The Essential line of reprints from Marvel are a great boon to anyone who enjoys old school Marvel action. Each phonebook-sized black & white reprint contains 25 or more issues worth of material. I only own two Essentials right now, Essential Avengers volume 4 and Essential Defenders volume 1. Because they were both so fabulous, I decided to research what other volumes in the line contained 70's and early 80's material. That's the period of most interest to me, the so-called Bronze Age of Comics. Here's the list I came up:
Spider-Man 4-7
Avengers 4 & 5
Conan 1
Daredevil 3
Defenders 1 & 2
Doctor Strange 2
Godzilla 1
Ghost Rider 1
Howard the Duck 1
Hulk 3 & 4
Iron Fist 1
Killraven 1
Luke Cage 1 & 2
Marvel Team-Up 1 & 2
Marvel Two-In-One 1
Monster of Frankenstein 1
Nova 1
Official Handbook 1*
Peter Parker 1 & 2
Punisher 1
Savage She-Hulk 1
Spider-Woman 1
Super-Villain Team-Up 1
Tales of the Zombie 1
Tomb of Dracula 1-4**
Werewolf by Night 1
X-Men 1-7***
Notes
*A good argument could be made that the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe was one of the books whose publication signalled the end of the Bronze Age.
**Volumes 3 and 4 reprint some of the black & white Dracula mags. They have been edited for nudity, so if you insist on nipples in your vampire books you will need to track down the originals.
***Only volumes 1 and 2 of the X-Men include any 70's material. The later volumes transition from the Bronze Age to the Modern Age of Comics. At what point that happens I don't know.
Mince Pie Fest 2024: M&S Collection
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I do not like the pastry on these mince pies at all. AT ALL. Crunchy and
far too sugary (which doesn't help with the crunch), I suppose at least
it's not t...
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The guy who owns my FLCS agrees with you about the OHOTMU being the end of the Bronze/beginning of the Iron, and remarked that another hallmark of the Iron Age was the increased emphasis on catering to what was at that time a fringe group: those folks who would rather read ABOUT comics than read comics. He says this crowd comprises a growing part of his business...
ReplyDeleteInteresting. I call it one of the hallmarks of the end of the age because it signalled a new approach at the way fans look at heroes. When you're handed authoritative encyclopedic documentation of each hero's powers, it boxes those characters in creatively.
ReplyDeleteI'm still not over the notion that there's more than two ages (see earlier responses to earlier posts on the matter). :) It's wigging me out.
ReplyDelete... But working in a comic shop in the 80s, the only need we had for "ages" was when placing orders for bags (we ordered mylar and polybags in three sizes, usually, which the distributors called Golden Age, Silver Age, and Magazine).
Since all the latest comics fit in Silver Age bags, I had no reason to suspect the Silver Age had ended :) I'm pretty sure I remember the shop copy of the Overstreet referring to the Silver Age as if it were ongoing, too, but I could just be fuzzy in the memory department - it wouldn't be the first time.
Now I'm mainly jealous that RPGs don't have cool metallic ages.