Frequently Asked Questions
Here are some commonly-asked questions - click on 'em for the answers. |
| What's the "Silver Age", when did it begin and when did it end? | Back to top | |
| The Silver Age is the term used to describe the re-birth of superhero comics in the early 1960's. Before Fantastic Four #1, Marvel produced a variety of "Monster of the Week"-type titles, plus a plethora of westerns and romance mags, with a few war titles as well. Naturally, there's some debate on the subject of when the "Silver Age" began and ended. Fans of Marvel's Distinguished Competition argue that superhero comics never really went away, or that characters like the Flash, the JLA, or Challengers of the Unknown pre-dated Marvel's Silver Age, but Marvelites are agreed that The Silver Age began (at least at Marvel) in Nov 1961 with FF #1. I've arbitrarily selected Jan 1971 as the finishing date - it seemed like a reasonable place to draw the line, and the fabulous 104-issue Lee-Kirby run on Fantastic Four had come to an end just two months earlier. | ||
| Am I claiming that no good comics have been produced since the Silver Age? | Back to top | |
| Not at all. What I am claiming is that the Silver Age broke new ground, changed the way comics were created and appreciated, and laid the foundations for some of the excellent stuff that has been produced since then. I must admit, however, that I think the 1970s were pretty awful! Fortunately, some of the stuff produced in the 1980s (and beyond) more than made up for it! | ||
| Where did all the images come from? | Back to top | |
| Well, not from my own personal collection, that's for sure! I own virtually none of this stuff, although I once had a reasonable assortment. I (and many friends and acquaintences) have scoured the 'net for cover scans, and have scanned a few ourselves. The majority have been sent to me by several people who I have come to regard as my collaborators - the standard of scans has risen over the last couple of years so that now I won't bother putting up a scan unless it's a really good one. A huge thankyou to those people - you know who you are! (Oh, all right, check out the Site Credits page if you want to see your name in lights!) | ||
| Who owns the images? | Back to top | |
| The images shown are copyright © Marvel Entertainment Group, and this index is intended as a reference work only. | ||
| Are the comics depicted for sale? |
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| Not by me. I did have many of them, once, but sold them - my way of 'retaining' them was to scan some of the best covers before I let 'em go. Some of those scans are on this site. | ||
| Will the index be expanded to include later issues or current titles, or pre-Silver Age stuff? |
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| Later issues? No. Earlier stuff? It's already happening ... I'm going back into the fifties and even the forties with some titles. I couldn't resist! You'll find Tales to Astonish and Tales of Suspense covers right back to their respective debut issues in Jan 1959, the first 14 issues of Amazing Adult Fantasy (Spidey arrived in the last issue, # 15, and the word "Adult" went missing.) Further back to the early fifties with pre-Thor Journey into Mystery, the pre-Torch Strange Tales and the long-running western title Rawhide Kid, and even back into the forties with the Two-Gun Kid, Kid Colt, Marvel Tales and Millie the Model! | ||
| What possessed me to embark on this project? |
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| I was motivated to start this index when, having a couple of hours spare one night, I started browsing comics sites, and stumbled across a scan of the first Marvel Comic I remember buying - Tales of Suspense #87, followed by Fantastic Four #61, Spider-Man #47, Thor #139, and Daredevil #27. All of these issues were from March/April 1967, and I decided to put them together according to the cover dates. Then I went a couple of months in either direction, and before I knew what I was doing a whole decade had sort of materialized in front of me. The by-title index followed when I decided it would help me figure out which ones I'd already found and which ones I hadn't. Just like collecting the real things... | ||