Newsboys

It’s great that DC and Marvel have been doing crossovers again recently. I just wish that they would do full-length stories again like the Limited Collectors/Treasury editions back in the 1970s/80s, or even like the Prestige format ones in the 1990s.

Johnny Come Wakely

 

Kid Colt has the distinction of being the longest running Western themed comic book of all time, with a little more than three decades of publication. I only ever had one issue of Kid Colt (issue number 202), which was a reprint of issue no. 129. And it was also previously reprinted in issue no. 162! I’m not certain if most (or all) of the 1970s issues were reprints, but I guess they were selling well enough for the title to have lasted until 1979.

Powered Couple

My first exposure to this couple was in Marvel Team-Up, when they teamed up with Spidey to fight some dude named The Dark Rider in a time-traveling adventure set during the Salem Witch Trials. I know that I wasn’t even ten years old at that time, but it sparked my interest about the Salem story and I started reading about it in our school library. I think I was too young to realize how horrible it all was. I only recall seeing a picture of Cotton Mather and thinking that the way Sal Buscema drew him was not very accurate.

Jungle Jen

 

I didn’t read She-Hulk’s first series, and only got familiar with her when she joined the Fantastic Four during John Byrne’s run. I really liked her relationship with Wyatt Wingfoot. They seemed perfect together. Too bad it didn’t last.

I would also read some issues of her second series. At first I didn’t appreciate the humorous fourth wall breaking because I found the sitcom style humor in the Justice League titles at that time more to my liking. But eventually it grew on me.

Santa’s Baby?

 

I really hope people get the joke in this post. 😁 Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays, whichever you prefer!

Alison’s Blare

 

Would Dazzler have been more successful if the planned multimedia venture between Marvel and Casablanca Records had pushed through? I wonder who would have played Dazzler in real life? They would also have needed to sing her songs. What would the songs have sounded like?

Marvel would apply the same tactic again a decade later with Nightcat. But that failed miserably. So maybe Dazzler’s future wouldn’t have been too different, after all?

G Spotting

 

These two licensed properties overlapped at Marvel for a few months, but it was a missed opportunity not to have them cross over with each other. Maybe if Marvel had held onto the Godzilla license for a while longer, we would have gotten it. Or maybe not, if Toho or Mattel had any objections.

Elders of the Lost Ark

It would have been nice to see Ke Huy Quan reprise his role in the the last Indiana Jones film, given his resurgence in popularity around the same time as that film’s release. But, yeah, I don’t think the Indy producers were prescient enough to know that he’d be relevant again with the surprise hit Everything Everywhere All At Once.

Headmen

It’s kinda interesting that Marvel nicknamed quite a few of their characters with the word “head”… like Hornhead for Daredevil, Winghead for Captain America, Buckethead for Nova, Canucklehead for Wolverine, and the two examples above.

Yeah, I think we can blame Stan Lee for that, since he was the scripter for most of the time those terms were used for the first time in Marvel’s comics.

Out of Knowhere

 I must admit, I didn’t read the original Rocket Raccoon miniseries because I didn’t like Mike Mignola’s art back then. It took a while for me to appreciate his work. I think it was when he did a fill-in job on Byrne’s Superman reboot that made me realize how good his artwork was.

As for Rocket himself, I liked his storyarc the best among his fellow Guardians of the Galaxy in the movie trilogy.

Heads of State

 

This was a series that never seemed to end. I had some issues of this title that I bought as local Philippine reprints when I was a kid, and every issue I bought ended with a cliffhanger. So when the series was reprinted in the Essential line of B&W books some years back, I bought it to get the whole story. And yeah, every issue really did end with a cliffhanger that leads you to the next issue. I guess that’s why I gravitated towards DC more as a kid, because they did more done-in-ones while Marvel had a tendency to do multiple issue stories.

Surfin’ the (Shock) Wave

 

Marvel started out the Transformers license by incorporating them into the Marvel Universe and having Spider-Man guest-star in the third issue. But they decided against it later on so that their Transformers stories existed in its own continuity. But what if they continued with their original route? We might have gotten something like this, where the Transformers might have had to worry about not just one but two planet devourers.

Fashion Shoot

 I think Dakota North was not originally intended to be part of the Marvel Universe, but rather a standalone series in its own universe with no superhero trappings. Her series only lasted five issues, though. Maybe Marvel didn’t want the character to go to waste and later on integrated her into their superhero universe.

She was originally slated to guest star in Spectacular Spider-Man alongside Silver Sable, but that did not push through. So here’s my version of what was supposed to be Dakota North’s initial entry into the larger Marvel Universe.

Astro Void

 Vance Astro was a guy who was trapped in a containment suit. It was stated that he was thousands of years old, and if the suit was breached he would crumble into dust. That got me to thinking… that suit must be pretty indestructible, since even just a small tear would mean his demise. And if it was not, wouldn’t it make sense for him to always be wearing protective gear on top of it to ensure his survival?

Beast Friends Forever?

The Beast and Wonder Man friendship was one that seemed like a total mismatch, but it endured for around two decades in real time. The pair was split apart when Beast was “returned” to the X-books. They would meet every now and then afterwards, but I think it’s safe to say that their friendship has never been the same.

Doc & Savage

The Hulk's look has varied over the decades, but my favorite is the one I grew up with... the Sal Buscema version. I remember Sal bouncing around a lot of Marvel comics from the 1960s to the 1980s, even up until the 1990s. I think The Incredible Hulk was his longest continuous stint. Which has me wondering... Does Sal Buscema hold the record for most comic pages drawn for Marvel?

Electric Bill

Beta Ray Bill is a case of not judging a book by its cover. His first appearance had him smashing the old Thor logo, and his monstrous appearance suggested that he'd be a villain. Although he was at odds with the Thunder God at first, his nobility shone through, and was deemed worthy of wielding Mjolnir. Readers even took to him favorably, and he remains one of the best secondary characters added to the Marvel Thor mythos.

A Nightmare on Yancy Street

 

Even though the Thing was my favorite FF member, I didn't mind when She-Hulk took over for a while. She meshed well with the rest of the team, no doubt due to John Byrne's excellent writing.

I don't think I've seen the Fantastic Four go up against Nightmare before, or even had much interactions with magical characters in their own title.

AVP: Arachnid vs. Predator

Among Spider-Man's major foes, Kraven was the one I liked the least. Maybe it was his goofy costume. I don't know. Even when I read Kraven's Last Hunt for the first time, I thought it was just okay (awesome Mike Zeck and Bob McLeod art, though). I loved it, though, when I re-read it when I was older. I guess my appreciation for it grew when I matured. And, yeah, I think I like Kraven much better now, too... Goofy costume and all.

Claws Encounter

The brown suit is still my favorite Wolverine costume. It was during those times that Logan was still not ridiculously over-powered (or OP, as the kids say nowadays). He was hard to kill, but it wasn't impossible.

I've always liked Native American characters when I was growing up, and Puma is no exception. He debuted as a Spider-Man adversary, but even then he didn't seem villainous. I think he's more of a Deathstroke-like character, straggling the line between friend or foe.