{"id":379706,"date":"2026-10-02T10:16:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T17:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/?p=379706"},"modified":"2026-10-02T10:16:07","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T17:16:07","slug":"stan-lees-first-marvel-captain-america-story-still-holds-up-85-years-later","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/stan-lees-first-marvel-captain-america-story-still-holds-up-85-years-later\/","title":{"rendered":"Stan Lee\u2019s first Marvel Captain America story still holds up 85 years later"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stan Lee\u2019s first Captain America story for Timely Comics, the publisher that later became Marvel, appeared in May 1941 in Captain America Comics #3. It wasn\u2019t a comics story in panels, but a two-page prose<\/strong> piece called \u201cCaptain America Foils the Traitor\u2019s Revenge.\u201d<\/p>\n

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This was long before readers knew Stan Lee, born Stanley Lieber, as Marvel\u2019s public face. He was 18, working as a Timely office assistant and handling odd jobs for Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. He didn\u2019t create Captain America; Simon and Kirby did. He got this assignment partly because prose pages helped publishers qualify for cheaper second-class postal rates<\/strong>, and that small break gave Stan Lee both a byline and a foothold at Timely Comics.<\/p>\n\n

In the wartime story, Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes expose Captain Curtis, a treasonous officer trying to kill his commander. What makes it interesting now is how much of Captain America already feels fully there<\/strong>: duty, courage, loyalty, moral clarity. It also features what\u2019s widely credited as an early, and possibly the earliest, ricocheting shield throw.<\/p>\n\n

If you follow Marvel history, this one\u2019s well worth tracking down in reprint. Some period language and wartime tropes come with it, naturally, but it still plays like a World War II<\/strong> adventure. Marvel later adapted \u201cCaptain America Foils the Traitor\u2019s Revenge\u201d into sequential art in 2014 for the company\u2019s 75th anniversary.<\/p>\n\n

You can find the original in Captain America Comics #3, and the later adaptation through Marvel\u2019s back catalog.<\/p>\n

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Stan Lee\u2019s first Captain America story for Timely Comics, the publisher that later became Marvel, appeared in May 1941 in Captain America Comics #3. It wasn\u2019t a comics story in panels, but a two-page prose piece called \u201cCaptain America Foils the Traitor\u2019s Revenge.\u201d This was long before readers knew Stan Lee, born Stanley Lieber, as … Continue reading “Stan Lee\u2019s first Marvel Captain America story still holds up 85 years later”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9352,"featured_media":379705,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","wpcf-pageviews":0},"categories":[1015],"tags":[],"usertag":[],"vertical":[],"content-category":[6869],"class_list":["post-379706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","content-category-streaming-videos"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9352"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=379706"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379706\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":379707,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379706\/revisions\/379707"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/379705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379706"},{"taxonomy":"usertag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/usertag?post=379706"},{"taxonomy":"vertical","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vertical?post=379706"},{"taxonomy":"content-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content-category?post=379706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}