Golden Age Founders of Comics

Jerry Siegel co-created Superman in 1938 — the foundational superhero whose DNA every subsequent cape-and-cowl character inherits.

Joe Shuster's iconic Superman design — the cape, the S-shield, the heroic pose — set the visual language for every superhero who came after.

Jack Kirby co-created Captain America, the Fantastic Four, the New Gods, and hundreds of other characters — no single artist shaped the medium's mythology more profoundly.

Will Eisner invented the graphic novel as a serious art form with A Contract with God, and his Spirit newspaper strip pioneered cinematic storytelling in comics.

Bob Kane created Batman in 1939, establishing the brooding, gothic antithesis to Superman that would become one of the most enduring characters in all of fiction.

Joe Simon co-created Captain America with Jack Kirby — a wartime patriotic icon whose first issue showed him punching Hitler months before America entered World War II.