*Marvel: What’s Old is our feature where we highlight stuff from our catalogue that you may have missed. One of the later breakout characters of Marvel, Frank Castle, aka bereaved urban vigilante the Punisher, became one of the company’s super-stars in the 1990s, but had spent most of the previous two decades ‘bubbling under’ as a guest-starring anti-hero. His media presence – and commercial appeal – has been heightened by numerous film and TV appearances. The Punisher’s first appearance in Amazing Spider-Man #129, February 1974, is particularly rare in the UK, where, owing to the presence of Spider-Man Comics Weekly, the US title was embargoed for distribution for several years. This is a cents copy (there are no pence copies, of course), CGC certified Blue Label (no restoration) graded 9.4 (NM equivalent).
PICTURED: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #129 CGC 9.4 NM £2500 SOLD

*Marvel: From 1981, and the days when alternate future storylines were not nearly as cliched as they’ve since become, one of the most compelling of them all: the classic ‘Days Of Future Past’ two-parter from X-Men #141/142 by Claremont & Byrne. This was virtually Byrne’s swan song on the title. Featuring an aged X-Men line-up against the Sentinels (and the first appearance of Rachel Summers, who became Excalibur’s Phoenix, (later Marvel Girl II)), this really is the story where, as the cover gleefully proclaims, “Everybody Dies!” Already a sought-after two-parter, but its popularity (and value!) skyrocketed after the release of the X-Men film, ‘Days of Future Past’, which adapted the narrative to the big screen (though, it must be said, Wolverine was very unconvincing in the role of Kitty Pryde…).
PICTURED: X-MEN
#141 VF- p £55
#142 VF- £40

*Marvel: The Captain America half of Tales of Suspense #75 introduced not one, but two, characters who were to factor largely in the life of the Star-Spangled Avenger. One was Batroc the Leaper, the savate-stomping stereotype who has unexpectedly kick-boxed his way into the hearts of fandom, who know him with affectionate derision as ‘Batroc Zee Leapair’; the other was Sharon Carter, a.k.a. Agent 13 of SHIELD, in this story a nameless young woman whose innocent appearance conceals a deadly skill set – and who became the second love of Cap’s life. This is a lower graded cents copy with heavy spine roll, tanned interior covers and edge wear, particularly at spine, but is otherwise okay, with good staples and decent pages.
PICTURED: TALES OF SUSPENSE #75 GD/VG £30 SOLD

*Marvel: The ‘What If’ franchise has been an enduringly popular one for Marvel over the years (although it was DC who pioneered the concept with their ‘Imaginary Stories’ back in the 1960s), so we’ve expanded our catalogue to add a couple of dozen issues from the second series from 1989 onwards. Each issue done-in-one, the many stars of the Marvel Universe are featured.

*Miscellaneous 1940-1959: It’s a thing, isn’t it? Girls menaced by robots in the Golden Age. One only has to think of the classic advertising posters for the Forbidden Planet movie to see the iconography of this type of image. Planet Comics #70, Robotmen of the Lost Planet, countless others. Perhaps the most famous of these is Nedor’s Startling Comics #49 by Alex Schomburg. Whilst the prices on this have risen stratospherically out of reach for the average collector, the lesser known Brick Bradford #6 from King Features in 1948 provides a relatively more affordable alternative. Brick Bradford is a space adventurer in the mould of Flash Gordon, with his adventures more than competently illustrated by Clarence Gray. But it’s the cover of #6 that’s the big selling point. Drawn by Alex Schomburg, a typical Schomburg robot menaces our heroine, with Brick there to save the day. This is a superb copy for a comic published in 1948, with vivid colour, flat with tight staples, great page quality and only very minimal wear. What looks like an arrival date is pencilled near the robot’s head and a faint trace of a non-colour breaking crease can just be made out close to the right bottom edge. There is a very small scuff at the top of the spine, but this hardly shows against the yellow background. I doubt there’s many better copies in existence. High resolution images are available on request.
PICTURED: BRICK BRADFORD #6 FN- £750 SOLD

*Alan Class Reprints: A couple of really unusual items from the Alan Class vaults this week. First up, Astounding Stories #150. This copy (and we’re not sure if this applies to all copies) has several pages printed more than once (including part of the Marvel BPM Spragg story). What makes it unique is a sheet of Alan’s handwritten instructions to the printers advising them that the flongs (the plastic or papier mache plates that the pages are printed from) were uncut on presentation and therefore not in the right order, so to make sure they double-checked the correct running order for the pages, an instruction they seem to have ignored! Secondly, Creepy Worlds #73, which reprints the Dr Strange story from Strange Tales #123 by Lee & Ditko, where the Master of the Mystic Arts comes up against Loki, with Thor guest-starring. This copy comes with the full Dr. Strange story in printer’s proof form i.e. black and white copies. Both issues of course are accompanied by a hand-signed certificate from Alan Class himself. Your chance to own a unique piece of Alan Class history!
PICTURED:
ASTOUNDING STORIES #150 VG £20 With Alan Class instruction sheet SOLD
CREEPY WORLDS #73 VG £40 With Dr. Strange story printer’s proofs SOLD

*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: Created as a companion to Hotspur, Hornet’s star was ‘Bouncing’ Bernard Briggs, soccer goalie (and later jack-of-all-sports – British comics presented sportsmen the way American ones did scientists, with all the disciplines being interchangeable), who was the only survivor from the original line-up to make it all the way to the end. After a very respectable run, Bernard, along with everlasting wonder-man ‘Wilson’, crossed over to Hotspur. But this week we have Hornet from the beginning, with the vast majority of its first two years, 1963 and 1964, in a mixture of grades, including the first three issues. The first issue is a nice copy, but with a small tear at the lower left cover margin.
PICTURED: HORNET #1 GD/VG £45 SOLD

*Girls’ Comics: Two Free Gift issues from the long-running Judy this week: #419 (1968) features a pristine sheet of stick-on ‘Funflowers’; #475 (1969) features a ‘Two-In-One Bracelet’, still sealed in its original envelope.
PICTURED: JUDY BOTH SOLD
#419 VG/FN WITH FREE GIFT VF £30
#475 VG/FN WITH FREE GIFT VF £40

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 Books section:
*Crime, Spies & Sleaze
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: What’s Old is our feature where we highlight stuff from our catalogue that you may have missed. In the wake of the successful Silver Age revivals of Flash and Green Lantern, DC decided to try one of their most popular Golden Age characters, Hawkman, recast in a ‘Space-Age’ mode. This version was Katar Hol, police officer sent from Thanagar to study Earth law-enforcement customs, and his helpmate Hawkgirl was no silly debutante as in the original, but rather his colleague in policing, and his wife. A husband-and-wife superhero team was virtually unheard-of at that time, and Gardner Fox’s scripting, gave equal time to both Hawks. Superbly illustrated, first by Joe Kubert, then by Murphy Anderson, the Hawk’s adventures combined a true partnership of equals with derring-do all over Earth and on other worlds. We’re proud to have the first Hawkman revival issue, Brave & Bold #34, available in a choice of two grades and prices. There’s a Fine copy, pence stamped, with good cover colour and gloss, tight and flat except for some very minor non-colour breaking creasing near the top edge and a faint small crease across the top right corner; great page quality and a fresh, supple copy, with minimal spine and edge wear. Our second copy is GD (cents), with moderate spine and edge wear and corner blunting, but unspoilt cover image; specific defects are a fingernail-size chip out of the bottom edge near the spine and interior tape to front and back cover interiors along the spine. I bang on a bit about the quality of DC’s colour palette at this time; here the deep blue background gives this awesome cover an almost 3D effect. One of my favourite comics.
PICTURED: BRAVE & BOLD #34
FN p £370
GD £125 SOLD

*DC/Marvel: In the midst of a great many company crossover events between the Big Two came Spider-Man & Batman, starring the most popular character from each company. It’s a nice package, squarebound with an embossed shiny cover and featuring the Joker and Carnage as the baddies. Written by J. M. DeMatteis and drawn by Mark Bagley, you know what? It’s actually pretty good, and in a sparkling NM condition to boot!
PICTURED: SPIDER-MAN & BATMAN NM £35

*Marvel: Another fabulous issue of Amazing Spider-Man drawn by Steve Ditko this week. #34 features Spidey’s re-match with Kraven the Hunter and is a sound pence printed copy with a cover unmarked but for a narrow dust shadow along the right edge, good firm staples and minor edge wear and corner blunting; nice page quality and minor tanning to the edges of inside covers.
PICTURED: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #34 VG p £50 SOLD

*Marvel: In August 1967’s Avengers #43, we found out that the Black Widow’s nom-du-guerre was a teeny bit inaccurate, as her previously ‘deceased’ husband was discovered, not only alive, but the first subject of the Soviet Union’s own super-soldier project, the Red Guardian! Now announced as one of the major figures of the BW film (though whether as antagonist or ally is not yet known), the Red Guardian’s debut is a low grade good pence printed copy with heavy spine roll and misaligned staples, but otherwise okay. Avengers #83 saw several of Marvel’s fabulous femmes – Black Widow, Medusa, the Scarlet Witch and the Wasp – join forces as the Lady Liberators, under the leadership of the vivacious Valkyrie! Val’s origins and history are too complex to go into here, but this was the first appearance of the Valkyrie character and persona, as later portrayed by Tessa Thompson in ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ and ‘Avengers: Endgame’. This is a respectable mid-grade pence printed copy with the only specific defect being a small tear on the back cover at the base of the spine.
PICTURED: AVENGERS
#43 GD p £25 SOLD
#83 VG+p £45

*Marvel: After a one-off black & white magazine in 1975, Legion of Monsters, used up a rag-bag of separate inventory stories starring Frankenstein’s Monster, Dracula, Manphibian and other horror heroes, someone at Marvel decided that the title was nifty enough to merit a further outing, and therefore the bizarre and otherwise inexplicable Marvel Premiere #28 came about. Unlike the Legion of Monsters one-shot, which featured unrelated stories, Marvel Premiere #28 brought Ghost Rider, Man-Thing, Werewolf By Night and Morbius the Living Vampire together as an actual team, albeit one even more mis-matched than the Champions! From the team of Bill Mantlo and Frank Robbins, it’s… everything you might expect! For decades discarded in bargain boxes everywhere, this issue has acquired white-hot collector’s status in the last decade. Our latest copy is a glossy, flat pence printed comic with just minor edge and spine wear; the grade is brought down by a small tear and loose but attached chip mid right edge of the cover.
PICTURED: MARVEL PREMIERE #28 VG p £35 SOLD

*Marvel: Another expansion to our catalogue as we unleash more of the second Spider-Man title, Spectacular Spider-Man, with issues between #152 & #200 joining our inventory. Highlights in this period include Spidey getting cosmic powers in #158 and the giant-size foil cover 200th issue with the Green Goblin.

*War: We conclude our massive sequence of updates to our War stock with a large selection of DC titles, starting out with Captain Storm and G I Combat. There’s a lot of Our Army At War, featuring Sgt Rock (including #162 with the Viking Price), but mostly nice copies in the 200’s range. Our Fighting Forces commences with some relatively early issues with Gunner, Sarge & Pooch, then moving on to the Losers (inc #123, the first Losers app). Star Spangled War starts out with dinosaurs in ‘The War That Time Forgot’; there’s solitary Enemy Ace and Unknown Soldier issues, and we round off with several issues of Weird War Tales. Much lovely Joe Kubert artwork, particularly on covers, is in evidence, but there’s also Toth, Heath and even Kirby within these pages. That’s it — war is over (at least for now), Merry Christmas (as someone once sang). Peace has broken out. 
PICTURED:
OUR ARMY AT WAR #162 VF- £48
OUR FIGHTING FORCES #123 FN+ £28 
STAR SPANGLED WAR STORIES #120 FN+ p £38 SOLD

*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: The D.C. Thomson story paper Wizard, launched in 1922, was laid to rest in 1963 – but after a decent interval the Powers-That-Be tried Wizard again, this time in comic strip format. The fact that football dominated its content (although there were also adventure strips and features) is reflected in this Free Gift selection from its second year in 1971. Both these items come with a sticky problem. #55 comes with a Giant Football Wall Chart (too big to show here other than in its folded state) and a sheet of six footballer figures to stick on it; the latter comes on an uncut sheet which is glued into the spine of the comic’s interior. #56 has a similar sheet of 12 to complete the chart, but this is actually stuck to an interior page. We’ve showed the interiors on these to illustrate the gifts.
PICTURED: WIZARD BOTH SOLD
#55 GD WITH FREE GIFTS FN £25
#56 VG WITH FREE GIFT VG £25

*Humour Comics: We’re very pleased to present a decent copy of the 1st Dandy Summer Special from 1964, which we very rarely see. This copy is in quite reasonable condition, with the odd tiny nick, minor creasing and some edge wear with very minor foxing, and the bottom right corner of the back cover is slightly dog-eared, but the staples are good, all pages firmly attached and the colours are strong. All the contemporary comic favourites are present: Korky the Cat, Desperate Dan, Winker Watson, Dirty Dick, Joe White and the Seven Dwarves, Smasher, Big Head & Thick Head and more.
PICTURED: DANDY SUMMER SPECIAL 1964 GD £125 SOLD

*Girls’ Comics: A significant update to the last five years of the hugely popular June; whilst by no means a continuous run, every year from 1970 to 1974 is well represented in this update, replenishing our depleted stocks. A Christmas issue, issues with Promotional Flyers, the final issue (15/6/74) and, in 4/7/70, the delightful debut of Glory Knight, time travel courier, who you can read about in Will’s article.
PICTURED: JUNE 4/7/70 VG/FN £9

*DC: A pair of beauties that are among the closest to our collective hearts here at 30th Century – in Justice League of America #21 & #22, the ground-breaking ‘Crisis On Earth-One’ and ‘Crisis On Earth-Two’ the heroes of the Justice League met their parallel world counterparts, the Justice Society of America, for the first time, and an annual tradition was formed. Superbly created by Gardner Fox, Mike Sekowsky and Bernard Sachs, the multiple heroes and villains of these stories were expertly juggled, with everyone getting their moment to shine. The DC palette of cover colours were superbly used here with deep purple and almost turquoise blue backgrounds making the figures seem to leap off the covers, and these two well-preserved examples are just right to appreciate that. Both VG+ pence stamped, they have a little edge wear, handling wear and corner blunting, but tight staples and nice page quality, with unmarred cover images. I was blown away by the concept when I read these as a kid in 1963 — now’s your chance to be blown away too!
PICTURED: JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA
#21 VG+ p £70
#22 VG+ p £60

*DC: In 1964, with issue #164, newly transferred editor Julius Schwartz ushered in the ‘New Look’ for Batman; the Caped Crusader gained a yellow circle around the bat emblem on his chest and the tone of the stories changed to emphasize mystery and crime, away from the science-fiction tales so often employed in the ‘Old Look’, with monsters, aliens, super-powered villains and the Batman Family, including Alfred, Batwoman, Bat-Girl and Ace the Bat-Hound. All of these novelties can be found in this selection between #138 & #162, and the Joker himself pops up in #140 and #152 (although in the latter he is in disguise for much of his story). As much as Batman is famed for the dark and gritty period which followed, the whimsy of these ‘Old Look’ stories is quite charming and has quite a following.
PICTURED: BATMAN #152 VG p £40 SOLD

*Marvel: This week’s Spider-Mania entry features two first issues. First up, from 1976, Spectacular Spider-Man #1, the second ongoing Spidey series with a tussle with the Tarantula, a VF pence copy with a slight bit of white spine syndrome i.e. with the cover printed slightly to the right of centre. Secondly, the gold version of the hugely successful Spider-Man #1 series by Todd MacFarlane from 1990 in sparkling VF/NM; there are a lot of variations of this issue to collect, and this is one of the less common ones, so here’s a good place to start.
PICTURED:
SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN #1 VF p £30
SPIDER-MAN #1 (GOLD VARIANT) VF/NM £30

*Marvel: In 1976, the House Of Ideas came up with Nova, designed originally to be an ‘everyman’ character like Peter Parker/Spider-Man, but quickly developing into a cosmic ‘soldier’ more akin to DC’s Green Lantern – luckily, DC’s lawyers didn’t notice the parallels! Although the original run lasted a mere 25 issues, Nova has returned many times to the Marvel Universe, and where he shines is in the protracted cosmic crossovers of which Marvel is so fond. Our latest copy of Nova #1 is in nice condition, pence printed, with great cover colour and gloss, tight staples, and excellent page quality. Very minor wear at corners and tiny stress marks at spine; there is a short crease across the bottom right corner which barely breaks colour.
PICTURED: NOVA #1 FN p £50

*Marvel: In the wake of other Marvel hits starring occult characters, and with the Exorcist movie taking big box-office, Stan Lee had originally proposed a series starring Satan himself, but Roy Thomas commuted it to Satan’s offspring, a demon/human hybrid who used his evil-spawned power for good, in rebellion against his father. Daimon Hellstrom duly appeared in Ghost Rider #2 as an antagonist before moving into his own solo series in Marvel Spotlight, and then progressing to his own book. Daimon remains a prominent character today in the Marvel Universe, though he doesn’t use the Son of Satan soubriquet any more, and in these more sensitive times his origins are usually politely glossed over. New in, we have the first four issues of the Son of Satan’s own series.
PICTURED: SON OF SATAN #1 FN/VF p £20 SOLD

*Miscellaneous 1960 Onwards: Starting life in the UK magazine Warrior, Alan Moore’s reimagining of the 1950s British hero Marvelman changed his name when crossing the pond to be taken up and completed by US publisher Eclipse. In the 1950s, Marvelman was created by the Mick Anglo Studios to fill the gap left when Len Miller’s rights to reprint Captain Marvel ran out, and Marvelman was very much in the same mould as Captain Marvel, complete with his own ‘family’. Alan Moore changed all that, creating 16 issues of adult and often horrific but always compelling story-telling that remains one of the pinnacles of the medium. Most issues from #1 onwards are now in stock, as well as #1 of the Miracleman Family series, reprinting some of those whimsical 1950s tales.
PICTURED: MIRACLEMAN #1 NM £15