Not Brand Echh #9

History

Not Brand Echh was conceived by associate editor Roy Thomas and Gary Friedrich, who initially pitched it to Stan Lee as a vehicle for lampooning competing publishers — an instinct rooted in their admiration for Harvey Kurtzman's early full-color Mad comics of the 1950s. Lee approved the series but redirected its focus onto Marvel's own characters, a decision Thomas later acknowledged as the correct editorial call. By the time issue #9 was assembled, the writing was handled primarily by Thomas and Friedrich, with Marie Severin serving not only as the series' most prolific interior artist but also as cover artist for this issue — she designed a densely packed billboard cover featuring virtually every major 'Marble Universe' parody character, while also penciling the lead story. Gene Colan, Jim Mooney, Tom Sutton, and John Verpoorten contributed additional interior art, making #9 one of the most broadly staffed issues of the run.

Trivia · 8 facts

• Issue #9 (cover date August 1968) was the first giant-sized issue of Not Brand Echh, expanding the book to approximately 68 pages at a cover price of 25 cents, up from the prior standard of 12 cents.
• The cover was drawn by Marie Severin, depicting a billboard of Marble Universe parody characters alongside 'Boney and Claude' — a spoof of the then-current hit film Bonnie and Clyde — with Forbush-Man held captive.
• The lead story, 'Bet There'll Be Battle!' (script: Roy Thomas, pencils: Marie Severin), directly parodied 'Let There Be Battle!' from Tales to Astonish #100 (Feb. 1968), with Severin spoofing a Hulk vs. Sub-Mariner story she herself had penciled for that anniversary issue.
• Other stories in the issue include a Marvel-character retelling of Ernest Lawrence Thayer's poem 'Casey at the Bat'; a parody of the cancelled Green Hornet TV series called 'The Mean Hornet'; a 'Jack and the Beanstalk' satire featuring an Archie parody character; a Captain Marvel spoof ('Mar-Vinn') riffing on that hero's freshly launched solo series; and the film parody 'Boney and Claude' scripted by Gary Friedrich with art by John Verpoorten.
• Contributing artists across the issue's multiple features included Gene Colan, Jim Mooney, Tom Sutton, John Verpoorten, and Marie Severin; Roy Thomas and Gary Friedrich shared writing duties, with Stan Lee serving as editor-in-chief.
• Irving Forbush (as himself, not in his Forbush-Man guise) appears in the issue, consistent with his role as the 'Marble Universe' everyman mascot across the series.
• The parody universe depicted throughout the issue — named the 'Marble Universe' — was retroactively designated Earth-665 by The Official Handbook to the Marvel Universe: Alternate Universes in 2005, giving the Not Brand Echh stories a formal place in Marvel's multiverse.
• Stories from the Not Brand Echh run, including material from this era, were later collected in the three-issue Marvel comic Crazy! (1973), the Marvel Masterworks: Not Brand Echh volume (2014), and Not Brand Echh: The Complete Collection (2019).

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