T&T #23

Now, bear in mind that I’m not exactly a spring chicken. You see, there was something that happened back when I originally read comics that really expanded my horizon:

Marvel Comics licensed their characters for novels. As a Marvel zombie, which I was at the time, I had to have them. Of course. No ifs and buts. Now, as an adult, when I take them off my shelf again, I wonder how I could enjoy this load of crap. But I did, unreservedly. Back then, the novels were written by some of the comics writers. David Michelinie, for example, wrote an Avengers novel. For those not up on comics history, that was during the time when Michelinie also wrote the monthly Avengers comic. Len Wein and Marv Wolfman edited the line, and contributed some of the novels themselves. (Looking back, I get a good laugh out of one scene from their Hulk novel: where Rick Jones tells someone that, because he was once exposed to Gamma radiation, he is now immune to it. At the time, I apparently knew as much about science as they did: I believed it. My excuse was that I was a kid.) You ask why they expanded my horizon? Simple. I already knew enough English from comics. Reading these superhero novels showed me that reading a novel in that language isn’t that much harder, and as entertaining. Without those early Marvel novels, I would probably never have written those novels that I wrote in English, and I probably wouldn’t be writing this column now. In other words, it’s all Jim Shooter’s fault (who was Marvel EiC at the time).

Anyway. These Marvel novels weren’t the first superhero novels, and they definitely weren’t the last. I also, for example, have the two classic Superman novels by Elliot S. Maggin, and the Batman novels that came out in the wake of the Tim Burton movie. And I wish I could afford to get my hands on the Vampirella novels from the late 1960s, but they’re much sought-after collectors items and therefore unaffordable.

Superhero novels (heck, comic book based novels in general) are kind of a guilty pleasure of mine. Some characters obviously lend themselves better to a prose adaptation than others. Mike Grell’s Sable, which adapts the origin of his comic book character Jon Sable, works very well. Then again, Sable is more a male-adventure-type character along the lines of James Bond or Mike Hammer anyway. Batman works, as a character; his stories very much depend on the writer. The Punisher would work very well too, I think; I have no idea why nobody has written a hardboiled Punisher novel yet. (Don’t look at me; I’d love to, but I think I’m too small-time [yet] for Marvel to even look at my outline.) I’ve read some Hellboy novels that work very nicely as pulp-style horror novels.

What I find amusing is that while the Marvel novels keep a loose connection to comics continuity, they have by now developed their own continuity, which is for some reason never referenced in the comics. Take SAFE, for example. A supersecret organization which, in the novels, is quite friendly with most of the superheroes (most notably Spider-Man) and in direct competition with SHIELD. It’s one of the major players of the Marvel Universe of the novels. I’ve yet to see them show up in the comics. Marvel acknowledge the continuity of their novels in each volume by printing a timeline of how all the Marvel novels and short stories fit together.

DC, despite the power of the Time/Warner media giant behind them, are still only now starting to catch on. Yes, they were first, but they never exploited their characters nearly as much as Marvel did. The best they managed before were a few scattered novels that tied in to the movies and TV shows that were on at the respective times. They’re only now just starting to think of doing prose novels as well, with their Justice League novels and other, similar projects (such as Priest’s Green Lantern).

There is, of course, a far more important question here: are the novels any good? As with every other series, it depends. Some are better, some are not as good, some are unreadable. Since you might love those that I hated, and vice versa, I won’t make any recommendations here. You’ll just need to take a close look at the character, the writer and the story, and make your choice. You’ll need to consider, though, that despite the overt lack of continuity, the novels present the characters in the same way as they’re being presented in the comics. Maggin’s Superman novels, for example, feature the Silver Age Superman, not the modern version, while the Justice League novels have the current incarnation of the characters. A few exceptions aside, though, the comic hero novels are like fast food: quickly consumed and equally quickly forgotten.

I can’t help the feeling, though, that they may be perfect to hook a teen on reading. Because they’re fast-paced and entertaining, and can teach a kid that reading can be fun. Once someone is hooked on reading, the sky’s the limit.

Jens H. Altmann is a German writer with credits in almost all media and several languages. His upcoming comics work includes (among others) the short story Cyborg Assault Hamsters for the anthology Shades of Grey (published by 430 Comics in the UK) and the miniseries Berserker: The Wild Hunt (published by Studio Underhill). He’s ready to sign an exclusive contract with any comics publisher who will give him money.