GREAT BOOK THAT NEEDED JIM STERANKO'S INPUT Marvel Five Fabulous Decades of the World's Greatest Comics is a well-presented but incomplete volume that I would highly recommend for those interested in the history of pulp fiction and comic books, especially Marvel Comics.
It is a brilliant summary of a large portion of the genres, formats, and marketing strategies of Marvel Comics, which dates back to the 1930s and 1940s. Even a reader who is not particularly a comics fan will likely find this book fascinating and enlightening.
To me, this publication is a decent effort to document the history and development of the superhero fantasy. Introduced in this publication are highlighted stories and photographed covers of the various pulp fiction magazines, including Marvel Tales, The Spider, Weird Tales, etc., all of which were prevalent in American dime stores and contained various tales about time travel, unlimited atomic energy, ghosts, and alien invaders. Though these fantasies were popular, the pulp novel editors, most notably Martin Goodman, eventually needed to find a way to publish their stories at a pace in sync with an accelerating, thus increasingly demanding, society that was producing faster machines, trains, planes, and automobiles.
Thus was developed and introduced by Goodman, along with illustrator, Bill Everett, what would be the very first issue of Marvel Comics, which has its cover photographed in miniaturized form as displayed in this book. So according to the following pages, the cornerstone of Marvel Comics was laid, and there was to be no turning back.
In Five Fabulous Decades, each page is glossy and contains several photographs in color of the various aforementioned pulp fiction works along with the very early issues that would lead to an expanding Marvel Universe. It is also stated that contrary to what many comic book history writers have informed their respective readers, the creation of the comic book itself did not immediately replace and eradicate the pulp fiction magazine, because pulps continued to be printed well into 1955.
All in all, Marvel did a good chapter-by-chapter sequence, bringing forth names of the great contributors to the comic book universe. Some very poignant moments are presented, especially in the 1950s when the comic book medium comes under scrutiny for presenting violent images. Outrage, according to the book, was so loudly expressed by individuals who alleged the comic book industry was corrupting America's youth that matters were taken before the Federal government and ultimately, Congressional hearings were being held so as to determine the link between comic books and juvenile delinquency. It is then stated that, as a result, the reputation of the comic book industry was maligned and left many editors, publishers, and illustrators without work.
Following this crisis passage is a long-winded narrative of the Marvel Comics resurgence in popularity in 1961 that would spawn the creation of heroes such as The Fantastic Four, The Hulk, Spider-Man, as well as the return of old favorites, such as Ka-Zar, Captain America, and The Sub-Mariner. From then on are trivial profiles of the central Marvel characters and how each inspired the creation of TV shows, movies, toys, as well as the creation of superhero groups.
All in all, this is a very good book to own. My only complaint is that the second half focuses more on marketing strategies revolved around the superheroes than on the impact that the superheroes' stories had on their readers. What started out as a potentially perfect rendition of one facet of comic book history got lost in the shuffle with the commercialization of Marvel Entertainment, which is still fascinating in itself.
As a recommendation, for those who are genuinely interested in the history of comic books as a whole, and not just Marvel, please try and find copies of both volumes of The Steranko History of Comics by none other than the great Jim Steranko!
the action behind marvel i got the book, opened it in my car and spent half an hour fliiping through it until i realized that i had to get to the office...finished it that evening! i liked the whole concept and found out a lot (!) of interesting information about marvel, the people behind it, the philosophies, the characters. the book is easy to read and easy to use. i dropped off one star from the rating because, in the end, it is rather shallow and there were times when i wanted more information but there just wasn't any. a good read.
THAT'S ALL ABOUT THE ART The incredible reprinted art from a lot of old comics makes this book worthwhile. The text is very, very weak.
SERIOUS FLAWS THis book is a very generic portrait of Marvel, with one serious flaw: the book is edited by Marvel itself. This means that the writer, altough a real expert in comic book history, could not deal with all the subjects in a neutral way all the time. So, what we have is, generally, praise after praise for this mighty (with justice) company, but no real insight into their history. Of course, there is not space for such, since the book is crowded with magnific art from various artists and various comics. I think it lacked appendices, which could have lists of Marvel's greates artists, MArvel's greatest selling books, Marvel's greates histories. The book is also clearly outdated, since it was first published in 1992. Since then, there was the "mutiny" from the artists (Silvestri, Jim Lee and McFarlane, amongst others) who left to form their own company; the writer, altough mentions it, doesn't explain why Stan Lee, whose role in the company since 1980 is to supervise adaptations to movies and animated features, permitted such lousy adaptations as THE PUNISHER, for example. It does not touch the fact of how the artists were totally underpaid until Jim Shooter was Editor-In-Chief, nor how Lee permitted one editor after another to resign due to the sheer impossibility of editing 54 books at the same time. All in all, this book is great for the art, but for text PEter Sanderson's work, MARVEK UNIVERSE, is better.
JACK! STAN! JOE! GENE! AND FANTASTIC FOUR #51, TOO!!! MARVEL:FIVE FABULOUS DECADES is a long book with a lot of details that the average comic fan isn't interested in, but what I liked the most about it was the analysis of the work of Jack "The King" Kirby, Stan "The Man" Lee, Gene "The Dean" Colan, and INKER SUPREME Joe Sinnott!
But what made an overwhelming impression on me about this book--and forced me to give it 5 stars!!!--was the surprise appearance of FANTASTIC FOUR #51--"This Man, This Monster"-- right in the middle of the book, a comic book I had never seen before, and probably one of the top 4 FANTASTIC FOUR ISSUES EVER MADE!!!
BUY MARVEL:FIVE FABULOUS DECADES JUST TO GET A COPY OF FANTASTIC FOUR #51!!!
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