Marvel Comics

St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture, Jan 29, 2002 by Bradford W. Wright

Although these comic books have not held up to the critical eye, they significantly impacted the subsequent history of comic books. Their popularity was undeniable. Marvel became a sensation in the 1960s. By reaching out to a slightly older audience and defying the mainstream conventions epitomized by DC, Marvel garnered a sizable college-aged readership and won approval. In 1965 Esquire magazine reported that Marvel had become a phenomenon on campuses nationwide, while characters like Spider-Man, the Hulk, and Dr. Strange, in particular, had achieved noted status among self-described radicals and the counterculture. Marvel's popularity and Stan Lee's unabashed and outrageous hucksterism made Lee himself a minor celebrity and an in-demand speaker at college campuses. Marvel's enthusiastic fan base credited Lee and his collaborators with fashioning a new mythology--a complex fictional universe with interlocking characters and themes that involved readers in much the same way as the mythologies of Star Trek, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Dungeons and Dragons later would. Intentionally or not, Marvel tapped into the escapist, alienated, and anti-mainstream ethos that had always comprised the essence of the comic book's appeal.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Marvel enjoyed a steadily increasing share of the comic book market. In the early 1970s it surpassed DC, ending that publisher's long era of dominance. Forced to acknowledge the popularity of its rival's approach, DC began to adapt the Marvel style to its own superhero comics--sometimes effectively, often clumsily, and rarely with comparable commercial success. In the booming 1980s Marvel secured its commanding market position even further on the strength of such new hits as the revitalized X-Men and the Punisher, as well as the continuing popularity of its established superheroes. Market surveys indicated that Marvel was the top-seller in both the traditional and the increasingly important comic book store markets. To help ensure its dominance, Marvel returned to its old strategy of flooding the market with titles in the hopes of crowding out the competition. Despite spirited challenges from DC and an array of smaller "independent" publishers vying for market share, Marvel has stayed on top and its characters have remained the most popular among comic-book fans.

The company's very success, however, made it a target of some criticism from fans and industry insiders. Many charged that Marvel's comic books, once on the cutting edge of the field, had drifted squarely into the predictable mainstream. Longtime fans grew annoyed by Marvel's bewildering multi-issue "cross-overs" and its tendency to spread popular characters like Spider-Man and the X-Men over too many titles. Some creators complained that a dispassionate and sometimes ruthless corporate atmosphere now pervaded the once intimate company that many had idolized and romanticized as young fans. Marvel had been a corporate property since 1968 and changed owners several times. In 1991, under the ownership of billionaire Wall Street investor Ronald Perleman, Marvel Entertainment debuted on the New York Stock Exchange. Shares performed well for several years despite warnings from market watchers that they were overvalued. Then they declined sharply until 1996, when Marvel was compelled to file for chapter eleven bankruptcy protection.