Dear MARVEL: How About a FOOM OMNIBUS?

PLUS: 13 FOOM COVERS to make you feel good…

UPDATED 3/7/24: We first pubbed this in March 2021 but you know what? It still hasn’t happened. So join our renewed cry for FOOM! And click here for our similar clarion call for an Amazing World of DC Comics omnibus. Dig it. — Dan

I’ve been on an official fanzine kick lately — you know, the ones Marvel and DC put out in the ’70s.

Gotta tell you though: It ain’t cheap. For example, Marvel’s FOOM — aka Friends of Ol’ Marvel — ran 22 issues and a healthy number of those will cost you well into three figures. That adds up.

So how about a FOOM omnibus, Marvel? Seriously, how cool would that be? Reading these mags is like a guided tour of the Bronze Age and a nice, catchall set would be a boon to longtime fans and collectors.

I mean, if we can get Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe omnibi and re-releases of black-light posters, why not this?

Anyway, while we wait for something that may never happen, dig this 13 COVERS gallery. (And yes, you can look forward to 13 Amazing World of DC Comics covers, too!)

By the way, not all of these covers have readily available artist credits, so some of these are presented without them.

Groovy.

Arnold Sawyer

John Byrne pencils, Joe Sinnott inks

John Romita

Gene Colan

Marie Severin

Dave Cockrum

Rich Buckler pencils, Sinnott inks

John Buscema pencils, P. Craig Russell inks

Romita pencils, Mike Esposito inks

Jim Starlin

George Perez pencils, Sinnott inks

MORE

— THEY’RE BACK! Classic MARVEL Black Light Posters Revived for 2021. Click here.

— OFFICIAL HANDBOOK OF THE MARVEL UNIVERSE: DELUXE EDITION to Get Omnibus Collection. Click here.

Author: Dan Greenfield

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14 Comments

  1. I wonder how many of these terrific fan-based initiatives and artifacts from Marvel we’d have without Stan Lee’s promotional imperatives behind them? Just asking, because it seems to me difficult to reconcile bashing Stan Lee and exalting FOOM (or Black Light Posters or whatever swag came from Marvel in the ’60s and early ’70s…) within the same week…

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    • Kirby and Ditko were, of course, extremely talented and valuable to the Marvel revolution but, if Lee’s contribution was as minimal as some of the revisionist historians want us to believe, one would think both Charlton and Red Circle would have been huge.

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  2. My aunt bought me the ENTIRE RUN when I was a kid… I didn’t understand the value of them, since they were not “comics”, and sold them or gave them away. I kick myself every day….

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    • Clarification… she bought them at a garage sale for pennies.

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  3. I think a FOOM omnibus would be extremely difficult given the number of licensed characters whose republishing rights might have to be straightened out.

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  4. I”m in. I’ve wanted those forever.

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  5. Oddly enough, several pieces of FOOM art (the Defenders and Daredevil covers) somehow made it on the bedspread/comforter my wife recently bought. So, that artwork is floating around in Marvel’s licensing department, if nothing else!

    Chris

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  6. This and an Amazing World of DC Comics collection are my Holy Grails from Marvel and DC, now that The Handbook Deluxe Edition and Who’s Who Omnis are on the way.

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  7. I’ve got two of the FOOMs listed here, and a couple of Amazing World of DC Comics, and they’re awfully nifty. Looks like a few FOOM pages have been piecemealed into some of the Epic Collections, so maybe that’s how we’ll see them reprinted.

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  8. I frequented the comics stores but up till now I don’t think I knew there even was a FOOM mag! I guess I was a fan who wasn’t really into fandom!

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  9. Could the cover of Foom 22 have been done by Keith Pollard? It reminds me of his cover to Spectacular Spider-man 114 though that didn’t appear until 1986.

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  10. I lived in the Uk and only got 2 out of all the issues promised. I gave up waiting for them in the end. All i remember was that the one ish i had featured Jarvis shing the Avengers boots on the cover(!)The marketing and distribution for them was poorly organised but it was like a holy grail as all British fans had were reprints of the monthlies in black and white via The Mighty World of Marvel etc.

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