Run away! Run away!

The scene: a perfectly ordinary regular day in the life of the Fantastic Four. Suddenly, in the middle of a null universe, Galactus releases an all-destructive, fast-expanding mysterious deadly force!

Panels from Fantastic Four #341 (June 1990), script, pencils, and inks by Walt SImonson; colors by Max Scheele, letters by Bill Oakley



What can it be? Even Reed doesn't know, and when Reed doesn't know, you're in big trouble, buster! But it's serious enough to have him fire up the Kurtzberg generators (and put his soft drink in the Lieber cup holder), and, in the words of Ben Grimm in that issue of Marvel Two-in-One where he teamed up with Bandit and the Snowman...put the hammer down!




What's the danger? What has Galactus unleashed? What are they running away from?

(Click picture to Pruneface-size)

Why, they're running away from Dick Tracy.

Actually, it's not really the world's greatest cop in the world's yellowest raincoat pursuing them...it's just an all-white page through which the movie advertisement on the other side bleeds:




You wouldn't see that phenomena happen in today's comics printed on glossy, heavier paper that doesn't bleed through, but in the days of newsprint, large white spaces were a perpetual problem. When designing Jean Grey's costume for her evolution into Phoenix, Dave Cockrum wanted to make her uniform white, but was overruled by Marvel editorial and that famous iconic uniform became green. Reason: on the cheap newsprint of the time, this costume...




...would have wound up looking like this:




So, there you go. The FF: not running away from Warren Beatty after all. Of course, if they were fleeing a giant galactic version of the star of Bonnie and Clyde, Ishtar, and $, it might go...a little something like this:




And sometimes, just for fun,. I like to wonder what would happen if the Fantastic Four were running away from Beatty's Dick Tracy co-star, Breathless Mahoney herself, Madonna:

365 Days with Hank McCoy, Day 153

Panels from X-Men #189 (September 2006), script by Mike Carey; pencils by Chris Bachalo; inks by Jon Holdridge, Jaime Mendoza, Victor Olazaba, Tim Townsend, Mark Irwin, and Al Vey; colors by Antonio Fabela, letters by Cory Petit

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About the Marvel Universe* (*But Were Afraid to Ask Stan Lee)

So...you're a new fan to reading Marvel Comics! You've picked up a comic book here and there and seen that Iron Man movie and probably can remember "Don't make me angry...you wouldn't like me when I'm angry" and you can sing 5/8ths of the lyrics to the 1967 Spider-Man cartoon theme song...well, welcome to the wonderful world of Marvel Comics. Each and every month Marvel publishes 350 comic books set in the "Marvel Universe" and starring their rich tapestry of heroes, villains, supporting characters, and Aunt May. If you're just coming aboard now with the new "Heroic Age" stories, there's a few basic things you need to know about Avengers Disassembled. And House of M. And Civil War. And The Death of Captain America. And, um, let's see...Planet Hulk, Annihilation, One More Day, World War Hulk, Messiah Complex, Dark Reign, Necrosha, War of Kings, The Wedding of Daredevil and Foggy Nelson, Punisher Gets Carved Up Like a Christmas Turkey, Wolverine-Fest '09, and Siege. Whew! That's a lotta comics. You pile those suckers on each other and you can reach all the way to the top of Uma Thurman. (And who wouldn't wanna?)

Then again, you may not want to read all those comic books. That's where The House of Ideas' useful line of Marvel Saga comic books come in. Rather than reading hundreds of comics, Marvel Saga abridges the major events in the Marvel Universe, only hitting the most important high points of its history. Trouble is, even in their well-intentioned attempt to give your only the highlights, sometimes Marvel Saga moves a little too quickly through history:









Maybe the extensive line of Official Handbooks of the Marvel Universe can help you out by filling in all the details, huh? Well, maybe not for the beginner. They tend to get bogged down in minutia and trivia. Remember these famous Marvel characters from movies, cartoons, and merchandising?



That's why I'm here, folks: to ease you into the modern post-Siege seventy-three Avengers-teamed foil-wrapped-Thor'd contemporary Marvel Universe, in a swift and easy way. Here, folks, is everything you need to know about the Marvel Universe...simplified!










































So, there ya go! Everything and everybody you need to know about to read all the Marvel comic books. Join me again tomorrow when I'll present The Legion of Super-Heroes: Simplified!



Also, where to find Waldo.

365 Days with Hank McCoy, Day 152

Panel from Avengers Two #3 (July 2000), script by Roger Stern, pencils by Mark Bagley, inks by Greg Adams, Colors by Tom Smith, letters by Sharpefont and PT

365 Days with Hank McCoy, Day 151

Panel from X-Factor Annual #4 (1989), script and pencils by John Byrne, inks by Walt Simonson, colors by Tom Vincent, letters by Jim Novak

365 Days with Hank McCoy, Day 150

Panel from Avengers #180 (February 1979), script by Tom Defalco, pencils by Jim Mooney, inks by Mike Esposito, colors by Bob Sharen, letters by Denise Wohl

Ten of a Kind: G-g-g-ghosts!

(More Ten of a Kind here.)