KRISPY KREME'S® Strawberry Original Glazed ® Doughnut Returns!
Fans unlocked the return of the fan-favorite Strawberry Glazed Doughnuts by helping Krispy Kreme achieve a 'high score' of giving away 45,000 FREE Original Glazed® Doughnuts between May 12 and 18 during Hot Light hours. The giveaway was part of Krispy Kreme's celebration of PAC-MAN's 45 th birthday and honoring PAC-MAN's love of fruits.
Introduced in 2020 and last offered in August 2023, this will be just the fourth time Krispy Kreme has offered Strawberry Glazed Doughnuts – an Original Glazed® Doughnut transformed by a vibrant strawberry glaze with sweet strawberry flavor. The doughnuts will be available in-shop and for pickup or delivery via Krispy Kreme's app and website at participating shops. To sweeten the return, Krispy Kreme fans can get a dozen Strawberry Glazed Doughnuts for just $5 with the purchase of any dozen at regular price, Friday through Sunday.
When enjoying the return of Strawberry Glazed Doughnuts, fans can also continue to gobble up the Krispy Kreme x PAC-MAN Collection, all-new doughnuts inspired by the game's characters, including the PAC-MAN Party Doughnut, TEAM GHOST Doughnut and Strawberry Power Berry Doughnut for a limited time.
This Thursday, May 22, Krispy Kreme will celebrate PAC-MAN's official birthday by offering a dozen Original Glazed ® doughnuts for just 25 cents with the purchase of any dozen at regular price.
Share how you're enjoying the return of Krispy Kreme's Strawberry Glazed Doughnuts by using #KrispyKreme and tagging @krispykreme on social media. For more information about this promotion, please visit krispykreme.com/promos/strawberryglaze.
About Krispy Kreme
Headquartered in Charlotte, N.C., Krispy Kreme is one of the most beloved and well-known sweet treat brands in the world. Our iconic Original Glazed® doughnut is universally recognized for its hot-off-the-line, melt-in-your-mouth experience. Krispy Kreme operates in 41 countries through its unique network of fresh doughnut shops, partnerships with leading retailers, and a rapidly growing digital business with more than 17,500 fresh points of access. Our purpose of touching and enhancing lives through the joy that is Krispy Kreme guides how we operate every day and is reflected in the love we have for our people, our communities, and the planet. Connect with Krispy Kreme Doughnuts at KrispyKreme.com and follow us on social: X, Instagram and Facebook.
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Tom's Guide
2 days ago
- Tom's Guide
I tested the Toniebox and Yoto Player for 2 weeks, and they helped my kids cut down their TV time
The Toniebox offers a lighter, simpler media player, unlocking the door for its many cutesy and beautifully rendered figurines, which are a highlight of this device. The box itself is very durable, bright, and has a satisfying squidginess to it, and even though its audio isn't quite stellar, it's a big hit for younger folk. The Yoto Player delivers a solid audio performance coupled with an adorable lo-fi screen. Its cards keep things simple and pack in a fair bit of media, making them easy to travel with. Its app also offers plenty of control and packs in heaps of free content, representing excellent value. As a busy dad of two, I'm always looking for ways to reduce my children's screen time, which is why kids' audioplayers like the Toniebox and Yoto Player seem like a good proposition. Devoid of a typical display, both allow kids to listen to songs and stories without needing to focus on a screen. They also give them the independence to choose what to play, so parents don't have to worry about YouTube's algorithm going off reservation or their kids turning into TV zombies after long sessions in charge of the remote. While they work in similar ways, the Toniebox and Yoto Player have some key differences, which we'll outline further on. And not only will you read my thoughts on the two devices, you'll also discover what my 6-year-old thinks of them. Plus, do they actually reduce screen time? Toniebox Yoto Player (3rd Gen) Ages 3+ 3-12+ Dimensions 120mm x 120mm x 120mm 110mm x 110mm x 105mm Weight 600g 678g Battery life 7 hours 24+ hours A Toniebox Starter Set is available from the Tonies website for $99.99, with a choice of six colours. Some come bundled with a licensed figure, such as Moana or Spider-Man. Tonies also sell bigger discounted bundles, which is great if you're looking to build your collection quickly. The Tonies figures themselves typically range from $9.99 to $19.99. The third-gen Yoto Player can be yours for $99.99 from the Yoto website and comes with a Welcome Card for overwriting with your own recorded audio. It only comes in a dual white and gray color, though jackets in varying shades are available for an additional $20 when bought together. There's a bit more variance in how much Yoto cards cost, with the cheapest cards starting from around $4 and rising to around $14.99 for more popular compendiums. The Toniebox is the slightly bigger box, which features a tactile, squidgy cube design with a plastic, magnetized top to help secure figurines, LED status square, and asymmetric rubber ears serving as the volume buttons. It's clearly built for some rough and tumble, which I tested immediately when I accidentally dropped it, emerging completely unscathed. You wouldn't want to drop the Yoto Player — its chunkier, all-plastic design feels more fragile. It's got a clean, retro alarm clock look to it, with orange dials on the top corners for volume and track selection, and a card slot on the top. Its key feature is its display, which doesn't play video but pixelated stills — seeing fan favorites like Elmo and Paddington brought to life in vibrant mosaic style is genuinely charming. On the rear is a wedge design for tilting and an integrated nightlight. The Toniebox integrates a minimalist control setup, perfect for smaller kids. Simply place a figurine on the top, and it'll start playing. You're supposed to tap the sides to skip a track or repeat the previous, though it requires a fairly firm tap to acknowledge your input. I tried teaching the technique to my daughter, and while it took a few goes, we eventually got the hang of it. You can also tilt the box to fast forward and rewind. The Yoto Player offers a greater level of control but needs more nuanced inputs. During playback with a card, you can click the dials to track forward or back and twist the left dial to control volume. With a spin of the right dial, you can bring up a track selector, represented onscreen by the card's track number and relevant icon. The power button on the side also doubles as a pause button. The Toniebox does a moderate job in the sound quality department — its single speaker has a comparable volume to the Yoto, but there's a slight muffling in the audio that dampens its crispness. Putting Moana's You're Welcome on, I also noticed a lack of oomph in the rap elements, and audiobooks, while offering decent clarity, do carry some tinniness in the vocals. The Yoto Player's dual speaker setup is the winner here. With the volume cranked up, clarity is excellent for such a diminutive box, and there's even a surprisingly decent bass response — just don't expect it to compete with your Bose. I stuck on Moana: The Songs, and its mid-range notes filled the room with crisp lucidity. Both players work similarly, involving a concealed NFC chip in a figurine or card. Once placed or inserted, the player can determine if the media tied to the chip needs to be downloaded, played from local memory, or streamed via Wi-Fi. With the Toniebox, an attractive prospect for kids is collecting the figurines, particularly the licensed models. Queen Elsa and Moana came with my sample pack, and both models represent excellent detail and quality and near-perfect representations of their big screen counterparts. A word of warning though — keep these figures safe, as if they're lost in a toy box or go walkabout, you won't be able to play that media again. The Yoto gets around this issue with its cards — once downloaded, the media syncs with your phone's app, so you can quickly zap over your kid's favourite story without having to rifle through your card library or control the device directly; handy while on car journeys, for example. Due to their size, neither system is particularly portable, and you'd argue that the Tonies figurines are trickier to haul around. Though the Yoto cards don't offer the aesthetic appeal of the Tonies, they're easier to lug around in a card wallet. There is an impressive array of over 200 Tonies available, including Disney's Encanto, Frozen, and Tangled as well as popular characters from Toy Story, Sesame Street, and Cocomelon. I can see kids wanting to build up a vast collection of them, so they can make for great stocking fillers or smaller gifts from relatives. One licensed figurine generally crams in between 30 and 60 minutes of audio. And while the Frozen figure features an abridged story, it would have been nice to pack in a few extra songs than the four included for $20. It's also worth pointing out that not all Tonies feature their film's original songs, instead sung by different vocalists. I was slightly disappointed this was the case, seeing as the company has gone to great lengths to ensure their figurines look authentic. Both the Moana and Frozen tracks feature alternate singers, though Encanto does carry the original vocals, so it's worth checking out product previews to hear what you're getting. That said, while it might cause some uncanny feelings in parents, having different vocals didn't perturb my daughter at all, and she was content playing through all of them. Yoto also carries popular favourites such as Frozen, Moana, and Peppa Pig. While their cards have fewer of the Disney brands, they have much more expansive audiobook selection, with Paddington, The Gruffalo, and the works of Julia Donaldson and Roald Dahl on their roster. The choice is staggering too, with over 1,200 storybooks, music albums, and compilations available. These cards might not be as exciting as the Tonies, but the range means they can suit younger and older kids. I also checked with Yoto HQ, and they confirmed that all their Disney range features the original vocalists on its licensed songs. Another difference is that while the Tonies generally feature a handful of songs plus a shortened story, the Yoto splits them up, selling one card with more songs and another packing in a longer story — both Encanto cards are $14.99. So really, it's a toss-up between the Tonies figurine with less content, and the Yoto card with more. As the Toniebox emphasizes user independence, there's no way to control playback via smartphone app, but you can check out Tonies for sale, review the Tonies you've registered, adjust volume limits and record your own audio. There's also a Free section that carries a decent selection of audiobook samples and free songs and books. The app is looks very clean and is very easily navigable. The Yoto app handily carries all of the media that's tied to your account, so you can operate it like a remote for your player. It also has a create studio feature and news section for product announcements. The standout feature is the Discover section, which has a host of sleep sounds, free podcasts, and exclusive radio stations, giving it a big boost to its value offering. The app itself can be a little trickier to navigate due to its many sections, but most won't have any issues. The Toniebox yields around 7 hours on a single charge. It relies on a bespoke charging base rather than USB-C, so you'll need to remember to pack that if you're on the road. The Yoto Player handily accepts USB-C charging and delivers over 24 hours of playback. Unsurprisingly, my six-year-old was immediately drawn to the Tonies. She loved the songs, figures, and design and squidgyness of the Toniebox. As stated before, when I questioned the use of alternate vocals, she didn't mind at all. And while it took a few goes to get the skipping tracks tap technique right, she enjoyed the tactile experience. She also liked the Yoto Player — albeit to a lesser extent — particularly its cute, pixelated display that she said was very colorful. At the age of six, however, she was more interested in the licensed content that she knew of, rather than giving new stuff a chance. We've been testing both for nearly two weeks, and she's only been too happy to slot in a card or figurine and have a big sing-off with Queen Elsa, Mirabel, and co. Importantly, getting her off the TV has felt less of a chore, and it's great that she's engaging so well with the licensed content. With all that said, in my daughter's view, the Toniebox emerges victorious. Both the Toniebox and Yoto Player have a lot to offer for kids, and their media libraries are extensive. Importantly, both represent a novel way for them to take charge of their media consumption and are much safer and appropriate than letting them loose on an iPad or YouTube. It can be all too easy for them to be hooked on screens these days, so having these devices around is beneficial to give their eyes a rest and get their imaginations flowing. Just be aware that investing in either device locks you into an ecosystem of having to buy more and more figurines and cards, and at around $10-20 a pop, costs can soon spiral. Younger kids will no doubt prefer the colorful Toniebox and its exciting range of gorgeous figurines. With that said, older kids, particularly preteens, will get a lot of enjoyment out of discovering newer books and free content with the Yoto Player. For its functions, superior audio performance, and longevity, the Yoto gets my vote, but there's no denying the Toniebox's vibrant appeal among smaller audiences, including my 6-year-old.
Business Wire
2 days ago
- Business Wire
Tripwire Interactive Unleashes Next Chapter in Iconic Co-op Action/Horror Franchise, Killing Floor 3, Now Available Worldwide on PC and Consoles
ROSWELL, Ga.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Developer and publisher Tripwire Interactive announced the global release of the latest installment of their brutal co-op action/horror franchise, Killing Floor 3, on PC (via Steam and Epic Games Store), the PlayStation®5 system, and the Xbox Series X|S console system. Killing Floor 3 is now available digitally on all platforms for $39.99 for the Standard Edition, $59.99 for the Deluxe Edition and $79.99 for the Elite Nightfall Edition, and is available physically on PlayStation®5 and Xbox Series X|S as a Standard Edition with a MSRP of $39.99 from select retailers. The battle for survival against Horzine and their Zed army begins today, join Nightfall to protect the future of humanity and make every Zed dead. ' Launch is just the beginning for Killing Floor 3. Tripwire has a deep history of building upon our games after release with impactful updates and content, and the team remains immensely dedicated to crafting an experience that expands on the Killing Floor franchise. Players can expect new maps, new perks, new specialists, new weapons, and new enemies in the coming months following launch, ' said Bryan Wynia, Creative Director at Tripwire Interactive. ' We are incredibly excited to share what we have been working on with all of our fans. We look forward to fighting through the hordes of Zeds alongside you. Make sure to stick together and fight to the very last bullet, we will see you on the battlefield!' Killing Floor 3 launches after a short delay as the development team took time to respond to community feedback with a range of improvements and adjustments to the game, all shared transparently with their community through their forums and social channels throughout the process. With an improved foundation and more updates and content coming post launch, including the separation of specialists from perks, the bloody stage is set for Tripwire Interactive's industry-leading live game support. The development team has shared a roadmap of confirmed future content updates coming to all platforms, while remaining agile to respond to immediate player concerns and feedback. ' We know fans have been eagerly waiting for Killing Floor 3, and we appreciate everyone's patience during the delay. That extra time allowed us to make meaningful improvements across the board, ensuring the game lives up to its full potential,' said Matthew LoPilato, CEO of Tripwire Interactive. ' Killing Floor is a cornerstone of our studio, and as the most ambitious entry in the series yet, Killing Floor 3 builds on that foundation, delivering brutal co-op action like never before." Killing Floor 3 is the next installment in the legendary co-op action/horror FPS series. The year is 2091, 70 years after the events in Killing Floor 2, and megacorp Horzine has produced the ultimate army: an obedient horde of bio-engineered monstrosities called Zeds. Now, the only thing standing between these infernal creations and the future of humanity is the rebel rogue group known as Nightfall. This intense first-person shooter puts players in the role of a Nightfall specialist, joining forces with up to five teammates as they battle through a war-ravaged, dystopian future, surviving unrelenting waves of Zeds, unlocking new skills, and building the ultimate arsenal. Killing Floor 3 Key Features Include: Killer Co-op – Assemble the ultimate Zed extermination squad for frenzied 6-player co-op with full crossplay functionality across all platforms. Skilled specialists can brave the battlefield alone in tense single-player mode. Relentless Zeds – Players will face the most lethal Zeds yet. Every enemy has been redesigned with advanced methods of mobility, attack, and re-tuned with smarter AI; making them faster, deadlier, and more strategic than ever. Deadly Weapons – From flamethrowers to shotguns to katanas, players will have an expansive arsenal at their disposal, fully customizable with hundreds of mods, gadgets, and skills to choose from to fit their unique brand of bloodletting. Dangerous Locations – Players will drop into a variety of treacherous hot zones to contain further spread of the Outbreak. Interactive environments give players dynamic advantages by activating turrets, fans, and other devastating traps. More Gore – The M.E.A.T. System returns to deliver even more realistic carnage. Featuring additional points of dismemberment and persistent blood, the game responds to attacks with gruesome authenticity. Developed and published by Tripwire Interactive, Killing Floor 3 launched on July 24, 2025 for PC (via Steam and Epic Games Store), the PlayStation®5 system, and the Xbox Series X|S console system. The game has an ESRB rating of M for Mature and a PEGI 18 rating. Download the Killing Floor 3 press kit and watch the launch trailer on YouTube. To stay up to date on the latest Killing Floor 3 news and updates, visit the official website, and follow the game on Discord, X, Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. For more information about Tripwire Interactive please visit their official website and follow them on X, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. About Tripwire Interactive Formed in 2005 as a humble independent developer founded by gamers who found success in the video game modding community, Tripwire Interactive has developed and self-published multiple critically acclaimed titles in the wildly popular Killing Floor and Rising Storm franchises, which have collectively sold over 30 million units to date. The studio's last internal project, Maneater, broke new ground in the popular action RPG genre and tasked players with taking on the role of a deadly shark with the uncanny ability to evolve as it feeds. Since its release in 2020 Maneater has sold over 14 million units worldwide across all platforms. Since then, Tripwire Interactive has expanded its business with the publishing division, Tripwire Presents, turning its experience and resources to include publishing titles spanning multiple platforms and genres from other talented independent studios. Tripwire Presents aims to help like-minded independent studios bring their titles to market, including Chivalry 2 developed by Torn Banner Studios, Espire 1: VR Operative and Espire 2 developed by Digital Lode, DECEIVE INC. developed by Sweet Bandits Studios, Road Redemption developed by EQ Games and Pixel Dash Studios, Rogue Waters developed by Ice Code Games, The Stone of Madness developed by The Game Kitchen and the upcoming NORSE: Oath of Blood developed by Arctic Hazard. Tripwire Presents continues to grow their portfolio, and are always on the lookout for the next great team and game. Inquiries and pitches can be directed to publishing@ or submitted through their publishing application form. Tripwire Interactive is a standalone entity within the Embracer Group. All product titles, publisher names, trademarks, artwork and associated imagery are trademarks, registered trademarks and/or copyright material of the respective owners. All rights reserved. Killing Floor© 2009-2025 Tripwire Interactive. Unreal® is a trademark or registered trademark of Epic Games, Inc. in the United States of America and elsewhere. Unreal® Engine, Copyright 1998-2025, Epic Games, Inc. All rights reserved.
Time Magazine
2 days ago
- Time Magazine
How the Fantastic Four Shaped the Future of Superheroes
When The Fantastic Four: First Steps premieres this week, it will mark the return to prominence of four heroes not just foundational to Marvel and its ever-expanding empire of comics, movies, and television shows, but to modern pop culture and storytelling. The Fantastic Four, a tight-knit family with strange powers, were created by comic industry veterans Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in 1961. The comic, with its bickering heroes and setting in New York City, defied genre conventions and offered a radically different vision of superheroes than the staid, righteous Superman and Batman. Immediately successful, the Fantastic Four birthed modern Marvel comics and its vast, interrelated web of heroes and villains spanning more than 35,000 issues to date. It also created the template for the modern superhero—irreverent and wise-cracking, but flawed and vulnerable. From the Fantastic Four, the Marvel style of superheroics multiplied, yielding Spider-Man, the Hulk, the X-Men, and Iron Man, among many others. Inevitably, the Marvel brand of superhero narrative leapt from the printed page to other media, first cartoons, then television and on to the movies. The Fantastic Four didn't just pave the way for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a 37-film behemoth that has grossed $31.9 billion, but also seven Superman movies ($2 billion and counting), 13 X-Men movies ($2.49 billion), the Dark Knight Trilogy ($1.12 billion) and dozens of others. Beyond the superhero genre, it's hard to watch franchises like Star Wars and the Fast & the Furious, with their bickering, misfit heroes, without seeing traces of the Fantastic Four's DNA. 'The Fantastic Four were always the heart and soul and center of the Marvel universe and the Marvel universe has inspired so many creative people in so many different ways,' says Tom DeFalco, the former editor-in-chief of Marvel who wrote 60 issues of the Fantastic Four comic in the 1990s. On and off the silver screen For characters so integral to Marvel and its history, the Fantastic Four has been noticeably absent from its cinematic universe. That's largely a result of misguided deals made in the 1990s, when a cash-strapped Marvel sold off the movie rights to its top-tier characters, including Spider-Man, the X-Men, and the Fantastic Four. While Spider-Man and the X-Men both enjoyed some success in their early 2000 movies, Fantastic Four fans were not as fortunate, with a pair of joke-heavy movies released in 2005 and 2007 to mostly poor reviews, and a disastrous 2015 reboot that made the first two shine in comparison. The Fantastic Four comic has also faded in and out. Starting out as Marvel's flagship comic in the 1960s, it sputtered in the 1970s before taking off again in the 1980s. The comic drew critical acclaim under writer Jonathan Hickman in the early 2010s, before disappearing entirely from 2015 to 2018, allegedly to deny Fox any free publicity for its movie. Marvel regained the rights to the Fantastic Four (as well as the X-Men) when Disney acquired Fox's film studio in 2019, and the comic, currently written by Ryan North, has been on a recent upswing. Despite that checkered history, C.B Cebulski, Marvel's editor-in-chief, says the company has never wavered in its commitment to the Fantastic Four comic and the title will enjoy extra attention in the wake of the movie release. 'From my point of view, the FFs been the core,' Cebulski says 'They've been the core in publishing. What's happened outside of publishing was never really a concern to me. But we've always focused our best efforts on making sure those four —Reed, Johnny, Ben, and Sue — were somehow featured in the best possible light every year since I've been at Marvel and before.' The story of the Fantastic Four It's hard to imagine now, in this era of superhero ubiquity, but there was a time when costumed crusaders had all but vanished from the cultural landscape. Modern superheroes were born in comic books in the late 1930s and they headlined dozens of titles throughout the 1940s. Fueled by patriotic stories, circulations soared, with some titles selling more than a million issues annually. But by the mid-1950s, super heroes had all but vanished from newsstands, a result of changing tastes and a paranoid, Cold War-fueled campaign to protect children from harmful influences. The catalyst was Seduction of the Innocent, a 1954 book by psychiatrist Frederick Wertham that argued American children were being led into juvenile delinquency by lurid and violent comics. Wertham's book led to a Congressional inquiry, led by Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee, best known for his investigations into organized crime, and the blacklisting of dozens of comic creators. It also led the comic book industry to create the Comics Code Authority, a self-regulating body that prohibited titles with the words 'Horror' and 'Terror,' banned any mention of the occult, and insisted that in comic books, law enforcement must always be treated with respect and crime should never pay. As part of this self-censoring regime, comic publishers purged their lines of most superheroes, leaving western, romance, and humor comics. A handful of heroes remained, mostly stalwarts like Superman and Batman, but their stories were wan and gimmicky, far from the action-packed tales of the previous decades. Out of this parched environment, came the Fantastic Four. Unlike their relatively simple origin in the comic—a brilliant scientist, his best friend, his girlfriend and her kid brother go into space and are bombarded by cosmic rays—the creation of the Fantastic Four title is shrouded in mystery, controversy, and litigation. One version says Marvel's publisher, inspired by the success of rival DC's newly launched team book, the Justice League of America, demanded his own version. Another says Stan Lee, frustrated by years of toil churning out uninspiring comics, was prompted by his wife to try something new that would excite him. Another version assigns all the creative credit to Jack Kirby, a brilliant artist and storyteller who shunned the spotlight as much as Lee craved it. Most industry observers agree both Lee and Kirby made important contributions, but precisely who did what remains unknown. But for the next 101 issues, the two would work together, with Kirby largely coming up with plots and drawing the stories, while Lee added his distinctive dialogue and feverishly marketed the title. The eventual addition of legendary inker Joe Sinnott completed the package. For all that was revolutionary about the Fantastic Four, there is little about the characters' powers that is original. Mr. Fantastic's stretching ability mimicked Plastic Man, the Human Torch was a retread of a 1940s character with the same name, the powers of the Invisible Girl (as she was first known) date at least to H.G. Wells, and the Thing resembles any number of monsters. And collectively, as a team of uniformed adventurers with cool sci-fi gizmos, they looked a lot like the Challengers of the Unknown, a team created by Kirby for DC in 1957. Instead, the inventiveness came from the characters and their interactions. In the first issue, the Thing, (understandably) dismayed at becoming a monster, lashes out at the others. By issue three, the teenaged Human Torch quits the team in a huff. In issue eight, it's the Thing who quits. There's also humor, pop-culture references, and lots of action. For young comic readers, this was a radical departure from what they were reading elsewhere. 'The DC characters embraced authority, they were do-gooders, like the police who would come to your school and give a lecture,' says Jim Salicrup, who edited the title in the 1980s. 'There was a certain primal quality to Marvel characters.' Making the Fantastic Four unique among super teams is their family dynamic. While the members of other teams come and go, the Fantastic Four are, for better or worse, stuck with each other. 'They all are really closely tied together, by the original events that conspired to make them into the Fantastic Four. And they all went through it and they all got handed different cards in the deck,' says Walter Simonson, who wrote and drew the comic in the early 1990s. 'They're not people or characters from different origins and different places that get together and say, 'Hey, let's fight crime.'' According to Hickman, who wrote the Fantastic Four from 2009 and 2012, early drafts of the First Steps script missed that critical element. 'One of the notes I gave the studio was, 'This is excellent. It's very cool. I love this story, but here's the problem: It's about a superhero team and not a family.'' (He says subsequent drafts fixed it). After the initial success of the Fantastic Four comic, Lee quickly began adding new superheroes to the Marvel lineup, often working with Kirby, and busily cross-pollinating the titles. A year after the Fantastic Four debuted, they appeared on the cover of Amazing Spider-Man No. 1. The Hulk appeared in Fantastic Four 12. The Avengers brought five heroes together. The comics all contained letter pages, where fans debated the finer points of plots and characters, while Lee's monthly columns relentlessly promoted the lineup. A fan club soon followed. Readers ate it up. 'It was like joining a benevolent cult,' Salicrup says. By the end of the 1960s, the Marvel style of storytelling had spread to DC, whose heroes began to wrestle with real-world issues like racism and drug addiction. And Lee and Kirby continued to crank out their stories, introducing characters as varied and memorable as the Black Panther, Dr. Doom, Nick Fury, and Thor. That sustained decade of creativity is unmatched in comics, and was the result of the alchemy between Lee and Kirby, says Hickman. 'There are people who believe that you should swing for the fence every time,' Hickman says. 'That ideas are not a non-renewable resource, that it's a self perpetuating machine, that the more that you add to it, the more you get out of it. And I think people like that are prone to be able to do massive sprawling works of art. Those guys just happen to be those kinds of creators at the origin of what is a North American superhero industry. And we are so fortunate that we had those guys at the helm of the ship.'
