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What a year for Marvel. Four of their major books reached a landmark issue 600 in 2009. First was the somewhat overlooked Thor. Then the much hyped Captain America, announcing the return of Steve Rogers. Now, both The Amazing Spider-Man and The Incredible Hulk reached issue 600 in the same week. Congratulation.

However, with a little investigation, I think Marvel might be cheating the number of issues that actually make up 600. For instance, Thor first appeared in Journey into Mystery 83. Yet, Marvel is counting Journey into Mystery 1 through 82 as part of what makes up the 600 issues of Thor, even though the Norse Thunder God never even appeared in those first 82 issues. This problem is the same with Captain America. Cap first appeared in his own series in 1941, and didn’t reappear in his own book until the later 60’s. In the interim, Cap was a split feature with Iron Man in the series Tales of Suspense starting at issue 59. Marvel counts the other 58 issues of Tales of Suspense as part of Captain America’s 600 issue legacy. Again this is the same with the Hulk. The Incredible Hulk had a quick 6 issues series before cancellation. Marvel brought back the jade giant a year in a half later as a feature in Tales To Astonish 60. So Marvel counts 59 issue of Tales To Astonish that don’t really have Hulk in them.

Okay, Marvel is bending the rules here, but at least they admit to it. In all the 600 issues except Spider-Man, Marvel crams in complete cover galleries that include the issues that don’t actually have the character in the comic as a bonus feature. Thanks, I guess?

In fairness, all these landmark issues have been more than worth the additional buck in cover price because they are double sized issues and normally have major turning points for the characters. I’m just surprised no one else has called Marvel out on not actually being up to the 600th issue and using this trick to up-sale more comics. At least there weren’t hologram cover 600 variants.

-Jon

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