In the early seventies, my dad would buy me one of Stan Lee's "Origins of Marvel Comics" books every summer at the beginning of our week-long family vacation. All us kids got a gift designed to keep us occupied. It worked.

These books introduced me to Jack Kirby while I was in grammar school and is probably the reason why I'm so fond of books that are from an earlier generation than my own.

The first book, Origin of Marvel Comics, collected:

-Fantastic Four 1, Stan and Jack.

-FF 55, where Ben fights the Surfer over Alicia. Stan and Jack.

-Incredible Hulk 1, Stan and Jack.

-Incredible Hulk 118, where he fights the Submariner, illustrated by Herb Trimpe.

-Amazing Fantasy 15, Spidey's origin with Stan and Steve Ditko.

-Amazing Spider-Man 72, 'Rocked by the Shocker' drawn by Buscema and Romita!

-Thor's origin story, Stan and Jack.

-Mighty Thor 143, by Lee, Kirby and Everett!

-Doc Strange's origin with Ditko.

-A Doc Strange story with Marie Severin!

-And a cover painting by John Romita: http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/File:Origins_of_Marvel_Comics.jpg

If that wasn't enough, Stan writes his improbable recollections between each comic story, in his usual hyperventing hyperbole.

Well that was it. I was hooked.
Every year for several years a new one would come out.

Anybody else get these?

There were more than two, really, even though they changed the naming convention.

There were:

Origins of Marvel Comics (1974)
Son of Origins of Marvel Comics (1975)
Bring on the Bad Guys! (1976)
The Superhero Women (1977)
Marvel's Greatest Superhero Battles (1978)

Each by Fireside, with a cover painting by Romita, and with Stan introducing each comic with behind-the-scenes stories.

They're incredible.

Greatest Superhero Battles starts with Lee grousing that he gets no credit for his wonderful writing when he "raps" with the fans. Instead, they only want to know who would win in a fight - the Hulk or the Thing.

FF #25 and 26: Thing vs. Hulk, guest starring the Avengers, Lee and Kirby

Daredevil #7: Sub-Mariner vs. Daredevil, by Lee and Wally Wood!

X-Men #3: X-Men vs. the Blob, by Lee and Kirby

Silver Surfer #4: The Surfer vs. Thor! by Lee and Buscema. Wow!

Tales of Suspense #79 and 80 and Tales to Astonish #82: Iron Man vs. Subby! Lee and Colan and Kirby.

Strange Tales #188-190: Doc Strange vs. Dormammu, by Lee and Ditko.

Spider-Man #69: Spidey vs. the Kingpin. Lee and Romita.

Great stuff.
What stories were in the Surfer Book?

Doctor Foom wrote on Jun 29^th, 2009 at 9:56pm:

They put this in a collection of the greatest Marvel battles of all time???

As far as battles are concerned, I might have gone w/the Vanisher story from X-Men #2 but c'est la vie! Vanisher, BTW, feels very DC to me. Seems like a great villain for the Silver Age Flash!

One of the retellings of those early X-stories published about a decade back presented a very gripping take on that first Blob encounter, w/a flashback to Fred J. Dukes' painful childhood. It was one of the few times any writer gave the guy some psychological depth.