Marvel Mystery Comics (1939)

Marvel Comics #1, Timely, October 1939 The book that founded Marvel, with a cover painted by the science fiction pulp artist Frank R. Paul rather than by the comics shop that supplied the stories, and it shows: the Human Torch is a molten, flame-wrapped figure out of a pulp magazine, not yet the trim hero he became. The issue introduced Carl Burgos's Human Torch, and Bill Everett's Sub-Mariner made his first newsstand appearance inside. From the second issue the title became Marvel Mystery Comics.