WI No Marvel

This could get pretty depressing; that said, PoD may not be too hard -- I heard that Jack Kirby tell it that Marvel Comics was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy ("they were moving out the chairs") when Fantastic Four #1 was published November 1961.

So, say that Marvel Comics doesn't make its big splash in the 1960's -- what becomes of the comics medium, the idea of the superhero, and the DC Universe?
 
If that happens, Charlton will step up and fill the void.

By the early '60s, the DC Trinity had deteriorated into cardboard cutouts of the characters they had originally been.
 
I don't know; wasn't Charlton really skittish about doing superheroes until Ditko -- now famous for his work at Marvel -- returned in 66?



Wait, isn't that if the Charlton comics happened for real? :p But seriously, I can see the superhero genre doing a lot weaker in TTL.
Charlton steps up big time. Heroes like the Question become your dark vigilante, while Blue Beetle fills your Spider-Man role. Peacemaker is your Captain America and Captain Atom becomes the flagship. Eventually they begin to increase in quality, and perhaps lure over some of Marvel's people. Ditko's already there.
 
I don't know; wasn't Charlton really skittish about doing superheroes until Ditko -- now famous for his work at Marvel -- returned in 66?

If it happened as you postulated, they'll have at least Ditko, Don Hetch, Kirby, Everett, and Larry Lieber willing to work for cheap at the time (at least for a little while) just because they'd have chips on their shoulders.

And unless DC, Dell, Street & Smith, or Disney buys out the remains of Timely/Atlas/Marvel, Kirby and Simon could have revived Cap relatively easily at Charlton, Gold Key, or Archie.
 
Even if Marvel's talent migrates to Charlton (or elsewhere), would they have made use of the Marvel Method (let the artist tell the story, and the writer add dialogue)? And if not, would the comics industry management keep giving the genre the chance for a comeback?

Incidentally, there was a youtube series that touched on this...
 
Even if Marvel's talent migrates to Charlton (or elsewhere), would they have made use of the Marvel Method (let the artist tell the story, and the writer add dialogue)? And if not, would the comics industry management keep giving the genre the chance for a comeback?

Incidentally, there was a youtube series that touched on this...
Did you delete and repost this?

Probably. Charlton might even encourage the artists to be writers too, a la Ditko.
 
Great scenarios here. Charlton not only revives Captain America, but the original Torch and Namor as well, bringing them renewed popularity. DC could then revive the original Captain Marvel and is able to publish the series under the characters name. Ditko, Kirby, and the other writers/artists who served at Marvel gainfully employed at either DC or Charlton. No reason not to presume that Spider-Man or the Hulk wouldn't have appeared in some form close to the ones that evolved in OTL.
 
Charlton versions of all the Marvel characters strikes me as unlikely. But, I sure Marvel would put up its old characters for sale. The company most likely to buy them would be DC. Charlton and DC would be able to take several of Atlas' employees, and it will certainly be very good for Charlton.
 
There is very little chance of Charlton "stepping up big time".

Charlton Comics was financially weaker than both DC or Marvel.

Charlton's comic business was based entirely around it having unused printer capacity which they used to churn out comics. Comics were incidental to their business model. Indeed, when their printing machines became old and couldn't be used anymore, the company sold off its IP and left the comics field rather than invest in it.

Charlton had far worse distribution than DC and Marvel which limited its ability to build brand identity or keep loyal readers.

Without the "Marvel Age" of comics, one wonders how long the superhero boom will continue. Marvel not only produced well selling superheroes, it gave comics an allure with the college age kids and pop culture that boosted the comic industry overall. There is little evidence that absent Marvel that Charlton would ever develop and push its own "action heroes".

The leadership at Charlton was much weaker than what Lee provided at Marvel. Charlton was never an innovator, but always a follower. The artists and writers who worked there were either people who burned their bridges at the big two (like Ditko) or brand new creators who were entering the field.

The most likely scenario is that eventually the Silver Age superheroes of DC fail just like the Golden Age did, and those comics stop publishing sometime by the early seventies. The mainstays of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman continue to publish though. DC Comics still remains and simply switches to producing other genres, probably with a bend towards horror and scifi because that's what we saw even IOTL. It's still possible people like Denny O'Neil, Neal Adams, Jim Steranko enter the field and shake things up in non-superhero comics for DC. When the other "major" publishers fail, DC likley picks up their IP which means DC Comics more or less becomes a de facto mainstream comics monopoly. Sales likely begin to decline and collapse in the late seventies just like they did IOTL, but without Jim Shooter's Marvel there to revitalize sales, comics as an industry may end up dead far earlier than its limping corpse is now, and the comics IP used to produce low budget syndicated TV shows and cartoons.
 
The leadership at Charlton was much weaker than what Lee provided at Marvel. Charlton was never an innovator, but always a follower. The artists and writers who worked there were either people who burned their bridges at the big two (like Ditko) or brand new creators who were entering the field.

That's what I think I was getting at -- that without Lee's partnership, via the Marvel Method, the genius that came out of Marvel simply doesn't come out anywhere else -- even if other places get the talent. As to Lee himself, UIAM, he had planned to move out to LA to be a writer before deciding to give comics one more try.
 
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