Origins of the Marvel Universe

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Marvel Comics started as Timely Comics in 1939 by Martin Goodman. This was when "comicbooks" where known as "pulp magazines", and superheroes as we know and love them today,  had not yet taken off.  Pulp was a kind of inexpensive paper that gave it;s name to common magazines of the 1920's through the 1940's.  Image a world of westerns, war stories, romance and animals for younger children.  One of the reasons I choose to include Namor is because he was a Marvel character from the very begininng. He was created by a talented writer named Bill Everett, who also co-created Daredevil.

 

Everett created Namor, the Sub-Mariner for an aborted project, Motion Picture Funnies Weekly #1, a planned promotional comic to be given away in movie theaters. When plans changed, Everett used his character instead for Funnies, Inc.'s first client, pulp magazine publisher Martin Goodman. The original eight-page story was expanded by four pages for Marvel Comics #1 (Oct. 1939), the first publication of what Goodman would eventually call Timely Comics, the 1940s precursor of Marvel Comics. Everett's anti-hero proved a sudden success, quickly becoming one of Timely's top three characters, along with Carl Burgos' android superhero the Human Torch and Jack Kirby and Joe Simon's Captain America. 

 

http://marvel.wikia.com/Martin_Goodman

Bell, Blake    Fire & Water: Bill Everett, The Sub-Mariner, and the Birth of Marvel Comics. Fantagraphics Books. 2010.   p. 10.