Nailed it. Money doesn’t ruin EVERYTHING, but it ruins a lot of things. Once these characters became brands, meaningful and impactful stories that actually progressed went out the window.
It’s so odd that nobody could come up with new superheroes to replace the old as they aged out.
Before losing most of my Marvel Comics due to a flood, I had the issue where Peter Parker finally graduates college. I seem to remember, in the '80s, that he and MJ DID get married. Am I remembering wrong?
Well dang. The Spiderman storyline, with its romance and drama underpinnings, sound suspiciously like modern day manga stories. The difference being that manga has the grace to give their characters an ending. Had the Marvel execs had any spine, they could have let Peter have his happy ending and passed the torch to his kids. I've seen that done in book series quite successfully.
I'm also trying to figure out how Gwen became the bad girl and MJ became the main love interest. But you still have a lot of decades to cover.
As to why is Gwen bad and MJ good? Gwen was "dead" for a long time (as of Issue 121 in the first series / 1973), until Marvel started doing reboots and resets of its Universe in the 2000s. That meant that MJ became Peter's love interest in all the Spider-Man books, the comic strip, and associated media. MJ was the default "good girl". When Gwen was brought back -- because you can't leave IP lying around unused -- Gwen became the other girl/bad girl/spoiler by default.
Blame the Boomers in charge for lacking the imagination to actually do something interesting with most characters in the Spider-Man stable.
That's really too bad. I only know the latter half of comic book history, you know, the endless reboots and multiverses and whatnot. It was all too confusing for me so I never bothered getting into it. I wish I'd been able to read the good stuff back when it was, you know, continuity-based.
My experience goes to about 1992 or 1993 with Death of Superman. I stopped reading mainstream comics at that point. I kept up a little with what was happening, but no purchase other than Independents after that.
Regarding endings: exactly. I work with a game designer who has a group of superhero families and "families" who age, marry, have kids, die, and leave the mantles to others to take up. Very robust world and fun to hear about the wild things he's created in it. He lacks the fear that merchandised IP owners have. He's true to the characters and let's them write themselves as the games progress and the players use the characters within scenarios.
Stan Lee spent many years writing Millie the Model and Patsy Walker for both Atlas and Marvel. Dan De Carlo spent many years drawing Millie the Model, then left Marvel and went to Archie Comics. He redefined the style of the Archie characters into what was used from the 60s through early 21st Century, and that style was Millie's style.
John Romita was a long-time artist on DC's romance line of comics until Marvel brought him over to their company to draw Daredevil. He was the guy tapped to replace Steve Ditko when Ditko departed Marvel after Spider-Man Issue 38.
Look up the history of the Romance Comic in America and you will find that it was initiated and dominated in its early years by two people: Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, the creators of Captain America.
Simon & Kirby saw that superheroes were on their way out before most others did. The Romance genre was one of the largest selling genres in comics -- ever. Women and girls were likely the dominant consumer force in comics from 1947 through about 1955/56, when Romance was a multi-million dollar per month industry.
Both Marvel and DC had romance comics in their stable through the late 60s and early 70s.
See, as a girl, I'd read the heck out of that. But, like, make it romantic suspense, you know, with some action. I think that's why certain anime really hits the spot, because it mixes the romance with the action (thinking SpyXFamily). I don't think I'd trust modern Marvel/DC to write a romance. Not a straight one, anyway :-D
Nailed it. Money doesn’t ruin EVERYTHING, but it ruins a lot of things. Once these characters became brands, meaningful and impactful stories that actually progressed went out the window.
It’s so odd that nobody could come up with new superheroes to replace the old as they aged out.
Fascinating stuff.
Before losing most of my Marvel Comics due to a flood, I had the issue where Peter Parker finally graduates college. I seem to remember, in the '80s, that he and MJ DID get married. Am I remembering wrong?
True, they did and the comic strip was them married as well.
Well dang. The Spiderman storyline, with its romance and drama underpinnings, sound suspiciously like modern day manga stories. The difference being that manga has the grace to give their characters an ending. Had the Marvel execs had any spine, they could have let Peter have his happy ending and passed the torch to his kids. I've seen that done in book series quite successfully.
I'm also trying to figure out how Gwen became the bad girl and MJ became the main love interest. But you still have a lot of decades to cover.
As to why is Gwen bad and MJ good? Gwen was "dead" for a long time (as of Issue 121 in the first series / 1973), until Marvel started doing reboots and resets of its Universe in the 2000s. That meant that MJ became Peter's love interest in all the Spider-Man books, the comic strip, and associated media. MJ was the default "good girl". When Gwen was brought back -- because you can't leave IP lying around unused -- Gwen became the other girl/bad girl/spoiler by default.
Blame the Boomers in charge for lacking the imagination to actually do something interesting with most characters in the Spider-Man stable.
That's really too bad. I only know the latter half of comic book history, you know, the endless reboots and multiverses and whatnot. It was all too confusing for me so I never bothered getting into it. I wish I'd been able to read the good stuff back when it was, you know, continuity-based.
My experience goes to about 1992 or 1993 with Death of Superman. I stopped reading mainstream comics at that point. I kept up a little with what was happening, but no purchase other than Independents after that.
Regarding endings: exactly. I work with a game designer who has a group of superhero families and "families" who age, marry, have kids, die, and leave the mantles to others to take up. Very robust world and fun to hear about the wild things he's created in it. He lacks the fear that merchandised IP owners have. He's true to the characters and let's them write themselves as the games progress and the players use the characters within scenarios.
Like Sentinels of the Multiverse?
Champions and Ascendant
Stan Lee spent many years writing Millie the Model and Patsy Walker for both Atlas and Marvel. Dan De Carlo spent many years drawing Millie the Model, then left Marvel and went to Archie Comics. He redefined the style of the Archie characters into what was used from the 60s through early 21st Century, and that style was Millie's style.
John Romita was a long-time artist on DC's romance line of comics until Marvel brought him over to their company to draw Daredevil. He was the guy tapped to replace Steve Ditko when Ditko departed Marvel after Spider-Man Issue 38.
Look up the history of the Romance Comic in America and you will find that it was initiated and dominated in its early years by two people: Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, the creators of Captain America.
Simon & Kirby saw that superheroes were on their way out before most others did. The Romance genre was one of the largest selling genres in comics -- ever. Women and girls were likely the dominant consumer force in comics from 1947 through about 1955/56, when Romance was a multi-million dollar per month industry.
Both Marvel and DC had romance comics in their stable through the late 60s and early 70s.
See, as a girl, I'd read the heck out of that. But, like, make it romantic suspense, you know, with some action. I think that's why certain anime really hits the spot, because it mixes the romance with the action (thinking SpyXFamily). I don't think I'd trust modern Marvel/DC to write a romance. Not a straight one, anyway :-D
Agreed that Marvel and DC couldn’t be trusted to do it.
Marvel and DC can't be trusted to successfully purchase a Big Gulp at the 7/11.