[IMG]http://i32.tinypic.com/2uyq45f.gif[/IMG] 14 “Massacre at Truman High!” Wolfman, Buscema and Giordano Costanza letters, Michele Wolfman colors Hiroshima Mon Amour http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMkPtOw_r90 The Sandman completely understands Karl Von Horstbaden’s plan to kidnap Mike Burley from Harry S. Truman High School, and quickly the deadly villain flies on the winds of the city as a whipping sandstorm. Nova wakes up to the shadowed mastermind of the plan, who explains the death trap set for the Human Rocket. Clamped by tentacles, Nova’s been sealed in a chamber with liquid nitrogen set to freeze him from above and intense gas jets poised to burn him from below. All it takes is a tiny movement to trip the photo-electric cell to freeze and incinerate him instantly. A trap of another kind closes on Rich’s father Charles Rider: fired and black balled, the ex-high school principle is denied a loan. A security guard whispers to the angry patron: a secret organization know...

1976. Jack Kirby’s highly-anticipated ETERNALS brings the Chariots of the Gods style to Marvel; issue #2 has a bullpen announcement about the excitement over the new hero, the Man Called Nova. Though most new heroes are launched in try-out books in these times, Stan Lee’s enthusiasm for the new hero gets him a first issue of an ongoing monthly title. “Now if only Wolfman, John Buscema and co. will hurry up and finish it!” That’s the way it was, in 1976: rock’s getting a new shot in the arm through punk, why not super hero comics with a punk of their own? Meanwhile, a bizarre flipside take on super heroes and high school coalesces in Nova’s contemporary, OMEGA THE UNKNOWN, as different from super heroics of the day as Nova was their embodiment. HOWARD THE DUCK and RED SONJA are the other two big debuts that come to mind, taking off by ’76 as smash hits embodying passing trends...though HOWARD seems built around its creator’s idiosyncratic persona, the sword by which the concept l...