"Recent Acquisitions"

Been looking thru a stack o' comics I won from recent on-line auctions. One of the most interesting to me of the bunch is a copy of DC's Unexpected #190 (1979). It reprints the previously unpublished story from Doorway to Nightmare #6 (titled: "Tapestry of Dreams") along with the Mike Kaluta cover (shown above). DTN got caught up along with a slew of other titles in the great DC Implosion in the mid 1970's. Of course, most everyone that knows comics also knows that the artwork that'd been done ended up in those two volumes of photocopies given out to editors/creators they called "Cancelled Comics Cavalcade" 1 & 2 in 1978, but actually quite a bit of that material, some a bit edited, was eventually printed in other DC titles.

This issue of "Unexpected" was published during the time DC was still trying to experiment with what was the best size and price for the then current titles, and it's one of their "$1.00 Giants". I always thought that a really good size and value. Sometimes you got some reprints in those, but still quite a bit of good reading for a buck.

Another "Dollar" comic I got was DC's All-Out War #1, also from 1979. Nothing really unique about this war comic save maybe the (fair looking) Joe Kubert cover. It did have the first app. and origins of some misc. characters (such as "The Viking Commano"), but the only truely savable quality to this comic is the 10 pages of artwork by Jerry Grandenetti.

Other comics in this lot included several early issues of Marvel's The Defenders from the 1972-74 period. 'Couple of these had Gil Kane covers, and app.'s of "The Squadron Supreme, Prof. X and Magneto and The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants". I found a comment in the "hype" box in an early issue interesting as it told of a forthcoming title from Marvel to be called Gothic Thrillers and featuring the Theodore Sturgeon story, "It!". This comic was never published under that name however. Instead it was re-titled Supernatural Thrillers and eventually became the home for the Marvel horror-hero, "The Living Mummy".

The best of The Defenders issues though was an issue the seller had mislisted and was in reality a copy of Marvel Feature #2 (from 1971), which is The Defenders second true appearance. Not only is it one of the last 25 cent Marvel "Giants" published, but also contained an 8 page reprint of "The Sub-Mariner" from the 1950's (from one of the Atlas titles).

Then there was copies of The Avengers #'s 90 & 92 from 1971. Not much there; #92 has a Neal Adams cover (and it's a shame it wasn't 93 since that's an ALL Adams issue). Rounding out this lot's a copy of Spaceman #6 from 1963, published by Dell. Nice "painted-type" cover, but otherwise just a misc. silver-age comic.

Opps! Almost forgot a set of the 1987 DC mini series of "The Phantom Stranger" by Kupperberg/Mignola/Russell. Nice little limited series with great art from the late 1980's.


Got to see "The Ghost Rider" flick a few days back. Nowhere as bad as I figured. I liked the combination of the old western GR with the "Johnny Blaze" version.