William Moulton Marsden, a noted psycologist and inventor of the polygraph, was playing golf with the president of All American Comics (sorry, I don't remember his name) back around 1940. The head of this company, which was closied allied with National Periodical Publications, told Marsden that comic book buyers were all little boys, and would never buy a comic book with a female protagonist. Marsden bet he that he could create one. The result was Wonder Woman.
Slightly over 20 years later, Irwin (or Irving) Donnenfeld, president of National, now including All American and known as DC Comics, was playing golf with Martin Goodman, president of the publishing company that owned Atlas Comics. Donnenfeld bragged to Goodman how well a comic book called the Justice League of America was doing. Goodman spoke to his nephew, Stanley Leiber (who didn't want people to know that he wrote comic books, so he only used a form of his first name, Stan Lee), and told him to create a comic book just like the JLA. So Lee and an artist named Jack Kirby created a group of superheroes, copied the cover of the first JLA story, and called it the Fantastic Four.
I know more, but even I'm a little bored.