*Marvel: As befits its status as the premier series of the Marvel Universe, the Fantastic Four has launched many secondary careers of the FF’s foes and friends who first appeared as guest-stars, then graduated to their own series. The Silver Surfer, the Inhumans, the Black Panther and many others have debuted this way, and in Fantastic Four #66, we were introduced to a mysterious cocooned figure who emerged the following issue as ‘Him’, a being of almost godlike power. Later, he would be named Warlock and would enjoy a chequered career of critical acclaim, but haphazard commercial success, coming into his own with Jim Starlin’s controversial series of the 1970s. These two issues see the first appearance of the character, though he was not fully revealed until the second half of the two-part story. Issue #66 is a very sound copy, with great cover colour and gloss, tight staples and only minor edge wear; a couple of short vertical creases at the right edge. Issue #67 is okay, with good staples and nice page quality; there is a faint vestige of a subscription crease and colour-breaking creases across the top and bottom right corners.
PICTURED: FANTASTIC FOUR
#66 FN+ £75
#67 VG £80 

*Marvel: Smack in the middle of Todd McFarlane’s run on Amazing Spider-Man comes issue #316, featuring the first cover appearance of Venom, the character that defined this period. There’s little doubt that Venom is one of the few Marvel characters originating later than the Bronze Age who has gone on to become a cornerstone of the Marvel Universe. This classic cover issue is a lovely VF+, with just minimal stress marks at spine (and mostly to the back cover); fresh, glossy and vibrant.
PICTURED: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #316  VF+ £65 SOLD

*Marvel: Although Bill Foster first appeared in Avengers #32 (1966), it wasn’t until 9 years later that he became Black Goliath, following in the footsteps of his boss Hank Pym. After a trial in Luke Cage, Power Man, he graduated into his own series in 1976. Although short-lived (only five issues), it has the advantages of being inexpensive and an easy run to complete. In fact, you can do that right here right now as all five issues are fresh into stock. See our catalogue for full details.
PICTURED: BLACK GOLIATH #1 FN p £20 SOLD

*Marvel: A chunky update to our stocks for Marvel’s Merry Mutants this week, all from their original run, starting with #11 (1st Stranger), the last Jack Kirby issue, all the way through to #66 (final issue before reprints began). Along the way, among many others, we take in #15 & #16 (2nd and 3rd Sentinels), #19 (1st Mimic), #28 (1st Banshee), and #39 (new costumes). All issues newly listed were previously missing from our catalogue. 

*Vintage UK/Australian Reprints of US Material: It’s hard to overstate the popularity of the Lucille Ball vehicle sitcom ‘I Love Lucy’ which ran from 1951 to 1957 in the USA and seemingly for years afterwards all round the world. The top-rated show of its time on American TV and, as this comic version proclaimed: ‘Britain’s favourite television star’. Certainly as I was growing up, I can remember it always seemed to be on TV. Inevitably, a comic adaptation followed and this British version (reprinting the Dell series) started in 1954 and ran for 16 issues and we have over half of them new in between #1 to #16.
PICTURED: I LOVE LUCY #1 FN £10 SOLD

*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: We have some fun giveaways for anyone placing an order (£10 minimum) for vintage Eagle comics (1st series). Included with the order will be between 1-4 pieces of Dan Dare/Eagle Ephemera consisting of convention poster, booking form, Dan Dare print by Frank Bellamy and an exhibition flyer. Early orders will get all four, but we have different amounts of each, so as they run down, later orders will get reducing numbers. One pack per customer only while stocks last.

*Boys’ Adventure & War Picture Libraries: A small update to our stocks of the hugely popular Air Ace Picture Library between #20 and #480.
PICTURED: AIR ACE #20 VG £15

*Girls’ Comics: Two issues of each of Diana & Jackie from the 1970s that were published with Free Gifts, but in these cases, the gifts are no longer present. Diana #472 had ‘The Sunshine Bracelet’, #590 ‘The Super Double-Comb’; Jackie #322 had the ‘Personality Guide’, #475 ‘The Pop Heart Brooch’. Grade and pricing information in our catalogue. NB These are the comics only WITHOUT gifts.

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 Picture Libraries
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: From 2004, the highly-prized mini-series Batman: Harley & Ivy, starring you-know-who. Written and drawn by the HQ creators Paul Dini and Bruce Timm, this has all the wit and charm that somehow seems to have got subsequently lost with the mass dilution of these characters in more recent years. All three NM issues on sale as a complete set. 
PICTURED: BATMAN: HARLEY & IVY #1 NM; COMPLETE SET 1-3 NM £50

*Marvel: By his 101st issue, Spider-Man had become temporarily encumbered with six arms, leaving him a true eight-limbed arachnoid hero; but more importantly, he met a foe who was destined to become one of the Marvel Universe’s prime anti-heroes. Following the 1971 relaxation of the Comics Code Authority (which had hitherto banned mention of vampires and werewolves in the wake of the 1950s horror comics scare), the floodgates were opened for all manner of supernatural beings; one of the first was Michael Morbius, tragic scientist who, while not a traditional vampire, gained many vampiric attributes after an experiment gone awry. Among said attributes: enhanced strength, speed, senses… and an uncontrollable craving for human blood. A big hit with the Spider-Man audience, Morbius the Living Vampire made a rapid reappearance in Marvel Team-Up #3, graduating to his own series in Fear thereafter. There have been several Morbius series in the intervening decades, and the trailers for the Morbius flick are out on the web as I write, leading to a heightened demand for his premier appearance. This is a beautiful pence priced copy, unmarked, glossy, supple, tight and flat with firmly attached staples, sharp corners and just a hint of edge wear, but virtually nothing. A high grade copy of a landmark issue. High resolution images are available on request.
PICTURED: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #101 VF p £525

*Marvel: Issue #33 of the Amazing Spider-Man is a lot of people’s favourite issue, and a Lee & Ditko classic. A great cover, with Spidey trapped under impossibly heavy machinery as water splashes down all around. And that full page Ditko illustration inside, where, beset by worries about his aunt’s health, he exerts himself as never before to throw off the machinery — possibly my favourite Spidey moment! Not that you’ll see that with this CGC issue unless you crack it open, but at least you can have the satisfaction of knowing that you have a true gem in your collection! Universal unrestored blue label.
PICTURED: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #33 CGC 4.5 VG+ p £110 SOLD

*Marvel: The Black Panther’s series in Jungle Action, which attracted a lot of acclaim at the time, was known for being verbose, introspective, reflective and philosophical. When the character’s co-creator, Jack Kirby, took over as writer and artist on T’Challa’s follow-up solo series, the results were… a considerable contrast. Shouting! Explosions! Aliens! Time-Travel! Implausibly-muscled ladies with black lipstick! Cosmic critters! All were here, and all playing at full volume all the time, in the crazed kinetic frenzy that Kirby was renowned for. Since the major movie hit (with a sequel just confirmed), the King of Wakanda’s star is ever-ascendant, and this issue especially always sells very briskly because of its – frankly – high loopiness quotient. We have a copy of #1 fresh in, with some edge wear and spine stresses, but nothing serious, plus issues #7-15 (final issue of series). See our catalogue for full details.
PICTURED: BLACK PANTHER #1 FN p £40

*Marvel: In the 1970s, Marvel was experimenting with a wide range of genres, and the dystopic near-future science-fiction field showed promise, with Killraven over in Amazing Adventures and, here in Astonishing Tales #25, the premier of Deathlok, a cyborg assassin who rebelled against his programming and searched for his purpose – while shooting people a lot. The creation of Rich Buckler and Doug Moench, Deathlok has remained a fixture in the Marvel Universe – including his portrayal by August Richards in the Agents of SHIELD TV series – and this copy of his debut issue is a superior pence priced copy, tight and flat with firmly-attached staples and sharp corners; nice pages, with just a little tanning at the edges. Completist bonus: AT #25 also features a two-pager with George Perez’s first Marvel artwork!
PICTURED: ASTONISHING TALES #25 FN+ p £55

*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. For some reason (possibly page count?), in reprinting Avengers #8 (debut of Kang), Miller chose not to use the original, more dynamic cover and instead substituted the splash page on the cover, giving this version a unique look. A nice copy with just minor edge wear and stress and the previous owner’s name in biro below the logo; lovely white pages and a good, solid spine.
PICTURED: MYSTIC #56 FN- £55 SOLD

*Collected Editions: The Smash! title is a bit of a misnomer here, since most of the characters featured appeared in Fleetway titles such as Lion & Valiant, but there’s no doubt that the roll call reads like a Who’s Who of famous IPC characters, here portrayed in brand new full colour stories by the cream of current British creators: The Spider, Thunderbolt the Avenger, Johnny Future, The Steel Claw, Mytek the Mighty, Cursitor Doom, Jason Hyde & the House of Dollman. Great fun and value and wonderful to see these features with new life!
PICTURED: SMASH! SPECIAL 2020 NEW/MINT £5

*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. This update sees some of the earliest issues of this iconic title, most in fact between #3 and #20, back into stock.
PICTURED: 2000 AD #3 FN £30 (NB no Free Gift) SOLD

*Girls’ Comics: Launched as a stablemate to Tammy in 1972, IPC/Fleetway’s Sandie mined all the topics beloved by pre-teen girls; enslavement, cruelty, betrayal, rejection and loneliness, in serials with titles like ‘The School of No Escape!’, ‘No-One Cheers For Norah!’, ‘Lornas’s Lonely Days!’ and ‘Anna’s Forbidden Friend!’. Despite this angst-sodden line-up, and some top-notch talent, Sandie never really caught fire, and after 89 issues folded into June, with ‘Wee Sue’ (plucky mite who despite her tiny stature is irritatingly good at everything) being the only long-lasting ‘transfer’. Nowadays, though, Sandie is highly collectible precisely for its woe-laden narratives. We have over 50 issues new in, including #1, the sole Christmas issue and the final issue.
PICTURED: SANDIE 12/2/72 (1st issue) VG £20

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 T-Z
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: Not bearing much resemblance to the Suicide Squad of the recent DCU, Rick Flag and his adventuring chums, also dubbed Task Force X, were the first feature to appear in Brave & Bold as it switched to a try-out title with issue #25. The first sequence lasted until #27, and they returned for a further three issues from #37 to #39, but obviously weren’t popular enough for their own series. A shame, because I enjoyed the dinosaurs and other monsters they came up against and the Andru and Esposito art was, in my opinion, among the finest from that team. We have all six issues new in, but in lowish grade. The debut issue, #25, which is hard to find, particularly in the UK, is a wrecked, incomplete copy, with half a story page missing and the remaining half a page loose. Extensive lower spine split, water-stained cover and some interior pages at top margins; loose centrefold. Only good to fill a gap in your collection till a better one comes along. We don’t normally sell comics with story content missing, but make an exception for something as rare and significant as this. Grades and prices for all issues listed in our catalogue.
PICTURED: BRAVE & BOLD #25 PR £50 SOLD

*Marvel: So, you think your Spider-Man collection is complete? We bet you haven’t got this one! Probably the rarest Amazing Spider-Man issue of them all… As far as anyone knows, there are only 4 or 5 of these Green Spidey misprints of Amazing Spider-Man #5 in existence. Spider-Man was miscoloured on pages 13 and 15, with the red parts of his costume in green (and Doctor Doom too, where the green parts of his costume were coloured red). Then the presses were stopped and the ink error corrected. So here’s your chance to experience Spidey’s clash with Doctor Doom like never before! This is a lovely FN cents copy, tight and flat with some cover gloss, firmly attached staples, nice off-white to white pages, no markings and a minimal amount of edge wear and corner blunting. There is one tiny (and we do mean tiny) chip off the upper right corner of the cover above the Comics Code label. And of course, those all-important miscoloured pages, shown below. High resolution images of front and back covers and splash are available on request.
PICTURED: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #5 GREEN SPIDEY VARIANT FN £1,350 SOLD

*Marvel: 1965’s Fantastic Four #45 saw the culmination of a long-running subplot – and the introduction of a whole new family of supporting super-stars. Since #36, the mysterious Madame Medusa had been a thorn in the side of the FF, and latterly, from #44, she had been pursued by the equally mysterious Gorgon. Now, the pair’s true origin, and their royal heritage, was revealed, as the monarchs of the Inhumans made their debut in these two issues. Black Bolt, Crystal, Triton, Karnak and Lockjaw rounded out the Royal Family tree, and became long-running allies of the Fantastic Four. New CGC copies of both #45 and #46 in this week. #45 is 4.5 VG+ and  #46 (the first full Black Bolt, having teased us with a cameo in the preceding issue) is 7.5 VF-. Both are cents copies, universal unrestored blue label. Great covers on these issues.
PICTURED: FANTASTIC FOUR
#45 4.5 £145 SOLD
#46 7.5 £225 SOLD

*Marvel: Was Namor or was he not an Evil Mutant? Well, he joined them briefly in this issue as a result of Magneto’s machinations, but after a tussle with the X-Men, involving the BEM, he soon realised the error of his ways and returned to Atlantis. In a running theme here, I must remark on the cover colourist’s continuing faux pas. Although he got the Scarlet Witch in scarlet this time round (following the mysterious Emerald Witch on #4 & #5 covers), Subby is sporting a pair of red pants rather than the customary green he wears inside. A decent copy, with the pence printed price blacked out, some edge wear and corner blunting and a faint subscription-like crease down the middle which just breaks colour for a few cms. Reasonable pages and firmly-attached staples.
PICTURED: X-MEN #6 GD+ p £90 SOLD

*Marvel: Among the more popular of Spidey’s allies debuting in one of his titles are Cloak and Dagger, the light/darkness team who first appeared in Spectacular Spider-Man #64. They went on to star across the Marvel Universe, in their own strip and own titles, eventually getting their own TV series in 2018/19. We have a lovely high grade copy of their first appearance fresh into stock.
PICTURED: SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN #64 VF/NM £65

*Horror 1940-1959: Superior was a Canadian publisher active from 1945-1956 who mostly reprinted American comics from the same time period. They also published a number of original series that were distributed in the United States. Among these were three horror titles famous for their hallucinogenic covers and accomplished Fiction House style interior art. When you see a lot of these together, they have an almost hypnotic and uncomfortable effect. Our focus this week is on issues #1-3 of one of those titles: Strange Mysteries; mixed grade copies, with specific defects listed below.
PICTURED: STRANGE MYSTERIES
#1 GD/VG £300 Spine roll
#2 VG £230 Taped sealed small tears near both rear staples and right edge of cover SOLD
#3 FA £55 Spine has glue repairs; small piece of tape inside front cover RESERVED