Marvel tells / sells its own history: figureheads, promotion, curation, and application, 1982-1987

Abstract

This research explores Marvel Comics Group’s (MCG) efforts to actively construct and sell its own history during the early-to-mid 1980s. This active historicization was achieved through persistent promotion by company figurehead Stan Lee and fans-turned-professionals actively curating the history in an official capacity. The historical reference products focused on the growing direct market-based older fan types of cultists, enthusiasts, and petty producers and younger, newer consumers and fans attracted to the authority of both history and official releases. These reference materials included encyclopaedias (Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe), a promotional arm (Marvel Age), an official history (The Marvel Saga), commemorative ceremony (1986ʹs 25th Anniversary), and New Universe that in contrast reaffirmed the specialness of the original Marvel Universe. MCG’s efforts from 1982 to 1987 provide a rare instance to watch history actively be constructed, curated, sold, and applied and to illustrate to us the power inherent within such actions.