THE INDEPENDENT BOOK REVIEWS
By Rich Rogers
“MARVEL COMICS: THE UNTOLD STORY.” Sean Howe. 2012. Harper. Hardcover. 484 pages. $26.99.
The world of comics is dominated by Marvel Comics, currently owned by Disney. With several hit films based on a variety of Marvel characters and the dominant market share of published comics, they are the force to be reckoned with in their industry. But it wasn’t always that way. At one time, Marvel was the underdog – sometimes scrappy, sometimes with its tail between its legs.
In “Marvel Comics,” author Sean Howe presents readers with the history of the comics giant, going back to the company’s pre-World War II days – long before the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, Hulk or Spiderman. In fact, it was even before the days of Marvel’s best-known face, Stan Lee (ne` Lieber – he’d settled on the name Lee because his ambition had always been to be a novelist and he didn’t want to use his real name). The company, named Timely Publications, was started by Martin Goodman, Lee’s brother-in-law. Of their initial slate of heroes/protagonists only the Human Torch, Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner and Captain America would stick through the various iterations of Marvel’s history (and the Human Torch of the Fantastic Four is different than the original one).
Marvel Comics as we have come to know it today began in 1961 with a sense of desperation. Lee had just been forced to fire all of his artists and was wondering about the future of the company. There are two versions of what happened next – Lee’s and that of long-time Marvel artist and industry giant Jack Kirby. In Lee’s version, Goodman told him of DC’s creation of the Justice League of America and ordered him to steal the idea and come up with a team of superheroes. Although Lee was ready to quit, his wife convinced him to do it, and after he’d sketched out the basics, he turned the ideas over to Kirby and the rest is history. Kirby’s version is that he came by as the company was on its last legs and offered to write the kind of comic books that would keep them going. Whichever one is the true story (no doubt somewhere in the middle of both), by the middle of that year Lee and Kirby had created the Fantastic Four. And the world of modern comics was never the same.
In its early days, Timely/Marvel was the underdog, competing against DC’s truth, justice and the American way incarnate in the personae of Superman and Batman. But even early on, Marvel made itself a different kind of animal. Superman found his home in Metropolis as Batman found his in Gotham; from the beginning, Marvel’s stories were set in Manhattan. (The West Coast Avengers were based in L.A.) And when Spiderman and the Fantastic Four came along, the characters were flawed – Peter Parker, a nerdy high school outcast, and the Fantastic Four with all their intergroup struggles and tensions. (Some say DC’s Justice League of America became better when writers introduced tension and friction between Batman and Superman.)
Howe’s history of Marvel follows the creators and writers of the superheroes and their own battles with Marvel, as well as the development and changes of all the main players in the Marvel stable. Stan Lee, never an artist but a writer, was always out there as the company’s – and often the industry’s – biggest cheerleader. Then there were the owners. Each set of owners had their own expectations and approaches.
The artists were superstars within their small world. But often they saw little financial reward for their creations. Despite Stan Lee’s verbal creation of the Marvel Bullpen, where all the artists sat around and joked and collaborated on their creations, most of the artists worked freelance from their homes and were paid on a work-for-hire basis. (The industry situation was so bad at one time that Superman co-creator Joe Siegal was working as a low-level copy editor at Marvel because no one could bear to fire him.)
Howe’s history is a warts-and-all exploration. He doesn’t shy away from the ugly stuff, such as when Marvel used the back of the paychecks as a contract, which forced their artists and writers to sign a contract giving away all their royalties when they endorsed their check. Even the perpetually cheerful – in public, anyway – Stan Lee often comes across as being a little too much a company man at times and, in the later years, too detached from the industry he perpetually cheered on. Howe doesn’t ignore the hard feelings, the bad blood, the lawsuits – he openly talks about them. However, he does an excellent job of capturing what it was like to work with tight deadlines and last-minute changes, as well as the fun to be had in the creation process.
With the depth and breadth of Marvel’s Universe, some of your favorite characters may be touched on only a little or perhaps not at all. If you want to understand the comic book industry more clearly and get a clear picture of Marvel Comics and its history, this is the book for you.
Rich welcomes questions and comments from readers. You may contact him through this paper or by e-mail at [email protected]
