Thread Drift: Was Spider-Man (kind of) Marvel's answer to Superman?

[Prof. Warren]

IN the early years, Marvel comics were actually distributed by the chain that DC owned, and DC limited Marvel's output and placed quotas on it. And it took a while for Marvel to get out of that. So on both a personal level (dislike of superhero comics), professional level (dislike of DC for putting quotas on distribution and needing to play ball with them halfway), Lee would have been keen to undermine DC and that meant undermining Superman.

You're making assumptions about what Lee would have thought and done.

We can say that Lee was a tireless self-promoter and shameless huckster on behalf of Marvel.

Anything else, like ascribing specific motivations, is groundless speculation.

It was in the 70s that Spider-Man exceeded Superman in sales. I mean Superman vs. TASM is basically a coronation for Marvel and Spider-Man. No way would that comic have been possible or DC approved of it, if Marvel didn't seem "here to stay" and Spider-Man not become "lasting, and all in less than his first decade. DC remember has a history of burying competitors. Look at Quality, Fawcett, and so many others. Nobody else, except for Muhammad Ali, got treated with the respect that Spider-Man was.

Spider-Man was treated with respect because Superman vs. Spider-Man was produced in tandem with Marvel. So there's no mystery to figure out there.

Marvel and DC had previously collaborated the year before on the treasury sized adaptation of The Wizard of Oz so they had already teamed-up to produce a book and the stage was set for another collaboration.

As writer Gerry Conway says in describing the project's genesis and why it became possible when it did and why it couldn't have happened earlier:

"Before Stan became Marvel's publisher, you had people like Martin Goodman and his son Chip who were the ultimate business people there, and who would tend to hold a grudge. And at DC, you had (publisher) Carmine Infantino, who also tended to hold a grudge. So this was not a good mix."

Once the Goodman's left and Lee rose to the position of publisher, the atmosphere was different.

As Conway says: "Stan was a total pragmatist. If it was a matter of making his characters more popular, he had no problem with it."

As for the respect given to both characters, Conway states: "DC's only concern was that Superman look good and Marvel's concern was that Spider-Man look good. And my concern was that we produce a book that was fun to read and would fit my fanboy needs, which were fairly basic and simple - and it was a hoot!"

He added, "We did know we wanted to be completely fair in terms of the amount of pages that each character had, how many of the background characters from each (hero's) book would get featured; it was almost mathematical...and I think it worked, because you don't get the sense that either character predominates in the book."

These quotes, by the way, are from Back Issue No. 61, which covers the history of Giant-Sized Tabloids and Treasuries.

Compare how Superman and Spider-Man are treated in that issue with Superman and Batman team-ups before, where aside from the weird homoeroticism that was all over the place, Batman was always second banana to Superman. As was the rest of the DC stable. That situation didn't reverse until Frank Miller came in a decade after that, and the Batman Superman fight was definitely inspired by the fight between Spider-Man and Superman at the start of the crossover.

Boy, that is a stretch. I don't believe that's true in any way. It's not as though Superman vs. Spider-Man owned the market on superhero clashes.

Superman had regularly been tested by other heroes in the DC universe prior to TDKR, whether it be clashing with heroes in his own weight class like Captain Marvel or Wonder Woman or putting his speed up against The Flash. The idea of another hero in the DC stable going toe to toe with Superman was more than common enough by the time Miller entered the picture.