Tall Marvel

Born in the pages of Xmas Comics #1 (1941) from the pen of the legendary C. C. Beck, Tall Marvel is a genuine Golden Age curiosity — a Fawcett character whose very name hints at the whimsical, larger-than-life spirit of that era's most imaginative storytelling. Appearing alongside the likes of Fat Marvel and the amusingly named "Tall," "Hill," and "Fat" Billy Batsons, Tall Marvel clearly inhabited a wonderfully offbeat corner of the Fawcett universe. Though the catalog appearances are few, the character's footprint stretches across an impressive span — from the Golden Age all the way to DC's Who's Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe in the 1980s, a sure sign that comics historians considered them worth preserving for posterity. A rare find for the dedicated Golden Age collector, Tall Marvel is exactly the kind of delightful deep-cut that reminds us how gloriously strange and inventive those early comic book years truly were.