Guillermo Garnica Bouchot
Creators of the Marvel Universe
Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created most of the Marvel universe as it is known today. Lee is universally known for that reason, but not Jack Kirby, who played an equally important role. In 1961 was when they began their collaboration in the creation of Super-Heroes for Marvel, beginning with the Fantastic Four. The two already had a long history in the comic industry. Lee had been a writer for years and Kirby was already a consecrated cartoonist (he had created Captain America in 1941 together with Joe Simón)
Although Lee had most of the ideas about scripts Kirby later embodied in his drawings freely (the Marvel Method), many ideas for characters were suggested firsthand by Kirby. We can hardly know which character was created by whom. What do we know is that the designs for how the character looks, many of them how they are still known today, were the creations of Jack Kirby. Kirby left Marvel in 1970. He drew the first 102 issues of the FF.
Fantastic Four and their big influence.
The Fantastic Four gave birth to many characters that although they started as supporting characters, grew to have leading roles today. This is a summary of all those characters that appeared in those first 102 issues where Lee and Kirby participated and where they were at the peak of their creativity.
The list:
#1 – (November 1961) Reed Richards – Mister Fantastic, Sue Storm – Invisible Woman, Johnny Storm – The Human Torch, Ben Grimm – The Thing, and The Mole Man – The Mole Man. The first of the Marvel supervillains. A tribute to him is the last enemy to appear from under the ground at the end of the Incredibles movie.
#2 – (January 1962) The Skrulls. One of the most relevant extraterrestrial races in the Marvel Universe. They were protagonists of the Secret Invasion comic arc and the Captain Marvel movie.
#4 – (May 1962) Namor, the Sub-Mariner. The revival of this classic character, who originally saw the light of day in 1939, created by Bill Everett, but was forgotten for years. In love with Sue Storm, he would be an adversary and ally for many years of the Fantastic Four.
#5 – (July 1962) Dr. Doom. The most important (terrestrial) villain in the Marvel Universe.
#8 – (November 1962) Puppet Master and Alicia Masters. Alicia, niece of the Puppet Master, was Ben Grimm’s girlfriend, The Thing, for many years.
#11 – (February 1963) Impossible Man
#13 – (April 1963) Uatu The Watcher, Red Ghost and his Super Apes.
#15 – (June 1963) Mad Thinker and his Killer Android.
#18 – (September 1963) The Super Skrull.
#19 – (October 1963) Rama-Tut. First appearance of who would eventually become Kang, the Conqueror.
Adding to the Fantastic Four rogue gallery.
#20 – (November 1963) Molecule Man. Character who has had a very important character in all the Secret Wars series.
#21– (December 1963) Hate Monger.
#30– (September 1964) Diablo.
#33– (December 1964) Attuma.
#35– (February 1965) Dragon Man.
#36– (March 1965) Frightful Four, Medusa. Queen of the Inhumans. The other members of the team were already debuted in other Marvel Comics: The Wizard (Strange Tales # 102 Nov. 1962), Sandman (The Amazing Spider-Man # 4 Sep. 1963), and Trapster, being this the first issue with this name, but the character debuted as Pasta Pot Pete (Strange Tales # 104 Jan. 1963)
#44– (November 1965) Gorgon. Member of the royal family of the Inhumans.
The Inhumans, Galactus and Silver Sufer
#45– (November 1965) Black Bolt, Crystal, Karnak, Lockjaw, Triton, and the rest of the royal family of Inhumans makes their first appearance
#47– (February 1966) Maximus. Black Bolt’s crazy brother.
#48– (March 1966) Galactus and Silver Surfer. Two essential characters from the Marvel Universe make their first appearance.
The Black Panther
#52– (July 1966) T´Challa – The Black Panther. Another Marvel character who has deserved to be the protagonist of his own movie.
#53– (August 1966) Klaw. Enemy of Black Panther and who already had his appearance on screen in Avengers: Age of Ultron
#4 Annual– (November 1966) The Original Human Torch (Jim Hammond) Like Namor, another character created in 1939, and who was based to create Johnny Storm, he is brought in to be part of the Marvel Universe.
#62– (May 1967) Blastaar.
#64 – (July 1967) Kree Sentry
#65– (August 1967) Ronan the Accuser and Supreme Intelligence and the Kree race. The best known Kree. Ronan was the antagonist in the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie.
#67– (October 1967) Him. First full appearance of who would become Adam Warlock.
# 5 Annual– (November 1967) Psycho Man,
# 6 Annual– (November 1968) Annihilus and Franklin Richards. Annihilus, the supreme leader of the negative zone and Franklin Richards, son of Reed and Sue, and considered who can become the most powerful mutant.
# 94 – (January 1970) Agatha Harkness, as governess of Franklin Richards. Someties ally, sometimes enemy of the heroes, plays now an important part of the Marvel series Wandavision.
