So you think there's a lot of Marvel Comics to buy each month in 2009...check out 1975! Sure, there's no multiple Avengers or X-Men or Spider-Man titles, but look what you would get: classic cancelled comics like Arrgh! Frankenstein! War is Hell! Our Love Story! Chamber of Chills! (That last one, by the way, was just a refrigerator.)
If you look at that subscription list carefully, can you count the number of titles that are still around today without having been rebooted to a new #1 at some point? Go ahead, start counting...I'll wait for you right here...keep counting...write down the numbers if you need to...
That's right...NONE! Not a single one of these titles had an uninterrupted run; every single one of them was either cancelled or renumbered to start a new series, and only a handful (Amazing Spider-Man, Captain America, Daredevil, Fantastic Four, Incredible Hulk, and Thor) have resumed their regular numbering. In fact, there's only one title currently being published by Marvel that still retains its original numbering without having been rebooted...and it ain't on the list, not quite. Give up? Uncanny X-Men, very nearly cancelled but not quite, was in reprints until 1975. Giant-Size X-Men, which is on this list, would herald in a new age of confusing crossovers, Chris Claremont's fetishes, and, eventually, Gambit.
Speakin' of Giant-Size X-Men #1, wouldn't you have loved to pick that up at its 1975 price of 50¢? Or for that matter, any book on this list...or why not...all of them? Just for fun, I computed that if all of these books came out in one single month (they didn't, but work with me here)...they'd cost you a total of $31.50. You'd get eighty-six comics for your money. And one of them would be
Comic: 35¢.
Spidey fighting the Mole Man while the multi-ethnic pop group The Short Circus perform their new hit "Jelly Belly" above him? Priceless.
From The Electric Company: Morgan Freeman as DJ Mel Mounds introduces The Short Circus (including Irene Cara!) sings their #1 hit single "Jelly Belly." Hey, Rita Moreno digs it!
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQenrY-T9_-EUVG2XBTW-ZiSnvw_V3JFU-8tiFlhrdgKCUBaE56ekbiILucymY9gA-xa4zdGy_z1Njojw78Z-YnlUiN4PIRRurK7GzqoEg3B-PmXl2RJaS1ZaVKVCEHP-m-WVr2xjqailLu1jlzylysiBGc3sVXLXNMFDzAURyrHhKBfcqyO4/s1600/button-libertybellmarch.jpg" "It's...")
5 comments:
Adjusting for inflation, that would come to roughly $125. Which breaks down to about $1.45 per issue in modern dollars.
And if comics did cost $1.45 per issue, my house would have ruptured and collapsed by the ever-expanding mound of colorful newsprint years ago. So there is a benefit to higher prices, I guess.
Heh. I DID pick up Gian-sized X-Men, off the spinner rack at the Drug store. Oh, those were halcyon times. I still have it, although it's been read so often that it's in terrible shape.
And I don't even care.
Nevertheless, it's amazing that ALL of those books have gone through such vissitudes.
Shake it, Rita!
I had no idea how I was able to afford all those. Guess a dollar went further then.
I think Jelly Belly has the potential to be the next RickRoll.
Post a Comment