In general, the remit is "first issue of every ongoing series or strip."

The book's not trying to collect the first appearance of every character -- we'd be here all day. It's trying to collect the first issue of every new title that launched in the 1960s. Or, if a character started out with a solo shot in another book that could be seen as the "pilot" or "tryout" for an ongoing series that began shortly thereafter (like Spidey in AF #15) we'd run that instead, as it has more historical weight -- it's where Spidey's ongoing solo stories began. (In that specific instance it's also Spidey's first appearance, but that's not part of the criteria.)

There are some other caveats. The series has to be set in the Marvel Universe, which is why we excluded Linda Carter. The series has to star a character who's never had an ongoing series before, which is why we excluded Spectacular Spider-Man. The one-shot story needs to be relatively close to the debut of the ongoing series -- close enough that you could argue that it was a "pilot" for the ongoing itself -- which is why we skipped Guardians of the Galaxy.

We ran the covers of other books because we recognize that this is something of a narrow remit, and we wanted to show some of the color of the evolving Marvel publishing line that was happening outside of the reprint constriants we chose.

I just saw a copy of the book over the weekend. I think it came out pretty well!

-Jeph!

Whosoever knows completionism burns at the touch of ... THE OMITTER
Last Edited By: jephyork Oct 17 11 10:21 AM. Edited 1 times.