Hatch, Match & Dispatch – July 2021

And now, because you've been so well-behaved lately, Uncle Rusty gifts you his list of British comics that are celebrating an important anniversary in July 2021!

Rusty’s Reviews Round-Up

To save you literally whiles of searching through this blog, here are all of Rusty's reviews in one place! Updated: 3 July 2021 Comics: The Bank Street Book of Science Fiction -- 7 Feb 2020 Batman Monthly -- 26 Jun 2020 Battle Picture Weekly -- 2 Jun 2019 Bea -- 15 Aug 2017 Boy's Cinema …

Comics on TV: Life on Mars

In the 2006 TV show Life on Mars (named after the David Bowie song that was released on the 1971 album Hunky Dory) Manchester-based police officer Sam Tyler is struck by a car and wakes up in the year 1973. He doesn't know whether he's going crazy, in a coma, or has travelled back in …

Oddities: Daniel Rand IS Shang-Chi: Master of Kung-Fu!

Marvel's mysterious martial artist Danny Rand -- AKA The Immortal Iron Fist -- premiered in Marvel Premiere #15 (May 1974)... The cover was pencilled by Gil Kane and inked by Dick Giordano (with alterations by John Romita). It's a great image and a fantastic way to introduce a new character. Later that same year, this …

The MWOM & SMCW Timeline

"The what timeline?" I imagine that I hear you ask. Wonder no more, chum: those four-letter words that look a bit like they might be the names of Welsh TV stations are the commonly-used shortcuts for The Mighty World of Marvel and Spider-Man Comics Weekly, the first two titles released by the British wing of …

Captain America: The Great Gold Steal

A follow-up to The Avengers Battle the Earth Wrecker, which was the first novel based on a Marvel comic, Captain America: The Great Gold Steal was published by Bantam Books in July 1968. Clunky title aside, it's actually a rather good adventure. It's better written than the Avengers novel, but the plot's a little more …

Avengers: The Old Order Changeth!

Look what I just found: my very first Avengers comic! This is issue 13 of the UK edition of The Avengers, reprinted from #16 of the US edition of The Avengers: Marvel UK had reprinted The Avengers’ first couple of issues in Mighty World of Marvel, so they skipped those issues when they gave the …

The Avengers Battle the Earth-Wrecker

Look what I just discovered in the latest clear-out! I’d forgotten all about this. Published in 1967, it’s an original Avengers novel published by Bantam Books in June 1967 and written by SF stalwart Otto Binder, one half of the famous duo Eando Binder (E and O Binder: for years, I thought Eando was a …