My favorite Marvel character finally makes his debut in Amazing Fantasy #15 (June 1962): Peter Parker, the Amazing Spider-Man! Like Superman and Batman, we pretty much all know the origin story, but it’s still so much fun to show some of that old Steve Ditko art. After getting bit by a radioactive spider, high school […]
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In March 1962, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby combine forces again and The Incredible Hulk #1 hit the newsstands. A combination of a Marvel Monster and a super-hero in a long-form serial story-telling style. Dr Bruce Banner saves teenager Rick Jones from the G-bomb and is bathed in the full force of the mysterious gamma […]
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In Wonder Woman #128 (Dec 1961), the writers struggle to figure out how to solidify the “Wonder Family” by having Wonder Woman tell the origin story of her invisible robot plane to recordings of herself at younger ages as Wonder Tot and Wonder Girl. As Wonder Woman is about to leave Paradise Islands, she realizes […]
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Well, I talked about it for a long time, but we are finally here: the birth of the true Marvel Universe with The Fantastic Four #1 (Aug 1961). Stan Lee and Jack Kirby bring us a full book-length story here that introduces their first true super-heroes of the Silver Age named, of course, The Fantastic […]
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In Adventure Comics #271 (Feb 1960), Superboy meets a new kid in town: Lex Luthor. This is the first comic that uses his full name in the story (though it was mentioned in a previous letters column. Lex starts out as a really smart guy who is also a Superboy fan. He ends up saving […]
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18 years after his debut, Aquaman’s origin gets a complete re-tooling in Adventure Comics #260 (March 1959). This seems like DC wanted to bring Aquaman into the Silver Age in a big way. Aquaman is forced to reveal his origin story to a submarine commander who is testing nuclear depth charges in the ocean. The […]
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In World’s Finest #82 (March 1956), Green Arrow’s relates his origin to a reporter, explaining that he was raised in the west and that Little Otter, a childhood friend of Sioux origin, was the first one who taught him to shoot arrows. This origin tale is counter to any others presented so I would call […]
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Although it borrows elements from the story of when Roy Harper met Oliver Queen 11 years earlier, the back-story to Speedy is given some retcon attention in the Green Arrow story in Adventure Comics #209 (Dec 1954). The new story is that Roy was orphaned when his scientist father blew up their cabin in the […]
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In Detective Comics #168 (December 1950), the Batman reminisces to a college class in criminal deduction about the Red Hood, a criminal that Batman failed to catch ten years ago. In their final encounter, Batman had chased him from a playing card factory and the Red Hood dove into a vat of chemicals to escape. […]
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Wonder Woman #45 (November 1950), includes a re-telling of Wonder Woman’s origin. It describes in detail how Aphrodite awarded Queen Hippolyte a magic girdle, and how Hercules tricked her into giving up the girdle, rendering the Amazons helpless against Hercules’ army. Hippolyte makes a plea to Aphrodite, who agrees to help the Amazons this one […]
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