Rate this book

Marvel Comics: The Untold Story (2012)

by Sean Howe(Favorite Author)

4.04 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

0061992100 (ISBN13: 9780061992100)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Harper

review 1: A good through look at the creation of modern myths and the people who made them. I like how the theme was pretty established concerning the ownership of creative ideas, but the book is a bummer ultimately because the answer to that question is the corporations always win and the creators pretty much lose. Stan Lee comes off as pretty lousy in the book, but hey, that's the way it was reported. Good book, though the ending was rushed.
review 2: Sean Howe's Marvel Comics: The Untold Story is a real page-turner that takes you from the early days of Timely Comics right up to the blockbuster movies era of Marvel Studios, i.e. today, though the bulk of the book best covers 1960 to 2000, which has the greatest ratio of Marvel employees alive and willing to talk (or wh... moreo had before their passing, in the many secondary sources used). Howe's breezy style finds a way to tell us a STORY, which isn't an obvious thing when talking about a company that's been bought and sold so many times in its life, and seen such upheavals in both staff and fortune, and he certainly has a feeling for life's ironies. Most surprising is the AMOUNT of editorial and/or corporate shenanigans that go on at a comic book publisher, many of which explain Marvel's strangest decisions over the years, and illuminate some of what they (and DC) are doing now. The douchery of Stan Lee, Jim Shooter, Bob Harras and Joey Q (some of the biggest "villains" in the story, along with quite a few "suits") often goes beyond the question of creator rights - which is central to the book's focus - and into the area of creator mistreatment. And just how many Marvel employees died on the job well before their time? I forgot to count. It's a great read, but has the potential to put you off mainstream comics for good (or perhaps go back and find the comics where the creators are clearly taking shots at management, as described in the book). And it makes you pine for a similar treatment about DC, whose story often intersects Marvel, giving us a tantalizing nugget of information. The best recommendation I can give Untold Story is that it's so efficiently put together, there's just about one interesting piece of gossip, revelation, or damning quotation on each page. less

Download links for: Marvel Comics: The Untold Story

Advertising