Your classic comic book story arc or series

[Dave Hartwick]

I saw Marvel's Avengers last night and enjoyed it hugely. It got me thinking about back when I used to read comics regularly and the outstanding moments.

I thought about it some more today, and there's been a few, and most of them from not back when. Maus, Watchmen and Gaiman's version of Sandman are all collections I've re-read in the last few years. Of course, The Ultimates, Marvel's reboot of the Avengers, came to mind, seeing how it served as a source for the movie, especially the look.

But the classic moment for me was from back when. It's a 1980 story arc from The Xmen, called the Dark Phoenix Saga. I haven't read it for years but read it repeatedly as a teen. Xmen was my favorite title at the time.

A lot of the impact [SPOILER ALERT, I guess, but I feel silly saying that about such an old story] came from the death of Jean Grey. Of course, since then she's been resurrected in various media and incarnations. At the time I didn't know about the comic book death trope.

There's obviously heaps of comics fans here and I'd like to hear about their classic moments.

[Jonathan Chance]

Daredevil - Born Again. What happens when a hero hits bottom? The treatment of Captain America in this is very good.

Cerebus - High Society. What happens when a barbarian, who happens to be an aardvark, stumbles into political power.

Love and Rockets - Human Diastrophism and The Death of Speedy. The first is a great arc about a small town being forced to meet the wider world. The second is a slow fall to death of a gang member who's getting too old for it.

[CalMeacham]

To mre, THE classic arc was the Galactus Trilogy in issues 48-50 of Fantastic Four. It's one of the first multi-issue story arcs I can recall, and the first I can think of that really ran more than two issues.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Galactus_Trilogy


Great stuff -- Stan Lee and Jack Kirby at their most cosmic, with wonderfully weird characters (the Silver Surfer? A character totally out of left field), great throwaway bits (The Punisher, The Surfer learning (remembering, perhaps, but he had no backstory then) about Being Human from blind Alicia Masters), Big Themes, the Surfer's rebellion, and huge whacko concepts like THe Ultimate Nullifier. This is the kind of thing that made the early run of FF (issues about #30 to #100) such incredible stuff.

[Dendarii Dame]

When I was a kid, I read a bunch of Marvel comics my cousin had. There was a big crossover saga in which all the heroes had to fight some cosmic villain (I don't remember which one) and had to leave Earth to do it. The thing that struck me was that the villain had a bunch of minions attacking various sites on Earth, and a bunch of supervillains (including Dr. Doom) agreed to protect the Earth from the minions and not take advantage of the situation. Eventually, the Scarlet Witch takes out the Big Bad.

Anyone else remember this?

[Bakhesh]

I was a huge fan of Chris Claremont's work on Xmen, and Peter David's work on Hulk, but seeing as both of them stuck around for years, and had plenty of different plotlines running simultaneously, it would be hard to define them as 'arcs'

[well he's back]

I read a Superman series where Clark marries 3 times (each time he becomes a widower). The end has him wondering which wife - Lana, Lois, or the mermaid - he would have saved if he could have. That one stuck with me - probably for the romantic aspect.

[jayjay]

Originally Posted by Dendarii Dame

When I was a kid, I read a bunch of Marvel comics my cousin had. There was a big crossover saga in which all the heroes had to fight some cosmic villain (I don't remember which one) and had to leave Earth to do it. The thing that struck me was that the villain had a bunch of minions attacking various sites on Earth, and a bunch of supervillains (including Dr. Doom) agreed to protect the Earth from the minions and not take advantage of the situation. Eventually, the Scarlet Witch takes out the Big Bad.

Anyone else remember this?

Sounds like Secret Wars. That's also the story where Spidey got his alien symbiont costume that later became (part of) Venom.

[hogarth]

My sentimental favourite is Justice League of America #195-197.
(a) I love team-up comics.
(b) I like comics where the bad guys get to win (temporarily).
(c) George Perez is/was awesome.

[spoilers for 30 year old comics below]

The Earth-1 JLA are having their annual clambake with the Earth-2 JSA, when a bunch of Earth-1 and Earth-2 villains team up to "disturb the cosmic balance" by kidnapping a bunch of heroes from both worlds and imprisoning them in some kind of funky cosmic centrifuge. That banishes all of heroes from Earth-2 and the Earth-2 villains get to live it up like kings!

Of course, that causes some sour grapes from the Earth-1 villains and they bust the heroes out of the centrifuge-thing out of spite.

[Dave Hartwick]

Originally Posted by CalMeacham

To mre, THE classic arc was the Galactus Trilogy in issues 48-50 of Fantastic Four. It's one of the first multi-issue story arcs I can recall, and the first I can think of that really ran more than two issues.

Followed your wiki link and from there to Comic Book Resources and saw some of the art, like the cover to "If This Be Doomsday". Really cool.

[jayjay]

Originally Posted by well he's back

I read a Superman series where Clark marries 3 times (each time he becomes a widower). The end has him wondering which wife - Lana, Lois, or the mermaid - he would have saved if he could have. That one stuck with me - probably for the romantic aspect.

Yeah, someone at DC had an "LL" fetish. Lois Lane, Lana Lang, Lori Lemaris (the mermaid)...not any sillier than any other aspect of Silver Age DC, but hey...

[randwill]

Seconding the Galactus trilogy in The Fantastic Four. I read it when originally published and that was a very exciting time for comic book fans.

[silenus]

Originally Posted by Dave Hartwick

A lot of the impact [SPOILER ALERT, I guess, but I feel silly saying that about such an old story] came from the death of Jean Grey. Of course, since then she's been resurrected in various media and incarnations. At the time I didn't know about the comic book death trope.

I was going to say....Jean coming back from the dead is a convention, not a spoiler.

Dark Phoenix, of course. And Days of Future Past. But the one that stands out to me now is Joss Whedon and John Cassaday's Astonishing X-Men saga. Joss got Wolverine just right. Then he went and

SPOILER:

killed Kitty Pryde

, the bastard.

[Loach]

I haven't read a comicbook since 1985. Funny thing is that many of the movies that have come out were based loosely on some of the story arcs from the 80s so I recognized what was going on. Dark Pheonix, The Electra Saga, The Hellfire Club. I guess the screenwriters are all about my age.

[Scumpup]

In the mid-70's Manhunter (Paul Kirk) was revived as a back-up feature in Detective Comics. Paul Kirk was originally a fairly standard Golden Age masked adventurer. In the revival series, we learn that he had given up heroing after WWII and gone back to being a big game hunter in Africa where he was killed by an elephant IIRC. He was brought back to life and multiply cloned by a sinister organization known as The Council. Their goal was, of course, world domination and they planned on having the revived and enhanced Kirk lead an army of his clones in assassinations and terror ops.
Kirk really caught my attention. He was one of very few, maybe the only, DC hero of the time who carried and used guns, knives, and other real world weapons. He wasn't afraid to use lethal force, either. He wore a costume that borrowed heavily from samurai clothing, which was kind of nifty, and there was a lot of martial arts violence to enjoy.
He battled The Council for a year or so as an 8 page back up feature and then the story climaxed with Kirk, Batman, and a martial arts teacher who had trained both of them taking on The Council in their lair. There was much carnage, though we never saw Batsy, himself, actually kill anybody. Kirk destroys The Council, the clone army, and himself by overloading a reactor or something at the end. He wanted to die and actually did, which was unusual for a DC character in that time.
I see the whole arc is available as a paperback on Amazon. I'ma hafta buy one.

[Dave Hartwick]

Originally Posted by Dendarii Dame

When I was a kid, I read a bunch of Marvel comics my cousin had. There was a big crossover saga in which all the heroes had to fight some cosmic villain (I don't remember which one) and had to leave Earth to do it. The thing that struck me was that the villain had a bunch of minions attacking various sites on Earth, and a bunch of supervillains (including Dr. Doom) agreed to protect the Earth from the minions and not take advantage of the situation. Eventually, the Scarlet Witch takes out the Big Bad.

Anyone else remember this?

There was also Thanos: The Infinity Gauntlet, another one that featured a ton of heroes-- plus villains like Dr Doom. Adam Warlock instead of Scarlet Witch, though.

[vislor]

Hmm.

I think I started at a bad time for comic book stories. Kinda. When I was really getting into them, around '83, they not only were making stories more "real" and I think that hurt them in the long run.

SPOILER:

So, the Iron Man where Tony Stark is a drunk and looking at himself in the mirror but not yet in a "what have I become" sort of way.

Storm losing her powers.

Robin (Jason Todd) dying, although that was late 80s.

Terra dying in Teen Titans. Maybe Jericho as well. Although, knowing about Slade did serve when I read the rebooted Teen Titans in trade compilation form starting about five years ago?

The big one for me, though, was Vigilante. He was a cross over from Teen Titans, which I also happened to be reading, and then got his own series. In it, he starts out as a judge going after those criminals that got off on technicalities. (Hardcastle and McCormack anyone?) Anyway, they set up that he isn't a killer but will use lethal force if he needs to. They do show him avoid it when he can. Then, only ten issues into it, they kill off his sidekick/mechanic. After even though the series went on for another forty issues, it was not the same. The tone was different. The Vigilante dropped his other sidekick, went really violent and killed most, then turned into a drunk or addict. I think it ended

SPOILER:

with him killing himself. I think he's the only one NOT to come back.

Except for Batman and Superman, who I read earlier, super heroes were turned into people for me and not heroes. Just people doing heroic things. The Spider Man story, which I also read at the time. A reluctant hero, at best. So, while I didn't read it until decades later, Watchmen is more like what I read back then than any of the golden/silver age stuff.

I think that's why I want deeper stories from my comics now. I don't want a straight up hero and bad guy story but motivation on both sides.

As many have said, now it's a trope but some of the ones I listed haven't come back. I think. I don't read many today as I did.

Having said that, I still enjoy comics! I picked up the new Shadow comic and really liked it! I hope it lasts! Same for Bionic Man/Woman.

vislor

[Bakhesh]

Originally Posted by Dave Hartwick

There was also Thanos: The Infinity Gauntlet, another one that featured a ton of heroes-- plus villains like Dr Doom. Adam Warlock instead of Scarlet Witch, though.

I hope Marvel has a long term plan to buy back all their characters, and make this as a film in about 10 years,

I quite enjoyed the Infinity War and the Infinity Crusade too.

[Labdad]

It was a long time ago, but I thought the Kree-Skrull War was pretty damned cool!

[Tom Scud]

Originally Posted by jayjay

Yeah, someone at DC had an "LL" fetish. Lois Lane, Lana Lang, Lori Lemaris (the mermaid)...not any sillier than any other aspect of Silver Age DC, but hey...

There were a couple other "LL" one shots, too. (Not to mention the Luthor slash that I'm sure exists).

[CalMeacham]

Originally Posted by jayjay

Yeah, someone at DC had an "LL" fetish. Lois Lane, Lana Lang, Lori Lemaris (the mermaid)...not any sillier than any other aspect of Silver Age DC, but hey...

Back in the Silver Age, they once had an entire (print) page devoted to listing all the "LLs". There were a lot of them.

[infinitii]

I loved DC's Eclipso: The Darkness Within thing, built out of about 20 annuals that covered all of DC's main titles at the time (1992, I think). It wasn't as "important" as Crisis of Infinite Earths or anything, but I liked it because the good characters would sometimes turn evil and have to fight everyone else. I liked a lot of things about it, not the least of which is Keith Giffen's work.

http://www.comicvine.com/eclipso-the...thin/39-40771/

[Little Nemo]

Originally Posted by Dendarii Dame

When I was a kid, I read a bunch of Marvel comics my cousin had. There was a big crossover saga in which all the heroes had to fight some cosmic villain (I don't remember which one) and had to leave Earth to do it. The thing that struck me was that the villain had a bunch of minions attacking various sites on Earth, and a bunch of supervillains (including Dr. Doom) agreed to protect the Earth from the minions and not take advantage of the situation. Eventually, the Scarlet Witch takes out the Big Bad.

Anyone else remember this?

Was it the Avengers/Defenders War arc back in 1973? Dormannu and Loki had joined forces. They set up a conflict between the Avengers and the recently formed Defenders (superheroes are always fighting over mistakes like this). The false impressions got cleared up and the Avengers and Defenders joined together to fight Dormannu and Loki. Dormannu launched his second attack with the Evil Eye, which caused people to turn into demons. The Avengers and Defenders traveled to another dimension to fight Dormannu and Loki while back on Earth we saw various characters like the Fantastic Four, SHIELD, the X-Men, Spiderman, Man-Thing, Dr Doom, and Dracula fighting the demons.

cite cite cite

[Pixel_Dent]

My favorite was the Miller/Sienkiewicz Elektra Assassin series in the mid 80's. Loved the art on that one.

[The Other Waldo Pepper]

Originally Posted by Little Nemo

Was it the Avengers/Defenders War arc back in 1973? Dormannu and Loki had joined forces. They set up a conflict between the Avengers and the recently formed Defenders (superheroes are always fighting over mistakes like this).

And the Swordsman, when interrupted during his bout with Valkyrie, stabs a mundane crook dead!

[Exapno Mapcase]

Originally Posted by CalMeacham

To mre, THE classic arc was the Galactus Trilogy in issues 48-50 of Fantastic Four. It's one of the first multi-issue story arcs I can recall, and the first I can think of that really ran more than two issues.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Galactus_Trilogy


Great stuff -- Stan Lee and Jack Kirby at their most cosmic, with wonderfully weird characters (the Silver Surfer? A character totally out of left field), great throwaway bits (The Punisher, The Surfer learning (remembering, perhaps, but he had no backstory then) about Being Human from blind Alicia Masters), Big Themes, the Surfer's rebellion, and huge whacko concepts like THe Ultimate Nullifier. This is the kind of thing that made the early run of FF (issues about #30 to #100) such incredible stuff.

I was going to say something exactly like this. Comics were stupid kid stuff in the 50s and early 60s. Stan Lee changed everything, as big and as explosive a change as The Beatles in rock.

The FF was interesting from the start, but I'd say that the huge leap started in #36, when the Frightful Four were introduced as their evil counterparts. That started an eight-book arc - utterly unheard of for the day - in which the FF were defeated, Dr. Doom took over the Baxter Building, Daredevil leads the assault against him, the evil FF return and more carnage ensues. Then they find out that Medusa of the evil FF is an Inhuman and that introduces a succeeding four-issue arc that's followed by the Galactus story, a great Ben Grimm crisis of the soul, and the introduction of the Black Panther and Wakanda. Two full years of the best comics in the history of the business to that point.

You can see almost all the covers on this page. Look at those great titles: Behold! A Distant Star; To Save You, Why Must I Kill You?; Among Us Hide... The Inhumans; If This Be Doomsday!

Stan Lee singlehandedly saved his company and the entire comic industry. I know all the claims for Jack Kirby and I know he was indispensable. But Lee was writing something like 8 books a month, at a time when comics had nine panels a page, and they all were more exciting than anything else anyone could imagine. I agree that he never came up to this level of greatness again. You know what? Neither did Kirby. Or McCartney. Or Dylan. He's at that level.

[Tom Scud]

Mine would have to be the Legion of Superheroes' Great Darkness Saga; such a great, great buildup - some evil creatures start teleporting into random locations, grabbing magical artifacts, and disappearing. They're pretty wicked powerful, and manage to beat up on some groups of superheroes from the Legion; Brainiac-5 works out that they are some kind of evil clones of people from a thousand years ago (nb. the Legion takes place 1000 years in the future); one is a clone of Superman; another is a clone of a Guardian of the Universe (the Green Lanterns' bosses). Then there's a sequence showing the evil boss, who appears shrouded for the first 3.8 issues of the five-part story, waking up Mordru, a wizard who would routinely take on all 25+ heroes in the Legion at once, and snuffing him like a candle to steal his power. Mordru is later found in a catatonic state.

Anyway, all sorts of stuff takes place, and eventually at the end of the fourth issue of five, it is revealed that the big bad is (do I really need to spoiler this? I guess...)

SPOILER:

Darkseid, who has managed to shift a Krypton-clone planet to an orbit around a yellow sun, giving all its inhabitants Superman-level powers, and mind-control the entire planet. So he has an army of approximately one billion Supermen at his disposal. Holy crap.

At that point, my brother's subscription ran out or one of the issues got lost in the mail and to this day I have not read the fifth part. (I am aware that there is a trade paperback out there that collects it, somehow just haven't gotten around to reading it.) Worth noting that Darkseid as a villain had not yet been beaten into the ground by DC.

[Fenris]

Originally Posted by randwill

Seconding the Galactus trilogy in The Fantastic Four. I read it when originally published and that was a very exciting time for comic book fans.

Although, if we're going to quibble, the "trilogy" is actually about 25 issues of pure awesome. FF #48* is about 1/2 or so filled with a continuation and resolution about the Inhumans from the previous issue.

Basically, from FF #36 (introducing Medusa)-#59 or so (plus Annual #3), it's one single story that

• Introduces the "new" Frightful Four
• Introduces Medusa
• Introduces Gorgon
• Has one of the all-time great (and possibly the best "early") Dr. Doom stories ever (with Daredevil)
• Has a hell of a great Frightful Four fight
• Reed and Sue break the "Super-heroes can't get married" rule** and...get married.
• Introduces the Inhumans
• Finally gives the Watcher a...personality for lack of a better word
• Introduces Silver Surfer
• Introduces Galactus
• Has (arguably) one of the best two Thing stories ever
• Introduces Black Panther
• Introduces Klaw

and that's only through about #53...and it does it all seamlessly--each issue flows into the next and it feels like a single, planned story.

Seriously, it's possibly the best run for sheer number of awesome concepts, if nothing else, ever



*The first in the "trilogy"
**Elongated Man doesn't count.

[psiekier]

Originally Posted by Loach

I haven't read a comicbook since 1985. Funny thing is that many of the movies that have come out were based loosely on some of the story arcs from the 80s so I recognized what was going on. Dark Pheonix, The Electra Saga, The Hellfire Club. I guess the screenwriters are all about my age.

One of my favorite X-men stories was a two-partner in which Nimrod, the Sentinel from the Future, interrupts a battle between the Hellfire Club and the X-men. Since most of the combatants are mutants, Nimrod is only too happy to exterminate them all and the former enemies must join forces just to survive!

[CalMeacham]

Originally Posted by Fenris

Although, if we're going to quibble, the "trilogy" is actually about 25 issues of pure awesome. FF #48* is about 1/2 or so filled with a continuation and resolution about the Inhumans from the previous issue.

Basically, from FF #36 (introducing Medusa)-#59 or so (plus Annual #3), it's one single story that

• Introduces the "new" Frightful Four
• Introduces Medusa
• Introduces Gorgon
• Has one of the all-time great (and possibly the best "early") Dr. Doom stories ever (with Daredevil)
• Has a hell of a great Frightful Four fight
• Reed and Sue break the "Super-heroes can't get married" rule** and...get married.
• Introduces the Inhumans
• Finally gives the Watcher a...personality for lack of a better word
• Introduces Silver Surfer
• Introduces Galactus
• Has (arguably) one of the best two Thing stories ever
• Introduces Black Panther
• Introduces Klaw

and that's only through about #53...and it does it all seamlessly--each issue flows into the next and it feels like a single, planned story.

Seriously, it's possibly the best run for sheer number of awesome concepts, if nothing else, ever



*The first in the "trilogy"
**Elongated Man doesn't count.

This is a stretch. They talk about things that went on in previous issues, but I don't think they're really the "same story". The Frightfvul G=Four Stuff is distinct from the Inhumans stuff is distinct from the Wedding of Reed and Sue in Annual #3 is distinct from the Galactus Trilogy. It's all good, but it's not even overlapping.

[B. Serum]

Spider-Man: Death of Jean DeWolff was a milestone in the comics I collected. Being a pretty mainstream reader from a small town, it was the first time I started noticing that there was real writing, structure, pacing, moral quandaries going on in comics. In retrospect, I know that there was other great writing that predated it, this was just the arc that I already happened to be reading that made me sit up and take notice.

[Bryan Ekers]

Originally Posted by B. Serum

Spider-Man: Death of Jean DeWolff

A good run except for the contrivance of Daredevil being able to defeat Spider-Man in hand-to-hand, the excuse being that Spider-Man became too angry to fight effectively. Nonsense. If anything, Daredevil infuriating Spider-Man is a strategy for getting killed, not getting the win.

Way back in 1980 was a two-parter (Action Comics #507-508, May–June) called "The Miraculous Return of Jonathan Kent!", at a time when his (and Martha's) death as Superboy transitioned to Superman was a significant part of the mythos. It ended with a big RESET button, of course, but was nevertheless an impressive story.

[Dendarii Dame]

Originally Posted by jayjay

Sounds like Secret Wars. That's also the story where Spidey got his alien symbiont costume that later became (part of) Venom.

Sorry, but no. The story arc I referred to took place during the 1970's, or possibly the late 1960's.

[kirk1168]

Originally Posted by Tom Scud

Mine would have to be the Legion of Superheroes' Great Darkness Saga

Came in to say this. Also the follow-up (some years later) that wraps up the story, "The Quiet Darkness".

Also "The Terra Mosaic" during Keith Giffen's long Legion run in the '80's-90's.

[Little Nemo]

Originally Posted by Dendarii Dame

Sorry, but no. The story arc I referred to took place during the 1970's, or possibly the late 1960's.

Check my post #22.

[D_Odds]

Originally Posted by Tom Scud

Mine would have to be the Legion of Superheroes' Great Darkness Saga; such a great, great buildup - some evil creatures start teleporting into random locations, grabbing magical artifacts, and disappearing. They're pretty wicked powerful, and manage to beat up on some groups of superheroes from the Legion; Brainiac-5 works out that they are some kind of evil clones of people from a thousand years ago (nb. the Legion takes place 1000 years in the future); one is a clone of Superman; another is a clone of a Guardian of the Universe (the Green Lanterns' bosses). Then there's a sequence showing the evil boss, who appears shrouded for the first 3.8 issues of the five-part story, waking up Mordru, a wizard who would routinely take on all 25+ heroes in the Legion at once, and snuffing him like a candle to steal his power. Mordru is later found in a catatonic state.

Anyway, all sorts of stuff takes place, and eventually at the end of the fourth issue of five, it is revealed that the big bad is (do I really need to spoiler this? I guess...)

SPOILER:

Darkseid, who has managed to shift a Krypton-clone planet to an orbit around a yellow sun, giving all its inhabitants Superman-level powers, and mind-control the entire planet. So he has an army of approximately one billion Supermen at his disposal. Holy crap.

At that point, my brother's subscription ran out or one of the issues got lost in the mail and to this day I have not read the fifth part. (I am aware that there is a trade paperback out there that collects it, somehow just haven't gotten around to reading it.) Worth noting that Darkseid as a villain had not yet been beaten into the ground by DC.

Oops, you revealed your spoiler later in your post. I tried to post this earlier in the day, but my phone wouldn't post for some reason. If you haven't found out, here is how it ended:

SPOILER:

After going toe-to-toe with both Superboy and Supergirl simultaneously and winning, somehow Darkseid's hold on the Daxamites was broken. He decided to make a strategic retreat at that point.

I liked how he had his army terraform their planet into his own image. Nothing like a little show of ego.

[gonzoron]

I will go to my grave saying that The Maxx is the greatest comic book series ever made.

[digs]

Imagine, if you will, a world before computer games, before computers, before cable...
... we were bored.

So we grew up reading a LOT of comics. And I remember the day that we brought home our first Marvel comics. With neurotic heroes, and real-life situations. Stan Lee really did reinvigorate the world of superheroes (with a little help from Kirby and Ditko).

So my first "story arc" was Peter Parker dealing with bullies and bosses, financial problems and guilt.

The arc that got me back into comics in the 80s was Frank Miller's stint on Daredevil. Again, a flawed hero with real problems.

[The Second Stone]

Simonson's Beta Ray Bill run with Thor in the mid 80s.

Frank Miller's Batman Year One. Gotta say his Return of the Dark Knight was great too.

[Fenris]

Originally Posted by CalMeacham

This is a stretch. They talk about things that went on in previous issues, but I don't think they're really the "same story". The Frightfvul G=Four Stuff is distinct from the Inhumans stuff is distinct from the Wedding of Reed and Sue in Annual #3 is distinct from the Galactus Trilogy. It's all good, but it's not even overlapping.

Nope. Sorry Cal, you're wrong on this. Most Stan Lee stuff of the time did just have a page or so recap, but in that run of FF, he wrote them like one single story.

To use FF 48 as an example, At least the first ~7 pages of the 20 (not including the cover) story of FF #48 are 100% continued from the Inhumans story in #47. That's roughly 1/3d of the book that's This includes Maximus's master plan, a big fight and a setup for a sub-plot that will last through about issue #58. Nothing Galactus related happens at all until the the very last panel of page ~8*. In a similar vein, about 1/4th of #50 is setup for the next few issues. The Bugle denounces the Galactus event as a hoax which pisses of a mysterious bald guy (who'll show up next issue), Johnny decides to go to college, signs up, meets Wyatt Wingfoot for the first time and mopes about Crystal again (which returns to the first half of issue #48 and continues to about issue ~58) and the Thing, in a fit of self-pity, goes and wanders in the rain, again, setting up issue 51.

Each issue in that run, roughly 1/4-1/3d of each book flows from the previous issue. That's not the case in other books of the time Lee was writing (Spider-Man, Daredevil, X-Men or the Avengers). This run was a really unusual experiment(?) on Lee's part and very effective, IMO.

*The page guesses are close, but not necessarily exact. I don't have a Marvel subscription, so I can only see the first 5 pages, but those are 100% Galactus free.

[BMalion]

I agree that everything pales before the Galactus Trilogy.

There were other good stories and arcs, but c'mon.

'nuff said.

[CalMeacham]

Originally Posted by Fenris

Nope. Sorry Cal, you're wrong on this. Most Stan Lee stuff of the time did just have a page or so recap, but in that run of FF, he wrote them like one single story.

To use FF 48 as an example, At least the first ~7 pages of the 20 (not including the cover) story of FF #48 are 100% continued from the Inhumans story in #47. That's roughly 1/3d of the book that's This includes Maximus's master plan, a big fight and a setup for a sub-plot that will last through about issue #58. Nothing Galactus related happens at all until the the very last panel of page ~8*. In a similar vein, about 1/4th of #50 is setup for the next few issues. The Bugle denounces the Galactus event as a hoax which pisses of a mysterious bald guy (who'll show up next issue), Johnny decides to go to college, signs up, meets Wyatt Wingfoot for the first time and mopes about Crystal again (which returns to the first half of issue #48 and continues to about issue ~58) and the Thing, in a fit of self-pity, goes and wanders in the rain, again, setting up issue 51.

Each issue in that run, roughly 1/4-1/3d of each book flows from the previous issue. That's not the case in other books of the time Lee was writing (Spider-Man, Daredevil, X-Men or the Avengers). This run was a really unusual experiment(?) on Lee's part and very effective, IMO.

*The page guesses are close, but not necessarily exact. I don't have a Marvel subscription, so I can only see the first 5 pages, but those are 100% Galactus free.

Nope, sorry -- I disagree. You've chosen a particularly egregious example. There's really no overlap with the Battle of the Baxter Building saga. The Galactus Trilogy stands pretty nmuch on its own. A single, long, continued story all those issues of FF do not make. And the three-issue Galactus saha stands on its own.

I mean, there's a reason it has been called "THe Galactus Trilogy" for all these years, and not "the Big Story Arc" or something.

[The Other Waldo Pepper]

Originally Posted by Fenris

Each issue in that run, roughly 1/4-1/3d of each book flows from the previous issue. That's not the case in other books of the time Lee was writing (Spider-Man, Daredevil, X-Men or the Avengers). This run was a really unusual experiment(?) on Lee's part and very effective, IMO.

It's arguably what he's doing with Doctor Strange at the same time. The month FF #48 hit the stands, Doc's story opens by resolving the previous-issue cliffhanger (since the bomb planted in his townhouse is about to detonate, and Doc's almost too exhausted from what's come before to save his own neck). The previous twelve issues centered around Dormammu's plot, empowering the minion-happy Mordo to hound our hero -- and if one issue ends with Doc laying low in Hong Kong, that's where the next one picks up; if another has Doc entering Dormammu's realm to confront the guy who's thus far been fighting him by proxy, you can bet the archaic by-the-rules duel begun in one book will continue in the next -- and et cetera.

[CalMeacham]

My biggest objection to claiming that al those issues of FF constitute a super-story arc is that any "bleed over" from a previous issue is confined only to those couple of pages. The Inhumans stuff that Fenris cites is creally an "extra", in that the story ended in the previous issue, with a satisfying conclusion. The few pages with them are like the extra bit they throw in afdter or during the credits in a movie -- it tells an extra bit of story. Not an insignificant one, but one that wasn't needed to complete the story. And, more importantly, it doesn';t interact with the rest of the FF story in that issue -- it's irrelevant to the rest of the issue, which goes blithely along without it. Thsat wouldn't be the cse if you really had a continued story arc. I don't think that having this kind of story "phase shift" between issues is really comparable to the way you really do need to have issues 48-50 to read the ciomplete Galactus story.

Stan Lee's "experiment" seems to be just using a dramatic "hook" to get you to buy the next issue.

[diku]

One of my favorites was the Brood saga back in the Claremont/Cockrum X-Men days. Great storyline, lots of cosmic stuff, start of the New Mutants.

And I still love Crisis of Infinite Earths. Even though it's been rebooted three or four times now.

[Fenris]

Originally Posted by CalMeacham

My biggest objection to claiming that al those issues of FF constitute a super-story arc is that any "bleed over" from a previous issue is confined only to those couple of pages. The Inhumans stuff that Fenris cites is creally an "extra", in that the story ended in the previous issue, with a satisfying conclusion. The few pages with them are like the extra bit they throw in afdter or during the credits in a movie -- it tells an extra bit of story. Not an insignificant one, but one that wasn't needed to complete the story. And, more importantly, it doesn';t interact with the rest of the FF story in that issue -- it's irrelevant to the rest of the issue, which goes blithely along without it. Thsat wouldn't be the cse if you really had a continued story arc. I don't think that having this kind of story "phase shift" between issues is really comparable to the way you really do need to have issues 48-50 to read the ciomplete Galactus story.

Stan Lee's "experiment" seems to be just using a dramatic "hook" to get you to buy the next issue.

If by "a couple of pages" you mean 1/3d of the first book and 1/3d of the third book, maybe. And in the case of FF 48, the story from FF 47 has absolutely no resolution until FF 48 and after the climax of the fight with Maximus (that they lose)-- it's not just a quick denouement, it's the resolution to the story. After that, the FF don't even notice that there's anything amiss until they're flying home, and in the plane Johnny's moping about Crystal when they notice a second sun in the sky (caused by the Watcher)--about page 8 of 20. That's seamless, IMO.

We may have to agree to disagree. Still awesome stuff though.

[Saltire]

Originally Posted by diku

One of my favorites was the Brood saga back in the Claremont/Cockrum X-Men days. Great storyline, lots of cosmic stuff, start of the New Mutants.

I read a comic occasionally as a kid, but this was the arc that made me a collector. In my freshman year of college (late '82), I went with a friend to the comic store while she picked up her copies of Elfquest and The New Teen Titans. I decided to grab some things from dime bin. One of these was the issue in which Wolverine is alone in the wilderness of Broodworld.

This was the issue in which Wolverine first used his iconic self-description: "I'm the best there is at what I do, but what I do isn't very nice."

I just had to see what happened before that and what happened next, so I bought a lot of back issues. Then the arc ended with the creation of the New Mutants, so I was a collector from then on.

But I stopped collecting around '90 or so. Ah, well.

[Dave Hartwick]

Originally Posted by Fenris

*The page guesses are close, but not necessarily exact. I don't have a Marvel subscription, so I can only see the first 5 pages, but those are 100% Galactus free.

I take it this is an online subscription? How much and would I be able to read all these old comics?

Originally Posted by BMalion

I agree that everything pales before the Galactus Trilogy.

There were other good stories and arcs, but c'mon.

'nuff said.

Well, until I read it I won't really know but I see Dark Phoenix Saga ranks higher on Comic Book Resources Top 100 Storylines.