In "When We First Met," we spotlight the various characters, phrases, objects or events that eventually became notable parts of comic lore, like the first time someone said, "Avengers Assemble!" or the first appearance of Batman's giant penny or the first appearance of Alfred Pennyworth or the first time Spider-Man's face was shown half-Spidey/half-Peter. Stuff like that.

Today, we look at when Stan Lee first used the phrase "Nuff Said" in a Marvel comic book!

Fantastic Four was a very special comic book when it came out in 1961....

Stan Lee, by 1961, was a successful comic book creator. In an industry where few creators were able to stick it out, Lee was able to remain the head of a successful comic book company for roughly TWO DECADES. The content put out by Timely Comics (and then Atlas Comics) was able to withstand publisher Martin Goodman losing the company's distribution rights in the late 1950s and forcing Atlas to take a deal with one of their competitors, National Comics (now DC) to distribute Atlas' comics through National's distribution company. Think about how good your comics had to be to still remain in business under such a scenario. Pretty hard to imagine, right?

Well, that's how good the content that Atlas (then Marvel) was putting out. Stan Lee was working with some legends in the industry like Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and Joe Maneely and it was working. But it never worked THAT well. Timely/Atlas was always a company that sold well enough to keep going, but they never really had HITS. Their last HIT was Captain America Comics back in the early 1940s, before Stan Lee was even working at Timely. Patsy Walker was a successful comic book series, but it was no Archie. Same with Millie the Model. Their most popular books at the time were their science fiction series, which WERE popular, but we're talking Top 40 for the year (and like literally #40).

Fantastic Four, though, was a HIT.

And once he had a hit, Lee knew how to market that hit. Lee once told Roy Thomas that he was inspired by a children's literature author, Edward Edson Lee, who wrote under the pen name of Leo Edwards. Edwards actually had a LETTER COLUMN in his series of novels for kids. It was sort of like a "fan page." Of course, Lee must have also been inspired by EC Comics, as well, which had famously done letter columns and fan clubs for their fans in the 1950s (all the major comic book series of the 1940s also had fan clubs, but they weren't nearly as interactive as EC was with their fans and then Lee, as well).

With Fantastic Four #5, Lee launched a "Fan Page" to take letters and also serve as a de facto bulletin board for Marvel...

That slowly expanded into becoming a sort of fan page for the entire Marvel Universe. Lee took that idea and expanded it even further to introduce the Bullpen Bulletin, where Lee would promote Marvel stuff and also interact with fans and talk about stuff through his Soap Box column...

(Initially, each Bullpen Bulletin was custom-made for the comic book in which it appeared, but Lee quickly realized that that was waaaaaay more work than necessary, so it became a generic Bullpen Bulletin in every comic book).

Before the Bullpen Bulletin came into play, Lee would have a "Special Announcements" section that would appear in multiple titles after that title's letter column. In Fantastic Four #19, Lee mentioned the response to a poll they had run about whether Reed Richards should remain the leader of the Fantastic Four. It was a landslide for Reed and thus, Lee was primed to say "'Nuff said."

The phrase obviously played a major part in Lee's communications with fans over the rest of his time as Marvel's Editor-in-Chief.

If anyone else has a question/suggestion for a notable comic book first, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!