I’m a casual fan and I felt it to be a bit too much, especially as I’m not a fan of the Golden or Silver Ages lines of comics of which the bulk of the book is about. There is a lot of detail here which, if you’re a huge fan, you’ll definitely enjoy. Almost from day 1 the plan seemed to be to make the comics as a stepping stone to what the true goal was: movies and merchandise and money money money! Well, they got there, and the book ends with the success of the first Avengers movie conquering the box office.
What comes across most strongly is how little the people at Marvel gave a shit about the comics themselves. People not getting along, cheap product being pushed, etc.Īs you would expect, Howe’s book is a sad story of creators who made art, sold them to the corporation for a pittance, and the corporation made billions while the creator lived in poverty. Though that said, gossipy stories in comics, as this book proves, are pretty dry in themselves. Once you get to the modern age, the 2000s, there’s almost no detail here whatsoever, which makes sense because of course the detail is all from the 50s and 60s - everyone from that time is dead or nearly there themselves, so who gives a shit? People today? They still have careers and we won’t get the gossipy stories behind this time for another few decades. It's very dull stuff and the minutiae of who worked on what book when has very esoteric appeal. So and so didn’t get on with so and so, they created this character in an afternoon, made this comic in a weekend, nobody gave a shit, blah blah blah. You definitely have to be deeply invested in the subject of Marvel Comics to enjoy this book because, wow, is there a ton of detail here! Most of it is pretty boring too. The best nonfiction books compel readers whether they’re interested in the subject matter or not Howe’s book is not that. It’s the company that gave us Captain America, Namor the Submariner, and The Human Torch in the Golden Age, and then, as Marvel Comics, the iconic characters: the Fantastic Four, the Incredible Hulk, Thor, Doctor Strange, Iron Man, the Avengers, the X-Men, and Spider-Man. Sean Howe’s Marvel Comics: The Untold Story is a comprehensive look at the company that was founded as Timely Comics in 1939, became Atlas Comics, and then eventually settled on Marvel Comics.
They’re just things that interested me and might be interesting to others who haven’t read this, might not read this, but are into Marvel comics. These post-review comments are peripheral to the review, so I’ll keep them separate. I’m gonna do something a little different here: I’ll review the book properly first, then talk generally about what I read.
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