Counting Comics - 27

Hello again folks here's the totals carried over from last week

DC = 7381

Marvel = 307

Others = 69

And here's what's in this week's box!!


Suicide Squad (1987 - 92)

1 - 66

The original Suicide Squad debuted in Brave and the Bold #25 way back in 1959, they were created by Robert Kanigher and Ross Andru. At that time they were a group of soldiers during World War II, who were sent to Dinosaur Island in a campaign called "The War That Time Forgot." Their official name was Squadron S, and they started calling themselves the Suicide Squadron because of their high mortality rate. Rick Flag was brought in as their leader, and he changed them from a military disgrace into an elite combat unit. Jeb Stuart of The Haunted Tank fame later led a new Suicide Squad team.

Much later Amandsa Waller discovered the Suicide Squad files and put together a team of powered supervillains. The 1st team consisted of Bronze Tiger, Deadshot, Bronze Tiger, Deadshot, Blockbuster, Captain Boomerang, and Enchantress. Their first mission was successful and they destroyed the monster Brimstone, but Blockbuster died in the process. Amanda Waller 1st appears in Legends #1 in 1986 with the new team showing up in #3.

Annual #1 (1988)

Mark Shaw, Manhunter teams up with the Squad to take on Kobra (I am guessing by the cover that's what happens anyway!!)

The Doom Patrol/Suicide Squad Special (1988)

Hawk. Hank Hall is captured by Sandinistas while running guns to the Contras in Nicaragua. Doom Patrol and the Suicide Squad are both sent to rescue him and must join forces when the Soviet's Red Rocket Brigade also show an interest in the imprisoned American. A lot of the Squad don't make it out it seems with the apparent deaths of Mister 104, Thinker, Weasel and Psi.

Suicide Squad (2001 - 02)

1 - 12

This run (Volume 2) was a short-lived ongoing series that spun out of the "Our Worlds at War" crossover event. The series is significant for killing off long time Batman villain, the Cluemaster. Also biting the dust in #1 were most of the Injustice League aka Justice League Antartica, with only Major Disaster surviving whilst Big Sir, Clock King and Multi-Man all went off to the big team-up in the sky.

Legends of the DC Universe (1998 - 01)

1 - 41

 This series featured a rotating cast of characters and creators, intended as an anthology to fill in the gaps of DC Universe history. I really enjoyed this run, I love self contained stories and this has quite a few plus a few 2 & 3 parters as well and was a very enjoyable read.

Steel (1994 - 98)

0 - 52

Rising up to meet the need for heroes in Metropolis' darkest hour after the death of Superman at the hands of Doomsday, John Henry Irons became Steel. He was created by Louise Simonson and Jon Bogdanove, first appearing during the Reign of the Supermen! storyline in Adventures of Superman #500. John was a weapons engineer who became Steel after the death of the original Man of Steel. He had previuosly met Superman who had saved his life when he fell from a building under construction whilst saving the life of a co-worker. He told Superman he owed him his life and Superman replied by telling him he should make it count for something. His neice Natasha Irons has also assumed the Steel identity as well. I did enjoy all the characters runs from heroes that emerged at this time, Superboy was cool too, I don't know why Eradicator never got a decent run though.

Annual 1, 2

Haywire (1988 - 89)

1 - 13

Steve Majorski was Haywire and that's all I can tell you as the DC wiki has nothing!! I know it was suggested for 'Mature' readers and the bondage clad villainess Nightlash and the fact that he kills attests to that label for sure. There is some sort of double identity/split personality story going on as well with Haywire not knowing what he gets up to at night when he thinks he's sleeping!

Kingdom Come

1 - 4

Kingdom Come is a four-issue Elseworlds story written by Mark Waid and Alex Ross, with artwork by Alex Ross. It is set in the year 2020 where Superman and his generation of heroes from the Justice League days have been succeeded by a new generation of heroes whose ideals are more nihilistic, caring less about the people they're supposed to protect and more about their own egos, and are found even clashing with each other as much as they do with the villains. It is when a major disaster happens when Superman decides to rein in the new generation of heroes in the hopes that they would reform and adopt his generation's ideals of what being a superhero is about. Wow, this run started way back in 1996!! Where has the time gone? 2020 is next year now in real time!

Marvel Annuals

The Amazing Spider-Man #25, 26

The Spectacular Spider-Man # 11, 12

Web of Spider-Man #7

Captain America #10, 11, 12

Thor # 17, 18

Fantastic Four #25, 26

Avengers #20, 21, 22

The Incredible Hulk #17, 18

Namor #2, 3

The Silver Surfer #4, 5, 6

Dr. Strange #2, 3

Darkhawk #1, 2

Avengers West Coast #7

IronMan #12, 13, 14

The New Warriors #2, 3

Daredevil #7, 9

The Punisher #4

Ghost Rider #1

X-Men #2

Deathlok #2

Wonder Man #2

The Uncanny X-Men #17

X-Factor #8

Excalibur #1

Guardians of the Galaxy #3

Lots of cool Marvel annuals, self contained stories. team-ups etc, what is not to like about these?? Other than maybe the odd missing one that might be in other boxes. I did love it when they crossed over 4 parter stories over 4 titles, the Lifeform story was a particularly good one where the Lifeform of the title steadily evolved into a greater and greater menace. I think Daredevl was the 1st to battle him as a near human but by part 4 it was a massive proto-mass-blob that took the might of the Silver Surfer to confront it.

Ghost Rider Vol 2

14

I was surprised I only had 1 of this run, I thought I'd read more than that over the years! I decided to try and collect a full run of this volume and I'm doing pretty well with it now. It ran till #81 and I have about half of them so far. The villain in this cover is The Orb haha he's daft, look at his eyeball head, but I love the quirkiness of it. I always thought this was vol 1 but that was a 6 parter featuring the cowboy horse riding Ghost Rider who later was a villain when he abducted and did I don't know what to Mockingbird in West Coast Avengers.

Ghost Rider Vol 3 (1990 +)

1 - 22, 24 - 26, 28 - 30, 32 - 43, 49, 62

A couple of gaps in this run that featured a new guy, Danny Ketch hosting the Spirit of Vengeance. My mate Vik Bub gave me a big bunch of comics and there were quite a few of this run in there so that helped me to fill it out a bit more, it still might be worth picking up a few loose ones missing from the run at some point.

Ghost Rider and Cable #1

Servants of the Dead

The Original Ghost Rider Rides Again (1991)

1 - 7

The title says it all really, Johnny Blaze rides again, except hold on isn't the original that cowboy guy? Ah nope apparently I was wrong Carter Slade was the Phantom Rider!! I always wondered if this character Ghost Rider was named after the song of the same name that Stan Jones wrote in 1948!!

The Original Ghost Rider #5

Nightstalkers 10

Darkhold 11

Morbius 12

Spirits of Vengeance 13

This was the Marvel spooky/horror characters all crossing over, was it The Rise of the Midnight Sons event maybe? Ah no Midnight Massacre it was called. I can't recall the story at all but it was a long time ago.

What If...? Vol 2

3, 17, 26, 29, 34, 48, 54 - 60, 62 - 64, 66 - 73, 76, 77

What if? Elseworlds, who deosn't like a make believe story outside of the normal continuity every now and again? Sad people that's who and I'm not sad so I enjoy them, I've not got that many but I'd pick them up now and again if I saw an interesting looking premise.

What if... Jessica Jones Had Joined The Avengers #1 (2005)

Ripped from the pages of the Avengers and fan-favorite ALIAS Jessica Jones, ex-superhero private eye was once tapped to join the Avengers, but chose not to and gave up being a super-hero altogether. But what if she had taken the job? The events that followed shake up both the Avengers and Jessica's life in ways no one could have guessed. Could Jessica have saved the Avengers from the disasters of Disassembled? For the first time ever Avengers' writer Brian Bendis reunites with ALIAS artist Michel Gaydos, with a special cover by Avengers artist David Finch.

Young Heroes in Love (1997 - 98)

1 - 17, 1 Million

Young Heroes in Love was an ongoing comic book series that blended elements of the super-genre with that of a romance title. The series featured the Young Heroes, a loose-knit organization of like-minded teens which included members such as Bonfire, Frostbite, Hard Drive, Junior, Monstergirl, Off Ramp, Thunderhead and Zip-Kid. The series spanned seventeen issues as well as a special 1,000,000th issue. The series was created by Dan Raspler and Dev Madan, and explored the trope of the "garage band" as it applied to super-heroes: the Young Heroes were not so much a team as a somewhat haphazard grouping of superhumans who had been persuaded to work together, but were not really ready to deal with it.

Son of Vulcan (2005 - 06)

1 - 6

Son of Vulcan is a name used by multiple characters in the DC Universe. The original was Johnny Mann, a scrawny war reporter given superhuman powers by the Roman god Vulcan. Miguel Devante also took this name and became a member of Titans East after he was given powers by the super-hero Vulcan. Son of Vulcan was created by Pat Masulli and Bill Fraccio, first appearing in the Charlton Comics publication Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds #46. (1965)  This comic features Miguel Devante as Son of Vulcan with the Vulcan hero role being one devoted to tracking down and killing white Martians with the hero's powers derived from a metavirus that is passed down from host to host via touch. This run didn't last long and later Miguel was left comatose after joining Titans East and battling Trigon.

DC = 217
Marvel = 126

So the totals now stand at =

DC = 7598

Marvel = 433

Others = 69

Come back next week to check out some more on my comics

      

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