Dear Editor: Gimme Five (--or is it Four?)

Of all the missives appearing on the old comic book letter pages, some of the most common were from eagle-eyed fans who'd proudly spotted some kind of visual gaffe. In most cases, the error would be acknowledged by the editor, who would sometimes even send the fan something special (such as original artwork or Marvel's legendary "No Prize"). 

However, sometimes the error-spotting fan would be the one in error....but never quite as spectacularly as Michael Santagato, whose letter was printed in Marvel Two-In-One #27 (1977)...

Uhhh...yeah.  Let's have the Marvel Two-In-One editor take it from here...

Got that, Michael? NEVER!!!

Oh, I did a little research and tracked down that Reed Richards picture the editor was referring to. You've heard of Cool Hand Luke, right? Well, from the splash page of Fantastic Four #152 (1974), I present Three-Hand Reed! 

As a slam-dunk candidate for a fan "error letter", I jumped ahead four months to Fantastic Four #156 and, sure enough, Joe Tucciarone came through with a pun-encrusted note fishing for a No-Prize...

Not missing a beat, the Marvel editor fought pun with pun in his response...

 

Good enough for me!

Comments

[Pat Curley]

There was another issue where Reed had two left hands or two right hands, I forget which. But you know, with an infinitely ductile body, why couldn't he turn one of his feet into a hand? Heck, DC had Plastic Man turn himself into a ladder (complete with spaces in between the rungs) in issue #3 of the Silver Age series.

[suedenim]

Lee and Kirby had some general unwritten rules for what Mr. Fantastic would and wouldn't do, though they were violated on occasion. I can't remember what they were, exactly, but they generally excluded the wilder Plastic Man-style stunts. I think stretching his head into weird shapes was generally a no-no, for instance.

[Shar]

The famous instance of Reed's two left hands that Pat refers to is in FF #88- -not only is it the splash panel, but it's a close-up of the hand, so it's hardly inconspicuous!

Mark, thanks for another great year of reading about my favorite topic--comics...looking forward to more of the same in 2009.

Happy New Year, everyone!