With a huge collection of comics over 60 years and audio-visual adaptations that we cannot count, finishing the Marvel universe from start to finish is not for every brave man. Except for one fan who’s read 27,000 Marvel comics, which is half a million pages.
A man named Douglas Wolk set out to read more than 27,000 Marvel Comics issues to discover what was behind Marvel that has made Marvel so interesting for generations, and he succeeded. According to Wolk, who collects the deductions he made during this process in his new book called ‘All of the Marvels’, the growing library of the comic book giant Marvel is “the longest continuous, self-contained work of fiction ever created”.
Marvel owes its success today to the fact that the creatives behind comics have tried themselves in other genres.
This popularity of superheroes on the rise during the 1930s and 40s; It started to decline after the Second World War. During this recession, writers and artists often dared to try themselves in new genres as well: Jack Kirby and Joe Simon, the team behind Captain America, had new success with the drama-focused Young Romance. While Steve Ditko carries his dynamic style to horror and science fiction stories; meanwhile, Stan Lee got the chance to try everything from westerns to humor to medieval adventures. According to Wolk, this diversity of experiences is what fuels Marvel’s exponential popularity.
The Silver Age of comics began in the 1950s when DC created the new Flash, Barry Allen; but it was Marvel who took comics to new levels. The creative figures who would define the pop culture giant, Wolk said, created a new “hybrid formula” in storytelling by combining 1940s superhero stories with genres they had discovered in the previous decade. A prime example of this innovative genre synthesis was Marvel’s Fantaastic Four. Debuting under their own name in 1961, this first family of Marvel’s stood out as a superhero team to rival DC’s Justice League.
Unlike its competitors, Marvel’s early stories were reactive to the historical and political events of the time, and used their readers’ fears and anxieties to their advantage. New youth-focused characters like Spider-Man no longer resemble the seamless pre-teen sidekick archetype found in Robin and Bucky; instead, the new stories focused on rejection, loneliness, insecurity and self-doubt. Not long after, comics like X-Men also reflected the sense of conflict and rejection experienced by minority groups, followed by characters representing members of religious and non-religious groups, ethnic and racial minorities, and the LGBTQ+ community.
‘Diversity’ lies behind Marvel Comics’ success on the big screen
There is, of course, a connection between the rise of Marvel Comics and the frantic success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which includes 18 of the 100 highest-grossing films of all time, on the big screen. Directed by Kevin Feige, Marvel Studios has built this success in the cinematic universe by working with genre-leading directors who have proven themselves in other genres of cinema, including horror (Scott Derrickson, Sam Raimi), comedy (James Gunn, Taika Waititi, Peyton Reed) and drama (Ryan Cooler, Destin). and continues to do so.
Combining existing genres with the superhero genre, the Marvel Cinematic Universe makes it clear what makes Marvel so successful: emotional realism and creating extraterrestrial adventures with characters that are so easy to connect with.
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