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Amazing Fantasy Omnibus HC: 1 [Hardcover]
Stan Lee (Author), Steve Ditko (Illustrator), Jack Kirby (Illustrator)
Jack Kirby Omnibus Volume 2 HC Jack Kirby
Amazing Spider-Man Omnibus - Volume 1 (New
› Stan Lee
The Best of Simon and Kirby › Joe Simon
Amazing Fantasy Omnibus HC Brereton Variant Steve Ditko
X-Statix Omnibus Peter Milligan
Publisher: Marvel Comics (5 Sep 2007)
Product Dimensions: 28.2 x 19 x 3.2 cm
Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,232,907 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
"Amazing Fantasy Omnibus HC".
Of vital historic importance to comics fans - and good fun too!
Format:Hardcover If you want to understand what was going on in the frustrated heads of Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko in the months before Lee decided to quit Marvel and instead co-created 'Fantastic Four#1' with Kirby, thus making comic book history, then you MUST read this omnibus.Due to a goofed-up distribution deal that has been attributed to publisher Martin Goodman's lack of foresight, Marvel Comics (which were in one of thier nameless periods at the time) could only issue 8 books a month, all of which had to be distributed via thier biggest rivals DC. This meant that the company could only produce 16 bi-monthly books. An attempt to revive Golden Age superheroes the Human Torch, The Submariner and Captain America in the mid-fifties had been short lived, so the company was churning out westerns, romance titles, monster books and horror/SF.But Stan Lee wanted to do more than rehash the same old things he'd worked on for twenty years. 'Amazing Fantasy' was to become a vehicle for the wilder ideas Stan had, but its first few issues (when the book was entitled 'Amazing Adventures') were filled with standard - albeit marvellous monster stories co-created with Kirby, which had been a staple of 'Tales To Astonish' and 'Tales of Suspense' for years. The monsters in these stories -or at least thier close cousins- continued to appear in Marvel titles even after the FF appeared (remember the Miracle Man's cardboard leviathan and the Mole Man's giant beasts?).But when Lee retitled the book 'Amazing Adult Fantasy', he used it as a vehicle for his collaborations with Ditko and here's where things get really interesting. There's a story about aliens who look exactly like skrulls, a teenage mutant who is hated and feared by his high school contemporaries...and he just happens to look exactly like one Peter Parker....and so it goes. In short, here you see Lee, Ditko and Kirby trying out ideas they would develop to thier fullest extent after 'Fantastic Four' became the company's besteller and what we know as The Marvel Age of Comics began.For its final issue, the comic became 'Amazing Fantasy',introducing Spider-Man. The rest is history.Therefore, for a full understanding of the true origins of the Silver Age Marvel Universe, you have to buy this book. Without it, you're not informed enough to discuss the genesis of the X-Men, Spider-Man, the Skrulls, whatever. Forget the arguments about Lee's supposed stealing of the credit due Kirby and Ditko, just enjoy this vital but obscure stage of thier work, while reading Ronin Ro's 'Tales To Astonish' for the full story of where Spider-Man came from. Read more ›
I am the Fantastic Doctor Droom!
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase To the average comics fan, Amazing Fantasy is best known for featuring the first published appearance of a certain teenager with arachnid tendencies known to his Aunt May as Peter, to the school bully as Puny Parker, and to the rest of the world as The Amazing Spider-Man. To comic book geeks like me, it's also fondly remembered for featuring the first superhero of what became the 1960s Marvel Age of Comics: Doctor Droom, who made his first appearance in June, 1961, shortly before issue #1 of the Fantastic Four changed the face of four-colour comics forever. Doctor Droom is a medical doctor who travels to a remote part of the Himalayas to see an ageing Tibetan mystic who chooses him as his successor, "to continue the never-ending fight against the diabolical forces that exist in the world." If this sounds familiar, it's probably because this origin story is so similar to that of Doctor Strange, created two years later by Steve Ditko. Doctor Droom was created by the great Jack Kirby and inked by Ditko. Ubergeeks should also know that Doctor Droom was later re-named Doctor Druid and went on to become a regular bit-player in the Marvel Universe, even leading the Avengers for a while.While we're on the subject of prefiguring, Amazing Fantasy #14 contains a 5-page Ditko story that introduces all the basic elements of the X-Men mythos. In 'The Man in the Sky' the central character is a mutant college student with telekinetic and telepathic abilities who is branded a freak and attacked by his fellow students. He is telepathically contacted by an older mentor who tells him he is not alone, that there are many mutants in the world, but that "people fear those who are different! And humans try to destroy those whom they fear!" This story was published more than a year before X-Men #1.Almost all the stories in this collection are by either Ditko or Kirby, with Ditko taking over the entire magazine from issue #7. Most of the tales are typical of the sort of thing Marvel was turning out prior to FF #1, i.e. monster stories with titles like 'Sserpo!' and 'Krogg!,' always with an exclamation mark, and tales of the supernatural. The surprising thing is that even after all these years they are still fun to read, quirky, sometimes comic, sometimes downright odd, usually with interesting twists in the tail. And, of course the brilliant artwork of two of comic books' greatest talents. Kirby could make even the craziest creatures look believable, whilst Ditko's stylised figures, bulging eyes and use of shadows ideally suit odder tales such as 'The Teddy Bear' or 'The Ice-Monster Cometh.' Great stuff, with the usual star knocked off because of the unsuitable shiny paper and too-bright colours. Oh, this volume includes the famous final issue featuring the first appearance of the arachnoid hero mentioned above. Price-conscious consumers might like to know that buying the original 15 comics reprinted here would set them back several thousand dollars. Read more ›
TIM BOO BA walks among us!!!
- Published on Amazon.com Format:Hardcover "Many are the wonders of the vast universe. But none so fantastic as... TIM BOO BA!" This bold statement scripted by Marvel's founding father - Stan "the Man" Lee, foretells the terrible reign of the cruel reptilian dictator, who is finally bested by ....well, that would be telling, and unfair to the reader because most of this story's charm, like many others contained in this volume, derides from Twilight Zone "inspired" surprise ending. Some much so, Lee stated in an interview with Will Murray regarding his Amazing Fantasy scripts, "I used to get letters from readers `Hey, I just saw Twilight Zone, and they used one of your stories from issue so-and-so.'"Amazing Fantasy THE TERROR of TIM BOO BA Omnibus vol.1 beautifully reprints in their entirety: Amazing Adventures #1-6, Amazing Adult Fantasy #7-14 and Amazing Fantasy #15 -- that's 416 pages (scripted and executed by Marvel's A-list talent: Lee, Ditko, and Kirby) brimming with evil alien invaders, rampaging giant monsters, and the creation of Marvel's greatest and most influential superhero -- Spider-man! This collection is a must have for vintage monster comic book fans who have enjoyed Dick Briefer's The Monster of Frankenstein, Monster Masterworks and Zombie Factory.
A Must for Ditko fans!
By R. Gale
- Published on Amazon.com Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase This is another outstanding addition to Marvel's Omnibus series, which has the added bonus of being somewhat shorter so that it's not so hard to hold the book! The art restoration and reproduction is first rate, and the coloring is excellent. And if you're a Steve Ditko fan (and would you be reading this review if you weren't?), then you'll be absolutely delighted to see "Sturdy Steve's" art and story-telling presented so beautifully. Yes, many of the stories are silly, but when Lee and Ditko were at their best, they were masters of these short "Twilight Zone" type tales. Kudos to Marvel for bringing us this fine volume.
The book that gave birth to Spider-Man...
- Published on Amazon.com Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase This is a nice historical collection, gathering the full run of Marvel Comics' tumultuous and short-lived "Amazing Fantasy" title. It was one of the last "monster" books Marvel published before the revival of their superhero franchise, and indeed, the last issue featured the birth of Spider-Man, who is arguably the most famous of all Marvel characters. The individual original issues are hard to find and terribly expensive, so this hardbound omnibus is a real blessing for fans who just want to read the old stuff, and not pay a gazillion dollars or have to worry about preserving the fragile old artifacts.The scripts were mostly by (or credited to) Stan Lee, and illustrators Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko were his main collaborators. A couple of leftovers from the 1950s genre books were also on board, notably Paul Reinman, but the real sizzle is with Ditko and Kirby, who were developing a truly new, explosively expressive style that burst away from the stale, cramped design work of the Atlas era.The stories, generally speaking, are pretty flat and formulaic: the six-pages-and-a-zinger-ending format did not, in all honesty, leave a lot of room for brilliance. Nonetheless, something was bubbling up under the surface of the moribund genre... There were plenty of hints of things to come: professors named Storm, rocky-skinned monsters, a skinny kid with big, round glasses who discovers he has superpowers, and of course, the proto-Dr. Strange, Dr. Droom, one of the few recurrent characters of the era. In one of the most fascinating later stories, the Ditko-penned teenage hero looks a LOT like Peter Parker, but what's even more amazing is the script, about how the boy is a mutant, and how he must hide his powers due to the prejudice of normal humans -- the entire "X-Men" mythology was laid out in '62: it really should be anthologized along with the early X-books from now on.The book really hit its stride in the last half-dozen issues, when Steve Ditko basically took over and was given full reign on the creative end. The book developed a strong signature style, and Ditko came into his own. Some of the best surprises come with the famous Spidey issue: the one-page editorial about how they planned to change the look and format of the book (and, boy, did they! they canceled it and started up "The Amazing Spider-Man" instead) and also the fact that the book *still* had back-up features full of aliens and things that go bump in the night.This is a fascinating look back at the history of Marvel Comics. Probably best appreciated for the dynamic, colorful artwork (which looks fabulous in the glossy archival format) but also good, goofy fun in its own right. Face Forward, True Believers! (Joe Sixpack, Slipcue)
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