American Art: MARVEL

Well, it is time to write about visual arts for the last time and of course, we are not forgetting our most patriotic super hero, Captain America. Yes! Do you know something about The Avengers or The Fantastic Four? Have you heard anything about The Human Torch, Thor or Spiderman? We are sure that your answer is YES, but let us tell you more about the history of these heroes and the corporation who created them, Marvel.

HISTORY OF THE COMPANY

The Company was founded in 1939 by Martin Goodman (a pulp-magazine publisher) and was created as an eventual group under the name of Timely Comics. The first editor of this company was Joe Simon (a writer-artist) who created together with Jack Kirby the most patriotically superhero, Captain America (in 1941), that produced a major sale hit to them.

At the beginning of the company, the real name (as we said before) was Timely Comics and it was settled in New York City. This corporation is known worldwide and has a great influence and revenues. The history of Marvel Comics is quite interesting as it goes back very far to a time when its popularity became a household name, mostly among the younger people.

First of all, the topic of the comic books was spotted in the Second World War, where all the superheroes created by Timely Comics fought against the Nazis to save the world and other evils. The most famous superhero created at this time was Captain America. After the war, the styles and interest began to change, so they had to think about new enemies and they started fighting against the communists, but the company quickly renamed itself as Atlas Comics and because of the political scrutiny, they needed to change again the topics and villains.

During the silver age, the older super heroes were transformed into newer versions of themselves and from now on, they were more emotional and they had more personal stories. An example of these stories was the love story between Clark Kent and Lois Lane in Superman. As well, it began to feature some new and exciting artwork and great story lines to the books. It was in the year of 1961 when Atlas Comics changed their name into Marvel Comics to emerge and they came with The Fantastic Four.

Christopher Reeve as Superman

PUBLICATIONS

Marvel Comics # 1

The first publication under the Timely’s direction was Marvel Comics #1 (Oct. 1939), where for the first time appeared The Human Torch and his Anti-hero Namor the Sub-Mariner, among other features. The success of this comic book was unbelievable, and they had to do a second printing the following month, selling, combined, nearly 900,000 copies.

Later was Captain America, in Captain America Comics #1 (March 1941) that proved a hit with sales of nearly one million. In 1961 The Fantastic Four #1 (Nov.) came out and it helped the company's reputation Marvel to begin publishing further superhero titles like Hulk, Spider-Man, Thor, Ant-Man, Iron Man, the X-Men, Daredevil and the Silver Surfer, and memorable anti-heroes as Doctor Doom, Magneto, Galactus, Loki, the Green Goblin and Doctor Octopus, all existing in a shared reality known as the Marvel Universe, with locations that mirror real-life cities such as New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.

Captain America #1

The Fantastic Four #1

The comic books became more popular when these characters went out into the movie industry. Comics were more and more popular over the years but it was at this point when they became even more popular through the motion picture industry. We saw Daredevil, X-men, Wolverine, Elektra, the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, Captain America and some more on the big screen. Of course, our favorite one was Captain America, and we want to know which one is your favorite one and why.

The Fantastic Four

Do you think that the history of America is involved in all of this issue to save the world from villains? We think that their feel of power and supremacy over the other countries has something to do with the creation of all these characters, what do you think? We are excited waiting for your answers and finally, we hope you enjoy our post this week.