Doctor Doom looks worse than ever!
The Marvel No-Prize Book
Marvel (1982)
“Lest We Should Goof…!” WRITER/LAYOUT/DESIGN: Jim Owsley RESEARCHERS: Robert Stern & Steven Grant PENCILER: Bob Camp INKER: Vince Colletta COLORIST: Beth Firmin COVER ART: Mike Golden FOREIGN LICENSING: Paul Becton TYPOGRAPHY: Eliot R. Brown LETTERER: John Morelli COVER LOGO/PRODUCTIONS: Ron Zalme MECHANICAL PRODUCTION: Joe Albelo EDITOR: Larry Hama CONCEPT/EDITOR IN CHIEF: Jim Shooter
The “No-Prize” is back when Marvel would actually acknowledge their writers and artists weren’t perfect. If they made a mistake but a fan could actually explain it away, they’d get an official no-prize, which is exactly what it says on the box. It’s still an acknowledgement that they screwed up and thank you for the retcon in their favor. This book collects some of the most famous screw-ups, framed as Stan Lee (although a letter on the cover page confirms Stan was actually doing stuff for Marvel Productions, the TV wing, at the time and wasn’t actually involved) from his office going over the many mistakes.
I really don’t have a solid review of the comic. It’s a fun look at various dialog and artistic errors in Marvel’s history. Stan looks like Stan although I’m betting they had fun with his office (I’m sure Stan wishes he had a putting hole and swimming pool in a huge office with numerous picture windows) and the art is good outside of the goof-ups. My only complaint is that fan retcons are not included, which would have been interesting…but I guess that would translate as a prize, wouldn’t it?
This isn’t a must-have comic unless you really read the old comics and noticed these mistakes. I mostly reviewed this to praise a time when Marvel would admit they weren’t perfect and welcomed fans noticing errors when they would also have fun explaining them away. Remember fun?
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