This feature is called "Almost Hidden." Even with this large amount of comic books that have been collected in trade paperbacks, there are still a number of great comic books that have never been reprinted in print (I'd say roughly 60% of them are DC Comics from the 1980s through the mid-1990s). So in this feature I spotlight different cool comic books that are only available as back issues. Of course, the way things go, something I spotlight today might be collected tomorrow, but for right this moment, these comics have not been collected!

Today, we look at the delightfully fun (and unique) crossover miniseries called The Domination Factor that Jerry Ordway and Dan Jurgens got into (along with Dennis Janke and Bob McLeod) in 1999 that saw Ordway write and draw (with Janke) an Avengers miniseries and Jurgens write and draw (with McLeod) a Fantastic Four miniseries but both miniseries combined to tell one connected story, to the point where each issue had dual numbering, so Domination Factor: Fantastic Four's first issue was #1.1, while Domination Factor: Avengers' first issue was #1.2.

You often hear the term "love letter" bandied about in regards to certain comic book series, how they are intended as a "love letter" to a certain character or a certain time period. Well, Domination Factor is clearly a love letter to the Marvel Universe by Ordway and Jurgens, who had both had long stints at DC before going to Marvel in the late 1990s (Jurgens had already begun working for Marvel while he was still continuing to write Superman for DC, but he had recently ended his very long run on the Man of Steel before starting this series).

The comic involves a mysterious rich old woman who is dreading the end of her life. She has an even more mysterious assistant who seems to have an agenda of his own. It involves finding a mysterious golden apple...

After a brief team-up with Iron Man, the Fantastic Four encounter a giant wooden giant in New York City...

They then meet up with apparently Doctor Strange, who explains to them that they must travel back into time into their own bodies in the past to retrieve pieces of a golden apple in the past...

The issue ends with the Thing being sent back in time to the first time that the Fantastic Four met Agatha Harkness, which was right before an attack by the Frightful Four...

As you can see, this is plainly a case of Jurgens and Ordway getting to celebrate going back to different eras in the history of the Fantastic Four and Avengers and play around with some awesome classic periods (Jurgens and McLeod also try to match their art to fit the era a bit, as well. Ordway has such a classical style, he doesn't really even need to change his stuff much).

We turn to the Avengers in the next issue, who also encounter the wooden giant...

(It is kind of weird that Jurgens had just been involved in a Millennium Giants crossover at DC the previous year that involved giant threats).

They also encounter what looks to be Doctor Strange, who sends them to their past bodies...

Iron Man ends up in his body during his infamous drunken spiral during Denny O'Neil's run on Iron Man...

Scarlet Witch ends up in her body during an odd period where she and Quicksilver had briefly re-teamed up with Magneto...

In the second issues, we see where the other five heroes went.

Human Torch went back to the original meeting with the Inhumans...

Mister Fantastic went back to the debut of Him (later known as Adam Warlock)...

and Invisible Woman went back to a time when Namor had her prisoner in her pre-married days...

Over in the Avengers, Cap went back to the first Captain America/Nick Fury team-up during World War II (this pays off as latter day Nick Fury remembers the Golden Apples when he meets drunk Tony Stark years later)...

And Thor is stuck in a period where Odin had banished his son...

Okay, obviously, lots of cool stuff happens in the past but the Golden Apple is ultimately put together and this leads to some chaos...

Page 2: [valnet-url-page page=2 paginated=0 text='Doctor Strange revealed!']

It turns out that the old woman and her assistant were a Norse goddess and Loki, respectively...

The time shenanigans left reality altered and our heroes stuck out of their bodies. They try to return to their bodies in the altered timeline, where Reed works for Victor Von Doom...

Tony and Sue are unhappily married...

and Cap is an old man...

Reed figures out that Doctor Strange has secretly been Loki this entire time...

I won't ruin the fun ending of the series. Go out and pick these issues up in the back issue bin! They're really fun comics from two top level creators who have shown that they work beautifully together for years.

Okay, folks, If you have a suggestion for a comic that hasn't been collected into a trade that you'd like to see me spotlight in this feature, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!