Marvel's First Comic

Marvel

Several weeks ago we looked at the origin of DC comics so it is only fitting that we look at the other great comic book company: Marvel. From early beginnings in 1939 Marvel has brought to the world countless of characters and stories which have inspired generations. Spider-Man, Wolverine, the Hulk, the Fantastic Four and the Avengers are just some of the characters and teams to come out of Marvel. Today we'll look at the early origins of Marvel but first we'll look at the world which Marvel came into.

The World in 1939

Marvel first appeared in May 1939. Like with the origins of DC Marvel came into the world in a time of darkness. Despite Roosevelt's New Deal the USA still faced mass unemployment and poverty thanks to the Great Depression. Similarly, most of the world, bar perhaps the USSR which had remained politically isolated, had seen their economies plummet and very few had recovered. The ones that did, (Nazi Germany), were soon plunged back into economic depredation. Europe and Asia faced threats from the far-right and ultra-nationalists. By 1939 Hitler had stripped German Jews of their rights; annexed Austria and what is now Czechia; and started to set his sights on Poland starting the Second World War. In 1939 a non-aggression pact was signed between the USSR and Germany named the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact which later allowed the division of Poland in September. In Spain right-wing authoritarian forces under General Francisco Franco won a ferocious civil war spelling the end of Spanish democracy until the late-1970s. Japan, meanwhile, was tearing apart China to create its own empire in Asia. In fear that Hitler was developing nuclear weapons Albert Einstein wrote a letter to Franklin Roosevelt about developing a nuclear weapon, (something that Einstein would later campaign against). Culturally 1939 saw several movies and comics which would be highly influential. Two book adaptations were released in 1939. One was Gone with the Wind, a three and a half hour long epic about a family in the South during the US Civil War which remains one of the most successful movies of all time. The other was The Wizard of Oz the famous technicolor musical which strangely was almost a financial loss for MGM. In regards to comics in 1938 Superman made his debut in Action Comics #1 and in 1939 in Detective Comics #27 Batman made his debut.

Marvel's Founder

Marvel's Founder

Marvel was founded by Martin Goodman in 1939. Unlike the founder of DC, Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, Goodman came from a more humble background. Martin's parents were Jewish immigrants from Vilnius who had met in the United States he was the first of thirteen children to be raised by the pair in New York. When the Depression hit he would travel across the USA occasionally living in hobo camps, called 'Hoovervilles' in a sarcastic homage to then president Herbert Hoover. In late 1929 he would start working for the future co-founder of Archie Comics, Louis Silberkleit, and would take over his role as circulation manager of pulp magazines. Silberkleit would later get Martin to be the editor of his new company called Newsstand Publication Inc. With Newsstand Publication Inc. he would publish principally Western stories. In 1936 he released a new pulp magazine called Ka-Zar. Marvel fans will recognize the name but this one is different to the current Ka-Zar. Replicating Edgar Rice Burrough's Tarzan it features a white family crash-landing in the Congo. The mother soon dies of disease and the father raises his son with a lion, Zar, and the boy grows up to be basically Tarzan. The boy then calls himself Ka, brother of Zar.

The Ka-Zar Comic

Two years before the arrival of Ka-Zar a title named Famous Funnies pioneered the comic book. Then in 1938 the Man of Steel Superman made his debut from the minds of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. This caused a craze for superheroes which Martin recognized. In 1939 he would begin a new publication to do this.

Marvel Comics #1

Marvel Comics #1

In 1938 Martin had been publishing science-fiction magazines called Marvel Science Stories. In the 1930s a comic book packaging company was founded called Funnies Inc. This company would package and help distribute comic books of different companies. The sales manager of Funnies Inc., Frank Torpey, struck up a friendship with Goodman. Torpey talked to Goodman and tried to convince him to form a publishing company. They struck up an agreement: Goodman would form a company to publish superhero stories and Torpey would package them. Thus Timely Publications was founded and their first publication was Marvel Comics #1.

Marvel Comics #1 featured several stories. One included a Ka-Zar story but it featured several others. Unlike with DC Marvel immediately had superhero stories and several would remain major Marvel characters until this very day. Two were most important: The Human Torch and The Sub-Mariner. Created by Carols Burgos, (The Human Torch), and Bill Everett (Sub-Mariner), these stories would foreshadow Marvel's trend for having heroes who were outsiders in a 'normal' society. They weren't conventional heroes either. The Human Torch wasn't human but instead an android made by Professor Phineas T. Horton which combusted when it came into contact with oxygen. The Sub-Mariner featured Captain Leonard McKenzie who fell in love with Princess Fen of Atlantis. Their son was named Namor and was half-human, half-Atlantean. Namor's grandfather later had Namor attack New York. It was a strange feat by Everett getting readers to understand the character of Namor who was not fully human, (bear in mind many US states prohibited mixed-race relationships), and viewed the USA as a threat. Both the Human Torch and Namor would become major characters in the Marvel Universe. Years later the title Human Torch would be recycled and the two have even met.

Torch vs. Torch

Becoming Marvel

In 1940 Goodman hired writer/artist Joe Simon from Funnies Inc. and with Simon came artist Jack Kirby. Simon and Kirby would revolutionize the Golden Age of Comic Books. With a dynamic style of visual telling they attracted many readers. Even before the USA went to war with Germany Kirby and Simon started their own war with the Nazis. In Marvel Mystery Comics #4 Namor fought Nazis on a U-Boat. At the end of the year Simon and Kirby got an assistant in the 17-year old cousin of Goodman's wife. This kid was called Stanley Lieber and was an avid writer, and in 1941 with Captain America Comics #3 even got to write a comic. He said, 'I felt someday I'd write The Great American Novel and I didn't want to use my real name on these silly little comics'. So he used a pseudonym which eventually became his actual name: Stan Lee. However, after the end of the war love for superheroes died down. With sales dropping Goodman turned Timely into Atlas in 1952. Goodman decided to sacrifice quality for quantity having 400 releases in 1952 alone. These reflected new trends like shock-horror with Journey Into Mystery, (which in my opinion were the better ones), Westerns like Two Gun Western and inspired by Archie Comics teen dramas/romance like Girl Confessions. With the popularity of the radio show Adventures of Superman introducing new people to superheroes there was an attempt to bring back superheroes, (mainly Human Torch, Captain America, and Namor). However, Atlas was going downhill and needed a change.

In the late-1950s superheroes were coming back. The Space Race between the USA and USSR had made science-fiction a very popular genre. DC was returning to power reinventing the Flash and Green Lantern to have sci-fi origins, (they left Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman alone). Throughout the 1950s Stan Lee had been working for Atlus after leaving the army he had been thinking of quitting. That is until Goodman asked him and Jack Kirby to make a superhero team. DC had struck gold with their superheroes and in 1960 had created the Justice League. Changing itself to Marvel with Lee as editor/writer and Kirby as artist they began creating a new team. At the request of Joan Boocock Lee, his wife, Stan made these new characters flawed. Instead of having secret identities everyone would know who they are, one would be a hotheaded teenager, and another would be an ugly, antisocial monster. Together Kirby and Lee in 1961 produced their title which would revolutionize comic books. This was Fantastic Four #1.

Fantastic Four #1

Over the next few years Marvel would release more and more characters inspired by the success of Fantastic Four. In 1962 they created a story of a feeble scientist who would turn into a monster powered by rage during a bomb test gone wrong. The same year Lee and Steve Ditko created a skinny, bullied teenager who gains powers after being bitten by a radioactive spider who then becomes a hero after his own greed let his uncle get shot. Lee and Kirby then created a story of a Norse God who becomes disgraced and banished to Earth. In 1963 Marvel released another story about a hero group hated because they exist in an allegory to the Civil Rights Movement with the X-Men. Thus comic, and cultural, history was made.

Thank you for reading. For future posts please see our Facebook or catch me on Twitter @LewisTwiby.

The sources I have used are as follows:

-The Age of Extremes: 1917-1991 by Eric Hobsbawm

-Marvel Year by Year: A Visual History edited by Cefn Ridout