I've been known to romanticize weird little corners of Marvel like the title Nova. or Machine Man. But I do know a good superhero epic mega-blockbuster, and after a busy summer, I thought I'd relax with Comics and, for the first time in months, write about them. AVENGERS ANNUAL #7 of 1977 and its sequel is, at least, in the Top 7 Stories of the Seventies that ever assembled Avengers. Now, I loved the scope of Marvel-Two-In-One Annual #2 -I wondered if it wasn't the best Spider-Man stories of the 1970s. But it MIGHT be the two-part summer epic that best epitomizes stories of the Avengers, too. The others? I propose, chronologically: Kree-Skrull War from #89-98. Then, the jaunt of ever Avenger to Olympus in 99-100. The Serpent Crown encounter that brought us Squadron Sinister and Hellcat, 141-144 and 147, was it- there's another. Between Grim Reaper and Ultron's machinations next around #159-162 proves, this title hardly let up. #167 -177 compri...

Working at Marvel Comics has been a job dreamed of by so many young people, every since the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man and the original Avengers made it the cool, connected, offbeat place it was in the Marvel Age. Virtually every one who came to work there, from the late 60's onward, was a massive fan of some (or nearly all) Marvel character. So here's the story about one of those young people. (And here is Glam rocker Marc Bolan- who once interviewed Stan Lee for a BBC show-holding the first comic scripted by DAK! Yeah!) Stream or download, and happy 2019! DAK: Everyone likes to use the phrase, “break into comics”- but I like to say, I was invited. Not that I wouldn’t have broken in! Lue: You already had taken on work, in high school, as a literary agent for the work of pulp writer Otis Adelbert Kline. You simply wrote, expressed some knowledge and interest- boom, you got it. DAK: I put an inquiry to see if I could work for Marvel. One day, I went ...

Hey! Love high adventure? You're here because you love Tarzan. You just might feel they don't make'em like that anymore! And I'm not the guy to argue THAT! Tarzan's books began a century ago, with Edgar Rice Burroughs- at a whopping dime per word- captivating imaginations the world over. Saturday afternoons brought us black and white Tarzan thrills with Johnny Weismuller and Buster Crabbe. (My pal Ron Frenz- who cut his teeth in the Savage Land drawing Ka-Zar- actually shared a theater with Crabbe one night!) (I love elephants. I want to tell you about the elephant orphanage in Sri Lanka...look it up and I will tell you, later.) That's the first Tarzan y'boy C Lue remembers. Even to the present day, the legendary Lord Greystroke has entered the Hollywood jungle, with a 2015 entry atarring Alexander Skarsgard that took on modern sensibilities head-on. I feel LEGEND will only grow in cult stature. Frazetta's ACE Tarzan covers, like all things...

Photo, Sam Maronie Harold Parker was painfully shy, but he wandered down the right hallway at the right time and had a once-in-a-lifetime meeting. It could never happen these days. :-D Enjoy a five minute CM Podblast!

This Marvel character probably needs and deserves an introduction. His costume design, in patterns of perfect order, symbolizes his logical nature, while his colors utilize all the primaries save blue, which is always present in the costume of some Avengers team mate, among whom he has lived his publishing life mostly, in ensemble. He's probably the most iconic Avenger who's never had his own ongoing series or cartoon, which makes the Avengers comic title the home of most of his personal story. His demeanor is frankly spooky for a superhero. He's very much the thinking person's character, though. You might be pleasantly surprised so outlandish an appearance masks a very human story, in a satisfying speculative fiction way. Creation Did an evil robot create the Vision? Well, I wouldn't call Roy Thomas or John Buscema malevolent mechanoids, but that is how they told the story of Ultron-5's son in Avengers #57. His strange origin is important for the reason ...