Glossary:No Prize

The No Prize is a reward given out to fans who get a letter printed in a Marvel comic, which points out a mistake within a series and comes up with a clever excuse for it being printed. Stan Lee would print the letter in a later edition and tell the reader they "valiantly won a No Prize", which was nothing.

History
The No Prize originally started out as a joke from the staff to the readers. In Fantastic Four #26, Lee ran a contest asking readers to send in their definition of what The Marvel Age of Comics really meant. As part of the letter, Lee wrote "there will be no prizes, and therefore, no losers." The term soon stuck about the same time the Merry Marvel Marching Society started. At first, Stan Lee would give these letters out to whomever he felt deserved them, using the phrase "meritorious service to the cause of Marveldom" as justification. Lee had several Marvel envelopes printed up with special printing on the front indicating the recipient had won the No Prize, and was concealed in the envelope. The letters, of course, were empty.