One of the earliest back issues I ever picked up for some reason. The idea of seeing Mr Fantastic as an old man looked interesting.

The Andromeda War/Skrull Ageing Ray story is one of the best, and longest (11 issues) FF stories ever.

Great memories of these FF stories (and the JLA ones as well). Makes me want to find and read them again.

Epic Collection "Four No More" contains 192-214. Also the great Doc Doom story that concludes in 200. Doesn't include the crossover issue of Nova involving Andromeda War.
Nova Classic 3 has FF 204-214 but skips the Torch solo issue. He remained on Earth instead before joining rest of FF in space. He escaped the aging ray and has to save them.

I remember getting ahold of a copy of FF 200 and reading it at least twice, as it was indeed what seemed like a conclusion to a storyline worthy of a landmark 200th issue; however, I had no clue it was part of a much longer ongoing FF story, interesting.

Also, some of the FF covers are kind-of ugly. The one thing I can say about a lot of these FF covers is that they are very kinetic and not just a character on a cover covers that are sometimes good looking but not very exciting or original.

Wait, one last thing...I also agree that these covers and discussion of the story in these issues actually has me interested in reading the whole event storyline (looks like some purchases on a site like Comixology are in my near future).

I thought I might throw up this fantastic Zatanna cover. I was recently watching a fairly current Youtube video talking about some recommended comic books that you can pick up in at least VF/NM- for as little as $100.00, and I was surprised to see this comic listed as a fan favorite due to the cover, and that while it is not her first appearance, it is still an early Zatanna appearance in comic books.

Many years ago at my local LCS (when I still lived at home in Southern CA) I came across this comic. and it was exactly due to the cool cover and very fair price that I decided to pick it up (I do not collect Zatanna appearances). Neat to have one of those comics that folks recommend you pick up if you have any interest in the character. I probably paid maybe 1/4 to 1/5 of what my copy is now worth (a couple cover dings, and spine ding, but otherwise in surprisingly nice at least VF/VF+ condition).

In the #170s Reed begins to notice he's losing his powers. By approx. #190 he's lost them completely. Reed breaks up the FF and they go separate ways. Reed takes a job with some company doing high tech research. Reed gets suspicious of the purpose of the machines he's helping to create. Turns out Doom owns this company. Doom captures the rest of the FF and takes them to Latveria. He sends Reed into space to exactly recreate the circumstances that gave the FF their powers. Doom cloned himself way back when and raised the clone as his son. The purpose of the machine Reed was working on is meant to transfer the FF's powers into the clone. #200 wraps up everything.

Loving all the FF covers (they were my favorite superheroes when I was a kid), and I'm a big fan of Creepy as well.

Isn't this basically a reprint collection? I mean the draw is Gray Morrow's cover and the backup stories from Adventure were all done by him so at least it's not false advertising.

High-grade copies are going for way more than $100 these days. Even beat-up copies trade for $50-60 at a minimum. Zatanna has a much bigger fan base than her comic book popularity/sales would indicate, presumably from her animated appearances, so all her early appearances sell for more than you'd expect. Even her modern stuff sells for more than you'd expect.

Gee, I wonder what attracts the demand

I am not ashamed to admit that I was really excited to buy all three issues back in 1982/83 during the short-lived Smurf craze that seems to be lost to time. People never mention it when talking about Beanie Babies or Cabbage Patch dolls, but I remember it being just as big. It just seemed to flame out a lot quicker.

I was explaining to my son, just the other day, because we saw some recent Smurf commercial, that these figurines were the hottest toy going for a little while other than Star Wars toys around that time. We had dedicated Smurf kiosks in the mall just selling Smurf stuff. Everyone collected them at my school unabashedly. It was one of the few toys I remember that both girls and boys collected and traded with each other equally and no one got made fun of.

But it seemed there were twenty new Smurf figures coming out every week and even though they were small, you could only have so many. And since they were in static poses, playing with them got old quick. But I remember some really heavy-duty trading negotiations going down on the playground over Smurf figures at the time.

Weirdly enough I can vouch for most of this. I had relatives stationed with the Canadian Air Force in Germany for several years from the 70’s into the early 80’s, and my grandmother went over for a visit that lasted several months. She’d occasionally send boxes of cool German ‘stuff’ back to the grandkids here on birthdays and whatnot. One of my parcels contained a Smurf figure. A couple of cousins got them too. We had no idea what they were, nor could we look them up, but the letters within mentioned that they were all the rage in Germany for years, and were well-known across Europe.

It took a couple more years, as I recall, for them to start showing up in stores here, in giftware shops rather than toy shops, and usually sold in litttle ‘mixed’ boxes near the register, then more elaborate displays (probably the kiosks Spiderbite mentioned). I think my mom got more of a kick out of them than I did, but nevertheless we started a little collection. It wasn’t long before the TV cartoon show started. I watched two episodes, but it was a bit ‘childish’ for a mature eleven-year-old like myself . By the time the comics came out a couple years after that, those were definitely kiddie stuff, although I’ll admit I bought the first issue because it was a first issue, so I was at that stage.

We never had a huge collection the way some folks did, nor did I ever play with them. I think we just kept them on a shelf. I definitely recall kids trading them at school, though, especially once the figures mass-produced outside of Germany made the ones produced in Germany a bit more rare. For us, the novelty probably wore off because of both my age and, like Spiderbite said, the fact that they were constantly releasing new figures to cash in on the craze.

I still have all 41 of them stored away here with various other toys that survived my childhood. About a decade ago I thought of selling them but the memories wouldn’t allow it (and probably still won’t, just yet). Probably for the better as I remember looking them up, realizing they were virtually all German-made versions, and discovering that several were quite valuable (the rest, so-so). Time will tell.

I had that issue! That Byrne run was my favorite of the series.

Byrne originally drew Jack Kirby on the cover next to Stan Lee, but Marvel had The King removed before publication. It's theorized that Marvel had him taken off of the cover out of spite, but it was actually at Kirby's request since he didn't want Marvel using his likeness to promote the book.

I'd like to think, though, that Vincent Colletta helped Terry Austin ink the cover.

There's a bunch of Lois Lane ones

This doesn't appear to be a particular issue cover and is just for the omnibus but damn it looks good.