18 minute read
Fantastic Four #1—A Patchwork Classic?
HAPPY BIRTHDAY! The FANTASTIC FOUR Turns 61! — Part 1 FANTASTIC FOUR #1–A Patchwork Classic?
The Story—& Some Speculations—Behind “The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine!”
by Michael Feldman
A/E EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION: As I mentioned in this issue’s writer/editorial (see facing page), the possibility that The Fantastic Four #1 was some sort of Frankensteinian hybrid, cobbled together from a combination of new material and a pre-existing SF/fantasy story of some kind, was first brought to my attention a decade or two ago, during correspondence with fan/researcher Michael Feldman. A year back, I invited him to revisit and expand upon that theory and analysis in this issue of Alter Ego, and he accepted the offer. However, after sending me the introductory material below, in the end he felt that he did not have the time, inclination, or whatever to finish it… so I’m presenting the part of it that he sent, to underscore his chronological primacy in this particular “debate,” following with the speculations of Ken Quattro, Will Murray, and Nick Caputo on the same and related subjects….
Some years ago, British artist, author, and educator Steve Whitaker and I entered into a long dialogue about various aspects of comicbook history… an exchange cut off by my friend’s premature death a few years back. Steve was exceptionally knowledgeable and insightful with regards to comics. He had an uncanny and unerring eye for the individualistic styles and nuances of many comicbook artists. He could look at a piece of work and pick out something like a Ditko ink line or a Kirby panel design. And he would be invariably right. Most artists have a sort of signature [style] that differentiates them from their peers no matter how much they may be trying to draw like someone else or adapt a new style. Execution of line, the mathematics of composition, and the combinations of detailing and approach are unique, just as writing styles can be. I bring this up because I want to make clear at the outset that many of the statements and claims you will read here are the observations of Steve Whitaker, or were activated by things he pointed out to me. At some later date I will backtrack and quote him directly from e-mails we exchanged back around 2004-5. We both agreed there were some very-difficult-to-explain aspects of The Fantastic Four #1—and of the second issue, for that matter.
For starters, in our view, a number of panels simply are not the work of Jack Kirby or any recognizable artist of the small freelance regulars [at Timely]. On the very first page, the third panel is a rather poorly executed image of Reed Richards seen through a window after having just fired the flare gun that sent the words “THE FANTASTIC FOUR” into a cloud above the city.
Noticeably, the face is in shadow and undefined. The anatomy is crude and very un-Kirby-like, with overly large hands, the disproportional arm at an impossible angle, etc.
It Came From The Subway!
The cover that rocked the comics world forever—Fantastic Four #1 (Nov. 1961)! Jack Kirby’s penciled vision of mayhem in Manhattan produced under the direction of editor Stan Lee, who also provided the cover text. Inks by George Klein. Thanks to the Grand Comics Database & Marvel Tales Annual #1 (1964). [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]
Jack Kirby
Significantly, most of the other questionable panels in the issue are likewise in shadow. For example, the third panel on page 11, in the origin sequence, has another Stan Lee group picture with no faces distinguishable and equally poor delineation that is not Kirby even at his most rushed. Two pages later, the fourth panel on page 13 is another apparently inserted panel, all in silhouette and looking more like it was drawn by Stan Lee rather than Jack Kirby.
There are a number of other places where the drawing attributions are questionable, and in a future installment we’ll assemble them for easier reference.
It is pretty clear Stan and Jack were rushed in putting this issue together and a lot of slack is given for hasty, last-minute corrections, possibly even Comics Code demands for alterations, though that seems unlikely.
But there are just so many small points that are internally conflicting, don’t make sense, or just defy common sense.
Let’s start with the cover. The monster rising out of the ground and grabbing an available female figure is a staple of pulp fiction and comicbooks. One does have to wonder why Reed Richards is tied up with ropes and who did this to him. The clawed monster?
And why does Johnny Storm say “Just you wait and see, sister!” Now, in vintage street parlance, calling a woman “sister” is not unusual—but your own sister—?
Origin Of The Origin Of The FANTASTIC FOUR?
Did “The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine” Have Its Roots In An Old Timely Pulp?
by Ken Quattro
How do you determine the germ of an idea? There has been much gnashing of teeth, vituperative prose, and verbal bloodshed over who should get credit for the creation of The Fantastic Four.
Jack Kirby fans are steadfast in their belief that their man brought the concept to Stan. Kirby had, after all, just finished a run on the Challengers of the Unknown for DC John L. Chapman Comics. In their eyes, Ace, Prof, Rocky, and Red had just been reimagined as Ben, Reed, Johnny, and Sue.
Stan Lee, however, saw it differently. The story goes that publisher Martin Goodman had noticed that National’s (DC’s) new Justice League of America comic was selling particularly well. He then ordered Stan to create a super-team to headline a new comic for their company.
“I would create a team of superheroes if that was what the marketplace required,” Lee wrote in Origins of Marvel Comics. “But it would be a team such as comicdom had never known. For, just this once, I would do the type of story I myself would enjoy reading if I were a comic-book reader.”1
Lee’s words are red meat to Kirby fans. Personal biases aside, perhaps there is some truth to both versions.
And perhaps there is a third person deserving of credit, as well: John L. Chapman.
“If momentary exposure to the cosmic rays beyond the Heaviside Layer made a super-man of an ordinary mortal--what fabulous titan of strength and intelligence might the human become who’d spend hours under such forces!”
So reads the blurb accompanying the short story “Cycle” by the above-mentioned Mr. Chapman in Marvel Stories, Vol. 2, #2, dated Nov. 1940.
Chapman was an early science-fiction fan from Minneapolis who had made it into the professional ranks by the ’40s. His rather unremarkable career as a writer likely wouldn’t even be under consideration if it were not for this barely six-page effort that bears some interesting similarities to the origin of an iconic comicbook team some twenty years later.
“Cycle” was the story of a man named Drake, who had been sent in a rocket on a trip to the moon, the “first man to leave the earth’s atmosphere.” Suddenly, the “jets” on his ship misfired, “in
A Pair Of Marvels
The cover of the Timely pulp Marvel Stories, Vol. 2, #2 (Nov. 1940), doesn’t mention “Cycle” by John L. Chapman, one of the various science-fiction tales within; but it’s in there, just the same… and Ken Quattro wonders if it might have had a seminal influence on the first issue of Fantastic Four, 21 years later. Cover painting by John W. Scott; scans from Ken Quattro & David Saunders; thanks to DS for the artist ID. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]
the vicinity of the Heaviside Layer,” and he began plummeting back toward the ground. (Note: The Heaviside Layer is one of several layers making up the ionosphere.)
Apparently, upon reaching this point, Drake was exposed to
Cosmic, Man!
Could this Lee-Kirby page from Fantastic Four #1 have been simply an amplification of the scene in “Cycle” in which the hero, Drake, is exposed to cosmic radiation? Inks by George Klein. Thanks to Ken Quattro. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]
cosmic radiation:
At first he thought it was the weightlessness of deceleration. But as the minutes fled by, and the ship’s velocity decreased steadily, the certainty of a change became more prominent in Drake’s mind.
Drake survives the crash and is subsequently brought to the World Tower (!) and into the presence of the Western Hemisphere’s dictator (!!), Michael Gurth:
The body and build was [sic] perfect. A wide chest tapered from broad shoulders. The hands were huge and strong. The legs were long and muscular. The hair looked as though it might have been dark at one time. Now it possessed a golden luster, matching the slitted gray eyes whose piercing gaze sent a chill down Tinsley’s spine. Never before had the little scientist seen such masculine beauty.
Overlooking the homoerotic and Master Race implications (and poor writing), what Chapman was describing was Drake’s transformation into a super-human. exposed to the natural cosmic ray forces, the same forces that the Heaviside Layer prevents from reaching the earth. You recall, Dr. Tinsley, an age-old theory of evolution concerning cosmic rays? The life forces they were called, the origin of the animate impulses. Yes—you begin to comprehend, don’t you? You understand now what has happened to Drake. He has been exposed to naked cosmic rays, and as a result he has super-evolved.
If It Walks Like A Drake…
The above illustration of the hero Drake (Ken Q. suspects it’s primarily the work of Joe Simon) accompanies John L. Chapman’s yarn “Cycle” in 1940’s Marvel Tales, Vol. 2, #2. All art in that issue is attributed up front to the team of Joe Simon & Jack Kirby—logical enough, since artist/writer Joe Simon had, just a few months earlier, become Timely Comics’ first really functioning editor, and had brought along his partner Jack Kirby from Novelty (where they had been producing Blue Bolt, among other things). As Ken Q. says, Kirby may well have contributed to this artwork—and also may well have read that story, at that time or later. By the time Stanley Lieber (the future Stan Lee) came to work at Timely as a gofer in the latter part of 1940, that particular issue of Marvel Tales was probably already on sale… but Stan, either earlier as an avid teenage reader of pulp magazines or later because a copy may have been lying around the office, might well have read it. And, do we ever truly forget something we read, even twenty years earlier? (Equally, is there any way to prove that we really remember it, either—even deep in our psyche?) Surely, any influence of “Cycle” on Fantastic Four #1 must remain problematical and can probably never be proven, but it will remain a possibility. It seems there’s really nothing new under the sun—not even cosmic rays! [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]
Was THE FANTASTIC FOUR CANCELED In 1961?
Some History & Conjectures
he groundbreaking Fantastic Four is remembered more T than 60 years later as the single comicbook that revitalized
Marvel Comics after approximately a decade of its being virtually moribund. Although the monthly Amazing Adult
Fantasy was also launched later that same month, using the same quirky lettering style meant to signal that this title, too, was pitched to an older audience, AAF soon fell by the wayside, while
The Fantastic Four rapidly shifted from a tentative bimonthly to a monthly title.
by Will Murray
It was not a smooth launch, however. In fact, there exists circumstantial evidence to indicate that The Fantastic Four might easily have ended with issue #2, along with the rest of the company’s line, which had just been rebranded with a modest “MC” in a box on the covers. [A/E EDITOR’S NOTE: See p. 69 of this issue “re:” section for an informative letter about the mysterious “MC” marking.]
A recap of the state of Martin Goodman’s otherwise-nameless comics line is in order here.
It was in sorry shape. Jack Kirby recalled coming into the office at some point in the late 1950s and finding Stan Lee visibly upset and talking about the whole line shutting down. Did this visit occur very shortly after artist Joe Maneely’s tragic passing in June 1958?
That’s one theory. At any rate, Kirby resumed working at Marvel on a steady basis that summer, around the time Maneely
Martin Goodman
Alas, this photo published in 1964’s Strange Tales Annual #2 came out therein a bit darker than those of Lee, Kirby, and the rest of the Marvel Bullpen. Thanks to Bob Bailey & Justin Fairfax. Highway 1961 Revisited
(Left:) This “cover production Photostat” of Fantastic Four #1, according to the huge and welcome volume Marvel: August 1961 Omnibus, “was shot before final revisions. After slipping into reprints, it became known as the ‘missing man’ cover for the missing police officer added to the final print artwork.” Actually, there are two more bystanders on the cover as printed (see p. 3). In addition, one of the men there has been totally redrawn, in a different stance. (Above:) On sale within a few weeks of Fantastic Four #1—in late August to early September of ’61, depending on locale—was Amazing Adult Fantasy #7 (Dec. ’61). This was actually the first issue of the all-Stan-Lee-&-Steve-Ditko comic chock-full of short stories with supposedly “surprise endings.” Thanks to the GCD. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]
passed away. The first Kirby work of this return appeared in Strange Worlds #1, which went on sale September 1, 1958; it would have gone to press in August. The art had to have been prepared over June and July.
An examination of the release dates of Goodman’s comics in that year shows that no Timely comicbooks went on sale in the
Others recalled that Goodman would kill (or at least severely decrease) his comics line at the first hint of a circulation slump, only to reverse course if subsequent newsstand reports showed the slightest uptick in sales.
The Fantastic Four was probably conceived in April or May 1961. The springboard was almost certainly Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin’s pioneering flight into space on April 12 aboard the Vostok I space capsule. America had been caught flat-footed. The space race was on and Jack Kirby, if not Stan Lee, swiftly realized that here was perfect fodder for comicbook stories.
The Fantastic Four #1 went on sale on August 8, 1961, three weeks before Amazing Adult Fantasy #7. Issue #2 of FF was released on September 28, approximately seven weeks later, one week earlier than the typical eight weeks that would normally pass between bimonthly issues. Fantastic Four #3 should have been released either at the end of November or the first week of December of 1961, depending on whether the early release of #2 was a fluke or an adjustment to Goodman’s release schedule.
This was not unusual for Martin Goodman. He was often erratic with his release dates. Even back in his pulp-magazine days, this was his M.O. His bimonthly science-fiction magazines were often released on a quarterly basis, regardless of what the indicia said. Ka-Zar, his jungle hero title of the mid-1930s, had been technically a bimonthly magazine… but its three issues had straggled out over the course of nearly a year.
Strangely, Goodman published no comicbooks during the following month, October. Once again, his entire line disappeared for better than thirty days.
Strange As It Seems…
The first Timely cover penciled by Jack Kirby after his ouster from DC Comics was that of Strange Worlds #1 (Dec. 1958)—although the new title lasted only five issues. Of course, it was basically interchangeable with Strange Tales, Journey into Mystery, et al., in any event. Inks by Christopher Rule, one of the two “usual suspects” believed for years to have been possibilities as the inker of Fantastic Four #1. (See pp. 36-38 for more about this matter.) Thanks to the GCD. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]
month of August 1958, which would correspond to a temporary halt in production that June or July. The same had been true for August 1959. And in 1960, Goodman skipped all of November and most of December, finally releasing a paltry four comics titles on December 29. That’s nine weeks without any Timely titles on the stands.
Writer Larry Lieber recalled going to work for Marvel in 1958. “I guess business was not good,” Lieber told me. “As a matter of fact, when I started writing, I said to Martin, ‘Goodness, [I’m thinking of my future] tell me how would you describe the comic industry?’ He said, ‘I’d call it a dying industry.’ And it was just hanging on. They’d put out these few books. Stan was there alone, and he was making most of the corrections himself.”
Artist Dick Ayers remembered Lee telling him circa 1959, “It’s like a sinking ship, and we’re the rats.” Things got so bad that Ayers applied to the US Post Office for a regular job, only to receive a reprieve after Lee had him ink Jack Kirby’s pencils for the first time. This turned around Ayers’ fortunes, and may have helped Lee gear back up into serious production, since Ayers did more than ink Kirby. He also embellished Kirby’s sometimes skeletal pages, adding background and other details, enabling Kirby to turn out more work faster.
Yuri Gagarin
The Russian cosmonaut who became the first-ever “man in space,” courtesy of the technology of the U.S.S.R. Also seen is an artist’s concept of Gagarin’s flight and spacecraft; he completed one orbit of the Earth on April 12, 1961… just in time, probably, to have influenced the origin of The Fantastic Four. Ironically, Gagarian was killed in a training flight in a MiG-15 in February 1968, at the age of 34.
On Sale Now—Only, When Is “Now”?
Fantastic Four #2 (Jan. 1962) hit the nation’s newsstands on or around Sept. 28, 1961—only seven weeks after FF #1 had gone on sale—but #3 (March ’62) didn’t reach readers until December 12, eleven weeks after #2. Will Murray attempts to tell us why that may have happened. Thanks to the GCD. Pencils by Jack Kirby; inks by George Klein and Sol Brodsky, respectively. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]
When production resumed the following month, Fantastic Four #3 finally made its newsstand appearance on December 12… approximately eleven weeks after #2. That’s three weeks longer than the standard eight-week interval between bimonthly issues. In fact, it’s only a week short of what one would expect of a quarterly title! It must be said that the release of FF #3 tracks with its presumed release date, based on FF #1. Still, in the competitive world of magazines, eleven weeks between issues of a bimonthly is something to be avoided at all costs. Especially for a title that had just been launched. Fickle readers will forget about an absent title, assume that it was canceled, and move on to something else.
So what happened? Had the entire Marvel line been canceled for a month? evidence is entirely circumstantial. But it is also compelling. The same month The Fantastic Four debuted, Goodman’s fantasy books underwent a drastic change in format. During the previous three years, the cover-featured Jack Kirby stories had gradually expanded from a modest 6 pages until they usually ran 13 and even 18 pages, dominating the issues in which they appeared. Abruptly, in August 1961, these two-part epics were replaced by a pair of back-to-back Jack Kirby stories, the first only six pages long, followed by a five-pager. Many of the six-pagers looked rushed, cramped, with tell-tale horizontal panels struggling to contain one stupendous Kirbyesque brute after another. “Orrgo… the Unconquerable!” in Strange Tales #90 and “Lo-Karr, Bringer of Doom!” in Journey into Mystery #75 are two of the most egregious examples of this absurd story compression. Even Dick Ayers’ usually effective inking appears hurried and sloppy. It’s clear that the giant-monster era was winding down. Yet the monsters continued in one form or another, intermixed with
