After many starts and stops the Madison Comic Book Repository &n Lecture Hall is back online. Some of you may have read in the major news outlets that the Repository campus experienced tragedy when Old South Hall was struck by a meteorite- the building was ruined and several faculty members lost their offices. Luckily no one was injured and after a rebuilding period we are back this fall semester. Many faculty members have spent their unexpected time off working on their own comic book related projects and I expect to see some fine reading on my desk soon. The Vault has been moved to the basement of the Lecture Hall and the old location is being painted in expectation of a new member of our family who is due Dec. 7th. I hate to lose my old office but with Little Pat on the way I'm happy to move.
Comic books: Captain America continues to be the top read here with the main title holding our attention along with the Reborn mini-series and Theatre of War one shots impressing as well. The Golden Age one-shots celebrating Marvel's 70th Anniversary have been well done with the Invaders and more obscure characters being featured every other week. Titles so far include Captain America Comics, Young Allies with Bucky and Toro and , Sub-Mariner Comics, Marvel Mystery Comics with The Human Torch and Namor, USA Comics with the Golden Age character Destroyer, Human Torch Comics, Miss America Comics, All-Winners, and All-Select Comics with Marvex and The Blonde Phantom. Outside of Namor, Torch, Cap and Bucky these other characters have seen few if any new stories until now. The illustrations have been consistantly good and the reprints are welcome additions and for most stories this is the first time they have been reprinted. This gives new readers a chance to read maybe their first Golden Age tale.

Mid-Winter Bulletin A
Sean Welch, Vault Manager and Lecturer in Residence
Winter has been here in Madison for two months already. Christamas and New Years this last semester did not provide ample time for blogging but rest assured that the faculty of the MCBR&LH has been hard at work further the causes of literacy and action figure studies. Comic acquisitions have been low, limited to new comics, about ten monthly, with the exception of the find of two issues of EC Comic's MD #'s 2 and 3. The last four months have been busy for the action figure committee, they have put together a string of purchases that have expanded the collection considerably. A job well done all around.
Reading List: Captain America, Daredevil, New Avengers, Secret Invasion (just ended), Kingbreaker/War of Kings, Skarr-Son of Hulk, also some Captain America one-shots as well as Dark Reign one-shot.
Secret Invasion has earned mixed reviews here. The faculty agrees almost unanimously that the story parts in the New Avengers carried the mini-series. I think Yu's artwork was lazy and didn't stand up to his work on New Avengers. If the intention was to have a continuity of illustration from New Avengers into the mini-series then it was successful. This story should have been longer and remained in the Avengers titles. Marvel also did a poor job managing the indiviual character's stories. Spider-Man story "Brand New Day" was an event in itself but somehow Spider-Man had time to sit around, and all the characters in Civil War and Secret Invasion do a lot of sitting around talking, talking about the implications of a Skrull invasion that seems to last for twenty minutes and results in poorly handled death of Wasp. Wasp? Oh no! Her death was a token loss. Many of the faculty were underwhelmed by this development. The Skrulls had no air support, no contingency plan and the super-Skrull army looked stupid and fought without reason. Why blow the infiltration by revealing this undisguised army in mix-and match suits. One of them was as big as Galactus! Really silly. This minseries changed nothing.
The Dark Reign one-shot is much better. Drawn by Alex Maleev, the story is essentially an Illuminati of villainy. Reviews here are positive. A good follow-up to the average Secret Invasion. Dark Reign is the next conspiracy in the Marvel world and reminds me of Acts of Vengence.
Captain America remains strong Bucky-Cap has gone on to reform the Avengers and face Batroc while The Red Skull is trapped inside a robot body.
Daredevil is in the middle of the "Lady Bullseye" storyline and sees Matt facing off against The Hand and new foes.
Skarr #6 is by far the best issue I've read this month and together with The Savage World of Sakarr issue fills in the story of how the portal that brought Hulk, Silver Surfer, and the Death's Head army to Sakarr as well as recapping the back stories of all our cast members. Also-the unlikely return of the Red King!
Kingbreaker is the next chapter in the story of the long-lost Summers brother Vulcan and his tenure as Emperor of the Shi-ar Empire.

The biggest news here at the MCBR&LH is our move to the basement of the house. While this might look like a banishment to some, to myself and the faculty it means more space and no competition with the guest room function of the Office. We found more clear plastic shelves for the Museum and have an ongoing exhibit of our Captain America collection. Two long folding tables provide space to make the entire comic collection easily accessible at all times- no more closet storage. Further expansion will bring the green magazine shelves and a wall-sized shelving unit installed by spring. Carpeting, comfortable chairs and library supplies like labels and archive materials have made the Repository run more smoothly than ever. The faculty have full classes for the upcoming semester and topics include "Charlton Comics and Relativity", "Introdution to Project Pegasus" and "Nitro- Life Before Little Haven".

More on the Action Figure Museum tonight.

New Acquisitions Arrive, More on the Way
Sean Welch, Vault Manager
The customized vintage G.I. Joe as The Falcon arrived yesterday and its primitive customization does not in any way detract from its charm, kudos to the unknown creator. Adventure 428, the first appearance of The Black Orchid, arrived as well and the issue's condition is slightly better than advertised. I appreciated the conservative grading of many comic book sellers because very fine or better copies are uncommon and average condition copies need not be exaggerated to be sell-able or collectible. Giant-Sized Captain America #1 arrived exactly as graded. The cover is in only good condition but the pages are complete and readable.
The Alien cards and original display box, as well as all the Buck Rogers cards we bid for on Ebay were all won. This was a very good auction run for the MCBR and the whole faculty is very pleased. In the past we have not always had the consistency in winning on low bids. This streak allowed us to have both quantity and quality of goods.

New Purchases Revive Memorabilia Dept. at MCBR
Sean Welch, Dean of Aquisitions
The last month has seen a steady growth in the Memorabilia Department at the MCBR and the faculty couldn't be happier. All of us here admit that the department has been limited to the annual gift contribution from the Rory Welch Foundation for Action Figure Action, or the occasional clearance rack purchase as an impulse buy. A recent increase in discretionary funds has allowed me, as Vault Manager, to seek out items other than comic books for inclusion in the Repository's holdings. This move toward a wider mission of preservation has been inspired by Mr. Rory Welch's dedication to contemporary action figures, his work in the Mini-Mates field being most notable. Beth and I have been expanding the Captain America wing to included some new finds.
Pictured at right is the Mighty Muggs Cap we picked up, along with Mighty Muggs Thor at Target. Beth really liked these and o.k.'ed the purchase. I've come around to these more cartoonish renditions of The Sentinel of Liberty. The Repository bids for a Secret Wars Cap and a Marvel Superheroes Cap fell short (only fifty cents in both cases on Ebay), and at this point a vintage Mego Cap is out of the Repository's price range. However, we're proud to announce we have acquired a custom 12" Falcon doll made from a vintage G.I. Joe with handmade costume and wings. This is our second cloth dressed figure the other being a 12" Star Wars Walrus Man.
The Repository has a small collection of 1980's Topps Baseball cards and some baseball ephemera, but trading cards in general have not been a focus of research or collecting for twenty years. We've moved to start collecting non-sports related cards still in their wax packs and boxes, primarily 1970's and 1980's movie or TV cards with a focus on science fiction. Star Wars, Space 1999, Buck Rogers and vintage Battlestar Galactica cards are being sought. We've just found three unopened packs of Star Trek: The Motion Picture (ST:TMP to you in the know) and we're close to buying several packs of Alien cards including an original display box. All in all a good start to giving the Memorabilia Department the kind of role they deserve. All those faculty members deserve a lot of credit for doing so much with so little for so long. Keep this up and a new microwave in the brake room is right around the corner.
In comic news Captain America, The Twelve, Daredevil, and Secret Invasion/Avengers continue to top the faculty reading list and the new title Skarr, Son of Hulk has joined these favorites. Written by Greg Pak and drawn by Ron Garney, a long time Cap artist, Skarr takes us back to the Planet Sakkar and further adventures in the scene of the amazing Planet Hulk. Skarr is the child of Hulk and his Grey Queen. The Queen managed to save the child at the end of Planet Hulk and in a matter of days he was fully formed and smashing as Hulks of all sizes are wont to do. Pak's writing is good and the story has a Conan-ish feel about it with swords and dragons and prophecies abounding. Ron Garney's art looks great and this is one comic where the computer coloring doesn't take away from the pencils. I've always been a fan of Garney and he's doing some of his best work here.
This (above) Julie Bell cover is another good example of the amazing talent Marvel has for their covers. Sadly, this variant cover wasn't at Capital City when I picked up the first issue.
About Hulk-related comics in general: Despite the fact that Hulk had almost two straight years of very good comics and a recent movie blockbuster, Ol' Greenskin doesn't have his own title. What gives? Red Hulk is not a good comic book- Jeph Loeb is dialing in this one and Ed McGuiness makes all the characters look...cute. Incredible Herc is an o.k story if you can stand Amedeus Cho and his puppy, but the comic is clearly a compromise in some way of what looked like during World War Hulk (WWH) to be the intro of an updated Champions called Renegades. At least that was what Angel and Herc kept calling themselves because they took the Hulk's side (whatever that was) in WWH. Why Hulk had to go from the masthead is unknown to me and some faculty members here believe that the Red Hulk story should have been told in the confines of The Incredible Hulk. Bringing in Banner in (Red)Hulk #3 was an anticlimactic showdown that made green Hulk a guest star. The whole thing is such a gimmick and a poor way to treat a great character on a winning streak. Skarr is the best of the three Hulk titles and for now the only one the repository will be buying.
Despite many Giant Size issues and a large Captain America collection, it was only today that we bought a copy of Giant Size Captain America #1. It's in only Good condition, but will fill a gap in the collection until a better copy can be found. Remember, variety trumps quality if the price is right.
Lastly, a DC addition to the Repository that we are really excited about. Adventure #428 features the first appearance of Black Orchid! While not a major character I always like her psychedelic costume. This issue is among those Bronze Age comics including Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love that will continue to increase in value because they are both a good read and obscure.
More about the faculty reading list soon. Until then, good reading and study well.

Over the last month my lovely wife Beth and I have been traveling as much as possible. We were in D.C. for a week and then in green-green Ireland for a week before coming back to the states and driving our new used car (Thanks to Grandpa Shoham) across the USA back to Madison. From a comic collecting perspective it was a bust. We never got to a comic shop in D.C. and the amazing looking store in Dublin was closed due to a bank holiday. However I picked up some new comics for the repository yesterday from Bruce at Capital City Comics. This got me caught up on both Avengers titles, Daredevil, and Captain America.
New Avengers 42 and Mighty Avengers 15 each have another of the classic cover re-dos that have been gracing new issues since Marvel Zombies hit the stands. NA 42 has a take on Avengers 221 featuring a Hollywood Squares motif and headshots of fifteen characters then not a member of the Avengers. The updated cover by Ponser has the characters sporting the Skrull chins that as an illustrative device, is getting old. First Zombies, now Skrulls and soon... Apes! SPOILERS!! NA 42 reveals at last some of the background of Spider-Woman's replacement as well as the Skrull's participation in other recent cross-overs. What's interesting is that five of the characters on the cover have been on the team recently- Spidey, Wolverine, Luke Cage, Spider-Woman and Doc Strange. SPOILERS!! MA 15 recreates, with Skrull chinery, Avengers 221, "The Court-Martial of Yellowjacket", a depressing if classic issue. MA 15 may be the best Hank Pym story ever as we discover how Hank was replaced by the Skrulls.
In DD 108 Dakota and Matt continue to investigate why "Big Ben" Donovan( originally a Power Man villian) confessed to killing two children and why somebody is covering up the truth.
Brubaker continues to make Daredevil an essential Marvel comic. Dakota North takes the spolight in this issue as she confronts the man who tried to stop her from talking to Donovan.
CAP 39- The best Marvel comic has a slow month (for once) with some re-capping and a confrontation between Sharon and Sin. The awesome cover is a rare example where what is depicted actually happens in the story, albeit on the last page. Next issue most likely will see a showdown between Bucky Cap and 1950's insane "Steve Rogers" Cap.
The 1950's Cap is seen or referenced in the following Bronze Age Cap issues among others:
CAP 155 CAP156

Rules of the Marvel Universe
For as long as I've been reading Marvel Comics there's been some story and illustration rules that made Marvel stories feel Marvely. Some of these rules have remained constant and others have been tossed aside for the sake of a good story. "Bucky Stays Dead". Did anybody ever really believe that the several Buckybots and clones sent by the Red Skull to torment Cap were going turn out to be Bucky miraculously back from the dead? No. He was blown up. Nobody walks away from that, right? A good example is Tales of Suspense 88, where a Bucky is seen on a monitor saying to Cap, "Cap! Cap! It's me Bucky! I'm Alive! I've been held prisoner all these years!" When I first heard that somebody, I didn't yet know who Ed Brubaker was, had the gall to resurrect a character traditionally seen in WWII flashbacks and retro-continuity stories like The Invaders I thought it was going to bomb. It sounded like yet another "event" from the House of Old Ideas. Against the odds Brubaker has seamlessly reintroduced Bucky, aka The Winter Soldier, as a vital and interesting character. It helps that he hasn't been over used. Outside of Captain America he's appeared in The Winter Soldier one-shot during Civil War and an obligatory appearance in Wolverine Origins, where it turns out he killed Wolverine's wife or girlfriend- it seemed a little much that in his previously unknown past he knew both Black Widow and Wolverine. Did everybody know Wolverine in the past?
There are far more people on the Marvel Earth than in reality. This becomes clear by several points: For every supervillain there's at least a few henchmen. Some street level guys may rarely have henchmen but they all seem to know where they can find highly trained ex-military personnel to make up their private entourage. More financed megalomaniacs like the Red Skull have employed thousands of dedicated and uniformly costumed soldiers ready to ineptly carry out their employers wishes. Then there's HYDRA and AIM and SHIELD, all of which employ apparently tens of thousands of military, science, and intelligence personnel. These groups need factories of people to produce their respective matching attire, exotic weaponry, and more people to service their housing and food needs. More people are needed to build their secret lairs and complicated underground fortresses and doomsdays devices, etc. There is not this many readied, available and easily expendable ex-military personnel in all of the real world.
Secondly, there must be more people in the Marvel Universe to compensate for all those who die at the hands of supervillain plots, urban monster disasters, cosmic accidents that rent the fabric of space and time (if these affect the X-men, for instance then Joe and Jane Schmoe must also occasionally lose their memories or vanish from existence,) and keep society from falling apart, rebuild communities (Damage Control). There are dozens of more countries and civilizations, Latveria and Atlantis for example, and resources remain apparently stable despite the hundreds of millions more people needed to populate these regions (which might also mean the Marvel Earth is physically bigger.)
Time progresses in a fictional way in the Marvel Universe.
The good folk at the Marvel Chronology Project- www.chronologyproject.com
have been attempting to put into chronological order all of the appearances of each and every Marvel character. This is brilliant in the way that TV show and comic blogs, like mine, are not. It is a useful tool for a story world that is nearly fifty years old and unwieldy. Another project is an attempt to calendar the events in the comics into conventional times, utilizing portrayals of day and night, the moon, holidays, etc. I think this is cool but flawed. The Marvel Universe is a fictional world where chronology is possible although imperfect but relating that to 365 day years is counter intuitive. Here's a different approach to reconciling topical mentions of real years (like if a character in an old comic says something like "1976 is going to be the best year ever" but its clear that he's been written to age only a few years since then) with obvious time lag- time moves fictionally, it's just a comic book. Characters like Cap kept in suspended animation, or time traveled like Cable or Bishop, may actually be aging, even progressing through time differently than the average person. So many stories have involved the radical altering of space and time that its perfectly understandable that characters who lived in the early seventies would still look little unaged, they age normally while time moves fictionally around them. Another option is for writers and artists to stop making and using precise dates. "Several years ago..." could mean five years or fifteen years back.
I applaud the Marvel Calendar idea but I think its too rooted in reality for a comic book clock.

Big sale on cheap comics yields big finds
Sean Welch, Dean of Acquisitions



My classes have ended for the semester and my summer has begun! Capital City Comics has been putting out a great selection of crappy condition old comics in their 3 for a dollar box for the last couple months. As the acquisitions officer for the Repository I've been vigilant in monitoring their offerings and I came up with a few gems this week, including Brave and the Bold 50 and 56, both in only fair condition, a fine copy of Gold Key's Dark Shadows 28, Detective Comics 347, Superboy 141, and Lois Lane 112. If you're wondering if I'm a DC fan all of a sudden the answer is no, but the Repository Board, myself included have decided that at $.33 an issue we can afford it.
I'm proud to announce the MCBR has acquired our fourth autographed Marvel Treasury Edition, a copy of #15, a Conan issue autographed by Roy "the Boy" Thomas (seen above).
One of the faculty's favorite new titles is The Twelve from Marvel by Stracznski and Weston. The story is reminiscent of Captain America, twelve Golden Age characters who most of us have never heard of before are frozen back at the end of WWII, discovered and revived in 2008. The comic has a Watchmen feel about it because the heroes are coping with a world that has changed so much from their glory days. If you want info better than I can give check out: http://www.newsarama.com/Comic-Con_07/Marvel/TheTwelve.html
I don't want to spoil anything about the story but it's very well done- great characterizations and beautiful illustrations. The latest cover features The Witness!
Next Time: Some rules of Marvel Universe!