Know Ye These, the Hallowed Ranks of Marveldom

[Scott Harris]

R.F.O. (Real Frantic One) – a buyer of at least three Marvel mags a month
T.T.B. (Titanic True Believer) – a divinely-inspired “no-prize” winner)
Q.N.S. (Quite ‘Nuff Sayer) – a fortunate frantic one who’s had a letter printed)
K.O.F. (Keeper Of The Flame) – one who recruits a newcomer to Marvel’s rollickin’ ranks.
P.M.M. (Permanent Marvelite Maximus) – anyone possessing all four of the other titles.
F.F.F. (Fearless Front Facer) – an honorary title bestowed for devotion to Marvel above and beyond the call of duty.

The obvious question is, how many of these ranks do you have? But let's make it even more interesting:

--If you have ever been an R.F.O.-- and I assume most of us have been, at one time or another-- then how long did that last? Are you still an R.F.O.?

--If you are a Q.N.S., where was the letter printed, and what was it about? How heavily was it edited?

--If you are a T.T.B., what did you get the no-prize for?

--If you are a K.O.F., who did you recruit, and under what circumstances?

--As mentioned in the other thread, Roy Thomas is a F.F.F. Has anyone else ever been awarded this honor? If not, who else deserves it?

Excelsior,

I hate to necro a thread nearly four years old, but I was just searching the web for info on the hallowed ranks and the first hit was this thread here on our own boards. Plus, the MMMS ranks are always awesome, so why not.

I'm happy to say that I am a P.M.M., having achieved the other four titles necessary to claim such high honor. I have been a R.F.O. since 1985, though there have been times when I dropped out of the ranks temporarily. At present I buy only two regular titles -- Thor and Captain America -- but I usually have a third limited series, such as Marvels Project, bumping me up to three.

I received my No-Prize and T.T.B. prize at the time when Marvel changed the policy in the late 80's / early 90's so it was less about finding errors and more about "above and beyond" type projects. In my case, a friend and I went through the first 350+ issues of Avengers page by page and cataloged every character who appeared in the series, breaking them down into team members, guest stars, cameos, flashbacks and images (such as someone's portrait appearing on a wall in the background or something), as well as villains. We then did the same for West Coast Avengers and also included every creator credited on each of these comics. Sadly, I have since lost the actual No-Prize, but it lives in my heart forever.

My Q.N.S. title was a result of a letter I had printed in Avengers #353, where I called Harras on the carpet for having Hera be the conniving villain in #349 even though her last Avengers appearance, in #281-285, showed her as a benevolent friend to the team. I also asked why Deathbird worked so nicely with Clint Barton during Operation Galactic Storm considering she had vowed revenge on him for being captured (and then molested -- I mean, kissed) by him in Avengers #189. As you can imagine, they totally blew me off in their answers.

And finally, I got K.O.F. for introducing several friends to comics during the 80's when I was in grade school.


Face Front, True Believers!


EDIT: This thread inspired me to try to get that elusive F.F.F. title. I've just emailed Tom Brevoort asking him to let me know what I need to do in order to earn this title and I'll be following the progress of this quest on my blog. Not sure if anything will come of it but it would be fun to hear back from Marvel about it.