I’ve been reading and evaluating comics by year. It’s been a long and arduous process.
The 1960s
Marvel in the 60s
Well, what is there to say? Marvel changed comics substantially with their release of Fantastic Four, and then succeeded in changing comics again with Spider-Man. They also had some other stuff.
Fantastic Four: A more-or-less wonderful series in this era, and entirely deserving of its status as lead hitter during these years. For every dreadful Mole Man issue, there are five or six stunners featuring Doom, Galactus, Silver Surfer or the Inhumans. Overall rating: 9
Spider-Man: Spider-Man was utterly magical for most of its run. Once you get through the high school years, which occupied an extremely short period of time, things kick into full gear. Harry Osbourne, Gwen Stacy, and Mary Jane Watson are quickly introduced as supporting characters and immediately make the series utterly engrossing. Overall rating: 9
Iron Man: Interesting overall concept, but lacking somewhat in execution. There were some isolated highlights, such as the face-off with the Titanium Man as a proxy Cold War battle, and the very end of the decade had some neater moments as Gene Colan added a lot of life to the title. But the rest of the series was missing something. Overall rating: 6
Thor: The series could have been much better than it was. Alas, there was a single supporting character for much of the decade, who had the personality of a Bic pen. Only at the end of the decade did the ship right itself, jettisoning Jane Foster momentarily, and introducing Sif and other mythological elements. Bringing in other pantheons (ironic use of the word?) was also an inspired choice. Overall rating: 5
X-Men: Good lord… if there was a series that vacillated between excellent and repulsive, it’s this one. After the first couple of issues, X-Men shifted from a fairly high concept idea with blasé results to the worst of one-note characterizations and monster-of-the-week execution. It was only at the very end when Jim Steranko and Neal Adams saved this series from the dungeon and gave the series a feel that presaged the Claremont-Cockrum years. Overall rating: 4
