagle favourites Dan Dare, Blackbow the Cheyenne, Heros the Spartan and Iron Man (not Marvel!).  A decent enough copy with some spine and corner wear, front cover off upper staple, tear at lower staple. There is a corner off centrefold page; one side affects the ‘Can You Catch A Crook?’ game, but only a promotional slogan box, the game itself is not spoilt; the other side affects a text story illustration on an Iron Man tale, but the text is not affected.  
PICTURED: EAGLE SUMMER SPECIAL 1966 GD/VG £25 SOLD