The appearance of Superman (April 18, 1938) in Action Comics 1 supercharged the burgeoning comic book industry. While the world had already seen heroes like the Shadow or the Lone Ranger on the covers of pulp magazines and heard their voices on the radio, it wasn't until that strange visitor from another world appeared, lifting a carful of gangsters over his head, that the world had seen it's first superhero. He would soon have legions of imitators as other publishers raced to strike gold in this fertile new land of imagination. 

Arguably, no publisher was more eager to embrace this new paradigm of storytelling than Remarkable Publishing Group (like Detective Comics, was later known simply as RPG Comics). Mark Gold (born Mark Goldman) had seen minor success in the pulps with The Horrors of Headstone Hill (the tale of a posse of ghost-hunting cowboys), I Am Ren-Zar (lord of an unnamed jungle full of dinosaurs, mythical monsters and lost cities), and The Circus of Wonders (where a group of misfit circus performers served as a proto-Justice Society, using their circus talents to fight crime). [1]

"When I saw Superman, I knew there was something there. If I had a time machine, I'd go back and tell myself 'for the love of God, don't let Murray (John Murray, former editor) bin that Superman pitch those Cleveland kids sent you.' At least we weren't the only idiots on the block." Like many publishers, Remarkable Publishing Group had gotten Seigel and Shuster's pitch and rejected it. But they raced to catch up. Achilles Paxton: The Bronze Lion made the transition from pulp hero to super-hero seamlessly. 

[1] Editor's Note: These are allusions to other campaigns the group has played. Horror at Headstone Hill is a Deadlands campaign by Pinnacle Entertainment. Ren-Zar is the name one of the PCs in our ongoing Tomb of Annihilation 5E game. The Circus of Wonders is a reference to the Pathfinder Extinction Curse campaign. 

Fans and scholars have many theories as to why Remarkable Publishing Group has remained comfortably in the middle of the pack when it comes to comic book success. Chief among them is their financial model. Like most comic book companies, the writers and artists who create Remarkable Comics are doing so under a standard “work for hire” model. For the uninitiated, this means that the creators do not retain ownership of their creative work. This has led to infamous stories over the years of comic book creators becoming impoverished while their creations earn millions for the company.  

When Mark Gold started assembling the writers and artists for the initial rollout of the Remarkable Comics line, he realized the company lacked the capital to match the page rates other publishers could provide. (And considering how little these early creators were paid, this is no mean feat.) So instead of paying them up front, he promised them the thing that other comic book companies avoided - royalties. While the creators of Tesseract were subject to editorial control, did not own the character, and were paid well below the going rate, the contracts ensured that they would receive a small percentage of money made off of reprints and other ancillary creations. 

“Mark likes to say he knew that they’d succeed and that his bullpen buddies would be rewarded down the line for sticking with RPG, everyone knows the real truth: he never expected success. Sure, he sold them a line about Ovaltine Decoder Rings and licensed radio programs, but it took so long for him to actually turn those dreams into reality that he had to be reminded by lawyers representing the ‘buddies’ that they were owed a piece of what RPG got from the Danger Federation radio show.”  –Eric Silverman, RPG Editor in Chief 1965-1969

In comics books, there’s no telling if you’re creating the next Spider-Man or the next Sleepwalker. This is why so many of the big names in comics never worked for Remarkable. It’s one thing to think you’ve going to get a piece of tee-shirts and action figures down the line but if you’ve got rent to pay, most creators would rather take the payout now instead of gambling on success. Even today, many creators will split their time between independent titles where they own (and risk) everything and a comfortable gig writing the Avengers. Infamously, Ed Brubaker, who wrote the Captain America comics that inspired the characters and events of Captain America: Winter Soldier (2014) had a one line (cut from the final edit) cameo in the film had this to say: “I have made more on SAG residuals than I have made on creating the character for my one line that got cut.”

In 1991, when the future founders of Image Comics were debating their future, Jim Lee (who would later go on to become Publisher and Creative Officer for DC Comics) floated the idea of going to Remarkable. They have that piece of the action that Marvel refused to provide. “F–k that,” said Todd McFarlane. “So what if we get a cut of the toys? They still own the toybox.” 

Editor's Note: The quote from Ed Brubaker is real. The quote from Todd McFarlane is fictional, but is inspired by research done on the foundation of Image Comics. 

As with many early comic book publishers, Remarkable Comics had much the same process as the others publishers: see what works and do more of it. Achilles Paxton: The Bronze Lion had been their first success, and while the issues usually contained a second story, often another adaptation of their older pulp stories, none of the backup characters (other than Cubby, obviously) are remembered by anyone other than comic book historians. Many of the other early comic titles were anthologies, having two or three short stories grouped together under a shared theme. 

Cosmic Chronicles was an anthology of weird science fiction. The most notable heroes to debut in that title were Cosmos, the enigmatic human-looking alien with "galaxies for eyes" who wandered the cosmos, having strange interactions with alien creatures. The other notable serial was "Captain Jupiter: The Hero That Could Be You." The core conceit was equal parts Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon (with a bit of John Carter in the four-armed Jupiterrans) a normal American accidentally transported to Jupiter, where he fostered a revolution against the evil "Emperor Juperor, Tyrant of Jupiter." Initially, the twist was that the comic was a rare "first person" view, where the reader only sees things from Captain Jupiter's perspective. After a few issues, they re-tooled the series, putting Captain Jupiter in a form-fitting spacesuit that concealed his appearance. In 1973, writer James Norris had the hero take his helmet off for the first time, revealing that the man in the spacesuit was Dash Freeman, an African-American veteran of World War I, kept young and vital by Jupiterran science. This, of course, caused controversy. Fans claimed it was because "we're not supposed to see his face" though those same fans often followed it up with comments that revealed their true objections.

Tales of Imagination had a more traditional superhero feel. The book was shared by Johnny Mercury, a newspaper reporter given super-powers by the Roman god Mercury, and The Great Lightweaver, a crimefighting stage magician who used his actual super-powers to fight crime. 

Tales of Mystery contained what would normally be detectives or spies, but given a "Remarkable Boost." Milady de Winter was a sultry French jazz singer who, after her performances in occupied France, would put on a mask to thwart the efforts of Hammerstone, a Nazi soldier transformed to living rock and his various minions. The other notable hero was the oddly endearing Wallflower - a young man with a magical hooded sweatshirt that made him if not invisible like the Shadow, but more forgettable. He would often wander around, unnoticed and unremarked as he saved the day. 

Western Journey contained a rotating number of Old West cowboy tales, but the main serial was the then-nameless hero often referred to as "the man with the Rake" or "the Rake" for short. Initially, Wueng's background from the classic Chinese tale "Journey to the West" was never stated, though anyone with even a passing knowledge of the tale would recognize the protagonist as Zhu Bajie (aka "Pigsy"). The cowboy stories were later moved into the Headstone Hill book and "the Man With The Rake" shared the book with US Ranger, a United States Park Ranger granted superhuman powers and given a mandate to protect the natural world. 

In the later summer of 1940, Mark Gold brought his writing staff together. The rumor was that DC Comics was going to have its heroes team up, something that had not been done before on the scale of the Justice Society. Originally, he faced pushback - "Tarzan never teamed up with John Carter, much less with Sherlock Holmes," protested Western Journey writer Matt Hensley. Xinxin "Jimmy" Hóu, who'd delivered the daily lunch order and had become the bullpen's unofficial mascot, loudly disagreed, "I think that's the coolest thing I've ever heard of."  

"People say I paid the kid to show up and say that," said Mark Gold in a 1959 interview. "I wish I'd been that smart. I certainly tipped the hell out of him. But he said it and everyone knows he was right.

Editor's Note: Captain Jupiter is based on Dash Freeman, from The Beta-Men, a Mutants and Masterminds sourcebook written by Jack Norris, edited by James Dawsey.  Matt Hensley is named for Mathew Cutter, author of the Horror at Headstone Hill and Shane Hensley co-creator of Deadlands.  

Remarkable Comics continued to grow throughout 1941, adding more superheroes such as the psychic Chessmaster (Tales of Immagination #23) who quickly replaced the unpopular Wallflower. Wallflower survived as cult favorite with fans, though he was never able to support his own series until 1987's "The Wandering Wallflower" by British writer artist Fox Morris reinvented the character as a dark, brooding psychic investigator. They also branched out into romance comics with Trail Blazing Tales (January, 1941), "Remarkable Romances" (February, 1941) and "Pendragon" (July, 1941).

Sales boomed through World War II, and the Iconics spent most of the the duration punching fascists. 

The post-war dip in interest in superheroes led to the cancellation of the Iconics. Later, "Tales of Mystery", "Cosmic Chronicles" and "Tales of Imagination" were consolidated into "Strange Tales of Mystery and Imagination." an all-purpose anthology book with a rotating cast of space explorers, private detectives and ghost hunters.   They added funny animal comics, starting with "Capybera Capers" (April 1948).  This let Remarkable limp along until 1963. 

Everything changed when Hunter Wolfe and Ramona Gold came to editor Eric Silverman with a stolen copy of Marvel Comics sales numbers and a pitch for "The Improbable Icons."

When comic book companies revive old titles, be it DC in the 50s or Valiant in the 90s, they generally fall somewhere on the spectrum of "Reboots" to "Replacements." DC rebuilt its lineup by keeping heroes like Superman and Batman intact while replacing Alan Scott, a train engineer turned radio broadcaster whose Green Lantern ring came from a magic lantern with Hal Jordan, a test pilot whose ring was forged by the cosmic science of the Guardians of the Universe.  The Marvel Universe remained largely unconnected to the Timely and Atlas comics of the 1940s, with a handful of Golden Age heroes (most notably Captain America and Namor, the Sub-Mariner) joining all new heroes like the Fantastic Four, Hulk and Spider-Man.   

Remarkable Comics gave many of their characters a cosmetic makeover, but much like Sentinel Comics, their heroes were largely the same people who fought the Axis in the 1940s. While this never came up diagenetically until the 1970s, the Icons happened to have in-universe reasons for being able to continue crime-fighting. Cosmos and Mercury Man (Johnny Mercury in a new outfit) were immortal beings. The Rake found a new wielder and previous bearers could give the new incarnation advice. (1) They were joined by Tesseract, who'd appeared earlier in Strange Tales of Mystery and Imagination, the Seeker (formerly "Cubby", now an adult hero with a new look) and a new Milady de Winter - formerly "Unlucky Annie" of 1940s and 50s romance comics, now with ice powers and super-heroics further complicating her disastrous love life.) 

The team came together in The Impossible Icons #1, assembled to save Icon City from Madwarp the Unspeakable and his Warpbrood - the first of many alien invasions the Icons would thwart over the years. 

[RANGER and LIGHTWEAVER] 

(1) Later in the 1970s, H.X. James (Xinjin "Jimmy" Hou, the boy from the noodle shop, now a senior writer at Remarkable) spelled out the history of Pigsy's reincarnations over the the years.