Timely Comics

 ( American Companies Established In 1939 ) 

His first effort, Marvel Comics #1 (Oct. 1939), featured the first appearances of writer-artist Carl Burgos' android superhero, the Human Torch, and Paul Gustavson's costumed detective the Angel. It also contained the first published appearance of Bill Everett's anti-hero Namor the Sub-Mariner, created for the unpublished movie-theater giveaway comic Motion Picture Funnies Weekly earlier that year, with the eight-page original story now expanded by four pages.

Also included were Al Anders' Western comics hero the Masked Raider; the jungle lord Ka-Zar the Great,Unrelated to the Marvel Comics jungle lord Ka-Zar introduced in Uncanny X-Men #10 (March 1965) with Ben Thompson beginning a five-issue adaptation of the story "King of Fang and Claw" by Bob Byrd in Goodman's pulp magazine Ka-Zar #1 (Oct. 1936); Ka-Zar at Don Markstein's Toonopedia. target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> Archived from the original on November 27, 2014. the non-continuing-character story "Jungle Terror", featuring adventurer Ken Masters, drawn and possibly written by Art Pinajian under the quirky pseudonym "Tohm Dixon" or "Tomm Dixon" (with the published signature smudged); "Now I'll Tell One", five single-panel, black-and-white gag cartoons by Fred Schwab, on the inside front cover; and a two-page prose story by Ray Gill, "Burning Rubber", about auto racing. A painted cover by veteran science-fiction pulp artist Frank R. Paul featured the Human Torch, looking much different from the interior story. Marvel Comics #1 at the Grand Comics Database Marvel Masterworks: Golden Age Marvel Comics. The smudged Dixon signature is reprinted on page 46.

That initial comic, cover-dated October 1939, quickly sold out 80,000 copies, prompting Goodman to produce a second printing, cover-dated November 1939. The latter is identical except for a black bar over the October date in the inside-front-cover indicia, and the November date added at the end. That sold approximately 800,000 copies.Per researcher Keif Fromm, Alter Ego #49, p. 4 (caption) With a hit on his hands, Goodman began assembling an in-house staff, hiring Funnies, Inc. writer-artist Joe Simon as editor. Simon brought along his collaborator, artist Jack Kirby, followed by artist Syd Shores.

With the hit characters Human Torch and Sub-Mariner now joined by Simon and Kirby's seminal patriotic hero Captain America, Timely had its "big three" stars of the era fans and historians call the Golden Age of Comic Books. Rival publishers National Comics Publications / All-American Comics, the sister companies that would evolve into DC Comics, likewise had their own "big three": Superman and Batman plus the soon-to-debut Wonder Woman. Timely's other major competitors were Fawcett Publications (with Captain Marvel, introduced in 1940); Quality Comics (with Plastic Man and Blackhawk, both in 1941); and Lev Gleason Publications (with Daredevil, introduced in 1940 and unrelated to the 1960s Marvel hero). Other Timely characters, many seen both in modern-day retroactive-continuity appearances and in flashbacks, include the Angel, the next-most-popular character in terms of number of appearances; the Destroyer, an early creation of future Marvel chief Stan Lee; super-speedster the Whizzer; the flying and super-strong Miss America; the original Vision, who inspired Marvel writer Roy Thomas in the 1960s to create a Silver Age version of the character; and the Blazing Skull and the Thin Man, two members of the present-day New Invaders.

Just as Captain America had his teenage sidekick Bucky and DC Comics' Batman had Robin, the Human Torch acquired a young partner, Toro, in the first issue of the Torch's own magazine. The Young Allies—one of several "kid gangs" popular in comics at the time—debuted under the rubric the Sentinels of Liberty in a text story in Captain America Comics #4 (June 1941) before making it to the comics pages themselves the following issue, and then eventually into their own title.

Seeing a natural "fire and water" theme, Timely was responsible for comic books' first major crossover, with a two-issue battle between the Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner that spanned Marvel Mystery Comics #8–9 (telling the story from the two characters' different perspectives).

After the Simon and Kirby team moved to DC late 1941, having produced Captain America Comics through issue #10 (Jan. 1942), Al Avison and Syd Shores became regular on the title, with one generally inker over the other. Stan Lee (né Stanley Lieber), a cousin of Goodman's by marriage who had been serving as an assistant since 1939, at age 16, was promoted to interim editor just shy of his 19th birthday. Showing a knack for the business, Lee stayed on for decades, eventually becoming Marvel Comics' publisher in 1972. Fellow Timely staffer Vincent Fago would substitute during Lee's World War II military service.

The staff at that time, Fago recalled, was, "Mike Sekowsky. Ed Winiarski. Gary Keller was a production assistant and letterer. Ernie Hart and Kin Platt were writers, but they worked freelance; Hart also drew. George Klein, Syd Shores, Vince Alascia, Dave Gantz, and Chris Rule were there, too".

In 1942, Goodman moved his publisher operations to the 14th floor of the Empire State Building, where it remained until 1951.