Welcome to another October.

For us, this means 31 days of hauntingly good – we hope – horror comic books. To begin our alternative advent of scary goodness we’re looking at the Avengers Halloween Special released four years past.

Featured are heavy hitters Daredevil, Doctor Doom, Deadpool, Captain America, Iron Man, Punisher and Wolverine. Each are the focus in this hit-and-miss collection of creepy chronicles.

Most are misses, but The Thing From Another Time is the showstopper. Tony Stark enlists the talents of Deadpool and Colossus to recover his father’s greatest weapon.

Avengers Halloween Special (2018) 1

This retelling of the 1951 classic – later reimagined by John Carpenter – does the original justice. Right down to the frosty finish pitting Iron Man against the elements and the past as the blizzard begins.

The Eyes Have It steals from Japanese horror cinema’s Gin gwai (The Eye). Matt Murdock, aka Daredevil, is given the gift of sight. Not till the end of the short thriller does he learn his benefactor is anything but benevolent.

The Fantastic Four are next up with Victor Von Doom as the voice of reason in this story somewhat reminiscent of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Cameos by Black Widow, Thor, Hulk, Captain America Iron Man and Bullseye.

Frank Castle stars in Punisher of the Opera.

More filler, but admirable for the attempt.

Haunted Mansion is Wolverine’s vehicle, though he appears more in a cameo appearance in his own story. Short and to the point, the ghosts in this story appear friendlier to the reader than the trio of trick-or-treaters who stumble upon the tale.

Marvel gets points for publishing a Halloween special, though better have come before. Pick it up and prove my opinion wrong. Sometimes it’s just nice to have something remembering the month.

Before the fools and bunnies; before taxes and fireworks is Valentine’s Day. A day for flowers and flowery words; confection and affection.

It’s also a time for Marvel to march out some of its sweethearts, well and lesser known, to entertain and pass along a little wisdom.

Mary Jane and Peter spend a romantic day in a cocoon of webs and memories.

Marvel Valentine Special (1997) 1

While enjoying a text book and good weather, Peter sees himself. His teenage self when his future wife was still a set up date between their aunts.

Deciding to help, Peter gives the nebbish grad student fashion and dating tips.

The opening Valentine volley – My Fair Spidey – comes to a close when Mary Jane helps Peter realize it wasn’t who he was trying to be, but who he was she fell in love with. Donning his union suit, Peter Parker, aka Spider-Man, saves the day and the couple’s future.

Love Hurts is a much more serious look at love.

Daredevil and girlfriend Karen Page work to save a young woman’s life from an abusive boyfriend.

Venus and Goom return readers to more of a comfort zone in Atom-Age Amore. The story is a whimsical stab at world domination through a dating agency.

The Greatest Gift is another fun fable showcasing Absorbing Man and Titania.

Crusher Creel is caught in his past while trying to find the perfect gift for his wife. With her help, together they find what that is; one that doesn’t come in a box nor need wrapped.

Valentine’s Day is coming. Better start thinking of what your main squeeze would love most.

It’s no accident National Wear Red Day is celebrated in February. American Heart Month goes all 28 days – 29 when an election is brewing – and Feb. 14 is Valentine’s Day; maybe most associated with the heart – and red.

National Wear Red Day is celebrated the first Friday in February. Wearing of the scarlet color is to bring attention to heart disease awareness as the leading cause of death for Americans.

Rather than Jeff or I donning some embarrassing adult diapers with curly wigs, we’ll recall a bittersweet romance rekindled and snuffed by revenge.

As evidenced from the comic book cover today, Daredevil and Elektra are our sweethearts.

Daredevil (1964) 168

Stan Lee, Bill Everett and, to some extent, Jack Kirby, created the Man Without Fear. He debuted in his own title cover dated April 1964. Alter ego Matt Murdock would continue to star in his own book, but the character never advanced beyond minor status in the Marvel Universe.

That is until up and coming writer/artist Frank Miller, already penciling the book, settled into the driver’s seat.

For the first time in existence, Daredevil was cool. He was sleek and sexy.

To compliment the hero, Miller gave him a mate. Not just any woman, but a former lover from Murdock’s college days: Elektra Natchios.

The ill-fated romance died on the vine when she and her father, Hugo Kostas Natchios, were kidnapped by terrorists. Hugo was killed in a botched attempt to rescue both.

Elektra left shortly after.

When Matt is reunited with her in issue 168, she has become an assassin for the Kingpin. Her weapon of choice is a pair of sai. She and Daredevil become lovers – again – only to die on the ends of her own weapons at the hands of Bullseye in issue 181.

Elektra proved a fan favorite and was soon brought back – to life. Since then, she has starred and guest starred throughout the Marvel U. In 2005 Jennifer Garner portrayed her in a self-titled movie as a sequel to the Daredevil movie from 2003. A decade later, Elektra played a major role in Netflix’s season two of Daredevil.

Miller’s muse for the Greek national is based on myths by Sophocles and Euripides. The character’s vengeful soul mirrors Miller’s creation. All live on in their own tragedies of others makings.

Don’t let this day go by without doing something to remember the tragedies that can become our own without proper care. Work the red; be a symbol of prevention rather than a statistic.

Marvel didn’t miss the opportunity to celebrate the season and spread cheer with their own, unique brand of Christmas wishes. They were just as brilliant in 1983 with a multitude of the Marvel U helping Santa Thing.

By this time, Jim Shooter was midway through his reign as the editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics. Chris Claremont’s run on the X-Men was starting to pay dividends with spin-offs appearing. Frank Miller’s Daredevil was received to financial and critical success. The first mini, Contest of Champions had launched and the Marvel-wide crossover, Secret Wars, was in the wings.

The Christmas card would be nearing its 500^th year of existence, the first recorded document in 1611 from Michael Maier to James I of England and his son, Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales.

In 1874, Prang and Mayer of England were the first printers to offer Christmas cards in America. Postcards eventually substituted, but by the 1920s, cards and envelopes experienced a renaissance and continue today.

Email can now be seen as a contributor to the decline in Christmas card exchange. However, the card business is far from extinct with nearly two billion sent every year.

Mephisto mucks with Daredevil as he spends a solitary Christmas Eve in a bar nursing a beer.

The Devil You Say! has none of the Christmas cheer associated with holiday tales. The end has a moral uplifting, but overall the story is a lump of coal in the Christmas morning stocking.

This comic was a little late to the party in 1989, cover dated May 1 of that year. That could be because writer Ann Nocenti had just finished working on the Inferno crossover, issues 262-265.

Nocenti would pen issues 238 through 291, bringing the 1980s to an end and ringing in the 1990s. She is also associated with the New Mutants and Uncanny X-Men.

Other holiday issues featuring the Man Without Fear include Daredevil 108, Daredevil 169, Daredevil 253, Daredevil (2011) 7, Marvel Holiday Special (1992) and Marvel Treasury Edition 13.

As March departs, let’s usher in Zebediah Killgrave to commemorate Epilepsy Awareness Day, or Purple Day.

Epilepsy Awareness Day is also known as Purple Day. Cassidy Megan of Nova Scotia, Canada, created Purple Day as a way to educate the public on the condition. The World Health Organization reports nearly 50-million people worldwide live with epilepsy. It is not known how it occurs, though it is non-contagious. While treatable, medical treatment is not available in all parts of the world.

For more information, log onto the Epilepsy Foundation site.

Killgrave is The Purple Man, introduced in Daredevil 4.

The second-tier villain was one who waited in the wings until the right writer came to his rescue. Brian Michael Bendis helped himself to Killgrave for Alias. The storyline matured Purple Man enough for modern-day audiences. Enough so it became part of the short-lived Netflix story of Jessica Jones where David Tennant portrayed him.

Killgrave produces a pheromone allowing him to control others.

Science tells us time travel doesn’t exist.

But, it does.

At least in our minds. Here’s a prime example.

The holidays may be over, but here’s a look – 39 years – back at “Marvel’s Big Money…,” well, just re-read the title of today’s offering.

This one hurts my heart a bit. This was the end of an era. This was the final full year we lived back home; Virginia.

No, I didn’t order from this ad. We were fortunate enough to have one of the early comic book shops in Winchester. If I couldn’t make it there – these were the days before a driver’s license – there were newsstands and a 7-Eleven within pedaling distance.

Mighty Marvel’s Big Money-Saving Holiday Offer!

When the advertisement first appeared, it was just another page to flip past for more action. Looking at it now, the wreath is a portal to a time when adventures came at $.40 (plus tax) right off a spin rack.

Less if you subscribed for a year. Just read the hype: “The first subscription costs $5 – A big $1 savings off the regular sub price of $6!”

Read a little further and you could have saved an additional dollar with each subsequent subscription.

Whatta bargain.

It might have been nice, but there was – and still is – a thrill that comes when you pick up your pull box stack or find one on the wall that calls out; looking at those lavish covers and being drawn into the story without turning a page.

Hope your holidays were wonderful and the memories made will be good ones in the years to come. Jan. 31, 1981, has come and gone; buried by a lotta years. But, we can still remember.

DC beat Marvel to the holiday punch with the first of the Christmas specials beginning in 1974.

The Marvel Treasury Special was released Nov. 26 of that year on the heels of DC’s Limited Collector’s Edition (C-34) that hit newsstands Nov. 7.

Whereas DC had decades of material to draw from, Marvel had a little over 10-years worth of stories to plumb.

Naturally “Have Yourself a Sandman Little Christmas!” led the list.

It was a reprint from Marvel Team-Up issue one starring Spider-Man and the Human Torch battling Sandman. A sappy story that brought out the season in both heroes who allowed Sandman to visit his mother on Christmas Eve.  The good deed does not go unpunished leading both heroes to a continuation of the story in issue two.

The remainder of the book is what the title promised:  a grab-bag.

Marvel Treasury Special (1974)

In “Mortal Combat with…Sub-Mariner” is reprinted from Daredevil issue seven. Namor makes land fall to seek out Matt Murdock to serve as his lawyer. The sea prince wishes to sue the surface world for its exploitation of the other three quarters of the Earth.  Murdock’s alter ego is called upon when he refuses to take the case.

Black Widow stars in the next story taken from Amazing Adventures (1970) issue five. An unremarkable story. Maybe the most noteworthy of the book is Neal Adam’s assumption of penciling chores on the Inhuman’s story.

Fantastic Four issues 25 and 26, a two-part tale, finish out the book. The Thing and Hulk go toe-to-toe in issue 25 with the Avengers guest starring in the second part.

Far from the holiday specials to come in the 1990s, but at least setting a precedence for the company.

Daredevil (1964) 253

The only person to cause Daredevil more grief than the Kingpin is Frank Miller.

For 23 issues Miller penned and penciled a path through love and loss. Those were arguably two of the most riveting years of Daredevil’s life. Miller took a second-tier, blind hero and catapulted him to the levels of A-list, flagship characters like Spider-Man and Hulk.

In addition, Miller added to the pantheon of Marvel mythos by creating Electra Natchios. A former lover of Matt Murdock, Elektra returned to steal and break Murdock’s heart. Miller eventually brought the relationship to a tragic end having Bullseye murder her.

So popular was the character, the powers to be at Marvel refused to allow her a restful repose.

Issue 253 is a continuation of the Kingpin’s crusade to crush Murdock and his alter ego in “Merry Christmas, Kingpin.” It began in Miller’s original treatment of the character and escalated in the epic Born Again story arc that marked Miller’s return as scribe to DD. This time it’s Ann Nocenti and John Romita, Jr., in the driver’s seat.

As America packed away its bicentennial banners and fervor, Marvel began packaging its third, and final, Holiday Grab-Bag. And, that’s what it was, a holiday-less hodge podge of reprints pulled from Avengers (1963) issue 58, Daredevil (1964) number 86, Marvel Team-Up 6 and Tales to Astonish (1959) 93.

Roger Stern was a lowly assistant editor in charge of choosing reprint material for Marvel’s stable of twice-told-tale books. He was tasked to fill the last of the holiday specials with suitable material. Having already used what little was available the previous two years, Stern was faced with a daunting task.

Marvel Treasury Edition 13

As Stern told Back Issue magazine, issue 85, Christmas in the Bronze Age, from 2015; he pulled the most tear jerking stories he could find to fill the book. Choices made, he found the book was still 10 pages short. Stern approached Editor Archie Goodwin who freed money for what Stern termed a “framing sequence” for the stories.

Fanboys were given the Giant Superhero Holiday Grab-Bag Nov. 16, 1976, complete with a Gil Kane/Joe Sinnott cover featuring the Marvel mainstays. Stern penned the opening story, “Tis the Season,” showcasing the super heroes playing in the snow. Reprints included “…As Those Who Will Not See!” with Spider-Man and the Thing, “Even an Android Can Cry” featuring the Avengers, Hulk and Silver Surfer shared “He Who Strikes the Silver Surfer” and “Once Upon a Time – The Ox!” showcasing Daredevil and Black Widow.

This was the final Marvel holiday special until the 1990s. By then the House of Ideas would have a better catalog to choose from, even tossing in original material.

For me, nothing will ever beat the original specials from the 1970s. They were the perfect size to lie stomach down on the floor and marvel – pun intended – at the craftsmanship of those earlier Marvel Age stories.