Three of the best from the 1970 spinner rack

In the US comic books cover dated January, 1970 (on sale in the US around October 1969) hit these shores around May 1970. It was on a trip to my then local newsagents that I spied and immediately purchased three of my favourite comics of all time, everyone a classic. Silver Surfer issue 12, Spider-Man issue 80 and Captain America issue 121.

One of the things I really loved about Marvel comics was that they would drop in cameo appearances of their characters from time to time. In the Silver Surfer comic (issue 12) they showed a scene between the Abomination and the Hulk in a flashback and as interesting as that was to my 10 year old self I knew about these characters. It was the cameo that appeared in Captain America of a character that I had never seen before that had me really geeked out. Of course I realised a few years later this was Yellowjacket (formerly Hank Pym of Giant Man fame) but at the time I had thought he was simply called the Avenger (from the dialogue below) . It took me a few years longer to find out a Yellowjacket is an American name for a Hornet.