ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the second phase of world-building at Marvel Comics, which began when Stan Lee took a step back from writing most of the comics for the publisher, allowing other creators to explore the universe he had co-created. Lee issued an edict that the characters he had created should stop changing, and instead only display the “illusion of change,” which led to a variety of different reactions from various Marvel creators. Those reactions, as explored in this chapter, include attempts to create new, more diverse characters and new pieces of continuity to continue expanding the universe; an inward turn towards psychological realism and soap opera melodrama; and a more direct reflection of real-world issues of the time such as the Vietnam War and the rising fear of street crime.
