Civic Stadium

Famous Civic Stadium, located in Eugene Oregon, burned to the ground today.

Civic Stadium use to harbor the Ems baseball team until they relocated to a new stadium in Eugene. Civic Stadium was around for so long that it became a landmark and community members raised money to keep it from being torn down. Sadly, it seems fate had other plans.

Four boys between the ages of ten and twelve broke into the box office to burn some leaves and other daubery that was already there. When the fire got out of control the four boys fled.

Marvels Stortline Part 4: Cadence Industries

While selling 50 million comics per year in 1968, Goodman revised the constraining distribution arrangement he made with Independent News during the Atlas years, now allowing him to produce as many comics that were demanded. During the fall of that same year, Goodman sold Marvel Comics and his other publishing companies to the Perfect Film and Chemical Corporation, which grouped them all together as Magazine Management Company with Goodman remaining as publisher. In 1969, Goodman ended his deal with Independent News by signing with Curtis Circulation Company. During 1971, the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare asked Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Stan Lee if he would do a comic book story about drug abuse. After writing the three part Amazing Spider-Man #96-98 (May-July 1971) storyline address drug abuse and all its harm, the Comics Code Authority refused to approve the comics due to narcotic references. However, with Goodman’s permission, Lee published the first three comics without the CCA approval stamp. The public reacted very well to this and that same year the CCA revised the Code on comics.
Goodman retired in 1972 and passed the torch onto his son, Chip. Shortly, Lee succeeded his as publisher and also became Marvels president. During Lee’s time as president, Roy Thomas, whom Lee appointed as editor-in-chief, added “Stan Lee Presents” to the opening page of each comic book. During another slow time, a series of new editor-in-chiefs oversaw the company and, once again, Marvel tried to diversify their comics. They wrote comics on horror, martial arts, sword-and-sorcery, satire (shout out to Howard the Duck everybody!), and science fiction.

Marvels Storyline Part 3: Marvel Comics

Ever wonder what life would be like now a days if Stan Lee had stopped creating comics with artist Jack Kirby while Marvel went through the Western, Humor, Horror, Crime, and Romance comics phase? If it weren’t for Stan’s wife, we’d be living in a world without Marvel! Lee said to his wife that he wanted to quit writing those dull comics and do something else, but his wife said to him, “Before you quit, why don’t you do one book the way you’d like to do it?” and thus The Fantastic Four were born! After Stan Lee’s The Fantastic Four #1 (Nov. 1961) was released, the company began establishing a reputation that eventually lead to The Marvel Age of Comics! Stan thought that The Fantastic Four wasn’t going to take off, but it stuck and developed into a fantastic (pun intended) storyline. After that, Lee and Kirby revamped superheros; they were given more detailed costumes to hide their secret identities, some of them were monsters and still heroes, some bickered and complained and were faced with real-world problems. This style of comic was later referred to as “superheroes in the real world” and has been used ever since. This lead Marvel to create more characters riddled with real-world problems and anti-heroes as well such as Spider-Man, Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, Ant-Man, the X-Men, Daredevil, and the Silver Surfer along with Doctor Doom, Galactus, Magneto, Loki, the Green Goblin, and Doctor Octopus! All of these characters existed in a shared reality known as the Marvel Universe.

Marvel’s comics built a reputation for focusing on characterization on superheroes to a greater extent than comics before them. This was expressed the most in The Amazing Spider-Man comics most of all. Spider-Man’s alter ego, Peter Parker, experienced regular teenage problems as well as the problems that a superhero faces. Marvel told the world that heroes didn’t have to be perfect in every way, they could be flawed freaks with tragic backgrounds and look like villains but be considered heroes.

Marvels Storyline Part 2: Atlas Comics

After our nations heros won the battles of World War II and returned home, the once popular Superman, Batman & Robin, Wonder Woman, and Captain America started to die out. Fighting Hitler and the Red Skull weren’t practical anymore because the battle was already over and in 1954 during an investigation on comic book violence and how it affects children the book, Seduction of the Innocent, nailed the coffin shut on our superhero buddies.

Comics now had to abide by certain rules and restrictions, churches and schools organized boycotts of comics and some had regularly timed book burnings in which kids would bring their old comic books of Superman and Captain America and burn them in a big heap. In that time, the Marvel and DC teams, among other publishers, would instead put out Western, Horror, Crime, and Romance comics. Meanwhile, Goodman started using the glob logo Atlas News Company on comics cover-dated November 1951 because he owned that company. Atlas published a plethora of children stories such as Casper the Friendly Ghost and he also unsuccessfully tried to revamp the old comic heros. According to Stan Lee, the company only survived the first two decades because they produced their work quickly, cheaply, and at a passable quality.

However, then came the Marvel Age of Comics!