Marvels

AUTHOR: Busiek, Kurt

ARTIST: Alex Ross (illustrator); John Gaushell (letterer); Richard Starkings (letterer)

PUBLISHER: Marvel Comics

FIRST SERIAL PUBLICATION: 1994

FIRST BOOK PUBLICATION: 1994

Publication History

Marvels was originally published as a mainstream, widely distributed comic book by Marvel Comics in 1994. The series was scripted by Kurt Busiek, a freelance writer whose credits included mainly comics about superheroes, and Alex Ross, an artist known primarily for Dark Horse’s Terminator: The Burning Earth (1990). The original four-issue series was a financial success and quickly garnered critical and public acclaim. A fifth issue, numbered zero, appeared later in the summer of 1994 and included production notes, sketches, and a prologue to the main story. Marvel Comics collected the entire limited series into both trade paperback and hardback editions by the year’s end.

Marvel Comics has reprinted the collection several times in various formats, including a tenth anniversary edition in 2004 of more than four hundred pages. A 2009 edition has ensured that the series has remained in print since its original release. The popularity of the series has also led to several spin-off titles and a sequel. The success of Marvels as a graphic novel in multiple publication formats has influenced other American publishers to also release other collected material in various editions, sometimes simultaneously and differentiated only by different artwork on the jacket covers. This trend, particularly issuing editions with variant covers, has proliferated since the first publication of Marvels.

Plot

Marvels is an exploration of Marvel Comics’ older history. As a result, fans of Marvel Comics’ Golden and Silver Age, probably mostly older readers, would be the target audience for this series, especially given the numerous references to various comics from those decades. Marvels focuses on the story of a news photographer, Phil Sheldon, who follows superheroes, whom he dubs “Marvels,” throughout New York from 1939 to the early 1970’s. The series omits the late 1940’s and 1950’s, when the superhero genre was in decline. Other comic book genres published by the company during those decades, including crime, romance, and science fiction, are referenced only vaguely.

A Time of Marvels takes place between 1939 and 1941. Sheldon, a budding news photographer, witnesses the birth of the Human Torch, Marvel’s first superhero. The subsequent wave of superheroes persuades Sheldon that the presence of superpowered beings would forever change humanity’s self-perception, and he devotes his career to chronicling their exploits. Although his own sense of self is shaken by the superhumans, Sheldon regains his self-worth and marries his sweetheart, Doris Jacquet. The story ends with the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor and Sheldon as a war correspondent in Europe.

Monsters Among Us leaps forward to circa 1963-1965. The Silver Age of comics has already begun, and New Yorkers are caught up in the awe and excitement that the revival of superheroes has generated in the United States. This form of celebrity worship ultimately leads to the wedding between the Fantastic Four’s Reed Richards and Susan Storm. Sheldon’s covering of the Marvels leads him to prepare a book comprising his news photographs for publication. At the same time, however, Sheldon is caught up in an undercurrent of fear and hatred against an increasing mutant population. Sheldon is forced to confront his prejudice when he learns that his two young daughters have befriended an abandoned mutant girl, Maggie. An outbreak of mutant hysteria during the Richards’ wedding night causes Maggie to flee.

Judgment Day begins with a sense of foreboding, and the optimism exhibited in Monsters Among Us has evaporated. Ominous signs appear over New York, followed by the arrival of an alien world devourer, Galactus. These apocalyptic events prompt many people to speculate that the world will end. Sheldon initially sets out to cover the event, but he ultimately abandons the spectators and rejoins his family. The Fantastic Four drive Galactus from Earth, but many people remain skeptical that superheroes are beneficial for humanity.

The Day She Died takes place in the early 1970’s. Although his book is a success, Sheldon is disheartened by humanity’s ingratitude toward the superheroes’ efforts, and he seeks to redeem the Marvels in the public eye by proving Spider-Man innocent of a murder of a police captain. The officer’s daughter, Gwen Stacy, agrees to aid Sheldon, but she is abducted by the Green Goblin and is later killed when Spider-Man tries to save her. Disappointed by the Marvels’ failure to save an innocent life, and angry at a culture that quickly jumps from one event to the next, Sheldon retires from photography.

Volumes

•Marvels: Book Zero (1994). A prologue before Marvels begins focusing on the original Human Torch’s creation, circa 1939.

•Marvels: A Time of Marvels (1994). The introduction of the Marvels during the Golden Age between 1939 and 1941. The book’s climax is from The Human Torch, issue 5.

•Marvels: Monsters Among Us (1994). Covers the events during the Silver Age, leading to the wedding between Reed Richards and Susan Storm in Fantastic Four Annual 3 and X-Men, issue 14, circa 1965.

•Marvels: Judgment Day (1994). A retelling of the Galactus story line from Fantastic Four, issues 48-50, circa 1966.

•Marvels: The Day She Died (1994). Covers the events leading to the death of Gwen Stacy from The Amazing Spider-Man, issue 121, circa 1973.

Characters

•Phil Sheldon, the protagonist, is a tall white man with an eye patch and, after the first issue, a white mustache. He ages throughout the series. He is a freelance news photographer and frequently wears a tan trench coat. He is also introspective and his camera allows him to view the Marvels through a lens; as a result, he is analytical of the events around him and his role in these events. Sheldon is also a loving husband and father of two daughters.

•Doris Jacquet is Sheldon’s wife. She is slim, of medium height, and has red hair, but she gains weight by the series’ end. She was a nurse during World War II. After the war and the birth of her children, she is primarily a housewife and mother. She is devoted to her husband.

•Maggie is a girl and friend of Sheldon’s daughters. She is a mutant, with a large head and eyes, but lacks superpowers. She appears in Monsters Among Us, and her presence causes Sheldon to rethink his antimutant prejudice. She stays with the Sheldons—the only “Marvel” to penetrate Sheldon’s private life—but runs away when mob violence threatens the Sheldons’ home.

•Galactus, who dresses in blue and purple armor, is a humanoid alien behemoth who threatens the Earth in Judgment Day. His near-destruction of the human race causes Sheldon to reevaluate his priorities in life, of which he places his family before all else. Galactus’s defeat also confirms Sheldon’s faith in the Marvels while the rest of his peers cast doubts about superheroes.

•Marcia is a photographer and Sheldon’s assistant. She is short and wears glasses. She aids Sheldon in his news assignments in Judgment Day and The Day She Died. As a budding news photographer, she is also a mirror of Sheldon’s younger self and is Sheldon’s successor when he retires.

•Gwen Stacy is the daughter of murdered police captain George Stacy. She is a tall, young adult with long blond hair. She agrees to aid Sheldon in his quest to vindicate Spider-Man for his alleged role in her father’s death. She is kidnapped by a supervillain and is killed. Her death leads to Sheldon’s disenchantment with the superhero community.

Artistic Style

Marvels utilizes painted covers and pages, which are visually sophisticated. Ross’s style consists of using photographic references with live models, props, and costumes from which he paints his artwork. Since the premise of Marvels is a narrative from the perspectives of nonsuperpowered individuals, Ross’s use of models gives added emphasis to the portrayal of the early Marvel Universe through the eyes of “real” individuals. Since the series was based upon established comics history, Ross also re-creates panels and pages from the original comics (the accompanying panels’ dialogue are also reproduced). At times, he employs different angles, a technique that fits the theme of providing new perspectives concerning the original pages. Ross also incorporates period artifacts (Life magazine) and people (Mickey Rooney, the Beatles) into various panels.

For the majority of the series, Ross relies on bright colors and depicts events in full sunlight, providing a reflection of the enthusiasm that the Marvel Universe infused in youth culture during the 1960’s and early 1970’s. However, as Marvel Comics also addressed social unrest and anxieties during these periods, Ross symbolically paints these undercurrents in his narrative by darkening these panels. In these moments, such as Sheldon’s first meeting with the socially despised X-Men or a hate-based riot, Ross uses night scenes with heavy shadowing and muted colors (the riot ends when bright lights shine down upon the rioters, thus ending their hysteria). Similarly, Ross depicts Sheldon’s philosophical musings on the social relationship between the superheroes and human society in his photographic darkroom, bathed in the safety bulb’s red tint.

Themes

The main theme in Marvels is the search for identity. The series makes clear that the introduction of superpowered individuals among the public throws established notions of American ascendancy and self-made individuals into flux. Sheldon himself expresses uncertainty about his own sense of self throughout the series. In the first installment, the Marvels cause Sheldon to question his own masculinity, which he regains by suffering bodily injury while covering a battle between the Marvels. He decides that the advent of the Marvels does not necessarily negate his own sense of self as he marries his fiancé.

In the second issue, the American people have taken in the Silver Age Marvels as their own: New Yorkers participate in the festivities surrounding the Fantastic Four wedding; they host barbeques and women adapt the bride’s hairstyle. However, the series makes clear that while the people have embraced some of the superheroes, they ostracize the X-Men, fearing they represent a threat to the definition of humanity and to the American ideal of self-improvement. Sheldon’s daughters take in an abandoned mutant youngster, causing Sheldon to question his own antimutant prejudice.

In the third issue, Sheldon observes humanity losing faith in the Marvels. This lack of faith ties into the coming of Galactus and the near-destruction of Earth. Although the people support the Fantastic Four as they battle the behemoth world devourer, Sheldon also observes that many others, having lost faith in their heroes, have lost faith in themselves, which manifests in displays of public drunkenness and greed. Sheldon comes to grips with his own identity and opts to be near his family in what may be humanity’s final hour.

In the fourth issue, Sheldon seeks to restore humanity’s faith in the Marvels, but he becomes disenchanted with the Marvels’ failure to save Gwen Stacy, whom Sheldon sees as representative of the innocent that the Marvels should champion and protect. Sheldon decides to dissolve his association with the Marvels and retires from his line of work. However, some have interpreted the final panels as ambiguous: They suggest that there is no real closure, as Sheldon’s identity is linked to the Marvels as time unfolds.

Marvels does not highlight the larger historical context of the 1960’s and 1970’s, in which various marginal groups were attempting to establish their own identities against mainstream American culture. To add to the realism, Busiek scripted pseudo newspaper and magazine texts to surround Sheldon’s news photographs and included characters such as Luke Cage, one of Marvel Comics’ responses to the blaxploitation film genre. Busiek uses these signifiers; however, he ignores the larger cultural contexts of the period. Nevertheless, although Sheldon is decades older than Marvel’s reading audience during these issues’ original publication, his struggle to define himself in a world of superheroes speaks to the readers’ own lack of power against the cultural and political establishments of the 1960’s and 1970’s.

Impact

Marvels was among the earliest stories to successfully reexamine and reaffirm a company’s comic book continuity and reinterpret key events from different perspectives. Marvels also utilized the nostalgia of older readers who may have rejected the trend of 1990’s comic books to revamp entire lines with new characters at the expense of established history. Marvels continues to remain popular among comic book readers, as evidenced by the many later reprints. Marvels also brought wide recognition to its creators. Busiek and Ross reteamed for the Astro City (1995- ) series, and Busiek later wrote The Avengers series (starting with Volume 3, issue 1, in 1998) and the limited series Avengers Forever (1998-1999), both of which were heavily dependent on established continuity.

DC Comics responded to Marvels by publishing Kingdom Come (1996), with Ross as artist; and Marvel Comics employed Ross in its own response to Kingdom Come in Earth X (1999-2000). Both series take place outside their companies’ respective continuities and rewrite familiar characters in alternate settings. Both Kingdom Come and Earth X were collected in multiple formats, targeting both general readers and collectors.

A proposed follow-up, Marvels II, failed to materialize, and several limited series under a “Marvels” imprint did not achieve the same critical and popular success as Marvels. In 2008, Busiek scripted Marvels: Eye of the Camera, a sequel to Marvels, featuring Sheldon.

The critical and financial success of Marvels encouraged other creators to use established continuities for storytelling material. These included DC Comics’ Identity Crisis (2004), Marvel Comics’ Spider-Man: Blue (2002-2003), Illuminati comics, and Marvels Project (2008-2009).

Further Reading

Busiek, Kurt, and Carlos Pacheco. Avengers Forever (1998-1999).

Busiek, Kurt, and George Perez. JLA/Avengers (2003).

Krueger, Jim, and Alex Ross. Earth X (1999-2000).

Lee, Stan, et al. Marvel Masterworks (1987- ).

Waid, Mark, and Alex Ross. Kingdom Come (1996).

Bibliography

Busiek, Kurt. “Kurt Busiek.” Interview by Ray Mescadello. The Comics Journal 216 (October, 1999): 50-98.

Nolen-Weathington, Eric, and John Morrow. “Kurt Busiek: Getting to the Bottom of Topps Comics.” The Jack Kirby Collector 31 (March, 2001). http://twomorrows.com/kirby/articles/31busiek.html

Ross, Alex. “Interview with Alex Ross, Part One.” Interview by Christopher Brayshaw. The Comics Journal 223 (May, 2000): 38-73.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. “Interview with Alex Ross, Part Two.” Interview by Christopher Brayshaw. The Comics Journal 224 (June, 2000): 69-86.