Back when I was doing my "Re-Reading project", I couldn't find a decent copy of STRANGE TALES ANNUAL #2. I don't have the original, but I was sure I had a reprint... or two...
http://www.samcci.nostromo.no/strangetales/ST%20A02.jpg As it turns out, the reprint I read of it back in the 70's was in a very unlikely place... it was the back-up of-- get this--
GIANT-SIZE SPIDER-MAN #1
http://www.samcci.nostromo.no/spider-man/ASM%20G01.jpg This is a book that really should have been called "GIANT-SIZE MARVEL TEAM-UP", since each issue featured Spidey teaming up with someone else. These were pretty WEIRD ones, too-- Dracula, Master Of Kung Fu, Doc Savage, The Punisher, and Man-Thing.
As was the habit, the GIANT-SIZE issues had an extra-length new story in the front, and a reprint to pad out the back. I always think combining new and reprint is a rip-off, one way or the other. Anyway, in this case, the reprint back-ups also tended to follow the "team-up" formula.
Many years later, to fill out a number of stories I had never read, one of the 1st "ESSENTIAL" books (reprints in B&W) I bought was ESSENTIAL FANTASTIC FOUR Vol.2 (1999). For no apparent reason-- and NOT listed on the cover-- this book contained, all the way in the back, a reprint of the story from STRANGE TALES ANNUAL #2. In B&W, natch.
http://www.samcci.nostromo.no/fantasticfour/FF%20Ess%2002A.jpg As you can see, the early ESSENTIAL volumes all had new covers by "current" hot artists. In this case, it's Alan Davis & Mark Farmer, who started out FANTASTIC FOUR when they borught them back from oblivion as part of the "Heroes Return" event. (Davis & Farmer, and their writer, all got KICKED off the FF after a mere 3 issues, as a result of some behind-the-scenes office politics CRAPOLA. Kinda reminds me of how Bill Mantlo got KICKED OFF Iron Man decades earlier, after he'd done such a nice job and was just getting much better. That kind of thing AIN'T right.)
So... a few years later, one of my favorite ESSENTIAL books came out-- ESSENTIAL HUMAN TORCH Vol.1. (2003)
http://www.samcci.nostromo.no/strangetales/HT2%20Ess%2001A.jpg By the time, they'd completely redesigned the books, much nicer-looking package, AND, they began using the ORIGINAL ARTISTS on the covers... which always makes more sense to me.
This is actually a very nice-looking package. The stories are "fun", and the line reproduction is pretty good.
EXCEPT the reprint of STRANGE TALES ANNUAL #2-- which looks like S***!!!!!
Now I ask you-- HOW could they do such a nice reprint of a story in 1999, and TOTALLY F*** it up 4 years LATER?????
What it looks like, is someone took the B&W stats from the FF book, and then-- FOR NO APPARENT REASON-- whited out ALL the graytones. It's like half the art is missing in every single panel. It's one of the WORST reproduction jobs I've ever, ever seen. And right in the middle of an entire THICK book of rather GOOD reproduction. GO FIGURE.
The damn shame is, when I got to re-reading that story, for the life of me, I couldn't remember where the other 2 reprints were. Don't you hate when that happens?
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