MARVEL COMICS #1,000

This post is Filed Under:

Home page Highlights,
Interviews and Columns,
Product reviews

KC Carlson celebrates marvel Comics #1000 with a friend

A KC COLUMN by KC Carlson

Marvel Comics #1000

To be completely honest, I wasn’t looking forward to reading marvel Comics #1000. I have this over-obsessive brain thing that always makes me want to read everything from the beginning so I initially lost a couple of months trying to find marvel Comics #1 (the original one, from, you know, 1939). Well, it turns out that I actually wasn’t alive then (hard to believe, I know), and the reprint comics are always the last ones to be organized, so my reprint of marvel Comics #1 was in one of, oh, maybe a hundred different short boxes. Instead, my brain made me sit down and actually read marvel Comics #1000.

Good job, brain! marvel Comics #1000 was awesome! (And there’s about a bazillion different variant covers, which will hopefully make those people happy!)

Marvel Comics #1000 Clayton Crain cover

Here’s what you need to know about marvel Comics #1000:

Every page represents one year of marvel History, so…

80 Years = 80 pages of story.

Every page in the issue is produced by a different creative team.

I’m not really up for an exact count, but including letters and colorists, I’m guessing somewhere around 300 creators contributed something to this enormous comic!

The tagline for the book is 80 Years, 80 creative teams, ONE Universe. That sounds about right!

Marvel Comics #1000 mark Brooks 1940s cover

To make things even a lot more fun, each page of the issue moves forward a year — starting in 1939 and ending 80 years later in 2019. Each page also includes a bit of crucial marvel history (which some might call trivia)! For example, the book begins with 1939: The Human Torch debuts in marvel Comics #1. other fun ones include 1960: Groot first menaces the world in Tales To Astonish #13. (For those of you who have forgotten, Groot was a “monster” before he was a Guardian of the Galaxy!) BTW, this even happened before wonderful four #1 in 1961!

Marvel Comics #1000 Jen Bartel cover

Some pages are created to be a lot more pin-up than short story, such as Walter Simonson’s Invincible Iron man page. Others, including Stuart and Kathryn Immonen’s Patsy Walker: Hellcat piece, play with the format to pack a lot more information into a single page.

The cutest page is — hands down — Kelly Thompson and Pepe Larraz’ Elsa Bloodstone page, with an charming guest-star from a recent comic. the most emotionally touching is likely Spider-Man’s “The Route” by Danny Cates and Geoff Shaw.

Marvel Comics #1000 Mike Allred 1960s cover

And the Something That You’ve never Seen in a marvel Comic before award goes to the naked Dr. odd doing his laundry page by Joe hill and Michael Allred. thanks for that, guys! I’m still scrubbing soap out of my eyes! (But Johanna seemed to like it!)

The saddest page is the In Memoriam page providing 190 deceased creators who worked for Marvel, all under the banner of Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, and Steve Ditko. I got to meet lots of of them at shows over the years, and a handful were even friends. For a short period of time, when I was working at DC (and DC was still in NYC), Stan and I would check out nyc high schools to talk about comics with local students. Stan was always fun to travel with. He had hundreds of terrific stories…

Marvel Comics #1000 Mr. Garcin collage cover

Marvel Comics #1000 ends with a cliffhanger-style last page (which I’m not going to ruin! So stop askin’! Sheesh!), reminding us that the universe continues.

___________________________

KC CARLSON SEZ: but WAIT! There’s MORE! Apparently, there were a lot more contributors to marvel Comics #1000 that could be accommodated in 80 big pages! So keep an eye out for marvel Comics #1001! Coming soon to your favorite comic book shop or subscription service!

Marvel Comics #1000 George Perez cover

WESTFIELD COMICS is not responsible for the silly things that KC says. especially that thing that really irritated you. Y’know, there’s actually nothing irritating me today! (I bet Roger will put a stop to that! and I bet it will involve a monkey!)