*Marvel: Our focus on Marvel’s female stars continues with a duet of debuts from the celestial halls of Asgard. In Avengers #83, the mysterious Valkyrie stirred up some (petty justified) resentments in the hearts of the Wasp, the Scarlet Witch, the Black Widow and Medusa and forged them into the Lady Liberators, a team determined to enforce – equality by any means necessary! Needless to say, it was all a wacky scheme by the Enchantress, who used the captive essence of the real Valkyrie (don’t ask) to trick the heroines into rebellion – but subsequently both the Valkyrie herself, and the Lady Liberators team, have returned on multiple occasions. This copy is FN p at £40. And sticking with the Enchantress, we travel further back along the Rainbow Bridge to Journey Into Mystery #103, when she and her cohort, the Executioner, made their debuts. Amora remains one of the most powerful female figures in the Marvel Universe, and one of its few early villainesses who didn’t reform and become a heroine – at least, not yet! Journey Into Mystery #103 is VG+ p at £75. Watch for another Marvel female debut next week!

*Marvel: For this week’s Spider-Mania excursion, we add issues between #201-237 of Amazing Spider-Man to our catalogue, a period less often seen than most. Nearly all issues present, nearly all cents copies and nearly all a very nice Very Fine grade. In these years, Spidey encounters the Punisher, the Black Cat, Sub-Mariner, Dazzler, Moon Knight & Foolkiller and tangles with many foes from his Rogues’ Gallery, including the debuts of Calypso and Madame Web.  

*Marvel: Commencing with issue #22 and ending (this time) with #78, we have twenty issues of Conan the Barbarian new to our inventory, illustrated (mostly) by Mighty John Buscema. See our Cimmerian hero face off again gargoyles, demons, goblins, golems, shape-shifters and lion-lords, all the while implausibly encumbered by shapely wenches who seem to be superglued to his thighs. Among the gals striking a blow for female equality, however, are the ravishing Red Sonja and Belit the She-Pirate, as well as the ever-wistful Wolf-Woman. Journey back to a fantasy world that never was with the cult creation of Robert E. Howard.

*Horror 1940-1959: A brace (or perhaps a deuce, to use a more American idiom) of Pre-Code horror classics new in: Atlas’ Spellbound #11, in Fine at £90, with the high-quality standard of artwork and stories one expects from the publisher who, by this time, was in the throes of its horror production line, A lovely copy with firm staples, tight corners, and vivid cover colour. Spellbound’s companion this update is Charlton’s Thing! #11 – no relation to the later Ben Grimm, Thing! was notorious for making up in blood, gore, decapitation and giblets what it may have sometimes lacked in terms of uniform quality of art or story. Rare, infamous, and very much a niche market – if you like this sort of Thing!, then this is the sort of Thing! you like, to paraphrase Miss Brodie. Issue #4 is our new addition, VG at £85. And if you’re wondering why our cover zombie appears to be wearing a Davy Crockett chapeau, you’re not alone.

*Vintage Magazine-Sized Comics: Based on the hugely successful Planet of the Apes movies of the era, Marvel’s 1970’s Planet of the Apes magazine featured both straight adaptations of the films and additional new material set in the same universe, with the creators having fun imagining the history and development of the world they saw on the silver screen. We have a virtually complete run of Planet of the Apes magazine – seldom seen on these UK shores – averaging VG/FN grades. Only two omissions: the run is lacking a #22, and the #1, while having the same creative content as its US edition, is an Australian version, with differing advertising and to some extent editorial matter. Nevertheless, an uncommon opportunity to get most of the set of 29 issues, in respectable but affordable mid-grades. Go Ape!

*Marvel UK: Among the many diverse formats Marvel’s UK division experimented with in the Eighties was the ‘Pocketbook’ format – a sort of half-way house between a traditional UK picture library and an American comic book, these 8″ x 5″ mags reprinted one or two complete issues of series, rather than the smaller chunks the weeklies carved the original tales into. We have fifty of these new in, including such diverse series as Conan (with early Barry Smith opulence), Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Titans, X-Men, Young Romance (borrowing an established DC name, but reprinting Marvel’s rather lovely titles, My Love and Our Love Story), and the oddball Star Heroes, which started out as a straight sf series, reprinting Micronauts and Battlestar Galactica, but took an abrupt turn left with issue #10 and began replaying the original X-Men from #1!

*Annuals: Several Girls’ Annuals added to our stock: many June from the 1960’s, Princess from the 60’s/70’s and a single Mirabelle Sunshine Pop Book from 1975.

*TV & Film Related Comics: A range of titles all new to our listings in this popular category. Two Gerry Anderson titles from their 1990’s iterations, Captain Scarlet & The Mysterons and Joe 90 are represented along with Free Gifts in #3 of Captain Scarlet and #2 of Joe 90 as shown. We also have many issues of Masters Of The Universe plus a couple of copies of Marvel’s Indiana Jones (#2 & #3).  

*Girls’ Comics: Having just brought you a mammoth June update last week, the natural follow-on is School Friend, as the two are inextricably mingled in the public mind, to the point where many people don’t realise School Friend was ever a separate periodical – one which, moreover, preceded June by a decade! (As a comic; it had a long prior history as a story-paper). When School Friend reinvented itself in 1951 as a comic, it also launched the career of the Silent Three, definitive cowled crusaders of boarding-school society, and many of our new arrivals, feature Betty, Joan and Peggy in their costumed identities, but there’s a plethora of other well-remembered features to be seen. This selection of close to 70 new copies to our lists opens in 1951, is quite heavy in 1956 and 1957, then blips to 1962, 1964 and 1965, very shortly before School Friend entered a forced marriage with the upstart June. Along the way at various points, we meet ‘Anita – Beloved Princess’, ‘Yasmin and the Golden Pyramid’, loveable duffer ‘Dilly Dreem’, ‘Gwen and the Gay Highwayman’, ‘My Friend Sara’, ‘Cherry and the Children’, ‘Bessie Bunter’, and scores more plucky young maidens defending Queen and Empire. In very affordable mid-grades, averaging Good, this is an appealing selection of options to fill those pesky gaps!

In our What’s Old feature, we highlight comics from our existing stock that you may have missed. This week: Phantom Lady #15 by Matt Baker. Victor Fox’s line of comics in the 1940’s was notorious for being shoddy, exploitative, and done on the cheap. But on the principle that even a stopped clock is sometimes right, Fox produced, almost certainly unwittingly, a handful of outstanding items, and Phantom Lady #15 is one of them. Sandra Knight was one of those socially-conscious debutantes who decided to fight crime by removing most of her clothing and – presumably – relying on the fact that the bad guys’ gaze wouldn’t get as far as her face. So far, so cheesy. But the primary illustrator was Matt Baker, known now as the definitive ‘Good Girl Artist’, who portrayed our implausibly-behootered heroine as an epitome of grace and charm. One of only a handful of African-Americans working in the comics mainstream in the 1940’s – and because of that, not hired by the major companies – Baker’s attention to details of body language, facial expression, and his keen eye for fashions made what could have been exploitative piffle into breezy, adventurous, classic sequential artwork. This copy of #15 features three Baker-illustrated tales, including one in which our heroine, ever ahead of the curve, faces a plague of zombies. It’s sound, attractive, with only very minor wear at the back cover’s lower edge and a couple of small sealed cover tears to the right cover edge, but a beautiful, unimpaired cover image. In VG+, it’s on sale for £450.

A brand new section on our site is Clearance Corner, where we feature bargain lots at rock bottom prices. From time to time, we have to make decisions to discontinue certain titles from our stock for reasons of space. They don’t come bagged and boarded (as our normal stock does) and are available for collection from our shop (heavy lots may be collected in instalments if paid for up front). If the buyer wants them posted to a UK address, postage would be extra (at cost). Sorry, but these are not available for postage outside the UK. Lots in Clearance Corner will only be available for a limited period. We’d love to see these relocated to a good home. First come, first served — the first person to pay for them gets them! Our first three bargain lots are detailed below:

*Clearance Corner: Our second initial lot for Clearance Corner comprises our entire stock of the above 3 vintage Marvel reprint titles, which all started in the 1960’s. We’re discontinuing stocking these to make room in our boxes for the large number of original Marvel comics coming into our hands. This bargain selection of 72 issues includes:
Marvel Tales #5, #6, #10-14, #16-19, #22, #23 x2, #25-28, #31, #35-77 & #95
Marvel Collectors’ Item Classics #1 x 2, #2, #3, #4 x2, #5
Fantasy Masterpieces #3-4
In an average VG/FN condition, a small number a little tatty, many better, with a price guide value in excess of £300. Available for £30. These may be collected from our shop or posted (UK only) for an additional postage charge of £13.50. SORRY, THESE HAVE NOW SOLD

*DC: The debut and second appearance of the notorious Justice League/Adam Strange foe Kanjar Ro. First up, Justice League of America #3, with his first appearance, GD p at £65, spine split at bottom by a couple of inches, but otherwise nice black background cover. Secondly, in the comic often referred to as Justice League of America #3.5, but in reality Mystery In Space #75, Kanjar Ro tackles Adam Strange AND the JLA, giving readers a chance to see the World’s Greatest Super-Heroes as rendered by the great combo of Carmine Infantino and Murphy Anderson. MIS #75 is GD/VG p £20, also with lower spine split. Classic outer space adventure from 1961/62!  

*Marvel: Throughout April, we’ll be celebrating the women of Marvel, each week spotlighting the first appearance of a classic character from the dawn of the Marvel Age, in an event we’re calling ‘Marvel XX’, which you can interpret either as kisses or chromosomes, or both! We are delighted to commence with X-Men #4, in which Wanda, everybody’s favourite Scarlet Witch, appeared for the first time as a member of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants! The crimson-clad conjuress (though erroneously depicted as a Emerald Empress on this very cover) has been a mutant and a mage, an X-Man and an Avenger, a hero and a villain, and a bunch of other stuff besides, including being the alleged offspring of a bewildering variety of people as new writers take over. But however many retcons she endures, she remains one of Marvel’s most popular leading ladies. This issue, of course, saw the premier appearances of a few other folks as well: the super-swift Quicksilver, for many years Wanda’s brother but now maybe not (long story, Google if you’re bothered), Mastermind, the Toad, and indeed the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants itself! It’s an extremely attractive FN+ p copy with vibrant, deep, unfaded cover colour, and only very fine stress lines at the spine. On sale for £500.

*Marvel: Marvel’s First Family, the fabulous Fantastic Four, is the focus of this update, as we add early issues and first appearances into our inventory. Among these “FFFirsts” are: #15, with the first appearance of the maniacal Mad Thinker, and his Awesome Android; #19, with the debut of Rama-Tut, the time-twisting pharaoh who at various times has been suspected of being Kang, Immortus, the Scarlet Centurion, Doctor Doom, and Millie the Model (well, we wouldn’t be surprised…); #22, with the debut of Sue Storm’s Force Field power, beginning her transformation from token chick into a fully useful member of the team; #28, with the first X-Men/Fantastic Four fracas; #29, with the classic “It Started On Yancy Street” tale; #30, premier of Diabolo and #35, which brought us the ever-delightful Dragon Man! Issues #15 (GD/VG p £50), #19 (VG p £68), and #28 (VG+ p £65) are depicted; for price details on the others, please see our catalogue.

*Horror/Mystery 1960-1980’s: A significant update for this popular category sees major top-ups to Charlton – Beyond the Grave, Ghostly Haunts, Ghostly Tales, Ghost Manor, Haunted, Many Ghosts of Doctor Graves, Midnight Tales, Monster Hunters, Professor Coffin, Scary Tales and Tales of the Mysterious Traveler – and to Marvel, with new entries for Chamber of Darkness, Tower of Shadows, Crypt of Shadows (because you can never have too many shadows…), Tomb of Darkness and Vault of Evil. Rounding it out, a DC update to Weird Mystery Tales, one of the 1970’s titles launched in the wake of the company’s success with revitalising their horror line. Mostly in mid-range affordable grades, these offer a chance to see work by some of the stars of the comics business – including Ditko, Buscema, Sutton, Newton, Smith and Zeck – either in their early days or, in the case of Charlton, subjected to least editorial control!

*Power Comics: Just a handful of additions to this popular category for both Pow and Wham, including a low grade Pow #2.

*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: The long-running weekly Comet is extensively refreshed with almost all issues from 1952 (when it shrank down to an ersatz-US smaller size) to the end of 1954. This period covers the debuts of radio star Dick Barton (who goes to outer space from #247 on), and the first appearances of long-running mainstays Strongbow the Mohawk (from #264) and Claude Duval (from #270). Also present are Buffalo Bill, Billy Bunter, and several popular series not called ‘Bill’! This is the first part of a substantial Comet collection we have acquired in affordable mid-grades and which represents the biggest cluster we’ve ever seen here at 30th Century during our years of trading – an ideal opportunity to fill those gaps in your run! Collectors should note that a previous owner has deleted the original numbers in pen and added his own numbering system, but we have accurately recorded the true numbers on our pricing labels on the bag enclosing each issue. Watch out for a further instalment from 1955 onwards coming soon!

*TV & Film Related Comics: A small update to four titles in this popular category: Countdown, Joe 90, TV Action and TV Century 21 are all refreshed with just a few copies of each title.

*Girls’ Comics: One of the most popular girls’ weeklies in our inventory is the long-running June, and we’re pleased this week to add in many issues from 1961 and 1962, its first and second year of publication. These are so old, they’re even before the “And School Friend” era! We open with the 5th of May 1961, and close this selection with 1st September 1962 – by no means a complete unbroken run, but a substantial quantity of hard to find early issues, in acceptable mid-grades, averaging GD/VG. Originally conceived as a low-rent version of Princess, June was initially heavy on photo-covers, ballet, and features on the Royal Family, but swiftly broadened its remit to attractive line-drawn covers of the series featured within, including “Nurse Valiant”, “Diana’s Diary”, “Wendy’s Private Witch”, and yes, persistent lame ballerinas galore! An affordable chance to see the early years of one of the Grand Old Ladies of British Girls’ Comics.

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:
*Horror 1940-1959
and in our British section:
*Rupert
*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics (R – S)
As of the time of writing, these categories are bang up to date, with every item listed available.

*DC: A pair of uncommon vintage World’s Finest issues this update, predating UK distribution of the title; issue #75 is the first to be Code-Approved (not that we suspect previous issues would have had much trouble…) and features the well-loved (by the editors) theme of one hero having pangs of jealousy because his sidekick is seeing another hero on the side (more innocent times, right?); in a respectable FA/GD at £45. Issue #94 retells the origin of the Superman-Batman team, and is FA at £25, the predominant issues being some scuffing and discoloration around the Batman figure on the cover, and some back cover fragility. Green Arrow and Tomahawk add to the vintage fun and action in these quaint classics.

*Marvel: In the distant days of 1975, the X-Men, once mainstays of the Marvel Universe, were a spent force. Reduced to a bi-monthly reprint comic and occasional guest-appearances, the merry mutants were without a home to call their own. Then two of Marvel’s young turks of the time, Len Wein and Dave Cockrum, changed all that. In Giant-Size X-Men #1, the original X-Men were captured, and Professor X assembled a team of international mutants, some known to the readers (Sunfire, Banshee, and Wein’s own creation, Wolverine, who had made his debut in Hulk #181) and some brand new (Storm, Colossus, Nightcrawler and Thunderbird), and sent them out to rescue their mutant brethren. The ‘New’ X-Men were an instant hit, and with issue #94 of the X-Men ongoing, the team was restored to all-new adventures, and on their way to becoming the multi-media stars they are today! We are delighted to have the first two appearances of the ‘New’ X-Men in stock the Giant-Size #1 is a splendid VF at £500, with only a slight miscut (an original printing irregularity, not an attempt at restoration) preventing us from grading it still higher. X-Men #94, first appearance of the new team in the title, is an attractive FN+ at £225. Neither of these issues was ever distributed in the UK, so their already uncommon status is exacerbated by their scarcity on this side of the pond. SORRY, THESE HAVE NOW SOLD

*Marvel: Early issues of the Avengers, Marvel’s mainstay superhero team, always sell briskly at 30th Century Comics, and we are pleased to welcome most of the first ten back into stock. Issues #2, #3, and #5 to #10 between them bring us the debuts of the Space Phantom, Zemo and His Masters of Evil, Kang, Wonder Man and Immortus, as well as the villainy of the Enchantress and the Executioner, the lethal Lava Men, and the Savage Sub-Mariner. In a range of grades from #2’s PR/FA to #6’s FN+, this selection will appeal both to the collector and the investor among our clientele. See our catalogue for full grading and pricing information.