Marvel Masterworks: Golden Age All-Winners, Vol. 1

All-Winners Comics #1-4

by Joe Simon, Jack Kirby, Stan Lee

Book by Marvel Comics

Genres: Comics, Comic Book, Graphic Novels, Marvel, Superheroes

288 pages, Hardcover

First published August 6, 2013

About the author

Joseph Henry "Joe" Simon (born Hymie Simon) was an American comic book writer, artist, editor, and publisher. Simon created or co-created many important characters in the 1930s-1940s Golden Age of Comic Books and served as the first editor of Timely Comics, the company that would evolve into Marvel Comics.

With his partner, artist Jack Kirby, he co-created Captain America, one of comics' most enduring superheroes, and the team worked extensively on such features at DC Comics as the 1940s Sandman and Sandy the Golden Boy, and co-created the Newsboy Legion, the Boy Commandos, and Manhunter. Simon & Kirby creations for other comics publishers include Boys' Ranch, Fighting American and the Fly. In the late 1940s, the duo created the field of romance comics, and were among the earliest pioneers of horror comics. Simon, who went on to work in advertising and commercial art, also founded the satirical magazine Sick in 1960, remaining with it for a decade. He briefly returned to DC Comics in the 1970s.

Simon was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 1999.

Reviews

[Carl Waluconis]

With Stan Lee's death and the subsequent outpouring of tributes to him, this All-Winners volume has the added appeal of containing some of his first work in comics. He was a teen-ager when he wrote these stories and had the editorship handed him at a young age. This collection incudes many other great pioneers of super-hero comics, such as Jack Kirby (Captain America & so much more), Bill Everett (the Sub-Mariner), Joe Simon (Captain America), and Carl Burgos (the Human Torch); the reason Stan outlived them all was because he was so young when he broke in. The comics reproduced here span the years many of the creators went off to World War 2 or to other comic companies. So we can see Marvel desperately trying to duplicate the spectacular action pages of Jack Kirby, or the magic touch of Bill Everett on Sub-Mariner. They don't fully succeed, but they still have that Golden Age flavor. What this means is, among other qualities, a more raw loosening of the imagination. There have been three times when comics had a kind of wild, unbridled imagination: the first newspaper strips of the early 20th century, the opening decade of 10-cent American comics, and the underground comics of the 1960's and 1970's. Each of those eras have their own styles, but all had incredible originality later emulated again and again. Each has a taste that often must be cultivated, and each represents elements of the times in which they appeared. The birth of super-heroes, now dominating American cinema, jump off the page here. The public seems to have first noticed their worth because the fragile pulp issues became worth astronomical sums. Whether it is characters still living, such as Captain America, or those living only in obscurity, such as the blue-faced Destroyer or the speedy Whizzer, this collection chronicles their early explosive lives.

[Adam Graham]

This Masterworks Collection Covers stories Published in the quarterly All Winners Comics from 1941-42.

Each comic features stories from five superheroes with no team up as happened in other comics such as the All Star Comics. All four issues feature the original Human Torch, Captain America and Bucky, and Sub-mariner. The first issue features the Angel and the Black Marvel. The last three issues improve this by featuring the Destroyer and the Whizzer

And perhaps, it's best to start with the Characters from my favorite to the least favorite:

The Destroyer: One of Stan Lee's earliest creations and according to comic historians, his most popular character prior to the Fantastic Four. The premise was brilliant. Most every hero for every company lent some type of hand to the war effort. However Keene Marlowe would fight the Nazis from behind enemy lines as the Destroyer. The three Destroyer stories in this book were by far, the most thrilling surprise in the book. The concept is brilliant and nearly flawlessly executed.

Captain America: Cap is the same as in his own magazine. So if you like Captain America Magazine, you'll love these stories as well. He and Bucky face their usual blend of spies and seemingly supernatural foes giving the stories a patriotic Scooby Doo feeling.

Namor: The mighty Sub-mariner is quite a bit different in these books than the broody anti-hero of the Silver Age. Here, he's glib, almost wise-cracking as he deals with his foe. While originally a pure anti-hero, Namor is fighting on the side of the angels for the duration, though some of the anti-hero tendencies show up in the third issue when he fights pirates and kills one of them underseas, then insists after securing the treasure the owners had been seeking and defeated the pirates demanded a cut for the owner but the cut was to go into defense bonds, so it was all good.

The Human Torch: Really, non-plused about this hero. His adventures were nothing special, kind of average overall.

The Angel: Character has a pretty good reputation, but the one story here didn't impress me.

The Whizzer: Stories range from below average in All Winners #2 to nearly incomprehensible in All Winners #4. The Whizzer is none too bright and unlike DC and the Flash, Timely didn't make much of its speedster hero.

The Black Marvel: The one advantage of the Whizzer was that his stories were still not as weak as the Black Marvel's.

Overall thoughts on the book:

This book contains some early work by eighteen to nineteen year old Stan Lee including two two-page text stories which put all the characters together. In Issue 1, they put on an exhibition for a young reader and Issue 2, Marvel's big 3 (Captain America, Namor, and Torch) petition the editors to allow The Whizzer and the Destroyer in the book. The stories are more precocious than enlightening. Still, it's amazing to think Lee has been in this industry for 70 years.

The book had pretty standard themes for the day with the heroes facing a mix of typical hoods and Nazi and Japanese spies. There are a lot of patriotic moments, particularly in the Captain America and Destroyer stories.

The series suffered some in issues 3 and particularly 4, as budget cuts led to people being hired who clearly didn't understand the character. In one part of the Namor Story in Issue 4, Namor has to take refuge at a house during a storm. Strange behavior for someone who lives underwater. And then there's the aforementioned Whizzer story.

The stories include the requisite Golden Age Cheesiness. In the first Destroyer story, the Destroyer walks into a German Citizen and says, "Where's the nearest concentration camp?" In Issue 3's Sub-mariner Story, Namor chides pirates for not knowing about him, by advising them they should be reading Marvel Comics.

Overall, the stories are fun, but they're a step below from the stories produced by DC and predecessor companies in the same era. Still, makes a great collection for fans of Stan Lee, Captain America, and Namor, also for those who want to meet the coolest World War II superhero you never heard of, The Destroyer.

[Rahadyan]

The Marvel Masterworks volumes, at $50+ apiece, are an occasional indulgence. Of late, I've been purchasing those volumes reprinting the supehero stories of the 1940's. Part of that is a love for the so-called Golden Age of comics, fostered by my reading of the works of Jules Feiffer (The Great Comic Book Heroes) and Roy Thomas's various revivals of that era's heroes (The Invaders, Liberty Legion, Justice Society of America/All-Star Squadron). While I prefer modern-style comics storytelling, sometimes I like to go back to basics, before comics writing was overly self-conscious and political awareness therein was a bit more innocent. I wouldn't want to live in the era of the 30's, 40's and 50's, but it's an interesting place to "visit".

[Christopher Roth]

No more of Wolverton's Rockman, but the Torch and Namor stories are quite nice.

[L.]

I'm still getting my feet wet in the comic book world. I thought the Human Torch originated with Johnny Storm and the Fantastic Four in the Sixties. Turns out there was an earlier incarnation in the Forties. And like other heroes of this time, the Human Torch had no problem endangering the life of a child as he dragged prepubescent Toro along for the ride where they mainly seemed to deal with the Yellow Peril. So why does Torch get to wear full body coverage long johns while Toro is reduced to skimpy briefs? Where are this boy's parents? Why is he not in school? Isn't it past his bedtime?

In related child endangerment news, Captain America and Bucky also make several appearances in this collection. Namor the Sub Mariner is not his usual "I hate all surface dwellers" here as he joins up with 'Murica to defend our shores from the Nazis. Also fighting the Nazis, only deep behind enemy lines, is some chap I've never heard of called The Destroyer. Finally there is The Whizzer. Sadly, no, his super power is not taking an extraordinary piss.

For stories meant to appeal to a child audience, this was kind of on the brutal side. Namor nonchalantly drowns several people. A couple of Japanese spies are burned alive. There are not one but two suicides. And this isn't done off stage, it's right there in front of you in living color. If I was a parent I would seriously have to think about allowing a young child to read this or not.

[Shawn Manning]

A nice example of the Golden Age

While I suspect that most younger readers will be put off by the crude art and writing,there's a certain charm to the old stuff. It's hysterical to see how the Sub-Mariner was originally written. On the down side, there is a fair amount of racism to be found. Not as bad as contemporary comics, but present nonetheless.

[Dimitris Papastergiou]

Just the epitome of mediocrity in all its glory. Simply because of the time being created.

[M.]

The foreword to this collection was written by the great Roy Thomas, and in it he paid homage to a very young man named Stanley Lieber...a young man who found himself running a comic book company when he was barely out of high school. Stan Lee rose to that challenge, and as a result he became a pivotal factor in Marvel Comics growing from a fledgling outfit into a seemingly endless well of inspiration for major motion pictures that have captivated the world.

That fledgling outfit was known as Timely Comics in 1941, when the first issues of All-Winners Comics were published. I won't mince words - the stories and art aren't all that great (more than one borders on awful), but the seeds of what was to come are very apparent in them. The noticeable energy in the character of the Destroyer (created by Stan Lee, according to credits) brings to mind a certain wall-crawler. The shameless plugs for other Timely titles in the midst of a Sub-Mariner saga are reminiscent of the cameraderie the Marvel Comics of the 60s through the 80s had with its readers. And of course most of the characters featured in this series would combine their mythos in a personal favorite series of mine come the 1970s (The Invaders, written by Roy Thomas).

The best stories in this book were those featuring the Human Torch (by Carl Burgos) and the Sub-Mariner (by Bill Everett). The art and dialogue in those strips seemed to me to be the most polished. I look forward to seeing how the tales improve as the years went on in the next volumes of the series!

[Tim Deforest]

Reprints of the first four issues of All-Winners Comics, published by Timely (one day to become Marvel) Comics in 1941/42. Each issue includes a Captain America story, a Human Torch story and a Submariner story. Second-tier heroes also got some solo adventures: Black Marvel and Angel in the first issue, then Destroyer and Whizzer in the next three.

Fun stories, though the Captain America stories suffer a little after the first two issues when Simon and Kirby jumped ship to DC. As was typical with many superhero stories from the Golden Age, they are instances of fuzzy story logic or the use of coincidence to move the plots along, but that's really just part of the charm of the Golden Age. Superhero comics were still in their formative years, after all.

What's most notable is that the Axis powers are the bad guys in pretty much every story. This is important, because most of these issues were printed BEFORE the U.S. entered World War 2. Timely Comics were presenting the Nazis and the brutal Japanese government as villains even before we were personally involved in the war. They were recognizing the Axis as an evil that must eventually be confronted even while most of the country was still isolationist. That's pretty awesome.

[Rich Meyer]

The first volume of what would become Marvel Comics' first team book isn't bad. The first issue has Bill Everett, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, and Carl Burgos handling their legendary characters (Sub-Mariner, Captain America, and Human Torch), but the artwork's a tad sporadic after that, with other artists trying to copy S&K on Cap.

The introduction of the Destroyer feature was a pleasant surprise, as was the inclusion of several early Whizzer stories. The book is a great look at early, wartime Marvel (then Timely Comics), and is an enjoyable read for any golden age comics fan.

[Edward Davies]

Some of the stories aren't too bad, some are even good, but I really didn't like the random characters that didn't take off. Clearly I wasn't alone in this...