Jack Kirby Collector #21 by TwoMorrows Publishing

BATHRO BE GROWING BACK?” “JUMPING JARS OF JELLIED JAGUARS!!!” “GET YOURSELF A BIKINI, AND STAR

A CHAIN OF HEART ATTACKS AT A GARDEN PARTY.” “SEE HIS ARMS CRUSH THE STONES LIKE BISCUITS

$5.95

T H NUCLEAR E “GODS, DEVILS, OR SPACE GIANTS... THIS TACTICAL DEVICE WILL DECIDE WHAT THEY “I In TheARE.” US

THERE A GO O ZLEBO BBER SOMEWHERE IN MID-FLIGHT ABOVE YOUR AREA?? YOU WON’T KNOW UNTIL HI

CREW CONTRACTS THE DREAD GALACTIC CO NDITIO N KNOWN AS CO SMIC DIARRHEA!” “THAT ALIEN PARIA

CAN GIVE ONE A MENTAL HERNIA! WARTS! CLO SURE O FTHE PO RES! AND AN INSATIABLE DESIRE FOR ACUT

DEPRESSIO N!” “WELL, WELL! SHRED MY BRITCHES AND MELT MY BO O TS!” “MY BACKSIDE... IT’S REALLY TO O

WELL PADDED TO SUFFER BADLY IN A FALL.” “I-IF STEVE ROGERS WOULD TRADE HIS MASK AND SHIELD FO

OCT.GIR 1998 C “ITOISN’TLBLACK L , IT E ISN’C O IT’LL R LO O A PICKAAND SHO V EL... I’D BEISSUE THE H#21, APPIEST L ON EARTH.” T WHT ITE, BUT 68-PAGE ISSUE

KIRBY’S GREAT O ON NP ANTS!” “MAN BUILT THEM. MO NKEYS CAN’T DO IT. ARMADILLO S CAN’T DO IT.” “TELL ME WHY YO WACKIEST WO RK!!

BLEW YO UR NO SE!” “NATURE GAVE ME A SMALL LIVER--BUT A BIG, BIG HEART!” “WHAT? WHAT? I SAY “BULL

CHIPS”AN IN UNPUBLISHED YOUR CEREAL, SIR!” “BLAZING BULLFRO GS!” “AM I DREAMING... OR IS MY BATHRO BE GROWING

BACK?” “JUMPING JARS OF JELLIED JAGUARS!!!” “GET YOURSELF A BIKINI, AND START A CHAIN OF HEAR

Kirby Interview

ATTACKS AT A GARDEN PARTY.” “SEE HIS ARMS CRUSH THE STONES LIKE BISCUITS.” “GODS, DEVILS, O SPACE

GIANTS...

THIS

INTERVIEWS WITH

TACTICAL

NUCLEAR DEVICE

WILL

DECIDE

WHAT

THEY

ARE.”

“IS

THERE

GO O ZLEBO BBER SOMEWHERE IN MID-FLIGHT ABOVE YOUR AREA?? YOU WON’T KNOW UNTIL HIS CREW CON

Gil Kane & Bruce Timm

TRACTS THE DREAD GALACTIC CO NDITIO N KNOWN AS CO SMIC DIARRHEA!” “THAT ALIEN PARIAH CAN GIV

ONE A MENTAL HERNIA! WARTS! CLO SURE O FTHE PO RES! AND AN INSATIABLE DESIRE FOR ACUTE DEPRES

SIO N!” “WELL, WELL! SHRED MY BRITCHES AND MELT MY BO O TS!” “MY BACKSIDE... IT’S REALLY TO O WEL COMPARING KIRBY’S PADDED TO SUFFER BADLY IN A FALL.” “I-IF STEVE ROGERS WOULD TRADE HIS MASK AND SHIELD FOR MARGIN NO TES TO

PICK AND SHO VEL... I’D BE THE HAPPIEST GIRL ON EARTH.” “IN OTHER WORDS, IT ISN’T BLACK, IT ISN’T WHITE

Stan Lee’s Words

BUT IT’LL LO O K GREAT O N PANTS!” “MAN BUILT THEM. MO NKEYS CAN’T DO IT. ARMADILLO S CAN’T DO IT

“TELL ME WHY YOU BLEW YO UR NO SE!” “NATURE GAVE ME A SMALL LIVER--BUT A BIG, BIG HEART!” “WHAT

AT WHAT?KIRBY’S I SAY WORK “BULLCHIPS” IN YOUR CEREAL, SIR!” “BLAZING BULLFRO GS!” “AM I DREAMING... OR IS M

Topps Comics

BATHRO BE GROWING BACK?” “JUMPING JARS OF JELLIED JAGUARS!!!” “GET YOURSELF A BIKINI, AND STAR

A CHAIN OF HEART ATTACKS AT A GARDEN PARTY.” “SEE HIS ARMS CRUSH THE STONES LIKE BISCUITS

WACK IEST “GODS,JACK’S DEVILS, OR SPACE GIANTS... THIS TACTICAL NUCLEAR DEVICE WILL DECIDE WHAT THEY ARE.” “I DIALO GUE AND

THERE A GO O ZLEBO BBER SOMEWHERE IN MID-FLIGHT ABOVE YOUR AREA?? YOU WON’T KNOW UNTIL HI

Bloopers

CREW CONTRACTS THE DREAD GALACTIC CO NDITIO N KNOWN AS CO SMIC DIARRHEA!” “THAT ALIEN PARIA

CAN GIVE ONE A MENTAL HERNIA! WARTS! CLO SURE O FTHE PO RES! AND AN INSATIABLE DESIRE FOR ACUT SPECIAL FEATURES:

DEPRESSIO N!” “WELL, WELL! SHRED MY BRITCHES AND MELT MY BO O TS!” “MY BACKSIDE... IT’S REALLY TO O

Silver Surfer, Black Racer, OMAC, & Goody Rickels

WELL PADDED TO SUFFER BADLY IN A FALL.” “I-IF STEVE ROGERS WOULD TRADE HIS MASK AND SHIELD FO

A PICK AND SHO VEL... I’D BE THE HAPPIEST GIRL ON EARTH.” “IN OTHER WORDS, IT ISN’T BLACK, IT ISN’T WHITE

BUT IT’LL LO O K GREAT O N PANTS!” “MAN BUILT THEM. MO NKEYS CAN’T DO IT. ARMADILLO S CAN’T DO IT

“TELL ME WHY YOU BLEW YO UR NO SE!” “NATURE GAVE ME A SMALL LIVER--BUT A BIG, BIG HEART!” “WHAT

WHAT? I SAY “BULL-CHIPS” IN YOUR CEREAL, SIR!” “BLAZING BULLFRO GS!” “AM I DREAMING... OR IS M

BATHRO BE GROWING BACK?” “JUMPING JARS OF JELLIED JAGUARS!!!” “GET YOURSELF A BIKINI, AND STAR

A CHAIN OF HUNSEEN EART ATTACKS AT A GARDEN PARTY.” “SEE HIS ARMS CRUSH THE STONES LIKE BISCUITS KIRBY’S SCREENPLAY FOR

“GODS, DEVILS, OR SPACE GIANTS... THIS TACTICAL NUCLEAR DEVICE WILL DECIDE WHAT THEY ARE.” “I

Silver Star

THERE A GO O ZLEBO BBER SOMEWHERE IN MID-FLIGHT ABOVE YOUR AREA?? YOU WON’T KNOW UNTIL HI

CREW CONTRACTS THE DREAD GALACTIC CO NDITIO N KNOWN AS CO SMIC DIARRHEA!” “THAT ALIEN PARIA

Unpublished Art

CAN GIVE ONE A MENTAL HERNIA! WARTS! CLO SURE O FTHE PO RES! AND AN INSATIABLE DESIRE FOR ACUT Mister Miracle, Oberon TM & © DC Comics, Inc.

DEPRESSIO N!” “WELL, INCLUDING PENCILWELL! SHRED MY BRITCHES AND MELT MY BO O TS!” “MY BACKSIDE... IT’S REALLY TO O

PAGES EFO SUFFER RE WELL P ADDEDBTO BADLY IN A FALL.” “I-IF STEVE ROGERS WOULD TRADE HIS MASK AND SHIELD FO THEY WERE INKED,

A PICK AND SHO MO VEL... I’D PIEST GIRL ON EARTH.” “IN OTHER WORDS, IT ISN’T BLACK, IT ISN’T WHITE AND MUCH RE! ! BE THE HAP

BUT IT’LL LO O K GREAT O N PANTS!” “MAN BUILT THEM. MO NKEYS CAN’T DO IT. ARMADILLO S CAN’T DO IT NO MINATED

FO R TWO 19 98 “TELL ME WHY YOU B LEW YO UR NO SE!” “NATURE GAVE ME A SMALL LIVER--BUT A BIG, BIG HEART!” “WHAT EISNER

AWARDS WHAT? I SAY “B ULLCHIPS” IN YOUR CEREAL, SIR!” YOU WON’T KNOW UNTIL HIS CREW CONTRACTS THE DREA INCLUDING “BEST COMICS-RELATED

PUBLICATION” GALACTIC CO NDITIO N KNOWN AS CO SMIC DIARRHEA!” “THAT ALIEN PARIAH CAN GIVE ONE A MENTAL HER

1998 HARVEY AWARDS NO MINEE

NIA! WAR CLOHISTORICAL SURE O FTHE PO RES! AND AN INSATIABLE DESIRE FOR ACUTE DEPRESSIO N!” “WELL, WELL “BESTTS! BIOGRAPHICAL, OR JOURNALISTIC PRESENTATION”

SHRED MY BRITCHES AND MELT MY BO O TS!” “MY BACKSIDE... IT’S REALLY TO O WELL PADDED TO SUFFE

BADLY IN A FALL.” “I-IF STEVE ROGERS WOULD TRADE HIS MASK AND SHIELD FOR A PICK AND SHO VEL... I’

KIRBY

COLLECTOR

BULLETINS

•

KIRBY

COLLECTOR

BULLETINS

•

KIRBY

COLLECTOR

BULLETINS

A WONDROUS WHIRLWIND OF WONKY, WHACKED-OUT WORDS! itEM! To make subscription and back issue orders easier for our readers (especially those overseas), we now accept VISA and MASTERCARD! See the TwoMorrows house ad on page 67 of this issue for a list of available issues. itEM! TJKC just got back from another whirlwind trip to San Diego, CA to attend COMIC CON INTERNATIONAl, and what a trip it was! Besides the usual array of comics fans and pros, Jack and Roz’s granddaughter TRACY KIRBY was in attendance, as were brothers STEVE & GARY SHERMAN, MARK EVANIER, JIM STERANKO, plus extra special guest JOE SIMON (look for the transcript of Joe’s San Diego Con Panel in the upcoming SIMON & KIRBY THEME ISSUE of TJKC)! Just when we thought things couldn’t get any better, we discovered the TwoMorrows booth was right next to the one for NEAl ADAMS (talk about your dream convention)! Issues of TJKC and COMIC BOOK ARTIST were flying off our table as quickly as we could stack them, and the wealth of new, unpublished Kirby art we tracked down (which you’ll see in upcoming issues) certainly made the week all that much nicer! Our thanks to all our friends who stopped by; we’ll see you again next year! (And look for this year’s KIRBY TRIBUTE PANEl, featuring JOE SIMON, STEVE SHERMAN, TRACY KIRBY, and MARK EVANIER next issue!) itEM! Our colossal 160-page COllECTED JACK KIRBY COllECTOR, VOlUME 2 (our new TRADE PAPERBACK collection reprinting TJKC #10-12 plus over 30 NEW pieces of Jack’s art) is now shipping! It’s only $14.95 postpaid in the US ($16.95 Canada, $24.95 elsewhere), and includes a new guided tour of Jack and Roz’s home (complete with photos and art) by a British fan who visited them in the 1980s. If you never had the honor of visiting the Kirby house, you’ll love this one! itEM! The updated JACK KIRBY CHECKlIST ships in December! It’s the most thorough listing of Kirby’s work ever published, and is produced with the approval of Ray Wyman (who did the initial version of the list in his book THE ART OF JACK KIRBY, and retains the copyright on it), with proceeds going to the Kirby Estate. This fullyupdated, definitive edition took over two years to complete, and lists in exacting detail EVERY PUBlISHED COMIC featuring Jack’s work, including story titles, page counts, and inkers. It even cross-references reprints, to help collectors locate less-expensive versions of key Kirby issues, and includes an extensive bibliography listing BOOKS, PERIODICAlS, PORTFOlIOS, FANZINES, POSTERS, and other obscure pieces with Kirby’s art, plus a detailed list of Jack’s UNPUBlISHED WORK as well. The updated version is regular comic book size, 100 pages, and costs $5 postpaid ($5.50 Canada, $7.50 outside North America). (look for it in the October PREVIEWS in the “Comic Magazine” section, next to TJKC #22—the Villains issue!) It’s a must for the serious collector of Kirby’s work!

itEM! COMIC BOOK ARTIST #3 will spotlight NEAl ADAMS & THE AGE OF MARVEl, featuring a new wrap-around, full-color Adams cover! From AVENGERS to X-MEN, Neal talks about his work at Marvel Comics, and we show unpublished covers, published pages BEFORE they were inked, and unused pages from his never-completed X-MEN GRAPHIC NOVEl! Plus there’s rare and unpublished art and new interviews with JOHN ROMITA SR., MARIE SEVERIN, DAVE COCKRUM, DON McGREGOR, a behind-the-scenes look at the Kree/Skrull War with ROY THOMAS, and more! Also, Roy has contributed another new installment of AlTER EGO (the greatest fanzine of all

JOHN’S JUKEBOX “THAT, sir, is PARANEX, THE FIGHTING FETUS!!” “Well, WEll! Shred my britches and melt my boots!” Captain ViCtory #7, page 9, oct. 1982 Just what qualifies as Jack’s Wackiest Work? The above gets my vote, but with a mind as imaginative and creative as Kirby’s, nearly everything he created fits the bill, depending on its historical context. Before Jack did it, who would’ve proposed the idea of a chrome-plated guy that soars through the cosmos on a surfboard? Who but Kirby could’ve sold readers on the idea of a long-haired Norse god who throws his hammer so hard it pulls him through the air? Who else would’ve dreamed up a Black Vietnam vet on flying skis, going around claiming souls for the hereafter? For 50 years, Jack broke with convention and made his wacky ideas so believable, they’ve become the accepted conventions of the comics industry. As his outlandish concepts became the norm, he had to reach even further, giving us oddities like Arnim Zola, Devil Dinosaur, Destroyer Duck, the Fighting Fetus, and the unforgettable lady lumberjack Heidi Hogan (from the totally “out-there” Ruby-Spears card set)! Was Jack nuts, or just pushing the envelope as he’d always done? Time will tell—but from teleportational bulldogs with tuning forks on their foreheads, to an overzealous twin (or was he a clone?) of Don Rickles, this issue is devoted to all those Kirby concepts that left someone, somewhere, scratching their heads and saying, “Huh?!” long live The King!

John Morrow, Editor • 1812 Park Dr. • Raleigh, NC 27605 • (919) 833-8092 • FAX (919) 833-8023 E-mail: twomorrow@aol.com P.S. TJKC #14 and #15 are now SOlD OUT! Our first Trade Paperback is still available from BUD PlANT COMIC ART (phone 800-242-6642 or 530-273-2166)! And due to popular demand, TJKC now accepts VISA and MASTERCARD for subscriptions and back issues! time) to CBA’s pages, featuring the art of WAllY WOOD, GIl KANE, and others! #3 ships in November, while CBA #1 and #2 are still available for $5.95, or subscribe for four issues for only $20 in the US! If you want to get involved, submit copies of art from your collection and articles about your favorite comics artists to JON B. COOKE, PO Box 204, W. Kingston, RI 02892-0204. itEM! Get connected! The TJKC Web Site (maintained by RANDY HOPPE) is at www.fantasty.com/kirby And be sure to join the KIRBY MAIlING lIST by sending an e-mail request to kirby-l@fantasty.com. Start typing! itEM! If you enjoyed Jack’s autobiographical STREET CODE story, check out Josh Shepherd’s JUNKYARD ENFORCER, the story of a tough, Kirby-like kid who lives by his wits (and knuckles) in the seedy world of an urban junkyard, with more than a passing nod to Jack. For mature readers, this is a kid gang book with an edge, and one we wholeheartedly recommend. #1 is now shipping, and #2 will be available in December. Available for $2.95 at finer comics shops everywhere, or directly from Boxcar Productions, PO Box 50641, Pasadena, CA 91115. itEM! Apologies to our illustrious proofreader RICHARD HOWEll (that’s with TWO ’l’s)! In our TJKC TRADE PAPERBACK, Vol. 2, we accidentally misspelled his name (in the one section he didn’t get to proofread!). OOPS!!!

itEM! DC’s recent NEW GODS trade paperback won an Eisner award to go along with the Harvey award it won this Spring. DC is about to release a MISTER MIRAClE volume (reprinting #1-10), and if it sells well, that could be followed by a FOREVER PEOPlE volume, and then another volume to be called THE FOURTH WORlD which will print the remaining issues of MISTER MIRAClE, plus the unaltered, Mike Royer-inked version of Jack’s original HUNGER DOGS story! itEM! MARK EVANIER reports negotiations are still ongoing with Marvel Comics about putting a permanent credit line for Jack on the Marvel books he was involved with. Things have been a been hectic at Marvel lately, with their attempt to come out of bankruptcy, but hopes are high this will be finalized soon. itEM! The KIRBY TRIBUTE BOOK that FRANK MIllER and MARK EVANIER have been talking about doing for a while now (the one where hundreds of artists would do their own interpretations of Jack’s characters) looks like it’s not going to happen, at least not at this time. Marvel Comics has some legal concerns over it, and rather than take the chance that it might jeopardize the current negotiations over giving Jack a credit line, the book is on hold for the present. We’ll keep you posted on any future developments. itEM! Jack and Roz’s granddaughter TRACY KIRBY has founded a film production company, and among their proposed projects are some Kirby-related treatments they’re hoping get made into feature films, including BOY COMMANDOS and CHAllENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN. Comics are big business in Hollywood these days, so with a little luck, we may yet see Jack’s name on the big screen! itEM! The August 17 edition of THE DENVER BUSINESS JOURNAl featured an article on Jack’s nephew ROBERT KATZ’s work as trustee of the Kirby Estate, building a Trust for Jack and Roz’s children and grandchildren. The piece included a nice biography of Jack, with quotes by MARK EVANIER, KEVIN EASTMAN, and TJKC’s own JOHN MORROW. Robert’s juggling a lot, from trying to get Jack’s name on his creations at Marvel Comics, to overseeing future uses of Jack’s concepts. Take a bow, Robert!

KIRBY COLLECTOR CHECKLIST For full descriptions of each issue, see page 67 Sorry, tJKC #1-6, 8-12, 14, 15, and our first traDE papErBaCK collection arE SoLD oUt!! tHE CoLLECtED tJKC, VoLUME tWo: (nEW!) 160page trade paperback, reprinting TJKC #10-12, plus new Kirby art! $14.95 ($16.95 Canada, $24.95 elsewhere) tHE JaCK KirBy CHECKLiSt: (nEW!) 100 pages! $5.00 ($5.50 Canada, $7.50 elsewhere) Ships in Dec.! tJKC #7: We found extras of our 36-page KID GANG theme issue! $4.95 ($5.40 Canada, $7.40 elsewhere) tJKC #13: 52-page SUPERNATURAl theme issue! $4.95 ($5.40 Canada, $7.40 elsewhere) tJKC #16: 52-page TOUGH GUYS theme issue! $4.95 ($5.40 Canada, $7.40 elsewhere) tJKC #17: 68-page DC theme issue! $5.95 ($6.40 Canada, $8.40 elsewhere) tJKC #18: 68-page MARVEl theme issue! $5.95 ($6.40 Canada, $8.40 elsewhere) tJKC #19: 56-page ART theme issue! $5.95 ($6.40 Canada, $8.40 elsewhere) tJKC #20: 68-page WOMEN theme issue! $5.95 ($6.40 Canada, $8.40 elsewhere) tJKC poStEr: See pg. 64. $7 ($8 Can., $10 elsewhere) anD Don’t ForGEt: CoMiC BooK artiSt #1 & 2 (see page 67!)

Issue #21 Contents: The Wacky DC Years . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4 (from Manhunters to Kung-Fu Fighters) Jurassic Spark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6 (Kirby did it twenty years earlier) Mondo Kirby . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7 (a previously-unpublished interview) Are You Ready for OMAC? . . . . . . . .14 The World That’s Coming? . . . . . . . .15 (are Build-A-Friends a reality?) Oh, Goody! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16 (you just knew he’d be in this issue!) Bruce Timm Interviewed . . . . . . . . . .17 How I Caught The Mythology Bug . . .23 (Bacchus’ Eddie Campbell explains) Top Ten Kirby Bloopers . . . . . . . . . .27 “Fixing” Kirby’s Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28 (observant readers spot some changes) Jack Meets Millie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30 (a wacky Kirby cameo) Black Men Can Ski . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31 (don’t mess with the Black Racer) Jack’s Wackiest Dialogue . . . . . . . . . .32 Audio Meets Visual/A.W.O.L. . . . . .33 (how Kirby met Frank Zappa, & more!) Centerfold: FF Annual #5 pencils . . .34 A Failure To Communicate . . . . . . . .36 (Jack’s margin notes vs. Stan’s words) Kirby Gets Cracked . . . . . . . . . . . . . .39 (his one shot at the humor magazine) Gil Kane on Jack Kirby . . . . . . . . . . . .40 Kirby Fans’ Wackiest Causes? . . . . . .48 Silver Star Screenplay . . . . . . . . . . . .49 Art As Therapy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .58 (how Silver Surfer #18 helped a fan) Twilight At Topps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .59 (a look at Kirby’s final series) Collector Comments . . . . . . . . . . . . .65

ISSUE #21, OCT. 1998

THE ONLY ’ ZINE AUTHORIZED BY THE KIRBY ESTATE

Front cover inks: Bob Wiacek Front cover color: Tom Ziuko Back cover inks: Chic Stone Back cover color: Jack Kirby Photocopies of Jack’s uninked pencils from published comics are reproduced here courtesy of the Kirby Estate, which has our thanks for their continued support. COPYRIGHTS: Alicia Masters, Ant-Man, Baron Zemo, Black Panther, Bucky, Captain America, Chili, Crystal, Destroyer, Devil Dinosaur, Dr. Doom, Dr. Faustus, Fantastic Four, Galactus, Giant-Man, Hercules, Hulk, Human Torch, Iceman, Ikaris, Inhumans (Triton, Black Bolt, Crystal, Medusa, Karnak, Gorgon, Lockjaw), Invisible Girl, Iron Man, Loki, Magneto, Millie the Model, Miracle Man, Mole Man, Moonboy, Mr. Fantastic, Odin, Randac, Ronan, Sentry, Sersi, Sharon Carter/Agent 13, Silver Surfer, Skrulls, Spider-Man, Sub-Mariner, Thing, Thor, Ulik, Volstagg, Wasp, X-Men TM & © Marvel Entertainment, Inc. • Black Racer, Darkseid, Demon, Goody Rickels, Grandmaster, Guardian, Hairies, Jimmy Olsen, Lightray, Manhunter, Mr. Miracle, Oberon, OMAC, Orion, Professor Brainwave, Richard Dragon, Superman, Willie Walker, Wonder Woman TM & © DC Comics, Inc. • Captain Nice TM NBC-TV. • Hidden Harry © Ruby-Spears Productions. • The Prisoner © ITV. • Blackmark TM & © Gil Kane. • Accompanying illustrations are © Cracked Magazine. • Dark Horse Presents is TM Dark Horse Comics. • Bacchus and associated characters are TM & © Eddie Campbell. • Fighting American, Speedboy, Stuntman TM & © Joe Simon & Jack Kirby. • Bazooka Boots, Big Ugly, Bombast, Cal Cutta, Capt. Glory, Clayton March, Darius Drumm, Eyes of March, Freeze Pellets, Glida, Indestructible Jayne Davidson, Rahmin the Invader, The Exploder, Jason Blanchard, Mekani-King, Jet Rider, Labor Launch, Marauder, Ordiz, Roag, Robot, Schizoid Helmet, Silver Star, Stand Glider, Thunder Foot, Topps Villains, Whiz Kid TM & © Jack Kirby.

This Mister Miracle drawing was part of the Kirby Unleashed portfolio. Our thanks to Bob Wiacek for inking it for this issue’s front cover! Our back cover is Jack’s poster art for the 1960s Captain Nice TV show, inked by Chic Stone and colored by Kirby! Bob Latimer is selling the original and is accepting offers on it; call him at (305)759-4991. The Jack Kirby Collector, Vol. 5, No. 21, Oct. 1998. Published bi-monthly by & © TwoMorrows Advertising & Design, 1812 Park Drive, Raleigh, NC 27605, USA. 919-833-8092. John Morrow, Editor. Pamela Morrow, Asst. Editor. Jon B. Cooke, Assoc. Editor. Single issues: $5.95 ($6.40 Canada, $8.40 elsewhere). Six-issue subscriptions: $24.00 US, $32.00 Canada and Mexico, $44.00 outside North America. First printing. All characters are trademarks of their respective companies. All artwork is © Jack Kirby unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter is © the respective authors. PRINTED IN CANADA.

Some of the ones in OMAC include: “Mind phones” that allow the viewer to enter a fantasy world and experience what is going on (otherwise known as virtual reality), vitamin light baths that restore energy (tanning beds), holographic arcades (video games), and “pocket phones” used to communicate away from home (cellular phones). However, modern science still hasn’t managed to perfect some of the things found in the book, including brain transplants, assault chairs, weight neutralizers that can shrink bodies of water into small bars, bio-organic nuclear assassins, or synthetic women designed to seduce world leaders. Soon after OMAC came Sandman, reuniting Kirby with former collaborator Joe Simon. Simon & Kirby worked on the Golden Age Sandman; however, the new Sandman had nothing in common with his namesake. Instead of being a down-to-earth scourge of the underworld, this Sandman was the “Universal Master of Dreams.” From his Dream Dome, Sandman watched over people’s dreams, thanks to his Universal Dream Monitor. When there was trouble, he could enter Dreamland or the real world and called on his minions, Brute and Glob (with their bags of nightmares) to fight aliens, despots (including General Electric, former leader of the Kamikazes), and mad scientists like Doctor Spider using his Dream Whistle and Sleeping Sand. Response to Sandman was, according to the letter column in #2, tremendous. Unfortunately, the first issue was designed as a one-shot, so when the time came to continue the series, neither Simon nor Kirby were available. So, the creative team for #2 and #3 was editor Joe Orlando, writer Michael Fleisher, artist Ernie Chua [later Chan] and inker Mike Royer, although Kirby still did the covers. With #4, Kirby returned to do the pencils on Sandman with Fleisher remaining as the book’s writer. #6 saw Kirby inked by the legendary Wally Wood. During the period between Sandman #1 and #2, DC debuted First Issue Special, a try-out book much like Showcase in the 1950s and 1960s. To kick off the title, the company turned to Kirby. Again returning to familiar territory, Kirby went back to the mythic hero concept and created Atlas, the same kind of larger-than-life character as the Mighty Thor. Here, our hero was a child who saw his family murdered by a ruthless tyrant named Hyssa. A man named Chagra

The Wacky DC Years by Mark Coale ver the many years of Jack Kirby’s career, he worked numerous times for the various incarnations of DC Comics, from the Golden Age exploits of the Sandman and Manhunter to the three Super Powers mini-series of the mid-1980s with stops in almost every decade in-between. Arguably his most imaginative period at National/DC was the 1970s, which can be broken down further to smaller subcategories. The first stage consists of the Fourth World books. The second contains The Demon and Kamandi, which started in mid-to-late 1972. The third stage deals with the various books Kirby worked on until his return to Marvel in 1975. Chronologically, the first Kirby book in the final stage of his 1970s DC stay was the futuristic OMAC. As is often the case with his work, Kirby built the foundation of OMAC on previously explored territory: Nebbish everyman is selected by scientist and government agency to be super-human fighting machine. After hero’s creation, scientist is murdered, taking secrets of experiment with him. This not only describes Buddy Blank’s transformation into the OMAC, but Steve Rogers becoming Captain America. Due to the times in which they were created, the similarities between the two ends at their creations. Even though Captain America has evolved into a moral hero, he was given the Super-Soldier Formula for the US to use against the Axis powers. OMAC, on the other hand, was created by the Global Peace Agency “to control conflict before it grows” into full-blown war, a pre-emptive weapon to be used to keep powerhungry dictators and crazy scientists in check. In doing so, OMAC was given the rank of five-star general, credentials that authorized him “to stop flare-ups which endanger world peace.” The other hallmark of OMAC was Kirby’s ability to introduce fantastic technology that has now become part of everyday life. Kirby could easily be considered a futurist, given the number of gadgets that have shown up in his work that have actually been invented.

Jack’s original Manhunter concept presentation.

found the boy, who possessed a part of the Crystal Mountain, marking him as special. Like other heroes of folklore, the boy grew into manhood and became legendary for his feats of strength. Four issues later, Kirby returned to First Issue Special to update another of his Golden Age DC characters, Manhunter, the hunter of men created in the 1940s by Simon & Kirby in Adventure Comics. Although a relationship between the two is never spelled out, it is clear there are similarities between them. Both wear a red costume with blue mask, although the 1970s version is slightly different. The new Manhunter also has a “power baton” that shoots “paralysis shells.” Since the modern Manhunter is part of an ancient sect dedicated to preserving justice, there is enough between the lines to imply the 1940s Manhunter was part of this organization. (It should be pointed out that the new Kirby Manhunter appeared two years after the creation of yet another version of the character, this one by Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson in Detective Comics. That one was also connected to the Simon & Kirby Manhunter. Years later, DC used one of its annual crossover events, “Millennium,” to tie together all the various characters with the name.) In the very next issue, Kirby introduced one of those concepts that made 1970s DC books the fondly-remembered kitsch they were: The Dingbats of Danger Street. A modern version of the Newsboy Legion, the Dingbats were, as they were called on the title page, “lovable dum-dums” that stumbled their way into foiling the plans of some costumed villains. Good Looks was the nominal leader of the crew. Krunch was the strong man, constantly working on his muscles, thanks to his exerciser. Non-Fat was the tough, but scrawny scrapper who called upon “Skinny Power” (as his T-shirt said) to hold on to his omnipresent hot dog. Bananas was the comic relief, though his behavior could be better described as manic. Between the First Issue Specials, Kirby drew the adventures of Kenneth Robeson’s pulp hero The Avenger in Justice Inc. Although he did not work on the first issue, he did draw #2-4, while also doing the covers of #2 and #3. At the time, DC was also publishing The Shadow, and the two books even shared a villain: The disturbinglynamed Colonel Sodom, who appeared in Shadow Break out your “Hai Karate” aftershave; it’s page two from Kung-Fu Fighter #3! #5 and Justice Inc. #3. Where does that leave us today? Like most cultural phenomena, After a remarkable run of “Losers” stories in Our Fighting Forces, Kirby’s 1970s DC work has hit the 20-year cycle and has begun to Kirby’s final two issues at DC were both one-shots in late 1975 and reappear again, just like KISS, platform shoes, and exploitation early 1976. He drew the third issue of Richard Dragon, Kung-Fu Fighter, movies. The resurgence began in the Superman titles a few years ago, a Denny O’Neil adaptation of the books of martial artist Jim Dennis. with the return of the Guardian, the Newsboy Legion, Project While Kirby’s artwork has always lent itself to slugfest, his style didn’t Cadmus, and Detective Ben “Terrible” Turpin. Recently, the hoods seem to be able to capture the fluidity of most martial arts. Perhaps from In the Days of the Mob have even appeared in Adventures of that’s why Dragon chooses to use grappling arts like Judo and Aikido Superman. Even Kingdom Come contributed to the renaissance, as when fighting a drunken mob. Atlas was lurking in the backgrounds of some scenes. The last work done in the 1970s for DC was the first issue of the Don’t look for this to stop anytime soon. Even the things most short-lived Kobra series. The premise of the series was of Siamese twins people have forgotten about (or would like to) that Kirby created will separated at birth, one becoming good, the other evil. After it was never die. The 1970s Sandman may not have touched as many people turned in, Kirby resigned from DC and the book was put in limbo. It as the Fantastic Four or Captain America, but there are still those who was later given to Gerry Conway, who in turn hired Martin Pasko to have fond memories of the characters and will do their best to make write the book. The new creative team, including inker Pablo Marcos, sure they don’t stay in limbo forever. Such is the magic of most things began making changes to the plot and the art. The book was completed, created by Jack Kirby.★ with a Ernie Chua cover, and Kirby’s time at DC was finished again. 5

Evil Factory goes up in a blaze of glory. Like all good SF writers, Kirby never judges the technology involved here—only the uses to which it is put. The Project churns out copies of Golden Age heroes and legions of Mattel-sized Scrapper soldiers; therefore it’s benign. The Evil Factory breeds sea monsters, Kryptonite-flavored giant Jimmys and grunting, yellow-skinned, fourarmed horrors; therefore it’s malign. Kirby’s real achievement here, I think, is that he builds a logical framework in which these creatures can exist, just as Crichton does in Jurassic Park. And he makes it clear that the same DNA that can build, say, a Golden Guardian can also build a monstrosity—that everyone shares the same basic building blocks, and that science can exploit this for good or ill. But despite his cautionary message of technology gone wild, you can sense Kirby’s simple wonder and excitement at the prospect of all this. Even today, these genes are still a good fit. ★

Jurassic Spark by Robert L. Bryant Jr.

he plotline from Michael Crichton’s 1990 mega-novel Jurassic Park: Scientists in an isolated super-lab tinker with DNA to produce monsters, and all hell breaks loose when the beasts burst out of their pens. Yawn. For Jack Kirby fans, this was old hat. Twenty years before Crichton dreamed up the book that would become the world’s most successful movie, Kirby had tinkered with his own DNA ideas to remake DC’s moribund Jimmy Olsen series into a dazzling science-fiction extravaganza. In two story arcs during 1970-72, Kirby beat Crichton to the genetic punch by decades, and introduced a generation of readers to the power and potential of DNA engineering. In a six-issue series of cliffhangers starting with JO #133 (1970), Kirby postulated two super-labs tinkering with the human (and inhuman) DNA molecule—the US government’s DNA Project, a huge underground complex oddly close to Metropolis, and Darkseid’s Evil Factory, later revealed to be a miniaturized city hidden under a rock somewhere in Scotland. (Leave no stone unturned...?) The DNA Project had Superman’s blessing— he donated cell samples—but had little use for ethics, apparently. Olsen is shocked to discover that they’ve been running off Olsen copies, without his knowledge or permission, from cell samples taken during a “simple, painless procedure” at the Daily Planet infirmary. (This won’t hurt a bit, Jim!) Likewise, the Project has resurrected the Golden Guardian of the 1940s and the fathers of the new Newsboy Legion. (If you’re dead, you’re fair game.) The rival Evil Factory uses the same methods, only to breed monsters and manual laborers; there is one telling panel showing human slaves carting around equipment. “Even as the A-bomb began a new era for man, this Project may begin a new history!” Superman proclaims. “...The genetic code has been broken, Jimmy! The DNA molecule has given up its secret!— The secret of life itself! ...Human beings like yourself can now be produced from an individual cell!” The Evil Factory hurls an army of multi-armed “D.N.Aliens” at the Project; Superman lures them to their deaths in the nuclear explosion of the Project’s reactor. (Technology vs. technology.) The second DNA story arc plays out from JO #144-146 (late 1971 to early 1972): Sent to Scotland to investigate a Loch Ness-like monster, Olsen and his Newsboy Legion pals find that the hidden Evil Factory has been leaking creatures all over the Gaelic countryside. (“Monsters are all we’ve seen of late!” a police inspector cries. “...Every day the woods yield some new wonder!”) It turns out the Evil Factory has been experimenting with “gene regression” to produce prehistoric animals caged in electric pens; everything is in stock, it seems, but Crichton’s velociraptors. Darkseid’s experimenters quickly regress Olsen to a ferocious, freckled caveman who wrecks the place, and the Jack’s pencils for the first page of the DNAlien back-up story in Jimmy Olsen #142.

RANDY HOPPE: Sure. Surprints.

Mondo Kirby

KIRBY: Right. So if you wanted a halftone, it was just a series of dots. Really. If you analyze it and put it under a microscope, you’ve got these dots spread all the way out. Put ’em together and you get a nice halftone. In other words, it isn’t black, it isn’t white, but it’ll look great on pants! (laughter) So yes, I believe we had our own technology, but it was a simple technology.

A previously-unpublished interview with Jack Kirby, by Randy Hoppe and Andrew Mayer Randy Hoppe explains: “In the early Nineties I was an avid consumer of Mondo 2000, a wildly glossy magazine filled with digital eye-candy, day-glo tressed and tattooed models draped in computer gear, and techno-hippie political screeds. The folks who published Mondo 2000 from their communal home in the San Francisco Bay area were inspired by the science-fiction novels of Bruce Sterling and William Gibson, the punk DIY ethic, and the seemingly non-stop advances in computer graphics, virtual reality, and smart drug technology. These people seemed to me, at the time, to be the embodiment of some of the future people I’d read about in comic books. “I was also beginning my travels in cyberspace and became a member of a San Francisco-based conferencing system called The Well, run by the folks who published the Whole Earth Review. Mondo 2000 soon had its own forum on The Well, and one Well-ite made mention of some of the concepts in The Eternals. Our discussion of Kirby’s work went on—his use of Virtual Reality in OMAC, the bio-engineering of Arnim Zola and the High Evolutionary—and one of the editors posted that his interest was piqued and that perhaps there was an article in it. Eventually Andrew Mayer, a writer and programmer, pitched the article to the editorial tribunal and got an OK. Andrew and I felt this was a great opportunity to meet and interview Kirby, so Andrew made arrangements with the Kirbys to meet at that Summer’s San Diego Comic-Con. It was my first San Diego Con, and I was going to interview the King! Life was good! “Once the interview started, I didn’t really get a word in edgewise, but Andrew asked the right Mondo-like questions, and Jack took it from there! We submitted the article, including some quotes, but it wasn’t published. We were told one of the editorial tribunal didn’t really like comics. Go figure—Neil Gaiman and Dave Sim were later featured in the mag.”

MAYER: For instance, the Micro-Mark you were talking about in the Hunger Dogs book; Darkseid had come up with this new technology that was going to change...! KIRBY: Yes, I was trying to stay 30 years ahead. I always try to stay about 30 years ahead doing my stories. In other words, I wouldn’t write a story about things people already knew. MAYER: I came across something that blew my mind in OMAC where

14 August 1992: The Kirbys’ hotel room ANDREW MAYER: I was reading the Hunger Dogs last night and I was really blown away with the way in that book that you were dealing with issues. You were taking some of the issues you were dealt with earlier and then saying what’s happening now—what’s changed now. JACK KIRBY: What’s changed now is that storytelling has changed. Like you said, you talk about technology—we don’t write on pads anymore. We write on computers, we write on word processors. Actually, our language may be crisper and maybe a little more urgent. Maybe we’re just not as leisurely as we used to be. MAYER: Have you noticed a change in the way people...? KIRBY: No, it’s not a great change. People remain people through all kinds of technologies. Sure, we had technology, too. We called ’em pencils, and we tried for effects, even with pencils. We tried for halftones. Didn’t we have Ben-day?

Original pencils from the Fighting American poster sold with the Kirby Masterworks portfolio. 7

he’s got these goggles on and he’s going into this movie in his dreams. That’s predicting something that they’re coming along with now: Virtual Reality.

it’s as natural as anything. MAYER: Like video games or whatever. KIRBY: I envy you in a way because you can live a lot more reasonably in a contemporary world than I do. MAYER: But there’s a lot of issues that you brought up through all the work that you did, where sometimes it makes your life more difficult. KIRBY: Well, of course it would! Because a lot of people wouldn’t accept what you’re doing. They say, “Well, you must be a daydreamer. Give us facts.” And, of course, the facts would be very simple for that particular day. But somehow they accepted mine, because I took those fantastic facts and put them in a good story. And if the story sold magazines, I was doing my job. My job was to sell magazines.

KIRBY: Of course, of course—but it’s something which at that period could have been ridiculed. “Those things are never going to happen.” HOPPE: And here we are. KIRBY: And here we are. The technology is so simple to us that we readily accept it as part of our lives. I can’t use it as well as you, but it’s your generation that’s grown up with it. So, it lives with you fellows and

MAYER: When you were doing those, did you think how you were affecting your audience—what somebody would be thinking about when they were reading them? KIRBY: Sure! I felt that the audience would feel the same astonishment that I did—astonishment in these particular developments. Now, in my day the subway was a big thing, right? But today we have modes of transportation that outstrip the common subway. We can look forward to techno-tubes and things like that. We can look forward to crossing New York in 45 minutes when it takes us 2 hours now. MAYER: So you were always looking ahead over the horizon and just pulling that back. KIRBY: Yes, I always drew a story 30 years ahead—what I considered 30 years ahead. MAYER: So then, somehow you mixed that in with mythology as well. KIRBY: Oh, yes I did. I brought mythology into modern times. I brought in Hercules. I brought in Samson. MAYER: And the New Gods. KIRBY: Well, the New Gods were a 30 years ahead thing! (laughter) The New Gods was, “What was that mythology all about? There’s gotta be a new mythology!” MAYER: Reading it even now, it’s exciting. KIRBY: I was creating a mythology for the ’70s, which the ’70s didn’t have. Not only that, it was acceptable in the fact that it was a battle between father and son. MAYER: That’s very classic. KIRBY: It is classic! Show me the son that doesn’t defy the father! (laughter) Unpublished page from Devil Dinosaur. Was Jack 30 years ahead, or 2,000,000 years behind with this idea? 8

MAYER: And then you switch them so they have this urge from the other side.

And that’s the point of Doctor Doom. It’s a totally human viewpoint. It’s an inferiority complex. To a guy who’s superior, can you imagine how devastating that must be? MAYER: He views himself above but he can’t escape. YOUR PICTURE HERE?

KIRBY: And here is a guy who is the ultimate in brains, suddenly finding himself on a level with the ordinary guy. Say the ordinary guy walks around, “Sure I got my arm in a sling! So what?” You know? But if Doctor Doom has his arm in a sling, he’d hide the arm in a jacket! (laughter) Or he’d cut it off! He would do the ultimate thing so he could face the world as he believes he should.

(Neal Adams inked these pencils for the cover of Jimmy Olsen #141.)

MAYER: I’ve talked with other people about your work, and one thing that comes up is the idea of scale. You have Galactus who is above everybody; or the Celestials. KIRBY: Yes. Galactus is a true god—a god in the meaning of modern mythology. Not god in a spiritual sense, but a god in a mythology that’s very modern in context. It’s a modern mythology. In other words, what I’m taking is the old religions and transforming them into our contemporary lives so we can accept them. Galactus, of course, is the ultimate figure and still he has a human problem, too! He’s got his son, Orion... or is it Darkseid? MAYER: He deals with the Silver Surfer. KIRBY: Right. The Silver Surfer himself was a wonderful surprise to me because I know nothing about surfing. I know nothing about surfers! Then one day I saw it in the paper. There was a guy standing on a wooden plank out in California. I was still in New York at the time, OK? And there’s this guy standing on a wooden plank and he’s riding the wave! And that’s fantastic to me! And I said, “Suppose there was a surfer who surfed the universe?” And of course the Surfer does that. He also has to have, in my estimation, a godlike appearance. And him being all silver gives him the kind of aura that makes him different from ourselves.

KIRBY: Right, but they’re always afraid. Both father and son will not accept the final confrontation. A son in the end will never hurt his father—that’s my personal belief—and a father will never hurt his son. I know that I never will. My son can do anything to me that he damn pleases. (laughter) It’s just the way I feel. I can’t hurt my own flesh and blood. I feel that even villains, though totally with problems—totally beset by problems, which they have to contend with; their own character and the things that spring from their character; their issues with other people—they have to contend with that. But, they do it in a totally human way. I was talking earlier with some people about Doctor Doom. Doctor Doom is an evil person, but he’s not always been evil. Doctor Doom was a guy who was a thoroughly respected academician; a highly respected chemist, but through a flaw in his own character, he was a perfectionist. Perfectionists cannot accept imperfection. So what happens to Doctor Doom—who wasn’t even Doctor Doom at the time? He was just a chemist. He gets a cut on his chin! The perfectionist suddenly finds himself imperfect, small as that scar may be. So he can’t live with the rest of humanity. (laughter) He can’t live with himself and the rest of humanity. He knows that every man, woman and child who passes him will know that he has this scar on his chin. So he encases his face in an iron mask.

MAYER: You keep using the word “cosmic,” and I wanted to know what your definition of the word “cosmic” is. KIRBY: My definition of the word “cosmic” is “everywhere.” Outside of Earth, we have everywhere. They say there’s nothing out there. I say there’s everything out there. We haven’t got the means or the money to reach it, but it’s out there! MAYER: There was a science program on physics that was talking about how even if you have an empty thing of space, a particle can come into existence, then meet itself and disappear again. They exist for that moment and then they meet each other and go to zero. That made me think of the way you use the word “cosmic.” KIRBY: Now the Bible itself never mentions evolution. It never says Man evolved over here on Earth. It just says, “...and then there was Man.” God made Man. And of course, Man suddenly appeared and there he was. I don’t think Man evolved from a monkey. A lot of people don’t believe Man evolved from a monkey. I believe the Bible. It says Man was there, Woman was there. Now, we don’t know how many civilizations there might have been on Earth before ours. Nobody has any idea. I can go to the greatest mind in any college. I can go to any college professor and he wouldn’t be able to tell me how many civilizations

MAYER: I remember that moment. Because even though it’s going to totally scar his face, the one scar and the whole face doesn’t make any difference to him. KIRBY: No, it doesn’t make a difference to him. Nobody’s ever going to see that scar—but they do! That scar grows so large that it affects his entire brain, and Doctor Doom becomes the ultimate villain. He’ll do anything to anybody. Why? Because you haven’t got that scar! (laughter) He has! And who do you think you are, not having a scar like that? 9

there were before ours. My guess is there might have been thirty, forty, a hundred. They might go back hundreds of thousands of years—there might have been civilizations before ours. I believe that Man was present in all of them. Man built them. Monkeys can’t do it. Armadillos can’t do it. (laughter)

I’ve always respected the next guy. Sure, it was a matter of selling magazines. That was a big consideration. I had to sell magazines to make a living. So, I sold the magazines—I told the best stories I could, but I didn’t present my stories as the final word. I didn’t say, “This is the final word,” but that’s how my characters act! (laughter) And that’s all I said. That’s how I see human beings. And of course, you’re entitled to analyze my interpretation, as a reader.

MAYER: You had the Celestials come and take the ape creatures and turn them—!

MAYER: That’s happening a lot.

KIRBY: Yes, but the Celestials can do it. The Celestials looked human, didn’t they? They had human form. Underneath those helmets was a human being—a celestial human being, someone godlike in our eyes because of the things he could do that we couldn’t.

KIRBY: I would get letters of all kinds: “How dare you” letters. (laughter) Oh yeah! And I used to get “You’re great” letters. “You’re a great guy.” And I used to get “You’re a wonderful writer.” I used to get letters “Well, not bad.” It was a variety and you could see it in the letter column that there was a variety of people who interpreted the stories in a variety of ways. It impressed a lot of them. It impressed enough to make good sales, and that’s what I prayed for.

MAYER: You would always wrap them in this technology. KIRBY: I tried to give technology the touch of legend; and in doing so, I’m telling a story. I’m not trying to tell a truth or I’m not trying to tell a fable. I’m trying tell an honest-to-goodness understandable story; a story that you would read and understand and interpret in your own way! If you want to make them human, that’s your prerogative! And I respect that. I’ve always respected my reader. My reader’s most important to me. So, I would present a story as I felt I saw it and say, “How do you see it?” HOPPE: That’s right. A lot of the essays that you had in your comics probed the reader that way. KIRBY: I never presented my story as the last word to the reader. I’ve always said to myself, “How would you see it?” And if the reader saw it differently, he has a right to say that and show it. MAYER: That’s why your stuff has so much influence on people. KIRBY: It’s because I respect other people. I respect human beings. I’ve seen them in very happy circumstances and I’ve seen them in the dregs, believe me. So, I’ve always loved human beings because they have the capacity to suffer! (laughter) Yes, they do! I’ve tried to make my characters human, whether we consider them evil or we consider them good. Even my heroes had human qualities. My superheroes had human qualities. They would have families to defend. They would have friends to defend. They would respect women. I respect women. I felt I was presenting my views to the reader and saying, “What do you think?” I think that’s an imperative for any writer. In other words, no writer should feel that he has the last word on any subject, because he hasn’t got the capacity! He hasn’t got the capacity—he doesn’t know! I don’t know, I’m guessing as well as you are, except I may be a little more descriptive. MAYER: In the ’70s you were creating more whole worlds and you were putting more issues into it, more concrete ideas into them than you had before. With the New Gods and the Eternals you were going for these ideas in a lot bigger way. KIRBY: Well, I did. I felt it was incumbent on me to probe them for myself before I presented them to the reader. What do I think? What do I really think? I’m not a show-off who’s gonna say, “Well, you know, take it or leave it. Take my story or leave it”; I’m not that type. I can only say, “This is how I believe they would act.” I put enough chinks into the story to allow the reader to interpret it his way, because I’ve always respected the reader. He’s the next guy, and

We have no idea what company this cover was done for, but it looks to be from the late 1970s. 10

MAYER: Did you do a lot of research for this stuff? KIRBY: I did research as I was growing up. I know people from the start. I love people. I grew up in a place where people suffered, where people laughed, where people had a good time. It was an extreme period. Everything was felt in an almost bodily way. You couldn’t be subtle. In my neighborhood you couldn’t be subtle. You had to act from your own instincts, and we did. If a guy insulted me, I punched him. And if I insulted him, he punched me. It was a reaction, it was a thing to do. You couldn’t do otherwise. There was nothing else you could do. MAYER: But the world doesn’t seem quite that way now. KIRBY: Oh, now I think it’s a lot more sensible, it’s a lot more subtle. MAYER: People get at each other without having to hit each other. KIRBY: Yes, of course, you learn that along the way. I grew up like everybody else. I felt that I had begun to tell stories in a more mature way. And there was not only fighting in them—I never left the fighting out—besides the fighting, I had the story develop with more mature reason. Why was there a fight? I had to give a mature reason for it. MAYER: In OMAC, you’d give a little of the future that you were concocting and then you’d have this presentation. KIRBY: Listen, let’s face it, the future is a mystery! Wouldn’t you love to know what’s in the future? (laughter) And, of course, the reader would, too. And I’d say, “In the future, this is what’s going to happen!” And the reader says, “In the future! Gee! What does this guy know?” (laughter) And of course, I’d present it as if I really knew—to tell a good story. That was to make the story believable. If you make your characters knowledgeable in your own way, make them share your own knowledge, then you’ll have humanized characters. You’ll have characters who are human beings just like yourself. You have foibles. You have great traits. You have things that will make you candidates for VicePresident. (laughter) Jack’s cover pencils (with John Romita layouts?) for Spidey Super Stories #20. KIRBY: And not only that, that computer will someday do it by itself. KIRBY: There you go! Like, my ambition was, I wanted to be a crooked Because it’ll be on some automatic position, or it might go by itself. I politician; because coming from a deprived neighborhood, money mean, figure it out. If a computer really thinks in its own mechanical meant a lot, so I felt that dirty politicians made a lot of it. I told my way, suppose it really begins to think on its own? Couldn’t that possibly mother that I’d be a crooked politician. happen? You walk out of the room, and suddenly this thing goes off! MAYER: I think you rose to higher things! And the entire room begins to click. KIRBY: My mother would have none of it. MAYER: They’re trying to make it happen!

MAYER: That may not be so hard these days. (laughter)

MAYER: The concept I love is the Uni-Mind; do you remember that from the Eternals? When all the Eternals join together?

KIRBY: And you come back and the room is changed! (laughter) There are four more lights! The computer likes more lights. The soda you were drinking—the computer likes the soda, so he’s made an opening where the soda is, because the computer has seen you do it and the computer respects you because you’ve run him. You made him.

KIRBY: Yes. MAYER: In computers now, people meet over the computer. KIRBY: That’s what a computer is.

MAYER: I’m very familiar with this technology and even though I’m more familiar with it, you come out with very simple ways of discussing concepts that really are what people are doing right now. You say that the computer watches what you do and the hottest thing in artificial

MAYER: The Uni-Mind seemed to be a great symbol of that; of everybody coming together. 11

go before you can walk out of this room and this automaton begins to move and think by itself, because it’s built to think?! MAYER: Do you think it’s good or dangerous? KIRBY: Sure, it is dangerous! Suppose it closes the door; you can’t get in. (laughter) It wants to be alone! Maybe it doesn’t like you anymore! (laughter) MAYER: Mister Machine is sort of the end result of that. He’s a machine but he’s suddenly gone so far that he’s dealing with human problems. He’s a human. KIRBY: Right. Mister Machine is the ultimate machine. He’s a human machine. Ultimately that’s what the machine wants to be. Yes, that’s Superman at the bottom; is this an unused Super Powers page, perhaps?

MAYER: Like Pinocchio, in a way. KIRBY: Well, the machine knows that we’re responsible for it—that it wouldn’t be there without us. The machine knows that. If it begins to think, “Where would I be if it wasn’t for these guys? I wanna be like them! These guys must know something!” (laughter) It’s not gonna see you as a god because it knows you can get a sniffle, it knows you can twist a finger. The machine knows that. “These guys aren’t perfect. Maybe I’m more perfect than they are. I’ll show these guys something, I’ll test ’em!” And suppose the machine wins the test? So you have that kind of a contest. How far can you go with the computer before the computer begins to start on you? The computer has the possibility of thinking on its own! That possibility exists! MAYER: That’s what people want them to do! KIRBY: It’s very real! Suppose a guy walks out of his office and says to his computer, “Don’t forget, I need 25 copies before I get back at two o’clock” and the computer absorbs it. MAYER: There’s a new handheld gadget coming out now and you write on it “Meet Jack Kirby Friday at noon.” It takes “Jack Kirby”; puts it over there; says, “Friday—this Friday? Noon— twelve o’clock” and puts it in your datebook. And all you’ve written on it is “Meet Jack Friday at noon.”

intelligence now is the computer learns from the input of the user.

KIRBY: It’s very possible. I know it’s far out, but it isn’t that far out considering the sophistication of the modern computer.

KIRBY: Yes, the computer does learn. Where is the end point? Suppose we make the perfect computer? For instance, we can talk into the computer and it types everything out by itself. And the computer in this manner begins to think on its own. Suppose it doesn’t like XXX. You come in and you read this thing—it’s not the thing you gave the computer! You put the paper in and you speak to the computer, and you type out “What’s wrong with this?” and the computer types out “It stinks!” (laughter)

MAYER: And that’s why I think people are coming back—the stuff you did 20 years ago, suddenly it’s very current. KIRBY: Oh sure, it is; it’s contemporary. Of course at that time it was very, very far out. If the fellows didn’t like the stories, they could’ve kicked my behind! (laughter) MAYER: So you told a good story along with it.

MAYER: It happens now more than you know already!

KIRBY: I had to sell ’em a good story. That’s what I mean, you have to be a good storyteller, too. Why is the machine doing that? Maybe the machine is lonely. Maybe the machine wants to know what a man does, that makes him smile. The guy’ll sit at the machine and suddenly he’ll think of something and he laughs out loud or he smiles. The machine says, “Why is he doing that? What’s he thinking about that makes him

KIRBY: I don’t know. I just haven’t followed it. MAYER: You understand it already. KIRBY: I think there’s a distinct possibility. How far does automation 12

MAYER: I go through periods where sometimes it frightens me and sometimes it inspires me. KIRBY: Yeah. Suppose you come into the office and the machine begins to type and the typewritten sheet says, “I expected you at 2:30!” (laughter) MAYER: “Where have you been?” KIRBY: Yeah, “Where have you been?” (laughter) MAYER: Well, I don’t want to take up too much more of your time. KIRBY: Well, it’s been my pleasure. You guys are wonderful. I thank you for your kind interest.★ (Mondo 2000 is still intermittently published, but it’s a shadow of its former self. Andrew Mayer is now a game designer. Randy Hoppe has been hosting the Kirby Collector web site since 1995, and has run the Kirby-L mailing list since 1997. Check out Lemon Custard, the site Randy runs with Mark Badger at http://lemoncustard.com/)

SDCC Kirby sketch, with Steranko pastels and Steve Englehart dialogue! smile? I’ve got to ask him that! I’ve got to ask him that,” because he wants to find out. And suppose the computer starts talking. I mean, reflex action! It’s got a brain, okay? Maybe our brains came into existence because of mere reflex action! We were just creatures walking along, learning our way—I don’t believe that we walked on all fours—we were guys just walking around trying to learn about our own existence, which is what we’re still doing today. And here we have these sophisticated machines who are just being born, who are growing up and suddenly they begin to realize, “What do these guys know that I don’t? I’ve got to ask them!” And suppose you type something on the machine—something that’s very businesslike—and the machine types back “Sh*t on that! Tell me why you blew your nose!” (laughter) Right? MAYER: Sure! KIRBY: The machine wants to know that. Why does this guy take out a handkerchief and blow his nose in it? And you have to tell the machine, “Well, there’s mucus in my nose.” Then the machine begins to understand. It says, “Where does this mucous come from?” And then you say, “Well, it just gathers from your body, and it just comes out from your nose.” And the computer says, “Gee, that’s terribly exciting!” (laughter) And the machine may try to build on its own something like that, because it thinks it’s exciting! I think that’s the point we’re at. We’re building machines that are too damn sophisticated. They’re too damn sophisticated, and they’re on the brink of something that we know nothing about. MAYER: I think it’s already happening. KIRBY: I don’t know.

We wouldn’t leave you hanging; here’s the other page from the DNAliens back-up in Jimmy Olsen #142. 13

Computers provided everything from a dating service to “packaged living.” In #3, OMAC is given “test parents” picked by computer. Interestingly, typewriters and paper folders are still in use, rather than personal computers and disks. Paper currency is also still used, while today it is steadily being replaced by plastic. I don’t fault Jack though; he was too busy thinking of magnetic flyers, helium air-beds, handheld printers, and even holograms in this “world that’s coming.” Kirby himself gave the best explanation of the theme he was exploring: “The harnessing and control of the extraordinary, now that it has become ordinary.” Kirby was clearly concerned about technology’s rapid change and rise. “We’re too human to stop it,” he said, “and we’re too human not to abuse it.” Kirby, that designer of the most fantastic comic machines ever, feared our use of the mechanical world to come. OMAC became his champion of “rationality, strength, and compassion” in an otherwise soulless and evil future. If the Buddy Blanks ever inherit the Earth, it will be through the courage of the OMACs.★

Are You Ready For OMAC? The eight-issue run may mean that we weren’t, by Matt Tauber ack Kirby gave us our first “startling look into... the world that’s coming” with the strange image of a gladiator hurling a box that contained pieces of a woman, on an all-white background. The woman in the box turned out to be a “Build-A-Friend,” one of many twisted examples of this future gone wrong. The gladiator, with his Roman mohawk, was OMAC, One Man Army Corps. The huge, bold letters and logo dared the reader to pass it up. OMAC’s origin is similar to the Simon & Kirby origin of Captain America. Our protagonist was Buddy Blank, a skinny, weak individual like Steve Rogers who’s called into service by the Global Peace Agency, a non-partisan police force with faceless agents. Professor Myron Forest, very reminiscent of Professor Erskine, is charged with effecting the transformation. Blank is the ‘clean slate’ upon which OMAC is built using advanced genetic surgery. OMAC’s energy and aid come from Brother Eye, a space satellite in Earth orbit, a machine given humanity. Myron Forest, like Erskine, is gunned down and, like Cap, there is only one OMAC. The villains he faces are those who have been corrupted by the power they wield:

• Mr. Big has enough wealth to rent a city, as well as have his own police force. • Kafka, the Bandit Marshal, is a representation of Fidel Castro and similar “little Hitlers.” • The Crime Cabal transfers bodies of old rich people into the bodies of the young in an attempt to be immortal. With all the new cloning discoveries, Jack’s idea becomes a scary proposition. • The Sickies are agents of the Crime Cabal who have been mutated into monsters. Monsters are used as biological weapons in several issues in the run. The final villain he faces is Doctor Skuba, an atomic scientist. Skuba steals entire oceans and condenses them into small cubes. He plans to capture all of the water, so that he may control the world. Skuba, with the help of his daughter Seaweed, transforms OMAC back into Buddy Blank. Brother Eye takes an active role in trying to kill Skuba and is rendered helpless, but not before Skuba Island is destroyed. With Brother Eye encased in rock and Buddy Blank missing, fans must have been disappointed that issue #9 never appeared. I know I was. Perhaps the Kubert cover to #8 was evidence that something was not quite right. Jack had plenty of future inventions and practices to both repel and compel the reader. The Build A-Friends were so lifelike, people were easily fooled. The plan was to use them as human bombs, but Jack slipped in some sexual suggestiveness as well. There was also a “Destruct Room,” where workers could release their aggressions by destroying things and abusing “pseudo-people.” OMAC tries out “Mindphones,” which created movies in which you could participate. Had Jack just prophesied the Virtual Reality helmet?

Part of Jack’s initial OMAC concept presentation, outlining some ideas that never made it into the strip. 14

Hands are being built as you read this, and a system for vocalization is also in the works.”1 COG’s inventors reason that “if we are to build a robot with humanlike intelligence, then it must have a humanlike body in order to be able to develop similar sorts of representations.”2 COG can follow a moving target with his eyes, and he can reach for a moving target with his hands. COG can learn. “Each time the robot attempts to reach for a target and fails, it learns from that mistake. By waving its hand, the robot is able to determine the point that it actually reached toward, and can make an incremental refinement based on that error signal.”3 Maybe there will be an upper limit to the ways in which COG can learn. I hope there is. Brooks’ team includes Daniel Dennett, resident philosopher, which is a sign that COG is being developed in a context with some kind of morality and thoughtfulness. But what will happen when the cat is out of the bag? I hope we never need an OMAC to help us keep tabs on our humanity.★

The World That’s Coming? by Kevin Carhart

cience-fiction which deals with technology run amok has never been more relevant in these times of ever-faster computers. The first issue of Jack Kirby’s OMAC is particularly disturbing in light of robotics research being done right now at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I hope I don’t live long References 1 http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/cog/Text/cog-robot.html enough to go through what OMAC’s meek alter ego 2 http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/cog/ Buddy Blank does. After a few pages of his brutal, alienating office 3 http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/cog/Text/video-index.html job, we are glad to see him run into his friend, the beautiful and compassionate Lila. She is a welcome change. This page contains many short movie clips which show what COG has “You always show up at the right time,” Buddy tells her. learned to do so far. Lila’s flawlessness might have tipped Buddy off that she was too good to be true. She is revealed to be a robot, from a line called Build-A-Friend, indistinguishable from real human beings in every respect. The villainous corporate inventors of Build-A-Friend have a goal in mind that is sensational, comic-booky, even funny: A Build-A-Friend is a walking bomb, shown being received and assembled by a gentleman who is charmed and delighted— until she blows up. But the true horror is quieter and more subtle than a vamping, exploding call girl. The unassuming Buddy Blank has the nightmare discovery that his trusted friend and confidante is not a person after all. If this were possible, what could we ever trust again? OMAC #1 packs as much of a chilling punch as Blade Runner in tackling the line between people and humanoid robots. Kirby is at the height of his powers here—OMAC is one of his first projects after the Fourth World—and he draws Lila sympathetically enough to make us believe in her as Buddy does. But we are also exposed to harrowing images of the Build-A-Friend assembly plant: Artificial young women in disarray, loose heads and legs falling out of their packaging, mingled with machinery and a sickly foam. “Where does humanity stop and technology begin?” asks OMAC. If a machine like Lila is not already among us, she might be gestating in the robotics labs of MIT. Prof. Rodney Brooks’ group has built and is building a human-like robot called COG. According to one of the project’s Web pages, you can consider (above) Cover pencils from OMAC #7. We asked former Kirby assistant Steve Sherman if he had any involvement in the creation of OMAC: COG to be “...a set of sensors and actuators “No, Jack came up with that one from nowhere. Although, I seem to recall that certain story points which tries to approximate the sensory and motor dynamics of a human body. Except for from Tiger 21 were somehow involved. Jack did say that OMAC and Kamandi were tied together. I think legs and a flexible spine, the major degrees of it had to do with Brother Eye and OMAC involved somehow with the cataclysm that gave birth to the Kamandi storyline. It’s hard to pin down because Jack could tie anything to anything. I’m sure if he had motor freedom in the trunk, head, and arms are all there. Sight exists, in the form of video wanted to, he could have tied the New Gods into Kamandi and OMAC. I often felt that what he was doing was so vast that everything tied together in some way. Jack was just jumping around in time and space.” cameras... a vestibular system is on the way.

Photo by Mark Miller

away by the concepts presented in each issue and in its corresponding titles. Then came Jimmy Olsen #139, featuring a typical Kirby cover— not even counting the required logo, it contained 60 words of hype by Michal Jacot and dialogue, as though the story inside was bursting from the inside pages. But what was going on here? In the midst of awesome, starou want to know what my favorite Jack Kirby story of all time is? spanning tales of grandeur, here was a Kirby rendering of Don Rickles With a history of work spanning decades in comics, creating some holding a caricature of Don Rickles. This issue got my 15¢ just for the of the most incredible and enduring characters ever seen, I’m bizarreness of this scene, and I don’t even like Don Rickles. ashamed to admit it. The story centered around a race-against-time to find an antidote Yes, I am the guy who likes the “Goody Rickels” story. for a poison Jimmy and the gang had ingested. Jack did this type of The two-parter from Jimmy Olsen #139 and #141 (sliced neatly in story wonderfully, pacing it just right to give a sense of urgency akin half by a Giant issue in #140) took me by surprise. I’d had about six to the old movie serials and action flicks. However, this story had months to acclimate myself to Jack’s work on this series, being blown something in it that I hadn’t seen in others: A lot of really weird humor. Goody Rickels, a Don Rickles lookalike, talks to Morgan Edge and the two have some of the goofiest lines I’ve ever read in comics. When Goody is told he has a big heart, he responds with: “Nature gave me a small liver—but a big, big heart!” Edge, after being in the same room with Rickels for only moments, thinks, “The solution is obvious! This man must be killed!” The fast-paced story is laced with humor, and it’s not just funny humor. It’s bizarre, strange, offbeat humor. The second part in #141 was cool because it helped me lord something over a friend of mine. I had mentioned to him that my two favorite comics artists were Jack Kirby and Neal Adams, and that I’d love to see what Adams’ inks would look like on Kirby’s pencils. He sniffed, “That’ll never happen. Their styles don’t mesh. It would look horrible.” Well, #141’s cover gave me just that combination, and it looked pretty damn good—not that I would have ever expected to see a dramatic picture of Superman and the Guardian rushing towards me carrying a large photograph of Don Rickles, but the cover only served to keep the eccentric quality of the story going full steam. Besides, it said, “Don’t ask, just buy it.” It’s bad luck to ignore warnings on comic books, you know. And that’s why it’s my favorite story. It was as though Jack was weaving this wonderful intergalactic tale full of awesome characters, and then right in the middle of it he said, “Okay folks, we’re going to put a hold on all the awesomeness for a couple of issues here and I’m going to have some real weird, lighthearted fun.” It was like watching a Shakespearean play and being shown a Three Stooges video during intermission. I’d almost bet Jack chuckled to himself as he wrote and drew this stuff. Then, after this strange interlude, he went back to the cosmic saga. Okay, so now it’s out. I am the guy who got a kick out of Goody Rickels’ fifteen minutes of fame. It just makes me wonder what Jack would have done with Jim Carrey.★ Don’t worry, Michal; we like him too! Pencils from Jimmy Olsen #139.

Oh, Goody!

TJKC: Did you own any Kirby comics? BRUCE: When I was a kid, I probably didn’t own a single Kirby comic— there’s not one that I can remember. When I was thirteen, there was this guy on the street that had a drawer full of comics his cousin had given him and he said, “You want ’em?” I said, “Sure!” He had just a little bit of everything: Kirby reprints, the legendary Silver Surfer #6, and a whole bunch of other stuff—mostly Marvel from around 1972. One of them was a Marvel’s Greatest Comics reprint with the first Black Panther story. That probably was actually the first Kirby comic I ever got. Actually in the same drawer full of comics there were a couple of Mister Miracles and the Demon, so that kinda put the zap on my head.

Bruce Timm Interviewed by George Khoury with Pedro Khoury III (He is the backbone of The Batman and Superman Adventures and the new animated show Batman: Beyond. His long Emmy award-winning animation career began somewhat by accident; what he really wanted to be was a comic book artist. So this man, along with his partner-in-crime Paul Dini, created the Eisner and Harvey award-winning comic book, The Batman Adventures: Mad Love. If you’ve enjoyed his work, you would have long noted the Kirby influence within him and how he’s kept the King’s memory alive on the small screen. From Jack’s in-your-face action in Batman to Kirby’s massive armory collection in Superman—it’s all so very Jack Kirby, yet so very much a part of Bruce Timm.)

TJKC: Is there any artistic image that comes to you when you think of Kirby? BRUCE: Not really. I don’t know how he did so many things and did them all so well. He did stuff that nobody would have considered doing, especially at Marvel in the Sixties.

THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR: What are your artistic influences? BRUCE TIMM: Well, mostly comic book guys. (laughter) Obviously Kirby is a huge influence on me, but I’ve gone through phases where I was really into one artist or another at a different time. Frazetta, Toth, Kurtzman, and a lot of Marvel guys—John Buscema was my god for the longest time. Silver Surfer #6 was my bible; I used to trace the whole book over and over again.

TJKC: What do you think made his art so unique? BRUCE: Well again, you could really focus on the action and the fantastic elements that stick out: The zig-zaggy lines, the fantastic machinery, and everything else. A lot of that is wonderful stuff—it’s stuff that I kinda appropriated into my own comic book work—but the wonderful thing about Kirby is he was a born storyteller; he could make anything look interesting even if he didn’t have super-heroes to play with. It’s funny; one of the guys and I just the other day were looking at an issue of Justice Inc. he did. You could tell it was at the end of his tenure at DC and he didn’t really give a sh*t about it. The Fourth World had already gone away and Kamandi was about the only thing

TJKC: Alex Ross described your style as part Alex Toth, part Jack Kirby. BRUCE: Yeah, I guess that’s true. It’s a funny thing about Alex Toth; I never really tried to sit down and copy what he did—never sat down and learned to draw from looking at his stuff. To this day, I’ve never understood the key that makes his stuff so wonderful. Everyone thinks his stuff is just really simple, but it isn’t. He’s one of the finest draftsman to ever work in the business. If you really look at his drawing, they’re photographically sound—very realistic—but somehow when he does the ink and the cleanup, he puts this thin cartoony line on it that kinda reduces everything to a real simplistic formula; but the underlying drawing is really complex. So when people say they see a lot of Toth in my work, I don’t really know what they are responding to; maybe it’s just the simplicity of it.

Bruce’s inks of a Kirby pencil drawing.

TJKC: Which art school did you attend? BRUCE: I never went to art school. I’m completely self-taught. I learned how to draw from drawing Silver Surfer #6 over and over again. (laughter) Basically I learned how to draw from copying comic books, literally. My parents were always very supportive of me. They said, “Well, if you wanna be an artist that’s fine, but we understand that it’s kind of a risky business, and maybe you should have something to fall back on.” When I went to college, I foolishly didn’t go to art school; I just went to regular college. Fortunately college gave up on me about the same time I gave up on college. TJKC: When was the first time you saw Kirby’s artwork? BRUCE: It had to have been in the Sixties, without knowing who Jack Kirby was or anything. I was too young to really appreciate it. I was born in ’61; you can do the math. When I was younger, we didn’t really have a lot of comic books in the house; we weren’t poor, but we weren’t well-to-do. I would only get comics occasionally when I was sick. My mom would get me some comics to get my mind off being sick and things like that. My allowance was only twenty five cents a week (laughter), so I really couldn’t afford comic books. But I’d see all the super-hero shows on TV like Batman and Space Ghost, and the Marvel cartoons. The very first time I saw Jack Kirby was probably the Marvel Super-Heroes Show: An adaptation of the first Sleeper story they did in Captain America. They just took still images from the comics and put them on cels and just kinda pulled the background. Occasionally, they’d animate an arm; but I loved those films when I was a kid. 17

I actually have to drive past Jack’s grave every morning on my way to work! It haunts me.

From the Superman animated series: Darkseid, by Tommy Tejeda.

TJKC: How would you describe your role on the Batman/Superman show now? I’ve noticed you don’t direct as much as you used to. BRUCE: Yeah, I don’t have the time. Basically producer/designer; I still end up designing a lot of the main characters for the series, but I do a little of everything. My fingerprints are all over the show. From the minute the script gets written, I’m giving the other producers my story notes and talking about casting with the casting director, overseeing the voice recording with the voice director, overseeing the artwork of the series and storyboards. Then when the show comes back, I’m kind of in charge of putting it all together in the editing room. TJKC: Are there any Kirby elements in the show? BRUCE: Absolutely, especially on the Superman series—less so on the Batman show. We knew exactly what we wanted to do with Batman— you know, the Film Noir/Art Deco kind of look on it. When the time came to do Superman, we really didn’t know what to do that would make it visually different from Batman but at the same time just as cool. We didn’t wanna go back and make it look just like the Fleischer cartoons; I didn’t want anybody to put our show up against Fleischer’s and say, “Well look, they’re doing the Fleischers, just not as well.” One of the things we wanted to do with Superman was to kind of “Marvelize” Superman a little bit. That’s why the police don’t just carry handguns, but these Kirby-like weapons. All of the science-fictional elements in

he had created that was still going strong, and he was just waiting out time so he could go back to Marvel. He was doing this Justice Inc. book and he really didn’t care about it but he just couldn’t help but do a good drawing. It’s not his best work but even so, there are still gems on every page, even if it’s not an action scene. There’s just a natural sense of composition and a natural sense of drama. TJKC: Did you try to get into comics before getting into animation? BRUCE: Actually, yeah. My whole career in animation has kind of been a fluke. I never was a huge cartoon fan; there are people in this business who live and breathe cartoons. They studied and analyzed. They studied all the Disney movies; went to animation school and stuff. TJKC: That’s probably what makes Batman unique; you don’t have that traditional animation background. BRUCE: Yeah, I basically wanted to be a comic book artist when I grew up. I think at some point I realized that I wasn’t quite good enough to get into comics. I realized my own limitations. But I saw these really, really crappy cartoons on TV and I said, “Well, at least I can draw that good.” (laughter) So I applied at one of the local animation studios. It was this company called Filmation—my very first paying art job. It was 1981 and the show was called Blackstar.

Very Kirbyesque machinery by Bruce Timm and Robert Fletcher. this series—whether it’s a tank or something from outer space—has a kind of Kirby feel to it, or at least we try to. Even in the pilot, the origin story, there’s this Brainiac satellite floating around Krypton and we tried for the longest time to come up with a design for it, and we didn’t come up with anything I really liked. I found this Kirby gizmo in one of the Kirby comics and I turned it upside-down and said, “Hey! That’s our satellite.” There are things like that all the way through the show where we would just find Kirby-ish elements and turn them into things in the Superman show. I also try to do that with some of the villains. A lot of the Superman villains aren’t nearly as interesting as the Batman villains. Batman has the best rogues gallery in comics and the Superman

TJKC: Did you ever meet Jack at a convention? BRUCE: Yeah. I wish I could say I had a wonderful conversation but I met him only a couple of times, and just long enough to say, “Oh Jack, I just wanted to shake your hand and tell you I think you’re wonderful.” I didn’t know what to say to him. I did not know how to have a conversation with him; I regret that. The thing is, for years before he died, I was living in Agoura Hills—which is five minutes away from where he lived—and there were plenty of opportunities I could have easily gotten and introduced myself to him. I could have spent an evening and had a conversation with him but I never ever did. I really regret it.

Some of Jack’s presentation art done during his stint in animation during the 1980s.

rogues gallery is pretty dull. We would take characters like Brainiac and the Parasite—that are pretty dull looking in the comics—and go, “If Kirby were designing them, what would he do with them?” So we would put Kirby-type costumes and Kirby touches on them to make them more interesting.

villains are pretty uninteresting and most of them are fifty-year-old fat guys in suits. We figured, “Well, there’s Darkseid; let’s definitely use Darkseid in the show.” So Paul Dini and I were sitting around one day trying to figure out what we were going to do with Darkseid and the New Gods, and we just started throwing out ideas. For one thing, what does Darkseid want? It’s not just enough for him to conquer the Earth; why does he want to conquer the Earth? We went back to the comics to figure out: What is Darkseid’s motivation, and what is the Anti-Life Equation? We decided we couldn’t figure it out ourselves. We got the idea that maybe even Jack didn’t know what he was doing! He had this really cool idea and even if he had something that he meant to do with it in the comics, the series was cancelled before he had a chance to. The Anti-Life Equation makes sense in the comics but it’s kind of a big nebulous thing, and we only have 20 minutes—or at most 40 minutes—to tell a story. So we had to make it easy for eightyear-olds to understand. Our version of the Anti-Life Equation is basically that he feeds on the despair of people, so that’s why he wants Earth and that’s why he wants to destroy Superman. He’s going to come to

TJKC: Was Ben Turpin based on Jack? BRUCE: Oh, definitely. Absolutely, it was based on Jack. That’s something DC Comics had been doing for a while anyway, using the stuff that Jack created: The Fourth World characters, Intergang, and all that stuff. They’ve really been introducing that stuff in the Superman comics recently. We thought that’s a natural; we love Jack’s stuff anyway. The Turpin character in the comics didn’t look anything like Jack but I decided it would be kind of fun, kind of a little throwaway tribute to Jack, to just make the character look like Jack. TJKC: How about the tribute to Jack in the Fourth World episode? BRUCE: Again, when we were doing Superman, we were trying to find interesting villains for him to come up against. The regular Superman

Paul Rivoche’s storyboards for a scene from the “Apokolips... Now!” episode of Superman. 19

BRUCE: She died just a couple of weeks before that episode aired. It’s kind of ironic and sad that she didn’t get to see it. I’m sure she would have enjoyed the tribute to Jack, but since we killed “Jack” in that episode, I didn’t want to upset Roz. We had his funeral in there too. I didn’t want to cause her any more pain and misery by having her see that. It’s a doubleedged sword. TJKC: What can you tell us about the Demon? How is he being handled? BRUCE: He’s handled very Kirby-ish. They’ve done a lot with him in the comics lately, to kind of change him. These are harder, rougher times so they’ve recreated the Demon in harder, rougher form. When we decided we were going to use the Demon—[we said] let’s just do the real one. TJKC: Will there be any more goodies for Kirby fans in the future? BRUCE: Ah, I don’t know. (laughter) There’s definitely going to be more of Darkseid and Granny Goodness and the Female Furies in the new season of Superman starting this fall. There’s a two-parter actually bigger than the New Gods one we just did: More destruction, more Earth-shattering events. In terms of using other characters, I don’t really know. There was this Mister Miracle plot floating around for a while but I wasn’t happy with it so that was put on hold until we could figure out what to do with it; but I’d love to use Mister Miracle. TJKC: I read somewhere there was a possibility of a Kamandi or a Fourth World animated movie. Was there any truth to that? BRUCE: I don’t know how that rumor even got out! That’s something we’ve just started talking about among ourselves. It was a kind of a truthful rumor. We talked about it once, when we finished the new season of Batman and we hadn’t yet got the pick-up on Superman or Batman. We were just going through the whole list of DC characters that we had the rights to, and we thought, “What would be a good series for kids?” I just immediately thought of Kamandi. I thought Kamandi would be a great kids’ show. We never really did much more on it Imagine Bruce Timm animating this “car wash” death trap scene from Mister Miracle #5! than that; we just talked about the possibility Earth and take their greatest hero and reduce him to nothing. He’s that we might do it. Then we got busy doing the new Batman and going to feed off the despair of the entire planet. Then I came up with Superman, and kind of put it on hold for a while, but I’d still love to do the idea that he’s going to set off a bomb on a nuclear power plant a Kamandi show. I think Kamandi is a great character. It’s actually my and basically set up a burn hole through the Earth, to turn Earth into favorite Kirby comic from the DC era. I like the New Gods and Mister Apokolips II. The story idea just kind of blew back and forth. Miracle and everything, but there’s something about Kamandi. I think I wanted Superman to sit out the whole climax; I didn’t want it’s his best writing. Superman to be the hero. Darkseid’s idea was, if he totally defeated TJKC: I was always more of a Marvel fan and Kamandi seemed a lot Superman, human beings would be so shell-shocked and disheartened like Devil Dinosaur. Did you like that? by it that they would just give up easily, and I said, “That’s not right.” BRUCE: Devil Dinosaur is the only Kirby comic I have resisted. I’ve I wanted humanity to be the hero, not Superman. That’s where the never actually read Devil Dinosaur so I can’t comment one way or the whole thing with Turpin came about; we thought Turpin should be other; for some reason the whole idea didn’t really appeal to me. the guy. It’s like that story that Kirby did, the one where Turpin dukes Everybody raves about it; all the people who work in my crew go, it out with Kalibak, but just by his own will power he dominates. “Devil Dinosaur is great, you’ve got to read it.” One of these days...! TJKC: Was Roz Kirby alive at the time the episode aired? 20

TJKC: Are you working on Batman: Beyond? BRUCE: Yes. It basically takes place in the future and Bruce Wayne is a really old man. He’s too old to be Batman; actually he hasn’t been Batman for 20 years. He gets called out of retirement by this young kid whose dad had been killed. This kid convinces him that there is still a need for Batman and basically this kid wants to be Batman and Bruce Wayne becomes his mentor. That’s the short version; much more than that, I can’t really say because we don’t want to give it away.

BRUCE: Yeah, he didn’t spot enough black on the Thing. Chic’s great on Jack, that’s a really good combination. I’d rather have Chic inking than Vince Colletta. Actually, I really didn’t mind Vince Colletta that much. TJKC: Vince Colletta gets killed everywhere. BRUCE: (laughter) Yeah, everybody hates Vince, but he’s pretty good. The only thing that I really fault him for is erasing the detail and eliminating characters that he didn’t feel like inking. He didn’t really Orion by ink the straight lines very Tommy Tejeda. well. He couldn’t resist putting a whole bunch of hatch work all over the lines; that kind of defeated the purpose, but for the most part I think Vince was a pretty decent inker on Jack.

TJKC: What did you think of Kirby’s work in animation when he came back to the field during the Seventies? BRUCE: Well, it’s kind of a loaded question—hard to say. Jack had a great imagination and obviously his drawing skills hadn’t gone anywhere. He was still as good an artist as he ever was. His stuff doesn’t really translate into animation immediately, but unfortunately a lot of the cool stuff that he came up with, other people had to turn it into animation models and it lost the juice that Jack originally had on it— which is kind of what you have to do anyway. You just can’t literally take a Kirby drawing and animate it, because there’s too much stuff that has to be translated. TJKC: What do you think was the best interpretation of Kirby’s work on the small screen? BRUCE: Not to toot my own horn, but I’m pretty proud of the New Gods two-parter we did. I think that was a pretty decent attempt at trying to do Kirby-style concepts and designs. Unfortunately, shows like the Silver Surfer and the Fantastic Four show from a couple of years ago—I think their heart was in the right place. I think they tried to do Jack Kirby in animation, but you can’t just literally take Jack’s designs and eliminate some of the extra detail and just put it on the screen that way. When we did the New Gods episode—when I did the original character designs for Orion I said, “Okay, I’m going to make this character look exactly the way Jack would have drawn it.” But the minute you start drawing him in the proportion that Jack drew him, he’s only five-and-a-half feet tall. So suddenly the character looked liked a midget; he didn’t have the power that Orion needs to have. I had to try to keep the spirit of Kirby without actually making it a strict literal adaptation of his artwork. So Orion feels right even though he doesn’t look exactly the way Jack drew him.

TJKC: I particularly didn’t like the Hunger Dogs inking; I thought it didn’t look right. BRUCE: D. Bruce Berry, Theakston, and I guess Royer worked on it a little bit. I hate to badmouth Theakston, but he’s not a very good inker on Kirby. I think that he does the things that you should never do with Kirby: He tried to fix the drawings. When you ink Kirby, you have to trust Kirby’s pencils and ink them as-is. TJKC: Do you own any Kirby artwork? I heard from Alex Ross that you traded for the cover painting he did for TJKC. BRUCE: I did. I traded him for that. I have a page from Avengers #6 which is really nice. It’s got Iron Man and I always loved the way Jack drew Iron Man. I recently bought the entire issue of Eternals #2—it’s beautiful. TJKC: What’s missing in the transition between comic books and the big screen? Is it that super-heroes just can’t work on the big screen? BRUCE: I don’t think so. I think there’s a big chunk of the first Batman movie that worked really great. There’s stuff in the first Superman movie that worked really great as well. I’m waiting till the day when somebody does a 100% successful super-hero film. I think it could easily be done. Part of the problem is a condescending attitude towards the material. Obviously that’s the case with the most recent Batman movies; they’re thinking, “It’s a comic book, it’s not meant to be taken seriously. It’s silliness.” To a degree, it’s true. The comic book movies should be fun but I don’t think you should ever make fun of the characters, and I think the last couple of Batman movies are actually making fun of the character. Basically you treat [these films] the way you would treat a James Bond movie or the way you would treat a Dirty Harry movie. It should have that kind of level of action and to take it seriously enough to believe the character is in jeopardy. The problem with the Batman movies is it’s so jokey and he’s got so many gadgets and gimmicks that never for a minute do you think the character’s in danger. In the best James Bond movies or the best Die Hard movies you’re always thinking, “Okay, this guy is going to get killed.” So a big part of it is that you have to treat it just seriously enough so the audience can buy it—so they won’t go, “Oh, it’s just a silly fantasy. I’m just going to stare and watch the explosions and fancy colors.”

TJKC: Who’s your favorite Kirby inker? BRUCE: My favorite Kirby inker is unusual; it’s Frank Giacoia. A lot of people don’t have him listed as their favorite inker but he’s mine. I love Sinnott too. I love Chic Stone. I love Mike Royer, I think he’s way up there on top. But for my money, my favorite comics are those inked by Frank Giacoia. Fantastic Four Annual #5 is my favorite Kirby comic ever. TJKC: Stone is cool, but his take on the Thing looked weird.

The “Apokolips... Now!” episode featured an animated reenactment of scenes from “The Pact” in New Gods #7. Look familiar? This figure is by Bruce Timm.

TJKC: How long are you staying on the show? BRUCE: I’m not getting any better offers. I’m like you; I actually prefer the Marvel characters to the DC characters. I’ve loved Batman since I was a kid but I never had much of an affinity for Superman. There’s just something intrinsic about the Marvel characters that I’ve always 21

An unfinished drawing—possibly an animation piece—done by Jack. This original was approximately 20" x 15".

and do them properly in a mass medium for them to have a super-huge popularity. Even Captain America is a fiftyyear-old property, but I think that if it was done well—it could totally kick butt. He’s timeless.

TJKC: He’s sort of like Batman but he represents “hope.” BRUCE: Yeah, he’s actually 180 degrees away from Batman. What’s cool about Captain America is that he’s the living symbol of America, so he can be kind of “gosh,” “wow,” and pure and innocent, without being corny. Superman’s kinda corny if you treat him too much like a boy scout, but Captain America—not only is he the embodiment of America but he’s also a soldier. So he’s polite but he’s a killer fighter too. Captain America is a great, great character; no doubt.

just gravitated to when I was a kid. The first comics that I ever had were Superman and Batman comics and I liked them, but then my brother brought home a Ditko Spider-Man and it totally put a zap on me. I saw this Spider-Man cover— it was Spider-Man and the Lizard—and the colors were really dark and even Spider-Man was dark and creepy. I immediately knew that these characters had more of an edge to them than the Superman characters. All the DC characters are brightly colorful and really polite to each other and they like solving nice little mysteries, and the Marvel characters just have this zing to them that the DC characters didn’t have. If I had my way, I’d be doing cartoons of the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, and all that stuff that I grew up on. That’s the stuff I love the most. But unfortunately, the people who are doing the Marvel cartoons—I don’t think they’d let me make the cartoons the way I would want to do them. The beautiful thing about Warner Brothers is that they hire us to do these shows and then they back off and let us do it. They have faith in our abilities and they literally don’t give us any trouble. Also they spend money to do the show correctly; that’s another problem with the Marvel cartoons. They just do it too cheap. They don’t spend the money that we do here at Warner Brothers, so the animation quality is not as good.

TJKC: And finally, what’s your beef with Thor? On your website, you’ve done drawings of Thor getting the daylights kicked out of him by virtually every super-hero in existence. BRUCE: Here’s how that came about. At the time of the Batman show, we’d often have a discussion—Who’s your favorite Kirby inker? Who’s your favorite Kirby character?—which is a typical fanboyish thing. Kevin Alteri, the director, was going on at one point saying how he thought that Thor was the peak of Jack’s career. I was like, “Yeah, Thor is really, really good, but there’s something really great about those New Gods comics.” Kevin was like, “New Gods is nothing compared to Thor. They’re not really as good.” On one hand, yeah, they’re not quite as perfect as the Thor comics but they’re great to look at. You can’t beat that Royer inking! He’s like, “Nah, the Colletta stuff is the best.” He was actually saying that. So I did this one drawing of Orion beating up on Thor, and I inked Thor “Colletta style” and I inked Orion “Royer style,” and that was the first drawing I did. I basically ended up doing a whole series of all these other Kirby characters beating up on Thor because that was Kevin’s favorite character. That’s all it was about; I have nothing against Thor. I love the Thor comics.★

TJKC: So how long do you think the Kirby mystique will be around? BRUCE: I don’t know. It’s kind of sad to me that kids nowadays think Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld, and all these guys are the top of the form. You show them a Kirby comic and Kirby looks old-fashioned to them, which is weird to me ’cause I love those primo Fantastic Fours and Thors. I think, “My God, this stuff is totally state-of-the-art!” Nobody had ever done anything like this and they still haven’t! But I don’t know. I wish I could say that Kirby’s gonna be around forever; I don’t know if he will. TJKC: Yet it surely seems that with the Fourth World and everything else, he’s created a mythology that could stand for a while. BRUCE: Well yeah, just look at all the stuff he created for Marvel, too. The Incredible Hulk, the Fantastic Four, and all that stuff; those are still some excellent concepts. It basically just takes somebody to come along

Apokolips and New Genesis soldiers do battle, by Bruce Timm. 22

How I Caught The Mythology Bug From Thor By Eddie Campbell, award-winning artist of Bacchus and From Hell ’ve been drawing Bacchus, my irreverent take on Greek mythology, for some ten years now but have never had the opportunity to recognize, for the record, the source of my inspiration for it—namely a run of half a dozen issues of Thor: #124-130. This was the unforgettable meeting of Thor and Hercules in the first half of 1966. I was ten years old. I would have first come across the story in Fantastic, one of five weekly comics published by Odhams Press re-packaging Marvel material in black-&-white for British readers. Most of my generation discovered Marvel this way (ask Moore, Gibbons, etc.) between ’63 and ’69, and we were able to familiarize ourselves with the black-&-white inking techniques of the likes of Colletta at a time when you guys in the US were not able to. (I’ve never understood the volume of dislike for Colletta’s inking. For me he was the only inker for Thor. Where Sinnott created a surface that was glossy and futuristic, Colletta’s work—equally individualistic and accomplished in its own way— was matte and rustic, the perfect complement to the Thor style with all its lovable cockeyed antiquities. Moreover, Sinnott has his stylistic descendants— Royer, etc.—while Colletta’s style defies analysis. The brush and pen lines themselves do not add up to that particular matte look. For comparison, see Kubert’s deliberate rendering of a coarse surface in DC’s Firehair, with his use of drybrush and crayon.) Lee and Kirby were just getting into those everyday-life touches that make their work from this period so special. Thus #124 kicks off with a big splash of Thor stopping to pick up a newspaper on a New York street corner. We talk about ‘storyarcs’ nowadays, but back then I think the model was the TV soap opera, with a whole bunch of story-threads interweaving, phasing in and out. Thor goes off to the Far East to tie up a loose end regarding a lost Nornstone, while on Mount Olympus a new thread is introduced when Zeus sends his son Hercules to Earth. While the Far East plot gives us the monthly dose of action, the scenes of Hercules just being hedonistic are a thrill to see. Hercules is a delightful Lee-Kirby character interpretation; a big, bluff, lovable hunk of granite who makes Thor a tight-assed prima donna.

Hercules: “Though the words be strange, the tone is unmistakable! And worse, they interrupt my madrigal.” Another great thing about the Lee-Kirby style, which I find joyously funny now, is the way the battle of 1966 is set up. In one of their typical oddball coincidences, Hercules is wooing Jane Foster. JANE: “That large, powerful figure in the center of the crowd! It can only be Thor! I must get to him...” right at the point where Thor returns to Earth. THOR: “Jane! I have returned” JANE: “Really? I forgot you had been away!” THOR: “How came you to be here with HIM?” The crucial thing I learned from these guys is that you can be funny

COP: “Let’s see your license to give a public demonstration in the street.” THOR: “License? I have no license. I am THOR.” COP: “I don’t care if you’re Mother Hubbard,” etc. What confidence, eh?—to make your title character come off second-best to another hero. While Hercules wows the girls in a restaurant (#125), the plot is set in motion by a Hollywood movie scout. “Now, get this, J.B. I spotted just the one we’re looking for! He’ll make the greatest Hercules ever filmed.” When hold-up men bust into the restaurant, Stan Lee’s daft anachronisms can only add to the charm of the scene.

Volstagg debuts in this back-up story from Journey Into Mystery #119; the humor was pure Kirby. 23

as blazes without upsetting the heroic seriousness of the story; and upon such soapy suds is set the foundation for the next issue, the colossal #126 with Thor and Hercules duking it out on the cover. I did a homage to this cover on an issue of Dark Horse Presents with my own characters Hermes and the Eyeball Kid. I struggled to imitate Kirby’s majestic power and got lost in the intricacies. I notice in my defense that the colorist on the original #126 got somewhat lost in the forms of Thor’s left hand. The next story thread is the one that gets rid of Thor so that the main business of the Hercules story can be played out. In Asgard, one Seidring the Merciless—seemingly invented and introduced for this sole purpose—persuades Odin to remove Thor’s divine power, it being the major obstacle on his road to taking over Asgard. Odin is a sucker for this ploy as he is pissed at Thor for revealing his identity to mere mortal Jane Foster in #124. This happens right in the middle of the fight and Hercules defeats Thor. (Yet another crashing revelation: The hero of the book can lose sometimes.) Thor goes off to sort out the problem with Asgard—a whole story within a story—and Hercules is persuaded to go to Hollywood by the scout who’s been fidgeting in the wings for two issues: “Think of it, big fella. Your own swimming pool! Beautiful starlets! Fan Clubs! TV residuals.” The bathos is typical Lee, and when used in conjunction with mythological heroes, it opened up in this young head vistas never imagined. I’ve never thought about it precisely before, but the seeds of my conniving villain Chryson were planted here. It gets better. Hollywood producer “J.B.” turns out to be Pluto, dark god of the Netherworld who takes off

(these pages) Pencils to Thor #152; why did all-powerful Odin bother putting on street clothes? his California shades to reveal blank burning greedy orbs for eyes. The characterization is well-considered. As god of the Netherworld, the under-earth, Pluto was heir to all the precious metals and stones to be found there. That’s a fair trade-off for having to spend all your days governing the dead souls of the after-life. Also the name Pluto means wealthy and it survives in linguistic constructions like plutocrat, in spite of Disney having given it away to a mutt. At this stage of course we’ve never seen these characters before, so to our fresh gaze he is as much a scheming megalomaniacal movie producer as the other—wherein lies some great satire. The CONTRACT is now introduced. Hyppolita, beautiful queen of the Amazons, in disguise, is to be the bait. HYPPOLITA: “Hercules cannot help but lose his heart to me.” PLUTO: “True, but you are merely one segment of my master plan. This innocent looking CONTRACT is still another. For within my hand, I hold a genuine Olympian Pact...” Eddie’s take on Thor #126’s cover, for Dark Horse Presents.

I think Lee and Kirby made up this business about the ‘Pact’, but it fits well with Hercules’ character and his myth to have him pledge his life away in servitude. That’s what 24

the Twelve Labors was all about. The next part is a scream and I confess I had it rattling around in my head when we sorted out the From Hell movie CONTRACT. The fictions we take to heart in our youth rest in the back of our brain and become a part of our personalities.

logical pedigree. By this time the reader’s interest shifts to the new thread that has been phasing in back in New York concerning Jane Foster and Tana Nile, and events which will take Thor into novel territory in outer space with the planet Rigel, Ego the Living Planet and a whole bunch of new Kirby concepts. Pluto can’t bear to see any more of his domain wrecked by combat, calls a halt to the fray, and tears up the CONTRACT. Thor and Hercules sympathetically observe that he would never have been happy upstairs and the matter is closed. For a brief moment, Lee and Kirby afforded me a vision of how Greek mythology might be adapted to the comic book page, a vision which I later developed and expanded into my own comic book universe inhabited by Bacchus, God of Wine; Joe Theseus (whose disgruntlement derives from never having received the accolades and divine prize that were given to Hercules—this is mythically sound); The Eyeball Kid, multivisioned son of Argus; Chryson, God of Business; and they taught a wee innocent twelve-year-old to have eyes in the back of his head.★

PLUTO: “Oh, before we forget... if you will just sign this CONTRACT; a mere formality, of course! An annoying trifle to be quickly disposed of!” HERCULES: “But what nonsense is this? The text doth say Hercules must rule the Netherworld for all eternity.” PLUTO: “Oh, did I not tell you? It is merely the theme of our picture.” HYPPOLITA: “According to the plot of the movie, you conquer the entire Netherworld by defeating Pluto in battle! And I remain at your side all the time.” HERCULES: “Hmm. That thought doth please me greatly. Enough talk. Herewith the thumbprint of Hercules.” Now the villain reveals himself and Hercules is in the poo. According to the small print, he can get out of it if he gets another to do battle on his behalf against the hordes of Pluto’s Netherworld— that other, upon failure in said fight, being obliged to take Hercules’ place as governor of the pits of Hades. This gives Kirby a chance to put all the other Greek gods briefly on stage. Thus we see Dionysius (sic) (Bacchus by any other name). It’s the little roly-poly corrupted Roman version of the god (vide Fantasia) rather than the noble Greek one. The good thing about this, from my point of view, is that Marvel, being heavily continuity-oriented, is stuck forever with this version. Then we see Ares, God of War, being a bit cowardly (war was out of fashion in the Sixties) and Hermes who cannot hear the plea for the hooves of his celestial chariot. So it’s down to the Netherworld with Hercules and to his surprise—though of course it’s the big finale we’ve been waiting for—its the Norse god Thor who arrives to fight his cause. Now we get to meet some more mythological figures, but for some reason the steam goes out of the story at this point. First up is what I call the Cerberus Mistake. In Greek myth, Cerberus is the three-headed monstrous dog who guards the entrance to the Netherworld. Kirby makes him a big humanoid guard in the manner of Doom’s robots or the Leader’s androids— and he says things like, “Then let it be an Asgardian who falls beneath my helmet’s ray of destruction.” We didn’t need to go all the way down to the Netherworld for that. What happened? In the Greek classical period, artistic depictions of mythic characters shied away from the grotesque and everything became idealized along human lines and proportions. Thus “Argus of the Hundred Eyes” might become readable as metaphorical as in a French painting of Poussin’s generation where he clearly only has two. I’ve read that Kirby didn’t care to depict the dead walking, as he was requested to do with Deadman in the Forever People, and he was certainly never in the vicinity of the necro-mayhem that came out of EC. But why did he not make the best of Cerberus? Grotesques abound elsewhere in his work: Dragon Man, Modok, the Deep Six, the trolls, ad infinitum. Strange. Perhaps there was a deadline problem and the stopwatch was ticking, for the next heavy is half as interesting again: “Let the Crusher appear! Nothing can break the Crusher’s grip.” Thor’s response is apt. THOR: “Begone thou grotesque caricature of a warrior.” I’ve never thought to check the Crusher’s mytho25

book one

book two

Immortality isn’t forever

The Gods of Business

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book three

book four

Doing the islands

The Eyeball Kid

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book five

book nine

Earth, Water, Air & Fire King Bacchus $12.95 US

Immortality isn’t forever tells what happened to the Greek gods. Introduces Bacchus, Joe Theseus and the Eyeball Kid. The Gods of Business Joe Theseus and the Eyeball Kid get buggered around by the Telchines. Doing the islands with Bacchus gathering up the short stories of the wine god’s wanderings about after the events above - introduces Hermes. The Eyeball Kid: One Man Show The Kid is down and out and wasted after the events at the top. Seeks vengeance on the Telchines. Hermes is here, too. Ed (The End of the Century Club) Hillyer is the artist. Earth, Water, Air and Fire Another big story. Bacchus, Joe Theseus and the Kid are seen all together for the first time. Villains include Skylla, the Kabeiroi and Vinnie Bosanova. Introduces the Anchovy. The 1,001 Nights of Bacchus Bacchus is gloomy without his old pal, Simpson, in this suite of short stories. Hermes versus the Eyeball Kid with Joe Theseus, the Fate Bandit, Eva Destruction, Chryson and the cookie tosser. Big grudge fight. The Ghost in the Glass (or Bacchus Color Special) painted by Teddy Kristiansen. Introduces Big Ginny, Queen of the Amazons, plus Chryson, the Gizzard,Thor et cetera. Bacchus becomes the King of the Castle and Frog. Still available from Dark Horse Comics for $2.95 US. The Picture of Doreen Grey in which Big Ginny, Queen of the Amazons, becomes Joe Theseus’ 35th wife. Also introduces the workings of the Body Corporation. King Bacchus Bacchus is the King of the Castle and Frog. Introduces Neil, Dave and Alan. Banged up The new serial which commenced in Bacchus 16 and concluded in issue 31.

alec

Graffiti Kitchen $4.95 US

$12.95 US All volumes in Eddie Campbell’s Bacchus are available at better comic book stores or through his American agent: Chris Staros, Top Shelf Productions, PO Box 1282, Marietta GA 30061-1282. Please make all checks payable to: Chris Staros.

Top Ten Kirby Bloopers by Mark Alexander

ere are my favorite Marvel Mistakes, Mishaps, and Misguided Ideas (and they can be excused, in view of the fact that Jack drew as fast as most folks can think!): 10) Tales to Astonish #36-40 The “Antapult” was Ant-Man’s not-too-nifty catapult/cannon device that would hurl him across town to a specific destination, then land him safely on a pile of nice soft ant bodies. Even by 1962 standards, this idea was rather whack! Later, Jack “improved” on this idea by having A-Man catapult onto the backs of flying ants. Why not just mount them? 9) Fantastic Four #3 Sue Storm’s short-lived costume for the Thing originally had a mask. Why bother? From the very start the group let the world know their true identities. (Duh!) 8) Fantastic Four #10 Alicia Masters (who was blind, mind you) made perfect sculptures of the FF’s greatest foes—none of whom she had ever come into contact with. Think about that. 7) X-Men #6 Bobby Drake (the “Iceman”) attempts to make his dessert “pie a la mode” with a shot of ice! (Too bad other mutants like “Sugarman” and “Milkman” weren’t there.) 6) Fantastic Four #48-50 Galactus, who came from the furthest reaches of the infinite cosmos, had a letter “G” insignia on his chest plate. So, apparently the English alphabet is utilized throughout the universe. (It’s a small world after all.) 5) Avengers #2 The number of toes on the Hulk kept changing, panel to panel, from three to four, except for the many panels which showed him having four toes on one foot and five on the other! (Meanwhile, throughout the entire six issues of The Incredible Hulk, the green gargoyle had five “little piggies.”) Despite this, the villain in the story was toetally defeeted. (Ouch.) 4) Avengers #21 (not shown) The cover shows Captain America with an “A” on his chest instead of a star. After drawing Cap for nearly thirty years, Jack still wasn’t entirely sure about that costume! 3) Fantastic Four #88 Reed was the kinda guy you’d expect would have two left feet on the dance floor, but this splash page shows him with two left hands! It’s inconceivable to me that Stan Lee (art director) and Joe Sinnott (inker) both could have “left” this in! 2) Fantastic Four Annual #3 (not shown) The ultimate Marvel crossover! Oddly enough, no less than fifteen of the characters Jack drew on the cover are absent from the story within; specifically Crimson Dynamo, Dragon Man, unknown figure under the Torch’s arm, the Hulk, Kid Colt (!), the Leader, Loki, Medusa, the Red Skull, Rick Jones, the Scarlet Witch, Sgt. Fury (who was also shown as Nick Fury, agent of SHIELD), Sub-Mariner, the Wasp, and the Wingless Wizard. Probably didn’t get invitations.

1) In the end, the all-time biggest mistake Jack made at Marvel was when he went back to work for them in the mid-1970s. He should never have returned to a company that couldn’t appreciate his talent, genius, and vision. They still don’t. (But then, that’s their big mistake, isn’t it?)★ 27

“Fixing” Kirby’s Art Submitted by Shane Foley, Al Gordon, Tom Horvitz, Albert Moy, and Fred Smith

ere are some instances of Kirby art submitted by our observant readers that, for one reason or another, was altered from its original form before publication:

• Captain America #100, cover (shown at right) Major inking changes are evident on Cap when compared to the original art, as well as the addition of the Wasp where Baron Zemo’s shadow used to be. • Captain America #107, page 20 (shown below) The final 2 panels are by Romita. What were Jack’s? • Eternals #15, cover (shown at left) Hulk’s face and right hand, Ikaris’ left hand, and buildings in the background are by Romita. • Fantastic Four #37 & #38, covers The published versions are different • from the original versions shown in house ads from around that time. On #38, the Thing figure on the published cover has been redrawn (possibly by Dick Ayers), the Torch figure has been repositioned, Medusa’s hair has changed, etc. • Fantastic Four #52, cover Who changed the Panther’s face? FF Index #4, the cover reprint in Marvel’s Greatest Comics #39, and the alternate, unpublished cover all show that same Panther figure with a mouth showing. • Fantastic Four #60, cover The “glow” around Dr. Doom was added. The original is in FF Index #4. • Fantastic Four #64, cover The Torch’s blast has been changed to a fireball. The original is preserved in FF Index #4. • Fantastic Four #65, cover (shown on next page) Ronan’s “Kirby Krackle” was replaced with a paste-over of some buildings. The original inks were underneath. • Fantastic Four #70, cover Sue’s legs/hips; Johnny’s flame. FF Index #5 is different from Marvel’s Greatest Comics #53. Which is the original? 28

• Fantastic Four #98, cover This is Joe Sinnott’s own recollection, actually—about redoing the blacks on the Thing.

• Fantastic Four #78, cover Ben’s face is altered. The original is in FF Index #5 and on Marvel’s Greatest Comics #60.

• Journey Into Mystery #83, cover There are at least two versions of this Thor cover, with big differences (aliens missing, etc.). Compare to the version in Origins of Marvel Comics.

• Fantastic Four #79, page 3 (shown above) Panel 5 is a reproduction of panel 4 and altered. What was Jack’s panel 5?

• Journey Into Mystery Annual #1, cover (shown above) Note the “motion” lines Jack originally drew around the characters; these were omitted when published.

• Fantastic Four #71, cover Bottom left: Android head and body have been redone. The original is preserved in the FF Index #5 and on Marvel’s Greatest Comics #54.

• Thor #140, cover (shown here) Is that how Jack drew Thor’s face? Wouldn’t he have left it obscured by the hammer’s arc? • Thor #159, cover (shown below) Thor’s raised left arm is a Romita addition. • Tales of Suspense #98, cover Is that the way Jack drew the Panther’s face? Marvel Double Feature #21 looks more like the original version to us. • X-Men #1, cover Like JIM #83’s cover, there are at least two versions, with differences in the art. • Giant-Size Conan #5, cover The infamous Romita face changes on Conan and Elric. See our sister publication, Comic Book Artist #2, for Jack’s original, unaltered pencils to this cover. • The Hunger Dogs Graphic Novel, almost any page Theakston reinked many of the Mike Royer figures throughout. (DC Comics hopes to print the original, unaltered Royer-inked story soon—see page 2!) There are bound to be hundreds more, so start looking and send them in!★ 29

we thought Jack made this stuff up out of his head, but he actually created giant statues to draw from!). Jack (it doesn’t look much like him, but the story says it is) calms Millie’s fears, and steps into the other room to get his “paints and brushes” (another surprise— all along, we thought Jack used pencils!). While Jack’s occupied, Chili sneaks in and hides behind yet another giant plaster monster model, and in a deep voice (it says so right on the page), makes the monster appear to speak to Millie, warning her that Kirby turns into a monster himself at the stroke of midnight! A terrified Millie hightails it outta there, leaving a gloating Chili to complete the modeling assignment. The fact that Jack was drawing with paints and brushes must’ve slowed him down, because when midnight hits, he’s still working on this story with Chili as his model. As Chili thinks how she put one over on Millie, Jack leaves the room for a moment, and returns looking like a monster from one of his own stories! Chili—thinking he actually did become a monster at midnight—screams, and makes tracks right through the closed door (that’s gotta hurt!). It turns out Jack also liked to wear a monster mask when he worked on these stories (another revelation!) and forgot to warn Chili; so he wasn’t really a monster after all. (Whew! Whatta relief!) The next day back at the modeling agency, the girls’ boss shows them a copy of the new issue of Journey Into Mystery with a Kirby cover. The story ends with their boss left dumbfounded on the floor with the comic on his head, as Millie and Chili turn away saying (in unison), “Comic magazines... BAH!” So there you have it; another rare guest appearance by Jack in a comic book. It’s remarkable that this simple six-page story from Millie The Model has debunked many of the strongly-held beliefs we’ve had about Jack’s creative process. It’s our sincere hope that this new information will lead TJKC’s readers to a heightened understanding and appreciation of both the man and his work. Or maybe not.★

Jack Meets Millie Thanks to Darryl Young for alerting us to this item! emember our report in TJKC #10 (just reprinted in the second volume of our trade paperback series) on the “Kirby Cameo” in Patsy and Hedy #88 (June 1963)? Well, Jack made an earlier guest appearance in Millie the Model #107 (March 1962). In this story (signed by Stan Lee, and drawn by Stan Goldberg), we gain a number of remarkable new insights into Jack’s work habits. The story, titled “A Monster For Millie,” begins as Millie and her rival Chili are checking out Lee/Kirby monster stories in the latest issue of Strange Tales, when by a strange twist of fate, Jack Kirby calls the modeling agency to hire a model to pose for the cover of his next issue (since Jack drew roughly 1400 covers in his lifetime, those model fees must’ve added up!). Millie’s hesitant to accept the job at first, due to the scary nature of Jack’s work. Her boss convinces her it’d be a good career move, getting her picture in “millions of comic magazines” (something Chili snidely remarks “could kill comics overnight!”), so she heads across town to pose. Unbeknownst to Millie, Chili wants the job for herself, and starts plotting ways to snatch it from Millie. Arriving at Jack’s door (we know it is, because a sign above the doorbell actually says “Jack Kirby, Artist”), Millie enters and is frightened by what turns out to be a huge plaster model of one of Jack’s monsters (all this time,

Black Men Can Ski by Hafeez T. Amin

was trying to create an antithesis to the Skyrider? As the Surfer represented life, the fallen angel daring to challenge God and now banished from Eden, now came a creature of Death, beneath whose surface was a power and depth hidden away like sunken treasure. Or was he trying to make a statement that Blacks, despite what the wider society thought, have the propensity to achieve greatness and so imbued his character with an admirably dogged belief in self-determination? Whatever was the overriding factor at the genesis of the Black Racer, it is obvious that Kirby believed in him, striving to show his anguish and internal fortitude. One has only to reflect on Jack’s effort of pure transcription of his imagination—the detailed richness of his imagery—to recognize the contextualizing of the Racer’s paraplegic host body Sgt. Willie Walker (and the lives he came into contact with) into his story into a broader social statement. The Black Racer stands today as a testament to the abstract, a relic of a simpler time, a part of the stock of leftover characters from the most prolific imagination comics has ever seen; an anachronism, even more today appearing as a free-wheeling concept that has been abused, distorted, humiliated, and ultimately reinvented to fit many different purposes—but he has survived. Despite his innocuous appearance and the perception of his being a “Black man’s Silver Surfer,” his innate nobility has reaffirmed his creator’s invested potential to move him into a new age. I still say it seems to me that Jack must have been aggrieved that the surfboard had already been used by someone else.★

hen asked how he created such magnificent sculptures, Michelangelo remarked, “I look at a block of marble and I see the figures inside. All I do is chip away enough to reveal it.” Existing somewhere in that literary demimonde between the classic and the ridiculous, stands Jack Kirby’s most enigmatic creation, the Black Racer. When one encounters the character for the first time, the startling sight of a Black man perched on skis, dressed in medieval armor and spouting pseudo-Thespian dialogue, evokes a feeling rich in unintentional comedy. Kirby’s vision of the character wafting along on the air currents by means of two cosmically-powered celestial skis— which can accelerate to the speed of light, phasing through solid objects and bringing death to those he has chosen with a single touch—all the while spouting homilies and nostrums, leaves one wondering about the efficacy of his symbolisms. What is most sobering, however, is that he used the disconcerting sight of a BLACK MAN to achieve this vision, risking more than a few stares from the then almost lily-white world of mainstream comics heroes—or perhaps intentionally provoking it by portraying a person of color as the embodiment of living death. Defying conventional skepticism about comics readers’ appetite for startling concepts, especially in heady days of the 1970s, the Black Racer came as something of a surprise. Mark Evanier, Kirby’s assistant and resident keeper of a treasure trove of memories, recounts that he asked Jack to hold off premiering the character in the New Gods, since there were so many other plot details which needed his attention. The King agreed but, when next Mark saw him, the Racer had proven to be too powerful a concept to rein in, emerging in a flood of creative frenzy, replete with Jack’s lush renderings in an issue of his magnum opus, New Gods #3. Never one to do a take on the obvious, Kirby had the Racer drawn to the body of a totally paralyzed, Black Vietnam veteran, Sgt. Willie Walker, a man who had cried out in his subconscious for death to free him from his immobile existence. Empathizing with what the ex-soldier was feeling, the Black Racer offered him his hand, ultimately freeing him from his living prison but now finding himself transformed into the newest incarnation of the cosmic embodiment of Death. Not content with that, Jack rigged it in such a way that when the Racer had finished delivering his message of death, he returned to the comatose shell of Sgt. Walker, until he was summoned again. Readers are very sensitive as to how people of color are represented in comics. As has been discussed elsewhere, Kirby and his major Marvel collaborator Stan Lee had been very progressive when it came to using Black characters in their titles; the Black Panther and Gabe Jones (of the Howling Commandos) come readily to mind. But what was in his head when he came up with the Black Racer? Maybe he was still bitter over his perception of Stan having “hijacked” his Silver Surfer character years before and Jack’s pencils from the Black Racer entry in DC’s Who’s Who series. 31

Jack’s Wackiest Dialogue by Mark Cartwright ver the course of his lengthy career, Jack Kirby gave us some of the most enduring and creative concepts ever committed to a comic book. As we all know his creativity stays with us due to his dynamic compelling artwork, coupled with truly original concepts. However, occasionally some of Jack’s dialogue could approach the surreal in its “wackiness.” Particularly when taken out of context, it’s almost on a par with the more ludicrous subtitles found in a Hong Kong movie. For your entertainment may I present some truly memorable lines for all the wrong reasons.

“My backside... it’s really too well padded to suffer badly in a fall.” One of the ‘Black Musketeers’ describing her own particular ‘super’ ability that led to the defeat of the villainous Jakarra. Black Panther #9, page 15, May 1978. “I-if Steve Rogers would trade his mask and shield for a pick and shovel... I’d be the happiest girl on Earth.” Sharon describes her innermost desire to join Cap in digging roads, instead of being the sentinel of liberty. Sounds like a fair trade! Captain America #202, page 17, October 1976.

“Gods, Devils, or Space Giants... this tactical nuclear device will decide what they are.” One of Nick Fury’s SHIELD agents demonstrates his understanding of diplomacy in dealing with the Eternals. Jack’s updated version of “Kill them all, and let God sort them out.” Eternals #7, page 16, January 1976. “Is there a Goozlebobber somewhere in mid-flight above your area?? You won’t know until his crew contracts the dread galactic condition known as—COSMIC DIARRHEA!” Don’t ask. Captain Victory #6, page 5, second story, September 1982. “That alien pariah can give one a mental HERNIA! WARTS! CLOSURE OF THE PORES—and an insatiable desire for ACUTE DEPRESSION!” Egghead said this about a Goozlebobber; this might be one time the characters were wackier than the dialogue! Captain Victory #7, page 12, October 1982. “What? WHAT? I say “BULL-CHIPS” in your cereal, sir!” Captain Victory’s right-hand man Tarin obviously didn’t eat his “Wheaties” that morning. Captain Victory #10, page 12, April 1983. Considering the millions of words Jack Kirby has written in his lifetime, the above examples of “wackiness” are just pleasant interludes, in the thousands of pages of entertainment he has provided.★

“Blazing Bullfrogs!” The Falcon lets rip with some incredible curse words, that don’t so much as make you blush, as totally baffle you. P.S. There isn’t an amphibian in sight. Captain America #201, page 26, September 1976. “Am I dreaming... or is my bathrobe growing back ?” followed by “These threads have even more class than the old ones. Sheesh ! You’ve sure made it tough to stay mad, Black Bolt!” Ben Grimm describes Black Bolt’s method of ending a conflict between the FF and the Inhumans. Amazing Adventures #2, page 10, September 1970. “Jumping jars of jellied jaguars!!!” Oh boy, when that Jimmy Olsen is stunned, shocked, and surprised, does he ever let loose with... total incomprehensible gibberish!!!—truly demonstrating how stunned he is. Jimmy Olsen #145, page 2, January 1972. “Get yourself a bikini, and start a chain of heart attacks at a garden party.” Don Rickles expounds on the physical attributes of Morgan Edge’s secretary. If this was 1971 instead of 1998, I could have used this line to get a slap in the face, or a date. Jimmy Olsen #141, page 10, September 1971. “I just wanted to walk on the surface again... to see the dawn come up... to feel the warmth of the sun.” Finally the Mole Man explains why he attempted to sink whole cities, kill the FF and lead a marauding army of troglodytes. Johnny Storm’s reply, “If pity’s your bag you won’t find it here.” Amen to that! Fantastic Four #89, page 21, August 1969. (Okay, so it’s Stan Lee’s dialogue!) “This dame they call Lashina. She went at me with a lash... and POW she whipped all the buttons off...!” A sailor explaining to his C.O. why he is running around with his uniform about to fall off. It happened after he was spying on a female from Apokolips on the beach. I should stop while I am not too far behind with this explanation. Anyway read it for yourself in Mister Miracle #12, page 7, February 1973. “See his arms crush the stones like biscuits.” Atlas’ power is described as one who is mightier than the fearsome triscuit trasher. First Issue Special #1, page 3, April 1971.

Original dialogue from Captain Victory #10; whoever changed it made a good call! 32

A.W.O.L.

by Ray Wyman, author of The Art Of Jack Kirby

ack went A.W.O.L. once. I was thumbing through his Army records and noticed the notation in one of them. “Absent With Out Leave” is an otherwise serious offense; nevertheless, Jack walked away with an Honorable Discharge. Actually, it was a common occurrence then— particularly among soldiers returning from the war. When I asked them about it, they got this shy silly look, and then told this story.

ROZ: You have to remember, we hadn’t seen each other in... JACK: Decades. ROZ: Oh... not decades... two years. Don’t listen to him. JACK: Listen to Roz. She’s got all the facts. ROZ: Anyhow, we missed each other a lot and we wanted to see each other... well, you know. This thing isn’t on now, is it? Because I don’t want to let people in on these kinds of things. JACK: So I got my insurance card, see? It was the same color as the pass. I don’t remember why I couldn’t get one. ROZ: Because he came back late from someplace. JACK: Yes. And I took it out like this, see? I held it so the guard couldn’t see the front. And there are all these guys, they’re going out to see their wives and girlfriends too. It was a parade! So the guards, they weren’t taking the time to look at everything so carefully. I just walked out with the rest of them. (pause) RAY: And? JACK: Well, I went to see Roz! RAY: That’s all? ROZ: Oh, not... well, use your imagination! What do you think happened? (laughter) JACK: We didn’t even close the door. (chuckles) ROZ: He didn’t have to hear that... Ray, turn that off.★

Audio Meets Visual by Michael James Zuccaro aving spent my wonder years in New York’s Mohawk Valley during the Sixties, the greatest cultural influences in my life were these men, these artists: Jack Kirby and Frank Zappa. In the days before music videos and multimedia computers, I would read an issue of the Fantastic Four while listening to the Mothers of Invention ask: “Who are the Brain Police?” or “Suzy Creamcheese, what’s got into you?” I would keep the postal system clogged with my countless fanboy letters to Frank’s secretary to the point where we would become pen-pals. The postage finally paid off while I was attending college in Boston and was going to see Frank perform for the first time. Ona Dunbar (wife of drummer Ansley and Frank’s secretary at the time) arranged for me to sit in on the Mothers’ rehearsal and meet Frank and his “pumpkin”(wife), Gail. It was a big thrill for me to meet this man whose music I had admired for so long. Fast-forward several years later to 1978 when I lived in Miami and attended the Miami-Con. I walked up to Jack and Roz while Jack was signing autographs. As luck would have it, the King and Queen were about to break for lunch and in their always hospitable way, invited me to join them as their guest! (As a bonus treat, I got to meet Neal Adams and his family who were lunching with the Kirbys.) I had told Jack about a story I wrote and—as he always was to aspiring artists—he encouraged me to develop it. I decided if I was going to conquer Hollywood, I’d have to pack up and move to L.A., so I did. The Kirbys became my “West Coast parents” and I developed my script with Jack and sought Frank’s involvement with doing a soundtrack for the film. I suspected from Frank’s early advertisements in Marvel Comics that he would be a Kirby fan and my hunch paid off. Frank wanted to meet the Kirbys, so one memorable night I took the Kirbys to the Zappas. On the surface, one would assume that these artists would be very different, but, in fact, they were very similar. They were both very prolific (look at the volume of their work), both patriots in love with America (Jack serving in WW II and Frank appearing before a Senate Committee), both devoted husbands and good fathers. That night I said to Frank: “You know, it took eight years for this night to happen!” He grinned and said nonchalantly, “So ya like this, huh?” This historic meeting of two of the greatest pop culture icons had to be recorded for posterity, so with my trusted Minolta auto focus in tow, I snapped a photo. If anyone had told me that one day, I would not only meet my childhood idols but wind up introducing them to one another, I’d have had them committed. Despite its adversities, Hollywood is still a place where dreams come true—thanks to the real Sandman!★

Jack drew this for ex-Beatle Paul McCartney! (See TJKC #8 or 20 for the story.) The art was sold in the 5/28/93 issue of Goldmine Magazine. 33

Jack’s uninked pencils from Fantastic Four Annual #5. (This one’s just for you, Bruce Timm!)

his started out simply enough; I was reading FF Annual #3 when I noticed on page 2 that Doctor Doom wasn’t using his hands to operate his machine. The owner of the original art was nice enough to send me a copy and upon viewing, my suspicions were confirmed. Kirby’s margin notes had Doom still recovering from his battle with the Thing in FF #40, so he couldn’t fully use his hands yet. To Kirby, this was the reason Doom used a machine to attempt to ruin the wedding. Lee, however, ignored this totally in favor of high drama, thereby changing Kirby’s reasoning for Doom’s motive. Thus Lee has Doom using the machine as a grand gesture of revenge and contempt; Kirby had him use it because he couldn’t attack the FF personally. There are many examples of art and dialogue not meshing correctly in the Kirby/Lee books. Some may cite the “Marvel Method” of producing the books as the reason. There are small examples in the early years, becoming more noticeable in the books produced between ’64-’70, books where Kirby was pretty much plotting the stories on his own. This also helps to explain why there are so many more Kirby margin notes on the art from this period. Once Kirby had his story established on paper, he sent it to Lee, who as editor and dialogue writer would keep what he considered essential (or couldn’t change because the accompanying visuals were too obvious to alter through dialogue) and change what he wished for reasons of drama, continuity, or whatever his intention was at the time. With this in mind, we begin a series of articles showcasing stories and/or separate examples of art and words not mixing correctly; or one man’s view of the story differing from the other’s. We are not attempting to prove that either man was right or wrong, or deserved more credit than the other; it is simply an ongoing dissertation of facts that will be presented for you, the reader, to draw your own conclusions from. Of course, we hope you enjoy it as well. Before going further, I would advise you to read the accompanying story of the origin of the Inhumans by Kirby/Lee. First read it using Jack’s margin notes only, as this is how Kirby intended the story to go and how Lee received it before making changes. Then go over the story again, this time reading Lee’s dialogue. Then if you wish, go back to this article where my opinions are. I want the reader to draw their own conclusions before reading mine. (continued on third page following)

A Failure To Communicate: Part One T by Mike Gartland

The five-page origin of the Inhumans, from Thor #147. Read it first using only Jack’s margin notes, then again using Stan’s dialogue, and you’ll see the difference. 36

They also began conducting dangerous, forbidden experiments. This brings the Sentry, who comes to warn them of the risk and danger, and attempts to halt it, but he arrives too late. Upon this realization, the Sentry warns them that they will be shunned by their fellow man; in essence they are no longer human but have made themselves In-human. As far as the Sentry is concerned, this was a failed Kree experiment. Lee, for whatever reason, changes the basics of the story. The Sentry is unknown to the Inhumans; it is he who informs them of their link to the Kree for the first time. It was the Kree who separated the race from the other races. The Sentry is there to observe for the Kree. He witnesses the results of the advanced race’s experiments and is pleased; dubbing them Inhumans, he considers the Kree experiment to be successful. Thus for the sake of drama (or vanity?), Lee turns a tale of foreboding into a success for the greater glory of the advancement of mankind. Where Kirby’s Sentry warns, Lee’s encourages—two takes on one story. Was it that important to change the meaning of Jack’s story simply for the sake of optimistic drama? You be the judge. If anything, it clearly shows two people “collaborating” in different directions!★

(continued)

That Would Be Inhuman! Jack’s Inhumans pretty much seemed to be one of his evolving creations. It began with one character, Medusa, eventually segueing into the Inhumans about a year later, finally leading to their origins about two years later. Although Jack did give a brief one page semiorigin in FF #46, he would eventually expand on this to give a more detailed origin after the creation of one of his other races—the Kree—connecting the two races through story. Jack introduced his take on the Inhumans in the back-up story section of Thor (although there’s evidence to suggest that Jack originally did one long story for the first issue of a proposed 1960s Inhumans comic, and when it was shelved, the story was split up to make these Thor back-ups). The story printed here was originally published in Thor #147 and is part of Jack’s multi-part Inhumans origin story. As his margin notes bear out, Jack intended for the Inhumans to be already fully aware of their origins. They know that they are advanced humans, descended from the Kree (through technology). They knew what the Sentry was and have dealt with it before. The Kree experiment that changed humans began to go awry when the advanced race separated themselves, rather than develop along with the non-advanced races.

(Next issue: Part Two of Mike’s series focuses on the differences and similarities in Stan’s and Jack’s versions of Galactus and the Silver Surfer!)

featured artist. One can imagine Brodsky offering Kirby regular work at Cracked, but by the time he contributed his one piece to the magazine Kirby was busy drawing western, romance and monster comics for a newly reinvigorated Atlas, and just a little over a year away from creating the Fantastic Four, thereby ushering in the Marvel Age of Comics. The “panel shows” of the title refers to the popular game shows of the era like “What’s My Line” and “To Tell the Truth” which featured guest celebrities sitting on a panel. Kirby was a fine caricaturist, and in this piece he was able to work in over a dozen personalities involved in frantic Kirby action, including Rock Hudson, Jackie Gleason, Charlton Heston, Dean Martin, Ed Sullivan, Steve Allen, and even Walter Cronkite. Frank Sinatra, in his skinny days, appears in a stretchy pre-Mr. Fantastic cameo. Like his From Here to Insanity work, Kirby inked his own art on duo-shade paper that provides camera-ready cross-hatching tones when a chemical is applied to it. As Editor-in-Chief of Cracked from 1985 to 1990, it was my extreme good fortune to work with artists like Severin, Steve Ditko, Don Martin, Gene Colan, and other comics favorites, but it was my main regret that I couldn’t get Jack Kirby back into the fold. Fortunately there are plenty of Kirby pages existent that will continue to amuse and entertain us and for future generations to enjoy.★

Kirby Gets Cracked! by Mort Todd umor has always been an element of his storytelling, evident in almost every comic Kirby has drawn; especially in contrast to grim or tense situations. While many are aware of his work in Not Brand Echh and From Here to Insanity, there is a 5-page job that has never been listed anywhere. The story appeared in Cracked Magazine #14 (June 1960), and is titled “Old Ideas for New Panel Shows.” It was most likely written by Paul Laikin, who regurgitated the article many times over for Cracked and other second-rate humor magazines. The surprising success of Mad when converted from comics format to magazine in 1955 sent many publishers scurrying to capitalize on it. One of the first, and longest lasting, is Cracked, which in 1998 is celebrating its 40th year. In the late 1950s, with comics sales in a major slump, most artists found themselves underemployed and were trying to get work wherever they could find it. Longtime Atlas and Marvel Comics staffer Sol Brodsky approached men’s magazine publisher Robert Sproul in 1957 with an idea for a Mad-like magazine and Cracked #1 was released with a cover date of February-March 1958. Brodsky was editor for the first two years and employed many Atlas Comics artists including Williamson, Torres, Jaffee, Wolverton, Heath, Everett, Burgos, Shores, and most notably John Severin, who is still the

magazine started to get very popular and it began to come out every two weeks. In 1938, I started to read it and I read every issue back to 1932. In those days they had a million stores that did nothing except sell back issues. I read most of Doc Savage, some of Operator 5 (but I wasn’t terribly interested), some of the Spider, G-8. That was when I was twelve years old.

Gil Kane on Jack Kirby Interviewed by Jon B. Cooke (Gil Kane is, along with Joe Kubert, Will Eisner, and Alex Toth, one of the grand old masters of comics, having started in the early years of the industry. Born Eli Katz, he worked as a “mediocre” artist (his words) until virtually reinventing himself in dynamic fashion in the mid-1950s. He is best known for his work on DC’s Green Lantern, but has drawn remarkable stints on Spider-Man, Superman, Warlock, and his own creations, Blackmark and His Name Is… Savage. After nearly 60 years in the business(!), Gil continues to be a notable creative force in the field—and a frank and passionate commentator on the history of the art form. This interview, which occasionally switches subjects in midstream, was conducted via telephone on August 24 and 29, 1998.)

TJKC: Did you immediately recognize the potential of “Superman”? GIL: Sure. I was very excited about “Superman.” And it wasn’t just “Superman”; Siegel & Shuster were my favorite creative team in comics. There was “Slam Bradley,” “Spy,” and “Radio Squad.” In 1937, they did “Dr. Occult.” I followed them but didn’t realize that what I liked about them was that Shuster was a very watered-down version of Roy Crane and that “Superman” was influenced by Captain Easy. TJKC: When did you first recognize Jack Kirby’s work? GIL: The first time I saw his stuff was the third issue of Blue Bolt. He did the Red Raven cover for Joe Simon. Bits and pieces of Jack and Joe appeared in different things; and, of course, when they started Captain America and settled in at Marvel. TJKC: When did you realize that Jack had a unique style? GIL: Right from the first. In fact, the early stuff (as raw as it was) was even better than his last stuff because later he became so mannered and abstract. The figures became bigger and bigger, and they couldn’t be contained by a single panel or even a single page—eventually he had to have two pages and still he could barely get a picture in!

THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR: Did Jack change over the years Gil circa 1975. that you knew him? GIL KANE: It was the same Jack thirty years later at Marvel as when he started. At Marvel, he was more refined but it was essentially the same thing. He had the same basic approaches to machinery, to action, and to the figure. Actually to tell you the truth, he lost a little when he got more and more into it. When he was doing the early Captain Americas, “Hurricane,” and Blue Bolt, he was doing figures that were the envy of everybody. The figures had a great spontaneity and naturalism, but years later he got it to the point that it became just the idea of a figure. Time gave him more power but it also took away from the meaningful quality of his work, as far as I was concerned. But none of us were geniuses and he held forth for 30 or 40 years as one of the ranking guys. He made some money and now he’s seen as practically a religious figure. What else can you want?

TJKC: Do you think there was a change in his psyche as he got older? GIL: Sure. He used to do many panels to a page with everything proportionate—there was a lot of air around the figures. Then, when he really started getting out there in the ’70s, the amount of space around the figures became less and less until finally each head would fill up a panel. He would do only four panels to a page. This is nothing against Jack; first of all, Jack was getting older and second, he was enjoying a degree of fame that was unusual for a comic book artist. I felt that he thought what he put

TJKC: In many ways, for me, you come closest in your sense of action and your figures. GIL: There were many others. I always liked two things: Power and grace. I couldn’t think of one without the other. When I was a kid, I loved gymnastics (even though I was too big for it—but I was a good track man), and I loved ballet and dancing. I used to go to the ballet regularly from the time I was in my early twenties, and I loved Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire—that was my whole world. If I went to a Broadway musical, I would light up like a bulb! I was living at the height of my pleasure and satisfaction. So that’s what I would try to bring to the material. I was always fair at horses even when I couldn’t draw them; but I could feel horses. I had to learn how to draw them so I could put my feeling into them. There are a lot of guys who can draw a horse but they don’t have any life or vitality. TJKC: You’ve mentioned to me that you read AmazingMan Comics as a kid. Were you reading comics for entertainment when you were in your teens? GIL: I don’t think that kids have a concept of entertainment; they read for pleasure. I would read comic strips as a kid; in school I read Dr. Doolittle, Tom Sawyer—that was good—and I also started reading pulps. The Shadow came out in 1932 as a monthly, heavily promoted by a radio program starring Orson Welles. The

A recent Kane drawing of a Kirby classic, Captain America.

sort of low key, understated. When a person would come out to greet you, they spoke in understated tones. You took your hat off before you went in there. That’s where I first met Joe Kubert. TJKC: What was Tudor City like? GIL: It was a luxury apartment building that must have been hot stuff in the late ’20s. It just absolutely screams Art Deco. There was a special entrance: You had to drive in on a special street, and if you walked, you had to go over a foot bridge. It was almost like a walk across a moat just to get there. It was right where the United Nations building is today. Jack and Joe took an apartment that had one large room, bathroom, and a small kitchen behind some closet doors. It couldn’t have cost too much to rent; the building was coming out of the Depression. (But when I came out of the Army, you couldn’t get in there for the love of money! It became one of the tightest places in the world to get into.) TJKC: Letterer Howard Ferguson was there? GIL: Howard and a guy named Charles Nicholas who was a penciler for Fox (I think he did the Blue Beetle). He and Jack and Joe had some arrangement that wherever Simon & Kirby went, there was Charlie Nicholas inking their stuff. Jack would turn out so much work! TJKC: What were your job duties with S&K? GIL: Mine was penciling. I would try to turn out a job every week or so. [They were] 12-page stories. I was copying—tracing—Jack’s work.

Page one of Jack’s Prisoner adaptation, inked by Royer. Gil did his own rejected version of the series.

TJKC: What was the relationship between Joe and Jack at the time? GIL: Joe was involved in the creative process and he was the one who made all the deals. Joe would ink all the splashes and occasionally he would pencil a job and ink it. He didn’t write—it was Jack who wrote. Jack would either write a script or get one and adjust it as he saw fit.

TJKC: Was [writer France] Ed Herron up there much? GIL: I never saw Ed but they had a whole bunch of writers. They had four strips they had to do—“Manhunter,” “Boy Commandos,” the Guardian [“The Newsboy Legion”], and “Sandman.”

down on paper would do. I saw it in the animation presentations and his comic book work. Ultimately his stuff was so uneven that I felt it was not something he was deliberately doing, but just something that was happening to him. There was the decline that happens to most artists sooner or later. Age usually neutralizes most people.

TJKC: What was Jack like? GIL: We were friendly but not intimates. He may have been more open with others. He was like an accountant: Always chewing on his cigar and always working. When you looked at his taboret, it was just littered with dozens of No. 2 pencil stubs. He would just wear them down, put ’em aside, until ultimately there was a logjam on top of his board! They would build up so quickly. It was a soft pencil and I never knew the guy to use up less than five pencils a day. Very often he would go through one an hour! He would just wear the pencils down, talking while he was working. He would talk everyday stuff, nothing of consequence—I came away with no bits of wisdom. Mostly Jack saw himself as the star of his own work. When guys came along like Frank Frazetta or Neal Adams, he’d never say what was obvious: That both of those guys, in different ways, were sensational.

TJKC: Your first professional job was with MLJ [later Archie Comics]. Editor John Beardsley recommended you as an art assistant to Joe Simon? GIL: After I was with MLJ for about six months and out of work for awhile, Beardsley recommended me to Joe. He was close to Joe. TJKC: Do you remember going down to Simon & Kirby’s Tudor City art studio? Did you bring a portfolio? GIL: Of course. You always had a portfolio because that was the only way to get work. I can’t tell you how many times, from fifteen onward, when I would end up in DC’s waiting room with my portfolio. Murray Boltinoff usually came out. It was like a cathedral. TJKC: Who did that legendary six-foot-tall painting of Superman [which hung in the waiting room]? GIL: I never knew. Even though it wasn’t the biggest room at DC, it was the most impressive because it was simple. You walked in and saw this six-foot portrait of Superman (I don’t think they lighted it in any special way—it just looked that way). There was a little window with a receptionist behind it. There were couches and everything was

TJKC: So he saw them as competition? GIL: I think that he saw everybody as competition; that was the thing that finally dawned on me. It was Jack against the world. TJKC: Was Jack one to ever look back at the printed comics? GIL: I don’t know, but I know one thing: He had practically everything 41

GIL: I used to talk to him about his influences. I couldn’t get sh*t out of him. Despite the fact I used to pump him regularly over the years, I never got a word that was really useful—it was so broad that it was just absolutely worthless. It was like the secrets of his cartooning were locked in his lips and he would never betray the secret. He might have been different with others. TJKC: What happened when Simon & Kirby went into the service? What happened to you? GIL: I got a “Newsboy Legion” job to do by myself (like I had done the rest of them except they didn’t fix it up or do the splash), but when I walked through the door with the finished job, they said, “You’re fired.” They didn’t even look at the work. I really was lousy and I was out! At that point, I was about seventeen and I worked for Continental Comics for a guy named Temmerson. (I penciled and Carmine Infantino inked.) But that only lasted until I went into the Army. TJKC: You were 1-A? GIL: Yes. I was also working for Bernie Bailey and we had a lot of adventures. He had a studio on 42nd St. and 6th Ave., on the 23rd floor. I was a schmucky, 17 or 18-year-old and when work was late, he naturally wanted to get it in, so he would work late and talked me into staying late and working on it. As we worked there, the superintendent of the building would come up and we found out that he was a pimp running prostitutes all over the street. It was just a wild time. I remember we used to go to a broken-down hotel around the block, the Woodstock, whenever it got to be too much past 12 o’clock. Bernie would make me promise that I would do some work, so we would decide to split up sleeping; one hour for him and one hour for me. I went to sleep and it seemed seconds later and he’d wake me up. He went to sleep instantly and I’d sit at the table; my forehead would hit the board, and I was out for the rest of night! (laughter) TJKC: In spite of the fact that Jack was rather tightlipped about cartooning, what did you learn from his work? Did you learn from looking at Jack’s art? GIL: Only by studying it on my own. I didn’t have a capacity for deep focus (in fact, I still think that I miss a lot). Precision is not one of the qualities that comes out in my work. I think the lack of precision and deep focus is why it took me years to build up my (these pages) A study in contrasts; Kane’s Prisoner vs. Kirby’s. Whose approach was better? work. Everything was sensory and I never saw the structure in anything. I just saw the emotion in that he ever did, whether xeroxes or anything else. When I was a 16everything, so I got to feel everything that was going on and that I was year-old working for him in Tudor City, I didn’t deal with him much. viewing, but I couldn’t think in terms of structure, which is the whole We just sat there and worked. He was flying high, though I saw him point of deep focus. sometimes when he wasn’t flying high—when he was working for DC, doing Challengers of the Unknown and not getting enough work. TJKC: Did you consider going back to art school? GIL: For awhile I went to the Art Students League and tried painting TJKC: You’ve mentioned that Jack has been practically deified. Do you with Bernie Sachs and Arthur Petty, but I lost interest. Even though I see inherent problems in that? felt the stuff deeply, the fact is I rarely drew. I would never practice, and GIL: No. Jack was only a symbol of his time. The good thing was that he that suggested just a total lack of deep focus. I never drew enough; I came through with a liberating expressiveness (just like the ’60s) that never copied enough Flash Gordon, Tarzan, or any of those things; I was was perfectly suited to the time. Perfectly. And, all of the sudden, the just looking. Dan Barry/Al Toth qualities or values (as superb as Toth was) took a nosedive and Jack took over. Kirby was fresh, inventive, free, and much TJKC: But something happened. more with the time. Alex was already a figure from the ’40s and ’30s. GIL: I started drawing! When I got to be thirty, I was really unhappy about my work; I thought I stunk and was at the bottom of a list of TJKC: Back in Tudor City, did Jack have an appreciation for Lou Fine, artists. So many of the guys were, at thirty, already achieving a kind of for instance? 42

professional identity that was good. I was still swirling around, still looking for something, still copying. So I figured to hell with it and started to teach myself perspective because I noticed a thing called deep space for the first time. Once I saw deep space it took me to perspective and I learned how deep space worked. That took a lot of time. Then I learned negative and positive space, and then I came to the figure. I tried Bridgeman a half dozen times but I just couldn’t break the combination. Finally I was looking at Reed Crandall and through him I broke the combination. So I got into Bridgeman and that began to solve a lot of problems. Each doorway opened up into a bigger room, so ultimately into my late thirties and early forties, rooms were opening up for me. I was at last achieving a kind of professional status that I was comfortable with. But, geez, that was 25 years past the guys I had grown up with! So by the time I got to Marvel, I was on the trail—I wasn’t there yet but I was on the trail.

the time and Mike was good without being special. He did everything: Super-heroes, animation, everything! TJKC: You’ve mentioned that Mike had a remarkable scar. GIL: He had it in high school when I met him. It looked like somebody had taken a potato peeler and just... it started on his head and seemed to go around his neck and down his body. He was like an albino, very blond when he was young, and his skin was always very pink and white. He was angry, a frustrated guy with a terrible temper, but on the other hand, he could be extraordinarily generous. We became friendly after awhile. He had a tremendous sense of humor and he was very bright and very well-read. TJKC: Is drawing comic books a healthy lifestyle? GIL: I just don’t think that it’s a lifestyle anymore. I think that my generation had the best of it; we were young and enthusiastic about the material, and we were not all that questioning. The fact that you were being exploited didn’t really mean sh*t. We just wanted to do it. All of that is gone; books don’t cost the same, and there isn’t the same

TJKC: When did you first meet Stan Lee? GIL: Stan I met when I was 16 years old. Timely was my second job after MLJ. I was hired to work in the Bullpen—everybody worked in the Bullpen in the early days. Stan was the editor at nineteen years old but all the day-to-day managing of the work was done by Don Rico, who also did most of the hiring and firing. TJKC: Wasn’t Don also an artist at the time? GIL: Yes. The office was in the McGraw-Hill Building on 42nd Street between 8th and 9th Avenues. All they had were staff artists and so I worked on staff. Frank Giacoia was already working there on staff as an inker when I tried out for a week. Somehow or other it didn’t work out for me. I was the butt of practical jokes because I was the youngest one there, and finally after a week I left. But it was an experience. I was just too young to deal with the day-to-day experiences of an office. Even then you had to have a level of confidence, and mine was mostly in copying. Once I had to work there I couldn’t copy, so mostly I erased pages and used white-out, stuff like that. It was mostly production work. At nineteen, Stan was the nephew of the owner of the business [Martin Goodman] and he wrote Captain America and their leading strips. That’s what he did primarily but everyone knew that Stan was the bigshot. TJKC: Was Stan like he is today? GIL: Yeah, very much—boyish, exuberant, coming back from Central Park wearing riding jodhpurs. TJKC: After your short stint, did you do any other work for Timely in the ’40s? GIL: Yes, when I came out of the service. At that point, when something would become popular like westerns, they would turn out 50 or 60 westerns all at once for a couple of months and flood the market. They would kill the central interest until nobody wanted to see westerns any more and then they would withdraw, keeping a skeleton staff and turn out a couple of books like Patsy Walker (which they were able to sustain). They did the same thing with romance—they would have red, yellow, and blue units, with each unit turning out 25 books. This kind of love, that kind of love; they would just flood the market. TJKC: Was there any quality to the books? GIL: There was quality but nothing of real value. Mike Sekowsky was probably their best artist at 43

kind of market. It was like being part of silent movies and the early talkies; it was special. The enthusiasm is gone. When I would go into and 5-&-10¢ and look at the new Big Little Books, it was a high moment for me. I was just a kid but I felt privileged. Ours was a kind of innocent devotion and we didn’t have parents instructing us or anything; we did it all on our own, all individual choice. And I don’t think that exists anymore. It’s just a different climate. When I was a kid, Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, and Joe DiMaggio were playing baseball! The movies had Clark Gable, Jimmy Cagney, Bogart, Cary Grant—just the best, most indelible actors; stars in a way they just don’t have any more. We had radio programs like The Lone Ranger, Jack Armstrong, Tom Mix, Little Orphan Annie.

GIL: All the publishers of comics were based in New York so we already had an advantage. As a fifteen-year-old kid, you could go up there and hand in samples. TJKC: So if there were potential comics geniuses out there in the hinterland, they just didn’t have the opportunity? GIL: Well, there was Reed Crandall who came out of Kansas. But once they found him, they never let him go back! I think the big thing was that you really had to love the work and be drawn to it. (A lot of the guys who were in comics, like Irving Novick, were essentially advertising artists who did comics because there was nothing else—but they were never cartoonists per se.)

TJKC: “Mired in romance.” GIL: That was it! Everyone was looking towards a Utopian ideal. Socially and politically, people wanted to rise and move towards an ideal situation (which, of course, could never happen). The fact is there was a kind of optimism in spite of it being such a terrible, depressing time and the situation was so severe—this was the time of the Okies and everything else. The ’30s and the ’40s were the worst and best times in this century, as far as I am concerned. We had the greatest President and his wife was the greatest woman of the century. When I was going into the Army, everybody I knew was going into the Army; when I came home on leave there were just countless stars in windows. Everybody went in. It is not that kind of a world any more.

TJKC: So it got down to a small handful of guys who really loved comics? GIL: Nobody was over thirty! We were all in our teens and twenties, and the oldest guy I was dealing with was Bernie Bailey; when I was eighteen, he was only thirty-one! Bernie was the old guy. TJKC: But you guys were exploited. GIL: Yeah, but we just didn’t know about it. We were just happy to get the work. It takes a certain amount of experience and without it, you can’t judge. You use judgment to measure against your own experience, but we didn’t know anything! TJKC: Did you feel too inadequate to go into the betterpaying field of illustration? GIL: More than that, I was just sitAnother wacky ting there and dreaming The Lone animation idea. Ranger, Tarzan, Flash Gordon. I was dreaming Louie Fine and Reed Crandall; that’s what I was dreaming. If I could have satisfied any one of those dreams in a real way, I would have been ready to pass on. My friends who weren’t in comic books— you know what they were doing? Either you went into the trades or, if you had anything going for yourself, you drew or tried to become a musician. A lot of the guys ultimately ended up working for the Big Bands; they never made any money but they had the same experience as we did.

TJKC: Was your family Democratic? GIL: We had no choice! Are you kidding? We were terribly poor and we lived in a cold-water flat; we didn’t have any heat, hot water, and we had an old iron stove (my mother and I used to have to go into the marketplace to find wooden fruit boxes and break them up to use as fuel because we couldn’t afford coal). How could you not be a Democrat? We knew that Roosevelt was doing the right thing, the governor was doing the right thing, and we even had a Republican mayor who was doing the right thing, LaGuardia. New York was the greatest city in the world in those days. It had everything: Life, adventure, opportunity! I’ve had a wonderful life; one constant adventure after another.

TJKC: I recall a picture of you playing a trumpet. GIL: No, I didn’t play, but I just loved that music. I love music generally, but I was just so in love with comics. I was also in love with running and jumping! During the time, when I wasn’t drawing, I was running and jumping off of roofs!

TJKC: What was it about New York? GIL: Certain cities have a moment in the world when they are the Mecca for everything. During the middle of the 19th Century, it was Vienna—all the great music, science, philosophy, everything came out of Austria and Germany around that time, and that lasted until World War I. By the 1920s, New York had already started to take over. New York had Jews, Italians, Irish, and the mix was so incredible. Cultures just spilled over, one into another, and everything was in the process of development. Movies, radio, publishing, newspapers— New York had nine daily papers in the ’30s! Nine papers—that’s the center of the world! Everything was wired to New York’s ass! (laughter) It was just a great time to be alive. I was lucky to have been a kid and a young adult during that period. I was a part of all the great movements: After World War II, we all moved out into the suburbs—whatever we were doing, that’s where America was at that point. It was great.

TJKC: What I’ve known about you over the years is that while drawing is a very solitary act—consider Jack working in the basement; working, working, working through the night—you’re a bon vivant. GIL: It’s true! These guys, by the time they were in their twenties, had already established themselves—they might not have been the best artists they were going to be, but they had developed a style that became identified with them and they already developed a level of professionalism that was way beyond me. By the time I came around to a sober consideration, I was already thirty years old! Part of my life was to run around and have a good time, see women, play ball, and party—whatever it was that you did when you were young. TJKC: So by the mid-’50s you started developing your distinctive style?

TJKC: Did the city make you guys? 44

GIL: I felt I was incompetent and I was sick and tired of faking everything so I progressively taught myself perspective, composition, and anatomy. I began relying on superb artists to guide me, and about ten years later, I felt that I had achieved professional competence. I wasn’t the greatest artist in the world but I was doing competent stuff without being special. I know more now and, given a good day, I can do better stuff than I’ve ever done. TJKC: Do you regret not being able to retire? GIL: Oh sure—only because retirement would allow me to do exactly what I want to do. TJKC: You’ve mentioned the financial obligations that you had through the divorce which burdened you with work. In a more perfect world, would you have developed the goals you had set for His name Is… Savage and Blackmark? GIL: If I had married only once—if I never had a previous wife—I would have been able to do everything I wanted to do. I spent most of my life just trying to keep everything afloat and I’ve been down and up and down and up for no other reason than I had incurred so many obligations that came as part of the divorce. Life was a real struggle. There was a point where I was penciling one story a week; I did that for a couple of years. I never felt that I was doing my best work; just the best I could under the circumstances.

brushes in the world. Once you dipped them and made a line, the brush would just stay at an angle forever; they would never spring back. Eisner loved it because he got them to spring back because his hand was so light that they never bent over; he was just working with the tip hairs. What was the point? Everyone went back to a Windsor-Newton. TJKC: Did you have any inclination to go back with Simon & Kirby when they returned from the service? GIL: First of all, when they returned, they set up with Al Harvey. They started to do Stuntman and all that—on top of which, I wouldn’t have even thought of going up there; I was terrible. I had only worked there earlier because they had allowed me to trace their stuff. Meanwhile I worked for Hillman, Famous Funnies, Timely, and DC. TJKC: What was the effect of the romance comics on the industry? GIL: It was an enormous boost and a lifesaver. Comics were going down for the second time and here, all of a sudden, came this thing and for the next fifteen years, romance comics were about the top sellers in the field; they outsold everything. I worked on them for DC and they were hard to do. You really had to have a draftsman’s style which was different from a cartoon style. Most of us came out of Popeye, so turning Popeye into something believable was tricky enough. Others came in from advertising, bringing a more realistic representation of people so their character heads and figures were better. By the time romance came around, I was only about twenty-two years old and still embryonic—but not Toth! He drew like a whiz with the perfect style. He had a feeling for romance and that kind of allusion that was very creative. I was just stumbling along; I was just faking everything. I just didn’t know why it was taking me so long. I don’t think my best work came until the ’70s and in the ’80s. By that time, I was already in my fifties.

TJKC: When did you start inking your own work? GIL: It was about that time. I just didn’t know anything. With “The Hulk” I would use a Rapidograph on these big, colossal figures, giving them a needle line to surround them. The only thing I did was tighten my pencils with the inking, but I really didn’t ink. TJKC: During that time, you were working with I don’t know why it didn’t dawn on me— John Dorman and Jim Woodring, and you people told me that I ought to heavy my mentioned to me that it was a very free and lines—but I never liked working with open atmosphere working at Ruby-Spears. a brush. So I had to go until I GIL: It was lovely; the best place I ever worked. found a marker that was able to TJKC: That must have been a part of your give me a satisfying line. But that excelling. wasn’t enough either. It wasn’t until GIL: I was already pretty good. John some years ago that I began to understand [Dorman, Ruby-Spears Art Director] the business of light source. called me up and asked me to meet I once said that Eisner had a steady him about some work. I hated progression from the time he started in working for Marvel, so I went over “Blackmark” by Kane. the late ’30s right through now, but there and it was the most dismal that’s only possible with a guy who studio I ever saw in my life! It was a bunch of shacky little controls what he does. Eisner wrote all crap houses! It was Ruby-Spears, and I thought, “They’re of his own material, picked the subject not going to be able to pay me money or anything.” What I found matter—he did everything—like a out was that John deliberately chose that place and Ruby-Spears daily syndicated feature he was developing had a new building like all the other animation studios. John had over the years. There’s just no way that a taken Cheech & Chong’s old offices! Anyway, I went in there and he guy who draws or pencils—just has to deal gave me an assignment. Working there, it was just easier and easier with image—is ever going to build anything for me; I had started doing some good stuff before that, but working consequential. In order for you to express yourself, you’ve got to write there was my peak period. It may have had less to do with what they and you’ve got to use the work as a vehicle, a medium for what you’re were doing, and more to do with my own development. I just feel that doing. So Eisner’s been in a unique position and I don’t know anybody my own mediocre streak still has a little further to go. I just hope I live else who has had the opportunity in comic books. He was not only long enough. deeply involved in the work, he controlled it! He was a controlling element from the time he got into the business until now. TJKC: Did you ever work on crime and horror comics? GIL: Sure, I worked on both. I was either copying Dan Barry or Al Toth. TJKC: Did you know that Eisner and Fine were using Japanese brushes For instance, there was a guy named Fred Kida who was doing nice back then? stuff for Charlie Biro, but it was a period that wasn’t distinguished by GIL: Of course, we all did. Who could use them? They were the limpest 45

anyone except Alex (who was really very big during the ’50s).

went on a month-to-month basis with four new stories in each magazine; if they had developed characters they might have had longevity. (But when they developed a real character—John Severin and Will Elder did some sort of bald-headed Doc Savage. It lasted for a while, but didn’t work out.)

TJKC: With the advent of crime and horror comics, could you anticipate the problems that arose with the Kefauver hearings? GIL: I was too naive to realize what was coming. I still think that the combination of prose and pictures is the only way to go; it can’t just be the visual because in order to be worth anything, it has to say something.

TJKC: So you were contemplating that you could take the form even further. GIL: I thought that they really had it! They were doing it and they had all these readers! There wasn’t any fandom until EC came along—the first fan columns were in EC magazines. (Everybody just copied them— DC just copied them cold.) So I figured, what the hell, here they are and they’re doing it. But they were a radical outfit and their stories started getting a bad press. The investigations came down and that schmuck Wertham, who started it, said years later he was completely wrong. EC ran into some heavy stuff. They were a provocative outfit; intelligent but provocative, and the provocation cost them their entire comic book line—if it wasn’t for Mad Magazine, that would have been the end.

TJKC: So you were thinking of the graphic novel form before His name Is… Savage? GIL: I was already a reader, and I just didn’t see why there shouldn’t be heavier text in comics. Then, all of a sudden, EC came along! Al Feldstein had exactly my point of view when he did these adaptations of Ray Bradbury. (To an extent he influenced Harvey Kurtzman, but Harvey had his own perspective.) EC became a distinct experience for those who read them, and the company developed zealot fans. They

TJKC: Did you feel secure in your job at DC during the ’50s? GIL: Not completely. By the end of the ’50s, everything began to collapse and, little by little, I lost all of my work. I lost Rex, the Wonder Dog and all the westerns. I lost everything and had nothing going. I would occasionally get a sciencefiction story from Julie. I went over to Western/ Gold Key and worked with Russ Heath as a partner for a while; I penciled and he inked. So I picked up work wherever I could. Green Lantern filled in a lot but not completely; it was every six weeks and not a monthly book. TJKC: And then The Atom. GIL: That’s how I got The Atom; because I wasn’t getting enough work. The outside work was always crowding my schedule with DC; it’s always easier to work for one company—when you finish one thing, another thing was always coming up from the same source. When you work all over town, you find overlapping deadlines and it’s really a pain. TJKC: Did you work for Timely/Atlas in the ’50s? GIL: Yes, but it was always a scattered effort. I worked when they were at McGraw-Hill, I worked at the Empire State Building, I worked on Madison Avenue. TJKC: Jack Kirby said that he saved the company when he arrived in 1957. Do you believe that? GIL: He certainly helped. First of all, I don’t think that it would have been possible without Stan because in the late ’50s, Jack was doing all of that monster stuff—and, believe me, that didn’t make a difference in sales. That just barely kept them afloat. It wasn’t until they started the super-hero stuff that sales started to improve. Stan had a lot to do with the characterization which was appropriate for the time; it was fresh and filled with mock irreverence. And that’s not Jack, that was Stan. Of course, Jack was doing superb work.

Unused Kane Wonder Woman cover.

TJKC: When did you first meet Steve Ditko? GIL: Steve I met very early on during the ’50s. It was casual. During the ’60s, when I started working at Marvel, he and I would get into such 46

terrible arguments! He was the most arch conservative I had ever met in my entire life! But there was no moving him, and so if you didn’t argue with him, he turned out to be very pleasant. He was very nice and he and I got along beautifully from that point on—we just never discussed politics!

GIL: Jack was a natural—and he was a natural early on before the wall hit him. I thought that in the early ’40s, he was just about the best guy around. He had a narrative style that was way beyond Lou Fine or any of these guys. On top of that, he really knew enough about drawing and everything so that there was simply no upgrading him. He was just excellent. As a matter of fact, I had a job with Mac Raboy drawing Captain Marvel Jr., and I brought in samples made up equally of Jack Kirby and Reed Crandall. He said, “Forget the Reed Crandall. Just stick with Jack.” It was priceless to me to find Jack Kirby’s work in the “Black Owl” and the eight or nine issues of Blue Bolt, then the early Captain America, the early “Guardian.” In fact, I love the first issue of “Manhunter”—it was such a glossy issue! Beautiful! Just perfect Jack. And Jack did a series of covers for DC before he went into the service that were excellent. But nobody can be king of the world forever.

TJKC: As a DC freelancer, when did you start to realize that Marvel was making an impact? Was it felt around the office? GIL: Oh sure. I was trying to tell them that they were staid and they had to get away from this Dan Barry concept of doing artwork—it was like a banker’s view of drawing. Dull. They were certainly not capable of transition. None of the guys in charge were art people; they were all pulp people. Most of them had nothing to do with art; there wasn’t even an art director in the company. Each attempt to make a change was no attempt at all! It was just the same old stuff.

TJKC: So many artists copied Jack. Is it a mistake to copy Jack? GIL: No, I think it wasn’t a mistake. I copied Jack myself, as well as many others.

TJKC: Was it the same old stuff for you? Were you bored by the work you were doing? GIL: Yeah, I tried to break away. TJKC: It seemed like you were really picking something up from Marvel. GIL: I did! If I had one quality that really ruined me and at the same time helped me, it was the fact that I never stopped looking, and by that time I was really working at it. When I began my studio [in the mid-’60s], I began to do what I never

“Labor Launch,” another Kirby animation concept.

TJKC: Did you feel explicitly like you were the answer to Kirby when he left Marvel? GIL: Nobody made any definitions. In the beginning, Stan was never happy with me. While I was working there and Stan was the EditorIn-Chief, I just never felt like I was terribly secure there. He never felt that I was a team player; he never took me into his confidence (which I didn’t care about). But the big thing was, if an assignment came up, I wouldn’t get it—I would get the second-level assignment.

did before: I practiced every day—it didn’t make me a genius, but it gave me a comprehensive understanding.

TJKC: But you got Spider-Man. GIL: That was only because John Romita recommended me. He told Stan that I would be able to do it.

TJKC: Would you characterize anyone in the field as being a genius? GIL: I would say that some guys are brilliant. Hal Foster was brilliant. It was not only his drawing, it was his storytelling which had complexity and narrative balance. He had such a grasp of the whole story, and on top of that, the drawing was so easy! It wasn’t rigid. The same thing was true for Roy Crane; you look at the actions of the characters, and they are so expressive and so perfect that they extend the narrative. On the other hand, a guy like Alex Raymond was just a guy who had an enormous facility for draftsmanship. He worked hard but never internalized the characters (except for the first couple of years of Flash Gordon and Jungle Jim). His last years had immaculately drawn people just standing around. As far as I was concerned, it was just stiff material that didn’t have any life at all. I used to think Louie Fine was a genius when I was a kid, but as an adult when I saw some of the early stuff that I used to go crazy about, it was so raw and badly drawn—but in the heart of it there was some spirit, some quality that set it aside from other work; no question about it.

TJKC: When you both were doing work for Ruby-Spears, did you see Jack at all? GIL: Regularly. He wasn’t driving at that point any more, so Roz always came in with him. They’d come in once or twice a week to deliver an assignment and pick another one up. It was like a freelance job only he was on salary. When I got there, he and I were both working on presentation boards—20" x 30"—which for me was an experience because I had never worked that size before. And I would see Jack’s stuff come in. His penciling was very impressive; it was very black-&white. But he would hand in six boards and two or three were just not up to his usual level—wheels would be out of perspective and little things you wouldn’t expect from Jack. Maybe it was his eyesight or his age, I don’t know, but when he succeeded it would be absolutely wonderful. In fact, I wanted to steal one of the boards—they had all this stuff standing around there that they weren’t able to use, and I figured that no one was going to miss one of ’em! But I never got the opportunity to take one of his good pencils that was a homerun, right over the fence.★

TJKC: How would you characterize Jack Kirby? 47

makes the Surfer’s (re)turn to humanism in defying Galactus look somewhat arbitrary. To be sure, Kirby’s idea of the character is intriguing and novel in its implications: On a metaphorical level it appears to heroicize generational rebellion and disobedience of deities (the former an interesting inversion of what many people Kirby’s age were then feeling; the latter a compelling contradiction of the Genesis story all Westerners are taught). But there is little reason to assume that he would have emphasized or expanded upon these themes had he been at the helm of a Surfer series, while in fact the generational perspective was well explored in his Fourth World books, and the theological one in The Eternals’ Forgotten One character. So the re-creation of the Surfer in Lee’s image is another Kirby reversal not to mourn. Both this and the Prisoner affair should rather be appreciated as two of the few exceptions proving the rule of a career with a remarkable percentage of right moves.★

Kirby Fans’ Wackiest Causes? by Adam McGovern

his issue’s affectionate look at Kirby’s “warts and all”—regardless of his oeuvre’s vast disproportion of “all” to “warts”—is a suitable occasion for remembering not to let our acknowledgment of his general genius cloud our recognition of his occasional fallibility. Specifically, higher-ups’ reversals of Kirby were almost always folly, but two of the ones most hotly contested by Kirby fans were actually well-advised. They involve those two legends of Kirby’s canon, the beloved Silver Surfer character and the aborted Prisoner adaptation. First of all, though I love The Prisoner and I love Kirby’s work, he was not the right artist for the comic book version. Kirby’s known pencils for the book look stiff and un-nuanced, as if he’s struggling with material all too unidealized for the artist he had long since become. (This is an assessment which Stan Lee accurately made as early as Spider-Man’s debut— from which Kirby was legendarily pulled for too heroic a portrayal of Lee’s envisioned “super schnook”—though not years later with The Prisoner.) The starkness and surrealism of which a Jim Steranko or Paul Gulacy was capable (literally, in the case of Gulacy’s visuals for Don McGregor’s Prisoner-esque Sabre graphic novel) would have been most suitable (even though Steranko himself championed Kirby’s cause at the time). The book’s shelving was not the misfortune many see it as. Secondly, whatever frustration we all may feel over the disproportionate credit Lee has gotten for characters and stories co-created with the King, not nearly enough appreciation is given to a Lee-devised conception of the Silver Surfer character which is frankly superior to Kirby’s. Lee’s admission that Kirby solely created the character is axiomatic, and no doubt a reason for Fox TV’s Surfer cartoon series being the first Marvel product to bear a “Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby” line in quite some time. But the two men’s conflict of ideas for the character’s development is equally well known. Lee, of course, saw the Surfer as a restless soul who bargains his freedom for his own planet’s survival; Kirby saw him as a full-blown creation of the planet-threatening Galactus, against whom he eventually rebels. Lee’s version had epic pathos in its tale of Norrin Radd’s sacrifice, tragic symmetry in the would-be adventurer’s getting what he wished for while losing all he had, and narrative tension in the trials that followed. Though perhaps melodramatic to contemporary eyes, it set the standard for the “serious” superhero comics which would follow from the likes of McGregor, Steve Gerber and Jim Starlin—and arguably Kirby himself. In comparison, Kirby’s version seems a facile, fairy tale-like contrivance, and Without dialogue, we see Jack’s version of the Surfer as a creation wholly of Galactus, in the SS Graphic Novel.

face barely seen above its ground shelter. And each time this happens, the view of that helmeted head grows larger in the field of view, so that the rise of some terrible emotion can be registered in reaction to what is taking place. The audience is watching young MORGAN MILLER, twenty-five years of age and in sudden confrontation with the outrage of war. He is our principal character. And, he carries within his gene structure an extraordinary biological scenario. Like information fed to a computer, violent emotion initiates the activation of this strange process, which must run its course, comparable to a natural reflex. MORGAN MILLER is not an ordinary guy. His is not an ordinary anger. When his emotions peak, they trigger a white flash in his brain which spreads like an electrical storm to the other parts of his body. White flashes erupt in dramatic succession in his vital centers until the interior of his body seethes with pyrotechnic effect. This is the moment when MORGAN MILLER earns his Silver Star, a military decoration won by many men before him, but never in the manner peculiar to MORGAN MILLER alone. He is suddenly galvanized into action. His entire body glows like a newly-stoked furnace and a radiating nimbus effect has outlined him in motion. MORGAN looks like a comet gone berserk. In the face of devastating cannon fire, he flings his rifle away and races directly at the enemy. Morgan’s squad looks on in disbelief as he suffers two hits with heavy caliber stuff which ricochets off his body. MORGAN is staggered but seemingly unhurt. He resumes his run and reaches the closest tank. MORGAN seizes the steel monster with one hand and throws it at the tanks behind it. The camera catches it arching through the air as it lands upon another tank in an explosive gush of sound and flame and twisted metal. The last we see of MORGAN in this scene is his attempt to smother the flames from his burning clothes. He writhes and rolls in a paroxysm generated by the war and his own maturing body. The scene dissolves as he lies panting on the ground, face up, eyes closed, mouth open; the charred, smoking fabric of his clothes has peeled away from his heaving chest to reveal not a wound suffered in this astounding action. ★★★★★ The film’s storyline officially begins at this point. The logo and list of credits pass across a large dramatic shot of MORGAN MILLER, positioned to be fitted with the silver suit and helmet he will wear throughout the film. (See accompanying drawings for design.) MORGAN is given the unique outfit by people off-screen. Represented by their hands alone, these helpers aid him in this dressing ritual, tugging, tightening, running fingers expertly to mold fabric to contour, and finally bringing the gleaming silver helmet into view. As it is placed and secured to MORGAN’s head, the credits have run their course and the scene is enlarged to reveal MORGAN’s immediate surroundings. He is the lone occupant of an isolation ward supervised by COLONEL WALTER HAMMER, M.D., who stands by as ward men complete the job on MORGAN. The medics are in a jovial mood. They treat MORGAN as if he was some awesome company mascot. They call him SILVER STAR and make reference to the symbol of that decoration which has been embossed on the suit. They also indicate that MORGAN is the subject

Silver Star, Super-Hero! The Original Screenplay © Jack Kirby and Steve Sherman (Like Captain Victory, the concept of Silver Star began in the mid-1970s as a movie screenplay by Jack and Steve Sherman. This first draft story treatment was initially submitted on March 11, 1977 (WGAW Reg. #166408). As you’ll see, the final comics series was based on it, but this original version helps to flesh out some of the characterizations that were missing from the comic. Our thanks to Steve Sherman for sharing this with us.) he film opens with a small, bright spot on an empty screen. It is the image of a pretty girl, which is enlarged with a smooth rapidity in view of the audience, until it attains a reasonable level of clarity. She’s a lovely brunette, with a round, serene face which bears slight traces of concern. She is young (no more than 20 or 22 years of age). She looks at the audience, searchingly—seeking but not finding. Her face is beautiful in sadness, but even more so, as she hides it with a cool grace. This is KATHY LORRAINE, who shares the love of the film’s principal character, MORGAN MILLER. KATHY is a special person who has the ability to transmit her image via mental projection. This ability is as natural to her as flexing a limb. And, in the uncanny refinements of this facility, there are spin-offs which provide an ample variety of effects, both spectacular and innovative. (Girl faces audience in entire cameo) KATHY says, “I don’t know where you are, Morgan. I’ve been reaching out to you, but you haven’t responded.” She lowers her eyes as the sadness returns. When it’s been replaced by some sort of resolve, she again raises her head. “But, I understand, Morgan,” she continues. “I-I just hope—well—” she pauses, trying to maintain her composure. “Well—as soon as you can, Morgan, please reach out to me. I’ve written a song for your birthday, and I’m projecting it on the slim chance that you may hear it—I love you, Morgan...” The girl begins to fade in a sort of electrical display as the music starts. And, as she dissolves to make way for the succeeding scene, the music remains to flow across the action which follows. The song should be synchronized to end when the action is over. ★★★★★ This scene follows, with the view of a beleaguered American position on a chewed-up landscape in Vietnam. The camera sweeps the field like a swiveling cannon (which it is) and catches the reaction of the dug-in riflemen to the intensity of action during the height of a tank attack. Some of the men cower in their holes, others fire; a few break cover and leap into the open to escape the murderous cannon fire. Attention is drawn to the lead tank—the bouncing, crunching, relentless forward movement of its treads—the crusty, primeval effect of its armor—and above all, its coughing cannon which seeks out its victims and blasts them out of the soil. Each time the gun spits, a man dies. Bodies take aimless flight, performing crazy acrobatics in the light of cruel, red flashes which dissolve in oily smoke. And each time this happens, the camera quickly shifts to one

enemy is emotional disturbance. Without the suit to protect him, MORGAN can be consumed by an energy level that could burn down a forest. HAMMER congratulates MORGAN for winning the Silver Star and speculates upon an exploit which has inspired a legend among the men. Officially, it is accepted that MORGAN, single-handedly, stopped a tank attack with a recoilless rifle (a bazooka-type weapon). However, the COLONEL is certain this is not true, and MORGAN himself will not challenge the version recorded by the Army. He meets all inquiry with silence until the issue is withdrawn. At this point, the COLONEL apologizes for restricting MORGAN to the isolation ward and its small, surrounding camp area. But MORGAN indicates that he’s not unhappy. The food’s okay and the ward men are good handball partners. In fact, the very idea of restriction causes MORGAN to smile. For, he harbors a secret the COLONEL is not yet aware of. As for HAMMER, he reflects upon that smile, but decides against further inquiry. He ends the conversation and leaves the ward. MORGAN watches the COLONEL close the ward door behind him and is left to himself in the silence of the large room. He then examines his silver suit, raising one arm and then the other to his enigmatic scrutiny. His eyes travel down his own length and his head moves slowly from side to side. An undefinable sadness seems to overtake his entire being as he slowly seats himself upon his bunk bed. MORGAN unsnaps his helmet, removes it, and puts it at his side. For a moment, MORGAN stares ahead, preoccupied with some unnameable thought. He turns his head in the direction the COLONEL had taken and locks his gaze upon the closed door. Slowly, his head swivels to a nearby metal table. He moves with the swiftness of a cobra and tears the table in half as one would a sheet of paper. He then tears off two of the legs and tosses the entire mess into a corner of the room. MORGAN has made his statement on this segment of his life, and on war. The camera moves in for a close-up of MORGAN’s face. The beginning of a smile is forming on his lips. It broadens until we can see his teeth. MORGAN, suddenly, looks at the camera. His eyes seek some unseen object. He says, “Kathy! Kathy! I’m reaching for you!” His face lights up with unmistakable happiness. He is looking at a person we cannot see. He says, “Oh, there you are. Guess what, Kathy? I’m going home.” ★★★★★ CUT TO: A hand slamming shut a door. COLONEL HAMMER stands at the closed door, staring at two men waiting for him in his office. One is his executive medical officer, MAJOR JOHN LAWRENCE. The other man is from the Intelligence sector. His name is FLOYD CUSTER. HAMMER regards them with equal distaste. He chews out LAWRENCE, his exec. “You had to do it,” he says. “You had to make big ones out of little ones—and now, he’s here.” LAWRENCE retorts that there is something the Medical outfit has charge of that’s too complex for them to handle—that it has ramifications which extend far beyond its existing image. The COLONEL calls him a quaking, shaking, little jerk. “What we’ve got here is a boy—who needs cool and rational treatment, and that’s what he’s been given,” the COLONEL says. “Don’t want to spook the kid, is that it, Colonel?” says CUSTER. The EXECUTIVE OFFICER rushes in on the heels of CUSTER’s query. “You bet he doesn’t!” says LAWRENCE. Then, to the COLONEL, “Tell him! Tell him about the case history we’ve amassed on this kid. Tell him about the X-Factors! The wild, regenerative blood cells! The tendency of the tissue fibers to attain a steel-like hardness! And the brain! Tell him about the brain! Tell him about the

Pencils from Jack’s three-page contribution to Anything Goes #2.

of some pretty tall stories which have evidently been passed on by personal testimony of the men who witnessed the initial action. The COLONEL and MORGAN are left to face each other when the ward men are dismissed. HAMMER studies the young man’s reactions to what is seemingly a ridiculous development. Although MORGAN looks magnificent in the outfit, he expresses his unease and is told that the suit was designed to save his life. The silver in its fabric is utilized in the same fashion as the lead rods in an atomic reactor. MORGAN learns that he could become the victim of a runaway metabolism which must be limited by the presence of silver. The COLONEL asks for MORGAN’s trust. He refrains from patronizing him or probing too deeply into his personal background. He tells him that his condition will disqualify him from further military duty and that the prospects of a medical discharge are in the offing. MORGAN is neither overjoyed nor disconsolate. He projects the image of a self-contained young man caught in a bizarre situation. The silver suit absorbs his attention and he inquires if it’s to be worn continuously. The COLONEL repeats its importance and its function. He cautions MORGAN against stress situations and commends the suit problem to the young man’s own judgment. He can wear it beneath ordinary clothes or take his chances on leading a placid life. His great 50

goddamn phenomenon we’ve got on our hands!” The Intelligence man, CUSTER, resumes his questioning of the COLONEL. “Do you think that kid could’ve lifted the “Charlie” tank like the stories say?” COLONEL HAMMER explodes with restrained vehemence. “Now listen, you two, before you begin chasing squirrels, let me warn you about pursuing this case with the wrong approach. That boy is neither a super-weapon nor a freak! He’s an enlisted man who may not like being prodded and pushed and harried into living to our liking. He suffers when he’s under stress and it’s downright criminal to make him do it for God and Country.” Then, pointedly to CUSTER, “And I can tell you, mister, that it’s downright dangerous!” “You mean—” “I mean that we’re stumbling around in the dark of night with an animal we can’t identify!” “A tiger—? A super tiger?” “I mean, we don’t know!—That it would be wise at this stage not to make any sudden moves. The correct procedure would allow Morgan Miller to remain untouched by outside sources; to grant him self-development along lines of his own making. In short, mister, leave him be!” “You mean—forget about him?” The COLONEL sits and pushes tobacco into his pipe. “You’re not about to do that, not after Intelligence has requisitioned and read his case history. I’m merely suggesting that you stand off and don’t press him. At any rate, I’ve given him a medical discharge. I’m sending him home. As his doctor, I’ve acted in behalf of his personal welfare.” “How about your country’s welfare, Colonel?” counters CUSTER. At this point, LAWRENCE chimes in with the same question. “How about it, Col. Hammer? Even we doctors have higher commitments. You can see that I’ve made mine. How about—” “Can that sh*t, Lawrence!” yells HAMMER. He turns to CUSTER, stares intently and says, “Now, I’m going to state myself clearly and for the last time, as a man, a doctor, and an officer in the service of his country. What we do in regard to Morgan Miller from this moment on may earn us a blessing, a curse, or a disastrous situation we’re not equipped to cope with—unless we sit back and learn what we’re dealing with!” “Sounds like something bigger than the bomb,” says CUSTER. “We have an accurate count of our bombs!” answers HAMMER. The Colonel’s last statement is followed by an oppressive and meaningful silence in which LAWRENCE and CUSTER exchange uneasy glances and reflect moodily upon these final words. HAMMER is now extremely casual. He seems to gave gotten a great weight off his shoulders. He leans back in the chair behind his desk and puffs contentedly on his pipe. At intervals, he casts sidelong glances at the two men, who are still absorbing his words. CUSTER, eyes narrowed, turns to HAMMER and asks the question bedeviling his thoughts. “How many Morgan Millers, Colonel?” HAMMER studies him, blows a small cloud of smoke and says nothing. The camera moves in on CUSTER’s face as he repeats the question. “How many?” We slowly fade-out on CUSTER’s worried expression. ★★★★★ The action now shifts to 1976 and the major storyline of the film. Our principal setting is a substantial community somewhere along the coast of Southern California—something along the lines of a Santa Barbara or a San Diego—large enough to provide a varied background, but small enough to give the feeling of Everytown, USA. MORGAN MILLER has returned home from the Army. He has enrolled as a student at the university, specializing in biochemistry, a field which quite naturally intrigues him. His air of confidence masks his innermost feelings. He knows that he is a walking bomb, that he possesses a power that at any moment could be triggered into explosive destruction. Yet it is also a power that can be controlled. and with the help of the silver suit, MORGAN has learned to keep a check on that power.

We are also introduced to his girlfriend, KATHY LORRAINE, a lovely brunette no more than 20 or 22 years of age. She and MORGAN share a special relationship, for KATHY has a very high ESP sensitivity. Through this, they are able to reach out to each other no matter how far apart they may be. Meanwhile, the Intelligence department, headed by CUSTER, has been surreptitiously keeping MORGAN under close surveillance. This, of course, has not gone unnoticed by MORGAN. In some spectacular visual scenes, he eludes them by exercising his mental and physical powers. It has now become evident that MORGAN can project illusions of such realistic quality, they become immediately acceptable to the human eye. However, his products are totally diversionary and innocent in nature. But in each attempt to follow MORGAN, the field agents are found in various circumstances, either injured or killed. CUSTER, who is now in charge of the Silver Star file, decides to utilize the services of COLONEL HAMMER, who he feels will fare better in a confrontation with this young phenomenon, who in his opinion has now evolved to a dangerous level. The next scene opens with a car speeding along an isolated road somewhere on the outskirts of the city. The driver is COLONEL HAMMER. He is dressed in civvies, looks well-groomed and still puffs his pipe. His expression, as ever, is cool, thoughtful, and sober. He seems preoccupied and alert at the same time. His car proceeds for a tolerant period, when there is a sudden, loud splattering sound against his windshield. HAMMER registers surprise and shock. His speeding car is beset by three demonic figures which have materialized out of thin air and are clinging to the vehicle. One creature is at the driver’s door and two at the windshield. They are real horrors (flaming eyes, shark teeth, and scaly, semi-human bodies). HAMMER does his best to keep control of the car as these things batter at his windows with an insane savagery. The glass begins to crack beneath their blows and the sounds of this terrible pounding heighten the effect of this frightful attack. The camera catches the action, as the car veers crazily in its effort to hold a steady course on the road. HAMMER releases one hand from the wheel to guard his face from flying glass. The screaming of his wheels now mingles with the pounding like a wild cacophony scored in Hell. HAMMER, forced off the road, heads for certain collision with an outcropping of rocks, managing almost at the point of contact to avoid the danger in a swerving, reeling, shrieking stop. Then, complete silence sets in as a cloud of dust settles upon the scene. Inside the car, HAMMER is thoroughly shaken and slightly bruised. He is also stunned by the fact that the demons have vanished as if they’d never appeared. If onlookers were to discover him at that moment, it is quite evident what their assumption would be. HAMMER, however, is made of stern fiber. Although plagued by the irrationality of the experience, he nevertheless continues his journey. He prods his car into motion and regains the road. Then he speeds off into the distance. At this point, we watch the receding car through the framework of a man’s legs. The camera lens rises up the length of his back until it focuses upon his head. He is wearing a costume not unlike the one worn by SILVER STAR (MORGAN MILLER), but of a different color. The metallic threads glisten with a deep cobalt blue. We don’t as yet see his face, but we hear his laugh. We listen to it grow louder. We watch it rattle his frame as he turns slowly about to face the viewer. He is a man with the face of a hunting hawk—sharp, angular, yet massive in its strength and fierceness. Yet it is an almost inhuman face, for the bridge and browline of the forehead extend farther out than normal, almost to the point of grotesqueness. It is the face of the film’s villain, a character and a role that requires the talents of a Jack Palance. What we see is the face of DARIUS DRUMM. He is now overwhelmed by his own laughter. The hawk’s-head is thrown back and the mouth, widely distended. There is a tearing sound of displaced air and DRUMM simply blips out from sight. The scene ends with a shot of the silent, empty road. ★★★★★ 51

SHIFT TO: The interior of a comfortable ranch-type house. A man sits busily at work on his notes in a rather large study (typewriter, supplemental material, bookshelves, etc.). The atmosphere in the room is a mixed blend of journalism and academia. What looks like disorganization is actually comfortable order. We’re looking at BRADFORD MILLER, the father of MORGAN. He is a man in his middle fifties, and reflects the sense of tragedy which accompanies the acquisition of wisdom. He is a solver of problems and a creator of more. From his window, he can see HAMMER pull up in his car. He rises slowly as if speculating upon the prospect of dealing with this visit. MILLER reaches for a cigar, lights it and waits for the doorbell to chime. When it does, he walks unhurriedly to answer it. HAMMER is admitted to the vestibule. As he and MILLER face each other, we begin to realize that there is a bridge of years which links them both. They know one another well. MILLER says, “Hello, Walt.” He takes note of HAMMER’s “banged up” condition as he talks. “I was beginning to wonder when you’d show up. Glad you made it.” HAMMER smiles rather coldly. “Are you, Bronco?’“ He walks at MILLER’s side toward the living room. “The road leading to your house is rougher than a mine field at midnight.” They seat themselves. MILLER says (in reference to HAMMER’s bruises), “Morgan and I had nothing to do with that. Perhaps you’d like to clean up. While you’re at it, I’ll fix you a drink.” “No need for that. I expect to get the full treatment on my way back. A monster, perhaps, something big that will bite me in half.” HAMMER pauses. “However, I’ll have that drink. I can certainly use it.” “Still the same?” (MILLER rises to oblige.) HAMMER says, “I haven’t changed, Bronco. You know what I drink. But do you still regard me as a friend?” MILLER, at the bar, replies. “Walt, I swear to you that Morgan and I had nothing to do with what happened. But I’ll have to agree that you’re in great danger. Morgan and I will do all we can to help you.” HAMMER explodes, “Dammit, Bronco, how was it done? I had foul-looking demons swarming over my car, and I almost killed myself trying to get rid of them. Someone’s hallucinating in 3-D and if it isn’t Morgan, then who is it?” As MILLER hands him his drink, HAMMER continues. “You and your damned “Genetic Package!” An intellectual cowboy with a yen for saving the human race! I should’ve throttled you in the Fifties, before you slipped out of sight!” MILLER, reflecting, says, “We had some good times then, didn’t we, Walt? Young world beaters with the zeal to do wonders with the human body—.” HAMMER says moodily, “Yeah, and who’d have thought that Bronco Miller, the mad Geneticist, would produce the wildest human body of them all. When Morgan was brought to me in ’Nam, I somehow knew at once that you’d done it, Bronco; that you’d “lone-wolfed” it and begat your post-atomic man. The super-survivor who could outlive whatever we did to destroy ourselves.” “I still believe it, Walt.” (MILLER sits with arms folded on his knees, staring at the floor.) “We’re going to use that bomb and we’re all going to die. But through people like Morgan, the human race will survive—by proxy.” This last thought disturbs HAMMER, who quickly tries to change the subject. “Is Morgan here? I’d like to speak to him.” “He’s in his room.” MILLER rises to his feet. “C’mon, Walt, it’s this way.” MILLER and HAMMER walk down a short hallway to MORGAN’s room. The door is closed. MILLER knocks. No answer. He knocks again, and slowly opens the door. “Morgan—?” The room is lit by the last rays of the setting sun. The clear, vibrant orange of the fall sky bathes the room in a soft glow. Sitting on the bed we see MORGAN in a yoga-like position. His body is rigid, like a statue. He stares past the room, past the walls, past the sky itself. It looks bizarre to HAMMER, while MILLER remains nonplused. HAMMER walks over to MORGAN and touches him. He tries to move him, but he can’t. “What is this?” HAMMER asks.

MILLER chuckles slightly. “Well, he’s just not here, Walt. Morgan’s like a building without a tenant—like a chrysalis that a butterfly has abandoned.” HAMMER is puzzled. “What the hell are you talking about, Bronco?” “Morgan’s just not here,” MILLER answers. “He’s somewhere else, and I think it’s with Kathy.” (As MILLER says this, the camera slowly moves in on MORGAN’s open, staring eyes. It moves in closer and closer until one eye completely fills the screen. But the camera doesn’t stop. It keeps on moving, past the eye, through it, and—in a dazzling burst of color—we are drawn into the world of SILVER STAR.) The colors meld into each other, gradually taking on form. We are on a hilly, green field—an endless meadow, dotted by large green shade trees. The sky is a watercolor blue, broken up only by a few puffy white clouds. It is a Maxfield Parrish storybook surrounding. It is serene. Suddenly, from behind a slight rise in the landscape—WHAM!—two bodies come whizzing by—MORGAN and KATHY—hand-in-hand, flying through the air. Like playful dolphins, they perform acrobatics in the air. As they shoot by the camera, we follow them around trees, over hills, etc. Higher and higher they go, until the Earth itself seems to disappear. Now we’re in space—not the outer reaches of our universe—but hurtling through a galaxy of brilliant novas, flaming suns and rocky planets. KATHY and MORGAN race through the sky like shooting stars. They continue to travel until we are immersed in a pulsating light show. Then, with ever increasing rapidity, a face is flashed on the screen— a leering, demonic face. The light show begins to dissolve in oily disintegration. MORGAN and KATHY find themselves back over the green hills. But there is now a change. The sky is darker, the air has a sharp chill. And then, like a blanket, a giant shadow is cast over the land. A sinister bat-like creature appears. It is huge and menacing. It takes off after MORGAN and KATHY. As the monster passes over the land, it leaves a trail of parched ashes where there was once greenery. The screen with quickening speed fills with the image of this paradise being charred by the creature. (Smoke trails, fireballs, etc.) MORGAN yells to KATHY, “Break away, quickly!” As he says this, KATHY blinks out, followed by MORGAN. The camera hold on the scene, the landscape devoid of any life—the charred hills, trees hanging like broken fingers. The monster slowly circles, searching for its vanished prey. And over all of this, we hear the mad laughter of DARIUS DRUMM; laughter which grows louder and louder until the monster itself blinks out. CROSS DISSOLVE TO: MORGAN MILLER’s room. BRONCO MILLER and HAMMER are suddenly aware of movement within MORGAN’s body. He begins to breathe heavily as if he has just been involved in some strenuous activity. MILLER wants to know what happened. MORGAN is confused, but slowly regains his composure. “That thing,” MORGAN asks. “What was it?” He then proceeds to tell MILLER and HAMMER what transpired. MILLER turns to HAMMER and says, “That’s what I was trying to tell you. It’s someone else, not Morgan. I don’t know who yet, but whoever it is, it’s after all of us.” HAMMER and MILLER then go in to a history of MILLER’s experiments with the “Genetic Package.” He asks MILLER how many people he injected besides MORGAN. MILLER tells him that there were four others besides his son. He gives HAMMER the history of his experimentation, naming the others: “SUPER” SAM HOPKINS, the black superstar of football; “SAMSON” FISCHER, the “Evel Knieval” type strongman; CHRISTOPHER SHALE, known to police as “Shamrock” Shale because of his renown as a cat burglar of the highest caliber; and finally “HURRICANE” JAYNE DAVIDSON, movie stuntgirl and former race car driver. HAMMER is incredulous at all of this. He is torn between his friendship with MILLER and his duty to his job. As a scientist he is awed; but as a man he is frightened. As MILLER places his notes and portfolios on his desk, the camera moves in to show a photograph of “SUPER” SAM HOPKINS. As we 52

move in we CUT TO: The next day. We are at a football stadium. It is a standard set-up. The game is in progress, the stand is packed with fans. We pick up on “SUPER” SAM who plays for the home team. It’s a tight score, with SAM’s team behind. The announcer in the booth tells the crowd how SAM is the team’s only hope. SAM has to catch this next pass for the touchdown. During all of this, we cut back and forth between the crowd and the field. As the camera pans the crowd, we recognize the face of DARIUS DRUMM in the stand. As the play begins, we move in on SAM’s face—eager and confident. The ball is hiked. SAM runs out for the pass. The quarterback fades, cocks his hand and the ball flies through the air like a missile. We cut back to DRUMM, who smiles, then back to the football, still in mid-air, which has taken on the appearance of a bomb. SAM is in the clear as the ball gets closer and closer. As soon as he clutches it from the air, there’s an explosion. The crowd is in shock. Pandemonium breaks loose as we see, on the ground, “SUPER” SAM, smoke rising from his lifeless body. ★★★★★ CUT TO: A large bank building at night. A group of three men are shown breaking in—cutting alarms, etc. One of the men is “SHAMROCK” SHALE, the cat burglar. As they move through the building, they are suddenly confronted by a guard. He shoots at SHALE, who amazingly keeps coming towards him. He knocks the guard out and the group proceeds to the huge vault. SHALE walks over to the vault and, grasping the tumbler in his hand as if he is going to open it in the conventional way, he yanks it out, concrete and all. He reaches through the hole and rips the entire door off its hinges. He enters the vault and, as he gathers up the money, we see the wall of the vault start to glow with a faint reddish hue. As the intensity rises, the money begins to smoke. Suddenly it bursts into flames. As SHALE tries to leave the vault, there is a sudden flash of light, and when the smoke clears, we see all that is left of “SHAMROCK” on the steel floor. ★★★★★ CUT TO: A “Magic Mountain” type amuseSilver Star’s other love interest, Jayne Davidson, found work in this later Kirby animation concept. ment park. It is night, but everything is gaily lit. We shift to the parking lot where BRONCO MILLER and MORGAN There is plenty of noise and activity. The camera tracks toward an arrive. They immediately hurry towards the amusement area. area where there is a carousel. A large crowd has gathered around it. Meanwhile, “SAMSON” has begun to lift the massive carousel The M.C. comes out and announces that “SAMSON” FISCHER will and its riders. It is arranged to turn as it rises, and the crowd reacts to now perform the amazing act that has won him worldwide acclaim. the sight with stunned disbelief. But there is a subtle increase in speed He motions, and a group of park employees start to get on the within the carousel which quickly jumps to maximum and transforms carousel. Perhaps they are dressed in some spectacular outfits. The the ride into a wildly spinning horror. spotlight then turns on “SAMSON.” He’s young, well-built, but he looks A shower of sparks flies from its strained electrical circuits. The far from strong enough to perform the feats of strength that are screaming riders, clinging for support, are flung like puppets into the expected of him. recoiling onlookers. BRONCO and MORGAN struggle through the The M.C. continues, “Now you’re going to see something really panicked human mass in a fruitless attempt to reach the doomed spectacular. I can’t even figure out how it’s done myself.” “SAMSON,” who is still beneath the whirling carousel when it collapses Now the supports on which the carousel is resting lift slightly off upon him in one, terrible, fiery display. His rescuers are too late. the ground, just enough for “SAMSON” to squeeze underneath it. They sadly depart in their car, searching for answers to the triple The carousel slowly begins to turn. The people on it are cheering and deaths in the experimental group. And it is then that MORGAN menwaving enthusiastically. As the camera pans over their faces, we recognize tions the intruding face of his fantasies. It is then that the possibility one of the riders as DRUMM. 53

of an outsider enters their speculations. MORGAN listens to his father confirm a worrisome suspicion engendered by the series of misfortunes which has claimed all those in the perimeter of his genetic experiments. BRONCO turns to his son and says, “In this age of man’s arrogance, it’s rather humbling to admit that Nature, itself, has experimented genetically and produced a new species to replace man. Yes, son, just as modern man replaced Neanderthal, it is now his turn to vanish.” To MORGAN, this premise is as plausible as his own existence. He eyes BRONCO intently and speaks. “A natural... You think a natural is picking us off—eliminating us as competitors...?” “Right, son. We have a natural enemy. Who he is, I don’t know— but we will soon enough, I fear.” As the car zooms down the highway, we hear the sound of engines revving up. CUT TO: A rocky section of countryside. We see cameras, lights, and other movie paraphernalia. We move in to the director talking to a strikingly beautiful blonde behind the wheel of a really souped-up car. The girl is JAYNE DAVIDSON, known professionally as “HURRICANE” JAYNE. The director is telling her about the shot he has lined up. He mentions the fact that it’s a dangerous stunt, but that she’s the best there is. She tells him not to worry, that she’s confident she can get it in one take. The director is amazed that she is able to pull off these terrific stunts. As everyone assumes their positions, she starts up the car. We see this cliff at the end of the road which the car is to go over. The car starts up and, from her POV, we see the cliff rushing towards us. Meanwhile, MORGAN and his father have arrived on the scene, but too late to stop the stunt. The car with JAYNE in it rushes towards the end of the cliff and descends into the canyon. (The impression is that she has remained in the car the entire time.) As the dust settles, the camera moves in on the car at the bottom of the canyon. It’s a total wreck. As we pull in, we see JAYNE, unhurt, sitting behind the wheel as if nothing has happened. She adjusts her rear-view mirror to look at herself, and starts to smooth her hair. At the same time, the crew (followed by MILLER and MORGAN) are running to the edge of the cliff. We cut back to the car, where JAYNE has a smile of self-satisfaction on her face. Almost instantaneously, she is aware of someone sitting next to her. She turns, and there sits DARIUS DRUMM. He says nothing. He reaches over and pulls out the cigarette lighter, touches it to an unlit cigar, and—WHAM!—there’s a huge explosion. The car is engulfed in flames, with JAYNE trapped inside. Instantly, MORGAN rushes into action. He leaps into the air and descends into the canyon. He jumps on top of the car and rips off the roof. He pulls JAYNE out. (Meanwhile, the flames have burned off most of his outer clothing, revealing his silver suit.) As he pulls JAYNE out, we realize that she is miraculously unhurt. MORGAN pulls her to the side. She mumbles something about a man. MILLER arrives at their side, as the crew tries to douse the flames. Both MILLER and MORGAN then notice that JAYNE is starting to glow. That same eerie transformation that overcame MORGAN in Vietnam is now happening to JAYNE. MILLER decides that they must rush her back to the house. (He covers his actions by telling the crew that he’s a doctor.) As they help JAYNE to their car, we CROSS DISSOLVE TO: A close-up of a tape recorder. We hear the voice of COLONEL HAMMER. The camera pulls back to reveal him in an office, dictating into the machine. He is giving a summation of what MILLER has told him. “My estimation of Dr. Miller’s experiments with the genetic package is a verdict of uncertainty. Though successful to a degree, they exhibit elements of instability which diffuse any final results.” He goes on to include the deaths of the various members of the experimental group. In addition, he expounds the possible existence of an outsider, unknown to either MILLER or MORGAN, who may be responsible for these tragedies. HAMMER continues, “My own premise is that...” His voice falters and stops. Then, he is jolted from his seat as the recorder bursts into flames.

We hear a voice say, “Machines, Colonel Hammer, are an abomination in the eyes of God.” HAMMER is visibly startled by the sight of DARIUS DRUMM, who sits facing him from the opposite end of the room. “The Lord is in all things produced by Nature, sir,” DRUMM’s voice is calmly modulated. “HE is in whatever materializes from this Earth, a limitless bounty which man converts, and yes, perverts, sir, into mechanical garbage of this kind.” HAMMER is still off balance as DRUMM continues. “The world is littered with your junk. It rusts on the land and rots in the sea, and yea, the moon itself now sports its share.” DRUMM pauses for dramatic effect and goes on, more softly, “You’ve been found ‘wanting,’ sir; “Mene Mene Tekel,” so to speak. In short, Man’s hour is at hand.” HAMMER voices his consternation. “You’re the other one,” he says. “The outsider!” “Alas, I’m the only one,” replies DRUMM, “but made most potent by natural selection! I am the newest of God’s great works and until of late, most humble in my restraint, and disciplined in the use of my natural powers.” Warily, HAMMER tries to draw him out. DRUMM is only too willing. In one of his statements, he makes mention of his father, a preacher. “How he did shout the Word,” says DRUMM, “but, like the rest of your kind, the swine couldn’t live by it! He tried to destroy me, the holy product of his own loins, and I smote him with power not given to the damned.” HAMMER has assessed his visitor and feels the touch of fear. He tries to reason with DRUMM. He tells him not to judge all men by one bad, personal experience, to talk to people and relate to them in the group sense. DRUMM leans forward and sneers at HAMMER. “And do you talk to the beasts before you destroy them?” His mouth creates an evil smile. “Do you converse with the cow on her way to slaughter? No, sir. To whom the Lord giveth dominion, thus shall he decide the fate of all lesser life. Yes, Colonel, you’ve tinker-toyed your way into extinction! There’s a new Master, here!—One who stands equipped to rid this world of destructive pests with limited sense and cancerous soul!” As DRUMM speaks, the demons who attacked HAMMER in a previous scene slowly materialize in the room. HAMMER is alarmed. “Behold my own creations, sir! Organic! Functional! (DRUMM points to his forehead) And shaped by divine process in the ultimate factory!” DRUMM laughs, but it is low and derisive. The demons advance on HAMMER. DRUMM says, “These are more than the stuff that dreams are made of. They are an extension of my will. The execution of that will!” The demons, moving in unison, spring on HAMMER. They knock him out of his chair and back into a corner. The chilling laugh of DRUMM mixes with the agonizing screams of HAMMER. DRUMM suddenly blips out, followed by the demons. Smoke slowly rises from DRUMM’s chair. The camera pans over to HAMMER—horribly mutilated and dead. We slowly fade-out. ★★★★★ Open up back at the MILLER house. MILLER, MORGAN and JAYNE are in MORGAN’s room. MILLER has a spare silver suit which he puts on JAYNE (or she goes and puts it on. It depends on how racy you want to get.) who then tells them about the man sitting next to her in the car. They discuss the fact that there is a natural outside of the experimental group. JAYNE is confused. MILLER explains to her his work. “But why does this—this “natural,” whoever he is, want to kill us?” she asks. “I don’t know why, Jayne,” he answers. “Maybe you’re competition to him. Maybe he sees you as a threat. At the bottom of all attacks is fear.” MILLER then leaves to get some medicine for JAYNE, leaving her alone with MORGAN. We begin to sense that there is a strong attraction between the two of them. They talk, and MORGAN explains to her how he’s managed to live with his special powers. 54

Besides being beautiful, JAYNE is also very sharp. She catches the meaning in MORGAN’s tone and realizes that deep down, he considers himself a kind of freak. JAYNE tells MORGAN a little about her life. About how she has yet to find a man who she feels strongly about, etc. Being on the aggressive side, she makes it clear that she could really go for a guy like MORGAN. He then tells her about KATHY. (During the course of this conversation, we hear the phone ring in the other room. MILLER picks it up.) JAYNE and MORGAN continue to talk, until they notice MILLER standing by the door. His face is ashen. MORGAN notices and reacts. “Dad! What is it?” “It-it’s no longer just the experimental group, son. Hammer’s dead.” MORGAN reacts violently. He tells his father that they must find this “natural” before he strikes again. MILLER asks MORGAN how he’s going to find the “natural.” MORGAN answers, “The same way he found us. I’m going to reach out—I’m going to grab him, and I’m going to kill him!” MORGAN’s father is shocked. He tries to talk him out of it, but MORGAN is really worked up. “This is beyond the laws of man. We’re made for a new world—a world that man never made. We’ll have new laws. Laws for ourselves. Among men, we live by their laws, but among ourselves we’ll have to find our own laws!” MORGAN sits down on the floor and goes into the yoga-like position. His father tries to stop him, but it is too late. MORGAN is already rigid; frozen in the manner he was earlier in the film. JAYNE, of course, is confused by most of this. Once again, the camera moves in on MORGAN’s face. This time, though, the light/pattern effect instead of melding into a pastoral scene, becomes harsh and grating. Abruptly, we are plunged into total darkness and silence. There is no indication of either up or down. Then, from far away, we see a figure in a familiar silver suit approaching the camera. The camera remains stationary, as the figure gets closer and closer. We recognize that it is MORGAN. There is still silence. He is moving briskly, with determination. He moves close enough until we have a shot of him from the waist up. The camera pulls back just enough to allow us to see that MORGAN is in some kind of underground cavern. He moves down a corridor, then into a room. He stops. The silence is quickly broken by the voice of DARIUS DRUMM. “Welcome to my home, young friend.” We cut to a shot from MORGAN’s POV. The room is done up in a medieval setting. MORGAN’s gaze settles on DRUMM. He is seated in an ornate chair, decorated with archaic symbols. He is dressed in his silverblue suit, only now he is also wearing a flowing cape and a hood of some sort. Next to him, on a large carved wooden stand, rests a huge Bible.

DRUMM speaks in the manner of a man who knows he has the upper hand. “I realize that you are here in, shall we say, spirit. Nevertheless, you are welcome just the same. I’m so glad that we have an opportunity to discuss the situation with one another.” MORGAN threatens DRUMM. DRUMM merely laughs at this. “As a tool of the Lord, I am impregnable. Like the right hand of God, I have the same strength and power.” MORGAN is puzzled by this remark. “Who are you, and what is it you want?” DRUMM now goes into an extended monologue. As he speaks, we see an image begin to form almost on the air itself. We are drawn to it, as the picture becomes DRUMM’s story. We see that we are somewhere in the deep South. It is a muggy summer night. There is a weather-beaten revival tent set up, lit by flickering torches. As we move inside, we see that the place is pretty well packed. There is a lively spiritual being hammered out on a piano. At the front of the tent is a raised platform. On it is a podium, behind which stands a man. He is roughly 40 to 50 years old. He is a stern-looking man, with sharply etched features. He is “BRIMSTONE” BILLY DRUMM, the father of DARIUS. Seated behind the podium, hands folded in his lap, is a young boy of 12 or 13. It is DARIUS. The forehead is not as prominent as when he is an adult, but the same hawk-like features are evident. As the music ends, BILLY DRUMM begins his sermon. It begins slow, but builds to a frenzied crescendo. Lights dim, the wind howls, people scream, etc. The scene becomes a little too carried away and the people begin to panic. BILLY DRUMM calls an end to the meeting and everyone leaves. Later, back in their trailer, we see BILLY berating the youngster. The boy just stares at him sullenly. Beneath BILLY’S anger, there is a well-spring of fear. Fear brought on by the knowledge that his son is becoming increasingly powerful. BILLY’s anger causes him to reach for a large, leather strap. He raises his hand to strike the boy. DARIUS does not move. He stares at the man with unbridled hate. Swiftly, the strap begins to wrap itself around the man’s throat. Like a constricting snake, it becomes tighter and tighter around BILLY’s throat, until he falls to the ground, gasping and pleading for his life. The strap loosens around his neck. BILLY’s worst fears have been realized. His son has gained the advantage. As the sequence ends, the camera moves us back into the room where DARIUS and MORGAN are. DRUMM finishes off his story. He tries to impress on MORGAN that he is a natural, while MORGAN is merely a man-made creation. The argument becomes heated. MORGAN lashes out at DRUMM, telling him that he isn’t the hand of God. He says that DRUMM is a mutation—an accident—like the plague, like leprosy, like a deadly cancer. He tells DRUMM that if he’s deadly, he’s no better than those things. “You’re a virus! And like a virus, you must be wiped out!” DRUMM is a picture of contained fury. As MORGAN advances towards him, we see an amoebae-like substance slowly begin to form around DRUMM’s chair. The formless entity gradually assumes the shape of a man-like creature. MORGAN is taken aback. DRUMM taunts him. “Well, my young friend, are you so afraid of a virus that you cannot bring yourself to touch it?” The repellent creature advances on MORGAN, who gingerly backs away. The creature rushes MORGAN, smashing and destroying whatever is in its path. MORGAN strikes back, and what ensues is a knockdown, drag-out fight. Finally, MORGAN gains the upper hand and, as he does so, the creature blips out. DRUMM smiles and says, “Well, let’s not end it here. I’ll give you something else to fight. We can continue this forever.” MORGAN realizes that it is a stand-off. As DRUMM’s derisive laughter begins to echo throughout the room, MORGAN blips out. ★★★★★ CUT TO: MORGAN’S room. His father and JAYNE are pacing worriedly. As MORGAN snaps back, we see on his face that he is really

Darius Drumm, inked by Marty Lasick. 55

let down. “I-I couldn’t attack him that way. He’s too strong.” He then fills them in on what happened. MILLER asks if he can remember the location. MORGAN tells him that it was underground and he couldn’t tell. They come to the conclusion that they must battle DRUMM in the flesh. MORGAN also reveals his concern over KATHY, who, having seen DRUMM’s face in the fantasies, is subject to his attack. We end on that note. ★★★★★ DISSOLVE TO: The coastal section of town. Rising up from the beach is a steep palisades, covered with a sparse growth of shrub. We pick up on a wooden, clapboard house, evidently abandoned. We move past the house and toward a cave in the side of the cliff. The camera moves in, and we recognize the subterranean passageway as the corridor that MORGAN passed through. Once again, we find ourselves in the presence of DARIUS DRUMM. He is alone in the darkness. Across from him is an empty chair. We move in on DRUMM. He begins to speak. Someone answers him, and we pull back to reveal a mirror image of DRUMM not seated in the chair. Through the conversation, we show that DRUMM uses this ‘double’ of himself to come to grips with whatever problem he is faced with. This image, though, can only answer DRUMM’s questions with a question, frustrating DRUMM to no end. These sessions always end with DRUMM lashing out in fury at the image. Finally, the double says, “Why don’t you get rid of me? After all, I’m only a product of your imagination.” DRUMM blips him out. “Get the hell out of here!” Then to himself, “Only one left. Only one. I’ve got to get rid of him.” We learn that DRUMM fears anyone with powers equal to his. He continues to rave, until we are aware of another figure in the room. DRUMM turns and we see the conjured up image of his father, BILLY DRUMM. “There you are, father. You don’t look as tough as you used to.” “Well, this is the way you would want me to look, isn’t it?” answers the man. “Yes, this is the way I always saw you—as the sniveling hypocrite that you were!” “Whatever I was, I was myself.” “You drank! You had women! You perjured the Holy Word!” “I was a man if I was anything.” This is the response which DRUMM anticipates. He explodes in triumph! “Precisely! A man! A waste! A discard, ruled unworthy to dream of Angels! I am everything you couldn’t be. When you raved against the Devil, I produced him! When your followers begged to be healed, it was I who healed them! And when you wanted them cleaving to your every word, it was I who nailed them to their seats! You were just a hollow image, even as you are this moment, envious and fearful of the real power, the omnipotent will of your little boy, Darius!” His father replies, “It’s true, Darius. You kept me in fear, from the very day that you were born.” DARIUS laughs scornfully. “Yes, you cringing, little beast! You drank to still your quaking heart, and lusted to make the most of what little time you had left, for despite your vile raging, you knew that I could kill you whenever I chose to.” DRUMM motions to the image to follow him, as they make their way through a maze of passages. They halt before a giant steel door (fifty feet high). At DRUMM’s mental command, it begins to open slowly, emitting the rush of wind from its interior. DRUMM and the image enter the great room beyond the door, and DRUMM points at the mind-boggling object which rotates slowly with a majestic grandeur. It’s a planet, glowing greenish-blue, like the Earth itself. DARIUS says, “Look at it, preacher Drumm! Could all your mouthing of the scriptures have produced this pristine world? No! Your kind waits for the Lord’s Judgment, and when you’re scourged and cleansed by his flame, I’ll have this world for my very own. I shall live here, until the Lord’s work is done.” With a flourish, DRUMM moves to a side door. “And this, he says,

shall be the instrument to achieve that purpose!” He throws open the door. “Behold! The Fireangel!” There inside another huge anteroom, we see a giant bat-like monster. It is the same creature that menaced MORGAN and KATHY earlier. It is no longer an ethereal fabrication of DRUMM’s mind, but a solid, living monster of destruction. DRUMM’s father cries out, “You mean acceptable to yourself! Things that cannot harm you. Things that you aren’t afraid of!” At this remark, DRUMM begins to strike the man, beating him to the ground. The figure screams out—“How long, Darius? How long are you going to keep bringing me back? I’m still your father.” “I hated you. You’re a man!” The figure of his father looks up—“And what are you, Darius? Give me your answer. What are you? If that thing is an angel, then surely you are the Devil himself!” The camera moves in on DRUMM’s face. A face clouded with uncertainty—a face marked with fear. We realize that DARIUS DRUMM is unsure of what he is—a superman, a God, or, indeed, the Devil. With a wave of his hand, he blips out the image of his father. We fade-out on a shot of DRUMM, the planet, and the Fireangel in the background. ★★★★★ The story now moves back to MORGAN and KATHY. All is not right between them. KATHY has learned of JAYNE, and MORGAN is caught up in his feelings for the two girls, as well as his fears over KATHY’s safety. They get into an argument, and KATHY storms off. Meanwhile, DR. MILLER and JAYNE are trying to track down the area in which DRUMM’s caves are hidden. They aren’t having any luck. MILLER explains to the girl that he never considered the fact that his experiments would interfere with the lives of the experimental group so much. JAYNE says she understands. We go back to MORGAN, alone on the campus with his thoughts. The tension is beginning to show on him. We move on to a scene of KATHY about to get in her car. She hears something behind her and turns around, startled. She sees that it is MORGAN. He says that he’s come to apologize. KATHY begins to acquiesce, when suddenly, her ESP begins to tell her that something is wrong. Before she can do anything, MORGAN grabs her keys and shoves her in the car. As he gets in and starts it, we see him change to DARIUS DRUMM. Cut back to MORGAN, who gets a mental picture of KATHY trying to reach out to him. He realizes that DRUMM has KATHY. The emotional upheaval becomes so great that his outer clothes begin to smoke from the heat of his body. As his outerwear rapidly disintegrates, MORGAN takes to the air in his silver suit. He quickly spots KATHY’s car speeding through traffic. He lands in front of it, but DARIUS swerves to avoid him. MORGAN takes off after them on foot. He leaps over cars and through traffic. He gets close enough to grab on to the bumper, which comes off in his hand. As the car pulls away, DRUMM conjures up a group of man-like monsters to fight MORGAN (referred to from here on as SILVER STAR). The creatures jump on SILVER STAR’s back. He turns and slams them across the street—against cars—through buildings, etc. It is a real super fight. People are fleeing. There is pandemonium everywhere. The cops arrive and are dumbstruck by what is going on. One of the creatures tries to climb up a building. SILVER STAR shakes the structure, and the monster comes hurtling down to the pavement with a sickening thud. As soon as it hits the ground, it blips out. One cop yells at a creature to halt. It doesn’t and he fires at it. For his troubles, the monster knocks him about 20 feet through the air. SILVER STAR smashes another creature and sends it hurtling through a number of rooms, crashing through one side of a building and coming out the other side. Finally SILVER STAR defeats the monsters, and he leaps into the air, leaving the street in a shambles. ★★★★★ 56

CUT TO: MILLER and JAYNE, who have finally narrowed their search down to a section of the coast near DRUMM’s sanctuary. On the car radio, they hear of the fight. MILLER remarks that DRUMM has finally made his move. They take off toward the palisades. ★★★★★ We now find DRUMM with KATHY safely ensconced at his underground lair. DRUMM tries to put her at ease. He carefully looks her over. DRUMM, who has had little contact with women, is fascinated by her beauty. He takes her hand, then sharply pulls back. “No,” he says, “I’m not like him. I’m not like my father.” KATHY looks at him. “You’re the face—the face in our dreams.” “Of course,” he says. “I’m the face in everyone’s dreams. My face will dominate the world. Everyone will see this face before they die!” “What gives you the right?” KATHY says. DRUMM puts his hand on the Bible. “This sanctifies whatever I am doing. Do you think I was put here for nothing? I am one of a kind! I was put here to have dominion over all that I see. Whatever I create will make the world a better place.” He moves in closer to KATHY. “But first, I must destroy those who would stand in the way. After I wipe out Morgan Miller and his father, I’ll be ready. Then, it will only be me, and perhaps you, my dear.” KATHY is really scared of DRUMM now because she can see into his mind—the same way she sees into MORGAN’s—but DRUMM’s mind is a horrible place. As DRUMM talks, he begins to enter KATHY’s mind. He tries to convince her to join him by showing her how his world will be orderly. “I’ve looked into your fantasies. I know the kind of places that you and Morgan go to. That kind of thing is hogwash! That kind of thing is degenerate. I’ll give you something different, something denied to the young and inexperienced, standards beyond their reach! There is nothing so base and deceiving as the idealistic frumpery through which you’ve been dragged in the name of puppy love! In my charge, you shall be a more mature and discerning creature, the harmonious counterpoint to my own desires.” And as DRUMM mercilessly invades her mind with the psychotic violence of his own personality, he is in effect committing mental rape. “We’ll see the wonders of the universe as they truly are,” he says, invoking images that hover between a snakepit and a front seat at an autopsy. He leads Kathy into microcosmic places where monstrous curiosities fester and swim. Then, in great, expanding sweeps, DRUMM subjects KATHY to a variety of extraterrestrial sights of an overwhelmingly repellent nature; life worthy of clinical study, but hardly of the kind that inspires warmth and affection. What DRUMM is showing her is his own version of happiness, the power to dissect and examine with impunity, whatever strikes his morbid fancy. It is a cold and cruel lifestyle in which nothing is safe from his brutality. We watch DRUMM destroy worlds, wipe out intelligent creatures he deems unfit in his scheme of things. DRUMM is the most dangerous of types, a perfectionist in the most extreme sense, who views whatever displeases him as filth. Finally, the ordeal becomes too terrible for KATHY to bear. She screams in protest. DRUMM shuts down his nightmare tour in a gesture of contempt. He says to KATHY, “You’re not capable of making monumental choices, are you?” KATHY, still overcome, continues to sob softly. DRUMM says, “No, I guess you can’t. You’re not big enough. You’re defective. All you have is promise—you’re useless.” KATHY asks him to give it all up. DRUMM all but ignores her as he is caught up in the realization that this is the moment he has been anticipating. He takes the girl by the arm and shows her the planet. He then reveals the Fireangel. He tells her how no one will be spared, how it is a time for cleansing, like Sodom and Gomorrah. DRUMM announces that the time is at hand, as he sets loose the Fireangel. The huge beast ponderously tests its wings. With a shriek, it takes to the sky. It circles slowly over the water, and then heads toward the city.

SILVER STAR arrives in time to see it appear over the water. He leaps into the air and grabs on to the monster. It thrashes him about. The car with MILLER and JAYNE pulls up. They see SILVER STAR struggling with the creature in the air. The beast hurls SILVER STAR to the ground. He is shaken, but not hurt. He sees his father and JAYNE. “Kathy,” he yells out. “Drumm has Kathy in those caves underground!” JAYNE gets the message, and streaks off down an embankment. SILVER STAR starts to take off again after the Fireangel, when he is abruptly stopped by a strange sensation. His body begins to glow with terrific intensity—an intensity that surrounds him in a brilliant silver halo. MILLER sees what’s happening. “My god, it’s the X-Factor!” he exclaims. “You’re beginning to change again, Morgan!” And we see SILVER STAR go through this terrific transformation as he becomes the “multi-stage man.” He becomes totally sheathed in a skin of bright metallic silver, from head to toe. He streaks off into the sky after the Fireangel, who has been burning up anything in its path. At the same time, underground, JAYNE has found DRUMM and KATHY. DRUMM is shocked. “I thought I killed you!” he says. “You thought wrong, Drumm! And that was your mistake; in fact, two mistakes—one, trying to kill me and two, in not succeeding. And that’s two mistakes more than any man or god is allowed!” DRUMM threatens to kill KATHY. JAYNE attacks him. DRUMM tries to throw everything he has against her. In doing so, he begins to lose control over the Fireangel. We cut back to SILVER STAR fighting the beast. It turns and heads back for the caves. SILVER STAR follows it. He realizes that KATHY and JAYNE are in there, so he races ahead of the monster, in order to get them out. He breaks in just in time to see DRUMM about to deliver the final blow to JAYNE. SILVER STAR wades into the battle, knocking DRUMM to the floor. He tells the girls that they must get out before the Fireangel returns. DRUMM gets up and SILVER STAR chases him into the grotto where the planet is. They struggle, and SILVER STAR hurls DRUMM into a pit beneath the planet. He then lifts KATHY in his arms, and he and JAYNE run through the caverns and out into the open. As soon as they make it out, we see a side of the cliff fall away, as the planet crashes out. It hangs suspended over the ocean. With a chilling scream, the Fireangel heads for it, and as he crashes into it, there is a tremendous explosion. The planet shatters, hurling fragments everywhere. The four figures standing on the bluff dive for cover. When the sky clears, they get up and dust themselves off. It is then that they, and we, notice that JAYNE too, has become totally silver-ized. MILLER explains it as the final evolution in the “multistage” process. They can, however, change back and forth—and we see JAYNE and SILVER STAR return to their normal state. KATHY realizes that it is over between her and MORGAN, but she is not too unhappy, for she knows that JAYNE and MORGAN are a new breed of beings. JAYNE and MORGAN take off into the sky. The camera moves in on KATHY’s face. She turns to MILLER and says, “Do you think that Drumm was really destroyed, Doctor?” He turns and looks at her. “That’s hard to say. Can we be certain that someone with that much power—energy—can be truly destroyed?” She shivers slightly. “Then do you think that if there was one Darius Drumm—there are others?” MILLER puts his arm around her, protectively. “That, Kathy, is something that we’ll all have to live with.” As they turn and head back for the car, MILLER looks over his shoulder, in the direction of the sea. We follow his gaze and, as the camera pulls back to reveal the two silhouetted figures on the bluff, we see two brilliant points of light racing through the heavens. Over this we superimpose: THE END★ 57

blah. First, the Surfer fights the “bad” Inhumans, then the “good” ones, and then the bad Inhumans attack the good ones, and then... it gets weird. When I first read this story, I was about eight years old, and I knew by the time I got to page 15 the Surfer was about to clash with the only Inhuman he hadn’t touched: Black Bolt, the majestic, silent hero whose demeanor and strength reminded me so much of the Surfer himself. When he spent page 16 wrestling with Lockjaw, I was wild with anticipation—pages 17 and 18 involved aerial battles with various foes, and, with the last panel of page 18, Black Bolt arrived! Then page 19, and a mystifying let-down. No fight with Black Bolt. The Surfer flies off, brooding, and then he swears vengeance on humanity with a final splash that scared me half to death. I now look at the closing of the Surfer #18 book as one of the finest moments in Jack’s career. Instead of the traditional fight scene, the conflict that had to happen, Jack took his hero away with him—declaring, one last time, ownership of a defeated, embittered Silver Surfer. Last month, I bought page 19 of Silver Surfer #18, and it’s now hanging over my desk. Look at it—how the first panel has a completely white background, how the Surfer has to crouch to get his entire body in frame. Look how he’s a blur in the next panel, and the next, and insignificantly small by the time he lands on the mountaintop, as if he’s been robbed of all his importance. The mood darkens from panel to panel until, by panel eight, there’s far more black than white. Look at the textures—the speed lines around his body, the barren mountain he lands on, the patented Kirby cosmic energy flashing in the sky. No one used one-tier, threepanel construction the way Jack did. Look at the last three panels: The Surfer huddling with his board, arms over his knee, followed by his face looking up, determined, ending with his standing up, one arm outstretched, ready to take action. This is what I imagined Jack Kirby himself to be like as he realized he’d gotten screwed. The Kirby margin notes, tantalizingly, are cropped in half. At the top: “....building in his mind.” At the bottom: “His heart boils” and “men drive me—” and finally: “But now it’s my,” printed in Jack’s all-caps style under the image of the Surfer, hunched and ready to explode. “But now it’s my turn,” Kirby probably wrote, and he wasn’t just talking about the Silver Surfer at that point. This is my favorite piece of Kirby art that I own. “Jack was so sweet, so nice to people,” people say, “especially given all his problems with them.” Well, this is the page that shows Jack, in the Surfer’s guise, letting rage boil to the surface, declaring war. To me, this is one of the best graphic representations of pure emotions I’ve ever seen, period. Art as therapy.★

Art As Therapy by Glen Gold ’m in therapy—twice a week, discussing my feelings, stuff like that. Why begin with such personal information? Trust me, it’s relevant. When you’re in therapy, everything you do every day leads you to ask, “Why do I behave this way?” and when the answers come back, primal and scary, you—or, in this case, I—end up sitting down and reading a lot of old comic books, the literary equivalent of comfort food. I only met Kirby once, and found exactly what everyone did: He was charming, hospitable, and despite how badly he’d been treated in the industry, forgiving and peaceful. I wondered how he’d managed that, but then people who find out my personal history (nothing special— just the regular traumas, only an awful lot of them, a black-comedy pile-up of them) ask why it is that I seem so tranquil, too. The answer: I’m not—I’m boiling over. So, about a year ago, I was in one of my post-therapy detox sessions of reading some old Fantastic Fours, and I realized that for such a calm guy, Jack drew people punching the daylights out of each other better than anyone else on the planet. Suddenly, I saw vicious emotions everywhere: Anger. Rage. Destruction— coming out of Jack’s pencil at a rate of three to six pages a day. Six months ago, I heard that pages from Silver Surfer #18 were for sale. I hadn’t seen the book since I was a kid, but I remember it being a very odd reading experience. When I picked it up again, and read it through to the end— knowing what I know now—I realized that I was holding in my hands the book that best represents the dissolution of the Silver Age. To recap what any reader of The Jack Kirby Collector knows: When Marvel started publishing Silver Surfer, Jack wasn’t asked to pencil the character he’d created and that, to my understanding, was one nail in the coffin; another was that Stan Lee’s origin disagreed completely with Kirby’s conception of the character, effectively robbing Jack of all feeling of having birthed this cult figure. Then the Surfer book sold badly, and verged on wiping out a few times. Finally, according to Mark Evanier, Buscema left the book. Kirby was called in, but not with an offer to take over. Instead, he was asked to pencil a fill-in so that the new penciler, Herb Trimpe, could ape his style when he took over the book with #19. The timing here is significant: Surfer #18 hit the stands the same month as FF #102, the last Kirby work on a Marvel book. When Jack took on the Surfer one last time, he knew, at least on some level, he and Marvel were soon to be finished. And so, the Surfer #18 storyline: The Surfer meets the Inhumans and, as all Marvel super-heroes are required to, they fight for lame reasons—Maximus, blah-blah-blah, misunderstanding, blah-blah-

future Topps Editor-in-Chief Jim Salicrup said. “But Roy didn’t want to come back to New York City so he gave a list to Len of people to contact. I was on that list along with Tony Isabella (who didn’t want to move back to New York either). So I got a call almost out of nowhere.” by Jon B. Cooke While still on staff at Marvel, Jim said, “I was off the Spider-Man n the final years of his life, the most significant event of Jack Kirby’s titles [after successfully helming Spider-Man to phenomenal sales of career was the advent of Topps’ “Kirbyverse.” A series of three one3,000,000 for the first issue]. I don’t think they knew what to do with me shot comic books, Captain Glory, Night Glider, and Bombast were all anymore. I was doing the custom comics line with books featuring released in April 1993, and were quickly followed up with the 4-issue pro-social issues and advertising comics. I wrote the Kool-Aid Man mini-series, Jack Kirby’s Secret City Saga (plus the oh-so-collectible precomics and the Spider-Man/Hulk toilet-paper comic (and if people mium, Secret City #0, available only through a coupon rebate). Sold in didn’t like that story, they knew what they could do with it).” sealed plastic bags (emblazoned with enough hyperbole to make Jack “The atmosphere at Marvel wasn’t the best for me, Todd proud) with “Kirbychrome” cards, the comics were actually promoted [McFarlane], or a lot of other people,” Jim continued. “But outside as Kirby comics—all part of the “Kirbyverse”—but though based on there were plenty of companies who would like to have editors who Jack’s concepts and drawings (sometimes thinly) from various stages of could put together books that sell that well. That’s around the time his career, they were Kirby comics in name, lacking the main ingredient: that Todd and others went on to form Image Comics, and I got an The art of Kirby himself. The mini-series was quickly followed up by offer from Topps to help them start up a line of comic books.” another, the strange and satirical Satan’s Six, and then Jack Kirby’s Jim explained the appeal of the comic book market to the trading Teen Agents, each running a mere four issues. But the industry was in card company: “In regards flux, and by 1994, although two mini-series were released—Victory to the entertainment cards, and a revival of Silver Star—both were cancelled after only one Topps would get the card license issue. Jack Kirby passed away in February and thus never saw and somebody else would get his Kirbyverse end. This is the story of that brief period, but the comic book license. They our tale begins in the early 1940s, with the origin of Topps. asked themselves, “Why don’t Topps began producing chewing gum during we do the comic books as well?” World War II. “We made a Chicklets-type bubble What a great market it was—it was gum,” Topps Creative Director Len Brown explains, nonreturnable! Unlike when Marvel “and our first foray into comics was in the wanted to get into the card business and early ’50s with the Bazooka Joe and newspaper invested hundreds of millions buying existing strip reprints we would include with the card companies, Topps didn’t have to do much gum.” But it was the release of a set of boxing more than hire me and a couple of other guys.” trading cards (called Ringside) in 1949 which Jim was unsure whether Topps should follow the Image set the company’s direction as the premiere lead. “I felt that we probably shouldn’t do super-heroes because bubble gum card company. The heart of the it was a genre [where] all the other big companies already had company was the new product developincredibly famous characters; how could we compete with that? So ment department, headed for a time by our first title was an adaptation of a Dracula movie. If I had to compare humorist Stan Hart and, by the late ’50s, us to any company at that point, I think we were going in the Woody Gelman. In 1959, Woody hired the direction of being almost another Dark Horse.We did books that 18-year-old Len Brown as his assistant. were very classy projects, like the Ray Bradbury story anthologies “Len helped produce Mars Attacks, Wacky Packs, and movie adaptations. The Kirby thing was just irresistible to me.” Garbage Pail Kids,” lifelong friend and sometime Jim explained his thinking on not jumping on the genre associate Roy Thomas explains. “Woody retired wagon. “When everything that is popular goes in one direction, by the early ’70s and Len was left in charge and sometimes you can go in the complete opposite direction and he has been for a couple of decades now.” either become a huge success or a tremendous flop. Image was “Len was always trying to get Topps into the becoming so hot, and everyIn Captain Victory Special #1, thing was so dark in tone; as comics business,” Roy continued. “Wally Wood, the editorial (dated August 1983) Bob Powell, Jack Davis, Art Spiegelman, Gil hinted at a new Pacific Comics series much as I liked the original Kane, and a lot of other comic book people called The Midnight Men based on material that inspired the were in and out of there doing work in Jack’s concepts, which had been in trends, I don’t like hopping the ’60s and before. Jack Davis always said development for several months. on them. So Kirby to me was that Topps practically kept him alive during Jack’s synopsis for The Secret never anything like that—it the bad period after he left Mad and before he City was written in February was all very heroic, very noble, hit it big with the TV Guide covers.” 1983, and a 1983 Pacific press with a lot of solid underlying release featured Bombast, Glida, moral values. Even when we “In the early ’60s, Woody and I would and Captain Glory, so we assume they are one and the same. made the deal, there was a talk about wanting to get into comics but it Pacific folded soon after, and in October 1983, Jack did this concern on Jack and Roz’s part just never materialized,” Len said (though drawing of Bombast, changing his name to “Clayton March” Len had a foothold in the business as a for another proposed project called “Eyes of March!” that they were letting us use sometime comics writer, most significantly for his name and they didn’t want Tower Comics and Creepy magazine). “Ira Friedman joined the company us to be doing books that would reflect something that he wouldn’t in the mid-’80s and he had a big publishing background. A consulting want to be associated with. I took that seriously and wouldn’t have group we hired suggested looking for something synergistic for Topps wanted to do that anyway.” to do, and with the customers buying trading cards being young kids, By all accounts, the Kirby “thing” proved to be initially a lucrative comics seemed a natural.” deal for all involved, but the origins of the arrangement were, in Jim’s A comics line was given the go-ahead and “Len Brown was words, “A little complicated. We were approach by a couple of guys who assigned the job to find an editor-in-chief. His first choice was Roy said they had all these rights to various Kirby material, calling themselves Thomas, the guy who hired me at Marvel in 1972 in the first place,” “The Kirby Company.” They had a whole separate scheme worked out 59

Twilight At Topps

“95% of the time when I called, I dealt with Roz. As a negotiator she was almost like dealing with my mother. They were all very nice and happy about the whole deal. After we met with them, our Chairman shipped them out some fresh New York City bagels. There were a lot of nice gestures back and forth.” “In terms of the deal we struck,” Jim said, “it was a deal he originally tried to get with DC [in 1970]: Go over to a publisher, sell a bunch of ideas, and then get people like Steve Ditko, Don Heck, and the old Marvel guys to actually draw the material.” The Kirby material contained not only full-blown concepts, such as a multi-page synopsis for Secret City (reprinted here), but also simple sketches. “A lot was based on just single illustrations, character and costume designs,” Jim said. “Teen Agents, for example, may have been four or five illustrations and a cover mock-up. There was an unrelated illustration [of] a giant cosmic bus that we incorporated into Teen Agents. Satan’s Six had a bunch of pages already completed, so sometimes there was material to go from. But much of the time the writers we hired had to develop a bunch of it. We tried to give credit as fairly as possible; so you’ll see “Created by Jack Kirby” and “Developed by” whoever the writer was.” “The deal was to use material that he already had copyrights to,” Jim said, “including a lot of the Pacific work. We could have reprinted that stuff and used the characters. One of the bizarre things is that we technically had the rights to reprint that Silver Surfer graphic novel which was copyrighted to both Stan and Jack, even though Marvel owns the character. When Marvel reprinted it, I reminded them that they needed not only Jack’s permission but also our’s—which we gave them, so it was no big deal.” Jack received a good piece of the pie with the Topps arrangement. “It was a very lucrative licensing deal as opposed to getting a large page rate,” Jim said. “We approached him as if he was Star Wars, and in return for his properties we gave him a guarantee on what he would get. On every book we sold, he received royalties and got his name as creator. He had creative approval of everything and he owned the copyright to all the material. You just don’t find too many deals like that anywhere.” “I still think that Jack’s initial concepts were very strong and the characters looked great—very different than everything else that was out at the time,” Jim said. “One could fairly say that a lot of it was incredibly corny, but I made a trip out to Hollywood and spoke to people in animation, and there was a lot of interest in getting the rights to do those characters as an animated series. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the time and we were too understaffed to really follow-up adequately. I think that would have made it all worthwhile. A dream scenario for [me] is for some of that material to have gone on as an animated TV series with Jack given all the credit; perhaps licensing and toy deals with Jack getting a big share of that. That would have been the realization of what I was trying to go for.” A big name also thought the execution too hackneyed. “We had gotten Harlan Ellison to do some adaptations of his stories, “Demon with a Glass Hand” and “Soldier,” and he was being incredibly helpful as a consultant and advisor. But when he saw the Secret City stuff come out, he started wondering what I was thinking. He said, “This stuff is so corny! You should have called me and I could have helped you.” Not everything you do works out the way you want it to. I thought there was a way to do it if we had the right approach, but it came out at a time when so much was going on in the industry; Roy was so busy that I had to force him into doing it. Maybe that was me sticking to the concept of trying to get all these old Marvel people back together, despite the practicality of it. I even got Gary Friedrich and Gerry Conway to do some scripting.” In bringing in veteran writer Roy Thomas, Salicrup “wanted to stick fairly close to the synopsis and try to get the feel of Jack’s writing in the late ’60s and early ’70s,” Roy said. “Gil Kane was originally supposed to draw Jack Kirby’s Secret City Saga. That title was a name I never really liked; I felt it was weak and that we needed a name of a group. I

General Ordiz began as a character in an unused animation idea involving the Martial Arts.

(which was fine) as they had their dealings with Jack and decided to represent him on some projects. I was more interested in putting together a deal with Jack directly, and we wound up putting together both deals. But we never published anything from the previous deal.” “We all wanted to talk to Jack directly,” Jim said, “so Ira, Len, and I all went out with the Kirbys. In California, I got a little bit of insight into why Jack may not have had the best dealings with comic book companies over the years. There’s a part of him that’s just so sweet and trusting that in the back of my mind I was thinking, “If we weren’t offering a really great deal, it almost would be too easy to take advantage of this guy—he’s so nice.” Fortunately I felt that we were making him a deal he could be proud of.” As negotiations were finalized, Jim pored through the material Jack was offering to license. “We saw a lot of material that was initiated as animation pitches; that was what the new Kirby Company was pitching to us, and much of it felt like Ruby-Spears animated series,” Jim said. “I felt nervous about that material because I got the impression that Jack had created some of it, but some of it may have been character designs for someone else’s concepts. It was great to look at all the artwork, but at the time that didn’t seem the direction for us to go in. I think bits and pieces worked its way into other work that he did. Some of the characters may have been part of the DC Super Powers stuff that Jack did (which we didn’t find out about until we had already published the material).” Was there any evidence of a grudge against Marvel? “Roz and Jack never for a second made me feel uncomfortable that I had worked at Marvel all during his art fight,” Jim explained. “Everything we were trying to do was the type of deal Jack should have been getting all along. It worked out well. My idea of a great deal is one where everyone benefits—the publisher gets to publish great material and gets lots of money publishing it; the creators gets lots of money through royalties. Everybody sharing creates incentive for more and more to happen. The only disadvantage I had was that, though we were a part of Topps, the comic book division was so understaffed—small yet scrappy—but we didn’t have the resources available that the larger companies had that could’ve pushed a lot of these things up to the next level.” The woman behind the King was deeply involved in the negotiations. 60

Premise: “The Secret City” by and © Jack Kirby (dated February 1983) The Secret City is the central source that produces three great super-heroes who become constructive forces in whatever plots are conceived for them. The Secret City, in fact, is living proof because of its existence, that mankind, when it reaches a high point of technology every fifteen thousand years, produces a weapon that destroys his civilization on a planetary scale and forces itself to climb painfully and slowly once more to a highly civilized state. The Secret City is the survivor of the last catastrophe and lies in silence, still intact, beneath the city of modern day Chicago. The land around it had risen and entombed it when the great Flood of Noah’s day swept across the entire Earth, destroying and sinking continents and pummeling the planet with earthquakes that shook and changed, in the shattering blasts of hellish lightning, the face of the entire planet. A new, primeval millennium had begun. Man, unchanged would write his history in the same old way, until in this age his dreaded “Destruct-Toy” (with which we live in considerable discomfort) may become the trigger for another possible replay of history. Gazra, the great city of a bygone age is activated when an unexpected earth tremor zig-zags through the US midwest. Something, known in its last days as a “TRIAD-CELL,” lights up and opens and re-awakens its three occupants. They have been trained to survey and test and help to preserve this new age from another repetition of their own calamity and perhaps break the deadly chain forged by man himself in his never ending thirst for expanding power.

“BOMBAST” The Most Volatile Member of the TRIAD CELL Bombast, by our standards, could, like his two companions in suspended animation, be considered a super-hero type in the true sense of the appellation. The level of the civilization which produced him progressed along lines divergent from ours and thus applied their advances to people instead of machines. Human beings became independent from machines. Their assembly lines were biological instead of mechanical. Man didn’t master his environment with devices. He directly mastered his dominions by the literal superiority of his own body. Of course, this reached a stage similar to ours; a world where power plays were extremely dangerous, where a selfish few could light the dynamite that could blow the entire structure of those times into oblivion. Gazra, once an open and pleasurable society, peered forward and decided that this apocalyptic day must come. Thus, like Noah in his Ark, the Elders of Gazra built the TRIAD CELL. If this great city survived the coming cataclysm, it would have three “doves” to take to the air and return with reports on the world they would find. Bombast is the first to awaken. He tests his senses and condition of his volatile body. Bombast is a Human Bomb with eyesight that would make 20/20 vision ineligible for driving a car. Bombast never misses what he throws. He can toss an object through a keyhole as well as hurl a missile in pursuit

of a super-sonic plane. Bombast can lower or raise temperatures in dramatic places where hostility must be eliminated. In short, Bombast has been trained to defuse situations dangerous to his fellow humans and other forms of life to insure the continuation of life. However, in a world of machines, Bombast is disoriented. He can’t drive or service a vehicle. He’s never had to travel because of the ideal quality of life offered by his immediate environment. Those who were meant to travel were bred for it. They serviced those who were bred to govern and kept communications open between all societies. When Bombast emerges into the world of Chicago, 1983, he finds himself in a foreign environment which tends to limit him. He must rely on gadgets like the telephone, on monetary principles where he must exchange services for pieces of metal and paper which in turn supply him with shelter and sustenance. The buildings look strange and ugly and the people who pass each other without speaking are total strangers and cannot enter each others minds or share their positive emotions without a complex progressive process of building familiarity. From a world of immediate brothers, Bombast is in an unknown sea of humanity completely different from his own. However, he must learn all he can about this new world and at a time prescribed to him when he entered the TRIAD CELL, he must return to underground Gazra with his findings. Bombast meanwhile reacts to us and vice versa. He must use his powers to preserve us all. He must overcome his aversion to mechanical things to travel everywhere across the globe in order to neutralize the dangers in his adventures. Bombast becomes all the things he fears most: a driver, a pilot, a seaman, an astronaut, a computer salesman. In doing so, he travels the Twentieth Century in search of the people who would destroy it.

“GLIDA” Second To Awaken in the TRIAD CELL In contrast to Bombast, (pardon the rhyme) Glida is bred to travel. Her bones are hollow, somewhat, like those of birds. In conjunction with the conditioning of her mind and body, she can take to the air currents and ride them slow or swiftly, in the breeze of a summer sun or mount the winds to the upper stratas where the force of the wind tides can turn her into a super-sonic arrow. When she leaves the Secret City and finds herself on the surface in Chicago, she is delighted with the mechanical lifestyle of the “new” people. She can envision mechanical additions that would aid her to travel in manners she never dreamed of. She builds a fast racing car with detachable glider wings which she wears with her costume and enhances her way of flying. However, her “rig” has sophisticated attachments which can regulate her speed and gliding distance, enabling her to cover a fair amount of global territory and attain astounding maneuverability in dogfights with villains or villainesses who prefer to defeat her in this interesting fashion. Glida could run into a “Red Baron” type and madden him with her

ability to outwit him in air battle. At any rate, her mission is no different than Bombast’s: Survey the world and keep it in one piece. Still, her personal life in contention with the mores of a “new” world should bring her in contact with people who are far from the scenarios of global conspiracy. Like Bombast, she must live differently, act differently. “Just Plain Folks” confuse her. Glida is a traveler, a super-jet-setter—and may well get into trouble among the variety of people and customs that prevail day after day in their own particular and peculiar areas in our existing societies.

“CAPTAIN GLORY” Third Member Of The TRIAD CELL He finds his companions gone when he awakens in the TRIAD CELL. Captain Glory has been bred for governing. In the days of Noah it has been his will which has dispensed justice and fair play in the once beautiful city of Gazra. To obtain justice and fairness, Captain Glory, whose original name is Keltan, now leaves darkened Gazra which he notes with small satisfaction, has survived the monumental upheaval of the now remote past. Actually, having been a city without machines, there are no elevators, lifts or any type of vehicles that would aid one in ascending above the city unless they’d been bred for this kind of purpose like Glida. Nevertheless, the earth tremor which had originally activated our super-heroes, had created a natural shaft or ramp-like crevice upon which Captain Glory makes his way to the surface world of the Twentieth Century. Unlike his mates in the Triad Cell, he takes this new world in stride. But he is still to formulate a place in this society and become Captain Glory to its people. With razor-sharp mind and impressive body, he masters the language and finds his way to a position in a respectable law firm which deals in criminal cases. As an American, he becomes Keltan McCord, a combination of his own name and one taken from a newspaper which reports the death of a detective killed in the line of duty. Our super-hero soon finds that the same old rift between the little guy and the big guy still exists and takes on a large criminal organization which pins a gun-smuggling operation on a poor schnook of a Vietnam war veteran. And, in the process of bringing the real culprits to justice, our hero ends the case in a clandestine but flag-waving conclusion which earns him the name of Captain Glory. Keltan, a born decision-maker, likes this sort of thing and begins to live the role of Captain Glory. With his well-coordinated body he absorbs the hard knocks that come with the role and does extremely well among the people so far removed from the days of the globe-girdling flood. As Captain Glory, our hero can involve himself with the problems we live with in the shadow of the H-Bomb. Although the weapon that destroyed his world had been different, Captain Glory is determined to see us all hold the line and somehow find the way to justice instead of death for all. Of course, having a previous kinship with our other two super-heroes, their paths can cross and intermingle whenever it helps to balance the course of the three individual books.★

“Jet Rider,” a modified, unused Orion drawing from the Super Powers toy line was a potential character in Jack’s initial presentation.

Whiz Kid was presented as a character to Topps, but never used.

Roag also began life as an animation concept.

would have preferred the name I made up, The Ninth Men. Jack’s synopsis hinted that there were these layers of people on Earth; races would rise and fall. I was influenced by The Last and First Men, the Olif Stapleton science-fiction epic.” Roy felt somewhat constrained in writing the books. “I felt a little bound in because it wasn’t a series that I would have come up with. I felt hamstrung in some ways, especially after Gil withdrew from the project— I’m a big fan of Ditko, but I liked the idea of three different artists on the one-shots and Gil doing the miniseries. I turned that book down three or four different times, but Jim kept coming back to me—I should thank Jim because I made a nice piece of change! The combination of what Jim wanted, and what I felt constrained to do by the people working on the books, and trying to keep it like an old Kirby series— maybe it ended up being a little too old-fashioned; not just because of the personnel, but the idea itself.” “What worked out best was the introduction we did in Secret City #0 when Walt Simonson came on board—he got the book to look the way I felt it ought to look,” Roy said. “Nothing against the other artists, but I felt that if I could have worked with Gil, that could have been just great because Gil and I always worked on the same plane. I saw the series the way Walt did or the way Gil might have. It was never entirely successful to me from an artistic viewpoint.” The editorial staff wanted to put some topical stuff amongst the retro material. “Jim wanted to put President Clinton in there,” Roy explained, “and there was a lot of hassling around whether Clinton was going to be kidnapped and threatened. I always felt that I was playing connect-the-dots, but I had a lot of fun with it and it was interesting working with some of these guys again. I’ve never done more than 20 pages of dialoguing with Steve Ditko before.” Did the editors call the King for advice and clarification? “We had access to calling him and getting his input (and he wouldn’t have hesitated to say, “Oh, I’ll tell you who this guy is”),” Jim said, “but for the most part, we used his designs and developed them ourselves.” “The initial batch of books was probably more retro than what we all wanted,” Jim said, “but we didn’t mind. We were pushing a nostalgic approach and doing it as a pseudo-early Marvel ’60s reunion. If I could have had Stan Lee I would’ve, but he was bound by his exclusive deal with Marvel—I asked him! If we kept going, we wanted to progress it up to a more contemporary style of books—there were even some done towards the end that only had one issue published—Victory (which Kurt Busiek was writing and defining where the characters would go from there) and Silver Star. Unfortunately at that time there was so much competition and so many super-hero books coming out that if something wasn’t exactly what the market was looking for at that particular point, it quickly disappeared. Because it was being promoted as a line, if you didn’t like one than you wouldn’t like any of them.” Surprisingly, a similar line of books came from an unusual source. “At the same time, Image was launching a title called 1963,” Jim said, “and if we had to do it all over again, I think we probably would have merged some of the ideas. I think they would have gotten a kick working with the original ’60s artists, and Alan Moore [writer of 1963] would have given it a more interesting spin. At one point we were planning to do a crossover, but unfortunately both our projects wound up in trouble before we could make it happen.” Initially, the first batch of Kirby books sold very well. “The line started off like a house on fire!” said Len Brown. “We billed over a million dollars, so we said “Hey, this is easy stuff!” But these were the boom years with speculators probably inflating sales. Sales dropped off quickly.” “The Kirby books were almost like the Dow Jones Index,” Jim explained. “When the comics market was high, our books did well, and as the market suddenly was dropping, the books dropped along with everything else. There was such a glut of product, I’m not sure if we ever reached the potential audience to the extent whether anyone was making an informed decision one way or another. Also, it was a constantly changing proposition—it wasn’t just Secret City. When that mini-series ended, we started the other Kirby titles and I don’t think there was much of that retro feel.” “With the Kirby material, I think there was a frenzy in comics in general,” Jim said. “The industry was coming off all of those million sellers. Anything that was new and seemed exciting from a new company generated interest. But there An unused villain presented to Topps. were a lot of weird things we were doing 62

A group of Secret City villains; Jack named the one on the far right “Cal Cutta.” because we were connected with Topps trading card company. The comics were bagged and sealed with trading cards and you couldn’t pick them up and flip through them. These were characters that no one had heard of and they were expensive books—$2.95—so it was tough to engage the casual reader.” “We were always looking for a proper way to insert the trading cards,” Jim said, “but at Topps there was a purist attitude; cards that were perforated weren’t “real” cards—loose cards were real cards. They already had the concept before I came in. I think it would have worked if it was just the first issues of projects people already knew about like movie adaptations. I don’t think it hurt Jurassic Park or Dracula, but unknown characters made it difficult for potential readers to figure out whether they would like it or not.” Some of the Kirby books didn’t quite work out as envisioned. “With Satan’s Six,” Jim said, “Jack had a really goofy, interesting concept but I don’t think we ever figured out the right take on it. If we had a little more time... but I don’t think we were as true to Jack’s concepts as we should have been. We had a young artist, John Cleary on it and Satan’s Six was his first published work. To make him follow in Jack Kirby’s footsteps is a cruel thing to do to the poor guy.” The writing was on the wall for the series in very short order. “[The premature cancellation of Silver Star and Victory] was something that lead to changes in how I would continue to be involved with the company,” Jim confessed. “I became Associate Publisher and put through a plan that I never again wanted us to publish one issue of something and just cancel it. I would have sooner not published it at all and wait for a later time. I just didn’t think it was a wise move for a new company to do. I think that Topps’ original concept (and I went against it) was they wanted to pop in and out of the field, the way they published magazines. If they saw an opportunity, they would come in. Maybe that was the wise way for them to operate—it’s certainly been their tradition—but I saw that a comic book company

should come out with comic books every month. So these were two opposing views. With comic books, there are so many examples of titles that had slow sales for a number of issues—The Hulk was cancelled after six issues, X-Men was a title that was second-rate for so long—so fiddling with creative teams and how you position the book are important. Comics are more of an ongoing, organic thing than trading cards. So there was a philosophical difference that I was unable to communicate well enough to them.” And, Jim added, voicing his frustration at his constraints, “With our budget, we were like Charlton trying to compete with Marvel and DC!” The ultimate assessment of Topps by Jim Salicrup? “I think to comic art fans, the Topps stuff probably won’t be much more than a footnote, if that. But, to Jack personally, it meant a lot. Even though he was clearly past an age where he could produce like he once did, he was part of a generation who felt that if you were not out there working and providing for your family, you’re not a man, not doing what you’re supposed to do. (Which is just crazy for him to even think that way.) So when we made the deal—which I think was very generous—he was the type of guy who didn’t want the money for himself; it was to give to his wife, his children and his grandchildren. I think he felt great to be able to do that. It was interesting to see him at the San Diego Con before we made the deal, just walking down the aisles, not getting much attention from kids—you almost felt a little sadness there; but the next year, when he was at the Topps booth, there were video crews getting interviews, the books were coming out, Jack had to turn down autograph requests, and people wanted to pose for pictures with him. The difference was that Jack was just smiling away with a sense of pride.” A fitting finale to the King’s career.★ (Special thanks to Jim Salicrup, Roy Thomas, and especially Len Brown— who took time out of his vacation to give a quick interview—for all of their help with this article. Kudos also to Kurt Busiek and Tony Isabella.) 63

Classifieds (10¢ per word, $1 minimum) ______________________________ HOGAN’S ALLEY has something for every fan of comic strips, comic books, animation, & more! Each 100+ page issue has features, interviews, reprints, appreciation and analysis of the entire medium! Four issue subscriptions are $18.95 ($27.95 overseas) from: Hogan’s Alley, PO Box 47684, Atlanta, GA 30362 or sample them online at www.cagle.com/hogan ______________________________ LIMITED EDITION PRINTS FOR SALE. Jack Kirby–A Premier Presentation from the Ruby-Spears Productions Animation Collection—can be seen on the Web at: www.madmorgan.com or by contacting Jeff Cooke at Mad Morgan Enterprises, PO Box 6698, Burbank, CA 91510, (818)848-1445, FAX (818)840-1252, e-mail: morgancooke@earthlink.net (catalogs available). ______________________________ WANTED: Buried Treasure #1 (Pure Imagination, magazine). Also Ark Magazine #33 (1990, England), Dark Domain (Gray Morrow). Brian Postman, 238 East 24th Street #2A, New York, NY 10010. ______________________________

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ADVERTISING & DESIGN PRODUCTION IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE KIRBY ESTATE EDITOR: JOHN MORROW ASSISTANT EDITOR: PAMELA MORROW ASSOCIATE EDITOR: JON B. COOKE DESIGN & LAYOUT: TWOMORROWS PROOFREADING: RICHARD HOWELL COLORIST: TOM ZIUKO CONTRIBUTORS: DEREK S. ADAMS MARK ALEXANDER NICK ALEXANDER HAFEEZ T. AMIN LEN BROWN ROBERT L. BRYANT, JR. KURT BUSIEK LEN CALLO EDDIE CAMPBELL KEVIN CARHART MARK CARTWRIGHT MARK COALE JON B. COOKE SHELTON DRUM MARK EVANIER ROBERT FLETCHER SHANE FOLEY MIKE GARTLAND GLEN GOLD AL GORDON DAVID HAMILTON RANDY HOPPE TOM HORVITZ TONY ISABELLA MICHAL JACOT GIL KANE GEORGE KHOURY PEDRO KHOURY III MARTY LASICK BOB LATIMER ANDREW MAYER ROBB MCALLISTER ADAM MCGOVERN MARK MILLER ALBERT MOY PAUL RIVOCHE STEVE ROBERTSON STEVE RUDE JIM SALICRUP ROB SALKOWITZ DAVID SCHWARTZ STEVE SHERMAN FRED SMITH MATT TAUBER TOMMY TEJEDA MIKE THIBODEAUX JOEL THINGVALL ROY THOMAS BRUCE TIMM MORT TODD STEVEN J. WEILL BOB WIACEK RAY WYMAN DARRYL YOUNG BRUCE ZICK MICHAEL ZUCCARO SPECIAL THANKS TO: LEN BROWN KURT BUSIEK EDDIE CAMPBELL JON B. COOKE MARK EVANIER MIKE GARTLAND D. HAMBONE RANDY HOPPE RICHARD HOWELL TONY ISABELLA GIL KANE ROBERT KATZ BOB LATIMER MARK PACELLA STEVE RUDE JIM SALICRUP DAVID SCHWARTZ STEVE SHERMAN CHIC STONE MIKE THIBODEAUX ROY THOMAS BRUCE TIMM BOB WIACEK TOM ZIUKO AND OF COURSE THE KIRBY ESTATE MAILING CREW: RUSS GARWOOD D. HAMBONE GLEN MUSIAL ED STELLI PATRICK VARKER

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Collector Comments Send letters to: The Jack Kirby Collector c/o TwoMorrows • 1812 Park Drive Raleigh, NC 27605 or E-mail to: twomorrow@aol.com _____________________________________________ (Our call for Jack’s Wackiest Work brought us some interesting responses, but my favorite was this one:) _____________________________________________ I think that Kirby’s kookiest idea was HIDDEN HARRY from RUBY-SPEARS the CARD SET. Harry lived in a hat box. He would climb out, then climb back in. PERIOD. Furthermore, his head was bigger than the box he lived in. What was Jack thinking? nick alexander, age 11 _____________________________________________ Although wide open to charges of sexism (horrors!), TJKC #20 is the best yet. Hips, hips, hooray! It’s the antidote to all those Kate Moss commercials. On an unrelated issue: The greytone shading in DC’s NEW GODS reprint paperback has taken a beating, justified or not, but what’s up with the clumsy re-lettering in some of the stories? For some reason, was the original Royer lettering not reproducible? The shading may be distracting, but the new lettering just looks cheap. And speaking of lettering... Was John Costanza in the habit of ignoring Kirby’s double and triple exclamation marks when he worked on the Fourth World series before Royer took over both inks and lettering? All the !! and !!! punctuation marks suddenly start appearing only when Royer started on the books. Maybe it’s only a quirk, but it’s odd how Kirby begins the 1970s with double/triple exclamations all over the Fourth World—overwhelming enthusiasm?—then goes to single exclamations by, say, 1973, after the Fourth World died, then to mere periods and ellipses by, say, “2001,” as if the characters are sometimes ending their sentences in a sad sigh. Is this punctuation a chart of Kirby’s loss of enthusiasm as he was kicked in the face by both Marvel and DC in the ’70s? (Meant to mention this in “Monologue on Dialogue.”) robert L. Bryant Jr., Columbia, SC _____________________________________________ Scott Shaw!’s article in TJKC #20 about lOVE ROMANCES #103 confirmed a suspicion I’ve had about Kirby’s involvement with the title—namely that besides the war, western, monster and super-hero books he was working on at the time for Atlas, he was also doing romance comics. like Scott, I stumbled across a copy of lOVE ROMANCES #99 at a used book store a few years ago and recognizing Kirby’s distinctive art style on the cover, scooped it up for half a buck. In it, Jack penciled the entire 23 pages in what looks to me like a rush job; as if a desperate Stan had called Jack and asked him to do the whole book over the weekend! Up until reading Scott’s article however, I thought that this book may have been an aberration, but now will have to drop that notion. Instead, I believe that Kirby at some time, worked on all of Atlas’ genre comics in those early years, doing them in short, off-and-on runs (he did some of the pencils in at least 5 or 6 issues of BATTlE around the same time for instance). In the case of lOVE ROMANCES and the fact that Jack penciled both #99 and #103, I think it’s a good bet that he at least did all the issues in-between too. pierre Comtois, Lowell, Ma (According to the newly-updated JACK Kirby CheCKlisT—which will be available in December—Jack drew stories for lOve rOmAnCes #85 and #96-105, plus covers from #83-106. every serious collector of Jack’s work should have a copy of this checklist; besides being a wonderful resource, proceeds from it go directly to the Kirby estate.) _____________________________________________ As the comics get worse, the fanzines get better. TJKC is

consistently a better read than 90% of the overpriced, over-hyped material on the market. Issue #19 was nearly perfect. Personally, I was looking forward to some of that fan art you have. How about placing it in your upcoming ANYTHING GOES issue? I wasn’t looking forward to #20, I must confess. A theme issue devoted to Kirby’s women?! This couldn’t amount to anything special, I said to myself. Was I wrong! The trio of interviews were fabulous and the GAlAXY GREEN and the TRUE lIFE DIVORCE stuff made a believer out of me! I also loved Scott Shaw!’s piece. This was the kind of examination I’d like to see more of. Mr. Shaw! picked a personal favorite from a book (I believe) that hasn’t been reprinted or discussed often and did a beautiful (and humorous) look at it. You guys make all your hard work look effortless and the passion shows in every issue. Find some more of those unpublished stories if you can! tony Houghton, San Mateo, Ca (Okay, readers, you win. We’ll try our best to fit some fan art in our upcoming AnyThing gOes issue, so get to work sending it in! As for more unpublished stories, stay tuned.) _____________________________________________ Re: Jack’s Animation Chronology in TJKC #11 (just reprinted in the COllECTED JACK KIRBY COllECTOR, Vol. 2): The wrong SUPER FRIENDS and SCOOBY-DOO shows were listed. They should be: SCooBy & SCrappy-Doo H-B ABC 9/80-9/81 13 episodes tHE WorLD’S GrEatESt SUpEr FriEnDS H-B ABC 9/79-9/80 8 episodes and I can’t believe you forgot this: tHE tHinG H-B NBC 9/79-9/80

26 episodes

(Oh, tHE nEW FantaStiC FoUr was 13 episodes.) Darrell Mcneil, Los angeles, Ca _____________________________________________ I enjoyed your interview with lisa Kirby. I’m glad she felt comfortable to share her private memories with all of us. Three cheers to Mike Gartland for “THOSE MARVElOUS KIRBY WOMEN!” It’s about time someone had the courage to debunk the myth that Kirby’s heroines were not equal to the male heroes, especially in regards to Sue Storm. I also liked “THE OTHER WOMAN.” Wow! What a twist ending! Provocative, too, considering that the subject of divorce was still a taboo in 1970. But to me, the gist of this tale was not really about why people should or should not divorce, but why it is preferable to marry someone close in age (I know the script says the story is about how we should not judge others, but as I said, the story spoke to me in a different way, yet in no way am I trying to misinterpret a Kirby tale). I love to read un-inked pages the way film buffs prefer black-&-white movies. If the pencils are tight, then the clarity and contrast is already there. Speaking of movies, the CAPTAIN VICTORY screenplay was a real blockbuster! I can hardly wait for SIlVER STAR’s treatment! Bill W. Miller, Watseka, iL _____________________________________________ As a huge Kirby fan (and proponent) I frequently find myself flipping through the back issues of TJKC and there are a few things I’ve meant to say for a while but have never gotten around to. I figure better late than never. In TJKC #18, on page 42, we see a Marie Severin cover that is signed by Jack, and it does seem sort of strange at a glance—but if you look at the entire “Severin” cover, you will see that all of the backgrounds are actually Jack’s originals. If the piece was signed quickly he may never even have noticed the piece was an adaptation of one of his own—or he may have signed it simply as ONE of the artists responsible, despite the fact that his own work on the piece was probably just a photostat of his original piece. I’ve taken another look at the cover to CAPTAIN AMERICA #200 and compared it with the version of the

questionable cover printed in TJKC #19 and I must admit this one IS very difficult to call. But I believe that cover is indeed Kirby’s original pencils. I have a theory as to how there could actually be two originals. It was NOT UNCOMMON during the time period in question for covers that “needed” alteration to be inked on a vellum overlay—incorporating the changes into a new inked original. Usually these covers would be finished by John Romita, but there were also times when Frank Giacoia worked in this method. Frank inked the cover of issue #200 of CAP. This could account for the duplicate original. Cap’s face in the pencils seems to be a bit more Kirbylike in the “fine-tuning,” in my opinion—notice the teeth and mouth in particular. It would seem strange to see such detail ADDED to a forgery, I think. There are, arguably, no major differences between the two pieces—but Cap’s left arm and his shield do seem to have been altered somewhat from the “original” pencils. In the inks, a stronger shadow has been added to the underside of his arm and details lines are absent from the shield. There is also more detail in the blacks of the chest and the forehead in the pencil version. Again I find it difficult to believe someone would add detail in a forgery. Inking on a vellum overlay could easily have led Frank Giacoia to miss a few details and the change in the arm could even account for the reason behind the decision to ink this piece on an overlay rather than on the original. But there are two more telling things that need to be analyzed. First, the blurbs, which look to be in Kirby’s own handwriting (“The “All-out Action Issue” and “This is it men! ATTACK!”). It would not be unusual for someone in Marvel’s Editorial Department back then to ignore Kirby’s original cover copy in favor of his own and I believe this could be the case here. It would take an incredible insight into the intimate details of the working relation between Kirby and Marvel to even conceive of adding this “rejected” cover copy in what sure looks like Jack’s own hand. If this is a forgery it has been incredibly well thought-out. Finally, a minor detail, but one that might actually enable us to determine whether or not this cover is real. The Falcon’s feet on the printed cover are the same as they are on the interior of the book, but this is not the way they appear in the penciled version. Are there any pencil copies left of any of the interiors of CAP during this time period... and, if so, how did Kirby handle the details of Falcon’s feet in his originals? If they are “wrong” like they are on the pencils, then this piece must certainly be authentic! Michael Higgins _____________________________________________ I just finished TJKC #20 and I felt compelled to write. After a little more than two years reading every issue, I am amazed how you succeed to make this mag interesting every time. Some articles analyzing the king’s works may sometimes be a little bit too intellectual for me but I get to grasp things about the man and his oeuvre that I never suspected when I was enjoying the FF or the Fourth World as a reader. The highlights of this issue, for me, are the lisa Kirby and Dave Stevens interviews. In fact the interviews are always what I read first. I hope I’ll be able to read TJKC for years to come. Keep showing how great a man Mr. Kirby was. J.C. Lebourdais, St Joachim, FranCE _____________________________________________ I’d like to offer some thoughts regarding the article about THE ETERNAlS by Charles Hatfield in #18. Have the parallels between ETERNAlS #1 and FANTASTIC FOUR #64 (which introduced the Kree) ever been discussed? The plots are virtually identical, including the old, whitehaired scientist and his more materialistic Indiana Joneslike guide. The ancient spaceport on page 4 is littered with what looks like Celestial artifacts and the Sentry itself looks a little like a Celestial. The Kree were eventually developed in a different, more “human” direction by Stan and Roy Thomas (in CAPTAIN MARVEl and THE AVENGERS), but when one reads FF #64, one is left with the idea that Stan and Jack’s original concept was much closer to what THE ETERNAlS were all about.

On another subject entirely, you may be interested in knowing that my wife Randy and I are the writers responsible for creating adult versions of Kirby’s BOY COMMANDOS in the modern DC Universe. We brought André Chavard back as head of the French Intelligence department “Gamma” in TEEN TITANS SPOTlIGHT ON THE BROTHERHOOD OF EVIl #11 (1987). Then, when we plotted BlUE BEETlE for len Wein, we created a subplot in which Murray Takamoto, a friend of the Blue Beetle, met Alfy Twidgett and his beautiful daughter Twiggie in BlUE BEETlE #19 (1987). Alfy and Twiggie were depicted as the heads of a private insurance outfit called S.O.l.—Statistical Occurrences limited. In BlUE BEETlE #21, Murray was introduced to the rest of the gang: André, Professor Jan Haasan of the Center for Strategic Studies in the Hague, and a retired but still green General Rip Carter. The idea was to eventually introduce a new team of modern commandos with Murray, Twiggie and other characters to be created, which would operate under the guidance of the original Commandos, but BlUE BEETlE was cancelled and that plan never reached fruition. We never included Brooklyn because our plot dealt entirely with the European side of things, and we felt it would have been a stretch to include him. I was happy to later find out that John Byrne (I think?) had made him into the Terrible Turpin of the NEW GODS in SUPERMAN. A couple of interesting things happened on the way. First, before embarking on this, I had asked Jack (I think it was at a party given by my friend Buzz Dixon) what he thought the Boy Commandos would grow up to be like. He confirmed my feeling that these were dedicated, resourceful, strong-willed young men who would rise to become pre-eminent figures in their chosen fields. We felt therefore justified in our approach at the time. Interestingly, a few months later, at the Science Fiction World Convention held in Brighton, England, I met Neil Gaiman for the first time, who told me that our BlUE BEETlE stories had prevented him from selling a BOY COMMANDOS project to DC. (I rush to add that it was all very friendly and Neil and I have always been on great terms ever since.) If I recall correctly, Neil’s concept was that the Commandos had hit the peak of their lives during the War, and could never adapt to civilian life afterwards. He had them living like bums, sleeping on grates, etc. Apparently, having reintroduced the characters in a different context in the DC Universe was enough to cause DC to not want to go ahead with this approach. I don’t know where Neil would have gone with the story—I’m certain there would have been a redemption somewhere—but the idea of these brave, incredibly capable boys falling to pieces after the War certainly does not match my vision of the characters and I would hazard to say, based on that single brief discussion with Jack many months before, his either. In spite of all the respect and genuine admiration I have for Neil, I was—am—glad that our own modest contribution may have been instrumental in preserving a certain vision of the Boy Commandos. I think that Jack had a special empathy for these plucky kids who fought during World War II. I can’t help wanting to share the news that artist Jose ladronn (CABlE), whose influences are Kirby and Moebius, and we are going to be doing a 64-page SIlVER SURFER graphic novel which will be a direct sequel to Jack’s SIlVER SURFER #18 and will feature both the Kirby and the Moebius Surfers. I’m negotiating with Quentin Tarantino (surely you remember the bit from CRIMSON TIDE?) to make a cameo as himself in the book. Wish us luck. Jean-Marc Lofficier _____________________________________________ The reviewers and fans appearing in TJKC often express what I consider an unreasonable bias against those inkers who embellished Jack’s work, as opposed to what I think of as the ‘tracers’ like Mike Royer and D. Bruce Berry. I can’t understand how anyone could fail to appreciate the value added to Kirby’s pencils by such distinctive and distinguished stylists as Wood, Bill Everett, Syd Shores or Dick Ayers. Each of these inkers added a much

needed texture to Jack’s powerful layouts that the monotonous eye-numbing inks of a Royer lack. Jack’s strength was in his storytelling far more than his rendering. The insistence on retaining the ‘purity’ of his penciled art strikes me as anti-aesthetic, if not downright fetishistic. Disagree as we may about such things, I do share common ground with the rest of your readership: A deep and abiding respect for Kirby the creative genius and unending affection for Jack the human being. If you can stand yet another anecdote reflecting the man’s warmth and kindness, I’d like to share the following: In 1984, I was in attendance at the San Diego Comic Con attempting to market a comic book I was putting together. While wandering through the lobby trying to figure out which publisher to collar next, I was approached by none other than the King himself. Because I am severely handicapped and was in my motorized wheelchair, I suspected at first I was about to be condescended to by this lofty eminence. As anyone who has ever met Jack knows, I couldn’t have been more wrong. For the next twenty minutes, Jack sat and talked with me as if I were his dearest friend. He inquired frankly about my disability, listened attentively to my answers and complimented me on my independence and spirit. He also graciously looked at my presentation package, praised my drawings and even suggested future storylines for the series far more clever and insightful than any I had come up with. And I was gratified to be able to tell him how he had inspired me as a cartoonist and how much his work had meant to me. I have one of those collage frames hanging in my bedroom filled with photos of family and friends... and a special picture of Jack Kirby and myself side by side. It is a keepsake of one of my life’s great moments. God bless you, Jack. Enough of me already. I look forward as always to more TJKC. Congratulations on your latest award nominations. They are well deserved. Kurt Mitchell, Burbank Ca _____________________________________________ As always, you manage to surprise me with each new issue of TJKC. The last one was no exception. The lisa Kirby interview was quite touching and gave the reader the feeling he went to the Kirby family’s place and knew the routine, manners, and modesty of the King and his Queen. The articles dealing with the women in Jack’s universe were fine too, especially the one about the romance books (far less known and just as interesting as his other works). The Dave Stevens interview was nice, and well-focused on his relationship with Jack (not easy, with all the various works Dave did!). As for Jack’s interview, I was pleased to read some of his famous personal war stories (more would be great!), particularly the one that inspired “Hell In A Very Small Place” (my “losers” favorite). Your letter column was quite interesting too (especially Bruce Younger and Richard Kyle’s essays which perfectly sum up the situation). But what really knocked me out were the two unpublished Kirby stories!! “The Other Woman” is a masterwork and proved that Kirby could write very voluptuous women as well as draw them. All his energy is here in a more sensual way than usually seen in the super-hero genre. The psychological angle as well as the expressiveness of the characters is very professionally handled. By the way, could you give more information on the TRUE lIFE DIVORCE magazine? As for GAlAXY GREEN, I was quite surprised with the swimsuit on the lady in the third panel of the second page... ’nuff said! John, please continue publishing those unknown stories, complete if copyrights enable it. They’re the highlight of TJKC! Jean Depelley, FranCE (believe me, i’ll run unpublished stories whenever possible; the trick is finding them and getting permission! At the san Diego Con this year, we tracked down the owners of the original art to almost all of sOUl lOve and TrUe DivOrCe CAses, with one exception; a sOUl lOve story called “The model,” which probably would’ve been inked by vince Colletta. if anybody out there has the art

to this story, please contact us. With a little luck, we’ll be able to get these unseen gems published.) _____________________________________________ After nearly two years of procrastination, I’m finally setting pen to paper and delivering my first communication to John Morrow’s fine publication. Why did it take me so long? I blame it on the King. I mean, I fully intended to write this letter immediately after discovering TJKC back in 1996. I remember reading issue #11 and saying, “Holy Cow! These guys may actually like Kirby as much as I do. I’d better write them a letter.” Yet, when it came time to begin, I ran into a big problem; namely, Jack’s enormous volume of work. Where would I start? What series should I write about? What treasured childhood memories of reading Jack’s stories should I share with my fellow readers? These questions, as well as others (such as “Why have I just spent my rent money on a FANTASTIC FOUR #1?”), have swirled about my head. Eventually, I realized how foolish I was being. No one could possibly say everything about Jack that they had to in one measly article. The fog had lifted! The answer was obvious! I would have to write a whole series of articles! And so I shall. (Don’t worry, though. Since I have nothing which I can use to blackmail John Morrow, the odds are minimal that he would print all of my articles and subject you, gentle reader, to that kind of abuse.) Rest assured, however, that this missive is just the beginning. In fact, I’ve already started working on such articles as: “DEVIl DINOSAUR, THE GREATEST COMIC EVER, AND IF YOU DON’T THINK SO, JUST SHUT UP!”; “STAN lEE: lIAR! lIAR! PANTS ON FIRE!”; and “TRUE lOVE STORIES: HOW THE SIlVER SURFER GRAPHIC NOVEl HElPED ME SCORE WITH THE lADIES.” I’ve promised myself to get them done within a reasonable amount of time. After all, if Jack could complete an entire issue of CAPTAIN AMERICA in one weekend, the least I can do is finish a few articles explaining what I think makes Kirby “The King!” Ed Gruszecki, new york, ny (Okay, ed, i’m gonna hold you to that. Our list of upcoming issues is on page 64; start writing!) _____________________________________________ I just received Vol. 2 of the COllECTED TJKC. I’m really looking forward to reading #10 and #11 since I missed them the first time around. I just read Pamela’s introduction to the volume and I have to say that her sentiments about your “stinky little books” taking up valuable storage space in the closet is a sentiment often mooted around my house as well. What is life, but adversity, eh? Ed Hatton, irELanD (i’ve been after Pam for years to write something for TJKC, and she finally gave in. To paraphrase Jimmy Cagney, “my wife thanks you, and i thank you.”) nEXt iSSUE: #22 ships in early December, and spotlights KirBy’S ViLLainS, starting with color covers featuring DoCtor DooM vs. tHE SiLVEr SUrFEr (inked by DaVE StEVEnS) and Jack’s original 1960s DarKSEiD concept drawing (inked and watercolored by KirBy himself)! there’s also an UnpUBLiSHED KirBy intErViEW where Jack talks about his villains, plus new interviews with MiKE (Hellboy) MiGnoLa and StEVE (the Dude) rUDE, discussing Kirby’s influence on their work! then StEVE SHErMan describes the genesis of KoBra, and we’ll have features on other Kirby villains we love to hate, like DarKSEiD, DoCtor DooM, tHE rED SKULL, yELLoW CLaW, GaLaCtUS, atLaS MonStErS, and many others! plus there’s page after page of rare and unpublished art, uninked pencil pages from nEW GoDS, FantaStiC FoUr, MiStEr MiraCLE, Captain aMEriCa, and more! the deadline for submissions: 10/15/98. (and don’t forget to order the updated KirBy CHECKLiSt and our second traDE papErBaCK collection!)

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COMIC BOOK ARTIST (100-pages, $5.95 cover) features great comic book artists, writers, editors, and the books they made great! Our third issue focuses on NEAL ADAMS & THE AGE OF MARVEL, featuring a NEW, FULL-COLOR WRAP-AROUND ADAMS X-MEN COVER! Inside you’ll find: • A new in-depth interview with NEAL ADAMS (covering his work from Avengers to X-Men)! • UNPUBLISHED ADAMS COVERS, published pages BEFORE they were inked, and UNUSED PAGES from Neal’s never-completed X-MEN GRAPHIC NOVEL! • Interviews, features, and rare and unpublished art by JOHN ROMITA SR., MARIE SEVERIN, DAVE COCKRUM, DON McGREGOR, and others who made the Marvel Age special!

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• A behind-the-scenes look at the Kree/Skrull War with ROY THOMAS, and more! Also in our pages, comics legend ROY THOMAS provides another new installment of the greatest fanzine of all time, ALTER EGO! The ALTER EGO section of #3 features the work of WALLY WOOD, GIL KANE, & others! Subscribe now! (see coupon below)

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160-PAGE TRADE PAPERBACK, reprinting the out-of-print TJKC #10-12!! Plus we’ve added a NEW SECTION with OVER 30 MORE PIECES of art NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED in TJKC (including uninked pencils to THE PRISONER, NEW GODS, THOR, HUNGER DOGS, JIMMY OLSEN, SHIELD, & more) plus a guided tour of the Kirby house! $14. 95 POSTPAID ($16.95

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The most thorough listing of Kirby’s work ever done! Fully-updated, listing EVERY PUBLISHED COMIC with Jack’s work, including STORY TITLES, PAGE COUNTS, and INKERS. It even CROSSREFERENCES REPRINTS! There’s also a BIBLIOGRAPHY, listing BOOKS, PERIODICALS, PORTFOLIOS, FANZINES, POSTERS, UNPUBLISHED WORK, and more! 100 pages—proceeds go to the KIRBY ESTATE! $5.00 POSTPAID ($5.50 Canada, $7.50 elsewhere)!

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BACK ISSUES: (SORRY, the first TJKC TRADE PAPERBACK & TJKC #1-6, 8-12, 14 & 15 are SOLD OUT!) ❏ COLLECTED TJKC Vol. 2: (160-page TRADE PAPERBACK) $14.95 postpaid ($16.95 Canada, $24.95 elsewhere) ❏ JACK KIRBY CHECKLIST (100-pages) $5.00 postpaid ($5.50 Canada, $7.50 elsewhere) ❏ TJKC #7: (36-pages) KID GANG issue! Unpublished KIRBY interview, unpublished art from BOYS’ RANCH, BOY EXPLORERS, JIMMY OLSEN, DINGBATS, X-MEN, and more! Kirby/Stevens cover. $4.95 postpaid ($5.40 Canada, $7.40 elsewhere) ❏ TJKC #13: (52-pages) SUPERNATURAL issue! Kirby interview, unpublished 7-page story, DICK AYERS interview, DEMON, BLACK MAGIC, ATLAS MONSTERS, & more! Color Kirby/Ayers & Kirby/Bissette covers. $4.95 postpaid ($5.40 Canada, $7.40 elsewhere) ❏ TJKC #16: (52-pages) TOUGH GUYS Issue! FRANK MILLER and WILL EISNER interviews! Kirby’s cowboys, gangsters, kid gangs, spies, soldiers, & more! Color Kirby/Miller & Kirby/Kesel covers. $4.95 postpaid ($5.40 Canada, $7.40 elsewhere) ❏ TJKC #17: (68-pages) DC issue! Interviews with KIRBY, NEAL ADAMS, and D. BRUCE BERRY! Plus OMAC, KAMANDI, CHALLENGERS, SANDMAN, & more! Color Kirby/Royer and Kirby/Rude covers. $5.95 postpaid ($6.40 Canada, $8.40 elsewhere) ❏ TJKC #18: (68-pages) MARVEL issue! Interviews with KIRBY, STAN LEE, THOMAS, ROMITA, BUSCEMA, SEVERIN, TRIMPE, ROUSSOS; ANT-MAN, ETERNALS, & more! Color Kirby & Kirby/Sinnott covers. $5.95 postpaid ($6.40 Canada, $8.40 elsewhere)

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❏ TJKC #19: (56-pages) ART issue! Interviews with JOE KUBERT & KEVIN EASTMAN! MILLER, EVANIER, GERBER, GROTH, & KIRBY discuss Jack’s battle with Marvel Comics, collecting Kirby originals, Roz Kirby tribute, thesis by GIL KANE, SPECIAL COLOR SECTION (featuring Jack’s own paintings), and more! Color Kirby/Alex Ross cover. $5.95 postpaid ($6.40 Canada, $8.40 elsewhere)

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❏ TJKC #20: (68-pages) JACK’S WOMEN! Interviews with KIRBY, DAVE STEVENS & Jack’s daughter LISA; unused 10-page story, CAPT. VICTORY screenplay, GALAXY GREEN, & more! Color Kirby/Steacy cover. $5.95 postpaid ($6.40 Canada, $8.40 elsewhere)

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❏ TJKC #21: (68-pages) JACK’S WACKIEST WORK! Interviews with KIRBY, GIL KANE, & BRUCE TIMM; SILVER STAR screenplay, TOPPS COMICS work, & more! Color Kirby/Wiacek & Kirby/Stone covers. $5.95 postpaid ($6.40 Canada, $8.40 elsewhere)

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❏ COMIC BOOK ARTIST #1: (100-pages) Spotlighting DC COMICS: 1967-74, with a new NEAL ADAMS Batman cover, interviews and features on ADAMS, KIRBY, INFANTINO, CARDY, KUBERT, GIORDANO, & more! $5.95 postpaid ($6.40 Canada, $8.40 elsewhere)

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