psykomyko wrote:

I have no idea if the comics were grouped together in a specific way (like the later G.I. JOE and TRANSFORMERS 3-packs of reprints at Toys R Us), or if they were random assortments.

- Mike Hansen

The answer is...both. There existed randomly-assorted 3-packs, along with character specific packs. Character-specific packs existed for Amazing Spider-Man, Captain America, Star Wars, Micronauts, Fantastic Four, Battlestar Galactica, Thor and a few other A-list books. Each of these would include three sequential issues. The Star Wars ones were maddeningly prolific in terms of availability--they were sold everywhere.

I believe the first ones that showed up in '77 were always random, until some fans wrote to Marvel complaining that the bags contained parts of continued stories and there was no way to get the next issue through this whack distribution method. That's why, I believe, Marvel started trying out character-specific bags with sequential issues (there would still be parts of continued stories that would be missing). Certain issues would be egregiously skipped over (it took me about 200 years to finally read Micronauts #4...) and as mail order and comics shops started popping up, the Whitmans slowly started disappearing from store shelves. I credit the Whitman bags with introducing me to the Marvel Universe at large, but as I said--they almost always stuck 1 chapter of a serial in those bags and I never knew what the crap was going on.

The 3-packs were pretty much my sole means of collecting Marvel Comics in most of 1977-78 because nobody in my town was selling comics (a liquor store finally started carrying newstand comics in late 1978).

Peter, I can hardly answer the whole question; those bags were ripped open and the comics read and stored away years ago. I do recall that Fantastic Four #s 197-199 were in one bag; Amazing Spider-Man #s 179-181 & 183-185, Star Wars #s 1-18, Micronauts 1-3 all were in their own bags of three. I still have all those variants in my collection and recall very strongly purchasing them. The contents of the rest is anyone's guess. Maybe you can look on ebay and see if anyone's selling sealed bags and see what's in 'em?

Last Edited By: OwlzinDaBarn Jun 5 11 3:19 PM. Edited 1 times.