Jack Kirby Collector #68 by TwoMorrows Publishing

JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR SIXTY-EIGHT

SUMMER 2016

$10.95

82658 00053

Contents

THE

KEY CHARACTERS! OPENING SHOT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 (the five keys to Kirby’s character) KEY 1: PATRIOTIC . . . . . . .4 INNERVIEW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6 (Jack’s Hour 25 interview) KIRBY KINETICS . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24 (Norris Burroughs on Sgt. Fury #13)

C o l l e c t o r

ISSUE #68, SUMMER 2016

2016 EISNER AWARDS NOMINEE: BEST COMICS-RELATED PERIODICAL

KEY 2: DEDICATED . . . . .28 SCENERY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30 (seven panels of incidental brilliance) KIRBY OBSCURA . . . . . . . . . . . . .34 (Stan Lee was dedicated too) EMOTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36 (Jack’s romance work, hiding in plain sight) GALLERY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .39 (images of Jack’s character traits) JACK KIRBY MUSEUM PAGE . . . .45 (visit & join www.kirbymuseum.org) KEY 3: OBSERVANT . . . . .46 INCIDENTAL ICONOGRAPHY . . . . .48 (what’s behind the Panther’s mask?) MYTH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50 (the perfection of Thena) WORDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .56 (decoding the road to Armagetto) KEY 4: INNOVATIVE . . . . .62 ?! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .64 (what if JHS@M&WtNGi2tMU?) TECH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .70 (Jack Kirby: writing “Machine”) KEY 5: INSPIRATIONAL . .74 KIRBY AS A GENRE . . . . . . . . . . .76 (Adam McGovern explores Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur) JACK F.A.Q.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .80 (Mark Evanier moderates the 2015 WonderCon Tribute Panel, with Neal Adams, Darwyn Cooke, Len Wein, Crystal Skillman, Fred Van Lente, and Paul Levine) COLLECTOR COMMENTS . . . . . . .92 (cause you can never get too much Hidden Harry) PARTING SHOT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .94 (about that Spidey figure from FF Annual #3...) Cover inks & color: PAUL CHADWICK

If you’re viewing a Digital Edition of this publication,

Imagine Jack Kirby decided to draw a sketchbook, filled with more than 125 single-page illustrations of all his key characters. Now imagine his family letting you borrow it, to scan for posterity. They were either crazy or far too trusting, but we’re grateful they did!

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The Jack Kirby Collector, Vol. 23, No. 68, Summer 2016. Published more or less quarterly by and © TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. 919-449-0344. John Morrow, Editor/Publisher. Single issues: $14 postpaid US ($18 elsewhere). Four-issue subscriptions: $45 Economy US, $58 Expedited US, $67 International. Editorial package © TwoMorrows Publishing, a division of TwoMorrows Inc. All characters are trademarks of their respective companies. All artwork is © Jack Kirby Estate unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter is © the respective authors. First printing. PRINTED IN CHINA. ISSN 1932-6912

COPYRIGHTS: A.I.M., Adventures Into Weird Worlds, Balder, Black Bolt, Black Panther, Black Widow, Blue Diamond, Bucky, Captain America, Captain Mar-Vell, Devil Dinosaur, Dr. Doom, Enchantress, Eternals, Executioner, Fantastic Four, Hawkeye, Herbie, Human Torch, Ikaris, Inhumans, Jimmy Woo, Karkas, Karnilla, Loki, Love Romances, Machine Man, Makarri, Marvel Girl, Maximus, Moon Boy, Moon Girl, Mr. Hyde, Mr. Little, My Own Romance, Nick Fury, Odin, Recorder, Reject, Rick Jones, Sgt. Fury, Sif, Silver Surfer, Spider-Man, Sub-Mariner, Teen-Age Romance, Ten-For, The Changeling, Thena, Thing, Thor, Warriors Three, Wizard, X-Men, Zuras TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. • Bekka, Ben Boxer, Big Barda, Black Racer, Brooklyn, Count Dragorin, Dan Turpin, Darkseid, Demon, Desaad, Dr. Bedlam, Dr. Canus, Esak, Fastbak, Flippa Dippa, Forever People, Glorious Godfrey, Granny Goodness, Highfather, Himon, Hunger Dogs, Jimmy Olsen, Kalibak, Kamandi, Lightray, Losers, Mantis, Mark Moonrider, Metron, Mister Miracle, Newsboy Legion, On The Road To Armagetto, Orion, Shilo Norman, Slig, Sonny Sumo, Superman, Ted Brown, Toxl TM & © DC Comics • Captain Victory, Egghead, Klavus, The Ship, The Visitor On Highway Six TM & © Jack Kirby Estate • Futuremen, Harry The Head, Hidden Harry, Turbo Teen TM & © Ruby-Spears Productions • Fighting American TM & © Joe Simon and Jack Kirby Estates • Destroyer Duck TM & © Steve Gerber and Jack Kirby Estate • Avenger, Justice Inc. TM & © Street & Smith or successor in interest • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles TM & © Mirage Studios • Iron God, Uncle Sam TM & © the respective owner

Opening Shot

Victory is sacrifice! Sacrifice is continuity! Continuity is tribulation! uh?! What the heck does that mean, Jack? And where in the previous 22 years of The Jack Kirby Collector do I go to find out? That, my fellow Kirby-peeps, is a question I’ve been asking myself for some time—and not just about that motto from Captain Victory #7, page 14 (shown below in partially inked form). There’s lots of other head-scratching additions Jack made to his comics that I’ve been puzzling over for decades. Despite running nearly an interview per issue for 67 issues, Kirby’s own words don’t always help us ascertain where he was going with some of them. So the only solution I’ve been able to find is: “Look to the characters.” Ofttimes, the work says more about Jack than he himself could (and Lord knows, Jack had a tendency to get ahead of himself, both in interviews, and in his own dialogue)—which leads us to this issue’s theme: “Key Characters.” With a title like that, you may’ve thought I was going to do some kind of “Top Fifty” characters during Jack’s career, right? Wrong. First of all, Sean Kleefeld tackled Jack’s fifty best character designs in our book Kirby Five-Oh! (now back in print, thank you very much), so I’m not going there this issue—nor is it about Jack’s most popular characters, or even my personal favorites. Nope, much as I confess to enjoy the occasional “best of ” list in other publications, I’m making “key” relate to characters that tell us more about Jack than he liked blonds with long hair (Kamandi, Thor, Captain Victory) or big heads with small bodies (Modok, the Misfit from Kamandi who hung out at Tracking Site with bats, etc.). While some of those characters may show up this issue, it won’t be because they were cool looking, or an archetype Jack went back to over and over. Instead, to me his Key Characters are the ones that give us clues about how Kirby thought, what he believed, his fears and joys, and other aspects of his personality. Jack Kirby was no saint (despite what some detractors seem to think all his fans believe). He was not above tossing f-bombs when he was upset, or punching his fists through sheetrock walls when angry, or faking a military pass to sneak off the base when he wanted to see Roz, to name just a few things we’ve learned about him over the years. But Jack was a man of character. While few of us can claim to have known Jack personally (least of all, intimately), a lot of his character shines through in his... well, characters, and his work in general. So how do you measure the character of a man like Jack? I think we start by looking for common traits that came through in his life and work. This issue is divided into five key areas that I think epitomize Jack. Just as any great ruler has some key characteristics that make them beloved by those that follow him or her, these are the ways Kirby was “king,” both to us fans, and to his family. Even if you question my interpretations, I hope you’ll enjoy the larger-than-life illustrations I chose to represent each character, many of which are from the Valentine’s Day

The Five Keys sketchbook Jack drew for his wife Roz, circa 1978. Some of the characters he included in that sketchbook seem incongruous. So my guess is, while he was thumbing through comics and came across some of his more obscure creations, a memory must’ve resonated, making him pick certain lesser-known characters over his more popular ones—which in turn gives us another insight into how Jack thought, and what he valued. Whether he created a specific character, or was just assigned to it, Jack put so much of himself in his work that some part of his personality generally shines through—except perhaps for his Classics Illustrated work. He even channeled his real-life experiences and acquaintances to create characters. Since a big part of my goal with this publication has been to try to unlock how Jack’s mind worked, it seemed like this was a great time to delve a little deeper and find the Keys to the Kirby Kingdom, so to speak. Enjoy! ★

to Kirby’s Character(s)

by editor John Morrow

This issue, we’re focusing on key heroes that hopefully give us some insight into Jack’s personality. But what do his villains (like Dr. Doom above, from an unused late 1960s Marvelmania drawing) tell us about The King? Most of Jack’s antagonists prior to his military service were pretty black-&-white, and just evil for the sake of being bad. But Jack saw the face of true evil during World War II, as well as the compromises you make during a war, and upon returning home, began to incorporate what he learned more maturely in his work, especially as he reached middle age. By the 1960s, his villains reach a level of complexity in their motivations and actions that transcended what had gone in comics before. The depth of characterization in Dr. Doom, for instance, went much deeper than the Red Skull during the 1940s, and Jack could even convey a sense of nobility, despite a character’s misdeeds.

Key 1:

(Below) A late 1930s political cartoon by Jack. (next page, top left) Fighting American, from Jack’s sketchbook. (next page, far right and bottom) Jack Kirby during basic training at Camp Stewart, Georgia and a clipping from the camp newspaper, dated October 9, 1943. From Jean Depelley, courtesy of Neal Kirby)

He presented his readers with his take on a military-industrial complex gone awry in A.I.M., and secret government conspiracies with Hydra. But he mostly stayed away from politics in his comics, save for an occasional dalliance—such as the fight between pacifist son and hawkish father in “The Glory Boat” in New Gods #6 in the 1970s. That’s as close to a comment on the Vietnam War as he ever made in comics. (He did indirectly serve his country with the Lord of Light presentation artwork, which was used without his knowledge by the CIA, as a cover-story to rescue hostages from Iran in the 1970s, as depicted in the Academy Award-winning film Argo.) At his core, Kirby was a believer in justice and fundamental fairness, who stood up for what he felt was right. Faced with needing to support his family and a business deal he thought was unfair, he fought editor Jack Schiff over Sky Masters, even though it cost him work at DC Comics for a decade. In the 1980s, when Marvel Comics withheld original art to get him to sign over rights to his work, he again fought against an onerous situation, until it was resolved in a manner in which he could hold his head high. During that dispute, he volunteered his services to help Steve Gerber in his own battle against the company over ownership of Howard The Duck. The result was the waterfowl patriot Destroyer Duck, a series that helped Gerber financially, so he could eventually reach his own settlement with Marvel. That fighting spirit lives on through his family, and their recent dispute over copyrights on the Marvel characters. Taking the battle all the way to the steps of the Supreme Court, the Kirbys held out against the corporate might of Disney/Marvel. Now, Jack’s finally receiving proper credit in comics and film—a patriotic legacy that Jack and Roz would’ve been proud of.

very comics creator has one key character that they will forever be associated with. For Jack, that has to be Captain America. Cap wasn’t the first patriotic hero in comics (the Shield claims that designation), but he was definitely the best, and most long-lasting—and is undoubtedly a reflection of his co-creator. Kirby lived the American Dream, coming from humble beginnings, to become the preeminent figure in his chosen field. It wasn’t an easy journey, but he stuck with it for the long haul. Jack was born into an immigrant family, and grew up in early 1900s America, helping his folks work their way up from poverty. Eschewing a traditional factory or nine-to-five job, he ventured out to earn a living using his artistic skills, determination, and hard work. He enlisted in the Army, and served his country overseas during World War II, nearly losing his feet to frostbite, and his life in battle. Jack’s rendition of Captain America was much like the man himself, with an earnest, unforced sense of patriotism. Kirby’s own WWII military service could well have jaded him, but instead it greatly shaped the rest of his life, and comics became an outlet to vent the never-ending rage that even combat couldn’t quell. Kirby’s own fighting characters eventually came full-circle, from Captain America’s WWII patriotism with a simple Nazi foe to destroy, to Izaya of the New Gods, who abandoned his warrior ways in an effort to promote peace with his enemies. Along the way, Jack created or worked on a small army of patriotic characters, all in some way a reflection of his own beliefs and reallife battles:

PATRI

• Fighting American • Captain Victory • Pvt. Strong • Sgt. Fury • Captain Glory • OMAC • The Losers • Boy Commandos

Jack Kirby was

OTIC 5

Innerview

Hour 25 Interview

Jack Kirby interviewed by J. Michael Straczynski and Larry DiTillio on the April 13, 1990 episode of Mike Hodel’s Hour 25 radio show. Transcribed by Rand Hoppe. You can hear the audio of this interview at: http://kirbymuseum.org/blogs/effect/2012/06/27/19900413-interview/ (below) The Newsboy Legion (minus Flippa Dippa), from Jack’s sketchbook. (next page) Kirby had an uncanny ability to capture accurate likenesses, even in his iconic cartoony style. Shown here is actor Jimmy Finlayson, who Jack based the character Felix MacFinney on, from these pencils for Jimmy Olsen #144, page 15. (We’re not sure who “Ginny” was based on, but we’re smitten with her!)

J. MICHAEL STRACZYNSKI: Our guest tonight is someone whose work I’ve been reading since I could read…

you fellows seem to feel the same way toward the medium that I do, so I expect it to develop into a kind of kinship that I really enjoy.

LARRY DiTILLIO: Since you were a toddler, which is a frightening concept.

STRACZYNSKI: We’re looking forward to it. And, let me just start off going into your background a little bit with you. You came out of the Lower East Side originally, is that correct? New York?

STRACZYNSKI: It was like two weeks ago… I looked at the pictures before I could see the words, understand the words, and I began to get the stories behind the words, and that’s Jack Kirby. One of the foremost creators and writers and artists in comic book history, quite frankly, who’s given us such wonderful books as Fantastic Four, Thor, the Hulk, Spider-Man, Sgt. Fury, Captain America, Challengers of the Unknown, the list goes on forever. New Gods. And he’s with us tonight and this is a true pleasure for us to have you here, Mr. Kirby.

KIRBY: Yes, I did. New York’s Lower East Side. I was born on Essex Street and my family moved to 131 Suffolk Street, which wasn’t a big move in those days and was still the Lower East Side. I grew up there, I grew up on Suffolk Street. I went to PS 20 which was one of the schools there. But the only thing that bothered me as I grew up is, I found out I didn’t like the East Side! So, I began to take long walks. I found 42nd Street. I found 44th Street, and I went further uptown and I met the people who turned out the newspapers. I met one reporter who had upended a telephone book, and was shooting golf balls through the book, and I suddenly decided, well, that’s a job for me.

KIRBY: It’s a pleasure for me to be here and certainly,

STRACZYNSKI: [laughs] Now you say that you wanted to get out of there, but certainly in a lot of your books that came later on, the “Newsboy Legion” and Boy Commandos, you used those kinds of characters, rough street kind of characters, a lot, as kids. KIRBY: Well, you’re bound to, because I imagine they become part of what you know, what you grow up with, what life hands to you, and you react that way. And I’m glad, in a way, because later in life I had to use that as kind of an attitude in ways that probably saved my life. STRACZYNSKI: How much of Suffolk is in Yancy Street? KIRBY: Oh, all of it is there. But so is the story. I come from a storytelling family. All of the immigrants on the Lower East Side were storytellers. My family happened to be Austrian immigrants and they told their share of stories. I think the young people were closer to their parents, anyway, at that time, and they absorbed all of this. They absorbed the storytelling. Many of them used it to build a professional life. I don’t mean as writers, exactly. But let’s face it, any businessman has to tell a good story in order to sell his merchandise. And so I think that kind of thing is helpful. STRACZYNSKI: Was it a rough neighborhood? KIRBY It was a rough neighborhood, and the practice would be that, you would stand out in 6

the gutter while the trucks would try to get around you from both sides. You’d look for somebody to fight or somebody to chase, and see how you could stand up against two guys or three guys and how many of your friends you could find that would help out and, of course, that was the routine. We used to do it when we came out of school. I had a brother, he’s passed away now, he was five years younger than I was, but he was 6'1" and a big, heavy, young fellow. I’d come out of school and there was this large leg sticking out from under a pile of guys. I’d have to pull him out. [laughs] The situation would develop along those lines. STRACZYNSKI: While I enjoyed… I found first, the super-hero and horror books and found afterward the “Newsboy Legion” and similar books like that. What always appealed to me about them, was that in most of the comics at that time, the kids were drawn very straight-laced, very well dressed, they were blond and blue-eyed and they were non-threatening, whereas the kids in “Newsboy Legion” and Boy Commandos were kids, these were rough kids with bowler hats and the rest of it… KIRBY: Oh yes, I admit that, that I was a bit showy; I felt that putting on a good show was ideal for any kind of entertainment. I was a moviegoer. My mother took me to the movies when I was very young. And I remained a movie person. I still am a movie person. I’m still an entertainment person. And so, I’ll put on a show. When I draw, that’s what I’m doing. I’m performing. I’m not drawing. I don’t want to be Rembrandt and live forever. I just want to be Jack Kirby having a great time drawing and putting on a good show that might interest others. And so, that’s the kind of thing that’s been my life. It was my life in New York, it’s my life in California, and I enjoy it!

no urge to own a clothing store. I had no urge… oh, I was once smitten with the idea of being a crooked politician. STRACZYNSKI: [laughs] Before it was in vogue! KIRBY: No! It was in vogue! It was a natural way of things where I came from. And the crooked politicians were having a great time, and they were enjoying life! I watched them in the restaurants as I skated by. So, I told my mother many a time, that I wanted to be a crooked politician, and of course, she’d never hear of that! There wasn’t anybody alive in New York at that time, who didn’t listen to their mother. The gangsters would call the cops if you insulted anybody’s mother. And so, mothers were sacred. And what my mother said, was the word! And I said nothing more.

DiTILLIO: I’ve got a question. We’ve heard how the storytelling started. How did the artwork start? How did the drawing start? What’s your background there? KIRBY: Well, the drawing started with the fact that I could do it! I know that anybody can draw, if they want to. All you have to do is want to! Now, anybody can be an atomic physicist if they want to. All you have to do is want to. I had no urge to be an atomic physicist. I had 7

Jack not only was influenced by the pulps, he worked for them! Here’s a two-page illo he did for Martin Goodman’s Marvel Stories Vol. 2, #3 (April 1941). (next page) Forever People #8 pencils (April 1972). Darkseid, though totally evil, finds no pleasure in killing the young—a complexity not found in many comics villains up to that time.

But, the newspapers at that time were very large. The Hearst papers were large and colorful. They had the Daily News… a wonderfully colorful paper on a Sunday. These Sunday papers caught my interest. Of course, it was the comics, really, and I would read the comics constantly and I loved the comics because of the color and the brightness displayed by the fellows who drew them. They remained with me always and when comic books first came into being, it drew me to them because I could tell a story in twenty-two pages much more easily than the six weeks it took to tell a story in a comic strip. And so I gravitated to comics, the early comics when they first came out.

of your work that I lost in that incident. KIRBY: Well, that was par for the course. My mother did the same thing. My mother threw out all my books and my father assented. The parents felt that way. They just couldn’t interpret comic books as something to be taken seriously, however they absorbed a child. My father felt that I should gravitate toward business in some way. A lot of my friends did! To be worthy, in my time, as a young man, well, you had to become a doctor, you had to become a lawyer, you had to own a business where you sold pants, with cuffs on them, or if you sold caps. That was a respectable direction to take. So my parents felt that I was spending too much time reading these magazines, when I should be concentrating on the future. What am I going to do when I open a store that sells pants? Or what’ll I do, what kind of caps am I going to manufacture? And of course I never gave that a thought because I just didn’t gravitate to that sort of thing.

STRACZYNSKI: You mentioned outside, before the show, that you also were pulled by the pulps; Wonder Stories and the rest of them of the period. KIRBY: Yes, I loved the pulps because the pulps allowed the authors to think. It wasn’t a matter of just doing a pirate story or a story about the knights, it was a matter of travelling ahead in time. What lay ahead? What’s out there? Those were the questions that the sciencefiction magazines fulfilled for the reader. And of course, that, too, caught my attention and I had to hide the pulps. [laughs] I had to hide the pulp magazines, which I still have till this day! I’ve got them in cartons in my garage—pulp magazines from those early years: Wonder Stories, Fantastic Stories.

STRACZYNSKI: To follow up on Larry’s question before, once you were attracted by the comics you saw in the papers, did you teach yourself how to draw or did you take lessons in it? KIRBY: I taught myself how to… well, I don’t believe in teaching yourself how to draw, you just sit down and draw! And then, if you feel the thing doesn’t look right, you begin to work on it. You begin to work a little harder on it. You straighten the face. You suddenly discover that the eyes have a certain proportion to the nose, and your nose is just about that high from the mouth. If you want a stronger face, you’ll make it wide, with a long chin, with jutting cheekbones. And, of course, you’d have that large, round head with the kind of haircuts that that day would demand. And so, that’s what I did. I felt that my characters were representing real people; although they were far out in nature, they were true to my version of real people. The

STRACZYNSKI: I had the same problem because when we were growing up, just a few years after that, comic books were deemed to be evil influences on kids and all of the rest of it. I, at that time, 12 years old or thereabouts, had a huge collection of your work, Marvel Comics, Fantastic Four, Challengers of the Unknown… and my grades dropped. My father figured well, it was the books, comic books, and in front of me tore up every copy. I’m trying to restore all the copies 8

stories were… as far out as the stories were, under the circumstances, I felt, these stories work because they had a core of truth. Now in the New Gods, the core of that story was that a father would never hurt his own son. Now here I have Darkseid, the most evil character ever created. I can tell you, he was the epitome of all evil. All this fellow wanted to do was to own everybody’s mind and completely run the universe by himself. You can’t get more affectatious than that. But, he couldn’t control his own son. And of course, his own son became his worst enemy. There was nothing he could do about it. He was continually frustrated. If you look through the books, you’ll find that Darkseid, although his son is one of his worst enemies— they have the fiercest of confrontations, that these confrontations will kind of destabilize… the situation will become destabilized and the father and son will somehow find themselves in other situations in which this confrontation vanishes. Darkseid will suddenly find himself in some other situation where he can feel free to do his deviltry. Of course Orion will try to stop him, but Orion is his son. That’s one of the truths that I always knew existed, a father will never hurt his own son. So that was the core of the New Gods and, of course, it worked, it was true! I did it in “The Losers.” Those were war stores. I do a story with a white tape. If you walk on one side of the white tape, you’ll be fine. If you walk on the other side of the white tape, you’ll blow up, because it’s a minefield. STRACZYNSKI: As well as the core of truth that goes through your work, one thing that set it apart from most of what else was being done there was there was also a sense of the tragic, as well as the heroic that ran through them. Ben Grimm in the Fantastic Four was caught and tormented in his body. Spider-Man’s loss of his Uncle Ben. Captain America’s loss of Bucky. Certainly all through the work, there was that balance which gave a maturity to the comics.

do you deal with these places? How do you fight sixteen guys? How would you outwit a monster from Mars? See? Suppose the monster from Mars might look like an ordinary crocodile, yet it can have a human brain. He can outwit you! STRACZYNSKI: We elected him president, unfortunately. [laughs]

KIRBY: Well, those are experiences that we’ve all been familiar with! We’ve all lost an uncle. We’ve all lost relatives. We lose friends. We move away from places that were completely familiar to us and we suddenly find ourselves in different situations, not knowing what confronts us, trying to feel our way out, so we can make, wherever we are, livable for ourselves, so we can function wherever fate places us. That was the core of truth in my most fantastic situations. How

KIRBY: Well, [laughs] I imagine the United States is big enough to have a lot of different opinions on that! STRACZYNSKI: It was the other way around, a man with a crocodile’s brain. One or the other! KIRBY: Yes, well, at any rate, what I did, my formula was simple. I 9

just took far out situations and give them human conclusions. STRACZYNSKI: You mentioned earlier that you always believed when you were growing up that what you wanted to do, what you were drawn to do, you could do, and become. Was that a more optimistic time than now? KIRBY: No. It was less optimistic, but very turbulent. How would a little unknown like Adolph Hitler suddenly rise to power? He came from nowhere! He was a nothing! In fact, he wasn’t even a lieutenant! He lost the title of lieutenant. He wasn’t even worthy of that title, and yet, he rose from all these masses of people, just to make sidewalk speeches. Somehow, he fascinated them and, of course, the story of Hitler is familiar to, sadly, it’s familiar to the entire world. And yet there he was, a man intent on… a man intent on, a driven man, being intent on running things! On having his say and suddenly finding that the entire world is giving way. And he’s suddenly got everything from Norway to Spain and from Spain to India. He took Greece, Greece flattened out in a day, you know. So, here was this little man who had conquered all of Europe! By himself! And he had done this just by swaying people. I believe that human beings, if they concentrate on what they really want to do, can accomplish what they want to do. But, you’ve really got to want it bad enough to see it to fruition. And if you have that urge, that urge will materialize. It will materialize in many ways. Perhaps like your station here will someday be a grandiose network. And I’ll be your leading fan, I assure you.

but I wasn’t. I began to walk, and I found myself on 42nd Street. I found myself on 57th Street. There was one time I met the champion of the world on 57th Street, Jack Dempsey came out of a hotel. Here he was. I was working at Marvel at that time and I was taking some strips to Marvel. And Jack Dempsey was coming out of this hotel. I love prizefighters. I ran over to greet him and we had a wonderful time. I met Mickey Walker who was the lightweight champion of the world. Every time I went to Broadway I met a different champion, it seemed. Mickey Walker was also an artist and he had artwork. He took me to lunch and we each exchanged artwork, you know, showed each other our artwork and we had a wonderful time. I can’t account for meeting all these fighters, but going uptown was quite an experience for me!

STRACZYNSKI: That’s science-fiction! DiTILLIO: Well, how did you conquer New York? How did you bring yourself to fruition? When you first knew this was what you wanted, where’d you go, what did you do? Did you knock on doors? Did you send artwork out? KIRBY: No, I didn’t. I simply left where I was. I didn’t like my block. I didn’t like the block next to it. I didn’t like the block next to that one! And so I began to walk. I began to walk uptown where the office buildings were. There were no brick buildings. There were no fire escapes. My mother once wanted to give me a vacation, so she put me on the fire escape for two weeks. And I was out in the open air sleeping for two weeks on the fire escape and having a grand time, I assure you! Of course, that kind of thing, sooner or later, disappointed me. A lot of people liked the block! A lot of people are still there. But I was not content with that kind of environment. I can’t tell you why,

STRACZYNSKI: One of the first comics you worked on was Blue Beetle. How’d you get that gig? How’d that come about? KIRBY: Well, the Blue Beetle was.. well, the first people I worked for 10

was the Fleischer Brothers, who made Betty Boop. Betty Boop was a fine animation strip and extremely popular. Wherever I went, I always got a job. I can’t tell you why, but I did. I got this job at the Fleischer Brothers and they sat me down at a table. At this long table, there were about six or seven people. The guy at the end of the table would make three drawings and pass it down to the next guy, who would make three more. And then he would pass it down to a guy next to him who would put the checkers in the suit and then he would pass it down to me and I would have to put the cuffs on and the spats, maybe. This went on all day until the figure took a full step. It was animation. It was a method of printing out animated movies. They looked great in the movie, but to me it was a factory. And here I was, doing the things my father was. My father worked in a garment factory. Here I was working in a drawing factory. I was at Fleischer’s about two-and-a-half weeks, before I walked out. I walked out without saying a word! I never looked back. It wasn’t what I wanted to do. I went to a place called Lincoln Newspaper Features Syndicate. I did a strip—it was a panel strip—it was called Your Health Comes First. Of course, my name was Jack Curtiss on that one. It was a literary license, I assure you. I took things from a medical book and I would illustrate them in this one panel, which went out to about 350 newspapers. They were weekly papers throughout the United State. I continued that for a while, but that’s not what I wanted. I began to know that. I began to know that the salary wasn’t my object. My object was to stay happy. This kind of thing wasn’t making me happy. The boss gave me editorial cartoons to do. He said, “Why don’t you do

these editorial cartoons?” I said, “Well, I’ll give them a try!” One day he calls me in. I had handed him an editorial cartoon, and it was about, it showed Neville Chamberlain patting a huge boa constrictor on the head. And the boa constrictor was Hitler. This had been the conference that took place between Neville Chamberlain and Adolph Hitler. DiTILLIO: The appeasement. KIRBY: The appeasement. And my boss said, “How dare you make a political cartoon like that? How do you know about Neville Chamberlain and this guy Hitler?” I said, “Well, I know a gangster when I see one.” DiTILLIO: You were right! KIRBY: Well, it was an opinion, and I felt Hitler was a gangster because he was grabbing everything in sight, which is what they did on my block! [laughs] STRACZYNSKI: One of your first employers was Victor Fox. What was he like? KIRBY: Victor Fox was a very nice guy. He was the guy that created the phrase “King of the Comics.” Sometime, [laughs] it’s… sometime you’ll see the phrase referred to me, and it’s wrong! I was the first to use it, because I was aping Victor Fox. Victor Fox would walk all day long, back and forth. He was a short, portly man. And he’d walk back and forth across the office each day saying, “I’m the King of the Comics! I’m the King of the Comics!” and that’s all he would say! He wouldn’t talk to the artists. [laughs] He wouldn’t talk to anybody that came into the office, because he was too busy saying, “I’m the King of the Comics!” One day they discovered uranium up in

(previous page) An inspired bit of casting, was assigning Jack to fill out his DC contract by penciling Justice Inc. in 1975. Having Kirby draw a pulp character just felt right, even though Jack was forced to work from someone else’s script (in this case, Denny O’Neil’s). (below) Jack started his career in animation, and ended it the same. Here are some concept drawings for a proposed Thor show that never made it to the television airwaves. Inks by Alfredo Alcala. © Ruby-Spears Productions

(next page) Bucky’s back, in these spectacular pencils from Captain America’s Bicentennial Battles treasury edition (1976). They were immaculately inked by Barry Windsor-Smith for publication.

Canada. That seemed to capture the imagination of Victor Fox. Of course, he closed down the business [laughs] and he went to Canada to become an instant millionaire, which I don’t know if he did or not.

it didn’t matter to me one way or the other. You know, if they wanted to fight, well, what the heck. I would do it. Leon Klinghoffer [left], who was recently killed by terrorists, was a personal friend of mine. I remember, when he was on the Achille Lauro, my wife and I read about it in the papers. I told her that when they mentioned Klinghoffer, I knew what he was going to do. It was instinctive with all of us. And it happened that way. Of course, he didn’t have a chance, but you can’t avoid gut-thinking, which is what we lived by in New York City at that time. Klinghoffer and I were raised together on one block. He and his brother used to work in their father’s dry goods store. We didn’t think anything out, we just reacted. We just did what was right.

STRACZYNSKI: The king of radiation, KIRBY: Well, I hope he knew how to handle it. [laughs] There were jobs on that order, but they weren’t lasting jobs. It was a boon to me when the first comic books came into view. Of course Famous Funnies was the first and it made me feel wonderful because, not because Famous Funnies was my type of comic; it suddenly struck me that they might possibly produce comics that would give me twenty-two pages in which to tell a story. And they did! And of course these magazines began to come out. I got jobs at the early companies doing complete stories and it was wonderful for me. It still wasn’t Captain America time yet, but these companies were attracting artists. One of the fellows I met at one of these companies turned out to be Joe Simon and we became partners. We got an office at Tudor City in New York. It was a wonderful time. I enjoyed doing the work. I would create the stories and I would create the characters. Joe would help out sometimes, but Joe was more business oriented. He’d be up at the Timely office, which later became Marvel. It was owned by Martin Goodman. A fellow named Martin Goodman was a publisher and Martin Goodman had two brothers who were Joe’s age and Joe’s height. Joe’s about six-foot-three and I was about fivefoot-two. [laughs] So wisdom dictated [laughs] that I stay in the Tudor City office, [laughs] while Joe became friends with Arthur and Abe Goodman. They were all the same height and they had a great time. So whatever strip we brought them, it would come from the Tudor City office. So I did the stories and I did the illustrations. Sometime they would send us scripts. They would have writers. We’d get scripts from DC, and we’d get scripts from Marvel, but I’d throw them out the window. I threw them out the window! Which is what I once did with a violin that my mother brought me. It was something I didn’t want to do. I literally threw the violin out the window. I happen to be a guy who does what he wants, lives the way he wants to. I love people in general. I see them like, even the villains in my comics, to me, are people. There is something in their lives that makes them become a problem to others. And that’s how I saw everybody. Whatever I put in my comics, I’ve always had this kernel of truth. And maybe I, hopefully, feel that this love for people may have been transmitted to them and help them; not help them in any way, I’m not a psychiatrist, but just giving them another friend.

STRACZYNSKI: And what’s right, at the moment, is to mention this is KPFK Los Angeles 90.7 FM, Mike Hodel’s Hour 25. Our guest tonight is Jack Kirby. Captain America, I think, embodies a lot of your values, in terms of doing what he thinks is right, and always following that. KIRBY: Yes! Yes, I don’t think Captain America would do anything wrong. He wouldn’t. Even at the cost of his life. I can tell you that’s a true feeling. Although it may sound fictional, it’s a true feeling in everybody. I got my idea for the Hulk, when I created the Hulk… my idea for the Hulk didn’t come from any fanciful place, or anywhere. It came from a mother whose child was crawling out from under the fender of an automobile to the sidewalk. The kid wasn’t any more than two years old. This panicked the mother when she saw her child under the car, so the mother ran to the back of the car and she lifted up the entire car from the back because she had that strength of desperation. When I saw that, it suddenly dawned on me, that there was a character there, that’s inside all of us. That when we become enraged, we can bend steel. I’ve done that myself. And so, there it was right in front of me. And that’s how the idea of the Hulk came about. STRACZYNSKI: One more question about Captain America, then we’ll move on. What do you have? DiTILLIO: I have a Captain America question. STRACZYNSKI: This is one last one. KIRBY: I’m sorry if I deviate. If I deviate in any way, forgive me. STRACZYNSKI: It’s alright. Don’t worry about it. I have my own theory about why this is, but now I can ask the source, finally! Why the killing off of Bucky, Captain America’s protege?

STRACZYNSKI: You mentioned Captain America a number of times. How did you and Cap first come together? KIRBY: Oh, it was easy. The times were, they were screamingly patriotic. What kind of strip would you do, but Captain America? Superman already was in existence and doing extremely well. And to me, the times were screaming, “War!” And to me, the enemy was Hitler. The enemy was growing and growing and I didn’t know where it was going to end. But every day, something new would happen, and it was really scary. This is the kind of event that I felt was ruling our times. And I felt it inside of me and it had to come out in some way. It was scary. It was scary, but it was also a wonderful scare. It’s like waiting for a fight. It was like standing out in the middle of the gutter, waiting for a fight to show up, and of course it was showing up, and it was getting larger and larger. It was right on our doorstep. I had Nazis calling me at the Timely office. I once had six Nazis call me up. They said, “Well, we’re waiting for you downstairs and we’re going to beat the daylights out of you for writing the stories about Hitler.” These were New York Nazis. They had a camp out on Long Island. And so I said, “Hold on guys, I’ll be right down!” Of course, I take the elevator down, but there was nobody there. I looked in the street and of course they wouldn’t be there. I didn’t feel disappointed and I felt disappointed,

KIRBY: I don’t think I was the one that killed him off. STRACZYNSKI: Oh, you weren’t…? KIRBY: No. I never kill off anybody. [hosts laugh] I do, at times in the strip, but I bring them back. But you’ll find out that my characters never die. It’s my own, I believe, it’s my ode to humanity itself. We never really die. You live on in your son or you live on in somebody else. I don’t know the answer, but somehow I feel that our lives are endless. STRACZYNSKI: The only reason I asked was I heard that Bucky was killed off because in the course of the Second World War so many sons and brothers were lost, that even Captain America had to lose someone to make it close off properly. KIRBY: No, it was just story. It was good for the story. It jolted the story. STRACZYNSKI: I’m leaving now. My illusions are shattered. You had a question. 13

DiTILLIO: Well, my question was also about Captain America. At the time, in the ’40s, Captain America, the red, white and blue Avenger, who was the spirit of the country, was very strong. Now, what is Captain America today? I know they’re making a Captain America picture… and of course the character was revived back in the ’60s.

world will become American. And we’ll all begin to understand each other. Just like we have over here. Americans represent the entire world. The United States has every nationality you can think of within its boundaries. And here we are getting along just fine. And why can’t it happen in the rest of the world? I don’t see why it can’t, really. And when it does happen, when the rest of the world becomes Americanized, which it already is… I mean if somebody, a fellow like Deng [Xiaoping] in China can’t last forever, and when his kind passes I think the demands of the people will overwhelm whoever wants to take his place and you’ll see a democratization—just my own personal view, a democratization of China.

KIRBY: There is no Captain America today, in my opinion. [break in audio] [We have] too much to lose and we’ve got too many terrible weapons to use. So, to fight is unthinkable. Maybe in developing those weapons we might have done a good thing by subtly confronting each other and saying that to do a thing like that is inhuman. Let’s all try to be human. And I think what we’re witnessing today in Russia and Lithuania and all these countries is a kind of a dissolution of that rigid, turbulent, and, perhaps, dangerous nationalism that existed in my generation when I was younger. You could feel it. You could feel it in the very air. That the will of self, in other words, “I’m an American, and nobody’s going to say that about America and nobody’s going to do that to America, even if I die for it. I’ll defend it.” Of course we all had that will. And it was the same way in every country in the world. And that kind of thing is gone. And we’re suddenly discovering each other. And I think that’s just wonderful. When I saw those Chinese [at the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989] just trying to get on that pole, acting just like Americans, it was a wonderful, wonderful thing to watch. Despite the fact that it ended in tragedy. But, for one moment, they were American. They were American college kids trying to climb a pole. And somebody went and spoiled it. And perhaps when that kind of an element disappears, too—and it will, it can’t last, it’s human—maybe something else will have to take its place, because the people will demand it. I think in the end that the

STRACZYNSKI: Let’s hope you’re right. DiTILLIO: Well, I think we can probably take your personal view as having a lot of value, since in a lot of your work you’ve presaged things as you’ve gone on. You’ve invented gimmicks, like all science-fiction writers have, you’ve invented gimmicks that have come true. I was told you did a newspaper strip called Sky Masters in the late ’50s which presaged the moonwalk and a lot of things happening in the space program. KIRBY: Well, I presaged the atomic bomb two years before it was built because a fellow named Nicola Tesla was working on it in Hungary and he was experimenting with atomics. He was a physicist. And so, I forget what story I put it in, but there it was, I saw it in the paper, and I used it. I used it in my own way, and I got a good story out of it. Two years later, we had the real thing. STRACZYNSKI: Did anyone come and pay you a visit after that came out, because some writers…? KIRBY: Yes, they sent me a letter from the FBI! 14

STRACZYNSKI: What happened?

for a city. A guy who will climb all over New York. That’s what Spider-Man does. He’s a guy that climbs up and down buildings. He can do it faster and without fear of falling. He’s in his element. He’s exactly in his element where he should be, in the city where you have tall buildings. He doesn’t have to jump in one leap like Superman, but he does it in his own way. He can crawl into places where nobody else can. What may take you a week to do in New York, he can do it in an hour or something like that. Spider-Man was perfect in that environment.

KIRBY: Nothing! STRACZYNSKI: What did the letter say? KIRBY: It was just an inquiry, you know. I had to explain that it was all fictional. That it was my version of the thing. There was no mention of an atomic bomb in any newspaper or anything, except that this fellow Nicola Tesla, it was in a magazine, some obscure magazine that I read it in, was experimenting with atomic physics.

STRACZYNSKI: He was also, I think, well, two things: very much a product of his time, as well, because that was the Kennedy period, more or less. And the whole premise of Kennedy’s philosophy was “with great power comes great responsibility,” toward the world and toward those who aren’t as well equipped as you are, which goes to the heart of Spider-Man, as well.

STRACZYNSKI: But when the FBI paid you a call did you think something’s up somewhere, they’re making one of these things? KIRBY: No! I was just annoyed! You know? DiTILLIO: [laughter] There’s another fight coming by. KIRBY: So, I hadn’t done anything. I just did this story and it was pure fiction, of course. But it sold well, and that was my job, just selling magazines. So I’d done my job. I would presage—I would constantly read newspapers and magazines and I would presage the chopper, the helicopter, and a lot of the gimmicks we have today, I would have them two years ahead, because I’d visualize them that way. And of course, mine didn’t look exactly the way ours would emerge, but the principle was the same. And they almost did look the same, really. So, I was kind of proud of that because it’d make good story. And I was doing my job.

KIRBY: Well, believe me, I admired Kennedy like everybody else did at the time, but I wasn’t thinking in terms of Kennedy. I was thinking in terms of adventure and orientation. STRACZYNSKI: Of course, at the same time, he was a superhero who, for the first time, would get colds and had to worry about his Aunt May all the time. KIRBY: Oh well, you have to make them human in some way. You can’t rob a man of his humanity. You can wear any kind of a suit you want and call yourself by any other name you like, but when you take that suit off, and you take a bath, you come out whoever you are, as yourself. Of course, Spider-Man is the same way. He’s like all the rest of his brothers. They’re instinctive showmen. I think that all human beings are instinctive showmen. Of course, I am, too! I thank the Lord that I had the opportunity to use my life in that manner, as a showman. Maybe not across a stage, but maybe across a comic book, several comic books. Maybe more than that. And I’ve had a wonderful time with it, because it turned out that that’s what I really wanted to do. I was performing. Spider-Man is performing.

STRACZYNSKI: Let me read off some titles to you and tell me, where, if you can, where they came from—the characters and the books. Challengers of the Unknown.

KIRBY: They came from their own particular time. They were post-war characters. What the Challengers of the Unknown were saying was, “Where are we going now?” That was a question I asked in all those stories. The Challengers, I put into gimmicks… I put them into gimmicks and the machines that we already had, but I took them two or three stages ahead as to what we might have. I would take them five years ahead, and if we were… if we had certain generators or something like that, I would make a supergenerator of some kind and have my story revolve around that. What would it do to STRACZYNSKI: Another book human beings? Perhaps it would sumwhich you created was, of course, (previous page) Jack sets off an atomic explosion mon aliens from some foreign planet, in “Toxl the World Killer,” meant for Spirit World #2, the Fantastic Four. and give us the power to do that. Of and published in Weird Mystery Tales #2 (1972). KIRBY: Yes. course, my aliens weren’t always hostile. (above) Kirby Thing drawing from The Comic The aliens people used to draw, well, STRACZYNSKI: Now where’d they Reader #47 (1965). they’d eat people, they’d look like frogs, they’d never buy you a malted come from? milk or anything like that! But I see aliens very much like us. If KIRBY: Fantastic Four… they’re a conglomerate of people. Different they’re intelligent, they’ll do the things we do. types. My job is to sell books. I couldn’t, and I wouldn’t, make the STRACZYNSKI: Or they won’t. [laughs] same bunch twice. I wouldn’t draw the same bunch twice. And so the Fantastic Four became a conglomerate of people who did different KIRBY: Or, you know, it’s their choice, [laughs] I guess! things. Usually, I’m associated with, the readers have associated me STRACZYNSKI: One of the true breakthrough comics for Marvel with Ben Grimm! was Spider-Man. Which you created. STRACZYNSKI: I wonder why! KIRBY: Yes. KIRBY: And I think in a way they’re right. Now Ben Grimm talks and STRACZYNSKI: Where’d he come from? acts just like I do, but of course, he’s a monstrosity and I can still wear a suit and look like everybody else. Ben Grimm is a natural guy. For KIRBY: Spider-Man is a city character. Show me the perfect character showy purposes, he’s perfect! He certainly does the things that I wish 15

(below) Jack’s twelveissue run on “The Losers” (Our Fighting Forces #151-162) stands as his finest war work in comics. Here’s page 11 pencils from #151 (Oct. 1974).

I could do. He can tear an ashcan up like we do paper. He can rescue people in manners that we can’t. He can rip off the side of a building and maybe get the tenants out because it’s going to explode. Ben Grimm can do it. Other people it would take many, many hours and of course make accidents unavoidable. What Ben Grimm did was shorten that time and solve the problem quicker than most people could.

STRACZYNSKI: I suspect there’s also a lot of you in Sgt. Fury. KIRBY: Sgt. Fury was WWII. STRACZYNSKI: Yeah. A cigar chompin’, no nonsense, get the heck out of my way… KIRBY: Well, I was a combat infantryman. I was with Patton’s 5th Division and whatever Sgt. Fury did, I did. I did it in “The Losers,” like I said, I mentioned that tape. And there were other things. I put not exactly my own war experiences, which gave the strip a little authenticity, I put my own feelings down. First of all, I was glad to be back, I was glad to be alive, I don’t know how it happened! [laughs] What happened was, I froze my feet. I was unconscious for days, I was lying in the snow. In fact, my whole battalion just konked out, you can lay in the snow just for so long, without any hotels around. My feet were a nice deep purple. I remember being in the hospital, some of the DC editors came up to visit me. By that time I felt so fiercely annoyed, I told them to get out of my room! [laughs] These guys were editors, here I am an artist talking back to editors! STRACZYNSKI: You were drafted along with Mort Weisinger and other editors. KIRBY: I was in the same truck with Mort Weisinger. Mort Weisinger didn’t know how he got drafted! [laughs] He was saying it aloud, you know, while we were in the truck and we were all headed for the POE, which is the port of embarkation in Boston. There was a big convoy waiting with 25 ships. But Mort Weisinger didn’t go overseas. STRACZYNSKI: He was an editor! [laughs] KIRBY: He was an editor! [laughs] Yes! Me, they quickly put right on a ship. [laughs] Everybody was lying out on deck. There

were 2000, 3000 guys lying on the deck and there was no room to walk! And I had to sleep! So, I happen to be Jewish, but I know that chaplains are supposed to have mercy on anybody. [laughs] So, I asked the chaplain if I could sleep in his room. If he had any space I would just lie down anywhere. Of course the chaplain was very kind to me, and I found space on the ship where I could just fall asleep.

KIRBY: [laughs] Thank goodness! But the point is that aristocracy or peasant, what they did best was tell stories. And of course, they would tell stories under the street lamps. They would tell stories, all the folk tales they learned in Europe were transferred to the young people that they bore here. Demons were Count Dracula... er, Dragorin, from Jimmy Olsen real! Dracula was a #143 (Nov. 1971), and (below) the Kirbys with real to me as any Julie Schwartz in the 1980s. horror could be. That was real horror! Remember there was a time when we never had penicillin. I caught double pneumonia, okay? I’m lying there on a bed. I’m a nine-year-old boy, and ten rabbis are dancing around my bed.

STRACZYNSKI: That’s great. KIRBY: So, it was a wonderful experience to me, to involve myself with humanity in general. People certainly, I met people not of my own kind. And they’d look at me and they’d say, “What’s a Brooklyn?”[hosts laugh] and things like that! Communications weren’t as they are today. There were no airlines and there were no roadways where thousands of cars would go back and forth across the United States. Communications were rare. Texans never saw New Yorkers. Midwesterners never saw Texans. Californians certainly, didn’t see anybody. STRACZYNSKI: They preferred it that way. KIRBY: Well, we got along at any rate. We all had one objective. STRACZYNSKI: To get home.

DiTILLIO: [laughs] Not a good sign!

KIRBY: Certainly. We did the best we could. I seemed to get along with them. It went on that way aboard ship. It went on that way when we landed in Liverpool. I got to see Liverpool at night. [laughs] It was a grand sight because Liverpool was a wreck. We went on from there.

KIRBY: And they’re all saying, “Come out of this boy, demon! What’s your name, demon? Don’t hurt this boy, demon!” And they were saying that in Yiddish, of course. This kind of thing was very real. And I think it added to the type of storytelling that I would do later on in life. Because, my characters, to me, were real, just as they were to these Europeans. The Europeans at that time were really aristocracy or peasants who would sit around fires. I’m sure Bram Stoker, who wrote Dracula, probably sat in with those peasants in Europe and listened to their stories around the fire and he might have come back with Dracula.

STRACZYNSKI: Before we get to the other question, I’ll open up the phone lines to the group mind. Our guest tonight is Jack Kirby, one of the preeminent figures in comic book history. Our phone number is [phone number] if you want to talk to Mr. Jack Kirby, and you have some more stuff in the meanwhile. DiTILLIO: Oh, you don’t even tell me you’re coming back to me for a question.

STRACZYNSKI: Could very well be. We’re taking calls now at [phone number] and you’re on the air.

STRACZYNSKI: I was surprised to see that you’re still awake.

CALLER: Hi, as long as you’re talking about Demon, I was wondering, I think you touched a little bit on what might’ve been your inspiration for that. And also, what do you think about the future of computers in graphics, do you think that’s the way everything is going to go? And have you ever used any for graphics?

DiTILLIO: When you first started working in comics, in the early days, what were the working conditions like? Your pay… could you make a living, working? KIRBY: Well, that was the reason I stuck with comics because I managed to bring home some money. That was my mother’s orders: Bring home some money. And of course, whatever your mother told you to do, you did. And of course, in comics, I began to make money! And I found out that the better comics I did, the more money I made. So I worked very, like I told you, I worked very hard. And my comics began to make money for the publishers and I became deeply involved in the field, with Joe Simon, and whoever else was there. I knew all the early artists and the editors. I knew Mort Weisinger well. I knew Murray Boltinoff, and whoever was at Timely.

KIRBY: Oh, computers! Well, I think computers are machines that are waiting to do something. We don’t know what it is they want to do, but we’re helping them along. [hosts laugh] One of these days they won’t need our help. That kind of day is going to be very uncertain for us. It’s going to make things uncertain. I think computers are going to become… in fact, they are a very important part of our lives. You’re asking a very, very valid question. STRACZYNSKI: Thank you for calling.

DiTILLIO: Julie Schwartz?

DiTILLIO: You didn’t answer the other part of the question, Jack.

KIRBY: Yes, I knew Julie Schwartz very well. So, it was a good and decent and honest way to make money and doing the thing I liked best: telling stories. So, I was carrying on a sort of family tradition, because that’s what my family did. Telling stories was a way of easing your way of life. My father came from a very rigid discipline. My father was from the Austrian aristocracy, but my mother was a peasant! [laughs]

STRACZYNSKI: We’ll take this call first, and then we’ll pick that up. You’re on Hour 25, go ahead. CALLER: Hi, Jack Kirby, you’re from New York. Are you touring here? Because I went to your comic convention and you were there, but I missed it. So, are you here, for vacation, or what? KIRBY: Oh, I’ve been in California for the last twenty years now. I’ve enjoyed living in California thoroughly. I don’t know what’ll happen

DiTILLIO: Thank goodness. [laughs] 17

KIRBY: The devil has been here with us a long, long time. In fact, as long as the angels and God. It’s man’s evil and man’s virtue, I believe, living side-by-side. Man has taken evil and virtue and given us many ways to look them over, to examine ourselves. That’s what we really do when we write. We talk to others and we examine ourselves. “What is evil?” and “What is virtue?” We’ll probably never know, but it makes life interesting, and I believe it makes magazines sell. STRACZYNSKI: Okay. You’re on Hour 25 at [phone number] with Jack Kirby, go ahead. CALLER: How do you do? I would like to ask a couple of questions. The first one has to do with… do you know of any good women who are creators of comics? And the second question is, could you please talk about women as heroes in comics? And I will hang up so you can answer. STRACZYNSKI: Thank you. KIRBY: I’ve always had the highest respect for women as people, certainly. And I’ve always used them in comics in the same manner that I’ve used my male characters. Women are heroines and villainesses and contend with virtue and evil even as men do. There’s no difference between us except physical structure, in my mind. STRACZYNSKI: You’ve actually created some very memorable female characters: Sif, in Thor, Barda in the New Gods. KIRBY: Yes, Big Barda. I happen to like big girls and Big Barda was a natural type of girl for me to draw. If you’ll dig into this a little deeper, in a psychological way, you’ll find that short men like large women. If you’ll notice my wife, she’s maybe an inch or two taller than I am.

tomorrow, but I think I’m still going to be in California. CALLER: Do you have any business here [in California]? KIRBY: My business has been here for the last twenty years, as I said. And I’m rarely idle.

STRACZYNSKI: And is about to throw a brick at you now, I believe. KIRBY: Yes.

STRACZYNSKI: Thank you. Now, you and I, Larry have no business being here at all.

STRACZYNSKI: And the first part of the question the caller had, was about women working in comics now. Which would you look at being the top…

DiTILLIO: No. STRACZYNSKI: Now what was the other question that we didn’t follow up on?

KIRBY: Well, there is no such thing as the creation of demons, all right?

KIRBY: Well, I’ve always expected women to work in comics. Women always have. I forget her second name, but when I was a young man there was a young woman named Marie who was doing comics. She was a sister of one of the fellow artists. She was one of the first women in comics and she did excellent work. There’s no reason for women not to do comics.

STRACZYNSKI: Genesis 1:1.

STRACZYNSKI: Cause you worked with Jenette Kahn, too, I understand.

DiTILLIO: I think the gentleman asked, as long as we were talking about demons, if you could say something about the creation of Demon, The Demon comic.

KIRBY: Yes, Jenette Kahn is another example of women involved in comics. And Jenette Kahn does a wonderful job as a publisher. Women, I think, women should engage and have the chance to engage in whatever kind of profession that they have in mind and do the best they can.

studio and I was just a young artist. CALLER: So he helped you out early in your career? KIRBY: Yes, he did. CALLER: What’s Stan Lee like?

STRACZYNSKI: We are at [phone number] KPFK, talking to Jack Kirby.

KIRBY: Uh… Will Eisner is an industrious guy.

DiTILLIO: Now, as far as women artists or writers working in comics, Christy Marx is one, Wendy Pini is another, they’re working on Elfquest. Who? Oh sheez, it was a husband and wife team. Marie is the name I remember… John Romita?

STRACZYNSKI: [laughter] Okay. I got that one. Thank you for calling, caller. You’re on Hour 25, go ahead. CALLER: Yes, I was wondering, Jack, regarding Captain America, if

KIRBY: No, no. ROZ KIRBY: Marie Severin. KIRBY: Marie Severin. DiTILLIO: Marie and... KIRBY: ...and John Severin. DiTILLIO: Right. STRACZYNSKI: Ann Nocenti who does Daredevil and many others. DiTILLIO: There’s not many women working as writers or artists in comics, there’s more working in the publishing or editorial end of it. I don’t know why. KIRBY: But it’s their prerogative. It’s their prerogative. Drawing comics is not withheld from them. If they want to draw comics, fine. If they want to do other things in comics, I found they are always welcome to do that. STRACZYNSKI: You’re on Hour 25 with Jack Kirby. Go ahead. CALLER: Jack, I heard you speaking something about laying in the snow. What were you referring to? KIRBY: That my feet were purple! In fact, they had to crack open my coat. CALLER: Yeah, well you were lucky they didn’t cut them off. KIRBY: Well, they couldn’t cut my coat off, they had to crack it open. CALLER: Well, I’ll tell you a real quickie since you’re a humor man. We were up there, too, and the snow was pretty bad, and I won’t mention any rats or anything, but someone stole somebody else’s sleeping bag and the only sleeping bag that has feather downs inside of it. So the guy takes and he steals this other guy’s bag and he takes his pants off. He gets in the bag and he had diarrhea. Well, when he woke up… [hosts cut off caller and laugh]

there’s no need for him today, what would Steve Rogers be doing? KIRBY: Steve Rogers would be doing something heroic.

STRACZYNSKI: You’re on Hour 25, go ahead.

STRACZYNSKI: For the environment, perhaps?

CALLER: Hi, this is Dave from out in the Inland Empire to say hello to Jack. And I was wondering, I have a question for him, have you met Will Eisner?

KIRBY: Yes. He’d probably be testing a new kind of plane, a new vehicle of some kind. Or he’d be doing something for the government that would require people who like a dangerous environment. Steve Rogers is that kind of a guy.

KIRBY: Will Eisner was one of the people I worked with at a very early date. I worked with Will Eisner when he and [Jerry] Iger ran a 19

CALLER: I see. Thank you very much.

actually traced. But you can’t, somehow, I don’t blame the artist for it. He wants to keep that kind of a mood, in the strip. If it had been a motion picture… he might’ve… for instance if he made another Star Wars, he may want to keep the same mood of the first Star Wars in the second picture. So, I think some of these fellows want to keep that mood and maybe build upon it. I see nothing wrong with it.

STRACZYNSKI: [phone number] and you’re on the air. Go ahead. CALLER: Yeah, hi, Jack Kirby? Always been a fan of your big splash pages, always loved those. I wanted to ask you two questions. What artists now do you think are hot and which ones aren’t? And what are you going to do now with all your artwork now that you got it back from, who was it, Marvel? STRACZYNSKI: Marvel.

STRACZYNSKI: All right. Thank you for calling. You’re on Hour 25, go ahead.

KIRBY: Well, I didn’t get all of it back. But what I did get back I was grateful for. I leave the disposition of the artwork to my wife. In fact, I leave everything to my wife. [laughter] I just draw a bit and eat sandwiches.

CALLER: Good evening. Thank you, Jack, for many hours of healthy introspection. I have a question, two questions actually, one on automobility, not referring to the current automobile, but what you think about the future of the automobile, or automobility, in general.

STRACZYNSKI: And who do you think right now are the up-andcoming artists or writers?

KIRBY: Well, that usually resolves itself. In other words, that’s never up to us. It’s always up to the companies. And what’s… and how conventional they are. Maybe one day they’ll do something radical and we’ll have an automobile that hovers above the street and flies above the traffic.

KIRBY: All the artists that I’ve noticed are just wonderful. They send me the latest magazines from all the publishing houses. They top the magazines of my day to a degree that astounds me. The paper is so good. The kind of paper we got, well you could use it in the bathroom and [unintelligible]. [laughter]

STRACZYNSKI: Fantasticar. What’s your next question? CALLER: I was thinking also about energy and things like this and the need for change along those lines and mass consumption.

STRACZYNSKI: Like our first caller. KIRBY: So, the magazines produced today are wonderfully produced. They’re wonderfully written, and they’re wonderfully illustrated. I can’t say too much about their quality.

KIRBY: Yes. STRACZYNSKI: What’s your second question? CALLER: Second question is, you mentioned something earlier about the Bible and your mentioning Genesis and a couple of other things went by. I was wondering how much you draw on the Biblical super-heroes. Men like David, and guys like that. Do they figure prominently anywhere?

STRACZYNSKI: Although I’ve noticed on a number of the artists working today, every so often I’ll turn a page in a Marvel comic and you look at Thor in a particular pose and go, “He’s doing Jack Kirby.” KIRBY: Well, I’ve seen spots once or twice where the figure was

KIRBY: Yes, they do. Biblical figures have always been self-evident. Everywhere. Samson was your first superhero. Samson, of course, did things other men couldn’t. Samson was your first superman. He could do the same things that Superman did. He could do the same things that Captain America did. Of course, all of us have read the Bible or have been told about the Bible, in some way. We’ve absorbed it and it’s part of us. So it’ll come out in our drawings and whatever we build or talk about. STRACZYNSKI: All right, thank you. Where was the first tennis game played? DiTILLIO: You got me.

whole world, and I stayed with it for years… and… STRACZYNSKI: I take it you’re a fan. CALLER: Jack, you’re the best! I love you, Jack! KIRBY: Well, believe me, it’s all returned to you. I love you, too. If you read any of my books, I appreciate that fact, and I have no words to express how wonderful that kind of thing, well, helps my own spirit. CALLER: Jack, don’t put those pens down! If you ever hear any story in your head, just do it because it doesn’t matter what anybody else says, there’s people out there who care about what you write. It means a lot to them

STRACZYNSKI: When David played in King Solomon’s courts. DiTILLIO: Get out of here. [Kirby and hosts chuckle] STRACZYNSKI: You’re on the air, go ahead. CALLER: Hi, yeah, I was reading Jack Kirby teamed up with Stan Lee with Marvel Comics in the early ’60s, so it’s sort of an honor for me. My question is, and I don’t think this has been talked about, how was the collaboration, which to me was the modern age of comics started with Stan Lee and Jack Kirby working together. How did that either come about and how did that develop in terms of how you wrote a story? KIRBY: I wrote the story. I wrote the complete story. I drew the complete story. And after I came in with the pencils, the story was given to an inker and the inker would ink the story and a letterer would letter it, and I would give the story to Stan Lee or whoever had the editor’s chair and I would leave it there. I would tell them the kind of story I would do to follow up and then I went home and I would do that story, and I wouldn’t come into the office until I had that story finished. And nobody else had to work on a story with me. CALLER: Hmm! Okay. That’s actually a little bit of a surprise. Okay, thank you. STRACZYNSKI: Thank you. It’s the revision of history going on at Marvel for the last few years. KIRBY: Yeah, well… STRACZYNSKI: You’re on Hour 25 with Jack Kirby. Go ahead. CALLER: Ha! I can’t believe it! I’m standing at two pay phones. Oh, Jack Kirby, you’re the greatest! When I was like 13 years old, 12 years old, the whole world opened up to me. A guy Butch Pearl turned me onto these comic books, Captain America, SpiderMan, The Incredible Hulk, it was like a 21

(previous page) Jack shows us his vision for cars in this animation presentation for the show Turbo Teen (1984). © Ruby-Spears Productions.

(below) Jack never drew the origins of tennis, but here’s King Solomon’s Frog from Black Panther #1 (Jan. 1977).

Futuremen is one of the countless unproduced animation concepts that Jack worked on for Ruby-Spears in the 1980s. Perhaps this is one of the xeroxes that J. Michael Straczynski saw coming over the transom?

and there’s kids out there right now who need to hear those stories and wherever you get your inspiration from, Jack, it’s a great place.

the Source is, lives with us day by day. We don’t know what the Source is, where it is, we can’t identify its form, but we know it’s there. This thing, this tremendous thing, governs our lives, and somehow we can all feel it inside. It’s referred to as spiritual, it’s referred to in many other ways, but we know instinctively that it’s there. And that’s what I put down in my stories, because like everybody else, I’ve felt this thing and I felt that it was real and I’ve kept it with me all my life.

STRACZYNSKI: All right, thank you for calling. CALLER: Thanks a lot, Jack, I love you. Take care. DiTILLIO: Hang up them phones. STRACZYNSKI: I think he liked the work. You’re on the air. Go ahead. CALLER: Yeah, this is Bill in West LA?

STRACZYNSKI: All right, thank you for calling. You’re on Hour 25 with Jack Kirby, go ahead.

STRACZYNSKI: Hi, Bill.

CALLER: Since Batman’s success there’s been a lot of movies coming around, I guess, with the super-hero type thing. Is there anything to do with the Punisher coming out? I understand Dolph Lundgren is going to be some Punisher thing…

CALLER: Hi. I’m doing artwork for myself now, for a living, professionally. I just wanted to say that when I was first starting to be drawn into that back in grammar school, you were a tremendous influence on me, Mr. Kirby. Your work really meant a lot to me. We’d be in class and then kids gluing macaroni onto paper, and I’m over in the corner drawing Darkseid. Kind of hard to explain, but… and secondly, I was kind of wondering, I was a great fan of the New Gods saga, the Fourth World series, I was wondering if you could say a few words about the Source, and how the idea for that came about in your mind, because I was always really intrigued by the Source, it was kind of a…

KIRBY: Well, that’s a decision of Marvel’s. I don’t know when it’ll be made, or who is going to… STRACZYNSKI: Last I heard it has been made, and is going to cassette, I understand. CALLER: It’s going to cassette only? DiTILLIO: Apparently, because Dolph Lundgren’s last picture Red Scorpion went right into the dumper and they didn’t want to release

KIRBY: The Source, like everything else, is an everyday fact. We live, 22

another picture with Dolph Lundgren.

of innocence to them. They were less human, up until the Fantastic Four started…

CALLER: Oh, okay. Is there some sort of tie-in with, fascination with, super-heroes right now for the movies? Or is it just because Batman made so much money, they’re going to start going overboard with this kind of stuff…

KIRBY: Well, they’re deadly now. DiTILLIO: Yeah, they’ll kill you! KIRBY: Yes, and they’re violent now. They want to do the real thing! So, I think that the very pleasant type of feeling’s gone out of the comic…

KIRBY: Well, my guess is it was Batman who generated a trend. I think the trend will continue, and you’ll see good ones made and bad ones made, but the trend will continue. The super-hero has, and always will, be part of the American scene. And, of course, today, he’s visual and I believe that he’ll stay visual, and in motion.

DiTILLIO: You almost can’t call them comic anymore. KIRBY: Well, if you see an illustration of somebody choking some guy, it’s going to be the real thing! I mean, this guy’s going to look like he’s being constricted. They’re going to make this one panel stick out of the entire story, and you lose your train of thought, you lose the rest of the story. Some fellow feels that this is the kind of picture he likes to draw. And he’ll draw it so well, that it will attract the reader to this one panel. And in doing so, the artist will lose the rest of the story, because the rest of the story will never match that panel. That panel will jump right out of the story. And the reader will concentrate on it. And of course, I feel that it’s a loss for the artist, that the entire story matters.

STRACZYNSKI: Yeah, I agree. Thank you, and, you’re on Hour 25. CALLER: Yes, I want to be quick about this because I don’t want to get into Mr. Kirby’s time, but I believe John Severin, whose fine work on King Kull as the artist, and Marie, as a colorist… they’re not, however, husband and wife, I believe they’re brother and sister. I’m fairly sure about that. I’m not positive, but I think they’re brother and sister. STRACZYNSKI: I think you’re right. Yeah. Thank you. Now, there’s a connection between you and Mr. Kirby which Jack isn’t even aware of. DiTILLIO: No. Jack and I talked about it beforehand.

STRACZYNSKI: We have about two minutes left, three minutes left. There are those now trying to revive the campaign that comic books are evil, not good for people, and all this sort of thing.

STRACZYNSKI: Oh, you did? DiTILLIO: Are you going to bring up the giant worms coming out of the earth?

DiTILLIO: Like Frederic Wertham did in the ’50s.

STRACZYNSKI: Absolutely, I must bring it up. Can you explain the background?

STRACZYNSKI: What’s your response to those people who are trying to revive the idea that comics are bad for you?

DiTILLIO: When I was working at Ruby-Spears as a writer, Jack was working there doing conceptions, models and all of his creative things. And the first day I was there Joe Ruby said, “I have this terrific idea for you to work on, Larry: Giant worms coming up out of the earth, devouring cities.” I said, “Why did I ever quit my last job and come here with this cigar smoking madman that wants me to do giant worms coming out of the earth?” Sixty-five episodes of giant worms coming up out of the earth. But the one great thing about it was: Jack Kirby artwork which would come over the transom and I’d get all these wonderful xeroxes of all these terrific machines and these terrific characters, and that was wonderful. Now that series never got made.

KIRBY: I think it’s wrong. I think it’s up to us to decide what’s good for us. If it’s going to hurt you, you’ll feel it and you won’t continue it. I think they ought to give you that choice. I think that comic books, like any other literature, when it’s done by good men, will give you the thrill of a lifetime. Who can compare, say, an adventure like Moby Dick and stories like that, with, say, mediocre fiction of the hard book kind? So, there’s outstanding literature and there are stories that fade away. It will always remain that way. We can’t stop it. STRACZYNSKI: All right. We are out of time. It’s been a terrific two hours. DiTILLIO: Rats!

STRACZYNSKI: What did you think of this worm stuff?

STRACZYNSKI: Rats! I know. We appreciate you coming down here to the station, Mr. Kirby. It’s been a genuine pleasure for all of us.

KIRBY: Well, like anything else, it was a story to tell. You could do it well. You could do it in a mediocre fashion. It depends on the storyteller.

KIRBY: Oh, it’s been my pleasure, surely. You people have been very nice.

DiTILLIO: But you couldn’t do it for 65 episodes. I was convinced of that.

DiTILLIO: Although I’m sorry you stopped smoking cigars. I know it’s better for you.

KIRBY: Well, of course, that’s an opinion. We all have our own opinion, and I think we’re all entitled to them. Somehow, maybe someday, we may see those worms, or we may not. I don’t think it’s going to change our lives one way or the other.

KIRBY: No, I’m glad I did. I probably would have melted your wall. ★ Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird had Kirby make a posthumous appearance in the 2003 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated series, in an episode appropriately titled “The King.” (In it, everything he draws with his magic pencil comes to life, in an episode filled with Kirbyesque settings, krackle, and characters.) You can watch the full episode at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQ_wACs7a44

DiTILLIO: Did you do the conceptions on Centurions, as well? KIRBY: I believe so. DiTILLIO: Because I worked on Centurions as well, at Ruby-Spears. Which actually was a very good show, both in artwork and writing, but it went right off the air, because it was the end of the toy days. KIRBY: Well, it was out of my hands. The conceptions were as far as I went. DiTILLIO: How do you like the new super-heroes? In the ’40s—the ’30s, ’40s, ’50s… even as far as the ’60s, the super-heroes had a kind 23

An ongoing examination of Kirby’s art and compositional skills

Sgt. Fury #13 Ultimate Kinetics aptain America was created at a time when Jack Kirby, along with a substantial segment of this country’s citizens, realized that the evils of Nazism had to be dealt with and countered by the forces of democracy. When he returned to the US in 1945 after having served his country in France under the command of George Patton, Kirby had seen firsthand just what it took to defeat the evils that Hitler had wrought. Decades later, in 1963 working with Stan Lee at Timely/ Marvel again, Kirby created Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos, a team of soldiers that must have brought him back psychologically and emotionally to his days in the service. In the 13th issue, Kirby featured his super-soldier Captain America in a story that for me represents the epitome of tour de force dynamic storytelling. It is also a very compelling story. Now, some people have said that Sgt. Fury was Burt Lancaster and some have said that he was Ralph Meeker, but we can be certain that he was Jack Kirby, or at least represented Kirby as he idealized himself. The cigar of course is a dead giveaway. So we can essentially think of this story being about Kirby as a soldier in 1940s Nazi-occupied France meeting his creation Captain America, and fighting side-by-side with him. Kirby pours all of his energy into this tale. Not only are his figures exploding with kinetic energy, they are placed for the most part in complex compositions of deep space perspective. In nearly every panel there are multiple planes, consisting of background, mid-ground and foreground, and Kirby uses elements throughout the space in support of his figures to make them come alive. Deep space perspective is a subject that artist Burne Hogarth has discussed in his Dynamic Anatomy and Dynamic Figure Drawing volumes. Kirby had internalized and utilized these same concepts in his work decades ago. Ideally, the figure should be designed as a three-dimensional shape/mass moving in the confines of panel space, which must be arranged convincingly in order to be believable. Hogarth states that the position of the torso is of primary importance in the dynamism of the figure in space. The torso is composed of the rib barrel and the pelvis, and these can move in contrapuntal directions in relation to each other. The upper and lower portions of the torso, moving in opposition, can create more dynamism in the figure. Also, wherever there are joints in the body, there is an opportunity to depict more contrapuntal movement. The pivot points of the shoulder and elbow, for instance, can create elliptical arcs of motion that increase dynamism. Kirby, even more than Hogarth, was a master of this, particularly when he would also utilize a counter movement of the head. Look at this picture of Captain America on the cover of Sgt. Fury #13. Notice how the left side of his rib barrel is twisted forward and to the

scarcity of other background elements, the positions of the figures of Bucky and the Howlers do give the Cap figure greater forward momentum. After this explosive cover, the book unfolds gradually. One gets the feeling that Kirby wants to take his time developing this particular story, perhaps because he wants to say something about soldiers and heroes as people. We first see Fury and his girlfriend watching a newsreel in a theater. The newsreel film gives us a brief glimpse of Captain America and Bucky in action in order to set the stage for their appearance. Right away, we see that Fury is jealous of Captain America’s fame and sees him as a grandstanding glory hound. Fury and his girl repair to a local pub for a cup of tea and a run-in with Fury’s nemesis Bull McGiveney and a certain Private Steve Rogers. This scene [previous page] at the Pig and Whistle pub is one of the most well balanced panels that I’ve ever seen. It’s not chock full of explosive dynamic Kirby action, but is very effective in establishing a setting for a pivotal moment later in the story. It also shows Kirby’s extraordinary ability to set a plot in motion and establish character in a single panel mise-en-scène. First we see Sgt. Bull McGiveney enter the pub on the left, and his sloping left shoulder leads the eye to the pipe-smoking figure in blue, then down the white hat of the sailor, to finally rest on the seated figure of Pvt. Rogers drinking coffee. Rogers’ right arm and the edge of the white table then lead us to the teasipping Sgt. Fury. The circular composition continues to lead the eye around and back to the left to Pamela Hawley and back to Pvt. Rogers. His unassuming, self-absorbed pose is the focus of the composition. As the story progresses, the readers soon discover that Pvt. Rogers is in reality Captain America, who with his young partner Bucky make their way across the English channel to Nazi-occupied France, where they proceed to interrupt a German firing squad [above]. In this third example, we first see a striking panoramic deep space perspective shot of Nazi soldiers on a street, and then in Panel Two we see Captain America and Bucky perched on a rooftop overlooking them. The panel is powerful, showing Cap’s figure with legs spread

right, with the right arm moving back, while the pelvis is turned directly forward. The left leg is angled back with its knee moving to the right while the right leg is moving forward but with a wide step leftward. The left arm and the shield are forcefully thrusting out of the upper right edge of the frame. Even the head is turned slightly and tilted to the left. The counterpoint arrangement of the figure creates extreme dynamic tension. With this figure placed in the foreground of the page, it appears to be leaping out of the canvas at you. Although this composition doesn’t depict a particularly deep space due to the relative 25

next-to-nearest Nazi. Having the horizon line a diagonal also gives the action greater momentum. The special arrangement of the figures is near perfect, minimizing dead space. If you changed the position of any of the figures even slightly, it would render the composition less dynamic. Notice the extended hand of the shield-struck figure gesturing to Bucky, whose right cross leads the eye from Nazi to airborne Nazi and finally to the helmet of the closest soldier. For the next two pages, Cap and Bucky lay waste to multitudes of soldiers, climaxing in this panoramic panel with its amazing sweep of Cap’s shield knocking Nazis down like ten pins [below]. Again, here is an astonishing example of the effectiveness of figure and object placement and the positioning of limbs for maximum dynamism. Captain America’s body is extended about as far as it can be in several directions, and each limb is maximizing his kinetic energy. The direction of his shielded left arm counterbalances his left leg, and his arms and legs are akin to compass points on the circle of the shield’s sweep line, as is the motion line that propels the Nazi at lower right.

wide, looming diagonally as if about to pounce. We then see the brutality of the Nazis as they are about to execute some American pilots. In essence, we see precisely why Cap, Bucky and the Howlers are fighting in France. This page also beautifully sets a scene with the use of buildings and rooftops, giving us a powerful sense of the area where the action is taking place. The two adventurers leap into action with Cap flinging his shield. This long panel [above] is remarkable for its sense of motion from rear to front. When Kirby designed it, he knew that in order to position figures with the illusion of deep space, a depth plane must be created, and the arrangement of the figures can be optimized by their size and spatial relationship to each other. Hogarth speaks of using the mechanics of a grid system to create a depth plane. Kirby often used a grid or the suggestion of one in projecting figures in deep space. See the way the figures are positioned on the plane, with Cap in the background at the slanted left edge of the horizon line as he flings his shield at the Nazi’s hand. The perspective lines on the ground accentuate the depth of the panel and the force of the shield’s impact as it moves into the foreground, caroming off the outstretched hand in a circular arc, moving out and back into the frame and striking the 26

The flying Nazis are, as usual, strategically positioned in that circular composition that Kirby uses so often and so effectively in order to lead the viewer’s eye to where he wishes it to go. If the eye enters the panel with the highlighted word “smashing” in the balloon, it follows the white sweep line around, from which all the flying figures radiate. The ingenious use of the hand in the lower left corner keeps the eye from following the sweep line and Cap’s shield out of the panel. As the story proceeds apace, we find Cap and the Howlers in a secret Nazi tunnel being constructed for a cross-channel invasion. The tunnel is the perfect setting for the mayhem that ensues as Captain America, Bucky and the Howlers attempt to sabotage it. As they commandeer a railroad car, the group is fired upon with a Nazi field piece. The first panel on page twenty opens just as their car has been hit and they jump to safety. Cap and Bucky’s figures are cut off leaping towards Panel Two, as the eye is led to their running forms in that panel. Cap and Bucky’s legs bring the eye down to Fury’s prone figure. The lower left corner of Panel Two acts as an arrow, pointing directly down and left towards the action in Panel Three, a diagonal shot of Cap and Bucky running toward the howitzer. In the left corner is a small explosion from the cannon’s shot that the eye focuses on as a spotted black shape that frames the action and keeps it moving to the right. I have to digress here and say that Kirby’s Sgt. Fury series had some of the best explosions in any comic, and this particular book is no exception. Several diagonal lines and running motion trails lead the eye to Panel Four, as Cap’s figure is framed by the howitzer and two Nazis, one of which flings a grenade at him. Cap’s extended left leg leads the eye to Panel Five as he jams the grenade into the muzzle of the field piece. This action and the cannon’s structure bring us to the flash of an explosion in Panel Six, which propel Cap forward. The angle of his shield and the explosive force lines point to Captain America’s wounded and somewhat askew form in the final panel. Even the deceptively simple silhouette of Captain America being blown towards you by the force of the explosion is a remarkable piece of artwork, which no one else could have done as expressively or so effectively. The story closes when Fury acknowledges that Captain America isn’t just a glory seeker in a clown suit. The subtext here is that people are seldom what your first impression may lead you to believe. You also get the feeling that in the end, Fury suspects that Steve Rogers, the quiet,

ordinary soldier that he met earlier, might be Captain America, although Lee’s dialogue doesn’t really suggest that possibility. I’d love to see if there were any Kirby margin notes on those pages. It’s my feeling that this is a book that was personal for him much in the way that such stories as “A Small Place in Hell” [Our Fighting Forces #152] are. The juxtaposition of super-hero and soldier is in itself a statement about heroism. In this landmark book, Kirby seems to have reached back in time to his wartime experience, coupling it with his passion for Captain America’s athletic brilliance and fighting spirit, to produce a lasting tribute to the period that was so crucial to his development as an artist and as a man. ★

Key 2: (right) Panel from Kamandi #1 (1972): Dr. Canus ended up being Kamandi’s second-best friend, after Ben Boxer, who some think was based on Jack’s own big brother Dave. It’s interesting that Jack named the character Ben “Boxer,” since Dr. Canus is obviously of the Boxer breed of dog— sort of like the theory that Jack added the Stone Men of Saturn (basically Tiki statues come to life) to Thor’s debut in Journey Into Mystery #83, because he had read the book Kon Tiki by Norwegian adventurer Thor Heyerdahl. (bottom) Kirby spent his twilight years working in the field of animation— the perfect outlet for his fertile imagination. Shown at right is Jack’s concept sheet used for background characters in the October 22, 1983 episode of the animated Mr. T series.

he dedication Kirby put into his work is easily spotted by perusing his prolific output. No other artist in the history of comics comes close to him in quantity or quality—just browse through the Jack Kirby Checklist. After publishing this magazine for 22 years and 68 issues (plus books, collections, let alone other publishers’ Kirby projects), we still haven’t run out of interviews with him, and previously unseen Kirby art keeps turning up all the time. But he was also a dedicated Family Man, intent on providing for his wife, children, and grandkids. Jack Kirby was driven (and no we don’t just mean how wife Roz had to tote him around everywhere, because he’d get too distracted by his imagination to drive a car safely). To call him a hard worker is putting it mildly. His work ethic was unrivaled. An inveterate nightowl, he’d stay up till the wee hours drawing page after page, sleep till noon, be there when the kids got home from school (and to spend time with the never-ending stream of fans who’d stop by), then be back at the drawing board after dinner, doing it all over again, seven days a week.

As the expression goes, Jack worked like a dog. He couldn’t stop creating new characters, even during times of disillusionment at whatever company was employing him. Even in his sixties, when other men were getting a gold watch and a pension check, Jack was cranking out dozens of new concepts a week for animation studios—in many ways, a most fitting end to such a creative career.

DEDICAT

Jack Kirby was

ontemplating two of Jack’s 1970s creations— Dr. Canus and Angry Charlie— made us wonder: What kind of pets did the Kirby family have? We asked his daughter Lisa Kirby, who responded, “We had a couple of family dogs. My first dog was a little mutt named Scruffy. My dad loved this little dog! Later on we had a golden retriever named Kashmir. “When my dad was young, he had a bull terrier named Dutch. I think I may have a sketch of him,” which Lisa generously dug up for our use. Jack drew it when he was 20 years old, proving that even since his youth, Kirby had a soft spot for all sorts of canines.

Seven Panels of

Scenery

by Shane Foley

Incidental Brilliance

T T

his little piece of Kirby appreciation was inspired by one panel in particular in one of Jack Kirby’s least respected Fantastic Four issues. Every time I see it I am in awe of the man who, even when coasting along

and not feeling particularly inspired, could not help but throw in artistic wonders. A man who couldn’t help but draw evocative elements into ordinary scenes to inspire a feeling of awe and wonder. As I thought about this little panel I thought of six other panels that have inspired similar feelings of wonderment. Not just feelings of “Gosh! This guy’s good!” but feelings of “Why on earth did he bother?” I could have called this piece “Unnecessary Brilliance”— because most of what I’ll describe could be left out of the story and it wouldn’t matter. But then, this sort of brilliance in the incidentals of stories is yet another element of what made Kirby the standout giant he is. So in that sense, what I’m describing is not ‘unnecessary,’ but they are certainly in the ‘Incidentals’ of the drawing. And I don’t know why these seven panels in particular leap out at me in this particular way more than most others. But leap out they do. I think a similar type of wonderment was described in TJKC #36 (2002) on page 57, where the writer calls our attention to Morduck’s houseplant in Thor #118. Kirby did not have to include that plant. The story would not have suffered a whit if he drew a geranium! And a geranium (or some such) is about what 99% of the most brilliant artists on Earth would have drawn—and who could blame them? But (usually) not Kirby. Here are my seven examples. That they are all from ’60s Marvel books is perhaps because the ’60s were the time when Kirby combined his new approach, which flowered in the ’70s, with his equally powerful yet so different ’50s work. Perhaps. I don’t really know. With my first inspiration left for last, here they are: THOR #141, ”TALES OF ASGARD,” PAGE 1 (left) Counting the idol, there are 19 figures on this page. 19! It would have worked very well with only 10! There’s a lot of background detail too. This panel delightfully surprises me every time I see it. (We note that this page was inked by Vince Colletta, so the question could be asked: “Did Kirby actually draw more than 19 figures?” But surely not! This is great inking by VC!)

THOR ANNUAL #2, PAGE 14 (above) This page is amazing! It’s a watchtower with a sentry. But what a spectacular and awe-inspiring watchtower with a sentry! No castle turret here. There is nothing like any older visions of Asgard or any period tournament. Actually, there is nothing remotely like any building anywhere, only the hint of an arena. Just spectacular design that goes well beyond what any comic artist was expected to deliver. Mind blowing artistry! (While in Thor’s neck of the woods, I’d like to mention a couple of great Stan Lee moments that always crack me up. In Thor’s first Annual, there’s a brilliant two-page spread by Kirby of Asgard. Most of Lee’s captions are unnecessary and trite—but there, bottom right is an arrow pointing off the page “To Shopping Center.” Pitch perfect to my sense of humor! And in Thor #131, page 12, the Rigellians have captured Thor and are talking in typical grandiose Lee style when one says, “Place the proton cage within the ship, Inspector. The hour grows late!” To which the other replies, “Since we receive no additional compensation for overtime inspecting, you may be assured I will not waste a single galacto-moment!” Ha! I love it! I guess many now, in hindsight, don’t hold this humor in very high regard, but as kids we always wallowed in this stuff. And to my mind, examples like this still hold up well. I find the tongue-in-cheek approach the perfect foil for Kirby’s grand visions. It’s not ‘camp’—like the TV Batman—nor is it playing it for embarrassed laughs, implying it’s all really too ridiculous.) FANTASTIC FOUR #94, PAGE 7, PANEL 1 (top right) Johnny and Ben get to their bedroom in Agatha Harkness’ weird house— and look at the detail Kirby puts into that one panel! He didn’t really need to 31

he’s put there: Not a brick or cobblestone or anything approaching a ‘building’ that he’s walking past. It’s all carved faces and abstract designs. But is it effective? Brilliantly so. (Here’s a different kind of ‘wonder’, which has nothing to do with any of this. I wonder what Jack drew for the final panel of Thor #133? Cause that’s no Kirby pic or Colletta inking there. It’s by the same hand that put the Surfer’s hands into Kirby’s FF #57, page 14, panel 1.) [See page 42 of this issue for more on that Surfer panel.]

draw all that he did, surely. The bed covers didn’t need such a detailed pattern. The foreground left table didn’t need a doily and a lamp and an ornate box—just one would do. There didn’t need to be three paintings on the background patterned wall—or drapes above the bed; amazing detail that always grabs me by the throat!

FANTASTIC FOUR #98, PAGE 15, PANEL 5 (below) Here’s my little (anti-climactic?) mind-boggler that got all this going. Does this panel evoke wonder in anyone else? This is one of Kirby’s most lackluster issues—in a story that makes very little sense in the Marvel Universe. He can’t even be bothered drawing the sentry’s design properly, putting in no detail below the head. Yet in this small panel, where the heroes are descending down through a hole in the ground, he does it again. Instead of drawing just two black ‘sides’ of the tunnel—maybe with an old tree root across it to imply being underground—he shows the FF passing weird, twisting, rocky shapes with alien designs carved into them. Why? What made him think of this? If this panel just had the rocky sides of the shaft, would the reader have noticed the lack? But did it add much to the overall atmosphere of the story? Probably for many, the answer is no. But for me, it is absolutely yes! Totally brilliant! ★

FANTASTIC FOUR #84, PAGE 3, PANEL 4 This panel [previous page, bottom] both inspires and daunts the artist in me. I can ‘expect’ to be stunned by Kirby’s flying ship on page 1—and by his commanding pic of Dr. Doom a bit later—but this is an ‘ordinary’ panel to move the story along. The escapee from Doom’s kingdom is running through a tunnel. That’s all Kirby really needed to draw to get the point across. But for some wonderful reason, he puts in a foreground that screams life and weird science and destruction and terrifying machinery—all when a crumbled wall and broken water pipe would have sufficed. Inspiring! Daunting! (Did Kirby always go above and beyond like this in every issue? Nope. Fantastic Four #76 surely shows him at some of his hurried worst. Clumsy figures, sparse backgrounds, threadbare plot that should have seen FF #75 and #76 combined—something was going on behind the scenes here that saw Jack churn this one out at double-speed.) THOR #166, PAGE 5 (opposite) This issue was produced just after Kirby’s first ‘treading water’ period (where his plots became overly extended and padded and big unnecessary panels abounded), yet like Pluto a couple of issues earlier and Maximus over in the FF, Kirby suddenly decides to design astonishing new uniforms for them all. Karnilla never looked better! Did he have to do these new costumes? Not at all. (Roz must not have been home that day or surely she’d have swiped this one as “too good for them.”) In an issue where Kirby lost interest in the plot—I don’t think #166 holds a candle to #165, with its unnecessary fullpager of Odin, big filler panels and minimal story—we suddenly find this unexpected gem. Wonderful! THOR #129, PAGE 12, PANEL 1 (above) Thor is walking to see Odin, like he has a thousand times before. But Kirby’s mind was into creative design as well as clear storytelling. I suppose we could reduce describing this panel to, “Well, it’s Kirby’s version of a movie scene shooting from behind the pillars in a palace or grand University building.” Fair enough. But look what 33

Barry Forshaw

Obscura my feeling—make the rivalry with the competition at least diplomatic. But that simply was not in Jack’s nature. And then, ironically he was lured back to DC by Carmine Infantino—the company he had attacked so rigorously.” I drew something of a blank when I asked Lee about another comics subject that most interested me personally: Lee’s Trojan output for such legendary Atlas horror comics as Adventures into Terror, Menace, Astonishing and (before it became a super-hero title) Journey into Mystery. Lee was notably less voluble on this subject that he had been on others.

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

TALKING TO STAN Barry Forshaw is the author of British Gothic Cinema and The Rough Guide to Crime Fiction (available from Amazon) and the editor of Crime Time (www.crimetime.co.uk). He lives in London.

(below) Stan Lee hard at work in the 1950s Timely offices. Like Jack, he too was a prolific, dedicated worker, responsible for an entire line of comics each month.

Unlike my co-contributor to this journal, Mark Evanier, I never met Jack Kirby. However I once had the opportunity to interview his long-term collaborator and ‘frenemy’ Stan Lee (at the time of the UK release of Sam Raimi’s first SpiderMan movie), and it was soon clear to me that Lee was both tired and (though thoroughly professional) somewhat on autopilot in terms of his responses. In any case, I was far more interested in the Marvel writer/editor supremo’s pre-super-hero work (he had discussed Daredevil and Co. a million times in exhaustive detail), and decided to ask him about the things I really wanted to know about—I already had enough about the Spider-Man-related things required for the interview, in any case. Jack Kirby was always on the agenda, of course, but I began by asking Lee why he still put himself through such punishing schedules (when with the money he was making from the Marvel films he could be sitting on a Californian veranda sipping a martini); I asked about his English wife; about nearly working with French director Alain Resnais (a comics fan), and several things that he had not been asked before. Lee notably perked up, and I began to get some really fresh and interesting responses. These included a lengthy discussion of the credit wars between himself, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko (half of which I knew I could never put into print!), but I can report one thing he mentioned concerning his and Kirby’s very different personalities: “Whenever Jack and I would do some event in public together,” he told me, “a radio interview, for instance, he was always more direct and less diplomatic than me. I always felt the need to be the friendly public face of Marvel. I remember one example of his uncompromising nature—something he once said in an interview we were doing. When our rivals at DC Comics were mentioned, Jack said, with a hot emphasis, leaning forward: ‘We’re really going to stick it to those guys!’ I later said to him that was too aggressive a statement—we were rivals with DC, certainly, but I tried to keep the rivalry light; and any insults I used, I tried to make humorous. That was

THE HORROR, THE HORROR “Actually,” he said, “Publisher Martin Goodman and I didn’t really do much in the horror comics line before the start of the monster books—and then we really hit paydirt with the super-hero titles.” What was I to say to this? Lee was obviously being as truthful as one could wish—was this an example of memory changing the facts to more suitable proportions? I certainly wasn’t going to argue with Lee (particularly as we were getting on so well) and remind him that Atlas had produced more horror comics than any of its rivals (even the market leaders, the much-acclaimed EC line), and that (along with such professionals as Hank Chapman) he had written the comics equivalent of War and Peace in terms of sheer word count. He did, however, admit to me something which I also heard from the lips of SF writer Harry Harrison when telling me about his days at EC (when he was the less talented half of the Wally Wood/Harry Harrison art duo): he didn’t admit at parties that he wrote for the comics in the days when anticomics hysteria was at its height—better to admit to being a criminal or terrorist than being one of those creatures who were corrupting the youth of America (and, at one remove, the youth of Britain—such as this writer, via the sporadically available material we eagerly consumed in the UK).

PRE-MONSTER DAYS Ironically, while Lee is certainly the most influential editor in comics (closely followed by Julius Schwartz and his work on DC super-heroes and such SF classics as Mystery in Space and Strange Adventures), I got the impression from talking to Lee that he was most proud of his writing skills— and it’s certainly true that they were fully exploited in his Atlas horror comics days. Admittedly, he never matched the EC team of Feldstein and Gaines in terms of invention and elegance, and many of his scripts were banal and clichéd. But (at his best) he created—along with the matchless team of artists available to him at Atlas—some of the liveliest and most gruesomely entertaining comics of the 1950s before the censorship axe decimated the industry. And my failed attempts to discuss with him the books he worked on back then were frustrating, particularly as he would swerve onto the post-Code monster books with Kirby and Ditko, as if they were far more interesting than the horror titles (despite the presence of the inestimable Jack and Steve... they weren’t). Certainly, Lee had not the slightest memory of a particular book that I invoked: Adventures into Weird Worlds #26. It was 34

one of the first American comics that reached me in the UK as a boy (in coverless state), and was a particular favourite, not least because it was well written and illustrated—though The King was (of course) not on board. Other contemporaneous comics writing? How bad most of it was! In the same way that we think of the great days of pulp fiction as being characterized by the Titans Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett (and easily forget the acres of dire prose above which those two giants quickly rose), it’s hardly surprising that our fond memories of ’50s horror comics often center on the wonderfully sophisticated writing of EC Comics, when other companies that did just as well financially got by on splendidly garish art rather than solid scripting. Case in point? The Harvey horror comics line. While that company survived the lowering of the boom with its anodyne kiddie titles (as it consigned its more blood-drenched titles such as Tomb of Terror to oblivion in light of the Kefauver committee-inspired witch hunts), there’s no denying the sheer exuberance of the Harvey books, distinguished as they were by some of the most eye-catching illustration in the field from such giants as Bob Powell, Rudy Palais and Howard Nostrand (the latter may have ripped-off superior talent such as Jack Davis and Wallace Wood, but he did so with great panache!).

UNSPEAKABLE DIALOGUE But the writing in Harvey horror comics! My God, the writing! While Lee’s Atlas books and other comics lines were at least logical and well constructed in terms of plots, the Harvey books appear to be written by someone for whom English was a second language and (moreover) had taken a considerable dose of some illegal substance to get through the onerous chore of writing this stuff. Very often, the Harvey books would establish a premise—monster or killer cutting a bloody swathe through its victims—and go absolutely nowhere with the premise. The clever, twistending plotting of the EC books with their well-rounded protagonists were nowhere to be found. It seemed to be enough that the visuals did the trick, drawing a colourful veil over the unspeakable writing. A good example is the Bob Powell tale in Witches Tales #10, “It!” Mad scientist creates an amorphous monster that kills people. That’s it—the plot in nine words; don’t look for refinements or logic. The dialogue, too (as almost always with Harvey comics) is utterly unspeakable—just try it, sometime: Read out a dialogue balloon from a Harvey tale, and you’ll find yourself saying words that even the most crass of soap operas would shy away from.

super-hero titles such as Fantastic Four and Spider-Man. But the black boxes promised delight, with beautifully drawn contes cruelles by such wonderful artists as Russ Heath, Bill Everett and the baroque and excessive Al Eadeh.

THE KING AS BALLAST Still, however cherishable, these were still black-and-white reprints— with the odd Jack Kirby story—and when the occasional colour original found its way to Great Britain (via, for instance, imports and ship’s ballast) it was, indeed, manna from heaven. I was clutching such a treasure in my hands, as I made my way to a favourite Liverpool library by a route that my parents had expressly forbidden. It was a secluded walk by a railway track alongside the towering walls of Walton Gaol Prison. These walls, of course, were far too high for anything to drop over from the other side, but a certain frisson came from thinking of the murderers and thieves incarcerated on the other side. But it was the secluded nature of the walk that worried my parents—people worried about paedophiles in the early 1960s also. Ironically, visiting that very walk on a return to Liverpool from London recently, I found it completely overgrown and impassable. In any case, I had an American horror comic in my hand, given to me by a friend at school who had decided to part with all his comics to take up the more adult sport of fishing (an action I regarded as idiotic, but didn’t complain about, as I was on the receiving end of his benison). But what was the comic called? It had no cover—the first story (and the default cover) was called Good-bye Earth, with a shadowed man holding his hand up against an unseen creature that cast a distorted shadow over a farewell letter he had written. The shape of the unseen head showed that it wasn’t human. There was the black box with the yellow writing introducing the tale: “Turn the lights down low, kiddies, and get set for another journey into Weird Worlds! Our first tale is one of the strangest we’ve ever read... and we believe that you’ll rate it one of the greatest you’ve ever cast your peepers on!” Adventures into Weird Worlds #26 wasn’t the greatest—as Jack Kirby hadn’t yet returned to the Atlas fold. But even Kirby-less, it did perfectly well to be going on with until The Return of the King… ★

UNCENSORED It’s hard today to remember when uncensored horror comics were extremely hard to come by—the hysteria that had engendered the Comics Code in the US and essentially neutered the industry and its UK equivalent (with questions asked in the Houses of Parliament) similarly made such material—what little there was of it—impossible to find (this period is intelligently discussed in Martin Barker’s well researched book A Haunt of Fears). While comics readers growing up in the late ’50s and early ’60s enjoyed the Code-approved material that was available to us in British and Australian black-&-white reprint form, the rare appearance of what was clearly the genuine article was a source of rejoicing, and the cause of much frantic bartering on the playground. While British readers had seen the handful of EC reprints and enjoyed the avuncular tone of the ghoulish hosts as they described the bloody horrors we were about to read, we became more familiar with the black boxes that heralded Atlas stories, as much more of this material appeared in reprint form. These had no individual hosts, but the gleefully macabre tone of voice in the introductions was a delight, combining a promise of shuddering terrors in a very chatty, sardonic address aimed directly at the reader. There were two things we Brits didn’t know: these black boxes were a characteristic of the amazingly prolific Atlas Comics Group (such 68-page shilling reprints as the now highly sought-after Spellbound #1 removed the logo, usually substituting the words ‘British Edition’). We also had no idea that the author of these introductions was none other than Timely/Atlas workhorse editor Stan Lee, who would later refine the art of talking directly to the reader as one of the key ingredients that ensured the success of his 35

Hiding In Plain Sight

Emotion

Jack Kirby’s Atlas/Marvel Romance work (1960-1963), by David Schwartz ike a lot of us, I grew up an avid reader of all things Marvel Comics—and especially all things Jack Kirby! After discovering Jack’s super-hero work, I searched throughout New York City (where I grew up) for everything I could find. I searched out each issue of The Mighty Thor, The Fantastic Four, Captain America,

The Incredible Hulk, and everything else by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. During my travels I found quite a few things that I had been previously unaware of. I discovered the prehero comics, with all of the incredibly creative monsters with all those funny names: Fin Fang Foom, Goom, Metallo, Blip, Gorgilla, Trull, Groot, Googam, and so many more. These comics all had incredible artwork, bursting with Jack’s creative energy. Shortly after discovering the monster comics, I found Jack’s westerns. I never cared much for westerns on television, but boy, did I love Jack’s western comics. The Rawhide Kid was a real gem. He was a good guy being persecuted by just about everyone around him and he still stood up to do the right thing—talk about integrity. Then there was the Two-Gun Kid. Jack’s revamp of that character completely revitalized the series. It seemed that everything Jack touched was bursting with creativity. So… after years of searching for everything Jack was involved with at Marvel, I was confident I had found it all—that I had seen just about every comic Jack had worked on during those years. But I was wrong. It wasn’t until nearly 20 years after my initial searching that I discovered Jack had also done a whole genre of comics I knew nothing about. These were his romance books. Now, I’m not talking about the romance comics he created in the late 1940s and early 1950s with Joe Simon; I’m talking about his romance comics of the early 1960s that were done at Marvel. Somehow, this entire body of work had slipped right by me—it was a whole genre of comics that Jack Kirby and Stan Lee had been creating at the same time as their super-heroes! I don’t know how I’d missed these comics. During my childhood I, along with my brother Howard, amassed a pretty good collection of Marvel comics. Yet neither of us had seen any of these romance books. How was this possible? We had gone to conventions… talked to dealers… looked through hundreds, if not thousands of back issue boxes for everything Kirby… and yet we hadn’t a clue that these even existed.

So you can imagine my surprise when I finally found one, and then another of these elusive comics. And once I discovered them I was determined to get them all. And this wasn’t easy (especially in the preInternet days). When I started finding them, they weren’t all that expensive, but they sure weren’t easy to find. As I started collecting Jack Kirby’s romance stories from the 1960s, I realized that they were created during those pivotal years between 1961 and 1963, at the same time Stan and Jack were co-creating the Marvel Universe. While Jack had done a few random covers and at least one story before 1961, he actually began regularly penciling the comic book Love Romances with issue #96 in November of 1961. Did I mention his first regular issue was dated November 1961? Does that date ring a bell? If it does, perhaps it’s because it’s the exact same month and year that Fantastic Four #1 came out! Jack was drawing these romance comics during the same time period he was co-creating the Fantastic Four. Jack Kirby drew numerous stories (as many as three an issue) for Love Romances from #96 through #105. This bi-monthly book continued until 1963. And why was it canceled in July of 1963? Well, I imagine it was to make room for the introduction of the X-Men or the Avengers, which both debuted in September of that year.

Another title, Teen-Age Romance, began featuring Jack’s art with issue #84, which also came out the same month and year as Fantastic Four #1. That’s two romance books, both featuring Jack’s artwork the same month as Fantastic Four #1. And guess when these romance books were canceled? TeenAge Romance was canceled only two issues later with #86, which was dated March of 1962. And what debuted in May of 1962 (in keeping with the bi-monthly schedule)? The Incredible Hulk! Teen-Age Romance was likely sacrificed to make room for another (soon to be iconic) super-hero book. I still marvel (no pun intended) at how these comics eluded me all of those years. Perhaps you’re wondering what these comics were like—were they any good? Fortunately, like just about everything Stan and Jack did, they were excellent examples of the genre. They had the same soap-opera feel that was infused into the super-hero comics, only in these stories the soap-opera elements were the primary focus, as opposed to the secondary ones. The sensibilities from these early 1960s romance strips found their way into Jack’s Marvel Universe books, in such subplots as Sue and Sub-Mariner’s unrequited love (from Fantastic Four #27, top left, June 1964), and the unfortunate—and possibly illegal—affection Professor X felt for teenage Jean Grey in X-Men #4 (right, March 1964). Above are pages from TeenAge Romance #85 (top) and #86 (bottom).

KIRBY ATLAS/MARVEL ROMANCE CHECKLIST: Issues in RED are KIRBY COVERS ONLY (no interior Kirby stories) September 1959 Love Romances #83 My Own Romance #71 November 1959 Love Romances #84 My Own Romance #72 January 1960 Love Romances #85 My Own Romance #73 March 1960 My Own Romance #74 May 1960 Love Romances #87 My Own Romance #75

These stories were clearly done for adolescent girls, as all of the stories are told in the first person by female protagonists in their teens to early twenties. The comics focused on the type of problems facing young lovers of the era. There were conflicts between the teenager and her parents, mostly about who the teenager wanted to date, versus who the parents thought was an appropriate partner. There were conflicts concerning class differences, economic differences, age differences, and just plain old misunderstandings that were cleared up by the end of the stories. In fact, some of the storylines would have fit right into the subplots of the super-hero books. The writing was just as sharp as the work being done concurrently in the super-hero comics, but with a different target audience. It was a parallel universe of comics created by the same team that was creating the now iconic Marvel super-heroes. If this article has piqued your curiosity and you’re interested in seeing some of these stories, Marvel has reprinted a number of them in a trade paperback titled Marvel Romance. This book features a number of early 1960s stories by Stan and Jack, among others. I would also recommend searching out some of the original issues since they feature strong work by both Stan and Jack during one of their most creative periods. ★

(this page) Examples from Teen-Age Romance #84 (Nov. 1961), published the same month as Fantastic Four #1. When the story “The Summer Must End!” was reprinted in the ’70s, Marvel had John Romita heavily retouch the girls’ bathing suits and hairstyles (right), to be more in-keeping with that era’s social norms.

July 1960 Love Romances #88 My Own Romance #76 January 1961 Love Romances #91 November 1961 (Fantastic Four #1) Love Romances #96 Teen-Age Romance #84 January 1962 (Fantastic Four #2) Love Romances #97 Teen-Age Romance #85 March 1962 (Fantastic Four #3) Love Romances #98 Teen-Age Romance #86 May 1962 (Fantastic Four #4) Love Romances #99 July 1962 (Fantastic Four #5) Love Romances #100 August 1962 (Journey into Mystery #83) Love Romances #101 November 1962 (Fantastic Four #8) Love Romances #102 January 1963 (Fantastic Four #10) Love Romances #103 March 1963 (Fantastic Four #12) Love Romances #104 May 1963 (Fantastic Four #14) Love Romances #105 July 1963 (Fantastic Four #16) Love Romances #106

Gallery Images from each of Jack’s key character traits, by John Morrow)

PATRIOTIC: CAPTAIN AMERICA Kirby’s signature character couldn’t be more American, than when standing on the moon! As Jack said in this issue’s interview, if Steve Rogers couldn’t be Cap, he’d be doing something else heroic for the US government, as on this pin-up from Captain America’s Bicentennial Battles.

DEDICATED: DR. CANUS No creature on Earth is more loyal than a dog, and Jack gave his all to every strip he worked on—even, as in this page from Kamandi #1, he’d just come off a major disappointment with the cancellation of the Fourth World.

OBSERVANT: THOR Jack soaked up influences like a sponge, and his love of mythology served him well, from Mercury in the 1940s, up to the Marvel Universe and beyond. A commissioned Thor piece from 1979.

INNOVATIVE: SILVER SURFER The Surfer is the one Kirby character that most changed the course of comics. Pencils, Jack’s typed notes to Stan, and Stan’s dialogue notes from page 19 of the Silver Surfer Graphic Novel (1978).

INSPIRATIONAL: DESTROYER DUCK Jack lets loose with unbridled violence and mayhem, all the while inspiring other creators to stand up to the big companies, in these Destroyer Duck #1 pencils (1982).

Reader Tom Watkins provided us with this background for the “fixed” Silver Surfer art (from Fantastic Four #57) shown on page 14 of TJKC #66: “I owned the page this panel was on (around 1975 or so...). The panel was completely covered with glossy white correction paint. On a light box, the original fully inked drawing was VERY different. The somewhat passive Surfer face was drawn/inked with his head tilted back. His mouth was open in a scream of pain, and his eyes were were clenched into fists. As to the “fixes” credit—could be Larry Lieber.”

www.kirbymuseum.org Thanks to you—more than a decade of the Jack Kirby Museum & Research Center! We didn’t mount a big ten-year celebration like almost all other organizations, so we’d like to thank everyone for supporting us all these years! We started in 2005 with the support of the Kirby Estate and TwoMorrows, and have been happily getting the word out about Jack Kirby and his work ever since. We’ve helped publishers, news writers, scholars both academic and independent, curators, families, and people around the world become more aware of the incredible life, work, and influence of Jack Kirby. Join us, help us, watch us, as we continue to celebrate Kirby!

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Become a member now, and we’ll strive to give you the best of what’s left of the vintage posters the Kirby Estate donated to us for fundraising purposes! We will soon be out of good quality versions of some of them...

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TJKC Edition Summer 2016 The Jack Kirby Museum and Research Center is organized exclusively for educational purposes; more specifically, to promote and encourage the study, understanding, preservation and appreciation of the work of Jack Kirby by: • illustrating the scope of Kirby’s multi-faceted career, • communicating the stories, inspirations and influences of Jack Kirby, • celebrating the life of Jack Kirby and his creations, and • building understanding of comic books and comic book creators. To this end, the Museum will sponsor and otherwise support study, teaching, conferences, discussion groups, exhibitions, displays, publications and cinematic, theatrical or multimedia productions. Jack Kirby Museum & Research Center PO Box 5236 Hoboken, NJ 07030 USA Telephone: (201) 963-4383

Melvin Shelton, Christopher Boyko, Daniel Reid, Christopher Horan, Christopher Harder, Richard Pineros, Dennis Brennan, Paul Gleave, Tom Kraft, Thomas Nuzzalo, Andy Rushton, Steven Ramis, Alex Adorno, Wade Stewart, Laura Knechtel, Antonio Iriarte, Don Rhoden, Anita Hicks, Steve Coates, Geraldine Hirsch

We also thank our Board of Trustees and Advisory Board for their support and help! TRUSTEES: Rand Hoppe, Tom Kraft, Mike Cecchini ADVISORS: John Morrow, Charles Hatfield, David Schwartz

And of course, thanks to John Morrow and TwoMorrows Publishing, as well as Lisa Kirby and the Kirby Estate!

Annual Memberships with one of these posters: $40*

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with one of these posters: $50*

Thanks to the Kirby Estate for their continued support! All characters TM © their respective owners.

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Key 3: (below) Jack consults his reference shelf in the 1950s. (right) Though we could’ve used the Watcher, we felt the Recorder best symbolized Jack’s desire to document what he observed—in his own unique way, of course.

best convey this aspect of Jack would be the Black Panther (showing his awareness of the Civil Rights movement), Atlas (just when we thought he’d mined all the myths he could...), Big Barda (his first Feminist), the Forever People (his reflection on the Youth Culture of the hippie generation)—and The Recorder from Thor, who symbolized Jack’s own thirst for exploration.

ack Kirby was a keen observer, perhaps to a fault—he couldn’t safely drive a car, because he was so easily distracted. But through all eras of his life and career, he took in what was all around him. From mythology books and pulps, to TV and movies, Kirby would soak it all in, and spit back out concepts that may’ve had a genesis in something he heard, saw, or read, but would be wholly his own. The dichotomy is that, Jack was not highly educated, at least in terms of having a college degree. But what he lacked in formal education, he more than made up on his own. He was a voracious reader, having been influenced early-on by sci-fi pulps, as well as the popular comic strip artists of his day like Hal Foster and Alex Raymond (and he had a garage full of old National Geographic magazines he saved for reference). The hours he’d spent chained to his drawing board afforded him time to become a deep thinker. He was astutely aware of the times he lived in. His longtime partner Joe Simon taught Jack to spot trends and exploit them commercially, but once on his own, Jack took it a step further in his work. Key characters that would

Kirby’s World That’s Coming The King talks in future tense—written and transcribed by Jerry Boyd [Some of the most astounding notions about the challenges mankind of the future will face in technology, lifestyle, space travel, and alien worlds are present in comics magazines. Inventions once used in ’30s comic strips featuring early starblazers Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon (and either marveled at or contemptuously dismissed) have become reality or adopted/researched by the nation’s space programs. Concepts explored by Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Burroughs, Asimov, Bradbury, and more have found their way into retooled tales by Thomas, Lee, Feldstein, Moore, Binder, and Kirby, to name a few. Jack Kirby’s affinity for things pertaining to superscience could be put into a category all its own. And it has. In TJKC #15, a number of the King’s inventive oddities from times and zones futuristic spilled out like so many gadgets from Mr. Fantastic’s storage closet. Naturally, Jack had opinions on how we’re going out into the wild blue yonder and its dark, mysterious depths and what type of mechanisms will aid us in the endeavor.

OBSE Jack Kirby was

Here are a few more questions and answers from Kirby’s comic store visit (see TJKC #38) on March 14th, 1993.]

KIRBY: Yes, and this kind of heroic dress (pointing to an OMAC drawing) would be there. And this was the beginning of electronics. You could monitor everything.

(Jack points to a futuristic city design in his portfolio.)

FAN: So, Jack, do you ever get approached by the high tech industry that produces video games?

JACK KIRBY: I made up my own electronics designs. Being a city boy, really, I had a slight background in that. You can do that... out of reflex... it comes out from your environment. And that was my environment. I was a city boy.

KIRBY: I get approached by everybody! [general laughter] FAN: Do they ever put money in your pocket, though?

FAN: When you draw, do you visualize that in black-&-white shapes or somebody’s (movie) scene?

KIRBY: No, no. They don’t ’cause I won’t let them. FAN: And why have you chosen that?

KIRBY: Oh no, I put all the shading in! All the shading was there when I delivered the stuff... because I couldn’t just pencil it. I would shade every (inaudible)... so you’d have shadow and... wherever the line worked.

KIRBY: ’Cause I’d like to retire. I’m over 40, let’s put it that way. [smiling] In fact, I’m well over 40. So, you say, “You’ve just about done everything. So what are you gonna draw next?” (A short while later, Kirby swept his hand over promotional artwork for Sky Masters—the piece was shown in Kirby Collector #15.)

FAN: Did you also do the same technique or did you evolve from pencil to...?

KIRBY: It’s a shame. (The King was likely commenting on the failure of Sky Masters to reach larger audiences and continue.) Sky Masters... we were getting a lot of papers on these. The idea was that we were all going up into space and this was the beginning of what we felt the government was gonna do. And the Wood brothers, Dave and Dick, they were the ones who inspired the strip. We were getting a lot of newspapers. And suddenly Dave and Dick said, “We’re gonna go home to our mother... [laughs] in New Jersey!” I couldn’t do anything about it because they were the ones who got [us] the strip and they asked me to draw it. (changing subjects) And this might be a space station, too.

KIRBY: I did the works. I did the background. I used to take everything home. I’d work during the day and I’d go to Broadway at night to see a show. Or else, I’d work at night. Sometime ’til 4 in the morning, but I’d be able to go out in the daytime. I’d do about 3-4 pages a day. (pointing to another illustration) This is kind of an ambitious space station. I thought we were gonna build it actually, but they didn’t get the money off. But they had a big space program going. I made a complex spaceship because I didn’t think they’d look like rockets or missiles. I made it look like hotels! [laughter] (drawing attention to another large piece) And this was my vision of the coming technical world. They had an active space program going (referring to the many Apollo moon shots/space missions of the ’60s and the Viking explorations of the ’70s) and I felt we’d have a space station around, which we don’t have. We’ve got things up there. It hasn’t jelled like I thought it would.

ERVANT

(The King got a lot of ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’ here as his statement accompanied a flip of the large portfolio pages to reveal one of his incredible machine designs afloat in space.) FAN: Were you a fan of science-fiction films?

KIRBY: Yes. I used to read the science-fiction pulps, Terry and the Pirates, and [smiling again] even Bringing Up Father! I’m giving my age away, but they were great strips and they got me interested in doing comics.

(Later, a fan and Kirby discussed OMAC.)

FAN: This eye (on Brother Eye) was the idea of it being able to see everything. FAN: Yeah, like the detective. (The Pinkerton Agency of the 19th century created the ‘eye’ symbol when it became a business that incorporated private detectives.)

FAN: And the old films as well?

KIRBY: Oh, yeah. I would go see a picture two or three times while it was at the theater. My mother would finally come and pull me out... and tell me it was [grinning] suppertime.

What’s Behind...

..his Mask?

Incidental Iconography An ongoing analysis of Kirby’s visual shorthand, and how he inadvertently used it to develop his characters, by Sean Kleefeld

f you’ve read my column before, you’ll know that I usually take a look at how Jack would modify character designs on the fly, sometimes changing them from panel to panel, creating what ultimately become iconic visuals. If you’ve read my column before, you’ll also likely be familiar with Jack’s original sketch of the Black Panther: a watercolor design he entitled Coal Tiger. So why would I spend time-travelling over well-trod ground? Despite that original sketch being relatively wellknown (including having been reprinted in this very magazine repeatedly, and again below), I don’t think many people have really looked at it in comparison to Jack’s evolution of the design. I think people see it and think, “Wow, that’s… yellow!” without going much further. But we have some additional steps to examine before getting to the Panther’s formal debut in Fantastic Four #52. We of course start with Jack’s original watercolor—a non-atypical Kirby design, although he tended to avoid capes as a general rule. If Jack hadn’t made the character dark-skinned (which in 1966 was virtually unique) the cape is probably the most outstanding design element from Jack’s perspective. Take a moment, though, to picture the costume without the color. The changes between this design and the final Black Panther costume are minimal—aside from the mask, the types of changes Jack might make absent-mindedly on any design from issue to issue. Really, besides the removal of the stylized “T” on the belt and the vertical stripes on the tunic, the only change to the costume is in the coloring. Note that, although difficult to see in the final published comics with color, the stripes on Panther’s gloves and boots remain in place.

Now, here’s some interesting considerations. We also have a rejected cover for FF #52 featuring the Panther, now named as such, wearing basically the Coal Tiger costume, minus the stripes plus a half-mask. Since the final cover features a Panther costume that completely covers the character’s face, I think it’s safe to presume that either Stan Lee or Martin Goodman made a request to change to a full mask out of concerns of a potential backlash. Again, we’re talking about 1966 here, squarely during the Civil Rights movement—a year after the assassination of Malcolm X and two years before Martin Luther King, Jr. A good many people were uncomfortable with Black people getting increasingly equal rights, and those who supported them sometimes found themselves facing arrest, imprisonment, or worse. Here’s another consideration, though: Jack usually drew his covers last. It wasn’t part of the story he was telling, so he’d dash something off after he did the last page because a comic needed a cover. Which means that we’ve got a 20-page story featuring the Black Panther in a half-mask basically done before someone suggested that maybe showcasing a Black person on the cover was too risky. This suggests to me that it was Goodman’s concern. Wherever you fall on the who-did-what debate between Lee and Kirby, Stan was certainly aware of the story being told beforehand, and he would’ve had ample time to mention to Jack that showing a Black man on the cover might be risky if that was a concern of his. Goodman was less involved in the day-to-day operations and probably only noticed the cover shortly before the book was ready to go to press. But changing the costume for the cover produces the additional problem of having to adjust the interior art to match. If you look at the story, you’ll notice that Panther’s mask—

indeed much of his costume—is covered in shadow. But it doesn’t seem as if Jack drew it that way. There are no highlight details that one might expect around the nose and mouth; everything is just completely blacked out—as if inker Joe Sinnott (or, more likely, another inker who happened to be in the office that day) simply washed over the original, probably already inked, art with black. Indeed, looking at #53 and #54, Panther’s mask shows a greater level of detail with more highlights. It seems to me that tweaking Panther’s costume to accommodate a full mask was a rush job, done well after Jack had any input on the story. The costume that Jack drew in FF #52 was his Coal Tiger design with a half-mask added, and it was only really changed at the inking stage or later. By #53, Stan had evidently told Jack of the changes that had been made and the illustrations in that issue show that Jack refined the notion of an all-black costume by designing in appropriate highlights. And while many people point to Nat Freedland’s infamous “Super Heroes with Super Problems” article [New York Herald Tribune Sunday Magazine, January 9, 1966] that ran shortly after this as the start of Jack wanting to leave Marvel, I can’t help but wonder if all of these changes to a character that he saw as part of an important social issue, began souring him on the company before Freedland’s piece. Did Jack really care if Panther’s trunks were black or yellow with black stripes? Probably not. But I expect that having a character he designed specifically for the purpose of promoting Black men as heroes, being literally relegated to the shadows out of fear of reprisal, struck a bad nerve with him. Maybe the “baggy Robert Hall-ish suit” reference in the Freedland article was the straw that broke the camel’s back, but seeing Coal Tiger become a shadow of what he could’ve been was the penultimate straw, even if the Panther’s ink-rushed design made the character’s costume about as iconic as they come. ★

In the unused FF #52 pencils (top), it’s clear Jack gave the Panther a halfmask in his debut story, as well as on its original unused cover (right). That cover figure was flopped and heavily retouched for the published cover, but an early 1970s Italian reprint used Marvel’s stat of the unretouched cover (previous page, center). Jack used the half-mask on the above fan sketch in 1968, even though he’d been drawing the character recently in Tales of Suspense #97-99 (Jan.-March 1968), but those issues do have some heavilyinked Panther faces, perhaps fixing more of Jack’s half-masks. And his 1978 sketchbook drawing (inset) of the Panther also has a half-mask, despite his having just completed his ’70s run on the Black Panther book without it. Ironically, Jack’s final 1970s issue ended with a close-up of the Panther’s full mask (left), and a blurb for the next issue titled “Face To Face!” Perhaps, consciously or not, that mask fix was a long-running resentment of his. Thanks to Chuck Beachum and the Kirby Museum for the use of the above fan sketch. You can learn the background behind it at: http://kirbymuseum.org/blogs/effect/2015/06/02/the-summer-of-jack/

Myth

The Perfection of Thena by Mr. MacLean (we’re sorry, we don’t know the author’s first name—please contact us for credit!)

(below) Thena from Jack’s sketchbook. (next page) The gang’s all here, led by Thena in Eternals #6 (Dec. 1976). Jack always depicted her as a strong leader, as on the pencils from issue #10, page 12 (shown on page 52).

ack Kirby’s Eternals series, created at Marvel in the mid ’70s, is often seen as one of his lesser efforts, at least in comparison with the multi-title Fourth World epic so unfairly aborted at DC; it has even been referred to as a sort of “Fourth-World-lite,” a relatively uninspired rehash of ideas which he had given a more profound treatment in that earlier set of books. My view is that The Eternals occupies a unique position in the Kirby canon, one at a level equal to that of the Fourth World, with which it does have some interesting parallels, but to which it gives up nothing in terms of depth and resonance. This essay is an attempt to articulate why I

feel this way about the series, via an analysis of one of its most fascinating and overlooked characters, Thena, particularly the three-issue story of which she is the protagonist (Eternals #8, 9, and 10). Thena is for me one of the most attractive and interesting characters ever to appear in Marvel comics. Kirby was quite subtle in his portrayal of her, and since he is usually seen as anything but subtle, it is not too surprising that, in my view, later Eternals writers did not understand or simply didn’t notice what he was doing. In order to give some idea of what I believe Kirby was attempting with this character, it will first be necessary to go into the background of her mythological namesake, Athena.

Athena The goddess Pallas Athena is in many ways a unique individual among the twelve Olympians of Greek myth. In the very patriarchal ancient Greek culture she was for some reason given special status, often being the only Olympian, with Zeus, to be honored alongside regional gods in the rites dedicated to those local deities. Karl Kerenyi describes her as second only to Zeus in the ancient religion of which the surviving Greek myths are our main source of information [The Gods of the Greeks 7.2]. She often appears with Zeus and a (variant) third god or goddess as part of a trinity of specially honored gods at many locations in the ancient Greco-Roman world. Athena is described by Robert Graves in his exhaustive compilation of Greek myth [The Greek Myths 25.1] as follows: “Although a goddess of war, she gets no pleasure from battle, as Ares and Eris [Strife] do, but rather from settling disputes and upholding the law by pacific means. She bears no arms in time of peace and, if ever she needs any, will borrow a set from Zeus. Her mercy is great… Yet, once engaged in battle she never loses the day… Many gods, Titans, and giants would gladly have married [her], but she has repulsed all advances.” Athena was born from the head of Zeus, fully-grown and clad in armour. She is the only god, besides Zeus himself, who is both capable of and permitted to wield Zeus’s Cyclops-forged thunderbolts. According to one myth, she was the only god to stand her ground before the initial onslaught of the monstrous Typhon; all the rest, Zeus included, fled to Egypt in animal form (incidentally enabling the story to provide an explanation for the 50

theriomorphic appearance of the Egyptian gods). She is described by the notoriously misogynistic Hesiod, who is with Homer one of the prime sources, both for the ancient Greeks and for ourselves, of information about the gods, as equal to her father (Zeus) in strength and intelligence [Theogony 895], and she is the only god never to have been defeated in any battle. In fact the goddess Nike [Victory] is closely associated with her, and may be seen as a personification of one of her aspects. The role of the goddess which is perhaps best known to readers today is that of protectress of mortal heroes such as Heracles, Achilles, Odysseus, and Diomedes. Several of the Twelve Labours of Heracles are accomplished only with her crucial aid, and we see her performing a similar function in the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Argonautika, as well as in the exploits of many other famous heroes such as Cadmus, Bellerophon, Tydeus, and Perseus. Finally, Athena is unique in that, while she is the Olympian goddess par excellence, she has strong chthonic associations, as evidenced by the snakes that often appear in her representations, as well as the story of Erichthonios, which will be explored below.

to the creation of an entirely different character. In her first appearance (issues #5 and #6) Thena is presented as a calmly forceful personality who, as soon as she is informed of the Deviant invasion, takes charge of a quite serious situation: New York is under siege, and the human forces cannot cope with Deviant military technology. Ikaris, who has characteristically bitten off a little more than he can chew, has been captured and immobilized by the Deviants, and Sersi, hampered by Margo’s presence, has also been captured. Thena at once turns this debacle completely around, attacking and defeating, with Makarri’s aid, a large squadron of the Deviants, and then arranging a truce in which the Deviants agree to cease all hostilities and return all prisoners (Ikaris, Sersi, and Margo), in return for—nothing, really. No one questions her right to act and speak for the Eternals as a whole, and she herself does not defend it or even assert it verbally. She simply does so, and everyone accepts her as the voice of authority in the absence of Zuras. Even Sersi, who behaves to pretty well everyone—Eternal, Deviant, and human alike—in her customary teasing and irreverent manner, is relatively serious when she addresses Thena. In fact, Thena and Zuras are the only two characters with whom she usually drops her otherwise flippant tone. All this indicates that Thena is an object of unusual respect among the Eternals. Note also the manner in which she uses force when necessary (the Deviants have already attacked and must be repulsed), but immediately turns to negotiation as soon as it is possible. Thena is also the only Eternal ever shown sharing counsel with Zuras in his Chamber of Command, as she is doing in her very first appearance when Makarri brings the news of the Deviants’ attack and the capture of Sersi. Thena is also, in striking parallel with her namesake, the only Eternal able to wield the bolts of Zuras, other than Zuras himself of course. The other attributes of Athena—mercy, the characteristic combination of immense power and gentleness, patroness of heroes, and chthonic associations—will be discussed below.

Thena & Athena It is my opinion that Kirby followed his model quite closely when he created Thena. Like the Olympian goddess from whom her name is derived, Thena is a unique (for comics) combination of powerful warrior and gentle mother figure. Her relationship with the Reject and Karkas mirrors in some ways that of Athena with various ancient Greek heroes, and also has interesting parallels to the myth of Athena and Erichthonios. Just as Athena is the only other god who has both the power and the permission to wield Zeus’s thunderbolts, so is Thena the only other Eternal who can use the “bolts of Zuras.” Just as Athena has an especially close relationship with Zeus, and is often referred to as his favourite child, so is Thena specially close to her father Zuras. She is the only Eternal shown at his side in his seat of power on Olympus. She acts as the de facto leader of the Eternals in countering the initial Deviant attack of New York City, defeating the Deviants and setting the terms for the truce.

The Myth of Erichthonios One of the strangest myths involving Athena is the story of Erichthonios: Hephaistos tried to have sexual intercourse with the virgin warrior goddess, who repulsed him without difficulty; his semen fell down to the earth, fertilizing it, so that Gaia gave birth to a half snake/half human creature. When Gaia, and all the other divinities, refused to have anything to do with the monstrosity,

Thena and the Eternals It seems clear to me that Thena, as conceived by Kirby, was unquestionably the pre-eminent Eternal after her father Zuras, both in power and in intelligence; I think those attributes are so much a part of her that any failure to include them in her portrayal amounts 51

Athena, ignoring their ridicule, took him under her protection and raised him to adulthood, naming him Erichthonios (which seems to mean something like “very of the earth”). I believe that at some level, Kirby’s story of Thena, Kro, Karkas and the Reject was inspired by this very mysterious myth. The Reject and Karkas together, as a humanoid/monstrous pair, correspond to the half-human (or divine)/ half-monster Erichthonios. But the parallel is multi-layered because each of the two is himself an individual parallel to Athena’s ward. Karkas is physically monstrous but ethically and intellectually close to the Eternals, while the physically handsome Reject looks like an Eternal, but is a psychologically monstrous “killing machine” who cannot be handled safely even by his Deviant masters. Thus, each of the two Deviant rejects is a dichotomy on his own, just as is Erichthonios; at the same time, Karkas and the reject as a pair form another dichotomy, both physically (the monstrous Karkas vs. the handsome Reject) and psychologically (the bitter and suspicious Reject vs. the philosophical Karkas) that parallels the half-man/halfmonster Erichthonios. On another level, the Reject and Karkas correspond to the many heroes of ancient Greek myth who were protected and aided by Pallas Athena, the patroness of such heroes as Perseus, Heracles, Achilles, Odysseus, Diomedes, and so on. And just as Athena rejects Hephaistos as a lover or husband, but accepts Erichthonios as her ward, so does Thena reject Kro but takes responsibility for the Reject and Karkas. (It is also interesting that Hepahistos’s famous fall from Olympus, from which he was once hurled by Zeus, has been linked to the fall of Lucifer from Heaven in Christian lore, while Kro of course has a somewhat Satanic appearance even when he is not actively impersonating the Devil.)

her authority, her essential gentleness, and finally, her integration of the higher and lower levels of existence. On a symbolic level, the mountaintop-dwelling Eternals connote the higher consciousness that humanity has always striven to reach, whether through religion, philosophy, science (knowledge), or some other means, while the Deviants, hidden beneath the oceans, have obvious associations with the dark side of human nature, the mass of cruel and violent impulses suppressed in the subconscious (attributes associated with the chthonic in Greek myth). The behavior of the Deviants is usually marked by fear and hatred towards those

Thena and the Deviants Thena is most prominent during Kirby’s original series in the three-issue story beginning with Eternals #8, in which Kro asks her to accompany him to the Deviants’ capital city underneath the ocean. I believe this story illustrates most vividly the parallels between Thena and the ancient Greek goddess who inspired her creation: Her power, 52

more powerful than them, or exploitative ruthlessness towards those less powerful. However, their existence cannot be ignored. It is noteworthy that the epithet “ugly” is often used, almost as an accusation, by various Eternals (Ikaris, Makarri, Sersi, and Thena herself ) on more than one occasion when referring to the Deviants, and that the other Eternals are disapproving of Thena’s relationship with Kro and her descent to the Deviants’ realm. I think this signifies a disconnection between the upper and lower levels of consciousness, or, to put it a different way, a denial of powerful subconscious drives by the higher consciousness. From this perspective, then, Thena’s descent to the symbolic home and seat of the subconscious becomes a quest to explore its nature, and to eventually reintegrate it with the higher consciousness, to become complete and whole. However, in exploring the subconscious, there is always the danger that the superego will be overwhelmed by the powerful instinctive drives it has hitherto suppressed, giving them free rein. This danger, or temptation, is represented by Kro, who is a member of the Deviants’ ruling clan, and is anxious to pursue a romantic relationship with Thena—a marriage in effect, in which by definition the two partners would be more or less equals. It is by Kro’s invitation that she actually makes the descent, showing that her immediate motivation is perhaps curiosity about the nature of the sub-conscious forces that he, as a powerful Deviant, represents. In Lemuria she first encounters ugliness in the form of a misshapen reject Deviant who reaches out to her as he is driven away by his jailers; but instead of recoiling in disgust, as Kro seems to expect, and as would be typical of most Eternals, she reacts with instinctive compassion, showing that not all sub-conscious drives are of a negative nature. This scene is also significant in the way Kro tries to guide and limit Thena’s exploration of his realm. Thena’s words, “If there is truth here, I must know it all!”, take on a double meaning in the light of the quest motif. For the moment Kro has some success, and is able to persuade her to accompany him to see the Great Tode, leader of all the Deviants. “Very well,” Thena says, “I shall keep my thoughts elsewhere for the present.” But Thena does find out the truth about Purity Time, in spite of Kro’s efforts to keep her in ignorance, and with this understanding— which from the viewpoint I’m taking here also stands for a deeper understanding of the psychological forces represented by the Deviants—Thena loses her fascination with Kro (“Whatever was between us has died with those poor creatures.”), which, at the symbolic level, also signifies a desire to abandon her quest (“I’ve already seen too much.”). Having for the moment avoided the danger of succumbing to the subconscious drives she is exploring, she is now at risk of retreating back to her previous, un-integrated state of mind, rendering her quest to become whole abortive. This is signified by her attitude towards the two rejects who are to fight in her honor: she automatically assumes, in typical Eternal manner, that the handsome Reject is “the one object of value in this ugly domain,” and that Karkas is just a “mutated monster.” But this combat is in Thena’s honor because, at the symbolic level, it is for her benefit in that it will give her the opportunity to complete her quest by overcoming her Eternal preconceptions and by directly confronting the hidden drives represented by these two rejects; thus, as the combat unfolds, she very quickly sees that Karkas, despite his monstrous appearance, is actually a thinking, feeling being, and that the handsome Reject is a ruthless, hate-filled destroyer. Up to now, Kirby has drawn Thena in the erect, commanding posture that is typical of her, but at this moment, when the Celestial Eson causes a great tremor to reverberate through the Deviants’ undersea city, he shows her, for the only panel in the entire series I think, in a vulnerable position, thrown off-balance, and being held by Kro. Of course by now you’ve all guessed that I think that this is

not a coincidence. Psychologically, Thena is at her most vulnerable at this point. She has done what no other Eternal would even consider doing—descend into the depths of the realm of the Deviants, she has “seen too much” of what the dark drives she is exploring are capable of (Purity Time), and now she has had some of her most deeply held “Eternal” assumptions about beauty and worth turned on their heads. This is the moment of her greatest danger to being overwhelmed by the dark forces she has immersed herself in, and it is symbolized by the disappearance of the energy barrier that had protected her and the ruling Deviants from the combatants in the arena. But this is also one of her finest moments because Thena meets the challenge, as Kirby shows both visually and narratively. For example, on page 22, panel 5 (issue #10, shown at left), every figure in the panel is agitated or in motion except for the menacing Reject and Thena, whose calm, commanding presence is all the more impressive in the midst of the chaos. The story is now approaching its climax. As the Reject approaches her menacingly, Kro tries to stop him, but is ineffectual before the fury of this “killing machine.” But the threat the Reject poses to Thena is not a physical one— she is far too powerful to be in any danger from him, for all his lethal strength and skill. The danger, once again, is psychic. Both the Reject and Karkas represent concepts that are closely associated with Thena’s mythical source, Pallas Athena, goddess both of wisdom (Karkas) and of battle (the Reject); thus I believe that at the symbolic level, Thena’s exploration of the subconscious has confronted her with two of the most basic aspects of her being—the frightening strength and destructive power of the Reject and the compassion and desire for knowledge of Karkas. The danger right now is that she will give in to the destructive potential inherent in her by obliterating the Reject with the bolts of Zuras. She does use her power to protect herself, but Kirby is careful to show how she gradually steps up the force until it is just enough to stop the Reject, but not kill him, thus showing that it is she who controls her power, not her power that controls her. Her next test comes in the form of Karkas, whose nature challenges her to overcome her Eternal prejudices and accept him as an intelligent being worthy of her compassion and protection. She passes this test too, but it is at that moment that the Reject rises again, felling Kro with chilling ease to confront Thena once more. And this is what I think is her very finest moment. In a manner very untypical of comics, she doesn’t crush the Reject with her power, she doesn’t even strike him down in the controlled manner she has just shown herself to be capable of; instead she reaches out compassionately to touch his head. The Reject is overcome by this gesture of kindness and kneels at her feet. The symbolism should be obvious by now. To reiterate, the Reject symbolizes force, power, aggression, and the instinct for self-preservation at all costs. Karkas symbolizes the natural instinct for compassion and the drive to acquire knowledge. The fact that the Reject wins the combat is a reflection of how dominant are the drives associated with him in the kingdom of the Deviants, i.e. the subconscious as a general concept (as opposed to a particular individual’s sub-conscious), and Thena, since she has entered herself in that kingdom, is in danger of succumbing to them, of allowing those drives to become dominant within herself. But she reverses the outcome of the combat of the Reject and Karkas by overcoming the Reject, not by force as she was easily able to do, but with a display of kindness—the very thing represented by the mentally and ethically advanced Karkas. She restores the balance between the instinctive drives associated with these two Rejects, and at the same time demonstrates her own awareness and control of them. Thena then announces that she “accepts them both.” Her quest to explore her dark side and become whole is successful. She has rejected a romantic relationship with Kro in favor of a parental rela53

incomprehensibility, the psyche must face the darkest and most hidden aspects of its own nature. The Celestials are a symbol of the infinite, of the eternally silent abyss that lies behind reality, and before Eternal, human and Deviant can face that terror, it must face itself.

The Reject I’d like to make it clear that I don’t think of this interpretation as the final word on the series. The Eternals concept itself and the individual characters of the series remain rich sources of analysis and discussion quite apart from that given above. The Reject, for instance, can be seen as the culmination of the Kirby “fighting machine,” a concept whose most famous embodiment is Captain America. In his first prolonged appearance, he’s being prepared for battle in the arena when he snatches a weapon and takes out a roomful of guards, then makes his way to the arena, stalking past numbers of armed Deviant soldiers who can do nothing more than hide and hope he doesn’t turn on them. After defeating Karkas, he actually tries to attack the entire audience, in which attempt he probably would have been successful if not for Thena. Kirby took the idea of the “super-soldier” and extrapolated it to its logical extreme: someone who is so good at fighting that he’s basically a monster. From the Reject’s point of view (and Karkas’), Thena is the “Mother” of the title (of issue #10). Maybe someone should write an article about the concept of “mother” in Kirby’s work (examples: Mother Box; that Boys’ Ranch story about Mother Delilah). Or one could look at it from Kro’s point of view, in which I would say Thena represents an ideal that he is striving to be worthy of; issue #10, page 26, panels 5 and 6 express this idea quite clearly. In this sense, Thena can be symbolically equated with Virtue and Wisdom, the feminine personifications of which concepts can be traced back to Thena’s mythological progenitor, the goddess Pallas Athena. (Have a look at Beothius’ Consolation of Philosophy for one famous example, or see some of Montaigne’s passages on Virtue in his Essays).

tionship with the Reject and Karkas; in other words, she has rejected the seductive temptation of relinquishing control to the dark side of the psyche, and instead has accepted and integrated the forces and drives that are properly hers, showing that she is in control of them , rather than being controlled by them.

The Perfection of Thena Hence the title of this essay. In issue #5 [above], when Makarri enters the Chamber of Command, he says, “Makarri greets mighty Zuras, and hails the Perfection of Thena ….” On one level, this is simple flattery, as Thena herself notes in her response. On the symbolic level, in keeping with the interpretation described above, “perfection” has the no longer commonly used meaning of “complete,” foreshadowing the theme of Thena’s later journey to Lemuria which, as I’ve attempted to show, enables her to complete herself, in the sense of confronting, mastering, and assimilating the most hidden and basic elements of her inner nature.

Celestials, Eternals, Deviants, Humans: An Interpretation I believe that this reading of the story sheds some light on one of the crucial aspects of the entire Eternals concept: In #6’s “Gods and Men at City College,” at the press conference intended to reveal the existence of the Eternals, the Deviants, and the Celestials to humankind, Sersi is behaving with her usual irreverence and is sharply reprimanded by Thena. The rebuke, and Sersi’s unusual reaction to it indicate to me that the scene is somehow more important than it may appear at first glance. Instead of coming back with some cuttingly sarcastic reply, as she likely would have done with Makarri or Ikaris, Sersi immediately drops her usual whimsical manner, and expresses her most deeply held fears about the Celestials. A little later, Thena makes a statement which I believe gives us a key to interpreting the entire series: “Once our three species can face each other—we can then confront the Space Gods.” If we keep in mind the concepts associated with the Eternals and Deviants as described above, by saying that humans, Eternals, and Deviants must face each other, Thena is saying that the psyche must become aware of aspects of itself that normally remain hidden, aspects which it may not wish to acknowledge, but which exist nonetheless, and which it is dangerous to deny. And why must this difficult task be attempted? Thena tells us: to confront the Space Gods. There is a famous line from Pascal’s Pensees: “The eternal silence of these infinite abysses fills me with terror.” Thena is telling us that, before it is capable of confronting the universe in all its vastness and

Symbol and Allegory Carl Jung, in his essay Psychology and Literature, defines a symbol as “not … an allegory that points to something all too familiar, but an expression that stands for something not clearly known and yet profoundly alive.” I’d like to make it clear that I don’t mean to reduce these characters to simple allegories; I think they are much more than that. Care must be taken not to confuse connotation with denotation, symbol with allegory. The fact that there is a constellation of attributes and concepts associated with a fictional character (or race) does not mean that it is nothing more than an allegory or sign for those concepts, although I can envisage stories which could be susceptible to such an interpretation. I’d also like to note that I don’t think we necessarily have to assume that Kirby incorporated all these symbolic elements consciously. Northrup Frye makes a point of distinguishing “literature from the descriptive or assertive writing which derives from the conscious mind” [Anatomy of Criticism, Introduction]. This is not, of course, to say that a writer does not make conscious decisions in the course of his work, writing in a sort of trance or dream; it just means 54

that there is much more at work in the process of creation than just the conscious will, although that obviously plays an important role. Jung, in the same article (Psychology and Literature) cited above, describes a mode of artistic creation that he calls the visionary. It isn’t a concept that can be reduced to a line or clever catchphrase, but suffice it to say that I think that Jack Kirby often worked in this mode and that the Eternals, more than perhaps any Kirby creation other than the Fourth World, can be seen as a visionary work.

after only 19 issues and one Annual. The interpretation I have put forward is not compatible with such events as Thena’s defeat by Ikaris, or her having consummated a romantic relationship with Kro (let alone bearing his children!), ideas which completely negate the defining elements of the character, as I have tried to discuss at length in this article. Even the incorporation of the Eternals into the Marvel Universe, in my view, inevitably drains much of the symbolic resonance of a concept like the Celestials. Like many of Kirby’s best creations, the Eternals were never really appreciated by the writers who followed their creator. Those writers tended to see them as little more than an interesting new group of super-heroes, and they were thus treated as such. This essay has been an attempt to demonstrate that they were much more than that, and that it was a great loss to comics when Kirby wasn’t given the opportunity to continue their story. ★

What Might Have Been? Where do I think the series would have taken the Thena story, if Kirby had been allowed to finish it? I believe we can find some clues in the story in which Thena brings the Reject and Karkas to Olympia. They are not immediately accepted by the other Eternals and it is significant that they are not invited to take part in the ceremony of the Uni-Mind. Future stories may have revolved around Thena’s efforts to gain that acceptance for her two wards, and the various successes and setbacks the three of them might experience in the process. In other words, Thena would be trying to educate the rest of the Eternals, to encourage them to face their own dark sides as she has done. At the same time, as the Eternals Annual shows, the three would have been learning about each other, and strengthening their relationship, with Karkas and the Reject being sometimes grudging and suspicious participants who would need Thena’s maturity and wisdom to guide them. After many trials and adventures, the two Deviant rejects would have learned to respect and value each other, in the process achieving some sort of balance that would probably have signalled the end of one stage of their development. Their acceptance by the Eternals, on the other hand, might have been one of the hinges upon which the Earth’s survival would depend. In other words, a failure on the part of the Eternals to accept these Deviant rejects would represent a failure of the Earth’s inhabitants to successfully face each other, the symbolic significance of which I have described above. Finally, it will perhaps be apparent to readers who have made it this far that I have a less than positive opinion of the way in which Kirby’s Eternals have been treated since his original series was cancelled 55

WordS

Decoding “The Road” On understanding some of Kirby’s meaning in “On the Road to Armagetto,” by Shane Foley

(throughout) Mike Royer’s original, unaltered inks for “On The Road to Armagetto,” Jack’s original 23- (later 25-) page story that was to be his wrap-up to the New Gods saga, before morphing into the Hunger Dogs graphic novel.

reckon Hunger Dogs has some wonderful and unexpected moments in it. Better still, to my mind, is “On The Road to Armagetto,” that wonderful 25-page piece that ended up being split in two, reorganized and absorbed into Hunger Dogs. How I wish the original plan had been followed—with “Road” left intact and the new Hunger Dogs story following on after it. But again, like so many, and despite my love for the material, I often find Kirby’s scripting grates. At times it is really clunky and unnatural—a ‘tin ear’ Steve Engelhart called it. Other times, it is beautifully poetic and epic in character. These two characteristics can sometimes be found together in the same panel. And there are times, whether he’s at the ‘clunky’ end of the scripting spectrum or at the poetic, or somewhere in-between, where the reader simply goes “Huh? What does that mean?”... ...especially in the ’80s. Mike Royer confessed to this in a 1997 interview, when speaking of working on Silver Star from the same period, saying, “…sometimes, while lettering, I would go, ‘I don’t really understand this!’” (Jack Kirby Quarterly #8, page 10—in an interview with Chrissie Harper) (And while mention has been made of Mike Royer, I want to say that his original lettering on “Road,” and most especially his open, emboldened words, is sheer lettering brilliance!) As I said, I love so much of “Road.” But there is that frustration in the script that sometimes makes me say, “What?” But I want to understand it! So here is a short piece written about trying to make sense of some of “On the Road to Armagetto”’s script.

“Road,” page 6 is where I begin. (This became Hunger Dogs, page 12.) This page has four captions. The first is great—it speaks of Armagetto: “Did not the Elder Gods, on the eve of their doom, leave the warning of Armagetto behind them?”

Did they? I’m happy to take Kirby’s word for it. It all sounds very philosophical— it has a great ring to it. (In the jettisoned caption from page 4 [HD page 10] which originally preceded this one, Kirby had already introduced the concept of Armagetto and defined it in this way:

“The slum and its inhabitants are a universal concept…on Apokolips, the place called Armagetto shelters the ‘Lowlies’.”..

...but this caption stands without needing it.) 56

But then comes the second caption (where in Hunger Dogs, both this caption and the next have mysteriously lost their bold, colored, capital letter): “Is not oblivion forever a dark red line which leads the mighty to the sewers of the contemptible silent?”

Maybe some folks can instantly grasp what the King is meaning here, but I’m not one of them. To me, it’s “Huh?” time! It’s beautiful word play, sounding very ‘deep’. But what on Earth does it mean? My first attempt to reinterpret it was: “Is not death (fiery destruction?) always that dark, (blood filled?) fate that leads the powerful (privileged?) to the same wretched end as the powerless they oppress?” After all, doesn’t ‘a dark red line’ imply connection by blood? Surely the ‘contemptible silent’ are the lowlies, the slum dwellers of Armagetto—and ‘the mighty’ are the gods in power. But ‘the same wretched end’ I first postulated has missed an element. It has ignored the strength of Kirby’s ‘which leads’. Why are they ‘led’ there? Perhaps it would be better to see Kirby as saying the mighty and powerless are not only inseparably connected in this way, but that the threat of extinction actually leads the powerful back to the very ones they oppress and from whom they extract their power. But then, the story context of the caption is that of Darkseid creating his death device in the midst of Armagetto, so maybe that ‘dark red line’ is more about how ‘oblivion’, or something that can create oblivion, is always experimented with and put together amongst the ‘Lowlies’—those who cannot defend themselves to insist such terrors be manufactured elsewhere. So I end up with “Is not the desire to create and control oblivion always done by the rich and powerful amongst those who have no voice or power to refuse?” That the rich and powerful usually get their power by exploiting the lower masses makes sense to me. And more often than not, the downfall of the powerful comes from the uprising amongst the masses who have been put down and pushed under for too long. This certainly fits one theme of the story. (And if we look ahead to a caption that will be discussed shortly, it seems even more certain.) So I think I’ve found Kirby’s meaning. But surely, he could have made his wonderful poetry a little easier to decipher. ‘The sewers of the contemptible silent’? Whew! The third caption contains a problem of a different kind. “What matter if the holocaust is borne on the wings of dragons or flowers as a notion--a small curiosity, brought to the stage of tinkering...”

The early section of this is one of those convoluted passages by Kirby that an objective editor would have corrected by simply rearranging the sentence construction, while losing nothing of its power. Surely it should read: “What does it matter if the notion of holocaust is borne on the wings of dragons or flowers….” Then ‘tinkering’—something being played with. No longer an idea, but something being experimented with in the real world. So the meaning is, “What does it matter where the idea of holocaust comes from—and whether gently or harshly—if it is finally brought to the stage of terrifying reality!” Caption four: “It must take form in an edifice -- a monster’s lair -- a slaughter pit -- or, a placid, faceless structure of common block -- in Armagetto -- always, In Armagetto ---

Edifice—a large building—which could be an obviously dark, evil place or an unassuming ordinary looking building. Then Kirby returns nicely to his former theme—no matter how and in what it occurs, such foul work will always be in Armagetto! One gets the feeling that Kirby really wants us to think deeply about this stuff—he certainly has—but surely it is wrapped too tightly in obscure wordage so that most will simply give up and turn the page. There is a fifth caption that nicely rounds out this thoughtful, if meandering and obscure, philosophical section. It was on the original page 7, but inexplicably, in Hunger Dogs, it is placed 22 pages away on page 57

To give you an idea of how drastically pages were rearranged from Jack’s original version of “Road,” here’s where they ended up in Hunger Dogs:

“Road”

Pg. 1

Pg. 31

4-5

10-11

34. (“Road” pages 6 and 7 have become HD pages 12 and 34!). Did Kirby do that? Or DC editorial? Whoever did, it was very carelessly done and cuts off the theme’s conclusion, and then tries to make that conclusion stand alone. Which it can’t. That fifth caption [previous page] faithfully continues the idea at the conclusion of the last and reads:

hard to believe that caption was not part of the original story—surely there are copies to show that it was, and that the blurb there about the upcoming Hunger Dogs GN was placed there after the fact.)

“Where, but in Armagetto, do the ‘powerful’ find flesh plentiful, vulnerable, and fragmented by its own ignorance—--”

A brilliant piece of scripting with its powerful reflection on the abuse of the lower classes by the powerful and masterfully written! No reinterpreting needed here. And it confirms the meaning I came to for the second caption. Nice! So what is this whole section saying? It seems to wander away from the point in the middle—and I’m not sure it helps Kirby’s purpose to do that—but he does come nicely back to the point and to underscore it. Here’s my precis of it: Didn’t the Ancients warn us what would happen if whole sections of society were oppressed and downtrodden? Didn’t they warn us that it is here, amongst these voiceless, powerless ones, that the elite would create their ever-worsening methods of death? Does it matter, when those methods are finally realized, if the ideas for those methods came nightmarishly or with ease? Does it matter if they are realized in repulsive, evil places or in unnoticed ordinary places? What matters is that it will always be realized amongst the powerless masses—because those masses lack knowledge, are easily manipulated and divided! What follows directly (in both “Road” and HD) is the sequence where those masses are empowered to finally resist by Orion—so a final caption about those ‘powerless masses’ being the very thing that rises and destroys their powerful abusers would have been appropriate. But Kirby put that elsewhere—on the bottom of page 44 in HD (“Road” page 23—I find it

[Editor’s Note: The above, admittedly low-quality photocopy of Jack’s pencils for the bottom of “Road” page 23, seems to show that Jack erased the original caption, and then rewrote it to serve as a lead-in to Hunger Dogs.]

There are two more captions I’d like to have a crack at decoding. The first is found in “Road” on page 1. When page 1 became page 31 in HD, the entire caption was replaced, so there is no HD reference. “Road” page 1 [above and below]. I want to consider this because it is one of the few places where we see Kirby editing his own work. Stan Lee said one of his criticisms of Kirby’s scripting was that it read to him like an unedited ‘first draft’. Here, Kirby has indeed edited himself—by why? And has it helped? The original lettered caption read: “Listen for the Sounds of these Days! The gods conceal them beneath the raucous din of the frantic arts! Fasten yourself to the visions of these times! …cast not by ourselves…but only those of the gods…”

It’s another “Huh?” moment for me. Again, it all sounds deep and meaningful— but what’s it saying? And then there’s Kirby’s amendment. Scans I’ve seen have Kirby penciling out that last line so that it reads: “…cast not by ourselves…nor the gods…but by the ugly images of deadly erosion…”

So—this is not editing to clarify understanding—but editing to slightly change his idea. But to what…? Best I can do is this: “Listen for the ominous sounds of these coming days!—lest they be lost beneath the noise and busy-ness of our daily distractions! Hold tight to the visions of these coming times! For they are not cast by ourselves—or even by the gods—but simply by the ugliness of despair and frustration!” I’m really guessing at the end there. “...by the ugly images of deadly erosion…” ?

How obscure can you get? Perhaps, when continuity in Hunger Dogs required a reshuffling of pages, it is no wonder it was easy to let this caption go (though little effort was made in other places). And then there’s the final paragraph. It appeared originally in “Road” page 25—and was published in HD on page 46. Here, Orion has just shot Esak, and he prays for his redemption—and is answered: “Thus, when gods pause in their conflicts -- they stumble briefly upon mysteries startling in nature… as the final battle races to ignite the cosmos... will it also define it??”

Is this easy to comprehend? I have little trouble with the first half. Orion and Esak are in a still moment after their climactic battle— they have ‘paused’ to look at important things beyond the violence and their differences. And they are as surprised as anyone when Orion’s plea is answered by the Source! God— both his silences and his unexpected actions—is ever a mystery to all. And since, as Kirby relates in the caption on page 44, these gods (small ‘g’) are symbolic of us, such wonder at the mystery is entirely appropriate. But then there is that last line. How is it connected to the previous thought? Is ‘define it’ what Kirby meant? Or do we look broader to find what Kirby intended to say but clumsily didn’t (as we know he has done so often before)? I tend towards that last idea. And I came up with this: 59

* The fact that Kirby didn’t think enough of Esak to draw him in Roz’s sketchbook in 1978 leads us to believe that he didn’t view him as a pivotal character, or have a fully formulated plan for him at that point.

“As the Apocalypse nears, to ignite the cosmos in complete destruction, will that final battle also bring with it meaning and understanding?” Right or wrong, one thing we can say for sure— Kirby certainly inspires thought. And even as I try here to rewrite what Kirby has done, to try to get the heart of what I feel he means—and to help overcome the frustration I often feel when reading his lines—I do so out of real love and respect for the man. If I didn’t feel that way, I wouldn’t begin to bother putting so much time

and thought into it. A few observations/questions to finish with: • “Road” page 11 (HD page 13, below): I always wondered why Darkseid suddenly called his companion “Drooling Infant,” and said what he did. But suddenly it occurred to me that this is not Darkseid speaking, but a disembodied voice, probably that of Himon. I’m sure I’m not the only reader to misunderstand this. • I wonder why, from a storytelling point of view, Kirby kept the deformed Esak off-panel until he was named later. After all, it’s not as if we would recognize him from his looks. And the name “Metron’s Mimic” could refer to anyone dabbling in the same areas as Metron. • Interesting that Esak became the mirror image of Orion. One was born to Darkseid’s way and was ugly, yet came to be raised and matured on New Genesis. The other was born and raised on New Genesis but came to become ugly and scarred and traded it for Darkseid’s way. Also interesting that in the end, the one who chose the better way had his prayer answered on behalf of the one who chose poorly. • I wonder if Esak’s fate, along with Lonar’s and the introduction of Bekka, who all featured strongly in Hunger Dogs, was one of Jack’s original key moments in his resolution of the Fourth World?* That he would recall and use such a minor character seems odd to me—except that the young character had at least three such appearances in the ’70s comics, suggesting Jack had bigger things in mind for him. As for Bekka, even when “Road” was the only new piece Kirby had drawn, Bekka was there, making an unnamed appearance with Himon. • I think the fact that a major element of either version of the story is the aging of Darkseid and his being overtaken and confounded by new technology is a very novel one for comics. Usually, the Doctor Dooms and megalomaniacs of the world are on top of understanding any new super-science, not struggling to understand it and being left behind. Trust Jack to have yet another novel approach to things. Maybe I have been critical of how Jack worded some of his work, but his ideas are what make me want to read and reread it—to grasp what

he’s getting at. His ideas were pure gold! And I find so much of his work—clumsily worded or not—is worth reading over and over. It’s always rewarding! ★

It is telling that the character Bekka (Himon’s daughter) made an unnamed appearance in the original “Road” story (left), before it was reconfigured as the Hunger Dogs graphic novel, and Jack expanded her role (below). Just as Izaya found love with Avia, it’s not a stretch to think that Jack would’ve eventually introduced a love interest for Orion— and in fact, he did let Orion do a little flirting with Eve Donner in New Gods #9. But it was confounding that we only got the briefest glimpse of Granny Goodness and the Female Furies, and none at all of Mister Miracle and Barda in Hunger Dogs. And would it’ve hurt Jack to bring Metron into his final Fourth World story before the last page of Hunger Dogs?

Key 4:

n innovator does what hasn’t been done before; builds on what others began to create something new; and never dwells on the past. If that doesn’t describe Kirby, we don’t know what does (his obsession with telling World War II stories aside). Here are a few of the ways Kirby was innovative:

• Taking “nothing” characters like Green Arrow and Jimmy Olsen and making them “something.” • Helping launch the first syndicated television program (Thundarr the Barbarian, for which he submitted a wealth of concepts and characters that are yet to be mined)

• Exploring new formats for comics (such as his original plans for the 1970s DC “Speak-Out Series”) • Introducing collages (even though printing processes of the time weren’t up to the task of reproducing them) • Developing the first overarcing multibook epic (The Fourth World) • Pioneering the Romance and Kid Gang comics genres with Joe Simon • Launching the Direct Market of comics shop distribution with Captain Victory • Popularizing artistic techniques like breaking panel borders, using doublepage splashes, and others • Injecting futuristic technology into his stories as pivotal elements (and even as characters)

• The Silver Surfer (up to that point, only Siegel and Shuster’s Superman was so unlike whatever had gone before it—both changed the industry forever. The Surfer turned “comics” into “cosmic.”)

And perhaps his most innovative concept:

The Ship by Steve Sherman The Ship was one of those things we worked on around the time of Captain Victory and Silver Star. I had just read Arthur C. Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama. We were trying to find another market for Jack Kirby. When I told Jack about the story, he started to talk about spaceships and aliens, and pretty soon he’d concocted this great multi-episode adventure as a TV series. We went for a walk up the hill outside of his house, all the while Jack puffing on his pipe and coming up with each episode. This was ten years before Flight of the Navigator. I have this vivid picture of a pencil drawing of this big mountain with these four figures climbing, and this huge Kirby spaceship. Now I can’t tell you if Jack actually did a drawing like that or not. It’s one of those things that Jack kept in the back of his head for later use! The other idea he had was for a Twilight Zone type show where each week someone would encounter a UFO and it would change their lives in some way—for good or for bad, depending on the person.

INNOVAT Jack Kirby was

TIVE

(above) The Kirby Masterworks portfolio calls this “The Visitor on Highway Six,” but considering the 1978 date and subject matter, it may well have come about from Jack and Steve Sherman discussing “The Ship.” (left) Past, present, and future are nicely shown, in this splash from Tales of Suspense #23 (Nov. 1961, a familiar date for Marvel fans), and this photo (courtesy of Shel Dorf) of Jack with Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, circa 1970.

What If... JHS@M&WtNGi2tMU*? (*Jack Had Stayed At Marvel and Worked the New Gods Into the Marvel Universe?) by Jeff Deischer

(below) Cover corner “bullets” for the Fourth World titles, including an unused one for Jimmy Olsen, with inks by Vince Colletta. (next page) Glorious Godfrey, inspired by reallife evangelist Billy Graham, from Forever People #6 (Dec. 1971).

t is 1970. The comics industry is rocked when Jack Kirby jumps ship, leaving Marvel for DC. If you’re a regular reader of The Jack Kirby Collector, then you’re probably aware that in the late 1960s Jack Kirby became dissatisfied with the recognition and compensation he was receiving for his work at Marvel. For those of you who don’t know, in the Spring of 1968, Jack began decreasing the amount of creative input he gave stories, resulting in larger (and therefore fewer) panels, and shorter and less spectacular tales; his longer stories took on a tendency to ramble at times. Jack also began holding back his better ideas for a stage of his career that would give him what he wanted. The most famous of these is his Fourth World saga, which included New Gods, Mister Miracle, Forever People, and a run in Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen. So, what if Jack had gotten what he felt he deserved, and stayed at Marvel, rather than departing for DC in 1970? How would the Fourth World have developed in the Marvel Universe?

Certainly, it could not have come about as it was shown in the opening pages of The New Gods, with the destruction of Asgard and the death of the Norse gods featured in Thor. Stan Lee, editor-in-chief at Marvel who had guided the company to the Number One spot in the industry, would not have allowed this. So how could the Fourth World have developed in a universe of old gods? Craig McNamara asked this question in TJKC #53 (“What If?”), and his answer was both interesting and reasonable. But he overlooked one logical setting for the Fourth World: the Inhumans series in Amazing Adventures (Volume 2), which Jack both wrote and drew in 1970. To re-cap Mr. McNamara’s thesis: Jack Kirby might have been given books that had failed or were failing, such as Captain Marvel, The X-Men, Dr. Strange, The Silver Surfer, etc. He posits the saga of the New Gods would fit into the adventures of a space-traveling Silver Surfer, using the Surfer’s ideological similarities to Lightray; the counter-culture material of Jimmy Olsen and The Forever People would dovetail nicely with the exploits of the teenaged X-Men, while Dr. Strange would pick up the leftovers of The Forever People and Mister Miracle. The matching of the X-Men to Jimmy Olsen’s adventures seems a natural fit—but I think there are better choices for the rest of the Fourth World saga. Specifically, the New Gods could have been adapted to cover the history of the Inhumans, which Stan and Jack had started in the back pages of Thor (#147-152, 1967). They went from the first super-powered Inhuman, Randac, in the first installment, to the birth of Black Bolt in the second, some twenty-five years before the beginning of the Marvel Age. Four more chapters in the recent past, and the strip was over. That left lots of room for untold tales, such as the first evil Inhuman. I have to confess that this idea came to me while reading Shane Foley’s article in TJKC #56. “Subploticus Interruptus?” discussed unfinished storylines of Stan and Jack in the MU, specifically that of the Inhumans. Among other things, he pointed out the long and awkward gap in the “Origin of the Inhumans” back-up strip in Thor, and suggested that this was one instance of Jack pulling back, contributing

less to the story than he normally did, due to his growing dissatisfaction. He also suggested a number of storylines the series could have explored. I believe the Fourth World saga could have covered these ideas. The New Gods could easily have been portrayed as Inhumans, some millennia ago, with Darkseid as the first evil Inhuman, bent on conquering his own people and mankind besides (he could hardly be a villain in the present, with Maximus fulfilling that role for the royal Inhumans). Perhaps this series would tell the story of the founding of Attilan, the ancient home of the Inhumans. Obviously stories that required a setting in the present—such as “Glory Boat”—would have had to be shunted to other series. If this occurred, then Captain Marvel would be a natural companion series, since the Kree created the Inhumans. It could take the place of Mister Miracle, and perhaps share with The X-Men the elements of The Forever People that didn’t fit the mutant strip, as Mr. McNamara suggested Dr. Strange do. Specifically, characters like Dr. Bedlam could be agents of the Kree, not Darkseid, perhaps working for Yon-Rogg as renegades. Perhaps Yon-Rogg himself could be behind Intergang, using advanced Kree technology. This, of course, would replace—or rather, revive, as there would be no need to introduce another technological-based gang so soon after one—the Organization in Cap’s series. And the Lump, for example, seems made to fight Captain Marvel, with some of the freaky villains he encountered in his early issues such as the Metazoid and Solam. Happyland, as Mr. McNamara suggested, is perfect for The X-Men, as would be a lot of the youth-oriented counter-culture material, such as the Hairies of Habitat. And what about Glorious Godfrey, who would naturally preach against mutants, giving the X-Men a much-needed break from Magneto, who was appearing about every ten or twelve issues? But I’m not so sure about the Evil Factory, introduced in Jimmy Olsen. Here’s why: Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD was one of those cancelled books I described earlier. What better strip to tell the story of the Project, the DNAliens and the Evil Factory? Transilvane, a NASA project, would also fit SHIELD’s purview. All these concepts appeared in Jimmy Olsen. And what about Intergang? Nick can’t fight Hydra all the time, after all. So perhaps a better, or at least simplified “conversion” would be “Origins of the Inhumans” (in Amazing Adventures) = The New Gods • The X-Men = The Forever People • Captain Marvel = Mister

Miracle • Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD = Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen. The saga would have begun in Captain Marvel #20 (June 1970), with a prologue of sorts, as Intergang is introduced as the re-formed Organization. Then, in Amazing Adventures (v2) #1 (August), the foundation for the Fourth World—a term that would never have come about, I suspect—would begin to be laid with the continuation of “The Origins of the Inhumans” series, which had been started years earlier as a back-up feature in Thor. Rather going into reprints, The X-Men #67 (December) and SHIELD #17 (January) would continue with all-new stories. The biggest problem with my supposition is that the Fourth World would have to be split into two pieces—one involving Darkseid, Orion, Highfather, et al.—set in the distant past, with the 65

Inhumans millennia ago and was hidden in a human by Darkseid in order to smuggle it out of Attilan when he was exiled. In the modern world, he is tracking this strain to create a new army with which to conquer mankind. He might therefore naturally study mutants, all of whom have a variant of this “X” gene, which would be revealed as the source of all mutation. Nick Fury and SHIELD, as previously described, would battle the Evil Factory, and it would be only natural that an Intergang story would cross over with Captain Marvel. It might be Rick Jones or Jasper Sitwell, rather than Jimmy Olsen, who is duplicated as a green-skinned brute—perhaps somehow tied to the Hulk. And what of the modern “New Gods” stories? They might feature Kirby’s 1940 creation Mercury, who could have been a Marvel Universe version of Orion—for those stories when a “New God” hero was needed rather than a human or alien one (maybe he’d be called “Mercury, the New God”). He’d naturally be an analog to Kirby’s later Eternal, the Forgotten One, an immortal sometimes mistaken for a god. In fact, he could have met and fought Darkseid many times over the centuries, and substitute for Orion in the modern-day New Gods stories in the main strip in the Inhumans series. So Kirby’s “Fourth World” saga at Marvel might look something like this:

other featuring everything else—Dr. Bedlam, Happyland, Intergang, etc.—set in Marvel’s present. My solution would be to make Darkseid immortal, cast out of the Great Refuge millennia ago, taking a role not unlike the later villain Apocalypse, posing as a god from time to time in the world of man. I’m sure there are other solutions, such as making the renegade Yon-Rogg the main villain in the present, as I suggested earlier... but my feeling is that Darkseid is too good a villain to relegate to the past. Darkseid and Izaya (later Highfather), Inhumans in the ancient past, might have been rivals for the royal throne, divided over the Inhumans’ role in the world of man— Highfather wants peaceful coexistence with primitive mankind, while Darkseid preaches war “for the safety and security of the Inhumans,” who were persecuted for millennia before the sinking of Atlantis (according to official Marvel history). This facet of the Fourth World saga would undergo the most change from its published version, without parallel but warring worlds in space. Darkseid would not have the resources of a planet at his disposal. But so many of the New Gods stories are tied to the modern world that I wonder if it wouldn’t be better to do a split book—with the lead series set in the present and a back-up series telling of Darkseid’s rise (and fall) in the past, and checking in on him at various points in history? His modern base would naturally be the sunken Atlantis, as Jack used a similar idea in the later but similar The Eternals (Lemuria was being used in Sub-Mariner at about this time, and might have been off-limits for use in another series); this would tie in nicely with the Deep Six from the Atlantic Ocean. As the X-Men are mutants not dissimilar to the Inhumans, Darkseid, now millennia old, might be interested in them for purposes of study, just as he searched for the Anti-Life Equation among the Forever People, using Mantis, Glorious Godfrey, Desaad’s Happyland, and Billion Dollar Bates and his In Sect. In fact, perhaps the revised “anti-life equation” (which, as published, dealt with free will) could be an “X gene” that was created by the 66

t begins in Captain Marvel #20 (June 1970): Rick Jones is drawn into the mystery of the Hairies, and, with Captain Marvel’s help, learns that they are the product of SHIELD’s Project, an advanced facility devoted to creating a better soldier. These experiments have produced the “Step-Ups,” basically a superior strain of humanity (much like Captain America, hint, hint), and the DNAliens, who are a mutated breed not unlike the X-Men (or Inhumans, though they, unlike the X-Men, are not known by the public). During this story, a modern version of the Young Allies is introduced, sons of the original “kid gang” from the ’40s: Knuckles, Jeff, Tubby and Whitewash (whose son is Flippa Dippa, naturally); along with a clone of the Blue Diamond, a minor Kirby creation from 1941, and the “X” gene, which has caused the mutations in the DNAliens. The re-formed Organization’s Evil Factory, having gotten access to the Project’s research, creates “Super Sitwell,” a gamma-powered clone of Jasper Sitwell, SHIELD’s security liaison with the Project. The mystery of the “X” gene unfolds in “The Origins of the Inhumans” in Amazing Adventures #1 (Aug. 1970), where it is unnamed, as Darkseid and Izaya are introduced shortly after the establishment of Attilan circa 15,000 BCE as the new homeland of the Inhumans; they were created by the Kree in 23,000 BCE by altering their genetic make-up, such that they react with the Terrigen Mist. It doesn’t mutate ordinary humans, only Inhumans, due to the Inhumans’ “X” gene. The Kree either altered human genes or introduced this “X” gene in order to study the feasibility of jumpstarting their own stagnant genetics (which was documented in the famous Kree-Skrull War saga). Against Inhuman law, Darkseid experiments upon captured humans (this could be the origin of the Alpha Primitives) and is exiled for his crimes. But he manages to smuggle the “X” gene out in a human—who becomes the progenitor of all mutants in the Marvel Universe (humans are able to mutate without the use of the Terrigen Mist). After Darkseid is banished, the strip moves to the back of the book, spotlighting the adventures of the Forever People, young Inhumans sent by Highfather—now ruler of Attilan—as emissaries to mankind, where they encounter Darkseid and his minions, a few renegade Inhumans and evil human pawns (Devilance probably among them; he seems like the orphan among Darkseid’s forces, and least adaptable to the modern era). Mantis, awoken from hibernation by Darkseid, could be featured in both series, having slept

away the millennia between the two. Meanwhile, the lead feature stars “Mercury, the New God” as he fights the minions of Darkseid (as yet unrevealed in modern times) in New York City. Originally sent as an emissary by Black Bolt’s father to see if the world was ready for the Inhumans in 1940, Mercury returns to complete the job, his origin and whereabouts for 30 years told in place of “The Pact,” which could not occur without separate governments. This eliminates Mister Miracle, or at least Scott Free. Darkseid’s forces include the monstrous Kalibak (an Inhuman from Fantastic Four #99, and later, #117) and the Deep Six (in AA #10-12). After another fight with Kalibak (#13), Mercury battles Mantis, who is revealed as a super Alpha Primitive, in Attilan, where the origin of the Alpha Primitives is revealed, perhaps only having been hinted at in the “Origins” strip. In #14, Kalibak is killed by the Black Racer, who was introduced in #9. Throughout his adventures, Mercury is ably assisted by Shilo Norman (introduced in #8). Later stories might have covered the same ground as Kirby’s The Eternals, with Mercury playing the role of Ikaris, while Glorious Godfrey filled in for Kro, and focusing on the fact that humans had super-powered cousins. And the evil Eternal Druig was not dissimilar to Maximus, though there might not be any Celestials… though I have to confess that I’ve always wondered about those Promethean Giants. Were they Celestials who were, as their name suggests, being punished? In fact, many of Kirby’s ’70s Marvel stories dovetail nicely with his Fourth World concepts, and in places I assume that he’d have integrated them. Meanwhile, in The X-Men (#67, December 1970), the team searches for Marvel Girl, who has been kidnapped by the newly re-formed Organization in an attempt to learn the cause of human mutation, and rescues her. After Mantis is introduced, being awoken from his millennia-long slumber, Glorious Godfrey debuts in #69, preaching out against mutants. Captured by Darkseid’s forces, the X-Men are taken to Happyland and studied— until they are rescued by Sonny Sumo, one of the

Alex Jay sent these Kodak Instamatic photos of Kirby at the University of California at San Diego campus, circa 1972. As you can see from the sketches or Darkseid and Mister Miracle, he talked about his DC series, which—had things gone differently— might’ve been Marvel series.

natives of the City of Samurai (seen in Jack’s 1977 Black Panther), then meet Esak, a child with the ability to warp reality, who rescues the mutants from an analog to the Forever People’s time-traveling adventure (an Inhuman Darkseid would not have the ability to send people into the past). Then, after dealing with Bates and his “In Sect,” the team encounters Agron, the “Monster in the Morgue,” in X-Men #75-76 (combining the Forever People story with the similar one in Captain America #204-205). Finally, the X-Men get involved with Mr. Little and King Solomon’s Frog (#77-79) before meeting the eccentric Collectors and learning Sonny Sumo’s origin (#80-82, expanding “The Scavengers” storyline from Forever People #10). Magneto would return with new henchmen (as seen in Captain America Annual #4). The debut Project story in Captain Marvel would naturally lead into SHIELD #17 (January 1971), where Jimmy Woo tackles the missing research file (introduced in the original Project story in Jimmy Olsen), with the new Young Allies stringing along, as Nick must search for his missing Korean War buddy, Ted Brown (from Mister Miracle). These two storylines converge as Fury finds that Ted has been kidnapped by the “Swine” (from Jack’s Captain America run, since both stories deal with ex-Nazis, kidnappings, mutated animals and stolen files), who works with Arnim Zola, the chief scientist at the Evil Factory, which is located in Scotland where it’s known by the mysterious name Brigadoom. Finally, Darkseid is exposed as being behind the Organization, which we have seen has been interested in human mutation, and the secret of the “X” gene is finally revealed in SHIELD #17-23 (that is, it was created in the Inhumans and is the source of all human mutants). Then, after a two-issue (#24-25) detour in which the missing Jimmy Woo and the Young Allies encounter Victor Volcanum, they are rescued by the Blue Diamond—who then deals with Goody Rickels and being poisoned by a gangster (#26-27); after which Nick Fury investigates the mystery of Transilvane at a SHIELD space research facility (#28-29). Then they uncover the Mad Bomb plot in #30-36 (from Captain America #193-200), and must deal with the deadly “Night Flyer” (#37-38). Meanwhile, Captain Marvel goes on to fight a number of eccentric foes: Granny Goodness, a trainer at a Kree military academy; the Female Furies, from Mar-Vell’s past (#2627, 29, 30-32); and agents of Darkseid’s Organization, possibly including Kanto, a renegade Kree assassin, in Captain Marvel #28 (of all Darkseid’s henchmen, Kanto seems least connected to a government, though Virman Vundabar could easily be the Organization’s chief technician). Dr. Bedlam might be working for A.I.M., with a new type of android, the “Animate” (#33). Remaining on the outskirts of the “Fourth World,” Mar-Vell—or is it Rick Jones?— eventually marries Barda (in #37), and has a number of non-Fourth World adventures, just as Mister Miracle did, once Kirby was forced into single-issue stories by DC management, such as the “Murder Lodge” and “Mystivac.” These might include Kiber the Cruel (from Jack’s final issues of Black Panther) and the Night People (from Captain America #201-203). Captain Marvel would probably have been Jack’s vehicle for the sci-fi-oriented stories he did for Marvel in the mid-Seventies,

picking up concepts that didn’t quite fit the Inhumans’ “war,” the mutant adventures of the X-Men, or government-oriented stories in SHIELD. This brings all of the series, in bi-monthly publication, to the end of 1973. And after the Fourth World saga tales had been told? In the last of the “Tales of the Project” back-ups in Jimmy Olsen, it is mentioned that the Step-Ups have a tendency towards “antisocial” behavior. This seems to presage Jack’s later Mr. Machine concept for Marvel, and perhaps the Step-Ups would eventually have to be destroyed, with one “sane” one, “Aaron Stack,” escaping, hunted by SHIELD. If any of the four series had failed, perhaps Mr. Machine would have replaced it. Although X-Men, Amazing Adventures, and Captain Marvel survived in history, SHIELD was cancelled, and Mr. Machine would have been an appropriate replacement, with the law enforcement agency ever-present in the background of the new series. In the long term, it would then be Darkseid and not Thanos— who likely would never have been created—who menaced Captain Marvel and the Earth, perhaps conquering the Titan home of spacegoing Inhumans called “Eternals”—if they were ever created. Perhaps in place of Deadman, Kirby might have brought back Marvel Boy—he had created two versions himself (with Joe Simon) before the more popular Fifties version—and somehow tied the Uranians to the Kree, as they were later connected to Jack’s Eternals by Marvel writer Mark Gruenwald. And would the X-Men have returned to an abandoned Happyland where the maniac Arcade assassinated victims for money? Or Dr. Bedlam’s Animates invade SHIELD’s heli-carrier? How about Captain America standing up to Glorious Godfrey’s hate speech? Unlike his Eternals, Jack Kirby’s New Gods milieu would have influenced Marvel stories forever, becoming part and parcel of the Marvel Universe, rather than being shunted into a corner, largely forgotten, as many of his Seventies concepts have been. ★ (Thanks to Craig McNamara and Shane Foley for their fascinating articles, which inspired this one, and to Murray Ward.)

“Just say ‘NO’ to Terrigen Mist!” Or at least that’s what these pencils from Strange Tales #141 (Feb. 1966) might’ve conveyed, if JHS@M&WtNGi2tMU.* (left) Jeff Deischer, author of this article, mistakenly called the villain from these 1972 New Gods #10 pencils “Preying Mantis.” But actually, that’s an awfully clever name for a character that preys on his foes—it surprising that Jack didn’t use it!

Tech

Jack Kirby: Writing “Machine” by Michael Aushenker

(below) Machine Man (a.k.a. Mr. Machine) from Jack’s sketchbook. (next page) Psychiatrist Dr. Peter Spalding sports a pipe, which, in Jack’s day, imbued a character with having knowledge and sophistication. Nowadays, not so much. Pencils from Machine Man #2 (May 1978).

or many, Jack Kirby’s writing might be the bottom of the Living Totem that was his towering legacy: his unbridled imagination. Above all, Kirby was known for his powerful and distinctive artwork, his ideas and concepts, and his prolific output (of course, the very reason you’re reading this piece in the post-60th issue of The Kirby Collector). While his text and dialogue could be alternately corny, clumsy, naïve, long-in-the-tooth, fatiguing, obvious, and heavy-handed (not to mention peppered with too many exclamation points!!!), his writing sometimes coalesced perfectly with his blockbuster visuals. Machine Man was such a series. In terms of Kirby’s writing and philosophies,

Machine Man best captured several facets of the master: his humor, his hopes and fears regarding technology, his immigrant cloth-cut American patriotism, and his faith in humanity, against all odds, despite Kirby’s own healthy dose of worry regarding the future of our species. At the risk of overreaching, Kirby (born Jacob Kurtzberg) may have even intended elements of Machine Man to resonate as an indirect allegory of Jewish persecution during Nazi-occupied Europe. Long before Inspector Gadget, there was the serious version: the robot X-51, alias Aaron Stack, also known as Machine Man. Originally an offshoot character from the shortlived Kirby-does-Kubrick 2001: A Space Odyssey comics, this Marvel Comics Group character took on a life of its own. In the late 1970s, Machine Man lasted 19 issues in a glorious run started by Kirby (the first nine) and completed by Steve Ditko with writer Marv Wolfman. In a letters’ column editorial, Kirby sold Machine Man this way: “He’s just another dude—who happens to have a body of impenetrable armor, electronic eyes, and a deadly hand-weapons system.” In the pantheon of Kirby’s post-Silver Age output, the Machine Man series— which blended Kirby tropes from Captain America, Fantastic Four’s Silver Surfer, and The Incredible Hulk—may rank just behind his Fourth World books as his most satisfying. Like the lone Super-Soldier, Machine Man was the only experimental specimen of what were to be many Machine Men (created by Abel Stack) to survive. As with the Incredible Hulk, X-51 was wanted by the Government and was hounded by an ersatz Captain Ahab obsessed with destroying him: the eye-patch-wearing Colonel Kragg, playing Gen. “Thunderbolt” Ross to Machine Man’s Hulk. Finally, the emotionless Machine Man, as with his cosmic counterpart Norrin Radd, was an alien among us, at once baffled by humanity and fighting for it, while awkwardly trying to find a humanity of his own. In Machine Man #1 (April 1978), Kirby the writer adeptly kicks off the series by throwing us into the middle of the adventure before launching into the obligatory origin. A rescue of a hiker lets Kirby start off our story with an exciting, action-packed prologue that lets him demonstrate the mechanical capabilities of his new hero in the process, as Machine Man shows off his “gravity cancellation” techniques and stretching, mechanicaltentacle arms while retrieving the distressed young man. “Look! His arm is extending like a ladder!” exclaims a female witness as

long vertical panels convey the length of Machine Man’s extending limbs and accentuate the depths of the mountain caverns in slender, narrow compositions reminiscent of the visual device employed in the poster for the movie 127 Hours. In this premiere issue, Stack’s chance encounter with one Dr. Peter Spalding, a psychiatrist, gains him a friend and ally who will become increasingly pivotal throughout Kirby’s nine issues. “Now I know what you’ve seen is somewhat extraordinary, but I urge you not to pelt me with questions,” Machine Man tells Spalding, who offers the robot a ride. Kirby employed his fertile imagination to show X-51’s feet convert into a skateboard, his finger become a blowtorch, and his arms produce tank treads. Kirby loved to wave his American flag as well as approximate the lingo of the youth. In this series, he got to do both, sometimes simultaneously. “My aim in life is to live just like Johnny Average,” Stack tells Spalding in Machine Man #1, “and take no more than is guaranteed in our Constitution.” Spalding replies, “The American Dream is a good dream, considering that millions buy it every day.” By government decree, all X-model androids must be destroyed, and so, Col. Kragg has it out for Stack. And yet, even as he sics the U.S. Army on Machine Man’s back, Kirby the writer celebrates American ideals without expressing much post-Vietnam cynicism toward the military and the Government––even though both are the book’s apparent villains. Machine Man #2 (May 1978) offers another spectacular opening as the titular robot experiences a revealing “nightmare” in which someone threatens to take off X-51’s Aaron Stack facade. “Don’t touch my face!” the purple android screams. “I have the right to live in peace!” Nowhere does the Nazi persecution metaphor seem so vivid as in this issue. Holocaust survivors often suffer from nightmares and issues centered on identity. Machine Man spends a fair amount of this issue running through a forest from his soldier pursuers. As drawn, Kragg actually resembles a Nazi commandant, with the eagle emblem on his colonel’s hat. Machine Man even turns rocks into diamonds to bribe gas station attendants into hiding him, just as

Jews in Europe during World War II often resorted to paying off gentiles with possessions and valuables in order to hide from their Nazi oppressors. In an editorial within that very issue, Kirby waxed philosophically about the duality of man: to be human, he wrote, is to have Hitler and Gandhi, mobster and judge, and the ignorant and the learned in our world. “We’ve always been constant trouble to ourselves,” he writes. “Humans are going to give Machine Man a hard time of it.” By Machine Man #3 (June 1978), Stack has found Dr. Spalding in Central City, and the oft-prescient Kirby has anticipated the 71

“Transformers”‘ Autobots/Decepticons good-robots-vs.-evil-robots dynamic as transmissions from space usher in Ten-For, a member of the diabolical alien robot race, the Autocrons, who threaten to invade Earth. While Machine Man and Ten-For battle, the latter lectures Stack: “As a fellow Autocron, you above all should understand!” “I am not a fellow anything,” Stack snaps back. “And I don’t like a form of life that throws its weight around like you do!” As Machine Man #4 (July 1978) continues their “Battle on a Busy Street,” with an Autocron attack on Earth imminent, Stack continues

to struggle with his humanity and with his obligations to the human race. When Machine Man experiences a vision of his father Abel, he refuses to believe his electronic eyes. “You’re just an image triggered by my memory banks… and if that doesn’t convince you, take a good look at the reality behind this face,” Machine Man says. “My humanity consists of nothing more than a welded mask,” he continues, flinging the Stack mask onto the grass in the foreground (in a terrific composition, shown below). Abel’s attempt to pacify his angst-ridden creation is surprisingly poignant: “You’re my son! And with or without that mask, you cannot kill the love we had for each other.” He manages to rouse Aaron to don his face again and jump back into the game: “It is human to wear a mask! It is human to live with fear and hate! It’s also human to rise above it!” Machine Man escapes Kragg’s soldiers and challenges Ten-For, in the midst of destroying a downtown, with renewed vigor. “You’ve done enough to the local scenery,” Stack says. “Now it’s time for you to return to your own stamping grounds.” There is much humor to be mined with Stack’s gadgetry, and in Machine Man #5 (August 1978), Kirby has some fun. Disillusioned when Kragg’s military sides with Ten-For over Machine Man, discrediting Stack’s claim that the alien is summoning some intergalactic back-up in the form of an impending Autocron fleet, Stack turns his back on mankind and hides out at a masquerade party. “I’m leaving!” he says as he makes his escape. “The planet may be a battlefield by tomorrow evening, but I’m going to curl up with a good book… Shakespeare hit the mark when he wrote ‘What fools these mortals be!’ And by Jupiter, that includes me as well!” At the party, Stack uses his powers to fend off some costumed troublemakers. (Kirby employs humor in similar fashion, later in the series, when Machine Man engaged in some antics during a military baseball game, extending his arm to catch a fly ball before crushing it to dust.) In Stack’s absence, Spalding tries to show Kragg 72

the light: “Ten-For is a menace… Machine Man is the only one with the power to send him back where he came from.” “Go on… you’ve got the ball… run it down the field!” Kragg mutters. Spalding: “I’m talking amnesty! Put down your weapons and let Machine Man come in without the threat to his existence!” Col. Kragg: “Never-Never--!” Meanwhile at the masquerade party, where a “matador” comically addresses Machine Man as “Star Wars,” a female reporter partygoer learns of Stack’s identity and urges him to fight Ten-For. Stack realizes that “merry-making on the eve of destruction— it’s just not my style! I wonder if Noah felt this way… before the rain comes…”. We’re now in Machine Man #6 (Sept. 1978), and Kirby comically unfurls a twist on discrimination by having an African-American cab driver named Barney Bates almost refuse to give Stack a ride. “You’re not the only one with a skin problem, brother!” Machine Man tells Bates. After showing the cabby the way, Bates returns the favor by dropping a “we’re-all-in-this-together” speech on Stack. Spiritually recharged, Machine Man defeats Ten-For, damaging the alien robot badly and sending him back to the oncoming Autocron spaceship fleet with Ten-For’s chest circuitry re-jiggered into a bomb that unleashes “a giant nova which suddenly terminates an alien bid for the conquest of Earth” with a mighty “WAAAMMM!!!” With #7 (Oct. 1978) and #8 (Nov. 1978), Kirby started a new story arc (“America vs. Machine Man”) that was decidedly more earthbound: a renegade government entity based in an underground bunker, known as The Corporation, sets out (and fails) to duplicate X-51 for profit. With Machine Man #9 (Dec. 1978), Kirby’s work on the series ends on a high note. Early in the issue, Kragg and Spalding, analyzing photos from a blast at the complex, believe Machine Man to be destroyed in the explosion. “Face it, Kragg!” Spalding says. “One way or another, he touched our lives like any other man!” Kragg softens: “I admit that I looked upon him as something more than a steel doo-dad… I grew to like and admire Machine Man!” Which Stack overhears… (Turns out he had escaped injury by burrowing underground). After foiling the Corporation’s attempt to trick X-51 into making himself vulnerable for attack, Machine Man concludes, “Dealing with humans both good and evil is hazardous at best! I’ll just take my chances as I’ve always done.”

“That will be your defense!” Spalding replies. “Humans must also take their chances with you!” “It doesn’t sound bad!” says Machine Man, as he re-applies his Aaron Stack face. Machine Man would not be Kirby’s last rendition of this favorite theme: the alien living among us, discovering his humanity. Kirby returned to this well in the 1980s while at Pacific Comics with the excellent Silver Star, which also saw Kirby’s writing and imagery collide masterfully. With Machine Man, Kirby invested much passion and personal feeling into his android tale. Like Anne Frank, Kirby—even in a world of unbelievable evils, wanton destruction and cruelty—ultimately believed in humanity. Sure, in regards to science and technology, Kirby often expressed his pessimism. “…Besides, there’s still the BOMB!” Kirby wrote in #6’s editorial. “And no robot anywhere is going to overshadow its frightening potential. The years that come may bring us many technical changes. But the peculiar nature of the human animal will do little with them except bend the world to his will.” And yet, Jack Kirby believed in underdogs. In his stories involving Machine Man, Silver Surfer and Silver Star, it becomes clear that the underdog is not our hero but… us—the human race. “I can tell you that when I draw Machine Man,” Kirby wrote in one issue’s column, “I visualize him not as X-51 but as Aaron Stack.” ★ (Michael Aushenker is a writer/cartoonist. He is a regular contributor to Back Issue magazine. Visit CartoonFlophouse.com.) 73

(above and left) More panels “about faces,” this time from Machine Man #4 (July 1978), leading us to try a “Faces” theme issue. Get writing, readers! (below) It’s fitting that, once Jack left Marvel in 1978, fellow Bullpenner Steve Ditko took over Machine Man for its final ten issues (through #19).

Key 5:

ome key characters Jack created or cocreated:

(bottom right) 1992 outtake photo by Susan Skaar, for Ray Wyman’s Art of Jack Kirby bio. Thanks to Ray for making this photo publicly available!

Abner Little Abominable Snowman Absorbing Man Ace Morgan Actor Adam Warlock (HIM) Agatha Harkness Agent Axis Aginar Agon Agron Aireo Ajak Alicia Masters Amphibion Anelle Annihilus Ant-Man Ares Arishem the Judge Arnim Zola Artemis Athena Atlas Avengers Avia Awesome Android

Dingbats of Danger Street Dino Manelli Dionysus Doctor Bedlam Doctor Canus Doctor Doom Doctor Druid Doctor Faustus Dorrek VII Doughboy Dragon Man Dreaming Celestial Dredmund the Druid Dromedan Druig Dubbilex Dum Dum Dugan

Batroc the Leaper Beast Ben Boxer Bernadeth Betty Ross Big Barda Black Bolt Black Panther Black Racer Blastaar Blob Bolivar Trask Bombast Boomerang Bor Boy Commandos Boy Explorers Brother Tode Brotherhood of Evil Mutants Bruno Mannheim Brute Bucky Burner

E Egghead Ego the Living Planet Elektro Enchantress Enclave Erik Josten Esak Eson the Searcher Eternals Etrigan the Demon Executioner

C Captain 3-D Captain America Captain Glory Captain Victory Celestials Challengers of the Unknown Circus of Crime Contemplator Crazy Quilt Crusaders Crystal Cyclops Cyttorak

G Gabe Jones Galactus Gammenon the Gatherer Gargoyle Gilotina Glob Global Peace Agency Glorious Godfrey Golden Girl Goody Rickels Googam Goom Gorgilla Gorgon Granny Goodness Gregory Gideon Grey Gargoyle Groot Growing Man Guardian

H H.E.R.B.I.E. Hank Pym Happy Sam Sawyer Hargen the Measurer Hate-Monger Heggra Heimdall Hela Hera Hercules Hermes High Evolutionary Highfather Himon Hippolyta Hogun Hulk Hulk Robot Human Torch

INSPIRAT B

Balder Baron Strucker Baron Zemo

Fafnir Fandral Fantastic Four Fastbak Female Furies Fenris Wolf Fighting American Fighting Fetus Fin Fang Foom Fixer Fly Forager Forbush Man Forever People Forgotten One Franklin Richards Franklin Storm Frightful Four Funky Flashman

Dabney Donovan Dan Turpin Danger Room Darkseid Deep Six Desaad Destroyer Duck Deviants Devil Dinosaur Devilance Diablo

Iceman Idunn Ikaris Immortus Impossible Man Infinity Man Intergang

Jack Kirby was

Invisible Woman Iron Man It! The Living Colossus Izzy Cohen

J Jane Foster Jasper Sitwell Jean Grey Jed Walker Jemiah the Analyzer Juggernaut Junior Juniper Justifiers

K Ka-Zar Kala Kalibak Kamandi Kang the Conqueror Kanto Karkas Karnak Karnilla Kiber the Cruel King Solomon's Frog Klarion the Witch Boy Klaw Kobra Krang Kree Kro

Man-Beast Mangog Manhunter Manhunters Mantis Margo Damian Marvel Boy Mastermind Maximus Medusa Mentallo Metron Miracle Man Mister Fantastic Mister Miracle MODOK Mokkari Mole Man Molecule Man Monsteroso Moon-Boy Morgaine le Fey Morgan Edge Morrat Mr. Scarlet

N New Gods Newsboy Legion Nezarr the Calculator Nick Fury Night Glider

Power Broker Professor X Psycho-Man Punisher (Galactus) Puppet Master Pvt. Strong

Q Quasimodo Quicksilver

Steppenwolf Stompa Stranger Stuntman Super-Adaptoid Super-Skrull Supreme Intelligence Surtur

R Radioactive Man Randall Darby Ransak the Reject Rawhide Kid Rebel Ralston Red Ghost Red Raven Red Ryan Red Skull Resistants Rick Jones Ringmaster Ronan the Accuser

S Sandman Satan's Six Scarlet Witch Scorpion Seeker Sentinel Sentry (Kree) Sersi Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos Sharon Carter Shilo Norman Sif Silver Star Silver Surfer Simyan Skrull Sky Masters Sleeper Slig Slither Sonny Sumo Space Phantom Sprite

T'Chaka T'Challa Tefral the Surveyor Thena Thing Thor Thunderbolt Ross Tigra Toad Trapster Tricephalous Triton Tumbler Tutinax Two-Gun Kid Tyr Tyrannus

U Uatu Ulik Uni-Mind Unicorn Unus the Untouchable

TIONAL L

Lashina Laufey Lifter Lightray Lockjaw Loki Lonar Lucifer

Machine Man Mad Harriet Mad Thinker Magnar Magneto Maha Yogi Makarri

Oberon Odin Olympians OMAC (Buddy Blank) One Above All Oneg the Prober Orion

Painter Parademons Peepers Peggy Carter Pinky Pinkerton Pinky the Whiz Kid Plunderer Pluto

Valkin Vanisher

Virman Vundabar Vision Volla Volstagg

W Warren Worthington III Warriors Three Wasp Watcher Whirlwind Willie Lumpkin Wizard Wonder Man Wong-Chu Wrecker Wyatt Wingfoot

X X-Men Xemu

Y Yancy Street Gang Yeti Ymir Young Allies

Z Zabu Zarin Zarrko Zeus Ziran the Tester Zuras [partial source: wikipedia.com]

Adam McGovern Know of some Kirby-inspired work that should be covered here? Send to: Adam McGovern PO Box 257 Mt. Tabor, NJ 07878

(this page) A dizzying Amy Reeder cover (top right) and dynamic Natacha Bustos page-thumbnail (bottom left) from Moon Girl & DD’s pre- (and re-) historic adventures. (next page) Line and tone art for a kinetic Bustos layout (left) and style-sheet for Moon Girl’s many phases (right). (page 78) Proof of evolution: Moon Girl goes up against the humanoid “Killer Folk” in these three stages of a dramatic Bustos/Bonvillain design. (Do Marvel lifers recognize that orb as the “Omni-Wave Projector” from the original KreeSkrull War?)

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

The Goodguy Dinosaur obody can forget Devil Dinosaur—even though most people can’t believe it ever happened. One of Kirby’s last works for Marvel in the late 1970s, this gonzo tale of a hominid boy and his pet thunder-lizard was both a kid’s fantasy and a folkloric fever-dream. In a series taking place before history began, Devil Dinosaur and Moon Boy were trapped in a wild, dreamtime childhood. In Marvel’s current phase of eccentric, original reinventions of intriguing second-string characters, two of comics’ most seasoned timetravelers, writer Brandon Montclare and artist Amy Reeder of Rocket Girl fame, were called on to bring Devil to the present day with a new kid partner, precocious science-geek Lunella Lafayette, in Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur— this time with Montclare and Reeder as co-writers and Natacha Bustos as the vibrant artist and Tamra Bonvillain supplying the joyous, cinematic colors. The Collector spoke in-person with Montclare and Reeder in New York on February 27, 2016, and by e-mail with Bustos from Spain on March 6.

THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR: Devil Dinosaur is infamously one of Kirby’s most kitschy concepts, but it does hold a fascination for many sophisticated creators both in and outside of comics. Was it a series you always enjoyed, or did you just welcome the challenge of updating this crazy idea? AMY REEDER: Honestly, our editor Mark Paniccia is a huge Devil Dinosaur fan; he’d been trying for years to bring it back. I guess the timing was right? Hopefully we brought something to it that made them want more, and they approved it. Brandon and I were just looking for a character, and we really wanted to revitalize something, because there’s a lot less pressure in that, and then you can do a lot of creative things. BRANDON MONTCLARE: Amy’s working on another pile of Rocket Girl issues so we can release them in sequence, but we still wanted to have something on the shelf, and we thought it would be nice for Amy to co-write and do covers. Marvel said, “Why don’t you come by and we’ll talk about what you want to do.” Certainly within the first ten minutes, if not the very first thing that was mentioned, was Devil Dinosaur. Which got me excited, ’cuz, “Oh, it’s such a cool, it’s such an oddball thing,” and like Amy says, nobody really bothers you when you’re doing something so obscure. So about another minute after that, [Mark] said, “How about Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur,” and then you could do something totally different… the idea being, you bring it to modern times instead of setting it in The Valley of Flames and the dinosaur world… REEDER: I think part of his thinking was also that I would be on the project, because, to be honest, at first when he said Devil Dinosaur I was just like, kinda rolling my eyes… inside [laughs], not outwardly, but then as soon as he said, like, “Girl” I was like, ooooh, that’s fun, because… I wasn’t really a dinosaur person growing up. I mean, they’re interesting enough, but, I did not see the possibilities in that. MONTCLARE: And just the idea that you can do a companion for this dinosaur, and from complete scratch. REEDER: That’s really the part that’s exciting, the fact that the story is really intrinsically about two characters, just those two, and their relationship as it grows. That’s really something special that I think sets it apart from other books for sure. TJKC: I just like the sassiness and outsidery-ness of Lunella—how much of each of you is in that character? It feels very contemporary and very true to a young girl who isn’t the play-with-Barbie type… 76

find examples it doesn’t happen too much, is that they wanted [the book] to be kid-friendly, but also exist inside the Marvel universe—you’ve gotta keep it light, but you’ve also gotta keep it honest, so it was interesting, to pick up that tone. That in itself was different, and then, again, with a character that you’re creating from scratch, you might as well try to make her a bit different.

REEDER: I definitely was, like, an abnormal kid. And very very picked-on, so I guess [it’s] from me, but I wasn’t super-smart, I was just super-weird. [laughter] TJKC: I bet you were already super-talented though. REEDER: I was talented. But I would always give people the question of, like, “What is going on with her?”—seriously, I was like a pariah, people wouldn’t even sit next to me so that they wouldn’t have their reputation ruined. Not that you should be sad about it, because I feel like it formed me as a person, and I think I became better at art, for instance, because I was bored and didn’t have friends [laughs]—so it all works out. I know I can definitely identify with it. I think Brandon was more of a popular sort?

REEDER: “All-New, All-Different,” right? [laughs] You kind of have to, when you do a new series, think, “What is missing?” If you don’t think that way then you’re doing Marvel a disservice. TJKC: I think this book perfectly suits the “Disney Marvel” era that everyone was so afraid of—there’s a real freshness and charm to it but not anything drab or insipid.

MONTCLARE: I wasn’t, though people say that, because everyone in comics has a story like Amy’s [laughs]… maybe I’ve blocked it all out, but I remember having a very average [childhood]—it wasn’t very cliquish, any of my school days...

MONTCLARE: You see a lot of kids’ books, and they’re written so with no teeth at all; it appeals to the parents of the kids, like, “I can buy this for my ten-year-old,” rather than something that my ten-year-old wants to read. You just have to have some heart, and care about it, and have some consequences; not in the realm of going too grotesque with it… not that there’s anything wrong with those types of stories, but I don’t feel that we’re missing anything. REEDER: All my favorite movies of all time have been disturbing children’s movies. MONTCLARE: Every kid’s scared of The Wizard of Oz! People say, “Kirby, it’s hard to work on that stuff,” and in a way it is because Kirby worked on it, but Devil Dinosaur only got nine issues out of Kirby [himself]. That was very much a kids’ book, when he did it, more than a lot of his other stuff. Even though [our story] is in a totally different setting, it occupies the same space. REEDER: We have a few people who feel protective of it, but probably way less than it would have been. Our artist, Natacha Bustos, who I think is just amazing, is very aware of the Kirby legacy, and definitely incorporates a lot

REEDER: Mine was! MONTCLARE: …and I always liked comics, always read stuff, certainly had friends when I was in elementary school and had girlfriends in high school… REEDER: I have Friends now on Facebook who used to pick on me in elementary school. Either they don’t remember, or they just don’t want to… believe it anymore? ’Cuz they’re like, “Oh, I can’t believe my friend is drawing comic books, my childhood friend!” And I’m like, “Really, ‘childhood friend’”! I don’t know how to take it, but… let bygones be bygones. MONTCLARE: But you always put some of yourself in a character in one way or another. It’s also just an opportunity to do something different. It all worked out. One of the things that [Marvel] wanted to do, which was interesting—you hear it and you don’t think it’s unique, but when you try to 77

of effects and machinery that are very Kirbyesque. Because Lunella Lafayette, Moon Girl, she’s an inventor. MONTCLARE: And she has Inhuman DNA and is afraid of the Terrigen cloud that’s transforming everybody else; obviously another Kirby connection. There will be more Inhuman politics and interaction in the second arc, starting with #7, which will probably have more influence on the art. REEDER: It’s so great, actually; we wish we could tell you. [laughter] TJKC: I took Lunella’s fear of the Terrigen cloud to be like a metaphor for the gas from Three Mile Island’s meltdown I was afraid of floating toward us when I was her age! A metaphor for the things that prey on kids’ minds. so the idea was, what if Tony Stark kind of discovered her… but it went in other directions. [Instead] we play with how Devil Dinosaur helps Lunella come out of her shell—it’s mostly projection; he’s important to be the sounding board, where she attributes things to him that maybe aren’t always there, but it brings her out of herself.

MONTCLARE: It’s the fear of growing up, whether it’s the Terrigen transformation or the X-Gene… TJKC: Or puberty. MONTCLARE: That’s just it, she’s at that age where it’s still a couple years from thinking about “the strange thing that I don’t wanna have happen to me,” that she’s not very good at communicating to other people, and also not really good at understanding herself…

REEDER: It’s an interesting conflict, having to have one of the two main characters that can’t talk [laughter]. TJKC: The layouts to me seem somewhat Reeder-esque; how much of a role do you take in that? Not in terms of the style so much as the pace— the wide-angle/close-focus rhythm, it feels like one of your comics.

REEDER: And I’ll say from experience that that whole change of going from girl kid to young woman is just such a dangerous time—you don’t end up the same person, and if you do, it’s because you somehow consciously managed to escape it, but nobody can—you either decide to be a “tomboy” or… you’re always consciously deciding, whereas when you’re a kid you can just be whatever you want. Suddenly you have to define who you are as a human being, where before it was never an issue.

REEDER: It’s an interesting mix; I work closely with Natacha in the thumbnail stage, but she still comes up with really original layouts that I don’t feel like I’d ever have done or have thought of. But what you were saying about having those reaction shots and then opening up, it’s definitely a philosophy of mine, so you work that into the writing; having a panel where she’s actually reacting to something—because for me, comics should feel as much like a first-person experience as possible. Which isn’t always too easy to do. I try to handle that in the writing, but Natacha is just really creative on her own; she’s an interesting storyteller—this is my first time writing for [another] artist, but I’m always surprised with what she comes up with, it’s always what I don’t expect and has a lot of pleasant outcomes.

TJKC: Definitely a subtext of this book… any kid who’s looking for a comic that doesn’t tell you that teenage “should” be the best part of your life would like this comic. And the kid I was likes it. Was it your idea to have a crossover with Amadeus Cho [the current Hulk], or was that editorial? MONTCLARE: It makes a lot of sense, Amadeus was [originally] a kid genius and Lunella is a kid genius, and obviously if you’re gonna have a monster battle, the number one thing you could do is Hulk vs. Devil Dinosaur. REEDER: The only other thing I was thinking would have been cool is Iron Man.

TJKC: I could really see the first-person method in issue #4, with Lunella watching the fight between Devil and the Hulk in all these little inset panels.

MONTCLARE: Yeah, well, that was in one of the early pitches; before she had the Inhuman angle, Iron Man was gonna be—because she’s an inventor, and she’s always trying to be recognized—one of the reasons to be so afraid of the transformation is that she does have a confidence in who she is, it’s that line that everyone always likes to quote, and it was Amy’s line, “My brain is the only superpower I need”—so, she’s not recognized by her own school let alone the Future Foundation and the other powers that be,

REEDER: That was definitely a challenge. The whole point of the story is really to have this slow-burn friendship, this very slow progression, and #4 really felt like a turning point, because, she’s trying to resist even caring about this dinosaur, but then bad things happen to him. So it was really important to keep showing her so that you can feel her emotions as they slowly change so you’re just there with her; it doesn’t feel at all contrived, you can totally understand it and you’re feeling the exact same things she is. 78

tribute to their vision of the world and how they represent it in their work. It is impossible not to reference or be influenced by [iconic] artists. As an artist of my generation I have consumed the comics of X-Men, the manga works of Rumiko Takahashi, the graphic novels of Charles Burns and such TV series and films from the sci-fi and fantasy genres as Battlestar Galactica and Twin Peaks, as well as animated films. [But] it is difficult to choose one particular artist or influence from past comics to call “the” style of art that should be upheld. And art evolves.

MONTCLARE: I think it’s with issue #4 that we’re seeing that Natacha really is the dominant creative force on the book. REEDER: She just keeps getting better. Sometimes I’ll write something that I can picture her drawing, and then she still draws it completely differently; she really thinks outside of the box and makes it hers—even when you wanna make it hers, she still makes it hers! [This was a good point to shift scene to Bustos’ own headquarters in Spain, to get her viewpoint on Devil Dinosaur’s visuals…]

TJKC: Were you a fan of Kirby’s original Devil Dinosaur before you worked on this book?

TJKC: Your style feels classic while not necessarily coming from areas we’ve seen in comics recently, or even ever—in some ways it’s like reading an animated cartoon. What are the influences from past comics you think are worth upholding, and the ones important to bring in that maybe haven’t been mixed with comics before?

BUSTOS: I knew about Devil Dinosaur, of course, but more than [that] I admired the work of Kirby. The personality his art has is really overwhelming, the style is incredible. The concept for the new Devil Dinosaur that we created is obviously artistically different, [but] my aim is to respect the origins while, naturally, giving it my own flavor. The writing of Amy and Brandon [also] creates something new while excellently managing to preserve the essence of Kirby’s Devil Dinosaur—he continues to be that devoted and loyal friend. The values of true friendship and loyalty are still upheld.

NATACHA BUSTOS: Comic book creators, like so many other artists, are children of their time and so, naturally, social context and generation con-

TJKC: The settings of your scenarios feel very fanciful yet very recognizable from reality—what references do you draw on? BUSTOS: I’ve never been to New York so all of the imagery in my mind comes from photographs, films and Google Maps! I think that when I finally get to New York City I’ll be able to easily make my way around without maps or anything, I’ve done so much research!! TJKC: The coloring is very distinctive—what considerations do you keep in mind for how your art will interact with the color while you’re doing the linework version?

Kirby Kave-painting: The penciled archaeology of the King's original concept. Splash page pencils from Jack’s Devil Dinosaur #1 (April 1978).

BUSTOS: I think that Tamra’s work is amazing, and luckily (or, more by design, thanks to Mark) our styles just work together. I don’t need to worry. Without her Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur wouldn’t be who they are. More than once I’ve read Tamra’s colours described on Twitter as “juicy,” like candy. I always think of the project as a living thing. The brain and heart that comes from Amy and Brandon, then the body, or me, and finally the blood which is Tamra. She gives the creature life. ★

Mark Evanier

Jack F.A.Q.s A column of Frequently Asked Questions about Kirby

(below) “What’s a ‘Brooklyn?’” one of Jack’s basic training compatriots asked in this issue’s interview— here’s the answer from Jack’s sketchbook. (next page) Photos of Jack from a circa 1974 San Diego Comic-Con, courtesy of Shel Dorf. (bottom, left to right) Moderator Mark Evanier, and panelists: Neal Adams, Darywn Cooke, Len Wein, Crystal Skillman, Fred Van Lente, and Paul S. Levine.

You know, most people, their minds go from A, to B, to C, to D. Jack would start with A, and then he’d do R, and then he’d do K, and all of a sudden he would have you On Beyond Zebra someplace. His mind would just—and a lot of the great concepts that he came up with in comics I believe were a case of him putting together two things no one else would have ever thought to put together, making one coherent better idea that was better than any of the components. So we do these panels to talk about that and talk about Jack. Let me introduce the panel as it stands thus far. This is a chair which will be occupied by Neal Adams at some point, I presume. This is the fine illustrator Mr. Darwyn Cooke. [applause] This is the fine writer Mr. Len Wein. [applause] These are the fine writers and playwrights Crystal Skillman and Fred Van Lente. [applause] This is the fine attorney Paul Levine. [applause] Paul is here because I never go anywhere without my lawyer. [laughter] He’s also the lawyer for—what’s the exact name of it again? I can’t remember.

2015 Kirby WonderCon Panel Held Sunday, April 5, 2015 at 3:00pm at WonderCon, Anaheim, California. Featuring Neal Adams, Darwyn Cooke, Fred Van Lente, Crystal Skillman, Len Wein, Paul S. Levine, and moderated by Mark Evanier. Transcribed by Steven Tice. Edited by John Morrow, copy-edited by Mark Evanier. You can view a video of this panel at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sSZOnoGKM0 MARK EVANIER: Every day of my life I find myself answering questions about Jack, thinking about Jack, talking about Jack. And if you ever met Jack, you know he had a very odd way of speaking. His mind would race from topic to topic. He would start talking about one thing, and then suddenly he’d be talking about another thing, and another thing. And he put strange associations together. He would make leaps in his logic.

PAUL LEVINE: The Rosalind Kirby Trust. MARK: Thank you, the Rosalind Kirby Trust. When people say “the Kirby estate,” they probably mean the Rosalind Kirby Trust which Paul has represented for, lo, these many years. How long have you been…? PAUL: I represented Jack from ’81 until ’87, and then when I went solo in ’92, represented him and the Estate. MARK: I ran into, what’s his name, your old law partner person? Anyway… so one of the topics we’re not going to be talking about here, because there isn’t that much to say about it, is: As you may know, the Jack Kirby Estate—i.e., the Rosalind Kirby Trust— there was this dispute between the Marvel Comics people and the Kirbys which in various forms and various shapes went on since about the day I met Jack, which was in July of 1969. And for all that time I felt that Jack was not properly compensated for his work and, he was not properly credited for his work. And I was not the only person who felt this. Insofar as I could tell, every single person who really knew the history of Marvel Comics and knew what Jack had done felt this way. And finally, it was resolved 80

with a very nice settlement. And I cannot tell you the relief I have felt to have closure on something that has been gnawing at me since July of 1969.

was one person that we kind of grabbed onto and were looking at.

DARWYN COOKE: Can I ask you, Mark… To what degree do you think the settlement hinged on Disney’s purchase of Marvel? Would you say that was a big part of it?

CRYSTAL: It was right in my mind. I had worked with him two years ago in a play of mine: Steven Rattazzi [below].

MARK: Yes, I think it was, definitely. Anyway, we aren’t going to talk much about that. We are going to talk about Jack, and I was hoping Neal would be here so I could start with my main thesis, but before we get to that, I want to ask each of the people on the panel to tell us a little about things they have done that have touched on Jack Kirby. Fred, you and Crystal did a project. Tell us about that.

FRED: Any of you guys here Venture Brothers fans? [audience members cheer] He plays Dr. Orpheus.

FRED VAN LENTE: Yeah, sure. I primarily write comics for a living because I’ve always been interested in comics. But before I even really broke into the industry, I became really interested in Jack’s life and was sort of researching a biography of him just, really, as a hobby more than anything else. This would be, like, 1999, 2000. And I was dating this lovely lady here, Crystal, at the time [Crystal waves to the audience]. We subsequently got married. I’m sure that’s not a coincidence. [laughter] But she was a playwright, and so I, just sort of as a monkey-see-monkey-do thing, I adapted my research on Jack as a play. And we did a reading of it, it was fun, but we kind of put it away and it kind of sat in a drawer for a while until a theater that Crystal—[to Crystal] well, why don’t you take it from there? There was the theater you were involved in in New York.

CRYSTAL: Yes. And because I’d been in a room with him, because I knew he had worked with incredible players, I knew the breadth of his work, and I knew that he could really transform into a character but also really have soul, had the poetry, of what I felt was the essence of capturing Jack onstage. And we were just so lucky that he was so taken with the project. He works mostly offBroadway and Broadway, so he came on down to Williamsburg. [laughs] Which was very exciting, and he did a wonderful job. There’s actually also a radio version of it as well, so you—or it wasn’t a radio version, it was—

CRYSTAL SKILLMAN: Yeah, there’s a big movement here, sometimes it’s called “geek theater,” “comic book theater.” And it’s not just New York, it’s kind of all over, which is really exciting to naturally see the two communities speaking to each other. So in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, they have a geek festival at a theater called Brook Theater. It’s called the Comic Book Theater Festival. And so they were fans of the idea of the play. They were very excited by it. We had done some rewrites, so we were very excited to put up the play there. And it was a really exciting experience to share the story of this incredible man’s life in this festival for, like, 50% of the audience who knew him quite well or loved him and was very excited to see this on stage, or for those who were experiencing his story for the first time, and it was cool seeing how gratified audiences were on both sides.

FRED: A Midtown Comics podcast. You go on their iTunes stream and get it. [Or go to: http://blog.midtowncomics.com/podcast/8544]

FRED: Our audience becomes a unique mixture of comics, cute people, play people, and all that. It’s called King Kirby. MARK: Now, tell us, it ran for how long?

CRYSTAL: So you guys can actually hear that for free, you can actually hear it.

FRED: It ran in June. We got a very nice New York Times review, and it’s going to be in Seattle and Calgary next year. We’re super-excited. Hopefully it’ll come to all of you.

MARK: Did your actor look at videos of Jack? FRED: He did. He’s a classically trained actor who wanted to make the role his own. We got him some videos and audio. He definitely wanted to make the character his own. I think he did a very good job of capturing the essence of Jack.

MARK: When you were casting the role of Jack Kirby, what did you look for? [Neal Adams arrives and the audience applauds] FRED: Jack is a very physical type, particularly in the way he is portrayed in pop culture, even subsequent to his death. We needed someone who was tough, I think, was how he came across, and there

CRYSTAL: And also played against— FRED: Based on what I…

CRYSTAL: He really did a great job of showing us some vulnerability in places that you would be surprised by. But in moments where he’d kind of rise up, you saw kind of the classical idea of him. Because a lot of what we wanted to capture in the play, too, was his struggle through his work, but also with how he was being talked about, how he was being seen, as well, perception. So we wanted to make sure that the character was very authentic.

just starts drawing again, but without the drawing table. FRED: On the stage. CRYSTAL: And the lights fade out.

MARK: I know you can’t tell the whole play to us here, but give the people a little summary. There were many stories you could tell about Jack. What was the story you decided to tell about him? What was roughly the beginning, middle, and end of this dramatic arc?

MARK: Sotheby’s is now selling some of those sidewalks. [laughter]

FRED: Well, there’s two things, one of which is just sort of the bare facts of Jack’s life, or this amazing story, this amazing twentiethcentury story, because so much of his life touches not just on comics history, but him growing up on the Lower East Side, his World War II experiences, him coming out here to California in the late sixties, and so it’s such a great kind of American story, we wanted to touch on that. But the main thing that we were most interested in is—I think all of us at this table who are involved in pop culture know, out there, a lot of people don’t understand that pop culture comes from people. Like, humans create this. It doesn’t just sort of…

MICHAEL CHABON WRITES SHORT STORY INSPIRED BY LEE & KIRBY’S RELATIONSHIP The author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (which was inspired in part by Jack’s early life and career) has written a new short story, this time inspired by Kirby and Stan Lee’s relationship. Titled “Citizen Conn,” it’s the tale of comic book artist Mort Feather and his estranged partner, Artie Conn, and their attempt to reconcile after years of animosity. You can read it at the New Yorker’s website:

DARWYN: Can http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/ I just add an 2012/02/13/citizen-conn aside on this? Speaking of how pervasive his influence is, on April 20 [2015] in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, they’re premiering a short film called Arty, made by a friend of mine, and it’s based on Jack’s life. It’s all about Jack and what he went through in the early years of his career. And it’s a remarkable movie. No one here in the States would know anything about it. I got to see a screening of it about a month ago. So all over the world there are people who’ve connected to this guy, and filmmakers, documentarians, playwrights are all fascinated by his spirit and what he brings to it. So if you are in Halifax on April 20th, go catch the premiere of Arty.

CRYSTAL: Or how it’s created. FRED: The Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, or whatever, don’t just suddenly come bubble up from, like, the head of Zeus and then exist on the magazine stands and the movies. So what we really wanted to do was to give that impression, to make people understand the human beings behind these big fourcolor cultural icons.

MARK: Now, in the interim we’ve been joined by Mr. Neal Adams, ladies and gentlemen. [applause]

MARK: And so let me, don’t give away the ending, but what was the ending? [laughter] How far did you take this?

NEAL ADAMS: I just want you guys to know that I’m the luckiest guy in the room because I’m doing a Superman/ New Gods story for DC Comics, Jack Kirby’s New Gods. Nobody else’s. [applause]

FRED: He died, spoiler alert, at the end of the show, but then there was a big sort of—

MARK: All right. The topic I would like to discuss here is, among many aspects I would like to discuss, I want to discuss, over the years I would occasionally meet people who would say, “Oh, I love Jack Kirby, but I like the way John Buscema drew the Silver Surfer more,” or, “I love Jack Kirby’s work, but I like the way Walt Simonson did Thor.” Which is fine. And that kind of thing never bothered Jack. Over the years when he heard that somebody liked another artist more than his work, he was really non-competitive. The thing, though, that I think a lot of people never got about Jack was that Jack wasn’t really competitive with most other comic book artists because, in his mind, they had a different job description. When John Buscema sat down to draw an issue of the Fantastic Four—and absolutely nothing that I’m about to say is knocking John Buscema in any way, or any of the artists that I will mention here—his goal was to draw an issue of the Fantastic Four. When Jack sat down to do an issue of the Fantastic Four, in his mind, his job description was to create a new universe and three spinoffs and take comics to another level. There are people in the industry who come into comics, they write wonderful stories, they draw wonderful stories, they draw lovely pictures, but when they leave that project, it’s just that project. It is just X number of good issues of that comic and they move on to another thing, and the people who come after them go back to the source material, and they don’t really—

CRYSTAL: We start at Sotheby’s, and we start the auction, and we start with him, of course, working, because he would never stop working, so as the audience enters they actually see Steven Rattazzi as Jack drawing, and drawing, and drawing. But some people were so—some people were very young, which was very interesting, had written their thesis on him, and they were crying. Because just to see someone who looked like him, working like him, and the show hadn’t even started yet, it was just very emotional, I think. And then the play kind of starts around to where they start auctioning off his work, and he starts saying, “I won’t hear the value after I’m gone.” And we realize that this is him taking control of his life and telling us, and we were able to land on different scenes for that. We return to that last moment of the play, and in that last moment he goes back to a character, to the space stories he loved to tell. And he starts, he takes out a piece of chalk from his pocket, how he used to draw on the streets, and he 82

there isn’t really a continuity there. And then there are also creators, people who when they have done a comic they are always out to change comics a little bit in every job, and they’re always out to try out some new format or new idea. And I felt we have people here who are an example. And it’s a very small list of people who, when they did a comic, they changed the business a little bit in every project they did, generally, for the better. And I wanted to talk a little bit about Jack’s influence in this perspective. Now, Neal, you are aware, I’m sure, that your Batman stories, to take one example, were very nice Batman stories, but they were not really self-contained. The good stuff in there was not contained just to your particular issues. You changed the character of Batman, changed it in other books—. NEAL: See, you’re talking about me. I want to talk about Jack. [laughter] MARK: I want to talk about— NEAL: Listen to me, listen to me. Listen to this. MARK: All right. [laughter] [overlapping Mark and Neal] NEAL: [to Van Lente] Did you guys have Stan Lee in your show? FRED: Oh, sure. NEAL: And Joe Simon? FRED: Yes. NEAL: Was he really tall? FRED: Taller than Jack.

(right) Jack’s sketchbook Superman, and (below) Neal Adams’ take on Orion and Kalibak from The Coming of the Supermen, on sale now.

NEAL: Joe Simon was taller than anybody in the room. He was like a sailing ship walking through the halls. [laughter] My thing with Jack, observing Jack, and watching his career is, I imagine poor Stan Lee, okay, picking up pages from Jack and going, “Asgard? Do I have to know all the gods of Asgard?” And having to go to the library and take out books that for Jack were like second conversations. “Yeah, don’t you know about this? Don’t you know about this? What about alternate universes and warps and the rest of this stuff?” And Stan would have to go and research this stuff just so he could dialogue Jack’s stuff, because Jack was ahead of everybody. You couldn’t run to catch up to Jack; you didn’t know where the hell he was going! [laughter] He went to DC Comics and he created New Gods. Excuse me, who would ever think “new gods”? I mean, he was dealing with old gods. Nobody caught up to him at Marvel doing the old gods, and suddenly he’s at DC Comics doing new gods. “New gods? Really? Holy je— What?” [laughter] And then he does it. Then he does it. He creates these new gods, and he creates these worlds, and you go, “Where is this world? It can’t be in the solar system. Jack, help us!” And it’s like, you don’t know what to do with this stuff because he does it all the time. And then you read a comic book, and there’ll be a double-page spread that he puts together like a Mechanics Illustrated thing of pasted stuff that he cut out from magazines, and the rest of us sit back and go, “Oh my God. I can’t do that. What?” And, of course, Stan would go, “And here’s Jack’s view of this… universe… ’Nuff said!” [laughter] Because he didn’t know what to say. Or he’d go, “Excelsior!” What? [laughter] “Did you get paid for those two pages? I don’t get it.” Because he didn’t know what to say or what to do with it because Jack was so incredible. And you have to understand that when you draw comic books, you’re drawing 83

is dealing with regular humans. [mimics Jack with a cigar] “What?” “Yeah, you know. It’s—you put the warps together like this and you can jump from here to here.” “Warps? Really?” “Didn’t you read that? It was in Scientific Illustrated.” “Uh, no, I didn’t, Jack.” [laughter] Poor Stan! Imagine Stan. Stan is not what you call a tremendously educated person. There’s no offense. I’m just saying, he’s got to crack the books every time he gets a Jack Kirby story. “Asgard? He knows all the characters in Asgard?” Every one of them. Every single one of them. This is the genius. I’m just saying it, okay? That little guy behind that desk with that cigar, chomping at that cigar, was a genius. He set our business up. We all followed him. Anybody get ahead of Jack Kirby? Nobody did. Nobody. We’re still running to catch up. DARWYN: You’re all holding Mother Boxes in your hands fifty years later. NEAL: That’s right. That’s right. MARK: Since you were around the DC offices at the time, can you tell us a little about what was going on up there when Jack would mail in those stories, those early New Gods stories? NEAL: [sighs] MARK: Because I actually got the feeling that some of those people up there just didn’t get it. NEAL: I can tell you Carmine Infantino didn’t get it. Pfft! MARK: My first time up at the DC offices, Sol Harrison sat me down, and I was Jack’s assistant for about an hour-and-a-half at that point. And he said, “You’ve got to talk to Jack about not drawing square fingertips. He’s got to look at Curt Swan’s work and draw more like him.” And I thought, “Yeah, that’s gonna happen.” [laughter]

comic books all the time. Where did he get this time? Where did that damn little guy, chomping on that cigar, Roz taking care of him, letting fans into his house, eating his food, and treating them like angels, and then they’d go out, shocked that Jack Kirby and Roz were so wonderful—where did he have time to research this stuff? He knew more than anybody. Believe me, I’m a very knowledgeable person. I know sh*t. [laughter] I do. I’m telling you, I know stuff, okay? A conversation with Jack, you talk about any subject, he knew more than you knew. And he was putting it in the comic books. Unbelievable! And here he

NEAL: I can tell you that my experience up at DC Comics was to save, as much as possible, all the crap that editorial was doing to Jack’s work. Because they would get—what was the guy who used to draw Superman but did—? MARK: Al Plastino. NEAL: Al Plastino. Believe me, a great guy, a wonderful guy. But he drew Curt Swan’s Superman softer. Jack’s stuff was harder than Curt Swan, easily, harder than anybody’s. And so Al Plastino would do these heads that Carmine Infantino would—[sigh]—I love Carmine Infantino. I gotta tell you. [some laughter] But he was a functioning 84

illiterate. [laughter] I’m sorry. I’m just saying. Okay? He knew his own stuff. I’m sorry. [laughter] But he knew his own stuff, and he didn’t understand Jack at all. Okay? So putting Al Plastino on Superman heads on Jack Kirby made no sense in the world. So I would run in to Carmine’s office, say, “Carmine. Look, I’ll do the heads. Whatever patches you have to do, let me do the patches and let the fans get mad at me, but this is ridiculous.” So that’s what I did. And I apologized for doing it, but I did it to save the work. I didn’t do it because I have a big ego. I did it because they wanted that stuff changed. Square fingers? Of course people have square fingers in Jack Kirby’s universe. Only Joe Sinnott softened up the fingers and made them neat and pretty. But it didn’t matter. When you read Jack’s stuff, it was Jack. It was wonderful. So, really, Jack went from Stan, who actually loved Jack, and loved his work. You have to admit, Stan Lee will always say wonderful things about Jack, and he—. MARK: Except under oath. [laughter]

Jack, and so much of guys like Sergio, that they can’t believe that they were treated so badly in the industry. And they were. And you know what? See those muscles that tighten around Jack’s jaw when he clamps down on that cigar? Jack had the ability to bite down, dig in, turn out his four-to-six pages a day. The best man in the business. I’m sorry, did I wander? MARK: No, that’s all right. [applause] Len, you were around the DC offices back when Jack’s New Gods stuff, and Forever People started coming in. What did you see going on in the offices vis-à-vis Jack’s work? LEN WEIN: Tragically, the same thing Neal saw. The fact that they would look at this extraordinary stuff and not have the vision to see [past] the tiny little things that weren’t to their satisfaction. I was amazed by that. They always said, “You know, it’s the house style.” Well, if you wanted the house style, why in God’s name would you hire the man who invented style? And they did, they would just go on making those little, niddly corrections

NEAL: Fine, except under oath. I’ll go with that. But still, on a personal basis. We know what happened. Jack would send in the stuff and wrote the notes on this side of the page, and Stan would go research it, because he had to research it. Otherwise, he wouldn’t know what the hell was going on. And then he went over to DC Comics and they had no idea—he went over to DC Comics because he was told he would be treated better. He wasn’t treated better. He was ignored and he was— it was handled badly. I’m going to tell you a Jack Kirby story. I apologize. If I’m monopolizing this, I apologize. Okay. Jack finally said, “Enough with this crap.” And he went to Hollywood and said, “I’m going out to Hollywood. I’m gonna do stuff.” He calls me on the phone and he says [Kirby impression], “Neal. There’s these kids calling me and they want to publish my characters. And they said they’ll pay me whatever DC Comics pays me and what Marvel pays me, and they’ll let me keep the rights to my characters. What is this bullsh*t?” [laughter] “Jack, who are these kids?” “Pacific Comics. They call themselves Pacific Comics.” I said, “Jack, try to understand this. Okay? I’ll explain this very slowly to you. Everybody in the world thinks that you’re rich. Everybody in the world thinks you get paid a thousand dollars a page and they’ll never be able to use you. If you admit what you get paid at DC and Marvel, fans, and fan publishers, would faint. Double your price. Go back to these people and say, ‘Fine, I want to keep my characters.’ And what they will do, Jack, is let you keep your characters, and then they will pay the money you ask. More than what DC Comics would pay.” “Neal, they won’t do that. That’s bullsh*t.” “Jack, I swear to God, they will do it. They will let you keep the rights to your characters and they will pay you better than DC and Marvel ever paid you, because they really respect you.” “Are you sure about this?” “I promise, Jack. I promise it.” Sure enough, he did Captain Victory for Pacific Comics, and it worked. Then, two days later, I got a call from Sergio Aragonés, who said the same thing. “Neal. Are these people crazy?” That’s how Sergio Aragonés has Groo the Barbarian, still. Because people outside of the industry think so much of 85

(previous page) Balder, Sif, Karnilla, Ulik, Odin—Thor had one of Jack’s largest supporting casts. Pencils from #152, page 5. (below) TJKC’s own Shane Foley, when not writing articles and last-minute captions for this mag’s overworked editor, is an accomplished artist in his own right, as seen in these Kirby Captain Victory inks.

that would drive everyone, who knew what they were seeing tampered with, crazy.

concepts. You know, the Boom Tube, it’s a teleportation device. Hey, it’s much better than Star Trek. It’s great. You go in one end, you come out the other end, only it’s somewhere else and you changed space in-between. What a great idea! And why not make it a tube? Of course it’s a tube! It’s the way to do it! I mean, just, he did all these ideas that, the tubes, and all the rest of that stuff. There is nobody like Jack Kirby. There will never be anybody like Jack Kirby. We are lucky if we get anywhere near catching up to him. That’s really what it’s all about. Jack was the best. And at DC they didn’t recognize that. And you know what? His family got a lot of money recently. [applause]

MARK: There was a tendency at DC at that time to put what Mr. Harrison called “the DC touch” on every book. They felt like they had to touch every one that came in and do something to it in the office to enhance it, or take credit for something, or whatever. Jack had a few allies up there. Neal was one. Another person who does not get credit, who helped save a lot of Jack’s stuff, was a guy who at that time at DC Comics was probably the smartest person in the building, a guy named Nelson Bridwell, who was a very brilliant man who was treated an awful lot like Mel Cooley, if you know who that was. And he was frequently the smartest guy in the place, catching mistakes other people made, and he had a genuine love for comics that transcended any corporate considerations. And he did a lot to save things, and to complain about ignorance and things of that sort.

MARK: I want to ask Darwyn and then Fred, first Darwyn, you came into comics a lot later than that. Are you aware... you hear these stories about how comics used to be. Are you horrified by this, do you believe it, do you understand it? Are you thankful that you didn’t work in that era? How do you react to all this—how artists you admire, how writers you admire, were treated?

NEAL: E. Nelson Bridwell wrote a translation of Hamlet, an upgraded translation of Hamlet and gave all the definitions of the words, and it was the best translation that I’ve ever read in my life. And he studied it, and he could do it and just knock it out.

DARWYN: Well, it’s important to keep in mind that before I got into comics, I had worked in the music industry, the fashion industry, and advertising. So of course I believed it. [laughter] Comics people live in a sort of wonderful reality of their own where they believe

LEN: And, again, it was all about appearance to DC. They treated him incredibly poorly because he was not a terribly attractive man. He had some physical quirks. But he was brilliant. NEAL: He was one of those people you would go to if you wanted to know anything; you’d go to Nelson and he could tell you. LEN: Yeah! He would spend afternoons in his later days up at my office just to talk to somebody who would talk like him. NEAL: Right, right. And he was a big, big, big defender of Jack Kirby’s stuff. And if you study Jack’s stuff at DC Comics, just like Marvel, you’ll discover that he had the greatest ideas, the most expressive, the most interesting, the most advanced ideas in comic books, and all the rest of the industry was feeding off of it. And every time people try to go and do Jack Kirby stuff, they fail, at DC. And you wonder, you scratch your head and say, “Why don’t they get it?” They don’t do it because they keep on doing their own version of what Jack did instead of what Jack did. If they would just take it and do Jack, and make it—y’know, draw it better, don’t put square tips on the fingers, fine. But draw what Jack did. It would be better. And that’s what Jack left to us. He left the challenge. It’s sort of like, you know, Star Wars. They did Star Wars, and then everybody tried to do sciencefiction movies and they stumbled, and they stumbled, and they stumbled, and finally they got it and now are doing good science-fiction epic adventure plays on film. But it took a good ten years, decades, a good decade, to catch up to Star Wars. And I don’t know if anybody was here when Star Wars came out, but it was like we had just leapt ahead. That’s like what Jack Kirby did. He just shot out of the barrel and did all this stuff. And we’re still trying to catch up. I’m working on doing what he did, and I’m like, how do I catch up to all this stuff? I can’t jam all this sh*t in the panels. [laughter] There’s so much to do, so many incredible powers and 86

(left) Mark Moonrider from Jack’s sketchbook. Jack never got around to doing a “Pact-” or “Himon-” style origin story for the Forever People—how’d they get together? And how’d Infinity Man come to be? It would’ve been awesome to see what he could’ve come up with for it. (above) Animation storyboard for the 1978 Fantastic Four cartoon.

that the world’s a better place than it is. So as mortified as we might be by the treatment of guys like Jack, it’s a pretty commonplace experience outside of comics, as well. So coming into it later, being 36 when I actually finally got something going, I had a very healthy dose of what the world had to offer creators. So, yeah, I found it very easy to believe. No less tragic, no less infuriating, but, yeah, unfortunately, I had enough life experience to see that this was in a lot of ways no different than any other field you might be in.

what could have been if he was properly represented way back when. MARK: Well, there’s a very good chance back then they wouldn’t have even talked to you. There were times in comic book history where they just said, “We do not deal with lawyers. We only talk to the artists. We won’t give them copies of the contracts they sign.” There’s a couple of really ugly stories like that. And Jack, when he left Marvel in ’69, that was essentially… They said, “We’re not going to talk to your lawyer. You sign that contract we sent you or get out.” And the lawyer kept calling them, saying, “I represent Jack Kirby. I want to discuss this contract.” They said, “We don’t talk to lawyers.” Which is not the way business should be done in any part of this country, ever, at any time.

FRED: Yeah, I mean, I sort of—my consciousness of the comics industry was in the mid-eighties, when Jack was fighting to get his artwork back from Marvel, and that whole battle was something I was aware of just reading the fan press. And I think my generation was very fortunate, between Image and the creator-owned stuff, a lot of that is as a direct result of that struggle and what came out of that politically in the comics industry in the eighties. It’s yet another reason we’re grateful. [chuckles]

NEAL: Well, lawyers… [laughter] I’m just sayin’. DARWYN: Can you imagine a world without lawyers? [shuddering sound] [laughter] [to Paul Levine] Sorry, man.

DARWYN: There’s one other thing I’d like to add. I have a lot of the younger people in the business come up to me and they’ll have had something happen to them, their editors did something or their publishers pulled a stunt, and they’re outraged. They’re outraged at the way they’ve been treated. And I look at them and I go, “Are you a f*ckin’ idiot?” [laughter] “Do you have any sense of history? Look, if they’re going to do it to Jack Kirby, who are you? What is it about you that made you think that you were going to be treated better than the greatest man the industry has ever seen?” They treated him horribly. So, proportionately, look at your place. And of course they’re going to treat you badly. Why are you surprised? Have a sense of history and understanding of the industry you’re in.

MARK: We actually have at least two lawyers in the room at the moment. DARWYN: I’m gonna get sued. [laughter] NEAL: We can see the dark clouds. [laughter] MARK: Two creator-friendly ones. Len, I believe you’ve told this story before, but some of these people haven’t heard it. Tell us a little bit about going to Jack’s house. LEN: It was like going to Candyland. Marv Wolfman and I were very fortunate as kids, and I mean as kids, preteen kids. NEAL: Jerks. [laughter] LEN: What’s changed in fifty years?

PAUL LEVINE: One of my biggest regrets is that I wasn’t born about thirty years earlier, because I only started work representing Jack in ’81, started with trying to get his artwork back from Marvel, etc. And I only wish that I had represented him back then. Who knows

NEAL: Precocious jerks. [laughter] DARWYN: [gesturing to Adams and Wein] You guys work pretty good together. 87

LEN: We do, we actually have in the past. No, I mean… The late Mike Sekowsky lived next to my aunt Doris, and she—this is before there was a comics fandom, before conventions, before any of you would have ever gotten together for any reason, and she said, “My nephew’s a comics fan. Can he come over and say hi?” And Mike was very gracious and said, “Sure.” And then he realized that we were going to be leeches because we found professional comic people. So he introduced us to, I believe it was Joe Giella, who in turn was wonderful to us. But he introduced us to Frank Giacoia, and Frank was Jack’s brother’s… Wasn’t he related to Jack? Something in there, it was close enough in those days. [Editor’s Note: As far as we know, Kirby and Giacoia were not related.]

To get back to my original thesis here for a few minutes here, I’ve always felt that there were guys in comics who did stuff that had a lasting effect, and there were guys in comics who just did stuff that were nice issues. And Neal Adams, whether he wants to be modest about this or not, was a guy who did comics that had a lasting effect, that changed, influenced other people’s work. And one of the main things he did up at DC was he forced them, as much as possible— and I’m sure he was not fully successful—to live in the current century, do business better ways, and do printing better ways, and respect the work more. DARWYN: For those who weren’t there in the seventies, Neal was the conscience of DC Comics. Plain and simple. Period.

NEAL: Jewish-Italian. [laughter]

MARK: Yeah. He’s the guy who got them to stop tearing up original art.

LEN: And Frank introduced us to Jack, and we called up and said, “We’re fans.”

NEAL: Can we talk about Jack? MARK: Yes! We can talk about Jack.

NEAL: To get rid of you. [laughter]

NEAL: Okay, I’m going to tell you a story. [laughter] Can you guys hear me? [brief microphone issues] Okay. This is not all altruism on my part. Some of you may have heard the story. I’m 23 years old, I’m in Chicago, you’d go by an alley. You don’t have alleys in New York because the buildings are too close together, and we have alleys in Chicago. I go by an alley and I see one of those exit lights on this guy, it was a guy with a big, long coat, a slouch hat, and he goes like this. [hand gesture to approach] [laughter] So I go down the alley. [laughter] I was raised in Brooklyn. You don’t avoid an alley. It could be anything. It could be money. I’m just sayin’. [laughter] You go down the alley. Right? It’s true. Could be a guy with a gun. I’m just sayin’. I go down the alley. The guy says, “Come closer.” I’m looking at him, and I can’t see much. I can see his eyes, the light reflecting the red light. It was weird. He says, “Listen, this is the deal. You go, you’re in the comic book industry. Now, you know what you do? You have to take care of everybody else. You have to take care of originals being returned. You have to get royalties for everybody. You have to take care of all the artists as they are getting older. You have to take care of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. You have to take care of everybody the rest of your life. This is the deal. You can keep your hair.” [laughter] I said, “Deal!” [Cooke rubs his bald spot, and Len Wein removes his cap to show his head of hair] Wouldn’t you take that deal? Anybody would take that deal. So don’t be thinking I did this for altruistic reasons. I’m just sayin’. That’s your answer. [laughter]

LEN: Of course, they all did. Until we got to Jack. And we were invited over to Jack’s house, and the place was astonishing. Several of those breathtaking two-page spreads from Boys’ Ranch were on the walls, and even hand-colored by Jack. And they treated us like family, not like annoyances. We’d come over at least once a month on a Saturday, and we’d watch Jack work. Just to watch Jack work. Because that’s magic. NEAL: Let’s talk about Roz for a minute. LEN: I was about to. Do you want to direct this or shall I? [laughter] [Neal & Darwyn comment under their breath] LEN: Roz would treat us like we were kids. We’d sit on the floor cross-legged, watching Jack work. She’d come down and bring us milk and cookies, and “Is there anything else we can do?”, and they were the most remarkable family, you could tell how much they loved each other. We became lifelong friends. Chris and I were at their fiftieth wedding anniversary at some dance studio. And it was wonderful. And everybody else said, “Oh, God. Pests.” Jack wanted to know what we thought. And we were kids, 13, 14 years old at this point, and he asks you what’s important in the world. He was just always looking for information. He was always trying to find a new focus and things to work on, and I get to carry to my grave the fact that I was Jack Kirby’s friend. Not just fan. MARK: When Jack and Roz had their fiftieth wedding anniversary, they decided to get married again. They had a wonderful little party [above]. Jack had been undergoing a lot of medical treatments at that time. He was not in good shape. He was very weak, the kind of weak people are after chemotherapy, kind of knocked out. And we were at this party, and Jack was dressed up in a nice suit, and he takes me aside and he says, “I have to sign some papers later. Just in case, can you still do my signature?” [laughter] “Yeahhh.” It wasn’t necessary. But he gets up there and the rabbi says to Roz, “Do you take this man,” and Roz does one of these, “I’m thinking it over...”. [laughter] Those two people fit together so well, and we owe a debt of gratitude to Roz for making everything Jack did possible. Because Jack couldn’t have found his way to the drawing table some mornings, probably, without Roz shoving him in. And the most important thing she would do is she would wake up at four in the morning and realize Jack had not joined her in bed, and she’d go out and say, “Jack, you’ve gotta come in and go to bed.” And he’d go, “Two more panels, just two more panels!” She’d drag him to bed. She would also make him go outside for some fresh air that was not befouled by cigar smoke.

MARK: Thank you. [laughter] I want to mention something that you may not—you probably all are aware of, it’s a thing called the Jack Kirby—What’s the technical term? The Jack Kirby Museum and Research Center. And the two gentlemen who run this thing wonderfully are in the audience, Mr. Rand Hoppe and Mr. Tom Kraft. [applause] Do you have a booth this year? RAND HOPPE: We do, at 841. MARK: At 841, after we get out of this panel, you can get Jack Kirby t-shirts and things like that. These gentlemen are selflessly promoting the history of Jack, recording it, and digitizing everything that can be digitized, and they’re a wonderful resource about Jack, because there’s a lot of us out there who are trying to keep his name alive. And it’s not that difficult these days because it seems to be happening magically everywhere. Before we go, here, I want to ask Crystal, when you came to this subject, did you know Jack? What did you learn about Jack? CRYSTAL: It’s kind of an interesting way in because it actually wasn’t 88

from so much—of course, I’d known his artwork, but I hadn’t known so much about Kirby. Actually, I was watching the Superman animated series, and there was a character who was drawn to look like Jack Kirby. DARWYN: I worked on the show. CRYSTAL: Oh! Well, then, kismet. And I was like, “Fred, who is that?” And I watched the episode that was dedicated to him. And that’s when I first asked. I said, “Who is Jack Kirby?” So Fred started telling me. And then—. FRED: “Let me tell you the tale…” [laughter] CRYSTAL: And then it was shortly after that he started writing the play, and in the play originally—and I think it’s kind of neat how it came from being a play to a comic to a play in the sense that, since Fred worked on the drafts as a play, it was a little bit more about the fantasy lives that Jack was creating, and the story of Jack was kind of hidden in there. And I was like, “I think this is the story.” It was following in that beautiful story of him working so hard and what that is for an audience—what is this genius? I thought it would really captivate an audience. And so he was working on drafts of that, and he ended up putting a lot of it in comic book comics. FRED: Yeah, I did a book for IDW called The Comic Book History of Comics. A lot of my research ended up there, and it was straight-up nonfiction. CRYSTAL: And then that was wonderfully paneled out and that story was getting so riveting that we kind of looked at a lot of that when coming back to the play. So it was a little bit from Fred’s version of history with it; from me getting excited about who is this guy; from me being, like, oh my God, these are all the images that I thought were brilliant and incredible and amazing. It’s to the point where, you know, I said kismet at that time, we were just in Mexico and there was this incredible mural that just so much of it also reminded me of Jack’s work. You know, Jack’s work at that time was just speaking to the world and to culture. There’s so much visionary stuff in that. So when Fred said, when we worked on the play this time around, “It’s about who is behind the work, who is creating it.” I got so excited—I would say the thing that was most exciting to me recently, it comes back to Roz, only because in getting a bit deeper into the play I felt like the audience in a way is her, because they’re getting to know Jack as they go on this journey. And so I really love—she’s such a strong woman character, a strong

woman in life, and so inspirational. DARWYN: By the way, one of the greatest scenes in the animated cartoon: Darkseid’s minions are firing on the Metropolis cops, and Turpin’s pinned behind the car, and all of a sudden it’s Jack, and he jumps up and goes “Colletta! Giacoia! Royer! Cover me!” [laughter] MARK: And Colletta erased all the attackers. [laughter] Thank you for coming to this. Would you thank Mr. Neal Adams, Mr. Darwin Cooke, Mr. Len Wein, Ms. Crystal Skillman, Mr. Fred Van Lente, and Mr. Paul Levine. [applause] ★ 89

(above) By the time Dan “Terrible” Turpin made the scene in New Gods #8 (April 1972, above), Vinnie Colletta was long gone as inker, and Mike Royer faithfully included all the background figures.

C o l l e c t o r

The JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR magazine (edited by JOHN MORROW) celebrates the life and career of the “King” of comics through INTERVIEWS WITH KIRBY and his contemporaries, FEATURE ARTICLES, RARE AND UNSEEN KIRBY ART, plus regular columns by MARK EVANIER and others, and presentation of KIRBY’S UNINKED NS PENCILS from the 1960s-80s (from EDITIO BLE photocopies preserved in the KIRBY AVAILANLY ARCHIVES). Now in FULL-COLOR, it FOR O $4.95 showcases Kirby’s art even better! $1.95—

DIGITAL

KIRBY COLLECTOR #48

COLLECTED VOL. 3

COLLECTED VOL. 6

COLLECTED VOL. 7

Reprints JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #13-15, plus new art!

Reprints JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #23-26, plus new art!

Reprints JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #27-30, plus new art!

(176-page trade paperback) $19.95 ISBN: 9781893905023 Diamond Order Code: APR043058

(288-page trade paperback) $29.95 ISBN: 9781605490038 Diamond Order Code: JUN084280

(288-page trade paperback) $29.95 ISBN: 9781605490120 Diamond Order Code: DEC084286

Go to www.twomorrows.com for other issues, and an ULTIMATE BUNDLE with all the issues at HALF-PRICE!

KIRBY COLLECTOR #49

KIRBY COLLECTOR #50

KIRBY COLLECTOR #51

KIRBY COLLECTOR #52

KIRBYTECH ISSUE, spotlighting Jack’s hightech concepts, from Iron Man’s armor and Machine Man, to the Negative Zone and beyond! Includes a rare KIRBY interview, MARK EVANIER’s column, two pencil art galleries, complete 1950s story, TOM SCIOLI interview, Kirby Tribute Panel (with ADAMS, PÉREZ, and ROMITA), and covers inked by TERRY AUSTIN and TOM SCIOLI!

WARRIORS, spotlighting Thor (with a look at hidden messages in BILL EVERETT’s Thor inks), Sgt. Fury, Challengers of the Unknown, Losers, and others! Includes a rare KIRBY interview, interviews with JERRY ORDWAY and GRANT MORRISON, MARK EVANIER’s column, pencil art gallery, a complete 1950s story, wraparound Thor cover inked by JERRY ORDWAY, and more!

KIRBY FIVE-OH! covers the best of Kirby’s 50-year career in comics: BEST KIRBY STORIES, COVERS, CHARACTER DESIGNS, UNUSED ART, and profiles of/commentary by the 50 PEOPLE MOST INFLUENCED BY KIRBY’S WORK! Plus a 50-PAGE PENCIL ART GALLERY and a COLOR SECTION! Kirby cover inked by DARWYN COOKE, and introduction by MARK EVANIER.

Bombastic EVERYTHING GOES issue, with a wealth of great submissions that couldn’t be pigeonholed into a “theme” issue! Includes a rare KIRBY interview, new interviews with JIM LEE and ADAM HUGHES, MARK EVANIER’s column, huge pencil art galleries, a complete Golden Age Kirby story, two COLOR UNPUBLISHED KIRBY COVERS, and more!

Spotlights Kirby’s most obscure work: an UNUSED THOR STORY, BRUCE LEE comic, animation work, stage play, unaltered pages from KAMANDI, DEMON, DESTROYER DUCK, and more, including a feature examining the last page of his final issue of various series BEFORE EDITORIAL TAMPERING (with lots of surprises)! Color Kirby cover inked by DON HECK!

(84 tabloid pages) SOLD OUT (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84 tabloid pages) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(168-page trade paperback) $24.95 (Digital Edition) $7.95 ISBN: 9781893905894

(84 tabloid pages) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

KIRBY COLLECTOR #53

KIRBY COLLECTOR #54

KIRBY COLLECTOR #55

KIRBY COLLECTOR #56

KIRBY COLLECTOR #57

THE MAGIC OF STAN & JACK! New interview with STAN LEE, walking tour of New York where Lee & Kirby lived and worked, re-evaluation of the “Lost” FF #108 story (including a new page that just surfaced), “What If Jack Hadn’t Left Marvel In 1970?,” plus MARK EVANIER’s regular column, a Kirby pencil art gallery, a complete Golden Age Kirby story, and more, behind a color Kirby cover inked by GEORGE PÉREZ!

STAN & JACK PART TWO! More on the co-creators of the Marvel Universe, final interview (and cover inks) by GEORGE TUSKA, differences between KIRBY and DITKO’S approaches, WILL MURRAY on the origin of the FF, the mystery of Marvel cover dates, MARK EVANIER’s regular column, a Kirby pencil art gallery, a complete Golden Age Kirby story, and more, plus Kirby back cover inked by JOE SINNOTT!

“Kirby Goes To Hollywood!” SERGIO ARAGONÉS and MELL LAZARUS recall Kirby’s BOB NEWHART TV show cameo, comparing the recent STAR WARS films to New Gods, RUBY & SPEARS interviewed, Jack’s encounters with FRANK ZAPPA, PAUL McCARTNEY, and JOHN LENNON, MARK EVANIER’s regular column, a Kirby pencil art gallery, a Golden Age Kirby story, and more! Kirby cover inked by PAUL SMITH!

“Unfinished Sagas”—series, stories, and arcs Kirby never finished. TRUE DIVORCE CASES, RAAM THE MAN MOUNTAIN, KOBRA, DINGBATS, a complete story from SOUL LOVE, complete Boy Explorers story, two Kirby Tribute Panels, MARK EVANIER and other regular columnists, pencil art galleries, and more, with Kirby’s “Galaxy Green” cover inked by ROYER, and the unseen cover for SOUL LOVE #1!

“Legendary Kirby”—how Jack put his spin on classic folklore! TONY ISABELLA on SATAN’S SIX (with Kirby’s unseen layouts), Biblical inspirations of DEVIL DINOSAUR, THOR through the eyes of mythologist JOSEPH CAMPBELL, a complete Golden Age Kirby story, rare Kirby interview, MARK EVANIER and our other regular columnists, pencil art from ETERNALS, DEMON, NEW GODS, THOR, and Jack’s ATLAS cover!

(84 tabloid pages) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

KIRBY COLLECTOR #58

LEE & KIRBY: THE WONDER YEARS! Traces their history at Marvel, and what led them to conceive the Fantastic Four in 1961. Also documents the evolution of the FF throughout the 1960s, with plenty of Kirby art, plus previously unknown details about Lee and Kirby’s working relationship, and their eventual parting of ways in 1970. (160-page trade paperback) $19.95 (Digital Edition) $7.95 ISBN: 9781605490380 Diamond Order Code: SEP111248

KIRBY COLLECTOR #63

KIRBY COLLECTOR #59

KIRBY COLLECTOR #60

KIRBY COLLECTOR #61

KIRBY COLLECTOR #62

“Kirby Vault!” Rarities from the “King” of comics: Personal correspondence, private photos, collages, rare Marvelmania art, bootleg album covers, sketches, transcript of a 1969 VISIT TO THE KIRBY HOME (where Jack answers the questions YOU’D ask in ’69), MARK EVANIER, pencil art from the FOURTH WORLD, CAPTAIN AMERICA, MACHINE MAN, SILVER SURFER GRAPHIC NOVEL, and more!

FANTASTIC FOUR FOLLOW-UP to #58’s THE WONDER YEARS! Never-seen FF wraparound cover, interview between FF inkers JOE SINNOTT and DICK AYERS, rare LEE & KIRBY interview, comparison of a Jack and Stan FF story conference to Stan’s final script and Jack’s penciled pages, MARK EVANIER and other columnists, gallery of KIRBY FF ART, pencils from BLACK PANTHER, SILVER SURFER, & more!

JACK KIRBY: WRITER! Examines quirks of Kirby’s wordsmithing, from the FOURTH WORLD to ROMANCE and beyond! Lengthy Kirby interview, MARK EVANIER and other columnists, LARRY LIEBER’s scripting for Jack at 1960s Marvel Comics, RAY ZONE on 3-D work with Kirby, comparing STEVE GERBER’s Destroyer Duck scripts to Jack’s pencils, Kirby’s best promo blurbs, Kirby pencil art gallery, & more!

KIRBY AT DC! Kirby interview, MARK EVANIER and our other regular columnists, updated “X-Numbers” list of Kirby’s DC assignments (revealing some surprises), JERRY BOYD’s insights on Kirby’s DC work, a look at KEY 1970s EVENTS IN JACK’S LIFE AND CAREER, Challengers vs. the FF, pencil art galleries from FOREVER PEOPLE, OMAC, and THE DEMON, Kirby cover inked by MIKE ROYER, and more!

(104 pages with COLOR) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.95

(100 FULL-COLOR pages) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.95

KIRBY COLLECTOR #64

KIRBY COLLECTOR #65

KIRBY COLLECTOR #66

KIRBY COLLECTOR #67

MARVEL UNIVERSE! Featuring MARK ALEXANDER’s pivotal Lee/Kirby essay “A Universe A’Borning,” MARK EVANIER interviews ROY THOMAS, STAN GOLDBERG and JOE SINNOTT, a look at key late-1970s, ’80s, and ’90s events in Kirby’s life and career, STAN LEE script pages, unseen Kirby pencils and unused art from THOR, NICK FURY AGENT OF SHIELD, and FANTASTIC FOUR, and more!

SUPER-SOLDIERS! We declassify Captain America, Fighting American, Sgt. Fury, The Losers, Pvt. Strong, Boy Commandos, and a tribute to Simon & Kirby! PLUS: a Kirby interview about Captain America, MARK EVANIER and other columnists, key 1940s’50s events in Kirby’s career, unseen pencils and unused art from OMAC, SILVER STAR, CAPTAIN AMERICA (in the 1960s AND ’70s), the LOSERS, & more! KIRBY cover!

ANYTHING GOES (AGAIN)! A potpourri issue, with anything and everything from Jack’s 50-year career, including a head-tohead comparison of the genius of KIRBY and ALEX TOTH! Plus a lengthy KIRBY interview, MARK EVANIER and our other regular columnists, unseen and unused Kirby art from JIMMY OLSEN, KAMANDI, MARVELMANIA, his COMIC STRIP & ANIMATION WORK, and more!

DOUBLE-TAKES ISSUE! Features oddities, coincidences, and reworkings by both Jack and Stan Lee: the Galactus Origin you didn’t see, Ditko’s vs. Kirby’s Spider-Man, how Lee and Kirby viewed “writing” differently, plus a rare KIRBY interview, MARK EVANIER and our other regular columnists, unseen and unused pencil art from FANTASTIC FOUR, 2001, CAPTAIN VICTORY, BRUCE LEE, & more!

UP-CLOSE & PERSONAL! Kirby interviews you weren’t aware of, photos and recollections from fans who saw him in person, personal anecdotes from Jack’s fellow pros, LEE and KIRBY cameos in comics, MARK EVANIER and other regular columnists, and more! Don’t let the photo cover fool you; this issue is chockfull of rare Kirby pencil art, from Roz Kirby’s private sketchbook, and Jack’s most personal comics stories!

(100 FULL-COLOR pages) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.95

(100-page FULL-COLOR mag) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.95

JACK KIRBY CHECKLIST: GOLD EDITION

Lists EVERY KIRBY COMIC, BOOK, UNPUBLISHED WORK, cross-references reprints, and more! (128-page Digital Edition) $5.95

KIRBY COLLECTOR SPECIAL EDITION

Compiles the “extra” new material from COLLECTED JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR VOLUMES 1-7, in one huge Digital Edition! Includes a fan’s private tour of the Kirbys’ home and more than 200 pieces of Kirby art not published outside of those volumes! (120-page Digital Edition) $5.95

CAPTAIN VICTORY: GRAPHITE EDITION

KIRBY’s original CAPTAIN VICTORY GRAPHIC NOVEL presented as created in 1975 (before being modified for the 1980s Pacific Comics series), reproduced from his uninked pencil art! Includes Jack’s unused CAPTAIN VICTORY SCREENPLAY, unseen art, an historical overview to put it in perspective! (52-page comic book) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

SILVER STAR: GRAPHITE EDITION

First conceptualized in the 1970s as a movie screenplay, SILVER STAR was adapted by JACK KIRBY as a six-issue mini-series for Pacific Comics in the 1980s, as his final, great comics series. The entire six-issue run is collected here, reproduced from his uninked PENCIL ART, showing Kirby’s work in its undiluted, raw form! Also included is Kirby’s ILLUSTRATED SILVER STAR MOVIE SCREENPLAY, never-seen SKETCHES, PIN-UPS, and an historical overview to put it all in perspective! (160-page trade paperback) $19.95 • (Digital Edition) $7.95 ISBN: 9781893905559 • Diamond Order Code: JAN063367

KIRBY UNLEASHED (REMASTERED)

The fabled 1971 KIRBY UNLEASHED PORTFOLIO, completely remastered! Spotlights some of KIRBY’s finest art from all eras of his career, including 1930s pencil work, unused strips, illustrated World War II letters, 1950s pages, unpublished 1960s Marvel pencil pages and sketches, and Fourth World pencil art (done expressly for this portfolio in 1970)! We’ve gone back to the original art to ensure the best reproduction possible, and MARK EVANIER and STEVE SHERMAN have updated the Kirby biography from the original printing, and added a new Foreword explaining how this portfolio came to be! PLUS: We’ve recolored the original color plates, and added EIGHT NEW BLACK-&-WHITE PAGES, plus EIGHT NEW COLOR PAGES, including Jack’s four 1972 GODS posters, and four extra Kirby color pieces, all at tabloid size! (60-page tabloid with COLOR) SOLD OUT • (Digital Edition) $5.95

Send letters to: THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR c/o TwoMorrows Publishing • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 E-mail: twomorrow@aol.com • See back issue excerpts at: www.twomorrows.com Letter hacks are the key characters in our book—write us!

Comments

Collector

[In the spirit of this “Key Characters” issue, I just HAD to include my choice for all-time best strangeness in a Kirby character. Not the Goozlebobber—or the Fighting Fetus—ladies and germs, I give you Hidden Harry! A concept so filled with sheer gravitas and panache, that Jack even reworked it into the much simpler, even purer Harry the Head! While lesser mortals would assume it was a toy or animation design, we here at TJKC are certain this mid-1980s masterpiece was to be the start of a new cosmic epic, such as the world has never seen. Alas, it was never used, so we’ll just have to imagine what might have been. Now, on to letters:] In TJKC #67, the caption at the bottom of page 38 says: “We’re unsure of the date.” But the comic strip in question actually has the date in its last panel: 8/4/1957. I really enjoyed your personal Kirby scrapbook that opened the magazine. My own odyssey with Kirby began when I was 8 years old in 1968 and is still very much ongoing. Jack is very lucky to have you as his foremost posthumous caretaker. Keep up the good work! Paul Vespignani, Columbus, OH In preparation of CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR, I was rereading the Captain America/Black Panther issues of TALES OF SUSPENSE #97-99

A message from Charles Hatfield, curator of the CSU Northridge exhibition Comic Book Apocalypse: The Graphic World of Jack Kirby and moderator of the CSUN panel discussion that ran last issue:

last night, and realized how disappointed I was that Joe Sinnott did not ink #99. #97 and #98 were so well done, and #99 was disappointing art-wise; not from the penciling, but in the finishing. Have you folks ever reprinted all of the pencil pages of #99 in the KIRBY COLLECTOR? If so, would you be able to refer me to which issues, as I have a pretty complete collection of the magazine? Peter Houde, Nashua, NH (I'm sorry, we don't have access to any of Jack's pencils from TOS #97-99. But that doesn't mean they won't turn up someday; stranger things have happened in the course of producing TJKC all these years. And hey, as a consolation prize, we’ve got Harry the Head!) In issue #67, it was a lot of fun to read your storied Kirby history, wonderfully illustrated with abundant and well-placed Kirby art and photographs. The other highlights of the issue are the interviews and, uncharacteristically, the panel transcripts. The Will Murray interview highlighted Kirby’s reluctance, even in the face of Will’s badgering, to talk about the division of labour with Joe Simon. The best information about the S&K

THE

Due to an editorial mix-up, the version of the panel transcript that ran in the print edition of TJKC #67 was not approved by panelists Scott Bukatman, Doug Harvey, Adam McGovern, Andrei Molotiu, Steve Roden, and Ben Saunders. Also, it contained mistaken names, and some mis-attributed and mis-heard lines. The responsibility for these errors is mine, and I apologize to my co-panelists for rushing into print a faulty transcript that did not reflect their input. Fortunately, John Morrow has graciously made it possible for us to include a revised, corrected version in the digital edition, and as a free digital supplement to the issue for all readers. Just go to the FREE STUFF section at www.twomorrows.com: http://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=index &cPath=108 My thanks to my co-panelists for their patience, understanding, and revisions. I am proud to have been part of this stellar conversation!

studio comes not from Simon (who minimized Kirby's contributions), nor Kirby (who was less than forthcoming about his own contributions), but from interviews of studio staffers that appeared in ALTER EGO or THE COMICS JOURNAL. It was also good to read Kirby’s views on keeping politics out of his comics writing in the 1971 Paul Chadwick interview. In contrast to TJKC’s usual panel transcripts (which I generally just skim), this issue features not one, but two panels that were stacked with the right people. Rob Liefeld was an inspired choice on Mark Evanier’s part for the 2015 Kirby Tribute Panel; Liefeld is a true friend of the Kirbys (“...my thing with Jack is, he was unbelievable. He was the best storyteller, the best illustrator, and by far the best costume designer that this business or any business has ever seen, ever”). It’s also good to hear from J David Spurlock, who in contrast to Roy Thomas, has championed the cause of Lee’s early ’60s writers, Kirby, Ditko and Wood (and does so here). Charles Hatfield did a terrific job of assembling a knowledgeable line-up of panelists, in this case for the CSUN panel. Among them were Scott Bukatman (“There wasn’t as much for me on a second go-around on the SPIDER-MANs, but there was always something new in encountering the Kirby pages again”) and Andrei Molotiu (“...you have a very different graphic reading experience, in reading things that Kirby wrote and drew himself, rather than things he drew but were scripted or had dialogue by someone else”).

Kevin Dooley's question from the audience introduced some misinformation into the discussion: “...FANTASTIC FOUR sold so well with Kirby and Lee. People said [Kirby] didn’t sell well on his own.” Thankfully Rand Hoppe was there to set the record straight: citing Bob Beerbohm's affidavit return fraud research, Rand was able to explain that of Kirby's titles, only NEW GODS and FOREVER PEOPLE were targeted by dealers, hence never had accurate return data and were the ones that were cancelled. “So actually, the comics that were reported by the distributors as being destroyed, and not sold, were actually making it to the comic book fan market.” Hopefully Mr. Beerbohm will have a chance to finish the scholarly work he began presenting in issues #6 and #7 of COMIC BOOK ARTIST. Mike Hill, Ontario, CANADA

A friend of mine grew up wanting to be a colorist for either Marvel or DC Comics. That never panned out and instead she ended up as a fairly well known cake artist. Last month for a cake show in Texas, she made a cake which was a tribute to Jack Kirby. Here is the link to my post about this cake: http://betweenthepagesblog.typepad.com/betweenthe-pages-blog/2016/03/this-jack-kirby-cake-is-fitfor-a-king.html The cake has a hand-sculpted Jack Kirby Cake Topper and on the sides of the cake my friend recreated some of the artwork Jack Kirby did for the NFL. Karen Williams Here’s a tentative list of upcoming themes, but we treat these themes very loosely, and anything you submit may fit somewhere. So get writing, and send us copies of your art! KIRBY’S ORIGIN STORIES! Examining the beginnings of Jack and his characters! KIRBY’S WORLD THAT’S COMING! How Jack looked into his crystal ball to predict the future! KIRBY’S ONE-SHOTS! Jack’s best & worst throwaway characters and concepts!

(My wife Pam also does custom cakes, so I know how much time and effort went into this one. She's been threatening to make a Kirby Cake for my birthday for years, but so far, she hasn't tried it. Hey Pam, how about a Hidden Harry cake? He can pop out of it...) There has been a banner list of patriotic heroes throughout the history of comics. Yet of these, only Jack’s Captain America has stood the test of time, and become a household name around the world. Think about it: other than Jack’s creations, how many of these others does anyone even remember? Sgt. States Agent Liberty Silent Majority American Ace Skyrocket American Belle Sparkler American Crusader Spirit of '76 American Dream Star-Spangled Kid American Eagle Stars/Stargirl American Maid Steel Battlestar Stripesy/S.T.R.I.P.E. Blue Eagle Super-Soldier Captain Flag Superpatriot Citizen V The All American Commander Steel The Americommando Defender The Comedian Free Spirit The Eagle General Glory The Fighting Spirit Iron Patriot The Fighting Yank Jack Flag The First American Josiah X The Frontiersman Lady Liberty The Liberator Liberty & Justice The Old Soldier Liberty Belle The Shield Major Victory The Spirit of '76 Mayflower The Yankee Clipper Minute-Man U.S. Agent Miss America U.S. Angel Miss Victory U.S. Jones Mister America Uncle Sam Mister U.S. US Archer Nuke V-Man Old Soldier Yank & Doodle Patriot Yankee Girl Phantom Eagle Yankee Poodle Red, White and Blue Rusty Name withheld by request, Anytown, USA (Well, you’re assuming that Kirby didn’t also create other, unknown patriots that are yet to see print. Of course, since much of his unseen work is still in pencil, it may be hard to distinguish any patriotic intent without some red, white, and blue color splashed on it. I’m sure, with Jack and the American flag behind it, the AMAZING ADVENTURES OF HARRY THE HEAD— and his boy sidekick Hidden Harry—could’ve given Fighting American and Speedboy a run for their money. Speaking of which...) KIRBY & LEE: STUF’ SAID! (It’s back!) Stan & Jack’s comments about their Marvel Universe work! ANTI-LIFE! All about death in the Kirbyverse! BUGS! Mantis, Forager, Ant-Man, Lightning Lady, & more crawlies! FIGHT CLUB! Jack’s most powerful fights and in-your-face action! GOT A THEME IDEA? WRITE US!

#68 Credits: John Morrow, Editor/Designer Eric Nolen-Weathington, Proofreader THANKS TO OUR CONTRIBUTORS: Neal Adams • Weldon Adams Michael Aushenker • Chuck Beachum Jerry Boyd • Tom Brevoort Norris Burroughs • Natacha Bustos Paul Chadwick • Darwyn Cooke Jon B. Cooke • Jeff Deischer Jean Depelley • Larry DiTillio Shel Dorf • Mark Evanier Danny Fingeroth • Shane Foley Barry Forshaw • Heritage Auctions Rand Hoppe • Alex Jay • Lisa Kirby Neal Kirby • Sean Kleefeld • Tom Kraft Marty Lasick • Paul S. Levine Mr. MacLean • Adam McGovern Brandon Montclare • Amy Reeder Mike Royer • David Schwartz Julie Schwartz • Kevin Shaw Steve Sherman • Crystal Skillman J. Michael Straczynski Mike Thibodeaux • James Van Hise Fred Van Lente • Tom Watkins Len Wein • and of course The Kirby Estate, the Jack Kirby Museum (www.kirbymuseum.org), and whatifkirby.com If we forgot anyone, please let us know!

Contribute! The Jack Kirby Collector is 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. Submit art & articles by e-mail to: store@twomorrows.com

NEXT ISSUE: #69 buddies up with KIRBY’S PARTNERS! Featuring Jack’s duos: Cap & the Falcon (and Bucky, and Rick Jones), Sandman & Sandy, Orion & Lightray, Johnny & Ben, Dingbats, Newsboys, Batman & Robin, features on JOE SIMON, MIKE ROYER, CHIC STONE, DICK AYERS, JOE SINNOTT, MIKE THIBODEAUX — even ROZ KIRBY! Also, behind-thescenes on BATTLE FOR A 3-D WORLD, the 2016 Kirby Tribute Panel from Comic-Con International, MARK EVANIER & other regular columnists, galleries of unseen Kirby pencil art, and a Kirby cover inked by JOE SINNOTT! It ships October 2016.

Parting Shot

Marvel’s Tom Brevoort saw in the latest issue that there’s still some question as to why the Jack Kirby Spider-Man figure on page 14 of Fantastic Four Annual #3 was replaced by a Steve Ditko stat, and took time to write in to help us clear things up. Thanks, Tom! Spider-Man and all characters shown TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

TOM BREVOORT: I have in my archives some scans of the original art for that page, including images where the owner of the art peeled up the patch to reveal the Jack/Vinnie [Colletta] Spider-Man figure underneath. As you can see, it's a very strange figure. It almost looks as though Kirby drew another character entirely, or that he mistakenly thought that Spider-Man could fly (perhaps thinking of his time working on Archie's Adventures of the Fly).

Colletta did the situation no favors with weak inks on that figure, but I suspect that even if the inks had been pristine, that image would have been changed.

As for the source of the stat, it's not from the cover of Amazing SpiderMan #19 at all, but rather from a similar figure on an interior page, 13. ★

TwoMorrows

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THE MLJ COMPANION documents the complete history of Archie Comics’ super-hero characters known as the “Mighty Crusaders”—THE SHIELD, BLACK HOOD, STEEL STERLING, HANGMAN, MR. JUSTICE, THE FLY, and many others. It features in-depth examinations of each era of the characters’ extensive history: THE GOLDEN AGE (beginning with the Shield, the first patriotic super-hero, who pre-dated Captain America by a full year), THE SILVER AGE (spotlighting those offbeat, campy Mighty Comics issues, and The Fly and Jaguar), THE BRONZE AGE (with the Red Circle line, and the !mpact imprint published by DC Comics), up to THE MODERN AGE, with its Dark Circle imprint (featuring such fan-favorites series as “The Fox” by MARK WAID and DEAN HASPIEL). Plus: Learn what “MLJ” stands for! Uncover such rarities as the Mighty Crusaders board game, and the Shadow’s short-lived career as a spandex-clad superhero! Discover the ill-fated Spectrum line of comics, that was abruptly halted due to its violent content! See where the super-heroes crossed over into Archie, Betty, and Veronica’s world! And read interviews with IRV NOVICK, DICK AYERS, RICH BUCKLER, BILL DuBAY, STEVE ENGLEHART, JIM VALENTINO, JIMMY PALMIOTTI, KELLEY JONES, MICHAEL USLAN, and others who chronicled the Mighty Crusaders’ exploits from the 1940s to today! By RIK OFFENBERGER and PAUL CASTIGLIA, with a cover by IRV NOVICK and JOE RUBINSTEIN.

INCLUDES 64 FULL-COLOR PAGES OF KEY MLJ STORIES! (288-page trade paperback with COLOR) $31.95 • (Digital Edition) $12.95 ISBN: 978-1-60549-067-0 • SHIPS AUGUST 2016!

COMIC BOOK FEVER

GEORGE KHOURY (author of The Extraordinary Works of Alan Moore and Kimota: The Miracleman Companion) presents a “love letter” to his personal golden age of comics, 1976-1986, covering all the things that made those comics great—the top artists, the coolest stories, and even the best ads! It covers the phenoms that delighted Baby Boomers, Generation X, and beyond: UNCANNY X-MEN, NEW TEEN TITANS, TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES, LOVE AND ROCKETS, CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS, SUPERMAN VS. SPIDER-MAN, ARCHIE COMICS, HARVEY COMICS, KISS, STAR WARS, ROM, HOSTESS CAKE ADS, GRIT(!), and other milestones! So take a trip back in time to re-experience those epic stories, and feel the heat of COMIC BOOK FEVER once again! With cover art and introduction by ALEX ROSS.

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ALTER EGO #135

ALTER EGO #136

ALTER EGO #137

ALTER EGO #138

ALTER EGO #139

LEN WEIN (writer/co-creator of Swamp Thing, Human Target, and Wolverine) talks about his early days in comics at DC and Marvel! Art by WRIGHTSON, INFANTINO, TRIMPE, DILLON, CARDY, APARO, THORNE, MOONEY, and others! Plus FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America), MR. MONSTER’s Comic Crypt, and more history of the Comics Code! Cover by DICK GIORDANO with BERNIE WRIGHTSON!

BONUS 100-PAGE issue as ROY THOMAS talks to JIM AMASH about celebrating his 50th year in comics—and especially about the ’90s at Marvel! Art by TRIMPE, GUICE, RYAN, ROSS, BUCKLER, HOOVER, KAYANAN, BUSCEMA, CHAN, plus STAN LEE, KEVIN SMITH, and others! Also FCA, MR. MONSTER’s Comic Crypt, AMY KISTE NYBERG on the Comics Code, and a cover caricature of Roy by MARIE SEVERIN!

Incredible interview with JIM SHOOTER, which chronicles the first decade of his career (Legion of Super-Heroes, Superman, Supergirl, Captain Action) with art by CURT SWAN, WALLY WOOD, GIL KANE, GEORGE PAPP, JIM MOONEY, PETE COSTANZA, WIN MORTIMER, WAYNE BORING, AL PLASTINO, et al.! Plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY, and more! Cover art by CURT SWAN!

Science-fiction great (and erstwhile comics writer) HARLAN ELLISON talks about Captain Marvel and The Monster Society of Evil! Also, Captain Marvel artist/ co-creator C.C. BECK writes about the infamous Superman-Captain Marvel lawsuit of the 1940s and ’50s in a double-size FCA section! Plus two titanic tributes to Golden Age artist FRED KIDA, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY, and more!

JIM AMASH interviews ROY THOMAS about his 1990s work on Conan, the stillborn Marvel/Excelsior line launched by STAN LEE, writing for Cross Plains, Topps, DC, and others! Art by KAYANAN, DITKO, BUSCEMA, MAROTO, GIORDANO, ST. AUBIN, SIMONSON, MIGNOLA, LARK, KIRBY, CORBEN, SALE, SCHULTZ, LIGHTLE, McKEEVER, BENDIS, and more! Cover by RAFAEL KAYANAN!

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BACK ISSUE #84

BACK ISSUE #85

BACK ISSUE #86

BACK ISSUE #87

BACK ISSUE #88

“Supergirl in the Bronze Age!” Her 1970s and 1980s adventures, including her death in Crisis on Infinite Earths and her many rebirths. Plus: an ALAN BRENNERT interview, behind the scenes of the Supergirl movie starring HELEN SLATER, Who is Superwoman?, and more. With PAUL KUPPERBERG, ELLIOT MAGGIN, MARV WOLFMAN, plus a Supergirl jam cover recreation of ADVENTURE COMICS #397!

“Christmas in the Bronze Age!” Go behind the scenes of comics’ best holiday tales of the 1970s through the early 1990s! And we revisit Superhero Merchandise Catalogs of the late ’70s! Featuring work by SIMON BISLEY, CHRIS CLAREMONT, JOSÉ LUIS GARCÍALÓPEZ, KEITH GIFFEN, the KUBERT STUDIO, DENNY O’NEIL, STEVE PURCELL, JOHN ROMITA, JR., and more. Cover by MARIE SEVERIN and MIKE ESPOSITO!

“Marvel Bronze Age Giants and Reprints!” In-depth exploration of Marvel’s GIANT-SIZE series, plus indexes galore of Marvel reprint titles, Marvel digests and Fireside Books editions, and the last days of the “Old” X-Men! Featuring work by DAN ADKINS, ROSS ANDRU, RICH BUCKLER, DAVE COCKRUM, GERRY CONWAY, STEVE GERBER, STAN LEE, WERNER ROTH, ROY THOMAS, and more. Cover by JOHN ROMITA, SR.!

“Batman AND Superman!” Bronze Age World’s Finest, Super Sons, Batman/Superman Villain/Partner Swap, Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane go solo, Superman/Radio Shack giveaways, and JLA #200’s “A League Divided” (as a nod to Batman v. Superman)! Featuring work by BRIAN BOLLAND, RICH BUCKLER, GERRY CONWAY, JACK KIRBY, GEORGE PÉREZ, JIM STARLIN, and more. Cover by DICK GIORDANO!

“Comics Magazines of the ’70s and ’80s!” From Savage Tales to Epic Illustrated, KIRBY’s “Speak-Out Series,” EISNER’s Spirit magazine, Unpublished PAUL GULACY, MICHAEL USLAN on the Shadow magazine you didn’t see, plus B&Ws from Atlas/Seaboard, Charlton, Skywald, and Warren. Featuring work by NEAL ADAMS, JOHN BOLTON, ARCHIE GOODWIN, DOUG MOENCH, EARL NOREM, ROY THOMAS, and more. Cover by GRAY MORROW!

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COMIC BOOK CREATOR #9 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #10 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #11 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #12 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #13

JOE STATON on his comics career (from E-Man, to co-creating The Huntress, and his current stint on the Dick Tracy comic strip), plus we showcase the lost treasure GODS OF MOUNT OLYMPUS drawn by Joe! Plus, Part One of our interview with the late STAN GOLDBERG, why JOHN ROMITA, JR. is the best comic book artist working, we quiz PABLO MARCOS about the days of Marvel horror, plus HEMBECK!

The Broadway sci-fi epic WARP examined! Interviews with art director NEAL ADAMS, director STUART (Reanimator) GORDON, playwright LENNY KLEINFELD, stage manager DAVID GORDON, and a look at Warp’s 1980s FIRST COMICS series! Plus: an interview with PETER (Hate!) BAGGE, our RICH BUCKLER interview Part One, GIANT WHAM-O COMICS, and the conclusion of our STAN GOLDBERG interview!

Retrospective on GIL KANE, co-creator of the modern Green Lantern and Atom, and early progenitor of the graphic novel. Kane cover newly-inked by KLAUS JANSON, plus remembrances from friends, fans, and collaborators, and a Kane art gallery. Also, our RICH BUCKLER interview conclusion, a look at the “greatest zine in the history of mankind,” MINESHAFT, and Part One of our ARNOLD DRAKE interview!

JACK KIRBY’s mid-life work examined, from Fantastic Four and Thor at Marvel in the middle ’60s to the Fourth World at DC (including the real-life background drama that unfolded during that tumultuous era)! Plus a career-spanning interview with underground comix pioneer HOWARD CRUSE, the extraordinary cartoonist and graphic novelist of the award-winning Stuck Rubber Baby! Cover by STEVE RUDE!

MICHAEL W. KALUTA feature interview covering his early fans days THE SHADOW, STARSTRUCK, the STUDIO, and Vertigo cover work! Plus RAMONA FRADON talks about her 65+ years in the comic book business on AQUAMAN, METAMORPHO, SUPER-FRIENDS, and SPONGEBOB! Also JAY LYNCH reveals the WACKY PACK MEN who created the Topps trading cards that influenced an entire generation!

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ALTER EGO #140

ALTER EGO #141

ALTER EGO #142

ALTER EGO #143

ALTER EGO #144

Golden Age great IRWIN HASEN spotlight, adapted from DAN MAKARA’s film documentary on Hasen, the 1940s artist of the Justice Society, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Wildcat, Cat-Man, and numerous other classic heroes—and, for 30 years, the artist of the famous DONDI newspaper strip! Bonus art by his buddies JOE KUBERT, ALEX TOTH, CARMINE INFANTINO, and SHELLY MAYER!

From Detroit to Deathlok, we cover the career of artist RICH BUCKLER: Fantastic Four, The Avengers, Black Panther, Ka-Zar, Dracula, Morbius, a zillion Marvel covers— Batman, Hawkman, and other DC stars— Creepy and Eerie horror—and that’s just in the first half of the 1970s! Plus Mr. Monster, BILL SCHELLY, FCA, and comics expert HAMES WARE on fabulous Golden Age artist RAFAEL ASTARITA!

DAVID SIEGEL talks to RICHARD ARNDT about how, from 1991-2005, he brought the greatest artists of the Golden Age to the San Diego Comic-Con! With art and artifacts by FRADON, GIELLA, MOLDOFF, LAMPERT, CUIDERA, FLESSEL, NORRIS, SULLIVAN, NOVICK, SCHAFFENBERGER, GROTHKOPF, and others! Plus how writer JOHN BROOME got to the Con, Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, FCA, and more!

DON GLUT discusses his early years as comic book writer for Marvel, Warren, and Gold Key, with art by SANTOS, MAROTO, CHAN, NEBRES, KUPPERBERG, TUSKA, TRIMPE, SAL BUSCEMA, and others! Also, SAL AMENDOLA and ROY THOMAS on the 1970s professional Academy of Comic Book Arts, founded by STAN LEE and CARMINE INFANTINO! Plus Mr. Monster, FCA, BILL SCHELLY, and more!

MARK CARLSON documents 1940s-50s ACE COMICS (with super-heroes Magno & Davey, Lash Lightning, The Raven, Unknown Soldier, Captain Courageous, Vulcan, and others)! Art by KURTZMAN, MOONEY, BERG, L.B. COLE, PALAIS, and more. Plus: RICHARD ARNDT’s interview with BILL HARRIS (1960s-70s editor of Gold Key and King Comics), FCA, Comic Crypt, and Comic Fandom Archive.

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BACK ISSUE #89

BACK ISSUE #90

BACK ISSUE #91

BACK ISSUE #92

BACK ISSUE #93

“Bronze Age Adaptations!” The Shadow, Korak: Son of Tarzan, Battlestar Galactica, The Black Hole, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Worlds Unknown, and Marvel’s 1980s movie adaptations. Plus: PAUL KUPPERBERG surveys prose adaptations of comics! With work by JACK KIRBY, DENNY O’NEIL, FRANK ROBBINS, MICHAEL W. KALUTA, FRANK THORNE, MICHAEL USLAN, and sporting an alternate Kaluta cover produced for DC’s Shadow series!

“Eighties Ladies!” MILLER & SIENKIEWICZ’s Elektra: Assassin, Dazzler, Captain Marvel (Monica Rambeau), Lady Quark, DAN MISHKIN’s Wonder Woman, WILLIAM MESSNER-LOEBS and ADAM KUBERT’s Jezebel Jade, Somerset Holmes, and a look back at Marvel’s Dakota North! Featuring the work of BRUCE JONES, JOHN ROMITA JR., ROGER STERN, and many more, plus a previously unpublished cover by SIENKIEWICZ.

“All-Jerks Issue!” Guy Gardner, Namor in the Bronze Age, J. Jonah Jameson, Flash Thompson, DC’s Biggest Blowhards, the Heckler, Obnoxio the Clown, and Archie’s “pal” Reggie Mantle! Featuring the work of (non-jerks) RICH BUCKLER, KURT BUSIEK, JOHN BYRNE, STEVE ENGLEHART, KEITH GIFFEN, ALAN KUPPERBERG, and many more. Cover-featuring KEVIN MAGUIRE’s iconic Batman/Guy Gardner “One Punch”!

“Bronze Age Halloween!” The Swamp Thing revival of 1982, Swamp Thing in Hollywood, Phantom Stranger team-ups, KUPPERBERG & MIGNOLA’s Phantom Stranger miniseries, DC’s The Witching Hour, the Living Mummy, and an index of Marvel’s 1970s’ horror anthologies! Featuring the work of RICH BUCKLER, ANDY MANGELS, VAL MAYERIK, MARTIN PASKO, MICHAEL USLAN, TOM YEATES, and many more. Cover by YEATES.

“All-Captains Issue!” Bronze Age histories of Shazam! (Captain Marvel) and Captain MarVell, Captain Carrot, Captain Storm and the Losers, Captain Universe, and Captain Victory and the Galactic Rangers. Featuring C. C. BECK, PAT BRODERICK, JACK KIRBY, ELLIOT S. MAGGIN, BILL MANTLO, DON NEWTON, BOB OKSNER, SCOTT SHAW!, JIM STARLIN, ROY THOMAS, and more. Cover painting by DAVE COCKRUM!

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TwoMorrows. The Future of Comics History. COMIC BOOK CREATOR #14

DRAW! #31

DRAW! #32

BRICKJOURNAL #41

Comprehensive KELLEY JONES interview, from early years as Marvel inker to presentday greatness at DC depicting BATMAN, DEADMAN, and SWAMP THING (chockful of rarely-seen artwork)! Plus WILL MURRAY examines the nefarious legacy of Batman co-creator BOB KANE in an investigation into tragic ghosts and rapacious greed. We also look at RAINA TELGEMEIER and her magnificent army of devotees, and more!

How-to demos & interviews with Philadelphia artists JG JONES (52, Final Crisis, Wanted, Batman and Robin) and KHOI PHAM (The Mighty Avengers, The Astonishing SpiderMan, The Mighty World of Marvel), JAMAR NICHOLAS reviews of art supplies, JERRY ORDWAY demos the “ORD-way” of drawing, and Comic Art Bootcamp by MIKE MANLEY and BRET BLEVINS! JG Jones cover! Mature readers only.

Super-star DC penciler HOWARD PORTER demos his creative process, and JAMAL IGLE discusses everything from storyboarding to penciling as he gives a breakdown of his working methods. Plus there’s Crusty Critic JAMAR NICHOLAS reviewing art supplies, JERRY ORDWAY showing the Ord-Way of doing comics, and Comic Art Bootcamp lessons with BRET BLEVINS and Draw! editor MIKE MANLEY! Mature readers only.

OUT OF THIS WORLD LEGO! Spacethemed LEGO creations of LIA CHAN, 2001: A Space Odyssey’s Orion space plane by NICK DEAN, and Pre-Classic Space builder CHRIS GIDDENS! Plus: Orbit the LEGO community with JARED K. BURKS’ minifigure customizing, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd DIY Fan Art, MINDSTORMS robotics by DAMIEN KEE, and more!

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