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1962: Stan Lee & the Birth of the Marvel Heroes BY GARY SASSAMAN 1962 is the year when Marvel Comics really started. While the Fantastic Four, the flagship title of the Marvel Universe, launched in 1961 (cover-dated for November of that year), the extended Marvel Universe saw its birth 50 years ago. And it’s impossible to talk about that year and comics without talking about Stan Lee. Born Stanley Martin Lieber in 1922, “Stan the Man,” as he would eventually become known in the 1960s, had spent over 20 years in comics by the time the FF rolled around. He started working for his cousin (by marriage) Martin Goodman at Timely Comics in 1939. In 1941, he made his debut as a comic book writer, with a text piece in Captain America #3, graduating to actual comic book stories with issue #5, and created his first superhero, The Destroyer, in Mystic Comics #6, cover-dated August 1941. It was the first creation of many to come over the next 70 years. After a stint in the Army Signal Corps in World War II as a writer, Stan returned to Timely, where he continued as editor-in-chief and art director, positions he held for the next 25 years until he took over as publisher. In the 1950s, Timely Comics became Atlas Comics, and the line survived the tumultuous era of that mid-decade, when the comics industry imploded under the weight of censorship and Congressional hearings, with a greatly reduced lineup of books. By the early 1960s, the company was putting out mildly toned fantasy/monster titles such as Journey into Mystery, Strange Tales, Tales of Suspense, and Tales to Astonish, along with teenage humor books (Millie the Model, Patsy Walker) and westerns (Kid Colt Outlaw, Two Gun Kid). Publisher Goodman came to Stan and told him of the success of National/DC’s Justice League of America and asked him to come up with a superhero team book like it. His response was The Fantastic Four, co-created with Jack Kirby. The book was the antithesis of DC’s JLA. Its heroes were a collection of misfits, banded together by adversity and a strange sense of family, created with a science fiction origin that paid homage to Marvel’s monster books while still reintroducing superheroes (one of which, a new version of the Human Torch, was one of Timely’s more popular characters in the 1940s). The FF was a stunning success, showcasing heroes entirely different for comic books in 1961, and quickly garnered an avid following. Stan boldly
proclaimed it—with just the third issue, no less— “The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine.” Nobody complained or disagreed. After that first major hit, Stan turned his attention to more superheroes, and 1962 was a very good year. The Incredible Hulk—again co-created with Kirby—was first out of the gate, published in March. The character again combined the monster theme with a superhero concept, but it wasn’t a breakout hit like the FF. The Hulk went from gray to green, from inarticulate monster to learned scientist in a behemoth’s body, from tattered purple pants to purple briefs, in its short six-issue run. The character returned a few years later as a co-feature with Ant-Man (another confused hero who quickly became Giant Man) in Tales to Astonish, and went on to become one of comics’ most beloved anti-heroes, along with a popular television series in the 1980s. Stan Lee had another big hit with his next co-creation, this time with Bullpen stalwart, artist Steve Ditko. The Amazing Spider-Man launched in the final issue of Amazing Fantasy (#15) in June 1962 and moved into his own title in December. June also saw the introduction of The Mighty Thor in Journey into Mystery #83, co-written by Lee and his brother, writer/artist Larry Lieber, and drawn by Jack Kirby. The above-mentioned Ant-Man came next, also in June, and again by Lee and Kirby. Crusading scientist Henry Pym first shrunk to ant-sized proportions in Tales to Astonish #27 in 1961 but returned in costume in issue #35. Rounding out the year, Iron Man debuted in Tales of Suspense #39, published in December. His first story—written by Lee and Lieber and drawn by Don Heck—presented him in gray armor, which quickly became gold in the second issue (an all-new costume debuted eight months later). But it was Spider-Man that was the breakthrough success, a title that quickly became synonymous with Marvel Comics, which is what Goodman formally rechristened his company in early 1963. Spider-Man was lightning in a bottle for comics: different, edgy, angst-filled, and quirky. Stan and his collaborators and co-creators launched a unified universe where heroes not only lived in the same world, but knew each other, cross-pollinated in a small number of books in Goodman’s relatively tiny publishing empire. Stan also marketed his comics better than anyone had done since the days of EC Comics in the
early 1950s. He was funny, talkative, and friendly to readers, making them feel like they were a part of a whole connected community. He made his audience want to read all the Marvel books—even Millie and Kid Colt. He introduced the “Bullpen Bulletins” page, a chatty, homespun peek behind the scenes at Marvel. Stan’s small group of interrelated books quickly evolved into a full-fledged universe, but at the same time it felt like a small, intimate family. If you were a Marvel fan in the 1960s, you felt like you were part of something beyond comics, and that sense of community was due to Stan and how he marketed the titles and how he treated the readers in letter columns and elsewhere in the books. The company quickly became popular with college-age readers (proving that comics weren’t
Stan at Comic-Con in 1975. WWW.COMIC-CON.ORG 33