Just discovered eBay and, yeah I know, I’m really late to this particular party.

Over the past few months I’ve flown around a bit and, unlike where I live, I’ve found comic shops with pretty healthy back issue bins and its been ages since I’ve gone through back issues and picked out stuff from the past I might have had at one time and which now I really want to get my hands on again.

So I did so, but once I got back home, it was back to not having access to that stuff. Truthfully I don’t know how exactly it happened but I must have started looking around and realized I could essentially look around the entire country’s worth of stock and find copies of all that interesting stuff I used to have and no longer do.

Again: I know I’m really late to this party and I know to some it may be nonsense but…

This is a copy of Weird War Tales #39 I picked up. It has a cover date of July 1975 and I figure I must have gotten my hands on this in and around that time period… though I have no way of knowing how exactly. Over time I lost this issue but elements of it stuck with me.

In the 1970’s DC would release a vast array of comics, from superhero works (I suppose their bread and butter) but also westerns, war books, and horror series. Weird War Tales married horror and war and was a fascinating series which had some fascinating stories through its 12 year, 124 issue run.

The primary element of the above issue is Joe Kubert’s magnificent cover. Joe Kubert, to me, was pretty much the king of DC comic books covers from the late 60’s and through the 70’s and into the 80’s. If DC should decide one day to release a Omnibus edition of all the covers he created, from war books to horror books to superhero books to pulp books… I’d be the very first person in line to pick it up. The three stories presented in the book were a revelation as well. I recall the first one the best, especially its final panel which chilled the hell out of me as a kid.

I obviously wasn’t going to stop there, right? Continuing the haunted nautical theme, I also picked up Weird War Tales #27, July 1974. This one I don’t believe I had before but I recall seeing advertisements for the book in other comics I did have so it was a no brainer to buy this one. The cover here is by Luis Dominguez, I believe (a website lists it as being by Frank Robbins but I don’t think so… he did illustrate the first story so I suspect this might have been a small error). While Joe Kubert was IMHO the king of DC comic books covers, Luis Dominguez wasn’t too far behind. He made some magnificent horror and western covers during the 1970’s as well!

Here we have another book, Unexpected #161 from February 1975. I absolutely loved DC’s 100 Page Spectaculars. More comic book stories and pages? Sign me up! The cover this time around is by Nick Cardy. He’s yet another spectacular DC cover artist from this era who created terrific covers after terrific covers. I had this book way back when and the two stories depicted on the cover in particular are wonderful!

Finally, here’s the Jonah Hex Spectacular released in January of 1978. This was another book I had way, waaaaay back when that really turned my head when I read it. Or rather, read the first story which involved Jonah Hex.

Written by longtime Hex writer Michael Fleischer and illustrated magnificently by Russ Heath, the Jonah Hex story “The Last Bounty Hunter” tells the “last” Jonah Hex story… and its freaking brutal.

In 1904 an elderly Jonah Hex fights Father Time. He has to wear glasses and isn’t the young hellion he used to be. He gets involved in a bounty and the results wind up being very tragic.

This is very much meant to be a final Hex story and I’m shocked, even after all these years, that editorial within DC allowed such a story be made. Not that its a bad story, heavens no, only that it features such a wild end for what was a very popular character during most of that decade… and whose regular book was still being published!

Of note, the pretty terrible Johnny Depp Lone Ranger movie released a few years back ripped the Jonah Hex tale off with its framing device, which saw Tonto as some mannequin in a circus type place in the early 1900’s.

I don’t want to get into too many SPOILERS but, yeah, they ripped off Mr. Fleisher’s story there but without the sadness and shock that is found in the comic.

So for those who itch to recover things they had at one time long ago, sniff around eBay if you have the free time -and the cash to blow! You might find yourself picking up stuff you really enjoyed way back when…

…and I’m not just talking about comic books!