Comic books have had a significant influence on my life, even though I only owned a few dozen in my childhood and have only read a few as an adult. They have influenced what I saw on television and in cinemas throughout my lifetime, and the rise of the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the 2010s surprised me by its dominance of the box office for many years, although its stars are now dimming.

Exploring Comics

I shared a few months ago the stark contrast of the campy Batman television show of the 1960s with the dark tales of his 1970s comic books. That left me a bit leery of comics. I had never taken to the first comics I encountered, ones that my dentist stockpiled: Casper the Friendly Ghost and Archie. Casper was too childish, and Archie was focused on teen antics that I couldn’t identify with. I loved the Josie and the Pussycats television show from 1970-1972, but I don’t think I even knew it was based on a comic book.

My parents would take me on extended vacations to their vacation cabin on Table Rock Lake in the Ozarks. When I was young, there was just a black-and-white television there that my father had won at a hunting dog event, and even with a giant outdoor aerial, it could only pick up a couple of stations. So when it rained, shutting us in from the great outdoors, I needed additional entertainment.

I was a quick reader, so I exhausted the books we brought. On a rainy grocery shopping trip to the Ramey’s in Cassville, I spotted some three-packs of comic books on a rack and asked for one. That introduced me to more DC comics, featuring satellite-era Justice League of America, Superman, Green Lantern, and the like. I enjoyed the main stories along with the side adventures of minor characters like Atom and Plastic Man.

My favorite Superman comic was from September 1972. Oddly, the cover of Volume 1 #256 wasn’t about the better story in it, which was The Dagger that Ripped the Sky! I was fascinated by its depiction of a jet that had a human personality and created a puzzle for Superman to solve.

It was a strong story from Cary Bates, and greatly augmented by the artistry of Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson.

I was so impressed that from then on whenever we would go on a vacation in Missouri I would get my mother to buy me a Comicpac at the Ramey’s. But I didn’t get comic books back home in Oklahoma City; they were strictly a vacation luxury. I did get something of a fix via the animated Saturday morning show Super Friends, which began in 1973.

My best friend, the late Gene Freeman, had some issues of Superboy starring the Legion of Super-Heroes from the summer of 1975. Those interested me since they were set in the 30th and 31st centuries and featured the recognizable Superboy but teamed him with a panoply of characters I had never heard of, such as Karate Kid, Timberwolf, Saturn Girl, Lightning Lad, and Duo Damsel. The artwork in Volume 1 #209 was far more sensual than I was used to.

I was intrigued, and eagerly read #210 and #211, and remember being scandalized that Star Trek‘s U.S.S. Enterprise was depicted as being in a junkyard. Sure, put the Jupiter 2 from the crummy Lost in Space there, but the Enterprise? How rude.

A nerdy digression: Trekkies like me will note that they based their depiction on the 33″ model of the Enterprise, not the 11-footer, the giveaway being the flat bottom of the saucer section since the smaller original model was made of solid wood and was turned on a lathe. As I compose this post, the 33″ model appears to have finally turned up after being AWOL for decades. How’s that for making a post about comic books even more nerdy?

Gene also had a few Marvel comics, such as Iron Man and the Fantastic Four. I was surprised at how their superheroes had conflicting and flawed characters. While those comics were interesting, I found that I favored idealism over realism. So I kept asking for DC, not Marvel, comics.

I didn’t keep any of my comic books as I grew up, but I have been and will continue to be exposed to plenty of media based on such books.

1970s TV & Movie Superheroes

The superhero television shows I watched were almost entirely characters from DC. By junior high I had not read any comic books for a few years, but I still liked watching syndicated reruns of Adam West’s Bright Knight and Burt Ward’s enthusiastic Robin. A neighbor tomboy and I had fun creating our own take-offs on the 1960s Batman show, recording Batgirl and Robin narrations on a cassette recorder in my back yard, laughing and giggling our way through our own comedic take on the Dynamic Duo.

I would also sometimes catch reruns of Adventures of Superman from 1952-1958 starring George Reeves. It was dopey and low-budget, with lots of gangsters, and clearly targeted at kids. I preferred the first season of the Wonder Woman television show with Lynda Carter in 1975-1979, which was campy and fun, although the later seasons lost some of the magic.

I watched the Shazam! and The Secrets of Isis shows on Saturday mornings from 1974-1977, and in junior high saw Christopher Reeves and Richard Donner’s 1978 Superman in the theater. I was impressed enough with it that I made sure to see the sequels as they premiered in theaters in later years, but their quality steadily dropped to where #IV was an embarrassment.

I didn’t see many Marvel characters on television, having never caught The Amazing Spider-Man in 1977-1979 or the 1967-1970 animated version. But I was a huge fan of The Six Million Dollar Man and its spinoff The Bionic Woman, and Kenneth Johnson, who was the showrunner of the latter, went on to make The Incredible Hulk with Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno. (I also got to see Lou at a Tulsa convention, and he was a real sweetheart.)

I only ever read maybe one issue of the Hulk comic books and found it grotesque. But I liked the television version, which made use of the trope of the innocent hunted man from the 1960s television show The Fugitive. Showrunner Johnson actually disliked comics, so he was happy to make drastic changes for the television version of the big green guy. Stam Fine did a great job looking back at that show:

Interesting One-Offs

Some other superhero movies I enjoyed in my 20s included The Shadow with Alec Baldwin and John Lone in 1994 and The Phantom with Billy Zane in 1996. I also enjoyed Men in Black, which unlike the other two, did have sequels, although they left no lasting impression on me.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe

And that brings me to the big daddy of all franchises: the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It launched in 2008 with Iron Man and as of late 2023 included 33 films. I have seen 12, or a bit more than 1/3 of the releases.

While I found most of those movies entertaining, they were ephemeral for me. The only one that I might currently consider rewatching would be the original Iron Man, whereas I have rewatched the 1978 Superman a few times over the years, I would happily revisit Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut, and I have seen the 2009 Watchmen more than once.

My affection for those superhero films is presumably deepened by having read Superman comics in my youth and enjoying the Watchmen graphic novel by Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons, and John Higgins. My memory of Marvel comics is limited to a vintage issue or two of Iron Man and the Fantastic Four, so I have no comic book references for most of the Marvel characters I have seen on screen such as the Avengers, Spider-Man, the Guardians of the Galaxy, the Hulk, the Carol Danvers version of Captain Marvel, and the X-Men.

Color Issues

I won’t be reading any vintage Marvel comics online, since the reprints are so garish. Below are images from colorist Jose Villarrubia, who wrote, “Kirby’s robust art could stand more vibrant coloring than most. However, it looked so much better the way it was colored originally. Here is one of the many splash pages in the classic Thor #160. On the left is a scan of my personal copy; in the center is how I would restore it, and on the right is the way it looks in Marvel reprints.”

If you skim a few online vintage issues of Tales of Suspense or Iron Man, and compare those to the reproductions of DC comics I shared earlier in this post, you’ll see what I mean. Reportedly when Marvel reprints were prepared in the early 2010s, the colorists were instructed to ignore how the pages looked and use a fixed number of swatch colors in Photoshop. Perhaps they were trying to show what the comics would have looked like on high-quality glossy paper, but the reality is they were printed on cheap pulp, which muted the colors. Here is a detailed article on pre-digital comic book coloring.

Comic Tropes

So, given their impact on other media, I’m interested in comics, even though I am not a regular consumer. As I shared recently, I quite enjoy Chris Piers’ looks at ComicTropes. I especially enjoy it when he looks back at weird comics from its Golden Age:

With comic book and Star Wars movie franchises faltering, it will be interesting to see if something more mature can thrive. But, as H.L. Mencken cautioned, “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.”