Issue #131
January 28th, 2008
Why aren’t people talking about this series?
Step back into the shoes of the man we witnessed Marvels with, and for many of us, once again for the first time.
Let me get this out of the way. It’s not as majestic a statement as the Busiek and Ross Marvels. It’s not supposed to be. It’s also completely different from Marvels (as opposed to most comments I have seen) though not to the other extreme end of the pendulum that Ellis examined via his excellent Ruins. It’s supposed to be more street level as t Sheldon’s journey is the experience of the transition through from the 60′s to the 70′s and beyond. We witness the marring of the Silver Age with the intrusion of the Bronze Age – Ghost Rider, Iron Fist, Punisher, Morbius, Man Thing, Dracula, and the rise of Wolverine – the X-men explosion just at the edge of our consciousness, ready to become the Marvel franchise.
“I could have listened to that kid all day. He GOT it.”
That kid may be writing comics right now.
This is actually when Marvel stole a generation from DC – the older brothers and uncles of the full-fledged Marvel Zombies to come a decade later. While the Big II is a common term, it is so due to the distance of any third party – since the 70′s if there is a concept of a 1A and 1B in terms of the market – then it is Marvel who has seen that former chair more than not, billion dollar movie or otherwise. I’m reading the black and white edition, and Jay Anacleto is just putting it down, and this version allows for the theme that not everything is black and white to actually be played in black and white. Busiek resides in and rode these crosscurrents, and is as accomplished a guide we could ask for. Letter columns bear witness to his passions, and here again, he observes, he reacts. The principle difference, however, is perhaps Stern’s involvement. Stern started his career when a lot of the creators who would mold this era were given the platform to do so. He wrote Amazing Spiderman and Avengers when people like me (my age) fell in love with Marvel. It’s not a look back at the abstract, it’s direct hindsight, and the nuance of Sheldon’s personal reaction is something that certainly could be replicated, but we know it isn’t. From some reason that means something to us.
This issue of Marvels: Eye of the Camera shows us a Sheldon at a time when optimism becomes contrarian to ideal. Sheldon isn’t just a witness, he’s not just the everyman anymore – that’s no worthy of what he is – of what we are. Sheldon is the ultimate comic book fan, a living superhero fan. In a manner that sounds ridiculous to those that aren’t part of this thing of ours, only by going to this extreme of showing a fictional character truly living what we read, living that unique experience that only comic book fans truly understand; only then can we truly justice to the immersion that came with our own initial encounters with the ‘characters’, with our and their evolution, and the trial of perhaps passing it to a next generation.
“Amidst the errors there shone forth men of genius, no less keen were their eyes, although they were surrounded by darkness and dense gloom.” – Petrarch
The joining of two worlds hardly ever comes without casualties, and among them, the most innocent, and our greatest champions. No world wins, but rather, when worlds collide another is created. The Silver Age is a fantastic era for both the big II, but the Bronze age and the so called ‘cooper age’ are misnomers.
Busiek, Stern, and Anacleto present the Marvel Age.
- Jay Tomio
Jan-ken-pon is the time traveling, force-walking, multiverse crossing column of Jay Tomio, owner of 1/3 of everything you see currently on screen and the editor of Heliotrope. He is most pleased that real flashbacks don’t have the lame ass Sentry in them. Some call him the Bodhisattva.
