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In this installment of “Down Memory Lane: The Blog”, we finish up my reminiscences of the summer of 1967, my first year reading, buying and collecting comics… coincidentally, fifty years ago this summer! Fifty! Such a nice round number. Let’s begin…
METAL MEN #28 — I had never been a fan of Metal Men before. They just weren’t on my radar. But, once again, the marketing geniuses at DC scored a direct hit! They had featured the Metal Men teamed up with Batman in that month’s issue of The Brave And The Bold (which I covered in my previous blog entry) and I was an immediate fan! And with Tina about to melt the other robots down to slag, how could I possibly pass up this gem? Answer: I COULDN’T! Well played, DC!
LITTLE DOT’S UNCLES AND AUNTS #21 — This was another Harvey giant featuring Little Dot and her monstrously huge family! Holy Ancestry.com, that girl had a LOT of relatives! Primarily, though, I picked it up for another of those wonderful dot themed cover layouts… a simple, straight forward design and, Boy Howdy, did I love the perspective on those buildings!
SUPERBOY #142 — This was the last comic I remember buying just before the end of my summer vacation. I absolutely LOVED the fiery red eyes on that super ape! This issue was another wacky Red Kryptonite romp which guest-starred Beppo, The Super Monkey. Everything is better with gorillas!
HONORABLE MENTION CATAGORY:
If you read my last blog post, you remember my story of stepping on a rusty nail and the resulting tetanus shot. Anyway, as a “reward” for not kicking up too much of a fuss and, I assume, not being TOO injured, my Mom stopped at the mall on the way home and let me pick out a Peanuts paperback. The one I chose had the classic strip where Charlie Brown went to the local drug store to buy comics. When I saw the panel shown above, I laughed myself silly for about an hour at the titles of the comics on the rack. It was the perfect way for me to forget my injuries and sore shoulder from the shot. I have long since lost that paperback (read it to pieces, actually) but I will ALWAY treasure that one strip! “Throttle Comics”… BWAH HA HAH!
WORLD’S FINEST COMICS #170 — This was a typical 80 page giant that was *supposed* to be out around mid-August, but newsstand distribution being what it was, didn’t hit my local drug store until the week after Labor Day, when school had started already. What makes this issue memorable for me, though, is the fact that from May through August, my drug store NEVER carried any of the 80 page giants. I always had to go to a dairy store in my old neighborhood for giants and this just wouldn’t be feasible now that school was in session and I was trying to talk myself into the sad fact that I probably wouldn’t get any more 80 pagers until next summer. But, lo and behold, there it was! Crisis averted! Life is good!
SAD SACK’S ARMY LIFE PARADE #18 — Another book that I got AFTER summer was over, but I really dug the “Jet Sack” stories for some reason.
MARVEL TALES #11 — Again, another book acquired AFTER school had started, but WHAT a book! A hypnotized Spidey VS. Daredevil… and Thor turned evil by a clout on the head by his own hammer! I bought several of these Marvel Tales that fall, including the one where Spidey had to fight crooks while holding his socks up (because it was a temporary store-bought costume)… I always liked those wonky Ditko stories!
Well, that ends my reverie of the summer of 1967, my first year in comics. You couldn’t ask for a better starting point for a lifelong love affair with the comic medium. How could you POSSIBLY?! I mean, really…