have you ever noticed patterns in Marvel appearances based on issue number? 3 3

[Aman619]

I don't even know if you're serious.  Why would Stan ever care what issue number they introduced anything? Certainly in the early days when they were struggling and just trying to stay in business putting out their line of comics, there's no way they'd hold up a new wacky idea of character for a certain issue number! 

But by the late sixties, or when the second generation of creators took over there might have been some conscious homage numbering going on... they could coast and do clever stuff like that in the 70s, and beyond.

[01TheDude]

I never said it was blatant or conscious or even assigned it to Stan. It's just something I notice all the time and wanted to bring up some examples. If you don't, you can always avoid the thread.

[01TheDude]

4 hours ago, VintageComics said:

It may not have been a conscious plan, but there may have been some sub-conscious workings behind it.

Personally, I don't believe in random co-incidence.

when you look at some of the early foes Spider-man and DD (well really any of the Marvel heroes) took on-- there seems to be a pattern to who they face =-- almost an order to it. Now they don't always equate to the same issue number but there some villains are shared across the various titles. Much of that might be to needing to come up with those characters might be as hard as coming up with new heroes. So I can see the need to reuse them simply because you only have so much time to develop the cast.

The exception might be the Hulk as his fights were usually against more of a science fiction blend of odd characters. But the New York based characters were definitely fighting the same guys quite often.

Edited November 19, 2017 by 01TheDude

[Aman619]

2 hours ago, 01TheDude said:

I never said it was blatant or conscious or even assigned it to Stan. It's just something I notice all the time and wanted to bring up some examples. If you don't, you can always avoid the thread.

Nothing directed at you, just the general concept of assigning "great meaning" to random circumstance based on letter count or numerology etc...  it can be a fun exercise, until people take it too seriously, or assign intention..  that's all.

[Aman619]

59 minutes ago, 01TheDude said:

when you look at some of the early foes Spider-man and DD (well really any of the Marvel heroes) took on-- there seems to be a pattern to who they face =-- almost an order to it. Now they don't always equate to the same issue number but there some villains are shared across the various titles. Much of that might be to needing to come up with those characters might be as hard as coming up with new heroes. So I can see the need to reuse them simply because you only have so much time to develop the cast.

The exception might be the Hulk as his fights were usually against more of a science fiction blend of odd characters. But the New York based characters were definitely fighting the same guys quite often.

One element of what differentiated the Marvel universe from D.C. At the time was that Stan circulated the heroes into the other titles, and then the villains too.  No one had done that before to the extend he did in the early 60s

[cortown71]

As long as we don't get into the mendella effect,its a fun thread.

[Sweet Lou 14]

Fun thread, thanks for posting!

For what it's worth, I've noticed these things too -- especially FF / ASM #5 and ASM / DD #16.  It tends to jump out at you when you're trying to put together runs and you realize that certain issue numbers happen to be tougher to find (and more expensive) than others.

For example FF #52 (Black Panther) and TOS #52 (Black Widow) both have key first appearances, although this pair wouldn't otherwise meet the criteria of the OP.  Same goes for FF #4, Avengers #4, and X-Men #4, each of which also has a key first (re-)appearance of a major hero (or two).

Now, before someone cleverly points out that FF #1, X-Men #1, Daredevil #1, and Darkhawk #1 all contain first appearances, and what a co-inky-dink that is, nobody is assigning any intention or hidden meaning to any of this.  These are just interesting coincidences that we notice after staring at books (and lists of books) long enough.