Magazine Speculation Part 5: Foom Magazine

Posted on November 23, 2018 by Comicbookscalping Leave a comment

This article is an excerpt from the Comic Book Scalping video series, “This week in Speculation.” This article originally appeared in episode 8. This video and more can be found on our youtube channel.

A few weeks ago I highlighted Marvelmania magazine but this week I want to focus on Magazine that replaced Marvelmania when it was inevitably cancelled. It was also a Marvel published fan magazine – Foom Magazine or Friends of Ol’ Marvel Magazine.

Foom Magazine’s first issue was published in February of 1973 and the magazine ran for 22 issues – published quarterly with the last issue coming out in 1978. Foom magazine was backed by a powerhouse of comic book creators – Jim Steranko edited the first four issues,Tony Isabella edited two issues and X-Men writer Chris Claremont edited two issues. Foom Magazine was distributed on a subscription basis with the magazine being advertised inside various Marvel comic books. These subscriptions came with membership cards and various posters among other oddities. The original packaging marvel used to ship these books are not only collectible but very cool.

Pictures above is the Foom Original Membership Kit from 1973. The magazine would be mailed inside the Hulk Envelope.

While they weren’t printed in small quantities, given the way these books were distributed these magazines arn’t easy to track down, especially in high grade. While these books continue to climb in value I would like to talk about some of the key issues in the run, or at least issues that you should be aware of.

The first issue of Foom Magazine had an advertisement for a contest asking readers to submit their own hero to Marvel. To enter the contest you had to send a sketch of a character. In the second issue of Foom Marvel revealed the winners of this contest. One of the winners, Andy Olsen, had submitted a character named “The Wolverine” that striked a very close resemblance to the Wolverine character later introduced by Marvel. Foom’s second issue was released in 1973 and predates the 1974 publishing date of Hulk 181. – Because of this, This magazine is sought after as the “true” first appearance of Wolverine.

The 10th issue of Foom sells well online under the guise of “The First appearance of the New-X-Men” with many in the collecting community believing that this book, featuring a cover with Wolverine, predates both X-Men #94 and Giant-Size X-Men #1. The facts are though that Giant Size X-Men #1 has a publishing date of May of 1975, with copies first being distributed in February of 1975 – and Foom 10 is dated as June of 1975 – meaning it came out after. Either way, this book is still in demand and historically is one of the more sought after issues of Foom.

Foom 11 Features a panel appearance of Starlord that predates his first appearance in Marvel Premier magazine issue #4 by almost a year. This magazine also features a really cool Jack Kirby cover.

Foom 15 features a write up and images of both Captain Britain and Ms Marvel that predate there respective first appearances. Foom 15 came out in September of 1976, while the current established first appearance of Ms. Marvel is Ms. Marvel #1 was which was published by Marvel in January of 1977 and Captain Britain’s current established first appearance is Captain Britain #1 which was published a month after Foom #15 in October of 1976.

The final issue of Foom I want to highlight is issue 17. Like the first issue this book features a Stan Lee – however this cover is Stan Lee in a collage of all of his Marvel Super-Hero characters. This book has been sought after for some time.