Their star would be sinister yet seductive master thief who is more of an amoral villain than an altruistic boyscout or vengeful vigilante. But elsewhere in that same year, 1962, another daring and disturbing revolution in costumed characters was being triggered in Milan, Italy, by a small publishing house called Astorina, run by sisters Angela and Luciana Giussani (photos below of Angela from 1946 and of Luciana from 1948 when she won the national ‘Miss Sport’ prize).įorget Superman’s ‘Truth, Justice and the American Way’, or Batman’s revenge complex, or the soap-opera anguish and responsibility of a Marvel superhero the enterprising Giussani sisters sensed that the time was ripe for a very different, more disturbing kind of male lead in Italian comics. By humanising their pantheon and connecting them within one shared universe, the Marvel Age of Comics would redefine the genre. Looking back fifty years, one revolution in comic books was already gaining momentum in New York City at the Marvel Comics offices with the debut of Stan Lee and Steve Ditko’s Spider-Man, the first solo teenage superhero with believable hang-ups and self-doubts. Diabolik & Fumetti Neri: The Italian Comics ConnectionĪs my final Article of 2012, let’s celebrate this year’s Golden Anniversary of an iconic comic character, who if he had been less adult and complex, and all-American, would probably be a global media phenomenon by now as big as Spider-Man.
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