The Fantastic Four: the origins of the Marvel Universe

If we talk about Marvel today, the first thought of the youngest goes immediately to Avengers and Iron Man, thanks to the incredible success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which has the narrative fulcrum in these two names. And yet, if we went to look for what was the first step in the triumphant history of Marvel in comics, we would have to go back to a cartoon in which a man, with decisive action, fires a rocket from a window, a warning sign that alerts three other incredible individuals. That mysterious individual is Reed Richards, and the bright call that flames in the New York sky is his way to reunite the superhero team known as The Fantastic Four.

And that signal is the starting point of the Marvel Universe!

The rebirth of the Heroes

Before arriving at this evocative call, we must take a step back and go back to a much more realistic game of golf (or so legend has it).

We are in 1961, and the world of comics is trying to start again after the debacle of the end of the Golden Age. The arrival of the Comics Code Auhority, a consequence of Fredric Wertham's essay The Seduction of the Innocent, which prompted the American government to regulate the stories and content of superhero adventures. Added to a harmful overexposure of the superhero figure, this decision led to a drastic drop in sales, which led to the almost total disappearance of the superhero genre.

The National Periodical Publication thought about reversing this trend, which despite having kept some of its superhero publications alive, accused the collapse of sales of this narrative trend. By the will of the editor Julius Scwatrz, it was decided to revive the old heroes of the National, but with a novelty: they would have been adapted to a new audience.