Stan Lee's 1st Comic Story

This is the throwaway story that Simon and Kirby had a teenager named Stanley Lieber write for Captain America Comics #3 (May 1941) "Captain America Foils the Traitor's Revenge" launched Lieber’s new identity as “Stan Lee,” the pseudonym he adopted in hopes of saving his real name for a future career in writing novels.

Early comics were generally 68 pgs. of serialized strip artwork but to qualify for cheaper postal rates as magazines they needed to have at least two pages of pure text. Comic book companies quickly learned to insert two-page text stories in their issues to get the coveted second class rate. Stan's 1st work for Marvel Comics was as a writer of one of these text pieces.

This story would remain un-adapted until famed animation artist Bruce Timm would finally turn Stan's words into pictures for Marvel's 75th Anniversary Celebration in 2014.