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Not long arrived, Fantastic Four #12 Facsimile Edition, bringing to an end the sequential release of the first dozen FF comics, though if they've been selling in droves, who knows - perhaps Marvel will decide to continue with subsequent issues in an unbroken monthly line. I remember reading this tale, I think for the first time, in The Mighty World Of Marvel #s 24 & 25 (it was spread over two issues) back in 1973, and now, 52 years later, I've just read it again. (I've read it several times over the years, of course, in different reprints, but there's a special significance to me to read it on a Saturday, just as I did 52 years back, and also 5 years later in The Complete Fantastic Four #s 24 & 25 in 1978.)
Anyway, this has been a great run of mags as, even though I have various reprints of the first 12 tales (and others), it's nice to have them as individual issues, with original ads, letters pages, and pin-ups. I've bought two of each comic, one set for reading and just looking at, the other to tuck away somewhere as back-up copies. Actually, that's not quite true, as I purchased several #1s. Anyway, if you've been dithering about acquiring this (or any previous) issue for yourselves, perhaps the following 'chapter' pages will persuade you to take the plunge. Thing is, should Marvel ever decide to reprint them yet again, but without the intrusive barcode boxes on the front covers, I know I'll just have to buy them all over again.
So tell me, Crivvies, are there any particular runs of Marvel mags you'd like to see facsimiles of? Be so good as to say what they are in the comments section.
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16 comments:
I'd buy reprints of the initial run of The Silver Surfer in a flash (no ref to DC intended), as there seems no sign of Marvel ever putting them out in Epic format. I have isolated issues from the original run but many were purchased in second hand shops so not all in great condition. Otherwise i have the Masterworks paperback volumes, the first six issues in volume one unfortunately on glossy paper and with a terrible recolour job in the Barnes & Noble edition. As is all too often the case picking up the paperback or any other editions of Masterworks volumes is horrendously expensive now.
There was a facsimile single issue of SS #14 (Surfer vs. Spidey) back in 2019, PC - did you get that? Might still be available in certain quarters. I'm surprised Marvel haven't yet released an Epic Collection of the Lee/Buscema tales. I've got the originals, the Omnibus Volume, and the Masterworks volumes (two) - yet I'd still buy an Epic Collection edition.
No I didn't acquire the Surfer vs Spidey reprint, until you mentioned it I never knew Marvel had done a facsimile. I have the actual issue from the time of the one that followed it, Surfer vs the Torch but that's as near as I got. I'd check it out online but I know before even doing so that it would probably cost more than I can afford .
I did a post about it at the time, PC, you must've missed it. On a slightly different note, there's a 50th Anniversary edition of the Superman Vs. Spider-Man Treasury Edition due out in January. Two versions, one with the original cover, the other with a cover by Alex Ross.
I had a look at this yesterday when I was in town but I didn't buy it. I was hoping they would cover Kirby's later period on the FF which I loved. Hopefully sales were strong enough that they may do more of these
They did The Galactus Trilogy a few months back, McS, did you get those three? The Black Panther's debut appearance was also released as a facsimile.
Yes I got them Kid, great stuff. I have the original Panther issue of the FF so I didn't pick that one up
I don't have the original of BP's debut, but even if I did, I'd still have bought the facsimile to have as a handy reading copy, McS, as it saves having to handle the '60s issue. I think Marvel will eventually get around to publishing more facsimiles of the Lee/Kirby FF tales.
Hope you are well Kid.Switched phones and lost access to gmail,Watsup etc.Hope my triple FFF still showing.Love those reprints.If I remember correctly that issue of FF was actually intended as Hulk #7 but sales had been poor and Hulk was cancelled!The FF battle might have been an attempt to save Hulk series and that 1st page is very similar to previous Hulk typeface.Keep up the good work and stay well.
Thanks for your comment, Triple F. Unfortunately, your name isn't showing, but no problem. To my eyes, FF #12 doesn't seem like a tale intended for Hulk #7 as it reads just like a typical FF story. Great cover, eh?
Yeah, it's a cute thought to play with, that there could've been a HULK 7. But in my reading, Lee had already taken Kirby off HULK and replaced him with Ditko. Whenever Ditko completed #6 must have been pretty close to when he also drew the Green One in SPIDER-MAN as a cross-promotion, so that suggests to me that Ditko would have been planning his next Green Goliath yarn when the news of the cancellation came down. I've never heard of Ditko missing a deadline and forcing Lee to bring in a pinch-hitter, and that would seem to be the only reason Lee would have returned Kirby to a book he'd just left. .
It's also interesting to speculate whether the first couple of Ditko Hulk strips to appear in Tales To Astonish were intended for #7 of his own mag, GP. I wonder if we'll ever really know? What's your take on this possibility?
To me the TALES TO ASTONISH strips, even though they're drawn by Ditko, seem to be based on a different approach to both the characterization of the Hulk and of his support cast. By the end of HULK 6, the Metal Master tale, the hero is once again a tough-guy version of Bruce Banner, which is pretty much an idea formed by Kirby in something like issue #3. I hypothesize that Stan Lee thought the Hulk had potential despite the low sales of his own title, and therefore he wasn't going to retry the same approach that had failed. Somewhere I read a breakdown of the Hulk's appearances between HULK 6 and TTA, but I don't have it handy. But I think Stan was definitely getting away from making the Hulk too much like The Thing; that Stan wanted Greenie to have a more brutish nature. So in his FANTASTIC FOUR and GIANT-MAN appearances, Hulk is more bad-tempered and obsessive. Stan had let Jack do his thing in the HULK feature-- a bunch of barely connected stories-- and it hadn't sold, despite the popularity of Kirby's art with kid-readers. So TTA is a new approach, more soap-operatic, like Spider-Man. I think Major Talbot is added to the cast as a potential competitor for Betty Ross' affections, though I don't remember how much real impact Talbot had. I'd also guess that the new Hulk clicked with readers and may have increased sales for TTA, because in about a year, Stan phased out the never-popular Gi/Ant Man feature and gave Sub-Mariner his first berth since the early fifties.
That sounds eminently probable, GP. It's been a good while since I've read the Astonish Hulk tales and I'd forgotten the precise details of them. Tell me, do you know whether there was ever a story between Hulk #6 and the Astonish run in which it was mentioned ol' Greenskin's presidential pardon being revoked?
Wow, I hadn't thought about the pardon thing in a LONG time. I'd be very surprised if Stan or anyone ever again mentioned it.
So HULK 6 is dated March 63. It's roughly 7 months later that Stan and Jack have Hulk join the Avengers. Two months after that, they do a callback to FF#3, where the Torch splits from his group--- but the guys keep things unpredictable. Not does the Hulk not rejoin the super-group, he becomes an ally of a Public Enemy, the Sub-Mariner, in AVENGERS 3. (That by itself might've got the pardon revoked.) But after #3, Hulk-- still more or less "Tough-Guy Hulk"-- doesn't do much of anything. The Avengers supposedly keep looking for him but somehow don't manage to cross paths with Greenie until FF #25-26, starting in April 64. Was Stan thinking about launching the TTA series even back then, which began in Oct 64? In the FF stories, I might argue that Hulk is more obsessive than he is in the "Tough Guy" stories, getting into a massive snit because his kid-partner has supposedly started hanging out with the WWII living legend. SPIDEY 14 follows two months later, which also might be advance publicity for the TTA series. One issue before the Hulk officially gets his own berth, he also fights Giant-Man in Sept 64, suggesting to me that Stan may've thought that even though Greenjeans had been cancelled before, he still couldn't do worse than Gi/Ant-Man. And from here, it looks like Stan's policy of farming the Hulk out in various features built up reader curiosity about him, improving TTA's sales enough to jettison Henry Pym-- who certainly went on to a better class of stories once he rejoined the Avengers than he'd ever had in his own title.
I'm glad you went into so much detail about what happened between Hulk #6 and his TTA series. GP, as it saves me from having a go at it. I can't carry a thought in my deteriorating brain long enough to translate it into a post worth reading. Your Jelly Dalek Order Of Merit is in the mail.
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