Haha, well played! That a hell of a cover, especially for a boy.

I didn't start earning grass money till high school, and never got an allowance. Plus my mother must have read some Wertham-influenced articles in the magazines she loved, because she had a strong bias against superhero comics in particular, and all comics in general. Sigh.

Is that Jack's dialogue and captions? It's very very good.

It's such a shame that more golden and silver age artists didn't keep ledgers like this. Oh, the tales that Kirby's and Ditko's ledgers would tell!

Wow, I'm impressed with Heck's skills. Building model planes and cars was an even bigger part of my childhood than comic books were. That's a fantastic Bearcat model (way beyond the kind of models I made, which weren't intended to fly). Thanks for sharing this.

Wow, that's actually shocking. Colan didn't tend to do guidelines on his faces, so that sometimes the eyes don't quite stay in line, but here his pencils are fantastic. Palmer's inking makes that guy's face look like its melting wax. Plus a lot of Colan's lovely shadows on the faces are messed up.

This explains why the delay from break-in to moving OA to his office; why both moves happened simultaneously; and why Shooter would immediately recognize that the transfile box(es) shouldn't be at 387 PAS.

It definitely was an inside job. Someone with access to both Marvel offices in April 82.

If Marvel had to give up old storage, and the move to new offices and storage was impending, perhaps Marvel needed to move the OA to 575 Madison for a few months. Shooter recognizes that it's susceptible to theft, and so has it put in his personal office, thinking the move would happen very soon.

Theakston gives a clue: says in May '81 OA circles were abuzz with news Marvel "sold" the old storage facility. I doubt Marvel owned it, but may have had to give it up then. The new 387 PAS offices were being remodeled in '81, with that move impending. It makes sense to do both moves simultaneously.

So break-in around Feb. 80, move April 82. When was OA boxed up and put in Shooter's tiny, secure 575 Madison office? He says he did this after break-in, and to protect the art. Also says it was only in his office "some months", which he implied was longer than expected. How to make sense of this?

Shooter forgot his dates. Just as break-in was later, so was the office move, which happened April 24-25, 1982. I believe him that the office and storage facility moves happened on the same weekend. The first day in new office was April 26, '82 (when Shooter saw the transfile boxes in lunch room).

Regarding walls: IV told me they were plaster/lathe inner walls (not hollow drywall). It looked solid to her. Break-in was indeed through the inner walls from another storage room. Building so old/unimproved the lights were on DC power! Plaster/lathe isn't hard to smash thru, as Shooter said.

Some addn't info: Vartanoff gave up responsibility for the storage facility in Feb. '80, and was laid off from Marvel in Oct. '80. The break-in happened days after she was no longer resp. & she DID go with Shooter and Brodsky to inspect, since she knew more than anyone. She confirmed no art stolen.