Though the young industry of monthly comic books had been born in 1933 it wasn’t until 1935 that original content began to really begin appearing with regularity. For the most part they still focused on newspaper reprints as their primary filler. However the pulps had recently found a winning formula in strange and wondrous heroes like the Shadow and Doc Savage; and the comic publishers, many of which also published pulps, were eager to see if the same trick would work to breathe life into the burgeoning new industry of comic books.
Starting in 1935 various publications would begin to appear featuring stories of tough detectives, secret agents, and western heroes; all taking cues from their pulp forbearers. In 1938 Siegel and Shuster’s Superman would take the idea of the vigilante hero to a new height and create an entirely new genre in the process. Though Philip G. Wylie’s Hugo Danner had brought the idea of a “superman” to the world in 1930, the comic book world had yet to see anything like it. It actually took a few issues for the public to really get around the new character, but by the fourth issue of Action Comics Superman was a certified hit. Various imitators would soon follow with publishers jumping on the superhero bandwagon at a rapid pace. Interestingly during this era Superman was actually out sold by one of those Imitators. Whiz Comic’s Captain Marvel had the highest circulation of any superhero book of the time. Of course the licensed Disney books being printed by Dell Comics were actually outselling everyone.
Even the pulps that had inspired them began getting into the game, with many of the biggest names making the transition from written word to the four color page. Street and Smith began publishing Shadow Comics in 1940 which featured all their most popular characters. Thrilling Publications would quickly transfer its Phantom Detective and others over as well. And all the other classic genre’s of the pulps, from mystery and westerns to romance stories would quickly begin filling the pages of comics as well.
Comics books became a multimillion dollar industry over the next few years with the height of their popularity in this era coming during World War Two. Unfortunately the war would be a double edged sword. Though it drove sales, with both children and service men grabbing up comics to help escape the realities of war, shortages of paper and the fact that the draft pulled a great many artists and writers into the military took a great toll on the industry. By war’s end a great many smaller publishers of both pulps and comics books had folded. Only the larger scale operations like Timely, who would become Marvel, and National Allied Publications, who would become DC managed to survive.
By the early 1950′s the Golden Age had ended. Though the official date is debated, by 1953 most smaller publishers had closed their doors and the vast majority of super hero books had been canceled. Only a few of the bigger names, Superman included, survived through this dark era. A shift in focus to horror and gritty crime stories had taken place and The Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency would soon begin putting comics on trial. For a time it appeared the industry was heading towards its end after a mere 20 years.