Slugfest: Inside the Epic, 50-year Battle between Marvel and DC

I very much enjoyed this book.

This is an easy to read book that discusses the rivalry between the two companies and relates it to and describes their past and present cooperate structure. The author does not dwell on items too long, such as Marvel’s bankruptcy where other books have done that. The book is all text with no illustrations and does not involve itself the actual comic book stories.

For those familiar with the important events he gives behind the scenes information and quotes. For those not familiar with the most important events, he discusses them in chronological order.

Marvel, in the 1960s is, of course, the “winner” in the race. Now, from a distance it is easy to see that the corporate structure of DC, its conservative outlook and it’s inability to change, held them back. Marvel’s innovative approach, led by Stan Lee, allows Marvel to grow and overtake the much bigger rival in comic book sales. The narrative of DC concentrates on Weisinger and Schwartz, a bit on Kanigher and very little on Schiff, although in the 1960s Batman became a big deal. Soon the DC narrative shifts to Carmine Infantino. In the later years, Joe Questa and other Marvel higher up do not come out looking good. And once again, no one has a kind word for Weisinger.

I have written about this recently and it is discussed here. At the beginning of Marvel’s rise to fame, DC books seemed for children, they offered few adventures and lots of silly gimmicky covers. Yet, in the beginning of the 1960s DC thought themselves as literature and Marvel as, well, garbage. Their dialogue was simplistic and had no personality, so at a JLA meeting you could move the balloons around it would not matter who said what. These issues were gone into in detail in this book. And show why Marvel won the 1960s and 1970, creatively as well as on the stands.

Reed discusses at length the events that led Marvel to Secret Wars and that help change it’s corporate structure. He does the same with the Death Of Superman and Crisis at DC, and, once again, shows how special events help circulation, but, later on often hurts it. Apparently, the author feels to DC has overtaken Marvel creatively, at least in the last couple of decades.

A great deal of time is spent discusses the problems setting up the crossover issues, Superman vs. Spider-Man, and how the up and down animosity of the two companies often stand it its way. At the same time, Reed show how economically the two companies are somewhat dependent on each other. The author also discusses why many artist left on company to go to another. Or why an artist or writer would NEVER go to DC or Marvel.

The author also lets us in a bit on the very good salaries and bonuses, sometimes a million dollars that popular creators now get. The book concludes with a look at the movies and the constant rebooting of the companies.

I have no dog in this race but I reached a conclusion a long time ago. Creativity comes from an individual, not a corporation. Marvel in the 1960s and DC in the 1940s (not covered here) were their most creative when privately owned.

In 1961 DC Comics was the biggest comic company in the United States. Its superhero comics - Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman - were the most popular in the world and it had absolutely no competition of note. But that same year Atlas Comics was branded Marvel and its editor Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby released a new comic called The Fantastic Four. Within a decade Marvel had displaced DC as the biggest comics company in the US and snatched away a lot of talent and critical acclaim that had gone to DC. DC fought back, starting formidable Superman and Batman movie franchises and releasing a series of artistic, critically-acclaimed comic books in the 1980s and 1990s from the likes of Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman. But in the early 2000s Marvel finally entered the movie scene in force with X-Men and Spider-Man, and never looked back.

This non-fiction book looks into the 50-year competition between DC and Marvel, the two titans of comic book publishing. Reed Tucker has exhaustively interviewed many key players involved and scoured the archives for interviews with those who are no longer with us. The result is a potential interesting book that examines the corporate battle between the venerable establishment figure and the plucky upstart newbie.

Or at least it's a potentially interesting book that tries to do that. The opening chapters expand on this, detailing how Stan Lee took over a moribund company and injected some 1960s inventiveness, irreverence and character development to win over young fans from the older, more moribund publisher. We're told that Marvel focused more on the characters' internal lives, on the distrust with which they are treated by the government (helping young readers identify with similarly confused and mistrusted characters) and gave their writers and artists much greater freedom to express themselves, throwing away the style guides DC saddled their readers with. Marvel also used real locations, particularly in and around New York, which excited readers more than stories set in completely fictional locales like Gotham and Metropolis.

All of this stuff is great, but Reed never really moves on from this basic assumption: Marvel was the plucky underdog with greater creative energy and freedom, and DC was the staid old man taken by surprise by what the youngster was doing and whose attempts to replicate it by "getting down with the kids" were embarrassing. That applies very well to the 1960s and the early 1970s. However, some of Reed's conclusions and anecdotage are questionable: he challenges the wisdom of DC poaching Jack Kirby from Marvel and putting them on the Jimmy Olsen comic book, but this was both Kirby's own choice (so he wouldn't cost anyone a job on another comic, as the Jimmy Olsen book didn't have a permanent artist at the time) and also allowed him to set up his own, more original books later on by introducing characters like Darkseid.

By the time the 1980s have rolled around, Reed is still expanding on Marvel being the plucky underdog beating the boring old figure of DC, but seems to contradict himself by then talking about DC's artistic achievements with books like Swamp Thing, Watchmen and Sandman, as well as how Marvel had become the biggest-selling comic book company, making DC the underdogs. Aware that this is getting repetitive, he switches to studying the film business and how DC got some great movies made whilst Marvel flirted with moderately successful TV shows but otherwise couldn't get a decent movie on screen until twenty-two years later. This is interesting, with some great stories of bizarre behind-the-scenes battles and the film companies not "getting" comic books at all, but again it lacks depth.

The book is ultimately a bit constrained by its premise, and it's to Tucker's credit that he remains laser-focused on the interrelationship between Marvel and DC. It would have been very easy to get sidetracked in the internal history of the two companies and discuss more creative decisions, but Tucker stays on point throughout. This does mean the book veers towards the more corporate side of things rather than the creative one, which I think will be of less interest to those keen to learn more about the origins of superhero characters or how the books developed. But it has some value: this is an under-told aspect of the comic book story and Tucker keeps the story ticking over nicely.

Slugfest (***½) is a readable and intriguing book about the titanic competition between the two biggest comic book companies in the United States. It's also a bit on the repetitive side, with not as much depth as perhaps might be wished, and a lack of information on the creative choices as opposed to business ones. It's still a good story, well-told and interesting, but one for hardcore comic book fans only.

In "Slugfest: Inside the Epic, 50-Year Battle between Marvel and DC," journalist Reed Tucker provides a brisk, captivating account of the ongoing clash of the superhero-publishing titans.

He's done a fine job portraying two companies traveling parallel tracks: Marvel, the scrappy upstart publisher of all-too-human superheroes that overtook longtime industry leader DC in the early 1970s and eventually became just as corporate as its main competitor; and DC, the staid corporate publisher with iconic, godlike heroes that's spent five-plus decades trying-sometimes successfully, sometimes not-to capture Marvel's brand of cool by bringing those icons like Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman down to earth and making them relevant for modern readers.

Tucker introduces his narrative with a vivid account of a cringe-inducing meeting at DC's bland New York headquarters in which worried executives try to figure out the secret of Marvel's success-and focus on imitating every superficial aspect of Marvel magazines except the storytelling because they refused to stoop to actually reading those books.

At times, the publishers' battle for spandex supremacy is as intense-though not as violent and destructive-as anything depicted in their books. Industry personalities hurl vulgar schoolyard insults at their employer's rival. Those same personalities are the objects of talent wars as the companies poach each other repeatedly. They imitate, they plagiarize-and even engage in espionage that hews closer to "Get Smart" than James Bond. (In 1971, a DC executive left in his outbox a fake memo about publishing 500-page comics. The employee suspected of leaking company secrets to Marvel took the bait-and soon enough, Marvel was discussing publishing 500-page comics.)

Of course, the personality who dominates Tucker's narrative is Stan Lee, who co-created (with Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko) conflicted, flawed heroes like the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man who were the antithesis of DC's idealized, perfect heroes. Tucker offers readers not the idealized "Stan the Man," but a writer who originally wanted nothing to do with comics and just wanted to make enough money to launch a career in more respectable publishing. In effect, Tucker does for Lee what Lee did for superheroes-he humanizes a seemingly larger-than-life figure.

Tucker also makes clear that comics is primarily a male-dominated industry; the only women's voices heard in his narrative are those of Jenette Kahn, longtime DC president and publisher, and veteran Marvel writer/editor Ann Nocenti.

Along the way, he also shows how the comics themselves evolved from inexpensive, four-color entertainment for children to more complex fare intended for a fanatically devoted, but aging, audience-and now, to valuable intellectual properties for conglomerates like Disney and Warner, respectively.

It's Tucker's love of his topic that makes "Slugfest" such a knockout read.

And "Slugfest" can be enjoyed not just by comic book fans, but also by students of business administration, as Tucker chronicles the lack of business acumen exhibited by editorial regimes at both companies. (Particularly fascinating is the cautionary tale of Carmine Infantino, a renowned artist whom DC woefully miscasts as an executive.)

In the end, Tucker concludes, neither company is the real winner of its ongoing rivalry-it's the kids who read "Batman" and "Daredevil" who grew up to become power players in the film, television and video-game industries that are the latest battlefields for the cape-and-cowl titans.

I cannot believe a writer would announce I am not a Marvel fanboy and then proceed to write a Marvel fanboy book. Reed Tucker has clearly NOT done his research into either company. He says that DC Comics was the premier early comic book company and neglects to mention that Fawcett Publications's comic book superhero Captain Marvel outsold Superman in the 1940's. He attempts to claim that the first comic book universe was a pure Marvel creation and totally discounts All Star Comics #3 of which not fewer then eleven characters who had previously existed alone in their own Universe now shared space. This book is not trying to be a balanced approach to this story. It is a very NARROW approach to say that Marvel comics is the better brand and stay away from DC Comics. Enjoy your money Mr. Tucker.

History is what it is and it can't be changed. However the way you tell that history is very important. This book seems to go out of its way to minimize DC's contributions whenever possible and praise Marvel at every opportunity.

I'm a fan of comics, no matter who creates them and I've gone out of my way over the decades to find information about the inner workings. This book pretty much "jives" with what I know but it leaves out so much.

It's obvious which brand the author loves more (aka the brand that's dominating pop culture right now). If you love Marvel and hearing great things about Marvel, this is a five star book. If you like both brands or lean more towards DC characters and stories, you may have to struggle to finish it.

I really wanted to like this book. I thought the idea of presenting this epic struggle between Marvel and DC as a sort of quasi "titans-battle-to-the-death" complete with a sort of comic book looking cover was great, and I expected non-stop action and excitement, page after page after page.

What I got was the history of the two companies' relationship, or lack thereof, divided into historical segments, and within each segment a fire-hose of factoids, observations, quotes, and names with very little narrative to help me keep track of what was going on. I suppose if I were a life long comic book reader who had lived through decades of reading comic books week after week this might be a great recap and review, but to someone whose main exposure to comic book superheroes was through watching TV adaptations as a child, and the recent rash of movies with my children, I found the story very difficult to follow. (And, I've read St. Augustine's "On the Trinity," so I can read OK.)

The author pointed out toward the end that one reason why the Marvel movies have been more successful than the DC movies is that Marvel made the superheroes more accessible. I couldn't agree more. I with the author had done a more "Marvelous" job of making this niche of pop-culture history more accessible to me.

A huge opportunity was missed, in my opinion, to have some real fun with the material. What if every chapter was introduced, or summed up, by a short cliff-hanger comic showing Marvel and DC as superheroes having an epic battle over time. How fun would that be? Did anyone even think of this? This book is packaged in comic book motif, so why not run with it a bit?

Instead, I slogged through a deluge of atomized information which I struggled to assimilate into some sort of "big picture" in my mind. I could scarcely read more than one chapter at a time, per day. Getting through this book was irritating and I was so happy to be finished and writing this review.

Finally, my favorite quote, "The next year [1967] Marvel teamed up with the same low-budget, soon-to-be-bankrupt animator to produce a Spider-Man cartoon. The show stunk. The animation was so shoddy that it looked like it had been created by unskilled prisoner labor in some far-flung Asian backwater." (page 125)

Well, that 1967 Spider Man series was one of few fun things I remember about my dysfunctional upbringing, and the DVD set is a few feet away from me on my DVD shelf. Thanks for ruining my childhood. (Not really, but I just had to write that.)

So, I learned a lot, and I forgot a lot. I think this was a great story to tell, but perhaps better in a different medium. Perhaps DC or Marvel could pick up the movie rights and give it the big screen treatment. I would go to see that.

I never read many comic books as a kid, but as an adult I have been enjoying the emergence of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I remember loving Superman The Movie as a child, and watching the dark and brooding DCU today - I wonder "Why?" When did Superman go from being a symbol of all that is good to just another beat-em-up action star? This book traces the amazing history of both Marvel and the DC Universe, from the beginnings of the comics to the emergence of the movie adaptations. You learn why Marvel gave up the rights to X-Men and Spiderman, and how they took their remaining, less valuable properties, and built the MCU we know and love today. My kids are now into comic books, largely due to the popularity of the movies. How did we get here? This is a well written and fascinating history I haven't seen anywhere else. Recommended!

I knew the pieces of this story before I picked up the book, and was looking for some flavor and a broader, less biased take on the topic. I did not get the book I was looking for (not Tucker's fault, he wrote this for newbies to the topic), but I am irritated by the sloppy timeline and poor editing (footnotes and index do not line up. I know that authors are expected to bring their own editors to the project, but if Tucker did, he was ill served). For example, in the midst of a chapter nominally about the 80s, he drops a pull quote from Brian Michael Bendis' twitter account from 2009 slagging Wonder Woman in favor of Spider Gwen (and yes, this book dropped before Bendis moved to DC). I can cite more, but you get the idea. More often than not, it was impossible to track who he was discussing, when the events occurred and what the point of that topic was. Each chapter has an artificial 'cliff hanger' that repeats the theme that Marvel and DC have even more evil deeds up their sleeves.....This gets old pretty fast. Tucker does have plenty of gossip and dirt, but there are plenty of better written articles and books on this topic .
I checked this book out of the library, and am grateful I did not buy it.

Interesting book, lots of stuff I already knew but quite a bit more that I didn't. All in all it was a good read.

A fun book with lots of good information. Though the comicbook wars of the sixties have often been covered, this book covers that era right up through the present (including referencing stories from within the past year). There are a few editorial opinions scattered throughout, but they are not distracting. Great quotes and a good appendix. Tucker has done a good job and I l look forward to more writing from him.