Action and adventure
Action and adventure |
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Page 34 of 42  Cover, Sgt Fury and his Howling Commandos (Marvel Comics, 1966). Art: Dick Ayers. Other heroes poured forth from Marvel. Among the most famous were The X-Men (1963), about another 'four' (The Beast, Cyclops, Iceman and Angel; later joined by Marvel Girl); The Avengers (1963), which teamed up The Hulk and Thor, with less well-known characters such as Iron Man, Ant-Man and The Wasp; and The Silver Surfer (1968), about a contemplative surfing alien and his battles with Galactus, a world-devouring giant. Other excellent artist who had stints on these, and the other Marvel heroes, included James Steranko, Neal Adams and John Romita. This new wave of superheroes were hyped by Marvel, in a way that had not been seen before (note, for example, those adjectives 'Fantastic', 'Incredible', 'Mighty' and so on). Indeed, Stan Lee made sure that the company's name became almost as famous as the characters: these were not just superheroes, but 'Marvel Superheroes'. More than this, the comics were designed to be collected: buy one and you had to buy the series (and ideally all the other series as well). Characters would appear in each other's comics, thus introducing fans of one to all the others, while simultaneously creating a richly populated cosmos that would later become known as 'The Marvel Universe'. In this way, Lee managed to convince readers that they were part of a club of connoisseurs, and so initiated what has become known as comics fandom. 'I think I really treated the whole line as a gigantic advertising campaign', he later confessed. 'I wanted the readers to feel that we were all part of an "in" thing that the outside world wasn't aware of.'  The Commandos in action against the evil Japs (from a 1965 edition). |