Joe Simon | Capt. America creator, 98

Joe Simon, 98, who along with Jack Kirby created Captain America and was one of the comic-book industry's most revered writers, artists, and editors, died Wednesday night in New York City after a brief illness.

Among Mr. Simon's creations was a partnership with Kirby, a comic-book artist and illustrator. The duo worked hand-in-glove for years and from their imaginations sprang characters, heroes, villains, and misfits for several comic-book companies in their Golden Age of the 1940s, including Timely, the forerunner of Marvel Comics; National Periodicals, the forerunner of DC; and Fawcett. The characters the two created included the Newsboy Legion, the Boy Commandos, and Blue Bolt.

"Blue Bolt was the first strip Jack and I worked on together, beginning in 1940. He was a science-fiction swashbuckler I created for Curtis Publishing, the company that put out the Saturday Evening Post," Mr. Simon told the AP earlier this year. "They had decided to jump on the comic-book bandwagon. Jack joined me with the second issue."

For Timely, the duo created Captain America, debuting on the cover of Captain America Comics No. 1 with the champion of liberty throwing a solid right hook at Adolf Hitler in December 1940, a year before the United States entered World War II.

Hitler "was the perfect bad guy, much better than anything we could have made up,," Simon told the AP. - AP