If you were a kid growing up in the 1970s, then these Topps stickers are going to be familiar to you. These things were everywhere–stuck up in all manner of places by industrious kids who bought them either because they had a love for the Marvel Super Heroes of that period, or just because they were wacky and stupid and fun, taking the piss out of these great costumed champions. Either way, this was one of the ways in which Marvel and its characters permeated into the consciousness of the pop culture zeitgeist of the time.
There were two sets of these stickers, one available from 1974-1975 under the title COMIC BOOK HEROES, and the second from 1975-1976 as MARVEL SUPER HEROES. Each individual package came with five stickers, plus a stick of super-crisp, lousy gum and either a checklist card or one piece of a nine-piece puzzle that formed the cover to FANTASTIC FOUR #100 by Jack Kirby and Joe Sinnott. For whatever reason, the creators at Topps decided to give each Marvel hero a funny word balloon of some sort, so that each character essentially was turned into the punchline of a gag. This seems counter-intuitive to glorifying the characters in question, but it was no doubt a big part of the appeal of these stickers among kids of that era.
All of the artwork for the series was sourced from pick-up art, and often miscolored in one way or another. So while the selections are a bit haphazard, they do give us a good sense of the Marvel line in 1974.
There were at least two stickers in this particular set that had variations on their balloons. I’m not certain why the Spider-Man balloon was changed, but I’d guess that the Captain Marvel one may have been altered after United Airlines complained about the misuse of their advertising slogan on it.
The Tom Brevoort Experience 
I had several. Thor’s local thunder god. Namor’s pollution. Spidey’s Miss Moffet. Cap, Ka-Zar, & others.
DC’s stickers didn’t have the captions.
LikeLike
I explicitly remember having some of these stickers but not the ones you pictured here. I stuck them on one of my Mead notebooks. I do recall one in particular of Peter Parker saying “Peter Parker picked a peck of pickled peppers” and one of Daredevil saying “See no evil”. I may have had a couple of others but can’t remember them. I regret having thrown these away as I got older.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Same deal with me. I had tons of these and slapped them on everything. I wish someone would publish a book that n this series like they did with Wacky Packs. I wish I still had those too😞
LikeLike
I just sold my 2 sets last year, you are correct on the Captain Marvel sticker, from what I have read. I believe that set had 6 different variants, and the other set had 2 I think.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I wonder who wrote these?
They read a lot like the kind of “funny blurb” Stan Lee would write in the various photo/gag books he used to try, off and on, but I doubt it was him at this point in Marvel’s history. And it’s not Roy — whoever wrote these was at a complete loss as to what to do with Conan and Kull. Len, maybe?
It could have been someone at Topps, of course, but it feels like the kind of job Marvel would keep in-house…
LikeLiked by 1 person
It’s interesting how many of these gags are just riffs on popular ad slogans of the time. “Only my hairdresser knows for sure”, “Sure doesn’t taste like tomato juice”, etc. Of course, the comics would often make references like that, too.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Lousy gum? Never! The gum in Topps packs was Bazooka gum which they also produced. Part of the fun was seeing how many pieces you could jam in your mouth! Topps included gum in a lot of their releases up until 1991. Why did they stop? Because it was unwrapped and ruined two cards in every pack. Considering that when they used wax wrappers that also ruined one card collectors felt they weren’t getting a lot of bang for their buck.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Unwrapped gum. Unthinkable today. Probably before the first Tylenol contamination that helped spark the protective packaging (rightly so).
And we DID try to jam several pieces in our moths. Ha! Addictively sweet.
Joe Castro came up with a brilliant name (I thought) for character that riffed off the gum. “Bazooka Jones”. Unlikely to ever be used for lots of reasons, but still potentially cool.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The Tylenol murders took place in 1982, so Topps was a slow learner, but if you know anything about the Topps Company you knew that already.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The Man-Thing sticker is not subtle and pretty subversive, also pretty hilarious. Guessing the audience was probably 8 or 10 year olds, some confused kids asking their parents oddly worded questions.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I remember these being sold in the UK, buying them and my sticking them on my bedside cabinet. I also recall vividly their not coming off when my father decided to repurpose said cabinet after we moved house.
The thing that most sticks in my mind was the Mummy asking which hand has the M&M’s… as I had absolutely no idea what M&M’s were! I’m not sure at what point M&M’s arrived over here, but I can never see them without thinking of that old Topps sticker.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I WISH I didn’t know what M&M’s were. 😉
LikeLike
The door to my bedroom was covered with these stickers when I was a kid. They were very difficult to remove from the door as I discovered when I got a little older.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I know that you mention all of the artwork for these stickers came from already published comic images, however I have looked for years and never found a published image matching the one they used for the Son of Satan sticker… Anyone have any thoughts or know where the image was taken from that I’m missing? 🤔
LikeLike