Marvel Years 02.01 - January 1962

This is the second post in my Marvel Years series. My more attentive readers might notice that I've skipped a month. That's not a mistake. Marvel didn't publish any super-hero comics in January 1962. In the 1960's it was common for Marvel to print their less successful comics only once every two months. This was also done with new series until Marvel knew whether they would be successful or not. This publication schedule was called "bimonthly", but isn't that the wrong word? Surely "bimonthly" means twice a month. I suspect the new meaning was originally an Americanism which has now caused confusion by being carried over into British English.

I shan't get into a regular monthly schedule until July 1962 when more comics were being published.

Some people might ask when Marvel Comics was first founded. There are two possible answers: October 1939 or June 1961, depending on your definition.

In October 1939 Timely Publications was founded by Martin Goodman in New York. The very first comic published by Timely was a super-hero anthology called "Marvel Comics". In 1951 he renamed his company Atlas Comics. In June 1961 he renamed the company Marvel Comics.

In 1939 Martin Goodman hired his wife's 16-year-old cousin, Stanley Lieber, as an office assistant. This job entailed menial tasks such as filling the inkwells for the artists, buying lunch for the staff and erasing the pencil marks from the finished art. After two years in this humble job Stanley wrote his first story in May 1941, "Captain America foils the Traitor's Revenge", using the pseudonym Stan Lee, a name that he later legally adopted. Stan Lee signed up for the US army from 1942 to 1945. When he returned to Timely he was the company's most successful writer, long before he became well known in the 1960's. In July 1972 Martin Goodman left Marvel Comics and Stan Lee took over his job as publisher.

Fantastic Four #2

Title(s): The Fantastic Four meet the Skrulls from Outer Space
Prisoner of the Skrulls
The Fantastic Four Fight Back
The Fantastic Four Captured

Writer: Stan Lee
Artist: Jack Kirby

Villain: The Skrulls

This is a single story split into four parts that have been given individual titles. The practice of splitting stories into parts was only used in the early years of Marvel. I forget when this stopped, but I'll find out as my reading progresses.

The Skrulls became regular enemies in Marvel comics over the years. Most notable is the Kree-Skrull war, featured in Avengers #89 to #97.

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Tales to Astonish #27

Title: The Man in the Ant Hill

Writer: Stan Lee, Larry Lieber (uncredited)
Artist: Jack Kirby

Villain: Ants (if you can call them villains)

"Tales to Astonish" was a science fiction anthology comic published since 1959. It usually contained four short stories written by Stan Lee and his younger brother Larry Lieber. Different artists were used for each story.

"The Man in the Ant Hill" was certainly meant to be a one-off story when it was written. It was a typical anthology story, only seven pages in length. The story received so much praise from fans that Stan Lee decided to brink the scientist back as the super-hero Ant-Man eight months later.

You might wonder why I've listed two writers for this story. To understand this you have to know the history of comic book creation. In the early days a comic was written and drawn by the same person. For instance, Bill Everett wrote and drew the first Sub-Mariner story in Marvel Comics #1. That's the way it was, but I think the disadvantage of the writing-drawing combination is obvious. Just because a man can paint beautiful pictures it doesn't mean he can tell stories.

Conversely, Stan Lee was a writer, but not an artist. Under the traditional method of comic book creation he could never have done anything. Over the years he developed a three step process of writing a comic book:

1. The writer wrote a plot, either detailed or vague, that he gave to the artist. This plot might or might not have been previously discussed with the artist.

2. The artist drew the whole comic in the allotted number of pages, usually leaving space for speech bubbles.

3. The writer wrote the text in the speech bubbles.

Typically the same person did the first step (the plot) and the third step (the script). The main reason why different people did these two jobs was when the responsibility for a series was handed over from one writer to another. A writer might have devised a plot months in advance. Alternatively, it might just have been that a writer was too busy to finish the work himself.

This style of comic creation, now known as the "Marvel Method", isn't always appreciated. For instance, Jack Kirby worked successfully with Stan Lee throughout the 1960's, most notably as the artist for the Fantastic Four and Thor. They were more than colleagues, they were close friends, but their relationship broke up after arguments between Kirby and Marvel about who was the legal owner of his artwork. In later years Kirby spoke very derogatively about Stan Lee, saying that anyone can write text in speech bubbles. If this were true I would be a comic book writer! I know that many people respect Jack Kirby as an artist, but they over-estimate his role in the development of Marvel in the 1960's. Jack Kirby was a great artist, but Stan Lee was the creative genius behind the comics. Jack Kirby decided what the characters would look like, but Stan Lee decided how they would think and act.