Marvel Comics: The Early Timely Years
The Origins of the Industry’s Leading Comic Book Publisher
Aug 20, 2008
After the 1939 launch of Marvel Comics its publisher, Martin Goodman, began to look for new and exciting concepts to spur his books sale. He changed the book’s name to Marvel Mystery Comics (to little effect), and peppered it with an eclectic selection of characters.
He reintroduced Ka-Zar the mighty, a Tarzan-esque character from his pulp days, and published stories of the Masked Raider, a western character, and the Angel, who was more like the other superhero characters at rival companies. All published under the banner of Timely Publications.
Marvel Team-Up
Still, Goodman hadn’t found the idea he was looking for—and then it hit him. His two most popular characters were the Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner, and it occurred to him that having them meet one another might boost sales.
He couldn’t have been more right, and in 1940 with the publication of Marvel Mystery Comics #8, Goodman created the superhero crossover, one of the industry’s most tried and true sales gimmicks. The increased sales led to solo books for both the Torch and Sub-Mariner, and Timely Publications was off and running.
Simon and Kirby
Goodman knew that decent pay attracted talent, so he paid a slightly better than average scale to his writers and artists. The problem was these same writers and artists were still under the Funnies, Inc. banner where Goodman had found them. Funnies, Inc. received a cut of the pay and that left the writers and artists with a less than great paycheck. The obvious solution was to cut out Funnies, Inc.
The first hire that Goodman made was a 24 year old veteran by the name of Joe Simon. Simon came aboard in 1939, charged with creating new comic books for Timely and editing existing work. To achieve this task, Simon teamed with an old acquaintance of his, a young artist named Jacob Kurtzberg, who went by the moniker “Jack Kirby”.
Simon and Kirby were tremendously prolific, but not always successful. Under their talented guidance Timely Publications—which began to go by the name Timely Comics—produced more superhero characters throughout the Golden Age of Comics (1938-1954) than any of its competitors. Of course many did very poorly.
Simon and Kirby did have several disasters, especially the company’s worst flop—Red Raven #1, but they also found success. One of their first true successes was the Vision, a green skinned supernatural hero who traveled to our world from his own, via smoke, to battle evil. Despite their small successes and failures, Simon and Kirby were on the track to greatness.
Captain America Throws His Mighty Shield
Martin Goodman viewed the looming Nazi threat of Germany as a great menace. Believing that a voice should be speaking out against this coming evil, Goodman began to pepper his books with anti-Nazi stories. A full year before America entered World War II Goodman had Timely’s heroes punching out Nazis. Then the greatest punch of all happened.
Simon and Kirby decided to create a hero around the concept of Adolph Hitler as a villain. What they came up with was a skinny and physically unfit reject from the army named Steve Rogers. Rogers so believed in the need to serve his country that he is recruited into a program whose purpose is to create super-soldiers. The program is a success and Rogers becomes star spangled hero known as Captain America.
And then there’s the famous punch. Simon and Kirby wanted to get their purpose for Captain America across from the outset—he was an anti-Nazi superhero. To that end, the cover of Captain America #1 features Captain America punching out Hitler himself. It was a bold move to make at a time when pro-German sympathies still ran high in America.
The gamble paid off. Captain America sold close to one million copies an issue after the first one, a number that exceeds most comics published today. Timely Comics finally had its “Superman”.
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Marvel Comics: The End of the Timely Years
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