Captain America von Jack Kirby, Joe Simon, Stan Lee

Kategorie: Bücher
Seiten / Format: 400 S
Erscheinungsjahr: 2022
Verlag: Penguin Random HousePenguin Classics
Sprache: Englisch
ISBN: 9780143135746

A groundbreaking example of comics representation in literature.<br>Publishers Weekly<br><br>Penguin provides introductory essays; superb analyses by the series editor, Ben Saunders; and extensive bibliographies.<br>Michael Dirda,The Washington Post<br><br>Stories become classics when generations of readers sort through them, talk about them, imitate them, and recommend them. In this case, baby boomers read them when they débuted, Gen X-ers grew up with their sequels, and millennials encountered them through Marvel movies. Each generation of fans initially fanboys, increasingly fangirls, and these days nonbinary fans, too found new ways not just to read the comics but to use them. That s how canons form. Amateurs andprofessionals, over decades, come to something like consensus about which books matter and why or else they love to argueabout it, and we get to follow the arguments. Canons rise and fall, gain works and lose others, when one generation of people with the power to publish, teach, and edit diverges from the one before ... A top-flight comic by Kirby or his successor on Captain America, Jim Steranko barely needed words. You could follow the story just by watching the characters act and react. Thankfully, Penguin volumes do justice to these images. They reproduce sixties comics in bright, flat, colorful inks on thick white paper unlike the dot-based process used on old newsprint, but perhaps truer to their bold, thrill-chasing spirit.<br>Stephanie Burt,The New YorkerSeries Introduction<br><br><br>If you were suddenly gifted with powers that set you apart from ordinary humanity, what would you do?<br><br><br>For the first generation of comic book super heroes, launched in the late 1930s, the answer was obvious: You used your special abilities for the benefit of others. You became a"champion for the helpless and oppressed"and waged an"unceasing battle against evil and injustice."<br><br><br>It was a fantasy predicated on the effortless fusion of moral certainty with aggressive action, the national appetite for which only increased after America's entry into the Second World War in 1941. More than seven hundred super-powered do-gooders debuted in the boom years of 1938-1945. Collectively, they helped to transform the comic book business from a vestigial limb of print culture into a muscular arm of the modern entertainment industry. With the social tensions and abiding inequalities of US culture temporarily obscured by the Nazi threat, super heroes even came to emblematize the (sometimes contradictory) principles of individualism, democracy, and consumerism: the American way.<br><br><br>After the war, comics remained big business-the genres of romance, Western, crime, horror, and humor all thrived-but audiences turned decisively away from super heroes. Indeed, by the summer of 1953, the costumed crime-fighter appeared on the verge of extinction. Of the hundreds of characters that had once crowded the newsstands, only five still had their own titles: Quality Comics'Plastic Man and DC Comics'Superman, Superboy, Batman, and Wonder Woman. Old-fashioned products of a simpler time, they were ripe targets for satire. There were sporadic attempts to revive the craze, of course-most notably in 1954, when a wave of national hysteria over the putative effects of crime and horror comics on younger readers led several publishers to seek more parent-friendly alternatives. The companies of Ajax, Atlas, Charlton, Harvey, Magazine Enterprises, Prize, and Sterling all tried out a few super hero books in an effort to recapture a small portion of the market that they once had dominated. Significantly, all failed.<br><br><br>No single factor can definitively explain this shift in popular taste, but clearly times had changed. Against the background of the wasteful and inconclusive war in Korea, the vicious theater of McCarthyism, and the ugly response to the first stirrings of the civil rights movement in Montgomery, Alabama, the moral simplicity of the super hero fantasy looked na ve at best and reactionary at worst. Clearly, if super heroes were going to be revived successfully, they would have to be reinvented.<br><br><br><br><br>The process began at DC Comics, the only American comic book publisher to have a real stake in the genre at the time, with the return of the Flash in mid-1956. Writer Bob Kanigher revised the concept (which dated back to 1940), adding a self-reflexive element; his hero, Barry Allen, had a nostalgic fondness for old Flash comics. Kanigher thereby acknowledged and incorporated DCÕs earlier Flash stories while simultaneously placing them at an ironic distance-making his own tale seem more authentic and contemporary. The summer of 1959 saw a similar modernization of the Green Lantern. The origin story of the first Lantern, from almost twenty years prior, had been a messy Orientalist hodgepodge; the new version drew on science fiction tropes more suited to the age of the space race. In late 1959, these revitalized heroes joined forces with Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman to form a team: the Justice League of America.<br><br><br>The strong sales of the JLA made other publishers sit up and take notice. Among them was Martin Goodman, the owner of the company not yet known as Marvel. Goodman had enjoyed plenty of success with super hero comics in the 1940s and owned the rights to such former hits as Captain America, the Human Torch-somewhat misnamed, as he was actually a flaThe Penguin Classics Marvel Collection presents the origin stories, seminal tales, and characters of the Marvel Universe to explore Marvel s transformative and timeless influence on an entire genre of fantasy.<br> <br>A Penguin Classics Marvel Collection Edition<br> <br>CollectsCaptain America Comics#1 (1941); the Captain America stories fromTales of Suspense#59, #63-68, #75-81, #92-95, #110-113 (1964-1969); Captain America Commie Smasher fromCaptain America#78 (1954). It is impossible to imagine American popular culture without Marvel Comics. For decades, Marvel has published groundbreaking visual narratives that sustain attention on multiple levels: as metaphors for the experience of difference and otherness; as meditations on the fluid nature of identity; and as high-water marks in the artistic tradition of American cartooning, to name a few.<br> <br>Drawing upon multiple comic book series, this collection includes Captain America s very first appearances from 1941 alongside key examples of his first solo stories of the 1960s, in which Steve Rogers, the newly resurrected hero of World War II, searches to find his place in a new and unfamiliar world. As the contents reveal, the transformations of this American icon thus mark parallel transformations in the nation itself.<br> <br>A foreword by Gene Luen Yang and scholarly introductions and apparatus by Ben Saunders offer further insight into the enduring significance of Captain America and classic Marvel comics.<br> <br>The Deluxe Hardcover edition features gold foil stamping, gold top stain edges, special endpapers with artwork spotlighting series villains, and full-color art throughout.1CNBorn Jacob Kurtzberg in 1917 to Jewish-Austrian parents on New York s Lower East Side,Jack Kirbycame of age at the birth of the American comic book industry. Horrified by the rise of Nazism, Kirby co created the patriotic hero Captain America with Joe Simon in 1940. Cap s exploits on the comic book page entertained millions of American readers at home and inspired US troops fight­ing the enemy abroad. Kirby s partnership with Simon continued throughout the 1940s and early 50s; together, they produced com­ics in every popular genre, from Western to romance. In 1958, Kirby began his equally fruitful collaboration with writer- editor Stan Lee, and in 1961 the two men co created the foundational text of the modern Marvel Universe:The Fantastic Four. Over the next de­cade, Kirby and Lee would introduce a mind- boggling array of new characters including the Avengers, the Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, the Silver Surfer, and the X Men. Kirby s groundbreaking work with Lee formed the foundation of the Marvel Universe. In the early 1970s, Kirby moved to DC Comics, where he created his intercon­nected Fourth World series, as well as freestanding titles such asThe Demon. He returned to Marvel in 1975, writing and illustrat­ing The Black Panther and Captain America, and introducing series such as Devil Dinosaur, and the Eternals. Kirby died in 1994. Today, he is generally regarded as one of the most important and influential creators in the history of American comics. His work has inspired multiple generations of writers, artists, designers, and film­makers, who continue to explore his vast universe of concepts and characters. He was an inaugural inductee into the Eisner Hall of Fame in 1987.<br><br>Writer-editorStan Lee(1922 2018) and artist Jack Kirby made comic book history in 1961 withThe Fantastic Four#1. The suc­cess of its new style inspired Lee and his many collaborators to de­velop a number of new super heroes, including, with Jack Kirby, the Incredible Hulk and the X Men; with Steve Ditko, the Amazing Spider-Man and Doctor Strange; and with Bill Everett, Daredevil. Lee oversaw the adventures of thesecreations for more than a de­cade before handing over the editorial reins at Marvel to others and focusing on developing Marvel s properties in other media. For the remainder of his long life, he continued to serve as a creative figure­head at Marvel and as an ambassador for the comics medium asa whole. In his final years, Lee s signature cameo appearances in Marvel s films established him as one of the world s most famous faces.<br> <br>While sharing a studio with Jack Kirby, artistJoe Simonco created Captain America, a stirring symbol of American idealism and pride during the war-torn 1940s. Simon and Kirby would go on to form one of the most productive partnerships of the early American comic book industry. The two men co created comics in every genre crime, war, horror, science fiction, Western, humor, and romance for numerous different publishers between 1940 and 1954. Noted characters and series included the Sandman and the Newsboy Legion for DC Comics, Young Romance for Crestwood, and Boys Ranch for Harvey. Simon also wrote two autobiographiesThe Comic Book Makers(1990), coauthored with his son, Jim Simon, andJoe Simon: My Life in Comics(2011) essential reading for any historian of comic book history and culture.<br> <br>Jim Sterankorocked the comic book world in the late 1960s with a revolutionary approach to design and narrative, influenced by the contemporary worlds of both commercial and fine art. Ster­anko produced very little comics work after the 1970s, but his illus­trations would grace the covers of numerous science fiction and fantasy novels, as well as fil

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