This weekend’s light-hearted, escapist blog post about superheroes looks at more Spider-Woman stories from her early years. For her first post click HERE.
SPIDER-WOMAN Vol 1 #17 (Aug 1979)
Title: Deathplunge
Villain: Wax Man (1st appearance)
Synopsis: Fully recovered now from her long war with the mutant Nekra and her cult of worshippers, Jessica Drew (Spider-Woman) treats herself to a night out at Monte Disco. She meets a young man named Eric and the two grow closer over drinks and dancing.
In the Ladies Room, another patron of the disco (lol) accidentally takes Jessica’s purse instead of her own, identical one. That purse contains Jessica’s compressed Spider-Woman costume, which the inebriated woman slips into and becomes a hit on the dance floor.
Our heroine slips away from Eric to try getting back her costume without exposing her secret identity. At one point, the drunken woman dressed as Spider-Woman falls off the deck of the mountaintop disco. Jessica uses her powers to save the woman and recover her costume before the drunk knows what’s what.
Later that night, Eric and Jessica are making out, when Eric mutates into his supervillain form of Wax Man. Continue reading

MARVEL TEAM-UP Vol 1 #53 (Jan)
The genetically engineered human/ animal hybrid creature Woodgod (at right) – also immune to the nerve gas – is still being contained in the depopulated town by Major Del Tremens and his troops at Tranquility Base, who caused the nerve gas leak.
MONSTER OF FRANKENSTEIN Vol 1 #1 (Jan 1973)
That chunk is brought on board Walton’s vessel and stored in the hold. While the captain relates to a crew member the tale told to his ancestor about the monster’s creation and history, the rest of the crew plot a mutiny over being kept in the frozen north for so long just to recover a monstrous corpse.
GHOST RIDER – Daredevil biker Johnny Blaze makes a deal with the devil: Johnny’s soul in exchange for Satan curing the cancer in the body of Blaze’s mentor “Crash” Simpson. We all know how deals with the devil go, and not only does Crash die anyway, but Johnny Blaze is cursed to periodically transform into the flame-headed monster called Ghost Rider.
MYSTIC COMICS Vol 1 #1 (Mar 1940)
B. Dynamic Man – Scientist Dr. Simon Goettler creates
DEFENDERS Vol 1 #17 (Nov 1974)
MARVEL PREMIERE Vol 1 #25 (Oct 1975)
VENUS
ASTONISHING TALES Vol 1 #25 (Aug 1974)
RED NAILS – I always like to emphasize that – despite the way Marvel Comics’ 1970s and 1980s Conan stories kept the character’s name alive and introduced new generations to him – the Cimmerian was not a mere comic book figure. Iconic author Robert E. Howard introduced Conan on the printed page in his 1930s stories featuring the character.
I. This first installment introduces readers to a blonde female pirate – Valeria of the Red Brotherhood. She is the only female pirate among them and is as notoriously deadly as the others. NOTE: Yes, this is the character that Sandahl Bergman played in the 1982 Conan the Barbarian film. That movie made her a standard thief instead of a pirate and – sadly – gave her the “ghostly return” scene that actually belonged to Conan’s true love Belit (Bay-LEET) from