Marvel Age Annual #1

History

Marvel Age magazine launched in 1983 as a comic-book-sized promotional publication, functioning as an expanded version of the traditional Bullpen Bulletins page with previews, interviews, and behind-the-scenes features. Two years into its run, under Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter and editor Jim Salicrup, the title produced its first and most elaborate annual, released in July 1985 with a cover date of September 1985. The double-sized issue marshalled an unusually large creative battalion — fourteen writers including Shooter, Busiek, Roger Stern, Walt Simonson, Tom DeFalco, Louise Simonson, and John Byrne, alongside an art roster of roughly eighteen pencillers — an undertaking that Busiek later recalled on his Tumblr as a logistically painful experience, particularly the wraparound cover, which required assembling and then reassembling character-costume reference material from scratch when the original reference sheets were discarded mid-production.

Trivia · 8 facts

• First appearance of the Phone Ranger (A.G. Bell), created by Kurt Busiek and James Fry; the character's name is a deliberate pun on Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone.
• The issue's story is titled 'Information, Please...' and uses a telephone-call framing device in which the Marvel Comics bullpen — with Busiek depicted as a writer dialing characters — interrupts scenes from nearly every major 1985 Marvel title.
• The Lethal Legion attacks the Marvel Comics offices in-universe during the story, with the Phone Ranger arriving to oppose them and battling the Unicorn before being apparently shot by a Scourge of the Underworld agent — a wound later retconned as survivable by Civil War: Battle Damage Report #1 (2007).
• The wraparound cover features an exceptionally broad cast including Doctor Strange, the Avengers, the X-Men, Alpha Flight, the Squadron Supreme, Cloak and Dagger, the New Mutants, Power Pack, the Beyonder, the Fantastic Four, the Eternals, and Spider-Man in his black costume.
• The creative roster includes fourteen writers (Busiek, Shooter, Stern, Simonson, DeFalco, Mantlo, Englehart, Gruenwald, O'Neil, Duffy, Byrne, Louise Simonson, Zelenetz, and Gillis) and roughly eighteen pencillers including Mignola, Mazzucchelli, Frenz, and Brigman.
• The issue also contains non-fiction editorial content characteristic of the Marvel Age series, including plot-status rundowns on ongoing titles and background features, functioning as both an in-universe story and a promotional preview document.
• Marvel Age Annual #1 was later collected alongside Marvel Age #1–34 in a Marvel Age Omnibus, pairing it with the first three years of the parent promotional magazine.
• The issue was released in July 1985 (cover-dated September 1985) under Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter, edited by Jim Salicrup, with cover art by Kerry Gammill and Tom Morgan.

Cast · 40 characters

Full credits

Full plot ⚠ may contain spoilers