Who'da thunk it?

(I'm continuing some "reprints" of past comics-related posts from my politics blog as I plan on eventually deleting that category from the site ...)

Who would have thought this, huh? Check out this advertisement from Avengers #165 from 1977:

Yep, that's an ad for the "All-New" X-Men. "All-new" because in order to boost sales (yes, you read that right) in the mid-70s, writer Len Wein and artist Dave Cockrum revised the original line-up of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's merry mutants that launched in 1963. Included in that line-up was a dude named ... Wolverine. Heard of him? ;-)

But that's only part of the story. Check out what is circled in red from above:




Indeed -- X-Men magazine used to come out once every two months!! Looking back from today this is an astonishing bit of trivia. X-Men was actually almost canceled completely because of poor sales in the early 70s. The book was only comprised of reprints of earlier issues for most of that time period. Then, in 1975, Wein and Cockrum came out with Giant-Size X-Men #1 ...

... and about 20 years later the mutant characters were by far Marvel Comics' greatest creative asset. They pretty much remain so today, too. Wolverine may even be more popular than Marvel's "flagship" character of Spider-Man. There have been three "X-Men" movies, and the "Wolverine" flick.

By the way, if you're looking for a nice copy of Giant-Size X-Men #1, good luck. That, and make sure your bank account is well padded.