Reading Marvel - Marvel Comics #1

Cody is endeavoring to read his way through Marvel's entire publishing history. Let's see if he can do it!

We start at the very beginning, Marvel Comics #1.

It all started with Martin Goodman in 1939. Goodman had been in the magazine publishing business for about ten years when he took note of the rising popularity of comic books and the superhero characters that had been drawing attention in recent decades. He decided to get in on this action himself and launched a company called Timely Comics by publishing an anthology comic book called Marvel Comics #1 in August of 1939. (With an October cover date.) 

To fill out the pages of this book, Goodman purchased some material from a comics packager called Funnies, Inc., which would create comics on demand for publishers. As Wikipedia explains, “Comics packaging is a publishing activity in which a publishing company outsources the myriad tasks involved in putting together a comic book - writing, illustrating, editing, and even printing - to an outside service called a packager. Once the comics packager has produced the comic, they then sell it to the final publishing company.”

Because of this, Marvel Comics #1 contains a story that was originally intended to be published in the pages of Motion Picture Funnies Weekly, which was Funnies, Inc.’s attempt to become a publisher themselves. The idea was that copies of Motion Picture Funnies Weekly would be used as a promotional giveaway that movie theatre owners would pass out to children… but the idea didn’t get very far. Only a handful of sample copies were printed to show to theatre owners, who were not interested in giving out comic books.

The story that was written and illustrated for Motion Picture Funnies Weekly that ended up in Marvel Comics #1 was the origin of a character called the Sub-Mariner, created by a struggling artist named Bill Everett – and while the Motion Picture Funnies Weekly version cut the story down to eight pages, Marvel Comics #1 contains the full twelve pages. For decades, Sub-Mariner’s inclusion in Marvel Comics #1 sparked debate over whether or not that made him “Marvel’s first superhero.” But he’s not. He’s not on the cover of the book, and his story doesn’t come first in the anthology lay-out. Sub-Mariner could be considered Marvel’s first anti-hero, as he hasn’t always been the most purely heroic character – but Marvel’s first superhero was the Human Torch. And no, it’s not the character from the superhero team known as the Fantastic Four. That Human Torch came along much later.

The Human Torch that’s on the cover of Marvel Comics #1 and the star of the first story in the book (which comes after a page of one-liner jokes) is the result of a Professor Horton’s attempt to create a synthetic man, an exact replica of a human being. Horton made some bad calculations along the way, resulting in a robot that bursts into flames whenever it comes into contact with oxygen in the air. Some demand that Horton destroy his creation, but he hopes to find a way to control the flames. So he encases the robot in an air tight tube and buries him in concrete while he continues his research. Unfortunately, there was a leak in the tube and the robot, called the Human Torch, escapes, burning so hot that he can melt steel. He’s also able to throw fireballs and fly, and he’s bulletproof because bullets fired at him will melt before they reach his body.

The Human Torch is not a villain, though. This robot is actually a noble character who also wants to find a way to stop burning everything he touches. And he does find the answer by the end of his introductory story, which was written, drawn, and lettered by Carl Burgos… but that doesn’t come until after he finds himself in the clutches of mob boss Sardo, who gets into the fire insurance business and threatens to unleash the Human Torch on anyone who doesn’t buy his policies. It’s a fun story and the Human Torch is a cool character – even if the idea of him scalding enemies might make you cringe.

Apparently absent from some reprints is the second story, artist Paul Gustavson’s The Angel. The story takes place in a city that’s being overrun by a group of racketeers called the Six Big Men… which is a major mistake on the part of those Big Men, because this city is under the protection of a costumed vigilante called the Angel, who sets out to kill them one-by-one. This Angel is one deadly character; some criminals even consider him to be an urban legend because it’s said that none of their kind has ever crossed paths with him and lived to tell the tale. That doesn’t seem to hold up by the end of the story, though.

The Angel is basically the Punisher of the age, but he doesn’t go into situations with guns blazing. Instead, he’ll catch a villain in a headlock and choke him to death, attack them with “the fury of a charging lion,” or “mash” somebody “to a pulp” with his bare hands. As a fan of the Punisher, I really enjoyed meeting his ‘30s counterpart – and I also appreciated that the Angel story was only eight pages, compared to the Human Torch’s fifteen pages.

That may seem like an odd thing to say, preferring a shorter story over a longer one, but one thing you’ll quickly notice when diving into Marvel Comics #1 is that this comic is going to take longer to read than the average comic we’re familiar with from recent decades. Not only is it forty pages, but every one of the pages is packed with panels – there are at least eight, going up to twelve panels per page, and these panels also tend to feature excessive text, both in the dialogue bubbles and the narration boxes. There’s so much text in the Human Torch story, Burgos struggled to fit it all in. So these things can get tiring.

The third story is when the Sub-Mariner comes into the picture. A narration block right up front gives us information on this character: he’s an ultra-man of the deep, lives on land and in the sea, flies in the air, has the strength of a thousand men, and is a youth of dynamic personality, quick thought and fast action. Okay, now let’s see what he gets up to.

The story begins with salvage ship divers making a mysterious discovery: someone has explored a wrecked ship before them, and even emptied the safe! Then, they see a man swimming around the wreck, at a depth no swimmer should be able to survive without their special equipment. This swimmer is, of course, the Sub-Mariner, who is so weirded out by the divers’ special equipment that he mistakes them for robots and murders them! He cuts the air and communication lines that he figures is their control wires, then stabs one guy and crushes the other one’s head in his bare hands. He then causes the salvage ship to wreck and carries a couple of the corpses off to his underwater kingdom, where he presents them as an offering to a robed sea creature he calls the Holy One. It’s this creature that first addresses him by his actual name, Namor.

It isn’t until the diving suits are removed that Namor realizes he has murdered some “Earth-Men,” and while he’s shocked, his mother, Fen, congratulates him for getting their “war of revenge” off to a good start. Namor isn’t sure why they should celebrate killing Earth-men, especially since his father was one, but his mother tells him that his father was the rare exception of an Earth-man being a good person. Back in the 1920s, Earth-men invaded their ancient home at the South Pole and nearly exterminated their entire race while conducting destructive experiments. Fen was sent to the surface to work her feminine wiles on them, but she quickly fell in love with Commander Leonard McKenzie – though she often had to sneak off to swim in the frigid water, since Sub-Mariners can’t survive being out of the water for more than five hours. 

All this time later, Fen still wants revenge on the people of the surface, and she sends Namor out to wreak havoc, since he is the only one of them who can live on land and in water. With his cousin Dorma, Namor busts up a lighthouse and steals a plane – then dives into the sea to continue his adventure in a different issue.

So, we get the broad strokes of an origin, some shocking murders, and it wraps up with some quick action. Namor might have some heroic deeds in his future, but there are none on display in his debut story.

Some reprints might also be missing the Western story The Masked Raider, created by writer and artist Al Anders. It’s set in Cactusville, where a man named Cal Brunder is forcing all of the smaller ranchers to sell out to him. Rancher Jim Gardley fights back – and for his trouble, he gets himself arrested on a trumped up charge of rustling. He escapes from jail, tames a wild white horse he names Lightning, puts on a mask, and dedicates his life to an oath of forever fighting the lawless, bringing justice to the oppressed, and helping the poor. Job #1: taking down the Cal Brunder gang. It’s a quick and simple tale, and fun to read if you like Westerns. I’m currently listening my way through the old Gunsmoke radio show, so this was right up my alley. 

Another story that might be missing from some reprints is Thom Dixon’s “complete adventure story” Jungle Terror. We’re told that Florida-based Professor John Roberts went on an Amazon jungle expedition to confirm if an indigenous tribe has a diamond possessing hypnotic powers – and now he has been missing for three months. His nephews, Ken Masters and Tim Roberts, decide to carry out a rescue mission… and, unbeknownst to them, they’re followed into the jungle by some unscrupulous types who want that diamond for themselves. There’s not much to this one, just a bunch of outsiders stumbling around in the jungle, getting in trouble with the local tribe, who are referred to as “savages.” Ah, that old-timey cultural sensitivity.

In the mix, we also get a prose story! Burning Rubber by Raymond Gill give us two pages of text about driver Bill Williams and mechanic Fred Turner, who have entered a race with a laughingstock of a vehicle called Blue Bird. They’ve created a new gas feeder that they’re placed in a dangerous spot in the vehicle, so as soon as Bill starts racing, Fred has to conspire with Bill’s girlfriend Ann to find a reasonable way to get the Blue Bird pulled out of the race. It’s kind of goofy, and not on purpose.

The book wraps up with a story about the Adventures of Ka-Zar the Great – and some readers would have already been familiar with Ka-Zar at this time, because he was created by writer Bob Byrd in the pages of the pulp magazine Ka-Zar #1, published in by Manvis (another Martin Goodman company) in October of 1936. Ka-Zar returned for two further issues, published in January and June 1937, then got set aside until Marvel Comics #1, where he’s referred to as a “famous character.” Writer/artist Ben Thompson adapted the Ka-Zar story for Marvel Comics #1 and following issues.

So, who is Ka-Zar? Well, he’s basically a Tarzan knock-off. 

John Rand, the owner of a diamond field in Transvaal, is flying from Johannesburg to Cairo with his wife Constance and three-year-old son David when their private plane experiences motor trouble and crashes into the heart of the Belgian Congo. Constance dies soon after the crash. At first, John is desperate to get himself and his son out of the jungle – but after getting hit in the head by a falling tree, John sees the jungle as their home and decides to stay there. This is exactly what David wants, because he loves living in the jungle and is able to communicate with a variety of animals living there, including a lion named Zar.

John and David have been living in the jungle for years by the time they cross paths with an evil fellow named Paul De Kraft, who ends up murdering John and destroying the Rand family hut. After his father is killed and his home is destroyed, David is taken in by Zar – who communicates to him that, from that day on, he shall be known as Ka-Zar, brother of Zar the Mighty! And that’s all the story they fit into Marvel Comics #1. It’s mostly set-up, so hopefully there’s some cool Tarzan-esque action to come in future issues.

Marvel Comics #1 got things off to a fairly humble start. I wouldn’t exactly call any of the stories contained within the book great, they’re not quite on that level yet, but there are some good ones in there… and some not-so-good ones. 

Since this is where it all began, collectors have paid extremely high prices for original copies. In 2022, someone paid $2.4 million for a copy of Marvel Comics #1. That seems insane, especially when you take into account the quality of the stories contained in the book – but it’s not about the stories, it’s all about the book’s place in history, and this was the first stepping stone on the path to amazing things.