ComicsAlliance Presents Marvel’s Eight Best Holiday Stories!
December 14, 2009 | Posted by Chris Sims
I did the DC holiday specials last week, so this time around it’s a look back at the Holly and the Spidey with Marvel’s Greatest Christmas Specials!
I’ve mentioned most of these on the ISB before–with the exception of the Punisher story from Holiday Special ’93, they’ve all been discussed in some form during my yearly Christmas round-up–but putting them all together like this, I realized that 2005 was quite possibly the best year for Christmas comics ever, bringing us both the GLX-Mas Special, the story pictured above–which is still my favorite picture of Namor ever–and, the big man, the head honcho, the connection…
The only thing ’05 was missing was a good J. Jonah Jameson story–although there is a really good Tom DeFalco/Takeshi Miyazawa take on A Christmas Carol with JJJ in 2004–but considering that Marvel had already done the best possible J. Jonah Jameson Christmas Comic three years prior, it’s understandable that they’d skip him to make room for a killer robot Santa Claus.
Merry Christmas, Marvel Comics!
Categories: Bonus Content Update, Christmas Specials | 
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14 Comments »
I’ve had great success in introducing the following phrase into my nephews and nieces Christmas traditions:
“Merry Christmas to All… Except . Must Die!!!”
I am beloved (except my sister and brother-in-law). Thanks, Chris!
Sigh… Sorry, syntax trouble:
“Merry Christmas to All… Except [Name of Sibling]. [Name of Sibling] Must Die!!!
::looks at pic of the Thing::
When did the Muppets do a x-over with the Fantastic Four?
Damnit Arynne, I was going to say something clever about how Mr. Grimm was never quite the same after moving to Sesame Street, but you beat me to the punch.
Given that Roger Langridge works on The Muppet Show comic for BOOM!, it’s not that big of a surprise.
Love all of these stories. I don’t know if you’re planning to, or interested in, rounding this out with a Best Indy/Misc Christmas Stories, but, if you were, and you could find some room at the inn of your heart for one of Eisner’s “Christmas Spirits,” (if the ’40′s strips count as “not DC”) I would raise a glass of eggnog in your honor, sir.
You missed an opportunity to tell me that I am now freaking out.
Because knowing Marvel published a comic called ‘Ant-Man’s Big Christmas’ freaked (froke?) me out.
Thank you for covering the GLX-Mas special, Chris. I loves that comic so much!
That 1993 Marvel special is my favourite Xmas comic of all time and may well be my favourite COMIC of all time. I read it every Christmas.
One of the things I liked in that Punisher story was that when it was all over Micro called Frank out on his hypocrisy in agreeing to eschew violence and then inciting it to get what he wanted. In most stories that would pass without comment but it brought home the idea that the Punisher is a bad person who happens to kill other bad people more than other comics in the early 90′s.
Yeah, a lot of those Carl Potts issues–except the one where the Punisher’s afraid of water–are way better than their reputation would lead you to believe.
The missing story that I enjoyed was in last year’s Marvel Holiday Special, Spider-Man and Wolvering in “A Piece of Cake”, wherein a fired department store Santa gets a hold of a Sentinel and terrorizes Manhattan. Worth it for Spider-Man talking about the Christmas Spirit and how maybe the store could take the Santa back, followed by a random store employee spying the Santa and yelling, “Hey, it’s that creepy guy who was smelling all the underwear in the women’s department!” or some such. Spidey looks at the Santa for a beat and then just says, “Dude, you’re on your own.”
Great stuff.
My favorite Marvel Christmas story is the issue where gray Hulk beats the living crap out of Rhino while Rhino was working as a mall Santa. Comedy gold!
Don’t ask me why I had the idea to make this but I blame it on you.
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e395/adamrusso/sweetchrsitmas.jpg