*Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror: We’ve just added more than 10 works by John Brunner, the British author who wrote so convincingly about American catastrophes. The latest additions range from early works with a space opera flavour to later books that extrapolated trends into a variety of future Earths, and also includes the famous fantasy work Traveller In Black. There’s a variety of publishers, including an Ace double (Enigma From Tantalus/The Repairmen Of Cyclops) and both UK and US editions. The Ace double has a cover each by Jack Gaughan and John Schoenherr. The Day Of The Star Cities and The Stardroppers also have Gaughan cover art, while The Dreaming Earth has a Schoenherr cover. The Jagged Orbit has Josh Kirby cover art. The remaining books are Into The Slave Nebula, Telepathist and The Whole Man (variant titles of the same book), The Infinitive Of Go, The Squares Of The City, The Stone That Never Came Down and Total Eclipse.

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:
*Archie
*Charlton
*Dell
*EC
*Gold Key/Whitman
*Harvey
*IW/Super
As of the time of writing, these categories are bang up to date, with every item listed available.

*Collected Editions: Around the early 21st Century, when Modesty Blaise was seen only in serialisations in Comics Revue Magazine, the publishers of CR, Manuscript Press, released a couple of MB collections in trade paperback format. Both of them reprinted three complete adventures of Modesty & Willie Garvin, akin to the Titan reprints of the 1980s and 1990s, and sported brand-new and rather spiffy full-colour covers by artist Tom Yeates. They are both now in stock : ‘Lady In The Dark’ (which also presents the stories ‘The Big Mole’ and ‘The Girl from The Future’) and ‘Live Bait’ (co-featuring ‘Milord’ and ‘Samantha and the Cherub’). All tales illustrated by Romero, and written, of course, by Modesty’s creator, Peter O’Donnell. These are both NM, on sale at £10 each.

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:
*Marvel M – S
and in our British section:
*Girls’ Comics
As of the time of writing, these categories are bang up to date, with every item listed available.

*Marvel: In just Thor’s third appearance, Stan Lee & Jack Kirby began to lay the groundwork for the rich story-telling based on Norse mythology which was to follow. This landmark issue, Journey Into Mystery #85, has a cover featuring the debut of Loki, Thor’s half-brother, arch-nemesis and god of mischief, but also introduces Heimdall, the Rainbow Bridge he guards, Asgard itself and (in a cameo appearance) Odin, Thor’s and Loki’s father. Loki of course has gone on to great fame, both in Marvel’s Cinematic Universe and in many of his own series, as much an anti-hero as a villain. This pence printed copy of JIM #85 is in significantly high grade, FN/VF only because of minor edge wear. The cover colours are rich and glossy, the cover image totally unmarred, the comic is tight and flat with excellent staples and page quality. There is a tiny 4 cm tear at the bottom rear cover with a small mark, but this barely troubles a comic of beautiful, outstanding quality. High resolution images are available on request.
PICTURED: JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #85 FN/VF p £1,900

*Marvel: Amazing Spider-Man #39 was the first issue following the departure of Steve Ditko, but his successor, John Romita, hit the ground running with this tale wherein both Spidey and his arch-nemesis, the Green Goblin, were unmasked to each other. Romita certainly set the style and mood of Spidey for the many that were to follow him over the years, and his design skills were amply displayed in what was to become regarded as an iconic cover. This is a FN- pence copy, with some edge wear and cover creasing mostly along the spine, plus a diagonal crease across the bottom right of the cover, which barely breaks colour. The colours are deep and rich, the staples good and the page quality excellent.
PICTURED: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #39 FN- p £140

*Marvel: Traditionally, Dragon-Man (a throwback to the days of the Big Panty Monsters) has been a slow-minded but not particularly malicious pawn of various super-villains and has appeared throughout the Marvel Universe in various incarnations. He got his start here in Fantastic Four #35, playing King Kong to Sue Storm’s Fay Wray. This copy is a sparkling VF grade, tight, flat and glossy with minimal wear; page quality is excellent. Unusually for the Square Mile Collection, this is a cents copy.
PICTURED: FANTASTIC FOUR #35 VF £115

*Marvel: Just the sixth outing for the Golden Avenger (back when he was all golden!) saw him time travel back to ancient Egypt for an adventure with Cleopatra and the Mad Pharoah (sic), as you do. This is a remarkable FN/VF pence copy, with a glossy cover, superb page quality and minimal wear (highly unusual condition for a comic with a midnight blue background cover). Only a few minor spine ‘ticks’, slight blunting of some corners and a tiny insignificant chip out of centre back cover prevent a higher grade.
PICTURED: TALES OF SUSPENSE #44 FN/VF p £275

*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 copy is a nice flat and tight FN which would grade higher but for tanning to the cover and pages, which unfortunately renders it less than fresh.
PICTURED: THE BRAVE & THE BOLD #85 FN £50 SOLD

*DC: Continuing our restock of the DC Silver/Bronze Ages, we reach the letters H to J and feature additions to the following titles: Hawk & Dove, Hellblazer, House Of Mystery, Jimmy Olsen, Justice Inc, a big wodge of Justice League of America, the complete 4 part mini-series America Vs The Justice Society and the Last Days of the Justice Society special. Full details as always in our catalogue.

*Marvel: So, what do you do when one cuddly brain-sucking symbiote just isn’t enough? Well, the House of Ideas came up with letting it spawn and this was born Carnage, spawn of Venom. Find out just what Spidey made of all this in the Carnage debut issue of Amazing Spider-Man, #361. Also available, part 2 (#362) NM+ p £25.
PICTURED: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #361 NM p £100 SOLD

*Marvel: Presumably at the instigation of the X-Men’s artist (and co-plotter) John Byrne, himself Canadian, a Canadian team of super-heroes were introduced in the X-Men in issues #120 & #121. They mostly appeared in shadowy form in #120 (apart from their leader, Vindicator, who had been seen before) before the full ‘reveal’ in the following issue. Their mission was to seek out their erstwhile team-mate Wolverine. Both issues are fresh into stock. 
PICTURED: X-MEN
#120 FN/VF p £35
#121 FN/VF £40

*Miscellaneous 1940-1959: Continuing our Atomic Sci-Fi event with classics from the 1940s and 1950s, we come to Space Action, a three issue series from Ace published in 1952. This update features #1 and #3. Several stories of classic science-fiction in each issue, with some art by Ace’s most talented regular Lou Cameron. Issue #1 is a solid VG with a great cover reminiscent of Planet Comics, while #3 is a decent GD/VG, off top staple. Space ships with rivets, menacing aliens, heroic spacemen, space princesses, interplanetary adventure, ray guns etc — it’s all here!
PICTURED: SPACE ACTION
#1 VG £175
#3 GD/VG £50 SOLD

*Horror 1940-1959: Our Pre-Code Horror Fest turns its attention to two Avon One-Shots this week, dating from 1953 and 1952 respectively: Night Of Mystery and the Phantom Witch Doctor. Night Of Mystery is very rarely seen, features a Hollingsworth cover and a gorgeous Kinstler inside front cover and four accomplished stories within; a solid VG+ with a small tear at last page. The Phantom Witch Doctor has a Kinstler cover, inside front cover and complete story, as well as three other stories; off top staple, some chips out at edges and spine, one small piece of tape inside front cover: GD-. These Pre-Code Horrors aren’t getting any easier to come by!
PICTURED:
NIGHT OF MYSTERY VG+ £250
PHANTOM WITCH DOCTOR #1 GD- £110 SOLD

*Power Comics: We rarely see any of the IPC later Smashes with Free Gifts, but we have some for your consideration this week as follows: 7/2/70 has both the Soccer Star Album plus the first 8 picture cards to go in it; 21/1/70 has a further 8 picture cards and there are 8 more in 28/2/70.
PICTURED: SMASH
7/2/70 FN WITH FREE GIFT VF £30 SOLD
21/2/70 FN WITH FREE GIFT VF £30 SOLD
28/2/70 FN WITH FREE GIFT VF £30 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 three issues of 2000 AD. #1 (1st Flesh, Mach-1, Invasion, Harlem’s Heroes, new Dan Dare) is a FA copy, with spine wear and 2 back cover tears, plus the usual residue where the Free Gift was taped to the cover; the staples are a little loose but the page quality is decent. #2 (1st Judge Dredd) is VG/FN, a solid copy with no particular defects, just some age tanning. #3 is a nice FN which presents very well. Please note there are no Free Gifts with these copies.
PICTURED: 2000 AD
#1 FA £40 SOLD
#2 VG/FN £160 SOLD
#3 FN £30 SOLD

*Boys’ Adventure & War Picture Libraries: Our massive Air Ace update may have touched down for the time being, but we continue the aviation theme with Air War Picture Stories from Pearson Publishing. Launched in 1961, this fortnightly series mixed both original and edited American stories in order to maintain its breakneck schedule, and featured many eye-catching painted covers. With a sad lack of definitive records, opinions differ on when Air War ceased publication – at least one authoritative online source claims its final issue was #45, but we have #52 in our hands! There are 48 newly-added issues of Air War Picture Stories added to our lists this week, commencing with the very first and ending with the aforementioned #52, averaging VG – they would grade higher, being generally sound and clean, but long-term storage has left them prone to a degree of staple rust. The Pearson’s Libraries are not commonplace – we suspect they had substantially lower print runs than their rivals – and given the enthusiastic response to our previous Pearson listings of Sea War Stories and Picture Stories of World War II, we anticipate high demand.
PICTURED: AIR WAR PICTURE STORIES #1 VG £25 SOLD

*Humour Comics: Launched in 1975, Monster Fun attempted to mine the ‘spooky humour’ vein established by IPC/Fleetway’s earlier Shiver & Shake, with most of the strips being humourous twists on popular horror tropes – King Kong, Frankenstein, Dracula, Jaws and so on. With Wham! and Shiver & Shake alumnus Frankie Stein being drafted as figurehead editor, the series starred ‘Draculass’, ‘Kid Kong’, ‘Martha’s Monster Make-Up’, ‘Teddy Scare’, ‘X-Ray Specs’ and the original Pathetic Shark, ‘Gums’, who would be a man-eating terror of the ocean – if only he could find his false teeth! One exception to the theme was ‘Mummy’s Boy’ where the only horror on display appeared to be psychological torture, as a boy of indeterminate age was still dressed in baby clothes by his over-protective mother. Okay, it was played for laughs, but still… yeucch. Although Monster Fun faltered after 73 issues, a little over a year after launching, it had enough strong features that fully half its line-up moved into Buster, rather than the usual token one or two strips. We have 40 issues newly listed, filling many gaps in our inventory, commencing with #4 and ending with that final issue, #73.
PICTURED: MONSTER FUN #73 FN £12 FINAL ISSUE

*Modern Reprints: Continuing this week with Marvel’s Epic Collections, we add four new titles. These thick paperback volumes reprint the earliest stories of Marvel’s classic characters. Captain America reprints the try-out Cap story from Strange Tales #114, his proper return in Avengers #4 and all the Cap stories from Tales of Suspense #58-96. Daredevil reprints issues #1-21. Sgt Fury reprints #1-19. X-Men reprints #1-23. Find out how Marvel’s stars all got their beginnings at a fraction of the price of the original comics!
PICTURED:
CAPTAIN AMERICA EPIC COLLECTION NEW/MINT £32
DAREDEVIL EPIC COLLECTION NEW/MINT £36
SGT FURY EPIC COLLECTION NEW/MINT £36
X-MEN EPIC COLLECTION NEW/MINT £36

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: A collection of misfits with strange powers, hated and feared by the world they protect, led by a paraplegic genius in a wheelchair. Sound familiar? Well, guess again – almost simultaneously with the debut of the X-Men at Marvel, DC made their moribund title My Greatest Adventure the home of the ‘Doom Patrol’, created by Arnold Drake and Bruno Premiani. While the similarities between the X-Men and the DP are marked, the differences provide a significant contrast – the X-Men are teens, in a special school, with little experience of the world, while the Doom Patrol are all adults with successful careers and lives that they lost when a twisted fate granted them powers which would ostracise and, ultimately, possibly destroy them. The tone was altogether darker, and the series caught on, taking over the title, running to #121, and various reiterations of the team have been mainstays of the DCU ever since. Now as the subject of a live-action Netflix TV show, the DP’s star is on the ascendant. This copy of the Doom Patrol’s first appearance (as well as that of their arch-enemy General Immortus) is a gorgeous FN p copy, tight & bright with sharp corners, and vivid colours on both cover and interiors, though the cover is off the lower staple.
PICTURED: MY GREATEST ADVENTURE #80 FN p £375

*Marvel: The first Doctor Strange story in Strange Tales #110 might well have served as a stand-alone mystery tale – after all, Marvel had already tried the supernatural adventurer route with Dr. Droom, and flopped hard! – but with issue #111, it became clear the good doctor was in it for the long haul, as his second appearance saw the debut of Baron Mordo, thwarted pupil of the Ancient One and destined to become one of Strange’s greatest enemies! (And Johnny Storm fought the Asbestos Man in the front of the book, for the handful of folks who were bothered.) This VG+ pence copy is generally in excellent condition, and would easily grade FN or better but for slight ‘Marvel chipping’ at the cover’s upper right edge.
PICTURED: STRANGE TALES #111 VG+ p £140

*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 double-debut issue is a VF- pence copy, tight, bright and firm with clean flexible interiors and only minute spine ‘ticks’ betraying its age.
PICTURED: TALES OF SUSPENSE #75 VF- p £65 SOLD

More from the Square Mile Collection next week!

*DC: This year, the Legion of Super-Heroes (albeit not the classic form) returns to the DC roster after too long an absence, and we mark the occasion by expanding our catalogue stock of the series whose home century inspired our business’ name. (None of that ’31st Century’ nonsense on our watch, thank you very much!) Following a successful run as co-stars of Superboy’s series, the Legion took over the title with #259 in 1980, as the Teen of Steel left the book – not permanently, but long enough that the 30th Century’s interplanetary defenders made their mark. After a competent but unremarkable couple of years, the series hit its stride under the team of writer Paul Levitz and illustrator Keith Giffen, who introduced complicated, multi-layer sagas and more believable character relationships. The pair catapulted the Legion into one of DC’s top-selling titles of the 1980s – to the point where a second series was launched for the burgeoning direct market, as the original book changed to ‘Tales of the Legion of Super-Heroes’. We have a substantial, though not quite complete, run of the Legion of Super-Heroes, both series, from 1980 through to the mid-1990s and the end of the Magic Wars – after which… it mostly wasn’t so good, take our word for it – plus a selection of Legion mini-series and Specials related to this period, including Cosmic Boy, Karate Kid (slightly earlier, that one), the Legion of Substitute Heroes one-shot, Legionnaires 3 and Secrets of the Legion of Super-Heroes. Long Live the Legion!
PICTURED: LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #259 NM £11.50 SOLD

*Marvel: As previously mentioned, we bow to no one in our appreciation of Steve Ditko, original artist and co-creator of the Amazing Spider-Man, and we’re therefore thrilled to welcome a lucky 13 issues of Ditko Spidey new in to our stock, commencing with #21 and ending with #38, the final Ditko issue before Jazzy Johnny Romita took over! Highlights of this selection include the debuts of ever-menacing Molten Man and the Meteor Man (later the Looter), the joint first appearances of Gwen Stacy and Harry Osborn, the first Norman Osborn, all three parts of the classic Master Planner trilogy (#31-33) and clashes with the Human Torch  & the Beetle, Mysterio,  Kraven the Hunter, the Crime-Master and more! In grades ranging from GD to FN+, this selection will have something to suit every Spider-Fan’s taste and budget! Higher grade issues shown here — for details of the remainder, please check our catalogue listings.
PICTURED: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN
#25 VG+ p £100
#28 FN+ p £250
#31 FN+ p £260 SOLD
#35 FN/VF p £75
#36 FN+ £80 SOLD
#38 FN- £85