Wednesday, December 13, 2017

Groovy Christmases Past: 1972

Merry Christmas and Happy Everything, Groove-ophiles! We're gonna trip on back to December 1972 today! By now, Kid Groove was getting a buck-a-week allowance and making money on the side recycling old newspapers. Access to the store that sold the three-for-a-quarter coverless comics was gone, so it was the spinner racks of two drugstores and a King Kwik that nabbed all my dough! But it was dough well spent as you're about to see...



 Read this one by the fireplace on Christmas Eve. 

 The greatest CM era of all arrives with Jim Starlin's debut!

 Cap got super-strength--for a while.

 Frank Giacoia's inks pretty much disguise Steranko's pencils, but the story's twist ending with Johnny Storm's heartbreak still resonates. I've never forgiven Crystal and Quicksilver.



That was the "new" stuff, but my burgeoning love for comicbooks of the past (thanks in no small part to DC's back-up reprints during 1971's 52 page era) is really getting well-fed!



 DoD got me this one on New Year's Day 1973. Read all about it right here. 

 This was like a treasure chest for Kid Groove. The oldest and most important story reprints I'd ever seen at that point. And Nick Cardy's cover was worth ten times the cover price!

 Ant-Man's creative team had fallen behind the Dread Deadline Doom, but the reprint and the Jim Starlin cover were dy-no-mite with Kid Groove!


Another reprint thanks to the DDD, but again, Starlin art (the cover and the framing sequence) made it a-ok. Oh, and it wasn't The Beast's creative team who missed the deadline--his final tale ran the issue before. No, t'was the incoming series what was running late...

And the most anticipated comic of Christmas 1972 for me was the debut of SHAZAM! Dear Ol' Dad had spent many an evening filling me in on his favorite childhood superhero, Captain Marvel, and now Kid Groove was finally going to get to see the magic of the Marvel Family for himself by no less than the original artist/co-creator C.C. Beck, himself! DoD and me had a great time with this'un!

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4 comments:

  1. Charlie Horse 47December 13, 2017 at 4:03 PM

    Groove groove groove you have betrayed me! LOL! Green Captain Marvell always trumps red/blue regardless of plot as long as Gene the Dean is drawing (or not)!

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  2. pete doreeDecember 13, 2017 at 6:27 PM

    Those issues of JLA and World's Finest are two of my all-time favorite comics of all-time: I had two copies of JLA I liked it so much, and the World's Finest is my old pal Sean ( Philbo Phillips ) favorite comic ever.
    Why was the Bronze Age so great? Those two issues are pretty convincing arguments.
    There really should've been a Super Sons TV show at the time, with the lads riding into town solving problems and having adventures every week like in that issue!

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  3. Jasper BarkDecember 14, 2017 at 9:25 AM

    Have you noticed how the Shaggy Man bears a remarkable resemblance to English scribe and all round maestro Alan Moore?

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  4. keythd23December 14, 2017 at 5:41 PM

    Who wouldn't laud the beginning of the Starlin CM? It launched the career of one the bronze age's greatest innovators and laid the foundation for 40+ years of characters and plots that are still around.

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