I don't know what the thinking was behind Marvel Fanfare. It seemed like a book to showcase one-off stories by well-regarded writers and especially artists, without trying to fit them into whatever ongoing book those characters might have at the moment. Or maybe they were just inventory stories that Marvel figured they might as well use. It wasn't uncommon to have two stories in one issue, by different creative teams, with different characters.
Sometimes an entire issue was devoted to one story, like #47, a Bill Mantlo and Michael Golden story where a sick Spider-Man tries to survive the crossfire between a berserk Hulk and an incompetent SHIELD guy and his malfunctioning killbots.
Other times, the story runs across multiple issues, such as the Black Widow story above, or a 4-parter near the end by Steve Gerber and a variety of artists, focused on Shanna the She-Devil. That's one that makes think it was a story filed away for a rainy day, because it has 3 different artists, and it had been sitting so long, Gerber didn't remember the original ending and had to try and come up with a new one for the finale.
Which means it's also a book that definitely lends itself to a selective purchase of back issues, at least for me. The book ran for 60 issues, and I own 16 issues. The reasons vary between who's the creative team and who the story stars, or sometimes just the concept. Half of issue 29 is a Hulk story John Byrne did in all splash pages because - if we can trust the "Editori-Al" cartoon Al Milgrom did on the inside cover - Byrne saw Simonson's all splash page issue of Thor and wanted to do one, too.
So I buy the issue to see that, or I buy an issue because the second story has Norm Breyfogle drawing Captain America, or Ann Nocenti writing Moon Knight.
2 comments:
I have a couple of issues #22-23, which are "Night of the Octopus" an odd story in which Iron Man takes on Doc Ock, at one point bonding the armour to a spare set of Ock's tentacles.
I picked it up because I remember it being reprinted in (I think) the Marvel UK Transformers comic, and the painted art standing out in my mind. Although painted art isn't unusual in UK weekly comics, it was the first time I'd seen superheroes done in that style, so it stood out.
Interesting. I didn't pick those up, but I did at one point have issue 44, which was written and drawn by Ken Steacy, who appears to be the same guy who did the art for issues 22 & 23. It's an Iron Man vs. Doom story.
The chance to see artists I didn't know, or ones early in their career I know from when they're more polished is what I like about books like this. Issue 27 has a Spider-Man story written and drawn by Marc Hempel, and his art has a bit of a proto-Tim Sale vibe. Not as spare in the lines or as reliant on solid blocks of color, but it was an interesting look for a story that's just Peter Parker being bored out of his mind.
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