As the leading publisher during the first three decades of the comic book industry, DC Comics was largely responsible for the look and content of mainstream American comic books. By the end of the twentieth century, DC had become not only the longest established purveyor of comic books in the United States, but arguably the most important and influential in the history of comic book publishing. Home to some of the genre's most popular characters, including Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, DC's initial innovations in the field were quickly and widely imitated by its competitors, but few achieved the consistent quality and class of DC's comic books in their heyday.

In 1935, a 45-year-old former U.S. Army major and pulp magazine writer named Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson started up a small operation called National Allied Publishing. From a tiny office in New York City, Wheeler-Nicholson launched New Fun...