Thursday, October 07, 2010

My Reading Pile: March, 1983 Pt.1

As winter turned to spring in 1983, I was 10 and a half years old. I must have thought it was time to 'grow up' as my comic book reading seems to have tapered off quite a bit. Here's a look at what I picked up that month (books are cover dated either June or July).

Amazing Spider-Man #242 is a really fun book, but for some reason it was the final Spidey issue I would purchase until I was in high school. I had been reading it quite consistently for years, but had somehow missed the Hobgoblin introduction. The Green Goblin was never my favourite Spidey foe, so this new version had no appeal. Marvel Team-Up was another one of my go-to titles as a kid, but I had given up on it at this point as well. This issue holds up quite well, as I dig the Thinker and you probably know that I like robots. Then again, who doesn't?

I was never a huge Conan fan. I have always liked the character, but have never picked up the issues on a regular basis. I am not sure what made me purchase Conan, the Barbarian #147. I'm guessing that the Conan movie played a role in my renewed interest. When was the initial VHS release? This would have been nearly a year after the theatrical release. As it stand, it was also the last Conan story I would read for years. I don't know whatever happened to my copy, but this cover really reminds me of the 'Garden of Fear' story from Conan #9. Is there any link?

Link any child of my generation, I was nuts about Star Wars and had been reading the series off and on since the very beginning. I had taken a break before buying Star Wars #72, and the next one and I imagine the impending release of Return of the Jedi had stoked my fires. The cover was also very compelling, with Luke and Lando surrounded by the bounty hunters. How could I resist? The next issue would be my final purchase from this series, but I did pick up the Return of the Jedi miniseries over the course of the summer.

What did I miss at Marvel that month? The final issue of Master of Kung Fu, some Byrne Fantastic Four and a Wolverine appearance in Daredevil.

3 comments:

Taranaich said...

I'm not aware of any link between "Tower of Mitra" and "The Garden of Fear." I will say that Bruce Jones is quite possibly one of the worst Conan authors, comic or otherwise, I've ever read. A shame, because his horror comics are pretty spectacular.

Anonymous said...

The famous Daredevil cover with Wolverine's green thumb, I bet

Neil Anderosn said...

I started reading Amazing Spider-Man with regularly around that time, in large part because of Roger Stern's 3 part Hobgoblin story in # 249-251, and Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz as the new team, I thought, captured Spider-Man better than anyone had since Lee/Ditko. DeFalco built up a lot of suspense over the Hobgoblin, put Peter Parker through the wringer while still maintaining his dignity, and Frenz drew Spider-Man like the normally proportioned person Ditko intended him to be. I recommend those issues (# 255--283) if you haven't already read them, although unfortunately, there are a lot of hasty fill-ins scattered throughout--probably because Jim Shooter drafted them for the "New Universe."