New York V: Marvel Spotlight

 

I love this city!  
Love it! 
And, really, the best part about being Spider-Man is getting to swing around up here and just...take it all in.  
The best part!

Spider-Men, Issue #1

As part of our New York trip planning, Karli and I purchased New York Passes, a sort of all-in-one entry card to the full range of attractions in the city.  It's a bit of a gamble - if you spend $300 on something like this, the trick is to make sure that you visit enough of the included locations to at least break even, if not get ahead.*

One of the options available on the Pass was a day of travel on the Big Bus, a hop on/hop off bus service with different routes around Manhattan, as well as a loop over the East River to Brooklyn.  Yesterday we hopped on the Big Bus after visiting the Empire State Building - travel tip, best time to visit the Empire State Building is before 9:00 AM - and headed out on the downtown loop.

Nick, our affable guide, pointed out points of historical interest as we headed south.   As we approached the Flatiron Building, he said, "Right in front of us is the Flatiron Building - does anyone know why it's famous?"

Hmmm, I thought, there are some iconic photos by Stieglitz and Steichen** taken around the turn of the 20th century, but that's a bit obscure...

Nick smiled broadly and announced, "Peter Parker worked there, that's where the Daily Bugle had its offices.  You may have heard of Peter Parker - he took a lot of great pictures of Spider-Man!"

Nick's comment illustrates the degree that Marvel Comics is a part of New York City, and vice versa.

In some ways, I was familiar with New York for a long time without ever leaving Canada - if you were a Marvel fan, you were a fan of New York as well. Marvel Comics was all about New York: the Fantastic Four's Baxter Building was at 42nd and Madison Avenue, the Avengers' mansion (Tony Stark's, really) ate up an entire city block at 890 Fifth Avenue, Doctor Strange's sanctum sanctorum was at 177A Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village, Matt Murdock had a brownstone on Sutton Place before he returned to his childhood neighbourhood in Hell's Kitchen, and Peter Parker lived in an apartment at 410 Chelsea (just off 8th Avenue at 12th) after he moved out of Aunt May's place in the Forest Hills part of Queens.

But it wasn't just about addresses. New York was their battleground. Galactus loomed over Manhattan, Doctor Doom plucked the Baxter Building from its foundations, the Mole Men flooded up from the bowels of the city, the X-Men*** defeated the Brotherhood of Mutants at the United Nations plaza, Namor the Submariner invaded from the East River, and Spider-Man dueled the Green Goblin in the skies over the city streets.

Looking at the rooftops of the city from the Empire State Building, it's obvious that Marvel's artists drew what they saw:  skyscrapers, girders, water towers, fire escapes, air conditioners, brick walls, breezeways and alleys, the urban environment in which the wicked fled and the righteous pursued.

DC made a different decision when they chose to create their own geography for the United States:  Metropolis, Gotham, Coast City, and so on.  That decision gave them much more creative freedom, which they used to create elements like the intriguing dark/light dichotomy between Gotham and Metropolis (and Batman and Superman).

However, the Marvel characters have always been more embedded in the real world, as show by the manner in which Marvel paid homage to the tragedy of 9/11 and the heroism of the emergency responders in Amazing Spider-Man #36, with its sombre black cover.

Sadly, Marvel Comics itself doesn't really have a presence in Manhattan, or at least not the visible presence that you might expect.  I did some research and managed to track down the current address of Marvel Comics - 60,000 square feet at 135 W. 50th Street - and I was underwhelmed when we paid the building a visit. I didn't actually expect it to be like Disneyland, but I had hoped that there would be some indication that I was standing on the threshold of the Mighty Marvel Idea Factory, as Stan Lee described it.

 

Not only that, but Marvel doesn't do tours, which I think is a mistake on their part. I'd love the opportunity to look over the shoulders of one of the current crop of artists - from a discrete distance, of course. I've seen pictures from the rare occasions that Marvel invites the media into their space, and it looks fascinating: costumes from the movies, shelves of comics, displays of artwork, and so on.

Karli and I did the popular backstage tour of the NBC Studios at 30 Rock, and, no offense to Jimmy Fallon, but seeing where they produce Marvel comic books would easily be twice as cool as seeing the Tonight Show studio - although, let's be realistic, still not as cool as the Saturday Night Live stage.

- Sid

* We've got three and a half days left, and Karli is keeping track of our usage so we can figure out whether or not we broke even.

** History of Photography, Ryerson Polytechnical - it doesn't come up much here, but I actually have a degree in Photography (with a major in Instructional Media, an ambiguous credential which has stood me in good stead over the years).

*** If you were wondering, Professor Xavier's School for Gifted Children is located near Danbury, about 50 miles north of Manhattan.