Marvel Year One Overview

A lot of firsts this first year:
First Golden Age reboot with Sub-Mariner's return
First supervillain team up.
First face turn with the Sub-mariner.
First solo spin-off.
First retcon.
Multiple character retoolings.

The first year of Marvel superhero comics feel more firmly rooted in the monster/horror/scifi comics of the era.  Alien invasions, giant monsters, alien invasions of giant monsters.  The Ant-Man is even directly spun out of one of these comics.

You can tell Stan Lee is used to writing two or more stories per issue, as with the monster comics.  Some of the titles, like Strange Tales, still share space with other stories, and the single titles like FF and Hulk are written like 2-3 separate tales put together, either as acts or distinct narratives.

It improves by the end of the year, but the artwork is nothing to write home about.  They don't even bother with backgrounds for most panels.  We get a little bit of Kirby going nuts later in the FF run, but we ain't seen nothing yet.

Here are some of the recurring themes we'll be checking in on:

Marvel Heroes are a shower of jerks.

The Fantastic Four casually melt planes or wrap cabs around traffic lights as a goof, and they don't even seem to like each other.  Spider-Man has a way to go on his redemption arc.  Pym is decent enough, depending on whether you mind thousands of ants being enslaved, but at least he hasn't been responsible for the deaths of billions yet.  Blake's probably the most heroic and should definitely hold out for Sif.  We have not reached later levels of Marvel jerkitude with Stark or Murdock,

Repeated Storylines

I found out today that Stan Lee used alliteration in character names to help him remember them, and he still messed them up.  So it's possible he didn't purposely cannibalize his own plots, he just forgot he used them.

I'm not talking about alien invasions, giant monsters, and communist saboteurs, but more specific plotlines.  The only one in year one, and it's a big one, is the "bad guys impersonate the good guys and commit crime so that the public turns against the good guys to prevent them from stopping the bad guys".  This happens with the Skrulls in FF and to the Human Torch again by the Wizard.  And it will happen again.

Another reoccurring story line: A villain hires our heroes to star as themselves in a Hollywood movie so when they film an action scene the villain tries to attack the hero for realsies.  Namor does it to the FF this year, and later the Green Goblin does it to Spidey, and I think it shows up years later for Hercules.

Time Travel

We have two comics with travels in time, though none involve paradoxes or someone trying to change events.

Hollow Earth

Just the Mole Man so far, and not much of a Shaver Mystery influence.