Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Comics in Other Lands


I used to love it when comic books would stick in a page of comics covers from somewhere other than the US. It was fun to see that other than the language, heroes were heroes everywhere. In gathering up a box of comics to sell earlier today, I came across three non US comics that I had forgotten I had. The German DC one, in spite of the seeming title on the cover, is actually just called SUPERMAN. Batman is neither seen nor mentioned in the issue that reprints some late fifties early sixties stories with art by Wayne Boring and Al Plastino. Perhaps the 1966 BATMAN series was on German TV at the time and they wanted to sell the comic with Batman even if Batman wasn't in it! The German FANTASTIC FOUR, on the other hand, does NOT mention it on the cover but features ten pages of 1968's DAREDEVIL story "The Death of Mike Murdock" along with the lead FF piece. That lead FF piece, in fact, reprints Jack Kirby's legendary unfinished "Janus" issue of FF.Marvel announced last week that it would finally be completely finished from Kirby's pencils and published. The 1973 Mexican SPIDER-MAN, which I purchased in Cleveland of all places, features all new stories and art, not reprints. Spidey has a pretty pedestrian battle with Doctor Doom (most of whose poses are John Buscema swipes) after chewing the fat with his buddy the cop early in the issue. Huh? Had these people ever read an issue of SPIDER-MAN before? By the way, the running couple who look vaguely like Peter and Gwen Stacy do not appear in the issue at all.

1 comment:

  1. Here you can see the debut of Marvel Comics in Brazil:

    http://www.fanboy.com.br/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=485

    I used to have all these comics. They are quite rare and valuable now. The first three were released simultaneously with the "Marvel Superheroes" cartoon, sponsored in Brazil by Shell, so they were called "Shell Superheroes" and issue # zero of each title (shown on the page) were sold exclusively in Shell gas stations (notice that Shell is mentioned on the covers, but that was only on issues #0). Then Spider-Man guested on the Thor title with the "Molten Man" story (excluding the last two pages, which showed Peter Parker's graduation). When Spidey finally got his own magazine ("Homem-Aranha"), the saga began from the start.

    Here you will find some more Brazilian comics, including a curious fact: there are two Zorros in Brazil. Take a look and identify the "other" one:

    http://www.universohq.com/quadrinhos/2005/hq_ebal.cfm

    ReplyDelete