Marvel Comics is a well-known American publisher of comic books that has had an impact of mythic proportions on several generations of Americans. Beginning in 1939, Marvel Comics introduced its first two superheroes, the original Human Torch and Namor, the Sub-Mariner. The company had its first huge hit in 1941 with Captain America. Unlike Marvel’s competitor, DC Comics, whose superheroes fought gangsters, kidnappers, and other domestic criminals, Marvel’s Captain America battled Hitler and the Nazis. With sales driven by GIs who read these comics while fighting abroad and by those too young to enlist, superheroes brought comfort and a kind of escape to Americans during those uncertain times. After the war, when the need for these heroes diminished, sales dramatically declined, and so by 1948 the Marvel line of superheroes was no longer in print. However, in 1961, motivated by the success of DC’s Justice League, Marvel introduced its own team of superheroes called The Fantastic Four. Its success brought forth what would become the core characters of the Marvel Universe: Spider Man, Thor, the Hulk, and Doctor Doom in 1962; Ironman, Dr. Strange, Magneto, Cyclops, and the X-Men in 1963; Daredevil and Hawkeye in 1964; and Wolverine in 1974.
The cover of the very first issue of a Captain America comic book, Marvel Comics, 1941. This comic took the superhero genre into a whole new arena by pitting Captain America against a real-life wartime enemy, and proved fantastically successful as a result. Both soldiers at war and kids on the homefront loved the image of Cap laying out none other than Hitler himself. Tied as it was to a particular historical moment, however, the popularity of Captain America dropped off sharply after the war. (Photofest)
Marvel’s successes and failures appear tied to how safe and satisfied the country as a whole feels. World War II brought success to the market, while the postwar years brought a steep decline in sales. The turbulent 1960s and early 1970s brought about a rebirth of superheroes, followed by a second decline during the economically healthy times of the 1980s and early 1990s. However, after September 11, 2001, superhero comics again became wildly popular. It is as if Americans call upon these mythological gods in times of crisis and then discard them when more stable times reappear.
Marvel Comics’ connection to myth can be seen in two ways. The first tendency is to interpret the superheroes of the Marvel Universe in terms of archetypes. American mythologist Joseph Campbell’s concepts of archetypes are relevant to understanding these comic book heroes. In its purest form, the hero becomes enabled by some kind of power to save his people. He undertakes a journey and undergoes suffering, but through the suffering, he gains the knowledge needed to set common people free. Peter Parker’s journey is that of a teenage weakling who, through the bite of a radioactive spider, receives great power but fails to use it wisely until his uncle’s death reveals his duty to him. Like Spider Man, the Fantastic Four use their powers, received from radioactive gamma rays while in space, to help the world. Bruce Banner is transformed into the Hulk through yet another radioactive accident, and like the Sub-Mariner, represents both a menace and a savior to the human race. Odin sends his son, the mighty Thor, to earth from his glorious home of Asgard into the disabled body of medical student Donald Blake to learn humility. These archetypal stories of heroes and their quests have seemed to fill a need for heroes within American culture in the same way that Greek, Norse, and other mythic and religious traditions did for earlier cultures. In addition to archetypes, this more academic approach also examines the Marvel storylines in which such themes as power and weakness, good and evil, ethical responsibility, and being trusting or suspicious of science regularly repeat themselves. With reference to science, DC has generally had a positive view of science and technology while Marvel came into existence as the result of technology or science gone awry because their central cast of superheroes was created in the early 1960s during a time when many public institutions were being scrutinized.
In contrast to this first basic approach, the second aims to understand the Marvel Universe through the connections between its superheroes and the fandom that has developed. The Marvel Encyclopedia, revised in 2009, features biographies of 831 characters and 97 teams, and through all its entries, attempts to assemble a holistic narrative to a world of these heroes and villains. Rather than looking for archetypes, this approach analyzes the culture of those who have followed Marvel’s stories through the years and the characters’ changes and development.
Since its inception, the Marvel Universe is typically seen as having undergone four major transformations. Its Golden Age centered around Captain America, the Human Torch, and the Sub-Mariner. Unlike the DC Universe that existed in the imaginary cities of Gotham and Metropolis, Marvel’s characters lived and battled enemies in recognizable places around New York or locations in Europe. Of the three, it was Captain America, assisted by his sidekick Bucky Barnes, who became as popular during the war years as DC’s Superman, Batman, or Wonder Woman. Captain America and Bucky Barnes’s popularity was partially achieved because their enemies—the Germans and Japanese—were as real as the place names where the action happened.
This Golden Age ended closely after World War II, when comic books featuring westerns, romances, crime stories, funny animals, horror, and science fiction replaced the demand for superhero comics. There was a brief reappearance of Captain America fighting the “Commies” during the mid-1950s, when Joseph McCarthy put on public hearings looking for Communist sympathizers in the government. When the U.S. Senate censored McCarthy and the “witch hunt” ended, however, interest in these resuscitated superheroes also quickly diminished. The comic book industry almost died in the last half of the 1950s, due to the growing popularity of television and because of a new comic book censoring code (Comics Code Authority), brought about by a 1954 book called The Seduction of the Innocent. This book argued that comic books were destroying the morals of young people. It was widely read and resulted in new restrictions about what words and stories could or could not be used, making it impossible to write horror comics or many of the crime comics.
The Silver Age of Marvel began with “Fantastic Four #1” in November 1961. It was the most significant period for Marvel because it was when the great majority of its central characters were created. For the first time, superheroes had unique personalities, and storylines had a complexity that had not existed before. Villains also were complex, and the motivations that inspired their evil deeds went beyond simply having evil personalities. The plots became much more complex, and for the first time, the stories were regularly extended through multiple issues. The creation of this core of superheroes gave the writers a lot of opportunities for bringing these main world-savers together. For example, when the Fantastic Four battled the Hulk, or the Avengers fought X-Men, the ever-widening number of fans wanted to see who would be more powerful. This fandom, with preoccupations like wondering whether Thor was more powerful than the Hulk, became essential elements in creating this mythology. Two particular events are cited as the end of the Silver Age. While some claim it was the moment when Peter Parker’s former girlfriend Gwen Stacy was killed in a landmark 1973 issue, others, noting the immense contribution of its most famous illustrator, Jack Kirby, marked the Silver Age’s end with his departure from Marvel in the summer of 1970.
The following Bronze Age was denoted by a new willingness to cover themes previously censored by the CCA, and by the occasional permanent alteration of characters previously thought untouchable. Longtime editor Stan Lee inserted a drug abuse theme into a series of 1971 Spider Man storylines in direct defiance of CCA regulations, due to a personal appeal by the U.S. Health Department to have a major Marvel superhero show the negative consequences of taking drugs. In the wake of Lee’s defiance, the CCA met, and given the nature of Marvel’s intent, decided to relax restrictions in the code. This movement to address contemporary issues resulted in other developments, for example, the introduction of female and minority superheroes, such as She-Hulk, Spider-Woman, Red Sonja, Blade, Storm, and Luke Cage.
In 1985, with the landmark DC release of Watchmen and Batman: The Dark Knight, comics saw the rise of the antihero. It has alternately been called the Dark Age or the Modern Age and has been characterized by a new appeal to an older audience with darker, meaner, edgier, and less wholesome superheroes. Antiheroes were not new to Marvel; Sub-Mariner was one of its first creations, and the Hulk clearly fit the description of the antihero, but this new type, seen in Daredevil and Wolverine from the mid-1980s, exhibited certain self-alienating and heartless tendencies not seen before. It is unclear how Marvel’s characters and storylines will develop in the future, or whether the fandom that made the Marvel Universe so popular will continue.
Rick R. Lilla
See also Batman; DC Comics; Lee, Stan; Spider Man; Superman
Further Reading
Dalton, Russell W. 2011. Marvelous Myths: Marvel Superheroes and Everyday Faith. St. Louis: Chalice Press.
Howe, Sean. 2013. Marvel Comics. The Untold Story. New York: Harper Perennial.
Knowles, Christopher. 2007. Our Gods Wear Spandex. The Secret History of Comic Book Heroes. San Francisco: Weiser Books.
Raphael, Jordan. 2003. Stan Lee and the Rise and Fall of the American Comic Book. Chicago: Chicago Review Press.
Wright, Bradford W. 2001. Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.