Jack Kirby Collector #76 by TwoMorrows Publishing

$10.95

JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR SEVENTY-SIX

SPRING 2019

New Gods TM & © DC Comics.

82658 00364

Contents

THE

Fathers & Sons! OPENING SHOT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 ( the illegitimate sons of Kirby, & Lee, & Ditko, &...) SON’S DAY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 (Jack’s son Neal on Growing Up Kirby)

C o l l e c t o r

ISSUE #76, SPRING 2019

FOUNDATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 (something completely “Different”) INFLUENCEES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 (Editori-Al Milgrom speaks) GALLERY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 (these DC kids are alright) BOYDISMS 1 & 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 ( All-Fathers of two eras joust with their sons, & my daughter) OUTFLUENCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 (but is it Kirbyesque?) JACK KIRBY MUSEUM . . . . . . . . . 52 (visit & join www.kirbymuseum.org) INNERVIEW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 (Jack Kirby: Myth Maker) KIRBY KINETICS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 (a look at Simon & Kirby inkers) GODPARENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 (Jack’s tribute to Jerry Siegel) INCIDENTAL ICONOGRAPHY . . . . . 62 (Odin, the Liberace of Comics) KIRBY AS A GENRE . . . . . . . . . . . 64 (Tom King on his Mister Masterpiece) ANTI-MAN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 (the humanity of Machine Man) KIRBY OBSCURA . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 (Kirby’s greatest & most unexpected) INFLUENCEES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 ( top creators eulogize their mentor the week of his passing) JACK F.A.Q.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 ( Mark Evanier moderates the 2018 Kirby Tribute Panel) COLLECTOR COMMENTS . . . . . . . 94 (all about Stuf’ Said) PARTING SHOT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 (the genealogy of the Fourth World) Co ver inks: AL MILGROM Cover color: GLENN WHITMORE Guest designer: LILY MORROW

Dedicated to the memory of my dad James R. Morrow (aka Rex Rhezor). Numerous images in this issue are courtesy of the Jack Kirby Museum and whatifkirby.com, which have our brotherly thanks! COPYRIGHTS: Batman, Beautiful Dreamer, Big Barda, Black Racer, Darkseid, Demon, Dingbats of Danger Street, Esak, Female Furies, Firestorm, Forever People, Granny Goodness, Green Arrow, Heggra, Highfather, Himon, Jocasta, Justice League, Justice Society, Kalibak, Kamandi, Lightray, Lonar, Manhunter, Metallo, Metron, Mister Miracle, My Greatest Adventure, New Gods, Oberon, OMAC, Orion, Serifan, Shiloh Norman, Speedy, Superman, Tales of the Unexpected, The Bug, Vykin, Witchboy TM & © DC Comics • Black Panther, Bucky, Captain America, Captain Mar-Vell, Defenders, Destroyer, Don Blake, Dr. Octopus, Gorgolla, Green Goblin, Hercules, Hulk, Iron Man, Loki, Machine Man, Mangog, Nighthawk, Odin, Power Man, Recorder, Red Rajah, Red Skull, Sentinels, Spider-Man, Sub-Mariner, Surtur, Thanos, The Totem, Thor, Warriors Three, X-Men, Zeus TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. • Blackmass, Captain Victory, Contentious Monster, Klavus, Ramm TM & © Jack Kirby Estate • Alarming Tales, “Different” © Joe Simon & Jack Kirby Estates • Justice Inc. TM & © Conde Nast • Thundarr, Dragonspies TM & © Ruby-Spears Productions • 2001: A Space Odyssey TM & © Warner Bros. • Prisoner TM & © ITV

First seen in the Jack Kirby Masterworks portfolio, this 1978 pencil drawing depicts both sibling rivalry, and détente between the dads of New Genesis and Apokolips. Thanks to Al Milgrom for inking it for our cover, and to Glenn Whitmore for his stellar coloring! The Jack Kirby Collector, Vol. 26, No. 76, Spring 2019. Published fatherly... er, quarterly by and © TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. 919-449-0344. John Morrow, Editor/Publisher. Single issues: $12 postpaid US ($18 elsewhere). Four-issue subscriptions: $48 Economy US, $70 International, $20 Digital. Editorial package © TwoMorrows Publishing, a division of TwoMorrows Inc. All characters are trademarks of their respective companies. All Kirby artwork is © Jack Kirby Estate unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter is © the respective authors. Views expressed here are those of the respective authors, and not necessarily those of TwoMorrows Publishing or the Jack Kirby Estate. First printing. PRINTED IN CHINA. ISSN 1932-6912

Opening Shot

The Illegitimate Sons of by editor John Morrow

n the early 1960s, during the dawning days of comics fandom, there was an informal group called The Illegitimate Sons of Superman, of which future comics pros Marv Wolfman, Len Wein, Mark Hanerfeld, and others were members. There was no Internet back then, so these guys shared their opinions in person, and through mimeographed fanzines they’d produce for a much smaller audience than this magazine reaches each issue. It’s a very different world now, and thanks largely to today’s technology, last issue’s Stuf’ Said book edition elicited tremendous response from comics fans, as I’d hoped. Online, I’ve seen comments from all across the spectrum of fandom. It’s been overwhelmingly positive, and you can read just a few of the responses in this issue’s letter column. But while I try to keep as positive a tone as possible with this publication, I’m about to delve into the dark side (Darkseid?) of Kirby fandom. With Internet discussion comes inevitable controversy. I hesitate to repeat some of what I’ve read in light of Stuf’ Said, for fear of giving it credibility, but I think it needs to be addressed. Some (I assume well-meaning) Kirby fans online are putting forth the notion that Stan Lee and his wife Joan cheated Kirby out of credit to support an extravagant lifestyle. Another painted partner and friend Joe Simon as one of the most unscrupulous people to ever work in comics, who swindled Jack out of money and credit. Still another says Roy Thomas doesn’t have any value to a publication about Jack Kirby, because he’s nothing more than a mouthpiece for Stan. The problems here are many, but the most glaring is: They present no real proof to these allegations, only limited quotes

(with no context, and often from third parties), innuendo, and deflections of “well, so-and-so over at this other website said…”. And when well-reasoned historians like Marvel’s own Tom Brevoort try to rationally and calmly dissect those accusations, these kneejerk reactionaries start up with more unsubstantiated claims. We’re better than this, Kirbyheads. This was not what I had in mind for Stuf’ Said (or the Jack Kirby Collector in general), and it’s not what my book promotes or concludes. I exhausted myself last issue, trying to present as clear a picture as possible of how the Kirby/Lee relationship evolved, from its earliest days to its end. I wanted readers to see what I saw; that you need to get a full view of events, not just a single moment in time, before you render a verdict. There have been plenty of submissions I’ve rejected over the years for taking things too far, with a few people taking me and this magazine to task for not “going for the jugular” against Lee, and dismissing me as a wimp for staying as positive and pragmatic as I could. To those who think I’ve been too soft on Stan, I encourage you to go back and re-read Mike Gartland’s “Failure To Communicate” series, or Mike Breen’s article in TJKC #61 about the likelihood that Kirby dialogued Fantastic Four #6. I’ve also gotten a fair amount of heat over the years for a perceived “anti-Stan Lee bias.” For any of you readers who think I’m anti-Lee, I’d only ask you to review all the articles I personally have written for TJKC and see what my view is and has always been. Don’t judge me based on articles others have written. As editor, I have to decide as fairly as possible, what gets published and what gets rejected, and try to be as objective as I can, even when I don’t agree with what’s written. Sometimes you just can’t win; but I also have to accept that comes with the territory of producing a publication like this. Some fans get so blinded by their loyalties and prejudices, they 2

f Kirby

& Lee, & Ditko, &...

can’t see that every pancake has two sides, even if you prefer the way one is cooked over the other. I think all the good this magazine has done in promoting Kirby since 1994, at a time when Jack was receiving no creator credit and little public recognition, has proven my approach is the correct one. By trying to give a forum to fans on all sides of the Kirby/Lee spectrum, I’m confident I’ve contributed to the greater good these last 25 years, rather than burning bridges for the sake of someone’s short-term visceral gratification. But that must be done professionally, and without taking personal shots at those no longer around to defend themselves. I once was a bit of that kind of reactionary, back in the late 1980s, during Kirby’s battle to get his original art back from Marvel. When I read that Stan wouldn’t step in to help, I was so disillusioned, that I destroyed the autograph I’d gotten from Lee back at the 1977 Atlanta Fantasy Fair where he was the guest of honor. I was naive and uninformed about what challenges Stan would’ve faced by getting involved at that point; and whether it was craven for him to make that choice, or shrewd, I’m now at a more mature point in my understanding of the details of that conflict. Much like my view of Vinnie Colletta’s inking shortcuts, I’ve evolved to have a clearer picture of what Lee was facing, whether or not I would’ve made the same decisions he did. In a sense, we are all illegitimate sons of Jack Kirby—and of Stan Lee, and Steve Ditko, for that matter. We obviously don’t share a common mother, and through no real choice of our own, fell backwards into our appreciation of their work. We read it, and it just happened. As this magazine has progressed, I’ve evolved in my views. Growth is part of life, and just as a plant will wither and die if it fails to absorb the water and nutrients around it, so will people if they refuse to soak up the knowledge and insight that surrounds them. It’s what’s wrong with the political discourse in our country right now, as people are so entrenched in “their side” (and afraid of “losing”), that they won’t take a minute to try to understand where the other person is coming from. There are moments where you have to take a stand for what’s right, and I’ve always tried to do so. But there are other moments where it’s prudent to step back, take a deep breath, and make doubly sure you’re doing what’s right before you act—or more accurately, react. To be clear: I love Kirby fans’ enthusiasm and respect for Jack and his work, just as I appreciate Lee’s devotees for theirs. But I can keep learning from both sides, and so can you. And we can maturely discuss the success and failures of both Jack Kirby and Stan Lee here, both creatively and personally, as long as it’s done in a respectful manner. So if you want to take potshots at either man’s friends or family, look somewhere else, because this ain’t that type of publication. H [A Special Note: I don’t have a son, but my eldest daughter, Lily, is poised to embark on a career in the graphic arts. Since she’s been trained in Adobe software in high school, I thought it appropriate to turn her loose to design a couple of articles in this “Fathers & Sons” issue, to start building a college admissions portfolio. So if Jerry Boyd’s work looks much better than usual, you’ll know why!] (previous page) Jack and Roz Kirby photo by Joe Frank (top left), Stan and Joan Lee (top right), and Jack with Joe Simon (bottom left). (left) Following Stan Lee’s death on November 12, 2018 (just after Stuf’ Said went to press), a star-studded tribute was held at Hollywood’s iconic TCL Chinese Theatre on January 30, 2019. Steve Ditko’s niece and nephews were in attendance, and our pal Kevin Shaw was on hand to snap this photo. Kevin brought his copy of Stuf’ Said, hoping to get folks to pose with it, but the Ditkos said that they already had copies and were in the process of reading it. Jack’s grandkids were also in attendance for the gala, which was hosted by filmmaker Kevin Smith, and featured such luminaries as Mark Hamill, Rob Liefeld, Michael Uslan, among others.

FAKE!

(above) People, think before you bid on supposed “Kirby sketches” on eBay. This is just one example that is clearly a forgery (the image at top was personally scanned by me, from the Valentine’s Day sketchbook Jack drew for wife Roz). There’s an extremely “illegitimate son” of Kirby in Canada trying to pass off multiple drawings by Jack and others as authentic. On some, the signature is wrong, or the details don’t add up: Original comic book art was never drawn on 9" x 12" paper, nor would Kirby have been carrying around a rubber copyright stamp with him when we was doing sketches at conventions in the 1960s. And most of all, if you see a supposed Kirby drawing going for a price that’s too good to be true, it probably is too good to be true! Thanks to Glen Gold for alerting me to all the online criminality.

Growing Up Kirby

Son’s Day

The Marvel Memories of Jack Kirby’s Son Neal Kirby Originally published on the Los Angeles Times’ “Hero Complex” site on April 9, 2012

(above) Jack with Susan and Neal in March 1949. (below) Fall 1950, at the playground with Roz and the kids.

n 1961, I was the luckiest damn kid on my block— or maybe any block. My father worked at home. Everyone else’s dad had to drive into Queens or Brooklyn or take the train into Manhattan. And it was not some boring, old desk job; my father was Jack Kirby, the King of Comics, and—though his humble personality would have him cringing to hear this—he is regarded as the greatest comic book artist and creator—ever. (Sorry, Dad). Of course back in 1961, though well-regarded in his field, he wasn’t yet crowned. He was just Jack Kirby—“Dad” to me, “Jack” to his wife, Roz; “Jacov” to his mother, Rose; and “Jankel’’ to his brother, Dave. Wanting a better life for his family (the overriding theme of his life), we were packed into the Studebaker and left Brooklyn for the green suburbs of Long Island in 1949. Buying a house in East Williston, Nassau County, it was to be our home for the next 20 years. Sixty-three years later, memories of that house are still vivid for me, but what I remember most is my father’s studio. Buried in the basement, “The Dungeon” was tiny (just ten feet across) and the

walls that separated it from the rest of the cellar were covered in stained, tongue-and-groove knotty pine with a glossy varnish. Dad’s drawing table faced a beautiful cherry wood cabinet that housed a 10" black-and-white television. To the left of the cabinet was a beat-up, four-drawer file cabinet that was stuffed with Dad’s vast archive of picture references to, well, everything. I could sit for hours and just mull through musty old folders with bayonets, battleships, medieval armor, cowboy hats, skyscrapers, satellites—countless files on countless subjects. And—much out of character for my father— that metal cabinet sat beneath a stuffed and mounted deer’s head. I can’t remember where he said he got that damned thing, but it was always there. The things you remember... ...my father finally got his first color television in 1963. The first color television program I ever saw at home? The Kennedy assassination in Dallas reached me, there in the Dungeon, and in more ways than one the world was no longer black-and-white. Dad handed me the old TV so I could take it apart and explore. I heard something bumping around inside the set when I dragged it on the basement floor beyond the Dungeon’s door. Screwdriver in hand, it didn’t take long to find the loose object, but my jaw dropped when I studied the heavy disc. It was a 2000-year-old Roman coin. Dad, I knew the TV was old, but...! My father couldn’t stop laughing. There was a lot of super-hero history flying across his drawing board around that time—remember, September 1963 was the date on the first issue of The Avengers and The X-Men— but it all took a backseat that day to the mysterious return of Caesar Augustus. Dad had no idea how that coin got inside the television, but he did know how it first reached America. Back in 1944, he explained, he had been pulled from combat with a dangerous case of frozen feet and frostbite and then sent to a hospital in Britain. English farmers would plow ancient coins up by the dozen, and while they kept the gold ones, they gave the lumpy lead coins to “the boys in the ward” as souvenirs of Europe. Ancient artifacts didn’t seem out of place in the Dungeon, which felt like a time capsule—and, come to 4

(left) Working in “The Dungeon,” 1947.

(below) And baby Barbara makes three, here in Summer 1954.

(left) Chanukah 1962. Visible gifts included these two albums, and a floppy bunny for new baby sister Lisa.

think of it, the walled-in square of Dad’s office was not much bigger than the Time Platform in Doctor Doom’s castle, which in a 1962 issue whisked the Fantastic Four back to the days of Blackbeard. Two walls in the Dungeon were covered in bookcases. Dickens, Shakespeare, Whitman, Conrad, were names I remember seeing, and one of his favorites, Isaac Asimov. There were shelves of mystery and mythology and plenty of science books, and they ranged from rocks to rockets, from the inner ear to outer space. Science was always a big part of Dad’s work. When he worked on Sky Masters, for instance, I remember some of the

devoted fans of that newspaper strip happened to wear Air Force uniforms, and they even sent him photos of missiles and rockets of the late 1950s to lend authenticity to the syndicated sci-fi adventure. Dad was a member of the Science Fiction Book Club, so robots and aliens and tales of the future abounded. How did he actually have time to read? I have no idea, but the Dungeon collection was no ornamental library; he had read every book, and probably more than twice. The door to Dad’s studio was usually closed. That wasn’t to keep noise out; it was to keep all the smoke in. My father’s cigar smoking was legendary and when you opened the door to the Dungeon, you were met with a great billowing cloud. It wasn’t so bad if he was smoking something good, like a Garcia Vega, and the smell would be almost tolerable. Unfortunately, that only happened around his birthday or Father’s Day, when boxes of decent cigars came with a bow on top. When Dad was buying, he didn’t bother with fancy brands. It didn’t matter if it was rolledup skunk cabbage— to him, a stogie was a stogie. The studio did have one window; it was at head level and it opened up to a small patio by the driveway. The threat of rain and snow to Dad’s work and library kept that window closed in the wet seasons, and the position of the window frame (above a bookcase) meant it was rarely touched in the other seasons. I covered that window with plywood during the Cuban Missile Crisis, I remember; I guess somehow my 14-year-old brain thought it would shield us when the missiles rained down on Manhattan only 20 miles away. Of course, the far greater danger to my family’s world was those missile-shaped stogies in the ashtray and, sure enough, Dad paid for his puffing passion with esophageal cancer later in life. There were a lot of cigar-chomping characters in Marvel Comics and Dad was one of them—he and other writers

and artists popped up in stories in a quirky trademark of the “House of Ideas,” as it was called in the 1960s. Personal parts of his life often crept into his work too. When recounting the creation of the Fantastic Four, for instance, he laughingly confessed that Sue Storm was named for my sister, Susan, and the “Storm” could be considered a bit of personality commentary. When he saw the expression on my face, he appropriately apologized for the fact that he never got around to making Neal the name of the Human Torch, an Inhuman, or even some low-ranking Skrull. Dad’s war experiences, which he would rarely discuss with me in the Dungeon era, sometimes surfaced in the comics. Foxhole, a Mainline series that began in 1954, was my favorite, and I would sit and read old copies I found on the shelves. For Marvel, of course, he created Sgt. Fury, which drew on Boy Commandos from his 1940s work and his own infantry experiences. Sgt. Fury was Dad, big cigar and big action, the only difference being about nine inches in height and fifty pounds of muscle. These days there’s a view that a liberal Democrat can’t be fiercely patriotic, but my father was exactly that. Captain America, Sgt. Fury, the Boy Commandos, Fighting American, and Foxhole were all born of that powerful love of country. I loved watching TV with Dad. In the 1950s there were three shows in particular: Walter Cronkite with the news, Groucho Marx and Victory at Sea. My father could explain the war backward and forward, both theaters. But, as I mentioned, I didn’t hear any of his war stories until I was older. Perhaps he thought I was too young, or more likely, the painful memories were still too fresh. Besides, we had plenty to talk about with the Brooklyn Dodgers and boxing.

to draw a perfect circle. He worked fast but smooth, too, no wasted movement or hesitation. Watching him work gave us a chance to talk about science and history, subjects we both loved, but it also gave me a chance to see history being made. In the Spring of 1962, for instance, I remember standing over the drawing board as Dad created a truly cosmic hero—it was a brand new character, but I was confused when I heard his name. Thor? The story was “The Stone Men from Saturn!” (Journey Into Mystery #83). My first reaction, before opening my mouth, was, “Why the hell is a Norse god fighting rock-pile aliens?” Dad explained the whole origin story to me and how he would work in the entire pantheon of Norse deities in the future. Having either read or at least browsed through every book in his library, I thought I was pretty smart when I scoffed and asked him how Thor could even hold his head up with two big, iron wings attached to his helmet. “Don’t forget,” Dad said, nodding toward his creation, “Super-hero.” Our time together was full of moments like this. The early 1960s was the era of atomic monsters and bomb fear, so along comes the Hulk. To Dad, the science of the man-monster was in the

My mother protested that I shouldn’t be exposed to such violence, but Dad was a boxer. It was how you defended yourself in the streets, and my father was a product of the Lower East Side. Now and then he gave me a boxing lesson using one of Grandma’s sewing mannequins. A paper bag served as the head, so there was a fantastic noise when a right cross separated my rival from his head. I wonder if Michelangelo had a kid watching him paint? Was there a little Luigi watching the ceiling from a quiet comer of the Sistine Chapel? Extreme example, maybe, but the emotion would have been the same that I experienced watching my father at the drawing board. I had to stand on his left, looking over his shoulder. Starting with a clean piece of Bristol board, he would first draw his panel lines with an old wood and plastic T-square. Then the page would start to come alive. He told me that once he had the story framed in his mind, he would start drawing at the middle, then go back to the beginning, and then finish it up. Everything seemed to come naturally; he didn’t even need a compass 6

realm of “maybe.” Could a Jekyll-andHyde monster be created genetically? Jack Kirby thought so. Remember, the structure of DNA had been discovered only five years earlier, and the workings were still a mystery. Everything in Dad’s mind, heart and soul went into those paneled pages—but my contributions to the Marvel Universe were limited to one flying car. Nick Fury had been a WWII soldier, but the 1960s took him into a post-war career with S.H.I.E.L.D. (it stood for “Supreme Headquarters, International Espionage, Law-Enforcement Division” and was more than a little influenced by The Man from U.N.C.L.E.), and Dad needed a James Bond-type car and came to me (at that point in my life, I was more interested in cars than girls). With just a little bit of research into my stack of Road & Track, I found the perfect car, a Porsche 904D racer. We knew we needed to go a step beyond, so we stuck some missiles in the fender wells and, of course, wheels that flip and whisk the car through the air.

My father’s drawing board and small taboret table now reside in my den, where they provide warm memories for me, and a basis for stories for Jack’s great-grandchildren. I wish there was some way I could borrow Victor Von Doom’s Time Platform and take the kids back to visit the secret headquarters of my father’s imagination, that smoky, paneled bunker of ink, conversation, bookshelves, creativity, and love.

I’m a teacher living in California and I think about Dad a lot lately, especially when I see Thor, Captain America, Magneto, or the Hulk on a movie poster. My father drew comics in six different decades and filled the skies of our collective imagination with heroes, gods, monsters, robots and aliens; most of the truly iconic ones are out of the first half of the 1960s, when he delivered masterpieces on a monthly basis. I treasure the fact that I had a front-row seat for that cosmic event. People ask me all the time how one man could have dreamed and drawn so much. The best answer I can offer is one I heard about fifty years ago: “Don’t forget: Super-hero.” H

By the mid-’60s I was entering high school, and my time in the studio grew less and less. There was more homework, my membership in a fledgling rock band (called “The 2+2”) and, of course, girls. I always made an effort, however, to spend some time in the Dungeon at least once a week, and when Dad “came up for air” for coffee and crumb cake about 11 p.m. every night, I’d try to make it a point to meet him in the kitchen. In September 1966, I was off to college, and in December 1968, my parents did one step better and moved to California. The Dungeon was gone, but the drawing board, table, chair, and taboret all went west and ended up in a decent-sized, paneled family room in their Thousand Oaks home. Everything remained there, together and in place, even when Dad died in 1994, but after my mother passed in 1998, the inventory of that magical room went off in different directions. 7

(previous page, top) Neal poses in Fall 1965 for Jack’s proposed “Teen Agent” spy concept. (left) Father & Son in July 1992 at Neal’s wedding, and (below) wife Connie and baby Jillian visiting with Grandma Roz at their home in April 1996.

(far left) July 1964 Road & Track. TM & © Hearst Magazines

(below) Neal, Connie, and Jillian in August 2001, and at the Disney Legends ceremony honoring Jack in July 2017.

Foundations

It’s a father/daughter tale this time, from Young Romance #30 (Feb. 1951). Read between the lines, and you’ll see why story has deservedly been hailed as one of the finest of Kirby’s career. Restoration & color by Chris Fama.

Influencees

Editori-Al Speaks Al Milgrom interviewed by John Morrow

(below) Al Milgrom back in the days of the 1970s. (bottom) Kirby’s pencils, and the published inked cover, to Justice Inc. #3. (next page) 1972 Raam the Man Mountain concept art by Kirby, which he presented to Carmine Infantino at DC Comics as another possible 1970s series.

[Al Milgrom began working in comics in 1972 as an assistant to Murphy Anderson at DC Comics, and joined a wave of “young turks” who entered a comics industry built largely on what Kirby had developed in the previous decade. Al eventually moved to Marvel Comics, gaining prominence as a penciler on Captain Marvel from 1975–1977. He worked at DC Comics from 1977–1978, where he co-created Firestorm with writer Gerry Conway. Milgrom later served as editor at Marvel Comics, where he coined his nickname “Editori-Al” in cartoon-style editorial columns. Al has penciled, inked, written, and edited a wealth of popular characters and series during his illustrious career, and his path has crossed with Kirby at times, as you’ll see in this phone interview conducted on February 19, 2019.]

really engrossing, and it sucked me in. The other early exposure to his stuff I remember is, a friend of mine gave me Fantastic Four #1. He said, “You’ve gotta read this comic. It’s the worst comic I’ve ever seen in my life.” [laughs] I remember reading it and kind of agreeing with him, because it disturbed my sense of what was right in a super-hero comic. The characters were destroying public property, and Sue Storm was knocking over people in the street, and the Torch was burning up Air Force jets. Up to that point, I was only familiar with the goody-goody DC characters. Even Batman in those days was depicted as pretty squeakyclean. So I didn’t like the first issue of FF, but I never gave it back; I’ve still got it. [laughs] The next issue I saw was #3 where they got costumes and sort of a super-villain, and I thought, “Oooh, this is more interesting.” It still wasn’t quite good, I didn’t think. #3 was a step in the right direction, and I thought, “Maybe I’ll pick up one or two more of these, and see if it gets any better.” The one that really made an impression on me was #6, which was the next one I saw. That was the issue where Dr. Doom and Sub-Mariner teamed up to fight the Fantastic Four, and that one just blew my mind. It was the greatest comic I’d ever read. There was a sequence in there, where Doom had kidnapped the Baxter Building, he was pulling it into outer space, and he immediately broke his alliance with Sub-Mariner, and was going to kill him as well as the Fantastic Four. The only one who could reach his spaceship from the Baxter Building was the Sub-Mariner; he put on a watertight helmet and leaped from meteor to meteor. There was this three-panel sequence that really stuck in my head, where Sub-Mariner’s leaping from one meteor to the next, yelling, “Go! Go! Go!”, getting progressively closer with each panel. That was nothing that Curt Swan ever did. [laughs] The other comic that attracted me early-on was the third issue of the Incredible Hulk. There was something about that Hulk #3 cover where he’s leaping through the air and carrying Rick Jones. I really liked it; the whole

THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR: What was your earliest exposure to Jack Kirby’s work? AL MILGROM: My first exposure, although I didn’t know it was Kirby at the time, was probably The Fly #1 from Archie Comics, about 1959. I was already buying comics from the age of seven or so. I saw that one, and it was new and it was different, and I picked it up. I’m not sure how much of the first issue Jack actually drew; he’s credited with the lead origin story, but there’s a lot of swipes from his earlier stuff, from Stuntman and Fighting American. I’m wondering if that wasn’t Joe Simon doing the job, and swiping Kirby when he felt like it. But even if it was Simon swiping Kirby, there was something about it that fascinated me, and I found it

bit about where, in the early issues, he’d turn into the Hulk at night, and back to Bruce Banner during the day. They had a recap of the origin, so you knew what was going on. Then they developed that mental telepathy connection, so Rick could control him, but only as long as he could stay awake. So that added another interesting, dramatic element. In one of the stories, the Hulk fought the Ringmaster and his Circus of Crime. There was one or two panels where the Hulk hits the human cannonball guy, barreling towards him, being shot out of a cannon. The Hulk is leaning way back, and again, it was a perspective that no regular draftsman could’ve possibly pulled off. That didn’t occur to me at the time; I just remember thinking, “Whoa, look at the way he’s leaning back,” and then he punches the guy up through the circus tent, and he drags the whole tent with him. These were the kind of shots that Kirby just threw out. It blew my mind.

it off on a separate piece of paper, but placed more centered where it should’ve been. I tried to stay very true to it, but I did move it over a little bit. I was relatively happy with the way it turned out. While I was working for Murphy up at DC, Carmine came in with some Kirby pencils for a proposed character. He wanted me to ink samples; I think he was seeing if I was good enough to ink Kirby for them. They were looking for some other inkers over Jack’s stuff. The name of the character was Raam; it was some kind of guy that had Eastern mystical mental powers, and he could transform himself into this Hulk-like creature, only with pointier eyebrows. I started inking it on vellum; I got about halfway through it, and I was upset it wasn’t turning out well. I started another one from scratch, and when I finally brought it in to show Carmine, he said, “Yeah, these look pretty good,” but he didn’t seem overly enthusiastic. He didn’t criticize me or give me any hints. If there was an opportunity to ink Kirby there, I lost it. TJKC: Do you recall the date you inked that Raam piece? MILGROM: I moved to NY in 1972, and quit working for Murphy about a year later. I was up at DC between mid-1972 to mid-1973. [Editor’s Note: D. Bruce Berry took over inking for Mike Royer on Kamandi #16, which would’ve been inked in late 1973. So I’m assuming this tryout for Al was to consider him for that spot, before Berry came on board. By mid-1973, Jack was also drawing his final issue of The Demon, so Raam may’ve been considered to replace it on Kirby’s schedule.] I met [Jim] Starlin in middle school, and we were in high school together. When I first moved to New York, I moved in with him; he had a place on Staten Island with Steve Skeates and Bill DuBay. I replaced Mike Friedrich, who moved back to California. When we all eventually moved out and went our separate ways, I ended up in an apartment with Elliot Maggin. In mid-1973, Dave Cockrum asked me to help him ink some pages of Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes. Then Starlin got me inking for Sword of Sorcery, “Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser.” I inked that, and he took it over to Marvel to

TJKC: When did you first encounter Jack professionally? MILGROM: I inked a cover for Denny O’Neil at DC, Justice Inc. #3. Denny I’m sure was in some kind of desperate deadline situation, and he called me up and said, “Al, could you possibly ink a cover for me overnight?” And I said, “Yeah, sure, who’s the penciler?” And he said “Kirby,” and I went, “Oh my God!” I remember being so nervous, my hands were almost shaking. I remember making one alteration in it. The hood ornament was too far over to one side; it didn’t line up right on the center of the radiator grill. I was so nervous about changing anything, I actually traced 23

show them. He wasn’t satisfied with some of the inking he was getting at Marvel at the time, so he strongarmed them into using me on Captain Marvel.

(right) Note how faithfully Kirby followed Al’s cover sketch for Defenders #44, and how in turn, Milgrom faithfully inked Kirby’s pencil art, in Al’s “Kirby Sandwich.” Milgrom notes of the sketches below: “I got a couple of pieces from Jack at a Con and this Beautiful Dreamer was one of them [along with Big Barda and Mister Miracle]. I actually was toying with the idea of having Kubert ink one—because I don’t believe the two great JKs ever worked together. Not sure if I could bear to lose the original pencils, tho. Not that unused Kirby pencils are that rare— but certainly rarer than his inked work.”

TJKC: At one point, you lived in the same apartment building as Simonson, Chaykin, and Wrightson. When you were hanging out, was Kirby a topic of conversation? MILGROM: Certainly it was for me and Walter. We both loved his work, and were very fanatical Marvel fans. TJKC: Were you generally favorable of his then-current work, or more critical? MILGROM: I do remember having a conversation with Chaykin, where he was sort of... you know Howard. He’s very acerbic. [laughs] He was criticizing Kirby, saying, “None of Kirby’s characters have any genitals. They wear these skin-tight shorts, and there’s nothing going on. They all look like they’re sexless.” He said things that made me think he hated Kirby’s stuff, and he certainly didn’t appear to be influenced by Kirby in any way. But then a year or two later, I remember him waxing rhapsodic about a scene where Kirby had the Thing in a bathtub washing his toes, and he thought it was such a great bit of business, and inspired. And I said, “I thought you didn’t like Kirby’s stuff.” And he said, “Oh no, I love Kirby’s stuff!” “But we had that other conversation...”. “Ehh, that’s just me.” If Howard knows you like something, he’s liable to criticize it, just to get your goat. [laughs] He probably just said that to poke me a little bit. TJKC: Were you guys following Kirby at that time? Was New Gods an influence on you, or Kamandi? MILGROM: To varying degrees. You couldn’t not be influenced by Kirby, because he generated so much original material, and characters—even if you tried to not draw in his very stylized approach to drawing. I wanted to do the stuff I grew up loving: all the Marvel characters. I’m no Jack Kirby, but I really try to conform to the house style. My earlier stuff was more Kirby-influenced, but my year working for Murphy Anderson probably added an extra layer of draftsman-

ship. I remember showing some samples of Marvel characters to Neal Adams at a convention, and he said, “Well, I see you’re a Kirby fan.” Simonson came along, and clearly there was Kirby influence, some Ditko influence. He was also a big fan of Modesty Blaise, the British newspaper strip by an artist whose name escapes me, but who had a very different style of art than any of the Americans. There were a number of people Walter was influenced by, that I’d never even heard of. Chaykin had worked for Wally Wood and Gil Kane, and was clearly influenced by Kane quite a bit. He

my covers and my cover sketches, and he asked if I would do cover sketches for Kirby. This wasn’t in any way a dig at Kirby, as Jack was probably one of the greatest cover artists of all time. It was a matter of logistics; he was on the West Coast, so if you wanted to get him to do his own cover sketches, you had to ship him photocopies of an entire issue, so he could leaf through it and find a good cover scene. That would waste his time, and there were more mailing charges involved. This way, I would come in and look at the art, and do a cover sketch based on it, and they’d send the cover sketch to Kirby. I was excited at the prospect, but I said if I do a cover sketch and Kirby pencils it, I’d also like to ink the cover. That was agreed to, and that was the genesis of it. I’d do a sketch, Kirby would pencil it, and I’d ink it. I used to call it a “Kirby Sandwich”: I was the bread, and he was the meat. [laughs] I was at a San Diego Con when he was selling some of his artwork there. I think his son was there, selling a bunch of these originals, and for some reason, even though I inked a number of them, I never got any of them back. Maybe he had made a deal with Marvel, and nobody bothered to tell me. But he was selling several covers I had inked, and I said, “I’d really like to buy these.” I don’t recall what they were charging; by today’s standards, very minimal, maybe $100 or something. And I said, “I inked these. I did the cover sketches, and inked these over Jack.” And he said, “Oh, you did? Wait a minute.” And he disappeared for a few minutes, and I guess he went and told Jack the inker of the covers was looking to buy them, and he said, “Just charge him $60 each.” So I ended up buying several Iron Man covers, Avengers covers, and a Ghost Rider cover.

liked Al Williamson, and some of the more illustrative artists. He was also influenced by some of the old-time illustrators from the Twenties and Thirties. I don’t know if Bernie had any influence of Kirby at all. His work was so clearly based on the EC horror approach: Jack Davis, Graham Ingels, Frazetta and that sort of thing. Of any of those guys, Bernie’s looked like he had no knowledge of Kirby whatsoever, or any desire to have any knowledge of Kirby. He probably liked Jack’s stuff and admired it, but I don’t remember us ever talking about it. Starlin was influenced by many of the same guys I was—Kirby, Ditko, Joe Kubert, Carmine, Gil Kane, Russ Heath, Gene Colan— but he managed to develop more of a distinctive style of his own. I remember some of Jim’s earliest stuff, at some point, he was very influenced by Gene Colan, in the way he drew buildings, spotted blacks, and had a very loose approach to figure drawing. I’ve still got some of Jim’s earliest artwork from that period, prior to him becoming a professional—including a five-page sequence he did, where he first introduced Thanos. When Kirby started doing the New Gods stuff at DC, Jim was working on Lois Lane samples. I remember him drawing Darkseid; I guess he felt with Kirby doing all the Fourth World stuff, including Jimmy Olsen, they needed something to ramp-up the Lois Lane title too, and he thought maybe he could get a job doing that. He was clearly impressed with that whole concept Kirby had, and it’s obvious visually that Thanos was inspired, to one degree or another, by Darkseid. He loved Kirby, but whereas Darkseid wanted to take everybody’s will away with the Anti-Life Equation, and be the sole source of everybody’s actions in the universe, Jim took it a step further and came up with a guy who was in love with Death, and wanted to end all life in the universe.

TJKC: Was this the first time you’d actually met Jack? MILGROM: I didn’t actually meet him there, but in 1975, I went out to California. Jim Starlin had moved out there, Alan Weiss was out there, and I went out for a visit. While we were there, Starlin said, “Let’s go visit Kirby.” So we called him up, and said, “Jack, we’re artists working for Marvel, and we’d love to come visit with you and meet you.” So we went out to Kirby’s house, and spent a very pleasant afternoon. I was too over-awed to really ask him anything, but Starlin and he were having a really interesting conversation. Kirby was saying, “I’m really interested in the answers to all these concepts I keep coming up with,” and Starlin said, “I’m more interested in the questions.” [laughs] It was really great. In his studio, his art was all around the place, some of those collages he did. He did a series of posters that were really inspiring, without any of the characters—all new things,

TJKC: You did some wonderful inking on Kirby covers at Marvel in the 1970s, on Avengers and Defenders particularly. Did you seek out these opportunities, or did they just fall into your lap? MILGROM: When Gerry Conway became editor-in-chief, he liked 25

letter column; I’d try to include at least one negative letter or one critical letter, if it wasn’t just “You all suck. We hate you. We hope you die.” [laughs] If it had some intellectual reasoning behind their criticism, I would address it—“We see your point...”—but you usually get positive mail. Whatever people were running the Bullpen and reading the letters, taking care of the letter columns, maybe they thought Kirby was not doing stuff that fit in with their idea of what the popular stuff should be at Marvel at that time. Some of these may’ve been people who were up-and-coming young writers, who said, “I’m trying to get a job writing here. They let Jack Kirby do these books, and he’s doing a terrible job.” So they may’ve been disgruntled employees with hopes of becoming fulltime writers, who felt like they were being minimized or sidetracked, not getting their just due because Jack Kirby was getting to write all these titles, and that ate up a fair chunk of work that they might’ve otherwise had. And if that’s the case, shame on them, because there would not’ve been a Marvel Comics if Jack Kirby hadn’t been there in the early 1960s.

big god-like images of all kinds of crazy stuff. Somebody had me moderate a panel somewhere in the Midwest one time, when [Jack] was there. I tried to walk him through his career, and how he happened to hook up with Joe Simon. We talked about the stuff he did in the Forties, none of which had much commercial success except the Kirby Romance books, which is almost playing against type. He created Boys’ Ranch, which had a very short run. He created Bullseye, which had a very short run. The Boy Explorers only lasted, I think, two issues. Stuntman only ran two issues. He did the Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett books, and they didn’t have long lives. Fighting American lasted seven issues, I think. I love those early Kirby Romance books. They were really fun to read, and weren’t the kind of dry, boring romance stuff they turned into, like the [later] DC romance books, where some cute girl is wearing glasses, so nobody is interested in her. Kirby had these exotic locales, and dramatic backdrops. Just the best kind of Clark Gable movies of the Forties, where all this exciting stuff is going on, and then there was a romance going on too.

TJKC: Why’d you transition from Marvel to DC in the mid-1970s? MILGROM: I was actually very happy at Marvel. When I went into Continuity and showed some of my cover sketches and covers to Neal Adams, I guess he liked them. At the time he was dating Jenette Kahn, and I think he showed her copies of some of the work I was doing. She called me up and said, “We’d love you to do some covers for us.” By this time, Gerry had left Marvel and gone to DC, and Archie Goodwin was the editor-in-chief, and he was miffed at me. I went to him and said, “DC would like me to do some covers for them,” and I think he felt it was a betrayal. Being editor-in-chief at Marvel was not a great job, and there was a lot of pressure involved. And I said, “They’re actually paying me a better rate.” And he said something like, “Well, if the money means that much to you...”, kind of sarcastically. To his credit, he later came back and said, “I’m sorry, I understand. Freelancers should take the best-paying jobs. I’m sorry I got upset.” Then Jenette offered me a job as editor, which may’ve been at Neal’s suggestion. I was college-educated; not all the artists were. English was one of the subjects I’d taken a number of courses in, in college. He may’ve been trying to save the world of comics from my artwork. [laughs] So I took the job, and of course had to leave Marvel, just as Starlin and I were thinking about doing Captain America, which would’ve

TJKC: When you were at Marvel doing those cover sketches for Jack, did you get any insight about the Bullpen’s attitude toward Kirby at that time? I think it was Jim Starlin who said he was disgusted by some of the shenanigans he saw in the offices during that time. Were you privy to any of that stuff? MILGROM: No, I really didn’t see any of that. I heard stories about people that were running very negative mail in the letter columns. The truth is, even the worst comic being published gets mostly positive fan mail. People mostly, only have the passion to write to you if they liked it. There are exceptions, but most books, the mail runs 80-90% positive. I used to try to do a balanced 26

been fun. But that didn’t come to pass. During that one year as editor, I co-created Firestorm with Gerry Conway; it was really Gerry’s concept. They wanted someone to give it the look of a Marvel book, I guess. I don’t think they ever said, “Make it look like a Marvel book”; I think they were hoping, as they’d hoped with Kirby, to catch Marvel lightning in a bottle. TJKC: Did Kirby influence you at all on Firestorm? MILGROM: Certainly the look of Firestorm and the costume I designed, the headpiece was modeled after Lightray. I always figured anything Jack was doing, was probably the cutting edge of what things were looking like those days. The rest of the costume design was mine; I looked at the history of comics, and all the characters who’ve lasted, like Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man, have a distinctive image on their chest, and a distinctive something or other on their back. So that’s why with Firestorm I went with the radiating atomic particle with a nucleus over his heart, and the electron orbiting around the rest of his chest, and then there’s the kind of sun image on his back. I gave him the long sleeves because I thought that in lieu of a cape, that’d help convey motion when he was flying or swinging his fist. TJKC: How’d you get the gig drawing the cover of [Return of the] New Gods #12? [below left] MILGROM: I don’t remember specifically saying I wanted to do [it]. At the time I was considered a popular cover guy, so they may’ve done it for that reason. But I certainly gave it my Kirbyesque best at the time. I would do that occasionally; if I did a cover of a character, I would try to capture, to one degree or another, the style of the creator. When I did Spider-Man, I’d often try to do a Ditkoesque-looking Spider-Man. When I did Kirby characters, I tried to do Kirbyesque-looking characters; I certainly did on the New Gods. I remember doing one issue of Nova; Kirby had done the previous one or two, and I thought I’d try to keep it stylistically in the same look. It was a conscious effort; I’m not the best Kirby impressionist, but I can do a passable one. The cover sketches I did for Kirby, I certainly was trying to do what I thought Kirby would do, and when he actually penciled the covers based on my sketches, he stayed very close to the sketches. I thought he might improve them. [laughs] But he stayed very true to what I had sent him. I was flattered that he thought they were good enough to go with what I gave him. TJKC: Did DC specifically ask you to give it a Kirby look? MILGROM: I don’t believe so. I don’t think anybody said, “We want to try to fool people into thinking

Kirby’s still on the book.” That was just at my own behest. These characters look good the way Kirby draws them; let’s try and do that. TJKC: Was there a particular Kirby character, series, or concept that most resonated with you? MILGROM: I always go back to that Fantastic Four #6, because that really got me hooked. I’d reached the point where I was getting tired of the DC characters; I still read them regularly, but they just weren’t grabbing me the way they had when I was a bit younger. That was traditionally about the time most kids reading comics would outgrow them, by the age of 10 or 12 or 13. They start getting interested in girls, and cars, and many other things. But that FF #6, and possibly Hulk #3, sucked me right back in hard, and then Marvel did such fantastic stuff for several years following. TJKC: If you could work on any strip that Kirby originated, what would it be? Or did you already get that dream opportunity? MILGROM: I loved all the [Marvel] characters. You name it; I got to do virtually all of them at one time or another, either penciling or inking. I did Secret Wars II, which had a huge number of the characters guest-starring. I had a run on Avengers and West Coast Avengers, I inked a lot of the X-Men and X-Factor stuff. There’s nobody I feel like I missed out on a chance to do. I probably would like to have a chance to do some of the New Gods stuff, beside a cover or two or three, whatever it was. I really never got to do any of those characters, and I like those concepts. In the late Sixties, early Seventies, the comics industry had a bunch of guys who got work: Simonson, Chaykin, all these guys wanted to do comics. That was our goal in life. I was very happy that I got the opportunity to do it, and for as many years as I did. I did a tremendous amount of work, and I wish I’d been better, y’know? But I did the best I could, and I did a ton of work, and I’m happy to have done it. H 27

(atop both pages) Early Jim Starlin concept work for Thanos. (below) One of the most gorgeous covers of the 1970s: pencils by Milgrom, inks by Bernie Wrightson.

Gallery Kirby’s kids at DC Comics, by Shane Foley (left) Mister Miracle #17, page 4 I never warmed to the character of Shilo Norman. Compared to MM’s previous cohorts, the Female Furies, I thought he was uninspired— and his costume, seen in this issue for the first time, seems really generic, as though Jack had no real hope of a future for the strip. The revised story quality didn’t help either. Looking at these pencils, I have to ask— was this originally page 1, rather than 4? Because there is space left at the bottom for the issue’s indicia! (right) Demon #7, page 11 This is another page that shows Kirby’s unusual practice of occasionally photocopying his work before it’s completed. Both panels 1 and 4 have foreground and/or background details missing, while panel 5 has a dialogue balloon absent at this stage. Regarding panel 4 [below], we could ask ourselves: Why did Kirby decide a wavey shadow was best to add? Straight, angled shadows would be more “realistic”! But Kirby’s unique gut-instinct dictated this shape was best to suggest tension, energy, and movement in the air! To create such an atmosphere on static paper, without the tools of music and controlled directing and cutting that movies have at their disposal, is always a challenge for a cartoonist—a challenge Kirby mastered in a different league than anyone else! “The Kids are Alright” says our heading? I don’t know—that Klarion is one spooky guy!! (page 30) Forever People #5 – Lonar back-up, page 2 In a mere 4 pages, Kirby creates a mini-epic bristling with promise! Following page 1 with the dynamic opening shot of the ruins the previously unknown hero has discovered, Kirby reinforces the extent of those ruins by showing a second panel with the hero dwarfed by the decaying structures. No ordinary ruins these, but such with evocative markings and shapes that hint of otherworldly mystery and power. (Of course, Kirby fans expected no less from him!) Panel 2 finally shows us the new hero—and here he is holding what many have seen as Thor’s dilapidated helmet. Did Kirby mean it that way? It certainly fits his theme and his attitude to his old company! Then the page ends with the introduction of a new mystery, that forces us to page 3. Vinnie Colletta’s inking took no shortcuts on the final product, occasionally with added textures and shading to give (what he felt was needed) a little more form to Kirby’s images.

New Gods #9, cover “The Bug”—a “lowly” looked down on by other gods, even the good ones, represented such ethnic minorities as African-Americans and Jews. A fabulous concept by Kirby, living up to his subtitle of “An Epic (read: ‘myth’) for Our Times!” Notice the copy above the logo here reads “In the Strangest of the Fourth World Narratives—Read: The Bug!” Wow! I’m not sure what I would have thought of that as a youngster, but now I find it every bit as strong as the published “A Stranger from the Strangest Land Ever Seen—The Bug!” Both sound Kirby-ish to me, so maybe he changed it himself? Two great figures of Orion and Lightray stand at the side of this powerful cover scene—I wonder why they reversed position for publication?

(above) New Gods #8, page 11 A different conundrum on these pages. The pencil copies reveal that pages 4 to 12 are numbered wrongly (as 3 to 11), with this page being penciled in as “10.” (I haven’t seen copies of pages 2 and 3.) Did Kirby just muck the numbering up, not correcting it until page 13? Or did he find himself a page short at some point and added a new one at the beginning? (Published page 3 could easily be dropped without hurting the story.) Note how, in the final panel, Kirby even manages to get drama and power into Orion’s simple act of noticing a television program! We Kirby fans are used to this—but that shouldn’t let us ever forget how groundbreaking and unique his storytelling vision and talents were.

(next page) New Gods #8, page 20 Darkseid’s two sons in brutal conflict! Kirby’s staging here is a brilliant and subtle set-up for the revelation on the following page. That Orion’s face had reverted to its monstrous features again (as had happened in #5) was unexpected by both Kalibak and (I presume) most of the readers. I remember being a bit shocked at the brutality of the fight scenes in Kirby’s Fourth World—far more violent than anything he’d done at Marvel. Thor may have succumbed to “warrior madness’” when fighting “Him”, but this was nothing compared to the killing frenzy of Orion. He may have been a flawed and tragic hero, but there were times when he was not likeable at all—a giant of a Kirby creation!

(above) New Gods #7 – Vykin back-up, page 1 Before the episodes with “The Bug,” Kirby knew that his New Genesis was no heaven. Rather, it was more like the free West during the Cold War, which was threatened by forces from within as well as without. And here, in a two-page filler, that concept begins to be shown, as some fall-out from the Great Clash threatens to rise from beneath the surface. That the Fourth World was well thought through by Kirby is clear in episodes like this. I always loved the fact that characters like Vykin, from the Forever People, could turn up at any time in a title other than their own!

(next page) New Gods #7, page 22 A quiet page filled with reflection and menace. Darkseid’s powerful figure in contemplation of the bombed-out landscape below him, then the horrible sight of his granite-like face beholding the demonic Granny holding a child, precede two shots of a peaceful, sleeping innocent. Their discussion of the dreadful fate of the child is unheard by him, but clearly heard by us, as he sleeps. When the focus returns to the adults, it is to the horrifying visage of Granny—more perfect scripting and staging by the Master! I wonder—if Granny named the child “Scott Free”, what was his real name from New Genesis? See page 96!

New Gods #7, page 11 A page with a violence of a different sort to that before and after it! A talking heads scenario full of tension, manipulation and evil—superbly scripted and choreographed. Kirby’s tendency to make evil people craggy and ugly never worked better for him. The appearance of young Metron amongst the Apokolips elite, and his manipulation by them, forces us to realize this is no simple tale of good vs. evil—there is great symbolism here.

Forever People #6, page 22 Serifan was ever the youngest of the Forever People, yet from the earliest time his was the most developed super-power. Panel 3 here is an example of Kirby’s genius—how he makes a sequence, which could be drawn as nothing more than some rays emanating from the youngster’s head toward the machine, become a suspense- and wonder-filled scene, shouting of menace and power. His method involves simple linework and black silhouette, yet his thinking behind his approach is of a quality few artists can approach!

The “God” Odin vs. Thor vs. Loki vs. Odin vs.

Boydisms 1 & 2

The All-Fathers of two eras joust with their sons

(right) An ancient illustration of the world’s end, as Immortals and evil ones collide in a final holocaust. (bottom right) A 15th century depiction of Odin cradling his great spear and flanked by his two mystical ravens, which brought him news of the events that shaped his universe.

n the late 1960s, Odin was voted “Best Supporting Character” in comicdom by interested readers. It was a richly deserved award; Lord Odin was unlike any other supporting star of the realm of sequential art at the time. He was not only far more powerful than the titular hero, but he was the sovereign monarch of “a universe entire,” all-knowing, all-wise, all-powerful, and ever just. Balderdash! Though Odin was the father (of sorts) to all the Norse gods, his family of three (what really happened to his wife and Thor’s mother?) was constantly at odds with themselves, if not with other Asgardians. Why? Why so many problems? Or, why wasn’t the All-Father a better father?!

Myths & Comic Myths

In myth, Lord Odin is the chief sky-god of a warrior people, the Aesir, conjured into legend by the Vikings of northern Europe, who roamed and plundered other lands from their great boats moored in their fjords. I won’t belabor the ancient origins (which differed even among the Vikings) as other contributors have gone into them already. But I will say that Odin’s claim to omnipotence falls apart in the face of Ragnarok. In myths, Odin and his legion of Valkyries (as close to the Judeo-Christian angels as you can put it) chose the bravest of the Vikings killed in battle, installed their souls into the Odinian castle at Valhalla, and pleasures and eternal happiness follow until the eventual Ragnarok, the Fall of the Gods (and the end of the Earth, for that matter). But do omnipotent gods fear to face their own end, or even know an end is coming? In Jack and Stan’s take, Hela takes the slain to her dark realm (Valhalla) and Odin presides over the mighty Aesir to stave off Ragnarok. Still, Jack and Stan had to have Ragnarok, though they could’ve abandoned the concept as easily as they omitted Odin’s lost eye and Thor’s red hair. In either case, Odin is not all-powerful, and in the comics (set up by Gerry Conway in Thor #200), the King of the Eternal Realm even announces that he set the entire affair up! Why?

Fathers Sons Highfather vs. Darkseid vs. Orion &

Design by Lily Morrow

by Jerry Boyd

hough Darkseid and Highfather were the chief father figures of the Fourth World tetralogy, their parenting skills didn’t get much page time from the King. Scott Free and Orion, their more famous offspring, got the most attention from editor/writer/ artist Jack Kirby, but through their characterizations, the influence of their fathers’ DNA and world-shaping comes to the foreground. Scott is truly Izaya and Avia’s son, possessing an inner tranquility which helps him overcome the horrors around him on Apokolips and Earth. Orion is truly Darkseid and Tigra’s son, a ferocious monster, held ironically in check by Mother Box, an invention pioneered by one of the dread lord’s greatest enemies, Himon. Kirby would subtly move these two young heroes, raised on the rival god-worlds, briefly near and then far away from their powerful fathers, and then set up battles to come in their upbringing. It’s a brilliant work, as I’ve said before, and the fathers-sons story is another piece of this multifaceted masterwork…. er, make that masterpiece. (Marvel Masterworks might not care for that…) We feel the fathers’ influences among many of their followers. They’re not just parents, they’re father figures. Izaya is the transformed pacifist, changed from the warrior of old. In many ways he’s the late-in-life hippie who shares the way of “The New Left” that would follow. The New Left showed up on the cover of a late ’60s magazine

cover—the long hair, the slang, the music; the counter-culture had arrived, and Kirby had to be impressed. His “super hippies’’ were the Forever People, adorned with cowboy hats, beads, a poncho, and buckskins—they were led the way by the older Highfather. “Darkseid was all the bad people throughout history rolled into one,” Jack told a crowd more than once, and the dread lord backs up those words with casual ease. He’s an absentee father to his feral sons, and cares little for either, though Orion earns some grudging respect for his rebellion from the older god. Darkseid and 39

(left) Zeus had the power (as did Lord Odin) to stop a battle between lesser gods in Journey Into Mystery Annual #1. The King would not have an omnipotent power in his new age pantheon of immortals, outside of the Source.

The inescapable conclusion here is that Odin is a mass of contradictions in many ways, but still wants his fellows to pay him homage—even though he paves the way for the destruction of the Aesir. “Thanks, Dad,” Thor might say.

If These Be Ragnaroks!

“A coward dies a thousand deaths, a brave man dies but one…” (or something like that, the man said). At Mighty Marvel, Ragnarok came as often as Lee and Kirby wanted it to… keeping up the promise of said thousand deaths. Yeeesh! But always, there was a way out. (It’s comics, and therefore, it’s complicated.) The Aesir of legend were doomed with the one-and-only Big “R”, pushed into motion by the death of Balder and the revenge of evil Loki and his monstrous offspring (too nasty for the Comics Code—Jack and Stan wisely left them out, and even had the deaths of the gods off-panel). But our four-color Odin was supposedly omnipotent, and many times called his kingdom “eternal Asgard’’ and himself “eternal Odin.” Eternal doesn’t work with a time limit, however. Our Martin Goodmanowned version of Odin could stop Ragnarok just by de-powering Loki (more on that later), or crushing the Midgard Serpent before it crushed/killed the Thunderer in an unspecified century to be named much later. But he spends a lot of his time putting on the most amazing outfits (no one outfitted a god better than “King” Kirby) and putting the Thunder God into dangerous situations—many of his own kingly making. In myth, some historians note the ancient Vikings gave their greater devotion to Thor as time went on. Why not? Odin brings the dark seed Loki into Valhalla, setting up the end for them all. Though Loki is an asset early on in many stories—many times partnering with Thor to outwit and then destroy the sinister trolls, sprites, and giants that plot against the golden realm—his devilish nature is also a hindrance to many, and he and Heimdall become great enemies. Eventually, the worst of the inherent deviltry of the god of mischief comes to the fore and because of it, Balder is killed. The god of light’s death darkens Valhalla, and the rest of the gods and goddesses are powerless to alter this tragedy and the downturn to come. Odin (in comics) can bring back the dead or even kill Hela (as Stan and John Buscema did, after Jack’s departure for DC) if need be! Okay, that’s closing in on real omnipotence, but the Odin of mythology can only beg for life to be restored to Balder. Hela says no. Injuries and deaths are final in the mythology. The Vikings lost eyes, ears, noses, arms, and hands in battle. Should their sky-gods go without wounds in their fearsome combats? Tyr, the god of war, loses a hand. Odin cannot restore it. Tyr and Odin lose favor; Tyr becomes sort of a joke as time goes on. Odin loses favor because of Loki. Thor rises in stature. Lee and Kirby’s first Ragnarok happens without Balder’s death or even a near-death. Little Thor wants to prove himself a great warrior and make another step to earn the magic hammer of Odin. Heimdall has to shoo him

Highfather are both rebels in a way, as were Orion and Mister Miracle in their ways. Let’s look them all over….

[left page captions] (below) Utilitas zothecas bellus (top) Afermentet production by saburre. Perspicax Kirby, ably inked by syrtes cir-a Alfredospinosus Alcala, for cumgrediet ut animatproposed Thor ed series in the 1980s. (center left) Thor, blond and beardless in this 1872 painting by Marten Eskil Winge, fights with the Giants, sworn enemies of the Norse gods. (center right) Loki, sinister god of mischief, schemes from Kirby’s 1970s sketchbook— alongside an image of the shape-changing trickster from an 18th century Icelandic manuscript. (bottom left) A very young Thor battles alone in this Ragnarok-like scenario by Jack in Journey Into Mystery #101.

A High-Placed Father

In New Gods #1, we get to meet Highfather. He is majestic, regal, though not in ways Kirby fans had gotten used to. He is not as splendidly attired as Zeus and Odin and he’s not all-wise, either. He bows, along with Metron and Orion, to the wisdom of the Source. He cannot end the struggles to come with but a gesture, as Odin did with Surtur and Mangog. Unlike Zeus and Odin, he summons no powerful, brawny sons like Thor and Hercules to advance his celestial agenda. No envious Pluto, nor a warmongering Ares, or scheming Loki peers at him ruefully from behind well-manicured shrubbery. Highfather, apparently, is less than what’s gone before. “Why not a god of love?” Kirby may have mused as he slowly put his god-worlds together in the late ’60s. “It’s all about love these days… with the youngsters. Jesus was all about love… let me try to get away from warrior gods and see how that works out…”. While Highfather knows war is imminent… unavoidable, his influence, despite the absence of a son, is obvious. New Genesis is a wonderful world, sunlit and beautiful in naturalness. In time, we’d learn that Izaya was once his name and that his turning away from war was the catalyst from what once was. Izaya, the Inheritor, the general was once beset by The Great Clash,

laboratory-created monsters, a terrible Dog Cavalry, raids and counter-raids, and the all-consuming ambitions of Darkseid. But he regained the core of himself, found a greater purpose, nobler causes, and the Source at the end of The Great Clash. Still, he sadly had to sacrifice his son to gain peace for his planet.

Darkseid andAcrossSons the

inky (Colletta’s inky touches, early on) expanse of space is Apokolips, a dismal, polluted world (Jack was new to California then and probably picked up the environmentally 41

[right page captions] (top) Fathers and sons reunited briefly in Mister Miracle #18—again, Orion bellowed his defiance of his father with the announcement of “Last Battle”! (left) Following a royal exchange, two sons are given to their new fathers at the end of “The Pact” in New Gods #7. The warlike Orion soon discovers that Highfather is a god of love, not hate. (below) Sibling rivalry explodes as it never did between Loki and Thor in New Gods #8! Orion’s penchant for total destruction is displayed in his crushing of Kalibak’s club.

with Loki. But big deal… the problems stem from Odin! Aside from these low-rent but still deadly mini-Ragnaroks, Odin remains a problem for Thor and the Aesir by his molly-coddling of Loki, whose biggest punishments include working long hours for trolls, local wizards, and banishments upon dead rocks in space. Big deal! However, Loki’s failures are a torture unto themselves. He cannot defeat Thor and Odin, and thus cannot realize his sinister ambitions. When he is triumphant (Thor #123) with his mortal ally, the Absorbing Man, matching Odin power for power, it’s short-lived, and then it’s punishment time for the little-evil-god-that-couldn’t. Odin creates the Destroyer to protect mankind. Okay… but Thor’s the one who comes the closest to being destroyed in Journey Into Mystery #118-119. Loki manipulates an evil human into approaching the engine of destruction, tucked far away into a mountain. The man’s essence brings life to the Destroyer. Who has to stop it? Thor, of course. “Thanks, Dad…’’. Loki gets very worried this time around. Odin can stop the Destroyer with but a gesture, but he’s sleeping the OdinSleep, the rest that continues his eternal life. Do omnipotent gods really need to sleep? I digress. Waking him might end his life. Can omnipotent gods die in their sleep? Okay, I’ll stop. The god of mischief knows the All-Wise will blame him (like, who else?) if the Thunderer is slain, and maybe do far worse to him than put him in a tree for a few centuries, so he does all in his power to convince his father’s guards

away. (Grown-ups just can’t play with kids all the time. See Tales of Asgard #1, 1968. I know it appeared earlier, but that was my introduction to this great collection of adventures somewhere over the Rainbow Bridge.) Loki is already working full-time against his step-brother. He tells him where the Evil Ones will attack, and Thor rushes to battle them. Loki smirks and watches from a distance, sure the golden-haired godling will meet his end. But Odin and his warriors appear just as young Thor is about to be changed forever by a sorceress’ spell (Odin could just reverse it, right?) and save the day, beating back the attackers [see page 62]. Why didn’t the All-Wise know what Loki was up to? Why did he have Heimdall facing the wrong way? Why was Thor doing the heavy lifting without some other Aesir showing up? Were any other warriors on duty in Asgard, or were they on their coffee and doughnuts... er, ale and mead break? Other Ragnaroks would ensue. Odin entrusted the Odin-Power to one of his “merciless’’ cabinet members in Thor #126, stripping the Thunder God of his incredible strength as he fought Hercules (“Thanks, Dad…”) for a ridiculous infraction of “the rules.” Thor is “beaten’’ and humbled, but still returns to Asgard in the next issue to find out that merciless guy has taken over, blasting his king into unconsciousness. Thor bears the brunt of Odinian blasts, but vows to unsheathe the Odin-Sword and deprive Seidring the Merciless the throne and power of the universe (the All-Wise should’ve gotten a clue from the guy’s name). Thor saves the day (again) and Odin is humbled by his actions against his noble offspring. Loki is nowhere around to help (as usual), but always gets chances (he’s merciless, too) to set up a Ragnarok or two on his own. When he makes his moves (Journey Into Mystery #104) as a temporary Lord of Asgard (set up by Odin, of course), who’s there to do the heavy lifting again? Yes, it’s the Mighty Thor and Balder, with a little Odin on the side. Loki uses the Odin-Power to free Skagg the Giant and Surtur the fire god, who would get a lot more dangerous before Kirby leaves for DC. They get stopped and punished, along

to awaken him—Thor is in “deadly danger’’ (a phrase Stan loved for all his Marvel madmen in masks)! Thor saves the day, though his hammer is shattered. Loki gets a light fine for speeding. The Destroyer showed up again, with Loki’s essence within, in Thor Special #2 (Summer 1966). In this Ragnarok, the thing challenges the All-Wise himself! “Banish thy fears!” Odin says to Balder, as his indestructible creation advances toward 42

conscious attitudes of his new community, as did this writer, transplanted west in ’69) with deviant denizens worshipping the master of the holocaust. Darkseid is his planet’s supreme warlord and his “creed of destruction’’ makes him a father figure to all of his demonic followers. The “power beings’’ of Apokolips come in all shapes, forms, and colors. The Deep Six are green, scaly amphibians. Captain Ogur—ugh… the name says it all. And those horrible para-demons! There were others— brutal, ugly creatures serving a brutal master. Darkseid has no Odin-like claim to omnipotence, either. He depends on technology, his powerful minions and bodyguards, and his own powers, to realize his aims. In time, we’d find out he sired the fierce Orion, and still later, the cruel tormentor Kalibak. His sons (could there have been more—Kirby didn’t get to proceed on that note) are unimportant to him. Both are ferocious, closer in temperament to their mothers, and unwanted distractions to his schemes. Darkseid neither needs nor wants heirs to his throne. Being “a loving father’’ wouldn’t have brought the cynical eruptions of laughter he threw out at the end of Mister Miracle #18. His sons are pawns, to be used as he’s used others. Kirby’s three battles between the sons of Darkseid grow in scope

[left page captions] (top) The Destroyer posed greater threats to the Thunder God than anyone else! “Thanks, Dad.’’ In JIM #118, the engine of destruction slices Mjolnir with bolts of unimaginable force! (center) Ulik frees the Mangog, a menace like none before, in Thor #154. (bottom) Battles between the gods were close to the super-hero/supervillain struggles of the Marvel Universe. Thor and Hercules had a slugfest for the (Marvel) ages in JIM Annual #1, 1965.

[right page captions] (left) For the 1988 History of the DC Universe hardcover collection, Kirby contributed an essay about the Fourth World, and this pencil piece depicting the main characters from his epic. (below left) It WAS the last battle for Kalibak in New Gods #11! A one-on-one among the gods came to an end! (below right) Darkseid from the 1980s Who’s Who series.

with each meeting. In New Gods #1, it’s brief; Orion is to meet his destiny on Earth. In New Gods #8, the stakes grow. This is a blood feud, something Loki and Thor never got to. Thor cannot slay Loki, even though Odin slew Laufey, the god of mischief’s father! I won’t go overboard here; Odin is a mass of contradictions unresolved by Kirby and Lee. But Orion and Kalibak move toward each other always, in a “demon’s bond’’ (as Orion calls it) to destroy the other. These were tension-filled battles, and truly suspenseful! New Gods #11 felt rushed to me at the time—I loved this issue but asked myself, “Is this book ending now?” I had no idea that DC was ending it, not Jack. Somehow, Orion senses (though he’s had no clues, no jogging of the old memory cells, no conferences with Metron, etc.) that he and Kalibak are brothers and sons of Darkseid. Huh? Stan would’ve ordered up a few extra pages to explain that. When I got my subscription copy of New Gods #11, I pushed all other things aside as usual and hunkered down to devour it! The revelation of 43

him, after beating back Thor, the Warriors Three, Balder, etc. “Am I not eternal Odin?!” (Great lines from Stan—I love ’em…) Odin focuses on the infinite, and closes down Loki’s mind with a blast, immediately ending the Destroyer’s threat. The thing falls to the ground. But in all of these “the weatherman says to expect a Ragnarok tomorrow, honey’’ moments, Thor, not Balder or Heimdall, is put upon by a crisis manufactured by the shortsightedness (or seeming indifference) of his father. A rolling thunderclap might have bellowed, “Thanks, Dad!”

Loki gets to the royal sleep chamber long before his brother and takes the Odin-Ring, symbol of power—before which all must bow. With Odin put into a chamber where none dare go, Loki has seemingly insured his claim to the throne. However, Surtur cannot be restrained without the Presence, and it’s another Ragnarok. Thor leads the valiant charge, while Balder attempts to rescue his liege and does, aging and suffering frightfully in a Kirby-created zone where even immortals can die. Odin comes back just in time as Surtur is about to unleash a fiery blast to end the lives of the Aesir

For a Few Ragnaroks More In 1968, many thought America was doomed. Racial

strife and race riots, student unrest, the Vietnam War, the assassinations of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Senator Robert Francis Kennedy, as well as the Tet Offensive during the war all meant terrible times were before American citizens. I was young then, and though touched and moved to tears during some of those events, I think now about an event of terrible importance in the Marvel Universe. Of course, what happened in Chicago at the DNC was real, but a lot of real things were kept from my brother and me; my parents shielded us from some things. And as that fateful Summer rolled around, Ulik the troll tunneled into an accursed area and released the Mangog, a monster whose power dwarfed his own (Jack and Stan ditched the usual physical confrontation between awesome beings that Sub-Mariner and the Hulk had in earlier years, just to cite one “biggie’’). The Mangog, possessed of the power of a “billion, billion beings’’ tramples all before him and is about to unsheathe the Odinsword (no safety lock was on it) and end the Aesir and the world. Odin is awakened from his annual nap time by the winds of the Thunder God, and stops the Mangog with a power which beggars that of the monstrous being. Loki (him again) waits for his hated father to sleep once again, and in Thor #175, charges Asgard with a legion of dragons, giants, trolls, and the kind of mean kids your parents warned you about. Thor wasn’t told Big Daddy was going on his sleep hiatus, and

still alive to defy him. Odin rises the bowels of the planet and Surtur returns to his prison, screaming. The god of mischief is a craven coward at times like these, except in moments like Thor #147, where Odin releases Loki from his banishment—just when Thor has been stripped of his godly might! He warns his adopted son to restrain his “perfidy.” Sif and Balder plead with the All-Father not to forgive Loki. Loki lies (what else?) and then goes after the weakened Thor—naturally. Odin is shocked! He appears and strips Loki of his powers! Why is the AllWise shocked?! Who started this All-Wise business to begin with?!

Kalibak came and went—swiftly. The cruel torturer was gone. Lying on my bed stunned but satisfied by the King’s storytelling, I was in the same kind of limbo Mark Moonrider and friends were in. There had to be more! We never got to see Suli! There had to be a backstory of Darkseid, Suli, Kalibak, and Orion, and the earliest fights between the two half-brothers. Sadly, Jack never got to tell it (but this issue’s cover shows one)! But New Gods #11 still worked. Jack was forced to end it [sigh] and leave us with the prophesy of “Last Battle.” That day was on the way for a diabolical father and his banished son.

The “Miracle Baby”

Outside of besieged Metropolis, Scott Free made a living as a super escape artist. It wasn’t an entirely peaceful existence; Granny Goodness (from the old hometown) wanted him destroyed. Why couldn’t the old gal let it go? Scott doesn’t know for sure, he just

continues to strive and overcome the traps set for him. Granny Goodness, Dr. Bedlam, Virman Vundabar, Kanto the Assassin, and the Lump all took their turns at crushing Mister Miracle. Despite his wisdom and tact for survival, Scott didn’t suddenly realize, like Orion, who his true father was. Again, I believe “King” Kirby brought The New Left into play. There were the Hairies and that Mountain of Judgment on another side of Metropolis, and Scott was off doing his “own thing’’—getting his super escape artist act together in something that might have resembled commune living at the time. Barda joined him later and so did Shiloh Norman. This was Scott’s own, unique expression of “freedom,” becoming in and of himself a young rebel, challenging the hierarchy of Apokolips by his very existence. They want him dead—but he escapes their traps. He always escapes. He’s determined to live up to the name Granny gave him in his own way—he’s Free. Unlike Orion, Scott doesn’t angrily denounce and battle back against the Establishment of Darkseid. He does his thing by surviving to live his way. Orion, by his nature, wants to conquer the would-be conqueror of the universe. He wants to kill Darkseid. Both young men are mergers of their two worlds and their two fathers’ influences. Scott is peaceful, level-headed, and self-actualized like Highfather, despite the challenges put to him by Darkseid’s aggressions, which he fully understands but still rejects. Orion is fierce, determined, but committed to Highfather’s ideals while he moves to crush the ones of his biological father.

Endgames of Thrones First Rule of Fight

Club: There is no Fight Club. Sad Rule of the Fourth World’s Last Battle: We’d never get the King’s Last Battle. When The Hunger Dogs took over the fray, the prophesied final struggle between Darkseid and Orion, with maybe a Ragnarok-type settlement between other evil henchmen of the 45

[left page captions] (top and center) While Odin slept, Loki led the forces of evil against the golden realm in Thor #175. He’s leading giants, trolls, etc. in a war to crush the kingdom of his father— and he gets away with all of this!?! (bottom left) The god of evil’s “triumph’’ in Thor #176 unleashes Surtur, the Flame Giant, who can only be restrained by the Presence of Odin. Things were about to get hot, as Odin’s ancient enemy confronts the Lord of Asgard!

[right page caption] Without Highfather’s guidance, Metron and Himon (and Darkseid!) stand in as Scott’s “father figures’’ in Mister Miracle #9—still a remarkable achievement in sequential storytelling!

Odin Vs. Loki, Odin Vs. Thor Again, the man is a cosmic mystery. He punishes the Thunderer

when drones and bombs are sent their way by the infidels! Man vs. god. God vs. god. Lee and Kirby have a less-than-All-Wise figure in Odin (and let’s add Zeus, also) and he’s not as powerful as he’d like to be. But if he were, there’d be a lot less for the Aesir to do. And since we’re referencing a warrior people who revel in battles—sadly, Loki, the Ice and Storm Giants, trolls, ogres, sprites, fairies, sorcerers, and sorceresses like The Norn Queen have to have their days, and their triumphs. Odin, the All-Father, can be as exasperating as one’s own father and even, God the Father (under different names and in different cultural contexts), but he’s good for some incredible storytelling, and “King” Kirby and Stan “The Man” told his tales of Asgard (and his sons’) incredibly. H

for falling in love with Jane Foster, a mortal (hmmm… bigotry), and for other ridiculous minor offenses, but rarely puts down Loki in similar fashion. Loki deserts the golden realm when the Mangog and Surtur pose their greatest threats to it—but Odin’s always ready to put the Thunder God face front against Galactus and other menaces on Midgard. And for his lumps in protecting Earth and Asgard, does Thor get added strength along the way? Nope. Does he get added enchantment for Mjolnir? Nope. Does he get the right to send Loki over to the DC Universe for 10-20 years so he’ll be less of an ongoing problem? Nope! Under Lee and Kirby, he got more punishments and challenges. By 1967, you could bet your last glass of Yggdrassil branch water and bourbon on it.

[Special thanks to Mike Royer.]

Conclusions

Okay, I could go on bashing Loki and Odin, but the stories still hold up very well, despite the eccentricities of the pair. The gods aren’t perfect in the universe Jack and Stan set up, but that’s because an omnipotent god or gods can’t be written for by ordinary mortals. In our universe, Jesus confused His disciples, and Moses grew angry with the Lord after his beloved sister passed away. Samson wondered why he was sore athirst after slaying 1000 Philistines in battle. Why did he have to ask God for water? Terrorists who worship their god must wonder why their god doesn’t favor their cause 46

dark lord and the Forever People (brought back from their limbo), Mister Miracle (?), and perhaps even Superman (!) never got fully realized. Unfortunately, Kirby never gave us a sit-down with Scott and Highfather, also. There’d have been some great emotions there and perhaps some incredible Kirby scenarios we never got to see! We also never got the ultimate donnybrook promised between Orion and his father, though the King came close to it. But what we did get was one of the most layered, complex, and magnificent achievements in four-color storytelling. It stands proudly again and again on so many great levels. The Fourth World tetralogy—worthy of a King! H

[left page captions] (top) Odin’s never looked more regal— colors by Sarge. (center) Jack revisited Thor #154-157 on a wraparound cover for Marvel Treasury Edition #10 in 1976— WOW! (bottom) The Prince of Vikings is stripped of his might for wanting to remain on Earth in Thor #145. This was something bad to his dad…? [right page captions] (top) The Kirby-drawn (but not scripted) second Super Powers series gave us one last look at Darkseid, as Kirby’s career came to a close. (left) At the conclusion of Hunger Dogs, one simple panel traces back to Highfather reaching his hand out to young Orion in New Gods #7. (bottom left) 1984 brought us one of the two conclusions (The Hunger Dogs was on the way!) in the part-reprint, part-new saga in New Gods #6. Finally, evil Darkseid and Orion the Fierce would close in battle! (bottom right) In Hunger Dogs, there’s almost a father/son connection between young Esak and Metron, something hinted at in the 1970s.

Outfluence

Kirbyesque by Scott Braden

(right) Discovered online is this fuzzy, but very nice alternate Kirby take on the cover of New Gods #1. (below) Don Newton’s spandex-clad Orion, from Adventure Comics #459. (next page, top) This mag’s editor was overjoyed when the annual Justice League/Justice Society crossover also featured the New Gods. But after drawing JLA #183, Dick Dillin was only a couple of pages into #184 when he died, leaving this uninked splash page behind. George Pérez stepped in and did a fine job finishing up the tale. (next page, bottom) 1st Issue Special #13 led to a full-fledged (Return of the) New Gods #12 with more Newton art.

rion of the New Gods is indomitably Kirbyesque. Intersecting sprawling space opera with cosmic parable, creator Jack Kirby’s adventures starring this interstellar champion orbits around the fact that he was raised in paradise as a force for ultimate good, although he was begat as a scion of universe-conquering evil. Born to rule with an iron fist like his dark father, he instead uses “epic battle” to save the myriad masses he has sworn to protect. Well beyond the classic Kirby Krackle, he and his “Astro-Force” fight the good fight across varied dimensions—and countless worlds upon worlds. He is power incarnate. He is the great and galactic end-all, be-all. Again, he is Kirbyesque, and he is coming to save us all from ourselves—and so was his “Fourth World” for DC Comics, and all that came after. I first experienced the four-color glory of the New Gods when I was nine years old—but their prophet wasn’t Kirby. His were tales told years before. No, it was in a cramped, hot summer house in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, in 1979, when my cousin Bryan lent me his copy of Adventure Comics #459—a big, thick “Dollar Comic” that featured, among other meta-human mangods, the terrible Darkseid on the cover. Within its pages, now-legendary writer Gerry Conway and artist-extraordinaire Don Newton brought the majesty—and more importantly, the mystery—of these great and powerful beings to the imaginations of readers everywhere. Picking up the after-Kirby storyline that ran in an issue of 1st Issue Special and the recently cancelled Return of the New Gods, it did a number on young, impressionable readers like myself. And, dear God, were the New Gods and

their story as intimidating as it was intriguing. As a bright young lad trying to understand, if not somehow better comprehend, Christianity’s Gospels which I was being indoctrinated in at various Sunday Schools within small town Westminster, Maryland, the “Fourth World” saga, as I would later know it to be called, was something else altogether. It was an epic that was way out there for this pre-teen—and probably one of Kirby’s grandest concepts of all time. Needless to say, both the characters and the concept stayed with me—all the way to a Justice League of America/Justice Society of America crossover that saw print a couple of years later in Justice League of America #183-185. Conway returned as scribe for this next chapter in the story of the New Gods, which had been previously concluded in its post-Kirby mythos with the seemingly invincible Darkseid being destroyed by his own minions in the deep space surrounding his nightmare world of Apokolips, within the pages of Adventure Comics #460. Drawn first as the omega assignment of the late DC Comics stand-by Dick Dillin, and finished by master storyteller George Pérez as the alpha in his classic run on Justice League of America, the crossover story dealt with the heroes from three parallel worlds—Earth-One, Earth-Two, and Olympus-like New Genesis—fighting to prevent a resurrected Darkseid from replacing (and thereby destroying) Earth-Two with Apokolips. Of course, at the end of the day, the good guys won— but this time, the New Gods, side-by-side with the “World’s Greatest Heroes,” appeared to resemble mere mystery men, as opposed to divine beings of great power and expanse. And, with that comic book anti-climax, I left the concept (and soon, comics) to better concentrate on a young man’s pursuit of girls—that is, until I saw Kirby’s original “Fourth World” stories in high school, at the insistent prompting of my big brother, Steve. Those early chapters in the saga, like most everything else Kirby created by putting pencil to paper, blew my mind—and opened up shining, new doors of possibility. The stories, of course, were not only written, drawn, and edited by Kirby, but they were Kirbyesque in their grandeur. In fact, en masse, Kirby’s “Fourth World” epic—and everything that came after—had a strength and intensity that was worthy of a king.

A “King of Comics,” even. Kirby’s early DC Comics work was a revelation to me. Sure, I knew he co-created the better part of the Marvel Universe— including Captain America, Fantastic Four, The Incredible Hulk, The Mighty Thor, and so on—as well as many of the secondary characters who appeared in those books during his tenure. And, yes, his Eternals and Devil Dinosaur were also mighty indeed. But the New Gods and everything else he created at DC... wow! The “Original Universe,” as its promotional department called the publisher in the late ’90s and early 2000s, set Kirby free on its mid-selling, extremely vanilla Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen comic (Jimmy Olsen?!) way back in 1970... and, boy, did he hit the ground running. From rebooting Golden Age favorites like the Newsboy Legion and The Guardian, to introducing new concepts like Darkseid, the D.N.Aliens and the monster-movie planet of Transilvane, the acclaimed creator began to build the foundation of what would become his “Fourth World” epic—and it was good. Then came his triumphant cosmic trilogy— Forever People, New Gods, and Mister Miracle—and lo and behold, comic book history was made. And, we’re all the better for it. And, like his genius creation, Scott Free—the New God known as Mister Miracle who was inspired by the early exploits of comics legend Jim Steranko—Jack Kirby created Orion, et al., after he escaped his “marvelous” manacles at what was then “The House of Ideas” in the late 1960s, and sent comics fans’ imaginations spinning wildly with his Fourth World at the “Distinguished Competition.” Not only did Kirby end up escaping the mediocre and the confining with his epic four-color mythos, but so did we—his readers. Let me show you how.

The “DC Explosion” take on Orion was indubitably not Kirbyesque. In fact, the warrior god’s 1976 revamped super-hero look—including mask, spandex costume, and a Superman-ish “O” on his chest so you couldn’t mistake him for another—didn’t live up to the King’s unconquerable original design at all. Yes, I wrote “unconquerable.” Remember: “Orion fights for Earth!”

Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen was “us”—humanity as a whole—bearing witness to the unimaginable. Forever People was the children of the gods fighting the good fight with a passion for life and all its pleasures. New Gods was the battleground, the point zenith, the Ground Zero of Kirby’s Fourth World. And Mister Miracle was the reluctant warrior and his companions from all points Fourth World—Scott Free originally of New Genesis, Big Barda of Apokolips, and Oberon from Earth—and the magic that they held sway over the rest of the mythos. Like New Genesis, the epic was four-color heaven—but evidently, there was more to discover. Because of the efforts of Conway’s Return of the New Gods and the Steve Englehart-resurrected Mister Miracle, Kirby’s small part of the DC Universe didn’t exactly up and disappear in the mid-’70s when the King of Comics returned to Marvel. Apparently, DC’s 49

Powers That Be thought enough of Kirby’s creations to keep them around for a while—a long while, in fact. True, it continued askew from its creator’s original design; but still, his characters fought on nonetheless. So, if DC wasn’t willing to let go of Kirby’s characters, then why did they let go of the King himself? That’s a question to ponder as we look at his creations’ post-Kirby stories. The top-selling Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth continued on in his own comic until issue #59, which itself continued in The Brave and the Bold #157. (The long-lost last issue #60 was finally reprinted decades later in the pages of 2017’s Kamandi Challenge Special #1.) Within the nonKirby issues, readers would observe Kamandi transform briefly into an OMAC himself (issue #50), while learning once and for all that Buddy Blank was indeed the adventurer’s “grandfather” hinted at in the fan-favorite

story’s first chapter. The end of the series would also give readers a taste of Jim Starlin’s OMAC back-up story— including a new origin for the “One Man Army Corp”—which would finally conclude years later after the main stories of Warlord #37–39. Meanwhile, plot points from the last issues of OMAC—issues #7 and #8—were tidied up inside Hercules Unbound #10. Written by Cary Bates and illustrated by Kirby aficionado Walter Simonson, the fate of the nefarious Dr. Skuba was pondered by Hercules and the Atomic Knights, with our heroes witnessing firsthand the devastation left behind by the Kirby villain. The Demon bewitched Detective Comics #483– 485 in 1979, courtesy of the incomparable writer Len Wein and legendary artist Steve Ditko. Within this unholy trilogy of tales—which actually began in Detective Comics #482 in a chapter drawn by comics superstar Michael Golden—Kirby’s supernatural avenger faced off against the maniacal Baron Tyme. A short-lived villain, the evil Baron had just previously faced Man-Bat under Ditko’s watch in the first issue of the bathero’s ill-fated comic, and was apparently set to finish off Etrigan. Thankfully, he didn’t succeed. Jason Blood’s protégé Randu Singh from Kirby’s The Demon was also found in another of the King’s creations (with Steve Sherman), Kobra, where he lost his eyesight in issue 50

Lois Lane #116 has our heroine investigating Happyland, the deadly amusement park from Forever People that was the brainchild of Darkseid’s henchman, Desaad. Darkseid even puts in an appearance in the issue— which was likely the villain’s first ever non-Kirby-drawn appearance. So, for a time, Ms. Lane, like her young colleague Jimmy Olsen, found herself embroiled in a “Fourth World” of both peril and brilliance. And, even though they weren’t spun by the King of Comics, her tales—like the rest of his saga at DC—were absolutely essential for Kirby fans... even if they weren’t exactly Kirbyesque. H

#6—but not his “Second Sight.” The ominous Darkseid reappeared as the evil benefactor in Secret Society of Super-Villains, which he used to replace the apparently ineffective Inter-Gang. And don’t forget the nonKirby Newsboy Legion backup story in Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #150—“Where’s Charlie Now?”—bringing readers up-to-date with our favorite “weirdie” from the aptly named Evil Factory. So, yes, these books continued Kirby’s mythos at DC Comics into the late ’70s and beyond, but they weren’t the only ones influenced by the King’s fertile imagination. Although not officially part of Kirby’s “Fourth World” canon, Superman’s Girlfriend, Lois Lane did indeed offer comic book fans an apocrypha for the New Gods mythos. Of course, does that mean Lois Lane—Gal Reporter—is Kirbyesque? With the evidence presented, that’s something you’ll have to decide for yourself. In any case, Kirby’s characters were brought in to reach out to the King’s army of fans and tie into the popularity of his work on Jimmy Olsen. You know, maybe if Kirby wrote, drew, and edited the title like he did with the others he oversaw, it would have sold more. In any case, those jobs were left to editor E. Nelson Bridwell, writer Robert Kanigher, and artist Werner Roth. And, although the stories didn’t have much to add to Kirby’s “Fourth World” mythos, it did offer readers some small outsider’s insight into DC’s “Kirbyverse.” First, there was Lois Lane #111—a tale called “The Dark Side of the Justice League!”—which pitted the unsuspecting reporter against tiny clones of “The World’s Greatest Heroes” produced at the Evil Factory, a nefarious genetics laboratory helmed by Darkseid agents Simyan and Mokkari, and introduced in the pages of Jimmy Olsen. Lois Lane #114 and #117 continued the “Fourth World” influence by having Morgan Edge, the Daily Planet publisher who was replaced by a clone that served Darkseid in Inter-Gang, appear within their pages. In fact, Edge’s story becomes the focus of issues #118 and #119, as readers discovered more about his replacement by a clone agent of Darkseid, while the real Daily Planet publisher escapes the Evil Factory and meets up with The Outsiders—a super-motorcycle gang introduced in the pages of Jimmy Olsen. The New Gods mythos was felt more strongly in issue #115 when Lois encounters the then-new Kirby creation, The Black Racer, who debuted in New Gods #3. This issue, the Racer’s second appearance overall, has Willie Walker going about his mission as a messenger of death. 51

(previous page, top) Kamandi without Kirby still kept the Kirby concepts. And the Last Boy on Earth managed to have two team-ups with Batman in Brave & The Bold. (previous page, bottom) Writer Steve Englehart brought back Kirby’s 1970s Manhunter(s) in a villainous role, but Kirby had his own ideas for Manhunter villains in this concept piece for his revamp. (left) As on Machine Man, Steve Ditko takes over a character that Kirby originated—this time, The Demon, in Detective Comics #483. (below) “Adam” was a lucky guy to get this 1974 Kamandi sketch!

www.kirbymuseum.org Woo!

It’s been so long since we’ve updated you Kirby Collector folks! What’s been happening with the Jack Kirby Museum & Research Center, you ask...? Well, for three days in May of 2018, we had another pop-up at Dan Giella’s One Art Space in NYC titled “A Jack Kirby Odyssey” where we featured all of Kirby’s comics based on Stanley Kubrick’s and Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. The exhibit provided a tour through every Kirby story, with original art (our first pop-up with original art displayed) and nice color cover reproductions on the walls. We also printed huge bound versions of all of the photocopies we had of Kirby’s pencil art, for visitors to read. We had a large Kirby monolith! The pièce de résistance, you wonder? Well, how about a monster-sized version of Kirby’s 2001 Treasury Edition? Over the course of three days, we had talks, lectures, an improv comedy show, and multimedia readings of “Norton of New York” and “The New Seed!” It was a blast! Everyone who supports our efforts through donations, memberships, and purchases of our wares made this fantastic event happen. We can’t thank you enough, nor do it without you! Also, huge kudos to Museum president Tom Kraft for making the large prints of the Treasury and photocopies. Lisa Rigoux-Hoppe was a big help every day (as always!). Charter member Steve Meyer was also a big help (especially carrying monolith-sized foamcore on the NYC subway with Tom). Geoff Grimwood’s “Improv Church of the New Gods” was hilarious. James Romberger melded his Kubrick and Kirby studies in a talk with Rand Hoppe, the Jacked Kirby podcast guys recorded an episode, and the Hoboken Ministry of Cartoon Players (Lois Dilivio, RoDa, Rand and Lisa Hoppe)—well, they really hope to offer Kirby 2001 readings to the discerning public again. Will we pop up again in 2019? Stay tuned on Facebook, Twitter, our web site, and Tom Kraft and the HUGE Treasury Instagram.

Newsletter

TJKC Edition Spring 2019 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

in front of the Monolith!

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Just look at this 13⁄4" Galactic Head soft enamel pin (shown actual size)! C’mon! Who doesn’t want one of these? It comes in an acrylic case and has a black rubber clutch. Look for the link to “Support Us | For Sale” on our website at kirbymuseum.org: Only $10 plus shipping!

Annual Memberships with one of these posters: $50*

ALL ALL GONE GONE Captain America—23” x 29” 1941 Captain America—14” x 23”

one of these: $60*

Strange Tales—23” x 29” Super Powers—17” x 22” color

or this: $70*

PO Box 5236 Hoboken, NJ 07030 USA Telephone: (201) 204-0532 Continued thanks to John Morrow and TwoMorrows Publishing, as well as Lisa Kirby and the Kirby Estate All characters TM © their respective owners.

Thanks to all our new and returning members for their support, and our Board of Trustees & Advisory Board!

TRUSTEES: Rand Hoppe, Tom Kraft, Mike Cecchini ADVISORS: John Morrow, Charles Hatfield, David Schwartz, Mark Evanier Thanks as always to Bechara Maalouf of Nostalgic Investments for his support!

Marvel—14” x 23”

Galactic Head— 18” x 20” color

Fighting American print silkscreened in Switzerland 23” x 19”

*Please add $10 for memberships outside the US, to cover additional postage costs. Posters come “as-is” and may not be in mint condition.

INNERVIEW

This interview originally appeared in Fantasy Crossroads #1, 1974. Thanks to Manny Maris and Rand Hoppe for their work tracking it down. Throughout this interview are images from DC Comics’ 1980s Who’s Who series, done at the time Kirby finally got to put an ending of sorts on his Fourth World series, through the Hunger Dogs graphic novel.

Jack Kirby: Myth Maker

[Author’s note: During the Fall of 1973 I was preparing to teach a class entitled “The Comic Book As Fantasy Literature.” The bulk of the material for the class was copies of Jack Kirby’s Fourth World series. I was interested in clarifying certain points related to these comics, and so I sent the following letter to Mr. Kirby. His responses to the questions I sent him comprise the following interview.] Dear Mr. Kirby: In January 1974, I will be teaching a class entitled “The Comic Book As Fantasy Literature” at Graceland College. The course will deal with comic versions of pulp literature, the DC Green Lantern/Green Arrow series, and what has affectionately been labeled the “Kirby Tetralogy”. We will be studying the four books which composed the Apokolips/New Genesis Saga. In connection with the class, I’m wondering if you would be willing to answer some questions about the series. I believe the students will benefit more if they can understand some of the background and some of the creator’s feelings on the series. I personally feel that you are one of the greatest artists/editors in the history of comics. I have always been extremely interested in your creations and in following them through. I hope to pass some of this admiration on to the students in my class. Thank you in advance for any assistance you may be able to offer. Sincerely, Jonathan Bacon Dear Jonathan: I thank you for your interest in my work and, particularly for your discernment of something significant in what I consider my unfinished “God Opera.” Comics, to me, has always been an effective media worthy of a major work. Finished or unfinished, the so called “tetralogy” was my way of saying so. Its fate, good

Interview by Jonathan Bacon

or bad, is irrelevant. It seems to me that its direction is the important thing in the context of comics. I am pleased that your endeavors give us common ground, and will do my best to make my answers to your questionnaire as fruitful and informative as possible. At any rate, please accept my best wishes for the success of your most unique and challenging course. Your friend, Jack Kirby

JONATHAN BACON: Having a comic novel spread over four different comic books is a new innovation in the field, isn’t it? What other experiments would you like to try in the comic field? JACK KIRBY: As a maverick by nature, and a qualified comic artist by profession, I’m geared to try anything, both imaginative and conventional. My job is to tell a story and seek an audience. I will do it as effectively as I can. BACON: Can you pinpoint any influence or event which began your thinking about developing the Apokolips/ New Genesis saga? KIRBY: I believe that every man reaches a stage where he’d like to sum up what he’s seen, heard, and read. I believe he does this to find some value in the scars he’s collected on the road to this plateau. Although, packaged in idealism and adventure, the New Genesis/ Apokolips tale, to me, is quite real and a product of my own sincerity. BACON: Didn’t I read somewhere that New Gods will be put in a paperback format? Is this coming? Will it be a repeat of the DC episodes or will it contain new adventures? Who is the publisher? KIRBY: The New Gods is still a subject for repackaging. It’s all I can say. BACON: In comics I understand that first an artist/ editor/writer must entertain, but do you feel a need to express symbolic statements on the nature of man, the cosmos, or life? Or are such speculations merely trying to put meaning where none was intended? KIRBY: Of course, I’ve answered part of this question in number two. However, all artists and writers in general are people, and their personal make-up will reflect in their work. Writing and drawing reveal definable clues to characters. There is boldness and blandness in style. There is evidence of professional restraint and marked departures, creativity and pap, disdain for the reader and a willingness to meet his needs. BACON: In light of your New Genesis/Apokolips saga, what statement does it make on man? Are humans (represented by Lincoln, Lanza and company) merely pawns of the gods? Is man represented by Orion, whose

ugly self has been overcome by Love (Mother Box)? Or does Scott Free represent man with his innate goodness which perseveres despite Granny Goodness’ orphanage? KIRBY: Lincoln, Lanza and Company are not pawns of the gods. Instead, they are man’s sense of awareness of awesome and volatile forces around him. We bottle these forces and stack them in silos. We play with others, in order to define their full potential. We’re too sophisticated to be thoroughly cowed by the unknown. We’re too hip to employ any mythologic romanticism in our dealings with these forces. We’ll playfully label a destructive missile “Nike,” but we sure as Hell won’t build a religion around it. However, the Biblicals did it. The Medievals did it. They wrapped up their view of the universe and its elements into a theological, nationalistic package and lived by it. And the gods are very real. They are the full totality of these forces. Darkseid is total power. How do we handle that? Orion is total destruction. He’s on our doorstep, now. Lightray is purest virtue. How would you stick it to him if you had to? Who would deny that Metron is alive? The capacity for obtaining total knowledge is growing rapidly all around us. Yet all of us will know the frustration of dying before every universal secret is revealed. Even as Metron lives without all the answers, we shall pass away before a mighty, empty blackboard. Yes, the gods are there. But we’re still not equipped to get in on their action. So they play their game wherever they see fit. By creative projection, I merely sought to draw some interest in their direction. In reference to Scott Free, you hit close to the mark. He’s the best in man, in contention with the machinery of power. It’s oily and noisy and deadly. Man’s problem is to juggle it so he doesn’t get too dirty, too loud or too sick. Mother Box is as inexplicable as the Source. She’s a quality in man which gives him an edge when he needs it. (All of this is strictly my opinion, of course.)

can lay the meat on the table. BACON: Metron is one of my favorite characters. Is he the Judas of New Genesis? How do you view him? What role did you envision for him? KIRBY: To know Metron or Judas, I believe, is to know the measure of their desires. Judas, a simple guy, wanted only silver. Metron, a god with the potential of acquiring all the answers, was ego-stricken by the denial of any. Metron, like Darkseid and Orion, is a monumental image with monumental frustrations. He might pour the universe down a manhole for the correct solution to some mystery. BACON: Why did you have Willie become the Black Racer? Was it just a functional part of the story? Or were you trying to say something by having a Black, Vietnam veteran, paraplegic become the epitome of Death? KIRBY: When I created the character Willie, I did indeed find myself with a Black paraplegic, racing through the skies on far-out skis as an Angel of Death. There’s enough analysis in that for the both of us. I’ll leave you to grind out yours, because I’m still busy figuring out my own answers. BACON: If you had to make a single statement on the tetralogy, what would it be? What were you trying to do or say? KIRBY: I was merely trying to say, “Look around. We’ve got problems—with ourselves, with others—that it’s a toss-up and not a scenario that we’re up against... we may become the victims or the beneficiaries of our trip through existence, but there’s one thing I’m sure of. There isn’t a salesman anywhere, with a book or bottle or pill, who can turn you into anything but what you are—a human being. H

BACON: The gods of Apokolips are descendants of a sorceress (New Gods #7). To whom do you refer? KIRBY: I refer to Karnilla of the Thor stories. Even as Good and Evil mesh in principle, it was my choice to have her pregnant by Balder, the genetic seeder of New Genesis. BACON: When you talk about the “old gods” passing away, are you referring to the Norse gods and Ragnarok? KIRBY: Yes. The Old Gods, I felt, belonged in the context of the Middle Ages. What I did was to go on beyond their destruction (chronicled in their mythology) and resurrect the concept in more modern terms. BACON: What is the Source? Is it the order behind the universe or merely a communication device to a higher power? Do the New Genesis gods have gods? KIRBY: The Source, to me, is an unknown quantity. In this case, I act on the theory that whatever a man can conjure up in his own mind has the possibility of existence. Men have tried to find the Source in sticks and stones and fire and water and in other men. However, if you wish to see it in universal order, well, that’s great. All I ask is that you don’t proselytize until you 54

An ongoing examination of Kirby’s art and compositional skills

Simon & Kirby inkers

s someone who has been mildly obsessed with Kirby’s work most of my life, over the years I find myself continually returning to a subject that has fascinated me since I was twelve. That was when I saw my first sample of Golden Age Captain America art, ostensibly written and drawn by the creative team of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. The artwork had been used as a faded backdrop for a stark black-and-white photograph of the Captain America that had appeared in the 1944 Republic Pictures film serial. The photo-montage accompanied an article in a 1964 issue of Screen Thrills Illustrated, a magazine devoted to old action-adventure films and serials. This issue featured an article about the first on-screen Captain America. The star-spangled hero was suddenly hot again because Marvel Comics’ Stan Lee and Cap’s original co-creator/artist Jack Kirby had just revived him. I was around twelve years old and had been looking at Kirby’s work since 1960, although I’d not heard of Joe Simon until the day I read that issue of Screen Thrills. I learned that Kirby and Simon

had not only worked together since 1940, but also had a stable of artists to assist them. There was in particular a strange fascination with the first ten issues of Captain America, done for Timely 1 Comics in 1941. Creator/artist/magician Jim Steranko stated that he had developed much of his comic drawing style while obsessively poring over those ten issues. There is some sort of complex magic emanating from those pages that defies description. Looking at the artwork, it’s instantly clear that the mix of artists is so jumbled across the pages, sometimes even from panel-to-panel, that identifying them has challenged and stumped many an expert art spotter. Several of the hands that worked on those pages are unknown and probably never will be known. Several years ago, I decided to create a sort of blog dialog by corresponding with Atlas expert Michael Vassallo as well as general art connoisseur Jim Vadeboncoeur. We began with the consensus that essentially, the team of Simon and Kirby featured Jack as the primary artist/writer, while Simon did writing, layouts, some drawing and inking, but primarily functioned in an editorial capacity. It is fairly certain that Kirby always penciled and inked part of or the majority of the splash pages, which graduated to double-page spreads on some stories by issue #6. On Captain America #1, we can probably assume that Simon and

We know that Kirby has a sentimental fondness for the sequencing of those two panels, 3 because he revisited them decades later in a reenactment of Cap’s origin in Tales of Suspense #63. The last panel in that page is also powerfully Kirby’s, showing the foreshortening of the needle as it moves forward, down, to the left and out of the panel towards the anxiously waiting Steve Rogers. The top half of page five is drawn by Kirby and probably inked by Liederman. Panels five and six look to have been inked at least partially by Kirby. The figure of Steve Rogers in panel five is drawn with a solid understanding of anatomy and shading, and Roger’s face in panel six is even more sharply delineated. However, something about page five may suggest the work of another artist, originally brought to many of our attentions by researcher Mike Vassallo. It is the quality of the linework, and specifically the crosshatched shading in panels two and five of page 5, that may call to mind the technique of inker George Klein. Klein will certainly begin working on the series by issue #3. Page six, 4 showing the shooting of Professor Reinstein, is drawn by Kirby and inked partially by him as well. Panel five is a fine forced perspective shot of the shooter, which Kirby also revisited during the 1964 origin sequence. Panels six through eight have a nice action-to-action continuity that Kirby will continue to perfect over his career. Page seven is awkwardly drawn and shows little or no Kirby at all, but page eight finishes off the story with adequate pencils and some inks by the King. This story, like those to follow in this issue, is for the most part very quickly drawn, as there is probably a rush to get the book on the stands. As a result, Kirby got into the habit of lavishing attention on the splash panel. Thereafter, he worked less carefully,

4 Kirby plotted the story together, and in this case Simon did a good deal of the drawing with Kirby. Looking first at the cover, 1 it’s obviously a Kirby drawing, and is inked mostly by him as well. Simon certainly may have worked on both the drawing and the inking, but the final presentation is so polished that it’s hard to pick out specifics with any certainty. If we look at the inside of the first issue, we see that, as became usual through the series, Kirby drew and inked at least part of the splash page. However, the drawing of Cap is slightly stiff and may be derived from a drawing or layout by Joe Simon, with tightening up and a feathered ink embellishment by Kirby. Page two is probably laid out by Kirby, but we see the artists in question experimenting with the circular third panel, which misdirects us a bit. The eye drops from it to the fifth panel, prior to scanning the one preceding it. Jim Vadeboncoeur believes that this panel is Joe Simon’s work, both for the layout and the gag line sentence that Roosevelt speaks. In the words of author Charles Hatfield from his book Hand of Fire, “Simon had a penchant for elaborate, sometimes even gimmicky layouts that Kirby admired and absorbed early on.” Page three is pretty run-of-the-mill, other than the nice touch of the curio shop window in panel three. I have to agree with Jim Vadeboncoeur that this was probably laid out and penciled by Joe Simon and inked by Al Liederman, whom Joe Simon claims also inked most of the issue. Page four is a different story, 2 for here we begin to see more of Kirby’s dynamic, cinematic style of storytelling. In panel one, we see Kirby’s love for futuristic lab equipment manifested in this small, deep space panel. Panel two shows the faux crone removing her mask, a motif that Kirby never tired of exploring through his long career.

5 57

sketching or just roughly laying out the story, until he came to a panel or sequence that captured his interest, whereupon his style became clear again. In those panels where he was not giving his all, the technique of a less accomplished inker could do little to improve the penciling. What is even more frustrating is that the back-up feature in this issue, Hurricane, 5 is beautifully drawn and inked by Kirby. One can only surmise that the Hurricane episode had already been completed prior to the publication of the rush job that became Captain America #1. Seeing the art herein makes us wish that Kirby had the time to give the entire issue his all. The Sando and Omar story that follows has a strong Kirby drawn splash panel, but most of the story and the rest of the issue does not shine. Kirby redid this story in the Sixties as well, and gave us a wonderful re-imagining of that panel with its huge crystal ball at its center. The next most memorable aspect of this issue is the first appearance of the Red Skull. Artwise, this story is not particularly noteworthy. The splash panel looks to be a fairly quick Kirby layout finished by Simon. Page two has more Kirby, with even some inking. Panel two of the Red Skull climbing through the window is a tiny gem. The rest of the story is a hodgepodge—touches of Kirby art and inking, but probably mostly Simon and Liederman. Kirby will also revisit this story in the 1960s in Cap’s appearance in Tales of Suspense #65, greatly expanding on and improving it.

Captain America #2 6 is where we really begin to see something unusual. The team of S&K, as well as Timely, have realized that they have a hit on their hands, and more care is lavished on this issue. Still, there is not nearly enough pure Kirby to satisfy, and in the face of semi-mediocrity, we yearn for purer unadulterated Kirby. What we do see that is wondrous is the appearance of Reed Crandall. In the early Golden Age, circa late-’30s to mid-’40s, Crandall was employed by some of the top publishers in the field, turning out a large body of excellent work for the Eisner-Iger shop, via Quality Comics. It appears that he briefly did some work for Timely as well. Crandall’s style, very much like that of fellow Eisner artist Lou Fine, was highly refined and illustrative, showing influences from classical illustrators like James Montgomery Flagg and J.C. Leyendecker. Crandall is probably best known for his work on Quality Publications’ Blackhawk comic book. Jim Vadeboncoeur, who also sees Crandall on several pages in Cap #2, said this about what that exceptional artist brought to comics: “Real figures balanced in real space in poses that you can emulate. Solid anatomy. The clothes on everybody drape naturally.” What I see, particularly in the story “The Ageless Orientals Who Would Not Die”, is that Crandall is probably drawing, if not inking, many of the pages. Roger Hill, author of Reed Crandall, Illustrator of the Comics agrees, saying that Crandall has confirmed that he did some drawing on the issue. The inking is also exceptionally fine as well, which is why Hill and I both think that Crandall did at least a portion of it. These shots of an agile, elongated Captain America moving through space are a revelation in fluid action figurework. Crandall’s style is especially apparent in panel seven, when we see Cap and Bucky running. The second example wherein I see Crandall’s presence, comes from the story entitled “The Wax Statue That Struck Death.” 7 Crandall really seems to shine both as penciler and inker in page ten of that story. This is surely one of the most beautifully drawn pages in the run of Cap #1-10. The etched ink lines throughout the page are stunning and illustrative in a way that I’ve compared to both Lou Fine and Will Eisner, and emulating the sculpture-like artistry of illustrator J.C. Leyendecker. The lines on the hand in panel two and the attention to detail in folds of clothing throughout the page are outstanding. Crandall can be seen in touches throughout, but other than he, Simon, and Kirby, there is one or maybe several slovenly hands working on the issue. There is also what looks like a very rough, cartoony version of Crandall. This may even be Crandall penciling quickly and roughly, and then being inked by someone less competent.

The beauty of Crandall’s hand shows up again in Captain America #3 in pages three through seven of the “Weird Case of the Murdering Butterfly and the Ancient Mummy” story, with some lithe action figures and elegant drawings throughout. Page four is a standout with the nefarious Butterfly crouching over his prostrate victim. Kirby’s own best action sequences are on page eight, with Cap delivering an awesome roundhouse right in panel eight. “The Hunchback of Hollywood” story is a mix of good to very nice, with some beautiful Cap and Bucky 58

action figures by Kirby on page six and deft fencing scenes on page sixteen, but the true revelation of the issue is the Kirby drawn and beautifully inked splash panel for the Red Skull story that opens the issue. 8 The shot of the phony Cap and Bucky hanging with ball and chain attached, while the Red Skull gloats as the real team tiptoe down the stairs, is unforgettable. In my opinion, it is one of the most captivating single panels in comic book history. The rest of the story is adequate to very good. I also see a drawing of the Cap and Bucky figures in panel two of page four that Steranko possibly reshaped and used on page 11 of Captain America #110. Michael Vassallo is certain that artist Al Avison has started penciling over Kirby layouts on the Red Skull story in Cap #3. Avison is showing himself to be the strongest finisher of Kirby’s pencils and layouts, and will eventually take over as artist when Kirby and Simon leave the strip. George Klein inks parts of Captain America #3 and Vassallo also sees George Roussos’ inking style in the “Hunchback of Hollywood” story. Syd Shores, another future Captain America artist

also begins inking chores here, so we start to see a solid team of professionals form around the production of the book. With issue #4, Al Avison becomes the primary artist under Kirby for penciling over the King’s layouts, with Syd Shores, Al Gabrielle and George Klein inking.

Captain America #5 continues to have mostly Kirby art and layouts finished predominantly by Avison, but in the story entitled “Killers of the Bund”, another very accomplished hand may be appearing. 9 About seven years ago, Steven Brower, Glen Story and I debated on the possibility that later S&K studio artist Mort Meskin had worked on this issue. We compiled a montage of faces from several panels Meskin had drawn later on [below]. There are definite similarities in the styles of Meskin and the artist on this page. (By the way, for those interested in learning more about Mort Meskin, Steven Brower has recently had a book published on the artist, entitled From Shadow to Light.) The remainder of Simon & Kirby’s run on Captain America had Kirby consistently drawing and inking most of what became very cinematic double-page splash panels. Kirby would usually pencil or lay out a good portion of the book, but Al Avison continued as the main artist other than Kirby 59

(below) Examples of Mort Meskin faces, compiled to determine if he worked on Captain America Comics #5.

on the strip. As a matter of fact, that page that I earlier mentioned that had been reproduced in Screen Thrills Illustrated which made me first aware of Simon & Kirby, was a perfect example of Kirby’s strong artistic guidance brought to finish by Avison’s pencils and inker George Klein. This page is from “The Black Witch” story in issue #8, 10 and I consider the double-page spread from that same story, 11 which Kirby

Kirby after issue #10. In issues #11 and #12, we can see Avison’s work lacks solidity. He is clearly on his own, fighting to stay afloat after his original support group has disappeared. In issue #13, he begins to find his footing, perhaps inspired by the gravity of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Avison goes full throttle on an “All-Out for America Issue” that Timely publishes just after the attack. This final splash panel is from Captain America #17, which was the first actual Golden Age comic that I owned back in 1965. 12 Unfortunately, decades ago, I made the mistake of cutting it into a montage. The panel shows Avison’s more confident rendering of action as learned from working so closely with the King. Avison left the book by issue #20, and inker Syd Shores took over pencil duties. He was not as strong an artist, but his work was still up to company standards. Shores would return as a prolific inker in the late 1960s, working most notably on Captain America and giving Kirby’s art a decidedly Golden Age look. H

both drew and inked, to be the crowning achievement of the entire ten issue run. As mentioned earlier, Avison would be the first artist on the book following the departure of Simon & 60

Godparent

A Tribute To Jerry Siegel

by Jack Kirby

[This tribute to the co-creator of Superman first appeared in the 1975 San Diego Comic-Con souvenir book, and was written at the request of editor Shel Dorf, who brought Jerry Siegel—one of the fathers of the super-hero genre—out to be honored at the convention that year. Our thanks go to the late co-founder of Comic-Con for his permission to use this in the Kirby Collector.]

the staples which supported the pulps from which the comics personnel had been recruited. The size and shape of comic magazines were juggled about as well as their content. Giant comics competed for sales with midget counterparts. And if the circle and triangle were ignored in the battle of formats, I can assure one and all that it was purely an oversight. As a young artist, 21 years of age, with the responsibility of earning a living and making the most of my contribution to the field, I found myself, with all the others, looking for that solid anchor that would keep things from drifting off before they had a chance to develop into something substantial and lasting. It was a crucial time, when the comic magazine hovered between materializing as a genuine medium or vanishing as a temporary fad. It was at that juncture when I became aware of Jerry and his partner, Joe. I learned that Jerry wrote and Joe drew. I saw the products of their labors and realized that I’d finally been given a goal to shoot at. These guys had given me something to emulate and a direction to follow. In fact, what had happened, is that they’d given it to the entire industry, and in turn, to the world. I never got to know Joe Shuster. But, I feel privileged in having talked to Jerry Siegel, who’s kept me and a lot of other artists working all these years. We might never have had our super-heroes if Jerry Siegel and his partner Joe hadn’t come up with that first biggie: “Superman.” H

(above) Jerry Siegel with the comic that started it all in 1938: Action Comics #1. (below) Jerry with wife Joanne and daughter Laura Siegel in 1975. (right, l to r) Siegel, Joe Shuster, Jack Kirby, and Jim Steranko, circa 1975. All photos by Shel Dorf.

don’t know Jerry very well. My wife and I entertained him as a dinner guest when we moved from Long Island to Irvine, California. Jerry is one of our peer group and we got along just fine. Well, Roz and I haven’t seen Jerry since that warm evening in Irvine, but we often think about that time when we think about all the good and creative people who have touched our lives. What’s more, we think about Jerry when we consider how much our lives have been shaped by the growth of comics. “Why should Jerry be involved in such a large and human question?” you say. Well, there’s a very simple answer to it. In fact, the sheer simplicity of it is what makes it monumental in scope. And what makes it monumental in scope, is that the history books will record it. The comic magazine, as I first remember it, was a young and struggling industry, without a guideline or a certainty of direction. The magazines were published by people who’d never published any. They were produced by editors who’d never produced any, and they were drawn and written by men and women who were given the task of doing something with the media. As you can well imagine, the ideas began to flow in a thousand different spectrums. The stands began to fill with funny comics, weird comics, and many of 61

Bargain Rack...

...to Haute couture!

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

or this “Fathers and Sons” issue, I thought it would #88. There is one very noteworthy difference, though: be interesting to look at one of Jack’s more famous The two large circle designs that Jack drew on Odin’s father/son pairings: Odin and Thor. I actually covbelt have become one and moved from the belt onto ered all of Jack’s versions of Thor back in TJKC #44; if Odin’s torso—in almost exactly the same spot Thor’s you don’t have that issue, the short version is that Jack are placed. It’s actually Joe, then, who begins to visuheavily relied on the basic design ideas put forth by turnally equate the father and son characters with similar of-the-century illustrator Arthur Rackham and his paintfeatures. Joe continues with the next several issues, (above) Joe Sinnott’s Journey ings based on Richard Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelung. Into Mystery #92 swipe, based on drawing Odin fairly consistently, but still noticeably (Yes, even including those circle designs on Thor’s chest relying heavily on Kirby’s JIM #88 panel (right). in both his 1957 and 1962 iterations!) Jack’s biggest Jack’s rendering from departure from Rackham’s general designs was that, at Marvel, he #86. (Issue #95 in fact features Odin drew Thor’s cape more sitting in exactly the same manner in a traditional superJack drew him in, but just from a hero style as opposed to different perspective.) a fur that was wrapped Jack doesn’t really return to around the body for drawing Odin until #97. There’s a warmth. quick facial appearance in the main Odin first story, but what’s more relevant now appeared in Journey into are the “Tales of Asgard” Mystery #86, several months after Thor’s debut. Only his face is depicted, however, so there is little design to discern. We do see that Jack has given him a full mustache and beard, and part of a helmet can be seen coming down over his eyes with a nondescript wing motif on the brow. Readers’ first glimpse of Odin in full is on the cover of Journey into Mystery #88; however, this was likely drawn after Jack finished the interior, which includes a seated Odin in one panel. Both depictions are small and, therefore, comparatively light on details, but there is enough there to see that the two designs are different. The boots, leggings, and belt are distinct in each drawing. Odin’s appearance in #89 is, once again, just a face [above], though this time without a helmet. Issue #90 features another face-only appearance; however, this issue was drawn by Al Hartley and it appears he largely copied Odin’s visage from #86. Joe Sinnott handled the art duties in #91, showing a bare-chested Odin, wearing only a cape and somewhat stereotypical Viking helmet. Joe took on the art duties for Odin’s next appearance, and here the character appears for seven panels, the most for any single story to date. In most of these panels, we only see a small portion of Odin and he looks much like how Joe drew him previously. What’s interesting is that the one full-body shot we have . Mystery #101 of him is copied almost exactly from Jack’s drawing of him in JIM Journey Into in or Th g un yo Odin and

back-up stories. Odin gets featured much more prominently here, and Jack finally seems to devote some time to the character’s appearance. What’s interesting is that he seems to take a cue from Joe’s notion of making some visual similarities between the father and son. Odin’s early appearances here have him in an outfit that looks like a less tailored version of Thor’s outfit, complete with a fur cape and winged helmet. While there’s certainly a fair amount of variation from issue to issue, Jack keeps the basic concept of Odin’s appearance throughout: The fur cape, the winged helmet, leg wrappings… Especially when you consider Odin wasn’t appearing in every “Tales of Asgard” story and that they were only five pages long to begin with, Jack remained remarkably consistent (for him) in Odin’s design here until Journey Into Mystery #117. But I’ll get to that in a bit. Journey into Mystery changed the focus of the lead stories beginning with #103. While Loki was a fairly ever-present foil, Thor was often fighting the likes of the Stone Men of Saturn, Zarrko, and Mr. Hyde before. The stories shifted more towards Asgard, likely taking a cue from the success of the back-ups. (Indeed, Stan Lee has an editor’s note in #105 thanking readers who have “flooded them with letters in praise of ‘Tales of Asgard!’”) But with this shift in focus, we also see Jack give Odin a complete redesign, putting him in more regal looking Journey Into Mystery #108. armor, complete with shoulder pads and flame-etched knee pads. But the design doesn’t stick, and Odin is wearing something entirely different in JIM #104. And something different again in #105. And again in #106. And over in Avengers #7. And back in Journey #107. Sometimes he has a helmet, sometimes not. Sometimes he has a cape, sometimes not. Sometimes he’s in furs, sometimes not. By the time we get to Journey Into Mystery #113, Odin is shown in three distinctly different costumes in the lead story. The only consistent element of Jack’s design for Odin is that he’s always a large man with a flowing, white beard. This could be chalked up to Jack’s poor memory, but I don’t think that’s what’s going on here. In the first place, all of the other Asgardian characters are

shown pretty consistently; it seems odd that he could remember Balder’s visual, but not Odin’s. Further, Jack continued drawing Odin in the “Tales of Asgard” backups. The job numbers we know suggest Jack worked on both the lead story and the back-ups for a single issue in close proximity to one another, so why would he go all over the map with his designs in the lead story, but keep to a single premise for the back-ups? I mentioned the change in Journey #117. Odin’s last “Tales of Asgard” appearance before that was #113. In that issue, Odin is shown fighting the king of the Jotunheim “in order to secure his rightful reign!” But when we see him in #117, he’s described as “mighty overlord of Asgard, ruler of all that he surveys,” and that Asgard itself has been at peace for some time. So when Odin is still just a warrior up through #113, his costume is fairly consistent (for Jack)—but once he becomes ruler, his appearance changes regularly. This is clearly very deliberate on Kirby’s part. What I think Jack is doing here is showing Odin’s elevated status among the gods. Historically, kings and queens would wear different garments as often as they could to show off their status/wealth. Virtually everybody else had only one or two outfits at most. That royalty could afford to change clothes so often was a sign of their power. Jack seems to be using that notion here, showing Odin’s early days in a manner that’s very reminiscent of Thor, allowing the visuals to show how the father was indeed quite a bit like his son in his younger days; but once he stepped into his role leading Asgard, he became more like a king with the changing costumes spotlighting that. I think it was an idea Jack may have stumbled into. The inconsistencies in Odin’s earliest appearances seem to bear enough similarities to one another that they seem more like accidents. Odin’s later appearances, particularly once we start seeing those almost comically oversized and ornate headpieces, are very much deliberately different. Jack wasn’t showing off or being forgetful; he realized that a young Odin and an older, wiser Odin would look and act differently, and had them dress the part, including making more than a few visual nods to Thor in the process—to reinforce that the son isn’t so different from the father after all. H 63

Odin was the Liberace of Asgard, from his outrageous headwear (top, from Journey Into Mystery #104)...

...to the craziest getups imaginable, as shown above from JIM #117. (left) In the same issue (Journey Into Mystery #104), Odin went from plainclothes, to battle attire. Beau Brummell had nothing on the All-Father!

Kirby As A Genre

Mister Masterpiece

Unlocking Scott Free, in a pop-psychology session with columnist Adam McGovern and writer Tom King

Do not adjust your Mother Box: Mitch Gerads’ existencebending cover to the first issue (above, this page) and existence-ending first spread from Scott’s journey to oblivion and back (below, this page).

Next page: (top) Love at war, with the Miracle family (text: King/art: Gerads). (center) Kirby speaks through Scott’s father-figure (text: King & Kirby/art: Gerads). (bottom) Cover artist Nick Derington fills in some fury.

he Fourth World was not your father’s cosmic war—but fatherhood has played a defining role in every generation of it. Bad and absentee dads set the entire saga in motion, as the patriarchs of righteous, idyllic New Genesis and desolate, dystopian Apokolips swap sons to secure a ceasefire. The sins of these fathers cast shadows across the conflict which inevitably flares up again, and Kirby’s epic was conceived in the shadow of a dishonorable war which consumed many young people (no doubt some of whom had grown up with his stories). Kirby himself had known war since his own childhood, in the turf battles between gangs of the ethnic ghettos he was born into, and later as a youth in WWII. His creations survive, and among his most recent spiritual heirs, perhaps none have done him prouder than writer, Iraq War veteran and father of three Tom King, and groundbreaking, uncompromising artist Mitch Gerads, who spent a year (and who each won an Eisner) newly making Mister Miracle. In this version King cuts to the heart of Scott Free and Barda’s lifetime pain and hard-fought love in tribute to Kirby’s most soul-bearing of series, while Gerads creates a labyrinth of possible realities for the protagonists to find their way through, with a quietly astounding style of layered

imagery and clashing moods and textures which fulfills Kirby’s ambitions for the artform. As the series was about to meet even more admirers in its first collected edition, I spoke with this newest of comic “Kings” about the one he and Gerads were honoring. THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR: In both your professional loves and personal outlook, what connects you to Kirby? TOM KING: Asking someone who spends their life loving comics what brought them to Jack Kirby is like asking someone who spent their life loving music what brought them to Mozart. [laughs] You dip into comics, and [then] you go deep enough and you start finding that every single arrow points in the same direction, they all lead back to Kirby at some point. It’s hard to say what brings me to Kirby, he’s always been there; it’s kind of like what brings fish to the water, it’s where you’re swimming. TJKC: And how about to this particular character? KING: I’d been scheduled to do a project with Mitch Gerads, the brilliant artist who brings it all to life, which got cancelled at the last minute. So the publisher of DC Comics, Dan DiDio, said he’d like us to do a literary series like I’d done at Marvel with The Vision, and said, “Is there a character you’d like to work on?” I said, “No, I want you to give me a character,” so if it’s bad the guilt would be on him, [laughs] and he offered Mister Miracle. When somebody offers you the New Gods you don’t say no! I was at a con, so the next day I went straight to the TwoMorrows booth. [laughter] I just started reading every interview with Kirby I could find, and researching the deeper themes of this work. I talked with Frank Miller about his experiences with Kirby in his younger days; Mike Royer who of course inked the [Fourth World]—just to get some firsthand accounts of what it meant to everybody. And once I had that point of view on it, it became an idea of how can you personalize it, because nobody knew better than Kirby that nothing is literature 64

unless you put yourself into it. So this is like 2016. And I had gone through one of these, sort of nervous breakdowns, where I had— everything was going well for me; my job was going well, my family was going well, everything was going great—and I had one of these “heart-attacks” like in The Sopranos where you wake up in the hos-

to do justice to? KING: People who’ve read the old Mister Miracles know that Kirby starts each comic with almost a monologue to the reader, and closes each one with a monologue, in this weird Stan Lee-ish way, and I thought, what if I start and end each issue with a Kirby monologue? When I started each issue, the first thing I would do is put those words as the first thing on the page, and hope that the words would inspire the book, and also connect it to the old work. And also sort of say, this is a book about gods, and Kirby is the god of these characters, he’s the actual creator. TJKC: I know what you mean about those texts—it’s almost like Kirby is being the carnival-barker for this circus-like character! And what better setting to send up Stan? [laughs] KING: “If Stan can do three words alliterated, I’m gonna do six words alliterated.” And, the random punctuation, and—it’s just glorious, I love it. TJKC: It does occur to me that the hyperbole, alongside you and Gerads’ realistic treatment, reminds me of how Lucas opened THX-1138 with a carefree Buck Rogers clip before going into this frightening dystopia. KING: The trade opens with this Funky Flashman-narrated introduction to the New Gods, just about eight pages, and I tried to write in that style? And I can’t write like Kirby! There’s a certain genius to that, you can’t just throw random alliterations out there, it has to be the right word; there’s a brilliance to it that makes it cool.

pital and say “Am I dying or crazy?” And you hope they say you’re crazy… and they said, “Oh no, you’re crazy” and I said, “Oh, good…”. TJKC: I’ve had a few of those too! KING: And I thought about what brought me here, and after that the world had gone a little insane; I mean I don’t get political about it, but since 2016 the country really has changed in a way I never thought it would’ve changed. And it just seemed like everything was a little off, and everyone everywhere was tense; sort of a new American anxiety that had taken over everyone. And I live on Capitol Hill; I remember the inauguration was coming up, and there was a big change coming up and I wanted to write about that; not the politics of it, but the emotion of it.

TJKC: I guess Homer knew that, and so does Kirby! And one of the many things your book made me realize is that, even though Kirby was known for bombastic imagery, he was going for a simplicity of expression in his writing. You hit upon many truths and codes for living in your version, and Kirby had this cut-to-the-bone Hemingway approach, while Stan’s words were as ornate as Kirby’s images. Which seems to deflect from feeling, whereas Kirby was going for the rawness of facing those emotions. KING: Look at the final issue of Mister Miracle, #18, the wedding scene at the end of the whole thing—it’s like six or seven panels, and there’s just so much joy and love, and human emotion in so few panels; there’s no one who can do that, who can do so much with so little.

TJKC: One thing I always liked about Hunger Dogs (and I know I’m in a minority) was how the volatile agitation of the Nixon years as reflected in the original Fourth World stories’ open conflict had shifted to this late-Cold War drabness and inevitability, with Darkseid a figurehead over this automated slaughter. KING: So I had this idea that [Scott] was gonna escape death, and then I sort of had the next idea—well, what happened?—so he kills himself and what happens? Well, how about he just wakes up—just like I had a panic attack and I just went home. And he didn’t know if his world is real or not because everything seems off. That’s what happened to me, so I translated that into the book. TJKC: It’s fascinating how, in the way that Kirby’s New Gods issues would sometimes open with what seemed like prophecies quoted from some ancient cosmic source, parts of his own pulpy narration from old Mister Miracle issues are quoted as if that’s now the scripture of your version. Was it a welcome foundation to have at hand, or a scary reminder of what you had

TJKC: Have you read things like Glen Gold’s essay on Kirby’s PTSD from World War II? KING: No, I haven’t read that, sorry. TJKC: Well, it seems to be coming more to the surface in American pop culture—literally in books like your own Heroes In Crisis, or the recovery themes in many Marvel Netflix shows—welling up as the subject, not just what spurred the storytelling. KING: I see [Kirby’s] war experience and his emotional reaction all over his stuff. He’s a guy who—when you do comics for a living, when you actually are doing this every single day, and have a weekly deadline—eventually you run out of stuff in your life and you have 65

to start tearing [out] pieces of yourself… if you want to be good; you could not be good and just pretend all your life. But if you want to be transcendent, you have to start tearing yourself apart, and putting that on the page, because you run out of material. And I see that in Kirby, I see that when I read Mister Miracle and New Gods, I see his frustration with war and yet his attraction to it, and then the idea that good things come of it, but it also leaves this incredible damage—Kirby wrestles with ideas, he doesn’t offer simple explanations. I feel like you can tell somebody’s experience when they’re writing something, you can tell Kirby’s experience in his stuff.

the themes that Kirby worked with were so relevant to our times, this fascist thing that’s trying to destroy hope that kind of always haunts us; we can’t quite get rid of it, though we’ve got to fight it. All these themes are so relevant today, and it was just very easy to make them modern. TJKC: A lot has been said about the nine-panel grid used throughout your Mister Miracle—it immediately struck me as a metaphor for confinement, but it certainly was another way to go against the Kirby grain, since his frame would expand to whatever grand scale he needed—even though by the time of the Fourth World he was mostly about an angular grid himself, and what mattered was what went on inside that movie-screen. Was [your use of the grid] to make the story more digestible, and aid in that more intimate focus? KING: At least for me as a writer, the best thing I can do is put myself in a box, be like, “Okay, here are the rules you can write [by]”; the worst thing for a writer is a big blank page, like “Hey, do whatever you want.” It wasn’t so much a challenge—I mean, of course it was a challenge for Mitch to draw like 2500 panels through this whole thing—but for me as a writer, I love it. And like you said, it did just come from a simple metaphor of, here’s a guy who feels trapped, so here’s a literal grid of bars over every single page. And whenever those bars drop we see splash pages; it’s one way to make the text speak to the art. There are moments when he sees this other world he’s not trapped in, and the bars come down and we see that in splash pages. It was a sort of metaphor… and the cramped little spaces, it makes the reader feel a little cramped too.

TJKC: Going back to more of a formal matter, the other thing about using the old text is, it’s almost like, a conceptual collage, of his words and your words, and it seemed to me that had a lot to do with Gerads’ style on this book too; the way we’ll see a distorted Kirby panel dropped in, or what looks to be yellowed scotch tape over Oberon’s face in the first issue, etc. How much did you and he discuss the artistic method, and what was his own inspiration for that kind of palimpsest approach? KING: I’m 40, so I read all this stuff in back issues; I spent my whole life watching people trying to “do” Kirby, from the best people in the world, like Walt Simonson, to… not the best people in the world, and the problem you always have with Kirby, is there’s no way to out-Kirby Kirby; you can’t turn on the fire hose the way he did; he’s getting at some absolute id. It’s like trying to remake the White Album; you could play the same notes, but you could never get at that same craziness that the Beatles were in ’68. So, when we were first doing this project, Mitch and I had just done this very grounded war book about Iraq [The Sheriff of Babylon], and before that he’d done another grounded war book, and even the Punisher; this is a guy who lives in the streets and dirt, and the exact opposite of everything people associate with Kirby (although he did do “Street Code” himself ). We thought instead of out-Kirbying Kirby we can go the other way, and instead of emphasizing the bombastic part, we can utilize the metaphorical part, respond to Kirby, play the matching note—instead of trying to play the same note louder. And that was an absolute blessing, and Mitch absolutely nailed that. Rather than try to be louder than Kirby, kind of calm down. And

TJKC: Of course, at first I thought it does symbolize the kind of confinement Scott always breaks free of, but the more I read I thought, does it stand in for a certain containment he seeks after? KING: I think it’s in some way both things; it’s both his wish, and something he would never wish. Scott’s complicated enough to contain both thoughts at the same time. TJKC: You spoke before about Kirby’s conflicted feelings on war, and in context of this book, the same could be said about parenting—one of the most comforting and also horrifying parts of the book is how Granny Goodness and all the rest of Scott’s tormentors and rivals and would-be role-models so sincerely believe they did what was best for him—how does that relate to your own feelings as a parent, and the balance you have to walk? KING: Every parent is trying to do what they think is best; sometimes you think, “I’ve gotta be tough to make them strong, or be soft to make them love me”—you’re constantly worried about that balance, and how you reflect on your kids matches how your parents reflect on you, so when you interact with your children, you’re actually interacting with your parents. And that’s what a lot of the second half of [our] story is about, when Scott has his kid, and he’s like, “Well, I had this 66

sh*tty life, but I became a super-hero; what does that mean?” The thing that Kirby did that I think is just absolutely astounding, is just this idea that God would give up his only son to the Devil. It takes the Jesus myth and pushes it to another level—not myth; the belief, sorry! And to put that at the heart of your conflict—there’s something about that I think every parent can relate to. Because as a parent you’re constantly making decisions and you never know if they’re the right decisions for your kid or not. “Should I work harder so I make more money so I can send them to the right college, but if I work harder I’m not spending as much time with them”… you never know if you’re making the right decision, just always trying to do what’s best, and sometimes you miss. So all that stuff is in these grand glorious myths that Kirby created. TJKC: Speaking of the imprint of Kirby’s life on his narratives, it seems that the Judaic character of the Fourth World has been able to come to the forefront more since Kirby himself was creating it. That was certainly the case with Greg Pak’s biblical Darkseid origin and Azzarello’s futurist-Israeli concept of New Genesis. When Scott is cutting this swath of bloodshed through Darkseid’s armies in your version, it certainly felt to me

like the Book of Joshua… do you feel this influence had been going relatively untapped? KING: I come from a mixed background, my mother’s Jewish and my father’s Christian— TJKC: Same here! KING: [laughs] —okay, there ya go—so you get an interesting perspective, since you have both sides telling you the other is a myth, and you approach both of them from that position, but then neither of them loses that special magic that it could possibly be true. To me, Scott is very much a Christ figure, he’s very much the guy that the great God sacrificed in order to make peace on Earth—but he’s a Christ figure who had to live with that decision. TJKC: Now that you mention it, it’s almost like his insistence on living is a defiance of that father’s will. KING: Exactly. That’s what makes Scott and Barda so unique; they’re products of Apokolips, not products of New Genesis; even though they’re with the good guys, they were raised by the bad guys—which makes them to me more interesting than Orion, the bad guy who was raised in the fluffy good-guy world. That deepens them, makes them more connected: “We have seen this evil up close and we know what it is; we’re not just playing with it, we lived it.” TJKC: One of my favorite insights in the book is the way this comes out in both Scott’s capacity for brutality in the war sequences, and the times when he and Barda will have these gruesome good-natured reminiscences of their Apokolips upbringing, getting thrown in lakes of fire and smashing up New Gods’ bone-marrow to make wine… which sounds like Mafia humor to us, but what other background did they have? KING: It’s like when you get a bunch of guys who had a rough childhood, they’ll end up sentimentalizing their rough childhood. I’ve been there, y’know, like, “Your dad used to beat you with that? My dad used to beat me with that!” That’s how human beings process their pain; eventually it becomes something you try to laugh at because you’re tired of crying. H 67

(this page, above) Barda confronts the brother-in-law literally from Hell (text: King/ art: Gerads). (this page, below) King channels Funky Flashman for the flamboyant retelling of Scott’s origin (art: Mike Norton). (previous page, top) Gerads’ claustrophobic tearing through the Fourth World’s fourth wall. (previous page, bottom) Scott and new son Jake (!) make symbolic-Darkseid feel not-at-home, while the family’s own wedding portrait by Kirby watches over them (text: King/art: Gerads & Kirby).

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The Humanity of X-51

Anti-Man

by Shane Foley

a son!” “I warned you against allowing Stack to…”. “…to take that thinking computer into his home? To attempt to give him a human identity? Who’s to say that isn’t the right course to follow? It may yet be the solution to our problem…”.

got a big surprise when I recently re-read 2001 #8— Jack’s origin issue for Mr. Machine/Machine Man. Because Jack nailed it again in a way I hadn’t really seen before. The issue beautifully dramatizes the identity crises in the ‘X’ series of machine men as, to the horror of their creators, they are going quite mad. The problem, in the creatures’ own words, is, “I’m not a thing! But what am I? What am I?” “Why was I built? Why?” “Don’t call me a ‘thing’—I’m not a thing!” They are having a severe identity crisis! It’s too much for their makers, and they have no answer except a heavy-handed one of destruction. So the ‘X’ series machine men are to be terminated. The story, though, centers on the only survivor: X-51. Why did he survive? Because he’d been taken to another place and instead of being treated as an object, he was treated as a son. He was given a name. He was given a face. His number was visibly removed. He was given respect and identity. He was loved—something the other fifty ‘X’ machines did not have. As the machine men are being destroyed, by the bombs built into them, discussion amongst two officials centers on the absent fifty-first robot.

But the bombs are already set to explode. Jack’s story: These thinking, feeling machine men have been made, body and soul, in a human image. Therefore, just like humans, they need respect, love and all the things well-loved people take as a given as they grow up and live—or they go crazy! I was 19 or 20 when I first read this issue in 1977. I thought it a powerful story—well scripted, powerfully staged, terrific storytelling! That growing up and living with true love was essential for good mental well-being wasn’t something I thought about much, because I was raised with it and took it for granted. But I knew others talked about it, and understood that Jack had dug into very real stuff. Jump forward 42 years: Re-reading the issue the other day, I got that unexpected resonance of just how powerful Jack’s understanding was—and how pitch-perfect that origin story is. We all see many people in our lives—some seem to make life work no matter what it throws at them, while others seem lost and unable to cope. We see how some can rise above adversity with a steady attitude, while others have their world crumble and their confidence goes with it. We see some take all sorts of personal slurs with little lasting effect, while others wilt at the mere threat of it. Is this just the way things are—with the type of strength you have embedded in your genes? Or are there other factors involved? Yes—the old “nature or nurture” argument. I would suggest Jack is saying in this story that he believes being parented and affirmed with dignity, respect and genuine love is a major factor in peoples’ well-being. Indeed, that without them lies the way of madness. Is he only talking about robots? Of course not. Jack’s work often has a large symbolic element in it—that’s one reason his stories have so much power. And it seems to be about genuine love. Was John Lennon right when he chanted “love is all you need”? Many agree. Others don’t! “Don’t talk to me of love—it’s obvious—it’s not enough!” cried Ian Gillan in Deep Purple’s “The Battle Rages On!” But of course, love is a word that’s meaning is fuzzy. It doesn’t take us too many years of

“X-51 is not just a number to (Dr. Stack)—he’s almost

life to realize that the romantic version—the one usually glamorized in songs—is a myth. It wears off. It’s rarely “happily ever after.” It leads people to make foolish choices unless another kind of love is sought. The other love—the real one—is the type that has one person standing by another in times of illness or desperation, when one gets nothing back in return and feelings are anything but light and happy and romantic. It’s the sort that keeps a parent patiently walking the halls at night with an unsettled baby, giving up their own vital sleep time for the child’s sake. Where are the euphoric feelings here? This is the type of love that sacrifices for what is understood to be right, rather than requiring good feelings to act. In fact, this love—real love—often acts in spite of any feelings, denying them until normality returns and better feelings can rise again.

While reading 2001 #8, I saw a story both simple and deep. Kirby knew, beyond the simple confines of a comic, of the power and absolute necessity of genuine love that gives things like respect, dignity, acceptance, affirmation and patience! It’s basic! And it’s one of the most powerful statements we need to affirm! I didn’t know I was going to see this when I reread the issue, but it jumped out at me right enough. Couldn’t miss it. But because Jack was being genuine in the psychology of what he was writing about, it resonated with reality and life as I have lived it. Good writing often does that. And I loved it! Thanks, Jack. You stunned me—and you so simply nailed it yet again. H

We could probably say the first “love” is not love at all, but simple body chemistry reacting to some stimulus (usually another person) that may or may not be leading us in the right direction. It only works well for us if it is underpinned by the second type. The second type is the stuff of maturity. It’s this love—this willingness to act for another person’s good, with all the affirmation, dignity, respect and honesty that implies—that is the basis of being a good partner or parent, and it’s this love that Kirby is saying makes all the difference for people. This is the love that Dr. Stark gave to X-51. In love, he named him Aaron—and the difference between Aaron and the other fifty “X” types is chalk and cheese. The older I get, the more it becomes apparent to me: People that are truly loved are the people that seem most at peace with the world, and best able to cope with adversity, and best able to be patient and forgiving with others. Of course, those denied that in their younger days can learn it if they recognize their need to, but it seems much harder to learn when we’re older. Whether “love is all you need” is true or not, it’s certainly a fundamental need for strong, healthy self-acceptance. Maybe “it’s obvious—it’s not enough” to solve all our problems, but without it, the road we travel is so much harder and uncertain. “What am I?” was the cry of Jack’s tortured “X” machine men, their identity never validated or confirmed. Yet the answer had been simple—give them real love and treat them as worthwhile people from the beginning, and the identity crisis isn’t an issue. Could the machine men running amok still have been helped, after their traumatic and empty upbringing? Jack never said. And this, of course, is where his story only knocks at the beginnings of the very real problems he was addressing. But his notion that poor or lacking parental love was at the foundation of the madness, and the “why” of its very existence, is a profound one! 69

(below) A father prepares to make the ultimate sacrifice for his son, in these Kirby pencils from 2001: A Space Odyssey #8.

Obscura

Barry Forshaw Barry Forshaw is the author of American Noir, 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.

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

KIRBY ON A SMALLER SCALE

Those of us (such as you, dear reader) who worship at the Kirby altar are hopefully not blind to the fact that other artists—dare I say it?—did certain things better than The King. While he was a master of economically rendered human expression in his characters, a younger artist, the massively talented Neal Adams, was to take this particular skill to heights that, frankly, Kirby could not aspire to. Just take, for instance, Adams’ nuanced use of facial expressions in his superb Green Lantern/Green Arrow stint, that sported such niceties as the heroes biting their lower lips in apprehension—along with many other subtleties; something the older artist really didn’t attempt. But—before you remind me—I’m here to praise Kirby, not to bury him, so let’s talk about one thing (among many) that he really did do better than anyone else: Grotesque monsters and creatures laying waste to cities on a gigantic scale. In terms of the sheer invention and dynamism of his work in Marvel’s monster books, he simply had no equal. And that’s not even to mention the amazingly fecund design of the creatures—Kirby very rarely repeated himself. All of which is a counterintuitive preamble to talking

about a tale which could not be further from such fantasy on a grand scale—an intimate, moody story of (possibly) supernatural revenge to be found in DC’s House of Secrets #8 (January 1958), “The Cats Who Knew Too Much.” This piece begins after a resentful butler has murdered his mistress, but finds that her will forces him to live in her palatial house with his deceased mistress’ much-loathed cats. This is a character piece of modest proportions, but Kirby shows that in terms of generating supernatural atmosphere, he is just as accomplished as when showing Armageddon brought about by gigantic creatures. The splash panel [left] shows the murderous protagonist shrinking away from the three felines surrounding him, and it is variations on this theme that pepper the entire story. Again and again, Kirby shows his reluctance to stay within DC’s house style—one of the reasons, perhaps (along with the falling out with editor Jack Schiff) that led to his exile from the company. A typical example of his more dynamic approach in this story? Attempting to strike one of the menacing cats, the protagonist jumps after it as it dashes away from him [above]. But human being and his feline tormentor have a distorted, dynamic physicality which other DC artists in this issue, Bill Ely, George Papp and Ruben Moreira, make no attempt to emulate. Another pleasure of the story is Kirby’s use of the large house’s architecture, with the illustrator finding different ways of looking at the looming staircases, etc. in every panel. Don’t get me wrong, this is a minor effort, but it’s more of an enjoyable chamber music piece alongside Kirby’s full-blooded symphonies. It’s reprinted in the Jack Kirby Omnibus Volume 1.

MEETING AT THE WATER COOLER: KIRBY AND DITKO

As an assiduous reader of this magazine, I’m sure you’ve gathered (as I have) one simple fact: Editor Stan Lee’s twin titans at Marvel, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, didn’t do a great deal of socializing (no doubt Mark Evanier could throw light on this issue). And given that, Lee’s 70

not his human victim). But readers might make an interesting comparison between the splash page of this lead story, far more dynamic than the cover (the now-gray Gorgolla punching its way through a wall) with the splash page in the final story in the issue, the quirky “When the Totem Walks”, a Steve Ditko special. To impressive effect, both artists have avoided drawing backgrounds or even a panel border for the top halves of the panels; Kirby’s gargoyle and Ditko’s totem pole stalk their victims against a background of pure white (or as pure white as you would get on the poor quality comics paper of the late ’50s). Both stories are written by rote, even in this early era of big monster tales, but the artwork makes the issue very collectable (much more so than the two middle—and middling—stories of the issue drawn by Don Heck and Paul Reinman). The Kirby piece sports—as was to be so often—many scenes of worldwide destruction and subjugation of the human race, and even at this early stage of the cycle, Stan Lee utilizes a device which he will repeat many times: The giant monster tells a human victim precisely what is to happen when his reign of terror begins, and we are shown Armageddon in the most dramatic panels of the story—although in fact due to twist of fate, it doesn’t actually happen. Both pieces are highly professional, but in this issue, it’s probably Ditko who comes out on top.

editorial hand on the tiller with his two star artists was generally light—before the various fallings out began—one wonders why those artists took interestingly similar directions on their contributions to Strange Tales #74 (April 1959). Did they in fact have a brief chat about both taking the same approach to their stories? The cover of the issue suggests another example of the comics world’s continuing obsession with gargoyles: “Gorgolla,” the orange-hued winged monstrosity on the cover is (as is par for the course) smashing buildings and grabbing a human victim, while wearing the obligatory snug-fitting shorts (the gargoyle, that is,

KIRBY BEFORE THE FALLING-OUT

In the brief, glorious period before DC Comics gave the square-pegin-a-round-hole Jack Kirby his walking papers, his highly individual, design-led style was to enliven many of the company’s more workaday books—and not just the SF/fantasy items in the Jack Schiff-edited titles. There was a period when Kirby was commissioned to do work on a little-regarded back-up strip, one originally created by Mort Weisinger

most grotesque of the many such figures in the Kirby universe (although the graceful giant alien Green Arrow is one of The King’s more elegant creations). Fortunately, all of these Kirby “Green Arrow” strips have been reissued in an affordable one-volume DC edition.

KIRBY’S MINICREATURES

While almost every page of a glossy comic book in the 21st Century is practically suitable for framing (grand-scale action scenes with hero or heroine shown to panel-filling advantage—each muscle and sinew carefully delineated and every highlight on the costume gleaming), there is no denying the visual impact of such material. But one essential

as a fairly blatant copy of Batman and Robin: “Green Arrow,” with his Boy Wonder-like assistant Speedy. As originally illustrated by George Papp, the strip had been strictly by-the-numbers: Mechanical stuff, with the barely-characterized Emerald Archer (some considerable way from Neal Adams’ and Denny O’Neil’s subsequent radical makeover), producing ever more unlikely arrows from a quiver hardly likely to contain the variety of outrageous weaponry that it suddenly produced. And in the brief period when Jack Kirby took over the strip, the absurdities were still fully on display. In one Kirby panel, the two archers fire their “parachute arrows” (which appear to contain complete canvases and cables)—perhaps, like The Flash’s uniform, they expanded on contact with the air? Nevertheless, for just eleven back-up stories, Kirby granted the strip a scale and excitement that was conspicuously lacking in its previous incarnations, not least for the injection of very Kirbyesque science-fiction elements. The best of these outings was probably a two-parter that ran across Adventure Comics #252 and #253 in September and October 1958, “The Mystery of the Giant Arrows.” The writer was David Wood, who worked on several other Kirby projects at this period, and the story is lively enough—the archer duo is transported to another dimension for an encounter with a giant-sized alien version of Green Arrow. But we are again accorded typically inventive Kirby panels of bizarre alien landscapes and towering cityscapes, as well as several elongated alien figures, which are among the 72

glorious period of the 1950s. But let’s talk about a comic which not only has a striking story by The King, but even a dramatic Kirby cover, rendering it one of the most cherishable for aficionados. DC’s Tales of the Unexpected #13 from May 1997 has acceptable stories by DC stalwarts Bill Ely, Mort Meskin, George Papp, and Nick Cardy before the wind-up tale tied in with the cover illustration. And that cover, “The Face behind the Mask”, shows a rain-coated man looking at a glamorous woman appearing from the stage entrance of a theatre, her face wreathed in bandages (although one wonders how the bandages extend around her head as all her hair is visible). And the story itself isn’t better written than most, despite a clever reveal. It’s also a reveal which is essentially absurd—and at this point I should point out that there are spoilers ahead, so be careful before you read further.

element of comics is being either lost or slightly fudged in the new dispensation: The art of storytelling—in which Jack Kirby was a master— is under siege, simply because with so many single panels taking up an entire page, there is less room to develop character and plotting— something that Kirby and his peers were able to do even in the eight or so pages they had to develop their tales in. But I’ve said before in this column that I’m not in the business of hagiography, even where The King is concerned, and if things are less successful in his otherwise glorious career, they should be so named. Take, for example, My Greatest Adventure #18 from DC in November/December 1957, which has a splendid Kirby cover in which an angular, prismatic monster advances on the rifle-wielding hero, leaving a dead elephant in its path. The accompanying story, “I Tracked the Nuclear Creature”, is a perfectly sound Kirby outing from this period, with what looks like Kirby’s own inking delineating the piece with typical panache. But what about that strange nuclear creature that we saw on the cover? Yes, it appears in the piece, and is at one point even bifurcated into two separate entities—but the few panels in which it appears, are in fact too minuscule to do justice to the bizarre creation; only on Kirby’s cover is it shown to any advantage. That being said, the pages of the story take exactly as long as they require, no more, even though the Kirby admirer might wistfully wish that he had been given several bigger panels apart from the splash page in which to show his monster to advantage. This piece (still a collectible item), like the story discussed in the preceding paragraph, is also available in that DC reprint edition.

Why does a seductive actress, while looking beautiful on stage, cover her face from the puzzled (and infatuated) hero when not treading the boards? The revelation is that her face appears to assume a hideous appearance of extreme old age when not on stage (or does it? There is a second twist in the story, not just the revelation of the face). Interestingly, the face of the actress is as grotesque as anything that Kirby can conjure up—and he was, of course, always a master of the bizarre. In fact, the hideous face is reminiscent of nothing so much as the grotesquery of his horror work in such books as Black Magic. And ridiculous as the final revelation of the story is, it doesn’t spoil either the piece, or a very tempting issue. H

THE FACE BEHIND THE MASK

Let’s be frank, not all of Jack Kirby’s work was top drawer—even in the 73

Influencees

Remembering Jack

Top creators eulogize their mentor, on the February 12, 1994 Moondog’s Pop Culture Hour radio program (right) Jack sits at his drawing table in the late 1980s. Photo by Michael Zuccaro. (below) USAToday ran this obituary the week of Jack’s passing. It’s the one sent to editor John Morrow that got him back into comics, and eventually starting this magazine in 1994. (next page) An example of the animation concept work Gil Kane produced, alongside Kirby, at Ruby-Spears Productions in the 1980s.

Moondog’s Comics was Chicago’s largest chain of pop culture stores from 1978-1996, owned by Gary Colabuono, former CEO of the Chicago Comicon. Their radio program, Moondog’s Pop Culture Radio Hour, was co-hosted by Gary and Kim “Howard” Johnson. Their weekly show ran live from September 1993–April 1994, every Saturday morning from 11:00 to noon on WCBR, a 5000 watt station in Arlington Heights, IL—a northwest suburb of Chicago. Although the show was live, there were some pre-recorded segments like this one from February 12, 1994. Our thanks to Gary and Howard for allowing us to present these tributes from the top names in comics of the time, originally airing the week of Jack’s passing. Howard recalls: “Gary always gave me a lot of freedom in putting the shows together, which was great. There was always a comics guest and a pop culture guest from TV or film. Most of the interviews were done by phone with folks like Bob Newhart, Steve Allen, and Bob Hope, but we did have in-studio guests like Jeff Garlin, Del Close, Mr. T, and Tiny Tim, along with comics in-studio guests like Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti, Jim Valentino, Don Simpson, and local artists like Hilary Barta, Barry Crain, and a pre-Marvels Alex Ross. We’d had so many big names on the show by that point (going back to Action Comics #1 editor Vincent Sullivan!)—from Stan Lee to Todd McFarlane, Frank Miller, and Neil Gaiman—that I decided it was time to approach the King. “So I phoned Roz, told her who I was, and asked about getting Jack on the show. She said certainly, but Jack hadn’t been feeling too well, and asked if we could schedule something later that month. I was very happy and excited to pencil in a date, and I thanked her and hoped Jack would be feeling better soon. “Just a few days later came the tragic news. Jack had passed away. All of us at Moondog’s were stunned at such a huge loss, and I had the added pain of knowing that I’d never have the chance to interview Jack. I looked at my radio calendar with Jack’s name scribbled in, and decided that since I couldn’t interview Jack on that day, I would use that show to pay tribute to the man and his life. I began contacting his friends, co-workers, and fans, and put together a tribute show that I hoped would do him justice. “One little footnote that young fans today may find surprising: The week that Jack passed away, I didn’t see an obituary notice in the Chicago Tribune. This bothered me so much that I finally called them. I was more or less told, in a kind but belittling manner, that he wasn’t significant enough or of interest to enough readers. Just goes to show how much things have changed for the better—just one more part of the Kirby legacy.” HOWARD JOHNSON (host): Jack Kirby, the King of Comics, co-created with Joe Simon, Captain America, the Boy Commandos, Fighting American; and with Stan Lee, Jack created the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, the Incredible Hulk, the Mighty Thor, The Avengers, the Silver Surfer, Galactus, too many characters to mention—founding blocks of the Marvel Universe we know today. Jack passed away last Sunday, and we asked a lot of the most prominent names in comics to describe their feelings. BILL MUMY: Jack was the epitome of a mensch. He was giving, he was sincere, and very encouraging. He was noble, he was kind, he was funny, he was very bold. Luckily for us, he’s left behind thousands and thousands of magical moments to savor forever that he created. NEAL ADAMS: To know how important Jack Kirby is, you’d really have to know how important the comic book industry will become, not what it is today. In the daily work of a person, it’s hard to see how important what they do will be, unless you step back and view it as a whole. Only then can its richness be seen in dim outline. His life’s work has made him a place in the minds of people that will only increase with time, and never diminish. In some strange way, in some friendly way, Jack has become one of his own creations: A new god. STAN LEE: Hi, this is Stan Lee, who just wants to say, with Jack Kirby gone, the comic book world has lost a great talent; a man who, for many years, provided

Gil Kane on Kirby Interviewed by Noah Adams on February 7, 1994 Transcribed by John Morrow

[The day after Jack’s passing on February 6, 1994, National Public Radio paid tribute to him with a segment on their All Things Considered radio broadcast. They couldn’t have chosen a more erudite guest than Gil Kane, who managed to inform the general public about Kirby’s legacy, without letting the discussion get into minutiae that only comics fans would appreciate.]

much pleasure to readers throughout the world, in addition to furnishing inspiration to countless artists. JIMMY PALMIOTTI: Jack Kirby. The name brings back a lot of memories for me. Growing up, Jack’s books were the only books I ever picked up, probably because I was always impressed with his work. The energy, and the power; he created new worlds, and they were always very believable. It was science-fiction and horror, and everything wrapped up into one. The visuals, the eightyfoot monsters, everything we see now is influenced by Jack. The reason I’m in the business is because of his visions, and he’s going to be very missed by me. JOE QUESADA: My first meeting with Jack, and only meeting with Jack, was about two years ago at the San Diego Con. I found him to be a truly wonderful and inspiring man, not just to myself, but to the entire group of artists that were standing around, just listening to him in awe. As a child, Jack was the best; Jack was the guy whose books I bought. Who inspired me into the realm of fantasy, and gods, and super-heroes. The only thing I can say right now is that, when people ask where the best comic book in the business is being published, well, now it must be in heaven. JIM VALENTINO: A good friend of mine told me that Jack Kirby died yesterday. I can’t tell you how this makes me feel. I didn’t know Jack or Roz very well, but every encounter

NOAH ADAMS: In the Golden Age of comic books in the 1930s and ’40s, and the Silver Age of the 1960s and ’70s, Jack Kirby created Captain America, and decades later helped bring forth the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, the Incredible Hulk, and many others. It’s said his career included 20,000 pages of published art. Gil Kane is a comic book artist greatly inspired by Kirby. When he was only 16, he went to work with Jack Kirby. GIL KANE: Jack was the greatest cartoonist in comics history. He was even then; he was only in his twenties then, but by the time he was 21 years old, and came into comics, he immediately wiped out everything that preceded him. He was like Picasso, in that he had a sense of shape that was simply extraordinary, and he was so daring, that looking at his originals matured you from the illusions you would have as an amateur, into what it’s really meant to be a professional. ADAMS: Were you nervous when you started to work for him? KANE: Oh no, I thought I was the luckiest guy in the world! Just to be in his presence and to watch him work, is a miracle. It’s like listening to a musician that you’ve admired for years, and just watching him work and play. It was an education. ADAMS: Jack Kirby said, “I never signed the magazine covers because my style was my signature.” KANE: Well, I don’t know whether that’s true or not. I only know that his style was his signature. From the time he came in, he was the most unmistakable artist. He influenced everyone, in the same way that a singer like Jolson or Crosby or Sinatra comes in, and the next generation is nothing except a duplication of the biggest success that anyone had achieved during that period. ADAMS: Now, explain this to me as an 75

artist. He devised this way to show the fist, almost in three dimensions, coming out of the page. KANE: That was the expressiveness. He did a three-dimensional form, and he’d have the fist coming forward, and he would magnify the size of the fist in relation to its actual size, in order to give more impact. He was inexhaustible in terms of invention. He changed the whole face of science-fiction in terms of the machines they used to have. In the early days, the machines used to look like the basement of an apartment building. I mean, just hot water pipes running everywhere. And Jack came along with these sculptural shapes, these brilliant forms, which were fused and locked, and heavily patterned, and simply screamed advanced technology. They were absolutely wonderful. ADAMS: I’ve also read that he pioneered the use of the long-form comic book, that told a story all the way through the book. KANE: Well, I beg to disagree. I happen to be the guy [laughs] who pioneered the longform all the way through the book. I turned out what was called the first Graphic Novel. But Jack himself, was simply the most inventive when it came to creating characters, outrageous characters. And then all of a sudden, in 1960 after having been discredited for almost 15 years, they came back. And all of a sudden, his style was perfectly suited to the moment. ADAMS: Why was he discredited? KANE: Because his style was so expressive, that everyone went back to a very safe representational style, that looked like advertising drawing. And in 1960, Jack did the first of the new super-hero books for Marvel Comics, and in effect took a company that was virtually on the edge of bankruptcy, and brought them back into full force. He did practically everything, all of the work. And not only influenced all of the artists who came after him, I’m sure a good many of the people who grew up into film producers and directors have an idea of what Jack Kirby did, and are still carrying that image with them. For someone to do what he does, you can marvel at his figures, you can marvel at his shapes, you can marvel at a guy who just “had it.” H

was filled with their warmth, kindness, generosity, and their love. Jack’s work will live forever. He will influence untold generations of comic book creators—if not directly, then indirectly. He was an inspiration, as an artist and as a man. Jack Kirby, more so than anyone else, inspired me to become a cartoonist. For me, he will never die. TODD McFARLANE: Jack Kirby was far more than just a creative genius. His passing will make me re-dedicate my life to breaking down a system that will never again allow people to create household names, and not have any kind of control over them. So if I can even be some small part of that, that’s what my gift will be back to Jack Kirby: To fight the good fight and keep the fight going. MARK EVANIER: This is probably Mark Evanier. I haven’t been sure of much of anything since we heard about Jack. I was fortunate enough to be Jack’s assistant for a number of years, to be his friend for about 25 years. I never knew a more giving man—giving of himself and of his ideas, and boy, he had plenty of ideas. We can take some small comfort in the fact that his work will be remembered as long as it will be. But that’s small comfort today, since we’re without Jack Kirby. JOHN DANOVICH (editor of Hero Illustrated): There’s a custom in England that, when a king dies, the heralds announce, “The king is dead. Long live the king.” Well, the king, Jack “King” Kirby, is dead. There’s no new king to take his place, though. The volume of work, the creative talent, the innovative style, can not be replaced. Jack was creating comic book legends long before I was ever born—even before my parents were even born. His work and influence will be around long after my children’s children have passed away. The King is dead. Long live his memory. Bye, Jack. just about the biggest thing in comics for the next ten years. Jack had not only a dynamic style of art, he told a story better than anyone else in the whole business.

PETER DAVID: I was as dismayed as everyone else in the industry to hear about the passing of Jack Kirby. Although Kirby may be gone, the images and stories that he provided throughout the Sixties, the characters he gave to us in the Seventies, are always going to live on, are always going to capture people’s imaginations. I would hope that the fans of modern times will be inspired by the inevitable tributes that will be pouring out from everyone in the comics industry—to go and pick up Kirby’s early work, and experience for themselves the kind of exciting storytelling that Lee and Kirby, or Kirby on his own, were able to provide for all of us when we were growing up and first getting into it.

NEIL GAIMAN: Jack was incredibly important. He was the first comic artist whose work I recognized, and changed the way I saw things. You start looking at things, and you’d see them the way Jack Kirby would’ve drawn them. You’ll see a whole universe like that; I still look at fire occasionally, and try to see the big black dots in it. His passing really is the end of an era. We’re all infinitely the poorer for not having him around. FRANK MILLER: It’s not easy to talk about what Jack Kirby accomplished, without sounding like a fool. No matter how briefly you try to sum it up, it sounds like wild exaggeration. He was a sunburst, a one-of-a-kind. He was the greatest artist in the history of our field. He brought a vitality to the comic book page, that made everything that came before Kirby seem outdated, and made everything since Kirby a reflection, imitation, or at best, extrapolation. Most astonishing of all, he repeated this feat decade after decade, breathing new life into the art form, and forever changing it each time he touched it. For fifty years he was the King of comic books, and he always will be. There’s no successor to that title.

JOE SIMON: Hi, I’m Joe Simon, talking about my old friend and partner Jack Kirby. Jack and I worked on Blue Bolt; that was the first thing we did together. From there-on, Jack and I created Captain America, Boy Commandos, started the “True Romance” comics—

HOWARD JOHNSON: When I was young, I used to think Jack Kirby drew the best comic books in the whole world. It’s many years later, but today, I still do. Goodbye Jack. H [Since 1984, Gary Colabuono has been a senior advisor to the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide.] (above) Kirby sketch from 1977, signed by Joe Simon in 1998. (left) Bruce Timm’s cameo-packed storyboard from the Superman: The Animated Series’ funeral of Dan “Terrible” Turpin (who was drawn to resemble Kirby) included Mark Evanier, Alex Ross, Glen Murakami, Stan Lee, and other comics professionals. Characters TM & © DC Comics. Art © Warner Bros. Art courtesy of Bruce Timm.

Mark Evanier

Jack F.A.Q.s

A column answering Frequently Asked Questions about Kirby

2018 Kirby Tribute Panel

simultaneously honored a person who was neglected by their industry, and we found out a lot of information and talked about Wonder Woman for an hour. That room was packed because, obviously, it was the one and only chance some people thought they’d ever have to be in the same room as that woman. If Jack were here today, we’d have a room four times the size of this one and it would still not be large enough. But I’m getting annoyed, not so much with this convention, but at other conventions that are not programming panels about old comics because people don’t show up for them. And if people aren’t interested, fine. But some people who say they’re interested in this stuff expect it to materialize without their participation. [applause] We have people who come to these panels who video them—at their own expense usually— and record them, transcribe them and such, and I’m going to start a policy, effective next year, that any convention I go to, if I’m not satisfied with the turnout for the panel, I’m going to put a two-year embargo on posting transcripts of it. [applause] It’ll still be around, still be available. Nothing will be lost. But if you want to experience that panel within two years, you’ve got to show up for it.

Held July 22, 2018 at Comic-Con International San Diego. Featuring Arlen Schumer, Rand Hoppe, Paul S. Levine, and Larry Houston, and moderated by Mark Evanier. Transcribed by Sean Dulaney, and copyedited by John Morrow and Mark Evanier.

(below) The panelists, left to right: Mark Evanier, Arlen Schumer, Rand Hoppe, Larry Houston, and Paul S. Levine. Photos by Chris Ng. (right) OMAC, who was not on this Tribute Panel—but it’s a great convention sketch by Kirby nonetheless.

(above) The Joye Murchison panel Mark moderated is presented in Alter Ego #157, on sale now at twomorrows.com!

MARK EVANIER: Good afternoon. We’re going to start a little early. I want to talk about something unrelated to Jack for a second here. Three different people at this convention, so far this weekend, have come up to me to talk about Jack—they’re always interested in Jack and they love Jack—so I’ll say, “I’ll see you at the Kirby panel on Sunday,” and they say, “Oh, I’m not going to that. It’s going to be in the Jack Kirby Collector. I’ll read it there. I don’t have to go to the panel.” Now, if you’ve been reading my blog, I’m on a little campaign against those people who say there’s nothing about comics at this convention. How many of you people were in this room yesterday for the Joye Murchison Kelly [“Wonder Woman in the ’40s”] panel? Wasn’t that terrific? We filled this room, and didn’t it remind you of what this convention was all about? [applause] We

(below) Kirby does an easel drawing at the 1974 San Diego Comic-Con. Judge for yourself; is this some of Kirby’s finest work? (Okay, here’s a hint: No, it’s not!) Color photo courtesy of Alex Jay. Black-and-white shot by Shel Dorf. (next page, top) It’s inticing to think that Kirby brainstormed the ideas for 1961’s Jimmy Olsen#55 and 1959’s Action Comics #252 for writer Robert Bernstein, and the similarities to Thor and Iron Man (published just a few years later) do further spark the imagination. But as Mark Evanier states, without documented proof of a connection, it’s just in the realm of theory. (next page, bottom) Sent to us by the late Julie Schwartz, here’s a photo of he and Kirby sometime in the 1980s. We have no idea what they’re doing, though!

This is not the turnout we should have for the Jack Kirby panel. I’m glad John is going to print it in... Where is John? There’s John. That’s John Morrow, folks. [applause] I’m glad John is going to print it so that the people who can’t get to this convention can see it, but if I’m not happy with the turnout next year, I’m not going to let him print it for two years. This is how they do Major League Baseball. If they don’t sell a certain amount of tickets, they don’t televise the game, and that’s how we’re going to do this for a while here. That’s the end of my speech about that. Thank you. [applause] We do this Jack Kirby panel every year, and I will keep doing it at every convention that will let me do one, because, first of all, at any convention I go to, I spend an awful lot of time talking about Jack. I spend an awful lot of time talking about Jack when I’m not at conventions, too. [laughter] Every place I go, I end up talking about Jack with somebody and I love it because he was—in addition to being the great creator you can tell he was by work, he was a wonderful person. How many people in this room got to meet Jack? [pause as hands are raised] All right. Anybody disagree? See? Nobody disagrees. He was generous, he was kind, he helped

people out. Next year is going to be the 50th one of these conventions. This is number 49 and I have been to 49 of them. [applause] No, that’s just showing up. [laughter] You shouldn’t get that much credit just for showing up for something you enjoy. There’s only five of us who’ve been to every single one of them and we’re going to make a fuss next year about that. They came to me and said, “What can we do to honor Jack, especially at the 50th?” Well, we just honored him last year for his 100th centennial, but we’ll figure out something. Jack is one of the reasons this convention exists. He was the superstar at the very first San Diego convention where there were 300 people in the basement of the U.S. Grant Hotel, and he gave a talk—the first ever speech by anyone who did comics at one of these conventions. He gave it at around 2:00 on Saturday afternoon to about 100 people, maybe less than that, and it was monumental. People were so excited that they were meeting Jack Kirby and he drew on an easel in front of them. Jack was terrible at drawing in front of people. [laughter] The worst Kirby drawings ever—the only Kirby drawings I ever looked at and thought, “Hm, I could do that,” [laughter] were drawn in front of a crowd on an easel. He’s just been an important force in this convention, as he’s been, of course, an important force in comics for so long. So we do these panels because—and I said this at the Pogo panel the other day and it’s true there too—I like being in a room with people who like Jack Kirby. [pause] Don’t you like the people in this room right now? Don’t you feel that we’re all buddies? [applause] The agenda for this panel today is very simple. I’m going to make a brief speech here about Kirby fandom and such. I’m going to then end by inviting anyone in the room, if they have a current Kirby project, to take two minutes to come up here and tell us about it. I’ll run the clock on you if I have to. And then I’m going to do a little show-and-tell of a couple—I brought a few visual aids along with this picture of Jack that you all have seen—to show you some things that maybe you haven’t seen, and then I’m going to talk to these people here. Let me introduce to you the historian, designer, artist, Mr. Arlen Schumer. [applause] Now, let me introduce to you one of the two main people—they alternate on these panels—who are behind the Jack Kirby Museum, Mr. Rand Hoppe. [applause] I want to introduce to you a longtime friend of mine—a very important producer and creative artist in the animation field. He worked on a number of Kirby projects and he has some interesting stories to tell about his interactions with Jack; this is my friend Larry Houston. [applause] And the attorney for the Rosalind Kirby Trust… did I get the name right? PAUL S. LEVINE: Yes. EVANIER: This is Mr. Paul S. Levine. [applause] Item number one: Yes, I’m finishing up my big book on Jack. [laughter] It’s almost ready to take to the “deal with the publisher” stage. I’m going through everything

idea for Metallo, because Metallo’s origin is very similar to the origin of Tony Stark as Iron Man.” Okay. Yeah, possible, but it’s not a fact. Jack is not the uncredited co-creator of Metallo. He’s just possibly someone who gave Bernstein an idea, possibly. I’m trying to roll things back to that level. Jack ghosted, as we know, on a number of newspaper strips, like Johnny Reb and Billy Yank. We know that because we can see his artwork on that, and because Frank Giacoia told me stories of how Jack bailed him out by ghost-penciling stuff. That’s verified. There’s a guy on one of the Kirby forums on Facebook who is absolutely certain that Jack ghosted the Flash Gordon newspaper strip for Dan Barry for a while. He can’t point to a single strip where we see Jack Kirby artwork, he doesn’t know what year it was, but he thinks it’s a fact Jack did this. I don’t think it’s a fact. Until somebody shows me a Flash Gordon strip where Flash has square fingertips and is leaping out at the reader, [laughter] I don’t believe that. Another guy is sure Jack ghosted the Hopalong Cassidy newspaper strip for Dan Spiegle. Number one: Dan Spiegle was in Los Angeles, Jack was in New York. Number two: Dan Spiegle, when I met him, had never heard of Jack Kirby. I met [Dan] in the ’70s. Number three: Dan Spiegle never needed a ghost artist in his life! He was faster than Jack, when it came to drawing. Number four: I defy you to look at any episode of the Hopalong Cassidy newspaper strip and see the slightest trace of Kirby. If there was ever a comic book artist who was not influenced by Jack Kirby, it was my friend Dan Spiegle.

I’ve written, I’m asking myself, “All right, what is the verification? Where did this come from? Do we really know this for sure?” This is a question if you’re writing a history you have to ask. You have to go through every paragraph and say, “Well, how do we know this? Where did it come from?” And so I’m cutting things out or qualifying them by putting the word “rumor” or “this is a general belief” where applicable, because a lot of things about Jack that some people take as facts are conjecture being passed off as facts. I have examples of this. There was a man named Robert Bernstein—a very prolific comic book writer, you may be familiar [with]. He was “R. Berns” who wrote some of the early “Iron Man” issues, some of which Jack drew. He worked for EC Comics—he worked for every comic book publisher. He will probably get the Bill Finger Award one of these days, posthumously. The story Jack told me one time was that Robert Bernstein lived somewhat near him, and when Jack had to take the train into town to go to Marvel, or even DC in his Challengers Of The Unknown days, he’d run into Bernstein on the train and Bernstein would say to him, “Oh God, I’ve got to go pitch ideas to Mort Weisinger. I have nothing.” And Jack would give him ideas for stories. This devolved to the point that Bernstein told people when he was really blank, he would go down to the train stop and would let the trains go by until he saw Jack and he’d get on that train. [laughter] Because Jack was a fount of ideas. Everybody who met Jack knows—if you said “shoehorn” to Jack, he would tell you twelve concepts for shoehorns and they’d sound like he’d somehow been working on them for months. Jack told me this story and I was curious about how true it was, so I tried to verify it. I asked Gil Kane about it and he knew about it. I asked Arnold Drake about it and he said, “Yeah, Bernstein used to do that. He loved Jack and [got] ideas from him.” And I asked Mike Sekowsky about it and he knew about it, so I would take that as verified fact that Jack gave Robert Bernstein ideas. Other people have taken this a little farther. For example, Bernstein wrote an issue of Jimmy Olsen [#55, on sale in July 1961] where Jimmy Olsen met Thor. We all know Jack had Thor on the brain a lot—a long time before they ever did Journey Into Mystery #83 [on sale in June 1962]. So people have conjectured that Jack suggested Jimmy Olsen meet Thor. We don’t know that for a fact. It’s possible that Bernstein came up with it on his own. But it’s now on Internet forums, “Oh, yes. Jack ghost-plotted an issue of Jimmy Olsen.” That’s not true. It might be true, but you can’t state it as a fact. There was a villain in “Superman” at one point called Metallo. Robert Bernstein wrote the first appearance, so people have speculated, “Well, maybe Jack gave him the

ARLEN SCHUMER: How did he not know Kirby? EVANIER: He worked for Gold Key Comics. He never saw DC Comics. He never saw a Marvel comic. Where would he see a Marvel comic? Comic book artists don’t go out and buy comics. [laughter] When Dan was working for DC, the editorial direction he got—this was in the ’80s—would be like, “Oh, try and make this more like Gene Colan would approach this,” and he would say, “Who’s Gene Colan?” [laughter] They had to tell him, “Go through the bundles of comics we’ve sent you recently and find him.” One time, Dan was drawing a Superman comic for Radio Shack and they didn’t send him any reference on any of the characters. It was okay for Superman, because he could find a DC comic with Superman in the bundles. But they hadn’t sent him any reference on Lex Luthor. So he calls up Julie Schwartz, who was the editor of it, and says, “I need a reference on this guy Lex Luthor,” and Julie said, “Oh, just draw Telly Savalas. It’ll be fine.” [laughter] So, 79

Dan drew the comic and he sent it in, and they call him saying, “Wait a minute! You drew Telly Savalas here!” He said, “Yeah.” It was a perfect likeness of Telly Savalas. [laughter] And they said, “No, no! You’ve got to redraw it and make it not look like Telly Savalas.” He said, “I did what I was told.” [laughter] Dan Spiegle was one of the greatest artists I ever knew, but he just didn’t cross paths with Jack Kirby, and Jack never drew Hopalong Cassidy, ever. So, we’re trying to weed those out and I would like to ask everyone’s help. If you’re on Facebook and you see people make claims of things, ask yourself, “How do we know this? Where did this come from?” If you use a little logic, you can think... Jack never said, “I created Metallo and I gave Bernstein the idea for a Jimmy Olsen story with Thor.” He never said it. Robert Bernstein, to my knowledge, was never interviewed anywhere. Where could that have come from? You’ve got to have a source for something you believe. But anyway, that’s today’s Mark Evanier editorial about Jack Kirby. [applause] We’re going to do two minutes [each] here, we’re going to start with these people on the panel. Arlen, tell us about your projects these days. SCHUMER: Okay, I think everyone’s beginning to get my brochure showing the lecture I’m giving at 4:00 today—what I’m calling “The Origin of Jack Kirby’s Black Panther.” Everybody knows the movie. Non-comic book people love the Black Panther, but I’m going to show that the origins of the Black Panther from the comic are very different from the character that we end up seeing on the screen. And the main thing is, when Kirby designs the character that became the Black Panther—Mark talks about what evidence exists. We have a sketch, probably from around 1965, that Kirby does of his idea of a black super-hero, and he doesn’t look anything like the Black Panther you know. He looks more like if Captain Marvel were a black Superman kind of thing—fully exposed face, no mask—and he had a cape kind of like Captain Marvel’s from the ’40s. This costume had nothing to do with the color black or anything. And Kirby calls him the “Coal Tiger.” Now, everybody is surmising, “Well, ‘Coal Tiger.’ A tiger is usually orange with stripes. Maybe there was a term to describe a black panther as a kind of black tiger, so he calls him the Coal Tiger?” When he appears in Fantastic Four in the Spring of ’66, he’s got a full mask. But we have another piece of what I call “forensic comic book evidence,” that shows that cover of Fantastic Four— the original cover—was rejected. And what do we see on it, but the Black Panther with a half-mask like Batman? Now if you know your American history, what is happening around 196566? It was the middle of the Civil Rights Movement. There’s no written documentation. We can only surmise, and what Mark said about comic book history is sad but true. Most of comic book history has not been documented. We don’t have transcripts of things. We don’t have meeting notes. So we can only, as kind of history detectives, look at what I call the “forensic comic book evidence.” And we can only assume that, when Kirby brought the Coal Tiger to Marvel, Lee and/or Goodman—they probably rejected it because the Southern distributors in 1966 would not accept a black super-hero on the cover. Even the halfmask exposing him as black was obviously not acceptable. So, the Black Panther has a full facemask, but what is that really doing? It’s covering up the fact that he’s black. Now here we are in modern times and there are protests about the mascots of sports teams like the Washington Redskins. The Cleveland Indians won the World Series with that caricature of the bucktoothed Indian. And yet, as great and cool as the Black Panther’s look is, that facemask is no less of a leftover racist symbol than anything we are protesting today. So I will be discussing that 80

and other things about the origin of the Black Panther—even the name “the Black Panther.” Everybody wants to assume Stan Lee named him. But Jack Kirby was in World War II with Patton, and it turns out there was an African-American tank regiment called the Black Panthers. So, as a historian, I will always weigh on the side of Jack Kirby, who had the real experience, the real comic book creativity, over anything, because that is where all of the forensic comic book evidence lies. EVANIER: Rand? Would you like to tell us about the new Jack Kirby Digest series? RAND HOPPE: [laughs] We had a pop-up in New York City back in May on Mother’s Day weekend. It was three days in an art gallery filled with Kirby, and we decided we would feature the 2001 [A Space Odyssey] comics— basically because they haven’t been reprinted and it’s the 50th anniversary of the movie. So, one thing that we did was, we talked about a “digest.” [reaches for the “digest” to show the audience. It’s an enormous sized comic book.]

AUDIENCE AND PANELISTS: Wow! [applause] HOPPE: So, we like big comics. Mark says Jack liked big comics... EVANIER: Jack would have said that’s the size everything should be. [applause] He would say, “I should be drawing those on billboards.” HOPPE: So Tom [Kraft] put in hundreds of man hours scanning and adjusting and then

printing. We did some hand-binding. We also had oversized prints of whatever existed in the Kirby family’s pencil photocopies. We had a place for the movie, a place for each of the comic books, and we had a huge monolith in the center of the room that was somehow sending us signals throughout the whole event. It was really great—we look forward to doing another pop-up at some point. We’d like to do one here on the West Coast. We just keep rocking along, helping out publishers and other art shows around the world. [applause] EVANIER: I think Jack’s 2001 adaptation is one of the greatest comics he ever did. It’s not really a Kirby comic thematically or storywise, but he did actually add an awful lot to the plot. It is just an amazing visual experience. And if you are in awe of it, I think you should know that book had to be inked, like, crazy fast by Frank Giacoia after Wally Wood, who was going to do it, was unable to take it on. Frank was not the fastest guy in the world, and he was a guy who tended, usually, to get friends to help him when he was in deadline trouble. Some of the issues of Daredevil he inked were really inked by four guys, all pitching in. But that book, I think, 81

(previous page) Kirby posing with page 2 pencils for the “Klavus” back-up from Captain Victory #7. By the time of its 1980s publication date, there was no commercial need to hide a character’s race or ethnicity. Photo by Susan Pinsky. (above) Long before he drew the 2001 adaptation, Kirby created a wealth of space tales, such as this father/son beaut from Alarming Tales #4 (March 1958).

film, Kirby At War by the French Kirby expert Jean Depelley. There he is. Please... [applause] Amazing passion, and I felt it really captured that passion of where Jack was at that point, his love for Roz, and also how he experienced the ravages of that war that became a mainstay in many of the... it didn’t matter, because it’s my contention that Jack, in all his prodigiousness, he was still doing one movie. That’s my opinion, and I gave a panel on “Jack Kirby’s Consciousness,” which again, comes from originally that time [Mark] called me. And I’m going to continue. I’m doing a book on it this year, and a documentary: How Jack Kirby Saved The World. [applause] When he went to war, no one seemed to remember, or knew about why he didn’t get out [by] being a comic book guy. And I remember a conversation that we had about exactly that, and he said he put on [his enlistment papers] that he wanted to fight. He felt that getting out of the war as a comic book artist or whatever was the cowardly way to go. He wanted to fight. I later found out that on his sign-up form, he put down [as] his profession, “mechanic.” [laughter]

was pure Frank Giacoia inking. I think he was so protective of Jack’s work that he never let people assist him on Jack Kirby work until very near the end of his career when he just physically couldn’t do them all. HOPPE: He did a great job. EVANIER: That was excellent inking. SCHUMER: Hey, it wasn’t Vince Coletta. EVANIER: Okay, yes! [laughter] HOPPE: And, by the way, the art galley we worked with in New York City is actually owned by Dan Giella , the son of [comic book artist] Joe Giella. So it’s a real comic book family project. EVANIER: Let us also acknowledge the other co-conspirator in the Kirby Museum, Mr. Tom Kraft, who is sitting over here. [applause] Where’s Barry Geller? You want to come up? You can either talk from that microphone or come up here, whichever you prefer. BARRY GELLER: Thank you. Hi, I’m Barry Ira Geller. I own the rights to Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny, and probably worked, designing with Jack in ’77–78-ish, about 100 hours over a year. And I want to thank Mark for five years ago, calling on me to announce the real aspect that I began to discover, about how Jack Kirby influenced the change in culture and the change in our cultural consciousness when the Argo film came out. And it began to dawn on me how it was everywhere. Mr. Affleck made a nice film that was only half-true, but the reality was the work up in the Spy Museum in Virginia: Jack’s drawing of our “Terminal of the Gods” and my own screenplay, which was really an adaptation. And all these years, people are still coming to see, and understand, just how the passion of this man influenced all of us. And for me, working with him often was like going 400 miles an hour on a dune buggy, and Jack says, “Let’s do 500!” That is what the man was like. One thing I want to mention is that I saw a very interesting

EVANIER: Thank you, Barry. JEAN DEPELLEY: Thank you, Barry for speaking of my film in such a way. The film Kirby At War was screened Friday evening—unfortunately at the same moment as the Eisner Awards, so most of you were not present. But I was so glad to have members of the Kirby family and the Kirby Museum with me. So, what I can tell you about it is that it is a 52-minute documentary. It’s in French for the moment, but it has been subtitled, and we really hope to have distribution in America, so we are working on it. There might be a longer, extended version of it in the year to come, so we are working on it as well. What I can tell you is that it has been very well received in my country. So it participated in the recognition of the genius of Jack Kirby that happened last year with his 100th birthday. [applause] EVANIER: This is Chris Thompson from Titan Books. CHRIS THOMPSON: Hi everyone. It’s a real privilege to come and share something with you this morning, because this panel is actually one of my mainstays on the San Diego program when I come along. And actually, it really pains me that I have to go and run literally from the stage to another panel because I won’t be here for the rest of it. But, as Mark was saying, it’s nice that if you can’t be here—and some years I’m not— you can read in the Kirby Collector about what happens. But there’s nothing like being in the room. Speaking of the Kirby Collector, it was probably about ten years ago, I was looking at the Collected Jack Kirby Collector Volume 2, and I saw these incredible Prisoner pages that he had done. And I don’t know if you’ve ever seen them. They were really small, almost postage stamp kind of size, but it really excited me as a Kirby and as a Prisoner fan. And so I was very excited last year to hear that, at Titan Comics, we were actually doing the original art edition of the Kirby Prisoner pages. There were 17 pages that Jack had done, and these are gorgeous. These are actually scanned from the original pages. We’ve got people here who have helped us getting this together—for (left) Following on the heels of Titan’s remarkable Simon & Kirby Archives series is their collection of Kirby’s Prisoner work. This magazine’s editor would like to offer a big “THANK YOU” to whatever anonymous benefactor beat me to Titan Publishing’s booth after this Tribute Panel, and quietly paid them the $70 for my copy, before I could get there myself. Kirby fans are a generous bunch of people!

GET A FREE COPY! Help us find a few missing pages, and better scans of others. Anonymity will be respected.

JACK KIRBY’S DINGBAT LOVE

In cooperation with DC COMICS, TwoMorrows compiles a tempestuous trio of neverseen 1970s Kirby projects! These are the final complete, unpublished Jack Kirby stories in existence, presented here for the first time! Included are: Two unused DINGBATS OF DANGER STREET tales (Kirby’s final Kid Gang group, inked by MIKE ROYER and D. BRUCE BERRY, and newly colored for this book)! TRUE-LIFE DIVORCE, the abandoned newsstand magazine that was too hot for its time (reproduced from Jack’s pencil art—and as a bonus, we’ve commissioned MIKE ROYER to ink one of the stories)! And SOUL LOVE, the unseen ’70s romance book so funky, even a jive turkey will dig the unretouched inks by VINCE COLLETTA and TONY DeZUNIGA. PLUS: There’s Kirby historian JOHN MORROW’s in-depth examination of why these projects got left back, concept art and uninked pencils from DINGBATS, and a Foreword and Introduction by ’70s Kirby assistants MARK EVANIER & STEVE SHERMAN! SHIPS OCTOBER 2019!

actual words, very minimal amount of interpretation or analysis of it. [laughter as Chris Thompson gives the Prisoner book to John Morrow] Thank you! But I think it’s going to shed a lot of light and give people a new understanding of Kirby and Lee’s relationship and how things evolved at Marvel in the 1960s—especially as you see how consistent Jack’s story was. If you think what he said in that infamous Comics Journal interview in 1990 was bombastic, and he was a little “not all with it,” I think there’ll be some surprises when you see what he was saying in 1965-66 as well. Likewise, you’ll see how consistent or inconsistent Stan Lee was in giving credit to people for the work, and whether he really did try to take too much credit for himself, or if he was more generous than people give him credit for. The other one I’m extremely excited about: We’ve just reached an agreement with DC Comics. Now that The Prisoner is in print, we’re going to be publishing Jack’s final unpublished complete work as far as I know—all of Jack’s unpublished DC Comics work from the early 1970s. That includes the two unpublished Dingbats Of Danger Street stories, Jack’s infamous Soul Love book, and True Life Divorce, sometimes called True Divorce Cases. We’re going to do it as one deluxe complete collection. It should be out next year for our 25th anniversary in publishing—but I did want to give a quick shout-out and plea to you. We have either good photocopies or, in a lot of cases, scans of original art from all of the unpublished stories, but we are missing, like, two Soul Love pages, and we would love to have better reproductions from the originals of every page in there. If you have access to good photocopies of those or know who has the originals, or can provide scans of the originals of any of these unpublished pages, please get in touch with us. We want this to be the ultimate, final collection of unpublished Kirby work. [applause]

which I’m so appreciative. And in unearthing these, we discovered there was actually another attempt at bringing The Prisoner back by Gil Kane, so there are 18 pages of that in here as well. It’s a gorgeous book, honestly. You know, I’m not talking in terms of shilling this to you. It’s just, actually, so nice to be able to bring this material to print. This is just what I would want to go and buy. And in terms of talking about big comics, this is giant. I wanted to quickly show you a spread here... [audience murmuring as they see the pages being displayed] It’s big enough that hopefully you can at least see it in the back of the room. It might be postage stamp sized. [laughter] If you want to come down to the booth—this is the last copy I have, but you can get these through your local comics store. You can get them online. But I would definitely support your local comics store where you can. They are $80 and this last one I’ve got is $70, so whoever comes down to buy it first can get it. Also, if you want to come down and have a look, I’d love to share that with you because it is something truly special. And it’s nice that people still appreciate his work. [applause]

EVANIER: And if you have any Kirby originals that haven’t been scanned by the Kirby Museum, contact Tom or Rand and let them know what you have. They’re building an incredibly wonderful archive of Jack’s stuff. All right, is there anybody else before we move on?

EVANIER: Anyone else? John Morrow folks. [applause] And let the record show that I’m now satisfied with the turnout in this room. [applause] JOHN MORROW: First, Chris, I’ve got $70 in my pocket waiting for that book. [laughter] As you guys probably know, I publish The Jack Kirby Collector. I don’t usually come up for these things, because I’d rather hear these guys talk than myself, but I want to mention two things I’m very excited about. Our next issue of The Jack Kirby Collector is going to be a double-sized book along the lines of our Wonder Years book format-wise. It’s called Stuf’ Said. It’s a chronological examination of Stan Lee’s, Jack Kirby’s, Steve Ditko’s, Wally Wood’s, etc. quotes about the creation of the Marvel Universe. Along the lines of what Mark was saying, this is going to be their

PAUL LEVINE: Yes—well, sort of. It’s interesting and lovely to see all of the things that I, as the lawyer for the Kirby—technically called the Rosalind Kirby Trust, the Kirby Estate—get to do and be part of the legal work for Kirby At War; helping John get rights from DC Comics. Working with Titan on The Prisoner stuff. All of these things, to me are file folders in my office, and phone conversations and contracts and paper. But it’s wonderful to see, that after I do all of this stuff, something actually happens. So, congratulations to everybody who makes things actually happen. [applause] 83

him in New Gods, Jack stuck him in Forever People instead. And at one point, he called Jack and said, “Put some girls in bikinis in the story.” [laughter] This was something they were doing that week at DC. Jack, for no visible reason—it was not part of the plot, it was not something he would have done otherwise—stuck a splash page in here of Beautiful Dreamer in a bikini; a two-piece swimsuit. There was a comic book club called The UCLA Campus Comics and Science Fiction Society. I was briefly a member of that group. But a bunch of guys who were in that group made a field trip out to Jack’s house; I think this was back at the house on Lynn Road in Thousand Oaks. One Saturday, about eight guys came out to visit him and Jack entertained them, told them stories and whatever it was, and this page had come back from Mike Royer. I was actually proofreading this issue that afternoon I was there. The art was shown, and these guys got all crazed about this page of Beautiful Dreamer in the bikini. They took 35mm shots of it with their cameras and they were getting all worked up and they kept arguing. On the way there, apparently, they’d had a discussion on whether Jack drew sexy women, and that settled it! Wow! Jack looked at these guys getting all worked up over it, and he got afraid he had inadvertently done pornography. [laughter] So he took a brush and ink and he blacked the bikini into a one-piece suit to tone it down. This was not censorship by the Comic Code. The Comics Code never saw this. This was not someone at DC changing his work. Jack made this decision. For years, all those guys from the comics club kept coming to me saying, “Did you make a stat of that before he ruined it?” And I’d go, “No, I didn’t. I didn’t happen to make a xerox of it.” Well... [laughter and applause as the image changes on screen] I found it in a box of stuff. I guess I don’t remember making it. It’s not the greatest xerox in the world, and I actually went in and retouched it a little bit because it was not a perfect stat. I have

EVANIER: Let’s move on to the next act here. I brought along some visuals that you may not have seen before. [Mark projects images on the screen] Here’s a picture you probably have never seen [above]. This is a photo that was taken—I think I may have taken this photo. I was there. A library in downtown Los Angeles did a comic book day and invited Mike Royer, Jack, Sergio Aragonés, Don Rico, and myself to do a panel there, and we did this panel and that picture was taken. This was Sergio’s copy. Roz gave Sergio this photo at the gathering following Jack’s funeral. Don Rico had signed it—it’s kind of faded but he signed it on his chest there. Don was a lovely man who was a good friend of Jack’s who worked for Timely Comics and Atlas for years. And this was taken—I’m guessing ’80, ’79, someplace around in there. If Mike Royer were here, we could have him identify it by the current state of his facial hair. [laughter] Now, you may remember this page in Forever People [#10, below]. Jack did this page—a myth is that Jack, as his own editor at DC Comics, never had any editorial input. People don’t understand that in comics, the fact that someone has the title of editor doesn’t necessarily mean they have final say. Sometimes it doesn’t even mean they read the comic. You can have editorial input anywhere. I have been doing a comic book for over 25 years called Groo The Wanderer. The editors, the people who have had editorial credit on that comic, have never changed a thing or been allowed to. [laughter] They have no input. Their input is, “Let’s have it printed by next Tuesday.” And then there are also comics where you have editor credits for somebody else who... we had no editorial credit at all on some Groos. We just didn’t have an editor. Carmine Infantino had a lot of editorial input, for good or ill, on the Fourth World books. He had probably as much as some other comics where somebody other than a writer/artist had the editorial credit. He was the one who said, “Let’s put the Black Racer into the Fourth World”; he was created as a standalone character. He was the one who said, “We’ve gotta put Deadman in.” He wanted 84

given the original xerox of this to Mike Royer, and he is restoring it. Mike will probably be selling copies at the next convention he goes to. But there’s a piece of Kirby history you’ve never seen before this moment, folks. [applause]

Doug quoted them the price of $5000. They gulped and said, “We can’t pay you $5000.” They came to me and asked if I knew any artists who could do this. I said, “No, you should get Doug. Doug’s the guy.” So they bit their lip, went back and paid him the $5000. Later, I asked Doug why he charged them $5000, and he said, “$3000 for the job. $2000 for The Outlaw Kid reprints.” [laughter] That’s why Doug Wildey was so good at drawing the Outlaw Kid, because that’s who he was. [laughter] Anytime Doug walked into a room and Jack was there, Doug would yell, “No World War II stories! No World War II stories!” [laughter] They had a great relationship.

Here’s a picture of Jack with Adam West [above]. [audience murmuring] I wish I knew what they were talking about. [laughter] This is at some San Diego convention, long ago. Your guess is as good as mine. That’s Jack with Doug Wildey [below]. Doug Wildey was a great comic book artist, a friend of mine. He did the TV show Jonny Quest and many other things. Doug drew The Outlaw Kid for Marvel, and they reprinted those completely in the ’70s, and they sold real well. So when they ran out and reprinted them all, they had somebody do a couple of new stories— brand new Outlaw Kid stories—and the new stories didn’t sell as well as the reprints, so they started reprinting the reprints again. At that point, Doug wrote a letter to Stan Lee that said, “Hey listen, I got paid $28 a page for doing that comic. You’re now printing it for the third time. How about making up the difference? At least on the page rate—pay me the difference between that and the current rate.” Now, the letter was sent to Stan Lee and there’s no proof Stan actually wrote this—but they mailed the letter back to Doug and someone had written on it with a big marker, “Fat Chance!” [groans] A couple of years later, I was working on development of a Daredevil cartoon show for Marvel’s animation studio, and they suddenly became desperate for some last minute artwork to be done, and Doug Wildey was the only logical guy around to do that. They called him and said, “Doug, we really need you to do this artwork...”. It was a job that, at that point, the quantity of artwork and what he would have to do would pay around $3000.

Here’s a picture I found [above]—I don’t know who the person in the center is, but the guy on the far right is a comic book artist named John Pound. He helped found this convention. John later was most famous for doing the Garbage Pail Kids designs and such. But he was one of the many young artists that Jack encouraged. At one point, when Mike Royer was thinking of quitting—Mike thought of quitting a couple of times, and I’m amazed he didn’t think about it more often as he was never treated or paid that well by DC—John was going to step in, maybe, and take over as Jack’s inker. John is a lovely man, but he was not anywhere near fast enough to do—I think he lettered part of an issue and then they lured Mike back with a raise. But that’s him. He’s another one of the Kirby disciples you should know about. This [below] is from the Disneyland Comic Book Convention, around [1971]. There’s Jack on the left, Carmine Infantino on the right, and I’m behind Jack. [laughter] That’s me there in the back. I still have all that hair, but it’s in my brush. [laughter]

And I found this and thought, well, that’s kind of interesting... 85

“Who’s this ‘Silver Surfer’ here?” And I get to a couple of pages and the Thing is beating the crap out of him, then the Surfer’s beating the crap out of him. “What the hell is this?” I was reading the dialogue and I’d never seen artwork like that before. It was so impressive and so dynamic and, you know, the words that Stan had there. It was like, “What is this?” And it took me a while to figure out what the hell it was. And I had to check around and “Look! These teeny-weeny words here. Oh! Fantastic Four.” I was reading the indicia and it said Fantastic Four. I had never heard of that before. And from that point forward, I made sure to make my journeys to, at the time it was Thrifty Drug Stores, where they had the spinner racks—and I started looking and collecting all the Fantastic Fours, and tried to catch up and go back—get the back issues and figure out, “What is this?” His artwork just blew me away. EVANIER: Now, let’s jump forward in time chronologically. Tell people some of the TV shows you’ve worked on. Animation shows. HOUSTON: Okay. I’ve been the producer/director of the X-Men TV show in the ’90s. [applause] I did the second season of the Fantastic Four and Jonny Quest. Captain Planet. [applause] I worked on G.I. Joe: The Movie, G.I. Joe the series. [applause] I did about 157 episodes of Ninja Turtles. [applause] I worked on Thundarr [the Barbarian]. That was fun, because we were working with Kirby designs. It was excellent. [applause] So, for me, Kirby was a huge influence when I was growing up as a young artist, because I started reading books like Richie Rich and Archie and stuff like that, then I progressed to DC. But then I suddenly found Jack Kirby and it was, like, “Holy crap! This stuff is excellent.” Jack’s work was a huge influence on me because I saw how to tell a story really well and how to make it as dynamic as possible. And I used his—what I can see there, I tried to incorporate as best I could, some of the dynamics and the power he put in these things. He was such an excellent storyteller, and I love his work. I got a chance in my mid-20s, the luxury to go and visit Jack and Roz at their house in Thousand Oaks. He was so generous of a man. I was walking in and, from my feeling, I’m walking into Asgard. This was, like, the place

[laughter as new picture, above, is shown] Sergio found he had that picture. It’s Sergio in an Al Jaffe T-shirt, very proud to be standing over Jack. These are two guys who respected the hell out of each other, and when you think about them, these are two guys who did what they did better than anybody. This you may have seen [right]. This is the earliest picture of me and Jack. Roz took this, and Roz didn’t know how to frame a picture very well. But that’s Jack at his drawing board. That was in his Irvine home and that’s Steve Sherman on the left and me. Steve couldn’t make it to the convention this year. We’re having lunch next week. SCHUMER: Was this during the Marvelmania stuff? EVANIER: This is back when we were doing Marvelmania stuff, yes. Roz always said this picture reminded her of Simon and Kirby, because Joe was tall and Jack was short. She thought we were channeling Simon and Kirby, and I was cast in the Simon role unfortunately. Anyway, that’s what I brought here to show you. [applause] Larry, how long have I known you? LARRY HOUSTON: Oh man, back in the mid-’70s. EVANIER: Mid-’70s. Larry, tell us when you first discovered Jack Kirby’s work. What was the first Kirby work that made a big impression on you? HOUSTON: Oh, my mom had taken me to a barber shop when I was very little, and as you’re waiting for the barber to get to you, they had this stack of comic books in the middle of the table with all the covers half-torn off. So I just kind of picked up one and I was reading this book that had this guy: 86

to go to, you know? He was more than generous. You walk into the room and talk to him, you were the most important person in the world when he’s talking to you. He gives you his full attention. I showed him my artwork, which wasn’t the best at the time, but he gave you all the creative critiques. He would always encourage you to be your best, and [tell you] things to improve. I know you guys have heard this before, but he was all around generous and was the best professional you could talk to, to get encouragement to help you become a better person and a better artist. Also, with Roz: She welcomed you and she was like your second mom. You walk in the door and she’s giving you water, coffee, whatever you wanted, and I was just thrilled. I was on Cloud Nine for at least a month after that. The other time I remember, a little bit later when I had my own kids—they were maybe three or four years old—we were going to the Toys ’R’ Us over in Thousand Oaks at the Janss Mall out there. I’m taking the kids in and here’s Jack and Roz coming out with a shopping cart. I’m telling my kids, “Oh my God, there’s Jack!” I’m introducing my kids to Jack Kirby and to Roz and everything. They have no memory of it, but Jack was patting their heads and talking to them. It was, like, so nonchalant to actually just run into Jack, and I’m just gushing all over him, and the kids, he’s holding them. He held them up and everything. So cool. EVANIER: Larry, when you were Producer on X-Men, or any of the super-hero-oriented shows, what percentage of the people who worked with you on those shows were vocal Jack Kirby fans? HOUSTON: Oh, I would say a good 90%, if not 100% of us working on those shows, because we were all inspired by Jack. Working on the shows, all of us knew

Jack’s work. Especially on the X-Men, we were bringing our comic book collections, because there was no Internet back then. You couldn’t just Google and find stuff. We’d bring in our books and put them on the xerox machine to get the costumes right and to get the dynamics and storytelling. I would xerox some pages from the different books to give to storyboard artists to show them, “Look, this is how you do a dynamic shot. This is how you...”—foreground, midground, background to try and layer the shots, and just put together all the compositions to make it the best shows we could do at the time. Especially my friend, Mark Lewis—he was an inker and he was my go-to guy. If I couldn’t remember something Kirby did, he did, and we made sure to put that in all the shows I worked on; the G.I. Joes, and especially on the X-Men show. There was one episode, I think, where the X-Men go to a world where... I can’t remember the guy’s name. A big yellow guy with... FROM AUDIENCE: Mojo! HOUSTON: Yes! Mojo World. And we had this audience that we would reuse of aliens clapping every time something went on. And dead center of the composition, you see it—it’s Jack. We put Jack and he’s one of the aliens going like this. [makes clapping motion] And if ever you see it, when they cut to the audience shot, you’ll see Jack right there. We made sure to put him in the show. [applause] EVANIER: Larry, when we were doing Thundarr, were you on staff? Or were you a freelancer at that point? HOUSTON: I was doing freelance. I was working at Marvel Productions on Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, I was doing The Hulk. So, at home, I would do freelancing with John Dorman and the rest of those guys. EVANIER: What were you doing on Thundarr? HOUSTON: Storyboards. EVANIER: Did you board any of mine? HOUSTON: Probably. [laughs] I worked on eight episodes at least. EVANIER: One of the things that always fascinated me—fascinate is the wrong word, but you’ll think of what the right word is in the story here—it’s that when Jack was working for Marvel, he felt a lot of hostility from the office. It wasn’t everybody there—it probably wasn’t even a majority of people there—but... SCHUMER: This was the second time at Marvel? 87

(above) Screen capture from the X-Men animated series episode “Mojovision”, which aired on Saturday, February 5, 1994—literally the day before Kirby died, he could be seen clapping in the crowd scene of aliens. (below) Richard Kolkman has deduced that Jack used the John Romita splash page from Amazing Spider-Man #69 as reference for his unused Spider-Man Marvelmania poster (center). That issue is cover-dated February 1969, meaning it would’ve been in-house at Marvel for reference in late 1968, so it times out perfectly. Note how Kirby drew a similar pose, but not an exact copy. When the decision was made to have Romita redraw Kirby’s poster art, he much more faithfully followed Kirby’s figurework—so in essence, Romita ended up working from his own material!

EVANIER: This is Jack working on the Black Panther comic, Captain America again and Machine Man and The Eternals, those books. He kept getting hostility from the office. He got some anonymous letters on interoffice stationary saying nasty things about him. He felt that he was being sabotaged by those people—that they didn’t appreciate it, and they didn’t like him very much. And then he went to work for Ruby-Spears, on their shows—most notably on Thundarr. Roz would drive him down once or twice a week to the office, and he was a hero to those people.

work. John Dorman and everybody else there, it was for them... I remember talking to Gil Kane about the way people approached him and Jack when they went into animation—because it was full of people like us who really appreciated their work, and to have them come into your office and talk to them in person like this, it was overwhelming. But it was nice, because you could talk to them, and they were casual, like, “Hey, how you doin’?” But no, I was in awe. I loved it. I’d ask John Dorman, “Tell me when he’s coming back so I can slip away from Marvel and come over here.”

HOUSTON: Oh yeah.

EVANIER: John Dorman was an art director at Ruby-Spears—a very clever, wonderful guy. Larry, thank you for telling us about this. [applause] Arlen, let’s talk about—Arlen and I go way back and we talk about comics. We have never had a short phone call. [laughter]

EVANIER: I want to talk about how he found, in the animation industry... well, he found health insurance and a few other important things. But he also found people like you who really appreciated his work—who had no ax to grind with him. No “Why aren’t you doing the comic I want you doing with me dialoguing it?” attitude. Did you run into Jack in the animation business? Did you cross paths with him there?

SCHUMER: It takes two to tango. EVANIER: Yes. What were we talking about the last time we talked? We were talking about the way Marvel treated Jack, the way they treated his covers and things like that. What would you show somebody if someone said to you, “Put together a small gallery of Jack Kirby work to display for people”? What would you pick to put in that gallery? What covers, what books?

HOUSTON: Not that often, but the times when he was there, I would walk up and say hello to him and talk to him. We kind of lived out in the same neighborhood, because I was out in Moorpark and he was in Thousand Oaks, so we were kind of close to each other. But, yeah. Everybody in the studio at Ruby’s... Kirby was the artist to talk to. Anything he would scribble... everybody loved his

SCHUMER: Well, you know for some reason, what just sprang to my mind were the eight pages Barry [Windsor-] Smith inked of Jack

Kirby’s [Captain America’s] Bicentennial Battles. I run a Facebook group that I like to think is the best Facebook group on Kirby, called “Jack Kirby and Company,” so I hope you’ll all join. And every time we post those pages, we get the same argument: People either love them or hate them. I happen to love them, and this gets into the whole discussion about how do you ink Jack Kirby. Does the inker just trace the pencils? You know, we love Mike Royer because he inked Kirby’s pencils exactly. I was always a big Joe Sinnott fan because I think yes, maybe early on he might have changed some of the faces. I look back at the early FFs, those beautiful IDW Artist Editions—every Kirby fan has to have them, because you can really see Sinnott’s inking on the last ones IDW did. I mean, for the young artists out there, if you want to know what force lines are all about and how force lines add power and energy to an image, the last IDW reprint of prime Kirby/Sinnott is like a primer in the art of force lines. Every other panel has Joe Sinnott inking those lines—just with a brush by hand. Did he use a ruler? Nowadays on computer... EVANIER: Joe Sinnott was a ruler. [laughter] SCHUMER: I happen to love the fact that Smith started out as a kind of Kirby clone when he first came to Marvel, and then he developed his very ornate, kind of romantic style with Conan. So at the peak of that kind of rococo style, he must have said to Marvel... do you know how he came to ink just eight pages? EVANIER: I think he was going to do the whole book, and then the deadlines became impossible. Probably not his fault. SCHUMER: But man, I just love the mixture of Kirby’s blocky boldness with Barry Smith’s filigreed inking. So, yeah, I was always a Sinnott fan. My older brother was the ultimate Kirby fan. When I was growing up, I was the DC fan. We used to have arguments at night while we were in bed—who’s better, Neal Adams or Jack Kirby? [laughter] Who’s a better inker, Joe Sinnott or Chic Stone? I mean, I started loving Kirby when Chic Stone starts inking him in ’64 on “Captain America.” It’s just that, these are debates that are still going on about how you ink Kirby, and different styles and things like that. EVANIER: Let’s talk a little more about this. Over the years when I’ve interviewed a lot of—you all know the number of comic book artists, Golden and Silver Age people that I’ve interviewed—and I always ask about their inkers. There were some people, artists, who would say, “Oh, this guy was a great inker. He inked my work the same way I would have done it myself,” and some people would say, “He was a great inker. He did stuff I never would have thought of”—a completely different approach, and you also have vice versa: “This guy wasn’t a great inker. He didn’t bring anything to the art. He just traced the stuff,” or, “This guy was not a great inker. He changed everything around.” I think that sometimes that debate has a lot to do with what the material was. I think when Steve Ditko was inked by Wally Wood on T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, it was proper that it ended up looking more like Wood. If Wood had inked an issue of “Doctor Strange” over Ditko, it probably shouldn’t have. So it depends an awful lot on

the material. But I also think sometimes that a Wally Wood ought to do his own strip. A Barry Smith ought to do his own comic. He shouldn’t be imposing his style on a Jack Kirby comic because there were things... like, I’m not a fan of Wood inking Kirby because there were an awful lot of things that Jack drew better than Wally Wood, and they got changed to Wally Wood’s style. I actually have a page of Hawkman original art that was penciled by Joe Kubert and inked by Murphy Anderson, and I had them both on a panel at Wondercon. We talked about that job and they both said, “That would have been a much better page if I had done it all by myself.” And I think they’re both right. It couldn’t be bad with those two guys together, but they were pulling in such different directions that they were canceling each other out. Would you agree with that? SCHUMER: Absolutely. You know, I just want to add—I forgot to put a button on the thing with my brother. He loved Kirby. He lived for Kirby and what he was doing in the late-’60s on FF. But he loved Sinnott and he hated Vince Colletta. We were kids and we’d have debates about the inking, and then Kirby goes to DC and my brother gives it a chance. But people forget, Colletta inked the first year of the Fourth World—Royer doesn’t come on until about a year into it—but my brother hated Colletta! And he gave up on comics. He gave up on Kirby. He didn’t stick around until Royer came along, and that really shows you how these comics taught us about art. I became an artist, like a whole generation did, because of this art, and we 89

(previous page) A Kirby animation design for the Thudarr the Barbarian series. (above) A delightful sketch of Cap and Bucky; date unknown.

knew who his inkers were. We knew who pencilers were, and that’s why it always stunned me that DC made that decision to paste over Kirby’s heads in the Fourth World stuff with Murphy Anderson and Al Plastino. Because that to me, and I think to a legion of fans, we felt we were so... disrespected as intelligent fans for them to think we would not “notice” these incongruent heads pasted over. I interviewed Infantino and asked him about that, and he—of course—did what I call the “Nuremberg defense,” and blamed it on his superiors at DC. But to me, every time I go to read—or try to read—the Jimmy Olsen series with the paste-over heads, those heads take me right out of the story. And I think it’s an ultimate flawed masterpiece on the level of when they painted tutus over Michaelangelo’s Last Judgment after he died. And I know it sounds outrageous to compare the work of Michaelangelo to Kirby, but, I mean, Kirby is our modern day Michaelangelo, and I think it totally destroyed one of his masterworks. But, like I said, the overarching thing is the contempt that a company had for us to think that we would, in a sense, accept that. I know that, even as a kid, we didn’t accept that, and I certainly don’t accept that as an adult.

says, “Why are you looking at that garbage? The Marvel books all stink.” And somebody said, “Well, there’s great artwork in some of them.” Sol said, “No. There’s no great art in them. The worst artist at DC is better than the best artist at Marvel.” [laughter] And then somebody said, “What about John Buscema or Gene Colan?” He said, “Oh, they are very talented men. We could train them and get good work out of them and Marvel doesn’t.” And I said—because I was the only one there who wasn’t working for DC, so I had nothing to lose—“Well, Gil Kane is working for both companies. Are you saying the Gil Kane art at DC is great art and Gil Kane art at Marvel is bad art?” and Sol Harrison said, “Exactly!” [laughter] “Gil knows he can’t get away with handing that sh*t in to us.” [laughter] In that little anecdote I just told you, is the whole root of why Jack Kirby’s heads were redrawn on Superman in the Fourth World series. It was that attitude. “We fix it because we can.” Anyway, let’s address some other Jack Kirby work that impresses you. We love the stuff Sinnott inked. We love the stuff Royer inked. Let’s forget inkers for a minute. Let’s talk about Jack as an artist himself. What work of his impresses you most over the years? And does it—do your tastes change over the years like mine do? I keep changing my mind about what I like of Jack’s the most.

EVANIER: A lot of people don’t know, those tutus were painted by Al Plastino. [laughter] I wouldn’t say it was contempt. I would say it was arrogance, because when Steve Sherman and I paid our first visit to the DC offices as Jack’s assistants just before the July 4th weekend of 1970, there was a man named Sol Harrison who worked for DC, who was kind of the unofficial art director. He ran the production department, and he sat us down and almost the first thing out of his mouth was, “You’ve got to get Jack to draw more like Curt Swan and get rid of those square fingertips,” and such. And I think Marv Wolfman spoke about this on the ’70s Panel the other day here. At DC there was an inability to grasp that Marvel was outselling them. Like, “that’s not possible, because Marvel books stink and our books are wonderful.” And there was that team spirit, “Well, we did it,” and there was also a tendency to judge the work of freelancers as submitting material that the office always had to fix and save. So, Curt Swan would hand in his beautiful pencil work and someone wonderful would ink it. And now the production department would look at the finished work and say, “Okay, we’ve got to do something to this to put the DC touch on it. We’ve got to improve it.” And they’d make, in some cases, very arbitrary and cosmetic changes. They’d tamper a little bit with it. But there was always this feeling that the office was creating the work and that the freelancers were giving them the rough material with which the office would create the work. Now in comes these pages from the guy who did Marvel’s stuff and it looks like Marvel. “We can’t have it looking like Marvel because Marvel stinks. So we’ve got to do something to it and assert the fact that we don’t accept that.” I told this story the other day. A couple of years later I was at DC, around ’74 or so, and I was hanging around with some people there, and somebody had brought in the current Marvels. They were looking at them and Sol Harrison comes by and

SCHUMER: You know, I think the stuff we see as a child—whether it’s music, any kind of art—is what sticks with us the rest of our lives. I first was turned on to Kirby when he first does “Captain America” in 1964. I was six years old, just kind of coming to comics, and those stories inked by Chic Stone—those first two or three issues, which is Kirby literally flexing his muscles and just drawing Captain America beating the crap out of a couple of gangs—I think those first two stories were almost exactly alike. It was just Kirby showing the world now, “Hey, remember me? I used to do Captain America in the ’40s. Look at what I can do with him now in the ’60s.” And there’s something about Chic Stone’s thick contoured “magic marker” line as I call it—again, some fans don’t like it. They think it’s too cartoony, but I know there’s a legion of Chic Stone fans out there. So, what Kirby was doing with those early “Captain America” stories, such as showing Captain America the fighter... you know, Kirby said the Thing was the character most like him, but Captain America was the character he most enjoyed drawing, because it was all about movement and action. He said he liked to choreograph fight scenes like violent ballets. So when you look at those early Captain America stories in ’64 with Stone’s inks, it’s just a perfect mesh of form and content, because Chic Stone, to me, was the first inker—as Kirby’s mature style emerges in 1964, I didn’t like the early Kirby that I saw inked by Dick Ayers. I didn’t like those monster stories. I was a super-hero fan. EVANIER: Did you read those when they came out or did you read them later? SCHUMER: The monsters? EVANIER: The Dick Ayers-inked stuff. SCHUMER: You know, I probably 90

only saw them in the Marvel reprints. Because, remember, I was more of a DC fan. EVANIER: See, the thing is, I think people appreciated Chic Stone much more before they’d seen Joe Sinnott. I think that... SCHUMER: Sinnott doesn’t really come in until 1965. EVANIER: Yeah—and I think they appreciated Dick Ayers more before they saw Chic Stone. Whoever Marvel was hiring at the time, was the best guy they could get at that moment. SCHUMER: The interesting thing about Dick Ayers, who I never liked—and that has nothing to do with Dick Ayers as a person; I met him and he was a fine gentleman—but I didn’t like monsters, I didn’t like the monster stories. I thought they were very heavy-handed and kind of muddy looking—the inks. But that was, to me, early Kirby. His mature style I see beginning in 1964. That’s when he first starts those collages, and those bulky figures that we know of as Kirby’s style—that really starts in ’64, coincidentally when Stone starts inking him. But, interesting about Ayers, when he returns to ink Kirby in 1966 on that one-shot, where Kirby’s filling in for Gene Colan on Iron Man vs. Sub-Mariner [Tales to Astonish #82, August 1966]—if you want to see what I call a primer of prime Kirby on what he brought to Marvel and super-hero comics, he probably had to knock out those twelve pages over a weekend. And if anybody’s ever seen it, it’s only a pure slugfest between Iron Man and Sub-Mariner. And it’s Kirby in 1966, which might have been his artistic peak, because that’s the year he gives us Galactus, Silver Surfer, the Black Panther. So he does this one-shot where, probably in a weekend... he probably told Stan Lee, “Listen, I’m just going to give you a fight scene because that’s probably all I can get done” in whatever [time] he had. Maybe it was even one day; who knows? That’s how fast he was. But, the difference in Ayers’ inks when he inks that, versus the earlier monster stories, to me, is like night and day. Because Kirby at his prime... that’s why Colletta gets a pass on Thor, because pretty much anybody who could have stuck a pen in ink could have inked Kirby in his prime and still kinda looked good. So Ayers inking Kirby in ’66 on that slugfest looks great, because it was Kirby in his super-hero prime. If you haven’t seen that issue, that is an issue I would give to the aliens if they had room on their spaceship for maybe ten pages of Kirby at his prime. Look for that issue. EVANIER: They couldn’t fit Rand’s copy of 2001. [laughter from panel] Rand, as you sit at your booth all the time and people come by and talk about Kirby with you—at this moment, what do they talk about the most? We’re going to have to wrap this up in a moment folks, but I want to ask Rand that question first.

HOPPE: What’s been really encouraging to me, talking about this convention, is how the awareness of Jack’s work is getting out there, and that young kids know who Jack Kirby is. And that’s all the work that the people here, and who have spoken—that’s really bearing fruit. That they understand how important he was to the Marvel characters and how the DC Universe is part of Kirby’s creations. It’s really encouraging. EVANIER: Is there any one thing that people mention the most? Something that’s most in vogue these days? HOPPE: Right now it seems that the Black Panther is on a lot of people’s minds. EVANIER: Understandable. We’ve got to get out of this room now. [groan from audience] But I really enjoyed this a lot and we will pick this up next year at this place. [applause] Thank you all. H 91

(previous page) 1967 Sub-Mariner sketch by Kirby. (above) What better way to end this feature, and this “Fathers & Sons’ issue, than this unused page from Fantastic Four #53, showing prime Kirby penciling from the origin of the Black Panther.

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 KIRBY’S UNINKED PENCILS NS from the 1960s-1980s EDITIOABLE IL (from photocopies AVA NLY preserved in the KIRBY ARCHIVES). Now in FULLFOR O 5.95 COLOR, it showcases Kirby’s art even better! $1.95-$

DIGITAL

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KIRBY COLLECTOR #71

KIRBY COLLECTOR #72

KIRBY COLLECTOR #67

KIRBY COLLECTOR #69

KIRBY COLLECTOR #70

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!

KIRBY’S PARTNERS! Cap/Falcon/Bucky, Sandman & Sandy, Orion & Lightray, Johnny & Ben, Dingbats, Newsboys, plus features on JOE SIMON, MIKE ROYER, CHIC STONE, DICK AYERS, JOE SINNOTT, MIKE THIBODEAUX—even ROZ KIRBY! Also, BATTLE FOR A 3-D WORLD, the 2016 Comic-Con Kirby Tribute Panel, MARK EVANIER, and galleries of Kirby pencil art! Cover inked by JOE SINNOTT!

KIRBY: ALPHA! Looks at the beginnings of Kirby’s greatest concepts, and how he looked back in time and to the future for the origins of ideas like DEVIL DINOSAUR, FOREVER PEOPLE, 2001, ETERNALS, KAMANDI, OMAC, and more! Plus: A rare Kirby interview, the 2016 WonderCon Kirby Tribute Panel, MARK EVANIER, unpublished pencil art galleries, and more! Cover inked by MIKE ROYER!

(100-page FULL-COLOR mag) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $5.95

KIRBY COLLECTOR #73

KIRBY COLLECTOR #74

KIRBY COLLECTOR #77

KIRBY: OMEGA! Looks at endings, deaths, and Anti-Life in the Kirbyverse, including poignant losses and passings from such series as NEW GODS, KAMANDI, FANTASTIC FOUR, LOSERS, THOR, DEMON and others! Plus: A rare Kirby interview, the 2016 Silicon Valley Comic-Con Kirby Panel, MARK EVANIER, unpublished pencil art galleries, and more! Cover inked by WALTER SIMONSON!

FIGHT CLUB! Jack’s most powerful fights and in-your-face action: Real-life WAR EXPERIENCES, Marvel’s KID COWBOYS, the Madbomb saga and all those negative 1970s Marvel fan letters, interview with SCOTT McCLOUD on his Kirby-inspired punchfest DESTROY!!, rare Kirby interview, 2017 WonderCon Kirby Panel, MARK EVANIER, unpublished pencil art galleries, and more! Cover inked by DEAN HASPIEL!

ONE-SHOTS! Kirby’s best (and worst) short spurts on his wildest concepts: ANIMATION IDEAS, DINGBATS, JUSTICE INC., MANHUNTER, ATLAS, PRISONER, and more! Plus MARK EVANIER and our other regular panelists, rare Kirby interview, panels from the 2017 Kirby Centennial celebration, pencil art galleries, and some one-shot surprises! BIG BARDA #1 cover finishes by MIKE ROYER!

FUTUREPAST! Kirby’s “World That Was” from Caveman days to the Wild West, and his “World That’s Here” of Jack’s visions of the future that became reality! TWO COVERS: Bullseye inked by BILL WRAY, and Jack’s unseen Tiger 21 concept art! Plus: interview with ROY THOMAS about Jack, rare Kirby interview, MARK EVANIER moderating the biggest Kirby Tribute Panel of all time, pencil art galleries, and more!

MONSTERS & BUGS! Jack’s monster-movie influences in The Demon, Forever People, Black Magic, Fantastic Four, Jimmy Olsen, and Atlas monster stories; Kirby’s work with “B” horror film producer CHARLES BAND; interview with “The Goon” creator ERIC POWELL; Kirby’s use of insect characters (especially as villains); MARK EVANIER and our other regular columnists, Golden Age Kirby story, and a Kirby pencil art gallery!

(100-page FULL-COLOR mag) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $5.95

(100-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $5.95

(100-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $5.95 • Summer 2019

Digital Only:

KIRBY UNLEASHED (REMASTERED)

KIRBY100

KIRBY100 features an all-star line-up of 100 top comics pros who choose key images from Kirby’s career, and critique Jack’s PAGE LAYOUTS, DRAMATICS, and STORYTELLING SKILLS to honor his place in comics history, and prove Kirby is King! Celebrate Jack’s 100th birthday in style with this full-color, double-length book edited by JOHN MORROW & JON B. COOKE, with a cover inked by MIKE ROYER. (224-page Digital Edition) $12.95

JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR SPECIAL EDITION

Compiles all 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) $7.95

SILVER STAR: GRAPHITE EDITION

The entire six-issue SILVER STAR 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 Digital Edition) $7.95

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 just 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! (60-page Digital Edition) $5.95

Jack Kirby Publications JACK KIRBY CHECKLIST:

CENTENNIAL EDITION

This final, fully-updated, definitive edition clocks in at DOUBLE the length of the 2008 “Gold Edition”, in a new 256-page LIMITED EDITION HARDCOVER (only 1000 copies) listing every release up to Jack’s 100th birthday! Detailed listings of all of Kirby’s published work, reprints, magazines, books, foreign editions, newspaper strips, fine art and collages, fanzines, essays, interviews, portfolios, posters, radio and TV appearances, and even Jack’s unpublished work! (256-page LIMITED EDITION HARDCOVER) $34.95

ISBN: 978-1-60549-083-0 • Diamond Order Code: JAN181989

KIRBY & LEE:

STUF’ SAID! (KIRBY COLLECTOR #75)

This first-of-its-kind examination of the creators of the Marvel Universe looks back at their own words, in chronological order, from fanzine, magazine, radio, and television interviews, to paint a picture of JACK KIRBY and STAN LEE’s relationship—why it succeeded, where it deteriorated, and when it eventually failed. Also here are recollections from STEVE DITKO, WALLACE WOOD, JOHN ROMITA SR., and more Marvel Bullpen stalwarts who worked with both Kirby and Lee. Rounding out this book is a study of the duo’s careers after they parted ways as collaborators, including Kirby’s difficulties at Marvel Comics in the 1970s, his last hurrah with Lee on the Silver Surfer Graphic Novel, and his exhausting battle to get back his original art—and creator credit— from Marvel. STUF’ SAID gives both men their say, compares their recollections, and tackles the question, “Who really created the Marvel Comics Universe?”.

COLLECTED KIRBY COLLECTOR VOL. 6

COLLECTED KIRBY COLLECTOR VOL. 7

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

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

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JACK KIRBY’S DINGBAT LOVE

In cooperation with DC COMICS, TwoMorrows compiles a tempestuous trio of never-seen 1970s Kirby projects! These are the final complete, unpublished Jack Kirby stories in existence, presented here for the first time! Included are: Two unused DINGBATS OF DANGER STREET tales (Kirby’s final Kid Gang group, inked by MIKE ROYER and D. BRUCE BERRY, and newly colored for this book)! TRUELIFE DIVORCE, the abandoned newsstand magazine that was too hot for its time (reproduced from Jack’s pencil art—and as a bonus, we’ve commissioned MIKE ROYER to ink one of the stories)! And SOUL LOVE, the unseen ’70s romance book so funky, even a jive turkey will dig the unretouched inks by VINCE COLLETTA and TONY DeZUNIGA. PLUS: There’s Kirby historian JOHN MORROW’s in-depth examination of why these projects got left back, concept art and uninked pencils from DINGBATS, and a Foreword and Introduction by ’70s Kirby assistants MARK EVANIER and STEVE SHERMAN! SHIPS OCTOBER 2019! (160-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 • (Digital Edition) $14.95

Shipping 25 years after the Fall 1994 launch of THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #1, TJKC #78 will be loaded with surprises, and special shout-outs to the contributors, both fan and pro, who’ve helped publisher JOHN MORROW celebrate the life and career of the KING OF COMICS for a quarter century! SHIPS FALL 2019!

LOOK FOR FULL DETAILS NEXT ISSUE AND ONLINE!

ISBN: 978-1-60549-091-5 • Diamond Order Code: DEC188461

KIRBY FIVE-OH!

TJKC #50 covers all 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.

TwoMorrows. The Future of Comics History. TwoMorrows Publishing • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA

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Comments

(Start writing, or I’ll give you something to cry about! - Dad)

[To say we got a lot of comments on last issue’s book-format Kirby & Lee: Stuf’ Said would be a colossal understatement. Here’s just a few:] Mark Poe: “…it is very good. Well researched and appears to be very fair to all.” David Delahoussaye: “…this has to be John’s crowning achievement! The research is impeccable. This clearly qualifies as journalism... great job all around!” Charles Danner: “What an incredible piece of history... You should be applauded for the tons of information and data in this issue—spectacular.” Jeff Newelt: “…a masterful job at giving an intense inside peek in a uniquely linear and super entertaining and very positive way. Evenhanded in that there’s no edge/agenda other than giving a glimpse of how the comics were made creatively, and all the drama without being melodramatic.” Alex Ross: “I wanted to express my gratitude as a reader of your wonderful book STUF’ SAID! I and many of my fellow pros jumped into reading it as soon as it was available, and I truly appreciate the years of work you put into your research. Your use of different font styles with different colors coupled with tons of helpful visual references made this book a very engaging and enlivening reading experience. I think that you did a very good thing with this work, and it seems abundantly fair when you’ve shared more information instead of less. Thank you so much for what you’ve done in the spirit of truth. I really appreciate it.” Bruce Younger: “It strikes me as being wellbalanced. I believe what John is trying to do here, and in my opinion with a lot of success, is present a fair and balanced history of how Marvel evolved in the early days, using extensive visual forensic research combined with quotes from many different sources.” Bob Giordano: “I think STUF’ SAID is an amazing feat, and your diligence shows. Your Kirby book has always been stellar, but this one was an amazing feat of design, organization, and presentation of what must have been an intimidating amount of material. Kudos and congrats.” Charles Santino: “I’m only 20 pages into this and I can already proclaim this is a classic that goes on my shelf right next to THE WONDER YEARS. Finding out stuff I didn’t know, which considering how deep I am into this history, I’m impressed. I love the layout/design, too. Thank you so much for not going black-and-white!”

Shane Foley: “I’m stunned. Don’t know how you did it—wading through all that material, then putting it in the form you did. Magnificently done! I love the way you highlighted the words ‘script’, writing’, ‘plotting’ and so forth!” Fred Smith: “Let me just add my congratulations on STUF’ SAID! It is the most thorough and entertaining piece of superdetective work I’ve ever seen.” Jim Martin: “What a great book... It paints what feels to me to be a balanced portrait of the complex nature of how it all came together and the forces that created the acrimony that drove them apart.” Mark Voger: “What a deep dive. There are so many questions answered (or, if unanswerable, pondered with quotes and facts to back it up)... and many things I never knew... And I love how you organized it... the typography and all.” Michael T. Gilbert: “I just wanted to congratulate you on your extremely ambitious undertaking. Finding all those quotes and putting then in chronological order, with informative liner notes, had to be a daunting task. I’m still in the 1960s so far, but finding it fascinating. I like how you explained the ‘Stan Lee sobbing in the office’ story. I never bought Kirby’s version (it seems so unlike Stan), but if Joe Maneely had died just days earlier, I can see Stan crying about that.” Rob Golub: “I just had to write to tell you how much I’m enjoying KIRBY & LEE: STUF’ SAID! It’s a fun, informative work of great comics journalism. I’m only on page 20 but that’s because I read slowly, savor and examine things (and life is busy). I can’t imagine a more immersive and engaging treatment and I have a career in engagement-oriented journalism! Thanks for a job well done. It’s awesome.” Gary Picariello: Please add my compliments to the dozens/hundreds/thousands you’ve surely already received about your latest masterpiece STUF’ SAID! What a phenomenal effort! Really, just one of the best treatments on Kirby/Lee and the endless debate regarding ‘Who did what?’.” Edward Nelson: “I have read your book STUF’ SAID and really want to congratulate you on it. It is a magisterial achievement and a model of readability and deep research.” Barry Alfonso: “This is a truly impressive and judicious study of the tangled relationship 94

between Jack and Stan (as well as the workings of Marvel in its early days). The book looks and reads great and is a real contribution to the field of comic art studies.” Bobby Bryant: “It’s an amazing job. I thought there was not much more to be said about the ‘who did what’ debate, but you came up with a new approach that works great. I can’t imagine the work you put into this. It’s a shame Stan did not get a chance to see this, but in a way, it’s the most appropriate tribute to him you could have done.” Tom Brevoort: “...thought it was very well done, with a number of insights I had never considered. But there are a few very minor things you missed—such as the fact that the kids credited with helping on the plot to STRANGE TALES #116 have the same last name as two of the guests at that party of Stan and Joan’s that was reported in the society column.” [I did a quick dating. STRANGE TALES #116 has a cover date of Jan. 1964, and that dinner party was in July 1963, so that times out just about right, for the kids to have given Stan their plot idea at the party. Cool bit of trivia there; great catch, Tom! That’s the kind of minutia I tried to include in the book whenever possible. It gets mind-numbing after awhile to figure all that out, but it does add a lot of color and authenticity to an oral history like STUF’ SAID.] Wis Byron noted a minor error: “The catchphrase from William Bendix’s “The Life of Riley” that was lifted for Ben Grimm—himself a kind of Bendix figure, when you think about it—was not ‘It’s Clobberin’ Time’, but ‘Whatta Revoltin’ Development THIS Is’.” [Other fans have sent in minor typos and corrections such as the following, which’ll be incorporated into any future updated edition.] I’m probably more distanced from the comics world now than I’ve been since I was five years old, but I devoured this book. It’s an excellent compilation of who said and did what and when. The timeline format alone makes it an invaluable resource, and I say this as someone who’s put a lot of thought into when exactly Kirby did the “Him” storyline. I’ve seen the HERALD-TRIBUNE interview cited as a major breaking point for the Lee-Kirby relationship, but this does a fantastic (incredible? amazing?) job of putting it in context. Kudos for adding Roz Kirby’s and Joan Lee’s commentary where appropriate, as well as other comics people. There were also some very clever and (as far as I know) original ways of approaching the timeline. The idea that the pin-ups in early Marvel

issues might have originated as Kirby sales pitches and printed later when they needed to fill up a page is brilliant. I can see problems with the idea. It doesn’t explain Ditko’s pin-up pages. Stan might have directed Jack to draw them so that either of them could have immediate reference for story ideas (“The FF have a rocket ship, what if they fly to Mars?”) or drawing reference (“Which direction do they need to go to get downstairs?”) But if this doesn’t explain everything, I think it’s a very solid idea that points towards what really happened. And I love the last-page hypothetical, flipping Stan’s views on “co-creating” Spider-Man by putting his words in Jack’s mouth on the same topic. One minor quibble is that I didn’t like the accentuation you gave to “story,” “scripting,” “writing,” etc. I get why you did it, I really do. I also can’t think of a better way you could have done it and I’m sure you did your best to think of better ways. It does get kinda annoying around page 30 when the Marvel Age has barely begun. Part of the problem is that we still have no common ground for discussion on what it means to write a comic book. Kirby and Ditko were too busy finishing pages and Lee was dialoguing a dozen books while keeping everything on schedule at the Bullpen. Kirby could be dismissive of Lee, but in two sentences he goes from not knowing if Lee had any actual duties to saying Lee had many duties, and writing the books wasn’t one of them. Then we get to the “Stan Lee and I never collaborated on anything” quote repeated at the end and I realize the problem isn’t about defining “writing” in the comics medium. “Collaborate” is the word we need to define. Kirby never collaborated with Artie Simek—or Joe Sinnott and Vinnie Colletta, for that matter. He and Ditko absolutely collaborated with Stan Lee, and the work was better for it. I always like to describe it as Kirby bringing in a full-page spread of Dr. Doom at his most menacing and Lee would have figured out a way to add perfect dialogue so you know who was speaking, even if they’re not on-panel: “I, Dr. Doom, have merged gamma radiation with cosmic rays and perfected my ultimate weapon! Soon the Earth shall tremble before my might!” “Gasp! Reed, what are we going to do?” “Don’t worry, sis, we’ll take that crumb down a peg!” “Now yer talkin’, kiddo. IT’S CLOBBERIN’ TIME!” “Wait, Ben, stand down! If my calculations are correct, Doom has made a serious error and his destructatron is about to encounter a negative reaction!” In that late-’80s radio interview Kirby did that Stan called in on, he asked Jack if he’d even read the finished comics. I think that’s an important point which you don’t follow up on. [“How should I have followed up on that?” “I DON’T KNOW! HAH! SHOWED YOU!”] I don’t think Jack ever paid close attention to the work after he finished a given story. Stan’s the one who had to coordinate a given issue of AVENGERS with FANTASTIC FOUR, SPIDER-MAN and the rest. Christopher Woerner, Lincoln, NE [Christopher, I love your response here. It shows you definitely read every word of it, and got what I was trying to present (even if you did have a small Here’s a tentative list of upcoming themes, so get writing! SILVER ANNIVERSARY ISSUE! From Silver Surfer to Silver Star, to the best Kirby work of the Silver Age, we celebrate 25 years of this magazine! KIRBY FIRSTS! All the ways Jack was a pioneer in comics and life, by being the first to create or champion characters and concepts!

issue with one of my presentation choices). The chronological presentation took on a life of its own once I began working on it, with new tidbits popping up out of nowhere—which is why it shipped later than I planned. But I’m glad to see from your comments and others, that the book is giving some clarity to Stan and Jack’s working relationship, and the difficulties they had with each other. I kept my own editorial comments as much to a minimum as I felt I could, and there’s so much factual data—heck; just ignore my own hypotheses in the book, and there’s still a ton for readers to digest and contemplate!] As you probably know, I started visiting Jack Kirby in 1987. Between 1987 and the passing of Jack, I visited him dozens of times and I visited Roz a few times after Jack passed away. I also visited Joe Sinnott many times and Chic Stone a few times. I wanted to let you know that something incorrect is written on page 142. There is a sentence saying that some books can be assumed as stolen between 1980 and 1987, which includes FF #64, 66 and 91. These books were never stolen, as they were in the private collection of Joe Sinnott in the early 1990s. I have no idea who wrote that and where that came from, but things regarding missing art are way more complicated that stated in your magazine for two reasons. The first is that Jack did not receive his art in one installment but in several waves over the years (in 1991 he was still receiving artwork); the second is that each time Jack was receiving roughly 13 pages, the inker was receiving roughly 7. Thus all the art which was returned to the various inkers (and that includes Dick Ayers, Chic Stone, Joe Sinnott, and many others) should be added to any list before claiming that such and such issue may have been stolen. Regarding Joe Sinnott, he received hundreds of pages. Then Joe and Roz Kirby traded pages together to complete stories, so that each party could keep a certain number of complete books, while other issues remained broken between the two. Thus I can certify that these three books were sent back. Most probably #91 is still with Joe today, as he still owned it a few years ago. Philippe Queveau, FRANCE

(below) Utilitas zoth#76 Credits: ecas fermentet bellus John Morrow, Editor/Designer/etc. saburre. Perspicax Lily Morrow, Guest Designer syrtes spinosus cirGlenn Whitmore,cumgrediet Colorist ut

THANKS TO OUR CONTRIBUTORS: Neal Adams • Jonathan Bacon Jerry Boyd • Scott Braden Norris Burroughs • Gary Colabuono John Danovich • Peter David Shel Dorf • Mark Evanier • Chris Fama Shane Foley • Barry Forshaw Joe Frank • Neil Gaiman Glen Gold • Rand Hoppe Larry Houston • Alex Jay Heritage Auctions • Howard Johnson Tom King • Neal Kirby • Sean Kleefeld Richard Kolkman • Tom Kraft Stan Lee • Paul S. Levine Manny Maris • Todd McFarlane Adam McGovern • Al Milgrom Frank Miller • Lily Morrow Bill Mumy • Chris Ng Jimmy Palmiotti • Joe Quesada Mike Royer • Randy Sargent Arlen Schumer • Julie Schwartz Kevin Shaw • Joe Simon Matt Turner • Jim Valentino Glenn Whitmore • Michael Zuccaro and of course The Kirby Estate The Jack Kirby Museum (www.kirbymuseum.org) and whatifkirby.com If we forgot anyone, please let us know!

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I found what I believe are some errors. I believe there is evidence that it was AVENGERS #1 that was worked on in February 1963, and X-MEN #1 was worked on in March, not vice-versa. Also, the earliest use of “The Marvel Age of Comics” that I know of is on the cover of FANTASTIC FOUR #20 (November 1963), it is certainly not AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #33 (February 1966) as you postulate on page 54. Mark Clegg, Aurora, CO I haven’t seen many things that I would correct. But I can tell you that Ditko told me Lee had him do HULK #6 because it was being cancelled and he didn’t want to “waste” Kirby on a failed title. Based on the job number, it appears that Kirby’s first Human Torch story was “Prisoner of the 5th Dimension” and not the one in STRANGE TALES #101. Will Murray, Quincy, MA THE BIG PICTURE! An all-visual comparisons issue, hosted by Brother Eye! KIRBY: BETA! Jack’s wildest, most experimental stories and concepts! GOT A THEME IDEA? WRITE US! We treat these themes very loosely, so anything you send could get used.

NEXT ISSUE: It’s MONSTERS & BUGS! See Jack’s monster-movie influences in THE DEMON, FOREVER PEOPLE, BLACK MAGIC, FANTASTIC FOUR, JIMMY OLSEN, and Atlas monster stories; Kirby’s work with “B” horror film producer CHARLES BAND; an interview with “The Goon” creator ERIC POWELL; Kirby’s use of insect characters (especially as villains); MARK EVANIER’s column; a Golden Age Kirby story; a Kirby pencil art gallery; and Kirby/Powell cover! #77 ships August 2019!

Parting Shot

by John Morrow If you trace the Fourth World’s genealogy, you can come up with some interesting possibilities that might’ve played out in Jack’s 1980s Captain Victory series.

Darkseid and Tigra are Orion’s parents, and since “Blackmass” (ie. Darkseid) is Captain Victory’s grandfather, Orion and (presumably) Himon’s daughter Bekka begat Captain Victory. But Captain Victory #12 reveals another family tie Kirby was considering, which I’ve missed until now. First, never forget that Jack started adding subtle Fourth World ties as early as Captain Victory #7 in 1982, with Blackmass’ voice and a giant floating piece of space shrapnel that looks like Darkseid’s head, as if he was destroyed after trying to penetrate the Source wall. This was long before DC Comics gave Jack the opportunity to wrapup his epic in Hunger Dogs. So at the time of conceiving this plot for Captain Victory, Jack assumed it was his one and only chance to give an ending of sorts to the Fourth World—as much as he could without using the official characters that were owned by DC. Now, if he put a thinly-veiled reference to both Darkseid and Orion in Captain Victory—plus descendants of Glorious Godfrey (Brother Pias) and Kalibak (Big Ugly)—doesn’t it stand to reason he’d also include a pivotal character like Mister Miracle somewhere? I’m now confident he did. Consider Argus Flane, a former member of the Galactic Rangers who used up his allotment of clone “lives,” and has only one left when we first meet him. In Greek mythology, Argus was the son of Zeus—and “Flane” means to idly walk by or saunter away. Since Scott Free was the son of Highfather, who walked away from Apokolips, these parallels can’t be a coincidence. I believe Flane is a grizzled, tired Scott Free, reduced to amusing himself by setting harder and harder traps for the “Mekkanos” that are constantly trying to kill him. (In the later prequel story to Hunger Dogs in New Gods reprint #6, Kirby had Apokolips overrun by “Mekkanoids”...) As he aged, he took on the likeness of his father Izaya. A logical backstory would be that Scott lost his beloved Big Barda in the “final war” that was mentioned in Captain Victory #12. He managed to escape and find his way to the Galactic Rangers for a time, before eventually exiling himself to live out his final days on an idyllic green planet like New Genesis—where he comes across Orion’s son Captain Victory. This would mean Scott Free was the one who trained young Captain Victory (Orion’s son), in a direct parallel of how Himon trained Scott. And whether or not Kirby originally planned it in the 1970s, Scott Free’s real name, given him by Izaya and Avia before giving him up in “The Pact,” would seem to be “Argus.” The amount of thought Jack put into these Fourth World ties in Captain Victory could explain the somewhat unsatisfying Hunger Dogs wrap-up later. Having already used these ideas, it limited what he would be able to do later at DC, lest he violate his preconceived plans for the characters. This could also explain why Mister Miracle and Big Barda, rather surprisingly, never appear in Hunger Dogs. H

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sary of the “DC Implosion”, one of the most notorious events in comics (which left stacks of completed comic book stories unpublished and spawned Cancelled Comics Cavalcade). Featuring JENETTE KAHN, PAUL LEVITZ, LEN WEIN, MIKE GOLD, and others, plus detailed analysis of how it changed the landscape of comics!

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Peter Cannon–Thunderbolt writer/artist PETE MORISI talks about the creative process! Plus, his correspondence with JACK KIRBY, JOE SIMON, AL WILLIAMSON, CHARLES BIRO, JOE GILL, GEORGE TUSKA, ROCKY MASTROSERIO, PAT MASULLI, SAL GENTILE, DICK GIORDANO, and others! Also: JOHN BROOME’s bio, FCA, MR. MONSTER, and BILL SCHELLY!

REMEMBERING STEVE DITKO! Sturdy Steve at Marvel, DC, Warren, Charlton, and elsewhere! A rare late-1960s Ditko interview by RICHARD HOWELL— biographical notes by NICK CAPUTO— tributes by MICHAEL T. GILBERT, PAUL LEVITZ, BERNIE BUBNIS, BARRY PEARL, ROY THOMAS, et al. Plus FCA, JOHN BROOME, BILL SCHELLY, and more! Spider-Man cover by DITKO!

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Interviews with the SHAZAM! TV show’s JOHN (Captain Marvel) DAVEY and MICHAEL (Billy Batson) Gray, the GREEN HORNET in Hollywood, remembering monster maker RAY HARRYHAUSEN, the wayout Santa Monica Pacific Ocean Amusement Park, a Star Trek Set Tour, SAM J. JONES on the Spirit movie pilot, British sci-fi TV classic THUNDERBIRDS, Casper & Richie Rich museum, the KING TUT fad, and more!

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#5: Interviews with MARK HAMILL and Greatest American Hero’s WILLIAM KATT! Blast off with JASON OF STAR COMMAND! Stop by the MUSEUM OF POPULAR CULTURE! Poke fun at a campy BATMAN COMIC BOOK! Plus: “The First Time I Met Tarzan,” MAJOR MATT MASON, Moon Landing Mania, SNUFFY SMITH at 100 with cartoonist JOHN ROSE, TV Dinners, Celebrity Crushes, and more fun, fab features! SHIPS JUNE 2019! #6: Interviews with crazy creepster SVENGOOLIE and Eddie Munster himself, BUTCH PATRICK! Call on the original Saturday Morning Ghost Busters, with BOB BURNS! Uncover the nutty Naugas! Plus: “My Life in the Twilight Zone,” “I Was a Teenage James Bond,” “My Letters to Famous People,” the ARCHIEDOBIE GILLIS connection, the PINBALL Hall of Fame, Super Collector DAVID MANDEL’s comic art collection, Alien action figures, the RUBIK’S CUBE fad, and more fun, fab features! SHIPS SEPTEMBER 2019! (84-page FULL-COLOR magazines) $8.95 (Digital Editions) $4.95 Edited by Back Issue’s MICHAEL EURY! Please add $1 per issue for shipping in the US.

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THE CRAZY, COOL CULTURE WE GREW UP WITH! LOU FERRIGNO interview, The Phantom in Hollywood, Filmation’s Star Trek cartoon, “How I Met Lon Chaney, Jr.”, goofy comic Zody the Mod Rob, Mego’s rare Elastic Hulk toy, RetroTravel to Mount Airy, NC (the real-life Mayberry), interview with BETTY LYNN (“Thelma Lou” of The Andy Griffith Show), TOM STEWART’s eclectic House of Collectibles, and Mr. Microphone!

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40th Anniversary interview with SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE director RICHARD DONNER, IRWIN ALLEN’s sci-fi universe, Saturday morning’s undersea adventures of Aquaman, horror and sci-fi zines of the Sixties and Seventies, Spider-Man and Hulk toilet paper, RetroTravel to METROPOLIS, IL (home of the Superman Celebration), SEAMONKEYS®, FUNNY FACE beverages, Superman and Batman memorabilia, & more!

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