To commemorate the 70th anniversary of comics' most durable genre, Fantagraphics serves up this deluxe full-colour compilation dedicated to the earliest generation of comic-book heroes. Arriving in the late 1930s, superheroism was routinely treated as an austere vigilante enterprise, hated by both crook and cop, with a compelling no-nonsense earnestness. Their heyday ended all too quickly with the onset of the Second World War, facing near extinction until the 1960s superhero resurgence. The majority of these 22 great stories have never been reprinted.