*DC: Following the triumphant return of the Justice Society in Flash #137, it was inevitable that the Golden Age super-stars should meet their Silver Age counterparts, and in 1963’s Justice League of America #21, the two teams were united for the first time in what would become a decades-spanning annual tradition! This copy of the groundbreaking meeting is VG/FN, minimal fine breaks in the deep purple cover colour at edge, but randomly-placed staples on the lettercolumn – presumably a previous owner was testing their stapler – preclude a higher grade for this very attractive issue.
PICTURED: JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #21 VG/FN p £80

More from the Square Mile Collection next week!

*DC: While it’s not strictly accurate to say that this game-changing issue was solely responsible for the transition to the ‘Dark Knight’ iteration of Batman – he had been becoming more serious in the preceding few years – this definitely distilled all the elements which would become the template for the Batman as we know him. By Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams, this tense murder mystery draws the reader in from the stunning cover, and keeps the tension mounted high as the Joker, stripped of the lingering miasma of the TV series, transformed from a buffoon into once again a top-ranking menace. One of the best comics of the 1970s, by almost everyone’s assessment – even folks who think both the Joker and the Batman are horrendously overrated (writer raises hand) think this one’s a cracker! This is a VG+ copy, with light to moderate edge wear, and a 2″ tear on the lower back cover, but the story pages completely unharmed.
PICTURED: BATMAN #251 VG+ p £150 SOLD

*Marvel: Another early Lee/Ditko classic Spidey new in, with the debut of Kraven the Hunter. Sergei Kravinoff, scion of exiled Russian nobility and the self-determined ‘Greatest Hunter in the World’, set out to entrap Spider-Man to, basically, big up his own reputation, and that slender premise has been parlayed into a surprisingly long career culminating in several major stories, most notoriously 1987’s ‘Kraven’s Last Hunt’. Originally just a highly trained and skilled human, Kraven has been retconned as having enhanced strength and longevity to make him more of a match for the super-set, and his moral ambiguity has led to him crossing the line between hero and villain many times – most recently, for example, he was a heroic member of Squirrel Girl’s supporting cast! Rumours of a Kraven media adaptation persist, so interest in this issue has spiked of late. This copy of Kraven’s debut is a lovely FN+, with deep unbroken background colour, tight pages and corners, and off-white, flexible interior pages. High resolution images are available on request.
PICTURED: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #15 FN+ p £800

*Marvel: Well, here’s a peculiarity; in Captain Marvel’s first solo series, Carol Danvers, despite being a top-notch security chief (the captions told us) played the damsel-in-distress role uncomfortably often, and this issue, a confrontation between Mar-Vell and his nemesis Yon-Rogg – was no exception. However, in Carol’s later solo series as Ms. Marvel, the events of this issue were retconned as the ‘trigger’ for Carol’s gaining her own super-powers – nothing of which is actually mentioned in here! That retcon, coupled of course with Carol’s own increased visibility since she stepped up as Captain Marvel on page and screen, has given this well-executed but unexceptional issue a surprising value lift. This is a bright and shiny FN/VF copy of this ‘stealth origin’.
PICTURED: CAPTAIN MARVEL #18 FN/VF  p £55

*Marvel: Once again, a half dozen first issues, this time from the 1970s, as the Marvel Universe expanded. In Howard the Duck #1, the spin-out star of Man-Thing got his own series, by Gerber and Brunner. Marvel Spotlight #1 brought us Red Wolf & Lobo (not that Lobo!), previously seen in the Avengers, by Gardner Fox and Syd Shores. Roy Thomas’ lifelong love affair with all things Golden Age paid off, as he got to reunite the 1940s iterations of Captain America, the Sub-Mariner and the Human Torch in a series of ‘untold tales’ set in World War II, commencing with the double-thick ‘pilot’ Giant-Size Invaders #1. Kull the Conqueror was 1971’s attempt to recreate the success of Conan, illustrated by the sensational Severin Siblings, John and Marie. Marvel Two-In-One was 1974’s answer to Marvel Team-Up, with Bashful Ben Grimm, the Fantastic Four’s Thing, as host, co-starring the Man-Thing in this debut issue. And finally, the short-lived, but well-executed, Hanna-Barbera TV line gave us the ‘Modern Stone Age Family’, the fabulous Flintstones! Full details, of course, in our catalogue listings.
PICTURED:
GIANT-SIZE INVADERS #1 FN+ £20 SOLD
MARVEL SPOTLIGHT #1 VF/NM £47

*Marvel: Some nice graded copies in this week of the Fantastic Four between issue #53 (2nd Black Panther, 1st Klaw) and #133.  Other highlights include a classic Silver Surfer storyline in #72 & #75, and  the less common #80 with Toomazooma, the Living Totem. Full details as always in our catalogue.

*Teen Humour/Funny Girls: Despite the series ‘pilot’ All-Teen Comics, having taken over the numbering of All-Winners with #20 (and All-Winners having continued with #21) Teen Comics (dropping the ‘All’) came back later the same year commencing with #21, starring Patsy Walker (but of course) alongside regular co-stars Cindy Smith and Georgie, and with occasional guest-features such as Margie, Tessie the Typist and Harvey Kurtzman’s ‘Hey Look!’. We have nine of the 15 published issues in stock, from #23 to the final issue, #35. Full details in our catalogue.
PICTURED: TEEN
#25 VG £32
#34 FN £47

*Undergrounds: A sweep through the underground brings us a plethora of new listings and restocks of old favourites, including Bananas Are Not the Only Fruit, Cartoon History of the Universe, Complete Crumb Comics, Drawn & Quarterly, Gay Comix/Comics, Glamazonia the Uncanny Super-Tranny, Inner City Pagan, Los Tejanos, Maybe…Maybe Not and its sequel, Maybe…Maybe Not Again, Phobia Phobia, Rand Holmes: The Artist Himself, Raw, Rapid Reflexes, R. Crumb Coffee Table Art Book, Robert Crumb’s Yum Yum Book, and Tijuana Bibles. Star creators include David Shenton, Robert Crumb, Ralf Konig, Hunt Emerson, Trina, Jaxon, Tim Barela, Lee Marrs, Howard Cruse, and Larry Gonick.
PICTURED:
RAW #5 FN £25 SOLD
R CRUMB’S YUM YUM BOOK HC VG £30 SOLD
TIJUANA BIBLES SC NM £15 SOLD

*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: In 1968, Fleetway/IPC launched Jag, the third (after Lion and Tiger) of their ‘big cat’ anthologies – and this was the biggest, measuring 12″ by 14″. This awkward size, somewhere between TV 21 and Beezer, meant that it was usually displayed folded even when brand new in newsagents. Despite its imposing size, much of Jag’s content was surprisingly by-the-numbers, and it wasn’t until mid-year that it acquired a ‘star’ feature – ‘Football Family Robinson’ – ably illustrated by Joe Colquhoun, which went on to a much longer life in Tiger. Football strips are of course plentiful, but FFR had the familial angle to engage the readership, and the formidable presence of manager Ma Robinson, a classic battleaxe in the Peggy Mount/Giles tradition, gave the strip its comedy impetus. Jag, owing to its unusual dimensions, hasn’t generally been stored carefully or survived the years well, so we’re delighted to have  decent copies of issues #1 & #3 in stock, each with their respective Free Gift; Issue #1 is VG/FN complete with the ‘Bobby Moore Book of the FA Cup’ in VG/FN, #3 is FN, with ‘Soccer ’68 All the Club Colours’ poster guide (part 2) in VG/FN; both the comics and the free gifts bear marks of having been folded in the past, owing to the storage/display difficulties mentioned earlier, but are otherwise clean and bright.
PICTURED: JAG
#1 4/5/68 VG/FN WITH FREE GIFT VG/FN £70 SOLD
#3 18/5/68 FN WITH FREE GIFT VG/FN £60 SOLD

*TV & Film Related Comics: Of the many comics adaptations of Gerry Anderson’s TV oeuvre, one of the more obscure is Candy, a Younger Readers’ series which focused on a show which never actually happened. Legend has it that Anderson tried to sell a juvenile series, ‘Candy and Andy’, for which extensive prop and costume work was done, and when no TV producers took it up, used the prepared material instead as the basis for the third ‘Century 21’ comic, after TV 21 and Lady Penelope. (Full disclosure: other sources do refute the legend, but the legend’s more fun, so we’re sticking with it!) Today the photo-covers say less ‘wholesome family fun’ and more ‘serial killer’s trophy room’, but let’s put that down to changing times. The comic lasted 150+ issues, enhanced by the media presence of co-stars Topo Gigio, Tingha and Tucker, and Winnie the Pooh. The unusual landscape format makes these rarer than most Anderson-related memorabilia, though the series reverted to a standard portrait format about halfway through its run, shortly thereafter mercifully ditching the creepy photo-covers for line-drawn work. We have thirty new issues of Candy in stock, ranging from #12 to #127.
PICTURED: CANDY #49 (CHRISTMAS ISSUE) FN £16

*Girls’ Picture Libraries: Launched in 1962, School Friend Picture Library originally alternated, like its companion Princess PL, between two features – in this case, teen model Tracy Jones and plucky equestrienne Penny of Pine Ridge. By issue #13, they started introducing other featured characters into the mix – ‘My Friend Sara’ from the weekly, the Sparrows of Angel Street, French Resistance fighter Linette and others. Our latest influx of School Friend Picture Libraries means that we now have an unbroken run of the series’ first 38 issues, so if you’re in a completist frame of mind, now is the time to strike!
PICTURED: SCHOOL FRIEND PICTURE LIBRARY
#1 GD/VG £20
#19 FN £10

*Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror: We’re delighted to add more than ten of Keith Laumer’s works to our shelves, including perhaps his best known classic, A Plague Of Demons. A highly respected author, he was versatile enough to write 3 Avengers novels in the 1960s in addition to his SF output. Laumer’s Science Fiction often used his experiences in the diplomatic service, particularly in his Retief series, of which we have Retief And The Warlords. Another recurring theme was alternative universes, explored in The Time Bender, The World Shuffler and Worlds Of The Imperium. Time travel and immortality come up in A Trace Of Memory, Time Trap and Odyssey (an omnibus which combines parts of Galactic Odyssey, Dinosaur Beach, Once There Was A Giant, Greylorn and Alien Minds). Finally The Monitors and Earthblood, which was written with G B Rosel, involve alien races.
PICTURED:
A PLAGUE OF DEMONS VG/FN £6 SOLD
THE TIME BENDER GD £4
WORLDS OF THE IMPERIUM GD £3

On a regular cycle, we sweep through our entire stock to delete sold items and keep our listing as up to date as possible. We’ve just finished deleting sold items from the following files in our American section:
*DC  S – Z
*Marvel T – Z
As of the time of writing, these categories are bang up to date, with every item listed available.

*Marvel: A long-standing favourite of us 30th Century folks, we are delighted to have Tales to Astonish #44, the debut and origin of Janet Van Dyne, the wonderful Wasp, back in stock. Created in order to give Ant-Man someone to talk to on his adventures (other than the ants), Jan perked up the series no end. Founding member of the Avengers, wealthy socialite Jan was a breath of fresh air in the comics world, and her relationship with Hank (Ant-Man/Giant-Man) Pym was well portrayed as mature and caring, with a nice line in witty badinage, contrasting considerably with the rest of the romantically overwrought Marvel Universe. This copy of Jan’s debut is VG, a clean solid copy with considerable eye appeal, but a faint vertical fold slightly impinging upon the cover image. Firm at staples, with bright attractive interior pages.
PICTURED: TALES TO ASTONISH #44 VG p £400

*DC: Over in Superman’s titles, the ‘Imaginary Stories’ – tales in which some aspect of the known mythos was tweaked speculatively, enabling readers to see what might happen if the iconic characters were ever allowed to break away from their status quo – had become hugely popular, so the editors of Batman decided to try something similar. A series of near-future tales penned by Bruce Wayne’s butler, imagining a retired Batman, married to the former Batwoman, allowing a grown-up Robin to take over as Batman II! While not achieving the success of the ‘Imaginary Stories’, these chapters of Alfred’s fan-fiction proved popular enough to return several times, and this issue marks the debut of the series, backed up by two ‘real’, not-at-all-imaginary, Batman tales: ‘The Dog That Betrayed Batman’, and ‘The Case of the Deadly Gems’. This is a VG copy, light to moderate spine wear and a small upper cover tear.
PICTURED: BATMAN #131 VG p £65

*Marvel: Another example of one of the classic Pre-Hero Marvel tales of imagination, with two Lee/Kirby thrillers, the cover-featured ‘Won’t You Step Into My Parlor?’ and ‘Propaganda!’, plus the Don Heck illustrated ‘I Spent The Night In A Haunted House!’, and a Lee/Ditko twist-ending tale, ‘For The Birds!’. This is a stunning FN+ copy, with very sharp corners, minimal spine & edge wear, bright vibrant cover colours and a remarkable amount of gloss for its vintage.
PICTURED: JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #80 FN+ p £100

More from the Square Mile Collection next week!

*DC: For many years largely overlooked by collectors, the 1973 Shazam! series – DC’s reboot of the original Captain Marvel, who was put out of business by a protracted lawsuit from DC in the ’50s – is now riding high because of the smash-hit (and hugely fun) film starring Zachary Levi as Billy Batson’s supernaturally-powered alter ego. In 1973 C.C. Beck, co-creator of Fawcett Comics’ Captain Marvel, teamed up with contemporary writers to produce new stories of ‘The Big Red Cheese’. Beck was followed by other distinguished artists such as Kurt Schaffenberger and Bob Oksner, creating lighter, friendlier but imaginative adventures, from which, in large part, the sensibility of the film has been derived.
PICTURED: SHAZAM #1 VF £50 SOLD

*Marvel: Ghost Rider had been the title of a short-lived Western series of the 1960s, and in 1972, writer Gary Friedrich and artist Mike Ploog reinterpreted the cowboy trope with the nearest modern equivalent – a motorbike rider! In the wake of ‘Easy Rider’ and adding in lashings of the then-popular Satanic possession movies, they came up with Johnny Blaze, stunt-rider turned emissary of Satan, having sacrificed his soul to save his loved ones. But this being a Code Approved Marvel comic, Johnny’s battle of wills with his demonic master usually led to his actions coming down on the side of good, despite Old Nick’s best efforts. Ghost Rider went on to 80+ issues of his original series after a successful run in Marvel Spotlight, and despite two truly execrable Nicolas Cage movies, remains a mainstay of the Marvel Universe today. This copy of Johnny Blaze/Ghost Rider’s very first appearance in tryout title Marvel Spotlight #5 is an apparent FN+; the ‘Apparent’ modifier is because there have been three tiny colour touches at the spine, but the black background is otherwise unmarred, and this copy has firm staples, sharp corners and excellent interior page quality.
PICTURED: MARVEL SPOTLIGHT #5 App FN+ £250 SOLD

*Marvel: Well, here’s a peculiarity; famed for larger-than-life heroes, Marvel, in 1966, published six of the smallest comic books ever made – a Guinness-authenticated record which remains unbroken to this day! Measuring a mere 2cm in height (slightly smaller than a standard postage stamp, for those of you who don’t do metric) these Marvel Mini-Books were distributed via gum-ball machines throughout the US, and could be yours, at the time, for an American penny. The comics were also given away to members of Marvel’s fan club, the Merry Marching Marvel Society, and, bizarrely, they were also sold in packs as cake decorations! Either 48 or 52 tiny pages per issue, with glued spines, (which, decades later, are nigh-impossible to open without ‘snapping’ the comic), they starred Marvel’s blockbuster sales juggernauts of the day: Captain America, Spider-Man, the Hulk, Thor, Sgt. Fury and – yes! -Millie the Model! We have a set of all six; four have been unopened and remain Very Fine. Millie and Nick Fury have been opened by curious and now remorseful hands, and while complete, have broken spines, and are only Fair. Buy them – but don’t read them! (Not advice we’re accustomed to giving here at 30th C…)
PICTURED: MARVEL MINI-BOOKS SET OF 6 (4 X VF, 2 X FA) £60 SOLD

*Marvel: From 1968, a gamma-infused milestone, with the first issue of the Hulk’s own series, eccentrically numbered #102, as he assumed the numbering of Tales to Astonish, the split book which had been his home for several years. This was Brucie’s big break, his comeback vehicle after his early 60s six issue flop, and the start of the long-running series most associated with him. Mirthful Marie Severin illustrated not only a recap of Bruce Banner’s irradiated origin, but also a new story thread with Jade-Jaws frolicking with some of Thor’s Asgardian chums, including the Warriors Three! (Bonus points for the appearance of guest villainess the Enchantress, obviously) This copy is clean, tight at staples, good cover colour, but light to moderate spine creasing, not impinging on the main cover image.
PICTURED: HULK #102 VG £60

*Marvel: Marvel’s ‘women’s comics’ line of the early 1970s was a conscientious, if misjudged, attempt to broaden the readership by putting female characters and female creators in the spotlight. Sadly, the lack of experienced women in the industry, and some creative inconsistencies, meant that it was short-lived and badly-supported , with all three titles cancelled after four or five issues. Its longest legacy – no disrespect to Shanna the She-Devil or Night Nurse – was the Cat, whose first super-heroic career may have been brief, but who was later reworked into Tigra the Were-Woman, while her old costume was passed on to Patsy Walker as Hellcat, so Marvel got a twofer – two successful characters for one failed one! Not that the Cat didn’t show promise; issue #1’s origin is drawn by Marie Severin and Wally Wood, and is absolutely lovely. PICTURED: CAT #1 FN/VF £55

*Marvel: The tabloid-sized Treasury Editions published by Marvel from 1974 to the 1980s may not have caught on as a permanent format, but they certainly have their fans, particularly among a certain generation in the UK whose earliest exposure to the iconic Marvel characters was via these huge compendiums of classic adventures! We have the regular Marvel Treasury Edition series restocked, issues from #2 to #14, starring the FF, Avengers, Spider-Man, Conan and more, plus a couple of one-off Special Editions in the same format: Special Marvel Edition #1, starring the Spectacular Spider-Man; the 1974 Marvel Treasury Special – a festive medley called Giant Super-Hero Holiday Grab-Bag – and the 1976 Marvel Treasury Special, Captain America’s Bicentennial Battles, an all-new epic written and drawn by Jack Kirby.
PICTURED:
MARVEL SPECIAL EDITION #1 FN+ £17.50 SOLD
MARVEL TREASURY SPECIAL VF+ £30 SOLD

*Miscellaneous 1940-1959: While it looks a bit odd to the more ‘woke’ 2020s, the Jungle genre was hugely popular in the last century. In the wake of Edgar Rice Burrough’s famous Tarzan, every popular medium, including comics, was awash with implausibly-muscled, barely-clad white people hanging around in Africa saving grateful ‘natives’. Despite the unfortunate retrospective cultural baggage, many of these stories were beautifully crafted, and Fiction House, publisher of Jungle Comics, was one of the better practitioners, employing some of the finest writers and artists in the business. These three issues of Jungle Comics date between 1950 and 1952, all featuring the same line-up: peroxide Tarzan Kaanga and his shapely mate Ann, jungle psychic Tabu, Wambi the Jungle Boy (a rare non-caucasian protagonist in the genre) Captain Terry Thunder of the Congo Lancers, and Camilla, ‘Wild Girl of the Congo’. (They missed an opportunity for Camilla and Terry to team-up, since they were neighbours…) Like most Golden Age comics, creators were not credited, but informed sources tell us that writer Ruth Roche and artists Bob Kubbers, Jack Kamen and Enrico Bagnoli, among others, contributed to these issues, with the lead Kaanga story and accompanying covers illustrated rather spiffily by Maurice Whitman. These are attractive mid-grade specimens. #130 is VG/FN, with the only drawback being that a previous owner has attempted to brighten up the logo by applying whiteout on the letter ‘N’. Issue #139 is GD, off top staple, and #149 is FA, with considerable spine wear and writing on the cover logo. Full details, of course, in our online catalogue.
PICTURED: JUNGLE COMICS #130 VG/FN £43

*Alan Class Reprints: Five more plate sets from the Alan Class Private Collection, each one reprinting a story from the Silver Age of Marvel’s super-heroes – in most cases, as previously remarked, the first reprinting of these classic tales, very shortly after their first release! All five sets feature, in addition to publisher Alan Class’s file copies of the comics, the four lead printing plate sets originally used in production, plus a hand-signed Certificate of authenticity from Alan Class himself. All sets are supplied in a plastic presentation/display case.

Astounding Stories #63 reprints Avengers 56, ‘Death Be Not Proud!’ a time-travelling classic by Thomas and Buscema. Creepy Worlds #120 reprints Silver Surfer #11, from the highly-acclaimed original series by Lee and Buscema. Secrets of the Unknown #52 presents both tales from Strange Tales #120, the lead with the Human Torch teaming with X-Men’s Iceman, and the Doctor Strange tale ‘House of Shadows!’, the former by Kirby, the latter by Ditko. As a bonus, this set also includes an additional comic, SOTU #131, featuring the same content. Sinister Tales #108 reprints the origin of the Living Monolith from X-Men #56, illustrated by Neal Adams, plus the three part origin of the Angel from issues #54 to #56. And last but far from least, Suspense #61 reprints Tales of Suspense #48, the debut of Iron Man’s more streamlined and familiar red & gold armour. This comes with two interior printing plates, one of which is the Iron Man splash page. Full details, as always, in our catalogue.
PICTURED: SUSPENSE #61 VG/FN: PRINTING PLATE SET £50

*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: This week, we set our sights on sport, with three Summer/Holiday Specials partly or wholly themed around the sporting life. Jag Football Special, from 1968, features articles and photos of real-life football and footballers, as well as ample comic strip content. This 96-page stonker is VG, sound and firm at staples, with minimal corner and edge wear, and a slightly faded spine. Best of Billy’s Boots from 1990 is an oddity, collecting the popular strip from Scorcher long after its demise, as a one-off. This bright and tight copy is graded VF, and features a cover-touted introduction by Kathy Tayler, who was presumably famous at the time. Victor, of course, wasn’t entirely devoted to sport, but its 1971 Summer Special’s 40 pages were 50% sporty, between the Tough of the Track, the Boyhood of Lester Piggott and sundry other boxing, cricket and motor-racing stories, fronted by manly adventures and World War II heroics. These oversized Summer Specials are getting much harder to find as the years wear on, and this VG copy, though displaying minor wear from having been stored folded for many years, is bright and unfaded, staples firmly attached.
PICTURED:
BILLY’S BOOTS HOLIDAY SPECIAL 1990 VF £15 SOLD
JAG FOOTBALL SPECIAL 1968 VG £30 SOLD
VICTOR SUMMER SPECIAL 1971 VG £30 SOLD