Flashback

== Event Synopsis ==
The Flashback Month was a publishing event in July, 1997. For a month, nearly the entire Marvel line of titles published stories taking place chronologically prior to Fantastic Four Vol 1 1 (November, 1961). The retro stories allowed the creative teams involved to revisit characters, styles, and concepts from the Silver-Age and occasionally from the Bronze-Age.
The stories were stand-alone stories. No story published in the event had a direct connection to any other, even if they featured some of the same characters. Some characters had their childhoods or teenage years revisited, others got depicted as adventurers prior to their superhero or supervillain days. A few characters received new origin stories or had additional details of their past revealed.
The stories interrupted ongoing storylines in the titles involved and were in turn ignored by the issues of August, 1997. The retro issues met with varying degrees of interest from fans. Fans of older characters tended to like the spotlight treatment for their favorite characters, and fans of retro stories pointed to "gems" in the pack. Fans of younger characters, or those not interested in the Silver-Age at all, found the concept rather boring and the retro style was a turn off for them.