Review by owen-watts

This anthology documentary series is, yes, an unashamed series of what amount to bloated corporate adverts for the Marvel company but they're slickly produced and quite engrossing really. In order the series is quite top-heavy with the excellent and quite touching Japanese Spider-Man and Higher, Further, Faster standing head and shoulders above the others structurally. As someone who does work in comics (at a far lower rung I should add) the Marvel Method and Artisans episodes are solid and fairly authentic glimpses into the realities of putting together books. I mean, they mention letterers by name which frankly gets it a pass from me, a skill so vital to the form and yet so undervalued it rarely gets discussed anywhere else so fair play to that.

On the surface - these are just long adverts for Marvel as a brand rather than anything truly investigative or searingly observant but in fulfilling their assignments the various documentarians do get a little under the skin of what makes it such a fascinating industry and such a unique company. It feels limited by dry corporate constraints when covering a really wide field like cosplay, or something that could have been more meaningful like the school play episode - but when looking into the craft itself (whether that's making comics, action figures or a strange Japanese TV show in the 70s) it does scratch something real and fair play to it for that. Also, Paul Scheer.