*Marvel: X-Men #129 introduced not one, but two, characters who were to become major players in the lives of the X-Men. Kitty Pryde, the young immaterial ingenue, made her debut as a pupil at Xavier’s school and went on to become a central part of the series, eventually becoming the leader of the team, while Emma Frost, White Queen of the Hellfire Club, dedicated her telepathic prowess to the X-Men’s destruction – though that dedication hasn’t prevented her from occasionally joining the group herself, and seducing Cyclops whenever Jean Grey happens to be dead for a while! In the next issue, #130, the world met the Dazzler, whose longevity as a comics heroine has been remarkable, considering her peculiar origins. Conceived as a disco tie-in by Casablanca Records in the late 1970s, Marvel was to create a singing super-heroine and Casablanca was to recruit a live singer to ‘be’ Dazzler. Originally intended to resemble Grace Jones, the design was considerably altered to look like then-hot actress Bo Derek. When the record company withdrew, Marvel were left with an ‘orphaned’ character, who they introduced as a fully-fledged mutant with the ability to transmute sound into light. Both these issues, with the debuts of three long-lasting major players, have been restocked with sharp, bright, tight VF+ copies.
PICTURED: X-MEN
#129 VF+ p £75
#130 VF+ p £50

*Miscellaneous 1940-1959: In 1950, Avon Comics released the one-shot Flying Saucers, tapping into the popular obsession with UFOs with the story of daring explorer Ross Lanning unwittingly unleashing upon the Earth an extraterrestrial invasion which may one day destroy us all! (Spoiler alert: not yet.) Drawn by the superlative Wally Wood; even at this early stage in his career Wood’s art, though less polished than it would become, carries the reader through the chapters of this fast-paced narrative which would have made a great classic sci-fi movie. This is the second printing (dated 1952) of this hard-to-find cult item, in a nice solid VG with the all-black cover background virtually unmarred apart from a few tiny breaks at the staple areas.
PICTURED: FLYING SAUCERS 2ND EDITION (1952) VG £110

*Horror/Mystery 1960-1980s: Although dismissed by many as a Swamp Thing rip-off, Man-Thing did actually premiere first, in Savage Tales #1 (May 1971), though Swampy’s debut in House of Secrets #92, dated July that same year, means that it’s one of those judgements that’s too close to call, and the nigh-simultaneous debuts of the duelling muck-monsters may have been mere coincidence. In any event, Man-Thing soon developed a following, as the mute, barely sentient plant-monster shambled his way through a solo series in Fear before gaining his own title. Primary writer Steve Gerber was ahead of his time in addressing ecological and social crises, even during the decade which embraced ‘relevance’, and the stories contained many genuinely horrific moments which skirted the edge of what was acceptable in the Comics-Code ruled years – though, in fairness, Gerber was even more adept at portraying psychological horror than the conventional viscera. This range commences with Manny’s first eponymous issue (also the second-ever appearance of anthropomorphic misanthrope Howard the Duck), and runs through to the final number, #22, including issues of the quarterly Giant-Size Man-Thing (ahem), which featured the Duck’s first solo flights. Grades range from VG to NM, all respectable copies, but with two outstanding issues, neither of which was distributed in the United Kingdom: #1 in a bright and clean VF+ and #3, with the first appearance of the cult character Foolkiller, in a remarkable NM grade, seldom awarded to comics of this vintage.
PICTURED: MAN-THING
#1 VF+ £65 SOLD
#3 NM £100 SOLD

*Teen Humour/Funny Girls: Continuing our massive restock of the Girl Who Would Be Hellcat, we revisit Patsy’s own title for additional numbers between 1950’s #31 and 1954’s 50th issue. Our red-headed heroine, her ‘frenemy’ Hedy Wolfe, and all the gang at Centerville High continue their wacky hi-jinks with guest-features including Mitzi, Nellie, and Wendy Parker. – those funny gals stuck together! This run features much early work from the distinguished Mad Magazine cartoonist Al Jaffee, at the start of his career. Grades range from FA to VG/FN.
PICTURED: PATSY WALKER #31 GD/VG £21

*Alan Class Reprints: The Alan Class line of reprints is well-loved and well-remembered by a generation of British comics readers, and we’re pleased to be able to add in substantial selections from most of Alan’s ‘Big 6’ titles, beginning, alphabetically, with Astounding Stories. This week, we add 37 issues to our Astounding listing, the vast majority of which are not already in our inventory. From the Alan Class Private Collection, we have copies with Certificates of Authenticity signed by Alan himself, commencing with #5; and new into our ‘general population’ of Astounding are numbers ranging from #84 to #194. The eclectic nature of the reprint schedule means that you’re likely to find Marvel, Charlton or Archie/Mighty super-heroes nestling next to pre-hero Marvel classics by Kirby & Ditko, ACG mystery tales, or a selection of even older and more bizarre material. You never can tell what you’re going to find – though we do have our ‘Rough Guide to Alan Class’ in our Extras section to help you along a little, and, as you might expect, we’ve updated it with new data from this influx of stock!

*Boys’ Adventure & War Picture Libraries: We’ve been doing an intermittent sequential restock of Combat, the battle-themed picture library published by Micron, for some time now, but we’re taking this opportunity to fill in some gaps, having discovered issues that were overlooked in our previous sweep, between the mid-200’s and the late 300’s. 25 issues newly added in, averaging Fine.

*Girls’ Comics: Spellbound hit the newsagents of the UK in 1976, and brought a different complexion to the British girls’ weekly. Rather than the token ‘strange story’ beloved by the regular anthologies, every strip in the comic was devoted to supernatural or science-fiction stories. Stars of the show, of course, were four interplanetary super-heroines, the Supercats, who roamed the universe fighting evil while wearing far too much mascara, courtesy of artist Enrique Badia Romero and his studio. But there were myriad other strips starring willowy wenches in trouble, and schoolgirls facing mysterious enemies. This week, we add Spellbound’s third issue to our lists; the comic itself is Fine, with the original Free Gift – the ‘Black Cat Cameo’ – still unassembled on its original plastic support, but with the envelope in a rather grubby state, so FN overall.
PICTURED: SPELLBOUND #3 FN WITH FN FREE GIFT £75 SOLD

*Clearance Corner: Who was ‘The Mystery Girl From the East’? What was ‘The Threat to Miss Fontaine’s Romance’? Why were ‘Pets On Trial at St. Kilda’s’? The answer to all these and oh, so many more questions can be found in our latest Clearance Corner! The venerable Schoolgirls’ Own Library of text stories featuring plucky young misses ran for two separate series, the first from 1922 until 1940, and the second from 1946 to 1963. We are offering 2 of the first series and 28 of the second, a total of 30 tales of daring and justice in boarding schools at home and abroad. The earliest two, from 1937, are Poor, but complete, though one is missing its back cover – not affecting the story content. The second series, number between #127 and #245 (publication dates from 1951 to 1957) average VG, generally sound and clean with occasional rusty staples. Just to spell it out once again: these are text stories with illustrations, not comics. This cornucopia of prototypical Girl Power is yours for a mere £25 – UK postage, if required, a further £5.

*Mad Books: Although Mad magazine has recently ceased publication, it leaves a great legacy, particularly in the many books released to showcase its artists and irreverent approach to … well, everything! We’re delighted to have seven of these books, several of which we haven’t listed before: Fighting Mad, Greasy Mad Stuff, Inside Mad, Mad In Orbit, Mad’s Maddest Artist Don Martin Bounces Back!, The Mad Frontier and Three Ring Mad. To paraphrase the shameless blurb used on many Mad books ‘we need money ….your money to make us really popular’, so buy one, or a few, to keep us happy.
PICTURED:
INSIDE MAD VG £6
THREE RING MAD VG £10

This is an early Silver Age Collection from an original owner notable for the freshness and vibrancy of the cover colours and page quality; even those with minor reading and handling wear are vastly superior to the majority of comics that have been in circulation since the 1960s. The average grade is well above Fine, with many much nicer.

We’ll be adding selections from this collection for sale here each week across the range of titles represented. These will be over a range of prices each week to suit most budgets, so that all interested collectors have an opportunity to purchase something from this special collection. Each comic will come branded with a special label and certificate of authenticity verifying it as part of the Square Mile Collection. Here’s this week’s:

*DC: One of the Scarlet Speedster’s most notorious foes is Professor Zoom, the Reverse-Flash, a malevolent Wizard of Whizz from the far-flung future, and Zoom’s star has only risen with his prominence in the hit Flash TV show. This is a copy of the second ever appearance of the good – well, evil – Professor, in beautiful condition for its years, bright and glossy with only tiny vestiges of cover wear at extreme edges, flat and clean with cream interior pages.
PICTURED: FLASH #153 VF p £85

*Boys’ Adventure & War Picture Libraries: One of the ‘Big Three’ of Fleetway Boys’ Picture Libraries, together with Air Ace and War, Battle Picture Library ran from 1961 to 1984, over 850 issues, and we’re pleased to have nearly 40 of the first 50 back in stock, commencing with issue #10, plus a couple of later stragglers in the 200’s. These are generally in nice shape, but most copies suffer from light to moderate staple rust, as many vintage picture libraries do, so while structurally they’re sound and sharp, the staples bring the average condition down to between GD to VG, very respectable reading copies. As always, see our catalogue for full details.

*DC: The tabloid-sized Limited Collectors’ Editions of the 1970s proved popular enough with the readership that DC soon began a spin-off series, Famous First Editions, initially in the LCE numbering, then in its own numbering. These were cover-to-cover reproductions, exact in every detail, of major Golden Age comics, distinguished from the originals only by their much larger size and an exterior card cover – which, once removed, caused a handful of unscrupulous dealers to try their luck by attempting to palm these off as the originals! (“Oh, comics were bigger in the 1940s”). DC swiftly changed the format to prevent such shenanigans, but these reproductions remain highly sought-after. We have four new in: C-26, reprinting Action Comics #1, the first appearance of Superman; F-4, with the premier of the original Captain Marvel (now ‘Shazam!’); F-6, reproducing the first issue of Wonder Woman’s solo series and F-7, with the debut of the Justice Society of America from All-Star Comics #3.
PICTURED: FAMOUS FIRST EDITION
C26 VG+ £25
F4 FN £20
F6 FN+ £25
F7 FN+ £25

*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. The Black Panther was the head of a highly sophisticated and technologically advanced African nation, Wakanda, and was, over time 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 copy of the Panther’s premier appearance is a CGC Blue Label (no restoration) 4.5, a VG+ equivalent.
PICTURED: FANTASTIC FOUR #52 CGC 4.5 £370

*Marvel: Early issues of the Avengers are always in high demand, and issue #8, featuring the premier appearance of Kang, Lord of Time, is a tense drama, with the World’s Mightiest Heroes all but helpless in the face of his futuristic technology. In this Lee/Kirby classic, the powerhouses of the team are effortlessly immobilised, leaving the fate of the Avengers, and the world, in the hands of the Wasp and Rick Jones! Kang, of course, became (and remains) a thorn in the side of multiple Avengers teams, but this is his first appearance in the Marvel Universe. This VG copy features a small upper spine split, a small interior page margin tear, a small arrival date, and a ‘100’ marked on the front cover (just to the right of Mjolnir), but is a tight & bright very respectable cents copy.
PICTURED: AVENGERS #8 VG £180

*Marvel: Created by Parker Brothers, the Rom toy was a resounding flop – but the comic book, licenced to Marvel to promote the toy, proved a hit with the readership, lasting 75 issues and four Annuals from 1979 to 1986! By Bill Mantlo and Sal Buscema, this origin issue set up our hero as a brave extraterrestrial warrior with a mission to stop the incursion of ‘Dire Wraiths’, evil aliens capable of mimicking human form. This ‘Star Wars Meets Body Snatchers’ mash-up proved an unexpected hit with firm tie-ins to the greater Marvel Universe. This copy of Rom’s comic debut is a nigh-flawless Near Mint.
PICTURED: ROM #1 NM p £50

*Marvel: In 1972, looking for other characters to adapt to comics in the wake of Conan’s success, Marvel gained the rights to the pulp hero Doc Savage. Clark Savage Jr. was raised by scientists to become the perfect human, righting wrongs worldwide with the aid of his five associates – and a sixth, if you included Doc’s shapely sister Pat Savage, an Amazonian lady with a deft line in snappy patter. Sadly, despite sterling work by scripter Roy Thomas and an authentically pulpy ‘feel’, the series didn’t catch a wider readership, and was gone after 1973’s eighth issue – though with the release of the 1975 Ron Ely-starring movie, Marvel did give it one last try with a Giant-Size Doc Savage one-shot. The entire set, issues #1-8 (#2 & #3 with striking Steranko covers) and Giant-Size #1, averaging VG/FN, now on sale.
PICTURED: DOC SAVAGE #1; SET #1-8 PLUS GIANT-SIZE #1 AV. VG/FN £50 SOLD

*EC: While technically, generally not strictly horror comics, EC’s Crime SuspenStories was certainly horrific, featuring as it often did gruesome deaths of betrayed spouses or untrustworthy friends, and this selection definitely belongs in the ‘horror zone’, including as it does two of the most notorious cover images – issue #20’s ‘hanging’ cover, and #22’s ‘severed head’ cover, which caused the publisher to infamously go into meltdown during a Congressional investigation. Containing tightly-plotted twist-ending shockers illustrated by Craig, Kamen, Wood, Ingels, Crandall and others, these are outstanding examples of their genre. This range runs from #19 to #27, in grades ranging from Poor to GD+. #19 GD- has a colour touch top cover, is off the upper staple, and has tape residue at spine; #20 GD+ has a glued spine; #21 PR has loose centrefold, colour touch, tape and cover repairs, as well as whiteout on the logo; #22 PR has heavy colour recolouring, whiteout on the logo, has been restapled, and has generally extreme wear; #23 FA has taped & restapled cover, with heavy colour touch; #24 PR/FA has a taped spine, and a large piece of the front cover ‘patched’; #25 GD+ has a glued spine; #26 PR has covers detached and insect damage at right edge: and #27, the final issue, PR/FA, has cover colour touches, interior staining and a glued spine. And yes, #22 may seem a hefty price for a Poor copy, but this iconic issue usually reaches $1000 plus in even the lowest grades at auction!
PICTURED: CRIME SUSPENSTORIES
#19 GD- £50
#20 GD+ £200
#22 PR £350
#23 FA £50
#25 GD+ £70

*Vintage Magazine-Sized Comics: At the height of the Batman TV show’s popularity, DC exploited the Caped Crusader’s media presence wherever possible, and this magazine-sized 3-D comic – a reissue of a 1950s title (with a new cover by Infantino & Anderson)  was a charming novelty, featuring classic Batman tales pitting the Dynamic Duo against the Penguin and giant robots, with an incongruous Tommy Tomorrow story thrown into the mix. This copy is a highly attractive VG, with bright clean covers, would grade higher but for moderate wear to spine. As a Brucie Bonus, though, it also has the original 3-D glasses – ‘Batman’s Own’, so the cover avers – in FN condition.
PICTURED: 3D BATMAN (WITH GLASSES) VG £40 SOLD

*Humour Comics: Launched in 1970, Cor!! brought a more irreverent attitude to the traditional humour weekly, with popular strips ‘Ivor Lott and Tony Broke’, ‘Fuss Pott’, ‘Jasper the Grasper’, and cover-star ‘Gus the Gorilla’, whose weekly thwarting of some jobsworth or busybody was invariably greeted by the slogan, ‘You can’t make a monkey out of Gus!’, thereby appeasing both the biologically and politically correct. (Gorillas ain’t monkeys, kids; look it up). This week, we bring you the third issue of Cor!!, dated 20th June 1970, in FN, with its free ‘Super Mystery Gift’ also in FN. (What is it? Well, if we told you, that’d spoil the mystery!). In addition, we offer the issue from 13th October 1973, complete with pull-out ‘Pocket Cor-Mic’, and the ‘Jumping Skeleton’ gift, comic and gift both FN.
PICTURED: COR
20/6/70 (#3) FN WITH FREE GIFT FN £40 SOLD
13/10/73 FN WITH FREE GIFT FN £30 SOLD

*Clearance Corner: From the later years of the doyenne of girls’ weekly comics, a selection of 40 issues of Bunty dating between 1994 and 1996, numbers ranging from 1901 to 2024. Condition averages Fine. Home of the ‘Four Marys’, Nikki-alumna ‘The Comp’, photo-strip ‘Luv, Lisa’, and many other picture strip stories – not counting our eponymous heroine, whose half-page adventures also adorn the inside – plus hobbies, craft pages, and swoonsome pop & TV pin-ups of years gone by, including Take That, East 17, Joey Lawrence, David Charvet, and loads more, some well remembered today, some… not so much! This panoply of pastel-pink nostalgia can be yours for a mere £20, plus UK postage of £8 if required.

*Crime, Spies & Sleaze: John Pollack is a name frequently seen on 1940s/1950s British gangster pulp fiction digests, although most of these are particularly hard to come by these days; he was a local artist (like the more (in)famous Reginald Heade) and lived in Clapham, South West London. Pollack’s women were gorgeous and glamorous and his men were chiselled tough guys.  James Hadley Chase was a prolific and accomplished writer who made his name in that medium, but carried on into later decades with  more ‘mainstream’ crime. This update we have a selection of books from the 1950s which feature their work together. Four paperbacks (Hit And Run, Not Safe To Be Free, Safer Dead and You Find Him – I’ll Fix Him) and one hardcover (You’ve Got It Coming), beautifully published by Robert Hale in matching editions.
PICTURED:
NOT SAFE TO BE FREE VG £8
YOU’VE GOT IT COMING VG (HC WITH VG DJ) £15

*Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror: Here’s a large SF update, with editions ranging from the 1960s to (unusually) 2010. The 2010 book is John Wyndham’s Plan For Chaos, written contemperaneously with The Day Of The Triffids, but published much later. From the 1960s we have The Sword Of Rhiannon (Leigh Bracket), The Immortals (James Gunn), She (H Rider Haggard), The Green Planet (J Hunter Holly), Colossus (D F Jones), It Was The Day Of The Robot (Frank Belknap Long), Tomorrow Sometimes Comes (F G Rayer), Our Man In Space/Ultimatum In 2050 A. D. (Bruce W Ronald/Jack Sharkey) and Future For Sale (Richard Saxon). From the 1970s we have Tomorrow And Tomorrow (Hunt Collins), Floating Worlds (Cecelia Holland), Master Of The Dark Gate (John Jakes), The Mind Trap (Dan Morgan), Mindswap (Robert Sheckley) and To Die In Italbar (Roger Zelazny). Finally there’s one 1980s book, The Proud Robot by Henry Kuttner (suggested to be the ‘role model’ for Marvin the Paranoid Android) and one from the 1990s, Strength Of Stones by Greg Bear. Notable amongst these are The Sword Of Rhiannon, an early imitator/homager of Burroughs’ Mars stories, Floating Worlds, a truly enormous volume in the style of Dune, Master Of The Dark Gate featuring a Steranko cover and the Ace Double,  Our Man In Space/Ultimatum In 2050 A. D., with cover art by Veligursky and by Schoenherr.
PICTURED:
THE SWORD OF RHIANNON (LEIGH BRACKET) GD £5    
MASTER OF THE DARK GATE (JOHN JAKES) VG £5          
COLOSSUS (D F JONES) VG £10
OUR MAN IN SPACE/ULTIMATUM IN 2050 A. D. (BRUCE W RONALD/JACK SHARKEY) GD £4

*Marvel: In 1964, the adventures of Iron Man were enlivened by the appearance of the lovely but lethal Natasha Romanoff, code-named the Black Widow, one of the Kremlin’s deadliest operatives. Originally an appealing but unoriginal femme fatale in civvies, inspired by Caniff’s Dragon Lady and other Mata Hari wannabes, Natasha proved surprisingly adaptable, allying herself first with the second Crimson Dynamo (also premiering in this issue) and later Hawkeye, and trading her cocktail dress and veil for the first of many costumed ‘looks’ as she switchbacked from villainess to heroine, culminating, of course, in her live-action embodiment by Scarlett Johansson in the Avengers and other Marvel movies – and soon to star in a big-screen feature of her very own! This issue is where ‘Tasha’s career kicked off, and is graded FN; light to moderate edge wear commensurate with age, but unfaded deep purple cover colour and a remarkable degree of gloss, with tight staples and sharp corners. High resolution images are available on request.
PICTURED: TALES OF SUSPENSE #52 FN p £750

*Marvel: Dated May 1963, this early issue of the Mighty Thor’s adventures co-featured his brother Loki in the literally-entitled ‘The Day Loki Stole Thor’s Magic Hammer’, wherein the God of Mischief does exactly what it says on the tin – and since at this time Thor’s powers were magically linked to Mjolnir, all sorts of inconvenience ensued for our hero in this Lee/Berns/Sinnott classic, backed up by the Lee/Ditko chiller ‘I Used To Be…Human’ and Lieber & Reinman’s ‘The Man Who Hated Monstro!’. This is a superior VG, with light foxing on the back cover, and the very uppermost front cover edge, but not impinging on the cover image.
PICTURED: JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #92 VG p £65 SOLD