Marvels

1939 to 1974

In the haze of the early nineties I accompanied a close friend, Ben C., up to Washington state. I don't know what we were doing, I am sure I was completely along for the ride with no concerns as to destination or purpose. I do recall, however, it had to do with the fact that he was on a paintball team, and that the bulk of our visit was spent at a teammate's house.

This teammate was a family man, and being an irresponsible but 'grown" kid myself, I was a bit anxious that I was left alone with an actual physical child while Ben discussed paintball business with his colleage. My inhabitions relaxed, however, when I saw that this kid had a stack of comic books. I asked him if he'd mind showing me what he had, and he was happy to oblige.

What he had was, in fact, mostly garbage. In the early nineties the two major comic companies had taken everything that made simple cheap comics so great in the seventies and eighties and twisted it, regurgitated it, commercialized it, overpriced it and dumbified it. But one series the kid had stuck out like a sore thumb and drew my attention like a Blue Morpho butterfly at a maggot convention.

Marvels has two very major spins on traditional comics that launch it's success and work so very well together. The first is that it was the initial showcase of Alex Ross's photo-realistic painting. Using paint in comics had been done before, but never with the care, love, detail and realism of Ross. The second is that the story takes place in the Marvel Universe, but deals with it strictly from the viewpoint of a normal every-man family guy who watches New York get runover by power-mad robot freaks and Atlanteans on a weekly basis. The one-two punch of three dimensional depth and color combined with a story that fleshes out the reality of the Marvel U hypnotized me. Years and years later I still force my wife to gaze upon some of Alex Ross's exceptional cover artwork and admit it's excellence.

Not anyone could've pulled it off. Both Ross and writer Kurt Busiek imbue the Marvels series with an adoration and knowledge of the characters and their history. There is no attempt to re-write the stories for younger audiences or revamp tham to modern trends. The entire series is true to the original Lee and Kirby eras, both in style and content. The setting is very much from World War II into the seventies, covering major turning points in Marvel history from the viewpoint of a Daily Bugle photographer, concurrent with the timeframe of the original comics, much as how I am reading all of my books and comics. Nowadays it just seems like Peter Parker gets bit by a super spider every two years, and the story gets tweaked each time, doesn't it, kids? Well, this is how it all orginally happened, gang- No fancy Oscorp tech or Sam Jackson Nick Fury, just a bunch of nerds in corderoy suits and bow ties, driving '68 Plymouth Valiants.

While not everyone will be amused by the Marvel Universe retrospective or Ross's cameos of real and fictional stars, Alex Ross should earn a Marvel Universe Nobel Peace Prize for his photo-realistic watercolor style which has truly redrawn the comic book industry and made him one of- if not the most- sought out artist in the comic book business.

Essential Classic X-Men, Vol. 3

1969-1973

My understanding of the prefixes involved in this volume is that 'Classic' means 'reprint done for money' and 'Essential' means 'done in black and white to save money'. I usually avoid these black and white collections. These comics are antiquated enough, why make them even plainer? Seriously- comics made in b&w are often stylish and designed to look cool in a film noir fashion, especially with color splashed in al'a Sin City. But these old Marvel comics were inked by people who were preparing them for color, and reprinting them to look like generic comics in the newspaper seems to diminish them. But this large tome was the easiest way to access a key span of time in the early X-Men stories that I had never read, and since my library doesn't charge me any more or less for what books I borrow, I happily got essential. And classic.

I'll admit the format allowed for a better appreciation of Neal Adam's artwork. The cover highlights the underappreciated work the infamous Roy Thomas and Adams put into their failed effort to save the X-Men from being canceled. Much of the penciling does shine through in the essential format. And while the introduction of Havok- a Summers kid who is actually more angst-ridden and whiney than his older bro, Cyclops, did nothing to boost sales and prevent the X-Men from getting shit-canned (temporarily), I've always been a long-time fan of Thomas and I think the work, as broken up as it is, holds up as an epic era for the X-Clan.

The real hidden gem was the origin of the Beast (the further mutated Hank McCoy, that is). How Marvel figured their best bet at keeping the X-Men alive was in a Beast solo title is beyond me, but watching his evolution from ape-like humanoid to black furry superbeing to blue fuzzball up to the point where he had to finish his storyline in The Incredible Hulk is pretty interesting stuff to a Marvel-ite who had only read about it in The Official Handbook previously. Nowadays it's pretty common to revamp comic characters, switching up their costumes, powers, personalities, appearance and even origin. But to have Hank leave the X-Men, go solo, mutate farther than any mutant had at that time, and start title-hopping were all very bold moves in 1972. It also set the Beast on the course of his Marvel career- nearly every writer who has touched him has toyed with his mutations and team-status. McCoy will always be the X-Man who may call himself an advisor, a friend or partner to the team, but in truth always has been and always will be an X-Man.

MARVEL MASTERWORKS: X-Men

1963-1965

At last! The age of Marvel's Merriest Mutants! Although many iconic characters came out of the Marvel Bullpen during the early sixties, my favorite has always been the X-Men. X-Men #8 is the oldest comic in my collection (would be worth hundreds if it wasn't in pretty raddy shape). The X-Men have gone through many different versions over the last 48 years, but they have always been underdogs and lived on the fringe of the superhero cosmos. DC's many heroes were adored by their public and rarely fell into disfavor, and when they did it was usually caused by a simple misunderstanding. Similiarly, the Fantastic Four and Captain America were generally accepted by both readers and their fictional worlds to be great heroes. But Stan Lee really does deserve his place in comic book history for the real-world dynamics he brought to otherwise outlandish characters. For all of Spider-Man's problems and the Hulk's status as more monster than hero, they were still accepted by readers as popular culture.

As a small child I wanted to be Spider-Man when I grew up. The Incredible Hulk was one of the most popular shows on TV. But I don't think I had even heard of the X-Men until I became a serious collector around the time I was ten. In fact, they were very much a mystery to me until I was formally introduced to them in the infamous Secret Wars series. The X-Men were secretive and unappreciated in both reality as well as the Marvel Universe.

With early Marvel comics, you knew what you were about to read. The unitiated are quickly educated. There is high-camp, simple illustrations, and poor dialogue supporting weak plots. Stan and his writing team were silly, taking unabashed joy in their creations, even if it meant for cringe-inducing narrative and jokes. But Stan took the interrelations of the DC Universe (such as the JSA) and took the stories one step further. Battles in New York fought by the Avengers had ramifications that could be seen in other comic titles. Even in the earliest days with a handful of titles, the editorial staff was careful to note the order of the stories with connotations for the reader to understand in what order of events different events happened in different cross-titles. As far as I'm concerned, Stan Lee is the father of modern-day geek continuity. *1

The interrelations of the comic book characters was also an intentional motif on the storytelling. Not just to create a sense of realism within a city full of superpowered beings, but also to create dynamics and comparisons between the unflagging moralism of Captain America and the angry violence of the Hulk. The X-Men were hyper-aware of their sub-human social status in the Marvel U, and from their earliest days often made joking comparisons of themselves to the Fantastic Four and other "superheroes". These sarcastic comments carried a tremendous emotional weight about their own moral and social status that was unspoken in the text of the comics but carried to the reader through the simple medium of a twenty cent comic. This emotional context and 48 years of ethical dilemma storylines would not have quite the impact it does if the X-Men existed in a vacuum rather than living in the shadows of the Avengers and Fantastic Four.



It's not for me to pinpoint the apex of Jack Kirby's career. While some of the artwork here is crude compared to his later work, he gets major points for creating the look of the Marvel universe! But even as crude as much of it may be, some of the art in these early X-Men comics nail a style that was unprecedented and still sets the tone of modern mutant mystique.

Check out the very first appearance of Cerebro: The look of this mighty mutant-finding computer has changed many times over the years (often looking like an Apple II) but I think this original Kirby design is as good as any.

I love this battle spread. Small and simple by modern fold-out panorama standards, but this was the first time the teams met and in 1964 I bet this was epic.

And who knew Professor X had a boner for Jean Grey back in the day? Wasn't she a teen when she joined the group? That's just wrong!

While I'm on a roll here... What is up with Bobby Drake's milkshake? I hope that's a perspective issue, and not a malted milk bigger than his torso!

Clearly I've gotten side-tracked. Fear not loyal X-Fans! There will be plenty more of the X-Men to come in this blog. We've only just scratched the surface.



*1 In my sub-biased opinion, Marvel reached it's own epic heyday of continuity during Jim Shooter's dreadful Secret Wars II crossover event. Although the SWII comics blew harder than the Beyonder at his first gay club (*2), the organization of the massive tie-in comics spread across the entire Marvel roster. Hard-core readers like myself used the rectangular checklist on the editorial page each month to track the order of events sequenced across the entire Marvel Universe in order to track both the movements of the SWII storyline as well as other large crossover events happening at the same time. Although SWII is no defense of the much-hated Shooter, one can't fault him for putting a great deal of effort into keeping the Marvel Universe a cohesive and co-existing entity.


*2 In fairness to Jim Shooter, who has alienated many comic creators with his policies and alienated many comic readers with his tepid writing, I had the chance to meet him recently at a signing and he truly is a nice old guy. I've been following his blog in which he tells 'his side of the story' and I believe that he is a decent guy who loves the creative medium of comics and only ever intended to better the industry through sound business practices and good story-telling. But Secret Wars II still sucked, dude.