Featuring: Captain America
Release: December 20, 1940
Cover: March 1941
10 cents
By: Joe Simon and Jack Kirby
8 pages
Here he comes. (Here comes the Captain)
Ladies and Gentleman! (Here comes the Captain)
The moment you’ve been waiting for! (Here comes the Captain)
The pride of Camp Lehigh! (Here comes the Captain)
Steve Rogers!
The 1940s had more Marvel superheroes than I could name. We’ve looked at some of the miscellaneous ones like the Angel. Some would be brought back for small roles by later writers. Many would lend their name to later characters. Despite the vast numbers of them, there is a “big three”. We’ve discussed two of them at length.
Jim Hammond, the Human Torch, would lend his name, likeness, and powers to a new character, Johnny Storm of the Fantastic Four. Namor the Sub-Mariner would return in the pages of Fantastic Four, often as an adversary.
There is a third big one we have left out until now. But it’s time.
I’m not certain that what we are looking at up above isn’t the best comic book cover ever. To appreciate it, you must look at the date of release. December 20, 1940. It was completed prior to that date; thus, it was completed over a year before Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. America’s official position toward the wars of Europe and Asia at the time was neutrality, as codified in various neutrality acts based by Congress over the previous 5 years. And yet, here was a hero garbed in the American flag punching Adolf Hitler in the face.
Jack Kirby is obviously a name we’ve seen a lot in our reading, as he created the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, the Avengers, etcetera. Before that, he defined the romance genre within comics. And long before that, he created Captain America. Born Jacob Kurtzburg, the son of Austrian-Jewish immigrants, he was 23 when Captain America #1 reached the stands. Two and a half years later, he would join the US Army and go fight Hitler’s forces in Europe himself.
Joe Simon, born Hymie Simon, was a few years older than Kirby, also the son of immigrants, of Russian-Jewish heritage. He joined the Coast Guard for the war and spent the war years in America. Simon and Kirby would be partners for 15 years and together shape American comics as we know them.
Continue reading “PRELUDE: Captain America Comics #1”