Comic Book Urban Legends Revealed #10!

This is the tenth in a series of examinations of comic book urban legends and whether they are true or false. The first one can be found here, the second can be found here, the third can be found here, the fourth can be found here, the fifth can be found here, the sixth can be found here the seventh can be found here, the eighth can be found here, and the ninth can be found here

Let's begin!

COMIC URBAN LEGEND: DC dictated the format of Marvel comics for more than a decade.

STATUS: True

In the late 1950s, publisher Martin Goodman was expanding Atlas/Marvel's place in the marketplace. However, they ran into a MAJOR problem in 1957.

They had signed a distribution agreement with American News Company.

However, due to some problems of their own, ANC ceased to distribute comics in Fall 1957!

Suddenly, Marvel was facing a MAJOR problem! They couldn't publish any comics!

This was, suffice to say, a major blow.

Desperate to get the books back on to the market before too much valuable time had passed, Marvel signed a deal with Independent News, with was a part of the same company as DC Comics!!

Yes, that is right, Marvel was being distributed by the enemy!

Part of the onerous deal was that Marvel could not publish more than eight monthly comics a month.

This became a major problem when they decided to get into superheroes in the early 60s, as they had to slowly phase out their other titles and convert those titles into superhero titles.

Not an easy feat to achieve, certainly.

In addition, this was why Marvel had so many anthologies. They WANTED to have more titles, but they were not ALLOWED to!

The original deal was modified over the years to allow for more titles, and finally, in 1968, Marvel was a big enough sales success (and DC was in a major sales slump) that they were able to negotiate their way out of the deal entirely, allowing themselves to sign with Curtis Distribution.

You may have noticed that 1968 saw the end of Tales of Suspense and Tales of Astonish.

That was because finally, Marvel was free to make title decisions fully on their own!

COMIC URBAN LEGEND: Thunderstrike was outselling Thor and Avengers combined when it was cancelled.

STATUS: As far as I can tell, False

Courtesy of the always fun to read, Life of Reilly (chronicling the Clone Saga in excrutiating detail), Tom DeFalco says,

Since I had access to the actual sales during that period, I can attest to the fact that at the time it was canceled THUNDERSTRIKE was actually selling more copies than both THOR and AVENGERS combined. Why were profitable titles like THUNDERSTRIKE, WAR MACHINE and all the 2099 books cancelled? The answer I was given was that the guy in charge of marketing had decided that these additional titles were hurting the core company franchises. He believed that the sales on THOR would go up as soon as THUNDERSTRIKE was cancelled, and AMAZING SPIDER-MAN would increase with SPIDER-MAN 2099 gone. Nice theory...but I still think it was nonsense.

And this is not a one-time deal, as I have seen DeFalco make this same claim in more than one interview.

Now, is it true?

On the one hand, I totally believe DeFalco in that sales very well may not have been the reason why Thunderstrike was cancelled.

Quite often, titles are cancelled when they ARE still profitable for the company, for all sorts of various reasons (in fact, one non-sales driven cancellation in particular is going to be fodder for a future bit).

So I believe DeFalco there.

But the reader's initial response when seeing a statement like that, ("How could Thunderstrike outsell both Avengers and Thor COMBINED?") is, as far as I can tell, accurate.

Now I, of course, cannot say what the official sales were. I am sure DeFalco, as Editor in Chief, was privy to many sales figures I could never see, but I COULD see the figures released by the distribution companies.

According to the sales figures of THEM, in January 1995, months before the cancellation of Thunderstrike was announced, Avengers was ranked a disappointing 74th overall.

Thor? An even worse 96th.

Thunderstrike? 144.

A few months later, Avengers was #70, Thor #98 and Thunderstrike #139.

So I just cannot see how Thunderstrike possibly, even presuming these rankings aren't TOTALLY accurate, how could a book ranked 144 outsell two books, ranked 74 and 96?!

So I am going to have to say that I think that Mr. DeFalco's claims are mistaken.

COMIC URBAN LEGEND: Charlton printed its comics using a cereal box press.

STATUS: True

Charlton Comics was the home of such famous heroes as Captain Atom, Blue Beetle, Nightshade and The Question (otherwords, the cast of Watchmen!).

It was also quite a unique operation, basically in how it managed to avoid spending much money on comics.

First of all, it did not pay its creators a great deal. They were generally on the low end of pay rates (but in return, their creators generally had a lot more freedom. Ditko, in particular, cited this reason as why he preferred working for Charlton over Marvel, despite being paid less).

In addition, rather than being in New York City like most publishers, they were headquartered in Derby, Connecticut.

Finally, they printed their own comics on site, and yes, the press that they used was first used to cut cereal boxes!!!

This very box press, which was used when the company formed in 1931, was used right until the company folded for good in 1986.

If you have any Charlton Comics from the late 70s or early 80s, take a look at them - the system did not hold up particularly well!!

Well, that's it for me this week!

Feel free to tell me some urban legends you have heard, and I will try to confirm or deny them!

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