What is this about?

Welcome to the newest feature of the UHBMCC, the Statistics. If that brings up bad memories of school mathematics, rest assured, you do not have to remember all that stuff.
This section is more to be like the Guiness Book of Records, a list of being first, biggest, longest. I intend to extend this section over the months to come with stuff like
• Which creator had the longest run on which series?
• Which pair of creators did the most work together?
• Who is stronger, the Hulk or Thor? (just kiding)
So if you have any record or statistics you think is of interest to assembled Marvel fandom, just mail it to me and I'll be glad to add it to this page.

Shortest code name

Lets start with something easy: Which character has the shortest code name?
That simply has to be Monet St. Croix, called 'M'. Place two are shared by the Ox (Raymond and Ronald Bloch) and J2 (Zane Yama), the son of the Juggernaut in the M2 Universe. Place three is shared by a lot of characters with names like Cat, Fox, Gee, Sif.

Number 500 - The Ranking

As the Marvel heroes have been around for a while now, some of their series managed to get an issue number of 500 (or even above, see below). The following lists these issues.
My personal problem is that how the number was made up by Marvel seems random. Like, for Thor they count the numbers of the preceeding series (Journey into Mystery), but they do not for Spider-Man or others. And while Iron Man appeared in Tales to Astonish long before Captain America, it was Cap who continued the numbering of ToS, so he reached the #500 way before shellhead. Marvel does not count the #-1 issues, although they were part of the regular series. And some other odd things more, like counting reprint issues.
Anyhow, for what ever reason, Marvel did publish it this way:

1) Thor (I) #500 in 1996/07 was preceeded by Journey into Mystery (I) (#1-125) and Thor (I) (#126-499).

Should have been 2) Captain America (III) #33 in 2000/09 is Captain America's #500, preceeded by Tales of Suspense (I) (#1-99), Captain America (I) (#100-454), Captain America (II) (#1-13) and Captain America (III) (#1-32).

Should have been 3) Incredible Hulk (III) #26 in 2001/05 is the Hulk's #500, preceeded by Tales to Astonish (I) (#1-101), The Incredible Hulk (II) (#102-474), Hulk (II) (#1-11) and Incredible Hulk (III) (#12-25). (Using the methode of counting applied for the #600 too.)

2) Fantastic Four (IV) #500 in 2003/09 was preceeded by Fantastic Four (I) (#1-416), Fantastic Four (II) (#1-13) and Fantastic Four (III) (#1-70).

3) The Amazing Spider-Man (III) #500 in 2003/12 was preceeded by The Amazing Spider-Man (I) (#1-441) and The Amazing Spider-Man (II) (#1-58).

4) Avengers (IV) #500 in 2004/09 was preceeded by Avengers (I) (#1-402), Avengers (II) (#1-13) and Avengers (III) (#1-84).

5) Uncanny X-Men (I) #500 in 2008/09 was preceeded by #1-499 of that series. A straight run, although issues #67-93 (27 issues, after all) were only reprints.

6) Daredevil (III) #500 in 2009/10 was preceeded by Daredevil (I) (#1-380) and Daredevil (II) (#1-119).

7) Invincible Iron Man (VI) #500 in 2011/03 was preceeded by Iron Man (I) (#1-332), Iron Man (II) (#1-13), Iron Man (III) (#1-89), Iron Man (IV) (#1-32) and The Invincible Iron Man (V) (#1-33). (Marvel did not count Iron Man (IV) (#33-35), because they feature War Machine - however had no problems counting Ben Reilly's run as Spider-Man.)

And strange as it may seem - that's it. There are no more candidates for a long time to come. All other characters that started out in the 60ies - Nick Fury, the Sub-Mariner, Dr. Strange, the Silver Surfer, Captain Marvel, the Black Panther - did not hold on to a (more or less) continuous run of issues or even series.

The same is valid for the characters introduced in the 70ies - with the exception of the Punisher but he he has a long time until he hits the #500.

It looks a little bit better for Wolverine, who may be the only character from the 80ies who one day could make the 500.

Number 600 - The Ranking

Again this is presented the way as Marvel sees it fit.

1) Thor (IV) #600 in 2009/04 was preceeded by Journey into Mystery (I) (#1-125), Thor (I) (#126-502), Thor (II) (#1-85) and Thor (III) (#1-12).

2) Captain America (VI) #600 in 2009/08 was preceeded by Tales of Suspense (I) (#1-99), Captain America (I) (#100-454), Captain America (II) (#1-13), Captain America (III) (#1-50), Captain America (IV) (#1-32) and Captain America (V) (#1-50).

3) The Incredible Hulk (IV) #600 in 2009/09 was preceeded by Tales to Astonish (I) (#1-101), The Incredible Hulk (II) (#102-474), Hulk (II) (#1-11), Incredible Hulk (III) (#12-112) and Hulk (III) (#1-13, although that last issue has a later cover date than #600).

4) The Amazing Spider-Man (III) #600 in 2009/09 was preceeded by The Amazing Spider-Man (I) (#1-441), The Amazing Spider-Man (II) (#1-58) and The Amazing Spider-Man (III) (#500-599). Spidey took over the series before him as the series is published trice a month since 2008.

The Fantastic Four's #600 in 2012/01 was preceeded by Fantastic Four (I) (#1-416), Fantastic Four (II) (#1-13), Fantastic Four (III) (#1-70), Fantastic Four (IV) (#500-588) and FF (I) (#1-11).

My predictions for the future:

The Avengers's #600 in 2013/03 will be preceeded by Avengers (I) (#1-402), Avengers (II) (#1-13), Avengers (III) (#1-84), Avengers (IV) (#500-503), The New Avengers (I) (#1-64) and The New Avengers (II) (#1-32).

The Uncanny X-Men's #600 in 2016/10 will be preceeded by 544 issues of Uncanny X-Men (I) and 56 issues of Uncanny X-Men (II).

Daredevil will reach #600 not be before 2018.

And for Iron Man's #600 we have to wait till 2019/07.

As Marvel often publishes two issues each month for some series, they all might reach #600 much earlier.

All other issues with numbers beyond 800 are simple joking on the "Who has the highest number?" debate.

Longest run of writer/artist

Between 1961/11 and 1970/09 Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created 102 issues of Fantastic Four (I) and 6 issues of Fantastic Four Annual (I), adding up to 108 Fantastic Four issues.
A record, that was surpassed only recently: From 2000/11 to 2007/09 Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley created 111 (continuous) issues of Ultimate Spider-Man (I).
Still, "The Man" and "The King" together created more comics than any other team-up in Marvel history, considering that during their time at Fantastic Four, they also worked together on series like Avengers (I), Journey into Mystery (I), and Incredible Hulk (I) - not even counting their work before the Silver Age of Marvel.