392 MARVEL COMICS
America , he directed Lee to create a superhero team. Lee and Kirby developed an
entirely new superhero team, the Fantastic Four , who debuted in Fantastic Four 1
(November 1961), by which time the company was publishing under the Marvel
Comics brand name. Lee and Kirby adopted a new approach to the genre, making
their stories more character driven and their protagonists less idealized. Th eir general
approach, and the Fantastic Four in particular, proved successful. Marvel followed up
by introducing more new superheroes over the next several years, sometimes in new
eponymous titles like Th e Incredible Hulk (May 1961), Th e X-Men (September 1963),
and Daredevil : Th e Man Without Fear (April 1964), but more often in its remaining
mystery and science fi ction comics. For example, Marvel introduced Spider-Man (by
Lee and artist Steve Ditko ) in Amazing Fantasy 15 (1962), and Th or fi rst appeared
in Journey Into Mystery 83 (1962). Th ese titles not only served as tryout books for
Marvel, but also allowed the company to remain within the limits imposed on them
by the distribution agreement with DC. Th is issue forced Marvel to cancel the rela-
tively popular Th e Incredible Hulk title in 1963 (after six issues) to make room for a
Spider-Man comic. Th e limitations of the agreement continued to be a problem for
Marvel until 1968, when it signed a national newsstand deal with Curtis Circulation
Company.
Th e Marvel characters are known for their complex (for superhero comics) emotional
and psychological traits and for being less than perfect. Th ey are often ambivalent about
their roles as superheroes, and confl ict among them is common. Th is approach attracted
the juvenile audience that was, at that time, the majority of the comic book audience;
but Marvel comics were also very popular on college campuses, and enjoyed an aura of
hipness throughout the 1960s.
In the early 1960s, Marvel also introduced an innovation in production, the
“Marvel Method.” Because Lee wrote nearly all of Marvel’s titles, he started work-
ing with a method that allowed him to create comics more quickly by relying on the
storytelling skills of his artists. Lee would provide a brief plot outline to the artist,
who would then be responsible for turning this plot into pictures. Lee would then
provide the dialogue. Th is method worked well because he had talented artists like
Kirby and Ditko working with him.
Marvel passed DC as the largest publisher in 1968, when it was fi nally able to
publish more titles because of its new distribution arrangement with Curtis, but sales
were down throughout the industry. Sales of superhero comics were fl at, and other
traditional genres were disappearing. In the 1970s, Marvel developed a new profi t-
able genre with its fantasy titles like Conan the Barbarian. Marvel was instrumental
in getting the Comics Code revised in 1971. Lee had published an anti-drug story in
Spider-Man 96–98 (May-July 1971) without the approval of the code (which forbade
the very mention of drug use), and the code was relaxed somewhat after that. Marvel
also made a move toward socially conscious stories, introducing African American
heroes like Luke Cage and Th e Black Panther , while having their other characters
deal with problems like alcoholism and poverty.
