I fell out of love with Marvel in the early 1990's. They began churning out "collector's editions" every month, with single issues having five or six different colored foil triple gatefold covers that ensured the price of the product would outpace its real value in terms of content (or lack thereof). Storylines became muddled, and they burned their best artists (like Todd MacFarlane) to the point that many jumped ship. The effect was an overpriced product that wasn't worth the money, including an homage to Stan Lee in every issue.

That's when I discovered independent comics and smaller comic book publishers (like Revolutionary Press, Aircel, Kitchen Sink and Dark Horse) that produced much more daring and bold comics of high quality. Spawn, Poison Elves, Slacker Comics, Flaming Carrot and Next Men were far more enjoyable than Spiderman or X-Men.

I don't read comics much anymore, and I try to avoid movie adaptations of comic books since they are mostly awful (after seeing the Daredevil movie, I didn't just want a refund, I wanted the hour and a half of my life I'd wasted viewing it back). I do observe that Marvel has leveraged its brand remarkably well, but like most companies who market their brand rather than their product, it has long been nothing more than a logo.

Weird how an industry that does nothing but crank out stories for kids where all problems are solved with violence, punctuated with the odd incongruous speech here and there declaring that violence is not the solution, could possibly sound sleazy. Perish the thought.

This, and other actual news, remind me of an old Lilly Tomlin joke about "work", that no matter where you work you get the same kinds of things, "do you think the people at the Twinkie factory walk around yelling Weeeeee!"

That was much funnier 25 years ago when she said it.

@2 Won't someone please think of the children?

@4

Won't someone stand up for making a quick buck selling cheap crap?

When I was a kid my fervent dream was to be an illustrator for Marvel. After reading this book, I am now certain that it was for the best that it did not happen.

You've seen "Comic Book Comics" by Fred Van Lente and Ryan Dunlavey? Same guys that did Action Philosophers touched on some of that Marvel history too.

@5 You're the reactionary here, not me.

@9

Eh, I'm pretty sure when I say calling a company sleazy is acceptable, and you use a copy-paste of some boilerplate Internet troll bullying to tell me that I'm outside the bounds of discourse, then you're the one being reactionary.

"Won't someone think of the children" is troll for "You can't say that on the Internet". Reactionary censorship.

Someone calling you on your bullshit must a troll, right.