Kirby Krackle! Pym Particles! EXCELSIOR! — UPDATED 7/21/24: For the last few weeks, you’d be forgiven for thinking we don’t cover Marvel Comics that often. It’s not true, of course, but it just so happens that the cycle of late has been dominated by DC. Just one of those quirks of timing. So let’s take a moment and revel in the House of Ideas. Dig this piece by Anthony Durso that first ran in 2018 — and check out the links at the bottom for more joyous celebration. We reprint these columns at least once a year and they never fail to entertain. Excelsior! — Dan — By ANTHONY DURSO Silver Age Marvel means something different to me than Silver Age DC. Marvel was all about pushing the envelope and going against the norm. Marvel style meant more than just the way a writer and artist plotted a book. So, in true Marvel hyperbolic fashion… FACE FRONT, TRUE BELIEVER! IT HAD TO BE TOLD! SECOND IN A FOUR-PART SERIES! COLLECT ‘EM ALL! — 13. Marvel Swagger (and Swag). From the get-go, Marvel proved they were Not Brand Echh. Carnival barker/Editor-in-Chief Stan “The Man” Lee and the rest of the Marvel Bullpen took all the tropes associated with traditional superhero comics and turned them inside out. Their bombastic style soon made its way off the printed page and on to merchandise. Through the Merry Marvel Marching Society and Marvelmania, new characters like Thor, Daredevil, Iron Man, Dr. Strange and… the Two-Gun Kid (?!)  were plastered on t-shirts, plastic pillows, wind-up toys and DayGlo posters. They built a fan base that soon evolved into fanatics. Make Mine Marvel! — 12. Mighty Marvel Monsters. Fin Fang Foom! Orrgo! Tim Boo Ba! Groot! Marvel, er Atlas, began the Silver Age publishing tales that were strange, astonishing and full of suspense, featuring bug-eyed monsters with weird names. When the time came to move into the superheroes genre like that of their Distinguished Competition, the new Marvel Comics didn’t drop the monsters. They just made the monsters the superheroes! — 11. The Flying Bathtub. Marvel’s First Family, the Fantastic Four, (they of the self-proclaimed World’s Greatest Comic Magazine) took off on their adventures not in a Wagon Queen Family Truckster but in the Fantasticar. And when tempers flared, they’d just push a button and the vehicle...