Merry Month of Marvel: History of Marvel Comics Part 3: From Atlas to Early Marvel

Okay, bear with me here as this gets a little twisty and weird. A lot of stuff happens in a short period of time as it makes the changes to go from Atlas and early Marvel to the comics we know today and love or hate.

Jack Kirby

While Goodman had an empire going with published works and magazines of which comics were just a small part. Goodman was considering closing down that division. The reasons he did not close it are murky at best. There are different points of view but lets start with artist Jack Kirby, who after his split with Joe Simon, and losing a lawsuit to DC was having trouble finding work.

Joe Simon

According to Kirby, when he arrived at the offices, Stan Lee was in a chair crying and they were moving out furniture and Lee begged for help saving the company. Kirby also said that he told Lee to tell Martin to stop moving the stuff out, he would make books that sell, but according to Lee and others Mr. Kirby was prone to hyberbole and no one was moving out furniture and Stan says he is not much of a crier. He loved that Kirby was there and enjoyed working with him but would never have begged for help to save the company.

taStarting with Strange Worlds #1 and doing the cover and artwork on a 7 page story "I Discovered the Secret of the Flying Saucers."  This lead to a 12 year run that changed comics, Kirby helped elevate simple science fiction and monster stories with his artwork. This lead to Strange Tales, Amazing Adventures, Tales of Suspense, Tales to Astonish, and World of Fantasy.

With the titles of stories that Stan Lee came up with like "I Created Spoor, the Thing that Could Not Die!" Later the writer/artist teams worked even more closely together in what would become called the Marvel Method. The writer would give a description of his story and the artist would draw amazing scenes based in it. It helped everyone and helped Marvel not only stay open but become bigger.

Jack Kirby drawing

For several months in 1949 and 1950, Timely did bear a circle logo with Marvel Comics but the first modern comics with the label were the science fiction anthology Journey into Mystery #69 and teen humor mag Patsy Walker #65 both in 1961, each had a box with MC on the cover. Goodman would return to the Atlas name for his next comics company in the 1970's.

With DC bringing back superheroes in the 1950's and 60's such as The Flash and Green Lantern, The newly named Marvel choose to follow suit.

Check with us in the following day and next week for the final few blogs on the history, catching us up to modern day.