Timely 70th Anniversary Collection

by James Robinson, Tom DeFalco, Marc Guggenheim

Presenting 12 celebratory specials commemorating 70 years of Marvel! Watch a scrawny kid from Brooklyn named Steve Rogers shows the world that you don't need a super-soldier serum to be a hero. And it's the year 1940, and thanks to policewoman Betty Dean, the young Namor the Sub-Mariner has momentarily halted his jihad against the surface world. Find out if the Human Torch can learn to tap into the human side of the Torch, or must he sacrifice himself to save the people he has sworn to protect? All this plus much, much more!

Collects All Twelve 70th Anniversary Specials: All Select Comics #1, All Winners Comics #1, USA Comics #1, Marvel Mystery Comics #1, Captain America Comics #1, Mystic Comics #1, Young Allies Comics #1, Miss America Comics #1, Sub-Mariner Comics #1, Human Torch Comics #1 and Daring Mystery Comics #1 -- written by Marc Guggenheim, Karl Kesel, Steve Ellis, Tom DeFalco, James Robinson, David Lapham, Roger Stern, Jen Van Meter, Roy Thomas, Scott Snyder, and David Liss. Penciled by Javier Pulido, Steve Uy, Steve Ellis, Chris Burnham, Marcos Martin, David Lapham, Paolo Rivera, Andy MacDonald, Mitch Breitweiser, Scott Wegener, and Jason Armstrong.  Cover by Daniel Acuna.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Marvel, Collections

264 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

James Dale Robinson is a British writer of American comic books and screenplays.

Reviews

[Quentin Wallace · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars

This was surprisingly good. The old Timely/Marvel characters still hold up when used correctly, and that is proven in this one. There are some really good stories without the camp of some of the original Golden Age stories. You had some really hard hitting stories, such as the Destroyer and the story behind his striped pants. Also, I see now that the original Vision was similar to DC's Spectre. The old classics show up as well with Captain America, Namor and The Human Torch. I've read a lot of the old Timely comics and they just never appealed to me. They were both wordy and juvenile, and that's not a good combination. This book however is anything but.

The art was mainly kept modern rather than having the artists try to do a throwback style, which worked for the best.

Overall a great collection. Even if you aren't a big fan of the golden age characters, this is still worth a read.

[Rich Meyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an excellent collection of stories about Timely/Marvel's original characters from the Golden Age. It was also one of the few comic book "events" that I've been able to stomach over the past twenty years.

This collects all 12th of the anniversary specials, featuring Captain America, the original Human Torch, the Sub-Mariner, the All Winners Squad, the Young Allies, and even such obscure characters as the Phantom Reporter and Marvex. A very fun read on all counts - GA characters infused but not overpowered by modern sensibilities, without a lot of deconstruction.

[Fraser Sherman · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars. This collection features new stories of Marvel's WW II heroes (from back when it was Timely Comics) including the A-list (Cap, the Torch, Namor) and the B-list on down (Miss America, the Whizzer, the Young Allies, the Patriot, the original Vision, the Blonde Phantom). The execution is a mixed bag, the worst being the Blonde Phantom (I pegged the stereotyped villain about one page in, among other problems). The best are easily the Young Allies stories and one about the Patriot.

[Printable Tire]

Surprisingly mostly charming, although I didn't like most of the art (with the exception of Al Williamson and Javier Pulido). Standout stories are the original Human Torch coming to grips with being a robot, Miss America going undercover Rosie Riveter style to stop saboteurs and Bucky meeting up with his forgotten teenage fighting pals right before they die. All of them felt like meaty, substantial stories, except for the Marvex one, of course. So many Nazis wearing eye-patches! How much funding do Veteran Hospitals get in a world with so many superheroes who were cryogenically frozen during WW II?