With yesterday’s release of Spider-Man/Superman (the Marvel end of the most current team-ups of Spider-Man and Superman) I thought it might be fun to post the house ads from the original team-ups, which I scanned years ago and are just now becoming relevant to the conversation.

This is a very simple ad, but as the copy tells us, the the title of the book says it all. Selling a crossover between Superman and Spider-Man back in 1976 would have been relatively easy. Superman was the flagship character for DC. Spider-Man was the flagship character for Marvel. The comic fandom of the time probably lost their minds.

I wouldn’t know. I wasn’t born until February 29th of 1976. This is all academic to me.

Still, DC is letting the book sell the book. It’s pretty on brand for the company at the time.

The ad for the Marvel side of the crossover is a lot more bombastic. This makes perfect sense. Marvel was historically the more dramatic of the two companies. Five years earlier DC does a simple, conservative affair. In 1981, Marvel is just shouting at you.

Two heroes! Two legends! Doctor Doom giving Parasite the business! And, to end things, a low key threat that you will have a lifetime of FOMO is you don’t get the book.

It’s amazing. Bordering on spectacular. Sensation even.

I guess I have to say “web of” as well, but that might be pushing it.

The marketing for the current crossovers has been done primarily through social media. DC and Marvel make the announcement and it’s up to the audience to get excited about it and post on Threads and Facebook and BlueSky and X and to do reels over on Instagram and short documentaries on TikTok. It’s both organic and not organic at the same time. Some of the excitement is from fans that are just so excited about the books. Some of it is from people that are influencers that make a living talking about new comics. It’s a very different game from when the original crossovers came out.

I’m not saying one way is better than the other. That’s a personal thing and is based largely on when you started reading comics, how invested you are in new comics, or some combination of the two. There are people out there reading this right now that have never experienced comic book fandom that wasn’t largely online.

I wish I had a clever point to make here right at the end. It really is just one of those times where I show off something from the past that I think it cool and acknowledge that life has changed.

It’s a whole thing.

More to follow…