Stan Lee Presents Marvel Pocket Books
1977 - 1980
If you're in to classic comics, but don't find the earlier issues in some of the most iconic Marvel Comic universe to be affordable, that's understandable. However, this doesn't mean you don't want to, or better stated, shouldn't be able to read the origin stories of your favorite super heroes.
Supposing that is the case, you might want to check out the 1977 to 1980 Stan Lee Presents from Pocket. These tales are not only affordable, but contain a whole lot of issues in each book.
Tucked into each 6 3/4 x 4 1/4 inch book were pages upon pages of what would essentially equate to the first trade paperbacks in the comic book industry. Take for example The Amazing Spider-Man, as shown below. This book not only kicked off the series, but contained a full reprint of Amazing Fantasy #15, as well as, The Amazing Spider-Man issues one through six. At a secondary market of $5.00 to $10.00 (today) that's a steal! For that price, in comic form, you'd only get a reprint of Amazing Fantasy 15.
Each book was printed in full color, and for many of them, even include the original comic covers reprinted before each story. To add an extra layer of awesomeness, each book also includes words from Stan Lee himself.
The Amazing Spider-Man (reprints Amazing Fantasy 15 and The Amazing Spider-Man 1 - 6)
Fantastic Four (reprints Fantastic four 1 - 6)
One of the more noticeable differences between the original Hulk stories and this book, was that his color was changed from grey to green, to keep in line with the current continuity of the character.
The Amazing Spider-Man #2 (reprints The Amazing Spider-Man 7 - 13)
The Incredible Hulk (reprints the entire six issue original series)
Doctor Strange (reprints select stories from Strange Tales 110 - 129)
The Amazing Spider-Man #3 (reprints The Amazing Spider-Man 14 - 20)
The Incredible Hulk (reprints select stories from Tales To Astonish 85 - 99)
Captain America (reprints The Avengers 4 and select stories from Tales Of Suspense 59 - 71)
Spider-Woman (reprints Marvel Spotlight 32 and Spider-Woman 1 - 8)
Doctor Strange #2 (reprints select stories from Strange Tales 130 - 144)
In terms of reprinted books in this manner, there are several others from varying publishers which have come over the past few decades. I'm looking into these a bit more, and hope to have future posts on the subject, so stay tuned if this is something that interests you.
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I had both Strange ones and cannot tell you how many times I re-read them. I also had a couple of Star Wars ones, the second one reprinted some UK newspaper strips so it was cool to be able read those back in the pre-internet days.
ReplyDeleteI was working on a deal with someone for the three Spider-Man books, but we never finalized anything. I should see if they still have them.
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