10 Stan Lee Facts For His True Believers
7. Who Was Stan Lee's First Superhero?
Since the Fantastic Four was the first story under the Marvel banner, many people believe these were the first superheroes that Stan Lee created. However, Stan’s first superhero, The Destroyer was devised 21 years earlier in Mystic Comics #6 while he worked for Timely Comics.
An American journalist called Kevin Marlow snuck into Nazi Germany during WWII to investigate and report back to his newspaper. When the Nazis caught Marlow, they chucked him into a concentration camp.
While there, he befriended Professor Eric Schmitt, who gifted Marlow with a formula that bestowed with him a variation of the Super-Soldier Serum; the same Serum that turned Steve Rogers into Captain America. Joined with his partner, Turret, Marlow became a government agent called the Destroyer and regularly battled supervillains like Bruiser, Scar, Crocodile, and the terrorist organization, Horde.
In honour of Stan Lee, The Destroyer appeared in the final season of the 1994 animated series, Spider-Man. In the story arc, Six Forgotten Warriors, Spider-Man teamed up with the Destroyer and other superheroes from Timely Comics like the Whizzer and Black Marvel to stop the Red Skull from activating a doomsday weapon.