Marvel
Comics has a long history in comic
books, especially superhero
comics. It’s first superheroes, the Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner, debuted in
1939 and the
company is currently unrolling popular series of films based on a The Avengers,
a superhero team that first appeared in comics in 1963.
The extended, interconnected, iterative melodrama of Marvel’s comics is
a complicated fictional world. The real-world company has a complicated
history, too. It started as a scion of a pulp
magazine publisher
seeking diversify and is now a part of media powerhouse Walt
Disney Company. Sean Howe
provides a detailed history
of the company in Marvel Comics: The
Untold Story.
Howe divides the history of the Marvel into five major ages. He
discusses the early history of the company, but Marvel as we know it today
could mark its origins in the resurgence of superhero comics of the early 1960s, after a
post-World
War II slump that all but the most popular titles.
The succeeding ages roughly correspond to the decades. The 1960s marked
the birth of modern Marvel. The 1970s were a time
of artistic experimentation when comics, especially Marvel, were embraced on
college campus and in the counterculture.
In the 1980s,
kids who grew up reading Marvel became adults writing
the comics. It was also a time when corporate culture began to consume the
company—though the priority of making money, executive interference and
possibly shady business was something that went back to the days of the pulps.
This decade also marked a change in the way comics were sold, shifting from
newsstands and grocery-store spinners to specialty shops, which created
opportunities and problems for comics publishers.
The 1990s
was a period of excess. Comics creators were finally making money (at least
some of them were), but old contentions between publishers—especially
Marvel—and writers and artists
led to the rise of superstars spinning off to publish works to which they would
retain the rights. The growth in comics collecting encouraged marketing
practice, especially at Marvel, that eventually led to a bust.
Throughout this time, Marvel’s various owners had been attempting to
transition the company from a comics publisher to a media company that
leveraged its intellectual property in many ways. In the 2000s, Marvel has
done that. A criticism
often leveled against Marvel today is that the comics are driven by decisions
to make the characters marketable in other media, especially movies
and toys.
Comics have come a long way since I started reading them as a kid. For
one thing, they cost 10 times as much. Howe wraps up with the opinion that
Marvels products are better, and in some ways I agree. However, I think comics
often uses the words mature and adult when they are simply prurient, and that
the improvement in printing quality is not always accompanied by improvements
in story or art. I have mixed feelings about the multi-issues stories designed
for collection into graphic novels aimed at book retailers, but I think the
event-driven mega-crossovers that have become standard for Marvel and DC don’t move
me much—I’d rather read a good short story than an overblown novel.
If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
Howe, S. Marvel Comics: The
Untold Story. New
York: HarperCollins,
2012.
