'Lost Marvels No. 1: Tower of Shadows' restores a lost chapter of comic book history
06:41 Share

Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. Remember how some music CDs used to come with a parental advisory sticker? As a parent, that mostly meant the album had some curse words in it. And as a kid, it meant, well, that it had some curse words in it, so it had to be cool. Comic books used to have a similar label on them. It was called the Comics Code Authority. And as we'll hear about in today's interview, the Comics Code was in part established due to gory and violent horror comics. A

a selection of which are now collected in the new book Lost Marvel's number one, Tower of Shadows. The book's editor, Michael Dean, talked to NPR's Aisha Roscoe about what differentiated these comics from their superhero siblings. It wasn't just the gore, it was also their complex attitudes about morality. That's coming up.

Support for NPR's Climate Solutions Week Rethinking Home comes from the Nature Conservancy. People from all walks of life depend on nature. For the food they eat, the water they drink, and the air they breathe. For strengthening their communities, powering their livelihoods, and safeguarding their health. Nature is common ground for everyone. And uniting to protect nature can help solve today's challenges and create a thriving tomorrow for future generations. Discover why at nature.org slash NPR.

Thank you.

Grammarly is the essential AI communication assistant that boosts your productivity at work so you can get more of what you need done faster. Just a few clicks can tailor your tone and writing so you come across exactly as you intend. Get time back to focus on your high-impact work. Download Grammarly for free at grammarly.com slash podcast. That's grammarly.com slash podcast.

Comic books in the 1950s were full of superheroes swishing about in their capes and masks, but another genre was gaining ground fast, horror. These comics featured vampires, werewolves, axe murderers, and gory depictions of violence.

They triggered a full-blown moral panic. In response, the Comics Code Authority, a self-regulating industry body, was forced to act. They actually outlawed the word horror and they forbade the use of vampires, werewolves,

It was really a strong effort to kind of make comics kind of antiseptic. That's Michael Dean, editor of a new collection of long-forgotten Marvel horror comics called Lost Marvel's No. 1 Tower of Shadows. They were first published in 1969, by which time social attitudes had begun to shift.

I started our conversation by asking Dean how the horror band played out more than a decade earlier. There was a big backlash against comics. Parents boycotted them. There was a book called Seduction of the Innocent by Frederick Wertham, which focused on comics as a cause of juvenile delinquency. And there was a Senate subcommittee hearing, and one of their primary targets was a line of comics called EC Comics.

Those are known today as some of the best artists and writers in the history of comics. But they were also very horrific. Even by today's standards, people would be kind of shocked by some of the stories that they told. And were these like tales from the crypt and stuff like that? That's exactly right. Yes, which most people remember that HBO series and the Crypt Keeper and all that stuff. That's right. Today, we appreciate them probably a lot more than Frederick Wortham did back then. Yeah.

The first story in the Lost Marvels number one, Tower of Shadows, is called At the Stroke of Midnight. And, of course, it was edited by Stan Lee. This story, it starts the collection off very strongly. Is that one of your favorites out of this? I would say it is. It's probably my favorite story. There's a lot of really good stories in there, and especially because of the artists. These are the top line of Marvel's artists. All the ones that made their superhero comics are

famous are also here in this Tower of Shadows. Steranko really stood out. And you're talking about Jim Steranko. That's correct. Jim Steranko, he's the artist, yeah. But he drew them in such a way that they used a lot of cinematic elements, but they also used narrative devices that you could only do in comics. Because in comics, time gets translated spatially.

So he will slow things down. He'll break a panel up, a single image into several panels. Yeah, I'm looking at one right now because this is about a couple. These couples are never happy in these stories. It's kind of like the Twilight Zone. That's right. That's very similar, yeah. They're on their way to this house. They want the inheritance. That's the other thing. They always want the inheritance.

Yes.

depending on how he wants us to feel the time. So it's very effective and it uses devices that are particular to comics. What I found was, while some of the stories feel dated, they have some problematic references that we wouldn't use these days. One of the stories about the fear of technology, it was basically like a miner who was like, look, I'm not going to let these robots take my job. We've got to be careful. I mean, people are...

still feeling that way, right? Yeah. What stood out to you about these stories? Oh, they are somewhat in the vein of the old EC stories in that the characters are not heroic, sort of lousy characters that did terrible things and deserved all the awful things that happened to them. When I first started reading Tower of Shadows, because, you know, I grew up with comics, I was at that point ready to move on from superheroes.

You know, I like the superheroes. I like Spider-Man, etc. But I was looking for something a little more sophisticated. And so when I ran across Tower of Shadows, I was delighted because it was something different. Did you run across it back in the day? Or are you talking about running across it now? Back in the day, I ran across it. Back in the day. So you actually were reading these back in the day? I still got those comics. Oh, wow. You were looking for something more sophisticated. And it

Is that why you had these comic book greats like Neil Adams, like Jim Steranko, like John Buscema, like they appear in this collection? Is that why they would want to get into this? Is because it gave them some more freedom to explore their own art? Yeah, that's a good point, because these are artists that have been drawing these superhero stories before.

So this is an opportunity for them to do their own writing. Sometimes they were artists who normally either only do the penciling or only do the inking. And here they were allowed to both pencil and ink their own work. And using different kind of genre conventions. They weren't limited to the kind of flashy, clattering kind of superhero battles that they were normally having to depict.

That's Michael Dean, editor of Lost Marvel's number one Tower of Shadows, which is out now. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. This message comes from Thrive Market. The food industry is a multibillion dollar industry, but not everything on the shelf is made with your health in mind.

At Thrive Market, they go beyond the standards, curating the highest quality products for you and your family while focusing on organic first and restricting more than 1,000 harmful ingredients. All shipped to your door. Shop at a grocery store that actually cares for your health at thrivemarket.com slash podcast for 30% off your first order plus a $60 free gift.

This message comes from Warby Parker. What makes a great pair of glasses? At Warby Parker, it's all the invisible extras without the extra cost, like free adjustments for life. Find your pair at warbyparker.com or visit one of their hundreds of stores around the country.

This message comes from Bombas. Nearly 30% of marathoners end their race blistered. Bombas running socks are strategically cushioned to help say bye to blisters. Run to bombas.com slash NPR and use code NPR for 20% off your first purchase.