Marvel: The Lost Generation

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Cover of first issue, numbered as #12.

Marvel: The Lost Generation is the title of a 12-issue limited series published by Marvel Comics in 2000 and 2001, written by Roger Stern and drawn by John Byrne.

It told the story of superheroes active after World War II but before the debut of the Fantastic Four, which is considered to be the start of the "modern age" of heroes within the Marvel universe. Although the Fantastic Four first appeared in comics in 1961, according to the current Marvel timeline only "about ten years or so" have passed since their debut (despite the many Cold War enemies they've fought). The Lost Generation was an attempt to explore events in the now long gap between the retirement/disappearance of the heroes active during World War II and the emergence of the modern generation of heroes.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The Lost Generation starred the First Line, a loose confederation of heroes, whose career lasted from the years shortly after World War II right up to the early 1980s. Members of the First Line included The Yankee Clipper (time traveller), Oxbow (super-strong archer), Pixie and Major Mercury (both Eternals), Captain Hip and Sunshine (hippie heroes mutated by a government experiment), Kid Justice (former sidekick of Yankee Clipper who later became Mr. Justice), and the Black Fox (two-fisted vigilante), as well as other, less prominent heroes during their "decades long" adventures. In their adventures, members of the First Line encountered a number of established Marvel characters, including the Skrulls, Doctor Strange, Diablo, Namor, Thor, the Monster Hunters of Ulysses Bloodstone, and Nick Fury. During their final mission against a Skrull invasion force, almost the entire cast of characters was killed, and this, along with a government conspiracy to cover up the attempted alien invasion, was given as the reason why the First Line and their exploits had never previously been mentioned.

The series employed the unusual stylistic device of having the issues numbered in reverse (from #12 down to #1) and occurring in reverse chronological order. Thus the first issue to be published (#12) depicted the First Line's final mission, and each issue thereafter showed progressively earlier events until the final issue (#1) depicted the team's origin.