Episode 6 - Murdock and Marvel: 1968

Marvel had been a dominant force in the comics world through most of the early and mid 1960s, which is all the more amazing when you realize that they made all the noise they did while limited to publishing only 8 -14 comics a month.  The Marvel contract with their distributor (essentially DC Comics) was up for re-negotiation in 1968, and Martin Goodman used the opportunity to expand the line to a maximum of 24 books instead, giving Stan Lee a much larger canvas for the Marvel Universe.  What did he do with all that new space?  Let’s take a look at the year 1968 and find out!

Preshow

• Reader Mail: Marvel Unlimited Tech Support
• Reader Mail: Comics in the UK and Deadman Comics

The Year in Comics

1968 was a devastating year for America, as the Vietnam conflict deepened and the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr and Robert Kennedy seemed to drain hope in our domestic political future.  Comics continued to respond to popular trends, but seemed largely unable to respond effectively to such significant social and political events, especially as they were waited down by the Comics Code Authority and the perception that the medium was “just for kids.”  When mainstream comics tried to step outside the box, it often went poorly.  This was a year where storied companies met their end, a year when amazing new creators started to show what they could do, and a year defined in many ways by comic creators’ accelerating search for new markets and avenues of expression.

New Comics, New Creators

Big Moments

Quick Notes

Best Selling Books... and Marvels

The Year in Marvel

New Titles

New Characters

Big Moments

Who's in the Bullpen

• ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Archie Goodwin

The Year in Daredevil

Appearances: Daredevil Issues 36-47, Fantastic Four #73

• Another full year of Stan Lee and Gene Colan stories.
• “Here comes…” removed from the Daredevil cover logo starting on issue 43 (Aug)
• Daredevil logo on cover changes starting on issue 44 (Sept)
• Daredevil saves the Invisible Girl from a bomb planted by the Trapster.
• Daredevil fights Victor Von Doom for the first time in his books
• To take down the Exterminator, Daredevil makes it look like Daredevil (and by Extension his “brother” Mike Murdock) was killed by an explosion.
• Daredevil fights Captain America in Madison Square Garden after encountering some radioactive chemicals. DD seemed not like himself.
• Daredevil is framed for murder by the Jester and must clear his name with police while taking down his foe.
• Murdock is mean to Karen so they won’t get close, and she decided to leave the law office for a while.
• Daredevil caps the year by visits Vietnam to rally the troops and befriends a blind soldier, Willie Lincoln. Matt Murdock then helps Lincoln stateside when he’s framed for taking a bribe by a mob boss.

New Powers, Toys or Places

New Supporting Characters

New Villains

This Week's Spotlight: Daredevil #37 Feb 1968 “Don’t Look Now, But It’s… Dr. Doom”, Daredevil #38 Mar 1968 “The Living Prison!” and Fantastic Four #73 April 1968 “The Flames of Battle…”

Recap

Why We Picked This Story

The Takeaway

Comics Code and it's impact... Something had to change.

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

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THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/.

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts.

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data.

Man Without Fear: Kuljit Mithra’s Daredevil site contains a staggering collection of resources about our hero, including news, interviews and comic details.

The American Comic Book Chronicles: Published by TwoMorrows, these volumes provide an excellent analysis of American comics through the years.  Because these volumes break down comic history by year and decade they are a great place to get a basic orientation on what is happening across the comic industry at a particular point in time.

Joshua and Jamie Do Daredevil: A fantastic podcast that does a deep-dive into Daredevil comics.  This ran from 2018-2020, and covered most of the first volume of Daredevil, and was a fun way to get an in-depth look at each issue of Daredevil from 1-377.

My Marvelous Year: This is a reading-club style podcast where Dave Buesing and friends chose important or interesting books from a particular year to read and discuss.  This helped me remember some fun and crazy stories, and would be a great companion piece to Murdock and Marvel for those who want more comic-story-specific coverage.

BOOKLIST

The following books have been frequently used as reference while preparing summaries of the comic history segments of our show.  Each and every one comes recommended by Dan for fans wanting to read more about it!

Licari, Fabio and Marco Rizzo.  Marvel: The First 80 Years: The True Story of a Pop-Culture Phenomenon.  London: Titan Books, 2020.  This book is sort of a mess, as the print quality is terrible, and Titan doesn’t even credit the authors unless you check the fine print.  It’s like this was published by Marvel in the early 60s! But the information is good, and it is presented in an entertaining fashion.  So its decent, but I would recommend you see if you can just borrow it from the library instead of purchasing.

Wells, John.  American Comic Book Chronicles: 1960-1964.  Raleigh: Two Morrows, 2015.  Not cheap, but a fantastic series that is informative and fun to read.

Wright, Bradford.  Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America.  Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.  This is the revised edition.

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History.  New York: DK Publishing, 2022.  The academic in my rails at using information from any work that doesn’t have an author credit, but this is a decent (if very surface) look at each year in the history of Timely / Marvel from 1939 to 2021.

Cowsill, Alan et al.  DC Comics Year by Year: A Visual History.  New York: DK Publishing, 2010.  Because its nice to occasionally take a peek at what the Distinguished Competition is up to.

Dauber, Jeremy.  American Comics: A History.  New York, W.W. Norton & Company, 2022.  An excellent, relatively compact history of the domestic comic industry from its 19th century origins through to recent 21st century developments.  An excellent successor to Bradford Wright’s Comic Book Nation.