*Marvel: The final entry’s relevance may not be immediately obvious, as the Black Widow herself doesn’t appear at all in Avengers #196 (June 1980). However, the villain of that issue, the Taskmaster, is slated to be the Big Bad of the Black Widow movie. The polymath skill-pilferer has proved one of the more popular characters from the later 20th Century Marvel Universe, achieving the status of reluctant anti-hero through nuanced and well-written stints in the series Avengers: The Initiative and Avengers Academy. Having made a menacing last page cameo in the preceding issue, #196 is the Taskmaster’s first full appearance, and this copy is a VF pence edition, very light wear at cover edge, but beautiful cover colour and gloss, on sale at £100.

*DC: During DC’s 1970s flirtation with the 100 Page Super-Spectacular format, Batman’s series was promoted to 100 Page status every issue, with new material backed up by a plethora of stories from the 1940s through to the 1960s; unlike most other Super-Specs, which presented a variety of features, the Batman 100 Pagers were all Bats. We open this consecutive selection with #254 and close with #262 – the latter not 100 Pages, but still a Giant, and the last issue before the series reverted to the 32 page standard. The new lead stories in these issues feature all the classic villains – Man-Bat, Catwoman, Penguin, Two-Face, the Joker and the Scarecrow – plus a guest-appearance by pulp hero the Shadow, and a rather nifty Neal Adams-drawn werewolf tale. With the exception of #254, which is a respectable VG, most of these are nice copies grading VF or better. Pictured is #257 VF/NM £61.

*DC: A chunky update to one of comics’ greatest sequences: Alan Moore’s classic run on Swamp Thing, with nearly 30 high grade issues fresh into stock between #22 and #53. When Moore took over Swampy with issue #20 of his second series, he was just another muck monster (albeit one with great pedigree), but Moore transformed the series into one of dark, gothic ecological thriller, penetrating to the heart of the darker side of the USA as perhaps only an Englishman could. Batman, Constantine and myriad denizens of DC’s supernatural universe guest. If you’ve never read Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing, you’re in for a treat!

*Marvel: Having boosted the sales of Jack Kirby’s oblique and confusing, though imaginative, comics version of 2001 (though not enough to actually save the book from cancellation), Machine Man, the robot with a soul, was given the chance at his own series in 1978. Although better received by readers and critics than 2001 itself, the series failed to gain long term traction, terminating with #19 (Kirby having departed with #9), but Aaron Stack remains an integral part of the MU, associated with the Avengers, the Agents of HATE and other groups. This is a PGX 9.6 copy (NM+ equivalent), on sale at £55.

*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. This copy of Black Panther #1 is a pence copy, a few small colour-breaking spine ‘ticks’, but unmarred glossy cover with vivid, unfaded red background. VF p £65. SORRY, THIS HAS NOW SOLD

*Marvel: In the early days of the Marvel Age, the editors thought they could push Johnny Storm, the Fantastic Four’s Human Torch, as a solo star, following in the wake of his Golden Age predecessor, and his solo series had him pitted against some of the more outlandish villains in Marvel’s history. (Well, Paste-Pot Pete; say no more.) One such was the Sorceror, a gentleman who discovered Pandora’s Box and unleashed all the legendary evils in it upon our hapless hero. This often-overlooked Lee/Kirby story, in the last issue of Strange Tales before the debut of Dr. Strange, is one of the cleverer of Johnny’s, honestly, generally lacklustre solos, and is backed up by a Lee/Ditko twist-ending thriller, ‘Earth Is Off-Limits!’, and ‘Time Was…’ by Lee & Lieber. An attractive FN- p copy, with light to moderate spine wear but firm staples, this is on sale at £70. SORRY, THIS HAS NOW SOLD

*Marvel: More than twenty Silver Age Amazing Spider-Man entries this update, commencing with #46, the first appearance of the Shocker, and concluding with #114, wherein Spidey faces the twin menaces of Hammerhead and Doctor Octopus. Along the way, he faces off or fights beside (sometimes both in the same ish) Kraven, Vulture, Kingpin, Ka-Zar and Zabu, Quicksilver, Lizard and the Chameleon, all the while surrounded by the cavorting cast of crazy characters we know and love! This is a selection of mostly ‘readers’ – some Fine, but mostly ranging from PR to VG. Curiosity bonus: the newly-added #69 is Poor, but features an unverified autograph by artist Jim Mooney across the upper splash page!

*Marvel: Can we tell you something? We love the She-Hulk here at 30th Century, we do. Not so much the first series, where, despite brave attempts, she generally came across as a pale imitation of her more famous cousin, but when John Byrne brought back her own series (after successfully rehabilitating the character in Fantastic Four) Jen was a smart, savvy lady who knew that she was a comic-book character and shamelessly exploited the tropes of the medium, breaking the ‘Fourth Wall’ on a regular basis, and reviving the most bizarre and outlandish elements from the Marvel Universe – Razorback, the Toad Men, the Blonde Phantom, Xemnu – in a fanboy’s delight, all the while establishing Jen Walters as a tough, witty and compassionate character with much more going on than her big green physique. We’re delighted to add the second series of Shulkie to our lists, with issues between #2 and #50 catalogued for your delectation.

*Horror 1940-1959: Standard’s Adventures Into Darkness provided high-quality work from a number of acclaimed artists, including Sekowsky, Katz and Alex Toth, the latter of whom graces this very issue, #5, behind an evocative Jack Katz cover; Ace’s Baffling Mysteries offers striking Lou Cameron artwork and, in #20, a classic bondage cover; and from ACG, we offer 1954’s first (and only) issue of the Clutching Hand, a rare one-shotof one of the less subtle titles of the period! Pictured are Adventures Into Darkness #5 GD+ £77, Baffling Mysteries #20 FA £25 and Clutching Hand #1 FA £30. See our online listings for further details, including Baffling Mysteries #21 in addition. SORRY, PICTURED ITEMS NOW SOLD

*Modern Reprints: A selection of full colour softcover compilations of some of DC’s finest: Batman: Brave & Bold the Bronze Age takes in many of the Darknight Detective’s most-loved team-ups, with most of the epic Neal Adams issues included. Secret Origins compiles the secrets behind the powers and abilities of DC’s greatest super-stars. Daring New Adventures of Supergirl presents the Maid of Steel’s breakaway series of the 1980s in two volumes. Super Powers showcases the work of the legendary Jack Kirby on DC’s greatest heroes and villains. The New Teen Titans features some of Wolfman and Perez’s most significant stories in the smash-hit series of the 80s. And World’s Finest: The Silver Age re-presents early Sixties wackiness and adventure from Dick Sprang, Jim Mooney, Curt Swan and more. All of these newly-added volumes are NM, virtually as new.

*Vintage UK/Australian Reprints of US Material: Alex Raymond’s classic detective comic strip Rip Kirby ran for decades, but its zenith was the late 1940s to the early 1950s, and this undated World Distributors compilation, which from context we’ve placed in the 1950s, is a softcover collection of three separate Alex Raymond stories – “The Elixir of Youth”, “Model In Trouble”, and “Desmond Makes A Lucky Strike”. Gunplay, violence, snappy dialogue and shapely ladies on both sides of the law, this is a truly delightful vintage piece. The flyleaf is brown, but the rest of the pages have held up well, and the softcover’s cloth spine is sound with only minor wear at lower edge. Although there is light to moderate corner and edge wear, the cover scene is unimpaired, and overall eye appeal good. On sale at £20.

*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: Ah, Summertime! What better way to celebrate than with stories of bloody warfare? Home of D-Day Dawson, Johnny Red, Charley’s War, Major Eazy and a host of other acclaimed strips, Battle weekly reinvented the war genre for the British comic medium, and caught on so fast it won its own series of extra-length Specials in its first year of publication, 1975. We are chuffed to have that debut special, and its sequel from the following year, newly in stock in high grades, from a newsagent’s uncirculated stock, so never read, though very minor wear may have occurred owing to long-term storage. Battle Picture Weekly Summer Special 1975 (to give it its full title) is FN/VF £40, and its 1976 successor is VF £40. SORRY, THESE HAVE NOW SOLD

As you may know, we’re a small team here at 30th Century, and with half of us away for annual holiday next week, it won’t be possible to post out orders, with available personnel keeping the shop open every day and no time to get to the Post Office. If you placed and paid for your order up to yesterday (Saturday 31st August) it will be posted on Monday 2nd September, but after that post-outs will not recommence until approximately 12th September. We apologise for any inconvenience caused, but you may still place orders as usual. 

*DC: A perennial fandom hot topic since the early Silver Age was “Who’s fastest, Superman or the Flash?” Amazingly, DC held off until 1967 to address, if not precisely answer, the question, with Superman #199, in which the Kryptonian Crusader and the Vizier of Velocity were forced to compete against each other for the title of World’s Swiftest Mortal. So hugely popular was this issue that a rematch was staged in Flash #175, later the same year, and a third bout, expanded to two parts, in World’s Finest #198 & #199 in 1970, with the tag-line, “This time… there MUST be a winner!”. So who was the winner? Hey, buy the books and find out! These three epic races are all new to our stocks this week: Superman #199 is FN+p £175; Flash #175 is FN+p £65 and World’s Finest #198 & #199 are both FN+ p at £40 each. We expect all these issues to move almost as fast as our fleet-footed competitors, so act with appropriate celerity if you want to nab them! SORRY, THESE HAVE NOW SOLD

*DC: Around the turn of the century, DC flirted with a revival of its 1970s tabloid format in a handful of glossy oversized squarebound editions focussing on key characters in the DC pantheon, and in almost all cases, fully painted by Alex Ross, the artist who had made Marvels and Kingdom Come such breakthrough successes. Wonder Woman: Spirit of Truth focuses on DC’s Amazing Amazon, and evokes in lush text and illustrations the core values of the character – which DC has subsequently been diligently undermining, but don’t get me started. Written by acclaimed scripter Paul Dini, this is a gorgeous package, in Near Mint condition, on sale at £20.

*Marvel: When you’re dealing with a comic this significant, none of our usual sarky comments are needed. Newly in, the fourth issue of Amazing Spider-Man, a Lee & Ditko classic which introduced Spidey to the gentleman who would become one of his most vehement enemies – and occasionally, a reluctant hero – the shape-shifting Sandman, whose molecular mastery came close to baffling our hero. In addition, this issue features the debut of Betty Brant, a lady who was to become very important in the Wall-Crawler’s life. This is a CGC Blue Label (no restoration) copy, graded at 3.0 (GD/VG) bearing visible light to moderate edge and corner wear to the cover, but a completely unimpeded cover scene with unfaded red background. This beautiful and historic item is on sale at £530. SORRY, THIS HAS NOW SOLD

*Marvel: The 87th issue of New Mutants featured the first full appearance (he had made a fleeting walk-on in the previous) of Cable, a man from an apocalyptic near-future, son of Scott Summers by a cloned replica of Jean Grey, who came back in time to prevent his own future from coming to pass. Or something like that. His powers include metal bits, a strappy costume, really big guns, and glaring a lot. With a shiny eye, for no very good reason. Anyway, he took over the stewardship of the New Mutants from Magneto, and eventually honed the survivors into X-Force, a dubious achievement for which no-one should thank him. He’s since bobbed back between ‘now’ and the future, interfering with his own and the world’s time stream, and accosting various mutant children to become the Hope of the World. Kind of a perma-grumpy Mary Poppins, he’s a super-powered nanny with metal limbs. Confusing back history and ambiguous abilities or not, his co-starring role in the record-breaking second Deadpool film has caused interest in the character’s early appearances to peak. This copy of the mulleted marvel’s debut is a CGC 8.5 (VF+) certified signed by artist/creator Rob Liefeld on 22nd July 2016, and is on sale at £160. And the best part of being slabbed? You don’t have to look inside it!

*Marvel: X-Men issue #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! This copy of X-Men #129 is a striking VF+, with only very soft ‘blunting’ of cover corners, tight staples, bright covers with excellent gloss. A cents copy, no UK stamp or overprint, it is on sale at £75.

*Marvel: One of the most staggeringly popular reinventions of a character in the 1970s was Jim Starlin’s take on Warlock, the quasi-Messiah of Counter-Earth originally created by Roy Thomas and Gil Kane. Bringing Warlock back from the dead, Starlin planted him front and centre of the cosmic saga that Starlin had been unfolding in the pages of Captain Marvel and elsewhere, and after an acclaimed run in Strange Tales, Warlock won his own series back, beginning with #9 (continuing the numbering of his previous run) in 1975. Although critically and artistically acclaimed, it couldn’t sustain mass-market sales, and ended again with #15, though the character has remained pivotal to most of Marvel’s cosmos-altering crossovers ever since. We have three of the Jim Starlin Warlocks back in stock in immaculate NM grades, the finest copies we’ve seen since their original publication, all cents copies with no UK pricing: #9 NM £55, #10 NM £55 and #15 NM £55. SORRY, THESE HAVE NOW SOLD

*Marvel: Following the smash hit of Secret Wars, Marvel revisited the theme with, rather unimaginatively, Secret Wars II in 1985; the Beyonder, the cosmic entity which instigated the first series, having become intrigued by humanity, visits Earth in human form, and inevitably comes into conflict with Earth’s superhumans and the cosmic entities that exist in the Marvel Universe. Featuring, as before, a multiplicity of crossovers with the rest of the Marvel Universe, this series didn’t have the epochal impact of its predecessor, but Jim Shooter’s script had plenty of intriguing moments, especially the Beyonder’s struggles to adapt to everyday human activities, such as eating, sleeping, using the bathroom – and falling in love! But don’t worry, there’s action a’plenty too! This complete 9 issue series, averaging VF, pence copies, is available as a set for £35. SORRY, THIS SET HAS NOW SOLD

*Marvel: Marvel’s space-born cosmic super-hero soars this update with a huge influx of our stocks of Captain Marvel ranging from #2 to #62 (the final issue), and most issues between. Guest stars mingle with Marvel’s emerging cosmic cast in a series of galaxy-expanding adventures!

*Horror/Mystery 1960-1980s: By its tenth issue, Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan’s highly acclaimed run on Tomb of Dracula was in full swing, racking up plaudits from critics and fans alike, when suddenly there came a character who was to outstrip even the success of his comic book ‘parent’. Blade the Vampire Slayer debuted in issue #10, and, numerous comic-book appearances and a highly successful movie trilogy (Marvel’s first such, in fact) behind him, remains one of the more enduring breakthrough characters of the 1970s. With the Blade franchise shortly about to be ‘rebooted’, in the media’s voracious frenzy for new properties, Blade’s early appearances are once more spiralling upward. This is a cents copy, no UK price or overstamp, in superior VF+ condition, excellent cover colour and gloss, firm staples at spine and centrefold, tiny crease in upper right cover corner and small faint arrival date at side of the logo. VF+ key on sale at £900. Front, back and splash shown below; high resolution images are available on request.

*Memorabilia & Esoterica: The Mighty Marvel Comics Calendar – or ‘Memory Album’, as they call it – from 1977 features 12 all-new pieces of art from the great and good of the Marvel Bullpen: John Romita, Jack Kirby, Gil Kane, John Buscema, Gene Colan, George Perez and others illustrate the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Thor, the Avengers, the Defenders, Luke Cage, Dracula, and many more in full-colour pin-ups which – we believe – have never been reprinted. This is an unused, unmarked spiral-bound calendar awash with trivia about the Marvel characters and creators, FN/VF condition, yours for £20. SORRY, THIS HAS NOW SOLD

*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: Launched in 1963 in the wake of the success of Victor, Hornet followed its elder brother’s formula of sport, war and adventure stories, with a lot of ‘true life’ tales of heroism, and had a respectable run up until early 1976, when it merged with its stablemate Hotspur. Popular strips include ageless athlete ‘Wilson’; sporting polymath ‘Bouncing’ Bernard Briggs’; and ‘The Swamp Rat’, a muscular tattooed number who ran around the jungle in a pair of cut-off shorts terrorising the invading Japanese with his mongoose. No, that’s not a euphemism. We have a clutch of Free Gift Hornets from 1968 to 1970, opening with #264, where the gift, a gummed sheet of photos of footballers, has become partly stuck to the interiors over the years. #314 features the ‘Hornet Book of Football Facts and Photos’, and both #354 and #355 each feature a sheet of full-colour photo-cards of world cup stars, fortunately not stuck anywhere. #373 has the nicest gift of all, the Hornet Pop-Pistol, still in its original packaging and said packaging still glued inside the comic as it originally was, which unfortunately has caused some distortion and damage to the comic’s pages, but the gift is immaculate. #264 is GD with gift GD- £10; the remainder are pictured: #314 FN with gift VF £15, #354 FN with gift VF £15, #355 GD with gift VF £12.50 and #373 FA with gift VF £20. SORRY, THESE HAVE NOW SOLD

*Humour Comics: Whoopee was a popular anarchic humour anthology from IPC/Fleetway, launched in 1974 and home to several famous and popular strips, including the ‘Bumpkin Billionaires’, ‘Evil Eye’, ‘Supermum’ and of course ‘Sweeny Toddler’. We have new Whoopee Holiday/Summer Specials in, from 1978 to 1983, plus the first solo special for Ken Reid’s famous creation, ‘Frankie Stein’! Depicted are Whoopee Holiday Special 1976 (VF £20), and the premier Whoopee Frankie Stein Summer Special from 1975 (VF £50).