Marvel Solicits - March 1984

March 1984 was a great time to be a comic book fan. We'd just survived Assistant Editors' Month in January, G.I. Joe was just finishing its second year of publication, John Byrne was hitting on all cylinders with Alpha Flight, Fantastic Four, and The Thing, The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe was wrapping up, and limited series were everywhere: X-Men/Micronauts, Magik: Storm and Illyana, and Jack of Hearts.

And, remember, because of the timing of these books' release, we were in the throes of the holiday season. And my most favorite Marvel subscription ad of this era shows up here: the Inhumans' Black Bolt, Medusa, and Lockjaw hawking the yuletide savings from the House of Ideas. This is one of the few solicit ads I've come across from back in the day that's actually signed (just to the right of the chimney), but unfortunately I can't discern whose signature it is.

The Inhumans were one of those groups that were sort of on the fringes of the Marvel Universe, always there but rarely front-and-center. They showed up on the pages of the Avengers, Fantastic Four, and The Thing, both Vision and the Scarlet Witch miniseries, and even in "The Origin of the Vision" Marvel Illustrated Book I had. But in 1984, Black Bolt and Medusa got married in Fantastic Four Annual #18. I was reading FF at the time because She-Hulk was filling in for The Thing, and I have always been a fan of that line-up. So it was cool of Marvel to put the newlyweds out in front of their holiday subscription campaign.

Happy Holidays!