‘Origins of Marvel Comics’ at 50: A Historical Peek Into the Creation of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes

Throughout the ’60s, the “Marvel Bullpen” — a collection of talented writers and artists — rarely missed, giving life to the Fantastic Four, Incredible Hulk, Amazing Spider-Man, Mighty Thor, and many, many other now-famous superheroes.

Published in 1974, “Origins of Marvel Comics” contained the origin stories of these superheroes as well as essays written by the one and only Stan Lee, oft-credited as the visionary behind the Marvel Mythos. Not only did this trade paperback give many readers their first chance to unpack long out-of-print, highly collectible comic books, but it introduced a whole new contingent of fans through Simon and Schuster’s Fireside Books imprint.

Now, 50 years later, Simon and Schuster has re-released this monumental book, which offers readers a behind the scenes look at Marvel’s humble beginnings.

While Stan Lee joined Marvel in 1939 — and Jack Kirby even earlier — it wasn’t until 1961 that the writer-artist duo hit paydirt. According to Lee, his boss, publisher, and uncle Martin Goodman called and asked, “If the ‘Justice League’ is selling, why don’t we put out a comic book that features a team of superheroes?” Thus, “The Fantastic Four” — Lee and Kirby’s magnum opus — was born.

Lee and Kirby’s first story in “Origins of Marvel Comics” — aptly titled “The Fantastic Four!” — is presented in its original form, warts, spelling errors, printing errors, continuity errors, and all. But that’s the point of the Fantastic Four, as it is the point of the entire Marvel canon: Comic books are fallible and imperfect, and so are people, and so are superheroes.

In “The Fantastic Four!,” Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Johnny Storm, and Ben Grimm hijack a rocket in order to beat the Soviet Union to outer space. Things quickly go awry as “cosmic rays” bombard the rocket and send it crashing back down to earth. On solid ground, Reed, Sue, Johnny, and Ben discover that they’ve respectively gained the powers of super-flexibility, invisibility, flammability, and rock-like strength.

But the Thing (Ben) isn’t Superman, and Mister Fantastic (Reed) isn’t Joan of Arc. These are self-interested characters with relatable anxieties exacerbated by unnatural superpowers. In “When Strikes the Silver Surfer!” — the other (exclamation-pointed) Fantastic Four story in this collection — the Thing jealously battles the Silver Surfer, because he thinks that the Silver Surfer is cheating with his girlfriend Alicia Masters.

“It was patently apparent that the Thing was the most popular character in The Fantastic Four, and quite possibly in the entire comic-book field,” Lee writes in response to the countless letters he received at the time.

Capitalizing on the Thing’s success, Lee and Kirby concocted their next oddball goliath in “The Incredible Hulk.” In his origin story, gamma scientist Bruce Banner moonlights as the Hulk, who — like a werewolf — only comes out at night. The Hulk, like the Thing, Spider-Man, and just about every Marvel character, is grossly misunderstood.

The Thing and Hulk are embarrassed by their brutish appearance, Spider-Man is embarrassed by his nerdiness, and Stan Lee is embarrassed by his profession — an embarrassment that leaked into his work and connected with legions of young fans.

Stanley Martin Lieber, better known as Stan Lee, writes, “So happy was I being S.M.L., and so certain that I would one day write the great American novel, or the great American motion picture, and so young and witless at the time I started writing comics, that I felt I couldn’t sully so proud a name on books for little kiddies.”

It is important to note that Lee wasn’t the only one behind Marvel Comics, although “Origins of Marvel Comics” might lead readers to believe as much. In 1990, a disgruntled Steve Ditko — the original artist of Spider-Man — drew a short, scathing comic of his and Lee’s contributions to the character. To coincide with the release of this reprinted edition, Chaz Gower published a critical, albeit invective book called “Stan Lee Lied: Your Handy Guide to Every Lie in The Origins of Marvel Comics.”

“Origins of Marvel Comics” is in and of itself a cultural artifact. In the Hulk’s first appearance, his skin is recolored bright green, even though it began as gray. In Spider-Man’s first appearance, he has armpit-webbing and off-putting pupils. In Thor’s first appearance, his name is misspelled as “Thorr” in the final panel. These discrepancies only elevate the reading experience, and harken back to the days of Marvel’s famous No-Prize, rewarding fans who rectified editorial oversights.

However, there are some unacceptable editorial oversights in Simon and Schuster’s 50th anniversary reprint that weren’t present in the original 1974 edition. For example, Lee’s epilogue is misplaced before the final story, and Lee’s prologue to this story is confusingly misplaced somewhere else. In addition, there are blank word balloons throughout this reprinted edition lacking important dialogue.

Hopefully these oversights will be corrected in later editions, because “Origins of Marvel Comics” is a must-read for all superhero fans.

—Staff writer Joseph A. Johnson can be reached at joseph.johnson@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @onlyjoejohnson or on Threads @officialjoeyj.