Marvel's 25th Anniversary

By | Tuesday, November 07, 2006 11 comments
Thought I'd do a quick covers post today. As part of Marvel's 25th anniversary celebration in 1986, nearly all of their November cover-dated issues were given a company-wide trade dress featuring many of their well-known properties. It was fairly easy to "get it" back in the day if a reader was just looking at a spinner rack of Marvel comics or whatever, but newer readers might well be unfamiliar with the "event." So, here, twenty years later, we present you with Marvel's November 1986 cover gallery...

I might take a moment to point out that setting a 25th anniversary to November 1986 isn't wholly accurate. Marvel was actually publishing comics through the 1940s and 1950s under various names, including Timely and Atlas. Further, November was indeed the cover date of Fantastic Four #1, but the issue itself was actually published in August 1961.
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11 comments:

Harry said...

Thanks for putting this up! I still have a lot of these. In fact, this is the first year I started collecting comics and among the first comics I owned. The Sears catalogue use to offer 30 comics for 9.99. My parents bought it for me for Hannukah in 1986. About 10,000 comics later...

Bruce said...

I have two Marvel 25th Anniversary posters. Any idea what would be the best way to sell these?

eBay

Anonymous said...

Great collection of covers. Walt Simonson did the Thor and X-Factor covers. One of my favorites and a big influence on my art. Also, Art Adams I believe did The New Mutants at the time. Talented guy. I love the juxtaposition of King Conan and the Care Bears. Cheers.

Adam Villani said...

Check out Marvel Age... "Behold... The New Universe!"

Mark Russell said...

I believe Barry Windsor Smith did the New Mutants cover there. But Art Adams did the Classic X-Men cover.

I am tempted to say what a great period that was for Marvel... But I think most comic book fans feel that way about whatever was being published when they were in high school.

Regardless, some great stuff there. Thanks for the post.

TomH said...

Wow, what a great collection! I only had the Muppet Babies one (I'm embarrassed to say). Now I'd love to get my hands on some more of these.

Marvel used its date of creation as Timely Comics to celebrate its 70th anniversary in 2009. So they've kind of played it both ways.

I don't think it's inaccurate to use the Nov. 1986 date, though, as the comics were *still* being released 3 months earlier at that point too. :)

Thanks again for sharing such an awesome collection with us!

That's pretty cool to see all the covers on one page. I've never seen them all side by side. Thanks for sharing.

lou of nj said...

i have a set of The Uncanny Xmen and the transformers from the 25 annerversy im not to interested in the but they were passed down i was just wondering if anybody on here knew how much they were going for

luke said...

how much are one of these comics worth ?

Anonymous said...

You are missing Sectaurs #13.