The Secret History of MARVEL’S Cult-Fave SUPER-VILLAIN TEAM-UP, by ROY THOMAS
EXCLUSIVE: From the new Marvel Masterworks: Super-Villain Team-Up, Vol. 1… Marvel Masterworks, the beloved line of high-end reprint collections, is finally back — officially. MMW, as it’s fondly known, was halted by the House of Ideas a while back but now Clover Press has taken the reins and is continuing the series in the same format, funding the line through Kickstarter — which has finally gone live today. So, now, for the first time. you’ll be able to get your hands on Marvel Masterworks: Super-Villain Team-Up, Vol. 1; Marvel Masterworks: The Uncanny X-Men, Vol. 18; Marvel Masterworks: The Mighty Thor, Vol. 25; and Marvel Masterworks: The Tomb of Dracula, Vol. 6, Head on over here for all the ordering info, but below we present an EXCLUSIVE EXCERPT — Roy Thomas’ introduction to Marvel Masterworks: Super-Villain Team-Up, Vol. 1, in which he reveals the complete history of the Bronze Age cult-favorite series. Dig this. By ROY THOMAS Super-Villain Team-Up was my idea? And here I was thinking it was Stan’s! However, a glance at my gabby little editorial piece, reprinted on Page 52 of this volume, reminded me of what I wrote back in the waning days of 1974 — and I assume my memory of that comic’s origins was far sharper then than it is now, a half-century plus later. I shouldn’t be surprised. Like most people, I remember some ancient actions of mine (like coining the word “adamantium” or selling Marvel neo-publisher Stan Lee on the name and notion of The Invaders) as clearly as if they’d happened yesterday—while other events might as well have happened on the dark side of the moon, and during an eclipse, at that! Still, I’ve no reason to doubt that, as I say on that text page, it was the accidental juxtaposition of reprint-bound pinups of the Sub-Mariner and Doctor Doom that suddenly made me conceive of a “super-villain team-up” mag as one answer to publisher Stan’s recent request for me, as his editor- in-chief, to dream up a few new, and hopefully salesworthy, titles. The love/hate relationship of Prince Namor and Victor von Doom was a natural, of course. I could still recall how, after Subby had returned to comics (temporarily as at least a quasi-villain) in Fantastic Four #4 and Doom had made his diabolical debut the very next issue, then...
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