While we can trace comic book characters all the way back to ancient man telling stories of larger than life characters overcoming impossible odds, there is a more direct link to pulp magazines.
1912 saw the publication of Edgar Rice Burroughs TARZAN OF THE APES followed shortly after by his interplanetary adventures featuring JOHN CARTER OF MARS. Both characters were ordinary humans capable of extraordinary feats.
In 1919 Johnston McCulley introduced ZORRO who was a masked avenger who fought against a corrupt government set in the early days of California.
These characters could be considered the grandfathers of contemporary comic book heroes.
We need only push ahead a few decades to see the influence of pulp characters from the 1930s on the at the time brand new medium of comic books.
Characters like THE SHADOW, DOC SAVAGE and THE SPIDER were men of means who donned strange costumes or used amazing gadgets to combat what could only be described as super villains in the pages of their popular pulp magazines.
The Shadow was secretly World War I ace Kent Allard who often masqueraded as millionaire playboy Lamont Cranston and he operated a network of agents from his secret sanctum headquarters hidden in many large cities all over the world.
Doc Savage was actually Clark Savage who was a man who had honed his physical and mental skills to perfection and with his agents he operated a crime fighting ring out of his headquarters in the Empire State Building as well as his Fortress of Solitude where he often went to collect his thoughts.
Rivaling the popularity of pulp magazines were Radio Shows. In the days before TV the Radio was the primary source of home entertainment, and they had their share of heroes starring in their own adventures.
The Lone Ranger made his debut on Radio (far left) in 1933.
Then became a pulp hero himself, then went on to appear in a pair of very popular movie serials and finally as most of us know him from his TV series in the 1950s.
The Lone Ranger exemplified the spirit of the upstanding hero and besides fighting injustice in the old west he taught a generation of young people to do the right thing, to be honest and faithful to those people you encounter.
From the creators of The Lone Ranger came The Green Hornet-- who starred in his own radio show starting in 1936. The Hornet and his asssistant Kato fought crime by pretending to be a criminal himself. While the Green Hornet never achieved the same level of success as The Lone Ranger, he still managed to star in two movie serials in the 1930s and the writers decided that he was actually the great grand nephew of the Lone Ranger. Kato started out as a Japanese character but was changed to Korean when World War II began and Japan became an enemy of the United States.
When the publishers of pulp magazines needed material they opted to start reprinting comic strips rather than to turn their printing presses off and when those became equally popular they began to look for new material to run in the pages of these comic books.
Most of the artists finding work in comics were ones who were unable to get work with newspaper comic strip syndicates. Much of the early comic work was crude and amateurish owing some of that to the fact that they often worked at incredible deadlines needing to get an entire 64 page comic book done over the course of a weekend.
The comics at this time featured characters in a variety of genres including detective series, mysteries, adventures and such.
Writer Jerry Siegel and his friend artist Joe Shuster were two young men from Cleveland Ohio who got together and created a bunch of characters which they then shopped around to various newspaper syndicates with no success. They then took these characters to some of the dozens of new comics publishers and still had very little luck until they came to National Comics (now known as DC Comics) where they sold them some strips including one named Dr. Occult.
DR OCCULT, GHOST DETECTIVE started out as a costumed adventurer whose biggest power seemed to be the ability to wear only a cape and a tiny pair of underpants in public and not get arrested. The character used magic to combat elements of the supernatural and he gained some popularity.
Next up for the S&S team was SLAM BRADLEY who was more of a standard private eye figure. He made his first appearance in Detective Comics #1 in 1937-- DC Comics would eventually take it's name from the initials of Detective Comics and that title would see one of their biggest characters of all time in just two more years.
Siegel and Shuster had other characters, and one they had been shopping around to publishers with no luck since 1933. The idea had been rejected by every major publisher and most of the minor ones but DC Comics decided to take a shot at it.
SUPERMAN debuted in the pages of Action Comics #1 and his story was the very first SUPER POWERED character in comics, the first time the term Superhero was used. Superman's story was that he was from another world where humans had evolved to a higher level than those on Earth.
Found in his rocket in the fields of a Kansas Farm, he's brought to an orphanage where he's raised and constantly startling the staff with his feats of incredible strength.
In those days they didn't get sales figures right away-- in fact it often took months, which meant that even though DC Comics put him on the cover of the first issue-- and if you can imagine seeing this on the newstand in 1938 you can imagine it stood out.
Or the fifth...
By the time the 7th issue was going to press the sales figures came in, and they were HUGE, so a cover was quickly put together using one of the panels of a previous Superman story and he remained the main cover feature for the next 75+ years.
This early Superman was a bit different from the one we know today-- he was a bit more hardcore in his treatment of criminals and he stood for the little man against corrupt businessmen, unscrupulous landlords and basically the mobsters and gangsters who were above the law.
He couldn't fly-- he could only leap 1/2 a mile at a time and while he couldn't be hurt by bullets if you shot him with a canon you'd take him out. There was no Kryptonite until the mid 1940s when it was invented to explain the absence of Superman on his popular radio show while the actor took a much needed vacation.
Superman was a huge hit for National Comics and it earned his creators a payday in the form of a check for all rights to Superman...
For $130.
Maybe Superman should have been defending Siegel and Shuster from the corporate bad guys at DC Comics?
$130 in 1938 is equal to $2,179 today.
They also negotiated the rights to produce stories and art pages for Superman for another $600 a week which equates to about $10,000 per week. They were able to rent a studio space and hire several assistants to help them to produce the many pages of Superman that were soon to be published each month.
S&S were in their early 20s when they signed the contracts, and they never took the time to have an attorney look them over-- something they would regret in just a few short years.
Cartoonist Bob Kane had been selling gag strips (one panel humor strips) to DC Comics for a number of years when he heard of the success Siegel and Shuster were having, and encouraged by a DC Editor to come up with something similar but different, he went home over the weekend and came up with...
Batman.
Or The Bat-Man as he was called in Detective Comics #27. Written by his friend Bill Finger, Kane's Batman was a comic book version of The Shadow complete with a millionaire secret identity and a 45 automatic.
Finger and Kane's Batman was much closer in spirit to the pulps including his feelings about killing the enemies he faced.
Batman also had some questionable ethics when it came to how he would handle his advesary's.
Realizing that a good chunk of his readers were children, the editors softened him over the first year of his publication and changed the character considerably when they introduced the first kid sidekick in comics.
Robin not only humanized Batman, but he gave him someone to talk to which served as a narrative device for readers so that Batman could explain things he was doing and not be talking to himself.
But even with the newfound morality and responsibility of having a young assistant, Batman wasn't afraid to step outside of the law...
In this sequence from BATMAN #2 the caped crusader discusses his plan to kidnap The Joker from the insane asylum he's being held at to take him to a "famous brain specialist for an operation, so that he can be cured and turned into a valuable citizen."
I'm not sure a judge would have agreed with this idea.
With the success of Superman and Batman other superheroes soon appeared with mixed levels of success.
The Crimson Avenger was pretty much The Shadow in a red cape.
Timely Comics (now known as Marvel Comics) had tremendous success with The Human Torch-- who shares only his appearance and name with the same character who is now with the Fantastic Four. The Human Torch was popular enough that he made the cover of the first issue of their new MARVEL COMICS title and he was soon given his own kid sidekick named Toro.
The stories from the period were usually pretty simple. This Human Torch was an android who could pass as human and he would often spot trouble and then flame on to go and deal with it-- even if it meant while he was sitting in the front seat of his car.
Timely Comics hit on a surefire hit when it created a fire and water war between the Torch and their underwater sea king SUB MARINER.
These epic battles would often result in the destruction of New York City as the two titans would battle it out over the length of entire issues of each of their titles.
And with exciting cover art like this was it any wonder sales were going through the roof?
Timely's biggest success was CAPTAIN AMERICA, shown here punching Adolf Hitler several months before America entered World War II.
Captain America as created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby told the story of an everyman who is injected with a super serum to become America's first super soldier. Like all superheroes created after Robin came along, Cap had a kid sidekick of his own named Bucky Barnes.
Bucky was a standout for the time because like the Green Hornet's Kato-- he had the same name whether he was in costume or not. So much for keeping your identity a secret.
Simon and Kirby's artwork was dynamic and action packed and stood out from the work of other comic artists of the same period. The Red Skull was a villain who combined elements from horror films in his style and made for exciting adventures against them.
Other heroes of the time...
DOLL MAN-- who had the power to shrink himself down to 6 inches tall while still maintaining his full size strength.
THE SPIRIT ran as a comic book inside of newspapers that was released once a week. Eisner told more story in his 8 page segments than most artists can tell in 80.
Plastic Man featuring the incredible work of Jack Cole stood out for it's outlandish comedic stories mixed in with real drama.
Cole was a former assistant to Will Eisner and he learned how to use dramatic camera angles and lighting to create real mood and atmosphere.
Plastic Man had the ability to mold his body into any shape which often got him in insane situations. Readers would be clued in that an item was Plas by the distinctive red, yellow and black costume details.
The original Flash was a super quick speedster who got his ability to move at super speed after a bizarre laboratory experiment went wrong. He decided to use his amazing new power to fight crime.
This is the recurring theme of this period of comic book superheroes, referrred to as the Golden Age-- you gain powers you do the right thing for the greater good. There was not much more motivation than that.
National Comics realized one superhero was good, wouldn't teaming up your favorite heroes be even better?
Justice Society of America was a good way to test new characters to see who would be popular enough to have their own comics. Headlined by The Flash and Green Lantern characters like Hawkman proved popular enough to get their own books while characters like Dr Fate, Sandman, The Spectre and Hourman were relegated to being co-stars in the JSA.
The most popular character to come out of ALL STAR COMICS was Wonder Woman. Created by William Marston who had created the Lie Detector in the 1920s, Wonder Woman was close in spirit to the underground comics of the 60s with art that bordered on subversive giving a thrill to the middle aged men who wanted to read about this powerful woman who was often tied up, and providing a role model to little girls who were the minority in comics readership.
While there are hundreds of comic book heroes from the era who remain popular in some incarnation even today-- there are many who missed the mark...
While the Green Hornet made the jump from Radio to Comics The Red Bee with his puffy pirate shirt falls into the fail category.
I've got a pretty good idea why THE WHIZZER didn't catch on, and his yellow costume certainly added to the giggle factor. A transparent copy of THE FLASH he lasted only a few years in comics.
Some characters, like STARDUST, became cult classics among comic fans. Drawn by Fletcher Hanks, who in himself has a story that comes straight out of dime novels, the characters bizarre anatomy and ridiculous cast of characters made an impact on the people who discovered it.
The insane storylines were as interesting as the anatomy-- Hanks imbued his character with the power to turn enemies into rats, hurl them into space and other actions that made him stand apart from the rest of the superhero crowd.
With striking visuals like these it's no surprise that Hanks work has earned him the title of the Ed Wood of Comics and several volumes of his work have been restored and re-released.
Among all of the golden age of comic characters only one held the top spot....
Fawcett Comics CAPTAIN MARVEL outsold every other comic book character of the time. Combining action and adventure with a good dose of comedy Captain Marvel ruled the day.
Captain Marvel and his family of superheroes appealed to young readers because he was secretly 12 year old Billy Batson who could turn himself into the all powerful adult superhero simply by saying SHAZAM.
Captain Marvel was also the first superhero to be adapted to movies by Hollywood in 1941's ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN MARVEL from Republic Pictures. Tom Tyler looked like he stepped out of the comics and while there was very little humor in the serial the effects were top notch and it remains well regarded even today.
Batman followed Captain Marvel in 1943 with his own serial, making him the first DC or Marvel Comics character adapted to live action films. The Batman serial was responsible for introducing a skinny Alfred and the Bat Cave as Batman's secret headquarters. Before this he operated in a barn behind Wayne Manor.
With World War II superheroes joined the fight and took on Axis Powers in an effort to get American's behind the war effort, and sales of comics to soldiers stationed overseas were in the millions as they offered cheap easy entertainment for 10c.
As the war came to an end, superheroes died out in comic books and horror comics became more popular.
It might have been that superheroes had worn out their welcome, or it might have been that the world had seen real heroes in the form of War Veterans, but whatever the reason comics sales for superheroes plummeted while horror comics sprung up in their place. Each publisher tried to out-do the other in terms of graphic violence and shock factor.
EC Comics led the pack, often pushing the envelope in terms of good taste. They were just the kind of comics that mom's would hate, which likely made them appeal to junior even more.
In the early 1950s Dr Frederic Wertham published an essay in book form detailing how comics were corrupting the youth of the day. He had done a study that showed juvenile delinquent's read comics, what the study didn't take into account was that almost everyone at this time read comics in some form or another.
Wertham also cast doubts on the relationship of Batman and Robin.
Wertham took excerpted panels from various Batman Comics and showed them to a congressional panel who brought into question the morals of the Dynamic Duo.
None of this had any ground of course, but taken out of context as they were things certainly looked bad for Batman and Robin.
Add in the bad taste of some of the horror comics and the industry decided to police itself with the Comics Code-- which created a strict order in which comics had to follow which seriously restricted any form of creativity for the sake of "wholesomeness".
Gone were horror comics that were actually scary-- and in their place were non offense comics which wouldn't frighten a four year old.
This single event stagnated the comics industry and set it for the first time as a genre that was solely for kids.
Superman had been extremely popular in his radio show, so it was only natural that he would be adapted for the new medium of TV and his show was extremely popular through the 50s-- it also ushered in a slew of Superman related comic books. Superman was now outselling Captain Marvel, not because it was any kind of creative improvement, but because DC Comics sued Fawcett Comics into bankruptcy claiming that Captain Marvel was simply a copy of Superman-- even thought Captain Marvel had his routes in Magic while Superman was an alien from another planet.
DC didn't win the lawsuit, but they buried Fawcett in legal fees to the point that they decided to throw in the towel.
Speaking of lawsuits, Superman Creators Siegel and Shuster sued for ownership of Superman, saying they hadn't read their contracts when they signed away all rights in 1938-- they also sued for ownership of Superboy, they lost the Superman lawsuit and were promptly fired by DC Comics. They won the Superboy lawsuit but their legal bills were so high they had to sell the character back to DC Comics just to settle them.
Superman's success leaked into the storytelling aspects of the entire DC Comics line, although by this time with the fall of Superheroes only Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman continued on. Even Captain America stopped publication at the end of the first superhero fad.
The trouble was having Batman meet aliens hurt the sales of the character. Gone was the dark avenger of the night and in his place was a pale copy of Superman.
With the new interest in Superman thanks to the TV series and the increase in Sci Fi DC Comics decided to try bringing back some of their old characters in new versions.
First among them was THE FLASH, who now owed his super speed to science and soon was followed by a new GREEN LANTERN and a resurrected Aquaman.
The new line of DC Comics characters was still done in a very simple very straightforward manner, with stories that lacked characterization and strictly followed the rules of the comics code.
Editor Julie Schwartz decided to try and bring back the Justice Society and soon the Justice League was born.
At a chance golf game between the publisher of DC Comics and the publisher of Marvel Comics, who at this time was publishing innocent looking monster comics-- the DC publisher told his rival how they had a big hit on their hands with Justice League and the Marvel Publisher went back to his editor Stan Lee and told him to come up with a superhero team book right away.
Lee had been working in comics since the 1940s and was ready to move on, but he decided to try writing a comic the way real people talked, with characters who behaved like real people.
THE FANTASTIC FOUR introduced four characters who not only talked more like real people, they sometimes didn't like each other and each had his or her own distinct personality.
Contrast that with DC's JUSTICE LEAGUE where the dialogue for ANY character (including Wonder Woman) could have run under any character and still made sense because they had no personality and Fantastic Four became a sleeper hit.
For their next big character Stan decided to try the Sidekick as a hero.
This is the biggest difference Marvel offered over DC Comics-- the Marvel Characters behaved like real people, they had personality, they had motivations that made sense.
It wasn't until Spider-Man's uncle was killed during an attempted robbery that he could have stopped did the teenager decide to do the right thing and use his powers for good.
So while Batman was having a fashion emergency in his title this particular month-- the Fantastic Four were trying to save the world (and the Invisible Girl) from the Sub Mariner.
At this point DC Comics was distributing Marvel Comics so they were restricted to producing 8 titles a month. DC Considered Marvel's product inferior and gave it no notice. The restriction benefited Marvel because that meant that Stan Lee could write all of the titles and create a cohesive universe where characters often interacted with one another.
Batman's sales were so poor that by 1963 he was rumored to be on the verge of cancellation.
The same editor who revived the Flash was brought in to do the same thing to Batman.
So Batman went from being turned into a giant monster to facing threats from more standard supervillians over the course of a month.
New and better artists were brought in and Batman was often seen fighting crime in the dark city streets which was closer in spirit to his original stories.
It helped but he was still in trouble sales wise.
The Adam West Batman show debuted in January 1966 and it was a smashing success. The nation went Batman crazy and the sales of his comic books reached into the millions.
The success of the Batman show helped Marvel Comics too- because ALL comics sales went up-- they were now seen as pop art and even artists like Andy Warhol got into the act.
Warhol did a fashion suit dressed as Robin and a series of silkscreens featuring the Batman logo. Art galleries soon capitalized on blown up panels from comic books now done as oil paintings.
Marvel had hit on something with their real life styled comics.
There was an element of humor to the situations-- in this case Spider-Man cashes in on his fame but realizes its going to be hard to cash the check made out to Spiderman.
They also created a letters page and ran contests for readers who spotted mistakes in their comics. Marvel took it's weaknesses created by having a small staff and capitalized on it by making the reader feel like they were part of the team.
They even wrote themselves into some of the comics like this example when Dr Doom called on the Marvel Comics offices.
Stories like THIS MAN THIS MONSTER from Fantastic Four #51 were compelling and heart felt and connected with readers unlike anything other publishers were doing.
The 70s saw a birth of comic heroes like...
DC Comics brought THE SHADOW back to comics in the 1970s, even citing his influence on Batman in some stories of the time period.
Marvel Comics wasn't afraid to have their heroes make mistakes, sometimes costly ones as we see in this sequence from AMAZING SPIDER-MAN
The Goblin knocks Gwen off the George Washington Bridge (which looks more like the Brooklyn Bridge-- so much for reference)...
Spider-Man pulls her to safety, congratulating himself on his quick actions.
What's worse.. he might be the cause.
Stopping himself from crossing the line that would make him just as bad as his enemy.
Storytelling like this catered to a more mature audience. For the first time since the early 40s people besides young children were reading comic books, and clubs sprouted up in college campuses where members could talk about their favorite characters and stories.
Hollywood at the time reflected the cynicism of the 70s and featured many anti-heroes and comics soon followed their lead.
Characters like Wolverine and The Pubisher did what they did for profit or revenge but were not afraid to go outside the lines of what was right or wrong. Their versions of heroism sometimes crossed a line which made them as bad as the villains they were up against.
Comics creators had stood up to the Comics Code with its restrictions on content and the code backed down. With this new freedom stories became more advanced.
Heroism was still a factor for the mainstream superheroes, but now it wasn't always as clear as night and day.
In this sequence, Marvel's DAREDEVIL contemplates whether or not to save his enemy Bullseye who lies helpless on a subway track as a train approaches.
DD has a back and forth with himself, trying to justify not saving him, while in the last series of panels he reluctantly does.
This will come back to haunt him as Bullseye will kill a character very close to DD in just a few more issues.
While in Frank Miller's DARK KNIGHT RETURNS which many hailed as taking Batman back to his dark avenger roots, even in the midst of a battle to the death with The Joker, Batman takes the time to admonish a young fan from using salty language.
The element of the Adam West Batman is alive and well.
And so are heroes in the world of comics. They may not always do the right thing for mom and apple pie, but they do still help to motivate and give us hope that maybe just maybe, it's cool to be one of the good guys.
