³¼THE HISTORY¼³
 
³¼OF MARVEL¼³
¹

Comics... I  guess  the  most  of   you 
already quitted  this  article  because
of reading  this  word. Those  ones who 
will     keep    on     reading    this
short essay  of  the marvellous history 
of   ³MARVEL   COMICS¹   probably    know
that  comics  are not only reading mat-
ters for children. 

³Comics... who invented them?¹ 

Long  time  ago,  there lived a man who 
drew  small   stripes   with   pictures
and  ballons  in  them. Those so called 
PANELS usually consisted of caricatures
of politicians.  Some  years  later two 
men, Stan -THE MAN- Lee and Jack -KING- 
Kirby  founded  the  first  real comic-
company  (besides DC)  called TIMELY. 
They published  a comic  called MARVEL, 
mainly  featuring   stories  about  the 
World War II and superheroes  like  THE 
SUBMARINER, THE  INVADERS and of course 
THE ORIGINAL HUMAN  TOURCH.  But  their 
success  did  not dure for a long time, 
because of  the  publication  of a book 
called  THE  SEDUCTION OF THE INNOCENT. 
This book mainly featured cruel stories 
and  rumours  about  comics. That's why 
several month  later a institution cal-
led COMIC CODES AUTHORITY was  founded. 
So Timely wasn't able  to  publish it's 
comics any longer.  At  this  time  the 
first  real  SUPERHEROES  were born, be
cause  two  months  later  Stan Lee and 
Steve Didko created comics like AMAZING 
FANTASY   mainly   featuring   science-
fiction stories and THE INCREDIBLE HULK 
with  artwork  by  Stan  Lee  and  Jack 
Kirby. But unfortunately these   series 
didnt sell good and Stan Lee decided to 
cease publication with #15. But  fortu-
nately this issue features a  character 
called SPIDER-MAN, who  made this comic
as great as it is today. As  you surely 
no this comic  sold  very  well  and so 
Stan Lee and Steve Didko decided to gi-
ve  him  his own series called THE AMA-
ZING SPIDER-MAN. At that time  the  le-
gendary MARVEL-UNIVERSE was born.  Near
ly every week they created a  new  char
acter like AVENGERS (penciled  by sorry 
I forgot his name) DAREDEVIL, THE  MAN 
WITHOUT FEAR (penciled by Gene  Dolan), 
and of course THE UNCANNY X-MEN  ( done 
by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby) By the way, 
during  those  days  they changed their 
name into MARVEL COMICS after using the 
handle ATLAS. The success of MARVEL was 
now  obvious,  not  only  because  they 
tried to give their superheroes a human 
touch and a reliable past (in  contrast 
to every DC character, even  though  DC 
was   founded    some   month    before 
Timely... ). The  two  men company grew 
up  to  the  biggest  comic distributor 
worldwide. Of  course  the  MARVEL-UNI-
VERSE  grew  too. Today  it consists of 
about  thousand  villains  and superhe-
roes. By the way, MARVEL did  not  only 
concentrate on selling comics, they al-
so  distributed  everything   else fea-
turing  superheroes  like clothes, port
folios,  pins,  bolos,  posters,  cups, 
slumber-bags, PVC-figures  and  besides 
that  many  animated  TV-films.  But of 
course they  also  made  TV-films  with 
famous  "human-actors"  like DOLPH LUND
GREN as THE PUNISHER or  BRIGITTE NIEL-
SEN as THE SENSATIONAL SHE-HULK or BILL 
BIXBY as DOC BRUCE BANNER and of course 
LOU FERRIGNO as THE INCREDIBLE HULK.  I 
guess  the  most  amazing  thing in the 
MARVEL-UNIVERSE is the organisation  of 
all those pencilers like JIM LEE, ERNIE 
CHAN¹,  SERGIO  ARAGONES, MARK TEXEIRA, 
JAVIER SALTARES, JOHN ROMITA JUNIOR and 
of  course  TODD  MCFARLANE, of  all in
kers, colorists, plotters and last  but 
definetely not least of all those  let-
terers. Every month they realease a new 
MARVEL-MILESTONE, e.g. an "old" hero in 
a  new  story  or even  a new hero or a 
villain or... The  Punisher for example 
already features four series (I did not 
count Cage), The Punisher, The Punisher 
Armory, The Punisher War Zone  and  The 
Punisher  War  Journal.  Nearly   every 
first, tenth, twenty-fifth... issue  of 
every comic features a special surprise 
like more pages or even a die-cut  cen-
ter-spread  pop-up  cover. Besides that 
there also appear many  anuals,  paper-
backs, crossovers  and  of course  many 
reprints of famous comics like  ³AMAZING 
FANTASY #15¹. There  are  also   several 
funny  comics  like  Rocky  Bullwinkle, 
Uncle Scrooge,  Goofy, ALF,  Felix  the 
Cat, Toxic Crusaders  and  so on... but 
the most of them are  so  called Indies 
(no Marvel ones). And  of  course there 
are those japanese  cult  comics called 
MANGA. The  only  thing I hate in comic 
business  are  the jerky translated Mar
vel, Disney, Epic  and Harvey comics. I 
guess no german Donald Duck reader will 
ever  face  the  real american version. 
This is really sad because the image of 
comics gets pushed  down. One  evidence 
for my clue is that there are nearly no 
mature  comic  readers  in germany. But 
anyway  I  guess  comic  business  is a 
great business...


Do not write to my address if you  nei-
ther are a fortunated graphoid  nor you 
adore comics...

            ³C. Morgenstern
      
            Schumannstr. 78
            W-4020 Mettmann
    
            Germany¹




This short essay of comic business  was 
written by Groo and Rufferto of Digital 
and Olga of WAM...