On his blog, Todd Dezago fondly remembers the comic annuals of old, particularly those from Marvel:

as we continue to work on the all-new, all-daring PERHAPANAUTS ANNUAL for our IMAGE launch in february, i’m reminded of the annuals of days past, the year end (though usually showing up in early september…), double-sized, extravaganza, which i’m sure was originally an attempt to repay loyal and enthusiastic readers with an extra year-end treasure!

(that’s the way I like to think of them anyway…)

it made me start thinking of the things that went into an annual. usually a pretty good story. usually a pretty BIG story–one that garnered the additional pages and sometimes–most times–featured a pivotal new incident or landmark in the mythos of the star or stars of the comic. a new costume! a new headquarters! an edgy new villain!
yeah, man…i eat that stuff up like frankenberry!

I, too, ate them up … though I was more of a Captain Crunch guy. But some of my favorite annuals included:

–Avengers Annual #10, by guest writer Chris Claremont and Michael friggin’ Golden: If you want a big story where lots of stuff happened, well, this was it. Heck, just look at the cover:

It’s like six covers in one, trying to list all the action and suspense you could expect from this book (not to mention a ten-speed bike). And what could you expect? A returning character. The debut of a powerful new evil mutant, who was able to take out Captain America and Thor in her first outing. The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. A guest appearance by Spider-Woman. Heck, the cameo by the X-Men barely ranks compared to everything else that happened. The book starts with a mystery, sees the Avengers put to the test, throws in guest stars galore and tugs at the heartstrings when you find out what happened to the returning character. As far as annuals went, it really delivered.

–Any X-Men or New Mutant annual drawn by Art Adams: So there was a time in my life when if you asked me who my favorite artist was, without hesitation I would have said Art Adams. He may have been slow, but it was worth the wait every year to see his work on the New Mutants or X-Men annuals. While technically not an annual, the one I really loved — and read over and over — was New Mutants Special Edition #1. It featured the New Mutants and Storm stranded in Asgard, splitting up to go on various adventures and meet a cast of Asgardians both familiar and new. The story would continue in the Uncanny X-Men annual later that summer.

Adams came back each year for a few years … in one X-Men annual, in a story that occurred right before the Mutant Massacre took out half the team, he introduced new costumes for the New Mutants, replacing the standard yellow-and-black X-jumpsuits they wore:

The new costumes didn’t last past that issue, but I remember as a kid thinking, “Wow, they finally get their own costumes! That’s big!”

–And then there were the Marvel Team-Up and Marvel Two-in-One annuals. Dezago talked about one of the Two-in-One annuals in his post; for those not familiar with the concept, every month these two comics featured Spider-Man and the Thing, respectively, teaming up with a different Marvel hero. For the annuals, though, they usually pulled out the stops, and you’d end up with several extra heroes. One of my favorites was this one:

which featured Spider-Man teaming up with a group of “street level” heroes to take on the Purple Man. Y’know, before he became so creepy.

So what were some of your favorite annuals?

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 8th, 2007 at 10:31 am and is filed under Comic Books, Creators, Marvel, News & Views. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.