ATTN: Tom Breevort (or others familiar with Marvels trade plans)

The 'Essential Human Torch Vol. 1' solicitation text says:

This is the last remaining classic MARVEL super-hero series to be reprinted in the ESSENTIAL format.

I can see a few possible interpretations of this statement, and I'd like to know what the proper interpretation is.

Option 1: This is the last Essential volume. (I really hope this is wrong.)

Option 2: This is the last super-hero Essential, but we'll still see stuff like 'Essential Tomb of Dracula' and 'Essential Millie the Model'.

Option 3: Future Essentials will only continue existing lines. (eg. 'Essential Spider-Man Vol. 4'

Option 4: This will now cover everything Marvel published in the early 1960s, so future Essentials will start to collect everything the company published from 1970 on. (This is the interpretation I'm hoping for.)

Is it one of these, or something else entirely? Has that decision even been made yet?

I hope so. I advocate using the Essential line to keep all of Marvel continuity in print, up to 5-10 years past the current 'present,' with the colour trades covering the more recent stuff. It'll make it much easier for new readers to catch up on what's out there.

This is the last of the early '60s Marvel super hero series to be collected. All that's left beyond this is SGT FURY and the western and girl comics. But all of the other super hero series of the first Marvel period have been collected. Even Ant-Man.

Tom Brevoort 'There's three things about fans that always come out. One, they think what was done ten years ago is better than today. Second, they express this with violent opinions. And third, they expect you to publish for them alone.' Jim Warren August 1, 1965

First of all, I want to apologize for spelling your name wrong.

OK, so it's closer to the last option ('There's nothing else left from the era we've labelled 'Classic' in the superhero genre.' to the rest. That's good to know.

What about Doctor Droom from Amazing Adventures?

That short series is generally considered pre-Marvel since it debuted before the FF. Amazing Adventures #1 has a June 1961 cover date, while FF #1 was November.

What else is out there? I noticed footnotes in 'Essential Fantastic Four Vol. 2' that mentioned the Watcher had a segment in one of the multi-thread books. What would it take to get about 500 pages of Dr. Doom, the Watcher, and the other characters? What's out there to pick

I also forgot to offer the standard plug for my other dream volume: Essential Monsters, reprinting a bunch of the immediately pre-Marvel monster stories. That volume seems like a natural, to me.

I think the last time we went over this, we determined that there are more than 500 pages of 'miscellaneous' Marvel Silver Age material worth essentializing, but maybe I'm wrong. Let's see...

In <http://www.google.com/groups? selm=i1du3u0p9flddvi9778rgdt3euleqp7546%...>, I said:

'The Essential Silver Age Miscellany' would contain all of the _Marvel Super-Heroes_ stories which don't fit into another volume (6 issues), the Black Widow/Inhumans issues of _Amazing Adventures_ plus the _Inhumans_ backups from _Thor_ (about 10 issues of material) and the the Dr. Doom and 'Brothers Link' material from the first 8 issues of _Astonishing Tales_ .

New Ka-Zar material appeared in most of the first 20 issues of _Astonishing Tales_, but that would make the 'Miscellany' volume too big, and I assume that at some point there will be an 'Essential Ka-Zar' volume.

Extending the _Amazing Adventures_ to cover the Beast stories would fill out an Essential volume nicely, but it strikes me that the audience for such a volume is necessarily more specialized [*] than for the more general run of Essential volumes, and I'd certainly buy a copy.

[*]That's a polite way of saying 'geeky'.

So, according to me, I'm wrong. Glad to hear it.

My count on the Marvel Super-Heroes issues might have been wrong, since I'm not sure precisely what's in MSH 16, 17, 19, and 20, and the Grand Comics Database is down again so I can't check. There really should be an 'Essential Captain Marvel' which would reprint MSH 12-13 and Captain Marvel 1-21. (IIRC, there's a publishing discontinuity between 21 and 22 that makes for a natural breakpoint.)

So, to get the complete Marvel super-hero Silver Age into Essentials, Marvel would have to start Essential SHIELD, Essential Sub-Mariner, Essential Captain Marvel, Essential Ka-Zar, and Essential Silver Age Classics as a catch-all. Let's keep hoping....

I'm very glad to hear that the most generous interpretation of the 'last remaining classic MARVEL super-hero series' was the correct one, though. I'm looking forward to all of the titles I've just listed.

Would Essential Defenders and Essential Eternals be in or after the Silver

I don't have all the AT issues, so out of interest why do you specifically mention any Ka-Zar stories including Gemini not belonging in a potential 'Essential Ka-Zar' ? Surely all the Ka-zar material out of AT would be best collected there ?

Cheers,

Phil Young