The beginning of winter 1940 (aka December) came All Star Comics #3 from All American Comics. Max Gaines saw the success DC had with Worlds Best Comics putting Superman and Batman together on the same cover. He decided to put his big heroes in the same comic book. This began with issue #1 (summer of 1940) but by #3, they were all in the same story. As a result we would have the first superhero team book. The comic took the full 64 pages to tell one story. The way they did this was to have the group split up in the story and each characters normal artist would draw that chapter. Then the characters would join together again at the end. The heroes to appear in this comic would be The Flash, Green Lantern, The Spectre, Dr. Fate, The Atom, Hawkman, Sandman, The Hourman and Johnny Thunder. They would also put small one line ads at the bottom of the comic, telling readers to buy the characters regular comic. After this issue the book would become Bi-Monthly.

          Captain America #1 (March 1941) had the first appearance of Captain America. This would be the first time on newsstands a character would get their own dedicated title without being tested in an anthology title first. This was a major undertaking in these days as publishers didn't want to risk their money putting out character dedicated title unless the character was popular enough to support it. Captain America was created by writer/artist Joe Simon, but the first story was done by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. Joe Simon made a sketch of the character and Owner/Publisher Martin Goodman was convinced he would be immediately popular. He was, due to this cover of him punching Adolf Hitler in the face! The use of a real life villain made this comic standout and make it a success. This comic was written by Joe Simon with Jack Kirby doing the bulk of the art. Captain America originally had a triangle shield which was similar in design to another patriotic character called The Shield, which was published by a company called MLJ Magazines. MLJ owners complained and Captain America’s Shield was changed to the better recognized round shape. Simon and Kirby would work on Captain America for 10 issues. Despite the comic being a massive success the two found they were not getting a share of the profits as promised and began moonlighting, working for DC comics. They assumed DC would share the profits more fairly if they created a popular character for them. When Martin Goodman found out he fired them. Joe Simon and Jack Kirby would create a slew of high selling characters, titles, entire new genres and become the most sought after creators for the next 20 years. Jack Kirby would have even more success later on. Joe Simon would make two attempts to re-gain ownership of Captain America but has settled out of court each time.

          While writing Captain America Joe Simon says they began having trouble with Nazi supporters. Adolf Hitler did have a significant amount of supporters in the US. In fact on February 22, 1939, 22,000 American Nazis held a rally in New York City's Madison Square Garden. Joe and Jack's studio began getting obscene phone calls and hate mail. "Death to the Jews" was a phrase commonly used. At one point a group of men began hanging around the studio and intimidating the employee's. The police were called about the problem. Then New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia was a comic fan and liked Captain America. He phoned up Joe Simon told him he'd make sure there was a police officer around and told them to keep up the good work. A police officer was around regularly and the group of men disappeared.

Behind the Scenes - Only until we find and adult kid.
          Goodman hired his 17 year old cousin in law to help out around the office. He was mainly known for sitting in a corner and playing a flute like instrument, annoying everybody. But he also did many gopher duties and erased pencil lines on artwork after it was inked. Once Simon and Kirby were gone Martin made him the editor, telling him it was only until he could find and adult to do the job. The kid must have done okay because he remained editor until he was drafted for the War. The 17 year old was Stanley Lieber, aka Stan Lee.
          While Stan served during WWII artist Vince Fago filled the editor position. After Stan got out he was given his old job back and remained editor until the 70's. He would then move up to publisher and other positions at Marvel Comics.

Did You Know? - Stan Lee's very first written work was a two page prose story done in Captain America Comics #3. It was for this story he created his Stan Lee pseudonym. Stan's real ambition was to write the great American novel, not silly little comic book stories. His original plan was to use Stan Lee on the comics and use his real name on his novel. According to Joe Simon, after one week of working at Marvel Stanley wanted a promotion. Joe had him write this as mail regulations required that comic books have 2 pages of text in order to get 2nd class mailing permits. In virtually all newsstand comics of this period has these two page stories. You can read Stan's story here and here.

          Jack Kirby is called the King of Comics and for a good reason. He was wildly original, innovated and influential with his art, his stories, his characters and more. Even today many artists learn how to draw comics by copying Jack Kirby. He along with Eisner made good use of the comic page. Prior to Kirby most artists simply used static block panels (not unlike a comic strip) with very little regard for showing action or making the action flow between panels. Kirby used his animation skills to give the comics energy and exciting action scenes. It would require another webpage to describe all the things Kirby taught artists and writers via his work. If you are interested in learning more, there are plenty of books and magazine articles to be found on Kirby.

          Jack was born Jacob Kurtzberg on August 28, 1917. He lived and grew up in New York City, often involved with street gangs of kids which he would later use in his work. Before getting into comic books he worked in Max Fleischer cartoon studio doing the in between's of their Popeye and Betty Boop cartoons. He would also jump in and out of doing syndicated comic strips as well. At Fox, editor Joe Simon would recognize Kirby’s talent and would be a partner and mentor to him. Together they would set comic industry on fire jumping from series to series, often creating new books and entire genres and almost all of it very successful.

          In the later 50’s the two would finally split and go their own ways. Jack would eventually land at Marvel and would create or co-create a slew of very popular superheroes with writer/editor Stan Lee. In 1970 he would jump over to DC and work on his New Gods line but that would be cancelled reportedly due to low sales. From there he worked on a variety of characters, none of them quite as popular as his earlier works. From the late 70’s to 1987 he would leave comics to work for the Ruby/Spears Productions animation studio. He did a lot of conceptual and design work for the company. Also during this time he would battle with Marvel Comics over the return of his original artwork. He would eventually receive a very small portion of his work after signing a work for hire agreement stating Marvel owned all the characters he created while working with them. In 1993 he would get back into comic books doing a new line for Topps Comics, but would die in 1994 at age 76.

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