Best and Worst of the Complete Marvel Reading Order #4

Best - 683: Tales of Suspense (1959) #94 [B Story]

I'm honestly not sure what more can be said...except...

MODOK!

Oh how I love MODOK.  He is simultaneously ludicrous and disturbing, a weird mix of body horror and slapstick. 

The lead in stories to this in ToS 92 and 93 are four stars each, so its a great story arc overall.  AIM as an organization was introduced a few years earlier, but this arc is where they become the classic crime science gang we all know and hate.  Also Agent 13 (aka Sharon Carter) is cool, if a bit damsel in distress-y. 

But mostly...MODOK.  Between Ego the Living Planet and MODOK Lee and Kirby were exploring the limits of super-villain ideas and then pushing them out, I think further than had ever been pushed.. 

Worst - 626: Tales of Suspense (1959) #91 [A Story]

I have an incredibly high tolerance for comic book science, but if Stephen Hawking had ever read the first and second pages of this Iron Man story, I think his IQ would have dropped so far that cosmology would have suffered beyond repair.  In other words, don't read this story, cosmologists! 

Not only that, but we go immediately from the bad science description to a racially stereotyped propagandist's Cuba for...reasons?  I guess they got tired of monstrous strong men being from New York and decided they could earn brownie points with the comics code by making him Cuban and making Castro look like an oaf?  

Also, remember in that last post where I said Gene Colan had a hard time with action?  Yeah, still has that problem.

At least he is filling in the panels a bit.  

That pretty much sums up early Iron Man; bad science and stupid propaganda and weak action.

Best -776: Captain America (1968) #100

Ignore the Avengers in the background, this story is all about Captain America, the Black Panther, and Agent 13 (aka Sharon Carter).  And of the three, Cap is the least impressive!

First, Agent 13.  Remember above where I said she was a bit "damsel-in-distress-y".  Well, not this story...  

For example...

What's really in the briefcase, Agent 13?  Oh, yeah, a FLAMETHROWER!

Flamethrower briefcase, that's just the way S.H.I.E.L.D. rolls, Zemo.  Agent 13 gets to be what you want her to be in this one; super-competent badass spy.  

And, of course, T'Challa, the Black Panther...

This story started two issues earlier in Tales of Suspense #98, and throughout the whole story there is never any doubt in the mind of the reader that the Panther is Captain America's equal.  They have different strengths, of course, but after the expected "super-hero meet cute" of a brief fight in #98 they immediately fall into an easy partnership built on mutual respect and shared virtue.  This panel is a great example...

Cap and T'Challa trade off taking the lead throughout the story, each one maximizing their strengths.  Its a cool dynamic, and it really makes the story.  

One publication note: this title actually continues on from Tales of Suspense, which ended at #99, dropping Iron Man.  There was a single Iron Man/Sub-Mariner issue, that completed the Tales of Suspense and Tales to Astonish titles, and then all of Captain America, Iron-Man, Sub-Mariner, and the Hulk had their own books.  Which leads me to... 

Worst - 687: Tales to Astonish (1958) #95 [A Story]

Oh, Dorma, I'm really worried about you...

Dorma, the love interest for Namor in these early stories, is a good character.  I find her interesting.  But her love for the paranoid monster that is Namor is simply inexplicable.  He isn't noble, he is arrogant. He isn't powerful, he is brutal. With a better writer, this would be Shakespearean tragedy in the making. With Roy Thomas and Bill Everett, it's just painful.  

Speaking of Bill Everett, he could actually do good work.  On Doctor Strange he does great things.  But here, with a character he is well known for, he is flat and uninspired.  For example, look a this page:

I could care less what is happening on that page.  Characters are moving around, and there are a lot of words, but not one spark of creativity.  

That being said, I think this story demonstrates a very important element of Marvel comics, especially ones this early.  Marvel comics have always been, first and foremost, a product.  As a product, they need to be created on time and delivered on time.  Regularity was far, far more important than creativity.  I read somewhere, I can't find it now, that one reason so many comics in the '70s and '80s were written by Bill Mantlo (who will show up in the Worst, just wait and see) was because he was absolutely the Rock of Gibraltar in terms of reliability.  He NEVER was late on a script, ever.  And, you know what, I respect him for that.  It might not be a virtue in a comic writer I would care about as a reader, but reliability and punctuality are virtues nonetheless, and I can see how they would be the most important virtues if I were a comics publisher.

So I think this story is just a case where a tight deadline on the script and the art meant that neither Roy Thomas nor Bill Everett were bringing their A game (which was usually at best a C+ game anyway, let's be honest).  They needed to fill pages, and they did it.  The book got printed on time and shipped to all the drug stores, newstands and barber shops of America.  That's what mattered. 

Oh, and also...the Plunderer is just the worst.  He is an excellent example of a super-villain who is simply not a super-villain.  You can put a cape on him and goofy white tights...

But in the end he is just this rich guy who is a pirate. Super-villains don't need to have super-powers, I mean, look at the Joker!  But they need a personality and some kind of schtick with staying power.  The Plunderer is just a schmo.  

Best and the Worst of the Complete Marvel Reading Order # 3

The Best - 596: Fantastic Four (1961) #61

Time to talk about my love affair with Benjamin Grimm, aka the ever-lovin' blue-eyed Thing.  I'm going to get biblical about it, albeit in a way that will likely make any theologians among you cringe.

Matthew 21:28-31 (World English Bible)

28 But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first, and said, ‘Son, go work today in my vineyard.’ 29 He answered, ‘I will not,’ but afterward he changed his mind, and went. 30 He came to the second, and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I’m going, sir,’ but he didn’t go. 31 Which of the two did the will of his father?”
They said to him, “The first.”
Jesus said to them, “Most certainly I tell you that the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering into God’s Kingdom before you. 

Ben Grimm is the first son.  He complains and gripes and talks about how much he hates the job.  And yet, when the chips are down and the world is facing mortal peril, Ben Grimm is the guy who straps a nuclear bomb to his back and climbs literally into the mouth of the monster to save the day.  He sees what needs to be done, and he does it.  He always has your back, even when he thinks its a bad idea, but he'll make sure to tell you what a bad idea it is.  He PAYS for his heroism, in blood and cracked hide and shattered emotional health and moral injury and mockery, but he does it anyway.  That's why he is my favorite.

In this issue both Lee and Kirby in their respective ways nail the Thing.  Lee, give him classic dialogue, like these few panels...

"Dontcha even get a a coffee break in the blasted super-heroin' business??"  See what I mean, the first son.

But Kirby and Lee nail ALL the characters in this one.  They have really hit their stride.  They've done some good stuff so far, but counting FF Annual #1 in 1967 and 1968 they made five 5 star stories.  This story builds in a clear progression, the amount of danger facing them from Sandman as well as some out of control technology just increasing, each one of them having their moments of triumph and setback trying to get control of the situation.  The last five pages of this story are still some of the most thrilling pages in the Order; that sounds like hyperbole, but seriously...

Look at all that wreckage hitting Johnny in the face.  Look at all that green kirby krackle.  "KLASH!"  But the ending clinches it, as Reed is forced to enter the Negative Zone without any safety measures...

That last panel...the Thing is meant to be made of stone, but Kirby makes him so wonderfully expressive.  This is a truly thrilling story.  

The Worst - 529: X-Men (1963) #22

The combination of both Plantman and Porcupine make this one of the worst stories in this period. That pair of pestilential pinheads pierces my peace of mind.

But this is really just a single example of the general dreary mess that is early X-Men.  Everything is flat; characters, art, drama, plot, dialogue.  Flat as a plank.  Look at this...

That's what passes for "action" in early X-Men.  

The Best - 617: Strange Tales (1951) #157 [A Story]

This time it isn't Doctor Strange...its Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.!

Jim Steranko has taken over both the writing and art at this point, and wow, does he pack in great stuff!  Baron Strucker!  Hydra Island!  The SATAN CLAW!  The Hallucination Cube!  

Some many great pages in this, its hard to narrow it down without making a mockery of "fair use" copyright provisions, but consider this page...

*MIND BLOWN*

Steranko wrote 19 Nick Fury stories for Marvel by my count.  This is the high point.  His art gets better as the stories go on after this, but the stories get more muddled and confusing.   Its all good, of those 19 none are less than 3 stars, and nine are 4 stars.  This is the only one I gave 5 stars, though. 

The Worst - 594: Daredevil (1964) #26

Here is the thing about Gene Colan.  He was not a bad artist.  When he was doing the things he was good at, he was really good.  For example, look at this panel...

(Digression: Set aside for a moment the sickly grey skin tone of the prosecutor, that's not Gene Colan's fault.  In fact, its not until 1968 or so that African Americans have a consistently non-zombie healthy looking skin tone.  See this page: http://facweb.cs.depaul.edu/sgrais/comics_color.htm for an interesting discussion of early comics coloring.)

That's a pretty great panel!  The facial expressions, the directions of each character's gaze, the panel tells you what is happening in the scene before you even read the words.  Gene Colan is great at this kind of thing, I bet he did some fantastic romance comics and court-room dramas.  But then, they make him do action...

Colan can't even be assed to fill in the backgrounds, and he fills half the page with Daredevil just swinging around.  That's typical.  He just doesn't seem to care to tell a story in the action bits.

That's bad enough.  But Daredevil is also just a mess. No one has any idea what to do with him.  They keep throwing stupid villains at him, each one dumber than the next.  I mean, you would think Stilt Man would be the bottom of the barrel, but you haven't even gotten to the Masked Marauder and the Plunderer yet.  

Add that insult to the injury that this is during the period when inexplicably they decided that Matt Murdock should periodically don the guise of his fictional brother Mike Murdock and act like a total idiot in the most annoying fashion for pages on end, and you have the morass that is early Daredevil.  

Best and Worst of the Complete Marvel Reading Order #2

The Best - 435: Amazing Spider-Man (1963) #33

It seems fitting that the first full length story to get 5 stars is in "Amazing Spider-Man".  This story has all the stuff that is good about early Marvel in it.  First, Marvel isn't afraid to put its characters in what feels like serious mortal danger.  I mean, sure, super-heroes face dangerous stuff all the time, but Lee and Ditko make you feel it.  Spidey is straining to his limits, fighting exhaustion, on the ropes and near the edge of endurance.  For example, this iconic sequence...

This was the template for a scene in "Spider-Man: Homecoming".  I think an important touch to this sequence is the way the water keeps falling right on Spidey's head the whole time.  Its this extra piece of misery thrown in, but it also ties the whole page together visually, the vertical lines of the falling water guiding your eye down the page and giving you a kind of ruler to measure the distance Spidey has pushed up the wreckage on his back.  That kind of visual story telling is what I love the most about comic books, its not just the words and its not just the art its the marriage of the two in harmony which creates something far more than the sum of its parts.

Another iconic set of panels from this story...

Peter has triumphed, he has saved Aunt May through water, wreckage, and a platoon of Doctor Octopus's henchman.  He has succeeded through physical prowess and also through his own intelligence; its his insight that ensures the cure of Aunt May will succeed.  And you can see it in his hunched shoulders, his bowed head as he walks from the hospital, how close he was to failure.  

Another thing this story demonstrates is just how much story they packed in to a typical Marvel book back then.  Wow!  This one book would take 4 or 5 to cover in just 1990, let alone today.  

On the down side, oh man, Stan Lee liked to talk...

Ignore the information content in those panels and just soak in the the volume of words.  This early in the Order this still has some charm.  But by the time we get into the late '60s, there come moments where I feel like yelling at the creators "come on guys, show me, don't tell me!"   Lee is not even the worst culprit along these lines.  Trust me, just wait until we get to Gerry Conway...

The Worst - 367: Avengers (1963) #18

Early Avengers until 1968 or so is mediocre.  A lot of iconic villains are introduced, and its not without its charms, but it suffers from two elements.  First, the insistence in having all of the male characters act like testosterone fueled jerks most of the time.  I mean, even Captain America comes across as an ass, and don't get me started on Hawkeye.  The second is that Don Heck is just...not great.  He is serviceable, I suspect he was reliable in delivering pages on time, but he has no spark to him.  

But this story is the worst of the worst.  A racist piece of anti-communist propaganda masquerading poorly as a super-hero story.  I'm going to only put one piece of art from it here, because honestly much of it is just too offensive to copy over...

That's pretty much everything you need to know about this story.  

Also, I'm nearly certain that the Marvel Digital Unlimited version has been recolored, so the Asian characters do not have the original sickly yellow complexions.  But I could be wrong about that.  Its awful, 'nuff said.

The Best - 544: Thor (1966) #133 [A Story]

If you ever wondered "hmmm, who is this Jack Kirby of whom people speak, and why is he a thing, look no further than Thor #133.  Lee and Kirby are creating everything that is the Marvel cosmic sensibility in this comic from whole cloth.  I feel confident in saying there was nothing like THIS in a comic before...

I don't know, maybe something like Legion of Superheroes might have had stuff like this in the early '60s?  I suspect not.  This is where Jack Kirby always excelled to my mind.  He was a fine artist for character studies and conversations, but he was in his element when throwing mind-blowing weirdness at you.  

This whole story brings so many fun science-fiction elements into play.  Thor started out as a weird hybrid right from the first story, where he fights off the Stone Men from Saturn.  But this just shove in more.  Ego the Living Planet, with his every changing landscape and his anti-bodies.  The Recorder, an android reconnaissance device.  Its this mix of myth and space opera that is a defining feature of the Marvel Universe.  The fact that Norse gods trod the spaceways with interstellar empires, and that cosmic beings like Silver Surfer are plagued by Satannic stand-ins like Mephisto.  It all just goes into a blender and comes out as a tasty cosmic smoothie.

And there are pages like this...

I'm over 12,000 stories into the Order, and that is still in my top 5 full page panels.  It is only marred by that weird yellow narration box in the corner.  What was the point of that?  Like I said above, Stan Lee liked to talk.  Walt Simonson later did an excellent homage to this page on the cover of Thor #340...

Its stories like this that keep me reading the Order.

The Worst - 534: Tales of Suspense (1959) #83 [B Story]

"Enter, the Tumbler!"

Picture the scene.  It is Stan Lee's office in Manhattan, about 4 PM, late August or early September 1966.  Stan is putting on his coat and hat about to leave as Jack Kirby enters...

Kirby: "Hey Stan, where is the script for the November Captain America story in Tales of Suspense? I've been waiting for it."

Lee: "Jack, I can't be bothered with that right now, I've got to get a martini in me as soon as possible.  Just spin the wheel and do the whole 'Marvel Method' thing, would you?" Lee rushes out.

Kirby turns to the Wheel.  It's like the thing on "Wheel of Fortune", except around the edges are just random super-villain names.  He spins it, it clicks around and around, and then eventually comes to rest.

Kirby: "The Tumbler.  God*&#^$&*#.  I wonder if DC is hiring."

The true insult of this story is not that the Tumbler is a dumb character.  Its that only 7 issues earlier than this, they ALREADY introduced Batroc the Leaper.  Sorry, Batroc ze Leapair.  Batroc has the whole "acrobatic villain" thing nailed down, right?  Batroc is my boi, yo.  Ain't nobody comes in on Batroc's turf, is what I am saying.  Sorry, Tumbler, but the position has been filled.

Best and Worst of the Complete Marvel Reading Order #1

The first post in what may (if it keeps my attention) continue into the future.  I'm going to post about the 5 star stories I've found in the Order, and also 1 star stories that are roughly contemporaneous to them.  I'm not going to talk about ALL the 1 star stories because, good grief, there are so many of them.  

The Best - #72: Strange Tales (1951) #110 [C Story]

The very first Doctor Strange story!

I admit that on its own merits its maybe 4 stars.  Ditko is great in it, but he clearly is treating the character mostly as a standard "man of mystery" character, not the Sorcerer Supreme.  Also, as you can see in that panel above, for some reason Doctor Strange never has his eyes open.  Of course he doesn't need his eyes...

So it gets 5 stars mostly from giddy excitement about what is to come.

As an aside, you will find if this series continues that I truly love the Trapster, aka "Don't Call Me Paste-Pot Pete".  That's why the Human Torch story in this particular Strange Tales got more than 1 star.  But, one issue later...

The Worst - 77: Strange Tales (1951) #111 [A Story]

This is a stand-in for all the Human Torch stories in Strange Tales, although this one is particularly egregious.  That dialogue you see on the cover is pretty typical of the inanity one finds within.  Here is another example...

"You are blazing like an inferno, but it affects me not at all!"  Sure, whatever Asbestos Man, weird sentence structure dude.  Also, Sue Storm is awesome, and I love a beehive as much as the next person, but, really...

...that's just not the best look for her.

There is also this attempt to make it suburban by locating it in Glenville, Long Island.  I think maybe Stan Lee was hoping Johnny Storm could be a kind of suburban teen icon, sort of Archie with super-powers?  Except Johnny Storm is just a jerk, much more Reggie than Archie.

All these Human Torch stories in Strange Tales were awful, there is just no sugar-sugar-coating it. 

The Best - 115: Strange Tales (1951) #115 [B Story]

The Origin of Doctor Strange...

Was there really "an avalanche of requests"? Who knows?  But I'm glad anyway.  This story shows off many of Ditko's strengths.  For example, they way he depicts Strange's journey from arrogance to desperation in his face...

Like the very first Strange story in the last post, this one is really 4 stars on its own merits, it gets a +1 star boost from it being such an iconic and historic story.  

Its not as Orientalist as it could be but, yeah, its got some Orientalism in it. 

The Worst - 102: Tales to Astonish (1958) #48

There is so much bad, sexist writing of woman characters in Marvel comics, we might as well get started with it.

Eventually Janet Van Dyne aka the Wasp gets cool.   But back here in 1963, oh boy...  "I'd rather think about all the glamourous males working there!"  That's typical of how she is portrayed, ditzy, vain, man-crazy, whose sole purpose is to allow Hank Pym to show how rational and manly he is.  Its awful.  So many woman characters are treated in this fashion, it really only goes away in the late '80s, at which point it is replaced by the "powerful woman" who is "sexy" and has legs twice as long as her torso plus head and who always looks as if she is posing for some kind of avant garde Vogue magazine photo shoot.  But we'll get there, plenty of time for this sexist trope to settle in and get comfortable before we switch to a different sexist trope.

In and of itself that's 2 star stuff, it so common its easy to get used to it.  To get to 1 star we also need the Porcupine...

In the long history of goofy Marvel super-villains, this first version of the Porcupine has to be one of the goofiest.  That suit!  It looks like someone has made a coat from the fur of one of those Hungarian sheep dogs that have dreadlocks...

The suit has a random collection of capabilities, like liquid cement and smoke clouds and tear gas, but seems to be devoid of the one trait that porcupines actually have; sharp points.  Its nonsensical, and not in any good way.

  

Sexist writing plus stupid super-villain is a consistent recipe for 1 star stories in Marvel in the '60s and '70s.

My experience reading all the Marvel Comics OR how 1993 was nearly the death of me

I haven't posted anything to this blog in a long time. But its still here, and its a useful venue to share longform thoughts that don't fit into a Facebook post that I create while in social isolation, so...

My Experience (so far) reading all the Marvel Comics
OR
How 1993 was nearly the death of me

Some of you may not know this, but back in April 2013 I found the Complete Marvel Reading Order.  That seemed like a fun thing, so I started in on it, with Fantastic Four #1 from 1961.  Since then, through a subscription to Marvel Digital Unlimited (a GREAT value, by the way, for anyone interested in reading old comics on the cheap) and some dark internet magic where necessary, I've now read over 12,000 stories.  I've read nearly every Marvel super-hero comic from 1961 to mid-1994. 

Because I am a data geek at heart, I want to share with you some things I've come across in the process.  But here is the bottom line: 

1993 was the worst.

Important note: I'm going to complain a lot in this article.  Because lets face it, a lot of Marvel comics have been awful, and I have read nearly all of them prior to 1994.  But as my friend Mark pointed out to me, "Hey, nobody is MAKING you do this."  This is my voluntary obsession; take my complaints in that spirit.  In the end, even with the sunk cost fallacy, this has been and continues to be a tremendous source of joy in my life.  Someday I'll be able to say "by a reasonable definition, I've read every Marvel super-hero comic ever made"; that makes me a die-hard FOOM, true believer!

About the Order

The Complete Marvel Reading Order (the Order, from here on out) is the result of a tremendous amount of labor on the part of Travis Starnes and others to put all of the comics Marvel has published into a reading order.  That is, you are not reading them as they were published, but in an order that makes narrative sense.  If there was a six story arc in Incredible Hulk, for example, you would read those six Hulk books in order one after the other.  Big cross title events, like Secret Wars or Civil War, are put into the order in a way that you can read it all as one big story all at once.  Obviously this is not always easy to do, there are many moments in Marvel history (especially with all the mutant books) where there is just no way to make sense of things.  Circa 1990 or so, for example, Wolverine is clearly able to be in multiple locations simultaneously, he is in so many books.  But for the most part, Travis and Fragsel and many others do a great job of organizing the whole thing so that as much as possible it makes sense.  Its like reading one very, VERY long continuing graphic novel.   

One notable aspect of this is that the Order treats the story as the unit of measurement, not the book.  So, if you have an annual with four stories in it, that will be four separate entries in the Order.  The reason for this is that in reading order, those stories might not be connected at all.  The main story might be part of a larger story-line (e.g. Atlantis Attacks) and the pieces of that story-line will all appear together in order.

Obviously, decisions have to be made as to what counts as "in" and what counts as "out".  When I started reading things, the Order was only one order, what is now called the "Main" or "Marvel 616" order.  But since that time, they have added in both more concise Core and Essential orders (for those who don't want to read those Transformers UK stories that had Death's Head in them, for example) and Expanded Orders (for those who really want to track down those Portuguese Spider-Man reprints with extra material that wasn't in the original).  The Main 616 order does not include things like: 

• Western books, like "Kid Colt", the old West "Ghost Rider", or "Rawhide Kid", even though many of those characters did make appearances in super-hero comics and are clearly in the same 616 universe.  
• WW2 books, such as "Howling Commandos" and "Invaders".
• Conan and similar titles
• Star Comics, thank god, even though these characters actually do appear in some later Marvel titles in very different form. 
• Romance and similar comics (e.g. "Patsy Walker")
• Golden/Silver age comics whose characters were later integrated into the 616 universe.  The Order starts with FF #1.

The website also has the major advantage of being able to track things; what you have read, what you have missed, etc.  It also has the capability for you to rate the stories.  This is why I can tell you with complete confidence...

1993 is the worst.

What I have Read and What I have Missed

As of this writing, I have read 12,152 stories in the Order.  This covers all of 1961 to 1993, and a chunk of 1994.  I have only had to skip over 23 stories:

• 12 Marvel UK stories from the 1970s through to early 1990s.  These just can't be had for love or money as far as I can tell.
• 3 short pieces that are hiding inside larger trade paperbacks
• 2 single page pieces hiding inside other comics
• Pro Action Magazine (1994) #2 (its an NFL tie-in seriously don't ask I'm sure it is awful)
• A weird 5 issue series that was packaged with Drake Snack Cakes.  I told you it was the "Complete" order, right?

That's pretty good, I think.  You wouldn't believe some of the obscure stuff I have found and read.  Like comics published for the US government as anti-drug or anti-bullying pamphlets, or made for companies as advertisements.  Or, Lord give me strength, Howard the Duck strips from Crazy Magazine.

My reading rate has spiked and fallen over the years since 2013.  I've gone as high as 10-20 stories a day, and then gone periods where I wasn't able or willing to read anything at all.  At the moment, my reading rate is such that it will take me 28 years to "catch up" and be reading currently published comic books, but that is directly related to...1993 being the worst.  I actually think it will take me only another 7 years or so.

Phases of Enjoyment and Depression

The Order has a 5 star rating system, with a minimum of 1 star.  I've interpreted this as follows: 5 stars = incredible, the best of the best; 4 stars = really good, memorable; 3 stars = at least enjoyable, but not memorable in any way; 2 stars = mediocre, unimpressive, meh; 1 star = hated it, it was awful.

Now some charts!

That chart shows the number of stories per publication month (the cover date, this is important, see below), broken down by the number of stars I gave each story.  At this scale the number of 5 star stories is very difficult to see, they are sort of sprinkled on the top.  The majority of stories throughout the Order have been either 2 or 3 stars.  I've marked three historical transitions that greatly changed the average story output per month...

• Mid '70s increase - from an average of about 12-13 stories prior to 1972 by 1975 Marvel had ramped up to at least 25 a month.  This was mostly by adding new titles in a stream of introductions and cancellations, with few having any real life-span.  
• Marvel Comics Presents - this started publication in Fall 1988.  On a biweekly schedule at four stories per book, in and of itself this was adding 8-12 stories to the total every month and represents about a sixth of the total volume of stories from 1989 through 1992.
• 1993 - did I mention it was the worst?  Quantity over quality became the rule at Marvel in 1993.  You can read an interesting first-hand account of what it was like to be in the comic book business at this time here: Mile High Comics Blog.  

There are also two spikes that seem worthy of comment:

• In 1979 and 1980, Hulk Comics UK began publication.  This was a black and white news print title published weekly (in the way many UK comics such as 2000 AD were published) that contained new stories, not just reprints of American stuff.  It included new Hulk, Nick Fury, Black Knight, and Captain Britain storylines.  Since it was weekly, at up to four new stories per book, it adds in a lot of volume.  But the stories themselves are heavily serialized, no more than 5 pages per.
• In November and December 1989 you can see clearly the effect of using cover date instead of release date in this chart, as Marvel attempted to sort out the radical differences that had crept in between these values.  This is described well here: CBR article.

Other spikes are mostly related to annual publication windows (annuals might add 4 or 5 stories per book) or periods where a number of normal titles were printing two stories per for a while (e.g. Captain America and Thor in the late '80s).

Here is another chart!

That chart shows the exponential moving average of the number of stars I gave each story across the Order as I read it.  As you can see, the average stays within the bounds of 2 and 3 stars.  This is not surprising, the vast majority of stories are 2 or 3 stars.  This chart also shows the year of each story in grey, this lets you see how the reading order causes stories to overlap as they are placed into narrative order, not publication order.  From this chart, you can see that the mean rating across time was roughly 2.5 stars per story...until you get past story 10,000.  You guessed it, that's when 1993 starts hitting the Order (the 2nd from the top grey patch, 1994 is right on the line at the top of the chart).  It also shows how many more comics were published late in the period.  The first third of the Order that I read goes from 1961 to mid 1980 (~20 years), the second third from 1980 to 1990 (~10 years) and the last third is only 1990 to 1994 (~4 years).

However, this chart doesn't really express the true experience of reading the Order.  It treats all stories as equal, but that's not really the case.  Stories that I give 2 or 3 stars to are...fine.  They don't stop me reading, but they don't keep me coming back for more.  The experience of reading is dictated by 4 and 5 star stories on the good side and 1 star stories on the bad side.  Therefore, I came up with something I call my Reading Enjoyment Measure (REM).  This is simply a running count across the order, +1 if I read a 4 or 5 star story, -1 if I read a 1 star story.

Here is the chart!


In this chart, what matters is not the overall level but the slope of the line.  A flat slope indicates that the rate of reading good and bad issues is roughly the same.  An upward slope indicates that the good is outweighing the bad.  A downward slope the opposite.

Here you can see at a glance my experience in the Order.  I think there are there are six clear periods in this experience:

• The Classical Period: this is roughly from 1961 to 1975.  This is where Marvel is figuring stuff out.  It includes all the classic Lee/Kirby and Lee/Ditko work (e.g. Thor, FF, Spider-Man, Doctor Strange), some really fantastic comic books, but it also includes a lot of drek (early Daredevil, Tomb of Dracula, etc.)  Overall, the average quality is consistent.  
• The Disco Era: I love disco!  But clearly the high life of mid-late '70s NYC was taking its toll on Marvel.  The number of stories increased and the quality took a nose dive.  This is also the era of the licensed titles, which were universally dreadful: Godzilla, Human Fly, Shogun Warriors, etc.  This period ends roughly in 1981.
• High School Glory Days: I call this period that name because this is corresponds exactly with when I was in high school, and to some extent explains my love for Marvel Comics and its characters.  This increase in quality is almost entirely attributable to three authors: Chris Claremont, Frank Miller, and Alan Moore.  All of them wrote some of their best work for Marvel during this period.  Claremont is the largest influence, as he was not only writing X-Men and New Mutants but also issues of Spider-Woman, Marvel Team-Up, Iron Fist, etc.  Frank Miller is primarily responsible for Daredevil, but there are some other things in there you might not remember (like Doctor Strange!).  Alan Moore wrote very little for Marvel, and I didn't have access to it at the time, but during this period he and Alan Davis wrote what is still one of the best serialized super-hero stories ever, their long run of Captain Britain that extended through several black and white Marvel UK titles.  I cannot recommend this highly enough.  It has a large effect on this period because the arc was broken down into smaller chunks of ~10 pages each and published frequently, so it represents a larger proportion of stories than might be expected.
• Status Quo: this is the 1985 or so to 1990.  This was when I was really buying a lot of comics.  Quality is consistent, good mixed in with the bad.  Not particularly memorable.
• The 1991 surprise:  with a bit of 1990 and 1992 thrown in.  I really did not expect this, but 1991 was one of the best years so far in Marvel.  This is driven primarily by some new American writers, like Peter David on Incredible Hulk, but also by an influx of more British writers and artists, like Abnett and Lanning on the Punisher (?!).  Titles I barely remember were actually really good: Silver Surfer, Quasar, Foolkiller (probably the best thing Steve Gerber ever wrote).  The real stand out here, though, is the first volume of Knights of Pendragon, which I think is probably the best comic you have never heard of.
• 1993 - what did I tell you?  It was awful.  So many 1 star stories with no pay off.  A lot of this is due to Tom De Falco, I think, finally giving up on trying to make Marvel Comics Presents actually worth reading; there are stretches in the Order where it is just 1 star MCP story after another, sometimes 20 or 30 stories long.  This is when I stopped buying comics; I think this was related to quality and ever-increasing cover price, but I also must admit it was tied to the increasing effect of Magic: the Gathering on my pocket book.

The Worst

Now the really interesting stuff.  I did a Bayesian Average score for the various titles to figure which ones I liked the most and which the least.  In a nutshell, a Bayesian average (which is really a misleading name, but whatever) adjusts an mean value with some prior expectation.  That is, you start with the assumption that all titles are the same and then add the actual data in.  In this case, I've used what I will call the "Secret Wars" prior: 12 stories of 2.5 stars each.  This means that shorter titles with fewer stories have to be much better than than longer titles with more stories, because they are all starting from the same place.  With really long titles (e.g. Amazing Spider-Man), the Bayesian average and the actual average are very close to the same value.

Without further ado, here are the 20 worst titles in the Order, by my estimation (first value is the Bayesian average stars, second is the true average stars:

1. Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham (1985) 1.4/1.0 - thanks a lot, Spider-Verse
2. Marvel Tales (1964) 1.4/1.2 - this is actually just more Peter Porker, oh my stars its awful
3. Speedball (1988) 1.6/1.0 - the nadir of Steve Ditko
4. Shogun Warriors (1979) 1.6/1.1 - licensed crap from the late '70s
5. Tower of Shadows (1969) 1.7/1.1 - horror anthology title full of crap, I honestly can't say why it is even in the Order as much as it is.  Maybe because the narrator character was later retconned to be Caretaker from the later Ghost Rider series?
6. Crazy Magazine (1973) 1.7/1.0 - all Howard the Duck pieces, a page or two each.  Ugh.
7. Super Spider-Man and Captain Britain (1977) 1.7/1.1 - Non-Alan Moore/Alan Davis Captain Britain, serialized in dreary volume.
8. Godzilla (1977) 1.7/1.3 - poor Godzilla and Dum-Dum Dugan deserved better
9. US 1 (1983) 1.8/1.0 - "Hey trucking was popular, lets make a comic about it a couple of years too late!"
10. Human Fly (1977) 1.8/1.3 - this was a real guy.  I can't say whether he deserved better, but his comic was the pits.
11. Howard the Duck (1979) 1.8/1.2 - I simply cannot understand why anyone would consider this title to be worthy of attention.  I mean, ok, I get it, Gerber was trying to break boundaries and all that.  But he was doing it in a ham-fisted, poorly written, and frequently misogynistic manner. 
12. Transformers UK (1984) 1.8/1.3 - the only reason this is in the Order is because Death's Head is in it.  Its just as bad as you think it is.
13. NFL Superpro (1991) 1.8/1.1 - arrrrrggggggghhhhhh
14. Spider-Man Annual UK (1980) 1.8/1.2 - original Spider-Man material, seemingly written on cocktail napkins down at the pub then sent to the printers
15. Saga of Crystar (1983) 1.8/1.1 - failed toy marketing as comic book
16. Chamber of Darkness (1969) 1.8/1.2 - another crappy horror anthology right on the edge of the grey area as to what counts as in the Order or not.  
17. Micronauts (1984) 1.8/1.5 - this is the 2nd series, not the first.  The art is atrocious.
18. Ghost Rider (1973) 1.9/1.8 - the first of the modern series, with Johnny Blaze.  Its awful, but it did give us the Orb, one of my guilty pleasure super-villains, so that's one thing in its favor.
19. Team America (1982) 1.9/1.3 - more toy marketing as comic-books
20. Nightstalkers (1992) 1.9/1.5 - "wait, DC is making edgy comics, we need to make edgy comics quick, make with the edge..." is not a good reason to make a comic book.

The Best

After all my complaining above, you might be thinking "is Hans a closet masochist?  why is he doing this to himself?"  Well here is the answer, the 20 best titles in the Order so far (Bayesian average/true average)...

1. The Knights of Pendragon (1990) 3.7/4.6 - seriously, this is the best thing you have probably never read. The art was excellent, the story intriguing and scary, the integration with the rest of the Marvel universe pretty seamless.
2. Doctor Strange (1974) 3.5/3.6 - the 3rd Doctor Strange title.  Some of the best artists at Marvel worked on this title from 1974 to 1987: Frank Brunner, Steve Leialoha, Paul Smith, Marshall Rogers, Michael Golden, etc.
3. The Daredevils (1983) 3.4/4.0 - this is one of two Marvel UK titles where the Moore/Davis Captain Marvel stories first appeared.  As I've already mentioned, some of the best super-hero work ever created.
4. Master of Kung Fu (1974) 3.4/3.5 - I'd call Master of Kung Fu a guilty pleasure, except I do not feel guilty about it at all. MoKF is simply one of the best spy thriller comics I have ever read. Its connected to the Marvel universe, yes, but ultimately it does its own thing. Doug Moench was not the most consistent of writers but he excels at every turn on MoKF, and of course there is the distinctive and eye-catching art by Paul Gulacy for much of the run, and later by Gene Day (who died far too young). Where these artists excelled was in their story telling, not in their individual illustrations.  The action sequences in MoKF are universally inventive and intriguing, spilling outside the borders, transitioning back and forth, framed in fascinating ways.
5. Uncanny X-Men (1981) 3.3/3.3 - Due to vagaries of publication names, this title only starts in 1981, and therefore doesn't even include some of the classic Claremont X-men stories, including the entirety of the Dark Phoenix story line. Those stories are stuck in X-Men (1963) and therefore get averaged in with all of the awful early X-Men stories pre-Giant-Size X-Men #1 in 1975. However, this title is not just Claremont; in fact just before he left he was clearly in a rut. Uncanny X-Men is just one of the most consistently good titles so far. It has its low points, but its reliable in producing a four star story at least once every few months.
6. Excalibur (1988) 3.3/3.4 - if this was limited to only Alan Davis's period as artist, it would be further up the list. But because it includes all the stuff (much of it not great) that Alan Davis didn't work on, it ends up here, still in 6th place. Like Uncanny X-Men, Excalibur is a reliably solid book almost regardless of who is doing it.
7. The Mighty World of Marvel (1984) 3.3/3.6 - the other place the Moore/Davis Captain Britain stories first appeared.
8. The Spectacular Spider-Man (1988) 3.2/3.3 - the most reliable of the Spider-Man books. Mostly down to J. M. DeMatteis as writer for such a long time. Another example of a title that regularly delivers 4 star stories.
9. Foolkiller (1990) 3.2/4.0 - a complete surprise to me. I barely remember this coming out. But Steve Gerber really does do interesting things in this.  I don't agree with his politics, I'm not sure the message is remotely wholesome, and there is certainly some overlap with and desire to emulate "Watchmen". But really, 10 stories all at 4 stars each is an achievement.
10. New Mutants (1983) 3.1/3.2 - my first comics love. If I could exclude the Rob Liefeld work at the end of this title, it would be much higher on the list, that's like a big ugly footless spider-legged anchor weighing it down.
11. Hellstorm: Prince of Lies (1993) 3.1/3.6 - based entirely on the strength of Warren Ellis's creepy gruesome weirdness.  Another surprise to me.
12. Iron Fist (1975) 3.1/3.6 - one of my favorite characters, but also one of Chris Claremont and John Byrne's earliest collaborations.  Only 15 stories but packs a lot of enjoyment in there.
13. Captain Britain (1985) 3.1/3.4 - this is the continuation of Moore and Davis's work on Captain Britain, but with writing picked up by Jamie Delano.  Still very very good.
14. Wolverine (1988) 3.1/3.2 - I was a bit surprised to see this, because overall it is not the most memorable title.  But I think it gets here because is so rarely bad.  Given how rotten so much of the Order is, you can get into the top 20 list essentially by never having a 1 star story.   (This is the later sole book, not the four issue Miller limited series.  That barely misses the cut because it was only 4 issues so the Bayesian average penalizes it.)
15. Silver  Surfer (1987) - 3.1/3.1 - this one was a big surprise to me. Consistent fun so far, rarely a dud story.  I'm not sure I had even heard of Ron Marz as a writer before this title, but he is quite good at the cosmic Marvel.
16. Marvels (1994) 3.1/4.8 - we have finally gotten low enough that 4 issue limited series can start showing up if they were REALLY good, like almost all 5 stars. Marvels was that, its a brilliant retelling of early Marvel universe history, with Alex Ross showing off what has since become an inimitable style.
17. The Adventures of Captain America (1991) 3.1/4.8 - another mini-series 3 out of 4 issues at 5 stars. Kevin Maguire, oh how I have always loved you. The only DC title I was ever really into was his work on Justice League. Sadly, this is one of the very few things he has ever done for Marvel. (Also, this completely violates the general rule of the Order of not including WW2 stories. I have no idea why that is.)
18. Daredevil: The Man Without Fear (1993) 3.1/4.4 - Frank Miller has his down moments, but this isn't one of them. Not quite as good a re-telling of an origin story as Batman: Year One, but almost.
19. Fantastic Four (1961) 3.0/3.1 - at 349 stories included in this rating, this is by far the longest running title to make this list. FF obviously has its ups and downs, but its still an all-time favorite. Admittedly, I never get enough of "it's clobberin' time!"
20. Doctor Strange (1968) 3.0/3.5 - this was only 14 stories long, pretty much the tail end of what had been Strange Tales. Story-wise, its fine, Roy Thomas is pretty solid at this point. Its the art by Colan, Palmer, and Atkins that makes it. I'm not normally a Gene Colan fan, but his panel layouts in this book are just wild. All kinds of crooked, angled borders between panels and linked action arcing across and up or down the page.

Conclusion and the Future

That's the Order so far.  I'm past 1993, and 1994 seems to be looking up.  The volume of stories drops precipitously in 1995 with the end of MCP and the beginnings of Marvel's bankruptcy troubles.  I'm in for the long haul.  I may update all this when I hit 15,000 stories or so.

While social isolation continues, I think I will try to make a series of the best and the worst of the Order.  I had done this periodically on G+ before it died, it seems time to resurrect that series.  We'll see.  

I hope you enjoyed this.  Ask me any questions, I love talking about comics.

Fate Convention Games - Some Thoughts

I was able to play four different variations on Fate at #gencon2014 and I enjoyed myself.  The experience, however, has crystallized some strong opinions on my part about convention games of Fate (although some of these apply more generally). For your amusement, here are my thoughts...

• Spend less than 15 minutes in setting creation.  Yes, setting creation is fun, if you are going to use it to it's fullest over multiple sessions.  But in a convention game, no matter how cool you think your particular setting creation variation is for Fate, it is just getting in the way.  
• Spend less than 15 minutes on character creation.  This means a number of things.  For example, have the players fill out just the first column of the pyramid, and let them do the rest in play.  Or just come up with the High Concept and Trouble aspects, and fill out the rest in play.  
• Stunts are for the most part too complicated to come up with in a convention game of Fate Core. They don't seem like it, I know, but they are.   Especially for players who are inexperience with Fate.  Fate Accelerated can get away with it, because the Approaches take less time than skills, and there is no "Use Skill A in place of Skill B" option.
• Extras are beyond the pale for creation in a convention game.  If your Fate variation makes extensive use of Extras, then you really need to bring pre-gens to the table.  
• Coming up with this stuff (Aspects, which skills to pick, etc.) is hard work for some players, especially people new to Fate.   Some people just need to time to come up with character concepts, aspects, etc., that they are interested in and will enjoy, and making them do it quickly is a recipe for frustration and embarrassment.   You think you are providing a fun experience for those players, but you really aren't.
• Pre-Gens are your friend.  Really they are and you should be using them.  Especially if your Fate version has some complicated extras, or a lot of setting specific stuff, pre-gens are actually much better at demonstrating how cool your setting is.  It's easy as pie to come up with customizable pre-gens for Fate, just fill in the High Concept and Trouble, the first Skill column, and give them three stunts.  People are playing much quicker, and can still make their characters their own.
• Do not spend more than 15 minutes going over rules.  
• That being said, make sure you hit the following explicitly: Invoking Aspects for a +2 or a reroll (and don't forget the reroll!); Compelling Aspects to earn Fate Points (and don't forget to mention self-compels); How to roll the dice and add a skill value; the four action types, and the four outcomes, briefly, but then say that you will explain these in more detail as we play; mention Stress boxes and consequences in passing, but don't bother explaining in detail until someone has actually been attacked.  That should not take more than 15 minutes is you are purposeful and business-like about it.
• Make sure you have a clear cheat sheet for rules handy, and constantly refer people to it during the game.  If your variation has any particular extras that are important, make sure the cheat sheet describes them.
• If your setting is in any way not immediately obvious, have at least a one page handout that describes it's major selling points.  
• Make sure you explain, explicitly, on the first few actions of players, what they are doing.  Say the type of the action out loud ("sounds like you are trying to Create an Advantage, there, that means you are going to create an aspect, or discover one, here is how we do that..."), when the result is figured, say the outcome out loud ("ok, you have a tie on that Create Advantage, that means you don't get an aspect, but you do get a boost").  Use the actual words in the rulebook, and use them consistently.
• Demonstrate by example!  Have your GM characters roll a Create Advantage as their first action. Compel a situation aspect on a player as early as possible.  Invite a compel on a GM character aspect at the earliest opportunity.  Examples in play, explicitly explained, are much better than any amount of rules explanation before play starts.
• If you are not actually role-playing within 40 minutes of the start of the convention game, you are pissing off players.  Really and truly, regardless of how much fun you think they are having, they aren't. At least half of them are just angry that they are still talking about rules stuff and creating characters.  40 minutes is probably still too long.
• For crying out loud, make sure everybody gets the damn spotlight every once in a while!  Jumpin' Jehoshaphat, it makes me so frikkin' angry when I see a player sitting across from me in a convention game and it has been at least 15 minutes since the GM has last asked them what they are doing, or given them a chance for some input.  This is GM'ing 101, my friends, it's an entry-level skill.  If you are worried that you can't keep track, literally play the whole game as one big conflict, going around and around and taking turns, because that is much better than leaving a player out in the cold.  

EDIT: added from comments - here is a rule of thumb for how much time setting and character creation can and should take in any game: no more than 1/8th of the time that will be spent playing.  4 hour game?  No more than 30 minutes.  Four session game?  No more than 1/2 session.  8 session game?  Use a whole session.  Obviously, one session is probably enough for any game, but I could see a long term game of something like Fantasy Hero/Champions needing even more time (although it probably isn't spent in the session).

Born to Be Wild!

Benjamin Baugh's post about "TNMT and other strangeness" as his oldest RPG prompts me to go ahead an post a link to some rules I have been working on. He asks for a "retroclone". Pretty sure this doesn't count, and it's more about "Road Hogs" than TMNT, but it might be of interest to him or anyone else, so here it is.

Born to Be Wild! - a Fate-based game of beast-folk driving in cars in a post-apocalyptic wasteland blowing s&$# up

Some Points of interest:

• Two dimensional approaches (Things you Do, and Ways you do them) (Page 15)
• The idea of Rides, and the idea that If you Lose Your Ride, You have lost the Game (Page 29)
• Vehicle combat rules, because of course (not much different from what I have already posted on this blog)
• The start of a "Your Wasteland" section (Page 35)

Other than that, mostly standard Fate Core/FAE stuff repurposed and currently cluttered with Fate Core/FAE SRD reference because there are a few minor alterations to the basic mechanics, and I wanted to have the capacity to make more changes as the design progresses. If I continue to work on it, I will flesh out the "Your Wasteland" section.  Also, I would want to amp up the Wastemaster versus Beast-Folk vibe of the thing, make it more actively a GM vs. Player game, because I think that is a place Fate games haven't really gone.  Can they go there?  I don't know, but it would be interesting to see if they could.

Enjoy!