HOW TO LOSE 45 YEARS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING...

Copyright MARVEL COMICS

Perhaps I should apologise for showing the above cover again so soon after last time, but just look at it.  'Twould be a crime to apologise for such a great illustration.  So that means you're stuck with it!  Anyway, as I previously explained, someone gave me this issue recently (I won't say who in case he's shy) and when I got my hands on it (only today actually, but thanks to the magic of the 'edit' button on my earlier post, you'd think I'd had it for a few days) and when I opened its pages it was all extremely familiar to me.  I remembered certain panels in the b&w, grey tone way in which they appear inside and it seems, in memory, that I last read this specific comic only within the recent past, not 45 years ago when I first bought my original.

Thing is, I still have some of my original issues on either side of this number, so I really can't understand why I didn't have this one and the following issue too.  I always enjoyed 'The Inheritor!' (published over two issues) and I could've sworn I still had them, because, as I say, I recall looking at them in what feels like relatively recent history.  I can only assume that I gave them to a pal (who may well yet have them) amongst a pile of other comics, but at precisely which point in time I'm unsure of.  Anywhere between 1975 and '79, I'd say.  Can it really be so long since I last owned them?  I think I've got colour reprints of the stories in collected editions, but it's these monotone versions which are uppermost in my memory.

Well, anyway, I can't have #129 and not have #130 in which the three stories (Hulk, Daredevil, and FF) continue, so I've just bought one on ebay.  It'll always be a mystery to me why I ever gave them away to begin with, so it'll be good to see the second comic reunited with the first, both back where they belong.  As I say, it's hard to believe that it's been 45 years since I first bought my original copies, but having them again will allow me to step back in time to that exact point in my youth, even if it's for far too short a period.

Honest - it's like only a few months ago at the latest since I last browsed through them.  How can such a thing be?!   

Posted in: Cartoons