Michael Higgins

Michael Higgins was a real Marvel Comics staffer who appeared as a fictionalized version of himself in the Marvel Fumetti Book, a photo-comic that placed actual Marvel employees into comic-book adventures alongside characters like Spider-Man.

A quirky artifact of Marvel's Bronze Age self-awareness, Michael Higgins debuted in the delightfully offbeat Marvel Fumetti Book #1 in 1984 — a publication that put real Marvel staffers and insiders into photo-comic adventures alongside the likes of Spider-Man. Created by Mike Carlin and Eliot Brown, Higgins is one of those wonderfully niche figures who offers a peek behind the curtain at the House of Ideas during a particularly creative era. With appearances stretching into the early '90s across titles as varied as Tales of G.I. Joe and The Avengers, and sharing pages with Marvel luminaries like Mark Gruenwald, Tom DeFalco, and Bob Harras, this is a character for the true collector — a fascinating footnote that rewards the fan who loves comics history as much as comics themselves.