by Bob Koshinski

Created on: May 06, 2008   Last Updated: July 25, 2008

The year was 1961 and Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were working for a comic book light weight known as Marvel Comics. Lee was a talented writer and editor, Kirby a veteran artist and both had been around the industry since the 1940's.

Marvel Comics publisher Martin Goodman instructed his two employees to create a super hero comic book, attempting to capitalize on the renewed interest in the genre created by DC Comics and in particular the Justice League of America.

Both Lee and Kirby had worked on various super hero comics in the 40's for Timely Comics. Heroes like Captain America, the Human Torch and the Submariner were part of the Timely stable, but the interest in those types of stories had diminished in the late 40's. The 1950's saw the comics go in the direction of horror and science fiction stories. However, that resulted in the industry coming under fire by the United States Congress for being too violent or suggestive.

DC Comics decided to lighten things up and again go in the direction of the superhero comic by reintroducing the Flash, a super fast crime fighting human. The Flash would join DC's old standards, Superman and Batman. The Flash caught on and was followed by the Justice League, which featured an ensemble of DC's colorful heroes.

Like many creative industries, comic publishers constantly copied the successful ideas of their competitors so Martin Goodman wanted Stan Lee to do just that. Lee however wanted to turn away from the simplistic and one dimensional heroes featured in the DC books. Stan took a gamble and he and Jack Kirby created a very flawed super ensemble called the Fantastic Four.

This group of new superheroes featured a brilliant scientist named Reed Richards, his air force buddy Ben Grimm, girl friend Sue Storm and her brother Johnny. After taking a space ship through some cosmic radiation the four suddenly possess unique super abilities. Yet, they remained very flawed human beings, constantly squabbling and dealing with life's daily issues. It was Stan Lee's soap opera like stories along with the excellent action packed artwork of Jack Kirby that attracted a new and even older readership to this Marvel Comic.

With the Fantastic Four becoming a hit, Goodman wanted his duo to create even more books about new heroes. What followed were such classics as Spiderman, The Hulk, Iron Man, Thor and the X-men. Suddenly Marvel Comics had created an entire lineup of brand new crime fighting icons. Super heroes who differed greatly from their DC Comic

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