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The glorious green Chinese dragon dude first appeared in Strange Tales #89 in a story by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. It’s your standard monster tale– big beastie wakes up, wreaks havoc, is cleverly defeated by a lowly human. The story takes place in “Red China;” the hero of the piece wakes Fin Fang Foom up in order to defeat a Red invasion force, but the creature becomes unchecked and has to be put back to sleep with magical herbs and stuff.
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The silliest aspect of the story lies in the existence of Foom’s pants. It was long ago, you see, and the Comics Code didn’t want a naked dragon running around, or so the story goes. Hence, to prevent a draconian super-schlong from flopping about, purple shorts were provided.
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But hey, who’s going to tell a giant psychic shape-shifting super-strong fire-breathing kung fu dragon what to do, eh?

This particular collectible from 1961 (Strange Tales #89) had an estimated value of $352 in 2009. Go figure.

And while we’re going and figuring, let’s don our purple pants, crank up the Rec Room Jukebox and do the Fin Fang Foom on The Overnight Open Thread.