Jack Kirby did a lot more than the artwork. He wrote many of the stories, branching into areas like the multiverse, time travel, parallel worlds, etc. his problem was that he couldn’t write engaging dialogue (the Eternals are a good example), and Stan Lee could.
Agreed. Remove either Stan or Jack from that era and Marvel as we know it would never have existed. Marvel was built on both of their shoulders, not just Stan's.
Wait, aren't there a variety of allegations against Stan Lee's writing capabilities? It's even been alleged that most of the dialogue that gets credited to him was actually from Jack Kirby among other artists. Also, using The Eternals is a poor choice. The only reason he made that series is purely because he was hired to, and the only reason he was hired to make that series is because Marvel wanted a competitor to New Gods, which he also created.
@@SirBlackReeds No, Stan Lee's writing capabilities are not disputed. It's easy for outsiders to get confused about creators' contributions, so I don't begrudge them, but it's important to set the record straight. Long story short: Stan Lee used to do LOTS of comics at once for Marvel, with several artists. There wasn't time for him to write full scripts for every comic up front, and thus, the so-called "Marvel method" of making comics came into existence: Stan gave the artist the general idea of what he wanted the comic to be about, and then the artist would go and draw the entire comic how the artist wanted. Then Stan would come back and write dialogue for the finished art. It was a fantastically collaborative process, where artists got to be visual storytellers and Stan still got to tell the story he wanted to tell. Stan wasn't a perfect human being, and there are plenty of times even now where artists like Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko deserve more mainstream credit than they deserve. But by and large, people who worked with Stan loved him, and if you look at the old comics, Stan was *constantly* hyping up the Marvel bullpen to readers, giving the artists epic nicknames and whatnot. He was not trying to hide creators' contributions.
One thing that also sank Jack, in terms of getting proper credit, was that he was not at all interested in making a "brand" or "image" for himself like Stan was. Jack just wanted to create (he did want due credit, too, of course). There's a video, if you Google "Stan Lee intro from 1960s," where does not have his classic glasses, mustache, or use his classic catch phrases like "true believers," "''nuff said," or "excelsior," etc. and he's nearly unrecognizable other than the sound of his voice. It's also almost all business-speak about the state of the company and its sales. He is nowhere near resembling the absolute character we would all know him to be (at the time of that recording). Stan was able to build a whole persona and carve out a mythos for himself, very successfully. He worked hard at it, and it paid off, as few others had the foresight or interest needed to do the same thing. It did mean that others got left behind in terms of collective recognition.
Growing up, Iron Man wasn't a relevant characters to most people unless you really liked comic books, and even then it was if you liked Marvel. Most people I knew liked DC better than Marvel. I think part of that was the Batman movies in the 80s and 2000s... Then the Iron Man movie came out and everything changed.
I also love the fact that Disney purposefully separated marvel studios from marvel entertainment so that Kevin Feigie didn't have any interference from marvel itself on how he made his films, while still being able to use the characters.
Yeah but it also gave a big FU to the Marvel Entertainment properties that were supposedly MCU but only barely (Agents Of Shield, the Netflix Shows, Cloak and Dagger) and that did have fans that wanted to see them have a bigger role in the cinematic universe. That’s why everyone is excited to possibly see Daredevil in No Way Home
@@SpikeShooter92 Marvel Studios had nothing to do with any of the tv shows. This is part of the reason for the split. Marvel TV, at the time, was controlled by Marvel Ent and they forced in cannon that kevin feige was not happy with. Marvel TV shot themselves in the foot, and since 2019 folded into Marvel Studios.
@@SirBlackReeds Can you elaborate? Sorry I don't understand. Do you mean from the eyes of Marvel Ent? Because yes, kevin wanted to be risky and make choices that his marvel ent bosses would not allow, and suggest other ways to do stuff.
Wasn't it always? On the contrary for me, when the game came out I thought Marvel was that giant Goliath in the crossover going against Capcom's humble David. Regardless of Marvel's financial struggles in the 90's they still had such a massive presence throughout all forms of media and merchandise that Capcom simply couldn't hope to approach. Spider-Man and X-Men had excellent TAS shows on TV at the time, as well as the less popular but still enjoyable Fantastic 4 and Iron Man. I didn't read comics but I easily knew most of the Marvel characters and acknowledged the long history of the brand that goes way, way back. Capcom was a solid game maker but it was still somewhat new and I had absolutely no idea who Captain Commando was, or Jin Saotome, or Stryder, or Morrigan, even though I was an avid gamer. These characters were mostly from arcades rather than home console games and there were barely any arcades in my city. So yeah, Marvel was always king.
@@youmakenosense7437 I do like how they included some niche characters though. Like yeah everyone and their mom knows Spider-Man and the X-Men, but who the hell was talking about Blackheart or Shuma Gorath? Granted, I wasn't into Marvel at the time, so maybe I'm totally wrong. Still, that's part of the reason I wasn't a fan of Infinite. Everyone on the Marvel side was part of the MCU, or just ported over from UMVC3 like Ghost Rider. Venom was the only one I think, but he was already the 2D era games.
@@Diwasho Every kid watched the TAS shows and Capcom's games were based off those. To me, Marvel was the bigger side because TV was the more mainstream media vs the wild success of Street Fighter in arcades.
Marvel was at the verge of bankruptcy when they asked Capcom to make "Street Fighter 2, but with X-Men" and got Children of the Atom. Marvel would rubber stamp every decision Capcom made (Shuma-Gorath as a playable character in Marvel Super Heroes, for starters) just to make sure the money kept flowing. MvC:Infinite dropped the ball so hard by kicking out the X-Men. Marvel tried to shoehorn the MCU into an older franchise and it backfried.
Since I'm one of the first ones here, 7 seconds after upload, I'd just like to thank you for your quality content. Such crisp, to the point, and knowledgeable content about companies we think we knew. Thank you so much for bringing good stuff to RU-vid. Much love from India
As a comic book collector I can tell you this was a great video! One thing that bothered me a bit however was the praise you gave to Stan Lee for the creation of these iconic characters with Jack Kirby mentioned as an afterthought. Stan Lee was a notorious credit hog with those characters. Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko deserve more credit than they get.
A few rises and falls that you missed were the from the early 90s-early 2000s. In the early 90s Marvel was killing it thanks to having some of the best artist, but they left to form Image Comics. This got worse when the quality of the books were terrible. When Toy Biz bought Marvel and subsequently Bill Jemas became president did Marvel begin to rise. He wasn’t that great, but he focused on selling collected editions, selling comics by how much were ordered instead of guessing, and creating the Marvel Knights, Max, and Ultimate Marvel Imprints.
Yes, the apocryphal story is that negotiations got so heated that Marvel rep blurted "Someone has to pick the cotton" to the faces of the artists and they decided to walk away and create Image Comics instead.
The MCU is a spectacle for sure. The castings for Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr, Captain America (Chris Evans), Black Widow (Scarlet Johansson), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), and Hulk (Mark Ruffalo). The casting was perfect and the movies are amazing. I have to say tho that pre MCU movies were great too especially Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy. I know Fantastic 4 and X-men were out around that time too, but those Spider-Man films are what started and projected superhero movies into the juggernaut they are today and made them smash box office hit’s. The heart, soul, and passion that went into them are insane and the Raimi trilogy is my favorite of all time!
And he completely glossed over the Sony and Fox era of Marvel.. like, there should've been an entire video on the back and forth about Marvel selling IP to those companies and fighting to get them back from the other studios. Morbius is gonna tank and taint the Marvel brand esp after Phase 4 died and we were sold 2 dozen super hero movies a year. Market is oversaturated and Sony still had the rights to make trashy Venom movies, but most people don't understand the difference between Micky Mouse/MCU and what Sony makes these days. FFS they put Spiderman in the post credit scene of Venom 2. Fiege doesn't even care anymore.
I still remember being in pawn shops looking for guitars and guys would come in to sell their recently purchased collectors comics. They were offered a small percentage of face value but were actually expecting hundreds (or thousands) of dollars each.
To show you how little money I had as a kid, back in the 1960s I had to quit collecting comic books when they went from 12 cents to 15 cents .Doesn’t sound like much but that’s a 25% increase. Now I go to places like Barnes & Noble and occasionally I will see comic books there and they cost almost 5 dollars.
6:09 - "It's like if all of the sudden every movie had to be G-rated." They did that, too. That said, some movies like The Big Sleep, Psycho, Rope, and Anatomy of a Murder managed to fit serious, adult themes into those very strict codes. The old movies that managed to pull it off deserve more respect, but the obstructive rules they had to work under should be remembered.
This video barely scratches the surface of the pissing war between investors and robbers barons that went on in the 90s for control over Marvel. SFDebris did a great multi-part documentary covering it!
One of my favorite shows to come out of Marvel’s licensing phase was the TV series The Spectacular Spider-Man. It was created by Greg Weisman and Victor Cook for Sony when Sony had license to do make Spider-Man for TV and Movies. I love any show that Weisman creates or writes for so much so that I now blindly anticipate anything he’s involved with. Unfortunately Sony traded the TV rights for Spider-Man back to Marvel to get more movie concessions. This left the show and show elements owned by Sony but the characters owned by Marvel. Neither can make more episodes without permission of the other. There is little chance of that happening. One side would need to license or purchase from the other. Then Disney bought Marvel. Now there’s even less of a chance (unless one buys the other company). All 3 companies really like the show, yet here we are. Still, I hope and I’ve even signed a petition to show my support, but I understand the chances.
I love they took characters like Iron Man and Captain America, which most people weren't aware of outside of comics fans, and made them some of the most beloved superheroes.
Iron Man? Yeah. Captain America? Debatable. They had several projects revolving around Captain America, shows, movies and even merchandise (the torso shield logo was actually created years before MCU Captain America even came out). So people were aware of Captain America outside the comic books, they just didn't care that much when Marvel barely invested in the character's mainstream projects back then.
Fun fact The Human Torch from that first comic was a different one than the Fantastic Four Human Torch. The original Human Torch was a robot that was modeled after a third human Human Torch
The first movie I ever owned was the original Spiderman movie when I was in 1st grade. I loved it so much, that I watched it almost every day. Since then, Marvel characters have been a significant part of my life. Marvel movies empowered me when I was going through some really tough times.
I'm getting rather burned out on content overload from the MCU, but I cannot deny that I still watch Captain America: The Winter Soldier on a semi-regular basis. Easily my favorite movie in the MCU, and kept me following them until Endgame.
Me and my best friend also have CA: The Winter Soldier on high regard, as being the most "down to earth" of the movies. Less clichés, less stupid jokes than on other ones, a more serious tone, a good and unexpected story. Greetings from Ecuador!
Definitely. Comic Book sales have been dropping for a good number of years now. Plus with the MCU being 10 years old at this stage it will be interesting to see if they can keep that momentum. Superhero Movie fatigue is bound to set in at some point [for me was with Civil War]
@@IrishKyokushin I feel like Superhero movies will always be a big part even in a small decline. It is a subgenre of the ever popular action films. It may stand the test of time like romance and Adventure
From going from a weak comic book company in the 1930's to getting Spider-Man: No Way Home to be the first pandamic era movie to hit a billion dollars, that's why I call evolution
7:30 - This is such a good description of a speculation bubble! It takes the dry, textbook definition and makes it relatable, easy to understand, and easy to remember. Absolutely excellent work!
Once the manufacturer of the item is in on the "collectability" and starts trying to make that a selling point, it's a good sign that it's over. Rare comic covers, "chase cars/figures", limited editions that aren't really limited, foil cards, limited edition releases of movies, etc.
Thank you for covering this. I've been a marvel fan since I was a kid and vaguely heard about the bankruptcies but never actually looked too far into it till your video. Amazing work!
Writer Brian Michael Bendis when he started at Marvel in the late 90's talks about going into the offices where they were selling off all the office furniture and was being told that he had a chance at writing the last Marvel Comic. You could totally just do a video on that late 90's early 00's period where they pulled themselves back up starting with the Marvel Knights line, and working into the Ultimate Marvel titles.
With what's happened in the past 5 years in the comics side of things and the past 2 years on the movie/tv side, it's clear the title should have ended with an additional "and Fall Again"
The True Infinity War is good vs evil, or more accurately - love vs. selfishness. My favorite movie is "Captain America: Winter Soldier" because it shows the nature of evil as being filled with hate and deception to warp people's minds any way it can. The nature of God was not to create good and evil. Evil was born in rebellion against God. I think the Einstein Parable of evil being the same as darkness and cold which don't really exist in themselves but are absences of light and heat. Evil is the absence of God in a person's soul. He gave us free will and we are free to choose to love others or just ourselves. The consequences of this choice is why there is so much evil in the world.
Blade opened the door. It took a while for other movie companies to see the worth in it all. Once X-Men & Spider-Man came out it became more apparent and just... started rolling and snowbaling faster & faster until now.
The video and the info was great. A lot to take away from the information given. But, I find it odd that no seems to mention Blade when it comes to Marvel's rise on the big screen.
Also what had led to the 1996 fall of 1marvel was that they and all other comic book publishers do not sale to the "News stand" since 1994. So when the bubble burst 2 years later 66% of comic stores had shut down by 1998. North American comics are still struggling to sale books today. They are not enough comic book stores around as compare to the drug store or variety stores. That where most of the comic buyers first saw and bought comic books. The other factor is the price of books have skyrocketed from $1.50 in 1990 to about $5.00 today. It's become a hobby that most fans who grew up reading and collecting had to give up because they had to pay bills and mortgages and couldn't continue buy the same amount or if any, any longer. Though the movie end of Marvel is still making money (but I feel it might be on the decline) the book publishing end has been on a steady decline because of the above factors as well as they don't have any good writers or editors any longer.
I think the that unfortunately comic book stores are done. The best thing to do is to sell comics via game stores along with manga. There is a game store that does that near me.
Ironically the price of comics keep going up because the quantity they sell is so low, so they can't offset the costs with a bunch of ads anymore. I wish that Disney kept the prices down and considered comics to be a loss leader/r&d, because the stories and creative development for their blockbuster movies start at the comics.
@@deathminder9206 are you joking? The manga industry is injured due to the increased amount of manga piracy nowadays, manga readers are pirating their mangas, not even buying creator's work for money. You're kidding right?
Major nostalgia when you talked about Marvel aquiring Fleer trading cards, cuz that's when I really got into Marvel heroes when I saw the trading cards! I would love to compare powers between the characters and wonder how they would stack up against each other if they fought. 15-20 years later I'm seeing it live action on a movie screen! Amazing!
Certain parts of the story are far more complex than the brief mention they received here. Granted you did hit most of the high and low points. A more detailed look into some of the character sales should be interesting.
In my opinion, Marvel is going downhill again mostly thanks to disney. -Black widow was hot garbage. -Shang chi was average, at best. -Eternals felt more like a C-grade DC movie where more time and effort was put into deciding the characters races than writing. No way home was alright though
I'm seeing another fall for Marvel from the direction Disney is taking there characters. It's dulling the enthusiasm of a lot of fans and once a person loses that enthusiasm it's hard to get it back.
Im proud to say that there was a time in my life when I could say that I watched all the Marvel movies in theaters. I stopped when adulting took over and I no longer have time to watch the succeeding movies (phase 4 onwards).
Favorite MCU film? I’m still riding the highs of Shang-Chi and No Way Home, but Civil War and Infinity War are high up there. Hard to pick one. Black Panther also ranks very high for me.
U living under a rock or are u someone who doesn’t understand how long lasting storylines work. Marvel had a long lasting phase of the infinity saga and had their big finale with endgame. Now it’s back again to build up another saga most probably the kang one and the entire end could be the galactus saga. Ur idea is the sole reason is DCEU is eating shit
Their resiliency is directly tied to the great characters that no one ever really wanted to shutter completely because they’re so great. Also my fave MCU movie is Infinity War.
@@lordchungus1552 How is there comics not making money going to make them go bankrupt when they make millions from there film industry and are owned by one of the biggest corporrations in the world, Unless there loosing billions from comics there not going bankrupt
WOW GREAT VIDEO...NEEDED THIS INSPIRATION....ITS STORIES AND DETAILS LIKE THIS THAT GIVE THE PERSPECTIVE NECCESARY TO SEE HOW HISTORY TRULY FORMS RIGHT IN FRONT OF OUR EYES....AND HOW ITS NEVER AS PRETTY BEHIND THE SCENES....EVEN FOR A "CORPORATE ENTITY" WHICH MOST PPL WOULD ASSUME HAS HAD NO CHALLENGES TO THEIR SUCCESS... IT ALSO GIVES PERSPECTIVE TO THE REALITY OF WHAT SUCCESS REALLY IS DOWN THE LINE AND WHAT REAL GROWTH CAN LOOK LIKE WHEN U ACCEPT THE JOURNEY...BECAUSE IT ALL MATTERS.
Winter soldier is the best scripted marvel movie ever, infinity war, endgame, no way home are the best cinematic experience of the year they released. Some of Marvel movie only had best cinematic experience, some goosebumps moments, no genuine script, unnecessary stupid jokes and, worst character adaptation. Sometimes it makes no sense, might create a thought like why would they do that, they could have done it this way amd finished the movie half way 😆😂😂
I have to wonder what would have happened in the United States if, as in Japan, the comic code hadn't been implemented - or had been implemented such as to divide the audience up by age and gender. The two countries' comic/manga markets were developing similarly in the 1950's, with comics for elementary schoolkids, middle school kids, and high schoolers. In the 1960's, the Japanese high schoolers graduated to university and took their manga reading habit with them, the producers responding I with more mature stories about more mature characters. By the 1970's, the Japanese university students had graduated and become salarymen, still reading manga, and the producers again responded with titles intended for the adult reader: stories of business people, professionals, blue-collar workers, housewives and so on. I don't notice that pattern here in North America. Every comic seems to be about costumed superheroes, appealing to a largely male, largely teen audience, and basically stuck in the 1960's. There are few romance comics, most of them being either translations of Japanese manga or if written by North Americans, small-market releases from the same publishers translating manga - in Japan, these have wide readership. We don't have the more mature type of titles as in Business Jump and its equivalent. I can't name one mainstream North American comic whose main character is a doctor, entrepreneur, firefighter, police officer, fisherman, politician dealing with the ordinary behind the scenes machinations, everyman, everywoman. I wonder if we will ever see such comics here aimed at as many niche markets as Japan does?
Disney doesn't own all the rights to all of Marvel's Characters. Fox owns some and Sony owns some and that's why the XMen haven't been brought into the MCU. It's also why Vibranium and Adamantium are basically the same thing but because they are owned by two different companies they can't be called the same thing. It's crazy
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 because it’s the only MCU movie that got me emotional. Even after my 5th or 6th time watching it, that ending still gets to me.
To leave Steve Ditko's name out and just lump him in with "a whole bunch of other people" in a video talking about the rise and fall of Marvel is just a huge omission. People always look to Stan Lee as "the guy" behind Marvel Comics, but Marvel (and DC Comics) for that matter wouldn't have half the catalog that they do without the contributions of Kirby and Ditko. Spider-Man is a creation of the two men (Ditko designed the costume!) and to say that he is a creation of Stan Lee is just misinformation. I love your videos, Mike, but this one has some pretty big gaps in your information.
I think if he's trying to keep it high level then he doesn't need to go deep in to recognizing Ditko's contributions (or Jim Lee's, or Gene Colan's, or John Romita's, etc.). No doubt they are very important, but Lee was the promoter, business man, and editor on top of being the writer, so I think when trying to focus on Marvel's success as a business he should be the focal point. Also there's a reason why Kirby, Ditko, and many others had their highest amounts of success when working with Lee - and that's not to discredit how important these artists were, it's just that Lee was a major catalyst.
In answer to your question, I guess it would have to be the Captain America films. I especially enjoy the timeless classic: "Captain America: The First Avenger".
