*Marvel: Strange Tales from the 1960s is sought after for myriad reasons, most often because of the dynamic, cinematic artwork of Jim Steranko, who brought a freshness to spy saga Nick Fury and The Agents of SHIELD which tapped perfectly into the zeitgeist of the era. But that doesn’t apply in this instance. No, the hoo and the hah this time is for the Marie Severin illustrated Doctor Strange co-feature, and more specifically for the Living Tribunal, a cosmic entity whose power outstrips the Watcher and may even match that of Thanos with the Infinity Gauntlet! For years a relatively small part of Marvel’s cosmic tapestry, the Tribunal’s prominence has increased with his (its?) greater involvement in sundry cosmic sagas, to the point where interest in his early appearances is at its keenest. Strange Tales #158, with the first full Tribunal and his first cover appearance is a nice mid-grade copy, with deep colour cover, nice page quality and tight, firmly attached staples. There is some creasing along the spine and a couple of colour-breaking creases across the bottom right corner. (Only) in the right light, you can see a vestigial remnant of a circular mark at the bottom of the logo.
PICTURED: STRANGE TALES #158 VG+ p £50 SOLD

*Marvel: Another of our very popular round-ups of Marvel #1 issues from the 1970s and later. This time we have Marvel Two-In-One #1, Moon Knight #1, Quasar #1, Shanna the She-Devil #1, Super-Villain Team-Up #1 and Wolverine #1 (ongoing 1988). Full grading and pricing information, as always, in our catalogue.
PICTURED:
SUPER-VILLAIN TEAM-UP #1 VF £35
WOLVERINE #1 FN/VF £23

*Marvel: A consecutive run of Amazing Spider-Man Annuals this week, from #3 to #10. #3-5 & #10 feature new material (#5 is a second printing), while #6-9 have classic reprints of early Spideys (NB #6 reprints Annual #1 with the debut of the Sinister Six) and are less commonly seen in the UK.

*Western: The Two-Gun Kid’s career had been running successfully at Atlas/Marvel, in his own title and others, for a considerable time as a blond, guitar-wielding peripatetic troubadour, but Lee & Kirby, apparently having a spare afternoon one day, decided to reinvent the character. With issue #60 of Two-Gun Kid, the old version was gone, and in his place was Matt Hawk, mild-mannered Western lawyer, who when he couldn’t achieve justice in the courtroom, donned a mask and fought the good fight as the Two-Gun Kid! The adventures of the former TGK were hand-waved away as pulp stories which ‘inspired’ Matt Hawk, and the new version, with his secret identity, supporting cast and fixed locale, fit much more into the Marvel Comics template than his dated predecessor. Matt Hawk went on to a lengthy career and thanks to the magic of comics science, even made brief sojourns to the present day, joining the Avengers for a time (but then who hasn’t?). Presumably owing to a production error (perhaps there was some pre-production debate as to whether the ‘new’ version should be #60 or #1, undecided until virtually the last minute?) there are two known versions of this issue’s cover. One is printed with an evidently handwritten issue number and one with a mechanically-generated issue number. This is the scarcer version, with the handwritten number printed on the cover. This copy of the New Two-Gun Kid’s debut is a superior FN- p copy, with rich colour cover, white to off-white pages and tight, firmly attached staples. There are a few stress marks at the spine and soft creases at the top left, bottom right and across the lower cover, but these are almost all non-colour breaking; a copy with great eye appeal that presents well. We also have #61 & #62, the Kid’s 2nd and 3rd issues, new in and listed in our catalogue. 
PICTURED: TWO-GUN KID #60 FN- p £325 SOLD

*Marvel UK: In 1976, Marvel UK’s first attempt to generate a British-based super-hero was placed into the hands of Chris Claremont and Herb Trimpe, whose comic-opera interpretation of the UK has become a source of hilarity for generations. But after a shaky start, CB became inextricably linked with the mainstream Marvel Universe, not least because of his psychic sister, Betsy, who – years later and after many, many changes – turned Japanese and became the X-Men’s scantily-clad ninja mind-warrior Psylocke. As you do. This is Betsy’s first appearance in Captain Britain Weekly #8, a copy in VF condition; the rather flimsy stock of the Marvel UK weeklies has endured well in this instance, with no creases or marks, tight and flat with an excellent staple (it’s never had an upper staple), no delivery name or address or any other writing, and the puzzle page (often completed, to the later chagrin of collectors) is pristine and untouched. Beautiful white to off-white pages and sharp corners. The only (tiny) blemish is a minute nick at the bottom edge about 10 mm in from the spine, but you have to look really hard to see it. You don’t see as many copies of this surviving so well.
PICTURED: CAPTAIN BRITAIN #8 VF £200 SOLD

*Boy’s Adventure & War Picture Libraries: A chunky update to this popular category this week, featuring a wide range of titles and material, including several less often seen series: Attack Picture Library Holiday Specials, Battleground, Conflict, Cowboy Picture Library, Gemini 2000 Picture Library (#2), Lion Picture Library, Pecos Bill Western Picture Library, Pocket War Library, Pocket Western Library, Private-Eye Picture Stories, Sabre Library, Thriller Picture Library and Western Library Holiday Special. Mostly pre-decimal issues. 

*Girls’ Comics: To add to the fun, Fleetway not only published Holiday Specials for June & School Friend, but in 1968-1970, they published Special Extra issues as well in the same format: 96 pages of stories, features, fun and adventure with Bessie Bunter and many of the regular strips from the comic. Vanishingly rare, we almost never see these and fortunately, the conditions of all three here are more than reasonable. 1968 is FN, with slight front cover edge fading (margins only), 1969 is VG, with a back cover tear (nothing missing) and slight looseness at staples, 1970 is FN.
PICTURED: JUNE & SCHOOL FRIEND SPECIAL EXTRA
1968 FN £90
1969 VG £75 SOLD
1970 FN £90 SOLD

*Clearance Corner: Fans of Good Girl Art need look no further, provided that the girl is a dog, of course. Lassie, first appearing in the 1940s, is the star of radio, television, film, toys, comic books, animated series, juvenile novels and other media. Hugely popular in the 1940s to the 1960s, the famous Collie had long-running comic series, first from Dell and then Gold Key, mostly with wonderfully painted covers and often accomplished interior art, including 2 issues in this selection by Matt Baker. This lot consists of 21 issues (19 Dell, 2 Gold key) between #6 (1952) and #68. Condition averages VG+, with many better and no dogs (if you pardon the pun). Overstreet Price Guide value on these is in excess of £160 — on offer here for just £35 including free (UK only) postage. 

*DC: The House Of Mystery entry into DC’s tabloid range is a wonderful package; not only do you get seven superb stories by the very best of 1940s horror artists: Neal Adams, Bernie Wrighson, Gil Kane, Alex Toth, Jack Sparling and Segio Aragones (!), with their art on wonderful display in this tabloid size, but it’s also chock-full of games, cartoons, a 3D mystery cut-out, features and pin-ups. This VG+ copy has some spine wear and stress marks (black background) and some tanning on the inside covers, the odd crease and small scuff or two, but isn’t at all in bad shape. An uncommon item.
PICTURED: LIMITED COLLECTORS’ EDITION C23 VG+ £25 SOLD

*Marvel: Flush with success at the dawn of the Marvel Universe, Stan Lee had an epiphany: if Iron Man, Thor and company were successful on their own – how much better would they be together? Thus was born the Avengers, in which Thor, Iron Man, the Hulk, Ant-Man and the Wasp were brought together by the fiendish machinations of Loki and an heroic dynasty began which continues to this day! The Avengers has lasted myriad issues, with a plethora of spin-offs, and a veritable regiment of members (not to mention an extremely lucrative movie franchise), but this is the comic in which it all began! Make no mistake — this copy is a wreck: extreme spine roll, cover fading, browning, heavy edge wear, off top staple light interior staining; the right and bottom edges in particular are very heavily worn and creased. We don’t have a grade lower than poor, but otherwise this might qualify. And now the good news — it’s all complete! High resolution images are available on request.
PICTURED: AVENGERS #1 PR p £500

*Marvel: Well, everyone at Marvel gets their own movie, eh? Even being dead doesn’t appear to have stopped the clairvoyant precog Madame Web from having a film in development, and thus her first appearance in Amazing Spider-Man #210 has piqued in interest and accumulated value in the last year. We have a VF+ copy, with just a few minor stress marks preventing an even higher grade. Tight, flat and glossy and now an amazing 40 years old!
PICTURED: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #210 VF+ £75

*Marvel: X-Men #5 marked the very swift return of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants (now, there’s a slick bit of nominative determinism for you), following their debut in the previous issue. The Scarlet Witch however was still suffering from the same bout of colour blindness that afflicted her on the cover of #4, where she was also dressed in emerald. You’d have thought that the clue was in her name… Anyway, a merry romp ensues between Prof X’s mutant band and Magneto’s misfits. Not a great copy, pence priced with slightly more than moderate wear and some corner creasing and blunting; staples are okay and page quality isn’t bad. One page has a small strip out of the margin which doesn’t affect the story.
PICTURED: X-MEN #5 GD- p £85

*Miscellaneous 1960 Onwards: I’ve waxed lyrical about Mike Barr’s wonderful fair play whodunnit series the Maze Agency during our lockdown interlude and you can read my thoughts at this link: The Maze Agency: Detective Fiction In Comic Form (with Adam Hughes) Suffice it for now to say that we have three issues new in, all with Adam Hughes covers, including possibly the most sought after, #13, with Jennifer as Justice Girl.
PICTURED: THE MAZE AGENCY ALL SOLD
#7 VG+ £5
#10 NM £7.50
#13 FN £10

*Horror/Mystery 1960-1980s: By its tenth issue, Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan’s highly acclaimed run on Tomb of Dracula was in full swing, racking up plaudits from critics and fans alike, when suddenly there came a character who was to outstrip even the success of his comic book ‘parent’. Blade the Vampire Slayer debuted in issue #10, and, numerous comic-book appearances and a highly successful movie trilogy (Marvel’s first such, in fact) behind him, remains one of the more enduring breakthrough characters of the 1970s. With the Blade franchise shortly about to be ‘rebooted’, in the media’s voracious frenzy for new properties, Blade’s early appearances are once more spiralling upward. This pence priced debut issue is lowish grade with cover creases (inc some small colour-breaking ones across the bottom right cover), slight spine roll and minor corner blunting; staples are okay, page quality not too bad  (a couple of pages dog-eared and a small strip off one page margin only). Not a great copy, but if you want a great copy, we have one listed in VF+ — see our catalogue for details. Also: #13, the origin of Blade in a nice VF with just a couple of soft creases at the spine and #58 (Blade fights alone) in NM-, with just a minor spine stress. 
PICTURED: TOMB OF DRACULA
#10 GD p £200 SOLD
#13 VF £80
#58 NM- £35 

*Vintage UK/Australian Reprints of US Material: Len Miller was the premier UK publisher of ‘faux’ American-sized British comics in the 1950s and early 1960s. He published a wide range of material, both original and US reprint, perhaps most famously Marvelman and Young Marvelman. Although succeeded by Alan Class, there was a period in the early 1960s where both publishers overlapped and some of Miller’s titles (Mystic, Spellbound, Voodoo and Zombie) closely resembled the type of content also being used by Alan Class, reprinting Atlas, pre-hero Marvel and other early horror, with occasional forays into the Marvel Super-Hero Universe. We have examples of all this in this week’s selection of Spellbound between issues #5 & #64. Notably there are lots of Jack Kirby Big Panty Monster covers and stories, plus some Marvel reprints (#44 reprints Fantastic Four #7, #50 reprints the Torch & Thing story from Strange Tales #116) and, singularly, a 1950s Human Torch reprint from Young Men #24 in issue #42. 
PICTURED: SPELLBOUND
#42 FN £35 SOLD
#44 GD/VG £20 SOLD
#50 FN £40 SOLD

*TV & Film Related Comics: Following on from our 1st issue of Candy with Free Gift a few weeks ago, we’re happy to have two more issues to offer, also with their Free Gifts: #23 (VG) has the Free Gift (VF) of Candy’s Magic Toyshop (build it yourself by pressing out elements from the card enclosed, which is totally intact) and #34 (FA, with a severe spine split half-way down) also has a VF Free Gift, the Winnie the Pooh Pyramid Hoop-La, with original rubber band still intact!). There really can’t be too many of these around with Gifts present — we’ve never seen them before in over 25 years.
PICTURED: CANDY BOTH SOLD
#23 VG WITH FREE GIFT VF £40
#34 FA WITH FREE GIFT VF £30

*Girls’ Comics: An update from the last two years of this famous title, Princess Tina from 1972 and Tina (the Princess was dropped) from 1973, towards the end of its run and just before the merger with Pink. We’ve been working our way through a collection of these, and this is the very last of them, at least until we get some more!
PICTURED: PRINCESS TINA 23/12/72 (Christmas issue) FN £8

Since we’re now trading by mail order only, it gives us the chance to maintain our catalogue even more accurately. All items sold since lockdown are now being deleted within a few days of sale. We are also working through our entire catalogue to delete those items that sold pre-lockdown since files were last updated. This means that as we finish updating a file, you can rely on the catalogue for that category being (and staying) as close to 100% accurate as it is possible to get, with virtually everything available, apart from items sold in the last few days (and just a tiny amount of human error). We have now completed this exercise for the following category from our British section:
*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics A-D
All categories down to this point in our Catalogue Index have now been Super-Housekept! We will continue to post here as we make progress.

*DC: Plenty of Batman issues in our regular Batmania fix this week: starting with a low grade #130, we move to a near complete run between #216 & #233, highlights of which include Giant issues #218, #223, #228 & #223, Neal Adams art in #219 and the debut of the Ten-Eyed Man in #226. Full details in our catalogue. 

*Marvel: This early Lee & Kirby classic saw the introduction of one of the Fantastic Four’s nemeses, the malevolent Mad Thinker! A strategic genius, criminal mastermind and brilliant scientist in multiple fields, the Thinker’s intellect is believed to be the equal of Reed Richards himself. Despite being a thorn in the collective sides of the FF and multiple other Marvel heroes, the Thinker’s background and origin remained entirely unexplored for more than half a century. Also premiering here, the Thinker’s Awesome Android, initially just a near-mindless artificial henchperson, who over the years blossomed into an endearing supporting character as a co-worker of the She-Hulk in her later series. No, really. This is apparently a beautiful copy, minor wear at cover corners, but a lovely bright yellow cover background colour completely unmarred (NB pence stamped), firm staples, some trace of Marvel chipping at upper right cover edge not harming the main cover image at all. The problem with it is the interior; on three pages, there is a vertical tear of about 12 cm (about half a page) up from the centre of the lower edge, although nothing is missing. Overall we have graded it as VG- to take account of that, whereas superficially it’s around FN.
PICTURED: FANTASTIC FOUR #15 VG- p £100

*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 debut in real time was this very issue. This is ostensibly a very nice copy with minor handling wear and a nice glossy cover; its drawback is the residue of a price sticker (above Spidey’s left arm), clearly visible on the scan, that keeps the grade down on what would be an easy VF or better; if you can live with that, it’s a chance to get a copy of this key issue at a very favourable price.
PICTURED: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #252 FN £40 SOLD

*Marvel: Those issues of Spidey in the #120’s can be notoriously difficult to get hold of, especially here in the UK and in high grade, so here’s a really nice #128 for you to consider, in which Spidey tackles the Vulture once again. A high grade cents copy (not distributed in the UK, of course), glossy with deep colour and sharp corners, tight and flat with great staples and only the merest suggestion of edge wear preventing a NM grade.
PICTURED: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #128 VF/NM £50

*Marvel: A near complete run of Amazing Spider-Man from #201-225 fresh in this week, with several notable issues: Punisher guest-stars in #201 & #202, 2nd Dazzler in #203, Black Cat in #204 & #205, 1st Calypso in #209, 1st Hydro-Man in #212, Madame Web in #216 & Moon Knight in #220. Full details, as always, in our catalogue. 

*Horror/Mystery 1960-1980s: Not long after House of Secrets’ ‘rebranding’ as a horror title (following its decades as a genteel sci-fi series), issue #92 saw a story that transcended the traditional one-off horror genre, and launched a character who became a major star for DC, culminating in his recent TV series. (We won’t talk about the movies. Ever.) In ‘Swamp Thing’, we were introduced to Alex Olsen and Damien Ridge, 19th-century best friends whose love for the same woman led Damien to murder Alex after Alex had married the beautiful Linda. Later, however, when Linda began to suspect the truth, Damien planned to murder her too: but her life was saved by Alex, returned from the swamp as a subhuman plant-creature. Linda fled from the creature in horror, never realizing that the beast who saved her was her beloved Alex. This classic tale of love, betrayal and revenge, masterfully told by Len Wein and Berni Wrightson, struck a powerful chord with the readership, and a 20th-century version of the character was launched in his own series, and has starred in some of the most critically-acclaimed stories in the comics medium. This copy of Swamp Thing’s first appearance CGC 7.0 (FN/VF); the distinctive greytone cover skilfully evokes a feeling of imminent menace, and is one of the most consistently ‘homaged’ images in comics.
PICTURED: HOUSE OF SECRETS #92 CGC 7.0 FN/VF £1,075 SOLD

*Modern Reprints: Our latest addition to the Marvel Epic Collection range is Conan the Barbarian, reprinting the classic early issues of Conan from #1-13 by Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith. Not only do you get 13 gorgeous issues with covers, but there’s a wealth of extras, including the Conan try-out from Chamber of Darkness #4, lots of original art reproductions, text features and a gallery of cover repros of the various times these stories have been reprinted. A huge amount of reading and a treat for the eyes — the best sword and sorcery comics ever produced, in our opinion.
PICTURED: CONAN THE BARBARIAN EPIC COLLECTION NEW/MINT £32 SOLD