Weapons-Grade Nostalgia: the 70s

I didn’t like the 70s when I went through them the first time. True, I was only eight years old when they ended, but even then, I remember thinking on New Year’s Eve 1980, “Well, thank God that’s over.”

Part of it may have been my parents’ marriage starting to flatline. Or it might have been the dawning realization on the part of all Americans that the trajectory of the nation was no longer headed inevitably upward, that the flight-path toward American moon colonies and endless prosperity was running smack into the concrete walls of Watergate, the Oil Embargo and the Iran Hostage Crisis.

The 80s, by way of contrast, were a neon-colored, electronic synth, New Wave, Cold War Morning in America, with MTV and Japanese cartoons and movies that catered primarily to teenage boys, which was fortunate for me, since I was one. It was possible to be simultaneously frightened of the end of the world and still have an excellent time waiting for the nuclear holocaust.

Now the 70s are back, only bigger and meaner. We have a brand-new Me Generation, we’ve got skyrocketing gas prices, and we’ve got a housing crash and a recession, and a president looking at a possible war with Iran. Judging by fashion and hairstyles and music, it’s 1977 all over again. (Seriously, listen to this and tell me that’s not disco.)

This is why it’s a little baffling to me that I’m looking back on the 70s with ever-increasing fondness. Part of this is just the corrosive effect of megadoses of nostalgia. It’s worse than battery acid in the eyes if you want to see clearly. I don’t miss the ungodly amount of polyester everyone was wearing, or with the feathered hair or the faux-Afro perms.

But I got a couple books recently that reminded me of what I do miss: the insane possibility of that time, the blind, throw-a-dart-while-blindfolded-see-what-it-hits style that permeated so much of the pop culture that I remember.

For instance, these were the Slurpee cups Marvel offered people one hot summer in the 70s. Yes, that is Stan Lee in a cape and tights. Because, honestly, why the hell not?

Nobody in the 70s seemed to have any idea what would actually work in the marketplace any more, so any number of completely batshit ideas made their way into the lives of millions of impressionable kids — and I’m grateful. I try to envision pitching some of the shows I watched as a kid to a network today (outside of Adult Swim) and it always ends with someone calling security.

For instance, a show where a dad and his kids go through a magic waterfall and end up being hunted by lizard-men and dinosaurs who want to eat them. A guy with magic powers runs a resort with his dwarf slave and occasionally fights the devil. A cruise ship is a floating orgy interrupted only by announcements about the Lido Deck. Three hot chicks fight crime by displaying lots of cleavage. An astronaut will be partially dismembered and rebuilt and will use his new parts to beat up spies.

Oh, and Bigfoot will guest-star on at least three of those shows.

Superheroes were resurgent then, too. The 1966 Batman show was far enough in the rearview that Marvel attempted to make “serious” adaptations of its characters, like Captain America, Spider-Man, and the Hulk.

Even at the movies, where so much important, groundbreaking drama was going on, George Lucas built a world where a guy would discover he had magic powers and a laser-sword before blowing up a planet-sized space station. And DC and Warner Brothers finally made a big-screen, major motion picture version of Superman.

I loved all of that. Really. That’s what I loved most about seeing The Avengers on the big screen: the willingness to commit to a story that is certifiably insane. And that’s why I was so happy to get Marvel Firsts: the 1970s Vol.1 and Vol. 2 when they showed up in the mail.

The 70s were what I’ve always thought of as Marvel’s true Golden Age. and I was glad to see it wasn’t just nostalgia that led me to believe that. The books are a collection of some of Marvel Comics’ key issues from the time when the company threw caution to the wind and chased whatever trend it felt like on a month-to-month basis. Monsters were big for a week? OK, let’s do a monster comic. Kung-fu movies are playing at the revival theaters? Super, let’s make a kung-fu hero. Or two or three. Marvel did superhero, horror, romance, kung-fu, jungle action, and sometimes mashed them all together. It turned a one-off threat from Fantastic Four into a Christ allegory. It made a duck run for president. It had Dracula fight Doctor Strange and the Silver Surfer. It created the world’s first — and, as far as I know, only — voodoo-powered super-hero.

The issues don’t always hold up — it’s mostly the attempts to be topical or relevant, as when Greer Nelson has a feminist awakening before she becomes a cat-powered super-hero — but even the most ham-fisted political statements come off no worse than bad Silver Age exposition. And most of the time, the sheer lunatic joy of the concepts barrels past any mere logical objections. For instance, in Ghost Rider, you might ask: Why does Satan have a motorcycle-riding daredevil collecting souls? And the answer is: Holy crap, that guy’s skull is on fire.

Even though comics have increased in price roughly 1500 percent since the 70s, we haven’t seen a corresponding increase in creativity or, sadly, flaming skulls. That’s probably the only thing I really miss about the 70s: the sense of possibility. This isn’t entirely the fault of the creators or the companies. The market has narrowed and the corporate bosses are more demanding. If something isn’t a guaranteed hit, it’s difficult to justify the expense of getting it in front of an audience. The Internet also makes it possible for any trend to be sucked dry in a matter of days, so that comics can’t mine the zeitgeist the way they used to. And judging by the sales numbers, many fans are in the grip of a different kind of nostalgia than mine: they want newer versions of the same stories with the same characters. So I understand the obstacles.

That said, my favorite book on the stands now is about a guy who gets psychic impressions from the things he eats, and I’d love to see that more of that sense of what-the-hell hit comics again. I’ve got money still unspent when I leave the comic book store these days, and I never thought that would happen in my lifetime.

Thank God Marvel Firsts: The 1970s Vol. 3 is going to be out soon. It’s got dinosaurs.