Silver Surfer #1 ( Facsimile) - Stan Lee and John Buscema

Ever since I picked up my first Silver Surfer comic (issue 12) as a 10 year old in 1970 I have been a massive fan of the broody Sentinel of the Spaceways. So you can imagine my excitment to find out that Marvel will be publishing facsimile editions of the first 7 issues of his original series by Stan Lee and John Buscema. Today (Wednesday) I picked up the first issue (originally published in 1968) and I have to say that I was surprised to find out that it was such a thick book of around 50 pages of silvery fun. Although I have read these Surfer tales in various UK reprints its good to see these stories in full colour and in their original format.

In addition to the main 38 page Silver Surfer tale is a very nice 13 page Gene Colan\Stan Lee Watcher story which I seem to recall reading in a Marvel UK weekly many years ago.

The Groovy 1970's Christmas Countdown: Spider-Man the Newspaper strip -Stan Lee & John Romita Snr

I don't recall ever reading the Spider-Man newspaper strip in my local/national papers but I did read them when I picked up vol 1 of the collected strips in 2005. Most newspaper adventure strip rarely had much of a Christmas storyline to them as they were probably in the middle of an ongoing adventure as the festive season arrived. However, the Spider-Man newspaper strip went all out and featured a specially written Christmas themed tale.

This story follows on from an earlier segment involving J Jonah Jamieson who hires Kraven the Hunter to capture Spider-Man. As can be seen from the above colour Sunday strip, in the story Peter heads to a department store to buy Christmas presents but it is so busy that he decides to shop as Spider-Man. The strip then meanders a bit and over the next few instalments Peter basically goes through the presents he bought and calls Mary Jane and Aunt May. The action improves (very slightly) when Spider-Man see a crook and captures him. This is not the best Christmas tale but it has a. certain charm to it and of course it is nicely illustrated by the late great John Romita.

Next up: Hot toys, comics, and Santa all in a Christmas comic!

Favourite Comics: Marvel Premiere - Dr Strange #3 - Barry Smith & Stan Lee

As mentioned in my previous post I have been on a bit of a back-issue comic buying spree recently picking up some of the comics I either used to own but gave away or comics that I lusted after but missed first time around. In relation to “Marvel Premiere” #3 this was a comic that I had always wanted but never saw in my local newsagents at the time, so when a copy became available in my local comic store, I snapped it up. I first read this story in #93 of the UK weekly "Avengers" comics back in June 1975 and as “cool” as the story was back then, nothing compares to the "magic" that the original 1970's US colour versions provided. Enjoy:

In this story “While the World Spins Mad!” Doctor Strange’s enemy is unknown with only a riddle given by the venerated Ancient One as to his foe's true identity (it’s Nightmare!). While the threat he faces is real, it pales in comparison to what is actually happening to him in the real world. Although Steve Ditko and Gene Colan will always be "my" Dr Strange artists, Smiths art in this issue is on par with these 2 giants of the genre and I would have loved to have seen him draw more Dr Strange comics (apart from "Marvel Premiere" #4, which I will now be on the look out for).

Above: Cover of Avengers weekly (UK) #93 - There is review of this issue of the UK Avengers in the excellent "Power of the BeeSting" blog that focuses on UK Marvel.

Favourite Comics: Chamber of Darkness issue 1 - John Buscema & Stan Lee - It's only Magic!

I have to make an admission here, I never owned a copy of “Chamber of Darkness” issue 1 when I was a kid. However, when I came across a copy of this issue last week (on a holiday to Brighton) my memory was immediately sent hurtling back to 1970 when my pal (Alan) loaned me his copy to read. Although the cover (by John Buscema and John Verpoorten) certainly started to trigger my memory of this comic it wasn’t until I flipped through the pages and came across the 4 panels below that I fully recalled that day and the first time I had seen John Buscema’s amazing drawings of the Djinn and my many, many failed attempts to copy them.

Chamber of Darkness was Marvels attempt to compete with DC’s successful mystery line of comics including House of Mystery and House of Secrets. The comic featured the work of some of Marvels top talents including writers Stan Lee, Gerry Conway, Archie Goodwin, and Roy Thomas, and artists John & Sal Buscema, Jack Kirby, Tom Sutton, Don Heck, Barry (Windsor) Smith and Bernie Wrightson. Despite this “Chamber of Darkness” (and it companion title “Tower of Shadow ) had poor sales and soon moved from publishing all new material to featuring mostly reprints from the Atlas back catalogue from the 1950’s and 1960’s. This issue featured work by Kirby,Tom Sutton, Don Heck, Gary Friedrich and Denny O’Neil, but the strip below by Stan Lee and John Buscema was the stand out for me, so much so that it had stayed "hidden" in my memory banks for over 50 years – Enjoy.

Chamber of Darkness ran for 8 Issues from October 1969 to December 1970 (and one all reprint special in 1972).From issue issue 9 the title changed to “Monsters on the Prowl” which finally ended with issue 30 in 1974. A real shame as the new marterial that appeared in "Chamber of Darkness" issue 1-7 were more than a match for DCs mystery titles.