MARVEL UNIVERSE, 1961-2015 - An Obituary

[616MarvelYear is LeapYear]

http://www.newsarama.com/23277-marve...1961-2015.html

By Jim McLauchlin

[Cameron Samurai]

[Gordonstar]

Parts of it still exist.

[UltimateTy]

Its a lil early for these articles lmao

[Moriarty]

Its a lil early for these articles lmao

agreed. meaningless click bait.

[DuskHarlekin]

agreed. meaningless click bait.

It is Newsarama.

[Chainsaw Vigilante]

agreed. meaningless click bait.

Isn't this story the comic book equivalent to click bait though?

[vitruvian]

http://www.newsarama.com/23277-marve...1961-2015.html

By Jim McLauchlin

Of course, it's dead for real in precisely the same way that Steve Rogers was really, really dead a few years back. You know it's coming back eventually, and not just in the piecemeal Battleworld format.

After all, they're eventually going to want to tell stories set on an Earth that has a somewhat coherent history without divergent versions of the same characters always coexisting, and that somewhat (not too closely, given the superhumans and fictional countries, of course) resembles 'the world outside your window'. For example, it would be nice if it was ever daytime in the MU..... nothing's been mentioned about the Sun being saved along with the bits of alternate Earths, so we must assume it's always nighttime on Battleworld.

[jackolover]

“I’m an empirical guy,” he said. “Maybe this is coming back out of my old geology days, but I try not to have instant reactions to things and say, ‘Oh my God! That’s terrible!’ My basic reaction “[Longtime DC Editor] Julie Schwartz once told me in the late ’60s or early ’70s when I was starting out that the average reader read comics for about three years. But that changed drastically right about the time Julie told me that,” Conway said. “Readers started staying around for five years, 10 years, now 20 years and more. And the problem is that existing readers want two different things: They want growth and change, but they don’t want it to be different. And these are two conflicting, horribly conflicting, notions.”

The notions may be divided by the very generations Conway speaks of


But in 2015’s Twitter-fueled culture, instant reactions are all the rage. You don’t have to look far to find fans trotting out the old saw of “Marvel just ruined my childhood.” Conway has a message for them.

“I would say to them, no, your childhood is still your childhood. There’s a point to be made, and it’s a universal one: We have to see that there’s a difference between what people do today, and what they did yesterday. Yesterday still exists, those stories still exist. Now someone else is getting a chance at a new childhood. And that’s nice.”

The message here is that the days in the 60's when I was reading, 3 years was all I was supposed to read, so when I read for 50 years, that made it difficult for Marvel to fit in all the history of the characters. So the Obituary is Marvel being able to hang up all that history that they didn't expect anybody to remember 50 years of it. I understand Marvel had to do that, because too much happens over a long period and characters aging in real time was problematic, so something had to give. Battle World will be this sweeping away of all the contradictions that a 50 year continuity does to characters aging. It does a lot of things, like modernize origins, and remove unwanted characters. But most of all it eliminates the need to explain what characters were doing in 1961.

Iron Mans wall map ended at Infinate Futures (HA Avengers #5). This is what happens after Everything Ends.

[Monkey Joe]

People are freaking out about an article by Jim McLauchlin from Wizard? Ok..... And yes they were called Timely Comics at the time (punny?), but it started in 1939, not 1961.

[616MarvelYear is LeapYear]

People are freaking out about an article by Jim McLauchlin from Wizard? Ok..... And yes they were called Timely Comics at the time (punny?), but it started in 1939, not 1961.

The Marvel Age of Comics started in 1961 with the debut of The Fantastic Four #1

[Monkey Joe]

Nah, it started with Marvel Comics #1

[616MarvelYear is LeapYear]

Nah, it started with Marvel Comics #1

The company which is now known as marvel comics started as Timely Comics with the publication of Marvel Comics #1

[nathdog]

http://www.newsarama.com/23277-marve...1961-2015.html

By Jim McLauchlin

I will take a different view as a DC reader looking to jump ship to something new. It sounds like the jumping on point I have been looking for. I have wanted to read something different but found the Marvel Universe too complicated. Outside of the Fraction run on Iron Man from 2008 to 2012. The Marvel cinematic universe will always blow the Upcoming DC-verse away. It's a good idea as far as I am concerned, but understand the annoyance. The DC New 52 was fine for some characters but bad for others.

[jackolover]

I once asked what was the point of all this if it all ends in 2015? Well I watched a program on cable about the 75 years of Marvel Comics, and in it Joe Quesada outlines his method for his tenure since 2000. He says it is to recreate the comics method of the 1960's the way the characters were written originally. I also asked some time ago what do the Blank black pages signify in the comic-books that showed up recently. I never got an answer, but looking back at the cover of Amazing Spiderman #36, which is a black cover alone, and in Captain America #1 from 2002, there is a black panel saying "7 months later" after 9/11, the Black Page represents the horror of 9/11.

So what was the point of it all since 2000 when Joe Q took over? The stories got more like 1961. The Captain America series by Reiber and later Austen, examined Steve Rogers dedication and determination; The FF in Authoritative Action recalled the military confronting the FF in FF #2 in 1961; Tony Stark became SecDef of the USA, a munitions and weapons manufacturer, and, his designs were stolen by the government; the Red Skull attempted to take over the government in Avengers; and this slid into the Avengers Disassembled and Civil War and it's many aftermaths that we have today. All through this period are the themes that ran through the 1960's books, and Stans Soap box appeared next, when Marvel launched the "AR" apps where the creators talk to the reader just like Stan did in his books. The Secret Wars that is approaching in May 2015 is just another crossover of super heroes fighting each other like they did in those early days, suspicious of each other, (like in the Illuminati today), not trusting anyone, and most of all, the escalating threats getting greater and greater each time, till they confronted Galactus in the end. Today, the "Galactus" threat is the result of the Great Destroyer appearing on an Earth.

I wonder if the Joe Quesada "Re-evolution" will be here to stay after Secret Wars ends and Battleworld becomes the home of the Marvel Universe, at least for a little while?