*Marvel: This week, the Good Doctor Collection releases star Amazing Spider-Man #3. While early issues of the Amazing Spider-Man are always popular, the debuts of his major villains are the hot-button items, and this is one of the hottest. Issue #3 of Spider-Man’s series saw the first appearance of Doctor Otto Octavius, a.k.a. Doctor Octopus, the villain who, perhaps jointly with the Green Goblin, is regarded as our hero’s definitive nemesis. Doc Ock (as he’s familiarly known) has been the bête noire of Spidey for decades, but this is where the vendetta began. This is a pence printed copy, low grade but not too bad. It is a bit worn and thumbed, but creasing is restricted to the spine and edges, where several short creases break colour. Corner blunting, but nice off-white to cream pages. The top staple is firm at cover and centrefold, but the cover has popped off the bottom staple, although it’s fine at centrefold. The major flaw that spoils an otherwise clean cover is a white scuff mark on Doc Ock’s thigh — visible on the scan. High resolution images are available on request.
PICTURED: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #3 GD p £1,575 SOLD

*Marvel: The first Inhuman to appear in the Marvel Universe, Medusa was presented here in Fantastic Four #36 as a mystery woman of unknown origin in command of her ‘living’ hair, and recruited by the Wizard into his fledgling Frightful Four. This is a decent mid-grade pence-stamped copy, with bright colours and cover gloss, small colour-breaking creases below the masthead box and a tiny chip out bottom cover centre; some corner blunting. Tight firm staples and excellent off-white pages.
PICTURED: FANTASTIC FOUR #36 VG+ p £150 SOLD

*Marvel: In 1976, Marvel came up with the wizard wheeze of a second regular monthly Spider-Man title, originally titled Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man (later dropping the Peter Parker bit). Nine years later, they launched the third such: Web of Spider-Man. Both series had long and respectable runs in the MU, as might have been expected for Marvel’s most popular character. We have lovely copies of the first issues of both series fresh in this week.
PICTURED:
SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN #1 VF £50 Bright, flat and glossy, tight staples, great colour, off-white pages. Just a horizontal crease near bottom cover, not breaking colour, precludes a higher grade. SOLD
WEB OF SPIDER-MAN #1 NM £50 Stunning painted cover by Charles Vess. Virtually perfect copy, flat, tight, colourful and glossy with just the most minimal amount of edge wear, barely discernable. SOLD

*EC: A companion title to the smash hit Mad, Panic provided more of the same with humour and parody by many of EC’s finest artists. Two issues available from the Bute Collection this week as follows:
IN THIS UPDATE: PANIC
#2 PR £10 Atomic Bomb explosion cover. Cover and most pages loose, detached and brittle.
#5 VG- £25 (PICTURED) Marilyn Monroe parody by Wood. Small chip off lower right corner cover. SOLD

*Horror/Mystery 1960-1980s: A sweep through this popular category, touching up various titles from multiple publishers as follows: ACG: 3 consecutive issues of the quirky Adventures Into The Unknown (#123-125); DC: House of Mystery, Unexpected, Witching Hour (Wrightson art); Marvel: Creatures On The Loose (Thongor & Man-Wolf), Fear (Morbius), Man-Thing (1st series and Giant-Size), Monsters On The Prowl (Kull), Tomb Of Darkness, Tomb Of Dracula (#22, with an illusory Blade), Weird Wonder Tales, Where Creatures Roam, Where Monsters Dwell, Worlds Unknown and Dell: Ghost Stories. Full details as always in our catalogue.

*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: At the beginning of 1977, around the onset of punk music, a comic was launched that captured the zeitgeist of the times, more anarchic and anti-establishment than anything that had come before it in British comics, no more so than in the persona of Judge Dredd, the iconic anti-hero who has gone on to become legendary. Oddly enough, the title’s most famous denizen  didn’t make it into the first edition, debuting in #2, but the five strips that did premiere in #1 pushed the boundaries; ‘Flesh’ saw a starving near-future use time-travel to go back and harvest dinosaurs – what could go wrong? ‘Invasion’ saw a band of rebels stand alone against the ‘Volgans’ who had conquered the United Kingdom; ‘Harlem Heroes’ produced a violent reprise of the original ‘Rollerball’ movie, and ‘MACH 1’, with its bionically-enhanced action hero, was a clear homage to… oh, well, have a guess. No, not ‘Get Smart’. Topped off by a ‘reimagining’ of the classic hero ‘Dan Dare’ designed to induce apoplexy in aficionados, the violent, bloodier ‘heroes’ set the scene for myriad imitators, some more successful than others. This is the nicest copy of #1 that we’ve seen for some time, flat and unmarked with creamy coloured pages and tight staples. The Free Gift is sadly not present, although the traditional cover scuff where the tape fixing the spinner has been removed is the smallest and least obtrusive we’ve seen. 
PICTURED: 2000 AD #1 FN/VF £125 SOLD

*Girls’ Comics: From the late 1970s, a handful of these favourite titles: Jinty (1977, 1979 & 1980), Mandy (1979), Spellbound (1977) and Tammy (1978). See our catalogue for details.

*DC: The latest in our Legion of Super-Heroes event is Adventure Comics #300, in which Tales of the Legion of Super-Heroes replaced Tales of the Bizarro World as the regular back-up feature to Superboy and starred on the cover. Although the Legion had been around as supporting characters for a few years, it was really here and in the 80 issue run that followed that the lore of the Legion, so beloved by its fans (of which I’m one) really started. This is a decent cents copy, with rich colour cover, clean except for some short creasing and scuffing above and below the Comics Code box. Some corner blunting and edge wear, but tight, firm staples and nice off-white pages.
PICTURED: ADVENTURE COMICS #300 VG £65 SOLD

*Marvel: From the Good Doctor Collection this week, we present issues #10-12 of the Avengers. #10 features the debut of Immortus, one of the many aspects of Kang. #11 guest stars Spider-Man and features the villainy of Kang himself. In #12, the Avengers come up against the FF’s foe the Mole Man. 
PICTURED: AVENGERS
#10 VG p £245 Pence stamped, wear at staples area, with top staple detached from cover, cream to off-white pages, unmarked cover with good colour, otherwise just minor edge wear and corner blunting.
#11 VG p £165 Pence stamped, wear at staples area (attached, but coming loose), creamy pages, unmarked cover with good colour, some corner blunting with minor spine stress marks. SOLD
#12 FN p £110 Pence stamped, good colour cover with some residual gloss, firm staples, cream to off-white pages, small crease lower right cover barely breaks colour.

*Marvel: When Marvel relaunched their X-Men franchise in the 1970s, no one knew the huge success that would be spawned. But it soon became apparent that something special was on the cards here, transforming the failed mutant series into the company’s hottest property. With the creative team of Claremont and Cockrum, continued sensationally by Claremont & Byrne, even a dyed-in-the-wool DC fan like me has to admit that this period of the X-Men was truly great. Six high grade issues from this time new in this week:
PICTURED: X-MEN
99 VF+ p £110 Sentinels. Flat and glossy with just the tiniest amount of edge and corner wear.
100 VF- p £150 New X-Men Vs Old X-Men. Tight and glossy, with just minor wear along bottom edge and bottom right corner.
102 VF+ £90 Juggernaut. Flat and glossy with very minor corner blunting and a micro-crease at spine bottom.
103 VF- £75 Juggernaut. Tight and glossy with some reading wear at spine.
108 NM- £135 1st Byrne art on title. Stunning copy with just the most minimal signs of handling wear.
110 VF+ £60 Warhawk. Tight and glossy. Very small soft crease at top right edge does not break colour.

*Miscellaneous 1940-1959: From the prestigious Bute Collection this week, a trio of Young Men, with the Atlas 1950s revival of the classic Timely heroes. Under the Atlas banner, the Timely heroes lived again in the 1950s, and took over the final five issues of the title Young Men from #24 to #28. We have the final three of those in the Bute Collection (thus far) from 1954. Not commonly seen (especially in the UK), we expect interest in these will be high.
PICTURED: YOUNG MEN ALL SOLD
#26 VG/FN £575 Human Torch by Burgos, Captain America by Romita, Sub-Mariner by Everett. Solid copy, flat with staples firmly attached at spine and centrefold. Only very light edge and corner wear. Supple off-white pages. Some of the blacks on the cover look more grey, but we suspect this is an original printing feature – otherwise this would easily grade FN or better. A lovely copy. High resolution images are available on request.

#27 FN £675 Human Torch by Burgos, Captain America by Romita, Sub-Mariner by Everett. Death of Golden Age Red Skull. Unfaded colour cover, sharp corners, firm staples and lovely interiors. Minimal edge and corner wear. A superb copy. High resolution images are available on request.

#28 FA+ £175 Human Torch by Burgos, Captain America by Romita, Sub-Mariner by Everett.  Final issue in series. Presents well, good cover colour and gloss, but taped spine and flaking/erosion of upper and lower back cover corners. Added staples. Some pages are coming loose with a hint of brittleness.

*Vintage Magazine-Sized Comics: One of Marvel’s most famous and longest-running magazines restocked this week from #1 onwards, with nearly all the first 20 issues now in stock. Developed from the Conan the Barbarian comic, this black and white magazine started in 1974 and lasted until 1995, with perhaps a greater license for more adult content. Full details in our catalogue.
PICTURED: SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN #1 VG/FN £70 Solid copy with some minor spine puckering due to glue shrinkage, unmarked with minor wear at edges and corners. A few rough edges on some interior pages (original finishing defect).
 

*Humour Comics: I seem to remember Harold Hare being the favourite of a friend of mine, so, although I doubt you’ll be reading this Dave, this one’s for you. Aimed at younger readers, sample the delights of ‘Wendy & Her Wonderful Toby Jug’, ‘Flopsy Flufftail’, ‘Mr Toad’ (yes, that one), ‘Peter Puffin’, ‘Dagwood Duck’, ‘Willie Wizz’, ‘Katie Country Mouse’ and many others. Black and white with colour covers and centrefold. A decent enough copy of the first issue dated 14/11/59, structurally sound with some rough edges. Sadly, neither of the Free Gifts are present.
PICTURED: HAROLD HARE #1 GD/VG £15

*DC: For over two years since her debut, Supergirl’s existence was kept a secret from the world at large, as she served as her cousin’s ‘secret weapon’. But that all changed in Action Comics #285, wherein Superman presented Supergirl to the world, and DC took the unprecedented step of having one book-length story in this hitherto anthologsed title. Decent mid-grade copy of this historic landmark with some corner blunting and a tiny upper spine split; minor spine wear. Staples tight and firm at spine; upper off centrefold. A fresh copy with good colour and no cover markings other than the 9d stamp.
PICTURED: ACTION COMICS #285 VG+ p £110 SOLD

*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 the historic 39th issue of Amazing Spider-Man, Spider-Man and the Green Goblin learned each other’s true identities as the Goblin was revealed to be Norman Osborn, in the debut of John Romita on art duties on the title. Romita brought a snazzy sense of style and design to the series and quickly proved himself a worthy successor to Steve Ditko. Issue #39, features a classic cover ‘homaged’ almost as much as the iconic #50, with stunning vivid colour, particularly on the graduated sky background. This is brilliantly displayed on this stunning high grade cents copy, which shows just the most minor signs of edge wear. No creases, no marks, lying flat with staples firmly attached at spine and centrefold. White to off-white pages. A real gem, not far off as it would have been on the newsstand. High resolution images are available on request.
PICTURED: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #39 VF+ £1,350 SOLD

*Marvel: Also from the Good Doctor this week, the second, third and fourth issues of Dr Strange in his own series, continuing the numbering of Strange Tales. All nice copies in a series of consistently high quality, with stories by Roy Thomas, and art by Dan Adkins, Tom Palmer and Gene Colan. Familiar nemeses Nightmare and Dormammu return to plague Marvel’s own Good Doctor.
IN THIS UPDATE: DOCTOR STRANGE
#170 FN/VF £90 (PICTURED) Glossy, white pages, tight staples, minor wear central spine and a small scuff over text box.
#171 VF £90 (PICTURED) Glossy, white to off-white pages, small arrival date top of masthead box, tight staples, minimal wear.
#172 FN- p £27

*Marvel: Three low grade reading copies of Marvel firsts this week. These all have loose or detached staples, significant cover creasing or chips out. They won’t look great in your collection, but they are complete and if you’re on a budget, represent a chance to get hold of issues which would normally be much more expensive.
IN THIS UPDATE: ALL SOLD
MARVEL PRESENTS #3 (1ST OF GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY SERIES) FA p £8
MS MARVEL #1 FA p £21
NOVA #1 FA p £13

*Miscellaneous 1940-1959: Here’s an oddity. Technically a one-shot, Fox’s Variety Comics was made up of four coverless Fox comics. Since Fox often started their story on the inside cover, discarding the original cover removed the first page of the first story of each rebound book. Even more bizarre than the British rebound comics of the 1960s known as Double Double Comics which employed the same tactics (but with the stories complete). As with Double Doubles, the contents varied beneath the same cover and various combinations of content of this have been reported. I wonder (but doubt) whether anyone’s catalogued every possibility. Not too many of these on sale in the UK, we suspect, and probably the Bute Collection has cornered the market on them, with three copies, no less, all different, although sharing the common cover to all copies. Details below:
PICTURED: VARIETY COMICS
COPY A GD/VG £60 Contains My Secret Story, Crimes By Women, Dr. Jekyll & Mr Hyde, My Secret Affair. Bright copy with spine wear and small split at bottom. Good staples. SOLD
COPY B GD £50 Contains Crimes By Women (different issue to Copy A), My Love Memoirs, Jungle Lil, Romeo Tubbs. Bright copy with upper and lower spine wear/splits (bits of spine missing), Good staples. SOLD
COPY C FA/GD £40 Contains My Secret Story (same as Copy A), Blue Beetle, Black Tarantula, Jungle Lil (same as Copy A). Slight fade to cover colour. Spine wear with lower split. Good staples. SOLD

*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: Top Spot, starting in 1958, was an unusual and not altogether successful attempt to link something like a traditional boys’ comic (albeit with more adult storylines) with the world of glamour, sport and showbiz (a la Tit-Bits or Reveille). Thus photos and articles on glamour stars would sit alongside quality picture strip stories of crime, sport, western and action. Despite being a publication of some quality, the experiment failed and the comic was merged with Film Fun after a year and a bit. This week we have the second and third issues of Top Spot available, both with their original Free Gifts (which we’ve never seen before).
PICTURED: TOP SPOT BOTH SOLD
#2 GD/VG £40 WITH FREE GIFT (VG): Top Shots In Sport Book. Rusty staples with little migration; small foxing spots and worn bottom edge. Free Gift nice, flat and clean. 
#3 VG £40 WITH FREE GIFT (VG): Drumming Up The Stars Book (of music and film). Rusty staples with little migration; small foxing spots. Free Gift nice, flat and clean.

*DC: A collection of misfits with strange powers, hated and feared by the world they protect, led by a paraplegic genius in a wheelchair. Sound familiar? Well, guess again – almost simultaneously with the debut of the X-Men at Marvel, DC made their moribund title My Greatest Adventure the home of the ‘Doom Patrol’, created by Arnold Drake and Bruno Premiani. While the similarities between the X-Men and the DP are marked, the differences provide a significant contrast – the X-Men are teens, in a special school, with little experience of the world, while the Doom Patrol are all adults with successful careers and lives that they lost when a twisted fate granted them powers which would ostracise and, ultimately, possibly destroy them. The tone was altogether darker, and the series caught on, taking over the title, running to #121, and various reiterations of the team have been mainstays of the DCU ever since. The live-action Netflix TV show is a big hit. This copy of the Doom Patrol’s first appearance (as well as that of their arch-enemy General Immortus) is a reasonable-looking lower graded copy, pence stamped. The cover has nice colour and some gloss, the staples are firmly attached at spine and centrefiold and the pages are a particularly nice off-white. There is moderate wear at all edges and corner blunting, with small colour-breaking creases in the lower right corner, and a tiny chip out of centre top (the chip is detached, but present). The cover image is strong, vivid and unmarked but for the wear already detailed. 
PICTURED: MY GREATEST ADVENTURE #80 GD/VG p £350 SOLD

*DC: Although a bit ‘modern’ by our normal standards, this landmark Elseworlds mini-series is of such a high quality that we couldn’t leave it out of our catalogue. Four deluxe squarebound issues, written by fan favourite writer Mark Waid and painted (covers AND interiors) by fan favourite artist Alex Ross, Kingdom Come presents a powerful tale of the entire DCU and a future that may or may not come to pass. If you’ve not read this nor feasted your eyes on the superlative artwork, do yourself a favour and get to your electronic communication device of choice and rush off an email to us now. Who knows? You might be first! All four issues in one lot, all high grade but with a few small marks and creases, but nothing horrible.
PICTURED: KINGDOM COME #1 VF/NM (ALSO #2-4 VF) COMPLETE SET £50 SOLD

*Marvel: One of the more tragic entries in Spider-Man’s Rogue’s Gallery is the Lizard, a.k.a. Dr. Curt Connors, a dedicated scientist and devoted husband and father whose research into a regenerative serum, to help himself and other amputees, went horribly wrong when the lizard-like properties of tissue regeneration ran rampant, turning him into a humanoid reptile. The Lizard debuted in the sixth issue of Spider-Man, and the Good Doctor copy is a pence printed comic with many flaws, but is thus very affordable. The cover is taped to the comic on the inside and there is a long taped tear horizontally across half the back cover. Many creases and wrinkles to the front cover, but just a few colour-breaking short lines and spots. The worst aspect is probably a corner off the splash page (approx 6 x 10 cm but variable diagonally) which does impinge on the story. We have shown this in an image below. All the other pages are not affected by this, although there are also two ad. pages missing. Normally we don’t sell comics with a part page missing, but this is one of those exceptions where the comic is so significant, we believe it would have collector appeal even in this condition. (For those looking for a nicer copy, we have a FN/VF copy already listed in our catalogue).
PICTURED: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #6 App FA/GD p £200 SOLD

*Marvel: Let’s be honest, on the face of it, the She-Hulk sounded like a really lame idea when we first heard of her — what was to follow? Hulk-Hound, the Hulkmobile, Planet Hulk? But intermittently chartreuse lawyer Jen Walters has gone on to become one of the most enduring and endearing characters in the Marvel Universe, with creators such as John Byrne and Dan Slott providing charm, wit and (mostly) intelligent humour in her own series and during tenures with the Avengers and the Fantastic Four. There wasn’t too much trace of that in Jen’s first series, the Savage She-Hulk, when it saw the light of day back in 1980 and she was as angry as her cousin (though didn’t burst out of quite as much of her clothing, thanks to the exigencies of the Comics Code Authority) but Savage She-Hulk #1 – by the legendary creators Stan Lee and John Buscema – is where Jen’s illustrious career got its start. And very soon, Shulkie will be bursting on to our screens in her own TV series, so a good time to invest in her first appearance. Non-distributed in the UK, so there are no pence copies. This is a high grade copy, vivid colour with gloss, flat with firm tight staples, brilliant white background, lovely white to off-white pages. Just the very slightest bit of corner blunting, a short and almost invisible crease by the number box and what looks like a biro line (0.5 cm) below the ‘M’ in Marvel are the only blemishes on this beautiful copy.
PICTURED: SAVAGE SHE-HULK #1 VF+ £165 SOLD

*Miscellaneous 1940-1959: Just one comic from the Bute Collection this week, but it’s a goodie! We’re especially pleased to be able to present an issue of the famous All Winners, #13 from 1944, which features the big three Timely heroes: the Human Torch, Captain America and the Sub-Mariner, plus the Whizzer (no slouch himself) in individual stories. It wasn’t until issue #19 that they were all to team up as the All Winners Squad, but Cap & Bucky, the Torch & Toro and Subby are all teamed up on the wonderful Alex Schomburg cover to this issue. Extra fun features include a pictorial message from Cap advising a waste paper drive for the war effort and an ad for Miss America magazine, with a photo of the Miss America model in costume. This issue, as was not uncommon, was printed with just one central staple; this is a little loose but firmly attached enough. There is some spine and minor edge wear and corner blunting, but the comic lies flat with no marks on the cover, except for a little grubbiness above the logo. The pages are nice and remarkably well-preserved for their age. We see precious few Golden Age Timelys and demand is phenomenal. High resolution images are available on request, but there is a good chance someone will order this before we can get those to you.
PICTURED: ALL-WINNERS #13 VG- £1,750 SOLD

*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: For this week’s British #1 spotlight, we turn to a classic from 1962: the very first issue of Valiant, the anthology which re-invented the adventure weekly for a modern audience, and prompted makeovers in its stablemates Lion and Tiger. Featuring the debuts of Captain Hurricane (much less comedic than he became in later years) and the anti-hero Steel Claw, as well as long-running comedy series The Nutts, this was the foundation of a fifteen-year run. A genuine milestone in the British comics field, setting the template for myriad rivals and successors. This very acceptable copy is clean and generally structurally sound (apart from a 3 cm lower spine cover split).  No pen or pencil marks, just slight yellowing at the edges and  a spot of rust at the staples with no migration.
PICTURED: VALIANT #1 4/10/62 VG £80 SOLD