The first modern comic books under the Marvel Comics brand were the science-fiction anthology Journey into Mystery #69 and the teen-humor title Patsy Walker#95 (both cover dated June 1961), which each displayed an “MC” box on its cover. Then, in the wake of DC Comics’ success in reviving superheroes in the late 1950s and early 1960s, particularly with the Flash, Green Lantern, and other members of the team the Justice League of America, Marvel followed suit. The introduction of modern Marvel’s first superhero team, in The Fantastic Four #1, (Nov. 1961), began establishing the company’s reputation. From then until the end of 1969, Marvel published a total of 831 comic books with at least one new superhero story, the majority of them written by editor-in-chief Stan Lee, in addition to a smattering of Western (such as Rawhide Kid), humor (such as Millie the Model), romance (such as Love Romances), and war comics like Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos.
Editor-writer Lee and freelance artist Jack Kirby’s Fantastic Four, reminiscent of the non-superpowered adventuring quartet the Challengers of the Unknown that Kirby had created for DC in 1957, originated in a Cold War culture that led their creators to revise the superhero conventions of previous eras to better reflect the psychological spirit of their age. Eschewing such comic book tropes as secret identities and even costumes at first, having a monster as one of the heroes, and having its characters bicker and complain in what was later called a “superheroes in the real world” approach, the series represented a change that proved to be a great success. Marvel began publishing further superhero titles featuring such heroes and antiheroes as the Hulk, Spider-Man, Thor, Ant-Man, Iron Man, the X-Men, and Daredevil, and such memorable antagonists as Doctor Doom, Magneto, Galactus, the Green Goblin, and Doctor Octopus. Lee and Steve Ditko generated the most successful new series in The Amazing Spider-Man. Marvel even lampooned itself and other comics companies in a parody comic, Not Brand Echh (a play on Marvel’s dubbing of other companies as “Brand Echh”, à la the then-common phrase “Brand X”).
Marvel’s comics had a reputation for focusing on characterization to a greater extent than most superhero comics before them. This applied to The Amazing Spider-Man in particular. Its young hero suffered from self-doubt and mundane problems like any other teenager. Marvel often presents flawed superheroes, freaks, and misfits—unlike the perfect, handsome, athletic heroes found in previous traditional comic books. Some Marvel heroes looked like villains and monsters. In time, this non-traditional approach would revolutionize comic books. Writer Geoff Boucher in 2009 reflected that, “Superman and DC Comics instantly seemed like boring old Pat Boone; Marvel felt like The Beatles and the British Invasion. It was Kirby’s artwork with its tension and psychedelia that made it perfect for the times—or was it Lee’s bravado and melodrama, which was somehow insecure and brash at the same time?”
Comics historian Peter Sanderson wrote that in the 1960s:
DC was the equivalent of the big Hollywood studios: After the brilliance of DC’s reinvention of the superhero … in the late 1950s and early 1960s, it had run into a creative drought by the decade’s end. There was a new audience for comics now, and it wasn’t just the little kids that traditionally had read the books. The Marvel of the 1960s was in its own way the counterpart of the French New Wave…. Marvel was pioneering new methods of comics storytelling and characterization, addressing more serious themes, and in the process keeping and attracting readers in their teens and beyond. Moreover, among this new generation of readers were people who wanted to write or draw comics themselves, within the new style that Marvel had pioneered, and push the creative envelope still further.
The Avengers #4 (March 1964), with (from left to right), the Wasp, Giant-Man, Captain America, Iron Man, Thor and (inset) the Sub-Mariner. Cover art by Jack Kirby and George Roussos.Lee, with his charming personality and relentless salesmanship of the company, became one of the best-known names in comics.[citation needed] His sense of humor and generally lighthearted manner became the “voice” that permeated the stories, the letters and news-pages, and the hyperbolic house ads of that era’s Marvel Comics. He fostered a clubby fan-following with Lee’s exaggerated depiction of the Bullpen (Lee’s name for the staff) as one big, happy family. This included printed kudos to the artists, who eventually co-plotted the stories based on the busy Lee’s rough synopses or even simple spoken concepts, in what became known as the Marvel Method, and contributed greatly to Marvel’s product and success. Kirby in particular is generally credited for many of the cosmic ideas and characters of Fantastic Four and The Mighty Thor, such as the Watcher, the Silver Surfer and Ego the Living Planet, while Steve Ditko is recognized as the driving artistic force behind the moody atmosphere and street-level naturalism of The Amazing Spider-Man and the surreal atmosphere of the Strange Tales mystical feature “Doctor Strange”. Lee, however, continues to receive credit for his well-honed skills at dialogue and sense of storytelling, for his keen hand at choosing and motivating artists and assembling creative teams, and for his uncanny ability to connect with the readers—not least through the nickname endearments he bestowed in the credits and the monthly “Bullpen Bulletins” and letters pages, giving readers humanizing hype about the likes of “Jolly Jack Kirby,” “Jaunty Jim Steranko”, “Rascally Roy Thomas”, “Jazzy Johnny Romita”, and others, right down to letterers “Swingin’ Sammy Rosen” and “Adorable Artie Simek”.
Lesser-known staffers during the company’s growth in the 1960s (some of whom worked primarily for Marvel publisher Martin Goodman’s umbrella magazine corporation) included circulation manager Johnny Hayes, subscriptions person Nancy Murphy, bookkeeper Doris Siegler, merchandising-person Charles “Chip” Goodman (son of publisher Martin), and Arthur Jeffrey, described in the December 1966 “Bullpen Bulletin” as “keeper of our MMMS [Merry Marvel Marching Society] files, guardian of our club coupons and defender of the faith”.
In the fall of 1968, company founder Goodman sold Marvel Comics and his other publishing businesses to the Perfect Film and Chemical Corporation. It grouped these businesses in a subsidiary called Magazine Management Co. with Goodman remaining as publisher. In 1969 Marvel finally ended the distribution deal with DC which it had reached under duress during the Atlas years and which had constrained its growth by signing with Curtis Circulation Company.
Part 2 of the Birth of the Superheroes Documentary:
This is a documentary made in 2002 about the creation and evolution of comic book superheroes (with a greater leaning towards Marvel comics.)
It show us superheroes such as Batman, Superman, The Flash, The X-Men, Captain America, Silver Surfer, The Fantastic Four, Hulk, Daredevil; with more of a focus on Spider-Man because of the movie released at the time.
The documentary features the creators, writers & artists behind the superheroes such as Dave Gibbons, Alex Ross, Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, Travis Charest, John Romita, Joe Kubert, Jim Lee, Carmine Infantino, Joe Simon, Mark Evanier, Paul Dini, Neal Adams, Joe Quesada, John Buscema, Bill Sienkiewicz and radio interview with Jerry Siegel.
The Civil Rights and Counterculture Movements: And The Superheroes
Few periods of American history were as chaotic and culturally rich as the 1960′s. The Civil Rights Movement was in full swing. Repressed minorities, war protesters, and free thinkers marched in the streets. And just as musicians and filmmakers expanded the artistic boundaries of their media, comics began to evolve in this period.
This is most directly seen in the underground “comix” of artists like Robert Crumb and Art Spiegelman. These comics weren’t bound by the Comics Code Authority and weren’t afraid to showcase sexually and graphically explicit material. Superhero comics were still comparatively tame, but they were clearly influenced by the time all the same.
At the time, mainstream comics tended to feature very quaint and and unrealistic views of American life. Children were clean-cut and respectful of authority figures. Men were square-jawed and confident. Women were submissive, and characters like Mister Fantastic weren’t afraid to slap a female companion if they grew hysterical in the heat of danger.
That all slowly changed throughout the ’60s and ’70s. Characters like Black Panther and The Falcon paved the way for other strong, capable, minority superheroes. Heroines like Wasp and Invisible Woman received feminist overhauls. Subjects like drug abuse stopped being taboo subjects.
One of the most famous examples of superhero comics acting as social commentary was Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s The X-Men. Here, teenage mutants facing a hostile world became a metaphor for all minority groups who faced discrimination. The peaceful Professor Xavier and the militant Magneto were inspired by two leading figures of the Civil Rights Movement – Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcom X.
This metaphor didn’t fully come together until a more diverse roster of X-Men were introduced in the mid ’70s. But from then on, the X-Men have remained one of the most poplar teams in comics. Most would agree this metaphor is a major reason for that success.
