What If I Ran Marvel...in 1968 - pt. 1

I have written variations on this several times for this blog in the past (most recently here) on the nature of if I ran Marvel now, or ran Marvel in the past, and imagined various “jumping on” points where a time-traveling me could have made a significant difference. But, after recently reading Jack Kirby Collector #75, with its timeline of Marvel history, I realized the jumping on point I missed considering (and is so obvious now) was 1968, when Perfect Film & Chemical bought Marvel for $15 million. This was the first time Marvel had gone up for sale, only to be purchased by a company that had no interest in steering the direction of Marvel Comics. But what if I had $16 million back then, or represented a company that did, and outbid Perfect Film & Chemical?

The website The Fantastic Four 1961-1989 Was the Great American Novel has already addressed this year, with a lengthy essay on what all went wrong in 1968. But what if I was in charge by the end of that year? Instead of what went wrong, what could I have put right…?

  

Thanks to the website Mike’s Amazing World of Comics, I know Marvel published 27 different titles during 1968. Thanks to the website Comicchron, I know which titles were the best sellers that year. In order, they were:

#1. Amazing Spider-Man - 373,303 (average copies sold per issue)

#2. Fantastic Four - 344,865

#3. Thor - 295,371

#4. Daredevil - 292,423

#5. Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos - 286,747

#6. Incredible Hulk - 277,857

#7. Avengers - 276,951

#8. Captain America - 273,476

#9. X-Men - 273,360

#10. Strange Tales/Doctor Strange - 266,422

#11. Rawhide Kid - 216,045

I don’t have figures for the remaining 16 titles. Those worst-selling titles were: Captain Marvel, Captain Savage and His Leatherneck Raiders, Groovy, Iron Man, Marvel Collectors Item Classics, Marvel Super-Heroes, Marvel Tales, Mighty Marvel Western, Millie the Model, Nick Fury Agent of SHIELD, Not Brand Ecch, Pussycat, Prince Namor the Sub-Mariner, Silver Surfer, Spectacular Spider-Man, and Tales of Asgard. Of them, Groovy, Pussycat, Spectacular Spider-Man, and Tales of Asgard never made it past 1968, so I wouldn’t even have to worry about canceling those. Captain Savage, Marvel Collectors Item Classics, and Prince Namor the Sub-Mariner would all get canceled.

Now, the sales figures on those top 11 were good, and fantastic by today’s standards, but DC, Archie, and even Gold Key’s Tarzan were out-selling Marvel at those figures, so there was room for improvement on even Spider-Man.

So how would I chart a course for growth for Marvel Comics, that would hopefully thwart the sales slump of the 1970s? First, I would have to sit with Stan Lee and Roy Thomas and discuss who was in charge. I would be Editor-in-Chief, Stan would stay an editor, and Roy would be promoted to editor, and we would divide titles evenly between us -- though I would sit in on planning sessions on their titles as well and offer input.   

Next we would work on some immediate steps towards quality control. One simple thing we could do would be to give readers more for their money. Marvel Comics had shrank to 20 pages with an average of 4-5 panels per page. We would increase story page count back up to 21, and guarantee at least 105 panels per issue.

Quality comes from quality people, and quality people need to be paid a quality wage. Flo Steinberg would soon quit for not getting a $5 pay raise; I would give everyone a $6 pay raise across the board. For artists, I would immediately implement new work-for-hire contracts that guaranteed payment for reprints, collections, and reissues, or art re-used in TV animation. This would include a creator-equity agreement, like the industry would not see until the 1980s, granting 1% of all revenue on new characters back to the artists, and writers. Further, any title with sales exceeding 300,000 per issue would kick back 1% royalties to writer, artist, and inker, plus .5% to colorist and letterer (up to 5 positions, to be divided if more involved).  

This artist contract would be just one of my lures for keeping Jack Kirby at Marvel. I would meet with Kirby privately, show him this contract, but also offer him the position of Senior Art Director for 2 1/2 times his current pay, all the benefits of the expanded work-for-hire contracts, plus full-time benefits, and a salaried position. If he took the new position, he would continue drawing three titles a month, would continue to do layout work as needed, but would also develop a new character file that all staff could use, and would get royalties when those characters were used.  

Next, I would try to court back two other talents, Steve Ditko and Wally Wood. I would meet with them both individually, explain the new artist contracts, explain that I was only looking to hire them as inkers, but the artist contracts would apply specially to them, and assure them that they would not be working with Stan Lee any longer. I like to think I would win them both back.

Next I would work out which titles would be our six bimonthly titles. These were the larger 25 cent size issues that varied in length back then, but we would standardize them to 50 pages. Marvel abandoned this thicker format, but I think with proper branding and more patience it would have worked. These needed to be uniform in being meant for more mature readers -- not people looking for sex and violence, but more complex stories like the early Silver Surfers were offering. Titles that were doing well monthly would not be switched to bimonthlies, but Captain Marvel, Dr. Strange, Iron Man, Nick Fury Agent of SHIELD, Rawhide Kid, and Silver Surfer would become this new line. Each issue would have a 40-page lead story of new material, plus a 10-page reprinted back-up story. Of them, only one is straight-up superhero.    

Next, of the remaining titles, I would name the monthlies. The nine top-selling titles listed above are no-brainers. To them I would add Marvel Super-Heroes - for try-outs, Marvel Tales - for reprints, Mighty Marvel Western - for cowboy reprints, Millie the Model - for girls, Not Brand Echh - for humor, plus -- knowing from future history how important licensed comics will be to Marvel’s success -- a 15th slot that will be filled by a licensed comic of whatever is most popular at the time. While we wait for Star Wars to come out, we’ll start this title by partnering with Hannah-Barbera -- currently airing season 2 of their Fantastic Four series -- in cross promotion (more on that soon). We’ll start with a comic book featuring their Wacky Races cartoon (and by the end of 1969 will replace that with a Scooby Doo comic book). That would give us 15 monthly titles, 5 for Stan to edit, 5 for Roy, and 5 for me. Of them, only 9 would be straight-up superheroes (10 counting Marvel Tales, which will be mostly superhero reprints).

It would make sense to let Stan handle the five titles that had been doing best under his care, but Jack and Steve would be happier not working with Stan and I wanted Jack to stay on his titles, and Steve to come back to Spider-Man. That meant Stan would get Daredevil, Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos, Incredible Hulk, Avengers, and X-Men to edit. Roy would get Amazing Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Mighty Thor, Captain America, and Not Brand Echh, and I would get the rest.

Marvel always prided itself on writing for an older audience, but it would be important to keep engaging a younger audience too. Amazing Spider-Man, Captain America, Millie the Model, Not Brand Echh, Wacky Races, and our two reprint titles would be all-ages fare, meant for readers 8+, and would be like the kind of stories that were published in 1968. The other monthly titles would push the envelope, story-wise, to where Marvel was in 1970. These titles, and the bimonthly “adult” titles, would not carry the Comics Code Authority label so long as it does not allow the H-word, the supernatural, and the suggestion that sex has taken place. The bimonthly titles will push the envelope to 1973, use the D-word, can be sexier or more violent, though there would still be no nudity or gore.  

   

Then I would meet with everyone and explain that Marvel Comics would continue to be about change and not the illusion of change. Time would go back to passing in the comic books, though we would begin slowing it down to 6 months of comic book time in 1 year of real time. Further, every issue would resolve at least one plot element. No plot strings would go untied after twelve issues. And no cliffhangers picking up at the same time the following issue; at least 10 minutes of time would have to pass between issues, abandoning the cliche cliffhanger of the hero in mortal danger. Innovation was expected of all creative staff and we would not be sticking to a status quo or resetting titles. The fictional world would change to reflect Marvel history, not real history. Since the comic book Moon landing took place in 1963, when the real Moon landing happens in 1969 it will be something different in the comics, probably the installation of a Moon base. Always moving forward, not back.

Summary of Experience with RPGs, 1974-1977

I have long been a huge fan of John H. Kim's RPG Encyclopedia, and more for its chronological index. I have tried, for some years now, to play all the earliest RPGs that were ever out there, with mixed results.

I thought I should finally share some of those results...

1973

Chainmail

Played (twice). A wargame, not a RPG.

1974

Dungeons & Dragons (1^st ed)

Played and ran, though seldom without substantial house rules.  Good, if uneven, and needs much house ruling to fill gaps.

[Warriors of Mars is not listed, but is a wargame closer to a RPG than Chainmail]

1975

Boot Hill (1^st ed)

Played (once). More of a wargame, for one-on-one dueling.

The Complete Warlock

Only 1978 version available.

Empire of the Petal Throne

Ran (twice). Conceptually fascinating, an interesting D&D variant with good campaign ideas, but better for raiding for ideas than playing. I’m not a fan of the campaign setting, but I admire its attention to detail. I blogged about my first solo experience with EPT/Tekumel, playing a randomly rolled scenario...wow, seven years ago!

En Garde (1st ed)

Unavailable, but looks more like a wargame for one-on-one dueling.

Tunnels & Trolls (1^st ed.)

Ran (once). Meant as an improvement on D&D, but wildly eccentric and no real improvement.

1976

Bunnies & Burrows (1^st ed.)

Ran (twice). A fun, but challenging to play game; not having opposable thumbs is very limiting on a player-character. Never had much support material; plan on watching Frog God Games for their relaunch and new B&B adventures.

Knights of the Round Table

Unavailable.

Metamorphosis Alpha

Played (twice), ran (once). At 36 pages, more of a rough draft of a great idea for a RPG, more fully realized in Gamma World.

Monsters! Monsters!

Ran (once). Tunnels & Trolls, but played from the monster’s perspective. Ingenious, but as flawed as T&T, and handled much better years later by Kobolds Ate My Baby!

Starfaring

Unavailable, but from what I’ve read, it is a strange animal, more like a wargame with exploration as the goal instead of war.

Uuhraah!

Unavailable.

1977

Bifrost (1^st ed)

Unavailable.

Chivalry & Sorcery (1^st ed)

Unavailable – but skimmed the 2000 Red Book, which claims to be 1^st ed unchanged, but edited and compiled into one book. If so, then 338 pages is twice too long and complex for a core rulebook for my liking. Pendragon will, later, do feudal campaigns and unusual time-keeping campaigns better. It does do Tolkein’s “demi-humans” better than D&D. I rolled up a random character that was pretty much unplayable (a bungling, weak dimwit, but with stunning good looks and a poetic voice!). Granted, my next character could have been amazing, but not a promising start.

Dungeons & Dragons (2^nd ed/Holmes ed)

Ran. Though only a basic book (levels 1-3) was ever produced, it is a mostly complete game unto itself, at times both crude and elegant, and possibly the most streamlined version of D&D ever.

En Garde (2^nd ed)

Unavailable, not sure what the differences are to 1^st ed.

The Fantasy Trip (1^st ed)

Unavailable, but coming back through Kickstarter.

Flash Gordon and the Warriors of Mongo

Unavailable, but from what I’ve read, it was more like a board game, with a map instead of a board, and simple combat rules tacked onto it.

Space Quest

Unavailable, but was apparently D&D reskinned as science fiction.

Star Patrol

Unavailable, but apparently another reskinning of D&D as science fiction.
Superhero 2044
Only read it, but can't imagine how you can play this as a complete game without substantial house rulings. It seems more like a supplement meant to be tacked onto another game.

Traveller

I have one of the original booklets now, but don't own the first book with character creation rules in it, so I've never been able to tackle playing it. I've skimmed the rules and tried making a character once, but found the character gen rules too pro-military for my liking. I wanted to make a character who dodged the draft, and wound up with no skills because, apparently, anyone who doesn't serve in the armed forces is a no-talent loser.

Tunnels & Trolls (2nd ed)

Unavailable, but I understand it expanded on 1st edition, rather than replacing anything.

Top ten comic book writers and artists

Comic Book Resources (cbr.com) asked for comic book fans to compile their own top ten lists of comic book writers and artists to make up a top 100 list, and I dreaded seeing the results. So many readers have such short memories, many would think modern writers and artists rank in those top 10’s. I reject that thinking; when you stand on the shoulders of giants, the best artists are the ones who’s shoulders you’re standing on. They are the ones who broke all the ground and made possible everything that came after. So, to represent, I voted and went as Old School as it gets. This is the tier of writers and artists where, to rank them, you don’t ask questions like “How many good stories have they done?” but “How many genres have they defined or invented?”

This is a different list than what I would call my top ten *personal favorite* comic book writers/artists. There is no sign, for instance, of John Byrne here, as brilliant as he was at combining Kirby with superior draftsmanship. All modern artists have either combined what the old masters gave them or tweaked it in some way.

TOP TEN COMIC BOOK WRITERS AND ARTISTS

WRITERS

10. Stan Lee. The man who wrote comic books directly to you, with an immediacy of audience connection unheard of in comic books before.

9. Robert Kanigher. War comics had been around as long as there had been comic books, but Kanigher brought them poignancy and a strong anti-war message.

8. Carl Barks. The man took an intrinsically silly group of characters and fashioned a serious universe for them to live in.

7. Harvey Kurtzman. Deserves to be remembered for Two-Fisted Tales, but changed the world of satire forever with Mad magazine.

6. Will Eisner. There almost from the beginning, Eisner was a pro when the other greats were still finding their legs. Hawks of the Seas and Espionage were excellent, but The Spirit was a masterpiece of the short form.

5. Don Cameron. The man who had to follow both Siegel on Superman and Finger on Batman, Cameron didn’t flinch and met the challenge with stories like “There Will Always Be a Superman” and “Twenty Ton Robbery.”

4. Bill Parker. Magic flowed from his pen when he created Captain Marvel and crafted the first 15 Captain Marvel adventures for Whiz Comics.

3. Gardner Fox. Although deserving to be recognized for his prodigious output alone, with the Justice Society of America he created the concept of a superhero team and the first organization of fictional heroes since King Arthur’s knights.  

2. Bill Finger. Prolific ghost writer for Bob Kane, Finger is responsible for much of what we consider iconic about the Batman mythos, in addition to having written some of the best of the early Batman stories, like “The Three Racketeers.”

1. Jerry Siegel. Forever to be enshrined as the greatest comic book writer of all time for creating Superman, by doing so inventing the superhero genre itself, and by virtue of the superhero genre sustaining the entire comic book industry for every generation since.   

TOP TEN COMIC BOOK ARTISTS

10. Carl Barks. Though he made it look easy, Barks was an early genius at storytelling and continuity.

9. Joe Kubert. One of the best of the war comic artists, but more importantly trained generations of comic book artists through his school.

8. Mort Meskin. Most other golden age comic book art looked stiff and motionless compared to Meskin, who brought a sense of animation to everything he did.

7. Frank Frazetta. Not a comic book artist for very long in his career, but maaaan, it was gorgeous stuff!

6. Gil Kane. So gifted that he was ghosting Kirby while still a teenager, Kane developed a style with as much dynamism as Kirby, but more smooth and less bombastic.

5. Lou Fine. Perhaps the second most beautiful art of the golden age after Frazetta, Fine combined realistic illustration with comic book art more than any other artist of his time other than Raboy (who was so slow that he often had to swipe himself).

4. C.C. Beck. Although I’m partial to his slightly more realistic early work, Beck developed a style that was just the right balance between serious and cartoony that was accessible to all ages, leading to the runaway success of Captain Marvel in the 1940s.

3. Will Eisner. It’s almost impossible to separate out Eisner the artist from Eisner the writer. He had Barks’ gift for storytelling, but further was a genius at composition, with his inventive page layouts being one of the things he’s best remembered for.

2. Jack Kirby. If not for his tin ear for dialogue, he would belong on the writers’ side top 10 too. The man reinvented the superhero comic, reinvented the kid adventure genre, helped invent the romance genre, and created a significant portion of the Marvel Universe himself. Almost frighteningly prolific and endlessly influential, Kirby’s legacy is still felt on every comic book page today.

1. Joe Shuster. Although considered crude by today’s standards, there is a raw primal energy to Shuster’s sketchy art that was perfect for Superman. And, of course, he deserves to be immortalized for the same reasons as Siegel in the writers’ category. Without them, the comic book industry would have never amounted to more than a passing fad in repackaging comic strips.

My Four Landmark Campaigns

It occurred to me today that I've been a RPG gamer for 36 non-stop years now. GenCon, a four-day gaming convention, is going on right now. If I had my own four-day gaming convention, each day dedicated to nine years of the time I've been a gamer, what games would be played on each day?

My first nine years were 1982-1991. During this time, campaign play was almost unheard of in our gaming community until 1988, with most of us only played one-off published modules.  My first attempt at a campaign in 1990 was really just the Fate of Istus super-module (with some Dungeon magazine filler stringing Rookroost and Rel Mord together) -- and it was not until 1991 when I started my first ambitious campaigns, the City of Greyhawk (AD&D 1st ed.) campaign and the Wimpy Tales (Marvel Super Heroes) campaign. Neither was very long (the City of Greyhawk campaign never saw anyone rise past 4th level), but they were elaborate in a way I've seldom had time to duplicate since.

The Wimpy Tales campaign (for at least the first two sessions) had their own comic book covers I drew. It avoided the pitfalls of the MSH rules for higher-powered characters by keeping everything, well, wimpy. It studiously clung to comic book continuity, while its lighthearted tone (until the Maggia scenario that killed the campaign) made it accessible to players who didn't read the comic books.

But even more ambitious was the City of Greyhawk campaign. Though the meat of the campaign was the City of Greyhawk boxed set combined with the adventure super-module Greyhawk Ruins, and a smattering of Dungeon magazine offerings for side quests, what made this campaign special was that it was really five different solo campaigns, each with its own cast of characters and ongoing plots, and the player-characters only crossed over and teamed up as needed. We had some pairings on some adventures, and a single case when three players all teamed up together. There were ambitious storylines, like the wild magic surge/time travel adventure that allowed Perrin the elven thief to confront the killer of his parents, too late to save them. I have never had the time to achieve that level of complexity since.

My next nine years were 1991-2000.  During this time I ran Forgettable Realms, a Wimpy Tales-like campaign using D&D; started and aborted an ambitious Pendragon campaign; but my greatest achievement -- my most successful campaign ever -- was the South Province campaign (AD&D 1st ed.) that I started during this stretch. Running from 1997 to 2005 (eight years, though I have long mistakenly remembered it lasting ten), South Province had 14 players over the course of the campaign, had one character reach 10th level, and a compelling story arc that ended with the heroes confronting and besting the evil herzog of the province. In some ways it was City of Greyhawk-lite -- there were character-specific supporting cast and subplots, and characters sometimes spent weeks of game time separated on different tasks, but it was understood that everyone was part of a group (the Band of the Grinning Gargoyle, marking one of the only times my players ever chose a group name) and would adventure together.

Every character died at least once. A TPK was foiled once with a Wish spell, while in my most ambitious plotline I intentionally killed off every character that had ever been a member of the Band of the Grinning Gargoyle so that they could be brought back to life as prisoners in a duplicate of the Tomb of Horrors created by Acererak's spurned wife! For much of the campaign, I had time to keep up a running newsletter (The Prymptown Courier) that included write-ups of what was happening in sessions, along with interviews with NPCs and other goodies. I even found time to create an original three-level dungeon (that wrapped around one published dungeon level) that they kept coming back to, though the rest of the adventures were various published modules, heavily modified. We played through a lot of the classics like G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief (with ogres instead of hill giants), G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl (with yeti instead of frost giants), and Tegel Manor.

My next nine years was 2000-2009.  After South Province wrapped up in 2005 I floundered directionless and largely player-less. But I was also moving away from wanting to run D&D as-is. In 2008 I had begun working on Hideouts & Hoodlums, a retroclone that combined the game I wanted to run with golden age comic book adventures, and in 2009, right at the end of this span of time, I began my first online H&H campaign on rpol.net.

But, before that, I ran my most successful online campaign ever in Yahoo! Clubs, Superland, from 2001 to 2004. Superland was largely freeform, but with a thin veneer of Marvel Super Heroes layered into it to keep combat fair. I had at least 13 players over the course of Superland; some of could not keep up and dropped out quickly, while Captain Comet, Mr. Terrific, and Dr. Eternity were mainstays who formed the foundation of the Crimebusters Club and shaped the course of the campaign. Though City of Greyhawk and South Province had a lot of this built-in, this campaign was more about simulating everyday life in a world of superheroes than it was about them having adventurers -- though that did not stop them from facing the occasional supervillain. The premise was that, in 1955, Disneyland opened, but was incorporated into the City of Anaheim instead of separate from it, and Walt Disney had invited the aging superheroes of the golden age (who were aging in real time) to come live in Disneyland. It was a shared universe setting with a hodgepodge of characters from various comic book publishers all interacting together.

My last set of nine years has been 2009-20018. During this time, I have only run two AD&D campaigns, a live session Garham to Greyhawk campaign (all east and south of the City of Greyhawk, but never reached it before a TPK ended the campaign) and an online Verbobonc campaign (my plan was to run them through the Living Greyhawk tournaments, but we only did the first one and then detoured into stopping the Cult of the Flaming Eye from possessing Dieg Manor from the super-module Fate of Istus, kind of bringing me full circle D&D-wise).

All of my other campaigns in this period have been H&H campaigns. Two also-rans were my Library Campaign, that saw a lot of young people try H&H and saw them choose to move from exploring hideouts in the Midwest to fighting Nazis in Occupied France, and a short-lived JSA campaign online that emulated just All-Star Comics #5, with a lot of wandering encounters added.

My three best campaigns in this period have been three Hideouts & Hoodlums campaigns. First was my Rpol campaign. Like South Province, the goal here was running through heavily modified classic D&D adventures -- Temple of the Frog, Tomb of Horrors, Escape from Astigar's Lair, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks -- but set in 1940. I believe that ran for four years and saw heroes reach 6th level, but rpol.net erased my archive so I can't go back and check anymore.

I'm also proud of the campaign I'm running now. My first ambitious attempt to run a sandbox campaign setting using H&H, the Mount Prospect campaign (also known as Batman and the Golden Age Outsiders) is in its second year, has a steady group of five players, heroes as high as 6th level, and is largely based on the early unpublished D&D works of Rob Kuntz (with a little Len Lakofka's Lendore campaign thrown in).

But my greatest accomplishment during this period were my Blue Box Campaign/Sunday Nights Campaign, using H&H. For the only time ever, I had two independent groups of players who could cross over into each others campaigns, as happened twice. The Blue Box Campaign frustrated my players sometimes because of my ambition, but it was a perfect emulation of the solo and group adventures of the Justice Society of America from All-Star Comics #4-7, mixed with additional comic book adventures and classic modules like Dark Tower. Meanwhile, the Sunday Nights Campaign ran longer, saw heroes rise as high as 8th level, and had adventures like exploring an alternate Norway that had become magically merged with the Wilderlands campaign setting, and explored the Citystate of the Invincible Overlord. They returned to the Americas, where they fought Nazis in Brazil and wound up saving President Roosevelt from an ambush from a magic gate, but accidentally burned down the White House in their grand finale.

So my four landmark campaigns were:
City of Greyhawk
South Province
Superland
Blue Box/Sunday Nights