Preface
Marvel in the 1970s: The World inside Your Head was my origin story as a comics reader. Of course, I hope it was much more than that: the point was to showcase the innovations of a neglected period in the history of the medium. But it was also a passion project. These were the comics that made me who I am.
It certainly had not occurred to me at the time to follow it up with a sequel, and I do so with a comics fan's hard-won awareness about just how disappointing sequels can be (I'm looking at you, Secret Wars II). If the Seventies got me into Marvel Comics, the Eighties almost got me out (with the Nineties all but sealing the deal). This was not only a result of changes at Marvel, but changes in my life. I graduated high school in 1984 and college in 1988, going on to start my doctorate that same year. College nearly broke all my tethers to popular culture. There were no televisions in any of my dorms (we were all people who proudly "didn't own a tv"), and it took me another fifteen years for me to come back to that particular medium. There were also no comics shops in a twenty-mile radius, though my hometown store held onto my selections until I came to visit. This included four months in Leningrad in 1986, when my isolation from American popular culture was at its peak.
This book keeps bad sequels and tragic hair to a minimum
If I stayed with comics at all, it was not because of Marvel (well, except for X-Men and Daredevil, but these were the exceptions that almost everyone made). It was because of the burgeoning independent comics movement, which ranged from fly-by-night publishers to self-publishing geniuses (Dave Sim's Cerebus and Wendy and Richard Pini's Elfquest) to companies that managed to last more than a decade (Eclipse). And it was also because DC Comics, which had for so long been a backwater of unimaginative tedium, had become a hotbed of innovation (facilitated by refugees from Jim Shooter's 1978-1987 term as Marvel editor-in-chief and the famous "British Invasion" that brought Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Dave McKean, Peter Milligan, and so many others to the American comics industry). Mainstream America would finally start to recognize the accomplishments and potential of the comics medium when Watchmen (DC), Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (DC), and Maus (Raw/Pantheon) were all published in 1986. None of this was thanks to Marvel Comics.
There is a temptation to link Marvel's commercial ascendence in the 1980s to its retreat from both innovation and from comics that displayed the individual vision or voice of a particular creator or creative team. Certainly, strictures placed on corporate comics creators became less a matter of the comics code or industry structures than the centralized, top-down authority of a powerful editor-in-chief. But the story is not that simple.
Miller's Daredevil, as the work of a writer/artist with a strong, identifiable sense of what the comic should be, might be considered the exception that proves the rule, but that would be a mistake. The X-Men would mutate into a sales juggernaut that, while not necessarily an example of the most profound artistic statement ever made even in mainstream comics, was nonetheless the triumph of a particular type of storytelling mastered by writer Chris Claremont, especially in his collaborations with pencilers John Byrne and Dave Cockrum (but also playing to the strengths of John Romita Jr, Paul Smith, and remarkable guest stints by Barry Windsor-Smith). In this regard, The X-Men is emblematic of one of the signal differences between the would-be auteurs of Marvel in the Seventies and the creators who followed them. Steve Gerber, Steve Englehart, Marv Wolfman, Doug Moench, and Don McGregor would all be either fired or pushed out by Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter, who issued sweeping mandates for Marvel comics and rarely hesitated to require changes in a team's storytelling decisions. Claremont, though he would express dissatisfaction both with individual editorial interventions (the demand to kill off Jean Grey, followed by the decision to bring her back) and the line-wide trends that made planning more difficult (particularly crossovers), managed to incorporate virtually anything that was thrown at him and continue to tell the stories he wanted to tell.
Daredevil and the X-Men were the brightest stars in a dismal sky, but they were not alone. Two other writer/artists did well for themselves at Marvel over the course of the decade: John Byrne and Walt Simonson. Byrne came off of his groundbreaking run on X-Men to revamp The Fantastic Four, a comic whose better days seemed behind it. It was here that he showcased his retro sensibility while still managing to tell stories that were far more engaging than most of the books on the market at the time. Simonson performed similar magic on Thor, but in a much more foreword-looking fashion. Taking over a sleepy title that had enjoyed a strong run at the beginning of the decade (when Roy Thomas crafted a complicated and fascinating years-long storyline), Simonson gave the book a grandeur it had not seen since the last years of the Stan Lee/Jack Kirby run, and with the mythological complexity thatThor so richly deserved.
As in the 1970s, the value of some of Marvel's comics in the Eighties is as much about the uniqueness of their failures as it is about their successes. Even as Shooter drained the variety out of the comics in Marvel's main continuity, under his leadership, the company made room for some fascinating experiments. Following DC's movement to direct market sales as an alternative to the newsstand, Marvel produced comics aimed at hardcore fans and older readers. Even if some of them, such as the last years of Bill Mantlo's run on Micronauts, were not exactly awards-baiting material, others, such as Bruce Jones' and Brent Anderson's Ka-Zar, brought a surprising maturity to characters who had previously lacked it. The Eighties also introduced comics such as Larry Hama's The 'Nam (a non-superhero series about America Soldiers during the Vietnam War) and Peter Gillis and Brent Anderson's Strikeforce Morituri (a near-future story about people whose superpowers come at the cost of a drastically shortened lifespan). Miniseries and maxiseries also brought new excitement, particular Mark Gruenwald and Bob Hall's Squadron Supreme.
Starting in the 1980s, both Marvel and DC would experiment with the creation of specialized imprints that would feature genres besides superheroes; in some cases, they would also allow for creator ownership or rights' participation. DC eventually landed on a long-term critical and commercial success with Vertigo (1993-2020, 2024-), the home of its most prestigious comics and graphic novels. Marvel would take much longer to hit on a successful framework for a new imprint, and it would do so by doubling down on both its superheroes and on corporate IP: the Ultimate Marvel (later rebranded as "Ultimate Comics") imprint that lasted from 2000 to 2015.[1]
The Eighties at Marvel present a diverse collection of imprints that could be qualified as failures, but their lack of longevity does not diminish their importance. Some of these imprints were a haven for talent that could not comfortably be expressed in the company's mainstream publications during the Shooter Years (or, for that matter, during Tom DeFalco's term as Shooter's replacement, from 1987-1994). Three publication experiments stand out for their importance: Shooter's short-lived "New Universe" (1986-1989), a doomed attempt at creating an entirely new stable of superhero characters in their own continuity; the Marvel Graphic Novel (MGN) line of oversized, stand-alone stories that ran from 1982 to 1993; and Epic Comics (1982-1996), which, under the leadership of Archie Goodwin and Al Milgrom, combined a wide breadth of genres, freedom from the restrictions of the comics code, and creator ownership in a manner that now looks familiar thanks to DC's Vertigo. Epic Comics was never the comics phenomenon that Vertigo would be, the reasons for which will be discussed later in the book. Nonetheless, both Epic Comics and Marvel Graphic Novels published a small amount of enduring work that rewards rereading and is worthy of sustained critical attention.
One of those works, Moonshadow, is a whimsical and philosophical coming-of-age story with echoes of both Dickens and Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Written by J. M. DeMatteis with gorgeous painted art by Jon J. Muth, Kent Williams, and George Pratt, Moonshadow survived the collapse of Epic Comics thanks to the imprint's creator's ownership structure, leading to republications by Vertigo and Dark Horse Comics. Moonshadow is DeMatteis' finest achievement, although it finds good company in some of the writer's other, more personal work. DeMatteis never quite gained the cult/auteur following of Neil Gaiman or Alan Moore; his vast, varied output over the course of four decades includes much that is forgettable. But his work at Marvel in the 1980s stood out from the crowd. In addition to Moonshadow, his run on The Defenders, a comic that had never really found its way since Steve Gerber was kicked off the book in the late 1970s, brought a focus on character development and interiority that most of Eighties Marvel lacked, while his run on the various Spider-Man titles (particularly a six-part storyline called initially called "Fearful Symmetry" before adopting its more famous name, "Kraven's Last Hunt"). DeMatteis revives the absurdity of Steve Gerber and the spiritual seeking of Steve Englehart that also relies on the writer's unfortunate tendency to double down on New Age philosophy. At its best, the result is Moonshadow (and, much later, Abadazad with Mike Ploog), but at its weakest, the results can be mawkish and predictable (as we will occasionally see in The Defenders and associated titles).
Despite the uneven quality of the company's output, the Eighties were a huge decade for Marvel, in terms of volume, sales, and cultural impact. As in the previous book, I see no point in devoting extended analysis to comics that are simply mediocre or dated, unless they hold a significance that is disproportionate to their quality. Instead, the focus will be on work that is outstanding, or work that is strong, but flawed. There is not enough room in this book to cover every good book the company managed to put out. [2] Peter David began his twelve-year run on The Incredible Hulk in 1987; to my mind, this is therefore material that would be a better fit for a book on the Nineties. Shooter's brief return to The Avengers included a number of fascinating stories and plot points that would have repercussions for decades to come (particularly Hank Pym's abuse of his wife, Janet Van Dyne (The Wasp), but, like so much else in the decade, it was rather hit-or-miss, and in any case, the limited length of his run (16 issues spread out over more than five years) does not leave much to work with. The Introduction briefly treats these works about which i have not chosen to write an entire chapter, as well as the controversies surrounding key stories (such as the misogynist treatment of Carol Danvers at the end of her career as Ms. Marvel). Also covered in the introduction are some significant trends inaugurated in the Eighties that did not result in storylines of particular significance in their own right. These include the now-familiar trope of passing the mantle from an established hero to a usually temporary replacement (who most often goes on to create a new costumed identity of their own); Peter Parker's costume change, his marriage to Mary Jane Watson, and the creation of fan-favorite villain-turned-anti-hero Venom; Tony Stark's alcoholism and the generally strong extended Iron Man run by David Micheline, Bob Layton, and John Romita Jr.; Marvel's production of comics about characters and toys licensed from third parties; the Punisher's rise from relative obscurity to fan-favorite; and the rise of the crossover event.
As with my previous Marvel book, I do not pretend that my choices are not guided at least in part by my personal taste. which is in turn a function of my age. I am a great deal more forgiving of the flaws in the comics of my childhood than I am in those I read as a young adult, and it is quite likely that I would be able to form an attachment to characters who leave me cold (Venom, for instance) if I were ten years younger. But I have always taught my students that the pleasure one gets from reading a particular text can provide the first step for a more analytical approach, in the hopes that they can move from simply saying that they liked something to figuring out what it is about the text that grabbed their interest and talking about it in a way that is less dependent on their personal reaction. I do not stick precisely to this approach in my own work, just as I allow myself to talk about myself and to write in the first person even though I usually beg my students not to. [3] This, too, is a function of age (and experience).
This book is not meant to serve as a thorough history of Marvel in this particular period; like its predecessor, it is a reading of a set of Marvel texts. Choosing such texts can never be truly impartial; nor, for that matter, could the readings really be the product of a faux journalistic view "from nowhere." Instead, I am trying to provide a series of coherent and engaging approaches to a particular set of Marvel comics whose cultural, aesthetic, and ideological values are worthy of sustained examination.
Plus, not forget the obvious: a lot of these comics are a lot of fun. I hope that, if this book convinces you to read or reread some of the best of them, you will come away agreeing with Mary Jane Watson's signature catchphrase : Face it, Tiger, you've hit the jackpot.
Notes
[1] The Ultimate line was revamped and revived in 2023.
[2] Those interested in a more comprehensive overview should take a look at the first book to use the title Marvel Comics in the 1980s, by Pierre Comptois (2014). In addition to thematic overviews, it consists of capsule summaries of numerous issues published during the decade, from the outstanding to the run-of-the-mill.
[3] For what it's worth, I explain to them that both the first person and self-reflective writing have their place, but that it is important to learn how to write about something other than oneself.
Next: Introduction: When Bad Comics Happen to Good People