Your Favourite Marvel Fireside books

[OveraboundingMint]

Those of you who grew up in the 70s or were already there would remember this tpbs/hcs with very stunning Romita covers.

 

Anyone here knows which of the HC editions are/is the most hard to find today??

 

 

[OveraboundingMint]

 

I just love this cover and the ones with the women & villains

 

 

[Ant-Man]

"Sons" was also my first. Read it over and over.

[steveinthecity]

"Origins of" was my first and still favorite of the series. Having Stan tell the backstory to how these characters and stories came about really hardwired my brain as a comics fan for life. These characters were still pretty young, relative to comics as a whole, so there was still a freshness to the stories, as opposed to how I looked at Batman, Flash, etc at the time.

[seanfingh]

"Origins of" was my first and still favorite of the series. Having Stan tell the backstory to how these characters and stories came about really hardwired my brain as a comics fan for life. These characters were still pretty young, relative to comics as a whole, so there was still a freshness to the stories, as opposed to how I looked at Batman, Flash, etc at the time.

 

+1 I just flipped through it again yesterday. Some of his intros are a little funnier now that I know some of the rest of the story, but it still can't take away the feeling that I had as a 7 year old that Stan Lee was the greatest storyteller in the English language.

[jools&jim]

I just love this cover and the ones with the women & villains

 

 

 

In '76 I was in the hospital for a week or two -- I came out of it okay, but it was pretty scary stuff for a 10 year-old kid. Along with other books and comics, my parents brought me a copy of SON OF ORIGINS (which I'd seen in a local bookstore), and it helped immensely. I'm sure I read it, cover to cover, at least 3 times in the hospital...and many times since. Great stuff!

[Larryw7]

I got Origins, Son, Bad Guys and Superhero Women as either birthday or Christmas gifts, depending on the year the books came out. Bad Guys had the best cover IMHO. I read the Spidey origin story from Origins over and over again as a kid. I would love to have nice copies of all of them again.

[bronze_rules]

Bizzare that I was just thinking about this series. I too read both editions (origins, son of origins) cover to cover as a kid; with great interest. Looking back on it (and I haven't had them for decades), I don't recall seeing the Sgt. Fury issue 1 inside. I do vaguely recall a strange tales episode... can someone jog my memory on what Sgt. Fury issues were covered? Thanks.

 

P.S. The watcher story was great! It gave me a lot of respect for his potential power.

[jools&jim]

 

No Sgt. Fury stories in either ORIGINS or SON as I recall, but the 1st Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. story from Strange Tales #135 was reprinted in SON, and was my favorite story in the book. The Heli-carrier scene really blew me away as a kid!

[OveraboundingMint]

I got Origins, Son, Bad Guys and Superhero Women as either birthday or Christmas gifts, depending on the year the books came out. Bad Guys had the best cover IMHO. I read the Spidey origin story from Origins over and over again as a kid. I would love to have nice copies of all of them again.

 

Almost exactly my thoughts too. But for the botbg being an all-villains bk, its definitely has the most stunning cover, even better than Sons, all that marvel magic emanating right out of the cover...Marvelous!

 

John Romita was at his best in the 70s, being Marvel 's overall art overseer at that time. People bought these books because of the breathtaking astonishing covers

[40sJohn]

I just love this cover and the ones with the women & villains

 

 

 

I reread these as a teenager in the 70's until the cover nearly separated from the spine.

 

Now I feel the need to buy one.

[jaeldubyoo]

The only two I bought new back in the day. When we moved a couple of years ago, my wife threw them in the trash thinking they were just a couple of old books. Luckily, I found them in the recycle can along with a few other collectibles among other discardable books. It's a good thing I looked.

 

 

[OveraboundingMint]

I always enjoy looking at the surfer cover from a distance, the way i enjoy looking at covers like this:

 

 

or better like this :

 

vintage comics were somehow drawn in such a way that they can be appreciated like some artistic paintings from afar or in small.

 

And one of the things that bug me back then and now, was that usually most of the smaller hand-drawn art (as opposed to the actual products that are in painted form) looks much better in the ads page.

[VintageComics]

Origins and Son Of Origins were read over and over.

 

I have a funny story about these Fireside books that I posted elsewhere a few years ago...here it is repeated:

 

 

When I was 7 or 8 years old (grade 2 I remember specifically which would have been 1977 or 1978) I decided I wanted to order a bunch of Marvel Fireside books.

 

Problem was I didn't have any money.

 

No problem. I just clipped a coupon from a Marvel Comic, checked off EVERY BOX on the coupon and mailed it in with one of my parent's checks.

 

If you can remember that far back you'll remember that checks in those days did not have their account numbers printed out on them...you had to fill them in yourself. So I proceeded to fill in some bogus account number (in Canadian funds mind you), total up the books I ordered, add the shipping charge and write in the $$ amount.

 

I dropped the envelope containing the bum check and the coupon in the mail and completely forgot about it as 7 year old boys are wont to do.

 

Well several weeks go by and we are coming back from a vacation and I am none the wiser when my parents realize that there is a large, heavy box in the front porch.

 

We're all wondering what is inside. I'm as clueless as greggy in a Marvel long box.

 

 

We pull the box inside and I remember vividly opening the box and to my amazement being confronted with multiple copies of every Fireside book imaginable. Hard covers, soft covers...The Mighty Marvel Cookbook, How To Draw Comics The Marvel Way, Bring On The Bad Guys....you name it...almost everything in duplicate...I even had the Calender from what I believe was 1978!

 

 

 

Can you imagine what went through my mind as I poured over cover after glossy cover of each of these books? I barely slept that night!

 

 

What was even funnier was that the publisher had written me a check back because I had overpaid.

 

 

So at the age of 7 I spent (from what I remember) about $400, paid for it with a bum check, got a refund and then proceeded to take the books to school for show and tell and give many of the away.

 

 

I still have the refund check as a reality check to remind me that I was not dreaming.

 

 

[VintageComics]

Found a scan of the cheque.

 

 

[Dick Pontoon]

They were all swell, but the first two were especially magical. To my 10 year old sense of time and limited access to back issues, the origins seemed like relics of a bygone era even though they were barely older than I was, and Stan Lee’s breezy style only embellished the whole package. Bring on the Bad Guys was still pretty cool; things started to get more pedestrian around The Superhero Women. The later books were a little more humdrum, though I still enjoyed them; the Hulk book gets extra points for being oversized and the Surfer book extra extra points for being an all original story and final collaboration between Stan and Jack.

[Brian48]

I had all the "origin" book in TPB back in the day. Sold Origin and Son years ago, but no one wanted BadGuys or Superhero women. Still have those two in the closet and in pretty decent shape too.

 

If I had know how valuable the HCs would become, I would have gotten them.

[bronze_rules]

Found a scan of the cheque.

 

 

 

So they had your address and a bogus (likely bounced) check for about $1,300 in today's dollars and shipped you the goods. They never followed up whatsoever? That's pretty mind boggling. I'd be too scared to sleep at night thinking about the consequences (even at that age).

[Ted Knight]

Origins and Son Of Origins were read over and over.

 

I have a funny story about these Fireside books that I posted elsewhere a few years ago...here it is repeated:

 

 

When I was 7 or 8 years old (grade 2 I remember specifically which would have been 1977 or 1978) I decided I wanted to order a bunch of Marvel Fireside books.

 

Problem was I didn't have any money.

 

No problem. I just clipped a coupon from a Marvel Comic, checked off EVERY BOX on the coupon and mailed it in with one of my parent's checks.

 

If you can remember that far back you'll remember that checks in those days did not have their account numbers printed out on them...you had to fill them in yourself. So I proceeded to fill in some bogus account number (in Canadian funds mind you), total up the books I ordered, add the shipping charge and write in the $$ amount.

 

I dropped the envelope containing the bum check and the coupon in the mail and completely forgot about it as 7 year old boys are wont to do.

 

Well several weeks go by and we are coming back from a vacation and I am none the wiser when my parents realize that there is a large, heavy box in the front porch.

 

We're all wondering what is inside. I'm as clueless as greggy in a Marvel long box.

 

 

We pull the box inside and I remember vividly opening the box and to my amazement being confronted with multiple copies of every Fireside book imaginable. Hard covers, soft covers...The Mighty Marvel Cookbook, How To Draw Comics The Marvel Way, Bring On The Bad Guys....you name it...almost everything in duplicate...I even had the Calender from what I believe was 1978!

 

 

 

Can you imagine what went through my mind as I poured over cover after glossy cover of each of these books? I barely slept that night!

 

 

What was even funnier was that the publisher had written me a check back because I had overpaid.

 

 

So at the age of 7 I spent (from what I remember) about $400, paid for it with a bum check, got a refund and then proceeded to take the books to school for show and tell and give many of the away.

 

 

I still have the refund check as a reality check to remind me that I was not dreaming.

 

 

I really want there to be a moral to this story but I'm not finding it. Something like "it's bothered me to this day and I wish I could go back in time and tell myself not to do this. That it's not worth the guilty conscience for all these years".

 

 

[VintageComics]

I really want there to be a moral to this story but I'm not finding it. Something like "it's bothered me to this day and I wish I could go back in time and tell myself not to do this. That it's not worth the guilty conscience for all these years".

 

 

Oh, the story wasn't about a moral...it was just meant to be a humourous anectdote.

 

I'd forgotten about it for the longest time growing up but when my mom found the old cheque among a bunch of other keepsakes I had, it did bother me. Eventually, at one point in my life I went back to straighten out all things that were unresolved from my past (everything I could remember, anyway) and I did contact them about 20 years or so ago trying to settle up.

 

It's hard to find the right department to deal with this decades later so they just dropped it.

 

(thumbs u