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By Joe Simon & Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, Carl Burgos, Bill Everett & others (Marvel)
ISBN: 0-7851-1884-5
Unlike their Distinguished Competition, Marvel Comics have taken a very long time to get into producing expensive hardbound volumes reprinting their earliest comic adventures. In the cold hard light of day it’s often fairly clear to see why. The sad truth is that a lot of Golden Age Marvel material is not only pretty offensive by modern standards but is also of rather poor writing and art quality. A welcome exception, however, is this collection of the quarterly super-hero anthology, All Winners Comics.
Over the course of the first year’s publication (from Summer 1941 to Spring 1942) the stories and art improved exponentially, and in terms of sheer variety the tales and characters excelled in exploring every avenue of patriotic thrill that might enthral ten year old boys of all ages. As well as Simon and Kirby, Lee, Burgos and Everett, the early work of Mike Sekowsky, Jack Binder, George Klein, Paul Gustavson, Al Avison, Al Gabrielle and many others can be found as they gushed out the adventures of Captain America, the Human Torch, Sub-Mariner, the Black Marvel, the Angel, The Mighty Destroyer, and The Whizzer.
Modern readers might blanche at some of the racial and sexual stereotyping, and the propaganda machines that can generate titles such as ‘Death to Nazi Scourge’ and ‘The Terror of the Slimy Japs’ is one that obviously needs to be read in an historical as well as entertainment context, but that, in essence, is the point. This is populist publishing at the dawn of a new and cut-throat industry, working under war-time conditions in a much less enlightened time. That these nascent efforts grew into the legendary characters and brands of today attests to their intrinsic attraction and fundamental appeal. This is a book of much more than simple historical interest.
© 1941, 1942, 2003 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.