# Your classic comic book story arc or series
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-classic-comic-book-story-arc-or-series/620736
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [May 3, 2012, 10:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-classic-comic-book-story-arc-or-series/620736 "2012-05-03T10:43:38Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [May 4, 2012, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-classic-comic-book-story-arc-or-series/620736/41 "2012-05-04T13:39:55Z")
> [@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](https://marvel.com/digitalcomics/view.htm?iid=3345) 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.
---
### Author:  [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)
#### Post date: [May 4, 2012, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-classic-comic-book-story-arc-or-series/620736/42 "2012-05-04T13:52:02Z")
> [@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.
---
### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [May 4, 2012, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-classic-comic-book-story-arc-or-series/620736/43 "2012-05-04T14:08:19Z")
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.
---
### Author:  [@diku](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/diku)
#### Post date: [May 4, 2012, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-classic-comic-book-story-arc-or-series/620736/44 "2012-05-04T14:14:56Z")
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.
---
### Author:  [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)
#### Post date: [May 4, 2012, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-classic-comic-book-story-arc-or-series/620736/45 "2012-05-04T14:23:58Z")
> [@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.
---
### Author:  [@Saltire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saltire)
#### Post date: [May 4, 2012, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-classic-comic-book-story-arc-or-series/620736/46 "2012-05-04T19:20:39Z")
> [@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.
---
### Author:  [@Dave\_Hartwick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dave_Hartwick)
#### Post date: [May 4, 2012, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-classic-comic-book-story-arc-or-series/620736/47 "2012-05-04T21:22:25Z")
> [@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?
> [@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](http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2009/11/27/top-100-comic-book-storylines-master-list/).
[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-classic-comic-book-story-arc-or-series/620736.md?page=2)