They were trying to make a buck, and create stories people would want to read. These creators of these stories didn't have to bow to the needs of continuity, perform fan service, or concern themselves with maintaining a franchise. Still, there's life in these stories, the kind creative abandon found only when writers and artists make up the rules as they go along. Trying to come up with the next big thing is almost as difficult as trying to come up with the big thing in the first place, a fact made clear by the creation and immediate disappearance of heroes like Skyman, the Silver Streak, and Yarko, Master of Magic.
Once Superman hit the scene in Action Comics #1 in 1938, publishing companies scrambled to get into the comic book business and create their very money-making superhero. The idea of the superhero began as an amalgamation of the circus strongman and pulp characters like the Shadow and Doc Savage. Editor Greg Sadowski gathered many of these forgotten heroes into 2009's Supermen! The First Wave of Comic-Book Heroes 1936-1941, a great anthology about comics' Golden Age.
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