Marvel Comics: The End Crash of the '60s
The Heyday Ends, Talent Leaves, and Sales Slump for Marvel
Aug 26, 2008
Martin Goodman had been the publisher of Marvel Comics since the company started, but he was first and foremost a businessman. In the autumn of 1968 he sold Marvel, at the apex of its sales, to the Perfect Film and Chemical Corporation (soon to be renamed Cadence Industries), which kept him employed as the president of the company. It was a savvy move at just the right time.
Comics Crash
In 1969 the entire comics industry hit a slump. Sales were down at Marvel, sales were down at DC, and the independents were dropping like stones. There may have been many reasons; there was the natural economic correction of an industry that had boomed for a decade, the comics went up in price from 12¢ to 15¢, some would even say that the companies were to blame for putting out too many books at once.
Regardless of why it was happening, it was happening. Marvel found itself cutting multiple books for the first time in a decade. First to go were Dr. Strange and the avant garde comedy book Not Brand Echh (which Marvel had used to make fun of itself for two years), the worst for Editor Stan Lee, though, was the cancelation of The Silver Surfer, Stan’s foray into philosophical comics aimed at an older and more mature audience.
Marvel Stays Focused on the Future
The comics crash hurt Marvel, but rather than let it stymie them the Company seized it as an opportunity to get out from under DC Comics. Goodman negotiated a distribution deal through Curtis Circulation Company that gave Marvel much greater independence in the publication of its comics.
The X-Men Try to Survive
At a time when books that didn’t sell didn’t publish the X-Men struggled to keep going. The book had been doing poorly for quite some time and had never really found its voice in the Marvel Universe. Writer Roy Thomas and Artist Neal Adams tried to infuse new life into the title, and to a degree they succeeded, but the book just never caught on. It did manage to avoid cancelation though.
The King Moves On
A few years earlier Marvel Comics had been dealt a tough blow when Spider-Man artist Steve Ditko had quit. Before he did though, he’d spent over a year not speaking to his collaborator Stan Lee. There had been intense disagreement between the two over what direction Spider-Man would go as a character. The final straw came when the identity of the Green Goblin was decided; Ditko furiously objected to it being Norman Osborne, and that was the end.
The loss of so great a talent presaged the greatest loss that Marvel ever had. At the beginning of 1970 Jack Kirby, the man who had co-created the Marvel Universe, left the company to work for rival DC Comics. Once again it seemed to be disagreement with Lee that prompted the departure.
Kirby resented what he considered to be the public’s perception that Lee was solely responsible for the characters that were making Marvel great. With Lee’s constant campaigning for fans to “Make Mine Marvel” he’d become the public face of the company, and, to many, the man responsible for it.
Fans disagree to this day over whom was the architect of the Marvel Universe with rabid fans on either side claiming a disproportionate amount of credit for either Stan or Jack. In the end it comes down to the fact that, even though both have done excellent work apart, when they were together they produced some of the greatest characters in comics and changed the face of the medium forever.
Read the previous article in this series:
Marvel Comics: The Mid to Late ‘60s
Read the next article in this series:
 |
