Adam Graham's Blog: Christians and Superheroes - Posts Tagged "letters"

I'm owner of several of the officially licensed Marvel Comic DVD collections for Iron Man, Fantastic Four, and Amazing Spider-man.

I've been pretty much finished buying trade paperbacks and one of the best features of these DVDs is that they are complete comics. Complete with ads (which are occasionally hilarious such as one of Dr. Doom selling T-shirts and calling the Hulk, "Good, sir") and my favorite feature, "letters."

I've find the letters sections of these magazines to be the most interesting bonus. Fans of today have their thoughts about heroes and their Silver Age adventures. What did the original fans think and want these characters to do?

Surprisingly, there are some common themes. Even in 1966, for example, there were some fans who were ready for Aunt May to pass on and Peter to grieve and move on.

Politics was a hot topic as well. In a 1966 letter published in Amazing Spider-man #35, Art Raveson had a big idea for Spider-man. He wrote that he desperately hoped that rather than being just another do-gooder that Spider-man would become, "the first intellectual left wing superhero, helping to stop wars, supporting S.N.C.C., C.O.R.E., and the NAACP, singing the songs of Bob Dylan, and ever so often commenting on the works of Jean Paul Satre." The bullpen boys joked that they'd wait for future letters and the response from the John Birch Society.

In Issue 38, H Doyle Abernathy, declaring himself politically neutral said the idea might nice for Mr. Raveson but not so much for Spidey. "It is not the purpose of a super-hero to indoctrinate readers with any specific political credo. If you succeed in present democracy as superior to tyranny, courage to cowardice, and brotherhood to bigotry, they you will accomplish all that can be expected in the political and social realms."

Marvel's editors responded, "We kind of agree with you. We try to keep the moral tone and entertainment value of our mags as high as possible. But when it comes to political philosophies, we figure that's best left to those who specialize in that area."

Of course, this would go by the board in years, as when Stan Lee gave way to younger writers, comics at Marvel would get a lot more political both at Marvel and at DC. Though thankfully Art Raveson didn't get his wish about Spidey becoming the type of character that Green Arrow became at DC.

The other big observation I've had reading through the letters is how wrong our take on the comics of the 1960s and 70s are. It's assumed that Stan Lee and other writers were writing to an audience of kids which is why their material was generally cleaner than what's followed in later decades. Yet when I read the letters page, I'm impressed by how literate all these people writing into the comic book magazines are.

Some identified themselves as members of the Armed Services overseas, one was from a housewife with kids of comic-reading age, and there are plenty of letters from college kids.

Spidey-mania spread far outside young people. One letter writer wrote that Spidey was a hit with his chemistry professor. The Iron Man book appears to have been read by many engineers or at the very least, engineering and mechanics fans who gave constant feedback on the realism of Tony Stark's wizardry.

Certainly, there were plenty of kids who read Spider-man and other books, but when you read the often-erudite letters that came in, it's hard to conclude the magazine didn't appeal to adults.

It's not that the 1960s Comics were written to kids. It's that modern adults tastes have grown more cynical and darker when it comes to the world of comic books.