Why do people think New Mutants #98 had a "high print run"...? 0

[southerncross]

 

I never had the chance to see New Mutants #87 for $75 at that time. Wow!

 

And the sad part was I never bought multiple copies just one copy.

Still I should have sold it back then

[Bosco685]

 

I never had the chance to see New Mutants #87 for $75 at that time. Wow!

 

And the sad part was I never bought multiple copies just one copy.

Still I should have sold it back then

 

 

You are not kidding!

[whetteon]

Memory + Nostalgia = Faulty Information. I find myself falling victim to it.

 

Me too.

 

I make it a point to encourage correction if I have something remembered wrong. I don't have a problem with being corrected, and actually like it, because it means my knowledge base is "more true" after the correction than it was before.

 

I'm much more interested in the truth, than the story in my head, no matter how appealing that story may be.

 

A lot of people have a hard time being corrected, and take it very personally. To those people I would say: don't be defined by what you know, but rather who you are. That way, you won't have a personal stake if you find out something you believed was wrong.

 

Tough advice, I know.

 

Mark Twain: "'It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.'

 

Yeeesh.

 

What a bunch of hot air.

 

 

Did RMA say RMA is a lot of hot air?

[seanfingh]

 

A glimmer of self-awareness

[the blob]

good lord, those prices! i admit i got back into collecting comics in 1993 after a hiatus, so i don't know if shops were getting that sort of $ for these issues here in NYC back then. being near the publishers, etc. sometimes seemed to dampen prices a little (it helps if you have a shop in manhattan and have 15 marvel employees coming in a week with a hoard of comics to sell you because they got them free). $10-$12 could have gotten you a pretty decent silver age book back then (of course, the same could be said about walking dead prices today)

[Gatsby77]

New Mutants 87 peaked in my area (suburban Philly) at $85. Not price guide, it actually sold for those amounts.

 

My first issue off the stands was also # 93 (for the Wolverine fight). Forget what month exactly I scored my copy of New Mutants 87 but I remember it was my holy grail and I mowed a lot of lawns to afford it.

 

Went to one of those Philly cons at the Holiday Inn on Cityline, there was only one copy for sale in the whole place. Guide at the time was ~$35 but this was marked $50. I got it in a partial cash/trade deal, immediately went home and read it, damaging it to roughly a 9.0 in the process.

 

One of my happiest comic buying experiences ever. In the years since I've picked up 7-8 more copies, never paying more than $15 for it. 98 was cool, and my friends & I re-read it lots, but it never attained the mythic bragging rights conferred on 87.

[Logan510]

Second, I never thought Claremont was "terrible" at dialogue. I was re-reading some New Mutants and dialogue is good. Why do you say that?

Also, how the presence of a "strong artist" can improve a story if it is not already decently good?

Claremont used a ton of expositional dialogue. Consider the following (I made up) as an example:

 

Nightcrawler: Oh, no! Sabretooth just slammed Wolverine into that wall! And now the wall is collapsing on top of him!

 

A strong artist, like John Byrne, was able to tell a great deal of story with well laid out panels, with good flow. Weaker artists didn't do that, which led Claremont to increase the amount of 'play-by-play' narrative dialogue like the example I offered.

Exactly.

 

And, on top of that, Claremont wrote some of the most groan inducing dialogue ever. Look at X-Men #132...the scene where Jean holds back Scott's eyeblasts?

 

Worse than As The World Turns.

 

Page layout is crucial to quality sequential art storytelling, just like the storyboardist on a movie is crucial to properly developing frame-by-frame shots in a film.

 

New Mutants' dialogue is pretty groan inducing, too.

 

This reminds me of when adults who never read Stan as a kid call his work "corny"..and it probably is to adult eyes. If you take Claremont's work in the context of when it was done, it was fairly sophisticated, especially for it's intended audience.

 

I do agree with and have always said it was no coincidence that CC did his best work when paired with a very strong artist ( and it didn't hurt if that artist was also co-plotting as well ).

 

As a KID I thought Stan's dialogue was corny.

Except in Amazing Spider-man. For some reason it worked for me in that.

In hindsight, the only characters I really think Stan's dialogue works for is Spider-man, Reed Richards, J. Jonah Jameson, and the Thing. They can blabber on in that Stan Lee style and it still works.

 

You're a Lee hater though, so I take what you say about him with a grain of salt

[kimik]

The early 90s were a magical time for speculation.

 

I can remember when Superman #75 came out the store I had my file at and the guys at the till were originally going to screw me out of my copy for one simple reason - they were selling them for $150 apiece. I asked to speak with the owner and he fixed it right away, thankfully. Too bad they went under later in the 90s.

 

One other LCS in town that survived the 90s (both locations still in business today) was notorious for jacking up books the same day of release. The shelves they put their books on would flip up, so they would only have a small stack out at any time with the rest stashed behind the facade. Knowing this, I would just flip up the front and grab my copies at cover.

[RockMyAmadeus]

A glimmer of self-awareness

 

Too bad it's not contagious.

[whetteon]

A glimmer of self-awareness

 

Too bad it's not contagious.

 

[RockMyAmadeus]

Second, I never thought Claremont was "terrible" at dialogue. I was re-reading some New Mutants and dialogue is good. Why do you say that?

Also, how the presence of a "strong artist" can improve a story if it is not already decently good?

Claremont used a ton of expositional dialogue. Consider the following (I made up) as an example:

 

Nightcrawler: Oh, no! Sabretooth just slammed Wolverine into that wall! And now the wall is collapsing on top of him!

 

A strong artist, like John Byrne, was able to tell a great deal of story with well laid out panels, with good flow. Weaker artists didn't do that, which led Claremont to increase the amount of 'play-by-play' narrative dialogue like the example I offered.

Exactly.

 

And, on top of that, Claremont wrote some of the most groan inducing dialogue ever. Look at X-Men #132...the scene where Jean holds back Scott's eyeblasts?

 

Worse than As The World Turns.

 

Page layout is crucial to quality sequential art storytelling, just like the storyboardist on a movie is crucial to properly developing frame-by-frame shots in a film.

 

New Mutants' dialogue is pretty groan inducing, too.

 

This reminds me of when adults who never read Stan as a kid call his work "corny"..and it probably is to adult eyes. If you take Claremont's work in the context of when it was done, it was fairly sophisticated, especially for it's intended audience.

 

.

 

I'm not buying that argument.

 

Literature...even children's literature...should be judged on its merits, and not its intended audience. Anyone can talk down to kids; that's not great literature. There are some fantastic books that are intended for kids that don't have groan inducing, Soap Opera-esque dialogue. Harry Potter (Sorcerer's Stone), despite what Rowling later claimed, was aimed squarely at the 10-13 year old crowd. And it's pretty darn good. Wizard of Oz (and the rest of the books), also aimed at that same age range, is another excellent example.

 

In other words, they can be read and enjoyed by adults, without said adults...if they have average adult faculties...rolling their eyes and putting it down for how awful it is.

 

If X-Men was aimed at the same audience...and at that time, it probably was...it fails because Claremont didn't really have a grasp of how to write for kids without trying to be "sophisticated", so it ends up like other usual adult attempts to talk to kids: condescending and painfully stilted.

 

Just like a soap opera.

 

Claremont isn't alone; most of Silver Age DC is unreadable (why they thought they had to write books for an audience with an average IQ of 37, I'll never know)...but Claremont took awkward "trying-really-hard-to-sound-sophisticated-but-massively-failing" writing to heights undreamed.

[Logan510]

Second, I never thought Claremont was "terrible" at dialogue. I was re-reading some New Mutants and dialogue is good. Why do you say that?

Also, how the presence of a "strong artist" can improve a story if it is not already decently good?

Claremont used a ton of expositional dialogue. Consider the following (I made up) as an example:

 

Nightcrawler: Oh, no! Sabretooth just slammed Wolverine into that wall! And now the wall is collapsing on top of him!

 

A strong artist, like John Byrne, was able to tell a great deal of story with well laid out panels, with good flow. Weaker artists didn't do that, which led Claremont to increase the amount of 'play-by-play' narrative dialogue like the example I offered.

Exactly.

 

And, on top of that, Claremont wrote some of the most groan inducing dialogue ever. Look at X-Men #132...the scene where Jean holds back Scott's eyeblasts?

 

Worse than As The World Turns.

 

Page layout is crucial to quality sequential art storytelling, just like the storyboardist on a movie is crucial to properly developing frame-by-frame shots in a film.

 

New Mutants' dialogue is pretty groan inducing, too.

 

This reminds me of when adults who never read Stan as a kid call his work "corny"..and it probably is to adult eyes. If you take Claremont's work in the context of when it was done, it was fairly sophisticated, especially for it's intended audience.

 

.

 

I'm not buying that argument.

 

Literature...even children's literature...should be judged on its merits, and not its intended audience. Anyone can talk down to kids; that's not great literature. There are some fantastic books that are intended for kids that don't have groan inducing, Soap Opera-esque dialogue. Harry Potter (Sorcerer's Stone), despite what Rowling later claimed, was aimed squarely at the 10-13 year old crowd. And it's pretty darn good. Wizard of Oz (and the rest of the books), also aimed at that same age range, is another excellent example.

 

In other words, they can be read and enjoyed by adults, without said adults...if they have average adult faculties...rolling their eyes and putting it down for how awful it is.

 

If X-Men was aimed at the same audience...and at that time, it probably was...it fails because Claremont didn't really have a grasp of how to write for kids without trying to be "sophisticated", so it ends up like other usual adult attempts to talk to kids: condescending and painfully stilted.

 

Just like a soap opera.

 

Claremont isn't alone; most of Silver Age DC is unreadable (why they thought they had to write books for an audience with an average IQ of 37, I'll never know)...but Claremont took awkward "trying-really-hard-to-sound-sophisticated-but-massively-failing" writing to heights undreamed.

 

Agree to disagree. If you look at a lot of the stuff Marvel was putting out at the time ( 1975-1980 ), I would say Claremont's work holds up very well against a lot of his peers. As the years wore on, I will agree that his writing got to a point where I felt it was time for him to move on from the X-Men. Unfortunately, what came after was mostly hot garbage and made me yearn for CC again

[seanfingh]

A glimmer of self-awareness

 

Too bad it's not contagious.

 

Bless you.

[Prince Namor]

Second, I never thought Claremont was "terrible" at dialogue. I was re-reading some New Mutants and dialogue is good. Why do you say that?

Also, how the presence of a "strong artist" can improve a story if it is not already decently good?

Claremont used a ton of expositional dialogue. Consider the following (I made up) as an example:

 

Nightcrawler: Oh, no! Sabretooth just slammed Wolverine into that wall! And now the wall is collapsing on top of him!

 

A strong artist, like John Byrne, was able to tell a great deal of story with well laid out panels, with good flow. Weaker artists didn't do that, which led Claremont to increase the amount of 'play-by-play' narrative dialogue like the example I offered.

Exactly.

 

And, on top of that, Claremont wrote some of the most groan inducing dialogue ever. Look at X-Men #132...the scene where Jean holds back Scott's eyeblasts?

 

Worse than As The World Turns.

 

Page layout is crucial to quality sequential art storytelling, just like the storyboardist on a movie is crucial to properly developing frame-by-frame shots in a film.

 

New Mutants' dialogue is pretty groan inducing, too.

 

This reminds me of when adults who never read Stan as a kid call his work "corny"..and it probably is to adult eyes. If you take Claremont's work in the context of when it was done, it was fairly sophisticated, especially for it's intended audience.

 

I do agree with and have always said it was no coincidence that CC did his best work when paired with a very strong artist ( and it didn't hurt if that artist was also co-plotting as well ).

 

As a KID I thought Stan's dialogue was corny.

Except in Amazing Spider-man. For some reason it worked for me in that.

In hindsight, the only characters I really think Stan's dialogue works for is Spider-man, Reed Richards, J. Jonah Jameson, and the Thing. They can blabber on in that Stan Lee style and it still works.

 

You're a Lee hater though, so I take what you say about him with a grain of salt

 

I don't HATE the guy, I just refuse to worship him based on drinking his Kool-Aid when I was a kid.

[Prince Namor]

Second, I never thought Claremont was "terrible" at dialogue. I was re-reading some New Mutants and dialogue is good. Why do you say that?

Also, how the presence of a "strong artist" can improve a story if it is not already decently good?

Claremont used a ton of expositional dialogue. Consider the following (I made up) as an example:

 

Nightcrawler: Oh, no! Sabretooth just slammed Wolverine into that wall! And now the wall is collapsing on top of him!

 

A strong artist, like John Byrne, was able to tell a great deal of story with well laid out panels, with good flow. Weaker artists didn't do that, which led Claremont to increase the amount of 'play-by-play' narrative dialogue like the example I offered.

Exactly.

 

And, on top of that, Claremont wrote some of the most groan inducing dialogue ever. Look at X-Men #132...the scene where Jean holds back Scott's eyeblasts?

 

Worse than As The World Turns.

 

Page layout is crucial to quality sequential art storytelling, just like the storyboardist on a movie is crucial to properly developing frame-by-frame shots in a film.

 

New Mutants' dialogue is pretty groan inducing, too.

 

This reminds me of when adults who never read Stan as a kid call his work "corny"..and it probably is to adult eyes. If you take Claremont's work in the context of when it was done, it was fairly sophisticated, especially for it's intended audience.

 

.

 

I'm not buying that argument.

 

Literature...even children's literature...should be judged on its merits, and not its intended audience. Anyone can talk down to kids; that's not great literature. There are some fantastic books that are intended for kids that don't have groan inducing, Soap Opera-esque dialogue. Harry Potter (Sorcerer's Stone), despite what Rowling later claimed, was aimed squarely at the 10-13 year old crowd. And it's pretty darn good. Wizard of Oz (and the rest of the books), also aimed at that same age range, is another excellent example.

 

In other words, they can be read and enjoyed by adults, without said adults...if they have average adult faculties...rolling their eyes and putting it down for how awful it is.

 

If X-Men was aimed at the same audience...and at that time, it probably was...it fails because Claremont didn't really have a grasp of how to write for kids without trying to be "sophisticated", so it ends up like other usual adult attempts to talk to kids: condescending and painfully stilted.

 

Just like a soap opera.

 

Claremont isn't alone; most of Silver Age DC is unreadable (why they thought they had to write books for an audience with an average IQ of 37, I'll never know)...but Claremont took awkward "trying-really-hard-to-sound-sophisticated-but-massively-failing" writing to heights undreamed.

 

Agree to disagree. If you look at a lot of the stuff Marvel was putting out at the time ( 1975-1980 ), I would say Claremont's work holds up very well against a lot of his peers. As the years wore on, I will agree that his writing got to a point where I felt it was time for him to move on from the X-Men. Unfortunately, what came after was mostly hot garbage and made me yearn for CC again

 

Claremont's work holds up very well against a lot of his peers, but considering those comics were all written for 13-14 year old geeks, that isn't really saying a lot.

[Logan510]

Second, I never thought Claremont was "terrible" at dialogue. I was re-reading some New Mutants and dialogue is good. Why do you say that?

Also, how the presence of a "strong artist" can improve a story if it is not already decently good?

Claremont used a ton of expositional dialogue. Consider the following (I made up) as an example:

 

Nightcrawler: Oh, no! Sabretooth just slammed Wolverine into that wall! And now the wall is collapsing on top of him!

 

A strong artist, like John Byrne, was able to tell a great deal of story with well laid out panels, with good flow. Weaker artists didn't do that, which led Claremont to increase the amount of 'play-by-play' narrative dialogue like the example I offered.

Exactly.

 

And, on top of that, Claremont wrote some of the most groan inducing dialogue ever. Look at X-Men #132...the scene where Jean holds back Scott's eyeblasts?

 

Worse than As The World Turns.

 

Page layout is crucial to quality sequential art storytelling, just like the storyboardist on a movie is crucial to properly developing frame-by-frame shots in a film.

 

New Mutants' dialogue is pretty groan inducing, too.

 

This reminds me of when adults who never read Stan as a kid call his work "corny"..and it probably is to adult eyes. If you take Claremont's work in the context of when it was done, it was fairly sophisticated, especially for it's intended audience.

 

.

 

I'm not buying that argument.

 

Literature...even children's literature...should be judged on its merits, and not its intended audience. Anyone can talk down to kids; that's not great literature. There are some fantastic books that are intended for kids that don't have groan inducing, Soap Opera-esque dialogue. Harry Potter (Sorcerer's Stone), despite what Rowling later claimed, was aimed squarely at the 10-13 year old crowd. And it's pretty darn good. Wizard of Oz (and the rest of the books), also aimed at that same age range, is another excellent example.

 

In other words, they can be read and enjoyed by adults, without said adults...if they have average adult faculties...rolling their eyes and putting it down for how awful it is.

 

If X-Men was aimed at the same audience...and at that time, it probably was...it fails because Claremont didn't really have a grasp of how to write for kids without trying to be "sophisticated", so it ends up like other usual adult attempts to talk to kids: condescending and painfully stilted.

 

Just like a soap opera.

 

Claremont isn't alone; most of Silver Age DC is unreadable (why they thought they had to write books for an audience with an average IQ of 37, I'll never know)...but Claremont took awkward "trying-really-hard-to-sound-sophisticated-but-massively-failing" writing to heights undreamed.

 

Agree to disagree. If you look at a lot of the stuff Marvel was putting out at the time ( 1975-1980 ), I would say Claremont's work holds up very well against a lot of his peers. As the years wore on, I will agree that his writing got to a point where I felt it was time for him to move on from the X-Men. Unfortunately, what came after was mostly hot garbage and made me yearn for CC again

 

Claremont's work holds up very well against a lot of his peers, but considering those comics were all written for 13-14 year old geeks, that isn't really saying a lot.

 

 

Well, everything can't be Watchmen or Swamp Thing ( thank GOD ).

[Logan510]

Second, I never thought Claremont was "terrible" at dialogue. I was re-reading some New Mutants and dialogue is good. Why do you say that?

Also, how the presence of a "strong artist" can improve a story if it is not already decently good?

Claremont used a ton of expositional dialogue. Consider the following (I made up) as an example:

 

Nightcrawler: Oh, no! Sabretooth just slammed Wolverine into that wall! And now the wall is collapsing on top of him!

 

A strong artist, like John Byrne, was able to tell a great deal of story with well laid out panels, with good flow. Weaker artists didn't do that, which led Claremont to increase the amount of 'play-by-play' narrative dialogue like the example I offered.

Exactly.

 

And, on top of that, Claremont wrote some of the most groan inducing dialogue ever. Look at X-Men #132...the scene where Jean holds back Scott's eyeblasts?

 

Worse than As The World Turns.

 

Page layout is crucial to quality sequential art storytelling, just like the storyboardist on a movie is crucial to properly developing frame-by-frame shots in a film.

 

New Mutants' dialogue is pretty groan inducing, too.

 

This reminds me of when adults who never read Stan as a kid call his work "corny"..and it probably is to adult eyes. If you take Claremont's work in the context of when it was done, it was fairly sophisticated, especially for it's intended audience.

 

I do agree with and have always said it was no coincidence that CC did his best work when paired with a very strong artist ( and it didn't hurt if that artist was also co-plotting as well ).

 

As a KID I thought Stan's dialogue was corny.

Except in Amazing Spider-man. For some reason it worked for me in that.

In hindsight, the only characters I really think Stan's dialogue works for is Spider-man, Reed Richards, J. Jonah Jameson, and the Thing. They can blabber on in that Stan Lee style and it still works.

 

You're a Lee hater though, so I take what you say about him with a grain of salt

 

I don't HATE the guy, I just refuse to worship him based on drinking his Kool-Aid when I was a kid.

 

It's easy to say looking through the lens of the past that Lee's stuff was corny or bad. But in it's day it was revolutionary and I respect it in that context.

[Prince Namor]

Second, I never thought Claremont was "terrible" at dialogue. I was re-reading some New Mutants and dialogue is good. Why do you say that?

Also, how the presence of a "strong artist" can improve a story if it is not already decently good?

Claremont used a ton of expositional dialogue. Consider the following (I made up) as an example:

 

Nightcrawler: Oh, no! Sabretooth just slammed Wolverine into that wall! And now the wall is collapsing on top of him!

 

A strong artist, like John Byrne, was able to tell a great deal of story with well laid out panels, with good flow. Weaker artists didn't do that, which led Claremont to increase the amount of 'play-by-play' narrative dialogue like the example I offered.

Exactly.

 

And, on top of that, Claremont wrote some of the most groan inducing dialogue ever. Look at X-Men #132...the scene where Jean holds back Scott's eyeblasts?

 

Worse than As The World Turns.

 

Page layout is crucial to quality sequential art storytelling, just like the storyboardist on a movie is crucial to properly developing frame-by-frame shots in a film.

 

New Mutants' dialogue is pretty groan inducing, too.

 

This reminds me of when adults who never read Stan as a kid call his work "corny"..and it probably is to adult eyes. If you take Claremont's work in the context of when it was done, it was fairly sophisticated, especially for it's intended audience.

 

.

 

I'm not buying that argument.

 

Literature...even children's literature...should be judged on its merits, and not its intended audience. Anyone can talk down to kids; that's not great literature. There are some fantastic books that are intended for kids that don't have groan inducing, Soap Opera-esque dialogue. Harry Potter (Sorcerer's Stone), despite what Rowling later claimed, was aimed squarely at the 10-13 year old crowd. And it's pretty darn good. Wizard of Oz (and the rest of the books), also aimed at that same age range, is another excellent example.

 

In other words, they can be read and enjoyed by adults, without said adults...if they have average adult faculties...rolling their eyes and putting it down for how awful it is.

 

If X-Men was aimed at the same audience...and at that time, it probably was...it fails because Claremont didn't really have a grasp of how to write for kids without trying to be "sophisticated", so it ends up like other usual adult attempts to talk to kids: condescending and painfully stilted.

 

Just like a soap opera.

 

Claremont isn't alone; most of Silver Age DC is unreadable (why they thought they had to write books for an audience with an average IQ of 37, I'll never know)...but Claremont took awkward "trying-really-hard-to-sound-sophisticated-but-massively-failing" writing to heights undreamed.

 

Agree to disagree. If you look at a lot of the stuff Marvel was putting out at the time ( 1975-1980 ), I would say Claremont's work holds up very well against a lot of his peers. As the years wore on, I will agree that his writing got to a point where I felt it was time for him to move on from the X-Men. Unfortunately, what came after was mostly hot garbage and made me yearn for CC again

 

Claremont's work holds up very well against a lot of his peers, but considering those comics were all written for 13-14 year old geeks, that isn't really saying a lot.

 

 

Well, everything can't be Watchmen or Swamp Thing ( thank GOD ).

 

Totally agree. Would love to see diversity away from either style.

[Prince Namor]

Second, I never thought Claremont was "terrible" at dialogue. I was re-reading some New Mutants and dialogue is good. Why do you say that?

Also, how the presence of a "strong artist" can improve a story if it is not already decently good?

Claremont used a ton of expositional dialogue. Consider the following (I made up) as an example:

 

Nightcrawler: Oh, no! Sabretooth just slammed Wolverine into that wall! And now the wall is collapsing on top of him!

 

A strong artist, like John Byrne, was able to tell a great deal of story with well laid out panels, with good flow. Weaker artists didn't do that, which led Claremont to increase the amount of 'play-by-play' narrative dialogue like the example I offered.

Exactly.

 

And, on top of that, Claremont wrote some of the most groan inducing dialogue ever. Look at X-Men #132...the scene where Jean holds back Scott's eyeblasts?

 

Worse than As The World Turns.

 

Page layout is crucial to quality sequential art storytelling, just like the storyboardist on a movie is crucial to properly developing frame-by-frame shots in a film.

 

New Mutants' dialogue is pretty groan inducing, too.

 

This reminds me of when adults who never read Stan as a kid call his work "corny"..and it probably is to adult eyes. If you take Claremont's work in the context of when it was done, it was fairly sophisticated, especially for it's intended audience.

 

I do agree with and have always said it was no coincidence that CC did his best work when paired with a very strong artist ( and it didn't hurt if that artist was also co-plotting as well ).

 

As a KID I thought Stan's dialogue was corny.

Except in Amazing Spider-man. For some reason it worked for me in that.

In hindsight, the only characters I really think Stan's dialogue works for is Spider-man, Reed Richards, J. Jonah Jameson, and the Thing. They can blabber on in that Stan Lee style and it still works.

 

You're a Lee hater though, so I take what you say about him with a grain of salt

 

I don't HATE the guy, I just refuse to worship him based on drinking his Kool-Aid when I was a kid.

 

It's easy to say looking through the lens of the past that Lee's stuff was corny or bad. But in it's day it was revolutionary and I respect it in that context.

 

Corny? At times. I don't see how anyone can deny that. It was at times meant to be kinda corny.

Bad? Not saying it's bad.

There's nothing I read from my childhood that I have a fondness for more than the Amazing Spider-man. Mostly, I can still read those issues. I'll skip over a few spots per issue where Stan is obviously pontificating for no reason, but overall it's the best dialogue he ever wrote for anything. (He had Kirby's margin notes for the FF.)

The problem is that he felt it was necessary to turn it into a house style as well and it just doesn't work for everything.

 

It WAS revolutionary for it's time, and made comics popular to a slightly older audience that saw it as somewhat 'hip'. It's understandable to respect it in THAT context. He saw something that worked and repeated it as much as possible to try and milk it for all he could.

The was Marvel (Goodman's) Standard Operating Procedure.

The fact that he took a lot of those ideas from EC Comics from ten years earlier and try and claim it for his own, is a little sad, but whatever. That's how they did things at Marvel.

Stan's job was (is) to sell Marvel and he did (does) that better than anybody.

 

The reason the ASM worked as well as it did, and keep in mind, this is just my theory, is that it took the elements of what made comics it's most successful in the 20+ years previous to it - Romance - and added that element into the mix, of what was already a hodge podge of Stan Lee worked genre's of comedy, horror and sci-Fi. (That's why the book exploded when an experience Romance artist took it over - Romita).

Filtered through the colorful yet, stifling uniformity of superheroes, and brilliantly presenting him as an audience identifying teen hero; the dialogue works perfectly.

The neurotic over thought paranoia of Peter Parker?

The wise cracking devil may care insults of Spider-man?

The delusion, outrage and pomposity of J. Jonah Jameson?

The doubt, the drama, the longing of any number of females?

ASM was the perfect vehicle, issue after issue for Stan to let it all out. Everything he learned from reading Harvey Kurtzman (there I said it) could be put to perfect use.

But when repeated for other characters, it just didn't work as well - I mean, wouldn't a smart writer, instead of making Daredevil 'another Spider-man', give him his own voice? Is it really smart writing to have every member of the Avengers in each issue have get in his share of wise cracks. A solid writer would've tried for a little more diversification. Stan was a bit of a one trick pony.

It worked though. Marvel became a big deal, and people remember Stan as a 'great writer'.

 

[Prince Namor]

And I respect Stan's 'style' for what it was. A great marketing tool that created near deification for it's wielder. A cosmic cube of sorts.