"Now it can be told!"
During World War II, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby created a comic book character whose adventures would place him in conflict with the same Axis powers that America and her Allies faced at the time. Their creation, a red, white and blue clad super-soldier, code-named "Captain America," anticipated the United States entry into the war, then grew to be the very personification of our nation's values during that war.
"As the ruthless war-mongers of Europe focus their eyes on a peace-loving America... The youth of our country heed the call to arm for defense..." This according to Captain America's origin story. Among that youthful and patriotic throng is scrawny Steve Rogers, rejected for army service because he is physically unfit to serve. Injected with a super-scientific serum, "his stature and intelligence increase to an amazing degree." He is christened Captain America, and sent on a mission that Simon and Kirby were certain any kid would find enthralling. Not content merely to fight the common, home-grown thieves that the rest of the super-guys were embattled with, Captain America fought soldiers and saboteures, the freedom-hating enemies of his country.
Joe Simon and Jack Kirby are quite possibly the most succesful collaborators in the history of comic books. After meeting at the Fox Features syndicate in 1940, they created the popular costumed-hero series, Blue Bolt . This was to be only the first of literally dozens of four-color creations the team would bring into being, including Black Magic, the Boy Commandoes, Boys' Ranch, and the entire genre of romance comics, beginning withYoung Romance and Young Love. But in the summer of 1940, most of these triumphs were still in the future. In that day long past, the still youthful medium of comic books was already beginning to be dominated by the booming new genre of costumed heroes.
Publisher Martin Goodman, who only months before added comic books to his line of pulp magazines with Marvel Comics #1, had already scored big in the costumed hero sweepstakes with Bill Everett's Sub-Mariner, and Carl Burgos' Human Torch. But that didn't keep him from looking hard for the next big thing. Joe Simon was called in to edit the proposed new magazine, and he brought along Jack Kirby, who was his favorite collaborater by that time. In a period where dozens of costumed characters were being created at an alarming rate, one would think that coming up with a new character who was both original and worthwhile would tax the immense creative powers of even these two giants. From fifty years distance, no one can say how hard the two men struggled to bring forth their creation, but that same fifty years gives us a grand perspective from which to observe the degree to which they succeeded. Because today, half a century later, Captain America remains one of the best known and most popular super-heroes ever.
These volumes re-present, as they originally appeared, the rare comic-book stories that make up the entirety of Simon and Kirby's run on Captain America. The stories have been carefully restored and recolored for their presentation here, with an eye towards preserving the artists' original intentions. While enjoying the artistry, power and excitement of the tales that follow, please keep in mind that these stories were created at a time when racial and ethnic stereotypes in the entertainment media were both more common and much cruder than they are today. Furthermore, Captain America was created to fight the Axis powers, and the enemy was portrayed as broadly and unflatteringly as possible. As time passed, Simon and Kirby, along with the rest of us, increasingly abandoned these types of characterizations.
Today, the original issues of Captain America #1-10 would cost thousands of dolars, if you could find someone willing to sell them to you. Of course, your prized possessions would have to remain sealed in plastic to guard against the ravages of aging. You wouldn't want to take them out and read them too often either, not and risk further damaging them. Here then, is a sturdy, affordable, hardcover collection of that classic material, which can be used as intended. You can read it, any time and as often as you like. So what are you waiting for?
