But now, open your eyes wide and look through your binoculars backwards, because now you may spy with your little eye something beginning with "O": the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, Deluxe Edition!:
Click once, then again, to OH GOLLY IT GOT REALLY REALLY BIG-size
Holy moly! That's one long mural—thirty comic book covers wide! Now, I know what you're about to say, because if there's one thing that everybody knows about this cover, is that it wraps around on itself, featuring all the characters running in a completely circle. Well, as the Firesign Theatre once declared, everything you know is wrong! Take a look at the connected image...although #15 and #1 connect to each other, #6 and 7 don't. In fact, there's a good deal of white space behind all the "K" and "L" characters on the back of #7, including waaaaaay at the back, The Kingpin. He didn't get where he is today by rushing off all willy-nilly to find out what's going on, no sirree! Instead, he'll let every other hero and villain in the Marvel Universe do the dirty work for him., (Don't worry, Lockheed's keepin' an eye on him.) That means, of course, that the procession of racing 616ers begins on the front of issue 6. At the front of the group? The In-Betweener, Hydro-Man and Iceman. I dunno about you, but I sure as heck wouldn't follow them.
I still don't know what they're running to, but there's a good deal of fun to be found examining these characters closely. Trivia question: the members of which team appear in the line-up twice? (Highlight blank text for the answers!) A: The five original X-Men appear individually and also as a group—X-Factor—on issue #15. Whose uniform was outdated even before the issue they appeared on was published? A: Cyclops, who wears an early design version of his new costume both on the cover and inside issue #2. Marvel admitted their mistake in a later issue. There's one character who appears on the wrong issue's cover. Putting him in the correct position would move him as far away in the alphabet as possible, but physically he'd only move a few feet back. Who is he? A: Arnim Zola, who's alphabetized under "A" rather than "Z." He's on the back of issue #1, but move him a few feet back behind the Abomination and he's in his correct place on the front of issue #15. Who appears on the most different issues? Mr. Fantastic, whose right leg is on the front of issue #7, his entire body across #8, and his right arm stretching through 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14...until at last his hand shows up on #15, yanking away the Wrecker's crowbar. Whose body and head doesn't appear at all? A: Stilt-Man: all you can see are his stilts on issue #12. And, what the heck is the Punisher shooting at? A: Looks like Shanna the She-Devil's rear end to me.
This, of course, wasn't the only OHOTMU whose covers form a mural, but it's certainly one of the most impressive. Out of date they may be, but the eighties editions of the Handbook are not only one of the best bargains in comics of all time (you could read these things for hours for a buck fifty a shot) but they were also incredibly fun...from cover to cover. To cover. To cover. To cover to cover to cover to cover to cover to cover to cover to cover to cover to cover.
Trvia Correction!!!!
ReplyDeleteThe original X-Men appear as a group wearing their "X-Factor" costumes, i.e. the ones where they were pretending to be human mutant-hunters; the costumes they wear as they appear individually are their X-Terminator costumes, when they were "mutant freedom-fighters."
Awesome covers!!
You're right, John! Here, have a Bull-Prize!
ReplyDeleteExcellent work - I've waited too many years to see them all joined up like that (I think I was missing an issue or two from my own collection, though I've since bought the Essentials volumes).
ReplyDeleteImagine the logistics of getting them all to run in alphabetical order like that... and imagine how pissed off Quicksilver must have been, kept so far back. (Unless that was his 15th time around.)
And here I was going to build a huge carousel and have a circular version of the mural... Good thing you found out there really was a beginning and an end. I do so hate to work for nought.
ReplyDeleteGood work!
I wonder which Human Torch that is filed under "Human Torch" and which one is "Torch, Human" (or is that "Storm, Johnny"?)
ReplyDeleteIt looks to me like even though his colleagues got duplicated, Angel is only on there once. Although at least there's only two of each of them... I see Hank Pym on there as Ant-Man, Giant-Man and Goliath!
Hey, you're right about Angel, Steve...I'd never noticed that! If he was in both places, he'd be looking at his own feet!
ReplyDeleteAs for Hank Pym, I'd need to look at the original issues, but I'm pretty sure Pym himself only appears on the back of ish #15 as Yellowjacket. That's Scott Lang as Ant-Man, and Erik Josten (the first Power Man) as Goliath (he's now Atlas of the Thunderbolts).
And that's the Super-Skrull (note the epaulets!) on fire and flying on the seam between #12 and #13. I think at this point Jim Hammond (the Original Human Torch) was believed dead and would have appeared in the "Book of the Dead" supplement.
Wow, I know waaaaay too much about the Marvel Universe.
This was great, Bully! Will you be doing more?
ReplyDeleteWow, I'm no Avengers expert so I never realized there are people who go using Pym's discarded hero identities. How bad does your inferiority complex have to be to do that?
ReplyDeleteI remember how issue 2 came out while "Secret Wars II" was still going on, and how I didn't understand why the heck the Beyonder didn't get an entry. (As they said in a later issue, they chose "get angry letters about his absence" over "have an entry be out-of-date in a couple of months.")
ReplyDeleteAnd it just occurred to me: Is Gee the only member of Power Pack who didn't make the cover? I see Energizer, Lightspeed, Mass Master and Tattletale, but not the kid with the homemade wings. Of course, by the time the Power Pack team entry came around, four of the five names had changed anyway.
Anyway, I am always ALWAYS up for OHOTMU reminiscing, so thanks for the mural and the memories!
That's not Torch, Human nor is it Storm, Johnny. That's Toro, the original Human Torch's sidekick.
ReplyDeleteAH HA! THAT explains it! Thanks, Anon!
ReplyDelete