(W) Sean Howe
Operating out of a tiny
office on Madison Avenue in the early 1960s, a struggling company called
Marvel Comics introduced a series of superhero characters with
eye-catching bright costumes, smart banter, and compellingly human flaws
that thrilled not just children but also pop artists, public
intellectuals, and campus radicals, weaving a tapestry of stories that
would become the most elaborate fictional narrative in history and serve
as a modern American mythology for millions of readers. Throughout the
decades-long journey to a multi-billion-dollar enterprise, Marvel's
identity has continually shifted, careening between scrappy underdog and
corporate behemoth.
Marvel Comics packs anecdotes and analysis
into a gripping narrative of how a small group of people on the cusp of
failure created one of the most dominant pop cultural forces in
contemporary America.
