The Marvel Book Expand Your Knowledge of a Vast Comics Universe by Stephen Wiacek

INTRODUCTION
The multimedia phenomenon we all know as Marvel began in the Fall of
1961 when comic book editor and writer Stan Lee and his top artist Jack
Kirby created the company’s first Super Hero comic in six years. The move
would revolutionize an industry slowly emerging from a bleak downturn,
but which had once enjoyed massive popularity.
Comic books were invented in 1933, but didn’t really take off until 1938,
with the creation of Super Heroes. Immensely and instantly popular, and
generating astounding sales, the innovation galvanized established book and
magazine publishers, who clambered aboard the gaudy bandwagon. Soon,
dozens of companies had their own contingents of “mystery men.”