If you’re one of those comic readers who feels that the talent behind the book is more important than the villain Spider-Man is fighting each month, then this book should be of particular interest to you. It’s the story of the business side of Marvel Comics, and it’s not a pleasant one. A story where the ‘bad guys’ play for keeps, and where the ‘good guys’ rarely win.
Author Sean Howe devotes a large portion of this book to exposing a side of Stan Lee that many ‘True Believers’ may not be familiar with, the Stan Lee who was more at home talking about comics in university lecture halls than actually writing them, the Stan Lee who wanted to distance himself from comics unless it was a means of getting his foot in the door with Hollywood, the Stan Lee who hasn’t read a Marvel comic in decades, Stan Lee the flim-flam man.
This may all be true, but what the book doesn’t tell you is that Marvel Comics may not have become such a break-out success without Lee’s carnival barker antics. Marvel needed personality, it needed someone to cry out to the world that these comics were the greatest thing around and you were really missing out if you weren’t reading them. While all the rest of Lee’s contributions to Marvel may be in question, his skill at selling the product to the consumer is not.
The book chronicles the legal battles of creators such as Steve Gerber (Howard the Duck), Marv Wolfman (Blade), Steve Ditko (Spider-Man), and, of course, Jack Kirby (the core Marvel characters) against Marvel. We’re shown Marvel’s method of cleaning house whenever a new regime of management took control of the company. Howe gives us the play-by-play as Marvel grooms a roster of superstar artists, only to have them give the company the collective finger and leave to start their own publishing house. We see how creators struck back at editors by hiding criticisms within the narratives of their books. We learn why particular storylines, such the infamous “Clone Saga” which ran through the Spider-Man titles, had such peculiar and unsatisfying conclusions. Readers are introduced to a revolving door of editors-in-chief and are given a glimpse of what they managed to accomplish and destroy during their time at the wheel. Howe gives us all that, and so much more.
This book may just make you hate Marvel Comics, but it’s a book that everyone who loves comics should read.
Marvel Comics: The Untold Story is written by Sean Howe, published by Harper Collins, and can be purchased here: http://www.harpercollins.com/books/Marvel-Comics-Sean-Howe?isbn=9780061992100&HCHP=TB_Marvel+Comics
Reviewed by T-Shirt Joe
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