Jack Kirby Collector #39

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Black Bolt TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.

JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR THIRTY-NINE

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The KIRBY COLLECTOR (edited by JOHN MORROW) celebrates the life & career of the “King” of comics through interviews with Kirby & his contemporaries, feature articles, & rare & unseen Kirby artwork. Now in tabloid format, the magazine showcases Kirby’s art at even larger size.

T H E U LT I M AT E C O M I C S E X P E R I E N C E !

TM THE JACK KIRBY CHECKLIST: (100-Pages) Lists all his published comics in detail, plus portfolios, unpublished work; it even cross-references reprints! A must-have for eBay shoppers! $7 US

TJKC #20: (68 pgs.) KIRBY’S WOMEN! Interviews with KIRBY, DAVE STEVENS, & LISA KIRBY, unused 10-page story, romance comics, Jack’s original CAPTAIN VICTORY screenplay, more! $8 US

TJKC #21: (68 pgs.) KIRBY, GIL KANE, & BRUCE TIMM intvs., FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE (LEE dialogue vs.

KIRBY notes), SILVER STAR screenplay, TOPPS COMICS, unpublished art, more! $8 US

TJKC #22: (68 pgs.) VILLAINS! KIRBY, STEVE RUDE, & MIKE MIGNOLA interviews, FF #49 pencils, FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE, KOBRA, ATLAS MONSTERS! Kirby/ Stevens cover. $8 US

TJKC #23: (68 pgs.) Interviews with KIRBY, DENNY O’NEIL & TRACY KIRBY, more FF #49 pencils, FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE, unused 10-page SOUL LOVE story, more! $8 US

TJKC #24: (68 pgs.) BATTLES! KIRBY’S original art fight, JIM SHOOTER interview, NEW GODS #6 (“Glory Boat”) pencils, FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE, more! Kirby/ Mignola cover. $8 US

TJKC #25: (100 pgs.) SIMON & KIRBY! KIRBY, SIMON, & JOHN SEVERIN interviews, CAPTAIN AMERICA pencils, unused BOY EXPLORERS story, history of MAINLINE COMICS, more! $8 US

Jump on board for the ultimate comics experience: BACK ISSUE magazine! n io s r e Edited by MICHAEL EURY v l a g a digit in w ie (former DC and Dark Horse v d e a ’r e u r If yo , PLEASE editor/writer and author of n io t a c li b u !ORIGINAL SUPER-HERO ACTION r e h s CAPTAIN ACTION: THE li of this p b u p m theFIGURE), BACK ISSUE celebrates comic books of the 1970s, this plea fro EE FOR FR 1980s, and todayED through a variety of recurring (and rotating) is NOT INTEND r, or you paid IAL, whichdepartments.

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TJKC #34: (84 pgs.) TABLOID! JOE SIMON & CARMINE INFANTINO interviews, MARK EVANIER column, unknown 1950s concepts, CAPTAIN AMERICA pencils, KIRBY/ TOTH cover, more! $13 US

TJKC #28: (84 pgs.) KIRBY INFLUENCE Part Two! Intvs. with MARK HAMILL, JOHN KRICFALUSI, MIKE ALLRED, Jack’s grandkids, career of VINCE COLLETTA, more!

Kirby/Allred cover. $8 US

TJKC #35: (84 pgs.) TABLOID! GREAT ESCAPES with MISTER MIRACLE, comparing KIRBY & HOUDINI, Kirby Tribute Panel with EVANIER, EISNER, BUSCEMA, ROMITA, ROYER, & JOHNNY CARSON! $13 US

TJKC #29: (68 pgs.) ’70s MARVEL! Interviews with KIRBY, KEITH GIFFEN & RICH BUCKLER, ’70s COVER GALLERY in pencil, FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE, & more!

Kirby/Janson cover. $8 US

TJKC #36: (84 pgs.) TABLOID ALL-THOR issue! MARK EVANIER column, SINNOTT & ROMITA JR. interviews, unseen KIRBY INTV., ART GALLERY, FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE, more! $13 US

TJKC #30: (68 pgs.) ’80s WORK! Interviews with ALAN MOORE & Kirby Estate’s ROBERT KATZ, HUNGER DOGS, SUPER POWERS, SILVER STAR, ANIMATION work, more! $8 US

TJKC #37: (84 pgs.) TABLOID HOW TO DRAW THE KIRBY WAY issue! MARK EVANIER column, MIKE ROYER on inking, KIRBY interview, ART GALLERY, analysis of Kirby’s art techniques, more! $13 US

Batman, Justice League of America, Orion, Flash, Robin TM & ©2003 DC Comics Captain America, Avengers TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc. • Tarzan TM & ©2003 ERB, Inc.

TJKC #33: (84 pgs.) TABLOID ALL-FANTASTIC FOUR issue!

MARK EVANIER column, miniinterviews with everyone who worked on FF after Kirby, STAN LEE interview, 40 pgs. of FF PENCILS, more! $13 US

TJKC #27: (72 pages) KIRBY INFLUENCE Part One! KIRBY and ALEX ROSS interviews, KIRBY FAMILY Roundtable, all-star lineup of pros discuss Kirby’s influence on them!

Kirby / Timm cover. $8 US

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GRAPHITE EDITION Kirby’s original graphic novel as it was created (before it was broken up later for Pacific Comics), reproduced from copies of JACK’S UNINKED PENCILS! • Proceeds go toward scanning the 4000+ PAGE KIRBY PENCIL XEROX ARCHIVES! Includes pages of prime KIRBY PENCILS, before any changes!

• BONUS: Jack’s CAPTAIN VICTORY SCREENPLAY, unseen art, & more!

(52-Pages) NOT SOLD IN STORES! ORDER BY MAIL ONLY! $8 US

Capt. Victory TM & ©2003 Jack Kirby Estate.

TJKC #26: (72 pgs.) GODS! COLOR NEW GODS concept drawings, KIRBY & WALTER SIMONSON interviews, FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE, BIBLE INFLUENCES, THOR, MR. MIRACLE, more! $8 US

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PLUS: A “Back Talk” letters column featuring commentary from pros and fans who aren’t afraid to choose sides in the DC vs. Marvel war, and a dynamic BATMAN VS. CAPTAIN AMERICA cover by GEORGE PÉREZ, makes BACK ISSUE #1 a must for every comics fan!

PRO 2 PRO Our inaugural team-up is a dialogue between GEORGE PÉREZ and MARV WOLFMAN (moderated by interviewer ANDY MANGELS) discussing the pros & cons of working for Marvel and DC in the ’70s and ’80s—accompanied by rare Pérez artwork!

GREATEST STORIES NEVER TOLD This time out, editor MICHAEL EURY gives an examination of the original JLA/AVENGERS crossover, revealing why it never happened and featuring unpublished GEORGE PÉREZ pages—plus a spotlight on the new JLA/AVENGERS mini-series!

ROUGH STUFF Who better to kick off this feature than the “King” himself? DAVID “HAMBONE” HAMILTON gives us a look at JACK KIRBY’S ’70s and ’80s DC and Marvel PENCILED artwork, direct from his files!

BEYOND CAPES Our ongoing look at non-superhero comics kicks off as “Comics Savant” TOM STEWART evaluates DC’s and Marvel’s TARZAN series, with artwork by JOE KUBERT and JOHN BUSCEMA, and interviews with KUBERT, CARMINE INFANTINO, & ROY THOMAS!

OFF MY CHEST Our guest editorial this issue is by former DC editorial director CARMINE INFANTINO, recalling DC’s 1970s’ battle plan to challenge Marvel’s market dominance!

SUBSCRIPTIONS:

Six-issues: $30 Standard, $48 First Class (Canada: $60, Elsewhere: $66 Surface, $90 Airmail).

BI-MONTHLY! 100-PAGES! SINGLE ISSUES: $8 US FIRST ISSUE SHIPS IN NOVEMBER!

TwoMorrows. Bringing New Life To Comics Fandom.

TwoMorrows Publishing • 1812 Park Drive • Raleigh, NC 27605 USA • 919-833-8092 • FAX: 919-833-8023 • e-mail: twomorrow@aol.com • www.twomorrows.com

FAN FAVORITES! COPYRIGHTS: Angry Charlie, Batman, Ben Boxer, Big Barda, Darkseid, Dr. Fate, Green Lantern, Guardian, Joker, Justice League of America, Kalibak, Kamandi, Lightray, Losers, Manhunter, New Gods, Newsboy Legion, OMAC, Orion, Super Powers, Superman, True Divorce, Wonder Woman TM & ©2003 DC Comics • 2001 characters, Ardina, Blastaar, Bucky, Captain America, Dr. Doom, Fantastic Four (Mr. Fantastic, Human Torch, Thing, Invisible Girl), Frightful Four (Medusa, Wizard, Sandman, Trapster), Galactus, Gargoyle, hercules, Hulk, Ikaris, Inhumans (Black Bolt, Crystal, Lockjaw, Gorgon, Medusa, Karnak, Triton, Maximus), Iron Man, Leader, Loki, Machine Man, Nick Fury, Rawhide Kid, Rick Jones, Sentinels, Sgt. Fury, Shalla Bal, Silver Surfer, SubMariner, Thor, Two-Gun Kid, Tyrannus, Watcher, Wyatt Wingfoot, X-Men (Angel, Cyclops, Beast, Iceman, Marvel Girl) TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc. • Captain Victory, Silver Star, Galaxy Green TM & ©2003 Jack Kirby Estate • Foxhole, Fighting American, Bullseye, Stuntman TM & ©2003 Simon & Kirby • Airboy TM & ©2003 Todd McFarlane Productions, Inc. • The Fly, The Shield TM & ©2003 Archie Publications, Inc. • Conan, Red Sonja TM & ©2003 Robert E. Howard, Inc. • Tarzan TM & ©2003 Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. • Addams Family TM & ©2003 Estate of Charles Addams and Filmways TV Productions, Inc. • Batman TV show TM & ©2003 20th Century Fox, Inc.

THE NEW RETROSPECTIVE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .68 (the real Silver Surfer—Jack’s, that is) COLLECTOR COMMENTS . . . . . . . . . . .78 (some very artful letters on #37-38) #39, FALL 2003

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OPENING SHOT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 (where the editor lists his favorite things)

KIRBY OBSCURA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21 (Barry Forshaw has more rare Kirby stuff)

UNDER THE COVERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 (Jerry Boyd asks nearly everyone what their fave Kirby cover is)

GALLERY (GUEST EDITED!) . . . . . . . . .22 (congrats Chris Beneke!)

INNER VIEW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7 (Jack’s on Entertainment Tonight!)

JACK F.A.Q.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8 (who’s the better artist, Kirby or Buscema?)

RETROSPECTIVE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14 (Ang Lee is green with envy)

KIRBY AS A GENRE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .42 (it’s not Kirby, but it’s close) RETROSPECTIVE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .44 (they’re creepy and they’re kooky...)

TRIBUTE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .55 (better late than never, it’s the 2002 Kirby Tribute Panel)

PARTING SHOT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .80 (we’ve got a Thing for you) Front cover inks: MIKE ALLRED Front cover colors: LAURA ALLRED Back cover inks: P. CRAIG RUSSELL Back cover colors: TOM ZIUKO 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. (below) Jack’s cover pencils from Marvel Super-Heroes #54 (Nov. 1975).

Hulk TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.

The Jack Kirby Collector, Vol. 10, No. 39, Fall 2003. Published quarterly by & ©2003 TwoMorrows Publishing, 1812 Park Drive, Raleigh, NC 27605, USA. 919-833-8092.

John Morrow, Editor. Pamela Morrow, Asst. Editor. Eric Nolen-Weathington, Production Assistant. Single issues: $13 postpaid ($15 Canada, $16 elsewhere). Four-issue subscriptions: $36.00 US, $60.00 Canada, $64.00 elsewhere. All characters are trademarks of their respective companies. All artwork is ©2003 Jack Kirby unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter is ©2003 the respective authors. First printing. PRINTED IN CANADA.

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Opening Shot

by John Morrow, editor of TJKC

amilies are remarkable things. They’re the only people you can go to and get generally universal acceptance. And even though Jack passed away almost ten years ago, the family of friends and relatives united by the name “Kirby” is as strong as ever—a testament to how remarkable a figure Jack was.

2004 marks the tenth anniversary of this magazine, which launched TwoMorrows Publishing. Last July, my wife Pam, daughter Lily, and I took our annual sojourn to beautiful San Diego, California for the tenth time (first in 1991,

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tribute, with more material being added all the time, so check it out.

Things are also afoot from other FOOJs (that’s 1994-2004 “Friends Of Ol’ Jack”) that’ll impact the King’s presence on the Web. Look for an exciting announcement in September 2004— not so coincidentally, exactly ten years to the day of the release of TJKC #1.

Another new addition to the Kirby “family” came on August 13, as Kirby biographer Ray Wyman Jr. and his wife Mary welcomed their second child Thomas Francis to the world. We’re sure he’ll be properly taught the value of square fingers, toes, and

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A Few Of My Favorite Things! (top) My daughter Lily picking out her Halloween pumpkin! (center) The Kirby “family” at the 2002 San Diego Con. Left to right: Grandson Jeremy Kirby, Ray Wyman Jr., granddaughter Tracy Kirby, former Kirby assistant Steve Sherman, family friend Mike Thibodeaux, and Jeremy’s wife Crystal (holding baby Hannah as a one-year-old). (above) Recent shot of Jeremy, Crystal, and Hannah Kirby, and (right) Jeremy’s new website; check it out!

Characters TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.

then nine in a row starting in 1995) to attend Comicon. It was Lily’s second year (she was just shy of two years old at the time), but she probably had the most fun of any of us. Friends we’ve made over the last decade flocked to our booth, ooohing and aaahing over our little girl and giving her gifts, while we all caught up on what’s been going on in each others’ lives since the last San Diego con.

But perhaps our ultimate experience this year had little to do with comics, when Lily got to spend an afternoon playing with Jeremy and Crystal Kirby’s daughter Hannah. There was something so right about seeing my daughter walk off hand-in-hand with Jack and Roz’s great-granddaughter. Besides being absolutely adorable, Hannah’s awfully advanced for a two-year-old, and she proceeded to amaze my wife by teaching Lily all kinds of new things that day. It made us both wonder if she inherited a little bit of Jack’s non-stop mind.

Hannah’s dad has a new website devoted to his grandfather— www.jackkingkirby.com—and Jeremy’s put together a wonderful

squiggly knees.

Lastly, if you have listing corrections or updated additions that you wish to send to The Jack Kirby Checklist, please send them to Richard Kolkman’s new post office box or e-mail address below. Your ongoing help and support results in the definitive listing of the work of The King of Comics, and this list is always being updated and expanded to become ever more accurate.

Richard Kolkman Seriocomics Box 501905 Indianapolis, IN 46250 protista1@aol.com On a more personal note, I’d like to dedicate this issue to the memory of the little Morrow who didn’t make it. You’re the reason it was so late, and though we never got to know you, you continue to impact our lives daily. We’ll see you again one day. ★

Must-Have Kirby Items From TwoMorrows!

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Captain Victory TM & ©2003 Jack Kirby Estate.

Characters TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.

Batman TM & ©2003 DC Comics. Captain America TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.

• In February, we’re re-releasing THE COLLECTED JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR, VOL. ONE, which reprints TJKC #1-9 plus 30 pieces of Kirby art never shown anywhere else! $29 US postpaid • Now shipping is the debut issue of our new magazine BACK ISSUE!, which features an even dozen pages of Kirby’s pencil art in the inaugural “Rough Stuff” section, plus a FULL-COLOR presentation of Jack’s hand-colored guides for the covers of JIMMY OLSEN #133 and FOREVER PEOPLE #1. $8 US postpaid • Initial mail-only sales of the CAPTAIN VICTORY: GRAPHITE EDITION haven’t done the trick, so we’re offering it through stores in March (all proceeds go toward scanning the Kirby Archives!). To avoid a sell out, order yours before March! $8 US postpaid See the ads elsewhere in this issue for ordering details!

Under The Covers Our front cover this issue is inked by Mike Allred, returning for a reader-requested second outing at a TJKC cover (his first being on issue #28’s wraparound beauty).

This Black Bolt piece (at left) first appeared in Fantastic Four Annual #5 (1967), inked by Frank Giacoia, and we originally ran the pencils in TJKC #23 (see page 54 of this issue). Mike’s wife Laura Allred added her artful touch by coloring Mike’s inks to make a truly striking cover image.

Our back cover this issue is a Hulk fan commission inked by P. Craig Russell, one of the true “fine” artists in comics.

Craig took time out to do an interview with TwoMorrows’ Eric Nolen-Weathington, which we’ll feature next issue! (Kudos to Tom Ziuko for the splendid coloring on the back cover of this issue!)

(right, top to bottom) 2001 Treasury Edition, Jimmy Olsen #139, Kamandi #12, Fantastic Four #1 recreation, and Foxhole #1.

Covering It All!

Written and compiled by Jerry Boyd (with help from John Morrow and John Fleskes) erily, ’tis true that ye cannot judge a book by its cover. However, you can judge a comic magazine cover on its own merits and a cover by our beloved king usually stated a mouthful. Whether Jack was capturing the essence of his own regularly drawn books, or a dramatic moment in time for stories done by others, there was always something about a Kirby cover that demanded your undivided attention.

The cover pieces the king produced in his long, stellar career number in the thousands. Nevertheless, the memories they evoke remain so tangible that one can probably pinpoint the place/places—whether it be big city newsstand, comics office, home-delivered subscription issue, or that familiar spinner rack in your local drug store/convenience market—where one first lay eyes on the Fly cautiously approaching the malevolent Spider Spry (Adventures of the Fly #1), or an outmatched Captain America almost cowering before the Enchantress and Power Man (Avengers #22), or the Forever People in the evil grip of Desaad (Forever People #4), to name a few examples.

For this “fan favorites” issue, we’ve gathered an eclectic selection of writers, editors, artists, and fans and posed to them one question: “What is your favorite Jack Kirby cover and why?” For some, this was a “no-brainer” and others (understandably) needed days/weeks/months to narrow it down to a single precious choice (or two).

Special thanks go out to all who happily took on this admittedly daunting task and... away we go!

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MARIE SEVERIN

STAN LEE

cartoonist/colorist without peer I kinda liked the (Kirby) splashes more than the covers! Jack had a way of capturing the same excitement on the opening page or outdoing his covers outright. It’s hard to pick one because they were all so good and had such impact... and they all bumped into each other in quality. I would say that the wraparound cover for 2001 (the treasury-sized edition) was a particularly exciting cover to me and also unusual for Jack. I believe he colored that one himself. The scope of it was fantastic and I wish he could’ve done more wraparound pieces. I also wish Kirby had tried sculpture. Can you imagine it if he had done murals? We’d... have more pieces like 2001!

writer/art director/editor supreme I’m sorry but it’s impossible for me to say which is my favorite Kirby cover. However, if there absolutely must be a choice, then it’s the cover for Fantastic Four #1. Not because it’s Jack’s best artwork, but because it was the cover of the mag that started the Marvel Age of Comics—and once seen, it’s almost impossible to forget.

Excelsior!!

DANIEL CLOWES artist/writer of Eightball, Doofus, & Ghost World I like the Don Rickles and Goody Rickels cover on Jimmy Olsen #139. It was a favorite of mine because it was such a crazy idea!! I actually had that one on my wall for five years! I should go read that book again. I haven’t read it since 1972.

Aside from being one of modern-day comics’ brightest talents, the talented Mr. Clowes also co-wrote the screenplay for Terry Zwigoff’s excellent movie adaptation of Dan’s comic, Ghost World. If you haven’t seen it, you’re missing out on a real treat! Dan did this drawing of Enid, the movie’s main character, especially for TJKC! Thanks, Dan! ©

JOHN MORROW editor/publisher It’s Kamandi #12, with the giant grasshopper leaping toward the reader. This was my first Kirby book, and it really threw me for a loop. I remember looking at it, instantly hating the square knees and fingers that Jack drew, and then by the time I finished reading the issue, I was a total Kirby fan for life.

Kirby and Ayers recreated the famous cover to FF #1 in the early ’90s (shown below).

MARK EVANIER columnist/creator Picking one or even ten Kirby covers is like going into a Baskin-Robbins that has 31,000 flavors. Never mind which one you prefer, how do you even begin to pick? But if you were holding a few loved ones hostage and demanding a selection, I suppose I’d opt for Foxhole #1—a haunting image that was among the very few times that Jack ever drew a cover scene as much from memory as imagination. Jack told endless tales of his days in World War II, often to the impatience of fans who only wanted to hear about Asgard and Apokolips. In his anecdotes, as in his drawing, he did not glamorize the killing, but did, in life-affirming manner, glamorize the heroism, memorialize the emotion, weighing them against one another. Most of his war-theme covers captured that ambiguity but the first Foxhole did it as eloquently as any, and without any tricks of forced perspective or exaggerated anatomy. And if you made me pick some others, I’d probably go eenie-meenieminie-mo and name—hmm, let’s see... FF #29, Tales of Suspense #80 or maybe Captain America #107. But ask me again in an hour and I’ll pick completely different ones.

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Tales of Suspense #71

Journey Into Mystery Annual #1

Tales To Astonish #34

Airboy Comics Vol. 4, #4

JERRY BOYD

DICK AYERS

TwoMorrows contributor Time has witnessed many a warrior who has fought through his anguish as fallen comrades lie nearby. In addition, many warriors have survived in battle and claimed the victory because of the inspirational charge of an ally. The Kirby/Ayers team, two WWII veterans, captured all of this in the cover of Suspense #71 with modern warriors in mechanized armor in a battle televised before an entire world.

“Happy” Hogan was prone, unconscious, a seeming martyr to the Golden Avenger’s (and the free world’s) struggle against Communism. Set against a bleak, rugged terrain, the vengeful Iron Man is positioned between his fallen friend and the bloodthirsty Titanium Man. Jack’s design was in contrast to many of the Marvel covers at the time which depicted the heroes either at bay, beaten (see TOS #70 before this one by Heck), or about to attack. This kingly masterwork set up the fight’s denouement victory!!

This intimate, tension-filled, and dramatic cover, just above a stupendous Lee/Heck/Wood effort, was a Kirby tour de force and it caught all the glory of Iron Man’s greatest triumph. (It is too tough to pick one—Evanier was right!) During the Renaissance, my second pick would’ve fit in as a statue sculpted

by Michelangelo, a painting by Titian, or a drawing

by DaVinci. It screams classic art, and it’s the cover of Journey into Mystery Annual #1—with the warrior gods Thor and Hercules in a locked fighting pose that defies denouncements.

artist/inker extraordinaire My favorite monster cover is “Monster at My Window!” (Tales to Astonish #34). That was a beaut.

And my favorite story was “(I Created) Sporr, the Thing That Could Not Die!!” (Tales of Suspense #11). Monster stories were my favorites of all the stuff that Kirby penciled that I inked. I enjoyed those the most.

New Gods #1

Sgt. Fury takes a time-out from stomping “Sieg-Heilers” in this convention portrait by Dick Ayers (shown below).

JIM VADEBONCOEUR, JR. comics historian/publisher of ImageS magazine Kirby’s post-WWII artwork for Hillman was some of his most raw and powerful as typified by the May 1947 cover for Airboy Comics vol. 4, #4. The story the image communicates is immediate and obvious and requires only a single glance to comprehend. Compare this to the text-heavy Charles Biro covers for such contemporary titles as Crime Does Not Pay. With Black Magic and other titles at Crestwood/Prize, Kirby reached one of his several artistic peaks. His ability is exemplified by the cover for issue #18 (vol. 2, #12, Nov. 1952) with its incredible sense of place and its visually easy-to-read scenario.

NEAL ADAMS artist/writer/publisher When I was a younger kid, Kirby’s stuff put me off in many ways!

His art was totally focused on action and the villains were so ugly!! It was the Challengers of the Unknown with Wally Wood’s inking that made Kirby palatable to me. I really became a fan of the Challengers because the interior Kirby/Wood material was fantastic— a new style of comic art to my eyes. So I’d pick a Challengers cover but I believe someone else other than Wood inked them... like George Klein? Also, I don’t know if this is generally known but when I was going to go professional 4

Black Magic #18 (Vol. 2, #12)

I did a sample art page of the Challengers... from still-strong impressions of their earlier stuff. So, the first coming of Jack’s importance in the field to me came from Wood’s magical filter. Later on, I fell in love with their Sky Masters, as well.

From a historical point of view, I’ll go for Fantastic Four #1. I don’t know whether it was Jack convincing Stan or Stan convincing Jack they ought to concentrate on comics (and walk away from comic strips) but their joint point of view in creating the Marvel era was momentous. FF #1 was a monster comic—it wasn’t even a super-hero book yet! The huge monster clawing up out of the street played on their earlier successes in the monster books. Hell, the Thing’s a monster, too! Jack, in his “ugliness period,” teamed up with Stan and really started something. There’s no charm there on that cover and like a lot of Kirby work, it’s hardly ever exciting because it’s beautiful—it’s the dynamic!! The cover... marked a second beginning for Marvel.

I don’t have any strong favorites from the DC period because I inked as many as I could because I wanted to save them from others! I believe someone told me then that Al Plastino would ink them. I didn’t like the idea of Plastino over Kirby so I stepped in and tried to save as many as I could!

Because Neal is such a great guy and because this is the Kirby Collector, he sent along this bust of comicdom’s greatest super-patriot, Captain America (shown above)!

Fantastic Four #72

Strange Tales #151

MICHAEL CHABON author/screenplay writer I don’t think this was his absolute best work but I loved the overall impact of the New Gods #1. It was a beautiful drawing with a startling concept, that being the space image with Orion in that awesome contraption (the Astroharness). The contrast between the black and white and the darkstar was very interesting to me. I felt I was already supposed to know about it (the storyline)! But it drew me into the series nicely.

JOHN FLESKES publisher—Flesk Publications (Franklin Booth—Painter with a Pen and Joseph Clement Coll—The Art of Adventure) Not only was the Fantastic Four the world’s greatest comic magazine, but it also showcased the world’s greatest comic covers. Jack Kirby’s first 100 covers represent a master cartoonist and storyteller evolving into a pop culture artist who produced enduring imagery that both transcended the field and shaped it for decades to come. “King” Kirby he became... entering his prime. Normally, picking a favorite cover by the King of Comics would be difficult with his high output of quality front-pieces.

But, throw in the Silver Surfer (one of my personal favorite characters), and the slick embossing of Joe Sinnott (who gave real flesh to Jack’s humans and radiant gleaming to his starry reaches) and whammo, you’ve got FF #72. By this time the Kirby/Sinnott affair had opened cosmic portals so startling and mind-bending that it’s no setback that the Baxter Building’s most famous residents aren’t even prominent on the cover. The Surfer’s in-your-face attitude and the quiet, awesome Watcher are revealed in classic portraits of the pair and Kirby’s natural sense of design makes it flow beautifully. Even the “Kirby Krackle” (!) is there to help make it my favorite cover—it’s Kirby at his best.

STERANKO artist/comics historian/publisher My favorite Kirby cover has to be my first collaboration with him on Strange Tales #151.

Collaborating with my idol—you kidding? What an experience that was. I was a serf then, but I got to work with a king.

JOE SINNOTT legendary artist/inker This is like having ten children and being asked, “Which two are your favorites?!” There were so many good ones that Jack and I did. I can’t limit it to one so I made a short list! The #1 cover that we

Fantastic Four #82

Fantastic Four #57

did has to be Fantastic Four #57. That had very nice composition, Dr. Doom, the Surfer, and the FF. I liked covers with no backgrounds, no blurbs, and few captions—y’know, poster-like. That’s why FF #82 is my second choice with the Inhumans, and FF #73 was very simple, also. That had a white background, and looking at it from an artistic standpoint, it was dynamic with the three guest stars and very attractive.

FF #49 was also incredible! I’ve recreated that one for Christie’s (the famous auction house). And then FF #90... and #81—“The Skrull Takes a Slave!’” (#90).

Jack was still turning out excellent covers as he was about to leave... and then the one that featured Crystal (#81). All... very, very good covers.

This commissioned illo of Black Bolt by “Joltin’ Joe” originally ran in Alter Ego vol. 3, #9, but we thought you wouldn’t mind another look at it on these king-sized pages.

ADAM McGOVERN

New Gods #7

New Gods #6

the exclusion of all other newsstand appeals. “The Pact”’s grand yet melancholy conflict packed all the punch of the most memorable martial history painting, while maintaining a rich mystique about what the heck might be going on smack in the middle of our regularly-scheduled super-hero saga. “The Glory Boat”’s weird floating mummy fast-forwarded a few centuries down the museum corridor to evoke the enigma of some surrealist tableau—Kirby’s even bothering to stick Our Heroes into two insets was its only misstep.

These covers harkened back to the Golden Age practice of wrapping mags in unconnected pin-ups, while seeing forward to the indie-comic era of artwork-for-artwork’s sake, sales and narrative be damned. As always, Kirby had one foot in the glorious past and one in the promising future, and these covers may have been the two most giant steps for me.

TwoMorrows contributor This one was easier than ya might think (just apply the simple rule that if everybody else hates it, it’ll probably be McGovern’s favorite). But seriously, though the two favorites I’m citing do indeed derive from the cover-era Kirby fans laud least, I went by an even more reliable measure.

Kirby’s canon, being one of the most vast in comics history, would seem to daunt the choosing of single standouts.

But his resonance as a creator and his solvency as a hired hand both depended on his ability to make an instantaneous connection with the buyer’s subconscious. Therefore, I thought it most trustworthy to go with the two images that came to mind quickest—and after a more systematic double-check through my mental files of his acknowledged classics, I haven’t changed my decision. And the winners are: New Gods #7 and #6, in that order.

Fan consensus holds that Kirby had lost interest in covers by this stage of the career, but he certainly held mine with these.

“The Pact” was the better drawn, so it edges past “The Glory Boat,” but both had a bold disconnection to conventional commercial imperatives even as they screamed out at my eight-year-old mind to 5

Fantastic Four #45

COPYRIGHTS FOR THIS ARTICLE: 2001: A Space Odyssey is a TM of MGM Pictures, Inc. Superman, Jimmy Olsen, Guardian, Kamandi, Orion, Lightray, New Gods, Black Magic, Newsboy Legion, Manhunter TM & ©2003 DC Comics.

Fantastic Four, Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Hercules, Watcher, Silver Surfer, Nick Fury, Inhumans, Dr. Doom, Sgt. Fury, Black Bolt, Sub-Mariner, Blastaar TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc. 2001 Treasury Edition is ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc. Bullseye, Foxhole TM & ©2003 Joe Simon and the Jack Kirby Estate.

Star Spangled Comics #13

Adventure Comics #79

Fantastic Four #4 recreation

Fantastic Four #62

Bullseye #1

JIM AMASH

MARK SCHULTZ

comics historian/artist/TwoMorrows contributor My favorite Kirby cover? That’s like asking a six-year-old (which some claim I still am) what his favorite cartoon is: all of them! If I have to narrow it down, I’ll go for FF #45. Why that one? Because it was the first FF issue I ever bought. I remember staring at the comic book shelves (yes, they were on shelves where I lived), mesmerized by the deep colors and the threat looming behind the FF. And take a gander at the face of the Thing on that cover... whew!! Don’t wanna mess with him, ya know! An even greater impression was made upon me by the cover of FF #47, because of the amazing cityscape in the background. Great drawing, great colors! Okay, so Jack drew better covers in his time, but there’s nothing like first impressions.

creator of Xenozoic Tales, also known as Cadillacs and Dinosaurs As I suspect is the case with a lot of folks, I’ve had a difficult time narrowing down all Kirby’s great covers to one specific favorite. It’s kind of an artificial process, because on any given day I could be convinced that any number of his covers were my “favorite.”

The only given for me would be that it would have to be a Fantastic Four cover, from somewhere from the issues numbering in the 40s through those in the 60s. For me, that period represents the absolute apex of Kirby’s imaginative and technical skills—a golden age when I just could not believe what I was seeing on the stands every month. With every issue, with relentless consistency, Kirby transported me to a rarified sciencefantasy high ground that has not been reached since. After much deliberation—and this was hard, because I love almost all of them—I’ve settled on the cover for FF #62—Reed stranded and doomed in the Negative Zone, with a mysterious, obscured figure reaching for him, while Blastaar pummels them both with blasts of raw, Kirbyesque power. For me, it’s a distillation of all that Jack did best—the surging power, the sense of cosmic awe, the nobility of the hero wrapped up in a perfect design.

Ask me tomorrow and I might say FF #48... or maybe #53....

ROY THOMAS comics historian/writer/editor My picks? The two great Simon & Kirby covers, both from October 1942 and seen in the same house ads, are Star Spangled Comics #13—that great faked newspaper art... and Adventure #79, with Manhunter stalking a Nazi sub. The bestest!

Another favorite Kirby cover of Alter Ego editor Roy Thomas is FF #4 (masterfully recreated above for auction by Dick Ayers), which is historically important for bringing the Timely Sub-Mariner and Atlas-style monsters into the Marvel Age.

Conan the barbarian to the rescue! This beautiful, unpublished prelim below by Mark Schultz shows two approaches to his panel composition.

JOE SIMON writer/editor/comics creator emeritus I have over 300 Simon & Kirby covers! All of them were excellent for different reasons.

However, the Bullseye covers were some of the best examples of Jack’s action drawings. Use any of the Bullseye covers you wish. I love them all! They were posters, simple, bold.

Bullseye is one of the properties now being promoted by the Simon & Kirby families.

So the votes are in... but, not all of them. What’s your favorite Jack Kirby cover? Tumble the finalists around in your head and see which ones take the top spot. And, if you want to have some more fun along this line, ask yourself what’s your favorite Neal Adams cover... or Steranko... or Ayers... or Severin.... ★ ©2003 Mark Schultz

Extra special thanks to John Morrow and John Fleskes for their assistance; Mark Schultz, Dan Clowes, and Neal Adams for their artistic contributions; and Jim Vadeboncoeur Jr. for photoscanning some old and treasured Kirby covers.

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INNER VIEW

Entertainment Tonight (The following is a transcript of a two-minute interview segment with Jack Kirby which aired on October 28, 1982, during the first season of the television program Entertainment Tonight. The interviewer/narrator was Katherine Mann, and this piece was conducted in Jack’s Thousand Oaks, CA home. Thanks to Steven Thompson for supplying the video, and to Glen Musial for capturing the images you see here from the VHS tape.)

All images ©2003 Entertainment Tonight.

(this page, top right) The word balloon Jack added to the drawing he did of Katherine has the supercharacter saying “Never fear, Katherine! I’m fast when I’m flying!”

During the afternoon we spent with him, Jack couldn’t resist including me in one of his action-packed plots. That’s me, being thrown from a helicopter by two vicious villains. But in the nick of time, I’m saved by a flying passer-by.

KATHERINE MANN: How many characters have you created?

JACK KIRBY: It would probably come to an Army Division.

By his own admission, Jack Kirby’s super-hero creations are so numerous, even he can’t keep track.

After some 40 years at the drawing board, and an estimated 40,000 pages of action with such characters as Captain America, Fantastic Four, and the Avengers, Kirby is the undisputed King of comic book super-heroes.

MANN: Oh, you’re endowing me nicely there, Jack! Thanks a lot! (laughter) This is the Katherine Mann you’ve never seen before, and probably never will again!

KIRBY: This is my normal masculine instincts coming out. (laughter)

MANN: What do your characters represent?

KIRBY: Well, the characters represent a sort of transcendent feeling we all have inside us; that we could do better. We want to do better. We have the time to do better. We can be the people we lionize.

To anyone passing by his Southern California home, Jack looks like anything but a musclebound super-hero. But according to him, it’s what’s inside the mind that counts.

KIRBY: If you look at my characters, you’ll find me.

No matter what kind of character you create or assume, a little of yourself must remain there.

As he sits each day at his board along with his characters, Jack Kirby is far from lonely.

KIRBY: I haven’t got the trappings of a circus, but there in my mind is a very active, and bright, and colorful place, that’s as good as any circus that I’ve ever seen. I live with that, and I enjoy it immensely. ★

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Mark evanier

Jack F.A.Q.s

A column answering Frequently Asked Questions about Kirby

by Mark Evanier Let’s jump right in with this question from Tim Woolf...

I keep seeing on the Internet, people who say things like, “I can’t stand the way Kirby drew. John Buscema was so much better an artist.” How do you deal with such people?

(below) An unused panel, still in pencil, from Journey Into Mystery #116 (May 1965).

While Jack may not have been half the “realistic” artist guys like John Buscema were, he was there to co-create most of the characters the Johnnycome-latelies built their reputations drawing.

Thor, Loki TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.

(next page) Pencils from the story “The Twin” for the neverpublished DC magazine True Divorce Cases (circa 1970). Colletta began inking the book, but stopped partway through when it was shelved.

True Divorce Cases ©2003 DC Comics.

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think the phrase, “Everyone’s entitled to their opinion” is not a bad answer, and I wish some people wouldn’t be so insistent that their tastes are established facts with which the world must concur. The Internet is a special haven for folks who have a severe emotional problem in coping with alternative viewpoints.

Someone doesn’t like Kirby art? Fine with me. I would think it was some aberration of nature if everyone agreed on something like that.

But it was also fine with Jack, who certainly didn’t expect everyone to like what he did, nor was he particularly willing or able to change to perhaps broaden his immediate popularity. He knew what he did well and what he wanted to do... and to the extent that employers and his work situations allowed, those were one and the same thing.

Ever-confident he was offering his best, he was generally untroubled if someone decided to leave it and utterly uncompetitive when someone seemed to prefer another technique. Except for a few

I

professionals with whom he had personal or ethical problems, Jack had enormous affection and respect for other artists. If you asked him about Buscema (or Romita or Heck or Kane or Adams or any of his contemporaries), he would usually say, “He’s great” and genuinely mean it.

Thus, what comes to mind when I encounter someone like the person you quoted is this: Jack Kirby and John Buscema were not really competing. Jack sure didn’t seem to think so.

He felt that way for three reasons, I believe. One was that he was a very selfless, munificent person. He liked to see everyone do well. Secondly, he had a pretty healthy ego, well-rooted in reality.

But mainly he didn’t see himself as filling quite the role as those other artists. To think that he was in competition with most other artists is to miss the important things that Jack brought to his work, which were in the concepts and storytelling. Few other artists even attempted to do the kinds of things Jack did.

John Buscema drew beautiful pictures... and I’m just using John in this discussion because the questioner invoked his name.

He was a fabulous artist, better in many ways than the assembly line nature of comic book production ever allowed him to demonstrate. But he would have been the first to tell you that he only did a portion of the job that Jack Kirby did on a comic book. John may have drawn a Silver Surfer or Galactus or Thor that some found more pleasing to the eye than Kirby’s, but he did not create or co-create those characters.

He also did not, by his own admission and all accounts, contribute as much to the plots and storyline of the comics he drew as Jack did to his. Kirby and Buscema both found a certain pride in drawing Marvel Comics but because they were different men with different strengths and interests, I suspect each found his joy in a different end of the job description.

Understanding how Kirby did what he did begins, I believe, with accepting that Jack was not “just” a comic book penciler.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that but Kirby was a conceptualizer, a storyteller, a plotter, sometimes a dialoguewriter in whole or part, a creator and designer of characters... and a guy who penciled pages of comic books.

Of those functions, the one that interested Jack the least—drawing pictures—is the main (often, only) contribution of most other artists.

And as I’ve said before, I believe that as Jack got older, his interest in the illustration part of the job declined and his interest in the writing and storytelling increased. This is why his later covers were not, generally, as interesting.

It’s also why he didn’t object too much to poor inking. Al Williamson would have beaten you to a pulp if you’d given his pencil art to one or two of the guys who finished Jack’s work. But those lesser inkers didn’t do much damage to the part of the work that mattered most to Kirby—the concepts and panel-to-panel storytelling. When Jack finally decided that Vince Colletta was injurious to the pages, it was not because of how the art itself

looked. It was because by omitting figures and backgrounds, Colletta was harming the story.

I think it is also key to realize that Jack did all those things—conceptualizing, plotting, drawing—as a unit.

He did not plot a story, then take off his plotter’s hat, put on a penciler’s hat and start drawing. It was all done as one, which is why, as I discussed in my previous column, he was never completely comfy with the idea of having someone else write dialogue on a story he’d plotted. He had already dialogued it—his way and in his mind—when he drew it.

This might be a good place to bring in this question from D. Gonzales...

On a panel at San Diego one year, I heard someone (I think it was you) mention that Jack Kirby often had to struggle to be allowed to be Jack Kirby and that there were some things he felt he could not do. If this was you or even if it wasn’t, could you elaborate?

It was probably me. That sounds like something I’d say—though not long ago on an Internet forum, Marvel editor Tom Brevoort wrote a most perceptive comment about Jack’s work from the Seventies. Here—I copied it down so I could share it with you...

“What I find most appealing about that period of Jack’s work is its total unconventionality. Jack followed his own muses, whether or not they reflected what was hot at that particular moment... and thus produced work that, I feel, has had a more long-lasting appeal.”

That was Kirby, exactly: Always thinking in big, long-range pictures, and not always in the present.

But throughout his career, he often encountered and even received his paycheck from folks who wanted him to change his act. Even if Jack had wanted to comply, this was not always possible.

During the New Gods period, there were those at DC who felt that what Jack was doing looked too much like Marvel Comics. (Our response at the time was along the lines of, “Gosh, how could that be?”) Production Manager Sol Harrison, spoke of “the DC look” as if that was the ultimate goal instead of something to improve upon in a time of declining sales.

Not that Jack wasn’t willing to be cooperative, but after a lifetime of doing it one way, there were limits as to how far he could change. The ideas and concepts could and did vary, but the way Jack developed them and drew them out could not. As noted in another column, it was even wrenching when the size or texture of the drawing paper changed.

One suggestion that he wouldn’t (or couldn’t) act upon was that he experiment more with panel shapes. Most of his life, he worked with a simple grid of three rows of panels per page, one-to-three panels per row.

“The three-tier grid is dead,” some told him,

which was an ironic thing to say to Kirby. Back in the Forties, Simon & Kirby had been among the first, if not the first to break away from a simple, standard three- or four-tier grid. To Jack, it was a needless remnant of the days when a comic book was wholly or primarily composed of newspaper strip reprints.

Back then, except for the occasional “splash” scene enlargement, all the panels on a comic page were the same height. This was because all the panels in a newspaper strip were the same height, and comic books were just repasted comic strips.

The first stories drawn expressly for comic books attempted to be indistinguishable.

Simon & Kirby changed that. They popularized full-page panels, innovated double-page spreads... even occasionally allowed a figure from one row of panels to protrude into another. But that was as far as Kirby would ever go with panel arrangements.

He never drew in trapezoids, triangles or trapeziums:

It was all rectangles—and pretty simple ones, at that, usually all the same height and, with occasional exceptions, stacked on pages in symmetrical design.

He liked the simple progression of scenes, and preferred to make his pages visually interesting via the pictures, rather than the shapes of their frames.

Around the close of the Sixties, more and more artists began to vary their grids. New ones such as Neal Adams and Jim Steranko did not hold the three-tier layout as sacrosanct or even preferable, and “old pros” like Joe Kubert and Gene Colan, who had varied their page compositions, did more and more of it. (A topic I keep hoping to see someone explore is to what extent the trend was encouraged by the change to a smaller original art size around 1968. The new dimensions certainly made it easier for an artist to view a page in its entirety, as opposed to composing one section of it at a time.)

Even Alex Toth did a few stories with free-form 9

(below) Unpublished page from “Jungle Lord”, meant for Stuntman #3 (circa 1946). The Simon & Kirby round panels and decorative borders are evident, but it’s still just a threetier layout. (next page, top) Second of two pages of Jack’s proposed ’70 “Galaxy Green” strip. (next page, bottom) Jack did layouts and margin notes for this story from Tales to Astonish #72 (Oct. 1965). Mike Esposito (“Mickey Demeo”) did finishes.

Stuntman TM & ©2003 Joe Simon & The Jack Kirby Estate.

Galaxy Green TM & ©2003 The Jack Kirby Estate.

Hulk TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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panel shapes, though he generally stayed with simpler grids. As he noted in one interview, the shape of a movie screen doesn’t change from shot to shot. Some of Toth’s most effective tales—like the classic in Hot Wheels #5—were done by deliberately locking himself into a rigid page breakdown, with every panel identical in shape and size. It then became his challenge to tell the story and make it visually arresting within those unbending frames.

The smaller original size led to Jack doing more full-page panels and more half-pagers, but he stayed with simple rectangles.

He declined to even experiment with the long, skinny or zig-zagging (or even overlapping) panels that many others were offering and which some told him were commercial. He resisted almost completely during his 1970-1975 tour of duty at DC, and only gave in a tiny bit around the time of The Hunger Dogs.

In that late work, you can see for yourself how little he was willing or perhaps able to vary the grid within which he drew. He occasionally reverted to an old trick of the Simon-Kirby days and threw in a round panel. Mostly though, he did his customary rectangles, adding little decorations around them to “jazz up” the page.

If some readers didn’t like it, that was just something Jack felt he had to live with. He couldn’t suddenly turn into Neal Adams— to name one artist whose “new approach” was often suggested to Jack around 1970. He felt the same way when advised to stop drawing square fingertips, to tone down his use of forced perspective or to otherwise temper what some saw as the eccentricities of

his style. “This is what I do,” he said on several occasions. “Take it or leave it.”

While Kirby always wanted to produce a book that would sell well, he couldn’t do what did not come naturally to him.

Some of you may have seen a two-page strip he whipped out in late ’70 called “Galaxy Green.” Looking for new outlets and a way out of conventional comics, Jack mulled the idea of an “adult” strip, and came up with an idea set in a future society, dominated by women who go searching for males.

He had never done anything like that before, despite a tempting offer a few years earlier. Harvey Kurtzman had approached Jack about helping out with the art on “Little Annie Fanny,” the strip he and Will Elder produced for Playboy. He wanted Jack to artassist on an installment with a super-hero theme, and that might have been just the beginning. Since “Annie Fanny” did not appear every month, Harvey explained, he had been discussing with Hugh Hefner the idea of another ongoing comic strip to appear in alternate issues—something perhaps in a super-hero or science fiction vein. Would Kirby be interested?

Kirby would not. Though he respected Kurtzman and was flattered by the offer, he felt he couldn’t do “that kind of strip.”

He explained, “It’s not part of my conditioning,” a response Kurtzman told me he found candid and charming.

In and around 1970, Jack was receiving almost-weekly phone calls from his old associate on Sky Masters and Challengers of the Unknown, Wally Wood. Wood was putting together a number of projects, including a prospective “adult” comic magazine for Warren Publishing tentatively called Pow! All involved comic strips in which beautiful women would appear, often sans clothing.

Wood wanted Jack’s advice. But of course, what he really wanted was for Jack to create and draw something for one of these projects. Jack demurred but he told us (Steve Sherman and myself ) that he thought there was a potential market there. He was thinking more along the lines of National Lampoon than Playboy, but he encouraged Wood in every way he could. Comics, Jack felt, had to reach out to older readers. More adult content was needed.

Around that time, we (Jack, Steve and I) were generating presentations for a few comic publications that fell outside the format and subject matter of current DC Comics. One was Superworld, a proposed tabloid comic via which Jack hoped to reach the audience that was then bypassing the standard DC and Marvel product in favor of underground comix. For it, he decided to attempt something in the vein that Kurtzman and Wood were mining and he told us a wonderfully outrageous, racy story that he would write and draw.

A week later, he showed us the only two pages he would ever concoct of “Galaxy Green.” Steve and I were both surprised at how tame it was, especially compared to the tale he had described. He’d planned for something that under current motion picture rating codes would fall roughly between “R” and “X.” What he’d wound up drawing was barely a PG. Jack knew what was on our mind. It was the same thing that was on his mind.

Before we could say anything, he said, “I couldn’t do it. I tried but it just wasn’t my kind of thing.

That was as far as I could go with it.”

It was one of the few times I ever knew Jack to admit utter defeat when it came to drawing comics. He was quite aware that “Galaxy Green” wasn’t raunchy or raw enough for the marketplace he had in mind, and said, “We’ll have to get someone like Wally Wood for it.” We never did. From that point on, Superworld turned into a much tamer publication and ultimately never went anywhere.

I guess I’m telling you all this to argue my point; that Kirby had to be Kirby. I think some of the problems Jack had with various editors and publishers over the years flowed from him being asked to go against what his gut told him. When he said, “I can’t work that way,” it was interpreted as stubbornness and sometimes arrogance, when in fact it was an artist just trying to not play a game he knew he could not win. For good or ill, his style was so much a part of him that he couldn’t change it, any more than he could have changed who he was.

Getting back to Tim Woolf, he wants to know...

You wrote about Jack doing layouts for other artists. I’ve never been sure what this means. Can you explain a little bit more about what this involved? What’s the difference between a comic penciled by Kirby and laid-out by Kirby?

Well, the first thing you have to know is that in comics, the term “layouts” is not always used with great precision.

Most comics are drawn in a two-stage process: One artist draws it in pencil, then a second goes over those lines, inscribing and interpreting them in ink. Sometimes, one person does both jobs but it’s still usually a case of the material being completely penciled as Phase One, then inked as Phase Two. At times though, usually because of the specific skills and schedules of the artists involved, the task is divided in a slightly different manner. When you see someone credited for “layouts,” it means that instead of drawing the entire comic out in full, tight penciling, the first artist has done something looser and less complete.

This always involves figuring out the arrangement of panels on the page and the placement of figures in those panels. It may also involve some degree of drawing the contents of those panels but without taking the time to produce finished pencil art. Black areas and shadows may be missing, Backgrounds will probably be sketchy or omitted. Many details may be left for the next artist. In the case of a comic done “Marvel method,” with the artist working from less than a full script, it means the layout artist is making the usual penciler’s contributions to the plot and its pacing.

Either way, the work will later go to one or more other artists to finish. Jack did layouts on a number of Hulk stories, for instance. In some cases, the art was then passed on to Bob Powell, who tightened up the penciling, then to Mike Esposito, who inked it. In other cases, the Kirby layouts went directly to Esposito, who did whatever additional penciling he deemed necessary before inking.

(And to forestall an obvious question: On a “Marvel method” comic done as per the Kirby/Powell/Esposito model, the scripter would usually but not always compose the dialogue after the layouts but before the pencils were tightened.)

There are different breeds of layouts, some more complete than others.

Editors and artists will sometimes speak of someone doing “breakdowns” as opposed to “layouts” and some use the terms interchangeably. To others, breakdowns are more detailed layouts. And to really complicate this discussion, some also speak of a category called “shakedowns,” which usually (but not always) falls somewhere between layouts and breakdowns.

That’s about as far as I can take the definitions because there are no universally-accepted standards of what constitutes layouts as opposed to breakdowns. What one editor or artist considers one, another may call something else. I have even heard arguments as to whether shakedowns are more or less complete than breakdowns.

In many ways, it’s a subjective decision but one on which someone’s compensation may hinge. There have been instances where an artist has agreed to finish “breakdowns” for X dollars a page. Then he receives the art and calls the editor to say, “These aren’t breakdowns.

These are layouts. I have to get more money.” Once when I was editing comics, I had an inker call up to argue, panel by panel, as to what the penciler had given him to complete. He said, “Panel 1 is breakdowns, panel 2 is full pencils, but panels 3 and 4 are shakedowns... ”.

There are even cases where the following has occurred: The first artist has delivered what he considers full penciling and he’s been paid at his full penciling rate. In the company’s ledgers, it says he was paid for full penciling. However, in order to get anyone good to finish the 11

art, the editor has been forced to pay the second artist as if the art in question is breakdowns.

And here’s one more anomaly, just to hammer home how arbitrary it all can be: Some of you may have seen a letter that circulates on the Internet in which Wally Wood complained about what he felt was the poor quality of some pencil art that he was hired to ink. In at least one of those situations, I believe the first artist was hired and paid to do rough breakdowns—which he did— and then Wood was engaged and paid as if it were full, tight penciling. That may explain why he felt the first guy didn’t do his job.

So the term “layouts” can refer to various levels of unfinished artwork. In Kirby’s case, it meant figure placement and the allimportant storytelling.

Just as he did on a comic where he did full penciling, he would either provide the plot or expand on what Stan gave him. He would break it down into panels, indicate where all the characters should be and write his well-known marginal notes... ...and then he would stop. Someone else would take it from there.

However, on the stories he laid out for others, Jack often would do full penciling on the first page and occasionally on an important panel in the middle of the story—say, one that introduced an important new character. On X-Men #17, for instance, the credits would have us believe that Jack did layouts, “Jay Gavin” (pseudonym for Werner Roth) did pencils, and Dick Ayers inked—and for most of that issue, that was the case. But in addition to drawing the cover, Jack did full penciling or something very close to it on page one. Roth may or may not have tightened it a bit, but there’s clearly more Kirby on that page than Roth.

The same is true of the Captain America story in Tales of Suspense #74. Kirby did layouts and George Tuska finished the art—but the first page was more like Kirby pencils and Tuska inks. (By the way: Some friends of mine and I are still trying to figure out what happened with the C.A. story in Tales of Suspense #72.

It’s Kirby layouts and mostly Tuska finishes, but with some uncredited Wally Wood on the first few pages.)

Why did they have Jack working this way? Because it got Kirby storytelling into more books and also helped to train other artists how to do Marvel superhero comics. As fast and prolific as Jack was, there were limits to even his output.

Stan needed to have some comics drawn by others and at times, he couldn’t get what he wanted, especially when the artist was new to Marvel and its methods.

He wanted a more exciting style of art than was seen, for example, in DC Comics of the day. (Sol Brodsky told me that Stan sometimes rejected an artist just by saying, “Too DC.”) He also wanted artists who could take a plot—sometimes, a pretty brief plot—and expand on it, breaking it down into 20 pages of pencils 12

that could be dialogued with a minimum of problems.

Kirby and Steve Ditko succeeded on both counts, and Lee was generally happy with how Don Heck and Dick Ayers filled both functions. For a few years there, it looked like they were the only ones. A number of artists did not work out, especially when it came to working from a plot. Some did a few pages before they or Stan realized it, and the work was discarded. Others did several stories before it became apparent it wasn’t working out.

Those who failed were not, as one might imagine, artists with no experience as writers. Bill Everett, Joe Orlando, Bob Powell and Carl Burgos had all written comics before, but none of these four talented artists were able to give Stan what he wanted. Everett found the “Marvel method” of writing a comic particularly awkward. To work that way, he found, he basically had to sit down, write a full script for himself, draw it, then write out a summary for whoever was going to write the dialogue.

Joe Orlando was very facile with plot ideas, as he would prove when he moved into editing for DC. But the three issues of Daredevil he penciled did not go well.

As Orlando later explained, “The problem was that I wasn’t Jack Kirby. Jack—or Ditko or just a couple of others—could take a couple sentences of plot and bring in 20 pages that Stan could dialogue in an afternoon or two. When I drew out the story my way, Stan would go over it and say, ‘This panel needs to be changed’ and ‘this whole page needs to be changed’ and on and on. I didn’t plot it out the way

he wanted the story told so I wound up drawing at least half of every story twice. They weren’t paying enough for that so I quit.”

Powell and Burgos had similar problems.

Beyond the core group of Kirby, Ditko, Heck and Ayers, only one other artist in Marvel’s early years really seemed to “get it.”

That was Wally Wood, who replaced Orlando on Daredevil. For a brief time Stan thought he had a new star, but it didn’t last.

Wood could work “Marvel method” but felt his contribution warranted at least half the credit and pay usually accorded to the writer. As he quarreled with Stan over rates and an allegedlypromised bonus, he was moved to inking assignments. He soon decided to go elsewhere.

This left Stan with no one to ink that month’s issue of The Avengers and no one to draw Daredevil. Both problems were solved in that order when John Romita walked in, having just left a long stint on DC’s romance comics.

He started by inking the Avengers for which Wood had been scheduled, and was then tapped to fill the other vacancy. At first, he was hesitant but Stan urged him to try.

“I took a shot at Daredevil,” Romita later explained. “I brought in the first few pages and Stan said, ‘You’re right. You can’t do this.’ He picked up the phone and called Kirby and told him the problem. They agreed that Jack would break down the rest of the issue, which he did in just a few days. I finished it up, and then we did it again for the next issue. It was a real learning experience for me, learning how to pace a story his way.

“My third issue, I was expecting Jack’s layouts again but Stan said, ‘You’re ready to solo.’ So I tried it and I’d learned so much working on his stuff that I was able to pull it off. At least, Stan thought so. That was how I learned how to draw Marvel Comics.

Eventually, I even laid out issues for other guys.”

What had forced Romita to solo was that Kirby was trying to cut back on doing layouts. He’d always felt the pay—usually 25% of his normal rate—was insufficient for the time it took, and for doing what he felt was the single most important part of creating a comic book. Key to understanding Jack’s attitude about the work he did for Marvel was a comment he made when asked about doing layouts: “It should have been the other way around—75% for doing the layouts and 25% for doing the finishes.” That was how important the storytelling aspect of comic art was to him.

For that reason, he eventually refused to do layouts at all, which was fine with Stan, who was finally finding steady artists with whom he felt he could collaborate. In addition to Romita, Gene Colan was working out well, and John Buscema joined up a bit later.

As a Kirby fan, I don’t know how I feel about his layout work.

There were a few train wrecks, to be sure—most notably X-Men #12, when Alex Toth decided to give Marvel a try and vice-versa.

Toth had, of course, been a leading architect of the art style seen in many DC titles but his reputation went way beyond that.

Stan knew the man had more to offer than the editors over at DC would then accept. But Toth was unsure about how to go about working from a plot outline, as opposed to a full script, and he was not up to speed on the mythos of the book that was open, X-Men. The answer was to have Kirby do layouts to indoctrinate Toth to the book, the Marvel method and what Stan wanted to see in panel composition. But it wasn’t a very good answer and the final result—flattened by a worse-than-usual ink job by Vince Colletta—was far worse than if either Toth or Kirby had drawn the job on his own.

The fault was probably more Kirby’s than Toth’s; it was only the second or third time at Marvel that Jack laid-out a story for another artist to pencil. It was also probably the first time he did

it for someone new to “the Marvel Age of Comics.” Some have suggested that Toth felt overwhelmed by Jack’s underdrawing but I suspect it was the other way around: Kirby hadn’t given him enough of a foundation on which to build.

It was a shame that the experiment failed because it caused Toth to move on. He only did one other job for Marvel at the time—a short western back-up tale that he both wrote and drew, and which was similarly mauled by Colletta inking. It ran in Rawhide Kid #46.

(previous page) It appears Jack did pretty detailed layouts for Werner Roth on these pages from X-Men #17 (Feb. 1966); the Angel and Beast figures look to be pure Kirby. (this page) Kirby also laid out Tales to Astonish #78 (April 1966) for Bill Everett to finish. Compare this to the later Kirby-penciled, Everett-inked issues of Thor, and you’ll get a good idea how loose Jack’s layouts must’ve been here.

X-Men, Hulk TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.

Working on his own, he would have been a wonderful addition to Stan’s freelance pool. His artistry just four years later on the Fantastic Four cartoon show for Hanna-Barbera proved that he could take a Kirby design and make it work on his own terms.

Thereafter, apparently at Stan’s direction, Jack appears to have put more into his layouts. Some of the match-ups did succeed in “teaching” the Marvel dynamic to a new hire. In addition to Romita, John Buscema, Don Heck and Werner Roth would all remark on how educational it was to be handed Kirby layouts as a starting point. One of my favorite match-ups was in Strange Tales #136-138 when John Severin worked over Kirby layouts to draw “Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.” And one of my all-time favorite Marvel stories was the original “Sleeper” saga in Tales of Suspense #72-74, with George Tuska working over Jack’s layouts.

Would these stories have been better if Jack had drawn them himself? Probably, but Jack didn’t have the time. Still, a lot of what I love about Kirby—particularly his energized approach to storytelling—is present in such stories.

So when I look at one of them, I have two reactions: It’s a shame he didn’t do the finished pencil art but, boy, it’s nice that we got more Kirby in our comics that month.

Next question? ★ Mark Evanier welcomes your Kirby Questions at KirbyFAQ@povonline.com.

He has answers to many, as well as lots of non-Kirby stuff, over on his website, www.POVonline.com, and also sometimes on his daily weblog, www.newsfromme.com.

Have you checked out Mark’s collections of his acclaimed POV columns, featuring many new ones, and new illos by Sergio Aragonés?

There’s Comic Books & Other Necessities of Life, Wertham Was Right!, and a third collection coming this summer: Super-Heroes In My Pants! Order directly from TwoMorrows for $17 each postpaid in the US (add $2 each for Canada, or elsewhere $3 each for Surface Mail, or $7 each for Airmail).

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He was power and pathos personified in green.

Retrospective

He was the Silver Age heir to the Golden Age anti-heroes who epitomized destructive force propelled by uncontrollable rage. He was Jack and Stan’s first solo-star, and likewise, their first flop. Characteristically, he smashed his way back from obscurity, raging and rampaging into the hearts and minds of millions along the way. Four decades later, he shows no signs of stopping. Move over “Man of Steel”:

The Strangest Man Of All Time! hat do you do for an encore after launching “The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine?” When faced with that question back in 1962, Jack Kirby and Stan Lee responded by creating a solo-star who, if anything, pushed the envelope even further than The Fantastic Four. They gave him the power and pathos of the Thing, and the shape-shifting ability of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. They took the visage of Boris Karloff ’s Frankenstein, and the sympathy-evoking persona of Quasimodo; the pathetic, hunted-beast with limited intellect. To this, they the added angst-ridden characterization that was serving them so well in The Fantastic Four, along with some Golden Age antihero attitude (as personified by the 1940s SubMariner). Finally, they took the name of a wisely forgotten Journey Into Mystery monster (right) , and from this wildly diverse synthesis, came their new creation. The fact that the Incredible Hulk bore a clear resemblance to many of Marvel’s pre-super-hero monsters, may indicate that the writers (along with Martin Goodman) were hedging their bets on a full-fledged 1960s superhero revival. However, it was more likely a conscious effort by Lee and Kirby to Kirby’s enigmatic emerald enormity, effusively examined and expounded on by Mark Alexander put as much stylistic distance as they could between their new star, and the cheerful, pro-social super-heroes their Distinguished Competitors were churning out, as epitomized by Superman.

Indeed, Marvel’s Green Goliath had more in common with kryptonite than he did with the “Man of Steel.” The very image of Superman, a smiling, utopian figure, standing on a mountain top—with his bright red cape floating in the summer breeze— was totally antithetical to Kirby’s tortured behemoth-in-rags, who savagely pounded his prison walls in The Incredible Hulk #3 (left). Moreover, the idea that acquiring super-powers could bring misery (instead of fame and glory) and drive a wedge between man and his society, was light-years away from concepts like Krypto, the caped Super-dog. Suddenly, even to the preteen eye, National Comics would seem simplistic and clichéd.

Jack Kirby’s creativity seemed a force as unstoppable as The Hulk himself.

W

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The Strange Case of Dr. Banner and Mr. Hulk Q: In the past, you’ve mentioned writers like Robert Louis Stevenson and Jack London as favorites. Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde obviously influenced The Hulk.

KIRBY: Sure. Those writers were good writers. They were professionals and men who knew the craft—and of course they could write about a thing like the Hulk as well as I or anybody could, and maybe see some insights that I couldn’t.

—from TJKC #23 Another aspect of Kirby’s beleaguered behemoth that set him apart from the rest of comicdom, was Banner and the Hulk’s unique relationship with their alter-egos. It was a personality divided against itself. Banner, a bespectacled, introverted version of Reed Richards, lived in constant fear of the Hulk’s uncontrollable rage, while the monster within despised Banner’s frailty and weakness. In the Hulk’s clouded mind, he viewed Banner as a different person altogether: an enemy whom he wished to destroy, but was never able to find. Obviously, Lee and Kirby (like Robert Louis Stevenson before them) were capitalizing on the idea that everyone has a darker entity raging within. In The Incredible Hulk #1, Banner stated: “I despise men who think with their fists,” while the Hulk, who was anti-intellectualism personified, reveled in his bestial power. The harder Banner tried to repress his capacity for rage, the more the beast within would lash out. The ultimate irony was that Banner, a scientist who developed weapons of mass destruction for the military, was—if anything—even more dangerous to humanity than the Hulk.

Moreover, Banner’s intellect, which enabled him to create a monstrous weapon without considering the moral consequences, would prove his ultimate undoing. In an entirely fitting twist of fate, Banner’s life would be irrevocably altered by his own insidious invention (the gamma-bomb) and a chance encounter with a mysterious orphan.

Rick Jones (The TeenEnigma, Part I) The supporting characters Kirby and Lee introduced in the Hulk’s debutissue were (typically) potent enough to keep the book’s storyline rolling for decades: There was General Thaddeus E. “Thunderbolt” Ross, a blustering, ill-tempered, old firebrand who was the 1960s military-industrial-complex personified. Ross loathed Banner: “The trouble with you is you’re a milksop!” He chided: “You’ve got no guts!” Ironically, Banner was about to unleash a weapon more powerful than anything even Thunderbolt Ross could imagine, and within the frail frame of Bruce Banner lay a rage that would make the geriatric general seem feeble by comparison. Betty Ross, the General’s daughter, was as demure as her father was domineering. Betty was attracted to the mild-mannered scientist, despite (or possibly because of ) the dark, terrible secret she sensed he was hiding. This “loved by the daughter, loathed by the father” Freudian syndrome would (naturally) become the matrix for some classic Marvel-style conflict. Oddly, Betty Ross had the same name as the leading female protagonist in the original 1940s Captain America series (the Simon/Kirby Betty Ross was a blonde special-agent for the U.S. government). To further compound this “coincidence,” the Hulk’s teen-sidekick, Rick Jones, was a dead-ringer for Cap’s adolescent ally, Bucky Barnes. The fact that a third Simon/Kirby CA alumnus, “The Ringmaster of Death,” was resurrected in Hulk #3, advances the possibility that this self-plagiarism was premeditated. The writers were presumptively reanimating characters they knew would work—just as they’d done with

the Human Torch in 1961.

Rick Jones, the enigmatic orphan, was by far the most intriguing supporting character in The Incredible Hulk, if for no other reason than his ubiquity. He alone would break the bonds of the series to play a larger role in the ever-expanding Marvel Universe; a role that would prove to be both contrasting and complex. Stan Lee has stated in numerous interviews that he abhorred the idea of the “teen-sidekick” who proliferated in the early days of comics. In view of this, it’s odd that Marvel’s first solo-star was immediately given an adolescent associate. Perhaps it was Kirby’s input, or perhaps the writers felt the kids who read the magazine would relate to Jones more than they would a mutated freak. In any event, after Banner saved Jones from the gamma-bomb, he had Rick’s loyalty, sympathy and confidence. Throughout the original series, Rick Jones was along for the ride, trying in vain to keep the Banner/ Hulk equation under control, and guarding Dr. Banner’s terrifying secret. The Hulk’s view of the indebted, ever-present youth vacillated from contempt, to annoyance, and (finally) to a grudging acceptance of the situation. This uneasy alliance between monster and mascot would change drastically with the return of Captain America (Avengers #4, March, 1964).

In the last issue of The Incredible Hulk (Jan. 1963) Rick formed the “Teen Brigade,” a group of young ham-radio buffs, who used their telecommunications talents to aid the army, the police, and (mainly) the Marvel super-heroes. Ironically, Marvel’s only Silver Age “kid gang”—the type which Jack Kirby was noted for—seems to have been a Lee/Ditko concept.

The Kirby ISsues (Hulk #1-5 & FF #12) “Fan out men! We’ve got to find that—that Hulk!! (And thus a name is given to Bruce Banner’s other self, a name which is destined to become—immortal!)

—Incredible Hulk #1.

In “The Coming of the Hulk” (Hulk #1, May 1962) Banner rescues Rick Jones from a secret bombsite, and takes the full brunt of the “mysterious gamma rays” which cause him to become a hideously mutated beast with every sunset (a concept that was probably borrowed from Dracula). The story is set in New Mexico, making the Hulk the only early 1960s Lee-Kirby hero who wasn’t indigenous to New York. The acquisition of super-powers transmuted through radiation was a reoccurring motif in the 1960s Marvel comics (see the FF, Spider-Man, and Daredevil). Kirby recalls

(above) A (re-)cast of characters? Some of the 1940s Simon/Kirby Captain America luminaries may have been recycled for the 1962 Hulk series. You be the judge! (left) A prototype for the Leader? The Gargoyle: the diminutive, evil genius (from Hulk #1) whose large, misshapen skull was expanded via radiation. Color him green and it’s clear that Kirby almost nailed the perfect adversary for the Hulk right off the bat. (below) The Teen Enigma: Like many teenagers of his generation, Rick Jones was somewhat confused as to where his loyalties lay.

Hulk, The Leader, Gargoyle, Rick Jones, Betty Ross, Ringmaster TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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(below) Is it possible that FF #12 (the first pages, anyway) were originally intended to be a Kirbydrawn Hulk #6? (Note the statted logo seen on both FF #12 and Hulk #5.) This would explain the doubledose of the Hulk that truebelievers got in March, 1963.

that he began thinking along these lines after reading about the early space program: “They were worried about what effect the Van Allen Belt radiation might have on astronauts,” said Kirby.

“As long as we’re experimenting with radioactivity,” he explained, “there’s no telling what might happen, or how much our advancements in science may cost us.” The radiation that mutated Dr. Banner’s body also changed his skin-tone. Stan Lee decided to give the Hulk a gray color in the first issue: “I thought gray would be a heavy, dramatic, somber color, in keeping with the melodramatic mood we wanted to establish,” said Lee. “However, after seeing the first printed copies, I felt the color didn’t work as well as I had hoped. So exercising a writer’s prerogative, I changed it to green.” Jack Kirby recalled the change was a pragmatic decision rather than a creative one, as the monster’s dull-gray color proved nearly impossible to keep consistent in the color-

metamorphism to the Hulk and back again (the “Hulk-at-sundown” angle was dropped in issue #3). In this story, the ray causes the Hulk to retain Banner’s intellect. In the next feature, “The Gladiator from Outer Space!” Banner’s personality is gone, and now the Hulk speaks like Nick Fury: “If yer not on the way back to vodkaland by the time I hit earth, I won’t be so easy on ya next time,” he bellows, as he battles another squad of pagan Reds.

The now-consistent artwork holds up again in “Beauty and the Beast” (Hulk #5, Jan. 1963) as the Hulk tackles Tyrannus, a subterranean scoundrel whose underground underlings were carbon-copies of the Moleman’s minions. “The Hordes of General Fang” were yet another platoon of Communists, but with a new twist: This time they were Chinese-Communists. In the last panel Kirby ever drew for the series, the Hulk tells Rick: “You and the rest of the weakling human race will only be safe when there ain’t no more Hulk—and I’m plannin’ on bein’ around for a long, long, time!” Ironically, the magazine would fold after the next issue.

Stylistically, Fantastic Four #12 was more of a nexus to Hulk #5 than the Lee/Ditko Hulk #6, which appeared the same month.

This double dose of the not-so-jolly Green Giant in May 1963 may have been an eleventh-hour effort (on Lee’s part) to generate interest in the flagging series. Whatever the circumstances, Marvel’s first Silver Age crossover was basically a non-event. The Hulk doesn’t appear until page 17, and the resulting ruckus lasts a scant three pages. This story was merely a precursor to a grander, more apocalyptic FF/Hulk clash that would be seen a year later.

WHY DID IT FAIL? “The Hulk worked all the time, really; the lapse had something to do with the publishing business.”

—Jack Kirby

(next page, top) The Hulk—Ditko style: Sturdy Steve Ditko reportedly advised Stan to give The Hulk a second series, and Lee let him run with it. In Ditko’s version, explosive action takes a back seat to drama and characterization. Thus begins “the only super-hero soap opera in all of comicdom.”

(From TTA #60.) (right) Avengers #2: An embittered Hulk quits Earth’s Mightiest SuperHeroes. It would be almost a decade before he’d be a “team player” again, in the Defenders. (next page, bottom) A failure to communicate?

Ignore Lee’s words and Ditko’s intent becomes clear: The “ray machine” is finished, and now the Hulk’s changes are triggered by rage. In the next Ditko “Hulk” story (TTA #60) the artist clearly established this point.

Thing, Hulk, Tyrannus, Thor TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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separation process: “We developed printing trouble, so we were forced to do him green,” claimed Kirby. With input from the printer, the original gray color was quietly forgotten—at least for a couple decades. Once the monster’s origin was established, Rick and the Hulk faced-off with “The Gargoyle,” a Soviet scientist who was grotesquely disfigured through radiation poisoning. Banner reverts him to human form, and to show his appreciation, the Gargoyle blows himself to smithereens, taking a whole slew of godless-Commies with him. Thus ends the Hulk’s first episodic saga (inks by Paul Reinman).

In “The Terror of the Toad Men” (Hulk #2, July 1962) The Hulk has a new look (green), a new inker (Ditko), and a new persona as well. The inarticulate beast from Hulk #1 is now a crafty monster, who speaks in an eloquently-evil fashion: “With this flying dreadnaught under me, the Hulk will be the hunter instead of the hunted”! The uninspired “ToadMen” seemed like hold-outs from the soon-tovanish Marvel sci-fi stories.

Dick Ayers checks in on inks for “Banished to Outer-Space” (Hulk #3, Sept. 1962) and the artwork takes a quantum leap. The splash-panel, depicting a berserk Hulk pummeling his cementprison walls, is simply magnificent, and Ayers gave the monster’s face a perfect blend of exoticism and grotesqueness. At this point, the magazine began a run of double-story issues. This type of “fiddling with the format” was a tell-tale sign the writers hadn’t yet developed a successful formula—nor would they ever.

A three-page retelling of the Hulk’s origin is followed by “The Ringmaster.” In this tale, the Hulk discovers he can virtually “fly,” through a series of prodigious leaps—arguably the best issue of the entire series.

In “The Monster and the Machine” (Hulk #4, Nov. 1962), Dr. Banner develops a “gamma-ray machine” that will induce his

And what was comicdom’s reaction to Jack and Stan’s radically unconventional new series? In a word, disinterest. By most accounts, retailers returned The Incredible Hulk by the ton, and it was discontinued after six issues. Interestingly, the common view that the series was axed due to poor sales, is challenged on two fronts: Mike Gartland reported that Martin Goodman ordered Lee to cancel The Incredible Hulk before the sales figures were in.

(Hopefully, Mike will elaborate on this in a forthcoming TJKC article). Besides Gartland’s view, Jack Kirby himself claimed that due to the meager eight-books-a-month distribution deal Goodman had cobbled-up with National, the Hulk lost his series so that Spider-Man could get his. However, other industry-insiders report that Life with Millie was the Goodman title that was sacrificed for The Amazing Spider-Man, and that Teenage Romance was shelved for The Incredible Hulk.

Apart from the magazine’s alleged lack of commercial success, the series failed on creative levels as well. For starters, the art was inconsistent (two artists and three inkers in six issues) as was the dialogue: Stan couldn’t find anything that even resembled consistent characterization where the Hulk was concerned. The monster’s dialect stumbled from “Tonto-esque” (“...Have to reach home! Formula inside home! Must get formula!”) to eloquently evil, to total silence (under Rick’s mental command) to Banner’s voice, to a “Bronxwiseguy” vernacular, all in the space of four issues. Even Rick Jones had an annoying habit of speaking like a boy scout one minute (“Gee, Aunt Polly”) and a beatnik the next (“Cool it, Daddy-O!”).

Another factor that undoubtedly helped capsize the series, was its dire array of one lame villain after another. While the FF had Dr. Doom, and the X-Men would have Magneto, the Hulk had “Mongu, the Commie-robot.” A super-hero was only as good as his aggressors; Giant-Man was living-proof of that. The Hulk’s jingoistic battles with countless cavalcades of Communist platoons

The Lost Years (The Hulk Without a Series) From the cancellation of The Incredible Hulk in March 1963, until his reemergence in Tales To Astonish #60, Kirby and Lee made sure their misunderstood monster didn’t vanish into obscurity.

After lying fallow for six months, The Hulk reappeared in Avengers #1 (Sept. 1963) as the catalyst-for-conflict in a group of otherwise pro-social super-heroes. Even his reason for joining was different than the others: “I’m sick of bein’ hunted and hounded! I’d rather be with you than against you!” He changed his mind the next issue (Avengers #2) when a shape-shifting alien played upon the Avenger’s revulsion toward the Hulk, and turned them against each other. Wounded by the other’s distrust, the Hulk quits. His bitterly-stated resignation (“I never suspected how much each of you hates me, deep down!”) and subsequent airborne exit, was eerily reminiscent of Johnny Storm’s dramatic departure in FF #3, where an embittered Human Torch temporarily quit the quartet. This time however—in a move that shocked a legion of loyal readers—Jack and Stan stuck to their guns: The Hulk would never rejoin the ranks.

He returned in Avengers #3, with Sub-Mariner, to challenge his former allies to a brawl in Gibraltar. The outcome: a stalemate. This led to “Captain America Joins the Avengers” (Avengers #4) where the Hulk only appears “symbolically” in Rick Jones’ mind, as Rick contemplates teaming-up with Captain America (whom he describes as: “the greatest guy I ever met”). So much for loyalty. Then came what many believe was the most grandiose battle of the entire decade: FF #25 and 26 (April-May 1964). In

a city-shattering slugfest that was reminiscent of the apocalyptic 60-page Namor/Torch NYC battle of 1941, an unstoppable, revenge-crazed Hulk lashes out at the FF, the Army and the Avengers over Rick Jones’ transfer of allegiance to Captain America. Whatever FF #12 lacked, this made up for in spades.

Kirby’s rampaging reprobate made a brief, belated showing in Avengers #5, just long enough to take a swing (and a miss) at Giant-Man, before reverting back to Banner. This would mark the Hulk’s last appearance in the original Avengers series, but his role as the group’s quarrelsome quasi-member is what made the early Avengers so compelling. The Hulk was a wild card, and readers couldn’t wait to see what he’d do next. Each guest appearance by Marvel’s emerald enigma was followed by a flood of “bring back the Hulk” letters, and about this time (according to Mark Evanier) Spider-Man’s original artist suggested that the Hulk be given another shot at syndication. If Stan Lee was worried about the Hulk’s initial failure, he needn’t have been. All the flaws inherent in the original series would soon be ironed out.

Steve Ditko would see to that.

Ditko Takes Over Like Kirby’s lastminute fill-in on Silver Surfer #18, Steve Ditko’s pinch-hitting on Hulk #6 seemed like a last-ditch effort to save a dying concern: Too much, too little, too late. However, the fresh perspectives Ditko brought to the series (along with its first decent villain, “The Metal Master”) demonstrated the promise of things to come. Sturdy Steve’s next portrayal of the rampaging recluse was in Amazing Spider-Man #14 (July 1964). Apparently, the writers thought it would be “offbeat” to have the Green Goblin and the Green Goliath in the same story. Whatever the impetus, this crossover may have alerted Ditko to the fact that the Hulk needed a new format, which he probably didn’t have

©2003 Aurora

didn’t help either. Indeed, Stan Lee’s outmoded and ultraconservative anti-Red stance seemed wildly incongruous for a man who desperately wanted to be perceived as “hip” (and liberal) by his readers. Insiders claim that Stan had been swayed by friends in the radical right-wing John Birch Society. It’s also plausible that Lee, fearing Wertham-style reprisals against his new and somewhat subversive comics line, sought the protective whitewash of “Red-bating,” as many paranoid progressives before him had done. In the final analysis, Jack and Stan may have launched The Incredible Hulk too early, for they seemed to have little idea what to do with it. It was a great idea that would have to wait for its moment.

LEE OR KIRBY? THE ETERNAL CONFLICT: Like so many other Silver Age concepts, the origin of the Hulk is shrouded in mystery and conflict. Clearly, the green-hued hellion was an amalgamation of many influences, but who formulated the initial concept? Since both Lee and Kirby, at various times, have claimed to be the Hulk’s chief architect, it’s beyond anyone’s power to unravel the entire truth.

In Marvel Masterworks Vol. 8, Lee rambles verbosely for seven paragraphs, on how he originated the monster. As for Kirby, he’s stated several times that he created The Hulk after witnessing a hysterical woman lift the rear end of a car off the ground to free her child from underneath it—with all due respect, that’s a rather (pardon the pun) “incredible” anecdote!

The most plausible insight into the birth of the Hulk however, lies on neither side of the Lee/ Kirby debate. In the 1990s, Kirby-biographers Catherine Hohlfeld and Ray Wyman Jr., reported that not long after the introduction of The Fantastic Four, Marvel’s publisher Martin Goodman, noticed that sales of the plastic Frankenstein model (manufactured by Aurora Hobby Products) were especially brisk.

Goodman, who was always looking for the next big trend, told Stan to come up with a character who resembled the monster, but not so as to prompt litigation (Frankie’s visage had been copyrighted in 1931 by Hollywood make-up artist Jack Pierce). So apparently, the process boiled down to this: 1) Start with a mandate from Goodman. 2) Pass it on to Lee. 3) Give it to Kirby, let him run with it, and hope to strike gold! The reason this particular scenario seems plausible, is because it was the same formula that allegedly gave birth to the Fantastic Four.

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(right) TTA #68: Kirby comes back with a vengeance, and his mammoth-fisted monster smashes the “soap opera” to bits.

(above) In Kirby’s files was a full set of photostats from the Hulk story in Astonish #67—Ditko’s final issue—with the note “For Kirby” scrawled atop in what looks to be Stan Lee’s handwriting.

Undoubtedly these were sent to Jack could see where the strip left off before taking it over. (right) Who was Rick Jones? In the early 1960s, would Batman have launched a psychotic tirade at Robin, the way Cap did Rick in Avengers #7? Hardly! Angst and psychodrama, Kirby-style. (next page, top) Kirby did layouts for Tales To Astonish #74, plotting the story in the margin notes as he went along. Bob Powell drew over Jack’s layouts, Sam Rosen lettered the pages, and these stats were shot and sent to Jack to refer to when laying out the next issue. (next page, bottom) Kirby’s last Hulk story (and easily his most bizarre Hulk crossover) was “Ikaris and the Cosmic-Powered Hulk” from Eternals #14 (Aug. 1977).

Hulk, Captain America, Rick Jones, The Leader, Ikaris TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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to hard-sell to Lee—after all, Giant-Man wasn’t exactly setting the world on fire in Tales to Astonish. Lee had Dick Ayers indoctrinate TTA readers to the Hulk in issue #59, and then, beginning with TTA #60 (Oct. 1964) Lee put the monster back into syndication, with Ditko as penciler.

As the personification of big-muscled Kirby characters, the Hulk seemed an unusual candidate for the “Ditko approach” which relied more on drama and vivid characterization than explosive action à là Kirby. Nevertheless, Ditko’s contributions to the series were quite significant. His first order of business was to reestablish a concept he’d touched on in the previous series. In Hulk #6, Ditko shows me Hulk smashing his “gamma ray machine” after it fails to mutate him, and in his rage he reverts to Banner. In a glaringly-obviously “failure to communicate,” Lee’s dialogue claims the ray had a “delayed reaction,” but Ditko’s intent is clear: He wanted to do away with the machine, and have Banner’s permutations triggered by rage or stress (why else would he have the Hulk decimate the device?). In the very first TTA “Hulk” story, Ditko established this point in a five-panel sequence that no amount of Lee dialogue could sabotage: “That’s the answer! Now I know why I change to the Hulk! It only happens when I’m the most worried... when the pressure becomes unbearable!” Now the Hulk was free to metamorph anywhere, no longer hamstrung by the machine.

Ditko’s most significant contribution to “The Incredible Hulk” may have been his conceptualization of a much-needed arch villain: The Leader. In an ingenious reversal of the Banner/Hulk phenomenon, an unskilled laborer is transformed into an evil genius by gamma radiation which turns him green, and causes his skull to expand dramatically. He then begins to plot (what else) world conquest. At last, the Hulk had found his Doctor Doom. Along with the licentious Leader (and the Teen Brigade from the old series), Ditko introduced Major Glen Talbot, Banner’s rival for Betty’s affection. Soon, “The Incredible Hulk,” like Ditko’s Amazing SpiderMan, became a drama of rich complexity, with long-running subplots, a dynamic cast of characters, and a storyline that never resolved, but simply ran from one cliffhanger to another (“to be Hulk-inued!”). It was an effective way to turn a half-length story into an episodic saga. This “daytime serial” approach was exploited to the hilt by Lee: “Marvel proudly presents another chapter in the only super-hero soap opera in all of comicdom!” gushed the blurb in TTA #64. Ironically, Kirby’s mammoth-fisted monster was about to come back and smash their little soap opera to nothing.

The Return Of The King! (TTA #68-84) If there’s any question as to who was conceiving the Hulk’s storyline (i.e., artist or writer), the sudden, dramatic change of direction that the series took with Kirby’s return should provide the answer.

Whereas Lee and Ditko kept their “soap opera” bound to the confines of Earth, Kirby (typically) turned the serial into a “cosmic saga,” sending the monster to the moon, a distant solar system, the future and the Earth’s core. Kirby respected Ditko’s input enough to keep Talbot and the Leader as prominent figures in the series, but he also introduced otherworldly entities like The Watcher, his moon-based cosmic sage, along with mythological gods such

as The Executioner and Hercules.

After penciling three issues with Mike Esposito on inks (TTA #68-70) Kirby began doing layouts, directing both the art and the writing, through paragraph-length margin notes—which Lee often followed verbatim. Unfortunately, no amount of direction from Kirby could help Stan with his usual confusion about the Hulk’s personality. Although it wasn’t quite as erratic as it had been in the original series, the monster still tended to veer from dim-witted innocence, to anti-social thugishness. By 1966 however, Lee—at long-last—had developed a stable personality for the Hulk that was a poignant mixture of savagery tempered by sadness: “The world hates the Hulk!” He moaned. “They hunt me—hound me— try to destroy me! Why does it never end?!!” Forlorn, tortured, and trapped in a world that had no place for him, your heart went out to this most wretched of all creatures. It had taken four years and two series, but Lee had finally stumbled onto the right formula—a sub-human but essentially gentle freak who only exploded in rage when provoked.

Kirby, who reportedly hated doing layouts, stayed with the book for 17 issues, designing the pages, while Marvel luminaries such as Mike Esposito, Bob Powell, Scott Edward, John Romita and Bill Everett played musical chairs as artists. As usual, even when he was only doing rough-sketches—according to Esposito— the Kirby “look” (i.e., power) came through, particularly on the splash pages.

Who Was Rick Jones?

(The Teen-Enigma, Part II) Stan Lee claims he killed off Bucky Barnes in Avengers #4 because he hated kid-partners. Why then, did he infix Rick Jones as Cap’s “surrogate sidekick” in the same issue? Whatever the reason, it seems unlikely that Lee and Kirby had preconceived the Barnes/ Jones conundrum back in 1962, during the Hulk’s conception. It’s also improbable that Bucky and Rick’s amazing resemblance was fortuitous: (e.g., what if the colorist of Hulk #1 had decided to render Rick’s hair blonde or red? Would that have circumvented the entire event?)

The most plausible scenario is that the situation was, at least in part, contrived. Perhaps upon realizing that Jones (like Betty Ross) had been revamped from Captain America in the first place, the writers found it entirely fitting to align Rick with the newly-resurrected Captain America in Avengers #4. Whatever the circumstances, Captain America’s sudden transferal of emotion from Barnes to the unwitting Rick Jones would soon take on eerie, ominous overtones, as would his morbid grieving for the fallen boy-hero (see Avengers #7).

Kirby and Lee would continue to portray Rick Jones in the original Avengers series, as well as in Cap’s Tales of Suspense (which became the fifth Marvel title to feature Jones). In Avengers #16,

The Future & Beyond The Hulk’s story has taken some singularly strange twists and turns over the years. Four decades ago, Jack and Stan couldn’t possibly have envisioned the type of convoluted psychodramas that future Marvel creators—and filmmakers— would put the character through. In 1972, the Hulk became one-third of an oddball aggregation called The Defenders, along with Dr. Strange and Sub-Mariner. Amazingly, three of Marvel’s most notorious loners somehow managed to endure being team players until the series ran out of gas in 1986.

For almost two decades, the Hulk’s creators failed to touch on the complex psychological connections between Banner and the Hulk, and then a floodgate of new ideas and perspectives broke open. Writer Doug Moench introduced the idea that Banner had a multiple-personality disorder, while Roger Stern and Peter Gillis attempted to prove that the Hulk was an entirely separate entity from Banner, who shared his body. In 1985, Bill Mantlo advanced the concept that Banner’s alter-ego was a manifestation of Bruce repressing his anger for a hateful father, who physically abused him, and murdered his mother. Writer Peter David suggested that Banner has at least three separate personalities: Dr. Banner, the traditional green-hued Hulk, and an intelligent gray-skinned Hulk (thus proving Marvel’s unwillingness to abandon any aspect of Kirby and Lee’s original Marvel Universe “history”—even a one-issue color revision).

Despite all the numerous and bizarre twists, without Jack and Stan’s original groundwork, these later permutations would have been inconceivable. Lee and Kirby’s original ideas for the Hulk were both rich and complex enough to make all his subsequent elaborations seem plausible. Clearly, the more solid a foundation, the more it can be built on.

© 2003 Universal Pictures, Inc.

THE LEE*/KIRBY BIG-SCREEN BLOCKBUSTER (*Ang Lee, that is) Inevitably, another Jack Kirby co-creation has hit the big screen (see The X-Men, Spider-Man and Daredevil) and subsequently Marvel Enterprises has another hit on their hands with Hulk, the movie. The $62+ million that Hulk’s opening day generated—along with generally favorable reviews—is a sure sign that even more Kirby-inspired movies will find their way to your local cinemaplex.

The film (starring Eric Banna as Bruce Banner) is a two-and-one-half-hour pastiche of dark psychological subtexts, computergenerated illusions (courtesy of Industrial Light and Magic), and riveting action set against a vast desert backdrop. The movie’s suitably ominous soundtrack is by Danny Elfman, who provided the scores for Batman and Spider-Man, and (of course) there’s the obligatory Stan Lee walk-on— this time Smiley is seen with Lou Ferrigno, star of the 1978-82 Hulk TV series. Trivia buffs will note that Kirby himself had a cameo in this very same series.

Kudos to Jennifer Connelly (A Beautiful Mind) and Sam Elliott (Roadhouse) for bringing surprising depth to their rather clichéd roles. Connelly in particular is captivatingly sensual as the new millennium’s answer to Fay Raye in King Kong.

Effectively, director Ang Lee uses splitscreen cinematography to divide the film’s images into huge celluloid comic-book panels—an appropriately esoteric gimmick that many folks (i.e., non-comic readers) probably won’t get.

Whether you find the film’s blend of father/ son psychodrama and CGI action entertaining or mostly boring, one thing is abundantly clear: In the end, inevitably, Ang Lee’s Hulk gives precious little recognition to Jack Kirby, the green goliath’s chief originator.

Whereas Lee and Ditko had their names printed full-blown huge over Spider-Man’s opening credits, Kirby’s moniker is—as usual—seen only in small font at the end of the film; don’t blink or you’ll miss it. It’s just one more slight to the man most responsible for Marvel’s newfound ability to generate millions of movie-megabucks.

For this reason—and for the film’s total exclusion of Rick Jones—I give Ang Lee’s Hulk a thumbs down.

In Ang Lee’s Hulk, Jennifer Connelly (right) gives a surprisingly sensual dimension to Kirby’s rather bland Betty Ross—despite the fact she had to recite her lines to a cardboard Hulk head (on a stick) that the film crew nicknamed “Elvis”!

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© 2003 Universal Pictures, Inc.

the last Avengers issue that Kirby laid out, an embittered Jones complains because he wasn’t chosen for the “new” Avengers line-up: “This isn’t fair! These three Johnny-come-latelies are now official members, and Cap still won’t let me be a fullfledged Avenger!” This grumbling carried over into Avengers #17, at which point (June 1965) Kirby pulled Jones from The Avengers, and re-installed him in Tales to Astonish, which Jack had just returned to as penciler (TTA #68). Jones wouldn’t grace the pages of The Avengers again for years.

Once ensconced back in his original series, Rick resumed his role as the Hulk’s colleague and confidant. In TTA #69, when Banner is accused of spying for the Reds, Rick renews his allegiance to Bruce “even if it means leaving Captain America and the Avengers.” Again, so much for loyalty! In TTA #77, (March 1966) Jones, believing that the Hulk was dead, finally admits to Major Talbot that Banner and the Hulk are one and the same. From then on, Banner would have no peace as man or monster.

Future generations of Marvel writers have exploited the ubiquitous, series-hopping Rick Jones in a surprising variety of ways. In 1969, Roy Thomas integrated Jones into the radically revamped Captain Marvel series. In this context, Marvel, who was trapped in the Negative Zone, could escape to Earth by trading places with Rick. Thomas, apparently recognizing the character’s potential as a nexus-point in the Marvel Universe, gave R.J. a significant role in the 1971-72 “Kree-Skrull War,” which absorbed nine issues of The Avengers. The Supreme Intelligence of the Kree grants mental powers to Jones, and from Rick’s mind, sprang an army of Golden Age heroes. It was amazing how much mileage Marvel could obtain from a supposedly minor Kirby/Lee character. In 1986, the Banner/Jones association finally came to a logical conclusion in the hands of John Byrne. At Bruce and Betty’s wedding (Hulk #319) an uninvited and unstable General Ross arrives, and attempts to shoot Banner dead. Rick Jones intercepts the bullet (which merely wounds him), thus repaying Bruce for saving his life all those years ago. At long last, the pair’s unique relationship had come full circle.

“I still feel there’s a Hulk inside of all of us; a suddenly unreasoning, explosive personality.”

—Jack Kirby, 12/4/87 Ever since the dawn of modern philosophy, ideologists and sages from Socrates to Jerry Lee Lewis have argued that the sum of man’s life equals the good and the evil that rages within the depths of his soul. The recurring motif of every Incredible Hulk television show was the ending, which depicted Bill Bixby (as Banner) trudging down a lonely highway, to the piano music of Joseph Harnell. In the teachings of Taoist philosopher Lao-Tzu, the road is a path of virtue, and the journey is one of moral obligation: Whosoever travels down that road often returns with a clearer understanding of the demons that negate “the better angels of our nature” (as Abraham Lincoln so aptly called them).

In the final analysis, wherever that road goes, there goes the Incredible Hulk. ★ [Thanks to W. Jacobs and G. Jones for their amazingly ontarget viewpoints, and to Phyllis Chappell, for a fingerbusting, last-minute rewrite.]

Present At The Creation After Marvel’s movie successes, the Lee-Kirby “who created what” debate flares again, by Robert L. Bryant Jr. his is Stan Lee’s moment.

The box-office success of Marvel’s X-Men, X-Men 2, SpiderMan, Daredevil and The Hulk have put Lee in a nearly constant media spotlight since the summer of 2000—a spotlight brighter than any he has experienced before or is likely to experience again. (Entertainment Weekly magazine, for example, devoted a seven-page profile to Lee in its June 20, 2003, issue, naming him the world’s best comics writer.)

In the spring of 2002, Lee published his autobiography Excelsior!

The Amazing Life of Stan Lee, a Simon & Schuster trade paperback, then watched as Spider-Man went on to become the year’s biggest hit film. This is Lee’s moment, the payoff for a life’s work, and no one can begrudge him for basking in it. He—and the comics medium—have earned it.

But... it seems that Lee is becoming less generous, or is being portrayed that way, on the issue of who built key parts of the Marvel Universe.

In the Entertainment Weekly interview, for instance, EW writer Tom Sinclair examines Jack Kirby’s claims that he, not Lee, was the primary architect of the Marvel Universe. Lee told the magazine: “It’s simply not true. Jack was a brilliant conceptualizer and the most talented guy I’ve ever worked with in the business, but he wasn’t a writer.”

Even Kirby admirer Michael Chabon, a Pulitzer Prize winner for his novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, stands with Stan in the EW profile. Chabon told the magazine: “The nature of the stories changed so drastically once Stan wasn’t telling them and Jack was doing them on his own, that it’s clear that Jack was exaggerating (his creative role) with his rhetoric in those interviews. The sad thing is that those guys had an amazing partnership. When they were at their peak, something really magical was happening.”

Sadly, no one can quote the King anymore. But in the midst of all this renewed debate, and at almost exactly the same time that Lee published his autobiography in spring 2002, Fantagraphics Books published its Comics Journal Library Volume 1: Jack Kirby, reprinting Gary Groth’s famous 1989 interviews with Kirby in which the King aggressively made his case that it was he, not Lee, who conceived the key 1960s Marvel books. Those interviews almost serve as a kind of time-warped rebuttal to some of Lee’s comments in his autobiography.

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Here’s how Lee describes the creation of the Fantastic Four in his autobiography: “It took a few days of jotting down a million notes, crossing them out and jotting down a million more until I finally came up with four characters that I thought would work well together as a team... I’ve always found that once the characters were clearly defined in my mind, the actual plotting of the story was comparatively easy, and that was the case with the Fantastic Four, as I decided to call them.

So I wrote an outline containing the basic description of the new characters and the somewhat offbeat storyline and gave it to my most trusted and dependable artist, the incredibly talented Jack Kirby.”

Hulk, TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Here’s how Kirby describes the FF’s creation in his 1989 interviews with The Comics Journal:

“I came up with the Fantastic Four...

Stan didn’t know what a mutation was.

I was studying that kind of stuff all the time. I would spot it in the newspapers and science magazines... I was a student of science fiction... Stan Lee doesn’t think the way I do.”

Here is Lee’s account of the creation of the Hulk, from his autobiography: “I had been wracking my brain for days, looking for a different superhero type... I thought, wouldn’t it be fun to make a superhero out of—a monster!... I probably had that thought because I’ve always loved the Frankenstein movies. To me, the monster was the good guy... I thought it might give me more story flexibility if he could change back and forth, in and out of monster mode... And so the Hulk was born, or the name was, anyway. I still needed to see the creature himself, and so I naturally turned to Jack Kirby.”

Here is Kirby’s version, from his Comics Journal interviews: “The Hulk I created when I saw a woman lift a car. Her baby was caught under the running-board of this car... This woman in desperation lifted the rear end of the car. It suddenly came to me that in desperation, we can all do that—we can knock down walls, we can go berserk... I created a character who did all that and called him the Hulk.”

From the 2002 autobiography, here is Lee’s account of the creation of Thor: “I had already given birth to the Fantastic Four, the Hulk and Spider-Man. Next, I wanted to come up with something totally different. I thought it would be fun to invent someone as powerful as, or perhaps even more powerful than, the Incredible Hulk... It finally came to me: Don’t make him human—make him a god...

Journey into Mystery needed a shot in the arm, so I picked Thor, the Norse God of Thunder, to headline the book. After writing an outline depicting the story and the characters I had in mind, I asked my brother Larry to write the script... It was only natural for me to assign the penciling to Jack Kirby, who drew it as though he had spent his whole life in Asgard, the home of the gods.”

And this is Kirby’s account, from the Comics Journal interviews: “I came up with Thor... I came up with Thor because I’ve always been a history buff. I know all about Thor and Balder and Mjolnir the hammer. Nobody ever bothered with that stuff except me. I loved it in high school and I loved it in my pre-high-school days.”

Two men; two completely different accounts of the same events.

Lee’s autobiography deals briefly with Kirby’s discontent and his growing insistence that (in the words of Lee’s co-writer George Mair) “he had really been running the show at Marvel all along, drawing the strips without input or editorial oversight from Stan.”

Lee writes that on one occasion, he had been shaking his head over Kirby’s claims. “Wow,” Lee recalls saying, “I can’t believe Jack would say that I never edited any of his artwork. If only I could remember some specific instances...”.

Lee continues: “Luckily, John Romita (Sr.), who was working in our office during those days, has a good memory... John said to me, ‘Stan, don’t you recall? Whenever an inker applied for work, we’d give him some rejected penciled pages to ink as a test.

Luckily, there were always plenty of those pages laying around the office... Where do you think those pages came from? Lots of them were Kirby’s—pages that you had rejected and made him do over again because you felt they weren’t quite right. I clearly remember that you used to edit his stuff all the time.’”

“That certainly made me feel better,” Lee writes. He writes that he didn’t resent Kirby “for some of the things he was saying” and that he might have been able to repair his relationships with Kirby and Steve Ditko “if either of them were less laconic. There was never a time when Jack Kirby just sat down and told me what, if anything, was bothering him.”

Chabon is right—the whole debate, necessary though it may be, is kind of sad. During Marvel’s Big Bang of the 1960s, Lee and Kirby were a perfectly synched creative unit, like the two halves of a brain—left and right. The “who did what” debate is almost like an Olympic athlete’s left and right brains arguing over who should get the credit for the gold medal. They both should.

They did it together. ★ Background image © 2003 Universal Pictures, Inc.

© 2003 Stan Lee and George Mair

Epilogue

Obscura

Barry Forshaw

Want inexpensive reprints of this issue’s selections?

As stated in Barry’s column, Double Life of Private Strong #1 was reprinted in its entirety in Blue Ribbon Comics Vol.2, #5 (Feb. 1984), featuring a new Kirby cover inked by Rich Buckler (pencils shown below).

Pvt. Strong/Shield © 2003 Archie Publications.

House of Secrets TM & ©2003 DC Comics.

A regular column focusing on Kirby’s least known work,

by Barry Forshaw

hile Jack Kirby’s career repeatedly threw up examples of The Master creating a brilliantly winning concept which other hands later took over (and utilized to far less interesting effect), there are, in fact, some cases where wonderful ideas were essentially stillborn; nobody took up baton after Kirby.

A classic case here is the pitifully small run (just two issues) for The Double Life of Private Strong, a Captain America/ Fighting American knock-off that Simon & Kirby turned out for Archie comics in the Fifties. The first issue of this title (which some reports claimed was torpedoed for its protagonist The Shield’s Superman-like associations) contains some of Kirby’s best work in the period, and is certainly the equal of its companion title, Adventures of The Fly (a title which did survive, executed with far less imagination by lesser talents).

But Private Strong was a gem: take the splash panel of the first tale, as Lancelot Strong strips off his army fatigues to reveal the red white and blue of his Shield outfit, a series of tableaux around him demonstrate powers (hurling bolts of lightning generated by his own body, defying weapons at point blank range, adapting to temperatures at which nothing could live, etc.).

In fact, this page is actually better than the actual cover, striking though that is. While the central figure has features that are clearly inked by George Tuska, the battling spaceman and soldiers in the distance are clearly Kirby, as is the most distinctive feature of the cover, a series of frames of film which in just 19 panels manages to tell a complete Shield mini-adventure.

Irresistible back then—still so today.

The first tale, detailing the creation of this assemblyline super-hero was, admittedly, off-the-shelf stuff for Simon & Kirby, but no less entertaining for that. In fact, the gargoyle-faced Communists in the first two panels could be straight out of the sardonically satirical Fighting American strips, and suggest that a similar sense of fun will be found in these pages. More than The Fly, the actual design of the panels here is notably sophisticated, and there are some striking touches, such as the highly futuristic mobile lab that a persecuted scientist escapes in with his son (who

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will, of course, later become The Shield. But with the second tale, “Spawn of the X-World,” we are in for a treat. This is a hint-oflater-things reading experience for Kirby fans. This marvelous splash panel displays—in fact, it features—a classic destructive monster of the kind that Kirby would make his speciality when he moved over to Marvel with Stan Lee; and the opening panel (The Shield leaps towards a gigantic green monster throwing destructive rays from its eyes) is the kind of thing calculated to warm every Kirby fan’s heart. In fact, the piece makes it quite clear who was the prime creative force in those Lee and Kirby monster tales: every element of the later work is here, notably a panel which became a cliché in the monster fests, Kirby visualizes a character’s vision of the monster laying waste to a city, when in actual fact it never gets the chance to do so.

The second tale is a filling-in of more of The Shield’s origins, but the last piece, “The Menace of the Micro Men,” is a typically delirious Simon/Kirby piece of the period, crammed full of wacky pseudoscientific concepts and headlong plotting (the splash panel is an eye-catcher: The Shield crashes in through a window, as a mad scientist supervises his green micromen feeding the heroine into a very typically Kirby piece of super-scientific equipment). The use of forced perspective throughout this tale is also very characteristic of the King—interestingly, it’s one of his artistic fingerprints that the legion of artists inspired by him didn’t often pick up on.

Kirby fans should have no trouble tracking this issue down, and there is also an affordable alternative: in the Eighties, the entire comic was re-issued by Archie as Blue Ribbon Comics #5, with a new Kirby cover (striking, but showing the element of the slapdash that had crept into Kirby’s at about this time).

No true Kirby fan should be without House of Secrets #11, published by DC in 1958. And I make no apologies for recommending this one, even though Kirby’s contribution is confined to a striking cover showing a giant trying to save a city from destruction (needless to say, the cover is full of classic Kirby design elements, the buildings, the giant’s futuristic costume), but if you’re hesitating to purchase a title in which there is no Kirby interior art, you should be aware that the cover is not the only reason for buying this. The first tale, “The Guardian of the Past” contains some of the finest work that Nick Cardy ever did for DC (in fact, his pre-super-hero stories for DC’s mystery and SF titles were actually more refined than his later work), and the story that Kirby’s cover illustrates, “The Man Who Couldn’t Stop Growing” is something of a find, illustrated as it is by the underrated Lou Cameron, an artist who at times matched The Master in terms of his imagination and panache, even if his grasp of anatomy was a touch wayward (but then... think later Kirby!).

Take the fifth panel on page 4, in which the eponymous giant straddles a dwarfed world, his footsteps leaving massive imprints in a continent, his shadow stretching across oceans... this is quite as impressive as anything in Jack Kirby, and more than justifies whatever the Kirby collector may have to shell out for this rather rare issue. ★ 21

Gallery

And the winner is...

hris Beneke of Brooklyn, NY! We put all the entries we received from last issue’s “Guest Editor” contest in a really big box and drew his out.

So congratulations, Chris; you got to pick this issue’s Kirby Art Gallery! (We’ll keep all the other entries for choosing future Galleries.) Now, let’s let Chris take it away!

C

Page 22: Kamandi #22, page 18 Kamandi #21 was probably the first Kirby comic I bought from the newsstand. I turned 11 that summer, but this page from the following issue was a shocker, if not a heartbreaker.

Page 23: Kamandi #26, page 9 A glimpse of the mutant Canadian wilderness that is beautifully portrayed in the (missing) two-page spread that follows.

Pages 25-27: OMAC #2, page 5 OMAC #3, page 17 OMAC #5, page 19 I am quite a fan of D. Bruce Berry’s inks, perhaps for nostalgic reasons. Royer does seem to have been more faithful to the spirit of Kirby’s pencils, but there’s often a fragility or delicacy to Berry’s inks, even an echo of the Hergé/ European clear-line style, that works for me, especially with (Jerry Serpe’s) colors.

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Kamandi TM & ©2003 DC Comics

Page 24: OMAC #1, page 16 Probably my favorite Kirby series: Jampacked with too many ideas, dropped subplots, social satire, self-conscious selfparody, funny villains, and a piss-take ending. OMAC would make a great, possibly frustrating (if it was faithful to Kirby’s plotting) video game.

Kamandi TM & ©2003 DC Comics

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OMAC TM & ©2003 DC Comics

OMAC TM & ©2003 DC Comics

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OMAC TM & ©2003 DC Comics

OMAC TM & ©2003 DC Comics

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The Losers TM & ©2003 DC Comics

The Losers TM & ©2003 DC Comics

Pages 28-30: Our Fighting Forces #151, page 17, Our Fighting Forces #153, page 12, Our Fighting Forces #154, page 9 For me, transcripts of Kirby’s war stories have been the biggest revelation of the Kirby Collectors and Quarterlys. It’s impossible for me to reread Kirby’s work, any and all of it since WWII, without finding intimations of his war experiences sprinkled throughout. His ubiquitous but anonymous foot soldier (or soldiers), found even in his most fantastic science-fiction stories, is his great unexamined character. If DC ever reprints these stories, I hope that one of Jack’s stories will be used to introduce the book.

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The Losers TM & ©2003 DC Comics

©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Machine Man TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.

Page 31: 2001 #6, page 16 Old heroes never die?

Pages 32-33: 2001 #10, page 1 and page 10 Wacky invention in service of relentless action...

I never wrote Jack an appreciative letter, and I most sincerely regret that, but I was fan enough to follow his work back to Marvel. I’ve yet to get into that ’70s Captain America run, but I did like the Black Panther, the Eternals 32

and 2001: A Space Odyssey become Machine Man. The Kirby ’70s Marvels don’t seem as fun as the earlier DC comics, even now. The drawing often looks rushed, the ever-present captions (were these, like the emphasis on continued stories, an editorial injunction?) seem forced, or re-written. I eventually discovered the Fourth World books and, despite my preference for my first Kirby-loves (Kamandi, OMAC, “The Losers”), I do acknowledge that much of the Fourth World, especially some New Gods

issues, are better comics.

Pages 34-35: New Gods #8, page 22 and #9, page 6 I’d bought a New Gods #1 at a garage sale, and remember leaving first issues of Mister Miracle and the Forever People behind. That later haunted me, not because of their collectible value: Their value was their story, their part in the big Fourth World puzzle. A coverless copy of the Turpin story—oh, those amazing Royer inks—was my next New Gods issue until much, much later.

Machine Man TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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New Gods TM & ©2003 DC Comics

New Gods TM & ©2003 DC Comics

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Superman, Jimmy Olsen TM & ©2003 DC Comics

Jimmy Olsen, Newsboy Legion TM & ©2003 DC Comics

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Superman, Jimmy Olsen TM & ©2003 DC Comics

Captain Victory TM & ©2003 Jack Kirby Estate

Page 36: Jimmy Olsen #143, page 14 #142 and #143, despite their having only tangential relations to the Darkseid conflict, are my favorite two issues of Kirby’s tres bizarre ramble through the heart of the DC mythos (although #133 to #135—Hairies, Mountains of Judgement, Morgan Edge and Intergang—must have felt like a blast of shrapnel). Microscopic monsters from an artificial world that’s been bathed in ’30s monster movies? I believe it, and I fear that Kirby’s metaphor is but a mirror for our own world of the spectacle.

Page 37: Jimmy Olsen #147, page 12 [only because 2-3 are missing] Page 38: Jimmy Olsen #148, page 14 Vinnie’s back—no!—and I demand to know what he left out!

The Pacific series, Captain Victory and Silver Star, are unrecognized gems in Kirby’s works. The drawing sometimes falters, but the stories can be deeply felt, even when Kirby seems emotionally ambiguous about his characters.

Page 39: Captain Victory #9, page 7 Page 40: Captain Victory #13, page 5 Page 41: Silver Star #6, page 12 39

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Captain Victory TM & ©2003 Jack Kirby Estate

Silver Star TM & ©2003 Jack Kirby Estate

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Adam M c Govern Know of some Kirby-inspired work that should be covered here? Send to:

As A Genre

Adam McGovern PO Box 257 Mt. Tabor, NJ 07878

A regular feature examining Kirby-inspired work, by Adam McGovern

JACK OUTSIDE THE BOX f course comics are a legitimate artform; no one’s denying that. But there’s also... well, websites about comics. And painters inspired by comics. And works of literature that remind us of comics. And so much more. Come, let me expand your horizons. We’ll start with some comics.

O (right and below) Tom Scioli’s striking art from Seneschal. Look for an upcoming interview with Tom in TJKC! (next page, bottom) Dogrion of the New Dogs lovingly pokes fun at Kirby’s Fourth World, with an art homage that’s a sight to see.

Seneschal TM & ©2003 Tom Scioli.

Fighting Yank TM & ©2003 AC Comics.

You Shall Know Our Velocity ©2003 Dave Eggers. Painting ©2003 Michael V. Bennett. Unstable Moledules TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc. Dogrion of the New Dogs ©2003 Gabriel Morissette.

Magnum Opus Readers who’ve been wondering at the whereabouts of Tom Scioli’s sleeper epic The Myth of 8-Opus will find their wait worth it in a new graphic novel that gives an economysize reintroduction to Scioli’s psychedelic scifi odyssey. With its blockbuster spectacle and movie-serial pacing, The Doomed Battalion delivers the definitive space-opera page-turner, which is why it’s good there’s a hundred of ’em to turn and let you soak in Scioli’s sensibility. By the time you read this the book will have been out for a few months (at $13.95 from A-Okay Comics, 5645 Hobart St., Pittsburgh, PA 15217; www.geocities.com/sciolit); another highpoint for Scioli-watchers may be a hacker collector’s item by now, so we’re proud to present some of its images: a roiling cyber-Arthurian battle-royal titled “The Seneschal,” posted this past spring as part of Dark Horse Comics’ unfortunately-named “Strip Search” competition for emerging and indie talents (www.darkhorse.com/ community/ stripsearch/index.html).

More than just a Kirby clone

(though one of the best, and justly proud of it) Scioli brings wild compositional imagination to a field that too often favors generic technical overkill. Scioli’s style is the kind of throwback that actually moves the medium forward.

Fightin’ Pictures The newest incarnation of Kirby crossed our desk with a mailing from Mark Glidden, who drew the second story in AC Comics’ Fighting Yank #5 (right).

Though this was Glidden’s first professional assignment, it’s more like his first several, with echoes of Steranko, Starlin, and at least two Kirby periods (’50s-monster and ’60s-spandex). What ends up getting evoked is the ferment of Marvel’s post-Kirby era of the early ’70s, with a pantheon of new talents vying to sustain his dynamism while nurturing their own unique offshoots. The intricacy, scope and ambition of Glidden’s visuals make him someone to watch, while the two issues preceding his debut marked the fond farewell of Eric Coile (a.k.a. “Hack Koilby”) to the title. Coile’s scorchedearth policy toward comics clichés saw him laying waste to both the jungle-hero and space-cadet 42

not to mention his obsessive-collector affection for variant editions; as we went to press, an alreadyrevised and no doubt equally-good paperback version was replacing the online-order-only hardcover, though you can still start your own quest at www.vintagebooks.com/read.

Keep the Misfires Burning

genres on his way out, in a hilarious swan song for issues #3 (above) and #4 (with a dialogue assist from Wade Hobby on the latter). Readers of delicate sensibility are issued a Gratuitous Cleavage Alert for the duration of these two installments, though Coile acknowledges the absurdity of the obsession, including frequent interruptions by a thinly disguised version of self-appointed censor and comic-industry scourge Dr. Frederic Wertham, who comes from behind panels to deliver several Final Warnings. Hopefully Coile’s departure from the comic page will be just as impermanent. (AC Comics, Box 521216, Longwood, FL, 32752-1216; www.accomics.com)

The Innocents Adrift An uncommon kind of Kirby Koincidence comes to us from the shelf of nonillustrated lit, in Dave Eggers’ novel You Shall Know Our Velocity. Even without the tenuous connection to this column, it’s well worth reading the next time you’ve had too many comics; a kind of road novel with jets, its tale of two young Midwesterners on an odyssey not so much of world discovery as flight from their own demons gets my vote for Great American Novel, circa 2003. Though Eggers is no stranger to comics of the Fantagraphics variety, which he has written about with great wit, I’m unsure of his studies in the spandex genre. Still, on a midnight swim in Senegal, his characters encounter a hotel guest who tells them of a “fourth world,” beyond the first-through-third known to newspaper reporters and coiners of current-events buzzwords—a world alongside all the others, where ideas are born and decisions made. (“The fourth world is half thought, half actual. It’s a staging ground.”) This space isn’t so far from Kirby’s “Fourth World” of personified moral principles and its pageant of elemental conflicts molded by the metamorphoses of human history. The incidental kinship is clear, whether or not the author was consciously aware of it— which could well be the point. In any case Kirby fans will appreciate Eggers’ high-pop approach to eternal themes in punchy prose (think Herman Melville by way of National Lampoon)—

For an irreverent look at some of Kirby’s more controversial concepts, not to mention practically everything Joe Simon created without Kirby, and a universe-full of other comics most likely to be left off creators’ resumes, check out the hilarious website Gone and Forgotten (www.apelaw.com/GAF). For a site dedicated to detailing just how unworthy its subjects are of the immortality being backhandedly granted them, one of the most surprising discoveries may be head curmudgeon Jonathan Morris’ admission, in a look back at Kirby’s unlikely belated tie-in title 2001: A Space Odyssey, that he kinda likes this notoriously stuck-in-a-loop antisaga. The Dingbats gets less leniency, but even that’s a love-tap compared to the fate reserved for everything else from Simon’s Prez to Rob Liefeld’s child-abuse of Simon & Kirby’s boy Captain America. Whenever you’re fed up with concepts that, er, just don’t fly, log on for a politically incorrect, all too artistically accurate sneerfest and get just the right... comic relief.

To the Dogs The New Gods get the Not Brand Echh! treatment in successful illustrator and animator Gabriel Morrissette’s Dogrion of the New Dogs, an oddity from Montreal that takes funny-animal incarnations of Kirby’s characters, adds assorted effigies of the auteur’s friends, and drops them into a supercollider of in-jokes and intentionally bad canine puns and sight gags that falls somewhere between the Fourth World and the Cartoon Network after midnight. The book’s comedic chops and skillful style-stealing,

together with an eclectic gallery in the back of the book, show Morrissette’s versatility and confirm that only the truly talented have the instincts to zero in on something this mock-disastrous. As-yet unfinished in the manner of the master himself, the single installment from 2000 may still be available as a sample copy from the pro/am fanzine co-op Comicopia at www.comicopia.net.

Genre Painting Michael V. Bennett is an imaginative animator with a side career in hallucinatory pop paintings that suggest Kirby reincarnated as a graffiti artist. We can only reproduce a black-and-white one here, but travel to www.Bennett BlackLite.com to see the whole oeuvre in living dayglo.

The Vault of Euphemisms: Reloaded Waid & Wieringo’s Fantastic Four continues to do a great job of finding ways to work Lee & Kirby into the masthead credits of every issue (“Stan Lee and Jack Kirby: The Right Stuff” in a recent two-parter entitled “The Small Stuff”; “Stan Lee and Jack Kirby: Fearless Leaders” in an issue devoted to the despotic Doctor Doom, etc., etc.). But this issue’s Vault award for creative stealth-credit goes to issue #3 of James Sturm and friends’ melancholy meta-history of the “real” Fantastic Four, Unstable Molecules, which is surely the closest we’ll ever come to an Alan Moore/Dan Clowes FF (though after Clowes’ contribution to our own feature on favorite Kirby covers on page 3 of this issue, maybe I should hedge my bet). In the first panel of the story, a narrator remarks of the foursome’s comic version, “In June of 1983, during a particularly manic episode, I was convinced that it was me, not Stan Lee or Jack Kirby, that had created the Fantastic Four.” Did someone say “created”? Memo to Marvel’s legal department: Keep telling yourself it’s only a parallel universe...

Meanwhile, few things could fill my fanboy heart more than opening The New York Times to see a sober comparison of the Hulk to Homer’s epics (in an interesting take involving the trading of humanity for mythic heroism)—and who better to make the comparison than Hulk screenwriter James Schamus? But the May 11 article offered other delights, repeatedly giving Lee and Kirby credit for their creation. And here I thought I’d have to settle for the poetic justice of future historians assuming the character was created by Ang Lee...★ 43

Retrospective

The Royal Attilans!

A look at Jack Kirby’s enigmatic Inhumans

by Mark Alexander (aided and abetted by Phyllis Chappell)

It had all the makings of a Shakespearian tragedy: a reclusive royal family who hid themselves from a xenophobic world.

Young star-crossed lovers whose warring families kept them apart.

A lunatic/genius brother with mad political ambitions.

Conspiracies, coup d’etats, subterfuge, pathos, and romantic melodrama. Overtones of madness, undertones of incest, and royal intrigue brewing just below the surface. Move over Macbeth—make way for the incomparable Inhumans!

Xenophobia (Those Who Would Destroy Them) n comic-books, alienation really mattered.

The key to Marvel’s success right from the beginning, was the alienated hero; and if the concept had become formulated by the time of the Inhuman’s debut, it still worked. Since their inception, the Royal Family has suffered the slings and arrows of a “human” race that fears and distrusts them. Like intergalactic gypsies, their fate has been to wander aimlessly; a persecuted minority, in search of refuge. [Note: Displacement is still a key theme in the Inhumans saga: at the time of this writing, Dr. Doom has recently offered the nomadic Attilans sanctuary in Latveria.]

The concept of super-powered beings as social pariahs—unimaginable in the sunny, positivistic Superman comics of the ’50s and early ’60s—was a theme that proliferated in Marvel comics from the beginning. It started with the arrogant and anti-social Prince Namor in 1939, followed by The Human Torch, who was

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originally dubbed a menace when he wreaked havoc on New York, burning out of control. Both were significant precursors to the next generation of comic book anti-heroes.

Kirby and Lee picked up the gauntlet in the early 1960s: First with The Thing, who originally instilled terror in the general public, and later—more significantly— with The Hulk, who was the first totally alienated comic book character—never gaining the trust or acceptance of any segment of society. The idea that a “hero” could also be perceived as a menace was, at this point, a minor theme in the Marvel Universe.

Then, two closely-timed events occurred—in the X-Men—that would have a catalytic effect on the entire comic book culture.

In X-Men #5, Magneto’s sycophantic underling “The Toad” demonstrated his super-human abilities in public, triggering a riot from which the X-Men had to rescue him. Hank McCoy—the group’s intellectual—was soon questioning the

wisdom of protecting a populace that apparently hated them.

Soon after, in issue #14, Kirby—through his layouts and margin notes—introduced The Sentinels.

Enter: Xenophobia.

The Sentinels were an army of murderous robots created to purge mutants from the face of the earth. Their creator, Bolivar Trask—an alarmist intent on spreading fear and unease among the public—rallied his followers against homo superiors, with rabble-rousing Hitlerian propaganda.

Dark, ominous themes began to germinate in the Kirby-plotted X-Men: Disenfranchised super-beings as persona non grata, hated by society. An all-powerful fascist police force, dedicated to exterminating a minority group. Ill-boding themes with dark edges of

intolerance, ostracism and genocide, which—unavoidably— harkened back to Nazi Germany of the 1940s.

Hindsight illumines what a significant turning point this was for the comic-book genre: It brought an air of darkness and paranoia to the previously sunny world of early 1960s comics, and future creators would extrapolate these harrowing themes— quite prominently—in the Inhumans saga.

For better or worse, the medium was changed fundamentally and forever—and Jack Kirby was just getting warmed up.

Rooting Out The Royal Family (Batman Meets The Addams Family?)

“I created the Inhumans because the competition was coming up in the field—so I thought we would try a new concept: The family concept.

So, when someone came up with one super-hero, we would slap them with five. As simple as that.”

—Jack Kirby, 1969, first printed in The Nostalgia Journal, 1976 As the story goes, sometime in mid-1965, Stan Lee, having prior knowledge of a forthcoming Batman TV series—and anticipating the inevitable glut of super-hero comics it would trigger— asked Jack Kirby to come up with some new characters to stave off the competition. [Note: There was one hitch: due to Marvel’s dismal distribution deal, Lee couldn’t launch a new book without canceling an existing title.] The end result was “The Inhumans”— an ancient race of bizarre characters from a hidden city; no two of whom were remotely alike. These characters (according to Kirby), had been developed with no input from Lee. When asked if The Royal Family was Kirby’s response to the mid-’60s “Batcraze” (and if there was a Batman/Black Bolt nexus), Mark Evanier replied: “As far as I know, no.” However, with all due respect to the man whose contributions to this article were invaluable, a synchronicity of events in the comics industry circa 1965 (along with Kirby’s abovementioned statement) seems to substantiate a Batman tie-in.

The creator of the 1966 Batman series—Bill Dozier—claims he pitched the idea for the show to ABC in March, 1965 (ABC television network had already secured rights to the character).

Two months later—when Kirby was creating the Inhumans story arc—news of the forthcoming Batman series (which premiered 1/12/66) would’ve been common knowledge in the comics trade.

Batman TM show TM & ©2003 “Batmania” was coming, and the 20th Century Fox, Inc. industry would have a ton of product ready to exploit it.

The rush was on.

It was hardly coincidence that just as the Inhumans saga began (FF #44, cover date Nov. 1965), an industry-wide floodgate of new heroes opened up. Archie Comics’ Mighty Crusaders also premiered cover-dated Nov. 1965, as did Harvey Comics’ Pirana. Dell Comics got the jump on them all, with the premiere of their new super-hero Nukla, cover dated Oct. 1965.

Archie came back with Mighty Comics, and (later) Super Heroes vs.

Super-Villians, featuring a whole horde of heroes. [Note: Even Archie Andrews contracted “bat fever,” transforming into a super-hero send-up called “Pureheart the Powerful.”]

Harvey Comics soon developed Jigsaw, Bee-Man, and Spyman (whom they bought from a young ad-artist named Jim Steranko).

Gold Key added The Owl and Tiger Girl; Charlton began a new super-hero push, Tower Comics expanded its line, and someone named Milton Fass published a poorly-revised Captain Marvel.

Holy escalation!

In regard to the claim that Black Bolt was designed to look “Batman-esque,” it seems unlikely that Jack Kirby (comicdom’s inveterate originator) would consciously purloin such a well known rival creation. And yet—on the cover of FF #46—Black Bolt’s “gliding membranes” certainly resemble bat-wings!

It’s also been reported that The Addams Family (the hit TV series that ran from 9/64 until 4/66) was Kirby’s primary inspiration for the Royal Family! [Note: Accordingly, The Munsters may have heen a secondary thematic-progenitor.] The Addams (like the Attilans) were a bizarre family unit with supernatural abilities. The only “normal” looking Inhuman—Crystal—emulated the blacksheep of the Munster family, Marilyn; i.e., a beautiful young girl with an ordinary name, who dressed normally compared to her bizarre brethren. (Remember, Crystal was depicted in a simple white dress for over a year before Kirby gave her a costume.)

This creepy, kooky (mysterious and spooky) scenario, sounds just bizarre enough to be true.

Considering Kirby’s infinitely convoluted thought process, it’s easy to imagine that “Gomez” and “Morticia”—after going through Kirby’s head— could have surfaced on paper as Black Bolt and Medusa!

(above) Holy Batspoitation!

Black Bolt (and possibly the Black Panther) might have been Marvel’s answer to the mid-’60s Batman craze that was sparked by the campy hit TV series starring Adam West. Black Bolt’s “gliding membranes,” certainly seem to resemble batwings. (left) The Kirby-created Sentinels, with their fascistic implications, brought harrowing themes of xenophobia and genocide to the hitherto sunny world of comics. The ripples they created in the X-Men would spill over into the Inhumans saga as well.

Inhumans, Sentinels TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.

Medusa Revisited (A Minority Opinion) “Who is she Reed? Where did she come from?

She’s the most menacing female I’ve ever seen!”

—Sue Storm (FF #36,1965) The licentious lady of the living locks— who exploded out of FF #36—was proof positive Jack Kirby could create genuinely potent femmes fatale. She was also the precursor of an entire race of geneticallyengineered super-humans. The general (perhaps apocryphal) opinion is that Kirby didn’t have his “Inhuman race” conceptualized at the time of Medusa’s debut.

Or did he?

Consider this: In the first 36 issues of The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine, 18 new antagonists were introduced. All were given a detailed origin, and/or a plausible explanation for their unique powers.

All but one.

The malicious madam with the mentally-manipulated mane

Match-ups, anyone?

Gomez = Black Bolt Morticia = Medusa Lurch = Gorgon Thing = Karnak (both were good with their hands) Uncle Fester = Triton (no hair on either) Wednesday = Crystal Pugsley = Lockjaw Addams Family TM & ©2003 Estate of Charles Addams and Filmways TV Productions, Inc.

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THE TITIAN-HAIRED TIGRESS She was the cruelest of mistresses.

Cold, contemptuous, and confident, her hypnotic sexuality belied the evil lurking behind her mask. Steely, scheming, and self-possessed, she seemed ruthless and powerhungry, with no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

She was, in a word, magnificent.

In the classic tradition of Marvel anti-heroes, the lioness with the living locks was originally typecast as a villainess, and in the context of the “Frightful Four,” Medusa’s virtues shone brightest. Flanked by two thoroughly third-rate Strange Tales also-rans (and a lawbreakeron-loan from Steve Ditko), it was easy for the attractive Attilan to stand out. Almost by default, she became the quarrelsome quartet’s MVP (Most Villainous Personage), threatening to wrest group-leadership from the “Wingless Wizard” at any moment. Viewed in the commonplace company of the “evil FF,” it seemed obvious Madam Medusa was destined for greater things.

Disappointingly, she would never attain them.

Once reclassified as a heroine— and infixed as Black Bolt’s love interest—Medusa became almost as bland and sexless as “Betty Ross” in The Incredible Hulk. As the arrogant dominatrix of the Frightful Four, she’d exuded all the tantalizing qualities that make a bad girl irresistible. Goodness however, didn’t agree with her. Recast as a big-haired variation of Batgirl, her character would weaken and wane, until she became just another stereotypical, gender-irrelevant Marvel superheroine. After that, she was about as carnal as cornflakes.

She’d become, in a word, asexual.

It’s too bad. With her mesmerizing sensuality and her consciouslycontrolled coiffure, she could have been a real contender: a female Doctor Doom—nothing less. Once potent, now prosaic, Medusa would never fulfill the promise she’d shown in FF #41-43. Her potential for true greatness was lost forever.

In FF #44, she of the living hair would be dragged kicking and clawing, back to her ancestral land.

Her abductor was a bizarre character who seemed to have some vague connection with her.

Bits of her mysterious past were finally beginning to unravel.

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had a past that was for eight months—shrouded in mystery.

Readers were given no insights into her genesis, or the secret of her prehensile tresses. Did her creators suddenly, inexplicably, forget to imbue her with an origin, as they’d done with every other evildoer in their oeuvre? Not likely. Moreover, why did the Human Torch, in FF #43 (shown at right), allow the scarlet-haired seductress to elude capture? (Kirby was the master of nursing an idea incrementally—to fruition. The big question: how long, prior to issue #43, did the King know he’d soon unveil his enigmatic Inhumans in an upcoming story arc, and start putting the wheels in motion?)

Ipso facto, the ravishing red-head’s open-ended origin wasn’t necessarily symptomatic of the writer’s arbitrariness, or absent-mindedness. It was more likely a gradual thematic

Conversely, while JIM always had Asgard as a secondary story-setting, the Fantastic Four lacked an alternative cast (and locality) until the advent of the Inhumans. In FF #52, Kirby seized the opportunity, and the adventures of the Royal Family—as a surrogate storyline—began in earnest.

Two months later Marvel’s hottest flame outdid even himself.

The introduction of Johnny and Wyatt’s “quest for Crystal” (in FF #54) turned the book’s two-part narrative into a triangulated storyline. Storm and Wingfoot’s sojourn into the unknown became the unifying element between the residents of the Baxter Building, and the inhabitants of the Great Refuge. With this stunning development, Fantastic Four would outdistance even Thor, in terms of complex thematic variation.

It was unprecedented: nothing this ambitious had ever been attempted in the medium’s history.

The Inhumans Break Free! incubation, similar to S.H.I.E.L.D.’s four-month gestation in The Avengers (pre-Strange Tales #135).

When asked if Medusa was the Inhuman’s premeditated precursor, Mark Evanier said that was “not exactly” Kirby’s intent: “Except in the sense J.K. thought every character he ever did could be spun off into something else.” Still, Medusa’s similarity to the rest of the group seems too precise to be an afterthought. Like most of the other “Royals,” Medusa was an aloof, enigmatic outsider with a black mask and an excessively serious persona. Like Triton and Gorgon, her name was derived from Greek mythos, and her power was a supernatural augmentation of her physicality (like Black Bolt’s voice, Karnak’s hands, and Gorgon’s feet).

Was it all coincidence? You be the judge.

The Inhumans Trilogy: Part I (Fantastic Four #44-64) It may be injudicious to refer to the Inhumans’ longrunning subplot in the FF as the Royal Family’s first “series,” but in fact many major (Attilan) precedents were established there, along with some of the group’s most defining moments.

It all began with “The Trial of the Gods” (JIM #116, May 1965). In this issue, Kirby adopted a totally new approach to comic book storytelling: Journey Into Mystery acquired a two-pronged narrative, vacillating between events on Earth and developments in Asgard. Sprawling, interweaving plotlines would develop, not to be resolved for months. Half a year later, in FF #44 (arguably earlier) Kirby employed this new serialized narrative in Fantastic Four as well.

Unsurprisingly, in terms of cohesion and continuity, the Inhumans’ sub-storyline in the FF was structurally unorthodox, improvisatory, and thematically haphazard.

The chaotic nature of their exploits was the result of Kirby flying blind—as usual—often leaving plot-threads hanging in mid-air, and story points ultimately unresolved. Here’s a typical example: GORGON (speaking to Maximus): I shall speak for Black Bolt!

Can you make something that would shatter any barrier? I don’t think you are able to!

MEDUSA (in thought balloons): Will Maximus do it? Will he try to prove he can make it, or is he too mad? Everything depends on what happens next! [the scene then segues back to the FF] Despite Medusa’s dramatic declaration, nothing “happened next”; the moment was never resolved. When we next saw Maximus, he was tinkering with Triton’s saline-apparatus. These disjointed developments weren’t entirely Kirby’s fault. Stan Lee—one half of comicdom’s most absent-minded duo—would arbitrarily refer to the Inhumans’ locality as The Great Refuge, The Negative Zone, The Great Barrier, and/or The Negative Barrier.

Likewise, the location of the refuge would randomly

(above) Madam Medusa whips up her charisma in FF #42—proof positive Kirby still had his chops for “glamour-girl” drawing thirty years after Young Romance and Young Love. ZOFTIG! (right) Crystal’s debut, and Johnny’s subsequent infatuation with her, triggered intricate, interwoven subplots in the FF. (next page, top) The instinctively maternal Invisible Girl creates a “womb” for Triton, thereby saving his life in FF #47. Kirby’s denizen of the deep would repay her by saving her husband from doom in FF #62. Fantastic Four, Inhumans, Frightful Four TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.

shift from the Andes, to the Himalayas, to the Alps, and to the “High Asian Mountains.” These inconsequentialities would all be forgotten in FF #59, when Black Bolt—whom Kirby depicted with heroic nobility bordering on godlike—vaporized the Great Barrier with an end-of-the-world sonic scream. In one transcendent moment, the secret of the Attilan King’s silence was at last revealed, and the Inhumans’ adventures were recast in an entirely new light.

Noting Crystal’s indefatigable determination to find The Torch, the Royal Family—now free from sequestration—leave their kinsmen, and venture into the outside world, exposing themselves to the hostility and bias of the human race. The Attilans’ role as enigmatic nomads continued until FF #64, at which point their presence as supporting cast members abruptly terminates—never to be resumed.

Triton: Jack Kirby’s Emotional Nexus?

He appeared in all his piscine splendor, on the “splash” page of FF #47, where the suffocating seafarer is the focal point of the narrative. Reed and Sue saved his life, and with this story, Kirby began a bizarre “all or nothing” approach with the aquatic Attilan.

From here on, Triton would be inexplicably absent from the Inhumans’ stories, or the main focus of them. E.g., FF #48 and 52, both feature the Royal Family sans Triton. His inability to function out-of-water had created a narrative dilemma, which Kirby—a virtual idea factory—would easily solve. In FF #54, Maximus developed “saline circulators” that attached to Triton’s limbs (that is, whenever Kirby remembered to draw them). No longer hamstrung by an in vitro existence, the now-amphibious Attilan was free to mingle with his air-breathing brethren. Despite this ingenious solution, Kirby—again—excluded Triton from the Royal Family’s guest-slot in FF #56. [Note: When pitted against Kirby’s rapid-fire creativity, continuity often lost out. Still, why didn’t Lee (a.k.a., art-director) catch these exasperating oversights?]

Perhaps to atone for the undersea Inhuman’s multiple absences, Triton was given guest-star status in FF #62. His face was garbled on the cover, so readers would be shocked (just as Crystal and Sue were), to learn Triton was the one selected to rescue Reed from the perilous Negative Zone.

Why Triton? (FF #62) None of the protagonists—save the sagacious Black Bolt— understand why the seemingly least-qualified Inhuman was chosen as Reed’s savior. As it turned out, Triton had a built-in navigation sense, which enabled him to negotiate the mysterious miasma of the Negative Zone—or the deep sea—with phenomenal agility. He also had a quirky “airjet-gun,” that discharged pressurized gusts of pneumatic-force. The benign air-gun was the perfect non-lethal weapon for the pacifistic Triton, and the type of techno-oddity Kirby could’ve found countless imaginative uses for. Disappointingly, Kirby forgot about it after two issues. The unlikely triumph of the underdog—a familiar Kirby theme—occurs: Triton rescues

Richards, thereby repaying Reed for saving his life in FF #47.

In FF #63, Triton, Crystal, and Lockjaw settle in for an extended stay at the Baxter Building. Acting as Crystal’s unofficial chaperone, Triton displays a peculiar infatuation for the human race, borrowing the Torch’s jet-cycle to observe and study mankind. Despite his years spent in watery-isolation, Triton seems the most amiable Attilan; at odds with his kinsmen’s antisociality (Crystal excluded). At this point (FF #64), Triton jets off, and—once again—vanishes perplexingly from the series for four months.

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FF Annual 5 (Triton Intermission) The “lead-in” story was an effective marketing device (probably Stan’s idea), that Marvel initiated in the 1960s to drum up attention/anticipation to a forthcoming new series. The character who was about to get his own book, would guest-star in the lead-in issue, and the month following the lead-in would be the release date of the new title. Prime examples of this would be TTA #59 (Hulk lead-in), TOS #58 (Captain America), FF #74-77 (Surfer), and FF #99, which ushered in the Inhumans’ series in Ama:zing Adventures. The Inhumans-dominated FF Annual #5 (1967), was Marvel’s “lead-in” story to hook readers to the Royal Family’s spin-off series that appeared in Thor (#146-152).

The Attilans practically squeeze Reed and company out of the storyline, as Mr. and Mrs. Richards boycott the battle against Psycho-Man (a.k.a. “Psychon” in Kirby’s margin notes).

Moreover, Ben and Johnny don’t show up until page 20, with Triton in tow. It’s astounding—after four months of Triton-inlimbo—that the notoriously absent-minded L&K remembered the amphibian was last seen hobnobbing in NYC! It’s all downhill from there.

Lee made numerous, unaccountable changes to Kirby’s storyline: Crystal was erased from every panel after page 14, leaving Colletta-like mutilations in several panels. Tchalla’s battle with “Cat-Beast” is abruptly terminated—with no explanation—and Triton inexplicably succumbs to a “lack of humidity” (i.e., dampness) in Psychon’s “pressure-cube,” even though his saline-system is intact. The end result is a jumbled, choppy comprise of story and art, a travesty that’s almost compensated for by the preceding “Inhumans Pin-up Gallery.” These masterful portraits would be the King’s last (and best) “pin-ups” of the decade. [Note: In an effort to obtain these dramatic depictions on high-quality paper, I mail-ordered Marvel Masterworks Vol. 25 (having heard they appeared in the back). Guess which water-breathing wanderer is absent—for the umpteenth time—from the set! Why Triton?]

Cry... Triton!

(Thor # 150-152) On the atmospherically rendered splash page of Thor #150, the “now-you-see-him, now-you-don’t” Triton declares his desire to observe the human race, which is consistent with the curiosity he demonstrated in FF #64. Conversely, other events in Thor’s “Triton-

THE STOIC SATYR Medusa’s pursuer in FF #44 was both dramatic and demonic. Bearded, beady-eyed and boorish, he had a satanic spiked crown, and pointed, panlike ears. His massivelymuscled legs and cloven hooves (a later revelation), had a devastating kick that sent seismographic shockwaves streaming through city streets. Sullen, brooding, and menacingly dramatic, he resembled a mythical satyr on steroids.

The gentleman’s name was Gorgon.

Stoic, saturnine, and sedate, Gorgon’s lack of emotionality was an intelligent choice of characterization: Had the writers portrayed the lumbering Inhuman as a insatiable hedonist—i.e., a stereotypical satyr—it would have been an alltoo-obvious move.

Kirby and Lee—never being sticklers for details— didn’t explain why he of the fearsome feet was christened after a mythical race of serpentinecoiffured females (a visceral connection to Medusa?) or why he bothered to wear a mask (perhaps to conceal his identity as “Gorgon the Inhuman”?).

Whatever the impetus, the considerable promise Gorgon had shown in FF #44 was short-lived; Kirby’s masked misanthrope proved to have limited potential, and he quickly faded into the family background. With Medusa, Kirby could constantly devise new, imaginative uses for her mentally-manipulated hair.

Gorgon by contrast, was essentially a one-trickpony (i.e., a one-kickpony). Granted, his thunderous stomp could accomplish feats of magnificent destruction; but how much could even Jack Kirby do with that?

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on closer examination, did I notice the attached Kirby-postscript: —some things never change.

The Inhumans Trilogy: Part II (Thor #146-152)

THE DIMINUTIVE DYNAMO He was the Inhuman incarnation of karate, kung-fu, and kinetic energy—in a kilt.

The incongruity of a diminutive individual who can outfight larger opponents (or multiple opponents), was commonplace by the mid-’60s: Comics had the “boywonders” like Bucky Barnes; on the small screen, there was Don (“Zorro”’) Diego’s bantam bodyguard, Bernardo; and— significantly—there was the multi-media Kato, Green Hornet’s pint-sized protégé who was portrayed on television by Bruce Lee. More than anyone, Kato (from the comics), seems to have been Karnak the Shatterer’s prototype/progenitor—if indeed he had one. [Note: Kirby had drawn The Green Hornet for Harvey back in the 1940s, and he was apparently thinking of the Far East when he designed Karnak’s costume. He described it to The Comics Journal as a “judo type uniform, almost Oriental and half-Egyptian”—hence, the (speculative) Kato nexus.]

Miniscule, masked, and mustachioed, this master martial-artist could locate an object’s weakest point (via his “mind probe”), then shatter it into nothing, with a devastating karate-chop that cut like a laser. In the hands of future writers, Karnak’s “mind probe” became an extension of his personality: Kirby’s successors gave the diminutive dynamo a “probing mind,” i.e., an overly analytical disposition that was antithetical to Kirby’s pint-sized powerhouse of the 1960s. Always corporeal, never cerebral, Kirby’s Karnak was typically in a combat stance, and seldom seen in a relaxed (or naturalistic) pose. He was tense and coiled in readiness; always poised to throw—or dodge—a sudden blow.

As the most overlooked member of Black Bolt’s enigmatic entourage, Karnak was never singled out for any significant narrative purpose, or given a “spotlight” issue like the others (see FF #36, 44, 55, 62, and Thor #148 & 150). Contrastively, Karnak’s role as the Royal Family’s weakest link reiterates how potent the group was. Most of Marvel’s 1960s costumed coalitions had members who were glaringly derivative of established comics icons: Reed Richards emulated Elongated Man (who’d been purloined from Plastic Man).

Quicksilver was the Flash, recycled in green (right down to his diagonal lightning bolt insignia). Hawkeye, The Angel, and Ant-Man, were doppelgangers for Green Arrow, Hawkman, and The Atom, respectively.

The Inhumans however, had no re-fried DC characters. In the end, it may have been the Royal Family’s uniqueness that endeared them to their creator more than any other factor.

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trilogy,” are irreconcilable with Thor continuity: E.g., the oceanic observer has no problem breathing out of water—sans his circulators— and he’s inexplicably endowed with super-strength, which he’d never displayed when battling the Seeker, Blastaar, or Psycho-Man. [Note: the writers were apparently grooming (i.e., empowering) the amphibian for a Namor/ Triton melee two months hence: see Sub-Mariner #2, “Cry...

Triton!”] In Amazing Adventures #1-4, Triton receives no particular acclaim, but he’s conspicuous by his absence— again!—on the cover of AA #1, and the splash page of AA #2. Was it a conspiracy?

The fact that Kirby singled him out for multiple starring roles, leads this writer to see Triton as his creator’s emotional-nexus in the Inhumans. While others have speculated that Lockjaw was Kirby’s allegorical-self-portrait (see TJKC #9), I think the verdant-visage of Triton is where the artist saw his truest reflection. Lacking in physical beauty, but possessed of great nobility, Triton was an observant seeker of knowledge, and a pacifist by nature, who would fight—furiously—when duty called.

Perhaps Jack Kirby heard biographical echoes— reverberating from the ocean depths—cry Triton.

AUTHORIAL ASIDE: While researching this article, I found a comics shop that had a well-worn copy of Heroes and Villians (a.k.a. The Black Book). Having heard of—but never seen—Kirby’s famous sketchbook, I was curious to see if the King had (again) overlooked the noble Triton in his illustrious 1970s oeuvre.

I was pleasantly surprised to find Jack had indeed included his denizen of the deep in the book (albeit, way in the back—far from the rest of the family). Only

Viewed as a collaborative effort, it was pure farce.

The “Inhumans” back-up strip in Thor that squeezed “Tales of Asgard” into oblivion, was a disjointed and inconsistent affair that found Lee and Kirby aesthetically at odds from the beginning. In Thor #147 for example, Lee’s dialogue flew in the face of everything Kirby’s margin notes intended. (See Gartland’s “Failure To Communicate” article in TJKC #21.)

Chronologically, these stories are set in the past (pre-FF #45).

This was probably done to offset the types of continuity paradoxes Marvel encountered when the original Avengers appeared simultaneously in other books.

Ironically, this series contradicted much of the story structure previously established in Fantastic Four: e.g., besides the inconsistencies regarding Triton, the genesis of Black Bolt’s muteness—formerly a dark, cryptic secret shared by Maximus and Medusa— is here treated as a childhood malady known to all in the Great Refuge.

Reader response to the series—in Thor’s letterspage—was overwhelmingly negative. “Tales of Asgard” fans vilified the strip, screaming the non-Asgardian Inhumans had no business in the pages of Thor. By popular demand, the feature was cancelled (in midstoryline) after seven installments. [Note: another factor in the cancellation may have been a proposed Inhumans solo book, which will be examined.]

In the aftermath of the (first) failed “Inhumans” series, what we’re left with are 35 pages of stunningly

rendered Kirby/Sinnott art, at its collective apotheosis. The masterful splash-pages of Black Bolt and Triton are, in the ultimate analysis, ill-fated reminders that this series was best assimilated with its text unread.

Kirby and Lee’s charade of collaboration was becoming increasingly difficult to maintain: With this series, the cracks were beginning to show.

years’ worth of Inhumans stories? One might conclude these pages were left over from an earlier—possibly aborted— Inhumans project.

Another point that propagates the “lost series” hypothesis, is the fact that two splash pages from the strip (and possibly more) had to be extended (i.e., redrawn) at the bottom, before they were the correct size for printing. This strongly indicates Kirby was leaving room at the bottom of these pages for indicia (i.e., technical info as to who publishes the mag, when and where).

Indicia would only be necessary on a lead-feature’s splash page.

Moreover (as the keen-eyed editor of this magazine pointed out), look closely at the splash page of the first “Inhumans” installment (Thor #146, which begins this article; we left the “cut marks” that showed up around Black Bolt—a telltale sign this page was an in-house paste-up). It looks like an afterthought; not nearly as detailed as the other pages, and Kirby had abandoned this type of “symbolic splash” well before it appeared. Finally, the fact that Joe Sinnott (and not Colletta) inked this series, might indicate it was intended for another publication. Could all this point to a “lost” Inhumans series?

Hardly.

First, it’s inconceivable—in my view—that anyone who reads the Thor “Inhumans” back-ups, could imagine them in any other context: The first four (#146-149) are totally self-contained five-page stories, and although the “Triton” issue (#150) begins a continuous narrative (i.e., serialization), it’s segmented into three distinct settings: 1) “Triton in the sea” (#150), 2) “Triton on the boat” (#151), and 3) “Triton in the city” (#152).

None of these seven stories (except the first one) would make any sense without its respective splash page. And none of the splash pages—discounting the first—look like they were drawn at a later date. When asked about this long-standing rumor, here’s what the inimitable Mark Evanier had to say: EVANIER: Around 1967, Marvel’s publisher Martin Goodman wanted very much to add a number of new titles but his distributor would not let him. A number of ideas were discussed, including a comic of The Inhumans, but it never got past the speculative stage.

Jack probably would have [been the

The Lost Series?

(Part I: Thor #146-152) Dear Stan and Jack, I’ll be glad to see the origin of the Inhumans, but I hope it doesn’t replace “Tales of Asgard” for more than five or six issues. If you get rid of “Tales of Asgard” for good it will be the biggest mistake since Irv said, “Make mine Brand Echh!” ’Nuff sayeth!

Thomas Miller, Baton Rouge, LA Uh oh! We’ve got enough Inhumans sagas to keep going for a couple of years at least, Tommy!

—From the letters page of Thor #149 It’s been speculated many times in this magazine that the “Inhumans” back-up series (Thor #146-152) may have been split up from a full-length Inhumans book (or a couple of half-length ones), that Lee had wanted to run earlier, but—for various reasons—never materialized.

The abovementioned reply from Stan would certainly add fuel to this theory: e.g., would Kirby—already overstretched by Marvel’s burgeoning expansion—have time to stockpile two (previous page, top) Triton makes a splash in Thor #150 (March ’68).

Kirby incongruously offset the character’s scaly, piscine repugnance with classically-heroic features; he was a triumph of design. (left) Ouch! In FF #62, the head-butting Karnak has a “meeting of the minds” with an antagonist, and Kirby finally revealed the function of his headgear.

THE MISTRESS OF ELEMENTAL FORCE She was Mother Nature personified as a tempestuous teenage vixen.

Ethereal, elfin, and effervescent, Crystal was the most human-looking Inhuman by far. Except for her Sub-Mariner/Spock-like eyebrows, she could have been the girl next door. (If you were lucky!) Interestingly, the only other Kirby character with Crystal’s exotic eyebrows was Quicksilver— perhaps a factor in their later coupling? Unlike her bizarre brethren, this sirenlike seductress didn’t have an outlandish name, or a costume (that would come much later), and she was unquestionably the most pro-social Attilan in regard to the human race. Perhaps due to youthful naivety, Crystal was bereft of her family’s distrust—bordering on contempt—for mankind.

This fostered her forbidden love for the Torch, and gave their tragic separation a Romeo and Juliet twist.

Ironically, after all the months The Torch spent—in vain— searching for Crystal, it was she who found him.

After the pair’s reunion, the enchanting elementress broke the bonds of the FF’s exclusivity to sub for the Invisible Girl, who was on maternity leave. Once ensconced in the World’s Greatest Comic Quartet, the teenaged beauty proved to be an emotional but hardheaded heroine, whose demure nature could erupt into turbulent rage when someone she loved was in danger. Foes like the Wizard and the Moleman would soon learn: Hell hath no fury like this woman’s storm!

Like a lot of (human) teenage girls, Crystal had a canine pet. But instead of puppy chow, this one ate iron girders.

(top) Continuity goes out the window in Thor #152 as a landlocked Triton demonstrates his facility for breathing out of water, sans his circulators. (bottom) Thor #147 Inhumans splash page, for a story detailing the group’s origins. Inhumans TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc. 49

pages, they’d surely have run them by now. (Remember, we’re talking about a company so desperate for “new” Lee/Kirby product, they actually patched up a bunch of cartoon storyboards [see FF #236], to milk one last “new FF blockbuster” by L&K!—’Nuff said?)

The Lost Series Addendum (Part II: The Gartland Files)

LEST WE FORGET: LOCKJAW! It’s been speculated that Crystal’s corpulent canine companion was Jack Kirby himself—in burlesque—as a giant frog-mouthed bulldog!

Lockjaw, whose name was re-cycled from the 1946 Simon/Kirby “funny animal” character— Lockjaw the Alligator— held a unique distinction: He was the only Silver Age animal-star in the Marvel Universe. Endowed with the ability to transport himself and others across vast physical diameters, the interdimensional canine was wisely incorporated into the Storm/Wingfoot “search for Crystal” subplot, beginning with FF #55. Having previously employed the Panther’s “gyro-cruiser” to search for the Great Refuge, the duo opted to let Lockjaw lead them—arbitrarily— via his dimension-hopping abilities. This gave the trio’s adventures an element of eerie, ill-boding unpredictability: No longer in control of their own destinies, Lockjaw, the Torch, and the NativeAmerican Wingfoot, would now face whatever dark perils awaited in the great unknown.

Just as The Thing had gradually acquired a cartoonish comicality— unimaginable in 1961— Crystal’s pugnacious pooch eventually became a big, loveable brute with built-in comedic potential.

In FF Annual #4, after drinking a huge quantity of milk, the beleaguered beast belches, hurling the FF (and Wingfoot) across the room. This element of canine comic-relief was a commodity the writers— disappointingly—left untapped. It would have made a welcome foil to the patently humorless Royal Family.

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one to draw] at least the first few issues, but that is just speculation.

To keep the Inhumans characters before the readers and to develop them a bit further, Stan decided to replace “Tales of Asgard” with the “Inhumans” feature. Those stories were not, to my knowledge, carved out of anything else. They were drawn as five-pagers.

Later on, Jack wrote and drew four “Inhumans” stories for Amazing Adventures. At the time he did them, there was the chance that Marvel would suddenly change plans and add an Inhumans book, so Jack did the stories in a way that would allow them to be converted. The first two could have been Inhumans #1 and the second pair could have been #2.

So apparently, it was Kirby’s final “Inhumans” series (Amazing Adventures #1-4) that was drawn to allow conversion, and not the Thor strip. This may have started some of the subsequent speculation.

In the end, the “indicia mystery”—and the incompatible splash page from Thor #146—will probably remain a nagging, unsolved riddle. Moreover, the “two years worth” of Inhumans stories (mentioned in Thor’s letters page), may have been a long, tentatively planned story arc conceived by Stan and Jack, as opposed to finished artwork. If Marvel had any unused Inhumans

[Note: Having just received some much-appreciated last minute information from “Marvel-ous” Mike Gartland, l have this to report:] Although M.G. and I reached somewhat different conclusions regarding the “Inhumans” back-ups in Thor, Mike’s data—intriguingly—points to a full-length Lee/Kirby Inhumans book that was apparently slated for publication shortly after FF #83 (cover date Feb. 1969). The following sequence of events was based on Gartland’s files. [Note: From here on, the initials c.d. will abbreviate the phrase “cover date”].

(Thor #153 c.d. June ’68): In this issue’s letters page, Stan placated an Inhumans fan by stating the “Inhumans” featurette was being discontinued—as of that issue—because the Attilans are “just too mind-snapping to get only five pages a month,” and because Marvel had planned “something bigger and better for them” [see letter above]. Right around this time, Kirby would have been conceiving FF #82, which featured the Royal Family as guest-stars.

The Inhumans-saturated FF #82 and 83 (c.d. Jan./Feb. ’69) could almost certainly be viewed as an intended “lead-in” story, because of the aforementioned Thor #153 reply and—significantly—this FF #83 “Bullpen Bulletin” (c.d. Feb. ’69):

Using Marvel’s lead-in story/new series policy as a barometer, a new Lee/Kirby Inhumans book should have appeared around the time of FF #84 (c.d. Mar. ’69).

It didn’t.

A month passed (absorbing FF #85), with no new Inhumans book; then, in FF #86, Marvelites received this explanation:

So what became of the book?

We know it didn’t resurface later as Amazing Adventures #1-4.

Marvel’s inventory numbers on AA #1-4 indicate these pages were drawn sometime between FF #99 and 101. Chic Stone had just returned to Marvel at this time, so his inking of AA #1-4 precludes this material from being old “shelved” pages. Finally, FF #83’s bullpen bulletin described a new Lee/Kirby series, not the Kirby-scripted AA venture.

Conclusion: A solo Lee/Kirby Inhumans book was almost certainly slated for release around the time of FF #84 (c.d. Mar. ’69), but it was never drawn or published. (Hope I got that right, Mike!)

Lee’s explanation (in regard to the new printer) rings false.

Was Kirby’s lack of enthusiasm (for a second Lee/Kirby Inhumans book) the subverting element that stalled the project? One could speculate that after Lee bastardized the Thor back-ups

(with dialogue the artist was at odds with), Kirby may have held out on creating another Inhumans book until he received the writing credits.

That day was coming.

The Inhumans Trilogy: Part III (Amazing Adventures #1-4) The Great Refuge lies beyond the high Asian mountains! All who seek to violate its isolation risk retaliation! This strange society, evolved from genetic experiments still challenges the outside world!

Stay out! Come at your peril! BEWARE... THE INHUMANS! —Jack Kirby’s text from the splash page of Amazing Adventures #1, Aug 1970 Not being imbued with his editor’s sunny rationalism or positivistic worldview, Kirby—whose visions were always darker than Lee’s—wasn’t

about to portray the Royal Family as pro-social optimists, or altruistic do-gooders, now that he held the writer’s reins.

Instead, Kirby’s unvarnished Inhumans were characterized as paranoid isolationists with a Hugesian contempt for the outside world. Lee’s assimilationists became Kirby’s separatists: Embittered outcasts with a convoluted code of ethics totally alien to Lee’s aesthetic. Unpredictable and potentially dangerous (especially in regard to human trespassers), Kirby’s reclusive, morally ambivalent Attilans exuded a dark, disconcerting sense of paranoia, which made them more contemporary than their Lee-scripted doppelgangers. They pointed the direction future comic-book protagonists would take;

(previous page, top) Bigger and better things promised for the Royal Family, in this letter from Thor #153 (Jun. ’68). (far left) Kirby once again employs the theme of sibling rivalry, as Black Bolt’s blackguard brother Maximus makes yet another attempt to steal the king’s throne—and his girl—in FF #82 (Jan. ’69). (above left) FF #99 (June 1970) was used as a lead-in to the Inhumans’ series in Amazing Adventures #1. (above right) The “evil Inhuman” Aireo was a one-panel throwaway character in FF #46 (Jan. ’66), revived and named by Marie Severin and Mike Friedrich for Hulk Annual #1 (Oct. 1968). It’s possible Kirby wasn’t aware he’d created him when he drew him in Silver Surfer #18. Inhumans, FF TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.

THE PSYCHOTIC SIBLING Maximus The Mad was pure schlock.

The idea of sibling rivalry between two brothers— one valorous, one contemptible—was a theme as old as Cain and Abel.

In literature it was a shopworn cliché that even Jack Kirby had trouble getting further mileage from (c.f. Thor/Loki, Xavier/ Marrko). Subsequently, Maximus’ role as the demented mastermind obsessed with stealing his brother’s throne was— by conjecture—decidedly passé.

Max’s persona vacillated from babbling-insanity to cackling-insanity, with obligatory arch-villain hubris thrown in. His presence as the family’s Machiavellian manipulator eventually culminated in a significant Severin/ Friedrich tale, in Hulk Annual #1. In this story, Mad Max rounds up a band of super-powered renegades (as Magneto had done in X-Men #4), and uninspiredly dubs them the “The Evil Inhumans.” Among the ranks of Max’s miscreants were: “Timberius,” the aboreal-Attilan; and the most unique of the lot, “Leonus,” the lion-man; the equine “Stallior”—a centaur—and the airbome “Aireo.” Kirby originally drew Aireo as a nameless, single-panel “throwaway” character in FF #47. Kirby’s post-1967 unwillingness to offer Marvel any worthwhile new creations, may have prompted his use of these borrowed blackguards in his later Inhumans stories.

Moreover, in the case of the felonious flying Aireo, it’s entirely possible that Kirby—having completely forgotten him—assumed he was a Severin/ Friedrich creation to begin with.

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TRITON! DENIZEN OF THE DEEP He seemed the freakish by-product of an unspeakable union between man and fish.

The scaly, water-breathing Triton—named after the mythical son of Neptune— wasn’t comicdom’s first aquatic adventurer. The Sub-Mariner first appeared in 1939, and was soon followed by the curly-haired, prosocial Aquaman, who—in typical DC fashion—had a kid-partner, and rode on the backs of fish. What gave Triton an entirely different “angle” from these handsome aquanauts, was his startling appearance: From his back protruded a large, dorsal fin (which would later atrophy), smaller fins extended from his head, and a weed-like membrane arched across his brow.

When he opened his mouth, one could see gills.

Paradoxically, Kirby managed to offset Triton’s horrific Creature from the Black Lagoon countenance by giving him classically heroic features.

This incongruous amalgam of hideousness tinged with nobility, made Triton— easily—the most visually striking Inhuman of all: He was a triumph of design.

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raising the question of hero/villain duality being a matter of societal manipulation, rather than ethics, behavior, or intent.

Bereft of the Lee/Kirby synergy, the King’s second (and final) attempt to launch the Royal Family quickly fell by the wayside.

Despite the considerable merits the Attilans of Amazing Adventures demonstrated, the book’s overall quality wasn’t high. Kirby’s lack of finesse as a dialogist severely impacted any chance the Inhumans had of overcoming their undermining flaw: lack of differentia.

Excluding Crystal (who wasn’t around much anyway), The Inhumans all spoke in the exact same manner: they came across as proud, humorless outsiders, with parallel-personalities and speech patterns.

This shortcoming—which was camouflaged in the FF by Kirby’s high-velocity storylines—was obviously more the scripter’s fault than the artist’s. It had been relatively easy for Stan to supply memorable personalities (and character-delineating dialogue), to a verbose super-scientist, a hotheaded teenager, and a wisecracking monster (in the FF), but in the Royal Family, Lee’s tried-and-true characterization formulas proved largely ineffective. Black Bolt’s muteness (relative to Medusa), left little room for emotional development (although—mercifully—it kept Lee’s proclivity for over-the-top melodrama at economic levels). Likewise, Black Bolt’s role as their vox populi ruler, couldn’t foster the type of character conflict (i.e., leadership disputes), that simmered in the early FF, and came to full-boil in 1965’s “new” Avengers. Maximus notwithstanding, there’d be no classic Marvel discord in the ranks of the Attilan hierarchy.

What Lee had failed to do (i.e., give the Inhumans distinguishing personas), Kirby was unable to do. Predictably, character-driven dialogue and story nuance lost out to the artist’s forte—rapid-fire action.

After an obligatory FF crossover (AA #1 and 2), the Inhumans faced off with the Mandarin, in their final Kirby-drawn episodes (AA #3 and 4). By this time, the artwork was becoming unfocused and rushed-looking (my conjecture). Many panels—by Kirby standards—seemed underdrawn, and even Chic Stone’s solid inks couldn’t disguise the undeniably cartoonish-bent the figures had taken. True Believers—who’d been weaned on sleek, Kirby/Sinnott neo-realism—would view these devolved Attilans as near-caricatures of their former selves. The artist’s escalating apathy toward this assignment made one thing clear: Jack Kirby was no longer interested in creating Marvel Comics, with or without Stan Lee. Coming on the heels of the failed Thor series, Amazing Adventures had promised a new dawn for the Inhumans. It turned out to be a sunset. This same sunset would cast dark, acrimonious shadows that would obscure—then extinguish—Marvel’s two brightest lights.

A war was brewing, and an explosion was eminent.

Flashpoint: The Inhumans vs.

The Silver Surfer (And Kirby vs. Lee) “I already knew that any concept I contributed was instantly lost to me in a legal sense, but to lose it creatively as well...”

—Jack Kirby, reacting to the Lee/Buscema Silver Surfer One can only imagine the hostility Jack Kirby must have felt when Stan Lee pressed him into doing a last minute pinch-hitting job on Silver Surfer #18 (subbing for John Buscema). It was an eleventh hour effort to forestall cancellation, by giving the book a new direction—a.k.a the “Kirby Fix.” Kirby, who was working on his own version of the Surfer’s origin, was reportedly devastated when he first heard of the Lee/ Buscema project. Kirby’s Surfer, an emotionless being of pure cosmic energy—who had to learn morality from Earthlings—was totally antithetical to the Surfer that Lee was planning to unveil.

Lee’s “Norrin Radd,” was a shiny, philosophical alien who soared the skyways spouting Stan’s maxims on the meaning of life. Lee crammed as many deep meditations into his mouth as panel-space would allow, and—in the book’s original 40-page format—that was a lot.

“It’s the greatest series I know!” gushed Lee. Readers couldn’t have cared less.

Presumably unwilling to shell out a quarter for the book—or perhaps put off by the ponderosity of the dialogue—sales rapidly declined, and by issue #7, the mag was cut back to normal size. It didn’t help. Ten issues later, The Silver Surfer was hanging by a thread, almost certainly oblivion-bound.

Enter, Jack Kirby.

Undoubtedly vexed at being asked to rescue a book that wasn’t offered to him in the first place, The Surfer’s true architect brought two elements to the drawing table: acute animosity, and the incomparable Inhumans. Has any Silver Age Kirby effort displayed more unvarnished emotion than Silver Surfer #18? And herein, the emotion is all negative: Most of the panels seem roughhewn and coarsely-drawn, with an undercurrent of repressed anger— as if the artist drew them holding his pencil in his fist.

The graceless Attilans of SS #18—like the Inhumans of Amazing Adventures—are barely recognizable as the Royal Family Jack and Joe so eloquently portrayed back in FF #59. The internecine battle between the “good” and “evil” Inhumans—with the Surfer caught in the middle— is fairly innocuous: Nevertheless, despite the bitterness Kirby felt for this assignment, his professional acumen— and his patent inability to be mediocre— coalesced in one full-page scene of The Great Refuge that he rendered with pristine spectral beauty (shown here), in spite of himself.

had polarized the duo, and robbed them both of their passion to create comics for the House of Ideas. It was far too late for a Lee/Kirby Silver Surfer—or even a solo-Kirby Inhumans—to prevail.

From here on, Marvel was no longer invulnerable.

Among Us Hide The Attilans!

Q: (Regarding Kirby’s youth:) Was there anti-Semitism back then?

KIRBY: Yes. A lot of it. And it hasn’t changed. There’s antiSemitism today.

—Jack Kirby, The Comics Journal, Feb. 1990

Even in decline he seldom walked small.

The book’s final page is as near a self-portrait of the artist as one could ask for. It embodies Kirby’s attitude to the series, to a dishonest editor, to an unscrupulous publisher—and to Marvel in general. Seemingly berserk from his entrapment on the dystopian planet Earth, Kirby has Lee’s embodiment of peace and pacifism snap, and declare war on mankind.

Kirby too had declared war: The Silver Surfer was the last straw—the flashpoint that ignited the final disintegration of his partnership with Lee, and his tenure at Marvel.

The Inhumans-dominated SS #18 was a desperate, last-ditch effort to turn Lee’s magnum opus around, by promising a fresh new blend of Marvel action and angst.

It failed.

Stan Lee’s Silver Surfer would never soar again. The book’s cancellation crushed Lee, just as losing the character creatively had pained Kirby. Ironically, the “Sentinel of the Spaceways”—a character whom both men loved dearly—

In the early 1960s the comic book was a genre in which super-heroes were generally beloved by humanity (with the negligible exception of a few Marvel “anti-heroes”).

The advent of Kirby’s mutant-hunting Sentinels—and xenophobia—changed all that. Fear and resentment (by mankind) of super-powered coalitions—even altruistic

(previous page, top) The graceless, coarsely drawn Inhumans of Silver Surfer #18 (Sept. 1970) demonstrated Kirby’s lack of enthusiasm at the twilight of his 1960s’ Marvel tenure. (top & bottom) A failure to communicate? The dialogue in this panel from FF #59 (Feb. 1967) seems to be at odds with Kirby’s narrative agenda.

Did Crystal develop a momentary crush on her big sister’s boyfriend—thus prompting Medusa’s indignant body language (and gaze)? Likewise, Kirby seems to have Medusa giving Black Bolt the “cold shoulder” in this bottom example, contrary to Stan’s dialogue. Margin notes, please! (middle) If Medusa is Crystal’s sister, and Black Bolt is Crystal’s uncle (as shown here), wasn’t Black Bolt shacking-up with his own niece?

It had all the makings of a Shakespearian drama. It had all the makings of a Jerry Springer episode. (If you know any super-heroes who are both married and blood-relatives, call 1-800-96-JERRY!) Inhumans, Silver Surfer TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.

AND FINALLY...

BLACK BOLT! He was the silent embodiment of tragic nobility.

How many super-heroes have a power so great they dare not use it? It was this type of thinking that made Kirby and Lee the most formidable creative team the medium ever produced.

Conversely, it’s been speculated Black Bolt’s speechlessness was entirely Kirby’s idea, as a backlash against Lee’s verbosity. After years of seeing his characters crushed under huge blocks of Lee-verbiage, Kirby undoubtedly relished the idea of a silent sovereign, whose narrative agenda couldn’t be compromised by dialogue that subverted his original plots. This makes a strong case for Kirby—sans Lee—being the sole author of the Attilans: e.g., would any dialogist, particularly the long-winded Lee, concoct a character who was totally mute?

To his credit, Stan resisted the temptation to glean into Black Bolt’s psyche with thought balloons.

Consequently, a significant trademark of Lee’s scripting—introspection— would never pervade the persona the Inhumans’ laconic leader. Unlike Marvel’s other “handicapped heroes” (Professor X and Daredevil), whose bodies were unable to function normally, Kirby’s taciturn titan was entirely capable of speaking, but—for obvious reasons—chose not to. This element of almost unbearable repression, gave the Attilan king a poignancy and pathos unprecedented in comics. He seemed more cursed than blessed by his powers.

Finally, there was the bizarre, baffling element permeating Black Bolt and Medusa’s coupling, that no one— including the writers—seemed to know what to make of. Incestuous cohabitation was a practice that proliferated among royal families for centuries (ostensibly, to keep aristocratic bloodlines pure). Modern thinking however, concurs this custom violates the established principles of eugenics (and of course, morals). Officially, Black Bolt and the scarlet-tressed beauty are cousins (see the “official” FF index); but in Thor #149, Crystal identifies Black Bolt as her uncle, which would make him Medusa’s... well, you get the idea! Whatever the relationship, Lee and Kirby wisely left this outlandish situation an obscurity, with the lingering question of why this problematic aberration was ever introduced to begin with.

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ones like the X-Men—would add a multi-layered complexity to Marvel’s storylines, and set a dark, monumental new tone for the entire comics genre. The Mutant/Attilan premise, i.e., a secret persecuted race hiding among us, who are the object of prejudice and hostility from the outside world, isn’t really a fantastical premise to anyone who’s read the The Diary of Anne Frank.

Had it all spawned from Kirby’s Jewishness?

Perhaps the anti-Semitism Kirby witnessed in World War II had seeped into his work on a visceral level even he wasn’t aware of. Not that it ended in the ’40s: Throughout the 1950s, well into the ’60s, Jews—here, in America—were the indiscriminent targets of outright societal discrimination; unwelcome in many “elite” establishments, and generally lacking the social cachet of their WASP counterparts. Alienated from a world that distrusted and resented his brethren, Kirby may have been responding— with his X-Men and “Inhumans”—to the antagonism of an antiSemitic society, and his own relative powerlessness in it. Perhaps the Royal Family was Kirby’s metaphoric tribute to families like Anne Frank’s and their kinsmen: The European Jews of the 1940s, who were subjected to the most inhuman treatment imaginable.

We know Kirby viewed these persecuted minions as heroes (see Sgt. Fury #2), which they incontrovertibly were. Perhaps, after filtering through the artist’s weltanschauung, his exploding visceral imagination, and—finally—his drawing pencil, these downtrodden outcasts became his X-Men and Inhumans—whose overriding concern was simply survival in a hostile world.

“Jewish people have a history of being evicted from various homelands by an array of purges and pogroms, and there was probably some parallel, in Kirby’s mind, between that and his recurring theme of hidden races. I leave it to others to expand on this theme.”

—Mark Evanier, TJKC #35

Phantoms In The Terrigen Mist In the end, Jack Kirby’s Inhumans displayed seeds of greatness that somehow never took root. The unrealized ambitions of all “three” Inhumans series, gave a glimpse into the future of the Attilan hierarchy. The Royal Family would never go on to become the mega-stars the FF were, and the X-Men would one day become. Future comic-book creators would have little success in terms of longevity—launching them as solo-stars. (If Lee and Kirby couldn’t do it, who could?) Despite their seeming inability to carry their own title, the group was far too innovative and potent to simply vanish into the night—like phantoms—back (top) In this Amazing Adventures #1 panel (Aug. 1970), Kirby gleans into Black Bolt’s mind via thought balloons—something Lee never did.

Inhumans TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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into the Terrigen Mist. For decades, they would continue to wander the Earth (and Moon) experiencing varying vicissitudes of fortune (all the while being viable commercial commodities for scores of future writers— and Marvel—to prosper from).

And what of the man who created them?

The Inhumans were yet another reminder that the mythopoeic visionary who created an entire constellation of stars for the Marvel galaxy—instead of reaping Disneyian rewards—was paid page rates.

The fact that Jack Kirby earned only a pittance of the untold millions his talent has generated—and will continue to generate— is, in the final analysis, a gross inhumanity.

Attilan Addendum I don’t pay much attention to Marvel Comics anymore, but upon finishing this article I skimmed through the latest issue of Fantastic Four (#52 at the time of this writing). I was pleasantly surprised to see a pregnant, pendulousbreasted Invisible Girl (who’s now The Invisible “Woman”) on the cover, in her original Kirby-designed costume. (Sol Brodsky’s original FF logo was also still there, albeit in scaled-down format.) Best of all, on page #? (apparently they don’t number them anymore) there were Kirby’s Inhumans (right), looking exactly as Jack originally drew them back in 1965, with every costume detail—and even the coloring—totally unchanged. [Note: One infinitesimal addition was made to Karnak: instead of just a moustache, he now sports a Generation X-style “van Dyke.”] The strip’s artist (Mark Bagley) even remembered to draw Triton.

I’d like to think Kirby would approve. ★ M.A. wishes to thank (alphabetically) Shane Foley, Mike Gartland, and John Morrow: We couldn’t have produced this article without their help. P.C. would like to thank Mark Evanier, for his patience and invaluable input.

Thanks Guys!

One thing to remember about Jack’s files: In the 1960s, when Jack needed reference for a story that was not printed yet, Marvel sent him stats of his pencil art, after it was lettered (so he could refer to the previous issue while working on the next). If they sent Jack inked stats, they were from something that already saw print, and he needed to refer to for a new project.

There are an awful lot of inked stats of Jack’s early Inhumans stories in his files, meaning these were sent to him as reference for a later Inhumans book or series (either a new solo Inhumans book, the Thor back-ups, or even for FF Annual #5—but not for the 1970 Amazing Adventures stories; Marvel was only sending out photocopies by that late point in Jack’s tenure, not stats).

out and dialogued them when he had pages to fill in FF Annual #5? (This would explain why Jack kept forgetting poor old Triton; he originally wasn’t part of the group!) And then Stan sent stats to Jack so he could do similar ones of the missing Inhumans? (Since Medusa was introduced first, could her pin-up be from an even earlier concept drawing of the character which never got statted?)

To my eyes, all the “original” Inhumans look like they were inked by Joe Sinnott, whereas Triton and Maximus were inked by Frank Giacoia—the same inker who filled in on FF Annual #5 at the last minute (Joe Sinnott’s name was already lettered on the title page when Frank inked the story). Also, the lettering on those two are noticeably different from the others (larger, less slanted), lending creditability to the idea that they were drawn and inked later than the others. Of note: The Maximus pin-up is chopped way shorter than the others, and “floats” in the middle of the page, so I doubt it was drawn specifically as a pin-up for FF Annual #5.

Maybe Jack had a leftover FF page of Maximus laying around?

Which leads to FF Annual #5’s Inhumans pin-ups.

Jack only had pencil stats of four of the seven in his files: Black Bolt (left), Gorgon, Karnak, and Crystal. But although Stan’s hand-written text is on them, they weren’t lettered. So we must assume Jack drew these and they got put on a shelf without being printed initially (i.e. they were drawn sometime before it was decided to use them in FF Annual #5, Nov. 1967).

Could these four have been Jack’s original concept drawings for the Inhumans, and Stan dug them

While you’re at it, look at the solo Silver Surfer story in the back of FF Annual #5 (see page 69 of this issue). On page one, it says “Continued After Next Page”, but there’s no ad page following it (don’t go by the reprint in the recent Essential Silver Surfer book, since they deleted the “Continued...” notation there). Also, look at the last panel of the Surfer story; that “FINI” looks like an afterthought, where it might’ve originally said “Next:”, as if there’d be another story next issue. Is it possible this was originally drawn for a planned Surfer series in a split-book like Tales To Astonish?

There’s a few mysteries; take ’em for what they’re worth! ★

# FF Annual 5 Mysteries

by John Morrow

Tribute

2002 Kirby Tribute Panel Held August 4, 2002 at Comicon International: San Diego, featuring (shown at right, top to bottom): Dick Ayers, Todd McFarlane, Mike Royer, Paul Levitz, John Romita, and Herb Trimpe. Moderated

by Mark Evanier, transcribed by Steven Tice.

(below) Catch! A 1977 Kirby convention drawing of ol’ Greenskin!

Hulk TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.

MARK EVANIER: We’re going to get started.

We’ve got lots to say about this man and we’re going to try to say it. I am purportedly Mark Evanier. Merely as a means of getting cheap applause, this is my twelfth panel of the convention, [laughter and applause] and in many ways the most important. We started doing Jack Kirby tribute panels right after Jack passed away, because it didn’t feel like a Comicon International without Jack Kirby in some way, shape or form. We found if we didn’t have this panel, we were talking about him on every other panel and people were talking about him everywhere. There’s been a certain presence—you were all probably stunned by how large this

convention is. This convention has officially run out of badge holders. [laughter] They do not have badge holders anymore. They are recycling them, and as you leave, they ask you to please turn your badge holder back in so you can give it to someone else who’s in a line that wraps around the city to get in here. I think the first one, we had five hundred people and we thought that was the size of it. There was only one person who envisioned what this convention was going to become, and it was Jack Kirby. Jack always knew what was going to happen—his ability to see the future and perceive it. He didn’t always have the ability to capitalize on those visions, and did not make big money off of them, but he sure knew what was going to happen, and it was amazing all the time. We’ve got a bunch of people here who have interesting things to say about Jack, and we’ll ask them for their remembrances of Jack. A little later, we’re going to break out some time to talk about a man named John Buscema, who was on this panel last year at this convention. [applause] Let me start now and introduce these people, and I’m gonna talk a little more about each of them than you might ordinarily expect, because I’ve got a few things I think should be said here. On the far end is a gentlemen who, you probably know him—the phrase “Jack Kirby’s inker” comes to mind. I happen to think this man should have done less inking of other people and more stories of his own, because I’ve never thought the work looked—I’m phrasing this badly, forgive me, it’s my twelfth panel of this convention. [laughs] I’m going to come in tomorrow and just do panels for myself here at the convention. [laughter] But I just always loved when this man penciled and inked everything on his own. A terrific artist, and a gentleman who Jack really respected his work and loved what he did with his pencils. Mr. Dick Ayers, everyone. [applause] Jack admired artists who brought something new to the table. If you went to Jack with samples of your artwork that looked exactly like his, or purported to look as close to his as you could manage to do them, he would be polite, but he wouldn’t be that impressed, because doing work that looked like Kirby was not work in the Kirby tradition. Work in the Kirby tradition meant making something new. And he very much respected and admired this gentleman’s work, and also respected and admired his courage and ability to take over command of one’s own career. Jack was jealous of him, because for too much of his career, he was not the master of his own destiny, he didn’t own his own properties, he didn’t really control what happened to him, and he very much—he lived long enough to see the Image Comics 55

organization begin to flourish and to show Marvel “we don’t need you to do it,” and I think Jack very much respected and loved the work of Mr. Todd McFarlane, ladies and gentlemen. [applause] I’ve known Mike Royer for 33 years, I believe...

MIKE ROYER: I’m only 23. [laughter] EVANIER: Oh, well, I knew Mike in his prenatal period [laughter], and when I first went to work for Gold Key Comics, they used to say Mike Royer was the most reliable artist in the history of mankind.

They were right, and you all saw over the years the very, very fine work he did on those pages, inking Jack’s work, lettering it, for hundreds of wonderful pages. What you may never have perceived is that Mike had the impossible task, he not only had to ink Jack Kirby and letter Jack, but he had to do it as 56

fast as Jack Kirby did. [laughter] There are few human beings in our business who could have physically done it, period, let alone done it so well. He was very diligent at it all, and we owe him a great debt of gratitude. Mr. Mike Royer, ladies and gentlemen. [applause] If you have followed me writing about comics for thirty years, you know that I generally look at the people who run comic book companies and editors as, for the most part incompetent, and in many cases, unethical. I believe this is true, I believe many of the people who have made fortunes in this industry have done so in spite of their abilities, not because of their abilities. I don’t have a very high opinion of publishers or editors or presidents of companies, and I think I am right most of the time.

There are exceptions to this. There are one or two people who have been in those capacities for whom I have enormous respect and admiration, and I’m going to take a minute here and tell you two very

fast stories, because I think they should be said, they should be out in the public arena. About two weeks before he passed away, I spent an evening with Jerry Siegel at his place in Marina Del Rey, and we spent an evening talking about—I got a feeling Jerry kind of knew the end was near, because he was in that philosophical bent and such, and at one point he turned to me. He had this lovely little— they did a stamp of Superman in Canada. Joe Shuster was of Canadian origin, and they’d done a stamp of Superman in Canada, and in this miserable, bad picture frame that you buy at the drug store, next to a little, badly framed letter that had come from President Clinton, congratulating Jerry Siegel on his most recent birthday or some anniversary.

And Jerry was so happy. And he turned to me and he said, “You know, Paul [Levitz] has been so good to us.” Now, I remember meeting Jerry Siegel in 1968, when if you said “DC Comics” to him, he turned red in the face and started sputtering. You had to not ask him questions about this because it upset him so much. And to be able to—nobody could have undone all the damage that was done to Siegel and Shuster over the years, and to be able to do as much as they could, I just wanted to call Paul in tears and thank him for all he did for Jerry and Joe over the years. But it isn’t just Jerry and Joe. There’s an awful lot of people over the years in the comic business who’ve been wronged or have been mistreated. Some of them more than others, some of them maybe their own fault, whatever. But to see a certain amount of decency in this business, to go out and quietly, not for show, to put things right, I think is just a wonderful thing. It’s probably good business, but it’s also a wonderful thing. And I’m going to come and ask Paul to tell a little bit about the fact that Jack Kirby got from DC a royalty deal, some sort of profit participation, on the New Gods, that they were not legally obligated to do. And I think, and we have to be honest, it was good business for DC to do that, they showed up Marvel and they showed up other publishers. They told the industry that as new management that took over DC that time, “This is a new company. Look how we’re treating Jack Kirby. We’re giving him more money for the Steppenwolf doll than Marvel ever gave him for every piece of merchandise with the Hulk and the Fantastic Four and the Silver Surfer and all those.” And that’s probably good one-upsmanship business-wise, but it was also a very decent thing to do, and I want him to talk about what happened.

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Paul Levitz. [applause] This week he’s president and publisher, next week he’ll be publisher but not president, the week after he’ll be president, publisher, and... you never know what’s up with Paul.

I asked this next gentlemen to be here again this year—he was here last year—because I thought he was the best possible person to talk about Mr. Buscema, but he also was an artist who Jack admired greatly. He’s referred to always as “the guy who saved Spider-Man.” We had an interesting discussion on the Gene Colan mailing list (and Gene’s very sorry he’s not here this year) about the fact that when Steve Ditko left Spider-Man—forgive me for getting off subject for a second—it wasn’t just that John Romita was the best choice. He was the only choice.

If you look at the list of people who worked for Marvel at that time, the talent pool was about eight

guys. And none of them could have done Spider-Man at all, really, except for this man, who took this book and made it into a—he did something impossible: He made the second artist on a major character as important as the first artist, and he became an artist who people looked at and thought, “This man reinvented a classic character and brought him to new heights.”

We all really secretly wished he’s drawn Daredevil at that time, and all these other comics as well, and hadn’t been art director and had stayed at the board, Mr. John Romita. [applause] Lastly, we have sitting to my left here, this year’s recipient of the Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award, which is a great honor until you find out who got it last year. [laughter] [Editor’s note: Mark Evanier was the 2001 recipient.] We are delighted that he came out here. There are many artists in our business who, over the years, worked very quietly and just did good work for a great, long period of time. This gentleman took over the Hulk at one point, and a lot of us went, “Man, what’s this guy doing drawing the Hulk? He’s not supposed to be drawing the Hulk!” But after a couple of issues, we’d worked out that suddenly he was the Hulk artist, and to be able to makeover and apply a lot of Jack Kirby principles and bring his own fresh storytelling viewpoint to it. He went on to do other strips for Marvel for years. And we’re going to talk about, I want to ask him about, when we get to this point of this, he was going to take over the Silver Surfer book right after Jack. I want to talk about that a little bit. Will you welcome Mr. Herb Trimpe. [applause] Let’s go back, I want to start with Paul, if I could. Paul, I started to talk about getting Jack a percentage on the New Gods.

Could you talk a little bit about how that came about? DC was not at that point legally obligated to do this, but somebody turned to somebody else in the office and said, “You know, we ought to do this.”

PAUL LEVITZ: We had begun to change the approach of the business to give talent a participation in their works a few years before, because comics had kind of reached a point where the creative talent pool was holding back. The deal for creating anything new was so nonexistent that there was no motivation to do it, and Jerry and Joe in particular were sort of sitting there as poster children for how badly the system could work out, never mind what deal was legal, moral... whatever stuff happened over the years, no one could sit there forty years, fifty years into the history of Superman and say, hey, those guys don’t have any more money, and feel that they ever wanted to end up like that. So the writers and artists were saying, “Ah, I’ll do your old characters, maybe I’ll give you a new villain once every 300 years, but I’m going to put the minimum possible in.” And Jenette Kahn had come in at DC originally as publisher with a very strong combination, as Mark says: Good business sense, that this meant that the company was getting shorted on its future because we weren’t building anything, and very strong personal integrity that it was not morally right to be treating creative people that way, and argued through the corporate

structure the ability to give people equity in new things they were creating for the DC mythology.

A few years into this, we began a wonderful project to build a new toy line, and we had a big bid-off between, at the time, Kenner and Mattel. Kenner won. So we were sitting trying to figure out how to do a great line of Superman, Batman, Flash toys. And we started looking at the villains in the DC Universe, and they made pretty mediocre toys. The mix we had available at that time didn’t include a lot of characters who were powerful. “What we really need in this is a great villain.” “Who does great villains?” “Jack does great villains.” “Did he do any for us?” “Yeah, we’ve got Darkseid... and maybe we can do it with all these guys over here. But it needs a little work creatively to figure out how to fit it with that, how to make great toys out of it. Who can we get to do it?” “Well, why don’t we get Jack?” And in the course of talking to him about it, we realized that we could get just enough new creative work out of that that we could stare ourselves in the mirror and justify to the corporation that that was an acceptable excuse to kind of rewrite history and turn the clock back and say, “Well, Jack, in trade for doing this stuff, which we’ll pay you to do, we’ll also give you the kind of royalty from these characters that have not yet being exploited, as if you were creating them today.”

And part of it was certainly that it was a good message to our competition. Part of it was a good message to

(previous page) Jack’s pencils from Super Powers #3 (2nd series), page 16.

How often do you get to see a Kirby Dr. Fate?

All characters TM & ©2003 DC Comics.

(above) Convention drawing for a 1977 British comicon. Barry WindsorSmith inked this piece for the cover of Jack Kirby Quarterly #10 (1998).

Thing TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.

(left) The Apokolips Street Skimmer, one of Jack’s designs for the Super Powers toy line. ©2003 Kenner Toys.

57

that it was just the time for it to happen, or do you think people like Jack moaning about it and complaining about it and such had an impact in changing the way this industry thought about their talent?

LEVITZ: Well, I think that if you go back to the dawn of the business, many of the deals done in the Golden Age were better than the ones done for the next twenty years. I remember seeing royalty deals for Simon & Kirby on things like “Sandman” where they were getting a per copy something on top of what their page rate was. I wasn’t able to find those again in the last decade or so I was looking for it again, out of curiosity, but I’d seen those as a kid, looking at it from fan curiosity and as history. I think the business did get worse and there was a need to cut back, and I think a lot of that cutting was done out of necessity. I think a lot of it was done out of stupidity. There’s a great difference, economically, between giving people a larger share of mutual success and giving people a larger share in failure or mediocrity. And what tended to happen in the business probably from the mid-Forties through the mid-Seventies was exceptional, certainly. The prevailing wisdom of the companies was, “We couldn’t afford to give people a share of our successes, because the successes had to pay for the failures.” There’s some truth in that. Every successful comic book somewhat underwrites a bunch of unsuccessful comic books that continue to exist, but it gave no incentive for people to stay around. I think what Jack did, what guys like Neal Adams did, and Jerry did in arguing for himself, and many many other creators on in the next generation, each of those steps raises the bar and forces companies, forces the industry to deal with it. Change doesn’t happen without a need for change. It can happen either because someone walks in and says, “If you’re not going to do this my way, I’m going to find another way to make it work for me,” which is I think the essence of what Todd did. It could happen because someone withdraws their services, which is I think part of what Jack did at a certain point in his career. He just thought, “The deal here really sucks.” And being Jack, he never said it that way, he’d never say it to anyone’s face—.

EVANIER: I heard him say it that way. [much laughter]

(above) Bullseye #4 cover.

Kirby went the “Image” route when he and Joe Simon founded Mainline Publishing in the 1950s.

Bullseye TM & ©2003 Joe Simon and the Jack Kirby Estate. Courtesy Heritage Comics.

(below) McFarlane Hulk art.

Hulk TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.

our current talent to say, “Look, we have this toy project, look what happens, you can make some money on it.” And partly because we really liked Jack. We really had tremendous respect for what he had done. During the period he was having a lot of problems with Marvel and really with his career in general, I think, in terms of career satisfaction. And we were able to work something out that was good for him and good for us at the same time. And that continues to earn the Estate money. If you see the Demon show up on a Saturday morning cartoon, that picks up a few grand somewhere in the system, I guess—a hundred—it depends how many characters appear in it, and adds into the royalty system. That feels good when you see that check go out.

EVANIER: Paul, you remember, as I do, a period not that long before you guys took power at DC when this was unthinkable.

And Jack was arguing that this kind of deal should be in the business, and they were telling him not just, “We don’t want to do it,” they were telling him they couldn’t do it, that it was legally impossible, it was financially impossible.

Do you think what had happened, the change... and, of course, we should mention that Marvel changed their— the way creators are treated in this business has changed a lot. Do you think

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LEVITZ: But what people were offering him, he just said, “I’m going to go do something else where maybe it will work better for me.” And a lot of what happened, I think, in the mid-Seventies, when I was coming into the business and getting established, came out of people who were just saying, “I’m just not going to play by this game.” That’s part of what won the fight as well.

EVANIER: Paul has anticipated my next segue here, to Todd.

Todd, I’d like you to answer two questions in either order. One is about how Jack inspired you as an artist and creator, and another is how Jack perhaps inspired you as a negative example, about becoming a piece-worker in the Mighty Marvel Machine.

TODD McFARLANE: Those really are the two biggest things that Jack did in my life. It’s sort of a—I’ve got gray hairs now, but the men that are sitting up here by me, probably have between two and three hundred years of experience. Somewhere within the confines of that, as a young artist coming in to the business, you have to draw on that. I was foolish enough that when I first broke in—I think most of us sort of fall into this trap—you sort of get caught up on what is new and what was hot at that time. And when I was just trying to break into comic books, there’s people like Walt Simonson and George Pérez, Art Adams and Mike Golden and Frank Miller. Those were the guys that I thought were the really good guys. It wasn’t really until after I broke into the business that I started to actually pay attention to the likes of John Romita, John Buscema, Ditko, Gil Kane, and of course, Jack Kirby. At the beginning I couldn’t understand it. Why would he do squiggles for knees? That’s not how you draw a knee. And now, as I get older, and I tell people I was influenced artistically

by Jack Kirby, they go, “How can that be?” Kirby’s style was consistent, and you have to have a consistency. So although Neal Adams’ artwork was realistic and Kirby’s is fantastic, both of them look consistent within that style so that you can believe the

world that you were reading at any given time. Jack Kirby was also about emotion and melodrama and dynamics. So I’m here to tell you that those big shots that I did of the Hulk, and those ones of Spider-Man jumping out of the panels, and Spawn standing there with the cape and all his regalia; all of that came from those great moments in Fantastic Four that I ended up seeing, how Kirby—they were those “comic book moments,” as I call them, and I just went, “Wow.” And later on I got to meet him personally, I got to ink—shows you my fan influence—I got to ink two Jack Kirby covers. One, I inked over him and I said, “Jack, I want to do my Todd version on your art, I want to give you a different sort of look.” And he was gracious enough to say yes. But I remember the moment when I was erasing the page—because after you ink it, you’ve got to erase it, right? And I was erasing the page, going, [gasps] “That’s Jack Kirby pencils I just erased!” [laughter] I had them in a bag for a while, going “That’s sacrilegious, what I did!” [laughter] The second cover I did, I went, “Jack, I’ll do the second one, but can I ink it on an overlay?” And he goes, “Yeah, sure.”

And why? Because I now have a page of original Jack Kirby art. [laughter] The second part of it is, I’m a very curious guy. And all the way through my trying to break into comic books, one of the things that I did and I’m a big believer in, is not rely on too many things. And one of the things that I saw was consistent on a lot of the interviews—and a lot of them came from The Comics Journal at that time—was a repetitiveness of all these artists saying that they didn’t think that they got what they wanted out of their careers on an economical basis. And I remember, I have a clear recollection of reading the Jack Kirby one, and at the end of it saying—I haven’t even broken into comic books at this point— saying, “If they can take advantage of the King—Jack “King” Kirby—they can do that to anybody.” So with that as a piece of

information, I went into the comic book industry with my eyes wide open. I find it amusing that of all of the things that I said later at Image, I used to say when I was a beginner—and nobody listened to me because I had no voice in the community—and Jack actually is one of the reasons that Image came about. It was try and create as many possibilities for yourself, leave options for yourself. I think one of the things that—and I’ve talked to a lot of Golden Age artists, and I think what happened, they didn’t leave themselves any “out.” They didn’t give themselves any long-term thinking and there wasn’t a lot of options. And all that I wanted to try and do with my career was to create not only those great “comic book moments” and to bring that energy to the comic book thinking, which I hope I did to some degree, but also to leave myself some options in my comic book career. And that was because of listening and paying attention to what happened to Jack Kirby.

LEVITZ: I think, following on just what Todd said, one of the things people don’t focus on is that history that leads to an Image. A lot of the greats of the generation before tried some version of selfpublishing. Gil Kane, [Ross] Andru and [Mike] Esposito, [Joe] Kubert, Simon & Kirby certainly. There were versions of that in all those incarnations when Todd talks about the history. The urge was there. The rules of the game didn’t permit it to succeed,

generally speaking, at that time, and the level of courage that it took, timing, and all those things all come together. But he was very much building on that, yet at the same time, the earlier generation were doing that out of far greater desperation. When those guys were trying to do it, they were doing it against a deal that had, as he said, very little economic benefit intrinsic in it.

Part of what made Image unique as the next step forward in that, is they were walking away from what Bob Kanigher described as the “golden handcuffs” of the time. These were the successful guys walking away from fair-sized bags of money to try and use that to take it to the next level. And that I think is something that Jack in particular would have probably been applauding very, very loudly, because it was courage. And one of the things that Jack represented as an individual, I think he had a tremendous premium in his mind in how people did business, either in terms of their courage or their integrity.

(above) Ayers inks Kirby on Two-Gun Kid #61 (Jan. 1963).

Two-Gun Kid TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.

(left) A shot of Ayers from the 1960s Merry Marvel Marching Society kit. ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.

(below) More Kirby/Ayers, from Rawhide Kid #31 (Dec. 1962).

Rawhide Kid TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.

McFARLANE: And remember, there was sort of a quasi-version in Jack at Pacific Comics, too, that he was sort of trying to show the way, or once again showing that there’s different ways to skin the cat. So he was always showing an example of how to do stuff and how to reinvent himself both artistically and on a business level.

EVANIER: Let’s shift gears slightly here and talk a little bit more about Jack’s more classic work and some of the people who helped make it possible. Mr. Ayers, down at the other end. [applause] I know you’ve told this story before, but I’m going to make you tell it again, the story about the first time a man named Stan Lee sent you Jack Kirby pages to ink. You take us back to that; before you started inking Jack, you generally did not ink other artists?

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month later I went all around and got three offers. And the one up at Dell was for a quarter of a cent royalty on every copy printed.

And Oscar LeBeck sat back and he said, “Our press run is one million copies.” Boy. And now he says—and this is where I learned English. He says, “You go and start working on the book, put it together.” Now I had to wrap a book around the idea. “And I’ll go on my vacation, and when I come back, we’ll write up the contract.” When I came back, he’d changed his mind! [laughter] So don’t work before it’s signed, I just learned that. Anyways, that came, that made my love for comics, and I got working with Joe Shuster. And this is the first time someone tested me. It’s the first time that I realized that it comes in two parts, penciling and inking. But Joe sent me down to Vin Sullivan, and he said he would turn me on to somebody who needed a book done. His name was Jimmy Durante. And it was a joy, I loved it. It worked in a semi-adventure style. And at that time I’m going around doing a lot of spot drawing, and I walked into the Popular Science, where I did some spot drawings. And the editor looked at it and said, “You know, you should be working for Simon & Kirby.” And I said, “Who are they?” I didn’t read comics. By golly, life turned out. Now here we come up to 1958 and business is so bad for poor old Stan, and I’m working in the post office and waiting. He says, “I know you’ve always done your own lettering, your own penciling, your own inking; try this. Let me send you a job to ink.”

So I got it, and I thought he wanted it just the way Jack drew it.

Stan looks at me and says, “If I’d wanted a tracer, I could go out to the street and hire anybody. I want you to embellish the work.”

And then he gave me a long story on what he wanted; he wanted me to embellish. And I did it, and the monster stories came, and I enjoyed every one of them, because Stan was asking me to really draw, to really work, and add to Jack. And then Sky Masters comes, and lo and behold, Jack does the same thing. He showed me the Wally Wood strips, the originals, and he says, “This is the way I want you to work.” Add blacks and do whatever I could think of to. You’ve got to be aware, Jack seems to be in the same discipline that I had. I mean, the special delivery man always came at 7:30 in the morning, and he had the 13-page monster story or whatever it was he wanted us to do, or else Sky Masters. And we never had a delay or a mix-up in editing. We worked together.

(above) While it’s certain Jack penciled the interior story, controversy remains over who penciled the cover to Silver Surfer #18 (Sept.

1970). In 1998, Herb Trimpe told original art collector Glen Brunswick he was positive that he had inked the cover, and Jack Kirby either did the layout for the cover or the complete pencils. Herb wrote: “There are elements in the composition that look like mine, such as hands and a couple of character poses— this may be due to my influencing the pencils with the finished inks.”

Silver Surfer, Inhumans TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.

(right) Herb Trimpe’s Kirbyinfluenced pencils for an unused cover for The Incredible Hulk #119 (circa 1969).

Hulk TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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AYERS: Never.

EVANIER: And the business had gotten very bad...

AYERS: Oh, this is 1958. I went in to see Stan one morning, which I very seldom did, because I usually mailed it in. That morning, Stan said, “Y’know, Dick, the ship is sinking. You know what the rats do when the ship is sinking. They get off it. It’s gotten so bad that my uncle doesn’t even say good morning to me anymore. [laughter] So this is it.” So when Stan said that, I figured that was it. So I got a job at the post office. A temporary job where I was handling Reader’s Digest and all those books that were being rejected, and I had to sort them as “Postage Due.” I lasted three days. [laughter] EVANIER: Let’s stop to remember this. Here is Dick Ayers, a fabulously talented artist who’d devoted his years to the business, and he’s working at the post office. That’s what the business had done to him.

AYERS: I started in ’47 and my first encounter was at an art school where one of the teachers had a date with one of the editors over at Marvel. And I asked her which, but she wouldn’t tell me.

Then she said, “They’re looking for teenage stories.” So I go home and I think up a nice idea about a boy and a girl, and the boy wanted to be a trumpet player in a big band, and the girlfriend supplied the nickels in the jukebox so he could play along, and they could have a great time and a conversation. By golly, a

EVANIER: Let the record show that as Mr. Ayers was describing thirteen pages of Jack Kirby pencils coming in the morning on schedule all the time, Mr. Romita turned to Mr. Trimpe and said, “Lucky son-of-a-bitch.” [much laughter] You inked Jack for a couple of years, there, at one point then they turned around and had you start penciling the Human Torch and other super-hero stories.

How did working over Jack’s pencils all those years change your penciling?

AYERS: Well, I think from the Popular Science—I hadn’t taken the same approach that Jack had, in that the story interpretation and characters—there must have been something there that made it just easy. The first was Sgt. Fury, where Stan was putting me back into my own penciling. And Sgt. Fury, I’ve got to admit, when I got it from Jack, the first one—I did three or four issues—I hated it. Now, I spent three years in the Army, and these guys were just not G.Is. It wasn’t that I expected them to be real, but these were just far out, and I didn’t like it. And then Stan’s giving it to me, going “get busy.” Well, it wasn’t until I remembered, when we got close into combat, we didn’t have the regulations. One guy had a silk scarf and he wore that, or had ski socks and he wore those. I got ahold of one of the combat troop’s .45s, and put it in a shoulder holster, and I’d grab ahold of that. So then I remembered the stories that when we would come back off a pass, the big stories about how we met the beautiful girls and read the British Times. And then I could really appreciate what Jack was doing.

We were thinking exactly the same thing in those first few issues.

EVANIER: Dick, you had that period where the business didn’t have any work for you and you went to the post office. Now, when you’re back working for Marvel in the Sixties, the work was pretty steady again... you work in the home, you’re freelance. No vacations, no health plan. They were just giving you piece-work.

The security was only in terms of the fact that Stan liked your work.

AYERS: When I started doing those monster stories, Stan sent me a photocopy of that first splash panel, and he sent me a note. It said, “Dick—I love ya!

Signed, Stan.” And I’ve got that framed on the wall, signed in 1960. And then also came a letter... “Now I don’t have that much work to give you, but believe me, you’ll get the first that comes.” And that was the 1959 period. And Stan kept his word. Boy, I kept busy all the time.

EVANIER: I wish we could spend more time with each of these gentlemen, but I want to get to Mr. Trimpe here. [applause] Let’s go back. Often I know, on these panels, the answers to the question that I’m asking. I don’t know the answer I’m about to ask you. The Silver Surfer comic had been going along. John Buscema was doing it, it was a book that was very well-respected, but it was not selling as well as it might have. One day they decided to switch, and that particular month, instead of Buscema drawing the Silver Surfer and Kirby drawing Thor, they reversed, and Jack penciled an issue of Silver Surfer and Buscema drew Thor that month.

Now, that had several functions, I understand, and one was that Stan was seeing if Buscema could handle Thor, because he was hoping he could rotate Jack off it to do a brand new book later on. But also, the Silver Surfer book had gotten kind of off-story.

And the plan was, as I understand it, correct me if I’m wrong, that Jack would do the one issue and then you would take over penciling the book, and they were going to call it the Savage Silver Surfer.

Does any of this sound familiar to you?

entertained in the process, and also educated in the process. I think Todd described the knee, the squiggle that he does. I was totally smitten by this stylistic approach that Jack had, to create these incredibly dramatic panels and pages that were done with a pencil technique that I couldn’t begin to fathom, even though on face value they looked... like, I could make that line, but putting the combination of squiggles and slashes together in a way... I was just completely blown away by it all. I can’t even begin to describe it. So inking that stuff was easy. It was like calligraphy. Not everybody inked him with a brush; I think Vinnie Colletta used a pen.

JOHN ROMITA: A whisk broom. [laughter] EVANIER: Let the record show that this panel’s cheap shot at Vince Colletta did not come from me. [laughter] TRIMPE: But yeah, it was very expressive in terms of the brushwork. Of course, nowadays, I don’t think many people can use a brush to the degree it

was used in those days. But that’s all I can basically say about that.

EVANIER: Now, before you had inked Jack, you felt his presence in the office, and when you drew the Hulk, Stan must have at some point referenced Kirby to you as a—well, let me start by asking, drawing the Hulk, you took over from Marie Severin, and it looked to me like you started drawing Marie’s Hulk— TRIMPE: Yes. EVANIER:—and then changed it into your Hulk at some point. Did you look back at Jack’s Hulk?

TRIMPE: Jack plays a very key part in all this. I came into Marvel and I didn’t know what I was doing, and it was years—I mean, I still don’t. That’s why I’m not doing it anymore. [laughter] But I had no idea what I was doing. I came to Marvel, I was a big EC fan. They’re the only books I really read. I didn’t know super-heroes. I didn’t read a Marvel comic until 1965, eventually, when I was in Vietnam, a

HERB TRIMPE: No. [laughter] EVANIER: Okay. I don’t want to put you on the spot.

TRIMPE: What year was this?

EVANIER: This would have been 1969.

TRIMPE: ’69? Hmm... no, I don’t think that happened.

EVANIER: Okay. I think you’re wrong. [laughter] TRIMPE: Let me put it this way: They didn’t tell me about it. It’s possible that that decision was made, and it’s possible that I wasn’t informed.

EVANIER: Does anybody else remember this in the Bullpen Bulletins besides me?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: It was 1970, Mark.

EVANIER: Okay, 1970, thank you. [laughter] But you did that issue of Silver Surfer.

TRIMPE: Yes. EVANIER: What did it mean to you when somebody said to you, “Hey, Herb! We’re gonna have you ink Kirby on this book”?

TRIMPE: Well, inking Jack, obviously, as anybody— his pencils or recreations of his pencils would probably be the easiest thing in the world. Maybe not for everybody, but basically for anybody—[laughter] I mean, anybody that had any notion of working in comics as an inker or a penciler, it was like diving in over your head if you were asked to handle Jack’s stuff. I don’t think I had much experience in doing that. But what I did do, it was a piece of cake. It was incredibly delightful to work on, because the pencils... not only were you getting paid, but you were also 61

Thor comic that I remembered, stylistically. I remember it was Vinnie. I didn’t know the names, but Vinnie had inked it. And I read it, and it was kind of cool, the story. And that was my introduction to Marvel Comics. But I was a big Disney fan and that kind of thing, and an EC fan. So I came to Marvel— I idolized Jack Davis, I came to Marvel with kind of a dramatic cartoon style much in the way that Jack drew. And it was good, I mean, it was good. By the time I had arrived, after I got out of the service, when I got to Marvel in 1966, Stan took one look at these samples—forget about it, that was a done deal.

Now he didn’t put Jack Kirby under my nose and say, “Draw like this.” He didn’t say that. But he said, “Keep this in mind.” The basic idea was keep this style in mind, the storytelling, the dramatic panel layouts, the general dynamic way in which Jack would compose and construct a story was what he wanted me, and I think a lot of other people, to look at at

the time. And then, when I started to look at Jack’s stuff, I said, “He’s right!” I mean, this stuff is freaking fantastic. It’s just unbelievable. And I still look at that stuff, I get the Kirby Collector, and I go through and... I don’t know where in the world all these pencil reproductions come from, I think everybody kept the originals. [laughter] They did tracings over them.

But I still look at that stuff and I think, “This is not beatable.” I mean, he was the King when I was working there, and in my mind, today, it’s just unbeatable stuff. So the influence of Jack Kirby on me was... I wanted so desperately to have that kind of power. It was actually detrimental, I think, to my development, because I did not seek my own potential to the degree that I would have otherwise. So for me I think there was actually a good side to it and a bad side, because once I started to idolize the guy— I met him, he came into the office on occasion, I probably met him a couple of times.

ROYER: When I worked for Gold Key, they’d say, “Make it look like Russ Manning,” or someone else.

“Make it look like...”. And so I look at Jack’s pencils and go, “God, I want to ink this,” but so that it looked like how I thought Jack would have inked it.

And I’ve been accused by people who didn’t like my work of saying, “All he did was trace Jack’s pencils.”

But Jack apparently liked what I did, because when I would change things—the notorious Big Barda splash, where it was like, “No, never change the faces.” So I had no personality, and Jack, I guess, liked that. [laughter and scattered applause] EVANIER: First of all, Jack loved what you did on the pages. Let me ask you, Mike. You were doing those things so fast that it was unbelievable. Like I said earlier, there were other artists in this business who couldn’t have inked fifteen pages a week, let alone lettered them as well. If you would have had, financially and schedule-wise, twice the time on the pages, would they have looked at lot different?

ROYER: Probably not. I went into Carmine Infantino’s office, what was it, 1970? You guys had been spending a year saying, “Get Mike, because Jack wants him, he wants the pencils unchanged,” or, “He doesn’t want things left out.” And I walked into Carmine Infantino’s office and I said, “Hey, I can do it for the same money as Vinnie, and I can make it look better.”

At lunch, Dick Giordano said, “Mike, you’re getting a reputation of being cocky.” [laughter] “Oh, okay.” They finally gave me the work, but for less money than Colletta. So I started at $15 a page... what was it to letter, $2.50?

EVANIER: Three dollars.

ROYER: So I had to letter the whole book in two days, and I had to ink three pages a day, to make two-thirds of the money I had made at the low, low rates at Gold Key. Now, if I’d had more time, I don’t know, because once Jack—that first conversation, “This is Jack Kirby. Alex Toth says you’re a pretty good inker.” And from that point on, it was like, “God, I’m going to get to ink Jack and eventually ink all the books!” But I wanted to keep up with him and please him and do everything. So I don’t know if there’d been more money, whether I would have spent more time, because then I wouldn’t have been able to do all of it.

And I went on a backpacking trip and went up to Mt. Whitney with my wife and my kids. And I was up there and it was like, God, the top of the world, and it was so beautiful, and I said, “Cheez, do I need this rat race?” And I came back and I said, “Jack, I can only do some of the books.” And he says, “You do it all or nothing.” [laughter] Not exactly those words. So I starved to death for three months and then I was back doing it again.

EVANIER: Mike has left out a wonderful part of the story. In the summer of

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1970, he wanted to try to get the job of being Jack’s inker, so he inked two or three pages of Jack’s leftover Marvel work. I think it was some Black Panther pages that Jack hadn’t used, inked a beautiful job, and that summer he went back. With us was my then-partner, Mr. Steve Sherman.

Steve, will you stand up and take a bow? [applause] We went back to the DC offices, Mike showed his samples to the people at DC, and the powersthat-were did not like these pages.

They not only didn’t like these pages, they made a point of calling in each editor to explain to Mike why these were not well-inked, and why Vince Colletta was the guy to stay on the book. Mike was very dejected, quite insulted. And then, as he was leaving, various people from the office made a point of coming up to him and saying, “I did like what you did, actually.”

Giordano was the first one, I think, who came up to him.

ROYER: Thank God for your great memory.

EVANIER: That’s right. [chuckles] Mike was horrified last night, I told him his 1969 phone number. I don’t know why I still remember it. [much laughter] Anyway, they ultimately did switch over to Mike because they figured he could do it for a dollar a page less.

ROYER: Three dollars a page.

EVANIER: Three dollars a page less.

LEVITZ: Four.

EVANIER: Four, Paul says four. But I think they told Mike it was a dollar less. [scattered laughter] I want to shift gears here and start talking for a little bit about what a wonderful artist we’ve lost and talk about another one, because we’re running out of time here. And I want to go to John Romita, if someone will put a microphone in front of this man.

JOHN ROMITA: Before we start, let me say something about when Mike took over the Kirby stuff. The guys that were inking some of the Eternals and stuff, John Verpoorten and myself and Frank Giacoia, all had a wake. We all sat together and cried and said, “Oh my God, we won’t be able to ink any of the Jack Kirby stuff.” [laughs] We had done the Bicentennial Battles Treasury Edition, and we all got a piece of it. It was bad enough to lose Jack, but some of us who were inking him really were going to miss him. [to Mike Royer] So I want you to know that you trampled on our souls when you did that. [much laughter] And Herb Trimpe’s over-simplification, yes, Jack Kirby did do formularized, direct, explicit pencil technique. What Herb failed to say is that a lot of pencilers are so vague and do three lines and give you a choice of one. Some of them do grays on their pencils and you have to decide how to make them black and white. Jack Kirby never left you that problem. Every single thing was there, including Kirby’s Cosmic Crap. [laughter] I remember all the cosmic effects he made. I used to spend days trying to explain that to some of my trainees at Marvel, how to do that

and what the pattern was. Because they thought if they did a lot of big, black blobs, they were going to get Kirby’s cosmic effect.

And they couldn’t understand. I said, “There’s a pattern there.

Just look for it. There’s a pattern he used. He’s not creating black spots. He’s creating white areas by putting black wherever there’s no light.” Nobody understood it. Jack did. He created it. He made it work, and he made it graphic, and he could produce it in a split-second, without any mess and clogging. It was wonderful stuff. But what Herb is passing up is that only a few guys, like he and Frank Giacoia and Mike Royer could understand that explicit, direct, black-and-white style. And the only reason I put Vinnie down was because he used to put a lot of lines where there didn’t need to be lines. There didn’t need to be a lot of hatch. All he needed to do was the blacks that Jack inscribed. It was a diagram, it was a natural gold mine, and a lot of guys just overlooked it.

The guys that didn’t overlook it and saw what Jack was doing— and I pride myself that I thought that way, because I had admired him since I was ten years old—the guys who got it, they said yes,

(this spread) Two pages from the 1976 Marvel Treasury Special, “Captain America’s Bicentennial Battles.” Trimpe inked the one on the previous page (probably enjoying it even more due to his love of old airplanes), and Romita inked the one above.

Captain America TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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you can do it. Other guys couldn’t do it, because they had messed it up.

ROYER: Can I say something, John? I want to tell everyone here that my comments about my dissatisfaction as a fan of Jack’s work and of his inks, does not include anybody at this table. [laughter] Please don’t walk away saying, “What’s he saying about me?”

ROMITA: Now to get back to John. I will tell you, to explain what John Buscema was to me... first of all, I’ll tell you, he’s my son’s favorite artist. Now, my son’s always talking about how great I am, but the truth of the matter is, the only artist he wanted to emulate was John Buscema. The only reason he couldn’t draw just like John Buscema is because he couldn’t actually, physically do it.

And the truth is, how many guys could? I’ve drawn all my life, and I’ve never been that good. The other thing is that John Buscema was there to bail me out of the worst moment of my life. Jack Kirby was about to leave Marvel, and I walked in to Stan with a long face and said, “Oh my God. Are we going to discontinue the FF?” And he says, “Oh no.” I said, “Are you going to tell me—who are you going to get to do the FF?” He says, “You’re gonna do it.” I said, “Are you crazy? I just came in here crying! [laughter] You’re gonna have me do it? I can’t do it! I can’t even approach it! I mean, I can swipe, I can trace, but I won’t be able to get any of the imagination in there.” He says, “You’re gonna do it.” Thank God I was only a stopgap measure, I only suffered through three or four issues. And John Buscema, my knight in shining armor, came through the wall, crashing through the bricks, and he did the FF as well as anybody.

Nobody could follow Jack. Nobody could do that explicit stuff and create worlds that we’d never dreamed of. But John was the closest thing to it, and let me tell you, that is no mean accomplishment. What he did was add a little bit of his own beauty and a little bit of his own subtlety, but he kept all of the—once he discovered, as Herb said, you look at it and you discover the power of it, you say, “Whoa! Wait a second.

He gave me a road map! All I have to do is follow it.” John followed the road map and made it his own, and yet it still looked like the Fantastic Four, which to me, I thought, was the most amazing thing I ever saw. And he was doing other books at the same time. I don’t know how the hell he did it, but he was a master—when he did those FF issues, I just was in complete awe, because I thought we were going to discontinue the book as an unfinishable odyssey. That was my fear.

EVANIER: John, last year we heard John Buscema, in this room, saying how much he didn’t like a lot of his work, putting down a lot of it, how he hated drawing people in suits, he hated drawing buildings. He hated drawing just about everything except some of Thor and a lot of Conan. [laughter] How seriously do you think we should have taken those comments?

ROMITA: Oh, let me tell you, I was at the other end of the phone every time we had to plot a story. Stan would give me a plot, and I would be given the job of— because if Stan gave John the plot, he would have quit. [scattered laughter] So what I would do is, I would be like a filter and I would take Stan’s directions, and I would feed it John, not apologetically, but I would sort of sugar-coat it. And I’d tell him, “Y’know, John, I know you hate this, but—” “Am I gonna have to do that old bag again in Spider-Man?” [laughter] “Can’t we kill that old bag off?

She’s driving me nuts, with her polka-dot dresses and her skinny legs and all—” [much laughter] He was dead serious. He was not putting me on. He was telling 64

me that, “Oh, if I had a choice, I wouldn’t do this. I’m doing this to be a good soldier. I wouldn’t do Spider-Man if I had a choice.

I’ll help you guys out as long as I can, but I’m up to here with those characters.” He hated Spider-Man. “If I have to do one more bad building with bricks, I’ll kill myself.” [laughter] EVANIER: I’m going to ask John perhaps a tough question. During John Buscema’s career, we saw him inked by everybody at Marvel, including Mr. Whiskbroom. We saw him do layouts for other people, we saw him inked by other folks on strips that he claims he hated. How often in that career at Marvel do you think that we got the best John Buscema had to offer?

ROMITA: Almost all the time. I will tell you, he was not only fast, but he was instinctively so subtle and so sensitive, despite all of his grumbling. And I used to kid him about it, I’d say, “You’re always grumbling that you hate this stuff and you hate the love stories—”. He did love stories. Now, I know he’d rather take a bullet in the brain than do a love story. [laughter] But he did love stories where you really rooted for the people in those damn pages. I mean, I fell in love with his women. And you know how silly it is for a guy who knows that this is a blank piece of paper until the guy starts drawing on it, to fall in love with the characters?

I got a splash page of a girl in an exotic outfit that I still treasure.

It’s on my wall in my house, because every time I see that, it cheers me up. I loved his women. Now, I’ve had a reputation for doing women, and people say they remember my female characters more than the male characters. I loved them—and I’ll tell you further than that, I used to love Jack Kirby’s women. And I had the dubious distinction and horror of making changes on some of Jack Kirby’s women’s faces. For the last few years, Stan used to want to change their expressions or something, and I had to change them. It was like cutting my own wrists to have to change somebody’s work who I admired. I thought Jack Kirby did the best love stories I ever saw. And when John Buscema did a woman, I fell in love with her. They came to life for me. I think a lot of readers took John for granted, and I think one of the reasons was the stuff was so perfect and so fluid that they were reading the story and they assumed that this was natural. Until they see somebody else messing it up, then they were like, “Wait a second, this didn’t have to be so good.” This was not something you could count on. He was good. Protesting, disgruntled, grumbly all the way to the drawing board, he did the best stuff I ever saw. And I said, “You son-of-a, you didn’t want to do this, but look what beautiful stuff.” He did Gwen Stacys that made me cry, he did Mary Janes that came to life better than anybody else that I ever saw. And all I can tell you is that he was sincere when he was grumbling, but his natural response to a challenge

was to turn out the most beautiful stuff I ever saw.

EVANIER: Now, let’s also point out that a lot of those love stories that John Buscema drew and claimed not to like that were so beautiful were inked by John Romita and Dick Ayers. [much applause] LEVITZ: [to Romita] And nobody, including you, ever beat that first panel with Mary Jane.

McFARLANE: That’s right. Now, if I could interject something for a moment here, just from the young artist’s point of view. With both Kirby and John Buscema, I think what inspired us, is that good, bad, or indifferent, the inkers couldn’t take away what made them what they were. I don’t care who you put on to ink Jack Kirby, his dramatics and his power were there. For us, let me just tell you, the seven founders of Image comic books, when we get behind closed doors, the first time the word John Buscema is mentioned, it’s like almost the same thing when we see doughnuts. [laughter] He was the guy, because, again, we’re now moving away from Kirby into more realism at this point. John Buscema to me is stunning, and I think that we have a couple of younger versions of that out there. [John Romita, Jr.] is one of them. Marc Silvestri has a terrific John Buscema influence. Greg Capullo. But what Buscema did for us was, unlike a lot of other artists, instead of worrying about the amount of drama he could do, just take a look at a Conan fight. I felt he could put the camera anyplace, anywhere in that drawing, and it would be convincing. Because

(previous page, top) Marie Severin was doing cover layouts for everyone on the Fantastic Four in 1970!

Shown here are roughs for issues #101 (drawn by Kirby), #106 (by Romita), and #107 (by John Buscema).

Fantastic Four TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.

(previous page, bottom) John Romita hard at work, from the 1960s Merry Marvel Marching Society kit. ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.

(above) Big John Buscema from the MMMS kit, and a Conan/Red Sonja fan drawing. Below is a Buscema Tarzan rough.

Photo ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc. Conan, Red Sonja TM & ©2003 Robert E. Howard Estate, Inc. Tarzan TM & ©2003 Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.

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one of the hardest things we have to do is we have to take two-dimensional paper and create the illusion of 3-D. And John Buscema was able to; I believed that that was a world that I could spin around and that these people were real, because they were right there. He is underrated and it’s too bad, he is underrated, he wasn’t sexy, he didn’t get the hot books like everybody else. But I’m telling you that there is a generation—everyone of my guys that we got together in Image comic books, besides the Kirbys and those guys that opened up the door to drama, this guy taught us how to storytell and how to set up a stage-shot and how to put people in position, that although we do it in a slicker, for good or for bad, different ways—a little more anallooking with repetitive cross-hatching and all of that—it’s all about building the “convince-ability.”

Sal, his brother, did the same thing on a different level. But that’s what John Buscema was to us, in my judgment.

ROMITA: Absolutely. Absolutely. [much applause] EVANIER: Anybody else want to add something about John Buscema?

LEVITZ: I’d like to pick up on Todd’s point about his being underrated and offer a theory on that. I think, in the end—and I didn’t get to work with John other than two minutes at the end of his career on the Just Imagine project—but as a fan and watching the business, I think in part it was the degree to which he was a good guy about taking those assignments and grumbling that did him in. John’s kind of a bridge figure in time, as a major artist. He came in at the end of the “the great artist stays with the great strip for a hundred issues” time and before the time where you had equity and reasons to stay on your own strip for a long period of time or to define it by that, and to have your work sold by your name.

And with the speed he had, and the versatility he had, he just showed up in so many different places that he became taken for granted because of that.

The guys who made their reputation during those batch of years may or may not have been better artists than he was, but they were all slower artists.

And as a result of that, they tended to be one place at one time. If you wanted to catch that show, you had to go to that specific place. People just sort of took it for granted that there’d be 47 good-looking John Buscema jobs out every month.

ROMITA: That’s true. The same thing with his artwork. I remember John used to have no patience. He had no patience in storing his artwork and holding onto it until it became very valuable. He used to say, “Aaah...”. So we would give it away and sell it by the inch. [scattered laughter] He always said, “You want to have a stack like this? I’ll give you a stack like this.” I found a few things in my files when I shut my office down, and I’d called him up and said, “I’ve got an envelope for you of stuff that was in my files.” And he said, “It’s paper.” I said, “John, these are beautiful things! You could sell them for—” “Aaaaah, if you like them, keep ’em.” I’ve still got it. It’s not a lot, just a few. But the point is that he didn’t think that anybody cared, and he didn’t care, but he gave the stuff away for, like, two dollars a page at one time, or an inch for $25.

It just drove me crazy. Those pages, I wish I had gone out and bought all those things. I didn’t know he was giving them away.

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EVANIER: Those were Charlton rates, by the way. [laughter] We are about out of time here, but I wanted to simply quickly back this up to Kirby for a minute here and ask Paul, can we look forward to any Jack Kirby reprints soon out of DC? LEVITZ: I hope so. We have a bunch of his stuff in print. We kind of got off the track and tried that black-and-white series, which I don’t think anyone’s perfectly happy with, in retrospect. We thought we’d be able to make up for some of the deficiencies of some of the early issues’ inking that way. It seemed like a good idea. And we have to figure out a way to run out the inventory of those and segue around to doing them in the traditional full-color form.

EVANIER: It was a good idea in that I remember, the last time I spoke to Roz Kirby, I was up in your office and you’d just got the solicitations on the New Gods book, and someone told me, “Tell Roz it’s selling pretty good.” And that was the first time

anybody said to Roz in a long time, “The New Gods is selling pretty good.” And she was very happy to hear that.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: How about a Challengers archive? (Editor’s Note: DC’s Challengers Archives Vol. One is now shipping, with Vol. Two due soon.)

LEVITZ: What we do every year is we run a series of surveys with retailers for the archives they think would sell best, and Challengers has been on that survey every time, as have been a couple other of Jack’s projects, and they just have missed by, like, one book each in the last year or two. So I offer two suggestions. One, the next time you’re chatting with your retailer, tell him which archives books you would like to see, and that will tend to push it up on the list for the future. And, two, keep after us. We keep

(previous page) If you love Kirby’s women the way John Romita does, you’re probably enamored with Big Barda. Here’s a 1970s piece recently inked by Mike Royer.

Big Barda TM & ©2003 DC Comics.

(left) Fan sketch by Kirby, from 1977.

Thing TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.

(below) We’re guessing that Jack has a cousin named Seth, based on the inscription on this Hulk sketch.

Hulk TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.

track of message boards for the archives series on the dccomics.com website and watch that, and we’re influenced by all of it. There’s a lot of us in the office who would love to see those done. We came close to doing some of the old Simon & Kirby material this year. Unfortunately, that didn’t work out for a variety of reasons, but we hope to get to that in the next few years as well. It’s great stuff and we’d love to have more of it out there.

EVANIER: Let me also mention, because I promised several people I would answer this question here, I have almost finished—I think—this humongous biography of Jack. It is so large you would not believe. I am going to have to probably publish it in two editions, one for the mass public and the other for us, people who come to this panel, who want to read 23 pages about one issue that Jack did and how the pencils were lost and just all this little minutia and things. I have a couple of legal obstacles to surmount in publishing this book, which you’ll understand when we get closer to the publication date, but hopefully by this time next year I’m going to kind of beta test the book by circulating it to a number of friends and getting their comments and input and such. And it will come out. I promise you, it’s going to come out and it is going to be so large and so exhaustive and you’ll learn things about—I’m learning things about Jack I didn’t know, so I’m sure you’ll learn some things about him.

We are out of time here. I would like to thank these gentlemen individually. We have with us one of the great inkers and artists and talented men in the business, Mr. Dick Ayers. [applause] One of the most successful artists and entrepreneurs in our business, Mr. Todd McFarlane. [applause] The extremely talented, reliable and wonderful Mr. Mike Royer. [applause] The man who puts a lie to every cliché about publishers and company people, Mr. Paul Levitz. [applause] And here, one of the newest inductees into the Hall of Fame, Mr. John Romita. [applause and cheers] And one of my personal heroes, a fine gentleman and artist, Mr. Herb Trimpe. [applause] Thank you, we’ll see you all next year for the next annual Jack Kirby tribute panel. ★ (Editor’s Note: Be here next issue, as we present the 2003 Kirby Tribute Panel, featuring Wendy Pini, Michael Chabon, Stan Goldberg, Sal Buscema, Larry Lieber, and a surprise appearance by Stan Lee!)

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Retrospective (throughout this article) Kirby’s uninked pencil pages and panels from the Silver Surfer Graphic Novel. (next page, top right) Besides his fill-in on Silver Surfer #18, Jack’s one other shot at a soloSurfer story was this back-up that ran in FF Annual #5 (Nov. 1967).

Silver Surfer, Galactus, Ardina TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.

Only Truth Is Constant...

A Closer Look at the Silver Surfer Graphic Novel

by Rex Ferrell

Introduction wasn’t always a Silver Surfer fan. My first encounter with the character was in a mid-’70s issue of the Fantastic Four, and a pretty lackluster one at that. After years of “indoctrination” by well-meaning, albeit slightly misguided parents, I remembered being terrified by the appearance of “the devil” (Mephisto) on the last page; but other than this, nothing, and I do mean nothing, impressed me about the comic—certainly not some goofball on a flying surfboard.

My opinion elevated slightly when a friend loaned me a covertattered copy of Origins of Marvel Comics. I thoroughly enjoyed the witty comments by Stan Lee and thought the stories weren’t bad. However, one tale in particular really stood out, the story I

I

reread constantly: “When Strikes the Silver Surfer.” The story was mindless, nothing more than an excuse for the Thing to duke it out with the Surfer, but to a 12-year-old, it was mind-blowing! I was very impressed with the art of Jack Kirby, who I was slowly becoming a fan of via the powerful conclusion of the “Madbomb” storyline (would Cap really shoot this Taurey guy?). Kirby’s rendition of the Surfer and the explosive nature of the battle sequences were like nothing I had ever seen in comics up to that point; not 68

in Captain America nor even in The Avengers, which was the number one crowd pleaser on the playground (sorry, Mr. Pérez!). This “goofball on the surfboard” wasn’t so bad after all!

I eagerly sought out every story that featured the “Sky Rider of the Spaceways” but unfortunately, in those days, they could only be found in Lee’s self-aggrandizing Origins series, wherein only the best ones were chosen and spoon-fed to naïve souls such as myself. Surely, I thought, the Silver Surfer was one of the greatest characters ever created! Okay, he was no Batman, but hey, we can’t have everything! Adolescence, encroaching adulthood and an increasingly critical and discerning eye would change everything.

Over the years, in-between art school and world literature, I would still read the adventures of the former Norrin Radd, and since many of his appearances in other magazines had mixed results, I concluded that only Stan Lee really knew how to write Surfer stories. (After purchasing The Essential Silver Surfer a few years back, I even revised that assessment!) What the heck was wrong? What was missing? Why didn’t I feel that same feeling of wonderment I had encountered in the reprints of the Fantastic Four? Where was the Norrin Radd who blew my mind away in the Silver Surfer graphic novel?

What was missing? Two words: Jack Kirby! A few articles in The Jack Kirby Collector made me come to the realization that over the years, I had been reading the adventures of two different characters who shared the same name!

The first version, who I shall refer to as “The Classic Version,” was from the far-off planet Zenn La, transformed

by Galactus and served for a time as his herald; he defied his master, was imprisoned on Earth for about ten years (I’m using Franklin Richards’ age as a reference point) and recently was set free to pursue some cosmic adventures with Alicia Masters (?!). The other Surfer, whom I shall refer to as the “Kirby Version,” was a creation of Galactus; nearly as old as the Planet Devourer himself and whose name would cause shivers in all those who heard it, for he was literally a herald of destruction. He came to Earth, was shown the meaning of compassion by the aforementioned Ms. Masters and was then persuaded to turn against Galactus in defense of those who had previously been inconsequential to him. For his defiance, he was imprisoned on Earth to live among those same human beings.

Through various encounters, he would learn what it meant to be human and eventually (if Kirby’s version had prevailed) return to Galactus. In the Silver Surfer graphic novel, the two versions collided and the Kirby Version prevailed.

Kirby And The Younger Generation “To be sure, Kirby’s idea of the character is intriguing and novel in its implications: On a metaphorical level it appears [emphasis mine—Ferrell] to heroicize generational rebellion and disobedience... 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...”

Adam McGovern—“Kirby Fans’ Wackiest Causes?”

The Jack Kirby Collector #21, Oct. 1998 I agree with Mr. McGovern in that Kirby wouldn’t have explored generational conflict, but not for the reason McGovern suspects. You see, Kirby never

really had a problem with the Flower Generation specifically (or young people in general) because, if you read many of the interviews with Jack, he admitted that in order to fight his way out of the Lower East Side, he had to be somewhat defiant. (Reread his statements about his childhood, art school, his stint in the Army and, of course, Will Eisner’s story about the “Towel Incident”; Kirby was not “Mr. Conservative”!)

Contrarily, let’s take the issue of the Forever People (#8) wherein the youths from New Genesis actually show respect for the evil Darkseid and submit themselves to his inspection. Is this a contradiction or a sly comment about those who grow up in comfort and fail to question the status quo? True, the Kirby Version of the Silver Surfer, as it was reinterpreted in the graphic novel, could be seen as an allegory of generational conflict, but this isn’t really a theme that Jack had pursued in depth outside of the Fourth World (or even Kamandi) for he seemed to have had a more challenging concern in mind, especially in light of the series he was just concluding, prior to the graphic novel: The Eternals. (More on this later.)

The Failure Of The Classic Version “I would have to say the Silver Surfer was my favorite character. I would try to include some of my personal philosophy in his adventures....”

—Stan Lee on Good Morning, America, circa 1991 When taken in isolation, the Classic Surfer’s origin is a nice little story but unfortunately, it has done more harm to the character than anyone truly realizes and hardly qualifies as a superior version to Kirby’s original intention. In Fantastic Four #50, the Surfer turns against his master Galactus to save our beloved mudball! Yet, if we accept the later origin story which Stan wrote, then the Surfer’s rebellion comes across as an abysmal redundancy. The Surfer saves Zenn La, only to lose it and his beloved Shalla Bal. He serves Galactus and gains a new home amongst the stars, only to lose this one in order to save Earth! Never mind redundant—it’s a bloody rerun! Not only that, it leaves several canyon-sized holes in the plot which later writers have tried unsuccessfully to rectify (at least to my satisfaction): 1) If the Surfer was once a human being, then he shouldn’t have been surprised by any of our “primitive actions” because he must have seen similar incidents in Zenn Lavian history! Also, as a former human, how could he even entertain the notion for even a microsecond of bringing Galactus to a populated world?

2) How long had he served Galactus? The Skrulls in FF #48 speak of the Surfer and Galactus as historical figures, which implies they were in the cosmic grocery shopping business for quite some time!

As Shalla Bal has always been depicted as a beautiful young woman, should I presume the citizens of Zenn La discovered the fountain of youth?

3) Fundamentally, Stan Lee has always contended that he saw the Surfer as a Christ-like figure; this premise is built on a fallacy because, whether they believe in his divinity or not, all three of the major Middle Eastern religions agree that Jesus was never in opposition with God, unlike the Silver Surfer and Galactus.

I contend that the Surfer has never worked outside of the Classic 100 issues of the Fantastic Four.

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Whether as a lovesick prisoner with Messianic delusions or a Thing-girlfriendstealing cosmic crusader, the Surfer has drifted so far away from his original concept, he almost seems like a stranger! I am not saying there haven’t been enjoyable stories, because many talented individuals have chronicled his adventures. But these just didn’t seem to connect with me as well as his adventures in the FF. Stan Lee has done some decent stories with such heavyhitters as Moebius and the Johns Buscema and Byrne, but many of these focused on Shalla Bal and Mephisto, two of the least interesting characters in the Marvel Universe, equaling the blandness of Jane Foster and Gwen Stacy! Let’s face it, each successive Surfer/Mephisto waltz only looks more pathetic than the original, if not anticlimactic. In summation, the Classic Version definitely lost his luster!

As for the Kirby Version? Well, let’s take a look at the somewhat controversial Silver Surfer graphic novel.

The Gal With The Golden Glow!

The story begins with the clenched fist of Galactus, of which Stan Lee tells us to “Behold! The clutch of harnessed power about to be unleashed!” On the following page we are not treated to the oft-repeated image of a kneeling, newly reshaped Norrin Radd. No, none of this reluctant transformation stuff for Kirby; the Silver Surfer literally explodes in a blinding flash amongst flaring comets, the after-effects of Galactus’ act of creation, recalling the words from terrestrial scripture: “When He decrees a thing, He need only say ‘Be,’ and it is so!”

—Qu’Ran, Sura 2:115 The Surfer soars through the heavens in search of a suitable world for his master.

After rejecting planet after dead planet, he comes across the world that we, with our boundless imagination have named “Earth.”

Astonished by the variety of colors and activity, he compares it with his imaginary (according to our hypothesis) home planet Zenn La, primitive, but with a vibrancy he has never encountered. His appearance

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causes various reactions: Anger, fear, wonder and concern for the safety of the children. In all honesty, if we saw a metallic-skinned man flying around on a surfboard, how calm would we remain?

One woman in particular catches the Surfer’s attention, and in moments we see her features dissolve into the image of Shalla Bal! In a flashback (or dream sequence) we are transported back to the moment when the newly-transformed Silver Surfer first showed himself to his “beloved.” Unlike in the Classic Version, Shalla Bal doesn’t accept him with open arms, but assumes that it is a strange creature who is imitating the voice of her former lover; a horrible trick perpetrated by this “bloodless, soulless monster”! She then flees in terror. So much for “love labors lost”! In the Silver Surfer graphic novel, Kirby and Lee wisely skirted around the mishmash of the Classic Version, but rather than ignore it completely, Kirby presented it as it would have, should have happened. Still, one can’t help but question the validity of the image; was it a real memory or a phantom one?

The Surfer snaps back to reality when he remembers that his master will be arriving soon to put an end to all the hubbub about him. When he does, the Surfer tries to persuade Galactus to leave. The Planet Devourer is surprised that his loyal herald has not only come to sympathize with “these hapless beings” but is now defying him?! A battle ensues which is really pointless because Galactus could kill the Surfer in an instant, which he demonstrates by giving him a cosmic smackdown; not enough to kill him, but to remind the Surfer of who’s the boss!

When the Surfer continues his defiance, Galactus ends it by departing and leaving the rebel stranded on Earth!

Days (!) later, the Surfer rises and realizes that he is imprisoned on the Earth.

(I assume he noticed there was something different about himself.) He decides that if he must live among us, he should look the part. He takes on the appearance of a human from a billboard photograph and walks about the city, visiting various habitats and locations where we like to congregate (parks, newsstands, et al.).

He witnesses closely our behavior and even fends off some would be muggers.

He sheds the disguise and comes to realize that being human isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be and that even on a crowded planet he can feel loneliness.

Galactus is also lonely, and even munching on a distant planet isn’t enough to arrest the strange emotion. From out of nothingness he consults his “Master of Guile” who suggests the way to convince the Surfer to return is through a healthy dose of pulchritude! The Surfer’s exercise of waxing poetic about “man’s inhumanity toward man” is interrupted by the sensation of a strange and yet familiar presence (more on this later, too, I promise). Standing in all her “Farrah-like” golden glow is the lovely Ardina, Child of Galactus, Mistress of Rapture, Beauty Beyond Measure and the Chosen Mate of the Silver Surfer! The two meet and waste no time in... talking shop.

What prevents them from living happily ever after is Ardina’s mission: To remind the Surfer of his heritage and to convince him to forget all about us silly humans, for we are not worth the effort! Through a series of (one-sided) images she presents her argument, but the Surfer remains resolute. When the two eventually meet up with a married human couple, a strange thing silently occurs.

Although Ardina remains convinced that we aren’t so much, she has nonetheless fallen in love with the Silver Surfer—something that wasn’t in her job description!

When summoned before Galactus, she asks if the Surfer could be spared. Huh? Yet another rebellious creation?! Galactus just can’t catch a break!

Ardina is sent to the Surfer once more and just in time to rescue him from a recent, failed sojourn into human society. The two do some more “shop talking” but this time the motivation isn’t guile, but love. Alas, it’s hopeless because Galactus, like his Classic Version counterpart, has tarried in this part of the cosmos long enough! He returns Ardina to nothingness and gives the Surfer an ultimatum.

The despondent former herald has decided that Galactus might as well slay him

Joe Sinnott recently reinked this classic Surfer pose by Kirby, and added a new background to it. Silver Surfer, Galactus, Shalla Bal TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.

so he can be reunited with Ardina in death. Ah, but that’s the rub, the Surfer cannot possibly defeat Galactus, so this is the choice: Return to his former master and Earth shall live, or continue his rebellion and the Earth dies with him! Sadly, the Surfer glances back at our troubled but beautiful planet and soars into the waiting grasp of the Devourer of Worlds, who departs with his most cherished creation.

When I first read this story, it brought tears to my 14-year-old eyes; it still chokes me up today.

Joe Sinnott And Th’ Boys The book is a flawed masterpiece. The writing is often heavy-handed and the grammar worse than anything Jack has ever done! (Since Lee hadn’t written any fiction in a long time, I’ll cut him the same amount of slack I gave Kirby with some of the early issues of the Fourth World saga.) The last quarter of the book seems rushed and as such, dulls its impact somewhat. Most of all, the inconsistencies between the intent of the visuals and the writing—which were subtle in the classic ’60s Marvel comics—on this occasion are glaring! As to the art, at its lowest point, some sequences are too pedestrian and occasionally downright disappointing, wherein the Surfer sometimes looks like he should let Galactus alone and instead,

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Rejected two-page spread (which was redrawn in the published book). Inks are by Mike Royer, not Sinnott; apparently Jack had Mike ink this page and the unused cover from the book later.

Silver Surfer, Galactus, Ardina TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.

seek out Jenny Craig! But these are minor quibbles; on the whole the book still shines as a solid product of the Lee/Kirby (I prefer Kirby/Lee) collaboration.

Lee’s dialogue works when the characters interact, and some of the soliloquies of Galactus are brooding and insightful as to the loneliness that must come with omnipotence, connoting our underestimation of the value of human companionship. Visually speaking, the highlight of this volume is not the reunion of Stan and Jack, but of Kirby and Joe Sinnott! Although I prefer the inking of Mike Royer and Frank Giacoia as they enhanced Jack Kirby’s Expressionistic tendencies, due to the romantic nature of this story, Sinnott’s soft, smooth brushwork gives the work the Pre-Raphaelite sensibility it requires. The art is sumptuous; much of it suitable for framing (like the rejected two-page spread of “the Follies of Man” above) and entirely worthy of the format, presaging the phenomenal “last hurrah” of the Hunger Dogs.

Don’t expect any cosmic slugfests in the Mighty Marvel Manner! The battleground is not on an intergalactic plain but in the minds, hearts and souls of the protagonists... ...it’s a novel, darn it!

Galactus And The Master Of Guile “If such as you can be a god, then what shall we call the great Galactus? What name must be given him who possesses power absolute?!!”

—Galactus to Thor, Thor #161 (Feb. 1969) Late in his career, Jack Kirby became increasingly preoccupied with two concerns: Humanity’s relationship with itself, and humanity’s relationship with God. It’s not surprising that he and his peer Will Eisner would both produce flawed but extraordinary graphic novels, almost simultaneously, relating to similar subjects (The Silver Surfer and A Contract with God).

Whereas Eisner focused on the waning faith of a middle-aged, Orthodox Jewish man, Kirby—like yet another creative powerhouse, Rod Serling—realized that science-fiction is the perfect 72

genre in which one can tackle subject matter that would be considered too controversial elsewhere. Not that Jack ever sets out to preach a message, but merely to entertain and, still, present issues that concern him and a hopefully receptive audience.

In the mid-’70s, The Eternals presented us with the question: “What would we do if all the various religions of Humanity were based not on faith, but cold hard fact? What if the Last Judgment, Gotterdamerüng and the Dance of Shiva were to come to pass? How would we react?” The Three Species of Man (Humans, Eternals and Deviants) are confronted by the Celestials, gigantic armored “Space Gods” who take up various positions across the globe and examine it, measure for measure. Atop twin pylons stands Arishem, the Judge awaiting the report on which he will render the Final Judgment. Still, even Arishem is merely a foot soldier. On board the gigantic mothership is “The One Above All,” Who never leaves the ship, Who no one sees and Whose name we know not! Although The Eternals is very humorous and light-hearted compared to the Fourth World, I don’t think the original series could be published by Marvel or DC today, not in the traditional “funny book” format. No editor would be willing to risk the controversy.

However, this brief glimpse of the series gives us a sense of what was on Jack’s mind at the time.

So, what on Earth is Galactus anyway? Is he God? No, he is a metaphor for God in this dramaplay of a Deity and his Fallen Angel: Galactus is to the Silver Surfer as Zeus is to Prometheus; Odin to Loki; Allah to Iblis; Jehovah to Adam. In the Kirby Version, there is only Galactus, with no other hammer-swingin’, long underwear types to interfere.

Within the story, Galactus is not a terrestrial god, but who can deny the possibility that he could be worshiped on other worlds? Within his immediate environment, we witness in shock and wonder as he creates not just one but three different individuals, each one apart from him but also part of his essence which they can detect and recognize in each other!

Galactus is also self-sufficient; he really doesn’t need a herald as we realize when we see him consume a distant planet.

“The earth is utterly broken down, the earth is clean dissolved, the earth moved exceedingly. The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage... and it shall fall and not rise again.”

—Isaiah 24:19-20 So why does the Devourer waste time and energy on one puny, silver-skinned nut on a surfboard?

Why deploy other creations such as Ardina and the Master of Guile? And what of the Master of Guile; who and why is he?

Simply put, through the Galactus character, Kirby is exploring the nature of God. If we can ask these questions of Galactus, by extension why not of That which we call “God”? In the initial Trilogy of the Classic Version, when we read the dialogue of the antagonists (Galactus and the Silver Surfer), we get the feeling that it was not a struggle between master and slave, but the severing of a deeper, personal relationship—Creator and Creation; a relationship based not on bondage; but love. In the Kirby Version, we are treated to no less.

In calling forth the Master of Guile (whom in the original drawing Kirby refers to as the “Devil’s Advocate”), Galactus personifies an aspect of himself so that he may “hear himself ” think. The figure is neither illusion nor robot but a being of substance capable of independent thought. Galactus tolerates it as long as the Master of Guile serves his function— to give voice to Galactus’ own intentions, which by our judgment would be considered... evil. Galactus detests the image, but repeatedly summons him.

What causes Galactus to banish him (seemingly) forever, is when he suggests that the Devourer of Worlds get rid of the Surfer and let him be a herald!

Galactus’ reaction borders on anger! Is it because the Master of Guile is exhibiting independent thought or that he, in his pride, is boasting of his unquestioning servitude à là Cain or the fallen angel Satan/Iblis?

And what about Ardina, the Woman who Galactus fashioned to essentially fetch the Surfer home? When she too rebels, Galactus decides to investigate by examining his handiwork. If Foghorn Leghorn had written Galactus’ dialogue at that moment, I imagine it would have sounded something like this: “Ah say, what’s this? Another creation of mine demonstrating free will? Now, why do y’all suppose this keeps happening?” Again I ask, why bother with any of these creatures at all? Kirby (and Lee) suggest that Galactus is lonely.

In the Classic Version, Galactus could probably hang out with the Watcher, the Stranger, the Celestials, et al. In the Kirby Version, Galactus is unique in all the cosmos. As the Surfer is a part of

him, only he can understand Galactus, if only on the most minute level. However, Galactus does not want the Surfer’s blind obedience—but his love. This is the most basic premise of all the “higher” religions, and Kirby had a lot of guts to tackle the issue.

The Silver Surfer And Ardina “The Silver Surfer was an afterthought. When I did Galactus, I suddenly realized he was God and I had done something Biblical there. I felt that somehow God in connection with—well, I felt, wouldn’t it be great if I could show a kind of fallen angel type of a thing, which the Silver Surfer is....”

—Jack Kirby, from an interview conducted by Mark Herbert, p. 8, The Comics Journal Library Vol. 1 In recent years, I’ve often wondered why Jack would team up with Stan Lee again and renew the frustrations he felt back in the late ’60s. Mike Gartland suggests that it was in order to hurry up and fulfill the terms of his ’70s contract with Marvel.

This may be true, but I think Jack may have been pleased to revisit Galactus and the Surfer and tell the story his way but with greater sophistication than what we see in the Classic Version. Of course, the story was twisted askew (in the writing) and led Jack to disavow any connection to the characters, but enough of his vision remains if we treat the whole “Zenn La” business as a dream sequence. We could say that the Surfer’s awakening ego (or personality) created an imaginary human past for himself; he became a silver-skinned butterfly who dreamt of once having been a man. But, of course, he wasn’t.

Rather than arrest this development, Galactus tolerated it because it made the Surfer an efficient herald; and more, unlike with the Master of Guile, it provided a form of companionship—until the Surfer discovered Earth....

The Silver Surfer’s sympathy and growing conscience provoke him into rebelling against Galactus for the first time and in the Kirby Version, this is no small matter. For this Galactus is no “villain of the 73

Silver Surfer, Galactus, Ardina TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.

month,” but an allegorical representation of Divine Wrath. No “touchy-feely” New Age deity, but the Destroyer of cities and kings, who will tolerate no “graven images” and no other “gods” (or idols) before Him! There is no spaceship, but the roaring of a violent storm from which Galactus emerges.

“When the sky is rent asunder, when the stars scatter and the oceans run together; when the graves are hurled about; each soul shall know what it has done and what it has failed to do.”

—Qu’Ran, Sura 82:1 “What madness is upon you?”

Galactus asks of the Surfer’s rebellion.

The answer, he could have found in the Old Testament: “Behold, the man is become as one of Us, to know good and evil....”

—Genesis 3:22 After his “battle” with Galactus, the Surfer retains his life but his punishment is to remain on Earth among those he would save. Other fans have commented that the Surfer’s exile from the spaceways is analogous to Adam’s being cast out of the Garden of Eden; yes it is, but it also closely follows the Promethean myth wherein Prometheus is exiled from Olympus and crucified upon a stone for stealing the “Fire of the Gods” and using it to aid Humanity. The Surfer’s “sin” was in defying his creator in favor of what Galactus would see as a “rival”— the Human Race.

There is none of that dressing up in a trenchcoat and looking for a job at the local “Mickey D’s” here! Instead, the exiled Surfer assumes the guise of a human as well as duplicating many of our personal effects in order to walk among us. Although he sees many examples of human misdeeds as well as various expressions of love and hate, he never once questions his decision—not even after he meets Ardina.

“My beloved spake and said unto me, ‘Rise up, My Love, my fair one and come away.’”

—The Song of Songs 2:10 In the late 1970s, “The Farrah” hairstyle (named for actress Farrah Fawcett) was all the rage, but very few women wore it as well as Ardina. In fact, Ms. Fawcett may have been Kirby’s inspiration for Ardina due to her being slimmer than some of Jack’s more buxom heroines (such as Big Barda, Beautiful Dreamer, 74

Sif, etc.). Tall, slender, of golden hue and like himself, a creation of Galactus, Ardina is the perfect mate for the Silver Surfer, more than Shalla Bal or Alicia Masters could ever hope to become.

Whereas Eve and Pandora have been given the blame for Man’s own sins, Ardina’s role was to bring the Surfer home! In this, she failed because she too turns away from Galactus and joins the Surfer! Galactus is furious!

Compassion for Humanity led to the Surfer’s alienation from Galactus, now love between his “agent” and that former herald threatened to perpetuate the situation! What appears to be the catalyst for

Ardina’s betrayal is the Cosmic Couple’s visit with the Kemperer Family.

“The world is shrouded in darkness. Here, only a few can see their way free. These few birds escape from the net, and fly away to the heavens.”

—Dhammapada 13:8 In the past, I have commented on how Kirby’s writing style shows traces of Charles Dickens’ influence. I’ve yet to come across an interview wherein Kirby mentions the British author directly, however the names of his characters (or similar charactertypes) pop up sporadically in Kirby’s work, as well as one distinct Dickensian tendency which surfaces in this graphic novel: The propensity to introduce a character, pique our curiosity, only to let him or her

herald such as he!” Galactus muses with admiration.

Conclusion

exit the storyline, never to return! Although Kirby isn’t scripting on this occasion, we are nonetheless introduced to Sam and Beth Kemperer. Superficially, they aren’t very pivotal to the storyline; just a simple, young, suburban couple very much in love. Their only significance is in being the only humans Ardina has seen up close! Her opinion of us remains unchanged, but she admires the Surfer all the more for abandoning his heritage in order to help people like the Kemperers!

“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

Gospel of John 15:13 Although Galactus concludes that Ardina has outlived her usefulness, in an act of seeming mercy, he sends her to the Surfer one last time where offcamera, the two consummate their newfound love.

Eventually, The Matrix (yeah, Jack and Stan even did that first) is sent to reabsorb Ardina’s essence.

The Cosmic Couple try to flee but Galactus will wait no longer! As Ardina fades into nothingness, she pledges to love the Silver Surfer even after death!

As I have said on previous occasions, I am not a Stan Lee fan. Rather than belabor that point I will concentrate on what I do like about his work. Lee is at his best when he sticks to interpersonal relationships and characters who have a legitimate reason to feel tormented. The majority of Lee’s best solo work was not in Spider-Man (after Peter Parker became part of “the crowd” his neurotic whining became tiresome) but in the pages of The Hulk! After both Kirby and Ditko left Tales to Astonish, the series became a “who’s who” pitstop for many other Marvel characters, an inversion of the Hulk’s role after his original series was canceled. The villains were lame but it didn’t matter because what remained was that strong soap operatic theme that lasted up until the end of Peter David’s tenure with the character. Bruce Banner’s monologues, as well as the interaction of the supporting cast, contained a deadly urgency because the star of the book, no matter what type of personality he had, was dangerous, more apt to be a benevolent menace than accidental hero. The long term success of that series owes much to Stan Lee. In the Silver Surfer graphic novel, whenever Kirby starts to soar, Lee pulls him back to Earth, endeavoring to keep things bottled within the Marvel Universe (even though they have already rewritten it by excluding the FF) which contends that Galactus is not a god and that what he achieves is through scientific means. I surmise either Stan didn’t “get” what Jack was trying to do, or just plain disagreed with it and tried to defuse any potential firestorms, especially if this was a “treatment” for a proposed film. And yet, the source of frustration (Stan) also adds an element which lightens up such serious subject matter. Stan’s skill lies not in his exposition, as I feel Kirby is his superior in this, but hinges on choosing the correct moment to inject a shot of his storybook optimism, which can cause the heartbeat to quicken and the goose pimples to sprout (such as Peter Parker’s monologue at the

conclusion of Spider-Man #18). Lee’s humor and his flair for the melodramatic succeed when his timing is accurate, something his imitators never mastered.

On this occasion, Lee’s best piece of writing appears at the very end of the tale.

As the Silver Surfer soars into the palm of Galactus, the captions read: “Only truth is constant, only faith endures and only love can save them, but where can love be found? For one shining second of Eternity, the world knew such a love, but what a price was paid!”

This is true heroism and beats the pathetic whining of the Classic Version any day! The Surfer lost the heavens but learned what it was like to live, fight and love like a human. He later saved the world by sacrificing the very humanity he earned!

With the Silver Surfer’s final backward glance, loaded with sadness, what Kirby and Lee seem to be saying is that although what we have isn’t perfect, it’s worth more than all of the stars in the sky. Jack Kirby gave us a lot and like this diamond-in-therough of a graphic novel, we just didn’t know what we had! ★

Sources: “There Is Something Stupid in Violence As Violence” Interview conducted by Mark Herbert The Comics Journal Library Vol. 1: Jack Kirby “Kirby Fans’ Wackiest Causes?”

Adam McGovern The Jack Kirby Collector #21, Oct. 1998 “Romantic Worlds of Science-Fiction” Bill W. Miller The Jack Kirby Collector #20, June 1998 “A Failure To Communicate: Part Three” Mike Gartland The Jack Kirby Collector #23, Feb. 1999 “Kirby’s Ockhamistic Twist: Galactus” Javier Lerin The Jack Kirby Collector #26, Nov. 1999

“Impermanent are compounded things, prone to rise and fall.”

—The Mahaparinibbana Sutra The creation of the Silver Surfer was an act of will that began the story.

It was the relative morality of that will which was constantly challenged, and in the end, Galactus could only triumph because he is essentially beyond human judgment.

“Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the Earth?”

—Job 38:4 But even in victory, Galactus has been thwarted. He regains his herald but spares the Earth, even though from his perspective, he had every right to consume the planet if he wished. The Silver Surfer was personally defeated, but then again, he saved the whole world. “Never was there (a) 75

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Comments

Send letters to: THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR c/o TwoMorrows • 1812 Park Drive • Raleigh, NC 27605 E-mail to: twomorrow@aol.com • See back issue excerpts at: www.twomorrows.com All letters will be considered for publication unless you specify otherwise. Or maybe we’ll ignore your request and print it anyway (edited for length or clarity); you never know.

(It’s been a crazy few months here at Dos Morrows, which is why this issue’s so ridiculously tardy—they say what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger, so I must be about ready to take on the Hulk! We’re also anticipating our move to new digs in February, so I’m not scheduling next issue to ship until April, but from then-on, I’m committed to getting this mag back on schedule. In the meantime, enjoy letters on TJKC #37-38:) I am always interested, if a little saddened, to read of how Lee and Kirby’s partnership eroded in “A Failure To Communicate,” and recently noticed something in FANTASTIC FOUR #10 that sheds light on their earlier relationship. It’s the first time Stan and Jack appear in their own magazine, and there is a telling detail on page five. Lee, scripting, refers to the offices of Kirby and Lee (note order).

Yet in the next panel we can see that Jack had drawn the office door to read ‘Lee and Kirby’. Nice to be reminded that there was a time when ©2003 Marvel both men wanted to give the Characters, Inc. other first credit.

Dan Avenell, London, UK Thank you for the thorough explanation (and examples) of Kirby’s pencils; you answered all of my questions. The work you do to reproduce the pages is really a labor of love and it’s appreciated.

“The Evolution of Kirby’s Style” is a concise overview of an incredible career. My favorite eras, the ’50s and ’70s, seem to represent the maturation of the style of the preceding decade in each case. The front cover represents Jack’s Auralie period between Marvel and DC when he freely toyed with his coming Bronze Age concepts without the restrictions of his day job; the inking and coloring are wide open and refreshing compared with the dinginess of the early Fourth World art that followed. Hope you can unearth a few more of these frameable gems.

Shane Foley’s elaboration on Ian Cairns’ article adds the missing dimension (vertical) and is much more satisfying. It’s remarkable the craftsmanship evident in the structure of every page when Jack did so many.

As for #38, thanks for—the xerox list: it sheds further light on those underrepresented MISTER MIRACLE #9 pages; the interview: Jim Amash does another outstanding (and thorough) job asking Joe Sinnott all the right questions; the historical context: Jerry Boyd’s observations and reminiscences put the Kirby interview in its place; the research: Tom Morehouse’s Kirby Swipes and Ger Apeldoorn’s Krackle discovery are enlightening; the art: INKY, the FF, JIMMY OLSEN, THE LOSERS and especially KAMANDI are wonderful to behold. Shane Foley tops it off with some insightful Royer inks analysis on the letters page.

Mike Hill, Toronto, Ontario, CANADA 78

Great work on TJKC #38. I swear I think that woman on the cover, Enchantra, is based on Amanda Blake, who played Kitty on “Gunsmoke”—looks like her right down to the mole under her eye.

Robert L. Bryant, Columbia, SC TJKC #38 was a hugely pleasant experience.

It’s not that I don’t miss my days (and nights) as proofreader, but I enjoy being able the read the new issues at my own pace, not a hundred or so pages over a weekend.

The largest pleasure this issue was the Joe Sinnott interview, especially his specific ideas about technique and the sometimes-

subtle ways in which he improved the work of even the best pencilers (like Kirby). It was enlightening to learn that that much thought went into Joe’s process; all this time I guess I’d been assuming that those results were solely due to long hours, hard work, and an insane amount of talent.

Barry Forshaw and I will never, I suspect, agree on the merits of the S&K romance comics (he writes “Don’t for a second think that YOUNG ROMANCE represents Kirby at his best,” while I consider that the peaks of the Prize romance line can stand alongside any of Kirby’s other achievements, as one of the best runs of comics ever published) but I don’t disagree that the success of the S&K love comics established a market for a tidal wave of weak, witless imitations, which had about as much in common with the Prize Comics model as “High Camp SuperHeroes” does with the Galactus Trilogy. I should point out, though, that Forshaw’s assumption that YOUNG ROMANCE #1’s cover tag, “designed for the more adult readers of comics,” was less a “promis[e of] carnal pleasures that never materialize” (as he puts it) than a buyer advisory that the contents were comics-format fiction centering on adult concerns—like romance, marriage, etc.—that weren’t of interest to children. (Interestingly enough, though, in one of his interviews, Joe Simon mentions that the “adult readers” blurb was similarly misread

by S&K’s jealous competitors.)

Also, Ray Wyman is incorrect in stating that Kirby’s Superman heads were retouched by Curt Swan. At the outset of Jack’s JIMMY OLSEN run, Kirby’s Supermen were altered by Al Plastino, not Swan. A little later, the Supes visages were brought into DC’s vaguely-defined “standard look” for the character by Murphy Anderson. On one of the Mike Royer-inked issues, Royer tweaked the Superman heads just enough to get

them approved as submitted to the New York DC staffers, but in every other Kirby issue, the heads were retouched by either Plastino or Anderson. Why DC hired a respected comics powerhouse like Jack, assigned him a Superman-family series, and then made a practice of imposing a mostlyunbroken string of annoying, distracting, offputting—even insulting—alterations to his work is... well, anyone’s guess. DC was never very consistent about such things. On a Mike Sekowsky-drawn cover for THE INFERIOR FIVE, for instance, the title group is seen surrounded by a mob of DC’s mainline super-characters, including Superman and Superboy, who each sport annoying, distracting, off-putting, etc. head overlays (by the real Curt Swan this time). Why DC would spontaneously decide that Sekowsky’s Superman was not up to their standards — after Mike had drawn the character for a decade in their top-selling JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA series is... well, anyone’s guess.

In addition, I’m not sure I would credit the strength and bravery of the Marvel women characters to Stan’s influence. I remember many instances of the “gals” indulging in some pretty cliche “feminine” displays that didn’t seem to be part of Kirby’s established repertoire. I’m put in mind of a fanzine quote (attribution unclear): “Stan was writing Ingrid Bergman in CASABLANCA and Jack was drawing Katharine Hepburn in WOMAN OF THE YEAR.” Finally, John: “Alright” (page 45) is not an accepted spelling in this country. Please append this to the style sheet and see that it doesn’t happen again. (I have to keep my proofing hand in somehow, by George.)

Richard Howell, Leonia, NJ (With all the demands on my time these days, I’ve not had the extra week in the TJKC schedule we needed to allow Richard to continue proofreading, so we do it all inhouse now. But he’s been a huge asset to all our mags since early-on, adding his own storehouse of knowledge as he proofed, and I can’t thank him enough for all he’s done.)

My apologies to Kevin Ainsworth and any others who took offense at statements about Stan Lee in the “Deconstructing Himon” article (TJKC #35). I regret them now as they only served to upset people unnecessarily and detract from the article’s real intent.

Unfortunately, as written, one could construe my position as believing that the Marvel books were all Kirby, with Stan taking the credit. My honest view of their working relationship is more akin to the one suggested in FANTASTIC FOUR #10, on page 5. I think over the arc of their partnership it was very much 50/50.

Comparing Stan to Big Bird was not meant as an insult but rather my way of diffusing some of my harsher criticism for the man. I happen to agree with Mr. Ainsworth that Stan did a lot over the years to keep the comics industry alive and to keep many struggling artists and writers working. He was very loyal to the people who worked with him. But for all of this, for all his achievements, all his creative contributions to the Marvel Universe, his position on who did what, though innocent in intent, has

been harmful, none the less.

As recent as EXCELSIOR, Stan has maintained that his willingness to share co-creator status with Jack or Steve Ditko is sheer generosity on his part, since he thought up the characters, titles, concepts, etc. I find that viewpoint rather disturbing. For my part, I’m willing to say that it is Stan’s character flaw. For all the bickering that might be done over who did what, the honest truth is that the whole was greater than the sum of its parts. That any artist could have executed his ideas, as Stan contends in “Excelsior” is hardly credible. These three gentlemen together made Marvel what it was. Replace Steve or Jack and we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.

I’m as nostalgic as the next guy and it is not my wish to stand in the way of Mr. Ainsworth or anyone else who chooses to remember either those comics or Mr. Lee fondly. If Kevin needs me to acknowledge Stan Lee’s greatness, I’m perfectly willing to do so.

Adrian Day, Nashville, TN In “The Cosmic Squiggle” Mark Alexander postulates that the lines Kirby often did on characters’ bodies (that look to be contoured chrome reflections, strokes and zigzags of ink) are purely decorative, not “lines that denote anatomy (musculature) or folds in clothing... nor are they shadows.”

Although Kirby did milk the decorative potentials to abstract lengths, it appears to me that throughout his career Jack worked towards presenting the most three-dimensional image possible. I see his inter-figure markings as notations of multiple source lighting, or backlighting. In reality there is a profusion of light sources. Jack’s general command of space, weight, structure and movement in his drawings leads me to think that little or nothing is unintentional. This is apparent in many of the examples of Kirby coloring his own drawings, and in fact his drawings are done to facilitate the coloring; unfortunately often the colorists weren’t knowledgeable enough to pick up on everything Jack was putting in there. As well, the inker’s interpretive abilities come into play, in turn affecting the color decisions.

Mark Evanier’s recounting of the story behind THE HUNGER DOGS points up a sad reality of Jack’s career: The lack of trust and nurturing by publishers and editors of this great talent. DC had cancelled his epic Fourth World when Kirby was at a career peak—the issues immediately preceding the hammer were the highest level of quality Jack had achieved. Masterworks like “The Glory Boat” and “The Pact” were the tip of the iceberg that was coming if they had trusted his vision. The sales data for this period is shady, so I’d reserve my opinion as to the veracity of the cancellation reasons.

Some years later DC contacted Kirby to finish his story, in 32 pages. Jack did a story that DC didn’t understand. Whatever Jack did in the unseen first pencil version of the climax of the New Gods, it was no doubt CORRECTIONS ON TJKC #38: Page 48: The six images were from the ’67 sticker set, not the ’66 card set.

Page 73: The Thing figure was from the pin-up in FF #2, not #15.

The editor has been flogged.

truer to his vision than the book he ended up with. The second version, “On The Road To Armagetto”, inked by Mike Royer, is actually written as a prequel to a projected HUNGER DOGS book, incorporates rewritten pages of the first version, and as a whole stands up with the best stories of Kirby’s career, but is yet unpublished. There is majesty left in Kirby and raging anger; he achieves a real catharsis with Orion’s incitement of the Lowlies. Esak is the abandoned child of New Genesis and his clash with Orion, who is on his way to kill his father, has an operatic scale.

We don’t know where ©2003 Joe Simon & The Kirby Estate Kirby would’ve gone with this because DC rejected this story as well, then had Jack draw another prequel that ended up inked by D. Bruce Berry in NEW GODS REPRINT #6, then incorporated “Armagetto” into a longer story, THE HUNGER DOGS, with some pages inked by Berry and the lot went to to colorist Greg Theakston, who was apparently given carte blanche to rework some of Royer’s and Berry’s inks. This book has many interesting sequences, and allows Jack to still provide some juice (I love the beginning and the end with the Dogs) but is not a unified product; inept editing had certainly interfered with and diluted whatever Jack would’ve intended.

In fact, the TV/toy tie-ins for SUPER POWERS had forced Jack to deal with multiple rejection, and having to see and contribute to the watering down of his noble creations one more time. Of course, Jack would have to go along with this; he had no choice, facing ill health and seeing some real income for his family—after all, DC was paying him well.

I had never heard the rumor that Mark Evanier had written dialogue for most of Jack’s solo work. I did know about the fabulous minimasterpiece that Mark DID dialogue. Mark was lucky in that Jack gave him pencils in “Toxl, the World Killer” that embodied the greatest aspects of his work, and a valuable lesson: Mark should’ve then known how Stan felt all those years.

James Romberger, New York, NY I wanted to specifically express my appreciation for the wonderful article “An Afternoon with Jack” by Jerry Boyd in issue #38. This was the most moving piece I’ve read so far about Jack and his comics.

Mr. Boyd did a great job of not only revealing the King’s personality through the transcription of his rare bookstore appearance, but establishing a social relevance by interspersing his personal memories throughout the article. I really loved the anecdotes that depicted how the young Boyd discovered certain issues or themes that Jack produced in the late ’60s/early ’70s.

He did a great job recreating these precious moments in time—arguing with childhood friends about which Marvel comic was the best of 1967, discovering the TALES OF ASGARD #1 on a 1968 spinner rack, buying NEW GODS #5 on the fly after escaping from a stalled subway car, the amazement of black kids in the wake of the Civil Rights movement as they discovered a Negro super-hero in the Black Panther.

I would like to see many more articles like this one. We can talk forever about the beauty and inventiveness of Jack’s art, or the incredible imagination of the man himself, but I encourage your contributors to also explore and celebrate the real-world history that accompanies a lifetime of legendary comics publishing.

Johnny Nine, Aliso Viejo, CA Another great Kirby “self-swipe” involves The

Fly and another patriotic hero, Fighting American. Compare the drawing of The Fly in the logo to the figure of Fighting American on the cover of FA #2. It looks like the exact same drawing, just different costumes. What do you think?

Chris Squires, Fresno, CA

©2003 Archie Publications, Inc.

I ran into Dick Ayers at a convention in Boston last week and took the opportunity to ask him about his inking of the Thing during the formative FANTASTIC FOUR days.

Explaining that early uninked panels show Kirby’s rocky Thing under Ayers’ inks, I wondered why he didn’t follow Jack’s pencils.

Ayers explained that between Kirby’s sometimes-shaky anatomy and the growing complexity of the evolving Thing design, he didn’t know what Kirby was trying to accomplish. Since the pre-hero monster days when they first worked together, he said, Kirby tended to skimp on backgrounds and details, and it was his job to not simply ink, but improve and elaborate.

Baffled by the rocky Thing, he simplified him, turning the rocks into rounded, muscle-like shapes, which he thought looked and worked better. Hence, the cobblestoned Thing of 196264. He didn’t say this, but it’s clear to me it also speeded up the inking of a character that must have been difficult to render.

I also have to wonder if Ayers wasn’t also trying to stabilize the look of a character who must have seemed to change from issue to issue every time new pencils arrived at his doorstep.

Will Murray, Quincy, MA I can’t praise TJKC #38 strongly enough. It’s simply incredible. And what’s amazing is I thought the last issue (#37) was the “to end all” issue! Mark Evanier’s column placed us that much deeper within Jack’s private and professional life by answering many of the questions we’ve all pondered throughout our comic-loving lives. And an entire article devoted to Jack’s most recognizable trademark: the “squiggles” (which my childhood friends and I would respectfully but mischievously identify as “The Kirby sperms”)! I always believed the Kirby squiggles represented shine. At least in the early stages I believe that that was his sole intent since the squiggles are primarily on shiny metals and fabrics. I agree that later in his career Kirby used the squiggle to represent everything from muscularity to clothing folds to household utensils. And then that incredibly fascinating piece called “Kirby Swipes”! That’s what I call a top drawer example of wellresearched journalism. The thrill of seeing some of the old photos Kirby had on his desk when creating his golden age masterpieces. What a find! Those photos were obviously used for subject accuracy since even Stevie Wonder can see the King needed no help with his figure drawing skills. And even the sidebars within this issue were valuable. I had no idea the great Jack Davis was pencil man for a number of 1950s comics the King made famous.

But undoubtedly the highlight of the issue was the lengthy Joe Sinnott interview. As a professional illustrator and a long-time fanatic of the Kirby-Sinnott collaboration, I can’t explain how jazzed I was by the depth of Jim Amash’s questions. I thoroughly enjoyed your previous Sinnott interviews but this one took the cake.

Like many comic fans and artists, I’ve sat for hours on end scrutinizing every meticulous

stroke of Sinnott’s brush on top of Kirby’s powerful art. Did he use a brush to do the fine detail of the people in the background? Did he use a pen to render the Thing? All of those questions and more were answered. And your side-by-side comparison between the inked and the uninked work was the real eye-opener (and I’d LOVE to see more of these side-by-side comparisons since we all agree much of Kirby’s art often looks only as good as the skills of the inker. Can you say “George Bell”?). I also hope many of my Kirby brethren don’t take issue with Joe constantly reminding us of what he added to Kirby’s raw art, because, in all fairness, Joe DID embellish Kirby’s work to a phenomenal extent. It was a surprise to see just exactly how much vital material within those classic FFs weren’t really there in the Kirby pencils. Joe deserves bragging rights. When the world thinks of Kirby in his abject prime, we think of the Kirby-Sinnott collaboration on FANTASTIC FOUR. And in my opinion, a collaboration is exactly what it was. It wasn’t Kirby art as much as it was Kirby-Sinnott art even though the art of that groundbreaking run of comics will forever be credited to just Kirby.

Les Toil Thank you for a great job you all did on #38.

This was the very first KIRBY COLLECTOR I bought and I plan to buy all past issues, one way or another!

I loved the Joe Sinnott article. He is my favorite Kirby inker and it was a thrill reading him detail his inking of Jack’s art. Please bring us more such articles that dive into the makings of comic book art related to Kirby and pals.

I vote to keep the large format. My first thought was, “Where am I going to store this big magazine?” But when I thoroughly enjoyed the large print and art of Jack’s, I said, “I will make room for them!”

Rob Wuest, New Braunfels, Texas NEXT ISSUE: We visit Jack’s WORLD THAT’S COMING! Behind two new Kirby covers (inked

by ERIK LARSEN and European sensation REEDMAN), we rocket into the future—Kirby’s version, that is! KAMANDI and OMAC finally get their due, plus we’ll spotlight 2001, THE BLACK HOLE, THUNDARR, CAPTAIN VICTORY, and others! We’ll also present: The 2003 Kirby Tribute Panel, featuring WENDY PINI, MICHAEL CHABON, STAN GOLDBERG, SAL BUSCEMA, LARRY LIEBER, and some guy named STAN LEE! An interview with P. CRAIG RUSSELL! Regular columnists MARK EVANIER, ADAM McGOVERN and BARRY FORSHAW, plus a NEW COLUMN analyzing Jack’s visual shorthand!

And a giant KIRBY ART GALLERY, all at TABLOID SIZE! It ships in April to give us time to move, and submission deadline is 1/31/03.

Classifieds (10¢/word, $1 minimum) HELP! I need to contact Keith Hammond in Covington, KY. He had a letter in Collector Comments in issue #34, March 2002. Marvin Taylor, Jefferson Ter., Apt. 24, Jefferson, GA 30549 KIRBY SKETCHES WANTED of any Marvel characters. Sketches, convention drawings, anything! Contact: Aaron Sultan, 919-954-7111 or email: spiderboop@aol.com AMAZING SPIDER-MAN Original Art Wanted! Any page, any issue! Romita, Ross Andru, Frenz, Ditko, Mooney, etc. Contact: Aaron Sultan, 919-954-7111 or e-mail: spiderboop@aol.com ORIGINAL ART Marvel/DC Wanted! 1960s-80s, Spider-Man, FF, Green Lantern, Iron Man, etc.

Contact: Aaron Sultan, 919-954-7111 or e-mail: spiderboop@aol.com

#

39 Credits:

John Morrow, Editor Pamela Morrow, Asst. Editor Eric Nolen-Weathington, Production Assistant and Proofreader TwoMorrows, Design/Layout Rand Hoppe, Webmaster SPECIAL THANKS TO ALL OUR CONTRIBUTORS: Neal Adams • Mark Alexander Mike Allred • Laura Allred Jim Amash • Dick Ayers Chris Beneke • Jerry Boyd Glen Brusnwick • Robert L. Bryant Dewey Cassell • Michael Chabon Phyllis Chappell • Dan Clowes Mark Evanier • Rex Ferrell John Fleskes • Shane Foley Barry Forshaw • Joe Frank Mike Gartland • Glen Gold David Hamiton • Heritage Comics Tom Horvitz • Jeremy Kirby Stan Lee • Paul Levitz • Joe & Nadia Mannarino • Todd McFarlane • Adam McGovern Al Milgrom • Glen Musial Seth Novick • Owen O'Leary John Romita • Mike Royer P. Craig Russell • Mark Schultz David Schwartz • Marie Severin Joe Simon • Joe Sinnott Jim Steranko • Mike Thibodeaux Roy Thomas • Steven Thompson Herb Trimpe • Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr. • Tom Ziuo • and of course The Kirby Estate If we’ve forgotten anyone, please let us know!

MAILING CREW: Russ Garwood • Glen Musial Ed Stelli • Patrick Varker

Contribute & Get Free Issues!

The Jack Kirby Collector is a not-for-profit publication, put together with submissions from Jack’s fans around the world. We don’t pay for submissions, but if we print art or articles you submit, we’ll send you a free copy of the issue it appears in.

Here’s a tentative list of upcoming themes, but we treat these themes very loosely, so anything you write may fit somewhere. So get writing, and send us copies of your Kirby art! GOT A THEME IDEA? WRITE US! THE WORLD THAT’S COMING! Kamandi, OMAC, and other Kirby looks at what the future holds!

MYTHS & LEGENDS! Jack’s use of legendary figures in comics, including the Demon!

THE HIP ISSUE! Jimmy Olsen, Kung-Fu Fighter, Dingbats, and other ’70s funk!

1970s MARVEL! Taking another look at Jack’s final stay at the House of Ideas!

KIRBY TIME MACHINE! Justice Inc., WWII, Losers, In The Days of the Mob, Simon & Kirby, and some prehistoric strips!

FOURTH WORLD REPRISED! A split look at New Gods and Forever People in depth!

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79

Parting Shot

This drawing of the Thing looks to have been done around 1980. We have absolutely no idea what it would’ve been done for, but what the heck; the Thing’s one of our favorite Kirby characters, so we figured he deserved a prominent spot in this issue.

Thing TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.

80

THE TWOMORROWS LIBRARY !

RUARY! IN FEB SHIPS ORDER NOW PRE-

PANEL DISCUSSIONS

TOP ARTISTS DISCUSS THE DESIGN OF COMICS

STREETWISE

TOP ARTISTS DRAWING STORIES OF THEIR LIVES

DICK GIORDANO

CHANGING COMICS, ONE DAY AT A TIME

THE ORIGINAL SUPERHERO ACTION FIGURE CAPTAIN ACTION debuted in the wake of the ’60s Batman TV show, and could become 13 different super-heroes. With over 200 toy photos, this trade paperback chronicles his history (including comic book appearances), with historical anecdotes by the late GIL KANE, JIM SHOOTER, STAN WESTON (co-creator of GI Joe, Captain Action, and Mego’s World’s Greatest Super-Heroes), and others, plus never-seen artwork by GIL KANE, JOE STATON, CARMINE INFANTINO, JERRY ORDWAY, and MURPHY ANDERSON! Includes a color section! Written by MICHAEL EURY!

Top creators discuss all aspects of the DESIGN OF COMICS:

An unprecedented assembly of talent drawing NEW autobiographical stories:

MICHAEL EURY’s biography of comics’ most prominent and affable personality!

• WILL EISNER • SCOTT HAMPTON • MIKE WIERINGO • WALTER SIMONSON • MIKE MIGNOLA • MARK SCHULTZ • DAVID MAZZUCCHELLI • MIKE CARLIN • DICK GIORDANO • BRIAN STELFREEZE • CHRIS MOELLER • MARK CHIARELLO

• Barry WINDSOR-SMITH • C.C. BECK • Sergio ARAGONÉS • Walter SIMONSON • Brent ANDERSON • Nick CARDY • Roy THOMAS & John SEVERIN • Paul CHADWICK • Rick VEITCH • Murphy ANDERSON • Joe KUBERT • Evan DORKIN • Sam GLANZMAN • Plus Art SPIEGELMAN, Jack KIRBY, more!

Cover by RUDE • Foreword by EISNER

• Covers his career as illustrator, inker, and editor, peppered with DICK’S PERSONAL REFLECTIONS on his career milestones!

• Lavishly illustrated with RARE AND NEVER SEEN comics, merchandising, and advertising art (includes a color section)!

• Extensive index of his published work!

• Comments & tributes by NEAL ADAMS, DENNIS O’NEIL, TERRY AUSTIN, PAUL LEVITZ, MARV WOLFMAN, JULIUS SCHWARTZ, JIM APARO & others!

• With a Foreword by NEAL ADAMS and Afterword by PAUL LEVITZ!

If you’re serious about creating effective, innovative comics, or just enjoying them from the creator’s perspective, this guide is must-reading!

(208-Page Trade Paperback) $26 US

(160-Page Trade Paperback) $24 US

EISNER AWARD WINNER FOR BEST SHORT STORY!

CAPTAIN ACTION

THE COMIC BOOK ARTIST COLLECTION, VOL. ONE

THE COMIC BOOK ARTIST COLLECTION, VOL. TWO

COLLECTED JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR, VOLUME ONE

“I HAVE TO LIVE WITH THIS GUY!”

Reprints the Eisner Award-winning COMIC BOOK ARTIST #1-3, plus over 50 NEW PAGES of features and art:

Explore the lives of the partners and wives of the top names in comics, as they share memories, anecdotes, personal photos, momentos, and never-before-seen art by the top creators in comics!

Finally back in print after several years, this first volume collects the long sold-out early issues of THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR!

• An unpublished story by JACK KIRBY! • An interview with NEAL ADAMS about his SUPERMAN VS. MUHAMMAD ALI book (including unused art)!

• Unpublished BERNIE WRIGHTSON art!

• An unused story by JEFFREY JONES! • Extensive new ALAN WEISS interview (including unpublished art), & more!

Second volume in the series, reprinting the Eisner Award-winning COMIC BOOK ARTIST #5-6 (spotlighting 1970s DC and Marvel comics), plus over 50 NEW PAGES of features and art:

• ALAN MOORE • WILL EISNER • STAN LEE • GENE COLAN • JOE KUBERT • JOHN ROMITA • HARVEY KURTZMAN • DAVE SIM • HOWARD CRUSE • DAN DeCARLO • DAVE COOPER and many more!

(208-Page Trade Paperback) $24 US

(228-page Trade Paperback) $26 US

EISNER AWARD NOMINEE!

• New interviews with MARSHALL ROGERS, STEVE ENGLEHART, & TERRY AUSTIN on their highly-acclaimed 1970s Batman work!

• An extensive look at perhaps the rarest 1970s comic of all, DC’s CANCELLED COMIC CAVALCADE, showcasing unused stories from that decade!

(208-page Trade Paperback) $24 US

(176-Page Trade Paperback) $20 US

• REPRINTS TJKC #1-9 (including the lowdistribution first issues, the FOURTH WORLD theme issue, and the first FANTASTIC FOUR theme issue)!

• Special section presenting over 30 PIECES of Kirby art NEVER-BEFORE PUBLISHED IN TJKC! • Interviews with KIRBY, JOE SIMON, MIKE ROYER, MARK EVANIER, STEVE SHERMAN, JOE SINNOTT, and other Kirby collaborators!

• Features an introduction by MARK EVANIER, articles on Jack’s life and career, and page after page of RARE KIRBY ART, much in pencil form!

WALLACE WOOD CHECKLIST

Lists Wood’s PUBLISHED COMICS WORK in detail, plus FANZINE ART, ADVERTISING ILLUSTRATIONS, UNPUBLISHED WORK, and more.

Illustrated with rare and unseen Wood artwork!

G-FORCE: ANIMATED

THE OFFICIAL BATTLE OF THE PLANETS GUIDEBOOK

Lists all of Jack Kirby’s PUBLISHED COMICS in detail, plus PORTFOLIOS, UNPUBLISHED WORK; even crossreferences reprints! Filled with rare Kirby artwork!

The official compendium to the Japanese animated TV program that revolutionized anime across the globe! Featuring plenty of unseen artwork and designs from the wondrous world of G-FORCE (a.k.a. Science Ninja Team Gatchaman), it presents interviews and behind-the-scenes stories of the pop culture phenomenon that captured the hearts and imagination of Generation X, and spawned the new hit comic series! Cowritten by JASON HOFIUS and GEORGE KHOURY, this FULL-COLOR account is highlighted by a NEW PAINTED COVER from master artist ALEX ROSS!

(100 Pages) $7 US

(96-Page Trade Paperback) $20 US

MODERN MASTERS VOLUME 1:

MODERN MASTERS VOLUME 2:

First volume in a new series devoted to the best of today's comics artists looks at ALAN DAVIS!

Second volume focuses on GEORGE PÉREZ, from THE AVENGERS and TEEN TITANS to CRISIS and beyond!

• ALAN DAVIS’ most IN-DEPTH INTERVIEW to date, including influences, and his views on graphic storytelling!

• DELUXE SKETCHBOOK section, & HUGE GALLERY of rare and unseen Davis art!

• Interviews with collaborators PAUL NEARY and MARK FARMER!

• Contains rare and unseen artwork, direct from GEORGE’S PRIVATE FILES! • Features a COMPREHENSIVE INTERVIEW with Pérez on his stellar career, including the JLA/Avengers series!

• DELUXE SKETCHBOOK section & MORE!

(128-Page Trade Paperback) $17 US

(128-Page Trade Paperback) $17 US

(68 Pages) $7 US

JACK KIRBY CHECKLIST

(240-page Trade Paperback) $29 US

(176-pg. Paperback) $24 US

THE EXTRAORDINARY WORKS OF

ALAN MOORE THE LEGION COMPANION • A history of the Legion of Super-Heroes, with DAVE COCKRUM, MIKE GRELL, JIM STARLIN, JAMES SHERMAN, PAUL LEVITZ, KEITH GIFFEN, STEVE LIGHTLE, MARK WAID, JIM SHOOTER, JIM MOONEY, AL PLASTINO, and more!

• Rare and never-seen Legion art by the above, plus GEORGE PÉREZ, NEAL ADAMS, CURT SWAN, and others!

• Unused Cockrum character designs and pages from an UNUSED STORY! • New cover by DAVE COCKRUM and JOE RUBINSTEIN, introduction by JIM SHOOTER, and more!

(224-page Trade Paperback) $29 US

THE LIFE & ART OF

MURPHY ANDERSON R.C. HARVEY’s lavishly illustrated autobiographical memoir of the man whose style defined the DC look for a generation!!

• Covers his work on SUPERMAN, HAWKMAN, ADAM STRANGE, ATOMIC KNIGHTS, BUCK ROGERS, and more!

• Loaded with ANDERSON ART, plus behind-the-scenes anecdotes about FINE, EISNER, SWAN, KANE, and others!

• Includes a deluxe COLOR SECTION showcasing many of Murphy’s finest cover recreations and paintings!

(176-page Trade Paperback) $22 US

COMIC BOOKS & OTHER NECESSITIES OF LIFE A collection of MARK EVANIER’s POV COLUMNS, featuring a NEW COVER and ILLUSTRATIONS by SERGIO ARAGONÉS! Includes his best essays and commentaries, plus many never before published on: • The state of the art form (as only Mark conveys it)!

• The industry’s leading practitioners (including JACK KIRBY and CARL BARKS)!

• Convention-going and Mark’s old comic book club (with unforgettable anecdotes)!

AGAINST THE GRAIN: MAD ARTIST

WALLACE WOOD

The definitive biographical memoir on one of comics' finest artists, 20 years in the making!

• Former associate BHOB STEWART traces Wood's life and career, with contributions from many artists and writers who knew Wood personally, making this a remarkable compendium of art, insights and critical commentary!

• From childhood drawings & early samples to nearly endless comics pages (many unpublished), this is the most stunning display of Wood art ever assembled!

• BILL PEARSON, executor of the Wood Estate, has contributed rare drawings directly from Wood's own files, while noted art collector ROGER HILL provides a wealth of obscure, previously unpublished Wood drawings and paintings.

• Available in SOFTCOVER or LIMITED EDITION HARDCOVER with 16 extra full-color pages, plus bonus B&W plates!

(336-Page Trade Paperback) $44 US (352-Page Limited Hardcover) $64 US

HERO GETS GIRL!

THE LIFE & ART OF KURT SCHAFFENBERGER MARK VOGER’s biography of the artist of LOIS LANE & CAPTAIN MARVEL! • Covers KURT’S LIFE AND CAREER from the 1940s to his passing in 2002!

• Features NEVER-SEEN PHOTOS & ILLUSTRATIONS from his files!

• Includes recollections by ANDERSON, EISNER, INFANTINO, KUBERT, ALEX ROSS, MORT WALKER and others!

(128-page Trade Paperback) $19 US

The reclusive British author tells HIS OWN STORY in an extensive series of interviews!

• Spotlights RARE STRIPS, SCRIPTS, ARTWORK and PHOTOGRAPHS of the author, most never published before!

• Features comic stories about Moore by: NEIL GAIMAN, DAVE GIBBONS, SAM KIETH, KEVIN O’NEILL, BRIAN BOLLAND, RICK VEITCH, and others, plus an artistic tribute by ALEX ROSS, and a new cover by DAVE MCKEAN! • Includes the RARE MOORE STORIES “Pictopia,” “Lust,” his unseen work on JUDGE DREDD, and more!

ALTER EGO: THE CBA COLLECTION

FAWCETT COMPANION THE BEST OF FCA

Reprints the ALTER EGO flip-sides from the out-of-print COMIC BOOK ARTIST #1-5, plus 30 NEW PAGES of features & art:

Presenting the best of the FAWCETT COLLECTORS OF AMERICA newsletter!

• Special color cover by JOE KUBERT! • All-new rare and previously-unpublished art by JACK KIRBY, GIL KANE, JOE KUBERT, WALLY WOOD, FRANK ROBBINS, NEAL ADAMS, and others!

• STEVE DITKO on the creation of SPIDER-MAN, ROY THOMAS on THE X-MEN, AVENGERS/KREE-SKRULL WAR, THE INVADERS, and more!

• New JERRY ORDWAY cover!

• Index of ALL FAWCETT COMICS! • Looks inside the FAWCETT OFFICES! • Interviews, features, and rare and previously unpublished artwork by C.C. BECK, MARC SWAYZE, KURT SCHAFFENBERGER, MAC RABOY, DAVE BERG, ALEX TOTH, BOB OKSNER, GEORGE EVANS, ALEX ROSS, Foreword by MARC SWAYZE, and more!

(160-page Trade Paperback) $20 US

(160-page Trade Paperback) $20 US

(208-Page Trade Paperback) $29 US

WERTHAM WAS RIGHT! A second collection of MARK EVANIER’s POV COLUMNS, with a NEW COVER and ILLUSTRATIONS

by SERGIO ARAGONÉS! Includes more of Mark’s best essays and commentaries!

• Features many never-before published columns on comic book history, creation, and appreciation!

• Includes Mark’s diatribe on comic book numbering!

• Essay on comics greatest villain, DR. FREDRIC WERTHAM! (200-page Trade Paperback) $17 US

CRAZY HIP GROOVY GO-GO WAY-OUT MONSTERS

From Frankenclops on the cover and ads for cheap junk, to features on Wanky Winklehausen, Helena Handbasket, and Lom Hinky (by “editor” Gorry Hackerman), PETE VON SHOLLY’s spoof of monster mags will have you laughing your pants off— right after you soil them from sheer terror!

(48 Pages) $8 US

ALAN DAVIS

THE WARREN COMPANION JON B. COOKE and DAVID ROACH have compiled the ultimate guide to Warren Publishing, the publisher of such mags as CREEPY, EERIE, VAMPIRELLA, BLAZING COMBAT, and others. Reprints the Eisner Award-winning magazine COMIC BOOK ARTIST #4 (completely reformatted), plus nearly 200 new pages: • New painted cover by ALEX HORLEY! • A definitive WARREN CHECKLIST! • Dozens of NEW FEATURES on CORBEN, FRAZETTA, DITKO and others, and interviews with WRIGHTSON, WARREN, EISNER, ADAMS, COLAN & many more!

(272-page Trade Paperback) $35 US Also available as a Limited Edition Hardcover (limited to 1000 copies) signed

by JIM WARREN, with custom endleaves, 16 extra pages, plus a WRIGHTSON plate not in the Trade Paperback.

(288-page Hardcover) $57 US

GEORGE PÉREZ

MR. MONSTER, VOL. ZERO • 12 Tales of Mr. Monster, with 30 ALL-NEW pages by MICHAEL T. GILBERT! • Collects hard-to-find stories, plus the lost Mr. Monster NEWSPAPER STRIP! • New 8-page FULL-COLOR STORY by KEITH GIFFEN & MICHAEL T. GILBERT! (136-pg. Paperback) $14 US

Prices Include US Postage. Outside the US, Add $2 Per Item Canada, $3 Per Item Surface, $7 Per Item Airmail

(200-page Trade Paperback) $17 US

READ EXCERPTS & ORDER AT: www.twomorrows.com

TwoMorrows. Bringing New Life To Comics Fandom.

TwoMorrows Publishing • 1812 Park Drive • Raleigh, NC 27605 USA • 919-833-8092 • FAX: 919-833-8023 • e-mail: twomorrow@aol.com • www.twomorrows.com

Hulk TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.