365 Days with the Marvel Universe

The year is 1975! And NASA launches the last of America's deep space probes life couldn't be finer in the middle of the swingin' seventies! People are driving the new Volkswagen Rabbit! Bill Gates founds Microsoft (and you coulda got in on the ground floor)! Even if you didn't, why not pick up a copy or ten of X-Men #94 and put 'em in plastic bags to pay for your future? But you didn't. Don't worry, neither did I.

1975! Jimmy Hoffa disappears (I didn't take him)! A gallon of gas is a whopping 44¢ a gallon! Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead! We're listening to Elton John's "Island Girl," David Bowie's "Fame," and, although we won't admit it, Minnie Riperton's "Lovin' You"! We're paying out three bucks to see Jaws, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Nashville, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and, if we had wanted to, At Long Last Love. And we're keeping track of our fabulous days of '75 by using our Mighty Marvel Calendar for 1975!



Didn't pick one up? Well, you can't claim you didn't know that the MMC '75 was coming—not with Smilin' Stan gleefully reminding you months in advance, as in this Bullpen Bulletin from Fantastic Four #151:



And again in FF #153, also letting us in on the secret that the calendar was defective! Well, only a little bit. That'll teach ya to hire the Hulk as your proofreader, Stan!



If you didn't live near a fine independent bookstore because Amazon Borders and Barnes & Noble superstores Waldenbook and B. Dalton mall stores were putting them out a business, no worry! You could send in a coupon (go ahead, cut it out and decrease the value of your comic, bwah-ha-ha-ha!) directly to Simon & Schuster to get one! Make sure to address it directly to Carly Simon, and ask her just who the heck "You're So Vain" is about! (Answer: US Secretary of Agriculture Earl L. Butz).



Truly, everybody who was anybody was using the Mighty Marvel Calendar for 1975! Joe Namath had one! So did Dustin Hoffman! Sally Field! Johnny Carson! Timothy Leary! Brett Somers and Mr. Brett Somers, Jack Klugman! And just in case you haven't heard of any of those people (and face it, who has?), check out exactly what calendar Dr. Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four is using to keep track of supervillain attacks!


Panel from Fantastic Four #165 (December 1975), script by Roy Thomas, breakdowns by George Perez, finishes by Joe Sinnott, colors by Petra Goldberg, letters by John Costanza

Please note that Reed ruined the future resale value of his Marvel Calendar by writing on it. Some "Futurist" he is!



Yep! It's the seventies, and for the first time you can now choose from among a dazzling array of to calendar to pin to your wall in the Baxter Building! Say, what kind of calendars do you think the rest of the Fantastic Four had (he said, setting himself up a nifty link)? Let's take a look at the rest of the Fantastic Four's 1975 Calendars!

Johnny!

Ben!

Sue!

Little Franklin!

FF auxiliary member Medusa!

And, since we peeked...

Doctor Doom!

We hope you have enjoyed this trip back to 1975. Please return your Gerald R. Ford to his fully upright and locked position.


Closer and more comprehensive looks at those magnificent Marvel calendars over at PTOR's Sanctum Sanctorum!