*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

*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 after debuting in issue #2. This update we’re featuring the first two issues of 2000 AD. #1 (1st Flesh, Mach-1, Invasion, Harlem’s Heroes, new Dan Dare) is a VG/FN copy, one of the nicest we’ve seen for a while with cream pages, little wear and the smallest amount of marks where the free gift was taped that we’ve ever seen; there is a small and faint water mark at the very bottom corner of the spine; excellent staples. #2 (1st Judge Dredd) also has nice cream pages, minimal wear with a few what look like foxing spots on the front and back cover margins; excellent staples. Please note there are no Free Gifts with these copies.
PICTURED: 2000 AD
#1 VG/FN £90 SOLD
#2 VG £150 SOLD

*Boys’ Adventure & War Picture Libraries: It’s always nice to get a #1 issue of one of the longest running picture library titles, and this week we’re able to present War Picture Library #1. From 1958, this was one of the first comics in this format and gave rise to a lot of other similar titles from its publisher (Fleetway), rivals D C Thomson, Micron, Pearsons and lots of others. ‘Fight Back To Dunkirk’ presents well, with an unmarked cover image, decent pages and a little edge and spine wear and a small amount of staple rust. 
PICTURED: WAR PICTURE LIBRARY #1 GD/VG £60

*Girls’ Comics: Filling many gaps in our inventory, we’ve restocked Princess Tina with 20+ issues from the transitional period of 1970 and 1971, when the title was shifting from a more traditional younger girls’ weekly to a more teen-friendly format. Many of the regular features – ‘Ross, Student Nurse’, ‘Jackie and the Wild Boys’, ‘Barbie’, ‘Super-Girl Sandra’ and so on – were still in place, but the covers were starting to feature carefully-sanitised party and dating scenes rather than the more activity-based images of yore. 

*DC: Oliver (Green Arrow) Queen was dusted off by Neal Adams and given a new look and a new lease of life in 1969; he came to prominence in the famous Green Lantern/Green Arrow series by Adams, but it was here, in the Brave & the Bold #85 that Adams first revealed GA’s new look and hard-edged attitude. This pence stamped copy is tight with good staples, unspoilt cover image and decent page quality, with just minor edge wear and corner blunting. 
PICTURED: THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD #85 FN+ p £50 SOLD

*DC: Sometimes it’s difficult to remember that Swamp Thing was around a long time before Alan Moore got his teeth into him. The series that commenced in 1982 and started out as Saga Of The Swamp Thing and was the one in which Moore raised Swampy to the height of his fame (even more than the earlier Bernie Wrightson series) existed for some 19 issues before Moore, and we have most of those fresh into stock from #1, all in high grade; see our catalogue listing for full details.
PICTURED: SWAMP THING (SAGA OF THE) #1 VF/NM £15

*Marvel: Lee & Kirby’s Fantastic Four added to its many innovations in 1966’s FF #52, when they introduced the first black super-hero in comics. Previously, the vanishingly rare heroic black characters in comics had been either embarrassing sidekicks or ‘noble savages’, but the Black Panther was the monarch of a highly sophisticated and technologically advanced African nation, Wakanda, and was to become not only one of the FF’s greatest allies, but a mainstay of their fellow heroes, the Avengers. Following his spectacular big-screen success, T’Challa’s earliest appearances have never been in higher demand. This is a low grade and thus relatively affordable pence printed copy, with a loose centrefold and moderate-heavy spine wear, with weakness at staples and some spine roll at the top half; the top of the back cover is slightly frayed and there are a couple of small cover tears (front and back) and quite a lot of edge wear and minor creasing at edges, plus one long diagonal colour-breaking crease across the top right half of the comic, although this is not too pronounced. Page quality is okay, if a little tired and dog-eared in places. Not a copy to be too proud of, but a nice budget-conscious gap-filler on what has become a very expensive item.
PICTURED: FANTASTIC FOUR #52 GD- p £185

*Marvel: In the mid-1970s, Marvel supplemented the output on its most popular titles with its Giant-Size range. These were comics of normal dimensions apart from being extra-thick with loads of pages. Usually a mix of new material and reprint, such was the case with your friendly neighbourhood web-slinger. We have issues #1-5 new into stock, often more than one copy of each with a choice of grades; as a bonus, there’s also a copy of the one-off Giant-Size Super-Heroes #1 Featuring Spider-Man, listed with the rest under Spider-Man, Amazing in our catalogue.
PICTURED: GIANT-SIZE SPIDER-MAN #1 VF/NM £60 SOLD

*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 #5-8 of one of those titles: Mysteries Weird & Strange; mid-grade fairly nice copies this time, with specific defects listed below.
PICTURED: MYSTERIES WEIRD & STRANGE ALL SOLD
#5 VG+ £175 Small upper spine split
#6 VG £150 Upper spine split
#7 VG/FN £190
#8 VG+ £175

*Romance: A classic of the romance genre this week from Simon & Kirby; from 1949, Vol 2 #5 of Prize Comics’ Young Romance (also numbered as #11 in the series). A title later famously taken over by DC, ’52 pages of real life comics’, started out with a packed 15 pager by Simon & Kirby, and although there’s a lot of captions and word balloons, the King’s art style really shines through, particularly on the glorious splash page and the ironic cover. Subsequent stories by accomplished artists of the time such as Leonard Starr, Lee Elias and Bill Draut. This is a nice mid-grade copy with deep cover colour, very slight spine roll and minor corner blunting but hey, great for a 71 year old! 
PICTURED: YOUNG ROMANCE V2 #5 VG/FN £52

*Vintage UK/Australian Reprints of US Material: Confusingly, there were two series of UK Flash in the early 1960s, the first lasting just five issues and the second just four. The first, from Strato/Thorpe & Porter, featured two early Silver Age Flash stories and a host of DC science-fiction shorts each issue. The second, from Thorpe & Porter/Top Sellers, also each featured two early Silver Age Flash stories and several Golden Age Wonder Woman stories. We have issues from both series new in; check out our catalogue listing.
PICTURED: FLASH #3 (2ND SERIES) VG+ £20

*Boys’ Adventure & War Picture Libraries: We’ve seen a great rise in interest and collectability in recent years for DC Thomson’s Starblazer from 1979. So we’re delighted to have five of the first ten issues back in stock, including the first two. Full details as always in our catalogue.
PICTURED: STARBLAZER #1 FN £20 SOLD

*Girls’ Comics: Another brace of Free Gift issues from the UK’s longest running girls’ title this week. From 1968, #561 comes with ‘Pearly Tiara’, #562 with ‘Your Very Own Badge’, complete with your initials. Both comics are VG, having suffered some creasing in storage with their gifts over the years; in addition #562 has a small cover puncture from the plastic pin of the badge. Both gifts are VF, the tiara still sealed in its plastic wallet, the badge complete with its unused sheet of initial options. 
PICTURED: BUNTY
#561 VG WITH FREE GIFT VF £40
#562 VG 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 categories from our British section:
*Vintage UK/Australian Reprints of US Material
*Alan Class Reprints
*Marvel UK
*Power Comics
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.

*Marvel: Well, here it is, the final item from the Square Mile Collection, slabbed by CGC. Amazing Spider-Man #1 features the origin of Spidey re-told, and the first appearances of J. Jonah Jameson and the Chameleon, as well as the first ever Fantastic Four crossover. This cornerstone of the Marvel Age of Comics is a 6.5 (FN+) copy that presents beautifully. It’s a UK pence printed variant with off-white to white pages; CGC Universal grade, blue label, no restoration. The crowning glory of the Square Mile Collection and great to own for investment potential as well as for bragging about it in your collection…
PICTURED: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #1 CGC 6.5 FN+ p £16,750 SOLD

*DC: I make no secret of the fact that Lobo isn’t my personal cup of tea; if I was writing the DCU, he most assuredly wouldn’t be in it. However, there’s no denying that the Main Man has a certain notoriety and popularity with a certain audience, and if you’re one of them, you’re sure to want his first appearance in your collection, which came a staggering 37 years ago in Omega Men #3. A nice (!) copy, with a couple of non-colour breaking creases in the spine area and some handling wear along the top.
PICTURED: OMEGA MEN #3 VF- £30 SOLD

*Marvel: Issues of Fantastic Four below #20 are turning up much more rarely these days, and being snapped up when they do. This beautiful copy of #16 features the villainy of Doctor Doom and guest-stars Ant-Man in one of the earliest Marvel crossovers, back when such things were still a special event. Lee & Kirby are at the height of their powers on this early issue. A tight, flat and glossy pence-printed copy with white pages and excellent staples; only minimal corner blunting and the tiniest of creases at right edge top and bottom, only visible on close inspection; there is a very faint line along about 6 cm of the right cover edge, barely visible; wonderfully fresh and unspoilt cover image. 
PICTURED: FANTASTIC FOUR #16 VF- p £375 SOLD

*Marvel: In the fifth Annual (or King-Size Special as they called it back then) of Amazing Spider-Man, Stan Lee and Larry Leiber brought us the previously untold story of Peter Parker’s deceased parents. Were they really spies and traitors? Spidey goes on an international mission of discovery and a trail that leads him to the Red Skull. We have a beautiful copy new in this week, with brilliant cover colour and gloss, no markings, tightly bound with an intact squarebound spine, sharp corners, white pages and only the most minimal wear at top and bottom spine precluding a NM grade. A gem.
PICTURED: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL #5 VF/NM £130 SOLD

*Marvel: From 1994, another complete Venom mini-series told with the usual finesse and restraint that this character is known to bring out from creators. This time it’s Venom: Nights Of Vengeance, all 4 issues now available in VF/NM or NM grade. See our catalogue for the full listing.

*Miscellaneous 1960 Onwards: Alan Moore’s sixteen issues of Miracleman are widely regarded as one of the great classics of modern age comics (if you count the 1980s as modern, that is). He took an ersatz Captain Marvel, invented as Marvelman in the 1950s when Len Miller’s license to reprint the captain ran out, and rebranded him as an adult super-hero for the times, in one of the greatest sequences of comics ever created IMHO. Originally serialised in Warrior Magazine, Marvelman changed to Miracleman when published by Eclipse in the USA (need I cite obvious copyright reasons?) and the series got its conclusion there, at least as far as Moore was concerned. When joined by artist John Totleben for the last issues, story and art clicked seamlessly, if somewhat horrifically. Issue #15 has the lowest print run of the series (possibly due to its gruesome content) and is regarded as the key issue featuring the conclusion of Miracleman’s mortal combat with his former sidekick Kid Miracleman — and if that sounds silly, let me assure you it isn’t. Not for the squeamish. A great copy on offer, with only the smallest spine ticks precluding a NM grade or higher. 
PICTURED: MIRACLEMAN #15 VF/NM £60 SOLD

*Phantom: A much overdue top-up to our depleted stocks of Phantom, the ever popular jungle adventurer, all US issues this time. Many King and Charlton issues of the main American run, plus a rare King 1973 reprint and one issue of the DC Mini-Series. There’s a legion of fans out there for this character, and issues rarely stay in stock for long…
PICTURED: PHANTOM #60 FN+ p £7.75