The first MARVEL COMICS comic book I remember buying was The Fantastic Four #1 in 1961 (check out the cover below to see why a 12-year-old kid might want to part with a dime to buy it!). This issue plays a role in Douglas Wolk’s story of MARVEL COMICS and his quest.
Since 1961, Wolk estimates MARVEL COMICS has published 27,000 different issues of their comic books. And Wolk has read all of them! Yes, all 540,000 pages of those comic books! What an incredible feat!
Douglas Wolk not only gives the reader a detailed history of MARVEL COMICS and the various successful characters–Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk, the X-Men, Iron Man, and the Avengers–he also recommends various issues that deserve attention. If you are a comic book fan, you’ll marvel at Douglas Wolk’s quest of reading all the MARVEL COMICS. If you like obsessive-compulsive quests like this one, there’s plenty here to enlighten you! Did you read comic books as a kid? GRADE: A
Table of Contents:
1 The Mountain of Marvels 1
2 Where to Start, Or How to Enjoy Being Confused 16
3 Curse of the Weird (Frequently Asked Questions) 33
4 The Junction to Everywhere 49
5 Interlude: Monsters 69
6 Spinning in Circles 79
7 Interlude: Lee, Kirby, Ditko 106
8 Rising and Advancing 113
9 Interlude: The Vietnam Years 131
10 The Mutant Metaphor 136
11 Interlude: Diamonds Made of Sound 171
12 Thunder and Lies 176
13 Interlude: Before the Marvel Cinematic Universe 199
14 What Kings Do 206
15 Interlude: Presidents 231
16 The Iron Patriot Acts 239
17 Interlude: March 1965 261
18 The Great Destroyer 267
19 Interlude: Linda Carter 293
20 Good is a Thing You Do 298
21 Passing it Along 321
Acknowledgments 329
Appendix: Marvel Comics: A Plot Summary 331
Index 355
I read comics as a kid but stopped when I started buying paperbacks at about eleven. My favorite was Batman. Never read a comic book since, although I have read a few graphic novels. Reading 27,000 comic books is not an unimaginable feat since it only takes about ten minutes to read a comic.
Steve, you’re right. It only took Douglas Wolk 4500 hours to achieve his goal.
Have to admit that I was bored to death seeing the first Spiderman, Superman comics in German – silly, not real SF …
I’ve probably written about this before:
While at school I had the chance to read Micky Maus (German spelling), well ok but what I liked where the “Sonderhefte”:
Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan and The little bad wolf.
A friend of my parents/grandmother collected those for his granddaughter and had them as well as the regular Disney comics bound into hardcovers. I was allowed to read them in his library, but not to take them home of course!
So when friends showed me the latest Superman or whatever I just shrugged them off.
As a student I found MAD magazine and fell in love with it.
Wolf, as you know, MAD made fun of the comic books popular at that time. Then MAD moved on to poking fun a movies, TV shows, and politicians.
I later had a subscription to MAD and I knew from their spoofs of movies etc exactly which I might find interesting. If a movie or tv series got bad critics on MAD I knew I wouldn’t enjoy it – saved me some time and money.
My story is pretty much the same as Steve’s. I read them as a kid, mostly Superman and Batman and some horror comics. Then I grew up and left them behind for real books around age 10 or 11. After that it was as if comics had never existed.
Michael, there was a minor resurgence in interest in comic books in the later 1960s when BATMAN on TV sparked sales…but it receded when the show was cancelled. Today, graphic novels seem to be where the action is.
Ditto. My brother was an early (1960s) Marvel fan, but then he was always more of a comic book reader than I was.
George, you mean that you HAVEN’T read all 27,000?
Jeff, I confess that I’ve only read a fraction of those 27,000 issues of MARVEL COMICS. Like Steve and Michael, I moved on to paperbacks…mostly ACE Doubles in the early 1960s.
I was also there at the first appearances of FF, the Hulk, Spider-Man, and the rest and two or three years before that, the Lee-Kirby monsters in goofy “message” stories. I vividly remember buying those comics off the rack, at newsstands and drug stores that no longer exist. George, if you have a Marvel itch, TRUE BELIEVER: THE RISE AND FALL OF STAN LEE is an even-handed, meticulous biography of Smilin’ Stan.
Fred, thanks for the recommendation. I’ll track down a copy of TRUE BELIEVER. Whatever people think about Stan Lee, I consider him a genius.
Re Stan Lee I totally agree!
Wolf, MAD would make fun of movies, TV shows, and politicians to the delight of their readers. They also had great artists and writers in those days!
I read comics beginning in ’68 or ’69, as I first became literate and started reading comic strips in newspapers and in the magazines such as HUMPTY DUMPTY which crossed my path, and about that time a DC comic I’d still like to locate that was some sort of sf anthology title. I basically read anything that looked interesting and that I could make any sense of at that point.
I started reading newsstand comics (DC, Marvel, Gold Key, Charlton, MAD, NATIONAL LAMPOON when I could get one) around 1973, when I was 8yo, and collections of the newspaper comics and the likes (such as PEANUTS and ANDY CAPP) and already reading as much adult prose fiction along with young readers’ as, again, looked interesting and crossed my path Pretty much had given up on most standard comics by 1975, though would read MAD regularly for another year or so, and nostalgically would pick up a rare issue of WEIRD WAR TALES in ’76. Maybe one or two. By then, I was deeply into the likes of Charles Addams, Gahan Wilson, James Thurber, POGO and DOONESBURY and picking up on Jules Feiffer and his peers. Was vaguely aware of the “alternate” comics, but it would take a few more years before I started seeing the likes of LOVE AND ROCKETS and WIMMEN’S COMIX in the ’80s, though I was impressed by a few Pacific Comics issues I saw as early as ’83. Haven’t ever stopped reading at least some of the various forms, as it struck me to seek them out.
Todd, your comic book reading started when mine was ending. I did like Charles Addams (and THE ADDAMS FAMILY TV show) and Gahan Wilson.
I wasn’t a comic book kid per se but I read them casually. My grandmother would buy me one whenever I accompanied her to the local drugstore (remember those?) I usually picked the Gold Key tie-ins of “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea,” “Star Trek” or “Land of the Giants.” They were pretty lame but had a certain loopy appeal. I’d glance at the “Classics Illustrated” at the grocery store but they always struck me as half-baked and crudely drawn.
My brother was the comic book fan and I’d glance at some of his stuff before he squirrelled them away in plastic bags. I always preferred the DC titles. Their horror series, “House of Mystery” and “House of Secrets,” could be surprisingly spooky for the time while I remember the early “Swamp Thing” issues seeming very “adult.” There was also a cool “The Shadow” series with some really terrific art. Similarly, I remember “Sgt. Rock” for Joe Kubert’s strong graphic style and how the stories themselves always had a pronounced anti-war stance.
I quit paying attention to comics in junior high although I do remember seeing an issue of Supergirl with her in her new halter/mini-skirt that sent me into a hormonal frenzy as well as some kind of a junior Justice League series where all the girl super heroes wore outfits so skimpy they were practically naked (god the seventies were a horny decade).
My brother was the Marvel fan but their stuff always struck me as too angsty/soapy and of grimy looking, like the comic equivalent of an exploitation movie. DC by comparison seemed like unabashed polished fantasy. I do recognize the cover of your “Fantastic Four “though. We had an LP record version of that title complete with actors speaking the dialogue and sound effects. It came with a reproduction of the original comic. My only other comic book memory was a mass market history called “All in Color for a Dime” that I recall featured a chapter by Harlan Ellison.
Byron, Richard Lupoff co-edited the non-fiction anthology All in Color For a Dime (with Don Thompson), which has been described as “the very first published volume dedicated to comic book criticism”; as well as its sequel, The Comic-Book Book.. I tended to read DC Comics, too. I loved THE FLASH, GREEN LANTERN, and ADAM STRANGE. I preferred Batman over Superman, but would read both if their comics came my way.
Of course I read the Archie Comics religiously. I kept a lot of them and passed them on to Megan. They were my guide to how teenagers acted.
I also read Superman, Batman and that group. No Marvels, I don’t know why. Probably stopped about ten.
Patti, my sisters read Archie Comics, too. They also enjoyed the comics about Supergirl and Wonder Woman.
My comic book history is way too complex to summarize here. I still read some; a few years ago I still read a lot.
I did read Douglas Wolk’s book and enjoyed it thoroughly.
Jeff, I admire a guy like Douglas Wolk who manages to pull off a difficult feat.
Hi, Dr. Kelley! Within the past year, I went through and watched almost all of the Marvel movies. Guardians of the Galaxy is by far my favorite one! I actually first watched it years ago at the recommendation of a friend/professor I was working for as a teaching assistant. He said that I reminded him of Drax (with my tendency to be very literal, haha). Anyway, I was thinking of you and wanted to say hi. I always tell myself that I should message you when my life is in a better place, but that seems to lead to indefinite procrastination. I hope, though, that you and the rest of the Kelley family are doing well!
Lauren, great to hear from you! And, I’m a fan of GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, too! They make a brief cameo performance in THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER. The third movie looks like fun! Things are wonderful here: Patrick and Katie visited us for the 4th of July weekend. Patrick works for GOOGLE in NYC and Katie is a Social Worker specializing in aging in Boston. My wife enjoys reading and is a member of a women’s Book Club. I’m busy organizing my book collection and writing for this blog every day! Good luck! How’s your brother Patrick?
Thank you, Dr. Kelley 🙂 I’m really happy to hear that you and the rest of the Kelley family are doing so well! That all sounds really exciting! I sent a screenshot of your message to my brother, and he asked me to tell you that he says “hello.”
Lauren, you and your brother are some of the more memorable students from ECC! I wish you both the best success in your endeavors!
Awww, thank you! I actually ended up in your class in the first place because my brother so highly recommended you. And I went back and took another class with you because I agreed with Patrick’s assessment! I actually did end up having a job for a while at veggie burger company that involved a lot of marketing. And lately I’ve been reading more books from people in the realm of business. And from some quick Google searches of your reviews, we’ve been reading some of the same authors (Daniel Pink, Adam Grant, Brene Brown, & Jonah Berger).
Lauren, if you would like some free business books, let me know what address you’d like me to mail them to at Kelleyg@ecc.edu
Thank you so much, Dr. Kelley! That is so kind of you! I sent you an email 🙂