I carry no phone An aspiring Luddite In a wired world. Mastodon Verification Link	Jeff Berry is an early adopter of the Internet and the Web, was a late adopter of Twitter and left when it turned fascist, and always declined to adopt Facebook. He was a fairly early adventurer into the Fediverse. He admins a medievalist Mastodon instance. He hates cell-phones.

Part two of the read-through starts with 'Amazing High Adventure,' because it was next alphabetically in the box after 'Amazing Adventures.' The boxes are organised by company to some extent - Marvels, DC, and independents. So this is pretty much the first Marvel box.

'Amazing High Adventure'
numbers 1-5

'Killraven' started in 1973, had a cover price of 20-25 cents, and was before I started collecting. 'Amazing High Adventure' started in 1984, had a cover price of $2.00, and was after I started working at Fantasy Works, the branch of Mile High Comics nearest to where I lived in Aurora, CO. Mile High let you sign up for the comics you wanted to be pulled for you when they arrived so that you could pick them up at your convenience. There were also a few 'specialist' options. You could get all first issues from a given publisher or publishers, or, if memory serves, all first issues full stop. Guess which I opted for? That's probably why I got the first issue, but I must have liked it enough to keep up with it. Five issues over three years was the full run, so this is complete.

AHA is a completely different beast than Killraven. It was a prestige effort with a high price point - the standard price was 65 cents. It was on higher quality paper than run-of-the-mill comics and had no advertisements! The format was a little retro, for all that. Each issue was three or four stand-alone stories - short stories, in effect. No superheroes, no recurring characters, and all with an historical or pseudo-historical setting. For example, issue three contained (the lower case styling is from the comics itself:

• a camel's curse - 1870s in the US west, and the cavalry's experiment with camels
• monkey see, monkey die - Napoleon is in Egypt
• facing the tiger - spanning 1935 to 1958, and several locations in Asia
• fossils - 1807 in the new country of the USA

It seems to have been intended as a showcase for the writers and authors to explore things they wouldn't be able to do in the main product lines. I recognise a lot of the names in the credits, and one of my favourites appears in (naturally) issue three. Mike Baron wrote both 'a camel's curse' and 'facing the tiger' in that issue. I am a big fan of his work with Capital and First Comics about this time (about which more anon), but the timing suggests that he wasn't the draw. 'facing the tiger' is probably my favourite story in the entire series, and deals with themes that appear in his other work - and also features martial arts, which are common in many of his books.

You can see why it staggered along and eventually was cancelled, though. In a market where the long running series with well-known characters (eg Spider-man, Batman, Superman, and so on) was dominant, a more literary comic with no recurring characters at triple the price must have been a hard sell. An interesting experiment, though, at a time when the industry was re-inventing itself. The big two, Marvel and DC, had (and have) the lion's share of the market, but small publishers were popping up, putting out a few titles, and often fading after only a few years. Those small publishers were pushing the boundaries of what you could expect from comics, and this might have been an attempt by Marvel to do the same. Marvel launched their prestige imprint, 'Epic,' in 1982 with the idea of bypassing the Comics Code, but also letting creators retain control of their creations. DC did something similar with Vertigo in the 90s.

Tempting though it is, AHA will not make the cut, joining Killraven in the metaphorical out-box.

Special Bonus Content

From 1977, we have Super-Team Family, with three stories: a Challengers of the Unknown, a Green Arrow, and a Doom Patrol. The last two look so dated, I wonder if they were reprints of earlier stories. (Although the GA story is illustrated by Jack and Roz Kirby ...) What caught my eye, though, was an add for 'Book and Record Sets' from Peter Pan Industries. These are comic books which came with a record (vinyl, 45 rpm) so you could listen and follow along. Spider-man, the Hulk, Captain America, the Fantastic Four, Planet of the Apes, Star Trek, Batman, Superman, Conan, and Space:1999 - quite a selection.

Finally, 'Howard the Duck,' missing both the cover and the outer pages, so I don't know the issue. (I could find out, if I really cared, but I don't care that much.) Notable mostly for Captain America defeating the Red Skull with a Twinkie (in the Hostess ad).

So, from the possibly sublime to the completely ridiculous, the second part of the read through is done. What next? As Stan Lee would say, 'See you soon, true believers!'

• Comic Read Through Part One
• Comic Read Through Part Three