THE BIRTH OF THE FANTASTIC FOUR (and subsequently the REBIRTH of Marvel Comics)! Part One.
In 1960 Marvel Comics the company didn’t exist, at least not under that name.
Martin Goodman, born Moe Goodman in 1908 in New York City, had blossomed a career in pulp magazines as a circulation manager and editor before launching his own publishing company called Newsstand Publications in 1933 selling mostly Western and Science Fiction titles. By the late 1930s pulp sales were declining but rival publisher National Comics had a blockbuster hit with an all original comic book package under the title of ACTION COMICS with the headline character, Superman, now being given his own title.
Goodman saw an opportunity and launched Timely Publications in 1939 with MARVEL COMICS #1 being the first title in release featuring the introduction of characters The Human Torch and The Sub-Mariner. The book was produced solely by independent comic book content company Funnies Inc which was lead by artist-writer Joe Simon.
MARVEL COMICS #1 cover dated October 1939 quickly sold out of all 80,000 copies of the first print run, Goodman quickly produced a second printing cover dated November 1939 and sold 800,000 copies making it a blockbuster hit itself. He quickly hired Joe Simon as his new editor in chief and Timely’s first official employee forming Timely Comics, Inc beginning with covers dated Spring 1941 when Simon brought in his partner Jack Kirby and the two of them produced CAPTAIN AMERICA #1 (March 1941) making a third success for the company’s growing stable of characters. Syd Shores was hired as Timely’s third employee and Goodman soon brought in his wife’s cousin, Stanley Lieber as editorial assistant (although Simon insisted that Lieber was purely a gofer for the company at that time).
Lieber had writing ambitions and began penning some of the required text stories in comics which allowed them a lower postal rate, but he wanted to save his actual name for “serious” writings so he adopted the pen name Stan Lee (a combination of his first and last name).
As quickly as success came World War II ushered in a new type of reader who wanted something more than the simple superhero adventures of most American Comics, which lead to a decline in readership and Timely found itself shrinking its staff and switching to Westerns, Romance and the new genre that was leading sales, Horror.
Horror Comics created a competition among it’s publishers who tried to out do each other with more and more graphic depictions of gore which eventually lead to parents groups and the US Congress to examine the connection between comic books and Juvenile Delinquency which soon begat the Comics Code Authority, a self governing body that publishers adhered to that all but sterilized horror comics into the stuff that would barely frighten a grade schooler.
Goodman had developed the odd business strategy of using several corporate names for various publishing ventures including Red Circle Magazines. Goodman began using the globe logo of the newsstand distribution company he owned, Atlas, starting with comics published in November 1951 in an attempt to unite a line of comics pit out under 59 shell companies from Animirth Comics to Zenith Publications, so Timely was gone and Atlas Comics took over. It would take until 1959 for the complete elimination of these extra companies.
Atlas’s line of comic books continued to decline sales wise, and Goodman made cutbacks in staffing until only his wife’s cousin Stan Lee remained, who was given orders to reduce expenses and rely on as much reprint material as possible with only a smattering of new material.
This lead to Lee’s creation of what would be known as “The Marvel Style” of writing. Instead of hiring freelance writers to produce full scripts Lee would write loose plots sometimes only two sentences long for a 10 page story and then hand that plot over to either Jack Kirby or Steve Ditko who were two freelance artists who were long known to be reliable and able to work at the reduced page rates Goodman had implemented.
NEXT: A Golf Game Makes History.
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