The colors on the covers greatly brightened, particularly for Sub-Mariner. Also, in the solo books, the stories were somewhat longer (although there was usually one story that had only 4 or 5 pages).

My opinion is that more than viewing the revivial as a failure, it might be better to view it as not the kind of success they had in the 1940s. I think we should understand that entertainment options, particularly visual ones, for the target age-range had changed: movies were now being produced for kids (Saturday matinee, anyone?); television was growing in popularity and programming for kids ("Don't you think you were a little hard on the Beaver, Ward?"); and teenagers were being marketed to as a demographic population with disposable income, increasingly to activities to be enjoyed communally (ie, movies, record buying, "hanging out") rather than independently (ie, reading comics).

Given those societal changes, and changes in socialization, there was no large "untapped" population to discover the books and make them an instant success. It seems to me that Goodman was always looking for that, in all of his business endeavors: what's the next big thing that will make a lot of income quickly and cheaply? Given those standards, the revival would never match the success of Timely comics -- even if they made money.

patrick