I've noticed that nothing older then the Gwen Stacy story has been mentioned and I think that's a shame since a lot of great stuff was published before that.
Spider-Man by Lee and Ditko is still a marvelous read, no pun intended, even after 40 odd years. Sure, it's googy in parts but the raw energy, tone, and creative discipline radiates off of the page. They haven't lost their resonance even if the visual lexicon of the early 60s seems dated.
Fantastic Four by Lee and Kirby, particularly from #49 - 75, is an incredible 2-year marathon of action, adventure, and unbridled creation. Every page is crisp. The characters are simply fun. The threats are monstrous. These issues were the benchmark that Dark Phoenix had to beat.
Steranko's run on Shield. Okay, the first 6 or so episodes in Strange Tales are uneven but Steranko took off once he was able to write and draw the thing. An interesting thing about Steranko is that he utilizes many cliches but he's always pushing the envelope on execution. No other book on the stand could visually compare to Steranko on Shield, and his style and acumen still hold up. DC in comparison was caught between the venerable old artists and the inexperienced young turks at the time and couldn't hold a candle to Steranko's ability to manipulate the page. Nothing bad over there, some solid DC books and all, but Steranko politely stunned the comics world with his work.
The X-men run by Thomas and Adams.
Jim Starlin's work on Captain Marvel and Warlock. Also, Steve Englehart's Dr. Strange work. It's easy to laugh at these books for their heavy-handed, prog-rock, metaphysics but these books were opening new conceptual dialogues in the the American market. The books showed that you could discuss interesting philosophical topics in the comics medium, as well as how you could do it, unlike other books available at the time. Good comics that I still re-read today.
Frank Miller's Daredevil stuff - again, another guy coming in an showing how comics could incorporate a new visual lexicon, while taking a weak character and investing it with life.
Claremont and Bryne's X-Men - classic. Set the mark for the superhero story for the next 15 years.
Mighty Thor by Walter Simonson. It seemed so simple at the time but, looking back, Simonson clearly shows how new life can be invested into a character with a thoughtful approach. It's like the 15 odd years between Simonson and Kirby didn't exist, or shouldn't, because the series captures that same enthusiasm and creativity. Thor earned this prefix with this run.
I think all of the above works are seminal pieces of Marvel comics. There are some lesser works that have dated themselves and clearly lost their force. These are books that were great at the time but didn't break any new ground. Still, these books obviously spoke to an audience that DC wasn't reaching. I talking about stuff like
the Englehart run on the Avengers.
Perez's 70s run on the Avengers.
Not to foreft Perez's 70s run on the Fantastic Four.
Moench and Gulacy on Master of Kung Fu
Thomas, Smith, Buscema, and company on Conan
Thomas's run on the Avengers is fun too.
Also, lest we forget Steve Gerber and his iconoclastic run on the Defenders and Howard the Duck.
Byrne's run on the Fantastic Four
I could go on but I think I've already stolen a lot of thunder.
I recall that writer Steven Grant once characterised DC and Marvel has having two aesthetics. DC usually had a long view with an eye towards tradition and standard quality, while Marvel always seemed to take the short view and was constantly branching out into different ideas. Just quickly looking at the above books there seems to be a diversity of ideas and stylistic approaches all sitting under one house.
I agree with most of the others that Marvel seems to outnumber DC in my collection and i've often wondered why. One reason is tone. I'm going to make a gross comparison but let's take two artists who I feel made indelible impressions upon their respective companies: Curt Swan and Jack Kirby. Curt Swan was THE superman artist for nearly 30 years. He had a clean, dependable line. He had excellent pacing abilities and story-telling strategies. He rarely used splash pages or double page spreads. Jack Kirby had a clean, dependable line but he utilized dramatic prespectives, opened up pages, and told a story with the maximum amount of drama. Both are great artist but it took me 20 years to discover the beauty in Curt Swan's approach, a style that clearly infilitrated the DC line, while Kirby gave me an immediate rush of excitement. He still gives me a rush. I think one of the differences between the two companies lies somewhere in there. |
