My dissenting perspective on Marvel's success in the sixties!

[Hepcat]

Every explanation I've seen for the rapid rise in popularity of Marvel comics in the sixties makes much of the personalities of the Marvel characters being fleshed out more fully than in other comic books. Well I think this is retconning of the worst sort. Yes, sure, we like the increased characterization when we reread these comics today but guess what? Fellows our age were not Marvel's target market in 1963. Eleven year old boys were Marvel's target market in 1963, and as an eleven year old in 1963 I cared not one bit for the angst Ben Grimm or Peter Parker wore on their sleeves. I just thought it was silly and unheroic. I wanted my superheroes to be properly heroic action figures, and I didn't want them to be freaks either. Just fight the bad guys fellows and spare me the self-doubt. The characterization may have played well with the English profs of the day but it fell flat with me.

Secondly, Marvel's artists, specifically Jack Kirby and to a lesser extent Steve Ditko, get all kinds of credit. Well guess what again? Their art, particularly on the covers, made Marvel comics look cheap! It was crude compared to the polished DC house style. In fact, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko weren't lionized by fandom in 1961. They weren't regarded as being among the greats. The EC artists were the legends, and maybe three or four fellows from DC. Yes, by the end of the decade both Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko had enormous fan followings, but this was due to the growth in the popularity of Marvel comics. Jack Kirby didn't make Marvel; Marvel made Jack Kirby.

So what were key factors in the success of Marvel comics? There were two:

1. The action. Marvel comics featured a punch-up on every second page, something which appealed strongly to young boys. I mean the overriding question was always which character was tougher, not which could emote better.

2. The ongoing story lines. I mean these made all the sense in the world! Every issue left you hanging and waiting for the next to see what would happen. You didn't need cover hooks; you were already hooked before you put down the previous issue! So despite the crude unappealing artwork, Marvel comic books were to a young fellow great reads!

And who was responsible for the last two features? It was Stan Lee. Stan was the man. It was Stan's plotting that was the key factor that propelled Marvel to the dominant position in the comic industry by 1970.


#oldie#

[jaydeebee]

Although I am too young to really remember the comics of the 1960's, from what I've learned as a collector and as a youngster in the early 70's, the fact that Marvel was angst-filled in the 60's is no doubt why they did better with college aged "kids". DC in the 60's was more aimed towards those 11 year olds which is why the silver age stuff from them is generally considered silly by today's standards.

[USArmyParatrooper]

http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Stan_Lee_s_Mutants_Monsters_Marvels/70213044?trkid=2361637

GREAT interview with Stan Lee, where he gives great insight into his own mind when he wrote these characters and the secrets of Marvel's success during that period.

[illuminated]

as an eleven year old in 1963

Wow. My neighbor's cat lived to seventeen, and I thought that was old.

[pasnat54]

Gotta disagree... to an extent.

Maybe we (I was 9 in 1963) didn't relate that much to the angst, but that angst was just a small element of something bigger: making the heroes more human.

One especially vivid moment told me I was dealing with something different was when the X-Men encountered The Stranger in #11. (I could be totally off on the issue, but it's the substance, not the particulars I'm talking about.)

Scott Summers was in civilians when the rest of the X-Men, in uniform, joined him. He didn't pause to suit up. He just took off his ruby glasses and started fighting, wearing a coat and tie and overcoat. That was real; just go ahead and do the job.

You didn't see this kind of thing at DC, where the angst was all about if Lois was going to catch Clark Kent changing into Superman.

Plus, the various characters got into real conversations with each other, not just the typical "superhero meets superhero" stuff.

Action and ongoing storylines, agreed.

But covers? While I like Curt Swam and Kurt Shaffenberger, compared to the dynamic Jack Kirby layouts and powerful rendering, DC covers were not "polished," they were bland."

Never cared for Ditko.

[jaeldubyoo]

Every explanation I've seen for the rapid rise in popularity of Marvel comics in the sixties makes much of the personalities of the Marvel characters being fleshed out more fully than in other comic books. Well I think this is retconning of the worst sort. Yes, sure, we like the increased characterization when we reread these comics today but guess what? Fellows our age were not Marvel's target market in 1963. Eleven year old boys were Marvel's target market in 1963, and as an eleven year old in 1963 I cared not one bit for the angst Ben Grimm or Peter Parker wore on their sleeves. I just thought it was silly and unheroic. I wanted my superheroes to be properly heroic action figures, and I didn't want them to be freaks either. Just fight the bad guys fellows and spare me the self-doubt. The characterization may have played well with the English profs of the day but it fell flat with me.

Secondly, Marvel's artists, specifically Jack Kirby and to a lesser extent Steve Ditko, get all kinds of credit. Well guess what again? Their art, particularly on the covers, made Marvel comics look cheap! It was crude compared to the polished DC house style. In fact, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko weren't lionized by fandom in 1961. They weren't regarded as being among the greats. The EC artists were the legends, and maybe three or four fellows from DC. Yes, by the end of the decade both Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko had enormous fan followings, but this was due to the growth in the popularity of Marvel comics. Jack Kirby didn't make Marvel; Marvel made Jack Kirby.

So what were key factors in the success of Marvel comics? There were two:

1. The action. Marvel comics featured a punch-up on every second page, something which appealed strongly to young boys. I mean the overriding question was always which character was tougher, not which could emote better.

2. The ongoing story lines. I mean these made all the sense in the world! Every issue left you hanging and waiting for the next to see what would happen. You didn't need cover hooks; you were already hooked before you put down the previous issue! So despite the crude unappealing artwork, Marvel comic books were to a young fellow great reads!

And who was responsible for the last two features? It was Stan Lee. Stan was the man. It was Stan's plotting that was the key factor that propelled Marvel to the dominant position in the comic industry by 1970.


#oldie#

Obviously, you’re a DC guy. Me, I’m a Marvel Zombie. I look at it in a different light. Another factor is that I started collecting in college, although I read comics when I was a kid. Obviously, my point of view was different than through the eyes of a little kid.

Granted, DC art was maybe a little more polished. But, oh, so bland. What you see as crude Marvel artwork, I see as being more dynamic and innovative. I liken it to comparing classic art like Rembrandt and Da Vinci as opposed to Van Gogh and Picasso. I can appreciate both, but preferred the Marvel style in both art and storytelling.

For me, what it really comes down to is this-I follow certain artists. So it doesn’t matter to me if they worked for DC or Marvel. I will want it whether it’s DC or Marvel; Neal Adams being a prime example. Seriously, do you think I would only collect his work on Avengers and X-Men but reject his Batman and Deadman work because it’s the wrong company? I do not limit myself that way. It’s not an “us against them” kind of thing for me.

[mordo]

I liked the art, but the stories were more important to me. I was blown away when Spider-Man was unmasked by the Green Goblin in the final page of ASM 39. Nothing was going to stop me from seeing how this turned out. The Inhumans saga from FF 44-46 had a lot of drama in it that also made an impact on me. The Silver Surfer/Galactus stores shortly thereafter sealed the deal as far as my preference of Marvel over DC became lifelong.

Oh, I was 5 in 1963.

[Hepcat]

...the fact that Marvel was angst-filled in the 60's is no doubt why they did better with college aged "kids". DC in the 60's was more aimed towards those 11 year olds which is why the silver age stuff from them is generally considered silly by today's standards.

One would have to think that back in 1961 Stan Lee knew as well as any comic creator that most comics were bought by boys in grade school. It would therefore seem logical that he would have been targetting this market just like every other creator. Now I've read on more than one occasion that Stan Lee and the other editors at Marvel were surprised that the comics they were publishing had made inroads with older readers. Do you think perhaps that Stan Lee might have just unwittingly botched the job of hitting the eleven year old market by introducing plot elements that pleased an older geezer such as himself?


Obviously, you’re a DC guy.

Largely, but not exclusively. Most of the comics I bought as a kid up to 1965 were DC, and therefore most of the comics I collect now are DC. Moreover, ever since I started collecting in 1979 DC comics were far less expensive than Marvel comics of the same age even though the Marvel comics were far easier to find. The relative scarcity of DC comics from the early sixties made them even more appealing to me.

Some day though I'd like to add to the handful of Marvel comics I have. In particular, Fantastic Four, Strange Tales, Amazing Spider-Man, Tales to Astonish (for Ant-Man), Sub-Mariner and Silver Surfer are the titles that call to me the most in rough order of preference. (I think Captain America is a sap though.)


Wow. My neighbor's cat lived to seventeen, and I thought that was old.

I've been very careful with my nine lives. Most cats don't realize just how quickly the number nine can sneak up on a feline.

;)

[pasnat54]

If Stan Lee missed his intended demographic, it was a fortunate accident indeed for both Marvel and the industry. I think he just wrote the type of comics he wanted to write/read and hit the mark with a lot of readers.

Deliberately aiming at an 11-year-old market just seems like a rather negative thing. If he'd hit that demographic, now that would have been botching the job.

I was a DC guy back then (slightly so today, if only for sentimental reasons), but I knew I was reading something different an more intriguing.

[custodes]

I like both Marvel and DC with a slight MMM preferrence. The letters' pages in 60s' Marvels were full of signitures from college and military men. The action geared towards the youth though.

1)In some ways I agree with Hep as to why the Marvels are so popular. The action style hooked the kids. Also, as newer books with smaller numbering, a new reader could pick up the story and figure it out. Indeed, that was some of the fun. "As seen in issue 23"

<Gotta get that one> I thought. I could know everything in the entire Universe.

2) What you call "ongoing storylines" I call Continuity. It wasn't always just that the issue you were reading had a cliffhanger and a second part, it was that the ideas discovered in those stories were important to the book and would either be brought up again or be important to the character.

3) That "Continuity" also, included good supporting characters. While sometimes what you call angst or emoting was involved, it often had more to it than that. These characters and their relationships with our hero seemed to grow and evolve. They would change. So would our heroes who seemed more believable. They could have grown in 3 years. To be different.

At DC it was Carol whinning about dates with Hal. Lois (loved her books but, great ideas in one book ....her getting a superpower maybe....dropped at end of second story, of 3 in book, where it started, doing the same things. Back to square one. No growth.

Real cites in Marvel. When I went to NY as a kid, I half wanted to look to the skies for Spidey. Real products. Made it seems "more real world." Fake cities and fake colas.That wasn't in my world.

So action art for kids. And the possibility to collect and know them all.

And continuity, growth of characters, slightly more real life for older set.

As for the art. Expressionism instead of semi-realism. At least in the sixties. Marvel art was something you felt. Not as pretty as at DC but, yes, emotive. Expressionism. Ditko and Kirby drew motion and power and raybeams and intradimensional beings in new ways. These things don not happen but, if they did they would be in ways we have never seem. They was more wonder.

[Hepcat]

What you call "ongoing storylines" I call Continuity.

The continuity was another thing that I really liked about Marvel comic books. Of course it was easy enough to make continuity of prime importance at Marvel since all the comics were scripted by Stan Lee and the whole Marvel universe went back no further than 1961, as opposed to the situation at DC where multiple editors/writers had been scripting superheroes independently since 1938. And then of course Marvel threw that precious accumulated continuity out the window in the nineties for purposes of short term expediency....

The other thing I liked was that the Marvel superheroes were all clearly based in a shared universe and were therefore very much aware of each other. Marvel comics had a unity across titles that was only a tenuous feature in DC comics. Outside of the JLA and other Julius Schwartz edited titles and the World's Finest pairing of Superman and Batman, DC characters almost seemed unaware of each other until the Brave & the Bold pairings started in late 1963. Marvel's approach made much more sense.

:cool:

[custodes]

^^ All good points. Age means a lot and the time period one starts collecting.

[Shadow_Ferret]

I was only 4 in 1961 when FF#1 came out. But by 1963 I was primarily into DC, I'll assume because of marvel's distribution woes. Plus DC stories were simple and the characters one dimentional. But by 1966 I was reading marvel. As a 9 year old I could relate to the angst. Peter Parker was picked on in school. Ben Grimm was a monster. Captain America was living out of time. It didn't hurt that kirby was one of the best action artists. And marvel stories talked to me. They broke the 4th wall by calling me a true believer or saying things like "hang on, tiger!"

Add to that their letters columns, the bullpen bulletins, their fan clubs, and the nicknames for their artists and writers, and Marvel seemed more personable, like they cared about me. DC was sterile in comparison. There was a lot going on at marvel and it all combined to make them much more interesting to kids of the day.

[toz1960]

I was only 4 in 1961 when FF#1 came out. But by 1963 I was primarily into DC, I'll assume because of marvel's distribution woes. Plus DC stories were simple and the characters one dimentional. But by 1966 I was reading marvel. As a 9 year old I could relate to the angst. Peter Parker was picked on in school. Ben Grimm was a monster. Captain America was living out of time. It didn't hurt that kirby was one of the best action artists. And marvel stories talked to me. They broke the 4th wall by calling me a true believer or saying things like "hang on, tiger!"

Add to that their letters columns, the bullpen bulletins, their fan clubs, and the nicknames for their artists and writers, and Marvel seemed more personable, like they cared about me. DC was sterile in comparison. There was a lot going on at marvel and it all combined to make them much more interesting to kids of the day.
"DC was sterile in comparison".

Man,that is one of the best descriptions of DC comics I've ever heard.Wish I had thought of that.

And please don't think I hate DC.Just think the phrase is very apt.

[Hepcat]

They broke the 4th wall by calling me a true believer or saying things like "hang on, tiger!"

Add to that their letters columns, the bullpen bulletins, their fan clubs, and the nicknames for their artists and writers, and Marvel seemed more personable, like they cared about me. DC was sterile in comparison. There was a lot going on at marvel and it all combined to make them much more interesting to kids of the day.

Interesting insight!

:cool: