MOUNTAIN COMICS #12 – MARVEL SUPER ACTION #37
Podcaster extraordinaire Gene Hendricks visits Rob at the cabin to discuss MARVEL SUPER ACTION #37, which reprints “The Blaze of Battle…The Flames of Love!” from AVENGERS #76 by Roy Thomas, John Buscema, and Tom Palmer!
Check out images from this comic by clicking here!
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I didn’t have this particular issue, but thanks for revisiting one of Marvel’s reprint titles. I always enjoyed these when I was getting into comics since they gave me a chance to read on the history of characters that I enjoyed. The two reprint titles I eagerly snapped up were Marvel Super Heroes and Marvel Tales, once it started reprinting the Lee/Ditko era. I credit Marvel Tales with making Spider-Man my favorite Marvel character. The Lee/Ditko reprints appeared at the same time as the Roger Stern/John Romita Jr. run on Amazing Spider-Man, so I discovered the two best runs in Spider-Man history at the same time.
I always hoped DC would follow Marvel’s lead and have regular Batman and Superman reprint books, but they never did.
I was wondering when you two mentioned that a lot of important stuff in the story happened “off-camera” if the reprint was edited, but that didn’t seem to be the case as you revealed later on. I know Marvel trimmed stuff in reprints on occasion.
Finally, I have the first four Avengers epic collection, and I think this issue is reprinted in one of them, but I haven’t read it yet. I probably should have read it before I listened to the podcast. As for the ladies liking the bad boys, well, that was just the comics preparing our young selves for what we would encounter later on in life.
that was just the comics preparing our young selves for what we would encounter later on in life
[Laughs, otherwise would cry]
Same here.
Thank you for the great episode, gentlemen. Speaking of comic deja vu moments, it struck me as I listened that I must have read an Avengers comic featuring Arkon at some point in my childhood. I just can’t recall if it was this one or not. This would have been before my comic book collecting days, which began in middle school. So, I would have encountered it either in our local Barber Shop’s magazine rack, or in the small stack of comics at the resort my family would visit every summer up in Michigan. Looks like I might be doing some cover surfing of my own at Mike’s Amazing World tonight.
Another episode, another book I actually had! I used to jump at the chance to buy these reprint titles, be they Super-Action, Triple-Action (got a stack of them at a garage sale once!), or DC’s Blue Ribbon Digests, etc. I do recall being a bit bewildered by the Witch’s tolerance for Arkon even back when I first read this, but I was otherwise to caught up by the drama and the awesome Buscema art to dwell upon such mysteries for long!
Fun discussion! I think I only had one Marvel Super Action, but had several Marvel Super Heroes issues, and bought every Marvel Tales I could find, especially when they started reprinting the Lee/Ditko and Lee/Romita runs! MT survived into the late 80s, way past the prime of these titles.
The weird thought to word balloon transition in Marvel Comics is something I never really thought of, but man, that WOULD be awkward in real life, wouldn’t it?
As for John Buscema, the man LITERALLY wrote the book on how to Draw the Marvel Way (okay, Stan wrote it, but the art’s all John), so after Kirby (and maybe Romita) he is THE look of Marvel to me.
Chris
When I started reading comics, I was also reading the letters of comment. (mid-to-late 1976) I got the impression that “reprint” stories were held in low regard, by readers and editorial alike. Combine that with the fact that I was mostly a DC guy, I eschewed Marvel’s reprint titles.Inexplicably I did buy one issue of Marvel Triple Action, which was Avengers reprints before they moved into Marvel Super Action. Even thought the stories were less than 10 years old, to me they looked really old! The difference was palpable. Now, however, I will buy those reprints, at Prof. Middleton prices! They are fun to read!
There were a few reprint comics I deliberately bought. The Spider-Man “drug” issues and the Gwen Stacey/Green Goblin issues. Coincidentally, the only issue Super Action I bought was #4, the one with Marvel Boy!