FOOM!

Reader, I must come clean. The only thing I've ever been a member of is the human race - and that's only thanks to an administrative error.

But, of course, if I were, as a child, going to have joined anything, it would've been Marvel's very own fan/social club FOOM.

How impressed I was by the adverts featuring that Jim Steranko poster and the fancy badge with the wings on it that one could get if one only dared cut out the coupon from an actual comic and send off one's membership fee.

In the end, I didn't join FOOM...

....but I did have three issues of their magazine.

They arrived all at once, several months after I'd sent off for them. I'm pretty sure they were waiting for me when I got back from my summer holiday to wherever it was I'd gone on holiday.

But that's enough heart-warming reminiscing. Let's see what my mighty memory can recall of them and their contents.

My vast intellect tells me this one may have been dedicated to the Vision.

I seem to recall it featured an interview with Jarvis the butler.

Despite the fact he clearly doesn't exist, I think he detailed the Vision's relationship with the Scarlet Witch.

Bearing in mind his position as an underling, this seemed a very presumptuous thing for him to be discussing in public and one can only hope he was suitably disciplined for such a lack of discretion.

There may also have been in interview with Steve Englehart, about Mantis and the Celestial Madonna storyline. Or I could just be imagining that.

My vast intellect tells me this issue may have been devoted to Daredevil.

I seem to recall it making the then shocking to me revelation that Daredevil had always been one of Marvel's slower sellers. Like a fool, up to that point, I'd assumed Marvel didn't have any slow sellers and that every title they had simply crushed all opposition like bugs.

I recall it reproduced the Gene Colan/Tom Palmer page in which DD gives up on Karen Page and goes off with the Black Widow.

I'm also pretty sure it featured the alternate Gene Colan cover for issue 43, which seemed far better than the somewhat stiff Jack Kirby cover that was actually used.

Crom! It's an issue devoted to Conan and Red Sonja!

I believe it featured an interview with Roy Thomas about the characters, and possibly also an interview with John Buscema in which he said he felt Frank Frazetta's version of the character looked a little too savage for his liking.

It was also where I first learned of Red Sonja's origin, which even then seemed like a terrible idea for an origin.


Among other goodies, I recall one of these issues having a feature about Woodgod and also a page from the X-Men that detailed Storm's origin.

There was also a pencilled Jack Kirby Invaders cover featuring a giant Red Skull.

On top of this, each issue featured a section that was like the Mighty Marvel Checklist page on steroids.

All this in mind, I can declare owning three issues of FOOM to have been better than receiving a poke in the eyes with three sharp sticks, and therefore well worth cutting a coupon out of one issue of Mighty World of Marvel for.