Marvel Comics Presents #50
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeMarvel Comics Presents #50 marks a quiet but genuine milestone: the fiftieth issue of Marvel's flagship bi-weekly anthology, and its wraparound cover by Erik Larsen and Terry Austin was designed as a deliberate celebration, cramming in characters who had appeared across the series' first fifty issues. The issue closes out the 'Life's End' arc — the first comics work to team Wolverine with Spider-Man in MCP's format — and simultaneously launches the Comet Man serial scripted by actor-musicians Bill Mumy and Miguel Ferrer, illustrated by a young Kelley Jones. It also contains a standalone Silver Surfer chapter later deemed significant enough to be collected alongside the Thanos Quest saga, cementing the issue's place in the lead-up to the Infinity Gauntlet event.
In "A Family Affair: Chapter One," Comet Man—known to the world as Stephen—returns to Earth with a mission: tracking down his missing brother. After a sudden rescue of a young girl from a speeding car, he seeks the brilliant mind of Reed Richards to help unravel the mystery.
When the Silver Surfer is pulled through a singularity into a distant world ruled by the tyrant Marauder, he finds himself in a fight not just for survival, but for the freedom of a people trapped under an oppressive regime. Stranded far from Earth, the Surfer must confront the cost of power and the weight of his own choices in a place where home is a memory and escape is a question.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
Released on March 20, 1990, with a May 1990 cover date, the issue was edited by Terry Kavanagh under editor-in-chief Tom DeFalco. The 'Life's End' lead story was both written and penciled by Erik Larsen — before his career-defining work on Amazing Spider-Man — with Joe Rubinstein on inks, and it represents one of Larsen's earliest extended writing credits at Marvel. The anthology format itself, which gave four eight-page stories wrapped in a single cover, was a mandate of the series from its 1988 launch, and MCP regularly served as a training ground for new talent: Scott Lobdell's Captain Ultra standalone in this very issue was part of his apprenticeship under DeFalco before Lobdell became a major X-Men architect.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Cover date May 1990 (release date March 20, 1990); 36 pages; four eight-page stories in MCP's standard bi-weekly anthology format.
- Lead story 'Life's End Part 3: Breaking Point' (script and pencils by Erik Larsen, inks by Joe Rubinstein) concludes the three-part Wolverine/Spider-Man team-up that ran through issues #48–50.
- The arc introduces the villain group the Band of Baddies — including Bloodlust, Whiplash, Critical Mass, Savage Fin, and the Dentist — with Critical Mass and Savage Fin meeting their deaths in this concluding chapter; Bloodlust and Whiplash go on to reappear as part of the Femme Fatales in Amazing Spider-Man.
- Second story 'A Family Affair Part 1' (script by Bill Mumy and Miguel Ferrer, pencils by Kelley Jones, inks by Gerry Talaoc) opens a four-part Comet Man serial running through issues #50–53.
- Third story 'I Just Flew In From Poughkeepsie (And Boy Are My Arms Are Tired)' starring Captain Ultra was scripted by Scott Lobdell — one of his earliest published Marvel credits, developed under Tom DeFalco's editorial program for new talent.
- Fourth story 'You Can't Go Home Again' (script by Ed Simmons, pencils by Jack Sparling, inks by Chris Ivy) features the Silver Surfer and was later reprinted in the Silver Surfer Epic Collection: Thanos Quest trade paperback, which collects material bridging directly to the Infinity Gauntlet event.
- Wraparound cover by Erik Larsen and Terry Austin was conceived as a fiftieth-issue celebration, depicting the broad sweep of characters who had appeared in the series to that point.
- The Wolverine stories from MCP #39–50 (including the 'Life's End' arc) were later collected in the Marvel Comics Presents Wolverine Vol. 2 trade paperback.
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Reprints
Reprinted in The Amazing Spider-Man #6/1991 (1991), Edderkoppen #6/1991 (1991), Wolverine #54 (1994), Wolverine vs. Spider-Man #[nn] (1995), Marvel Comics Presents: Wolverine #2 (2005), Spider-Man by David Michelinie and Erik Larsen Omnibus #[nn] (2017), Silver Surfer Epic Collection #6 (2018), Wolverine Omnibus #2 (2021), Die Spinne Comic - Album #43, Spindelmannen #6/1991
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