Wayne Markley

by Wayne Markley

Way back in the early days of Marvel Comics (post Atlas Comics, when Marvel was doing superhero books, FF, Spider-Man, etc.), Stan Lee very smartly would use the editorial and letter pages of the books to create a sense of fandom that made the reader feel like they were part of the club. He would write editorials praising the creators and all the new books and ideas Marvel was doing and he gave everyone a nickname and he would talk about the famous Marvel Bullpen (which in reality did not exist). The idea was Stan wanted the readers of the comics to feel as if they were part of the inner circle. He also did this with the way he wrote the comics where everything would tie together and all of the characters would know each other and a story in the Fantastic Four would have repercussion in that month’s Avengers. He created a world where we were all part of it and felt invested in. He would land up calling the Marvel fan base True Believers, as they believed in the world Stan had created. Over time, they became known as a more negative term as Marvel Zombies. To True Believers only Marvel Comics were any good. The point of this history lesson is Marvel has taken Stan’s little term of affection and used it as a title of a recent brand of comics that reprint a single issue of a book for one dollar.

True Believers: Fantastic Four – Puppet Master

Marvel has been doing these True Believers comics for well over a year now and they have caught on. The idea of a dollar reprint book is not new and it has been done by many publishers over the years, but Marvel is the first company to make it a monthly practice. Every month Marvel releases a batch (it varies, but is generally 6-10 titles) for a dollar each with each book reprinting a comic from their past focusing on important events, first appearances, first issues by a specific creator, major events in the comic, etc. For example, with the return of the Fantastic Four, they released a bunch of FF True Believer comics. With the return of Jean Grey ,they did a bunch of Phoenix related True Believer comics. Now these books at only a dollar are not going to make Marvel or retailers rich, but they do serve a good purpose as they allow people to sample comics at a very low price point and most of the time the idea is someone buys the True Believer, enjoys it, and comes back and buys the complete trade collection of that storyline. On the retail side of things, I see a number of parents willing to buy a dollar comic (or a number of them at a dollar) much easier than a $30 trade collection.

I really like this idea. It is a good way to draw in the casual reader who feels comics are too expensive, and they are, and it shows off Marvel’s rich and vast history. I also like the idea that these are not collected down the road so if you want this specific cover, you have to but this book. (Mind you, the only real difference in the covers from the original covers is the True Believers masthead and the price). As there are literally hundreds of these books out now, and more coming out every month, I am going to just briefly run through some of the events that have been spotlighted and the books that were featured.

True Believers: Age of Apocalypse

There are a number of early True Believer releases that did not necessarily fall into a theme outside of being the first issue of a series or an event. These include such titles as, Marvel Zombies #1, X-Men The Age of Apocalypse, Civil War #1, Planet Hulk; House of M, Wolverine Old Man Logan #1, Armor Wars (Iron Man), Infinity Gauntlet #1, Age of Ultron, and Miles Morales Ultimate Spider-Man #1. As you can see, these were all just sort of picked at random by Marvel. But they followed this up by doing themes.

True Believers: The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl

The next batch of books they did were all True Believers of female characters, this was a great idea. They included Captain Marvel, Spider-Gwen #1, Black Window, Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk #1, Thor #1 (Jane Foster), Silk #1, Princess Leia #1, Spider-Woman #1, and finally The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #1. As you can see, not all of these books are based on success, as both Silk and Spider-Gwen have since ended, but at least Marvel tried.

True Believers: The Meaty Deadpool

Next they did a batch of Deadpool comics to ties into the Deadpool movie. They included Deadpool (which was a reprint of New Mutants #98), Deadpool Origins, Detective Deadpool, Uncanny Deadpool, The Groovy Deadpool, The Meaty Deadpool, Wedding of Deadpool, Deadpool the Musical, Deadpool the Variants (which collected a bunch of variant covers, almost like a poster book, and a rare example of a book that is not a reprint of an older comic), and Evil Deadpool. These were a little different than the earlier True Believers in that they renamed the book for the purposes of the True Believers, as there was no single comic called The Meaty Deadpool. This was really a reprint of Deadpool #11.

True Believers: Droids

Next here were ten different Star Wars True Believers. Once again they reprinted a number of number one issues including such oddities as Droids #1 (from the old Star Comics) and Star Wars the Covers True Believer, which made sense as there were a tons of variant covers for Star Wars #1.

True Believers: Uncanny Avengers – The Bagalia Job

The next batch Marvel returned to the mainsteam super-heroes with reprints of the first issues of events. These included Extraordinary X-Men the Burning Man, Invincible Iron Man-War Machines, All New, All Different Avengers-Cyclone, Daredevil-Practice to Deceive, Uncanny Avengers The Bagalia Job, Deadpool Vs. Sabertooth, Guardians of the Galaxy-Most Wanted, Amazing Spider-Man the Dark Kingdom (which reprinted Amazing Spider-Man #6 with Cloak and Dagger), Doctor Strange-Last Days of Magic, and finally The Mighty Thor-The Strongest Viking There Is.

The following month Marvel one again tied the True Believers into a movie, this time with ten Wolverine titles. This included Hulk #181, first issue of Old Man Logan, first issue of X-23, the first three chapters of Weapon X, and more. Again these were all branded as Wolverine titles even though the stories they reprinted appeared in a number of different places, not just in a Wolverine titled comic.

It made sense that they followed up Wolverine with a ten pack of X-Men titles. What’s notable about these choices were they reprinted the first issues of various X titles spin off books. These included Generation X, New Mutants, X-Factor, X-Men #1 (1963), Giant Sized X-Men #1, and more.

Marvel continued this pattern the following month with a set of six Spider-Man titles all reprinting the first issue of Spider-Man, such as Peter Parker Spider-Man #1, Amazing Fantasy #15, Amazing Spider-Man Brand New Day, and more.

True Believers: Kirby 100th – Nick Fury

The next group of True Believers were once again a shift, as this time they did twelve titles all reprinting the first issues or appearances of characters associated with Jack Kirby and all of the stories were by Kirby. These were done in association with Jack’s 100^th birthday celebration. There are some true nuggets in this run, including Jack’s first issue of the Black Panther, his first Nick Fury stories, first Eternals, first issue Devil Dinosaur, and many more.

Next were ten books reprinting various appearances, deaths, and returns of the Phoenix. Then there are ten books reprinting the various lives of Venom. This include his first appearance and a number of his first issues. (He has had a lot of series).

Marvel returned to the movie theme with eight books reprinting the appearance of Thanos, just in time for the Avengers Infinity War movie. These included his first appearance in Iron Man #55, the first issue of the Infinity Gauntlet and many more. These proved to be a great move as these books sold like hot cakes with the success of the movie.

True Believers: Fantastic Four by John Byrne

Since then Marvel continued to pump these books out. Recently there have been focuses on Wolverine, (eight different titles marking the return of Wolverine to the Marvel Universe), Ant-Man and the Wasp, six reprints to tie into the movie from this past summer. And then there was the massive push for the relaunch of the Fantastic Four. Here they reprinted twelve different books marking different periods of the group’s history. These books are interesting as they showed how great the Fantastic Four have been over the years, under a number of different creators.

I cannot think of a cheaper way to go out and sample some of the rich and lush Marvel history than with these economical reprint comics. These are not designed to be a collectible to bag and board for a 100 years. These are comics that are designed for reading. Next time you have small week, or one of your favorite books is running late so you have an extra dollar or two, give one of these True Believers a try!

That is it for this time. I cannot not wait to see what is coming down the pike. I am always amazed with each week as new True Believers comics come out and I am reminded of what a great story there was from the past. I have often forgetten a lot of these first appearances and storylines from the past. And working in the retail store, these are a great way to get people to try a comic or two without a huge investment. I am sure there are people out there who would disagree with me, and I would like to hear from you (and I would also like to hear what True Believers you would like to see in the future). I can be reached at MFBWAY@AOL.COM or on Facebook at Wayne Markley. All of the thoughts and opinions written here are mine and do not reflect the thoughts and options of Westfield Comics or their employees. As always…

Thank you.