The 60’s Keep Us Young

November 1961. The day that will live in comic readers minds forever, the day Marvel comics was really born as it launched Fantastic Four #1, THE book that started the new era of what we perceive to be Marvel comics. They are so important that Marvel has dubbed them the First Family. This was the start of an industry that still exists today, thriving on the stories of decades of writers.

The Fantastic Four launched the era of superheros and started the chain reaction of Stan Lee making the company with his talented artists at his side. Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, X-Men, The Incredible Hulk, The Avengers, Nick Fury, Daredevil and more were all introduced in the 60’s and this era started the Marvelzombie brethren. Its amazing to think that all of these characters were introduced in a single time frame, of 10 years, more than half a century ago and yet they still dominate the sales charts and movie screens across the country.

It is hard to imagine the possibility of a similar decade happening now that would introduce as many characters, with so much potential, and who can last for 50 years, with hundreds of creators telling their stories. Just try and imagine how many people have left their mark on one of these characters, and how no matter well received the story was, the characters survived to be there next month.

It seems like no matter how popular todays creators get that they will never go down as the next Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and the likes of these legends of the industry. For all the flash in the pan success The Walking Dead has had, will it outlast Robert Kirkman and be around in 50 years like the X-Men? Odds are this will not be the case as Kirkman owns The Walking Dead and there is little chance he will ever let another write the book.

That is what made this decade so magical in my opinion, and odds are this will be an unpopular one to state.

Creator owned books are not the salvation of the industry.

It is going to be the work for hire creations that keep this medium afloat. No matter how great Chew is (and it’s pretty amazing) or how cool Spawn was in the 90’s they will never be able to support an industry as a whole. We need brands that will be recognized long after their original creators are gone that can be presented in a multi-media world time and time again.

We are getting a new Spider-Man movie which is a reboot, odds are we will get another Batman film within a decade, but I would bet you anything we will not see The Walking Dead get a reboot on the small screen or another take on a Ghost World film. You will never see America’s Got Powers action figures in the local Target, or Preacher Legos.

The 60’s were a gold mind of creativity and wild concepts that were tried because if they failed, you could create a new book next month in the anthologies that dominated the market at the time. Today you are lucky to find one new character a month across an entire company. And the ones that stick tend to get major pushes and last, take Maria Hill from Brian Michael Bendis, she appeared in the film and will probably be around for a few more years before killed off in a major event to muster up some fanboy tears.

It’s hard to accept, but these creators were tossing idea after idea at the wall and just seeing what would stick, and it resulted in some of the best superheroes we have ever seen. They were company owned and the creators who took on these characters later in time told amazing stories with them. Would Daredevil be nearly as popular without Frank Miller or Bendis writing him decades after his creation? What about Spider-Man with out Todd McFarlene?

How great would a Neil Gaimen Superior book be? It could be as good as his Miracleman, but odds are Mark Millar will never let him write it as it’s his creation. The same could be said about a Brian Azzarello Preacher book, could be amazing, but he will never get the chance because it’s creator owned.

I am not discounting the benefits these books add to the industry, The Walking Dead dominates the graphic novel charts and helps drive people into the shops, Millar’s work has been a boom to movie studios, but these are one off things that are at best flash in the pan hits that might be fondly remembered in a decade or three, but they will never have the staying power, the fandom, the dedication of up and coming writers who want to tell that Hulk story they have had in their minds since they were 8 and saw the green giant on the movie screen.

The 60’s are where it really began and the 60’s are what are going to keep this industry alive.