Folio Society’s Marvel: The Golden Age 1939-1949 celebrates Marvel Comics’ 80th anniversary by reprinting four issues to represent the era along with a facsimile of Marvel Comics no. 1 and a print from Marco D’Alfonso. The main volume reprints material from The Sub-Mariner no. 1 (Spring 1941), The Human Torch no. 5 (Fall 1941), Captain America Comics no. 10 (January 1942), and All Winners Comics no. 19 (Fall 1946). These stories feature writing and art by Golden Age giants Bill Everett, Ray Gill, Paul Gustavson, Carl Burgos, Henry P. Chapman, Jack D’Arcy, George Kapitan, Mike Roy, Harry Sahle, Ray Houlihan, Joe Simon, Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, Charles Nicholas, Al Avison, Bill Finger, Syd Shores, and Vince Alascia. Though these stories prominently feature the “Big Three” of Marvel’s Golden Age, in his introduction, Roy Thomas writes of Timely’s early comic book team-ups, “It remained for 1946, the first full year after the war’s end, to finally bring Captain America, the Human Torch and Sub-Mariner (not to mention Bucky and Toro) all together in the same comics-format story. And then, because the first age of Super Heroes was winding to a close, it only happened twice. But what a glorious send-off!” (pg. xii).

In The Sub-Mariner no. 1, Namor the Sub-Mariner battles Nazis who attack his undersea kingdom, seeks out radium on the surface world as a cure to a mysterious illness afflicting his people, and, in a text story, Ray Gill explores Namor’s boyhood. The final story in the issue, “The House of Horror,” instead focuses on fellow Golden-Age hero, the Angel. The Human Torch no. 5 (actually the second issue no. 5 for the title, though it began with issue no. 2 having been previously titled Red Raven Comics for issue no. 1), features a multi-part story detailing a battle between the Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner, land versus sea, fire versus water. The story came about after a marathon session of plotting and drawing among Timely’s team of artists and writers, creating the Marvel universe by simply showing that these characters who appeared in various anthology books actually lived in the same universe. The sense of scale and the destruction they bring in their battle is easily on par with today’s superhero films.

In Captain America Comics no. 10, Cap and Bucky battle saboteurs, spies, and Nazi Fifth Columnists, though the real treat is the final story, “The Phantom Hound of Cardiff Moor,” which loosely adapts Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles. Other stories, like “The Skyscraper Plot,” involve fellow Golden-Age heroes like the Hurricane while Stan Lee’s text story, “All in a Day’s Work,” involves a character attempting to break through enemy lines to bring a message to the Russian commanders in Moscow. All Winners Comics no. 19 brings together Captain America, the Human Torch, Namor the Sub-Mariner, Miss America, and the Whizzer, as they must each follow clues that will lead them to a thief attempting to steal an atomic bomb. The whole group only appears together at the beginning and end of the title, with each individual and their sidekick following clues on their own throughout. The premise resembles DC’s Justice Society of America, which debuted in All Star Comics no. 3 (Winter 1940-1941). If the All-Winners Squad had appeared prior to the war’s end, perhaps it would have enjoyed a similar revival when superheroes returned to popularity in the 1960s.

This box set includes a facsimile reprint of Marvel Comics no. 1 (dated October 1939), which introduced the original Human Torch – an android who burst into flame on contact with oxygen – and Namor, the Sub-Mariner – the son of a princess and a mortal man who lives in an undersea kingdom and wages war on the surface world. Some of the stories were one-offs in this anthology book, but it also introduces the Angel, who would reappear throughout the Golden Age, and the Tarzan-like character Ka-Zar, who only appeared for a couple years but inspired a character with the same name in the Silver Age X-Men books.

The set reproduces the original comics larger than they appeared, in a scale approaching that of the original art. For those interested in a truly immersive feel, it also includes original advertisements. I only wish Folio Society had cleaned up the scanned pages a little bit as the discoloration of the pages hides some of the details. While this reflects the condition the comics would currently be in, it does not showcase them in all the vivid color readers would have enjoyed in 1939-1949. Some color correction along the lines of the Marvel Masterworks books would have helped preserve that original feel. The publication of this volume is also somewhat marred by Marvel’s quashing of Art Spiegelman’s original introduction, in which he discussed the role of comics in resisting fascism and their relevance in today’s culture. Indeed, as many of the stories feature Nazis as the villains, Spiegelman’s comments would have been particularly enlightening for this publication. That aside, the volume is a wonderful introduction to the Golden Age of comics and, like all of Folio Society’s reprints, a gorgeous work of art in itself. ( )