Marvel Comics on Stamps

Cafe Society
1

So, earlier this year, I speculated on what the Marvel heroes would be appearing on USPS stamps in 2007:

Here’s the ones I got right:

Spider-Man
Hulk
Captain America
Iron Man
Silver Surfer

Now that they’ve announced the stamp issues for next year, here are the ones I sort-of got right:

The Thing (instead of the entire F4)
Wolverine (instead of the entire X-men)

Here are the ones I missed:

Sub-Mariner
Spider-Woman
Elektra

:confused: WTF?

I certainly think Ghost Rider or Thor are heavier hitters in the Marvel Universe than Namor, but maybe they’re trying to complement this year’s Aquaman inclusion.

But Spider-Woman and Elektra? Over Daredevil? This seemed obviously aimed towards a bit more gender diversity, but they’re nowhere near as prominent as this year’s Wonder Woman or Supergirl. Heck, if they wanted diversity, they could’ve thrown in Black Panther or…Falcon? (yeesh).

No word yet on what issues they’re going to use for the comic covers (though I imagine with Thing & Wolvie we will get their teammates in the mix). The stamps themselves go on sale in July.

Thoughts?

2

Whoops, my mistake. They have annouced the issues:

Spider-Man The Amazing Spider-Man #1 (which does feature the full Fantastic 4)
Spider-Woman Marvel Spotlight #32 (which features Nick Fury on the cover, too)
Hulk The Incredible Hulk #1 (featuring the grey hulk; the portrait stamp has the green one)
Captain America Captain America #100 (with Black Panther, Thor, & others on the cover)
Sub-Mariner Sub-Mariner #1
Wolverine X-Men #1 (is Wolvie even on this cover? Magneto, Cyclops, and others in the original outfits, but I don’t see–or perhaps recognize–him)
Elektra Daredevil #176 (with Daredevil, obviously, on the cover)
The Thing Fantastic Four #3 (featuring the full 4 again)
Silver Surfer Silver Surfer #1
Iron Man Iron Man #1

Want pictures? go here

So it appears in terms of sheer numbers, the Marvel issue is more generous in the hero count (the only extra hero I remember from DC is Robin on Batman’s cover). Still, some curious choices.

3

Wait… I’m sure I’ve seen a picture of all the Marvel stamps…

Yep, here.

(the Elektra cover chosen is just strange)

They’re not the characters I would’ve chosen, but I believe I read in an interview with Quesada that everything was chosen by the USPS rather than Marvel. Spider-Woman was a particularly strange choice. At least Elektra is fairly well known outside of comic fans because of the movies, but even with her recent push in New Avengers, Spider-Woman is still far from an A-list hero.

4

Harumph. If the wanted gender diversity, shouldn’t they have included the Invisible Woman as well? She’s pretty much the grand dame of Marvel Comics, and they would have saved a fortune on ink.

5

Nope, he didn’t exist yet.

6

Or perhaps the Scarlet Witch (since, though an Avenger, is less identified solely as a team member).

7

Sub-Mariner seems like a reasonable choice to me. Even though he’s not as big now, he was one of Marvel’s big three back in the 1940s (when Marvel was known as Timely). The other two of Marvel’s big three are Captain America and the Human Torch and both more or less appear on the stamps: Cap’s got his own stamp, and the modern version of the Torch appears with the Fantastic Four.

Oh, and The Sub-Mariner was in the first comic enititled “Marvel Comics” (and was almost on the cover but was nudged out by the Human Torch).

8

Elektra gets pushed to high heaven in all Marvel merchandising. It’s the combination of having a movie and being a sexy dame who looks badass that does it.
She might just test positively with focus groups as well.

Ghost Rider hasn’t been a promient Marvel character in 12 to 15 years but he’s become a mainstay in merchandising because his look tests just behind Hulk and Spiderman with focus groups.

9

“Released in July” means “First day covers available at Comic-Con again!” Time to start stashing some cash just for these. This year, all I got was a Green Lantern. Next year, I want Cap, Wolverine (bound to sell out first), and Iron Man.

10

You know, silenus, the USPS issues first-day covers for free. Just buy the stamps yourself and affix them to a postcard, envelope, greeting card, etc. and then mail it to the Postmaster for that particular stamp release, and they’ll postmark it with an illustrated first-day-of-issue postmark free of charge. You can either address it back to yourself and they’ll send it through the mail, or you can provide a SASE if you don’t want to mark up your cover. Either way, as long as you do it within 30 days of any stamp’s release, the USPS will stamp just about anything you want free of charge (I got over 100 FDCs for the DC issue by doing this myself, using several of these and some of these, too).

This is certainly a lot easier than standing in line and picking up one or two, plus it’s a good way to customize your cover to make it distinctive. Also, if you simply want the USPS official cache, you can order those through the USPS as well. I’ve done this dozens of times with hundreds of items (mostly postcards) so feel free to e-mail me if you have any specific questions.

11

Thanks for the info! The ones I really want are the ones with the posters. They have a FDC mounted on the bottom, and a blow-up of the stamp above. Makes for a nice addition to the “geek wall.” :smiley: