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Editor's Note: The following piece is part of an expanded version of Pierre's article "The Four Fantastic Phases of Silver Age Marvel" which featured in the Sept 2000 issue of that excellent publication Comic Book Marketplace, also known as CBM. Without the constraints of the printed medium, we're able to present this fuller version. You might like to compare the two! - Nick
Author's Note: Regular visitors to this site will be familiar with the four phases of Silver Age Marvel's development described here, as they continue to serve as the theoretical basis of this writer's collaboration with Gregorio Montejo in our In-depth Reviews column. I first dreamed up the idea of dividing Silver Age Marvel's development into four phases in the early '90s, just before the completion of the original of this article around 1994. - Pierre
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Part IV: The Twilight Years
Although three distinct periods in the development of Silver Age Marvel have already been identified, the Early, Formative Years, the Years of Consolidation and the Grandiose Years, a fourth still remains: the Twilight Years. Characterized by a combination of a growing lethargy among the company's established titles and the rise of imaginative new features produced by young creators who'd been fans before they became professionals, the Twilight Years was the longest and most drawn out of the four phases. Those looking for a clear line of demarcation between the Grandiose Years and the Twilight Years however, will be disappointed. Like the previous phases, the change from one era to the next wasn't obvious, coming gradually, almost imperceptibly and unlike those earlier phases, the period of overlap between the Grandiose Years and the Twilight Years is a lengthy one. And despite the temptation to use Jack Kirby's departure from the company as marking the end of the Grandiose Years, the fact is, no era can be demarcated by a single event. In fact, it's the contention here that Marvel's exit from the Silver Age began almost two full years before Kirby left.
Begun in the triumphant glow of the Grandiose Years, this final era in Silver Age Marvel's development wound down slowly as the once vibrant dynamism of Lee, Kirby, Ditko and Heck became spent, the visual skills of their successors Romita, Buscema and Colan for a time held their ground and new writers like Roy Thomas, Gerry Conway and Doug Moench steered their most creative energies away from the books that had become the bedrock of the line. As the changeover from the old guard to the new was completed and the company entered fully into its final phase (a phase whose elements and style of storytelling became as different in their sensibilities from those of the three earlier phases as those phases had been different from comics produced before Marvel's revolution), the Twilight Years became a kind of epilogue to what had gone before as the long night of mediocrity slowly settled over the company.
Gradually, as the Twilight Years progressed, a kind of atrophy set in on the older titles that had once led the Marvel revolution. Elements such as characterization and realism began to fade and humor became stale; formula trumped originality. Ironically however, it was these very strips that continued to outsell the oddball books and new features that were showing the sometimes daring creativity that had originally set Marvel apart from its competitors. And so, as the Twilight Years faded out, and memory of the glorious triumphs of the earlier phases dimmed, an air of somnambulism crept into Marvel, only to be jarred into wakefulness when, at intervals, rising creative stars occasionally shook it from its slumber. The years would stretch into decades and reach beyond the scope of this work as flashes of creativity, the last echoes of Marvel's fabled Silver Age (such as that of John Byrne's stint on the X-Men and Fantastic Four, Frank Miller's work on Daredevil and the Roger Stern, John Buscema, Tom Palmer team up on the Avengers), became more and more infrequent until petering out completely. |
113) One of the last great strips born of the Twilight Years, Master of Kung Fu (which began life in Special Marvel Edition # 15) was, on the face of it, a strange concept, an uneasy marriage of new and old. The 'Yellow Peril', symbolized by the devil doctor Fu Manchu still smelling of pulp paper and newsprint fifty years after Sax Rohmer had invented it, and the Kung Fu craze of the mid-1970s, the culmination of ten years of bad movies out of Taiwan and an interest in eastern mysticism popularized by the Beatles' visit to India in 1965. Despite this artificial premise, the talents of Steve Englehart and Jim Starlin managed to make something of it and while interesting, Starlin left before anything substantive could be drawn from it. Englehart stayed on for a few more issues, avoiding for the most part, continued stories and concentrating instead on little life lessons directed at the hero, Shang-Chi as he continued to struggle with the contradictions of western civilization. But for the most part, he couldn't seem to get a good hold on the strip, and even with the seemingly infinite resources for mischief possessed by Fu Manchu, a unifying theme eluded him. Rohmer had supplied the strip with its first supporting characters in Sir Dennis Nayland Smith of the British spy organization MI5, and his friend Dr. Petrie, while Starlin and Englehart had come up with Black Jack Tarr, but no real chemistry among them was ever developed. And so, the strip continued to plod along on the strength of the public's interest in all things martial arts, but how long would that last? When it was over, what would sustain Master of Kung Fu? Enter writer Doug Moench who took over the book after # 20 and, teaming up with the strip's most frequent artist, Paul Gulacy, proceeded to turn it into one of the most exciting and innovative reads of the Twilight Years. As with most of his fellow writers at Marvel, Moench started out a fan of the company's comics in the sixties and broke in to the business when he sent off a handful of stories blind to Archie Goodwin, then editor of Warren's black and white line of magazines. To the would-be writer's shock, all the stories were bought and, thus encouraged, immediately began writing more. With his name prominent in the credits at Warren, he soon took a telephone call from Roy Thomas who invited him to join Marvel as an assistant editor. Moench took the job and in due course became the company's most prolific writer taking on such features as Ghost Rider, Frankenstein and Ka-Zar. Then, almost as an afterthought by Thomas, he was offered Master of Kung Fu. Like Englehart before him, Moench at first concentrated on shorter stories most of which were somehow connected with the doings of Fu Manchu. But soon realizing that too much of a good thing drained it of whatever made it a good thing in the first place, Moench decided to back away from that idea and that's when he and Gulacy hit on a great idea: they made Shang-Chi into a super-spy! In retrospect, it seemed like the most natural thing in the world as Shang was already working with British intelligence against the machinations of his evil father. What better during the down time between foiling plots by Fu Manchu than to have him go on other, unrelated missions? It all began in earnest with the first of a three part story in Master of Kung Fu # 29 in which Gulacy, after having skipped the previous three issues to start the new direction off with a bang, does the penciling and inking himself. In it, Shang and fellow agents Black Jack Tarr and Clive Reston must infiltrate the heavily guarded estate of international drug dealer Carlton Velcro and incidentally launch one of the most perfect runs of comics of the Twilight Years.
114) "The Crystal Connection" continued into Master of Kung Fu # 30 and although there was no slowing down the high octane plot, Gulacy did hold up enough to allow former mentor Dan Adkins to do the inking. But what in the world had happened with Gulacy anyway? Where did this artistic dynamo come from? Wasn't he the guy that only recently struggled through a Morbius strip filled with awkward figures and Steranko-influenced layouts? It turned out that both were the same person and, following the familiar track of peers such as Craig Russell, Mike Ploog and Rich Buckler, his skill curve took a steep, and very sudden climb straight up! Debuting on Master of Kung Fu immediately following Starlin with # 18, Gulacy's first appearance wasn't much more impressive than his Morbius work, but unlike that job, there were a few pages here that hinted at bigger things to come. Eventually, Gulacy became the strip's semi-regular penciler, popping in and out every issue or two until settling in for the long haul with # 29. With every appearance though, his work improved until, again like his peers, he developed his own distinctive style (albeit still with more than a bit of the Steranko touch, which would come in handy as the strip entered its spy phase). Gulacy, like Moench, started out as a fan of Marvel Comics, particularly those by Steranko ("…I had never seen anything like that before, it just flipped me out.") until he met fellow artist Val Mayerik at art school. Through Mayerik, Gulacy made the acquaintance of Dan Adkins and came to work with him at his studio. Soon afterward, he'd broken into comics as a professional with early assignments doing features for Marvel's black and white magazines. His first color job was the Morbius strip in Adventure into Fear and from there, it was straight on to Master of Kung Fu. With his establishment as a professional, Gulacy seemed to learn faster than ever, developing in no time the same work ethic and regard for the integrity of his art as many other comics creators of the time. Like them, he found it impossible to make a monthly deadline and continue the meticulous attention to detail he felt his work demanded. And so, once firmly established as the regular penciler for Master of Kung Fu, a pattern was set; Gulacy would frequently work in three issue arcs, taking an issue or two off in between to gear up for the next. Even with others inking his work, sometimes this was a difficult schedule to keep (and in a Herculean effort, he managed to turn in nine straight issues climaxing with # 50 to end his incredible run on the title). Influenced also by film, Gulacy liked to start off his books with a symbolic splash page styled after movie poster art (Gulacy hardly ever drew the covers to his books and for most of his run on Master of Kung Fu, a casual browser of the comics racks would never guess how good the insides were by the perfectly horrendous series of covers by artists like Gil Kane, Ernie Chua and Dave Cockrum!) before diving into the story itself. But of all the things that Gulacy was good at, nobody beat him at stylized action as his antagonists went through enough moves to confound the most ardent martial arts expert! Every single muscle in the human body (and their related tendons and blood vessels!) seemed etched across straining, sweat-beaded bodies as Shang-Chi ran a gauntlet of grotesque villains from this issue's Razor Fist (his forearms were amputated and replaced with sword blades!) and Pavane (a whip wielding dominatrix) to Shock Wave (an electro-suited kung fu fighter)! But throughout, Gulacy's strength was always his much improved figure work combined with imaginative layouts (if he had to be influenced by somebody, at least Steranko was the best) that gave the strip its thoroughly modern, cutting-edge feel. |
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115) But good art and story weren't all that made the Master of Kung Fu strip great (well, okay, maybe 80% great!) the other was a cast of characters that not only were original, but worked well together. First and foremost was Shang-Chi himself who, even though he'd divorced himself from his father and joined Sir Dennis Nayland Smith in operations against the devil doctor, that didn't mean he was completely won over to the other side. Even as he embarked on various missions for British intelligence, he agonized over the paradox of having to play as dirty as the bad guys in order to win a higher good. "…is there not a path in the middle, where I may work for justice…without becoming dirty?" Never able to reconcile that contradiction, his conscience eventually forced him to part ways with the world of spies. Maybe he would've left earlier too if it hadn't been for the beautiful and capable Leiko Wu, a female agent also in the employ of MI5 for whom he later fell hard. Complicating his relationship with Leiko was the fact that her ex-boyfriend Clive Reston, was not only still around and still interested, but a member of Smith's inner circle who frequently found himself fighting side-by-side with Shang-Chi. A peculiarity of Reston's (which Moench began hinting at since his first appearance in Giant-Size Master of Kung Fu # 3) was that he was supposedly the son of James Bond and the great-nephew of
Sherlock Holmes! Often paired with Reston on missions was Black Jack Tarr, a towering, hulk with handlebar mustache who also happened to be a confidant of Sir Dennis Nayland Smith, a bigwig in British intelligence who'd grown old battling Fu Manchu since the 1920s. Finally, there was the brooding, disillusioned John Larner (whom Gulacy made a lookalike for actor Marlon Brando!) who quit MI5 over a botched mission that cost him the life of a woman and fellow agent with whom he'd been in love. But the dynamic that really made the characters begin to gel was when Moench and Gulacy latched onto the idea of turning Master of Kung Fu from a strictly martial arts book to a spy thriller. Not only did it make the strip a whole lot more interesting, it set it up for a life after the martial arts craze faded. Combining their respective interests in Ian Fleming's James Bond character and Steranko's work on Shield, the two men went on to create a world of Byzantine complexity where no one could be trusted completely, friends were expendable and death could strike at any moment. In many ways their first true spy saga "The Crystal Connection" that concluded here in Master of Kung Fu # 31, had all the elements in place: the briefing at MI5 headquarters; Reston goes undercover as drug seller Mr. Blue; Carlton Velcro, whose guarded estate is being infiltrated, is the arch villain surrounded by beautiful women and specialized bodyguards such as Razorfist; it even has an underwater scuba fight right out of Thunderball! And everywhere, the action is graced with the ever more stylized art of Gulacy whose work became all hard edges and firm lines (with more than a dash of Steranko) leaving little room for mere suggestion (what was that bit with the stone ear about anyway?) as the characters waded their way through some of the most brutal combat sequences ever shown in comics. It was a tour de force that, incredibly, was maintained over the next twenty issues and only ended with Gulacy's departure with # 50. It would mark the end of another of the Twilight Years' great creative teams and although Moench himself would stay on the book for another 75 issues, he'd never again capture the magic of those first fifty.
116) Not only was Steve Englehart still at it in Dr. Strange # 10, but so was Gene Colan! It's true! After an absence from the character of about five years (since the cancellation of Doc's first series in 1969), Colan returned to the strip after the departure of Frank Brunner. One of the most exciting of the new artists to have broken into the industry in the Twilight Years, Brunner's act was definitely a hard one for anyone to follow but Colan wasn't exactly a slouch! Maybe the single best artist ever to handle the Strange strip (and with people like the legendary Steve Ditko, Barry Smith and the aforementioned Brunner on that list, that's saying something!) Colan's moody realism was balanced by an equally agile imagination that allowed him to suggest on paper the ultra-mundane worlds and alien dimensions frequented by the Master of the Mystic Arts. And Englehart gave him no time to get his sea legs under him as Colan was called upon first to depict a three-way battle between Strange, Dormammu and Umar beginning in # 6 and then launching him immediately into a confrontation this issue with the always enigmatic Eternity! Inked adequately if not entirely satisfactorily by Frank Chiaramonte (who was usually pretty good, being largely faithful to the pencilers he worked over, the only problem here is that for Colan, that approach didn't work; Colan's style demanded more from an inker as this issue's sequence where Strange confronts Eternity, with its large empty spaces, shows), Colan takes the reader into the mind of a mad Baron Mordo. Immediately, the senses are assaulted with a kaleidoscopic vision of worlds colliding and the image of Strange's old foe, Nightmare. Englehart takes over from there, as Strange soon finds himself confronting the real Eternity and learns that his awareness has progressed such that he can now understand when the cosmic entity, the personification of the universe, tells him that his coming signifies "…the end of your world. Call it Twilight of the Gods, call it Ragnarok, call it Judgment Day, you have always known in your soul it would come…and it has!" What follows is a concise discussion of the global village
and the effects of instantaneous, world-wide communications. "At last, men everywhere may know of another's successes, and so, see their own failures, no
longer may they slumber in blissful ignorance! Now, each man cries for his share of the bounty from the tree of knowledge! Each man must have all he desires! Each man must win, and so, all men must lose!" But Strange resists, arguing that the time for the end hasn't yet come, and so is challenged by Eternity to solve the enigma of his own self before making the case for the rest of humanity. (Fun fact: all the cosmic shenanigans injected in the strip by Englehart bore fruit on its letters page which was one of the most interesting in comics as readers discussed everything from the principals of magic to the nature of God! Where did readers like that disappear to?)
117) The philosophical became the psychological in Dr. Strange # 11 as Eternity casts Strange into a crazy world populated by doppelgangers, Poe's Red Death and
a flock of grinning Nixons! Confused at first, the good doctor finally figures out that the weird but familiar terrain is based on fragments of his own consciousness as Eternity sets things up to permit Strange to understand that the confidence he expressed about the human race in the issue before, was misplaced. How could he speak for the minds of his fellow men when he didn't even know his own? What follows is a weird trip through the detritus of Strange's career, the contradictions and petty hypocrisies that clutter everyone's subconscious, the place where we hide our dirtiest psychological
laundry. In it, Strange encounters himself as he has been through different points in his career from venal physicians ("These must be the 'me's' of power!" thinks Strange as he wanders through a ghostly White House filled with doppelgangers of himself dressed for different occupations) to drunken has-beens ("This is…myself after my carelessness ruined my surgical career! He's as drunk as I was!") When the Red Death finally arrives and strips the mask of Nixon from a Strange doppelganger, the faux Strange cries "My mask! Where's my mask?" "Gone, power-monger, vanished in the light of truth!" "But, what about my position, my control? Without my mask, I'll be just like everyone else, but I'm not! Don't you see? I'm better than they are." It was a poignant lesson
in humility, but after it was over, did Strange learn anything? "Everything you wished to teach me, I already knew! I could save the world through sorcery!"
"Yes, that is what you have said," replies Eternity. "See where sorcery takes you, Dr. Strange! See!" Will Strange shape up in time to stop the end of the
world? Stay tuned!
118) First Colan, then Tom Palmer! When Gene Colan first returned to Doc Strange's strip with # 6, he was inked by a variety of people (even once by Palmer), but by this time, after producing such spectacular work for such books as the first volume of Dr. Strange, Daredevil and especially Tomb of Dracula, his name and Palmer's
had become almost inextricably linked in many readers' minds. And so, Colan on Dr. Strange without Palmer on the inks was like a cake without the frosting! Now, at last, the two artists were reunited on the strip that first brought them together (Palmer actually started work in # 11) and the difference was almost like night and day. Suddenly the empty spaces filled up, characters filled out and the cosmic, swirling scope of Strange's adventures and Englehart's wild and mystic plots seemed tinged with actual magic as the master of the mystic arts was plunged into one of his most far out jaunts! This time, after being forced into a tour of his own sub-conscious, Strange finds himself in Dr Strange # 12 confronted by the long departed Ancient One ("You want answers! You want solutions! Yet it's you who possess them, not I!") Next, Strange is forced into the frozen wastes of the Himalayas, there to meet up with another of his former identities, his masked, super-hero persona that he briefly adopted during the run of his first series (no doubt an attempt at the time by Thomas to boost sagging circulation figures!) "This Dr. Strange is certain of himself! In his power, he knows no doubts or fears! After all that time, I'd become self-righteous, possibly the worst sin of all!" Overcoming this latest version of himself, Strange is lectured again by Eternity: "The most careful preparations are useless against the malignant might of madness! Your world is in the grip of madness! It plays its games as if it cannot lose, but it can!" And then, for the second time, Englehart destroys the world! (Well okay, the first time he ended the whole universe and here he only destroys the Earth, but why quibble?) (Fun fact: As the Earth blows up in the final full page panel, Englehart asks the reader a rhetorical question: "Make no mistake, this was the real Earth! But then, how is it you remain?" Was he claiming that this wasn't some comic book Earth that was destroyed? That what was happening on the last page, really happened? If so, how could such an absurdity be true? And was it absurd at all?)
119) If practice makes perfect, then Steve Englehart must be the best there is at destroying the world, because he did it not once, but twice! Remember how in Marvel Premiere # 14 he had Sise-Neg, the magician from the future go back to the beginning of time, become God, and uncreate the universe?
Well, that time, everything was put back the way it was before Sise-Neg/Genesis took it all apart, this time, in Dr. Strange # 13, humanity wouldn't be so
lucky! How did it happen? In one of his most mind-blowing and mind-bending scripts, Englehart has Dr. Strange journey to the dimension of dreams where he
discovers that his old foe Nightmare has captured Eternity. Inducing him into a sleep-like state, Nightmare was able to manipulate Eternity's dreams and as the
personification of the universe, whatever Eternity dreams (just as it was when he was awake) becomes the universe' reality. When Nightmare forced Eternity to
dream the end of the world, it happened. And so, Strange finds out to his shock, that not only has everything that's happened to him over the past few
issues been an attack upon himself by Nightmare manipulating Eternity's dreams, but that he's the last man alive! "I am life beyond limits, beyond death,
beyond end," Eternity explains. "I and my brother, Death, comprise all of your reality, mystic! Neither he nor I am God, for God rules all realities! I am
Adam Qadmon, the archetypal man, and in my bosom grew mortals, each on their various worlds!" So what about the question asked at the end of the previous
issue? If the world was destroyed, how is it everyone is still around to read these words? Although Eternity refuses to reverse time and set things back the
way they were, he decides to recreate the world "starting from its first evolvement from the sun" exactly as it was before. The catch is that all those
who died when the world was destroyed are still dead and that everyone now populating this new earth, although the same in every respect, have no suspicion
that they're not actually the same people! Dr. Strange is the only survivor from that previous world with the blessing or curse of that knowledge! After an
adventure like this, Englehart's concluding lines about Strange as he sits brooding in his sanctum sanctorum are an understatement: "He sits there a very
long time…coming down." It was easily the most awesome, mind-expanding story ever presented in a Marvel comic, even more out there than the Galactus trilogy
but at the same time, something that could never have been done without the path being blazed by all those inspired creators who came before: Lee, Kirby, Ditko,
Thomas and all the other writers and artists who made each succeeding phase of Marvel's development possible. And in the same vein, the story would never have
worked as well as it did without artists of the caliber of Colan and Palmer (Brunner and Ditko in his prime might've been able to do it). Although Colan's
penciling had become a bit weaker as the twilight years progressed, the artist could still capture the feel of the otherworldly powers loosed in Strange's
adventures like nobody else and, strengthened by Palmer's finishes that included delicate cross hatching, vibrant black masses, restrained zip-a-tone effects,
atmospheric shadows and an experienced use of color, perfectly captured the ethereal intent of the crazy script. It was a heckuva ride, but like many of the
strips that had filled the twilight years with wonder and delight, the Dr. Strange book would soon fall by the wayside. Englehart and Palmer would leave
the strip in another few issues and though Colan continued to struggle on without them, the heart had obviously gone out of his work. Just as it seemed
to from much of the rest of Marvel's lineup as the company creeped slowly but surely into creative senescence.
Postscript: Tomb of Dracula # 70
120) By 1979, it was all over. But as it was with the company's previous three phases, the shift from one era to another was never cut and dried and so it was as the Twilight Years ended and Marvel's long decline into creative bankruptcy began. Like echoes from a distant but still remembered past, some of the great strips of the Twilight Years continued to coast on the strengths and vibrancy of their original issues, just as the flagship titles born as far back as the formative years still carried on. Master of Kung Fu, Howard the Duck, Captain Marvel were still around, pale ghosts haunting the House of Ideas and last and not least (and ironically since the character was already dead!) Dracula. Still being produced by the creative team that had been on the book almost since the beginning, Marv Wolfman, Gene Colan and Tom Palmer, it was possibly the last quality title created in the twilight years (and certainly the last survivor of the horror boom that'd swept Marvel almost ten years before) still in existence. But reduced to bi-monthly status, its days were numbered and Tomb of Dracula # 70 would be its swan song. Providing closure for the long-running strip and featuring the 'death' of its title character and his arch-enemy Quincy Harker, this issue could also serve as a symbolic finish to the four phases of Marvel's development. Like the Dracula book, the company known as Marvel Comics too had come to an end of sorts: real events such as the company's passing from the hands of owner Martin Goodman and into those of a series of faceless corporations, Stan Lee's departure from the company's Madison Avenue offices to interface with Hollywood movers and shakers in California, Roy Thomas' resignation as editor-in-chief and his eventual replacement by Jim Shooter, the end of the days of free-wheeling experimentation, the rise of the X-Men phenomenon that eclipsed the last flickering embers of any other genre but that of super-heroes and the exodus of much of the talent that made the Twilight Years such a heady epilogue to the Grandiose Years, Frank Brunner, Barry Smith, Craig Russell, Rich Buckler, Don McGregor, Gerry Conway, Gary Freidrich, Val Mayerik, Mike Ploog, Jim Starlin, Paul Gulacy (soon, even Wolfman and Colan would follow), spelled certain doom for the future. Of course, doom is a relative term. If success is measured by robust sales and continued popularity, then certainly Marvel continued to do extremely well with the resurgence of the X-Men (by writer Chris Claremont and artist John Byrne) and Frank Miller's Daredevil in the 1980s (both of which were extremely well done) as well as other features especially Byrne's Fantastic Four and an excellent run of the Avengers by writer Roger Stern and artists John Buscema & Tom Palmer), but circulation figures don't tell the whole story. Besides the sheer craft of telling stories in comic book form, there was a certain spirit that animated the Early, Formative Years of Marvel's Silver Age, a spirit that was nurtured in the Years of Consolidation and brought to full, exhilarating, fruition in the Grandiose Years. The high-flown, optimistic language of Stan Lee that not only captured the spirit of the 1960s, but caught the imagination of a generation of readers coupled by the soaring visions of Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Don Heck, Jim Steranko, John Buscema & Gene Colan, had all but vanished by the mid-1970s. The soul had gone out of the company's comics and its loss has not only prevented it from finding its way back, but has doomed it to a continuing downward spiral of creative incompetence. Today, the comics industry is a tiny fraction of the size it once was and seems fated to vanish completely from the pop cultural scene because, if the industry can't recreate the excited anticipation a fan in 1964 must have felt when first setting eyes on the words "Two More Triumphs for Marvel!" and getting his first glimpses of such classics as Spider-Man # 13 featuring the first appearance of Mysterio ("Who or what is he??"), Avengers # 5 ("The Invasion of the Lava Men!"), X-Men # 4 ("At last! The X-Men come face to face with the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants!") or the very first issue of Daredevil, it's not worth saving. But who cares? The great stuff is already out there and all anyone needs to do is to pick it up and read it! |
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