Most Accurate Marvel Superhero Key-ish Reprints?

[PovertyRow]

So the most major SA keys and Key-ish for Marvel are the likes of FF1, JIM 83, TOS 39, TTA35, Hulk 1, AAF 15 /ASM 1, DD1, ASM 14, ST 110, etc.

 

Recallingf my Marvel SA collecting days, I am wondering what the best reprints are for such books. By "best" I mean not glossy, modern, rich-ink type books but books from maybe a few years after the intros (still in the SA) that retain the look and feel of the original books.

 

Also, do any of the reprints reprint the Stan Lee "hype"? The ads or letters page(s)? Etc?

 

Is their a web resource that may answer this? I would enjoy re-reading many of the books I used to own from the SA.

 

I thank you.

[Aman619]

for the stories alone, Marvel Tales annual #1 is best.

[deathlok]

for the stories alone, Marvel Tales annual #1 is best.

 

[PovertyRow]

Thanks Aman and Death! Looks like what I am looking for. Did a quick ebay look and see Annual #2 has X-Men and Doc Strange origins. This could be fun!

[deathlok]

another good series are these

 

[rjpb]

I loved reading those squarebound marvel reprint books when I was a kid in the early 70s. They were dirt cheap, and at one point in the early 70s, for about 6 months, uncirculated copies of 1964-1966 Marvel Superheroes, Marvel Tales and Fantasy Masterpieces were available in bagged 2 packs for 39 or 49 cents (I can't remember which) at the local corner stores where we bought comics. This was in central Ohio, does anyone else recall this. You could also get 3 packs occaisonally of 2-3 year old Marvel books. I picked up a Conan #1 this way (traded away long ago).

[Aman619]

I never saw the packs, but did buy each of them when they came out. Problem was I wrote in pen which FF issues were reprinted in each on th espines so I could find the stories better. (Kids - - dont try this at home! but we did stuff like that with our funnybooks back then... OH WELL)

 

One thing Ive always planned to work on (but never got around to) was figuring out which early Marvel stories they had kept the original artwork (or stats) for use in the reprints... and which ones they had to trace and redraw. For instance, compare the Marvel Essentials artwork with th eoriginals. You see horrible inkied linework in th ereprints...and its the same stats Marvel produced way back when. My theorey (!) is that many of the earliest issues were already gone (with no saved stats of the inked pages) and that Marvel is STILL using those forst hacked up reworkings ever since.

 

Anybody notice this or do an issue by issue research?

[samurai007]

I've actually been buying a ton of the Marvel Tales, Collector's Item Classics, and Fantasy Masterpieces/ Marvel Super-heroes lately. If you want to know just what stories are reprinted in each, I can tell you most of them...

[blowout]

I've actually been buying a ton of the Marvel Tales, Collector's Item Classics, and Fantasy Masterpieces/ Marvel Super-heroes lately.

 

These are great books and make perfect reader copies as they are printed on the same paper and are almost as old. As close to the real deal as you can get.

[samurai007]

 

These are great books and make perfect reader copies as they are printed on the same paper and are almost as old. As close to the real deal as you can get.

Yep, except for the coloring. It seems like the stories were often recolored each time they were reprinted... I'm not sure if it's because they only saved the b&w line art and HAD to recolor it, or if they simply felt it needed redoing. I can post sample pages, if you want, because I have the original story as well in several cases...

[blowout]

It seems like the stories were often recolored each time they were reprinted

 

Which titles are you talking about, as I have a lot of the Marvel Tales and Collectors Item Classics and don't remember this happening?

[samurai007]

It seems like the stories were often recolored each time they were reprinted

 

Which titles are you talking about, as I have a lot of the Marvel Tales and Collectors Item Classics and don't remember this happening?

It happened in pretty much all of them. Sometimes the new colorist tried their best to match the previous colors, and you'll only see a few minor differences. Other times, the colorist made up all new colors seemingly without even refering to the original book.

 

For instance, here is page 8 of FF #17:

 

 

And here is that same page 8 as seen in Collector's Item Classics #12. (Sorry about the roll, but I didn't want to put a crease in the book... giant-size issues don't lay flat.)

 

 

The coloring differences are obvious. I think you'll find that every single story in those reprint books has been recolored... some subtly, some not.

[Bronty]

 

Good eye! I never noticed that before....

[Stronguy]

So the most major SA keys and Key-ish for Marvel are the likes of FF1, JIM 83, TOS 39, TTA35, Hulk 1, AAF 15 /ASM 1, DD1, ASM 14, ST 110, etc.

 

Recalling my Marvel SA collecting days, I am wondering what the best reprints are for such books. By "best" I mean not glossy, modern, rich-ink type books but books from maybe a few years after the intros (still in the SA) that retain the look and feel of the original books.

 

For the FF1, ASM1, JIM83 and Avengers 4 you can always get the Golden Records Reprints. Plus, you can follow along while Stan Lee reads it to you.

[deathlok]

I was comparing an issue of Marvel Triple Action to the Essential Avengers with that issue in it. The Marvel Triple Action was missing two full page panels, which is odd. So I wonder if the other reprint books similarly omit panels.

[samurai007]

Well, the first couple issues of Collector's Item Classics had blurbs on the cover shouting that each story was complete and unabridged. They had to stop saying that at issue #3 because the Hulk stories were too long to fit into the book, and they had to divide them in half... part 1 of the story in 1 issue, part 2 in the next. Most of the other books don't say whether anything was omitted or not. However, IIRC, Marvel Triple Action was a regular-sized issue, not giant-sized. Some of the bronze-age regular-sized issues had fewer story pages than the silver age books, so that may be why there are some pages missing. I've never noticed any missing pages in the giant-sized collections, but I certainly don't have all the original issues to compare them against...

[Aman619]

thats cool! Samuraii. Never noticed th ecoloring differences either. Taking a guess, I figure they chose not to hold onto 4 sheets of film CMY and K) for every page of story and just kept the b/w stats of th eline art in NYC offices. Probably figured it was cheaper and easier to just have them recolored.. Back then, I'm under the impression it was minimum wage work at the printer (like rows of women cutting rubyliths all day long)

 

Have you noticed any of the inking differences I mentioned last night?

[samurai007]

Yep, I think that's what happened too.

 

I haven't seen any "inking differences", but I don't get the Marvel Essentials. I prefer buying either the original books, or reprints as soon afterwards as possible (like the Collectors Item Classics). I'm not sure exactly wwhat you mean by inking differences, but if it was due to losing the original work so long after it was first printed, that probably wasn't an issue back in the mid-late 60's, when these giant-size reprint books were being made. Do you have a picture of what you're talking about?

[PovertyRow]

I've actually been buying a ton of the Marvel Tales, Collector's Item Classics, and Fantasy Masterpieces/ Marvel Super-heroes lately. If you want to know just what stories are reprinted in each, I can tell you most of them...

 

Samurai, I hesitated responding because it sounds like a heck of a lot of work - but I bet more folks than just me would appreciate such an effort. So if you could offer more insights would be most appreciated!

[blowout]

It seems like the stories were often recolored each time they were reprinted

 

Which titles are you talking about, as I have a lot of the Marvel Tales and Collectors Item Classics and don't remember this happening?

It happened in pretty much all of them. Sometimes the new colorist tried their best to match the previous colors, and you'll only see a few minor differences. Other times, the colorist made up all new colors seemingly without even refering to the original book.

 

For instance, here is page 8 of FF #17:

 

 

And here is that same page 8 as seen in Collector's Item Classics #12. (Sorry about the roll, but I didn't want to put a crease in the book... giant-size issues don't lay flat.)

 

 

The coloring differences are obvious. I think you'll find that every single story in those reprint books has been recolored... some subtly, some not.

 

Thanks for posting this as I had never actually compared the reprints with the originals. Now I will have to go through my collection and investigate the matter further.