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SKa-REW pressing the real debate. Marvel comics fans.

Started by Old Fashion PB and J,

Most Important  

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  1. 1. Most Important

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28 posts in this topic

Old Fashion PB and J

Old Fashion PB and J

Posted
Posted

Can anyone actually try and explain how solely in the comics medium (cartoons, movies excluded). That the Fantastic Four have been the true lifeblood of the Marvel Universe. And without the first 100+ issues the company would likely have failed.

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Schmakt

Schmakt

Posted
Posted

the early Spidey stories were horrible, IMHO.

 

the early FF, however... it wasn't about this annoying little kid who got powers. It was about 4 different individuals, and the stories were WAY more out there than the ASM stories were. I think the FF stuff was a little more mature and much more capable of sustaining a repeat audience. FF really took the Sci-Fi thing and ran with it in lots of interesting ways. Spidey was, more-or-less, just beating up funny looking bad guys and complaining that he couldn't get a date.

 

It comes down to the depth of the stories, I think.

and FF beats ASM hands down.

 

I hope I understood the question...

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fantastic_four

fantastic_four

Posted
Posted
Spidey was, more-or-less, just beating up funny looking bad guys and complaining that he couldn't get a date.

 

You're entirely overlooking the key to Spidey's appeal. He's a heroic figure who in his real life is a dateless nerd. That's a new approach in comics as of 1962, as prior heroes were also handsome and usually adults with at least some success in their private lives. Clark Kent was kind of a dork, but he did score Lana Lang, and he is a reporter at a major newspaper, which isn't too shabby. Spidey being an underdog lends him wide appeal as it allows the type of kid who reads comics to relate to him unlike most superheroes which preceeded him.

 

I also disagree that the early Spidey stories were horrible as compared to Fantastic Four. BOTH titles have horrible plots that are difficult to read today. The story ideas are decent and usually compelling in both titles, and the dialogue is great in both titles, as that was one of Stan's gifts.

 

Fantastic Four saved Marvel, but Spider-Man put them on top.

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Schmakt

Schmakt

Posted
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ah, yeah... I definitely left out the fact that Spidey was "different" at the time...

but different only gets you so far... Of course "horrible" is a subjective term, but I'll still stand by it. I can sit down with a copy of the FF Masterworks and pretty well breeze through it, but trying to read the early Spidey stuff is like sitting in church. I just want it to end...

 

this is *not* to say that all the FF stuff was top-notch... there were certainly plenty of secondary plot threads that I didn't give a about that would drag down the pacing of the story, but this kind of stuff seemed to be more present in the early Spidey stories.

 

I'll attribute that to the time period and the fact that kids would spend more time reading these things back then. The social (?) storylines were pretty well necessary, but I just feel like they were drug out way too much and for far too long in early ASM whereas FF seemed to really know how to get back to the fun stuff.

 

You're probably right that Spider-Man "put them on top," but he couldn't have done it without the FF there to make it possible, but I think that the FF could have solidified Marvel's position on their own.

 

now lunchtime! :)

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Ogami

Ogami

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:shrug: I don't even pretend to understand that question.

 

Me either. Fortunately, I recently heard Pat explain, (in much better detail) what he's trying to say here- that the FF is the background of the entire Marvel Universe. The core, the backdrop, that the rich landscape of the past forty years has been hung on (please excuse my horrible metaphor(s) ).

 

I thought it was a really good argument, and I deff. see what he's saying. I tend to agree that more than the X-Men, Spidey, Hulk or Avengers, the FF is the base line of the Marvel Universe. The Watcher, SS, Galactus, the New York setting, etc. all place the Marvel Universe in a very specific time, space and mileiu.

 

That's my take on this thread, and I agree with what he's saying.

 

(Spidey still rulez)

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VintageComics

VintageComics

Posted
Posted
:shrug: I don't even pretend to understand that question.

 

Me either. Fortunately, I recently heard Pat explain, (in much better detail) what he's trying to say here- that the FF is the background of the entire Marvel Universe. The core, the backdrop, that the rich landscape of the past forty years has been hung on (please excuse my horrible metaphor(s) ).

 

I thought it was a really good argument, and I deff. see what he's saying. I tend to agree that more than the X-Men, Spidey, Hulk or Avengers, the FF is the base line of the Marvel Universe. The Watcher, SS, Galactus, the New York setting, etc. all place the Marvel Universe in a very specific time, space and mileiu.

 

That's my take on this thread, and I agree with what he's saying.

 

(Spidey still rulez)

 

I converted Pat whether he likes it or not.

 

Next he'll be collecting Timelys.

 

:baiting:

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Dale Roberts

Dale Roberts

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I don't really know that I am qualified to comment here, because I was not there in 1961. I also come in with biases against most of the Kirby books. I don't know why, but I didn't like his art and never cared for his books when I was a kid. On the other hand, I loved Spider-man, Iron Man, Hulk(post Kirby issues), and Daredevil. I started reading comics in about 1969 and was drawn to a certain style of books, and generally Kirby stuff was NOT it.

 

I would suppose that the reason Marvel worked is because they had both the FF and Spider-man. Spider-man has clearly proven over the years to be the more popular character and book, but that doesn't mean Fantastic Four is junk. It means simply that Marvel had lots of creative forces at work and had something for just about everyone.

 

I don't see Marvel being as strong without FF or Spider-man, but based on his continued popularity, they would have been much worse off without Spider-man.

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Juswuh

Juswuh

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No question that the number of long-running Marvel characters/concepts introduced in, say, FF 1-67* is larger than in ASM 1-38 - but that was mainly because of Kirby's tendency to invent stuff as he went along, seldom with any kind of plan beyond that issue. In terms of story construction Ditko's ASM is far tighter and more accomplished, both within each issue and as an ongoing series, especially in the late teens and twenties.

 

*In considering Kirby's FF run, it has to be acknowledged that its flow of invention pretty much ended two-thirds of the way through. Apparently the breaking point was the Beehive/Him story in 66-67 - Kirby drew it one way, Stan wrote it almost the opposite, Kirby gave up...

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Old Fashion PB and J

Old Fashion PB and J

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:shrug: I don't even pretend to understand that question.

 

Me either. Fortunately, I recently heard Pat explain, (in much better detail) what he's trying to say here- that the FF is the background of the entire Marvel Universe. The core, the backdrop, that the rich landscape of the past forty years has been hung on (please excuse my horrible metaphor(s) ).

 

I thought it was a really good argument, and I deff. see what he's saying. I tend to agree that more than the X-Men, Spidey, Hulk or Avengers, the FF is the base line of the Marvel Universe. The Watcher, SS, Galactus, the New York setting, etc. all place the Marvel Universe in a very specific time, space and mileiu.

 

That's my take on this thread, and I agree with what he's saying.

 

(Spidey still rulez)

 

I converted Pat whether he likes it or not.

 

Next he'll be collecting Timelys.

 

:baiting:

I would collect Subby and Cap books (shrug) I just have to focus on the two GA runs I am working on first.
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