Jack Kirby Collector #81

JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #81

BETA

$10.95

FALL 2021

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TM & © DC Comi

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Contents Kirby: Beta!

OPENING SHOT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 IN MEMORIAM: STEVE SHERMAN . . 3 INNERVIEWS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 (early Lee & Kirby interviews)

ISSUE #81, FALL 2021

C o l l e c t o r

FORMATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 (the maddening mystery of Magneto) BOOM! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 (eclectic bursts of genius!)

GALLERY 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 (twice-told Marvel covers) JACK KIRBY MUSEUM PAGE . . . . 25 BOYDISMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 (“howcome?!”)

FOUNDATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 (Simon & Kirby crime comics) INCIDENTAL ICONOGRAPHY . . . . . 38 KIRBY OBSCURA . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 FORMATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 (Marvel’s mighty... Man-Monster?)

GALLERY 2: BEFORE & AFTER . . . 48 RETROSPECTIVE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 (Kamandi’s U.F.O. saga) KIRBY KINETICS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 JACK F.A.Q.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 ( Mark Evanier moderates the 2019 Heroes Con panel, with Mike Royer, Jim Amash, and Rand Hoppe) COLLECTOR COMMENTS . . . . . . . 78 Co ver inks: VINCE COLLETTA Co ver color: TOM ZIUKO COPYRIGHTS: Angry Charlie, Ben Boxer, Darkseid, Dr. Canus, Freedom Fighters, Goody Rickels, Guardian, Jimmy Olsen, Kamandi, Mister Miracle, New Gods, Newsboy Legion, Oberon, OMAC, Orion, Pyra, Scrapper, Spirit World, Superman, True Life Divorce, Tuftan, TwoDimensional Man, Ugly Mannheim TM & © DC Comics • AIM, Arnim Zola, Avengers, Balder, Blastaar, Blob, Bruce Banner, Bucky, Captain America, Colossus, Daredevil, Diablo, Dr. Doom, Dr. Strange, Dragon-Man, Falcon, Fantastic Four, Forbush Man, Frightful Four, Giant-Man, Goliath, Gorgolla, Gorilla-Man, Green Thing, Hawkeye, Hercules, Hulk, Human Torch, Hydra, Inhumans, Iron, Journey Into Mystery, Juggernaut, Ka-Zar, Kid Colt, Loki, Mad Thinker, Magneto, Man-Monster, Modok, Monsters to Laugh With, Nick Fury, Odin, Professor X, Rawhide Kid, Red Skull, Rick Jones, Ringmaster, Scarlet Witch, Silver Surfer, Spider-Man, Strange Tales, Sub-Mariner, Taboo, Tana Nile, The Leader, Thor, Wasp, X-Men, Zeus TM & © Marvel Charaters, Inc. • Kiss TM & © KISS Catalog Ltd. • Frankenstein, Wolfman TM & © Universal Studios • Captain Victory, Sky Masters of the Space Force TM & © Jack Kirby Estate • Fighting American & Speedboy, Headline Comics TM & © Joe Simon & Jack Kirby Estates • Lord of Light TM & © Roger Zelazny • The Heap, Sky Wolf TM & © Hillman Periodicals or successor in interest • Jack Ruby story © Esquire Magazine • Archie characters TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc. • Drak Pack TM & © Hanna-Barbera Pty. Ltd. • Winnie the Pooh, Piglet, Tigger TM & © Walt Disney Productions

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(above) Jack’s experimental photo/collage/watercolor assembly for a featurette in Spirit World #1 (Fall 1971).

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The Jack Kirby Collector, Vol. 28, No. 81, Fall 2021. Published quarterly (barring worldwide pandemics) by and © TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. 919-449-0344. John Morrow, Editor/Publisher. Single issues: $13 postpaid US ($19 elsewhere). Four-issue subscriptions: $49 Economy US, $72 International, $18 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

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Opening Shot

A Beta Way of Doing T

Here’s Jack’s “beta-test” for a KISS animated series which sadly never got produced at Ruby-Spears, circa 1980.

L

egend has it that Stan Lee told his colorists to never use green as the dominant color on a Marvel comic book cover, because it would hurt sales.

DC Comics, for a period in the 1960s, was convinced that adding gorillas to covers would boost sales. Both of these approaches didn’t come out of the blue; at some point, someone gave them a try (a beta-test, if you will), and got a result that determined how they’d move forward.

You may not’ve noticed, but on the cover of Jack Kirby Collector #36 (way in 2002!), I had Thor’s hammer symbolically breaking the long-standing TJKC “signature” logo apart, and from #37-on, I never again featured it on the cover. This was a conscious effort on my part; besides the question of whether or not that was an authentic Kirby signature I crafted my original logo from (it was actually

Mike Royer’s inked version, possibly working off a pencil signature ghosted by Mark Evanier), there was a more experimental reason behind my decision.

My approach with TJKC has always been to let Kirby have the limelight, and I’ll stay in the background as much as possible, both design-wise and editorially.

So as an experiment to see if I could take that a step further, I did away with this magazine’s conventional logo after #36, and opted for a simple, dignified font treatment, to even better allow Jack’s artwork to be what shines on its covers.

I’m happy to state that I think the experiment worked, as we didn’t receive a single complaint about the missing logo, and sales weren’t affected—by that point the magazine was well enough established, that it was pretty obvious to comics fans it 2

was about Jack Kirby, even without a giant screaming signature at the top of every cover. (A comin’atcha Kirby fist speaks louder than a logo, anyway.)

Granted, mine was a pretty lowrisk experiment, and I could’ve reverted back to the status quo at any point if I felt it was warranted. Jack, on the other hand, approached his work from the very beginning with constant experimentation, resulting in far more hits than misses—and today, even his misses are becoming hits.

I’d argue that Kirby’s experimentation took a back seat at Marvel Comics in the mid-1970s, after having the wind knocked out of him with the cancellation of the Fourth World at DC. To his credit, Jack re-released his unbridled imagination in the animation field at Ruby-Spears in the early 1980s, with some of the wildest (and ofttimes, bizarre) ideas he’d ever formulated.

Publisher edicts often kept Kirby from fully unleashing his creativity, as many feel

Things

Steve Sherman

In Memoriam

by editor John Morrow

Jack needed a Stan Lee to rein him in creatively, and produce a final product that was more suited for the commercial mass market. If you’re trying to appeal to the lowest common denominator, that’s a fine way to approach working with a creative genius. It’s also a great way to lose them.

That’s the same attitude that caused Steve Jobs to “think different” with early Apple computers (the precursors to the very machine I’m designing this issue on). After making the Macintosh computer the standard for the graphic arts field, in 1985, Jobs was pushed out of Apple by executives who thought they knew better how to maximize the commercial potential of the Mac. Jobs immediately founded NeXT Inc. and released the groundbreaking NeXT workstation, while Apple floundered without him in charge, leading to its worst-ever financial quarter. While NeXT failed to gain a commercial foothold, in 1996, Apple bought NeXT to acquire Jobs’ cutting edge technology for its Macintosh computers, and brought Jobs back to completely overhaul the company’s product line. He quickly became CEO again, and ushered in the iMac, iPod, and iPhone, leading to Apple becoming one of the world’s most valuable companies today, worth over $1 trillion.

I can’t resist drawing parallels between Jobs’ initial success, apparent decline, and eventual ascension, and Kirby’s at Marvel Comics. Jack was a creative juggernaut at Marvel in the 1960s, was essentially forced out (creatively, as well as physically) by a corporate takeover, and went on to create his most experimental work at DC Comics (à la Jobs at NeXT). While Jack’s return to Marvel in the mid-1970s didn’t yield immediate fruit the way Jobs’ resurgence did, if you look at the track record for Marvel films featuring Kirby characters and his experimental ideas, it’s now much the same result.

(And don’t forget; at the time of his 1985 ouster from Apple, Jobs bought an obscure experimental division of Lucasfilm named Graphics Group for $5 million, and from that formed Pixar Animation, which Disney eventually bought for $7.4 billion in 2006.

I again predict a parallel there, as sooner or later, the “failed” Fourth World experiment Kirby produced during his exile from Marvel, will eventually be hailed as one of his biggest successes, assuming Warner Brothers ever manages to do something with its untapped potential.)

Sometimes, like with computer software and hardware, you’ve got to test out your preliminary ideas and let them evolve, in order to figure out what will eventually work better and be more successful. The iPod is an afterthought today, but it gave way to the iPhone, which has changed all our lives, for better or worse.

So for this “beta” issue, I chose to feature an unused Jimmy Olsen cover, since that was one of Jack’s most experimental comics. While there’s no gorillas on that cover (unless you count Ugly Mannheim), when colorist Tom Ziuko sent me several different color schemes to consider, I chose the one that’s predominantly green. If you’re reading this, it shows that choice didn’t cause you to lose interest in getting this issue—nor did its lack of a more graphic logo.

The core of this product is Jack Kirby, and always will be. And as long as I stay true to that, I predict no amount of tinkering will drive away Jack’s fans. But if you’ve got ideas on how I can “think different” about TJKC, send ’em in—and I just might give them a beta-test all their own. H

S

teve Sherman was born on April 12th, 1949, and passed away in Los Angeles on June 24th, 2021, at the age of 72.

Steve went to work in 1969 for the Marvelmania mail order company along with Mark Evanier, before both left to take jobs as Jack’s assistants in 1970, working on the Fourth World and other DC titles. In 1971 he formed Communicators Unlimited with Evanier and Neal Kirby, publishing Kirby Unleashed and the Gods portfolio. His employment with Jack culminated with his co-creation of Kobra, just as Kirby was returning to Marvel in 1975. Steve then transitioned to the Hollywood entertainment industry, working for Filmation on the Star Trek animated series and the live-action Shazam! television show, and eventually co-writing screenplays with Kirby for the concepts Captain Victory and Silver Star, prior to their debut in comics. He gained experience with puppets working for Sid and Marty Krofft Productions, and went on to form Puppet Studio with partner Greg Williams, using his talents on such high profile films as Mighty Joe Young and the first two Men In Black movies, and television shows including Pee-Wee’s Playhouse. He was a tireless Steve (left) with Mark Evanier and advocate for Jack’s legacy, Kirby (seated), 1969. working with the Jack Kirby Museum and appearing on numerous convention panels and in interviews. He remained a close Kirby family friend until his passing.

I personally am proud to call Steve my friend, hitting it off from the first time we met in-person, when he invited my wife Pam and me to tour Puppet Studio in Summer 1995. That infectious smile you see at the top of this page was genuine; Steve was one of the most positive people I’ve ever been around, and he always made himself available for any questions I had about Kirby, or just to chat or email back and forth. Besides the many conversations we had, my favorite time spent with Steve was at the private reception following the 2017 Disney Legends ceremony in Anaheim, California, after Jack had been inducted. I was completely starstruck being surrounded by so many celebrities, but having Steve there as a wingman put me at ease walking up and talking to them. (“Ahh, it’s just Oprah—who could be afraid of Oprah?!”)

His affable manner and nonstop sense of humor helped make that a great day—but having the honor of knowing this fine man Steve’s 2017 selfie with Mark for so many years, was Hamill (and me in the background). infinitely greater. H 3

INNERVIEWs

Lee/Kirby: Beta

with thanks to Barry Pearl (http://forbushman.blogspot. com) and Nick Caputo for unearthing this

ED: Where do you get your ideas for story plots?

STAN: I just sit down—and think!

ED: Have you ever worked for any other company in the past besides Marvel/Atlas/ Timely?

STAN: No. ED: How did you get started in comics?

STAN: They needed a writer.

I started writing captions for a mag.

ED: Where did Marvel Comics Group get its name?

STAN: Well, there was a book long ago called Marvel. We liked the name so we called it “Marvel.”

From the G. William Jones Film & Video Archive at Southern Methodist University (above) One of Stan Lee’s earliest attempts at becoming a media celebrity—his introduction for the 1966 Marvel Super-Heroes animated television series produced by Grantray-Lawrence. (below) The published cover of Strange Tales Annual #1 was a vast improvement over its beta version.

[This interview, conducted circa Fall 1964, originally appeared in the fanzine Crusader #1 (Winter 1964-65, published by David Castronuovo), long before Stan became the polished media icon he eventually became. Its mimeo cover art (right) was by Vince Colletta.]

EDITOR: Before we start, is there anything you’d like to say to fandom?

STAN LEE: I love you all!

ED: Which Marvel super-hero to do you consider to be your favorite?

STAN: Well, really, I like all of them. It’s like your own children—you like all of them.

haven’t got the time.

ED: Do you study any background information for writing stories for your super-heroes?

STAN: No, unfortunately, I

ED: Are you planning to bring back Captain Marvel, as you did Captain America, or don’t you have the rights to revise him?

STAN: Actually, it’s up for grabs. However, we don’t like copying, and we like to stick to our own work, so probably not.

ED: Is there any reason behind the fact that you are always changing the Wasp’s costume?

STAN: We really aren’t satisfied yet!

ED: Do you consider any one of your heroes to be the worst of the group?

STAN: No, not really.

ED: Do you mind being interviewed?

STAN: No, not if it is by mail. I don’t like to give in-person interviews too much, because it isn’t really fair to other ’zine editors, who could not come to New York for an in-person interview.

(Editor’s Note: The above shows one more reason why we are greatly in debt to Stan Lee for letting us interview him.

Also, we are very grateful to Vince Colletta for making the interviews possible.)

ED: Do you mind it when a satirical strip is done on one of your super-heroes?

STAN: No, because it means that they read the comic.

ED: Are you planning to start any new super-heroes in the near future?

STAN: Of course. One of them will be (censored at Mr.

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Lee’s request).

ED: Are you planning to have any of your heroes be killed off?

STAN: Not in the immediate future.

ED: Do you keep your own personal collection of comic books?

STAN: I sure do; I keep a file cabinet of them at home. I don’t have all of the issues but I do have everything I’ve done in the past three years.

(Editor’s Note [not again!]: Here, Stan Lee told us a little bit about Jack Kirby, and his art style.)

STAN: It’s a funny thing with Jack’s artwork. You never know just how good Jack really is. If he gets a good inker, he looks good. If he gets a bad inker, he looks bad. But Jack Kirby’s penciling is so magnificent, no inker can really do it justice.

ED: Did you do most of the Captain America stories of yesteryear?

STAN: Yes. ED: Do you plan to have the revised Captain America fighting the Russian communists or the Red Chinese?

STAN: No.

ED: Do you save any of your original manuscripts?

STAN: As a matter of fact, there really are no manuscripts to save!

The way I do it now, I write the story in synopsis form, and then give it to the artist. He pencils the drawings, and I get it back again.

Then, I write the words above the panels, and these are eventually lettered in. So, we work so fast, that there almost aren’t any real manuscripts.

ED: Do you particularly favor any of your villains?

STAN: I love our villains! All of them. I like the villains as much as the heroes.

ED: Why did you kill off Wonder Man (who appeared in the Avengers)?

STAN: Well, that is a very interesting story. We intended to bring him back, but we found out that DC had a story about a year ago, concerning a robot named Wonder Man. I myself never saw him or heard of him. The head of National Comics wrote to us and informed us of the fact that he had already used the name Wonder Man. We do not want to use anyone else’s name, so only for that reason, we are not bringing Wonder Man back. And, besides, we can’t, because we don’t copy anyone!

ED: Is the original Human Torch artist ever going to draw the modern version of the Human Torch?

STAN: That was Carl Burgos, and he isn’t going to be drawing the new modern version of the Human Torch. As a matter of fact, he stopped drawing for comics. Actually, I wanted to use him just out of sentiment. He may came back later, but at the moment, he is not doing any work for us.

ED: Would you name a few of the other heroes you did back in the Forties and Fifties?

ED: Are you planning to give Captain America his own magazine?

STAN: There is only one thing stopping us; Jack (Kirby) doesn’t have the time to draw it, and I don’t have the time to write it. But, sooner or later, whether it be a year from now, or ten years from now, we will find the time to do it!

(above) Marvel Comics’ 1966 house ad for the syndicated Marvel Super-Heroes animated series, and (inset) a blurb from distributor Krantz Films’ promotional brochure, which trumpeted that the show re-used art from the actual comics for its visuals.

Marvel’s artists, however, weren’t paid for the re-purposing of their work.

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will send you artwork.” I believe if you do this, the stories are not good enough to hold the reader’s attention, and if this is true, you might as well give up. Actually, there is no way of be fair. If you sent something to somebody and somebody else who deserves it doesn’t get anything, it’s just not fair. That is the reason we have No-Prize contests. I hate it when a kid takes all the time to send in a letter to enter a contest and he doesn’t get a thing for it. It’s not that we don’t want to give anything away, it’s just that I hate to see losers.

Eric Hoffer’s influential 1951 book The True Believer was reissued as a paperback in early 1964 (before this interview took place) with the below cover, which would seem to be the source of two of Stan Lee’s catchphrases. (Lee first used “Excelsior!” in print in 1968.) Whether Hoffer’s analysis of the nature of mass movements inspired Lee’s thinking in formulating the MMMS is less certain.

ED: Why is there no mentions of Monsters To Laugh With in any of your mags?

STAN: We would like more readers to find out about Monsters To Laugh With, but the Comics Code won’t let us advertise it in our mags because they did not approve any of it.

ED: Do you get any of your ideas from books or movies?

STAN: I think that people get ideas from everything that they see and hear.

ED: What else have you done besides the comics you were doing?

STAN: Well, of course, years ago I did Secrets Behind the Comics, but I understand there aren’t many copies around.

ED: Do you read the fanzines that are sent to you?

STAN: Yes, I read every one of them and I’m going blind. I like looking for my name.

STAN: Other than Captain America, I did Father Time, The Destroyer, Hurricane, and some others.

ED: Did you do all of the Human Torch stories?

STAN: Yes, I did quite a number of Human Torch stories.

ED: What other awards have you won besides Alleys?

STAN: I won awards from all types of organizations for books I did, including the State Department.

ED: Would you give us some ideas about the Merry Marvel Marching Society (MMMS)?

STAN: Well, let me ask you, do you think it is a good idea?

ED: Did you choose the name Daredevil for your hero because of the former Lev Gleason publication?

STAN: Actually, we had thought of the name and then realized that there had been another Daredevil. We liked the name and we figured, “What harm would it do?” because they were out of business.

ED: It sounds really great; it is sure to be a hit.

STAN: I tell you, we have already received dollars from fans who don’t want to wait, and who want to be sure to get it fast. We are sending the dollars back. We want all fans to use the coupon which will appear in November [above]. There will be a full-page ad in all of our super-hero books. The ad tells you you’ll get a big button that says “I belong to the MMMS” and there will be ten stickers that you can paste on things. The stickers have a picture of the Thing. Later on, we are going to have some printed up for those who don’t like the MMMS and I think they’ll say something like, “Help get rid of the MMMS.” Then we are going to have a membership card which on the back has the Pledge of Allegiance to the MMMS.

ED: Which comics are your biggest sellers?

STAN: Well, of course Fantastic Four, but Spider-Man, Sgt. Fury, and the Avengers are all big hits, and all of a sudden Thor is becoming a big hit. But it’s a funny thing, because all of a sudden Suspense and Astonish are becoming vogue because we have added the Hulk and Captain America. And the X-Men are really selling, so we really don’t have a bad seller. This is just great!

ED: What do you think will happen to comics in ten years?

STAN: Your guess is as good as mine, but I do think they will improve a lot. I know our books are better than what started with Fantastic Four.

ED: What inspired you to write Spider-Man? STAN: Well, I wanted to do something different. I figured, “Let’s get a super-hero who is different than any other hero,” and that’s what we tried to do.

ED: What about your competitors?

STAN: I think they’re improving too and that all comics are improving. If we get fans interested, they will buy our comics and others too, so everyone is better off. I think you should level with your readers and do the best job you can. You shouldn’t just bat out any old thing for the comics, but you should give the readers good stories.

ED: When did you start writing?

STAN: I started writing in 1940 when I was 17.

ED: What happens to original artwork after a comic is finished?

STAN: We send it to a warehouse and it just sits there. If you want to know why we don’t just give away the original art, it’s just a case where we don’t believe in giving our readers things...We will give our readers our time and our best effort, but we don’t believe in bribing our readers with this kind of deal where, “If you send us letters, we

ED: Just what gives you ideas for story?

STAN: Actually there is very little inspiration involved. You just sit down and figure it out. Do I need a new villain? What have I not used before? And what do the readers like? H 6

A BRIEF INTERVIEW WITH JACK KIRBY (1969) QUESTION: Jack, when and where did you get your start in the comics field?

JACK KIRBY: About 1934, at the Max Fleischer Animation Studios— doing “in-between” action on Popeye. I was seventeen at the time.

Q: How did you go about getting a job doing Popeye?

KIRBY: When I thought I was ready, I drew up cartoon samples and applied to the Max Fleisher studio in New York.

Q: Could you tell us a little bit about your childhood?

KIRBY: I lived ghetto style in New York’s Lower East Side—boxed, wrestled, and played football the same way. Fortunately, no broken bones. Dabbled in artwork at settlement clubs and ran the newspaper in New York’s first Boys Brotherhood Republic—a self-government club for underprivileged boys.

Q: Two of the most important men in your career with comic books must have been Joe Simon and Stan Lee. When did you meet them?

KIRBY: I met Joe around 1937 and Stan around 1939. Joe and I started working as a team in ’37 and broke up in the ’50s due to economic factors.

Here’s an obscure interview with Kirby from the fanzine Auction Block #1 (June 1969), edited and published by Tom Altshuler, with questions from Greg Theakston and Gordon Mills. Thanks to Will Murray for sending this in!

This photo of Jack from the Marvel Bullpen Photo Set is also from 1969. That’s Mark Evanier in the Red Skull mask.

Q: Who was the first comic book character you did?

KIRBY: The first super-hero I ever did was Blue Beetle.

Q: Did you ever do the Blue Bolt strip?

KIRBY: Yes, I did. Blue Bolt was an early strip, and a lot of the early strips passed very quickly.

I think I did the first four.

Q: Besides Capt. America; The Vision, and Mercury, what other strips did you do for Timely?

KIRBY: Young Allies, Tuk the Caveboy, Hurricane... that’s all I recall offhand.

Q: Which Golden Age strip was the most enjoyable for you to do?

KIRBY: Captain America. That’s why I decided to revive him in the Avengers.

Q: How did Cap come to be?

KIRBY: In the patriotic fervor that gripped the country prior to World War II, Captain America had to happen. It was a question of meeting a need.

Q: Can you tell us anything about how you came upon ideas for some of your other heroes?

KIRBY: Well, when originating Galactus for Marvel, it suddenly struck me, how close to being a truly powerful Biblical type of figure he was.

So I gave him a herald—a cosmic being whose awesome powers would be dwarfed by the great Galactus... a kind of fallen angel I called the Silver Surfer.

Q: Two questions: First, who designed the Fantastic Four’s costumes, you or Stan? Second, in FF #1, the Torch looked like the original. Why did he change?

KIRBY: I designed the costumes. As to the Torch, I thought the modification would be more efficient and effective.

Q: Looking back, what would you say was the worst strip you ever turned out?

KIRBY: The Red Raven.

Q: Do you have any collections of anything?

KIRBY: I have a morgue file of photos and ads dating back to the 1940s. This is for research on detail I may have to use in illustration.

Q: Thank you, Jack. In closing, is there anything else about yourself or your plans you’d like to pass on to us?

KIRBY: Well, let’s see—I was married in 1942 and I now have four children. In my spare time, I like to read anything I can lay my hands on.

I like to bowl and swim with my two younger daughters. Right now, I’m looking over California. H

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Formations

(right) An extreme close-up of Magneto from X-Men #1, and fine artist Roy Lichtenstein’s painting “Image Duplicator” (1963, Oil and Magna on canvas, 24 × 20 in.), based loosely on Kirby’s panel art.

Painting © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein

(below) More of the Master of Magnetism from X-Men #1 (color image, Sept. 1963), and his battle with Thor in Journey Into Mystery #109 (Oct. 1964).

DC

artist Carmine Infantino used to lament what he called his “unfinished symphony.” What he meant by that was the interrupted arc of his artistic career, which broke off when he assumed the position as publisher of DC Comics and ceased drawing monthly stories, halting his stylistic development.

Jack Kirby had many unfinished symphonies, although of a different kind.

His unfinished symphonies were books he started and left prematurely, or which were canceled before they got off the ground. Kirby’s career is littered with such debris, beginning with Captain America, which he left after only ten issues.

Military service in World War II took him away from DC’s Sandman, Boy Commandos and the Newsboy Legion. After he returned, Kirby had a number of horses shot out from under him, largely due to the economic troubles in the comic book industry prevalent during the post-war period. Stuntman, Boys’ Ranch, Boy Explorers, Fighting American, Race to the Moon, and several others were among the casualties. Declining sales, publishing gluts and censorship issues all contributed to these misfires.

At DC, Kirby was making a new name for himself with Challengers of the Unknown when a dispute with editor Jack Schiff over agenting fees associated with the Sky Masters newspaper strip led to him losing the strip, which he created. Later in the 1950s, he was taken off Radio Comics’ Double Life of Private Strong and Adventures of the Fly. Two decades later, Kirby experienced one of his gravest disappointments, the premature cancellation of New Gods and its associated Fourth World titles.

It was better at Marvel Comics during the Silver Age. Although Jack had a tremendous run on Fantastic Four and Thor, Kirby was forced to

The

Maddening Mystery of

abandon most of the characters he started with collaborator Stan Lee, because Lee needed him to start new strips or to rescue fading features. Kirby was an idea factory and Lee used him as a kind of four-color Johnny Appleseed.

I doubt Jack cared when he was taken off Ant-Man. Iron Man was more Stan Lee and Don Heck than it was Jack Kirby, who merely designed the original armor. While The Incredible Hulk was canceled after six issues, Kirby was able to develop the character further in guest appearances, and then later in the revived Hulk feature in Tales to Astonish.

Reading these books back in the 1960s, I was really saddened when Kirby left The Avengers, especially after introducing such an intriguing villain in Kang the Conqueror, a futuristic Dr. Doom who was shaping up to be the Avengers’ main antagonist after the death of Zemo. While Kirby was able to complete the character arc for Zemo, he never got to develop Kang any further, which was unfortunate.

But the original Avengers consisted of super-heroes Kirby had previously created and would continue to draw occasionally. I think the real tragedy of an unfinished symphony of his 1960s Marvel career was The X-Men. These were original characters, and although the team was designed to be a kind of knock-off of the Fantastic Four, Lee and Kirby gave them significant differences.

Stan Lee’s account of the genesis of The X-Men has usually boiled down to a different take on people with powers.

“We’re always looking for new super-heroes––not so much for new heroes as for new explanations of how they came about, and I was getting tired of radioactive accidents,” Lee told Leonard Pitts, Jr. “I felt, ‘Why not get some people who were born the way they are, who had mutant powers?’ So we created the X-Men.” It’s impossible to determine if by “we,” Lee meant Marvel Comics as a publisher, or he and Jack Kirby.

Lee has consistently claimed that the feature was originally called “The Mutants,” and when publisher

Magneto

by Will Murray

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Martin Goodman shot down that proposed title, he came up with X-Man, the X signifying eXtra power.

The important part was coming up with fresh powers. “What powers can I give them that are not in use at the moment?” Lee recalled to The New York Times. “There are mutants in nature, and with all the atomic explosions they’re more likely than ever before.”

Despite the many interviews he gave over the years, Jack rarely spoke about the X-Men. But he, too, was consistent when he did, making it sound as if he had created the concept himself.

“This was a period when we were experimenting with the atom bomb,” Kirby recalled to Steve Pastis. “People were wondering what the effects would be. Everybody worried ‘Would we all become mutants?’ We played around with this ‘mutation thing’ and I came up with the X-Men, who were associated with radiation and its effects on humanity.”

Expanding on this claim, Kirby told James Van Hise, “I created X-Men because of the radiation scare at the time. What I did was give the beneficial side. I always feel there’s hope for the human condition. Sure, I could have made it real scary. We don’t know the connotations of genetics and radiation. We can create radiation, but we don’t know what it’s going to do. I think there’s a possible path through these dangerous courses that will steer us to permanent peace and make new people of us. That’s what I did with the X-Men. They were young people who enjoyed life and had a teacher.”

Kirby’s thinking is illuminating. This wasn’t just another version of the F.F. “I did the natural thing there,” he explained to Leonard Pitts. “What would you do with mutants who were just plain boys and girls and certainly not dangerous?

You school them. You develop their skills. So I gave them a teacher, Professor X. Of course, it was the natural thing to do. Instead of disorienting or alienating people who were different from us, I made the X-Men part of the human race, which they were. Possibly, radiation, if it is beneficial, may create mutants that’ll save us instead of doing us harm. I felt that if we train the mutants our way, they’ll help us— and not only help us, but achieve a measure of growth in their own sense. And so, we could all live together.”

Stan Lee’s perspective was identical, which shows how difficult it is to separate their individual contributions.

“As with all super-hero teams, I had to have an excuse for putting them together,” revealed Lee to Tom DeFalco in Comics Creators on X-Men. “The Fantastic Four were essentially a family, the Avengers were a club. What could the X-Men be that would be different? I figured if they’re teenagers, what’s more natural than a school?”

As far as I know, Kirby never talked about the master mutant named Magneto in any interview. So we don’t know his thinking there. Like Kang, the X-Men’s chief opponent was never explored by the team of Lee and Kirby beyond the first dozen or so issues of The X-Men. Mysteriously, Magneto was virtually written out of their series early on.

In several interviews, Lee commented that he had plans for Magneto that were never explored.

“I always wanted Magneto to turn out to be Professor X’s brother. If I had stayed with the book, that’s what I would have done.”

I sometimes think there’s such a thing as Stan Speak, where Stan Lee makes comments and claims ideas that may or may not be exclusively his. The idea of Magneto’s relationship to Professor X might have been a Jack Kirby idea that Lee rejected, or it might have arisen as a possibility during story conferences, where the origins of

a concept may not be so easily remembered by either party.

But if one looks through the short run of the Lee and Kirby X-Men, one can see that perhaps it’s not merely a possibility that was never developed, but a plan Jack Kirby was executing on and which either he or Lee or both of them abandoned before it could be explored.

Jack Kirby once said it takes about four issues of a comic book to find your characters. This may have been true with Magneto.

When first introduced, he was a cipher—a mutant possessing magnetic powers and ambitions of world domination. His mask, based on a Corinthian battle helmet, was striking and provided only a glimpse of his features without revealing any details that would give away his true identity. There is no indication that he and Professor X share a past––at least, not in Stan Lee’s dialogue.

The X-Men defeated Magneto in their first mission, but like Dr. Doom, he escapes, leaving intact the potential for his return. With the fourth issue, the master mutant resurfaces, and has gathered around him his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, a counterforce to the X-Men. Here, his schemes take on a new light and his true motivations become clear.

When Magneto attempts to take over the tiny Republic of San Marco, Professor X goes into a trance and attempts to contact the malevolent mutant. They meet on what Xavier calls “the mental plane.”

Kirby depicts both antagonists in what appears to be their astral forms over and above the earth, where they telepathically have 9

(above and below) Magneto’s doing astral-projecting (?) and telepathy, from X-Men #6. (next page, bottom) The Juggernaut, from the 1977 Valentine’s Day sketchbook for wife Rosalind Kirby.

it out, unseen by humanity dwelling below. Magneto attempts to convince Xavier that Homo Superior should take over the planet. Xavier sees the role of mutants quite differently. They should instead be a benevolent influence and usher in a Golden Age for all of mankind, he asserts.

Professor X’s telepathic powers up until now have been fairly straightforward. He can read minds and send out his thoughts, by this means monitoring and directing his X-Men when they are fighting in the field. He can also block portions of a person’s memory, as he did with the Blob in issue #3 (left).

Astral projection is Doctor Strange stuff.

But there it is.

This short scene may be ambiguous, but it’s not symbolic.

Three issues later, both Professor X and Magneto simultaneously get the same idea.

They want to enlist Prince Namor, the Sub10

Mariner, in their individual organizations because they consider him to be a mutant, and ripe for recruitment in the coming war between the good and bad mutants of the world.

Magneto goes into a trance and sends forth what Stan Lee describes as “an illusory figure of himself“ while Professor X does the same. Sure looks like astral projection to me, but Stan Lee thinks otherwise.

Both mutants search the seas for Sub-Mariner, but when Professor X senses Magneto’s apparitional presence, he withdraws.

Finding Namor in a state of rage, Magneto does not approach him, but communicates a message to one of Namor’s lackeys. This is done through ordinary word balloons, but clearly must be a form of telepathy since Magneto is not physically present (below). This sets the stage for a great battle with Namor as a pawn.

It’s absolutely clear from the ongoing storyline that Magneto possesses some of Professor X’s mental powers, but not the full range of them. And this is in addition to his magnetic abilities, which by themselves are formidable.

This is reinforced in the next issue when Magneto encounters the Blob, who has previously been made to forget his previous brush with the X-Men through Professor X’s mind-control block.

Attempting to probe The Blob’s mind, Magneto discovers the mental block and realizes he cannot penetrate it. Once again, Lee and Kirby demonstrate that Magneto has masterful telepathic abilities on a par with Xavier’s own. There’s no question about it.

Now, why would Magneto possess some of Professor X’s mutant gifts? Wasn’t he already sufficiently powerful as a human magnet?

The simple and logical answer would be this: that they are related.

Since Lee has admitted that something like that was under consideration, I think we can take that at face value and not as some kind of revision, such as the latter day retro-fitting of Percy Pinkerton from Sergeant Fury and His Howling Commandos being gay.

In later years, it was established that Magneto’s helmet was designed to block telepathic influence. That would also make sense for the Lee and Kirby version of the character, in that Magneto would certainly feel the need to wear such a helmet to prevent Professor X from seizing control of his mind, changing his evil proclivities, or erasing his memory, as he did with the Blob.

The look of Magneto’s helmet with its narrow glimpses of the master mutant’s true features might not be just a design choice, but something more. Imagine if Kirby had planned to one day have Magneto lift up his helmet and, in a tremendous surprise reveal, expose features similar to, if not identical to, those of Professor Charles Xavier, right down to the bald scalp.

For all we know now, Magneto might have been Professor X’s twin brother!

In subsequent appearances, Magneto’s mental powers are not manifest. In fact, the character was more

or less written out of the series early on. And if either Lee or Kirby planned a surprise brotherly reveal, those plans were dropped, along with the character.

So what happened?

In the ironically titled “The Triumph of Magneto,” in X-Men #11, the extraterrestrial Stranger obliterated the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, turning Mastermind into stone, and carrying off Magneto and the Toad to his home galaxy. With Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch having defected, setting up their joining the Avengers only one week later in newsstand time, Magneto seemed to be adrift as a character. When he did return, Professor X summoned the Stranger once again, who took him off the planet, apparently solving the problem for quite a long time.

It’s no secret that The X-Men did not sell as well as expected in those early days, never achieving monthly frequency, as did The Avengers. Searching for reasons, perhaps Stan Lee scapegoated Magneto and his motivations as one of the strip’s weak points. If so, I think he did the evil mutant a disservice. Like Kang the Conqueror, Magneto had a lot of potential—a potential that later creators developed according to their own lights, but not according to Jack Kirby‘s original intentions, whatever they may have been.

Of course, it might have been as simple as a better idea occurred to Lee and Kirby. In one of Kirby’s last X-Men issues––one for which he did only layouts––Professor X’s step-brother was introduced in the person of Cain Marko, the Juggernaut.

Why step-brother? Typically, in popular fiction in that era, the bad sibling trope almost invariably involved a step-sibling. I imagine with Magneto having been disposed of so summarily––and seemingly irrevocably––Lee and Kirby transferred the core idea of an evil sibling for Professor X to Cain Marko.

But it no longer mattered. Kirby had departed the strip, and was off creating new wonders. The final X-Men issue he worked on was #17 (above), in which Magneto returns in a final page surprise.

Lee and artist Werner Roth carried that storyline onward. Gone were Magneto’s non-magnetic powers, never to return—which makes me think they were Kirby’s idea. Certainly, without Kirby as co-plotter, the main reason they vanished was due to Jack Kirby, not Stan Lee. That Jack Kirby was a driver of X-Men storylines is beyond dispute. These stories were created using the Marvel Method of joint plotting, with the artist carrying the burden of the storytelling, often conceptualizing significant elements and characters.

Lee admitted to this when he recounted, “When Jack brought in the first story, it opened with all the X-Men fighting in the place they called the Danger Room, where they were trained. That was Jack’s idea. And it was the most brilliant opening because it started with action and showed all their abilities immediately.”

After the Stranger returned to reclaim Magneto in X-Men #18, he quickly faded into the background, only occasionally surfacing

during the magazine’s original run. Some of that may have been the choices of replacement writers and artists. So it may simply be that, without Jack Kirby’s ideas driving the storylines, no one was left to carry the idea forward. For a villain who was central to the formative X-Men series, it was a remarkable fall from prominence.

In those days, Jack was ransacking the classics to create storylines and character relationships. Thor eventually became the story of a father and his two rival sons. The Hulk was Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Dr. Doom was the Man in the Iron Mask and, whether Kirby considered him to only have a scratch under that iron mask in the beginning or decided it later, only he could ever say.

I suspect that if Lee and Kirby had carried on with The X-Men, Magneto would have been exposed as Charles Xavier’s step-brother, in-keeping with storytelling conventions of that time, and their rivalry would have mirrored that of Thor and Loki.

Lee admitted that he abandoned the title prematurely when he told one interviewer, “I think maybe Jack and I should’ve stayed with it a little longer, to give it more push.“ If I could see one Silver Age Marvel feature continue with Lee and Kirby developing it, my vote would have been the X-Men. My problem would have been what other strip would Kirby have to depart in order to make that happen. That’s a choice I don’t think I could make, then or now…. H

Bibliography • Comics Creators on X-Men. Tom DeFalco. Titan Books, 2006.

• Creators of Super-Heroes. Thomas Andrae. Hermes Press, 2011.

• Marvel. Les Daniels Harry N. Abrams, 1991.

• Stan Lee Conversations. Jeff McLaughlan. University Press of Mississippi, 2007.

• The Art of Jack Kirby. Ray Wyman. Blue Rose Press, 1992.

• “1986 Jack Kirby Interview” Leonard Pitts, Jr. Jack Kirby Collector #66, Fall, 2015.

• “Jack Kirby: The Hardest Working Man in Comics” Steve Pastis. Happening Magazine, November, 1993.

• “The X-Men Vanquish America” Douglas Martin. The New York Times, August 21, 1994

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Boom!

Eclectic Bursts of Genius!

by Shane Foley

W

ith this issue covering Kirby’s “wildest, most experimental ideas,” his “prodigious imagination,” some of his “unhinged lunacy,” and his “non-stop inventiveness,” most Kirby-ites will have many favorites that immediately spring to mind. Here are some of mine. (There are lots more, of course, but there is a limit, not the least of which is excluding things I’ve written about before.) When compiling my list, some examples immediately suggested others, for reasons that will become clearer as we go along. In the end, I found I could arrange the examples into three lists. All except one item are chronological, but while the third is of random examples, the first two are thematic.

List 1: Personal Transport, Kirby style!

1962 • FANTASTIC FOUR #3: THE FIRST FANTASTI-CAR By any artist’s standards, and particularly after the Atom Horse, this bathtub design is very bland.

There are many factors seen in the very early FFs that give me the distinct impression that Kirby initially had little confidence that the FF would be a success— and this bathtub design is one. For example, a few months later, in the same year...

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1962 • TALES OF SUSPENSE #35: THE SPACE CRAFT IN “ZARKORR” ...Kirby created this spacecraft, for a one-off story.

Yet how much more inspired is this craft than the Fantastic Four’s flying car, which would be seen regularly?

But then...

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This list was inspired by once noticing the difference between the vehicles mentioned below for 1974 and 1980. It grew from there.

4 1963 • FANTASTIC FOUR #12: THE SECOND FANTASTI-CAR ...exactly 12 months after FF #3, the F-Car got a face lift—and what a beauty it is, too. Kirby knew by this time that the FF was a huge hit and he let rip with his designs. This redesign is one of the first fruits. What a terrific design this is, based no doubt on some ideas he had read about. We’re unsure if Kirby had real scientific or mechanical knowledge (see page 56!), but he sure knew how to make things look like they would work!

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1959 • SKY MASTERS SUNDAY STRIP— SECOND WEEK: THE ATOM HORSE What a brilliant design. Was this based on anything in NASA’s files? Or was it a Kirby original, based, no doubt, on 1950s futuristic designs he’d absorbed over the years? Either way, it’s stunning and set a benchmark for such designs in the future.

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1968 • FANTASTIC FOUR #84: THE INHUMANS’ VEHICLE Exactly five years after that (all these FFs have a March cover month), Jack threw in this wonderfully weird flying machine. It’s a flying machine with no aerodynamics of any kind, yet one that screams of an other-worldly, anti-gravity capability. A few panels later, the machine disappears and is never seen again. (I wonder where the FF would park such a thing in New Yori City?) So what did Jack base this on? No one else did stuff like this!

1971 • NEW GODS #1: ORION’S ASTRO-HARNESS Climaxing here with a 9 return to ’71 for what I think is Kirby’s crowning ‘transport’ achievement! I still remember the goosebumps I got when I first saw the ad for New Gods #1 and viewed this amazing design—all capped off with Orion’s dynamic helmet. Maybe one reason Kirby jettisoned the harness in later New Gods issues was because it would be a pain to draw over and over again, but that doesn’t take away from its artistic brilliance. What a treat that he brought it back in 1984’s “Even Gods Must Die!” Such perfection!

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6 1971 • NEW GODS #2: A NEW GENESIS CONTRAPTION Kirby continued his wonderfully inventive string of transportation vehicles at DC with Jimmy Olsen’s Whiz Wagon and the Forever People’s Super Cycle. But then, for no real logical reason, he showed some ‘transportation’ of a totally different kind. This design shows Kirby’s abstract artistic thinking being applied to what is basically a children’s swing set. It’s crazy, it’s 6 ‘out there’, yet it looks functional enough that we know what it represents. In Kirby’s early months into the Fourth World at DC, his inspiration and imagination were flying!

7 1974 • OMAC #5: THE GPA’S TRANSPORT VEHICLE Shades of the first F-Car—what’s going on here? This vehicle is a box!

Is Kirby experimenting with a new, ultra simple design? Or did he draw this on a day when he just couldn’t get his mojo going? Or was the situation at DC getting under his skin so much he wouldn’t give more than he needed to? (Personally, I think the latter, where Kirby wrote his stories but refused to design great villains or—in this case—machines that he would lose all rights to as soon as they were published. He continued this trend for a while when he returned to Marvel in 1975.)

8 1980 (CIRCA) • “LABOUR LAUNCH” ANIMATION DESIGN Now this is more like Kirby in full flight—the design genius is back with a creativity that matches his best! Wonderfully, totally Kirbyesque!

List 2: Some Kirbyesque versions of “The Control Room” Kirby must have drawn thousands of types of Control Rooms in his career, but here are a few that stand out to me.

10 1966 • THOR #132 What a great Control Desk he drew here—just one of many machinescapes he put into this sequence.

Kirby was red-hot at this time.

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11 1969 • FANTASTIC FOUR #85 A few years later, Kirby revisited this design by giving Dr. Doom a similar control seat in a full-pager.

It’s brilliant, and looks very convincing. But as time went on, many “Control Rooms” later, Kirby’s concepts became a little more obscure...

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12 12 1978 • LORD OF LIGHT: THE “PLANETARY CONTROL ROOM” What goes on here—and in what way is this a “Control ROOM”? The left side, with its floating personnel monitoring that wonderful circular device is strange enough, although we can understand it as some form of cosmic control or oversight. But on the right side, we suddenly have a giant hand and a cube and...!

This is a long way from Doc Doom’s wonderful chair! But it gets weirder...

13 1984 • CAPTAIN VICTORY #13 This is a bit more than a “Control Room” concept, more a total “Control Center” that, by rights, should have a “Control Room” somewhere in it. But look at it: “Ranger Center” is a Giant Hand (echoes of the last example) now complete with a giant eye and giant brain.

What on Earth (oops, no—what in the heavens) are we looking at?

Is this symbolic? Does this mean Ranger Center “sees all, understands all, and acts on it all”?

13 This is a long way from a giant space station, which we would have thought “Ranger Center” to be! Kirby’s symbolism and design are off the scale at this point—so much so that we can’t know if it’s artistic work that’s sheer genius or stream of consciousness without much depth of meaning. (Of course, most of us would happily prefer the first!) Creativity gone wonderfully mad!

15 15 1971 • THE PROMETHEAN GALAXY This concept introduced in New Gods #5 still evokes all kinds of wonder and questions. Chained to giant rocks, challenging that part of nature that glimpses the eternal—the Promethean Giants take elements of the Greek Promethean legend and push and expand them into unexplainable yet familiar territory. Kirby looks at it, then backs away, because any answers are locked behind the Source Wall that the giants couldn’t shatter. A brilliant example of how Kirby can conceive and write and even illustrate deep mythic subjects without trivializing them with trite explanations!

16 1974 • TRAVELER ROOTS A single panel from Kamandi #21 sees this phenomenon: walking roots looking for a place to settle. Had Kirby heard of “The Traveler’s Palm” from Madagascar and got inspired by the name?

(He’s certainly been inspired by oddball names 16 before. Look at his version of Dough Boy in Captain America!) Who knows— but it’s a great example of his lateral thinking, and of tossing in an idea for such a brief time to make every part of the story really interesting!

List 3: Flotsam and Jetsam 14 1967 • MODOK

I guess the big headed alien/baddie wasn’t all that new a concept when Kirby introduced Modok (in the Cap tale in Tales of Suspense #94), but as usual, he made even older ideas feel new and visually stunning. As a kid, I found Kirby’s execution of the idea frightening and gruesome in a way I’d never seen before. It was made all the more confronting by witnessing the character’s pathetic helplessness at the end of that first story.

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17 1976-77 • 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY COSMIC PAGES We are all stunned by Kirby’s ability to make the cosmos alive with pulsating, swirling energy, but in his 2001 series, he had more scope to create bigger and better panoramas of space than ever before. And he rose to the challenge in spades. How does one put into words the genius of pages like the one below from the Treasury; and there are dozens more from it, and the ongoing comic series!

18 1977 • ARNIM ZOLA

From Captain America #209 and #210, Zola has had a whole article devoted to him before (in TJKC somewhere…). But quite apart from the mystery of his name, who but Jack Kirby would design a character like this and make him work? And it shows how conditioned I am as a human to look at where the head normally is, rather than where Kirby put it, because I find I’m often looking at where Zola’s face should be, not where it actually is!

More off-the-wall thinking from Kirby!

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19 1982 • CAPTAIN VICTORY’S

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ALIEN PASSENGER In Captain Victory #8, we see the Dreadnought Tiger about to leave Earth after defeating the Insecton invasion. But to venture into Hyper Space (a concept used aplenty in previous Kirby works but, as is his want, reimagined here), Victory needs

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the cooperation of an unnamed alien passenger to affect the jump. The whole concept of what a Fourth (or Seventh?)

Dimensional alien would look like confined to three dimensions is the subject, and Kirby goes to town drawing the weirdness that eventuates. The creature even looks entirely different on page 1 to what she does on pages 2 and 3. It’s not vital to the story—the alien could have looked any way Kirby wanted—but in his usual fashion, Kirby attempts to add extra layers of thought and conceptualizing to his epic. Pure Kirby random genius! H

Gallery 1

Beta Redux [next page] Marvel Collector’s Item Classics #19 (1969) Fantastic Four #27 is from June 1964 and MCIC #19, reprinting that story, was from nearly 5 years later. Why, in the middle of a run of reprint covers, is Kirby suddenly doing a new one? This is a lot earlier than a batch of new covers for reprint comics he did about 18 months later (and about which I have a theory). Perhaps Marvel simply couldn’t find a good copy to print—we know for example that Marvel had no copy of the Iron Man story from Tales of Suspense #50 and Tom Brevoort commissioned Don Heck to replicate it. For whatever reason, Jack did a new cover­—using the same basic layout, but beefing up the tension and action in accordance with the change in his art style that had pervaded his work in the time since the original was done. And it’s a beauty!

[right] Marvel’s Greatest Comics #77 (1978) What can we say about this piece, which simply reverses the original cover to Fantastic Four #96 (1970), except that (a) it proves Jack’s light-box still worked and (b) he had absolutely no interest in adjusting the reverse image to get the hair of Reed, Sue or Johnny ‘correct’.

The only differences I can see between the two, besides the reversal, are a change in the torn curtain, an upgraded telephone and its cord, the deletion of the pipe and cigar, and the lack of dwindling flame on both Johnny figures, with a table added to fill the gap. We could ask the question: Why the need to reverse the original?

The masthead/logo certainly did not require it.

Perhaps Jack was asked for a new cover and he simply decided to do it this way, rather than try to think of another. After all, if it was an editorial decision, anyone in the office could have light-boxed the original. The new version is signed “J.K./M.R.”, so it’s possible Mike Royer did the light-boxing.

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Twice-told Kirby covers, with commentary by Shane Foley

Tales of Suspense #78 (1966) unused cover layout Presuming this is a genuine 1966 piece (Fury and the robot look like mid-’60s Kirby, but the Cap figure? To me, it looks like Kirby from a decade later—bulkier and less supple. But I’m probably wrong!), we have to assume Jack rejected it himself, since we know he didn’t submit cover layouts for approval.

(He’d kept the piece and a collage was pasted right over the top.) So he was not happy with it himself. Good call!

Though why did he decide to reverse the viewpoint rather than simply do a better Cap figure? Perhaps because showing the heroes front-on is easier from this angle.

Although that Fury figure is perfect...

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Marvel Double Feature #13, 18, 19 (1976) These issues reprinted Captain America stories from Tales of Suspense (1967), and featured stories that originally sported Iron Man covers. (And even though MDF reprinted Iron Man stories, he never got the cover spot.) And so new covers were done when the Cap chapter had no original cover. (It’s not quite that simple—since MDF #18’s “If this be... Modok” did have a cover—but that cover had been used for the previous issue. Yes, it’s convoluted...) These covers have the heavier, blockier figures of later Kirby, but are every bit as good as those from nearly a decade earlier.

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Marvel’s Greatest Comics #27 and #28 (1970) Again we ask the question: Why are there new covers for comics that have perfectly good original covers?

Sure, sometimes the new cover has a lot more action than the 1965 original (compare MGC #28 to its original in FF #36)—but sometimes not (compare MGC #27 to FF #35). Personally (and here’s the theory I mentioned earlier), I think some of the reason, especially in Kirby’s case—but maybe for other artists as well—is that when these reprints appeared, Marvel was in the process of cutting their page count from 20 to 19 pages per issue (remember the half pages 12 and 13?), which means many artists were getting a page or two less income every month. So how to fill that pay gap and keep them from looking for work elsewhere? Surely these covers are a possible answer.

(I think, too, this is the reason that some artists—John Buscema in his interview in TJKC #18 for one—misremembered getting a page rate cut at this time, even though people such as Roy Thomas, I think, have no such memory. Certainly their income per full issue went down, but because of volume of pages, not rates per page.)

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Marvel Super-Heroes #22 and #27 (1969-1970) These covers convince me my former supposition is possible.

What had Kirby had to do with the X-Men in the years previous?

Or the Hulk? Or even more to the point, Daredevil? Nothing! Yet here he is, doing riffs of old covers (1964’s X-Men #3 and 1965’s Tales to Astonish #68), with small, almost half-hearted Daredevil shots squeezed in. Surely, these were done to get his page quota up to normal, since by this time at Marvel he had absolutely no investment in these characters.

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Marvel Triple Action #29 (1976) and Marvel Super-Heroes #54 (1975) Back at Marvel in 1975 after his DC years, Kirby was a regular cover artist on many titles, and even re-doing covers originally drawn by other artists. Here, his take on 1967’s Avengers #37’s Gil Kane cover is a beauty (even if the villain needed some minor correcting in the inking), while again simply viewing the same action from a different angle.

The Hulk cover, a riff on Tales to Astonish #99’s, looks generic to me—almost pinup-like— which I think works far better in the pencils than after the modification to Hulk’s face in the inks. (For my money, I like Marie Severin’s original 1968 cover better—but that may just be nostalgia on my part!)

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Fantasy Masterpieces #3-6 (1966) For the all-reprint Fantasy Masterpieces comic, Marvel had Kirby do some great new framing illustrations of Captain America for the covers, to complement all the reprinted images. Note how Cap’s shield was adjusted (very poorly!) to accommodate the logo on issue #5 (Oct. 1966).

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TJKC Edition Fall 2021 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.

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Fighting American print silkscreened in Switzerland 23” x 19”

BOYDISMS

In 2018, I bumped into Irving Forbush in New York City’s Times Square. I recognized him from my beloved Not Brand Echh comics and we chatted for a while. He told me that after NBE folded, “Stan and Jack, great team that they made, had created a few conundrums that I just couldn’t take anymore!”

Irv tried several times to confront the creative pair about the ‘discrepancies’ (as he saw them) he’d read, only to be politely and professionally rebuffed at every turn.

I quickly jotted down his words and… well, here, he finally gets his say!

Forbush Man: “Lee and Kirby did hundreds, maybe thousands of wonderfully told tales, but some things, I gotta tell you, just don’t add up. And those made me ask then and now...

(above) Marie Severin did this impressive portrait of ol’ Irv in ’73 in watercolor. Thanks to Rob Pistella of comicartfans.com.

“Howcome?!”

Ideas that might’ve need a little more thought, as told by Forbush-Man to Jerry Boyd

“Hey Jack and Stan, if Doc Doom can create androids, take over a small country, challenge the FF, and come up with a time machine to boot, howcome he can’t figure out a way to get his face fixed up?!”

[Fantastic Four #5, left]

“Howcome four of the Inhumans debuted with masks? They never had secret identities to protect from their fellow Inhumans, right?”

[Fantastic Four #46, bottom left]

“Hey Stan, howzabout writing up a story where the mad but brilliant scientist retains the good sense to figure out an antidote before he experiments on himself, like the nut who turned himself into a Gorilla-Man (twice!)?”

[Tales to Astonish #30, below]

“Wait a New York minute, guys!

If Col. Nick Fury was the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D, why’d he always take the toughest missions— solo? Weren’t there other agents he trusted to do 26

(above) Not Brand Echh #1 in ’67 gave us some great times and the first appearance of Forbush Man—art by Kirby!

the job?! Wasn’t he supposed to be like… an administrator? Sheesh!”

[Strange Tales #141, right]

“Impressive, Jack!

But how can even the great Rawhide Kid and terrific Two-Gun Kid squeeze-off so many shots that fast and that accurately from a six-shooter?!”

[Two-Gun Kid #61, bottom right]

“Since Mighty Thor had never spent any time in Mt. Olympus before in his centuries-spanning life, howcome he automatically knew the job description for Lord Zeus?!”

it! No excuses! Report to the Disintegration Chamber! Bye! Hah-hahah!”

[The whereabouts of these panels could not be shown and must remain secret and are classified by direct order from the Supreme Hydra of Union Local 12, Syracuse, NY]

[Journey into Mystery Annual #1, left]

“Awesome cover, Jack! But you and editor Stan forgot to give the Kid his gun belt and six-guns! I own a copy of this, and Colt had it on as he approached the situation, so don’t offer me a sourball and a No-Prize and tell me to go back to sweeping!”

“The Green Thing boasted, ‘Yes, I have powers—all the powers I shall need for the great task that lies before me!’ In the next panel, he tells the human near him to help him out!

Which one is it, men?”

[Kid Colt, Outlaw #88, left, natch!]

[Tales of Suspense #19, right]

“Congratulations, X-Men! You all graduated from Professor Xavier’s school in X-Men #7. So howcome you were still getting trained in combat exercises weeks/months/ years later? Aren’t you grads supposed to pack up/ move out/make room for a new class after finishing up? Imagine contacting your parents and telling them you’ve completed all your training but you’re going to remain in school because… whatever!”

“Hold up, men! Doc Banner didn’t want to be the Hulk early on, right? But shortly later, and still not wanting to be green, he’s built a machine to bombard him with gamma rays so he can Hulk-out whenever. Shouldn’t he have made a de-gammaray-thingy-machine-device instead, so he could go back to normal?”

[Incredible Hulk #4, left]

“Does Spider-Man think the hood he’s carrying around can’t hear him say his secret identity?”

[Amazing Fantasy #15, right]

“Lord Odin has an entire kingdom of noble, trustworthy immortals to choose from to be in charge of Asgard for a short period, right? So howcome he has the next of kin, the god of mischief, who happens to be the most untrustworthy god in the whole realm, sit in for him?! Hasn’t the All-Wise been paying attention to this evil guy’s way of doing business?!”

[X-Men #7, below]

[Thor #155, below]

“Jack, Stan… you’re killing me! Black Bolt wanted an advance scout to check out us human types, correct? So howcome he didn’t pick an Inhuman who’d have had an easier time of blending in with us? Hey, I’m a Triton fan, but a green scaly amphibian?!

Uhhhh, no.”

“Okaaaaay, we get it! If you work for Hydra, you’d better get it right the first time, because if you fail, you die! So why would anyone want to work for Hydra? You’re late for work one time… and that’s

[Sorry, the Inhumans protect their files, also.]

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“The Red Skull’s wanted Captain America’s head on a pike since The Big One, right? So why all the games? The Skull got the Cosmic Cube and could’ve wiped out ol’ Winghead just like that, or put him in an absolutely inescapable trap! But noooooo, he decides to play cat-and-mouse games instead and ends up losing again!

Howcome?!”

“Odin made everyone take a pledge never to harm Balder—except Loki!

Howcome?!”

[Journey Into Mystery #107, right]

“Howcome these guys [below] have to line up every time they shout out their Hydra motto?”

[Tales of Suspense #80, left]

[These panels are classified— see above]

“I dug it when you two revived Namor, the Sub-Mariner in FF #4. The Human Torch dropped the aquatic amnesiac into the ocean and his memory returned. But howcome Subby’s longtime body odor (he had to smell baaaad!) didn’t prompt him into taking a shower or bath in all those years?

And doesn’t he risk death, amnesia or not, if he’s outta the drink for a long period? I gotta say it again­— sheesh!”

“Jack/Stan… You great guys gave Dr. Doom the Silver Surfer’s powers in Fantastic Four #57 and Doomsie was on a rampage until he was stopped in #60, right? In fact, he was in such a hurry to subjugate the world that he didn’t take any time to conduct any experiments on himself to test the limits of his stolen abilities. So howcome he knew his body’s ‘heat limit’ was one million degrees?!”

[Fantastic Four #4, left]

[Fantastic Four #60, bottom]

After my talk with ‘Honest Irv’ ended, I asked him, “Interesting… well, did you ever get any answers about those queries from the King and Old Smiley?” Irving’s face moved into a sheepish grin and he added, “Uhhhh, yeah… Stan and Jack were back together in the late 1970s in the Marvel offices putting together the Silver Surfer graphic novel. When they noticed me sweeping the floor, they stopped talking and asked me to step into the room with them. Stan smiled and said, ‘Irv, we owe you some long overdue answers to those questions you asked us years ago—and I’m sorry it took so long.

Man, were we busy back then!’ Kirby smiled also, and said gently, ‘We can answer all your questions with two questions of our own… okay?’ I was kinda taken aback but I was ready for those answers!

“Okay, guys…” Stan asked me, ‘We weren’t out to create perfect characters, right?’ Jack asked me, ‘Did you have any BETTER ideas?’ I was dismantled.

I told them I didn’t. We all laughed and that was that.” H

“Guys, guys… please explain this one to me.

Brilliant bio-chemist Hank Pym increases his strength level greatly when he shrinks to become the tiny AntMan, but after getting really tall and big as Giant-Man/ Goliath, he never seemed to up his power level enough to really tussle with Subby, the Hulk, Power Man, etc., and I just wanna know—howcome?!”

[Tales to Astonish #59, above]

“Janet Van Dyne, the Wonderful Wasp, was a little too much of a ditz the way you men handled her.

Sure, she was super valuable and super smart many a day, but when she went to get Thor in Avengers #2 and Dr. Blake told her to wait outside while he ‘sends for him’, and she couldn’t put 2+2 together to make a secret I.D. connection— that’s just too much! Come on fellers, the Negative Zone makes more sense than that!”

Special thanks to the irreplaceable Irving Forbush aka Forbush Man for his 50+ years at the House of Ideas. And this piece is dedicated to ‘Mirthful’ Marie Severin, ‘Groovy’ Gary Friedrich, & ‘Titanic’ Tom Sutton, whose superb work on NBE provided the inspiration for this contribution, along with Jack, Stan, Roy Thomas, and others.

[The Avengers #2, left]

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All characters TM & © their respective owners.

THE WORLD OF TWOMORROWS

HOLLY JOLLY

25th anniversary retrospective by publisher JOHN MORROW and COMIC BOOK CREATOR magazine’s JON B. COOKE! Go behind-the-scenes with MICHAEL EURY, ROY THOMAS, GEORGE KHOURY, and a host of other TwoMorrows contributors!

(224-page FULL-COLOR trade paperback) $37.95 (Digital Edition) $15.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-092-2

Celebrate POP CULTURE of Christmas past: MOVIES (Miracle on 34th Street, It’s a Wonderful Life), MUSIC (White Christmas, Little St. Nick), TV (How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer), BOOKS (Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol), DECOR (silver aluminum trees), COMICS (super-heroes meet Santa), and more! By MARK VOGER. (192-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $43.95 (Digital Edition) $15.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-097-7

REED CRANDALL

ILLUSTRATOR OF THE COMICS

(Softcover Edition)

ROGER HILL’s history of Crandall’s life and career, with never-seen photos and unpublished artwork!

SECOND PRINTING—NOW IN SOFTCOVER! (256-page FULL-COLOR PAPERBACK) $39.95 (256-page Digital Edition) $13.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-102-8

MAC RABOY

Master of the Comics

ROGER HILL documents the life and career of the artist of BULLETMAN, SPY SMASHER, GREEN LAMA, and his crowning achievement, CAPTAIN MARVEL JR., with never-before-seen photos, a wealth of rare and unpublished artwork, and the first definitive biography of a true Master of the Comics!

(160-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 (Digital Edition) $14.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-090-8

TwoMorrows.

The Future of Comics History.

HERO-A-GO-GO!

MICHAEL EURY looks at comics’ CAMP AGE, when spies liked their wars cold and their women warm, and TV’s Batman shook a mean cape!

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IT CREPT FROM THE TOMB Digs up the best of FROM THE TOMB, the acclaimed horror comics history magazine!

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Career-spanning tribute to a legend!

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THE MLJ COMPANION

Complete history of ARCHIE COMICS’ “Mighty Crusaders” super-heroes, with in-depth examinations of each era of the characters’ history!

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Charles Vess • Mike Ploog • Kyle Baker • Chris Sprouse • Mark Buckingham • Guy Davis • Jeff Smith Frazer Irving • Ron Garney • Eric Powell • Cliff Chiang • Paolo Rivera

DRAW and BRICKJOURNAL issues, just $3 each! Download our Free Catalog: https://www.twomorrows.com/media/TwoMorrowsCatalog.pdf

Foundations

For a change of pace, here is Simon & Kirby’s “You Can’t Forget A Killer” from Headline Comics #24 (June 1947), with art reconstruction and coloring by Chris Fama. This story wasn’t included in Titan’s S&K reprint volumes. We’ll continue with our next installment of the complete Link Thorne stories next issue.

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A Good Shot...

...Of Jack Ruby?

Incidental Iconography

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

by Sean Kleefeld

O

ne of the more unusual pieces of comic storytelling that Jack Kirby worked on—one that I’ve rarely seen even mentioned— is a partial biography of Jack Ruby, the man who killed Lee Harvey Oswald after he’d been charged with the assassination of President John Kennedy. The piece is unusual for a number of reasons. It ran in the May 1967 issue of Esquire magazine, meaning Jack had created this within a

year of his finishing “The Galactus Trilogy” and “This Man, This Monster” in Fantastic Four. At the time, Esquire’s circulation was about three times that of any Marvel comic, so this would have been Jack’s largest audience in years. Despite being seen by a much wider audience at the time, though, it’s fallen pretty deep into obscurity by comics fans.

“Partial biography” is probably overstating the piece’s breadth. It really only covers a two-day period between Ruby learning of Kennedy’s assassination and his murder of Oswald. Kirby is able to cover this period in three pages, although they are at a larger magazine size which afforded more room to work with than a typical comic page. The piece is also heavily footnoted, pulling much of its dialogue from the Warren Commission’s report, although sometimes missing the context that would indicate comments as jokes or having been said ironically.

Both the heavy footnotes and the fairly high number of panels per page (even for the larger page size) almost certainly means Jack was working from a more formal script than he’d been using with Stan Lee at the time.

Danny Fingeroth has done some digging into who the uncredited writer here was; Esquire’s associate editor at the time, John Berendt, could not recall who specifically he’d hired for that, and the names he did provide to Danny haven’t led to anything definitive so far.

But let’s look at Jack’s art (as inked by Chic Stone)—that’s the point of this column after all!

While Jack mostly drew fictional characters, this was hardly his first time incorporating a real person’s likeness into a story; he threw in almost a dozen recognizable actors in Fantastic Four #9 alone! So it should come as no surprise 38

here that Jack used Ruby’s actual appearance as a basis for his work.

That said, however, Jack’s interpretation of Ruby is surprisingly nondescript. While Jack does draw Ruby with his receding hairline and stocky build, and even his pretty angular nose, he would easily get lost as a background character in any of Jack’s super-hero stories—or maybe as a generic mobster in the scenes where Jack draws him with the fedora Ruby wore when he actually shot Oswald.

To be fair, Ruby naturally looks like something of a stock character from one of Jack’s stories. There’s little to his appearance that really stands out as remarkable.

His hair is thinning, but he’s not really bald. He’s overweight, but not grossly so. He’s mature, but not quite old. For a white man in his early fifties, he’s about as average as you can expect. About the only distinguishing feature he had was a cleft chin, but that’s not really even visible in most of the panels Jack draws. So what readers get is simultaneously a relatively bland-looking character and a reasonably accurate representation of Ruby.

There’s simply not a lot for Jack to work with and accentuate as iconographic imagery—which is precisely the type of character design Jack would use to help send characters into the background, setting them apart from the hero and villain. From a storytelling perspective, there should not be anything particularly eye-catching about one person in a crowd scene; the whole point is that they’re read as just “a bunch of people” and not a series of individuals.

Interestingly, despite several other named individuals in the story, the only other one Jack even tries to draw is Oswald himself. Everyone else is either drawn with their back to the reader or at such a small scale as to be unidentifiable apart from what’s said in the dialogue. Ruby’s roommate and business associates as well as various police officials are all named in the story, but I suspect Jack had no access to photos of them while he was working on this piece, so they get relegated to being generic background characters.

One picture he most certainly had, though, was Robert H. Jackson’s Pulitzer Prize winning photo of Ruby actually shooting Oswald [below]. Jack replicates the angle and positioning from that picture here, but he also crops it so tightly on Ruby that even Oswald is barely included. Detective Jim Leavelle, famously the only one in a light-colored suit in that photo, is omitted entirely. Given that Jack also includes a great deal of obfuscating smoke coming from Ruby’s gun and the point of impact is conspicuously off-panel, I’m certain this was a deliberate choice—probably at the request of Berendt—to downplay the visual impact of an actual murder for Esquire’s readers.

(Although a copy of the actual photo is used on

the magazine’s cover, it is decidedly very grainy, to the point that Ruby’s gun is barely recognizable as one.)

When Jack drew this, he was already working monthly on Fantastic Four and Thor, as well as the “Nick Fury” and “Captain America” stories in Strange Tales and Tales of Suspense—not to mention covers for X-Men. He was working here in a decidedly different page format, with a much tighter script than he was used to (i.e. an actual script), and trying to get this done on top of a pretty heavy workload. That he didn’t spend a lot of extra time trying to capture the extreme nuance needed to really individualize an outwardly bland-looking individual is hardly surprising. I expect Jack looked at a photo of Ruby and saw a character he’d drawn a thousand times before in crowd scenes and backgrounds, and didn’t give it another thought. After knocking out these three pages, he still had to break the Inhumans out of The Negative Barrier, after all! H

(above) While Chic Stone’s inking on the “Jack Ruby” strip may’ve watered-down the likeness of the main character, inker Dick Ayers had even less to work with for the depiction of JFK for his cameo in Fantastic Four #17 (Aug. 1963). The 35th President would be assassinated on November 22, 1963, less than a year after Kirby drew this scene. (left) Kirby himself colored the Esquire story, making distinctive choices with his Dr. Martin’s Dye hues.

Photo © Robert H. Jackson

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OBSCURA

Barry Forshaw

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

by Barry Forshaw Barry Forshaw is the author of Crime Fiction: A Reader’s Guide and American Noir (available from Amazon) and the editor of Crime Time (www.crimetime. co.uk); he lives in London.

there is a story called “The Two-Dimensional Man” in which the hapless protagonist takes a powder that turns him into a comically-drawn “flat man.” The story is full of truly bizarre ideas, and Kirby tackles head-on one quite absurd sequence in which a group of cows about to be transported are turned into flat, two-dimensional creatures and stacked like a pile of newspapers—even though they are still living and breathing. The hero is next up (accidentally) for the treatment, and the reader has time to wonder why if he has ingested the transformational powder via a cup of tea (he has an English butler—it’s the only way Americans drink tea, of course, when given to them by their London-born butler), how it is possible for his clothes to attain the same two-dimensional status as his body. But the story is great fun, and the best thing in an issue which contains an excellent piece by Lou Cameron, who also provides a rare cover. And “The Two-Dimensional Man” is a reminder of how humour was something else that Kirby could do when necessary. The recent death of Mad magazine’s great caricaturist Mort Drucker makes one wonder about the other things that Kirby might have done in this area, given the chance—although he did do humour work for Marvel and Mad imitators.

CONFRONTING THE RIDICULOUS

All readers of this magazine will happily accept praise for the comics medium in general, won’t they? After all, why would anyone be looking at The Jack Kirby Collector if they were not a fan of the medium? But here’s something you may not have heard praised before; the possibility that the medium can (that is, for the duration of a story) make the ridiculous—as opposed to the simply imaginative—surprisingly plausible. In comics, somehow, all things are possible—which they are demonstrably not in other fields. Case in point: Jack Kirby’s work on Fantastic Four—and specifically Mr. Fantastic. The first example of a human being who can stretch and distort his body in astonishing ways was, of course, Jack Cole’s Plastic Man, and Cole was well aware of just how silly (and unscientific) the concept was. Cole played his red-clad hero (and idiotic sidekick Woozy Winks) for laughs—in fact, there are those who would argue that Plastic Man was the greatest humour comic book ever produced. But when Kirby and Stan Lee repurposed the notion with Reed Richards, they largely played it straight, and Kirby enthusiasts were persuaded to willingly accept this most ridiculous of superhero powers.

However, there is an earlier example in Kirby’s work of something similar in terms of outrageous notions—but on this earlier occasion, it is perfectly clear that he knew it was impossible to take the concept seriously.

In DC’s Tales of the Unexpected #24 (April 1958),

GARGOYLES

Writing a column such as this over a long period— which John Morrow has been kind enough to ask me to do—leads to certain problems. For a start, writers such as myself have to avoid an endless stream of encomiums for the subject of the column (in this case, a certain comics illustrator); that would become a little boring after a while, and—apart from anything else—most readers of The Jack Kirby Collector don’t need to be persuaded of the talents of the man whose name is in the masthead. To that end, over the years, I’ve tried to be frank about what even Kirby’s admirers sometimes admit are the missteps of the Master: such as the fact that his amazingly fertile writing imagination (leaving aside his illustrative skills) was wildly undisciplined—and even in his best work, in need of a stern editorial hand such as that provided by Stan Lee (and which was in less evidence in his last DC period). Having said that, one can instantly start to argue with oneself—despite the purple prose and the occasional incoherent plotting, Kirby’s innovations in those final DCs still produced an amazing bushel of concepts and notions which are still in use today, including one which is central to the current DC universe: the godlike super-villain Darkseid.

But back to finding something new to look at in the work of Jack Kirby. Examining a typical issue of Atlas/Marvel’s Strange Tales (#74, from April 1960) will remind the reader of what was becoming a typical package of that era: a lead-off Kirby strip followed by back-ups from the likes of Don Heck and Paul Reinman, topped off with an outing from editor Stan Lee’s other heavy hitter, Steve Ditko. In this issue, the Heck and Reinman tales are unexciting, standard stuff—as they so often are in the books of this period. The Ditko closer, “When the Totem Walks”, is one of his most impressive pieces from this period, with a dynamic splash panel that dispenses with the border and uses the white of the page to great effect. But we’re here to talk about Jack Kirby, and the opening story, “Gorgolla! The Living Gargoyle!!” (overuse of exclamation marks was a Stan Lee 40

“hook” technique was to be employed in a two-fold fashion: the opening tale, the extravagantly named “I am Taboo: The Thing from the Murky Swamp!” was clearly only half a story, with the deceptive alien invader destroyed by an atom bomb, but with a final exclamation-point-heavy box that read “...and so ended the threat of Taboo! Or so we thought! Yes... so we thought!” Readers of the day would have been happy to see this promised return of the mudbased creature. Despite its amorphous shape on the cover of the book as it menaces three fleeing men (only one in the story itself, however), the more humanoid creature in the splash panel is much more effective with its dramatic shape (ironically, Kirby was to come up with the yet another iteration for the character in the story itself—the artist was nothing if not prodigal with his character designs).

But back to that continuity idea—the second tale in the issue is “The Return of the Totem”, another superbly drawn Steve Ditko piece that is a sequel to the one that appeared in the earlier issue. Certainly, readers of the day were hooked—including now, British readers. Those of us on this scepter’d isle had previously had to make do with black-and-white reprints of Marvel comics, but this issue of Strange Tales was customised for the British market—full-color (still considered a luxury over here), but bearing a ninepenny price and the legend on the indicia: “Created exclusively for Thorpe & Porter, Ltd, Oadby, Leicester, sole distributors in the United Kingdom.” We were more than happy to shell out for this issue, even though the two final stories are unexciting and workaday pieces by Paul Reitman and Don Heck respectively. The Don Heck story, however, is the one that has the famous title “I Made the Hulk Live”—nothing to do, though, with Lee and Kirby’s subsequent Jekyll and Hyde monster. Bruce Banner was yet to be born. H

characteristic). The design of this grotesque monster (in fact, an alien visitor, like many of the other stone gargoyles around the world it corrals to disastrous effect) is as striking as anything Kirby produced in this period. One wonders, however, how he was able to come up with so many very different creatures that had we youthful aficionados stumping up money for each new issue?

THE DOUBLE WHAMMY

But examine the splash panel, and you’ll see something else which is what makes the artist so special. Take a look at that crumbling masonry. It’s very easy to take such things for granted in Kirby’s work; apart from anything else, destroyed masonry is so plentiful in Kirby, but notice the way he turns the bricks that Gorgolla is smashing into almost abstract geometric shapes. As so often in his work, they become part of the total composition— as important as the destructive central figure and the scurrying, terrified humans. The whole tale itself is full of the design ideas which are a Kirby specialty. There is a small panel on page 2 in which a climber is seen against a backdrop of snowy mountains— simple, but designed with the kind of skill that is a Kirby hallmark. And while Atlas/ Marvel here is firmly in the era when we are already on the way to the “monster of the month” syndrome that became a cliché in the company’s universe, the Kirby/Ditko Double Whammy make this issue of Strange Tales very collectable.

KIRBY KONTINUITY

One of the canniest innovations that Stan Lee was to bring to the Marvel universe was a sense of continuity from book to book. To some degree, this was a simple commercial ploy: leave the reader with a hook that would ensure that they would be keen to pick up the next issue of a particular book. And this strategy was to be employed in the very next issue of Strange Tales (#75, June 1960) after the one discussed above. Not only that, the 41

formations

(above) Incredible Hulk #1 (May 1962) contains the cover blurb “Fantasy As You Like It!”, mimicking other Marvel monster comics that year, such as Tales of Suspense #25’s declaration, “A Heart-Pounding Tale Of Fantasy!” (below).

I

n 1961, all of America seemed to be monster mad.

The trend had begun on television, with the rise of local “Creature Feature” programs which telecast old monster films. Universal Films were among the most popular.

Baby Boomer kids ate them up. This led to Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine, monster gum cards, and misshapen plastic toys. When the Aurora Plastic Company released a Frankenstein model kit late in 1961 (right), demand was so great they could barely keep up with production.

At the then-unbranded comic book company Martin Goodman ran, this monster mania did not go unnoticed. The pages of Strange Tales, Tales to Astonish and other fantasy titles were bursting with monsters of all species, the bigger and brawnier the better. When Goodman instructed editor-writer Stan Lee to package a super-hero title, Lee and artist Jack Kirby threw in a brutish monster for good measure. It worked. The Thing became one of the Fantastic Four’s most popular characters.

As the year 1962 drew near, the fad showed no signs of abating. Someone at the future Marvel Comics thought that a book built around a continuing monster might sell, and sell big. Whether it was editor Stan Lee, his top artist Jack Kirby, or publisher Martin Goodman is unclear. All three men were central to the creation and execution of The Incredible Hulk, which hit newsstands on March 1, 1962 with a disappointing thud.

Three issues later, the Hulk stood on the precipice of cancellation.

“Actually, The Hulk was going to be discontinued after the third issue,”

remembered Kirby. “So in comes these college guys from Columbia or NYU, and they say, ‘The Hulk is the mascot of our dormitory.’ I knew right away we’d got the college crowd–– which we never had before!…

I begin to feel, ‘Keep the sunovabitch going!’”

The reprieve was brief. The Incredible Hulk was canceled with issue #6 (Kirby left after #5).

Reader response to the Fantastic Four’s brutish and brooding Thing seems to have been the initial trigger for the character.

“I was trying to think again, ‘What can I do that’s different?’”

Lee explained. “I liked the Thing very much, and I thought, ‘What if I get somebody who is a real monster?’ And I remembered in the old movie Frankenstein with Boris Karloff, I had always thought that that monster was the good guy because he didn’t want to hurt anybody, but those idiots with torches were always chasing him up and down the hills….

“So I thought it would be fun to get a monster who is really good but nobody knows it, and they fight him.

But then the more I thought about it, I figured it could be dull after awhile just having people chasing a monster. And I remembered Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (right).

I thought, why not treat him like Jekyll and Hyde? He’s really a normal man who can’t help turning into a monster. And it would make a very interesting story if, when he needs his monstrous strength the most, the poor guy turns back into a normal man. I could get a lot of story complications.”

Jack Kirby remembered it differently.

“The Hulk was my creation,” he claimed. “The Hulk was a prime example of the way I had matured.

Here is this guy, Bruce Banner, a scientist, an intellectual who would turn into a primitive monster. The Hulk was my Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I was borrowing from the classics. The classics are the most powerful stories we have.”

Lee and Kirby were children of the Great Depression, the era when

Is He Man or Monster?

Marvel’s Mighty… Man-Monster?

42

by Will Murray

the classic Universal Monsters first captured America’s attention. Frankenstein. Dracula. The Wolfman, and others. Both men agreed upon their shared influences, even if they differed as to which monster was the primary inspiration for their joint creation.

“The Hulk was Frankenstein,” Kirby asserted.

“Frankenstein can rip up the place, and The Hulk could never remember who he formerly was.”

By Frankenstein, Kirby meant Frankenstein’s monster, as portrayed by Boris Karloff in the classic 1931 Universal film. The blocky modeling of their heads is similar.

Lee’s take, like Kirby’s, was fundamentally a cross between the two tormented creatures. “I figured, ‘Why don’t we create a monster whom the whole human race is always trying to hunt and destroy, but he’s really a good guy?’ Then, to give it an extra degree of interest, I figured instead of just a monster, we’ll borrow a concept from Jekyll and Hyde and let it be a man who turns into a monster unwillingly, who must spend his life trying to cure himself of his rather unique affliction.”

Elsewhere, Lee acknowledged a fourth influence, Universal’s Wolfman, the man who turned into a werewolf by the light of the full moon.

“I thought, ‘Wow, if I could get a monster like Frankenstein who’s basically misunderstood, that would be fun.’ Then I felt, ‘Well, what do you do with the monster?’ and that’s where the Jekyll and Hyde comes in. What if he’s a normal person who turns into a monster at night? The Hulk was really the same as if I had done a story about a good werewolf.”

Originally, Dr. Bruce Banner became the Hulk only at night, similar to Universal’s Wolfman, who manifested only on nights of the full moon.

“I thought it might give me more story flexibility if he could change back and forth, in and out of monster mode,”

explained Lee. “Why couldn’t a monster have a secret identity?”

But there was a fifth influence—a definite in-house trigger.

“I presented the Hulk to Stan,” Kirby insisted. “I did a story called ‘The Hulk’ (Journey into Mystery #62, Nov. 1960, left)––a small feature, and it was quite different from the Hulk that we know. But I felt the Hulk had possibilities, and I took that little character from the small feature and I transformed it into the Hulk that we know today. I was experimenting with it. I thought the Hulk might be a good-looking Frankenstein. I thought there’s a Frankenstein in all of us; I’ve seen it demonstrated.”

While the name was from Journey into Mystery #62, Kirby is more likely remembering his JIM #79 story (above, April 1962) called “The Midnight Monster,” which appeared exactly a month before Incredible Hulk #1. If Kirby’s memory is accurate––which is by no means certain––the Midnight Monster was originally called the Hulk.

Accurate or not, that was the way Kirby remembered it, telling another interviewer, “The Hulk I took from one of the monster stories I’d done. I took the Hulk name and made a super-hero out of him because I felt it was realistic. There’s a hulk in all of us. It was a natural.”

Unscrupulous scientist Victor Avery turned into the invulnerable Midnight Monster in the same way that Dr. Jekyll became Mr. Hyde—by imbibing a potion he concocted. Turning into an ugly yet powerful monster, he rampages around, seeking revenge because a woman spurned him, only to fall into a bottomless pit at the end of 43

his brief story.

There is no indication in the lettered word balloons that the Midnight Monster was originally called the Hulk. The character bears only the most general resemblance to the Hulk. Yet the inking of some panels suggests that an effort was made to make him even uglier than Kirby originally drew him, possibly as an eleventh-hour art correction. This suggests that the Midnight Monster was originally not as ugly as ultimately depicted. But he was probably not quite the rugged and not-unhandsome man-monster of Incredible Hulk #l.

“I... saw him as a kind of handsome Frankenstein,” Kirby explained. “I never felt the Hulk was a monster because I felt the Hulk was me. I feel all the characters are me. Being a monster is just the surface thing.”

Stan Lee used the identical term. “When we first dreamed him up, I felt that he should be a monster––but an appealing one, a handsome monster, if you can conceive of such a thing. You’ll notice how the face, in many panels, is not really that grotesque. He could almost be like any big, burly, rough-and-tumble bruiser who might be the bouncer at your neighborhood bar and grill. That’s the way we saw him in the early days of Hulkdom.”

Unstated is the fact that the early Hulk mirrored the personality of the Thing as he was during the first year of The Fantastic Four. As Lee polished the Thing’s personality, the Hulk remained brutish, both inside and out.

In several interviews over the years, Kirby pointed to a true-life inspiration for the Hulk—or at least for his limitless strength.

“The Incredible Hulk I got from a woman,” he told Steve Pastis.

“One night in New York City, I saw this child crawling out from under the fender of a parked car. Suddenly, there was a scream and this woman comes running out. She lifts up the entire rear of this touring car––and this was no small car––so this youngster can crawl out on the sidewalk. It struck me that, in tense situations, human beings can transcend their own strength and do things that they don’t ordinarily think they can do.”

In a separate interview, Kirby elaborated, “When I saw that, it suddenly dawned on me, that there was a character there, that’s inside all of us. That when we become enraged, we can bend steel.

I’ve done that myself. And so, there it was, right in front of me. And that’s how the idea of The Hulk came about.”

Here we have a sixth influence.

One of the mysteries of the genesis of Marvel’s most enduring monster was who named him.

Stan Lee naturally claimed that credit.

“Now, of course, even a monster needs a name,” he recounted in Excelsior! The Amazing Life of Stan Lee. “The name is important, because you have to convey the entire essence of your concept in a word or two. I wanted a name that conjured up an intimidating, gargantuan behemoth with a plodding brain and enormous power. So I turned to two other classics, Noah Webster’s Dictionary and Roget’s Thesaurus. I needed a name for this monstrous, potentially murderous hulking brute who... whoa! ‘Hulking brute’ is the exact description, and instantly I knew ‘hulking’ was the adjective. Well, it wasn’t much of a stretch to go from ‘hulking’ to ‘hulk,’ which sounded like the perfect noun.”

In actuality, Lee had not coined the name out of thin air. He had applied that exact name to a host of minor characters going back at least a decade. A Hulk Larsen had appeared in Cowboy Action #6 (May 1955, below). There had been others Hulks in Lee’s fantasy comic books–—giant aliens, robots and the like. Kirby’s extraterrestrial Hulk (later renamed Xemnu, the Titan) had appeared twice in Journey into Mystery in 1960.

In “The Hands of the Hulk,” a bruiser named Hulk Hogan challenged the Two-Gun Kid in Gunsmoke Western #63 (cover-dated March 1961, bottom left), which went on sale the same day as “The Return of the Hulk” in Journey into Mystery #66 (right).

Lee was very comfortable naming brutish characters Hulk.

But Lee may have had another name for the grayturned-green-skinned Goliath originally.

It’s clear from looking at the first two chapters of Incredible Hulk #1 that the monster’s name was relettered throughout. It was not originally “Hulk.”

What might it have been? We can discard certain names, such as “The Golem.” While that might have been an appropriate moniker, surely it would have been used in at least one of the pre-hero monster stories that pre-dated Incredible Hulk #1. It was not.

It appears to be short––four or five letters. A name like the Brute might fit, as would the Beast, which later became the name of a character in the original X-Men. The Titan is another possibility.

But Lee himself—while steadfastly maintaining that the Hulk was always called the Hulk––indirectly acknowledged another possibility, which we’ll come to shortly.

By Part 2, there are fewer examples of relettering. Why would the name have been different in the early part of the story, but not the later chapters? It’s a fair question. It has to do with the assembly-line nature of how comic books are produced.

Jack Kirby has said on more than one occasion that he would bring into Stan Lee “presentations” for new characters.

“I came in with presentations. I’m not gonna wait around for conferences. I said, ‘This is what you have to do.’ I came in with Spider-Man, the Hulk and the Fantastic Four. I didn’t fool around. I said, ‘You’ve got to do super-heroes.’”

What did these presentations look like?

The presentation for Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. survives. It’s only two pages long and the character is called Nick Fury, Agent of D.E.A.T.H. It’s likely the Hulk presentation would have included a character sketch that could have doubled 44

as a splash page or a cover, or both, as was apparently the case with Daredevil #1.

Steve Ditko recalled being given the first five pages of Jack Kirby’s abortive version of Spider-Man later in the same year that Incredible Hulk #1 was produced. Ditko was assigned to ink the project, but when he informed Stan Lee that the character was nothing more than a refry of Simon and Kirby’s The Fly––which was still being published––Lee abandoned the formative concept, and developed it with Ditko, apparently without further input from Kirby.

It’s likely that these five pages––possibly there were six if Ditko was misremembering––constituted not only the first chapter of the first Kirby Spider-Man story, but Kirby’s presentation, as well.

Note that Ditko was given that first chapter of the story to ink while Kirby was presumably off drawing the following sections. This was the way Marvel worked with longer stories in those early days. The penciler turned in a group of pages so they could be turned over to the next person in the production line in order to keep the project moving forward efficiently.

In the same way, the first five or six pages of Incredible Hulk #1 might have been Kirby’s presentation of the concept, which Stan Lee scripted before it was turned over to the letterer prior to inker Paul Reinman for finishing. Every important element of the character’s origin is presented, as well as the core cast—including the introduction of teenage sidekick, Rick Jones.

Here, we have an interesting wrinkle that supports the theory that Part 1 of the Hulk’s origin story was produced as a presentation piece. Although the cover and the balance of the book were lettered by Marvel standby Art Simek, according to the Grand Comics Database, Ray Holloway lettered Part 1!

It’s probable that these lettered pages were shown to Martin Goodman for approval before Stan could go ahead with the book.

It may have been at this point that second thoughts over Lee’s original name for the prototype monster were voiced, and a decision made to call him the Hulk.

During the interval during which Kirby was waiting to hear if Goodman would approve the new character, Lee ordered the presentation pages reworked to fix the now-lost prototype name for the Hulk.

Circumstantial proof exists that this was, in fact, done. According to the GCD, Art Simek lettered the splash page, which suggests that he in fact relettered Ray Holloway’s work to include the new name.

But what was that name?

Lee may have dropped a hint in interviews, one of which I conducted with him. Here are the relevant quotes: “When I did the Hulk,” Stan told me, “I had the Heap in mind when I made up the name. I’d discussed

doing a monster-style book with Jack Kirby before I talked with Goodman. I wanted that same sound. ‘Hulk’ was a word that was similar to ‘Heap’, and that’s what I was really after.”

Lee repeated this almost verbatim in an exchange with Roy Thomas.

“It’s funny that you mentioned the Heap,” Lee told Thomas, “because when I did the Hulk, I had the Heap in mind when I made up the name. I thought ‘the Hulk’ sounded like ‘the Heap’ and I liked it.”

Elsewhere, Lee revealed, “I needed a name. Years ago I remembered, there was a comic book called The Heap. I don’t remember even what he was, but I always thought that was some real crazy name. And somehow or other I thought I will call him The Hulk. It’s a little like The Heap, and it has that same feeling. But I love adjectives like the Fantastic Four, the Uncanny so-and45

(above) The words “The Mighty Hulk” appear to have been relettered from what this Incredible Hulk #1 caption originally said.

so. So I decided I’ll call him The Incredible Hulk.

And that’s what happened.”

(this page and next) More obvious signs of relettering from Hulk #1.

These quotes prove that the Heap was clearly the seventh influence on the genesis of the Hulk––at least on Stan Lee. The Heap was in the tradition of Frankenstein’s monster––a subhuman swamp creature who was once a man. As the Heap, he was hounded and persecuted for being different in a threatening way.

The original Heap ran from 1942 to 1953 in Hillman’s Air Fighters Comics, starting off as a recurring foe of Sky Wolf and soon graduating to his own back-up strip. Writer Harry Stein and artist Mort Leav are credited with inventing him. He grew increasingly popular as Air Fighters morphed into Airboy and horror became a dominant comics trend.

In one Sky Wolf story, the Heap was described as “this HULK of the ‘living death.’” (above) It’s unlikely that Stan Lee would have recalled that line—assuming he ever read that story.

When the Heap landed in his own strip, he acquired a teenage sidekick named Rickie Wood, who followed him for years. They bonded over Rickie’s model airplane of the very biplane the Heap had flown in his prior existence as fictitious World Was I ace, Baron Eric von Immelmann. The parallel with the Hulk’s teenage sidekick, Rick Jones, more than suggests that Stan was attempting to recreate the elements of the Heap that had made the strip so popular two decades before the advent of the Hulk.

This is not mere speculation. Other than the fact that Lee admitted to being familiar with the Heap, in the years immediately following the Hulk’s debut, Lee and Martin Goodman appropriated other, earlier comics success stories, such as Daredevil and the Ghost Rider, reimagining them as Marvel heroes.

Like the Heap, the Hulk was another misunderstood monster in the tradition of Frankenstein’s monster.

As Lee put it, “I always thought that 46

the monster in Frankenstein was more sinned against than sinner. All he did was wander around, groping for friends, constantly being persecuted for the way he looked. I mean, people took one look at him and attacked him with torches. That is what The Hulk’s problem is, too.”

Lee and Kirby wanted to evoke in comics readers that identical feeling of sympathy, combined with awe at the Hulk’s inexhaustible brute strength.

So was the Hulk originally called the Heap?

Actually, I don’t think so. I think the prototype name is present in Part 1, before the character is officially named by an anonymous soldier in Part 2, and before Lee and Kirby knew whether Martin Goodman would greenlight the feature.

After the gray-skinned monster destroys a patrolling jeep, he lumbers off, apparently wounded, with Rick Jones following him.

One caption reads, “Like a wounded behemoth, the man-monster storms off, into the waiting night…”.

“Man-Monster,” I firmly believe, was the original name for the Hulk.

“But that’s just a description phrase; no different than behemoth,” you say.

Let’s go back to the splash page, the only other place where the character’s original name would have appeared in Part 1.

The caption there reads “Half-man, half-monster, the mighty Hulk thunders out of the night to take his place among the most amazing characters of all time.”

The phrase, “the mighty Hulk” show signs of having been relettered. What if it originally read, “Halfman, half-monster, the mighty Man-Monster thunders out of the night…”? The name fits the available space, and matches the phrasing.

Looking back on the front cover, we find another clue: a big question mark encompassing the following: “Is he man or monster or... is he both?”

Man-Monster seems to be a recurring concept, one Lee does not return to in the later pages of the seminal Hulk story.

But there’s more. Part 2 opens with this caption: “Like a silent dreadnought, the hulking thing that was once Bruce Banner crouches in the shadows, as the pursuing troops rush by…”.

“Hulking thing” appears to have been a revision of the original Art Simek lettering.

The ManMonster would fit that space perfectly. In changing it, Lee used the adjective “hulking” to set up the monster’s new name on the next page.

When the nameless soldier on page 8 shouts, “Fan out, men!

no more than five letters long.

On page 13, Rick Jones’ balloon in panel 1 and Bruce Banner’s balloon on panel 6 show extra space, suggesting the need to reletter a much longer name into a shorter one. Where Banner says “search for––a monster,” it was probably “search for a man-monster” in the original. Here, Lee may have simply been eradicating a descriptive term, and not a name, in an effort to expunge the original name, which Goodman may have vetoed.

It’s highly unlikely Lee or Kirby would have applied the name “Heap” to their burly man-monster. The name doesn’t really fit. The original Heap was essentially a precursor to Marvel’s Man-Thing—-more of an ambulatory swamp than a human being.

Inasmuch as the Hulk was inspired, according to Jack Kirby, by the Midnight Monster story in Journey into Mystery #79 (April 1962), it’s possible, given that Banner turned into the Hulk only at night, the formative name was the Night Monster, but Man-Monster seems to best fit the available evidence.

I note that Rick Jones’ name shows indications that it, too, was changed. That it might have been “Rickie Wood” at one time seems improbable to me.

Unless the original pages to The Incredible Hulk #1 turn up for study, we may never be able to prove or disprove my theory, but I think it’s sound. I also suspect that, had the character not been renamed, his title would have been called The Mighty Man-Monster.

I think it appropriate to close with two final quotes from the character’s co-creators.

“The Hulk was misunderstood by people, he was a schizophrenic,” observed Kirby. “I was updating Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Bruce Banner was a physicist. He was no longer a doctor… as long as we’re experimenting with radioactivity, there’s no telling what may happen, or how much our advancements in science may cost us.”

Said Lee, “If I had never seen Frankenstein or Dracula, and if I had never read Robert Louis Stevenson, there might never have been––the Hulk!” H

We’ve got to find that–that Hulk!”, “that–that Hulk” easily could have been “that Man-Monster!”

On page 8, virtually every caption or balloon where he’s called the Hulk has obviously been clumsily relettered. The one exception is the fifth panel where it refers to “the hulk which is still Bruce Banner,” suggesting that it was simply a descriptor at that point, but inspired the final name. The fact that comic book lettering lacks lower-case differentiation makes this difficult to prove conclusively.

The name Hulk does not recur until the first panel of Part 3.

By this time he’s clearly the Hulk.

Here and there in the following chapters, scattered signs of relettering occur. But it’s not possible to analyze them too closely. If there was another, interim name for Bruce Banner’s brutish other self, it would have been

Bibliography • Excelsior: The Amazing Life of Stan Lee. Stan Lee and George Mair. Atria Books, 2002.

• The Complete Jack Kirby, Volume 1. Greg Theakston. Pure Imagination, 1997.

• Creators of Super-Heroes. Thomas Andrae. Hermes Press, 2011.

• “1986 Jack Kirby Interview” Leonard Pitts, Jr. Jack Kirby Collector #66 Fall, 2015.

• “Handsome Frankenstein: Horror Roots of the Hulk” Will Murray. Comic Book Marketplace, #113, September, 2004.

• “ The Historic Hulk” Will Murray. Starlog #312, July, 2003.

• “ Jack Kirby.” Mark Borax. Comics interview #41 1986.

• “Jack Kirby: The Hardest Working Man in Comics” Steve Pastis. Happening Magazine, November, 1993.

• Marvel. Les Daniels. Harry N. Abrams, 1991.

• Origins of Marvel Comics. Stan Lee. Simon and Schuster, 1974.

• Stan Lee Conversations. Jeff McLaughlan. University Press of Mississippi, 2007.

• “Stan Lee Sounds Off.” Comics Feature #40, January, 1986.

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Gallery 2

Before & After

48

Big and small changes made to Kirby’s work, with commentary by John Morrow

(above) Color guide for 1954’s unpublished Fighting American #8, and its eventual use as the cover of the one-shot Harvey Comics released in 1966. Compare how Jack’s style evolved by the time of this 1970 illo for Kirby Unleashed (previous page). (this page) Back in TJKC #25, we first documented these Simon & Kirby swipes from Fighting American #5’s “Invisible Irving” story (1954), working from the Jack Burnley Starman story in 1942’s Adventure Comics #77 (which contained both a Sandman and a Manhunter story by Joe and Jack). Harry Mendryk examined these further at: https://kirbymuseum. org/blogs/simonandkirby/ archives/2975.

49

(this page) Jimmy Olsen #143 (above) and #139 (below): Examples of DC Comics’ notorious face changes on Superman and Jimmy. Had Murphy Anderson inked more than just the faces, it wouldn’t have been so jarring. (See this issue’s Kirby Panel on page 62.) (next page) Jimmy Olsen #145, page 4 (Jan. 1972):

(above) Jimmy Olsen page from Jack’s Valentine’s Day sketchbook for wife Roz (circa 1977).

50

I’ve always considered Angry Charlie to be the next step in visualizing the monsters Jack created for Atlas/ Marvel in the late 1950s and early ’60s. A creature like that could only come from Darkseid’s Evil Factory (and the imagination of Kirby, of course).

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(this page) Thor #145, page 9 (Oct. 1967): Based on the note from Sol Brodsky to Jack in panel 6, Kirby must’ve originally drawn the de-powered Thor with shortened hair (à la the biblical Samson losing his strength when his lover Delilah had his hair cut).

Compare these pencils to the published version at right. Vince Colletta manage to omit five really nice Kirby figures (and a leopard) when he inked this page!

52

(this page) Kamandi #35 (Nov. 1975): With this issue, Jack was halfway out the door for his return to Marvel Comics, and DC editor Gerry Conway was assigned to edit Kirby’s final issues. These examples give a sense of the level of alterations Conway made to Jack’s text. For Kirby’s final three issues (#38-40), Conway provided a full script for Kirby to work from.

53

Retrospective

(below) Pencils for the cover of Kamandi #30, the start of the “U.F.O. Saga.” Jack’s note “Don’t do lettering” may’ve been to inker D. Bruce Berry, whose lettering wasn’t at the superior level that Mike Royer always reached. (right) A very quick marker sketch of Kamandi’s Prince Tuftan, for a fan.

W

hile Kamandi fans don’t meet on an annual basis to bemoan the fact, the consensus is that the tail end of writer/artist/editor Jack Kirby’s run on DC’s Kamandi, The Last Boy on Earth is the weakest stretch of stories during the title’s first three years. Affectionately known as “The U.F.O. Saga,” you simply can’t compare it to the high quality of the earlier epics involving a young man’s struggle to survive on a post-apocalyptic Earth (caused by the mysterious “Great Disaster”) where animals (lions, tigers, bears, and more) behave as humans, and humans are now wild, hunted, herded, and placed in zoos. Kamandi #1-29 contain many of the best adventure stories ever written in comics. On its own terms, however, “The U.F.O. Saga” is still a rousing adventure story that oddly veers off course from its original intentions, abruptly shifting to the inevitable “Kamandi in Space” issue, then darting off in a completely different direction, never really crossing a finish line so that it can stand completely on its own. On top of that, five chapters into “The U.F.O. Saga,” the official announcement was made that Kirby was leaving DC to explore new challenges (i.e., return to Marvel Comics), and suddenly it was apparent that Kirby (aided and abetted by inker D. Bruce Berry) wasn’t just struggling to control an unwieldy story—he was losing interest entirely and in the process of moving on.

This isn’t an in-depth attempt on my part to re-assess or re-evaluate “The U.F.O. Saga.” This is reassurance that the epic remains a terrific read despite the complications and disappointments. The adventure is nearly fifty years old, and I get as big a kick rereading it now as I did while reading it for the first time as a young teen in 1975, and subsequently many times over the last four-plus decades. Honestly, the only flaws I find with “The U.F.O. Saga”? The art is rushed and there’s no conclusion. But as an adventure story, it’s top-notch.

It all begins in Kamandi #30 (June 1975), within a beached Unidentified Flying Object where the last boy on Earth and his mutant friend Ben Boxer are taking a nap (see Kamandi #29 for the “super” reason why much needed rest was required).

They had stumbled upon the spacecraft during the night and thought it was an abandoned bunker. But the spacecraft’s owner has returned from its wanderings, discovered the infiltrators, and immediately taken action. Kamandi suddenly awakes to find himself and Ben weightless and floating in a compartment of the U.F.O. The alien, encased in a thick

The U.F.O. Saga

Kamandi #30-35 reflected on by Jim Kingman 54

protective suit and helmet, uses otherworldly technology to prod and probe Kamandi and Ben. After placing them securely against a rotating cube, the alien launches its spacecraft.

Traveling at tremendous speed, the spacecraft crosses over the Atlantic Ocean in mere moments, soon touching down on the sandy shore of a desert island. Kamandi and Ben are then released, and quickly dart away from the spacecraft. Some time later they find themselves at the rim of a large crater, and peering over the edge, they are shocked to see various man-made structures placed within it, including a large ancient statue, a bridge, an airplane, and buildings. Kamandi and Ben enter the crater, seeking answers to their situation. As Ben grows more agitated at the implications of their predicament, he insists that he and Kamandi take refuge in the airplane, out of sight of the alien. There they walk amongst the frozen remains of the passengers. Ben is startled to come upon an attaché case with a bomb inside. Obviously, one of the passengers was a terrorist, his mission cut short by the initial effects of the Great Disaster that turned humankind’s world upside-down.

Suddenly an explosion is heard from outside. Leaving the plane, Kamandi and Ben look up to see a fiery portal appearing in the sky. One of the buildings is raised from the sandy crater and sucked in through the open “door.” Ben realizes they are on the verge of being transported to the alien’s home. As Kamandi wonders how they can escape, the airplane is lifted toward the portal. As it enters, the activated bomb detonates, destroying the portal and the alien’s access to its home. Realizing this, the distraught alien attacks Kamandi and Ben. As Ben wrestles with it, he understands what kind of creature the alien is. Kamandi joins in to aid Ben, but before Ben can call Kamandi off, the last boy on Earth tears off the alien’s helmet. Suddenly, formally cohesive energy bursts from the damaged suit, bathing Ben in its rays. The energy soon fades, leaving a stunned Kamandi in search of his friend. As he crawls about, his glazed eyes gradually focus. He stumbles upon a giant hand—Ben’s hand!

These last three paragraphs? They recount eighteen pages of comic book story, eighteen pages that include one two-page spread and four full-page illustrations. This is one of many magical aspects of Kirby, an uncanny ability to keep the action relentless while punctuating it with dramatic, gosh-wow scenes not confined to sequences portrayed in smaller continuous panels. The alien’s helmet, Kamandi and Ben floating weightlessly, the U.F.O. taking off, Kamandi and Ben looking down at the man-made structures in the crater, and the emergence of the fiery space portal are given full-page spreads for maximum visual impact, and none of these images slight the kinetic pacing of the story.

could be out of the plot loop for months and hardly be missed because Kamandi’s premise and stories were so strong). When Canus saw the desert island from Prince Tuftan’s nearby warship, he did not expect to encounter anything like this, and Kamandi is equally stunned to see Dr. Canus. Ben is now able to shoot fiery bolts of energy from his eyes, and he fires at Kamandi and Canus, no longer recognizing them as friends. Tuftan and a squad of tigers arrive on the island, and the prince grabs Kamandi and carries him to the boat and also orders Canus to return with them to the larger vessel. But Canus shrewdly stays behind to study the U.F.O. and discovers that an aspect of the alien creature possesses Ben. Ben leaves the island and attacks Tuftan’s warship. Before he can capsize the boat, he is engulfed in crackling energy. Disoriented, in pain, he is forced back to the island. There is a great flash of light and Ben returns to normal size and self.

Apparently, Dr. Canus has struck a deal with the alien.

As the giant-size Kamandi #32 opens, Kamandi and Tuftan return to the desert island, where they are re-introduced by Dr. Canus to the alien, “Me.” They also find that Ben Boxer has made a swift recovery from his gigantic ordeal. Meanwhile, a fleet of gorilla commandos in speedboats has attacked the tiger warship while a single squad has landed on the other side of the island. While distracted by the sounds of sea battle, Kamandi, Ben and the tigers are fired upon by the gorilla squad and easily subdued. Kamandi is the first to awaken and is able to slip free of the gorillas and their leader, Ramjam. Our hero darts along the shoreline to warn Dr. Canus, who has returned to the U.F.O. with the alien. Canus is concerned, but he’s confident of their chances of survival. Ramjam and his men (I mean, fellow gorillas) reach the U.F.O. Kamandi and Dr. Canus are right there to greet them. Just as Ramjam is about to kill the courageous pair, a giant sand creature emerges from the ground and attacks the startled gorillas with bursts of concentrated sand. An exploding grenade only makes the creature angrier, and in a violent burst of light the gorillas are flattened. The sand creature returns to its extraterrestrial form. Having escaped their captors, Ben, Tuftan and the tigers arrive on the scene. Tuftan prepares to return to his warship with his fellow tigers and prisoners of war. Kamandi and Dr. Canus remain behind to fashion a body to contain the alien’s energy form.

As Kamandi #31 opens, Ben has enlarged into a giant, and has also transformed into his protective and powerful steel form (hence his mutant status). Enter Dr. Canus, who had not been seen for several issues (another Kirby strength—strong supporting characters

With Kamandi #33’s “Blood and Fire”, Kirby was either rushed, overworked, or focused elsewhere—most likely all of the above.

Study the ape on page seven, panels four and five (left).

Compare it to any gorilla Kirby drew in the first twenty issues (particularly those inked by Berry, who softened rather than emboldened Kirby’s pencils à la Mike Royer, but still provided some detail to Kirby’s pencils). Our embattled gorilla commando appears downright cartoonish. And yet, Kirby the storyteller maintains excitement on two fronts: The “birth” of the alien in human form, thanks to Dr. Canus and Kamandi; and the intensity of the naval battle, particularly the toll it has taken on Prince Tuftan, and his questionable decision to hoist the ape 55

firmed our growing fears.

But first, let’s continue with the story, shall we? Our stranded alien friend has received a human female form courtesy of Dr. Canus and Kamandi, but is having some initial problems adjusting to it. Kamandi comes to her aid while unintentionally insulting her, and the alien, dubbed “Pretty Pyra” by Canus, loses her temper and actually attempts to kill Canus and Kamandi within her spacecraft. The last boy on Earth and the evolved canine dash out of the spacecraft, with Pyra in hot pursuit. She orders them to stay on the beach, and then she flies off to hopefully cool down. Kamandi, though annoyed at her behavior, is more concerned about his friends at sea, and looks to the naval battle offshore. The tiger flagship remains afloat as gorilla commando speedboats, many in flames, surround it.

On board the tiger flagship, Tuftan is prepared for gorilla reinforcements. But he and his crew are not prepared for what the gorillas have brought with them, a gigantic, green armored rammer intent on tearing the tiger ship apart.

Tuftan orders his men to raise Ramjam up for the gorillas to see, and threatens to kill the gorilla leader should they surge forward. Meanwhile, back on the island, Canus and Kamandi are startled by the rammer’s arrival. Kamandi pleads with Dr. Canus to pilot the U.F.O. in Pyra’s absence out to sea to help their friends. Canus is hesitant, but soon concurs it’s a good plan. It doesn’t take him long to figure out how to fly the U.F.O. The spacecraft soars out to battle, startling the gorillas and drawing Tuftan’s full attention. At that moment, Ben Boxer loosens Ramjam’s bonds, allowing the gorilla to dive to safety. Tuftan is dumbfounded by this turn of events, and turns accusingly to Ben Boxer. Ben stoically confesses to the deed.

The gorilla commandos remain intent on ramming the tiger flagship. Canus maneuvers the spacecraft between the rammer and the ship.

Before the U.F.O. can be impaled, Pretty Pyra arrives on the scene, and generates a giant fireball that destroys the rammer. Then Pyra chases after her spacecraft, almost destroying the tiger flagship in the process. Canus suddenly realizes he’s losing control of the spacecraft. Pyra has taken over, and with a shuddering “Booom!” both spacecraft and alien disappear from sight!

It’s a truly exciting issue, unfortunately marred by Paul Levitz’s announcement in the letters column: “Jack has decided to leave DC and move on to other projects.” I’d been reading DC comics for three years at that point, and I’d survived a lot of disappointing events: the cancellation of Green Lantern/Green Arrow, the violent death of Flower in Kamandi #5, Dave Cockrum leaving the Legion of Super-Heroes, artist Neal Adams’ diminishing contributions to Batman, the unexpected death of Invisible Kid, and writer/editor Archie Goodwin departing from Detective Comics. But that one line in the Kamandi letter column broke my heart. Kamandi had been my favorite comic book for two-and-a-half years, and the thought of it continuing without Kirby was unbearable, no matter how hard Levitz tried to soothe the shock by introducing Gerry Conway as the new editor, outlining what was in store for Kamandi over the upcoming months, and also plugging what Conway had planned

Ramjam on a pole with sticks of dynamite draped over his chest. It’s an extreme tactical measure to prevent further bloodshed that Ben Boxer strongly protests, while there’s no guarantee that the gorilla commandos will back down to save their leader.

By issue’s end, the reader has two exciting cliffhangers in place: the fate of Ramjam, and a red arm emerging from Canus’ “birth bag,” its hand reaching for Kamandi’s shoulder as he turns to face… what? It’s not Frankenstein’s monster, claims the next issue box, but “Pretty Pyra!”

Kamandi #34 promised to be senses shattering, and it delivered, in more ways than one. Another “great disaster” was about to befall devoted Kamandi readers.

The first clue was #34’s cover, illustrated by Joe Kubert, the first non-Kirby cover of the series. The second clue was on the first page in the credits box, where Gerry Conway was now listed as editor. The letters column con56

to revitalize DC’s super-hero genre. DC was definitely going through some major changes in 1975, even more so in 1976. But in my little corner of the world, Kirby was leaving, and there was simply no consolation.

Actually, there was—I just didn’t know it yet. Reading Kamandi #35 (November 1975) made me feel a whole lot better.

In “The Soyuz Survivor,” Pretty Pyra has transported herself, her spacecraft, and Kamandi and Dr. Canus out of Earth’s atmosphere and into outer space, where they would soon learn that even in space, the effects of the Great Disaster had left its tragic mark.

They discover a Soyuz space station still in orbit, drifting, but virtually intact. Using his vast scientific ingenuity, Dr. Canus rigs a way for Kamandi and himself to board, and together, leaving Pyra to brood on her alien intellect, they enter the Soyuz-X station to learn its history. What they find is lifeless machinery, but also one of the cosmonauts, preserved in a Lotus position, with strange radiation boiling inside its helmet.

Pyra has caught up with them, and detects life in the cosmonaut. Kamandi and Dr. Canus are astounded but disbelieving. Pyra uses her alien ‘powers’ to jump-start the apparently altered Russian. Noting that it will take some time before they can actually communicate with it, Pyra suggests that they continue exploring the ship.

Moments after our heroes have turned their backs, the cosmonaut awakes and slithers out of its helmet. Major Leonid Vassilov has been changed into a serpent-like glob of purple and pink mush, but with enough surviving brain activity to remember it has to carry out its final orders. It doesn’t so much attack Kamandi and Dr. Canus as attempt to move them out of its way. Yet how else can they react but on the defensive? Its elastic tentacles have Kamandi sufficiently wrapped up and trapped, and no sooner does Canus successfully break Kamandi free than the doctor himself is engulfed by the pliable, blanketing ooze. Kamandi tears at the creature, ripping its flesh, but to the boy’s great pain he finds that the creature “secretes acid and uses it for defense!” Shades of Alien, four years before the movie’s premiere!

Pyra, who had been ahead of the troop, appears from a hatch, head antennas spewing great flames that frighten the creature, causing it to roll away to safety.

Kamandi drags Canus with him as they make their way back to Pyra’s vessel. Pyra stops before a great green machine that is actually a recorder, and she is able to turn it on so that they can hear the final recording of the cosmonauts. From Earth orbit the Russian men were witness to the explosions of the Great Disaster.

Vassilov believed that war had begun and was determined to take action and follow the orders of his government. But it was too late. The radiation waves struck the space station, there were screams, and the recording cuts off. Kamandi is shaken by the experience, but not for long: the creature drops in from above him. Quickly, he pulls Canus along the pathway that leads to the airlock. They escape in time.

Vassilov is left alone. He remembers the human form he used to have, and struggles to revert to it. He

stands upright. He moves to the control section of the craft and begins to work with shattered controls that could once arm Soyux-X as a Doomsday Weapon. “But radiation from Earth has long since rotted the parts to harmless junk. Still, Vassilov will fumble with it as long as necessary... working uselessly forever... in the eternal night of starlit space.” The final panel shows Pyra’s craft, its crew safely on board, beginning its descent toward Earth.

It didn’t matter to me that the reasons for Pyra’s original mission had been bumped from the plotting sessions. It didn’t matter that the naval battle between tigers and gorillas was not being addressed. Instead, I was completely absorbed by Kirby’s “Kamandi in Space” episode. It took the sting out of The King’s departure (and still does, because sometimes that disappointment of long ago swells up). If Kirby was going to bow out at this high level of adventure storytelling, then I could deal with it.

So I figured in Kamandi, The Last Boy on Earth #36, Pyra would return to the desert island and Kirby would conclude “The U.F.O. Saga” and wrap up the naval battle. Not so fast, Kirby insisted.

Something Pyra had seen on Earth from high in the sky had piqued her curiosity: A hotel in Acapulco.

Kamandi, Pyra and Dr. Canus visit the weathered but still habitable resort. Jaguars now run it, and anyone can stay there, but if anyone wants any area already occupied, they have to fight for it. Wolves take over the second floor from unsuspecting, helpless wild humans, and Kamandi makes a pitch to take it back for them. He is successful. But Kirby had veered the story into a different direction, leaving “The U.F.O. Saga” and its denouement behind.

The loose pieces of the saga’s puzzle would eventually be filled, but now Kamandi and crew, with Pyra along for the adventure, were back to exploring and surviving Earth A.D. (After Disaster).

Pyra’s mission on Earth was finally revealed to readers and Dr. Canus in Chapter Two of Kamandi #38, a fairly satisfying origin sequence, albeit nine months late (there were a couple of plot holes in story continuity, such as Pyra’s race already having the ability to attain human form, but no big deals, and certainly nothing as major as Kirby leaving Kamandi). By this time Kamandi was deeply involved with Arna’s people in crater country, thousands of miles from the isolated desert island that had briefly harbored an exciting adventure (and as far as I know, all those man-made structures collected by Pretty Pyra still reside there).

The explosive vestiges of the 57

(previous page) Jack gives readers a physics lesson in mass–energy equivalence! (below) Some of Gerry Conway’s more heavy-handed editing, as he rewrites whole captions from Kamandi #34.

great naval battle between tigers and gorillas, last seen in Kamandi #34, abruptly returned in Chapter Three of Kamandi #39. Tuftan’s naval force had rallied, and the gorilla commandos were in full retreat. The only matter left to address was the fate of Ben Boxer, who was set to be put on trial in Great Caesar’s court for sabotage, having helped the gorilla commando leader, Ramjam, to escape.

But this matter would be resolved after Kirby’s departure.

Kirby’s decision to leave DC cast a huge shadow over his last six months on Kamandi. Letter column correspondence during and after “The U.F.O. Saga” focused primarily on Kirby’s departure, Kamandi’s new creative team and direction, and miscellaneous peripheral topics (such as a new title for the letters column), so actual opinions on the stories are few and far between. In fact, no comments are included for Kamandi #33.

Apparently, for whatever reason, Conway stepped in and tweaked some of the narration and dialogue in Kamandi #35 and #36; long-time readers could easily detect the changes in style and tone. Fortunately, it was merely noticeable and not destructive.

The fact that “The U.F.O. Saga” remains so entertaining during this difficult period is a tribute to Kirby’s talents, and Conway’s restrained and respectful editorial influence.

Kirby’s last full script for Kamandi was #37. With #38, Conway took over as writer, and Mike Royer returned to ink Kirby’s pencils in #38-40. With #41, Kirby was gone, but even in the midst of chaotic transition, a good story can be told. The “U.F.O. Saga,” for the most part, survived the chaos, and while it cannot stand completely on its own, it can be read, reread, enjoyed, studied, and appreciated by all Kamandi and Kirby fans, and anyone who longs to discover durable tales of great adventure. H (right) Prince Tuftan, from Jack's Valentine's Day sketchbook (circa 1977).

Beach-Bouyed

Beta Steps

by Glen Gold

I

had this thought that’s so basic, I suspect someone else has already done this work. I don’t want to reinvent the wheel, but I woke up with this wild idea, did about an hour of research, and came up with the attached image [below].

It’s the back cover of the April 1965 International Surfing magazine, which had distribution in New York City. Compare it with Fantastic Four #48, page 13, panel 5 [right].

Note the text of the ad—a giant “SS” and a giant “FF.” The legs are a little different, so it’s possible there’s a different source, but I think I’m onto something, generally. Kirby had to be looking at surfing magazines. Why have I never thought about that?

I ended up buying that issue on eBay, but it was a dead end—well, as far as specifics. Generally, it convinces me more than ever that there is a 1965 surfing magazine out there that Jack had in hand when drawing the character for the first time. There are two reasons for this: 1. I have always wondered why the Surfer is so tiny in so many panels of his debut. Turns out that in those magazines, the surfers were inevitably very small against the waves.

2. Something changes in the Surfer immediately after FF #50. In the panels he appears in up until then, he is mostly crouching or bent over, quads engaged, as if he’s—y’know—surfing. But in every other appearance Jack drew (and I looked at them all), in most cases, he’s a guy balancing on a surfboard; in other words, standing—dramatically, often, but standing. Maybe his hips are angled one way or another, but for the most part, he’s standing—unlike an ocean surfer. I think Jack only used surfing magazines once, then when he got the character down, he abandoned them.

I’ll keep looking. H 58

T

SUB-MARINER, SILVER AGE CATALYST he Fantastic Four was a series that from its outset focused on the discord that could occur within the boundaries of a team. The disparate powers they had attained put a stress on the bonds that held them together. By the end of third issue, the group had already broken up. The Thing’s jealous rages in particular were driving a wedge between the members. Johnny Storm, the Human Torch, was literally a hot-headed teenager and he had little patience for the bickering. It had gotten so bad that by issue #4, the boy would retreat to a hideout in a Bowery flophouse. 1 It was unlikely that he would have returned home any time soon, had it not been for a chance encounter with a character whose reappearance would accelerate the process of development of an astounding universe of super-beings. With totally good intentions, Johnny would throw the dazed Atlantean derelict into the waters of New York harbor and thereby restore his memory. Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner, emerging from the mists of amnesia, would pose an enormous threat to the Fantastic Four and their world.

Instead of gratitude, Namor bore only resentment towards Johnny and humanity in general, because in his eyes, they were guilty of destroying his undersea kingdom. The Torch had no choice but to return home and alert his teammates to the danger Namor posed, thereby reuniting the team against a common foe. Without the Sub-Mariner’s emergence and lively interaction with the Fantastic Four, the series could easily have stagnated, had it continued to dwell on the disharmony built into the group from its inception.

The charismatic Sub-Mariner first appeared in 1939, as a prominently featured character in Marvel Comics #1. An anti-hero from the get-go, Prince Namor was the bi-racial son of American Naval Captain Leonard McKenzie and the Atlantean princess Fen. His creator, Bill Everett, conceived him as a proud aristocratic being, harkening back to antiquity.

“Namor,” after all, is “Roman” spelled backwards.

He debuted as a Total War adversary of all surface dwellers. His natural foe was, of course, the Golden Age version of the Human Torch, who was also introduced in the same issue. As elemental adversaries representing fire and water, the Sub-Mariner and the Torch clashed regularly. In Human Torch #5 [above], published in Fall 1941, Namor, under the spell of a treacherous Atlantean woman, developed a Napoleon complex and tried to conquer the world. After causing a good deal of damage as well as putting much of New York under water and probably drowning thou1 59

sands, Namor came to his senses.

Henceforth he would take the side of the Allies, renouncing his anti-hero status and remaining a totally reformed good guy until his disappearance in the late ’40s and through a brief revival in the mid 1950s.

As the nascent Marvel Silver Age progressed, spearheaded by the Fantastic Four, it seemed only natural that the new version of the Human Torch should have a hand in bringing the Sub-Mariner back.

When Johnny Storm returned him to the land of the living, it sparked off a torrid love triangle, for Namor fell hard for Susan Storm [above]. 2 This wonderful page from FF #4 shows the first time he laid eyes on Sue, as he catches her and she becomes visible in his arms.

This complication breathed some necessary drama into the series. Now, instead of only fighting among themselves, the Four had an outside element of disruption to deal with. Would Sue remain faithful to Reed, or would she succumb to Namor’s strange and unique magnetism?

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The notion of a common enemy bringing two adversaries together was the subject of the series two issues later. The recently introduced villain Dr. Doom convinced Namor to team up with him to destroy the Fantastic Four. Doom would eventually betray the SubMariner and force Namor to side with the FF in order to defeat him. 3 In the end, it is Namor alone who saves the day, traversing outer space by bouncing from one meteor to another in order to apprehend Dr. Doom in his spacecraft. This story was the moment when it appeared that Namor could be redeemed.

Although animosity remained between the adversaries, the potential for reconciliation was raised. At the end of issue #6, Sue Storm, clearly enamored with the undersea prince, points out that he is a wounded spirit and needs time to heal, and we are then sure that we will see him again.

Namor would enter the team’s orbit again in issue #9, when he would hire them to make a movie of their exploits. Reed Richards’ poor financial investments had bankrupted the Fantastic Four, and the Atlantean monarch offered to bail them out, and make them stars to boot. It would be a trap, of course. The SubMariner wanted to defeat the entire team in front of a camera, the ultimate modern validation.

When the FF beat him, Namor made good on his promise, releasing the film to rave reviews and enabling the quartet to recover financially. 4 Here in one of Kirby’s-nine panel sequential slug fests, the Thing and Namor go at it for the camera, but it gets real.

The middle tier has the singular moment to moment action of the SubMariner repeatedly driving the Thing into the shallows of the Pacific Coast shoreline.

4

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that the prince has been transformed. No longer is he the derelict that Johnny Storm discovered in the Bowery. Although the tale ends with some degree of uncertainty, we sense that Namor’s world will begin to stabilize. Even more significant is the introduction of Sub-Mariner’s race of undersea beings. This will be the first in the Marvel Age of many such super-powered cultures living alongside Earth’s humanity. Kirby and Lee would continue in this direction, introducing more and more cultures and races that shared the Marvel Universe.

As 1964 began, the inevitable happened. Since Prince Namor had been brought back by the new Human Torch, it was only logical that the SubMariner would be the catalyst for bringing back Captain America, by far the most popular Timely Golden Age character. It was again by accident that the Lord of the Deep would stumble on the frozen figure of a man being worshiped by Arctic natives.

The Sub-Mariner would hurl the icy object in rage and frustration, not realizing that he was freeing the star-spangled hero from a state of sub-zero suspended animation. This eight-panel grid is among the last of the period in which Kirby will rely on such layouts.

Within a year, he would begin to increase the size of his panels to cinematic proportions. 6 In two dynamic first and second panels, we see Namor approach the Eskimos and then lift the frozen mass.

He then vents his wrath by hurling it far into the distance. Each of the second tier of panels is an act of explosive action, as in the second image, Namor smashes the ice into a massive spear and then uses it to precipitate a landslide.

Finally, in the bottom panels, Kirby shows us the wondrous journey of the ice block, from projectile to living cocoon thawing in the warmth of the Gulf Stream.

The instant that Captain America’s dynamic figure exploded off the cover of Avengers #4, Golden Age Marvel was truly reborn to the Silver Age. In some form or another, the original core of Golden Age Timely was back in place, and the rest is comic book history. H

Sequences like this are when Kirby is at his most cinematic, and his panels closely resemble the continuity of filmmaking.

A year would pass, with one notable encounter, wherein Namor, mentally enslaved by the Puppet Master, would again attack the foursome, but come to his senses when his manipulator was defeated. Then everything would change.

In the first Fantastic Four Annual, a comic book that writer Tony Isabella would proclaim as the greatest single comic ever produced, the Sub-Mariner would finally find his lost Atlantean subjects, and they would crown him Emperor of the Deep. His lost love Dorma would come into his life again, and his infatuation with Sue Storm would gradually recede, allowing Reed and Sue to finally marry and make the quartet a family for real. 5 This tableau from page two and three is a Kirby compositional masterpiece. Although he stands far left of center, all the elements on the canvas force us to focus on his majestic, commanding figure. The eye enters the panel at the yellow toad-like sculpture and that shape leads us into the sea serpent neck that accentuates Namor’s regal gesture. The energy of his vow sweeps outward from his arm and encircles the adoring populace as the creature’s neck brings the eye rightward and down to the raised arm of the central lower figure. His spiked blue helmet leads us up to the diagonal of the yellow throne and the armed guard standing at attention below Namor. The guard’s pose also focuses our eye on the woman whose arm gesture also leads us back to Namor. The panel drives home the certainty

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Mark Evanier

JACK F.A.Q.s

A column answering Frequently Asked Questions about Kirby

That’s it.” And I learned a lot from Mike about meeting deadlines.

(right) No inker captures the fluidity of Jack’s work as faithfully as Mike Royer, as evidenced by this pencil sketch Jack bound into his personal volume of Golden Age Captain America comics in the 1960s. (next page, top) Announcement for the May 11-13, 2018 popup exhibit in New York, curated by the Jack Kirby Museum.

(below) Chase Craig, hard at work at Western Publishing in the 1960s.

MARK EVANIER: My name is Mark Evanier. You don’t need to be told that; this is the Jack Kirby panel. Who else would it be, right? And this is Mr. Mike Royer. [applause] This is Mr. Jim Amash. [applause] This is Mr. Rand Hoppe. [applause] Now, for those of you who don’t know who any of us are, Mike was Jack Kirby’s inker from about 1972—.

could make the payments.

ROYER: I got a mortgage from Bank of America on the strength of a letter from Chase Craig at Western Publishing. He said, “We set our clocks by Mike Royer. If we could only get more work out of him.”

So they were convinced I

EVANIER: And that was important, because when Jack was doing the New Gods and those books from DC, there was some rooting interest against him in New York, not because they had anything against him personally, but they didn’t like the idea of someone working for the editor in California as opposed to the office in New York.

MIKE ROYER: —in print. But from late ’68.

EVANIER: Well, you took over regular inking in...

ROYER: We’re gonna start arguing, any minute. [laughter] EVANIER: ...he inked Jack’s stuff for a long time. He did an amazing job of it. There are people still thanking me for my role in salvaging Jack Kirby’s pencils from the person who would have inked them if Mike had not been available. And he did an amazing amount of work—it was not just the fact that he did it well. That would have been enough. In this business, doing it well is a great thing. But he was the most reliable person you could have asked for. Mike has missed in his life, zero deadlines on anything. Were you ever late with anything for anybody?

ROYER: No. EVANIER: All right. And that’s not just bragging. I worked for a man named Chase Craig for years, who was the editor at Gold Key/ Western Publishing Company, who did the Dell and Gold Key Comics, the Disney comics, and the Warner Brothers comics, and I asked him one time, “If you had to bet your life on some freelancer turning in the work on time, who would you bet on?” He said, “Two people: Dan Spiegle and Mike Royer.

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2019 Heroes Con Panel Held Saturday, June 15, 2019 at Heroes Con in Charlotte, North Carolina. Featuring (left to right) Mike Royer, moderator Mark Evanier, Jim Amash, and Rand Hoppe.

Transcribed by Steven Tice, and copy-edited by Mark Evanier and John Morrow.

They didn’t like that Jack could pick his own inker, and they hadn’t picked the person. And they just had the idea that the company created the books. So when Mike took over, they were just waiting for him to fail. They were waiting to be able to say, “We’ve got to get rid of that Royer guy. He can’t meet a deadline and the work’s lousy.” And they were not able to say that, and Jack was very, very happy. And we were very happy to have Mike inking his work also.

And Jim Amash is another inker person. He’s done a lot of comics for Archie and other places, and he’s a historian, and a friend of mine, and a friend of the Kirbys, and I just wanted him on the panel because I don’t get to see Jim enough because he doesn’t come to Comic-Con. This is my excuse to see my friend Jim. And this man, Rand Hoppe, he operates the Jack Kirby Research… what’s it called?

of spreading the word of Jack, that as long as I am able to breathe, I will be telling people about this wonderful man who was in my life for not enough years. I work with and have met a lot of incredible people, talented people. I’ve worked with Sid Caesar. I’ve worked with Bob Newhart. Jack Kirby is the most amazing, talented person I have ever met in my life. [applause] As I get older and older, the more I really come to appreciate the privilege it was to be around Jack, and just sit with him and talk about anything—and not just about comics.

RAND HOPPE: Museum and Research Center.

EVANIER: The Museum and Research Center, which is doing Herculean work to catalog Jack’s work, to make copies of it. Have you scanned anything interesting here at the convention yet?

HOPPE: We’ve scanned two pages. One was a Kamandi page, and I can’t remember the second one.

ROYER: People ask me what it was like inking Jack’s pages, and I can’t remember the nuts and bolts. I had to do three pages a day, letter a whole book in less than two days, and rule the borders, and have three pages of display lettering. What I remember is sitting in the kitchen with Jack and Roz, eating homemade chocolate cake, and drinking milk, and talking about Warner Brothers movies.

EVANIER: And so they are building a library of great scans of Jack’s work, and that’s a wonderful thing. We all feel charged with the idea

EVANIER: Jack liked Warner Brothers movies. Jack’s life was a Warner Brothers movie.

ROYER: People have asked me, “What’s the basic difference between Joe Sinnott and Mike Royer?” And I loved Joe Sinnott, since the first work I ever saw when I was a kid was the free Buster Brown comic books. And, if you’re familiar with the dichotomy of the movie studio system in the Golden Age, Joe Sinnott inked Jack Kirby “MGM.” I inked Jack Kirby “Warner Brothers.”

EVANIER: That’s a good analogy. One of the interesting things about Jack’s inkers, since we’re talking about inkers: When I first met Jack, which was in July of 1969, I naturally asked him who his favorite inker was. I assumed he would say Joe Sinnott or Frank Giacoia, who I thought were the two best guys who had inked him at that point.

And Jack said, “Everybody’s good.” And we actually kind of had a small argument about this—I mean, I didn’t argue with Jack, but there was a difference of opinion. He thought every inker was fine.

“Any professional inker can do the job.” Because the thing that interested Jack about the job was telling an exciting story, and he didn’t think even a bad inker, what I would consider a bad inker, could ruin the story. And he also came out of a tradition where, the other guy’s got to make a living. He was a Depression-era kid, and he was very conscious of everyone’s need to make a living. It was always fine, whoever it was. He only asked, ever, at Marvel, for them to replace one inker, and he asked very politely—not demanding this, just, “Could you maybe put him on somebody else,” and that was Dan Adkins, who inked a couple of Captain Americas. So when he took on Mike, initially, the reason he wanted Mike had a lot to do with geography.

He wanted someone who worked for him, because Jack would write a book, draw a book, send it off to New York, and never see it again.

He was ostensibly the editor, but somebody would letter it there, and it would go to Vince Colletta to ink, and then Colletta handed it in 63

to the DC production department. A man named Nelson Bridwell would erase the pages, and if Nelson said to Vince Colletta, “Gee, you left out the backgrounds. Shouldn’t you put those in?” Vince would say, “No,” and Nelson had no authority to overrule him, because people in the production department were fine with it. Jack was not happy with Colletta for a number of reasons, and they didn’t necessarily relate to what was on the page. It had also to do with him showing the work around at Marvel; Jack didn’t want them to see what he was doing. So he had a meeting with Colletta, and they had some sort of argument. I heard Jack’s version of it. I never heard Colletta’s version of it. I don’t know exactly what was said, but at the end of that meeting, Jack stormed into Carmine Infantino’s office and said, “I want my own inker. I want my own guy, who works for me, hire this guy, Mike Royer, whom you initially rejected.” Mike went up there and tried to get some work, and they wanted their guy.

ROYER: I had lunch with Dick Giordano, the year that Steve [Sherman] and you and I all went back to New York.

EVANIER: That was 1970.

ROYER: I went into Infantino’s office and I said, “I should be inking Jack.

I’m better than Colletta.” And at lunch, Dick Giordano says, “Mike, you’re getting the reputation of being cocky. You said the truth, but…”. [laughter] EVANIER: So they gave in to Jack, figuring, well, maybe Jack will learn a lesson. He’ll stop complaining about our production department. DC’s production department did not like Jack. Jack did not like their coloring. He made the mistake of telling them that he thought the coloring on the Marvel books was better than the coloring on the DC books. That was sacrilegious back then, and they really had it in for him. So they said, “Okay, we’ll give Jack his inker, and his inker will fail. He’ll either do a lousy job of it, or he won’t get the books done in time, and then we can yank it back, give it back to Colletta or whoever we want.”

And Mike, fortunately, didn’t fail. He met every single damned deadline, which was very difficult—he did a very excellent job. Joe Sinnott and Frank Giacoia both told me they were impressed with Mike’s inking, and could not believe that he did it all by himself, and neither one of them could have done the job just in terms of time restraints. Neither of them could letter. And it’s Jack Kirby work. He’s not the easiest guy in the world to ink because he puts a lot of stuff on the pages. Everyone was impressed, and Mike was a hero for that. Now, the thing I wanted to mention, I don’t know that I’ve ever said this to Mike before, is that Mike was the 64

first time Jack every really appreciated an inker. When he had Mike, he stopped saying, “Well, anybody can ink the books.” He didn’t look at the printed books, or even go over the inked versions at Marvel very much. He didn’t hold Joe Sinnott’s inked pages in his hand and look through them. He held Mike’s pages in his hands. Mike delivered the pages to Jack, and Jack would look at them, and be the editor, perhaps indicate for something to be changed. Mike occasionally spelled a word wrong or something like that, as we all do. Mike was not only Jack’s favorite inker, he was his first favorite inker. Which is not to take anything away from Joe Sinnott or Frank Giacoia, those guys. He loved them, too. And if they’d lived next door to him, you wouldn’t have had that job. [laughter] ROYER: Well, the only original art that Jack ever gave me—because basically from the beginning it was understood that he kept it all, and he gave me a few pages from a Captain America and a couple of other things, and I did not want to collect Jack Kirby inked by me. I wanted some pages by Giacoia or Sinnott. So I gave the handful of pages he gave me, away to friends.

Of course, now I would kill to have them back. [laughter] But I didn’t collect, in essence, my work with a penciler.

EVANIER: He was aware that Mike was bringing something to the party that some of the others might not be able to supply. And a quick aside here, at one point when I was trying to convince Jack that inkers matter, I mentioned that one of my favorite inkers on his work was Bill Everett on Thor. Jack said, “Bill Everett never inked Thor.” I said, “Yeah, Bill inked Thor, it might have been a year or so.” Well, Jack had a big box of old DC and Marvel comics there, and I said, “One minute,” and I rummaged around, and found an issue of Thor that Bill Everett had inked, and I showed it to Jack. That’s how little Jack looked at the printed books. He goes, “What’s Bill Everett doing inking me? Bill Everett should be drawing his own comics.” And he thought the work was excellent. He just didn’t understand why Bill Everett, who he thought was one of the great comic book artists of all time, would waste his time inking somebody else. He felt that way about Wally Wood at times. Why is Wally Wood inking somebody else?

Because Jack Kirby’s not going to go around inking somebody else.

Anyway, the point is that Mike did this wonderful thing to help Jack out in a way that was very meaningful to you and I. So thank you, Mike, for inking all these wonderful comics. You did such a great job. Fine. But to Jack, the wonderful thing that Mike did for him was he made Jack right. Jack didn’t have to listen to the guys at DC say, “We told you so.” And also, he made him realize that Joe Sinnott was pretty damn good, and that Frank Giacoia was pretty damn good. I mean, Frank was a friend of his but there was another reason. Frank Giacoia was an excellent inker. He did some of the best inking ever on Jack. Anyway, so that’s all I’m going to gush about Mike for now.

Now, Jim Amash, let’s talk to Jim a bit. Tell these people where you met Jack.

JIM AMASH: Well, I actually met him on the phone first. I was 17 years old, it was my first week of college, and I met two friends of mine—who I’m still friends with all these years later—and we started talking about what we liked, and I said, “I like Jack Kirby.” They both knew who Jack Kirby was, so we got an idea. Jack’s birthday was in August, so I got his phone number. That night we called several people. So we talked to Ray Bradbury. We talked to Isaac Asimov. We talked to Frederic Dannay, who was “Ellery Queen”—that was my idea because I was an Ellery Queen fan—and Jack Kirby. So Roz answered the phone like she always answered the phone. I said, “I’m a 17-year-old freshman in college. I’d like to wish Mr. Kirby a happy birthday.” She said, “Wait a moment,” and I heard, “Oh, Jack!

There’s some guy from North Carolina who wants to talk to you!” [laughter] And Jack got on the phone, talked like he knew me all of his life, nine minutes. It cost me 73 cents, a great investment. [laughter] And I asked him a few questions that were normal things that anybody would ask, I guess, and then he said, “Well, I enjoyed talking to you; call me again sometime.” So I started calling him. That was in August of ’78, and a few years later I was running a comic book shop, and we would put on a convention once a year, so in ’85 I said, “Let’s ask Jack.” And I think Jack and Roz had just come back from a trip to Israel, and they agreed to come, and it was pretty easy—a lot easier than I thought it was going to be. Julie Schwartz came; Julie called and talked to them, but they had already agreed to come by that time. Roz said, “Well, we just have one stipulation we’d like to have”; it was cab fare from their house to the airport. “Oh, no problem.”

But I was a little nervous when I went to the airport to pick him up, because I’d never seen him in person. It was one of those things, where you think you know a person’s face, you’ve talked on the phone dozens and dozens of times over those years. I saw him coming up the runway with Roz. Before I knew it, I heard me say, “I’d know Jack Kirby anywhere! He looks like his picture come to life!”

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(previous page, top) Jack’s storyboards for the Blastarr episode of the 1978 Fantastic Four animated series. (previous page, bottom) Compare Mike Royer’s inks here to Jack’s pencils on page 58 of this issue. (above and below) Mike was called upon to finish Ric Estrada’s very loose layouts for Freedom Fighters #1 (April 1976), showing his own drawing ability. This was published concurrently with Jack’s final Kamandi issue (#40), though Mike continued inking Kamandi till #44.

(above and next page) Jim with Jack, Roz Kirby and Julie Schwartz in the 1980s. (below) Jim’s own inking (over Stan Goldberg pencils) from World of Archie Double Digest #12 (Jan. 2012).

Jack just smiled. He had never seen a picture of me—he was lucky. [laughter] He says, “I’d know Jim Amash anywhere!” [laughter] We got in the car, and I was taking them to the hotel, and Jack sat in the back seat and Roz sat in the front seat, and on the highway, every time I looked in the rear view mirror, all I saw was Jack’s face. In the city, I’m trying to check traffic. But the second time I noticed his face it occurred to me, you know, if I have an accident and we get killed, I could read the headlines the next day: “Idiot Kills King of Comics.” [laughter] All of a sudden I got a little nervous, but he couldn’t have been nicer—a great guest.

I know better stories, but I’ll tell this one because I love this one. We were sitting at the [convention], it was Jack and Roz, and I was sitting next to Jack, and Julie

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Schwartz was sitting next to me, and this guy comes in. He looks around and sees Jack, comes over at a nice fast pace to Jack to get some books signed. It was a Boy Commandos #1, near mint condition, Red Raven #1, Captain America #1, the Star-Spangled Comics with the first Newsboy Legion. He had the Detective with the first Boy Commandos, Fighting American, and a few others, all in really nice shape. Jack was very impressed. The guy’s telling how much he’d loved Kirby all these years, and Jack’s signing them and all this. The guy even took a copy of the ad that we’d put in the Comics Buyer’s Guide and put it in a frame. [laughter] So he gets that signed. And the guy’s there a few minutes, and he says, “Well, Mr. Kirby, it was great meeting you, but I’ve got to go.” Jack said, “Well, you just got here,” and he said, “Look, I live in Chicago, and I could not get time off to come to this convention, so I got a friend of mine to help me do the driving, so it was 13 hours one way, and I gotta get back, because I gotta go to work.” Jack said, “You mean you drove 13 hours just to be here for 15 minutes?” And the guy says, “Yeah.” And, of course, all of our mouths dropped, and I thought, “That’s the power of Kirby.” A 26-hour round trip for 15 minutes.

But, you know, I thought Jack was great. I’m hardly going to be impartial. And there’s so many funny things about him. He was very accepting of how a lot of people had different—some people came to his house and wanted to take him to where aliens were taking off.

There was one time in the news where they’d seen the face on Mars, so I called up Jack and said, “Did you see the face on Mars, Jack?” He goes, “I sure did.” I said, “What do you think? Is it real?” It turned out it’s not real, but Jack started coming up with this whole theory about how it could have been built. I don’t remember, I wished I had taped that phone call. He said, “They could have been sending a signal to people on the planet Earth that people were on Mars.” He said, “Anything is possible. Or maybe it was just a signpost so people would know this was a friendly planet.” Jack had three or four ideas, I wish I could remember the rest of them, but that was Jack. He was always thinking, and he was just the nicest guy.

The first time I stayed at his house, it was after the San Diego Con; Julie Schwartz, Greg Theakston and I were staying at—Julie had a ticket, was going to the airport the next day back to New York with Theakston, and so I was sleeping in the den. It was moon bright, too. They were on top of a mountain. And I’m laying down on the most comfortable couch I think I’ve ever slept on in my life, and I noticed that there was somebody there; it was Jack, and Jack says, “Well, I’m going to leave the light on in the bathroom in case you need to go to the bathroom, and that way you can see your way.” Well, the bathroom was right next to that den.

You could walk straight across the hall, there it was. I said, “Jack, don’t worry about it. I can see in the dark, in the moonlight.” And he said, “Are you sure?” I said, “It’s not worth the electricity.” He says, “Okay.” So I hear him walking down the hall. I close my eyes. About half a minute later, I’m aware that someone’s there. It’s Jack, and he says, “You know, Jim, I’m going to leave the light on in the bathroom, just in case.” [laughter] He said the whole thing. And I said, “Jack, don’t worry about it.” He said, “Are you sure?” I said, “Yeah, it’s okay.” So I hear him walking down the hall. About half a minute or

time, I was introduced to Bill Everett. “Oh, nice to meet you.” And somebody said, “Mark is Jack Kirby’s assistant.” “Jack Kirby? Oh, my God! I’ve got to tell you about Jack!” And that’s the reaction I got. Steve Ditko finally agreed to meet with us, because we were Jack Kirby’s assistants. Wally Wood practically put his arms around me.

Wally Wood loved Jack and hated Stan. [laughter] And to this day I will have people really be impressed that I knew Jack Kirby. People come up to me at conventions now, I’ve been around long enough, this year is the fiftieth San Diego convention. This is my fiftieth San Diego convention. There’s only four or five of us. I didn’t attend the very first mini-con. Before they did the San Diego conventions, they did this little one-day mini-con. Who was the professional guest at that one?

ROYER: Forrest Ackerman and Mike Royer.

EVANIER: I’ve known Mike Royer for 54 years.

a minute later, there Jack was again, saying the exact same thing, the exact same words. “You know, Jack, that’s a good idea.” [laughter] He just could not go to sleep until he was absolutely positive that somebody who was staying in his house was going to be fine. I just felt that was very admirable. How many people would go to that much effort?

ROYER: 54 long, miserable years. [laughter] EVANIER: People come up to me and say, “Is it true that you knew Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera? That you knew Bob Clampett and Tex Avery” and people like that. I’ve been fortunate enough to work with people like that, and it just—.

EVANIER: He was a very considerate man, a very nice man—very accessible. If you went to the San Diego Conventions during those years when he was around, if you were willing to wait 15 minutes in line, you could talk to Jack Kirby. And until the very end, he would stand up. If you were standing, he would stand just out of politeness—and also because he was short. And he’d talk about anything. You could just go up to Jack and say, “What do you think about bananas?” and he would talk to you about bananas. I mean, whatever it was. Everything spawned an idea with him. And one of the things that he did that I wish he hadn’t done, was if you came up to him and said, as some kids did, “Which character did you base ‘Dark-seed’ on?” he wouldn’t correct you to “Dark-side.” It was “Dark-side,” but he’d say, “Oh, well, Dark-seed…”. He didn’t want a fan feeling dumb. So now, a bit later, those kids would say to me, “Hey, why do you pronounce it Darkseid? His name is Darkseed.” “No, it’s Darkseid.” “No, no, Jack pronounced it Darkseed.” [laughter] And a couple of times he would tell somebody something was true when it wasn’t. I mean, not lied, just trying to make the person feel better.

If someone came to Jack and said, “I have a feeling that you based this story on something,” and Jack didn’t remember what he based things on, for the most part, and he’d say, “Yes, you got it!

Yes, you’re a sharp guy!” [laughter] Now, Rand, you’ve been museuming Jack for a while now.

I’m fascinated by the kind of reaction you get from people. I discovered that walking around and saying I was Jack Kirby’s assistant opened doors, not professionally, but just—when I was at the Marvel offices in 1970 for the first

ROYER: I want to say that, with many of us, Mark has the reputation—if somebody says, “Did you know such-and-such?” I go, “No, but ask Mark.” [laughter] Mark, to this day, knows the telephone exchange that we looked up at Penn Station in 1970 to call Al Williamson.

EVANIER: Mike was trying to reach Al Williamson, and he didn’t have his phone number, so we called Directory Assistance, and there was a whole bank of phonebooks there, different regions of New York, forty phonebooks or something like that, and the lady said, “I can’t just look at every one for Al Williamson.” This is before computers. “Can you narrow down where he would be?” And Mike told her as much information as he had about where Al Williamson lived, and she said, “That would be either in the Milford phone district, the Matamoras phone directory, Dingman’s Ferry, or Shohola.” And Mike is reading these off to me, saying, “Remember these: Milford, Matamoras, Dingman’s Ferry, Shohola.” So then, after he hung up the phone, we went through phone books, looking through Milford, here’s Matamoras.

And to this day, every time I see Mike, I say, “Yeah, it’s was Milford, Matamoras, Dingman’s Ferry, Shohola.” That was 1970.

ROYER: Earlier this morning I mentioned something about my telephone, and he rattles off the phone number.

EVANIER: I know the phone number Mike Royer had in 1970. [laughter] Useful information. [laughter] I just remember lots and lots of things. And Jack did say to me early on in our association, “I want you to be my Boswell.” I wasn’t sure at that 67

EVANIER: Oh, well Rand, please show it to us.

point who Boswell was, but I started trying to remember everything, and after I’d spent a day with Jack, I’d sometimes go home and write notes down, little key words. “Oh, this will trigger it, I’ll remember this.” I was very conscious of the fact that Jack was an amazing man. It was a long time learning how amazing he was, because Jack would say things to me that didn’t make any sense at the time, and I’d figure out later what they were. Or he’d make predictions that sounded loony. One of the many reasons Jack did not get his due from Marvel, and didn’t get the kind of financial rewards that we all know he deserved, was that the people there had no vision. And Jack would say to them—and I swear this is true, I have witnesses and people who know these stories are true. He’d say to them, “Someday there’ll be a Thor movie, and it’ll be the biggest thing in the history of motion pictures! Someday there’ll be a Fantastic Four movie!” He predicted exactly what we have seen happen in the last decade or so with the Marvel characters. In other words, “I’m giving you properties that are worth billions!” They thought he was demented. The people in management at Marvel thought he was out of his mind.

They thought he was useful, but all that nonsense about the company being worth, the characters being worth billions of dollars, are you crazy? Before Star Wars, that was a little less likely to happen with any property. Star Wars was one of the first franchises that made that kind of money, and Star Wars, as we all know, has a lot of Kirby elements in it. So he couldn’t convince them of the worth of his work. That’s why they paid him so badly.

HOPPE: We have a theme this year that we’re working on. We’re hoping to develop it into another pop-up that we hope to have in New York and in LA, but we picked the title “Jack Kirby’s Cosmic Comics,” and we like to make big comics; as you’ve seen before, we made a huge 2001 Treasury. And if you come to our booth, you can see these excerpts of comics where we take things like this [next page, top]; you can look at the original art, and see the printed version…

EVANIER: Actually, those pages are bigger than the original art.

HOPPE: I think they are, yeah. Here’s something where we were

ROYER: When I was at Disney, Jack called me and asked me if I would have time to ink Silver Star.

EVANIER: And you met at the Copper Penny restaurant. Why do I know that? [laughter] ROYER: And we sat there at lunch, and Jack is telling me the story of Silver Star, and I’m thinking, “God, this is a lot of material for one issue.” No. He had all six issues done up here. And I think I did maybe four of them before it was just too hard to do Disney full-time and ink with Jack again. But this is a man who—Mark could tell you a story about creating a whole first issue of a new series at dinner, and he was always creating, which is why Roz always drove. And I told my wife one day, I said, “Hon, Roz is always driving for Jack.” And she said, “Yeah, but you’re no Jack Kirby.” [laughter] EVANIER: Unfortunately, nobody is. It’s no shame to not be Jack Kirby. Anyway, what would you like to hear us talk about, about Jack? We’ve got some time here, and you must have some questions about Jack.

HOPPE: I brought something to show people.

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lucky enough to get Silver Age Marvel pencil work, then the original art, and then the printed version.

EVANIER: That pencil page you got from me, and I used to show that to people to show Colletta....

HOPPE: Here’s a scene [below]. I’d like to point out the missing chair, the Colletta missing chair—the sad fate of the chair that got lost in the published work. But we have a whole bunch, we have this one Thor piece, and then we have three others. We have New Gods, a 2001, and the Eternals, and it all showcases the wonderful work that Mike Royer does. So you get to see Jack’s pencils, Mike’s finished work on the original art, and the printed version, and they’re just really fun. So if you’re here tomorrow, come to the booth and check that stuff out.

EVANIER: I started to ask Rand a question, and I didn’t get an answer. I wanted to ask you, what kind of reactions do you get from people?

You’re at a convention, there’s a big sign: “Jack Kirby.” Tell us about the reactions people give you.

HOPPE: People just... they get it. They’re getting it more and more, how incredible Jack was. And the work that we’ve done, that you’ve done, that we’re all talking about Jack, that they are really understanding what an amazing creator he was, and they know that his stuff is all around us.

EVANIER: Do you find that people want to tell you what their favorite Jack Kirby work is?

HOPPE: Oh, yeah.

EVANIER: Or do you find that frequently, it’s the first thing they read of his?

HOPPE: Of course. [laughter] EVANIER: There’s a lot of people who are listing Kamandi as the greatest thing he ever did, and that’s because they started by reading Kamandi.

ROYER: It’s funny when you’re at your table, and someone who’s obviously fifty years old walks up and says, “God, when I was a kid, I just loved Devil Dinosaur,” and I’m just thinking, “Thank you for making me feel so old.” [laughter] EVANIER: It’s not old, Mike, it’s important. [laughter] So tell people, what’s the future of the Museum?

HOPPE: Well, right now, the current state is that we’ve been doing a lot of scanning, so we have, like, 4500 scans of the original art, and pencil photocopies, and then the goal is, we want to keep doing that. We want to make that work more available. It’s not really available; it’s more like a human interface. You ask us and we let you know, so that’s an important project that we’re working on. We’re planning to have a pop-up in New York. We want to have a pop-up in LA. It’s just a matter of pulling the resources together to make that happen. And after that, it’s all about how much support we can get to find more real estate. We have storage

space and we have an archive filled with many things.

Everybody wants us to have a space somewhere.

EVANIER: Has anybody thought of a question? Yes, sir?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Jack Kirby obviously created so many incredible characters.

Do you know if there was one particular story or character that he just loved to illustrate?

EVANIER: Well, the first thing I know about Jack is he loved everything he did.

If they had said to him, “For the rest of your life, you’re going to do nothing but draw Westerns,” he would have been fine. Or war stories. He liked to draw what was commercial. He didn’t have a preference for super-heroes, necessarily, over science-fiction or whatever. He was a little less happy about negative stuff, things about death. In fact, he had a couple of ugly phone conversations with Carmine Infantino at DC where he felt that Carmine’s covers were getting too bleak and death-oriented, failure, weakness, and Carmine did not like the fact that he drew covers that Jack Kirby did not like. If you asked Jack, if you pinned him down, “What was your favorite story?”, when I first met him, it would have been a story he did in Boys’ Ranch called “Mother Delilah.” A little later he would say “The Pact” or occasionally “The Death Wish of Terrible Turpin.”

I think that “Death Wish of Terrible Turpin” is the best story he did for DC. That’s my opinion. If you said, “Oh, I really like ‘The Glory Boat,’” he’d have said, “Yeah! It was that!” [laughter] It’s like, you can’t love any one thing too much, and it is significant that he was mentioning stories he felt were really his, that he didn’t do with somebody else, where he felt that he had done all or most of the work. I think “Mother Delilah,” he even inked that. But he really liked everything. If you came up to Jack and told him, “Oh, I really thought the best thing you ever did was a couple of love stories” back in some obscure comic, he would have been just as 69

(above) Rand Hoppe shows off the Kirby Museum’s display piece, documenting Kirby’s Thor #154 pencils (as shown on previous page), inks, and published version (shown below).

Colletta omitted the building in the bottom right corner of Jack’s pencil art, leading to an unbalanced final inked image. (left) The mysterious missing chair, from Thor #154 (July 1968).

flattered. He didn’t have a lot of ego, it seems to me. Jack had a way of saying, “I know I’m the best guy in the business,” and it didn’t sound conceited—that he had decided that he was the best guy in the business. He was just like that, but he had no animosity towards the other artists. You cannot find Jack saying a bad thing about his competition.

JAMES CASSARA (from audience): So some of the work that he did for DC that hasn’t been published, like Soul Love or Dingbats issue #2, I guess, how much of that exists, and what are the odds of it ever seeing the light of day?

EVANIER: One hundred percent; it’ll be out in about three months.

TwoMorrows is printing a book, which I have to write the Foreword for next week, where they’re going to reprint the stuff that was done for DC, the two issues that weren’t published of Dingbats. And Jack did two black-and-whites in the same format as Spirit World and In the Days of the Mob. The first thing he did was a thing that was going to be called either Soul Love or Soul Romance—they never finalized the title... no, I think I got it backwards. The first thing he did was called True Divorce Cases [née True-Life Divorce]. Jack, had a whole large project. This is too long a story to tell, but, essentially, he wanted to do fancy magazines in color, with some photos and some of the fancy advertising, something that would have looked a lot like the National Lampoon did at that time. He thought that was a wonderful package, and comics should have that better printing and that level of color, which was not cheap. And DC kept cheapening the idea down, and cheapening it down, until it looked like bad issues of Creepy magazine. So they wanted a romance thing. That was not one of his chosen topics, because he—and, actually, this is

a case where Jack said to me one day, “Why do you think romance comics are all failures?” You see, one of the reasons that Vince Colletta became Jack’s inker at DC was because all those guys in that era had a powerful need to keep each other working. It was kind of an understanding, if you worked for the company and your book was canceled, they’d find you another book, because your income depended on it. All the guys who lived through the Depression, the most important thing in life was to provide for your family, keep a roof over your kids’ heads. So Colletta had been the guy who did all of these romance books. They were canceling them or making them half reprint at that time, so Colletta was losing work, and losing work, and losing work. So making him Jack Kirby’s inker was a way to make Vince happy. It solved the problem of who else was going to do it, and it would be simple, and also Vince was being paid the lowest rate. They liked to balance the highest-paid penciler with the lowest-paid inker whenever they could, which explains some of the people who inked Curt Swan over the years.

So, anyway, Jack gave them a list of, like, twenty ideas for a romance title and they picked one. But Jack would come to me and we’d talk about it, because I kind of wanted to write romance comics. And Jack said, “Why do you think romance comics are failures these days?” I said, “Because it’s 1970, and romance is about stuff that you can’t put in a comic book.” In the 1950s, a romance comic could be about, “Oh, maybe if my hair style was different, he’d love me.” And in 1970, it was about sex. Relationships had gotten much more serious. Young people were having sex at an earlier age. It was out in the open more, and comic books weren’t going to do that, so it didn’t relate to anything that was currently romance. Anyway, they picked a thing called True Divorce Cases that Jack started, and Jack did an issue of True Divorce Cases stories. And, again, this is a book he wanted to edit and supervise other writers and artists on. He called John Romita about drawing a story, he called Don Heck about drawing a story, because he thought John Romita and Don Heck were the best romance artists in the business, and Jack was oriented that way. A romance comic had to be full of really beautiful women. And DC said, “You do the whole thing.” So he did the whole issue of True Divorce Cases, and he handed it in, and DC said, “We don’t like this. We’re not going to print it.” But there was one story in there about a black couple, and they said, “Hey, maybe a whole book of romance with black people in it.” And they talked to a distributor. And this is all going to be in the Foreword I’m going to write next week or so, but essentially they took the one story of the black couple that had been done for True Divorce Cases, and Jack drew the rest of the issue of Soul Love or Soul Romance, and then a distributor who specialized in the black marketplaces, said, “Oh, that’ll never sell,” and they killed the project. So this volume that TwoMorrows is bringing out has the two Dingbats stories. It’s got all the material that can be found, there’s a few pages still missing, from True Divorce Cases for Soul Love.

There’s your answer.

(below) Kirby design for the 1980 animated TV series Drak Pack. (above) A Royer illo of Disney’s Winnie The Pooh characters.

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ROYER: There will be a three-page True Divorce story in this publication that I lettered and inked for it, and I got a nice compliment from John Morrow. He says, “You still have it, Mike.” [laughter] EVANIER: Yes, sir?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I think we’re all pretty aware of the influence that Jack Kirby had on all forms of media going forward, how much his greatness affected it. I’d be curious about what you guys know about his input.

I mean, in the end there are places where in Fantastic Four he would take an Edward G. Robinson movie and an episode of Star Trek and mash them together and come up with something, but did he have any friends who were physicists or scientists or anything, or did he…?

EVANIER: He read a lot of medical journals and scientific journals.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Well, Ego, the Living Planet sounds just like James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis’ Gaia hypothesis, and the Negative Zone is like a poor man’s understanding of anti-matter. And I’m just wondering if, you know…

EVANIER: Jack got stuff out of everywhere. Really, he was a vociferous reader. He would go to newsstands sometimes and pick up the damnedest things. He watched a lot of documentaries on TV. One of the secrets—now, this is just putting a toe in a very big ocean—is a lot of Jack’s brilliance came from taking two things, or two or more things, that nobody else would ever connect, and connecting them. I’ll give you an example of this. Now, this is, we’re in the realm of theory, here, and I didn’t discuss this with Jack, but it’s something from looking at his work. He did the first issue of “Thor.” Now, you know, we have a story about a God on Earth, we have to have a menace for him to fight. You could have anything. Thor could have fought villains, monsters. He could have fought the Mafia.

He could have fought anyone. And what did Jack have him fight? These stone men that looked like the stone men on Easter Island. And Jack was fascinated by the stone men of Easter Island. He had done two or three stories before for different publishers about those guys.

What, of all things, made Jack think of using the stone men in Thor? This is going to sound bizarre to you, but hear me out. There’s a very popular book that Jack read called Kon-Tiki. It was about, among other things, the stone men on Easter Island. Who wrote Kon-Tiki?

here, if you draw this up, we’ll be able to sell it as a movie.” So Jack would have a whole presentation drawn for these kids, and they’d take the drawings and leave and he’d never see them again. A lot of people wanted him to collaborate on stuff. And Jack was getting a little tired, and he was having some health problems, he had a problem with his eye, and he had problems drawing. And Roz said, “Why don’t you create a character together with Jack, and maybe you can go sell it off for a TV show or cartoon show, or something like that?”

So I said, “Okay, let me think about it.”

And I didn’t want to go to Jack and let him create the whole thing, because I didn’t want to sponge off of him. So I came up with an idea, and I thought at that point, who are we going to get to ink this? And Mike was not available. I called you, and I said, “I’ve got a Jack Kirby project coming up,” and you said, “Don’t ask me now...

I can’t handle more right at this moment.” I think you had just gone on staff at Disney or whatever it was.

So I called Terry Austin—you all know Terry Austin, the inker—and I said, “Terry, if I came up with a new book that Jack Kirby was going to pencil, would you be interested in inking it?” And he said, “Yeah.” Terry was

AUDIENCE MEMBERS: Thor Heyerdahl.

EVANIER: Thor Heyerdahl. I think that Jack, in his brain, just combined them together, and when somebody said “Thor,” that made Jack think of Thor Heyerdahl, and he thought of the stone men. Okay?

Now, nobody could ever prove me right or wrong on this. [laughter] But I think Jack put a lot of things together in his brain, and I don’t know that he was even conscious of. Just before Jack stopped drawing comics— this is a story I haven’t told very often, and forgive me if I’m not letting these guys talk enough. You’ll be interested in this. Roz said to me, “Why don’t you create a comic book?” Jack had a lot of kids coming to him with ideas for things that they wanted to do. “Oh, Mr. Kirby, 71

(below) In 2019, we commissioned Mike Royer to ink the three-page story “The Cheater” from True-Life Divorce for TwoMorrows’ book Jack Kirby’s Dingbat Love, available now.

As you can see, Mike’s still got it indeed!

(below) Kirby’s pencils for Jimmy Olsen #143, and the Superman and Jimmy heads, as redrawn by Murphy Anderson (above).

a hot inker at the time on X-Men. So I just went up to Jack’s and I told him this idea I had for this new book, and we would basically put it up for bids to all of the publishers, who were publishing creator-owned comics. This time we would control the copyright, then I would have the right to go out and try to sell it for something else. I told Jack this idea, and Jack started telling me so many variations on it. “Yeah, that’s great! And then he could

72

do this! And then he could do this! Then he could have a sidekick that does this!” And I thought to myself for a minute, “Did I tell him this idea a month ago and he was working on it?” No. They came out of him at that second. And I’m not saying they were all fabulous, but if you were creating stuff, you’d want somebody around who could keep throwing out good ideas, and you could maybe say, “Oh, how about that one?” You know that in the Lee and Kirby collaboration, Jack must have pitched five times as many ideas as they used.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: And then Stan used them for other artists.

EVANIER: Yeah, maybe he did in a couple cases. There’s some stories about that, that we won’t get into now. So Jack had all these ideas.

So I went home, and then the phone rang about two days later, and it was Archie Goodwin, who was running the Epic line from Marvel. Archie was a good friend of mine. He said, “I understand from Terry Austin that you’ve got a new Jack Kirby book. We want it. Whatever it is, we’ll buy it, sight unseen. We’ll guarantee you it will be the highest, best contract ever. I want to be the guy,” Archie said, “who gives Jack Kirby a good deal from Marvel.” So I thought, “We’ve got a great offer here.” And then I started thinking, what if something goes wrong? What if Archie leaves the company? What if Archie can’t deliver on the promises?

Archie was a man of utter integrity, but who knows who above him would overrule him? And I started getting worried.

I didn’t want to be the guy who went to Jack and said, “Jack, they just did this horrible thing to us,” which I kind of had to do when Archie made me an offer to do a book called Hollywood Superstars a little later on. I was working with Dan Spiegle, and the people who succeeded Archie didn’t like the book. They didn’t want to try to market it a different way.

What actually happened on that book I would not have wanted to have happen to the book I did with Jack. At that point Roz said to me, “His health is getting worse. I don’t know if he can do it.” So I dropped it, dropped the whole idea.

But I had that experience of Jack taking an idea—and I’d seen him do this with other people’s ideas. I’d seen him take a fully-developed idea that I gave him and turn it into something worth ten times as much. My amazement at Jack’s skills grew. In hindsight it has grown more and more. And I don’t know if I’ve answered your question at all there. He was just able to think of things, and if you said “shoehorn” to Jack, that would trigger some idea. If you went to him and said your favorite movie was Some Like It Hot, he would suddenly say, “Oh! I’ve got a thing about gangsters and guys who

(above) Kirby illo for the September 1, 1966 issue of Esquire magazine. Inks by Joe Sinnott, with a Spider-Man drawn by John Romita.

dress up as women!” [laughter] It wouldn’t be an imitation of Some Like It Hot. You all know who Ernie Bushmiller is. Ernie Bushmiller used to open the Sears Catalog, which was a big, huge thing—people did mail order in the days before Amazon. He’d go, “Stepladder.”

He said, “Okay, I’m going to do a gag about a stepladder.” And he’d sit there and he’d just force himself to come up with a great idea about a stepladder. He wasn’t stealing from the Sears Catalog—and Jack would do the same thing with any concept or word you gave him. It was a personal challenge now to him, and that comes back to the question about what did Jack like to do. If you said to Jack, “Why don’t you do a Western about penguins?” Jack would seriously think, “What can I do? A personal challenge... I’ll come up with a Western with penguins or something.” He might not think that was the best idea if it was done, but if he were forced to do it, he would do it.

Jimmy Olsen, but keep doing it.” You know? He was saying, “Well, if they don’t like how I draw Superman, why do they have me drawing Superman? Give it to somebody else.” It was like a lot of times when Jack took over somebody else’s book. When they asked him to take over the Black Panther book in the mid-Seventies, other people had been doing a Black Panther comic. And Stan Lee called and said he wanted a new take on it. And Jack made him repeat, “Now, you want me to do a different version?” “Yes, do a different version of it.” “Because if you want me to come in and do that book, give it to somebody else. I’m not going to do somebody else’s version of this character. I’m going to do my version of this character.” Stan said, “That’s what we want.” That’s why he didn’t want to take over an existing book. That’s why he wouldn’t have wanted to do Batman, because all these people at DC had opinions about Batman.

AMASH: I’d like to say something about that, because I had Jack here for a convention in ’85 with Murphy Anderson. Murphy was apologizing to Jack for redoing the heads [on Jimmy Olsen]. Jack was really gracious about it. He said, “I know how things are in that office.” And Murphy said, “I would like to have inked a whole story rather than just faces.” And he said, “I would feel more comfortable that way.” I think Murphy must have apologized to him four or five times.

HOPPE: He did a lot of research for the Sky Masters strip as well, getting into the space race and Sputnik era stuff. That might have kicked off an element of research.

EVANIER: Give me a question for one of these other people.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: How much closer are we to the Jack Kirby biography you’re writing?

EVANIER: I don’t know. It is huge, and it is 85% done. I am waiting on a couple of people to talk to me, and a couple of minor legal issues that have held it up a few years. You all figured this out, that I didn’t publish my Jack Kirby biography when there were still outstanding issues between the Kirby family and Marvel. It just would have complicated everybody’s life then. I was very happy with how that issue ended, and that was more important than my book. So “I don’t know” is the answer. Soon. Yes, sir?

EVANIER: Yeah, he did. He also said this in confidence; he said, “If they had let me, I would have made it look a little more like Kirby.”

In other words, he wouldn’t have redrawn the heads if they said, “Murphy, ink this book.” I am of the belief that if Frank Giacoia had inked the Jimmy Olsen books, nobody would have ever said anything about they way Jack was drawing it. But it now became an issue.

Again, it was Jack fighting with this mentality. Remember, Jack went to work for a company where most of the editors had walked around for years before saying, “Boy, we’re glad our books don’t look like those crappy Marvel books. Those Marvel books stink so much.”

I had a memorable encounter one time with a man named Sol Harrison, who was the head of production at DC. This was around 1974, and I was hanging around the office. I think Sol may have thought I worked there and was like a junior intern or something like that. I was not on the payroll. I had nothing to lose by saying this to him, because what are they going to do, fire me when I don’t

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Was he upset when DC would redo his faces?

EVANIER: Yes. He thought it was financially stupid. He thought it was bad selling. He was a team player and he had no place else to go. He couldn’t go back to Marvel, so he said, “Oh, yeah? Fine.” But no artists want to have that. Marvel would occasionally have John Romita draw a face for him here and there. Jack had been kind of pressured to do Jimmy Olsen, and they said, “Jack, you can’t draw 73

EVANIER: No, he thought that was going to be one thing he did. He thought he was going to do a lot more at DC. He thought the Fourth World was a series he was going to start and turn over to other people, and he would go and do comics in other sizes. Jack wanted to do magazines, big formats. He wanted the comic books that looked like the things [Rand] showed us.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: When it ended, how hurt was he? Was he disappointed that it was over?

EVANIER: The Fourth World stuff? They said it was suspended, but Jack knew what that meant, New Gods and Forever People—my heart broke, he was so upset. He looked like a man who had just been punched in the face over and over. He was just crushed. He was genuinely worried that he would be operating for the rest of his career from a position of failure. He didn’t think the books were failures.

He thought DC didn’t know how to sell them. They didn’t know how to market them. He thought DC had kind of fragged its own troops.

And then he said, “Okay, we’re gonna do a great new book.” Mike, he called you about the new book, Kamandi. Do you remember the story? He called you, and he said—.

ROYER: [long pause, shrugs] “Old timers.” [laughter] EVANIER: I’m now telling something Mike told me twelve times.

He called you and he said, “Mike, they’re canceling New Gods and Forever People. Don’t worry, we’re going to do another book that will do even better, and you’re going to go all the way with me.” Right?

Isn’t that what he said?

ROYER: Yeah.

EVANIER: And that was Jack. He was very depressed for a while. I don’t know if he ever fully recovered. Roz used to say that was the moment she saw a certain spark in Jack go away. But he had plenty of other ideas, and he poured himself into all of these things. You’ve never seen anybody give 120 percent like he did. When he was working for Marvel in the Seventies again, he was back there, there were some people who didn’t like his work, and Jack didn’t mind when people say, “I don’t like his style. I don’t care for what he does.” He was fine with that. But when people would say, “He doesn’t care anymore, he isn’t trying,” that hurt, because he was trying like hell with everything he ever did. I don’t know if Jack was capable of earning a paycheck without trying.

work there? So a bunch of younger employees are looking at the current Marvels and they’re sitting there going, “Ohhh, look at that.

Look at the terrible cover on this one. Oh, what an awful ink job on that one.” They’re putting them down, but then they said, “Oh boy, that book looks good.” And Sol Harrison says, “No. All the Marvel books stink. They’re all lousy.” And he said, and this is a quote, “The best artist at Marvel is not as good as DC’s worst artist.” And that hung in the air for a second until I said, “So you’re saying that the art that Gil Kane is doing now for Marvel is nowhere near as good as the art that Gil Kane is doing now for DC?” [laughter] None of us looking at that would have seen any qualitative difference. And Sol said, “Yeah, you’re right. Gil knows he can’t be handing in that sh*t to us.” And that was the company into which Jack Kirby went. That was part of the underlying mentality of not letting the Jimmy Olsen comic be Marvelized so much. “We’ve got to pull it back to what we do so well.” And the company was like that to a lot of people.

That visit with Mike and Steve Sherman that we took to New York in 1970, I hand-carried a job for Alex Toth, delivered it for him, and they set it up on a wall. “Oh, Toth did a great job. How do we fix this? How can we change that? How can we fix that?” They called it putting the DC touch on it. And that was some of what Jack was fighting when he wanted to get Mike Royer; he didn’t want somebody looking at the work, trying to make it look more “DC,” because whatever Mike did, it didn’t look like a DC comic. It looked like a Jack Kirby comic. It did not look like a conventional DC. We’ve got time for two more questions.

ROYER: Well, I was booed once at a panel at the San Diego Comic-Con— and people like John Buscema and other people before we went out on stage agreed with me—and I said, “What I’ve observed in the Marvel comic books, the last ones he was doing, was that he was being sabotaged from the inside.”

In my opinion, they were stacking the letter pages, and they all basically said, “The drawing is great but the writing sucks.” And I said Marvel is run by a bunch of incestuous fanboys who want to ride on Jack’s coattails and write the words for his stories, and so the best way to do it is to hurt sales by saying the writing sucks, therefore the writing will be taken away from him, and they can

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I’ve got to believe that when Jack went to DC for the Fourth World, he thought that was going to be his future, that he was going to turn that into—.

74

“fix” Jack. And I was booed—but I still believe that he was attacked from the inside.

EVANIER: One of them called me and said, “Listen, you know Jack. Can you convince him that I should be dialoguing these books?” One more question, let’s get another one. Yes, Andy?

ANDY MANSELL (from audience): How about this. A rainy day, and you’re feeling kind of depressed—what are the two or three Kirby single issues that you reach for? I know you’re sick of this question, but I think it’s so important. I’m asking all four of you.

EVANIER: So the question was, on a rainy day when I’m feeling depressed— and I’m never depressed [laughter]—what are the Jack Kirby comics you would reach for? I’ll tell you my answer. Like any other writer, I’ve got a shelf in my office, a bookcase of all the comics I’ve written, books I’ve written, and things like that. I’ve got a shelf there of all the reprints of the New Gods and Forever People.

And they’re not there because I wrote the Forewords for both of them.

They’re there because it makes me smile to see that those books that people said, “Those aren’t commercial. They’ll never sell. They’re flops.

They’re failures,” have now been reprinted in hardcover eleven times. I like to see the spines of those books and I think to myself, “Yeah, Jack won again. He was way ahead of all of those guys.”

ROYER: And DC, bless their hearts, I don’t mind if they reprint Jack forever, because they are so good at giving reprint money, and every quarter I’m gratified to get a check from them and realize that, as you said, Jack, who was not commercial, is now selling like crazy. And it’s about time that everybody realized how important Jack was. We’re in a culture now where we’re surrounded in the media by all these movies, that wouldn’t have existed without Jack.

EVANIER: What’s the Kirby work that makes you happy to look at today?

AMASH: I have to say New Gods and the first six issues of The Demon, because I thought Jack lost something after those six issues. I always thought it was interference by Carmine, because he was going on a certain tack, and that had some of your best inks on it, Mike, and all of a sudden we got movie adaptations, which were not in the early issues. I thought in the early issues, Jack was clearly planning something, because in one of the Xeroxes it says “the Fourth World” on a Demon cover. So really, whether he had the Fourth World in mind for the Demon or not, he had something in mind, because he suddenly switched direction, in the same kind of way he switched direction on Mister Miracle to get rid of the New Gods references. So I think Jack was planning something. I don’t know what the something was, but to go from—.

EVANIER: Was the New Gods the first one?

AMASH: I would say so.

EVANIER: Okay. Rand?

HOPPE: I know it was kind of manipulated somewhat, but it would probably be the Fantastic Four #73 crossover with Thor and Daredevil, just off the top of my head. It was kind of an early back issue for me, and charming.

EVANIER: Mike, have you got any other Kirby book that you like to look at today, other than for the great inking?

ROYER: Push comes to shove, I’d have to say that probably The Demon is my favorite book. Of course, every book I was working on at that time, I loved it. But push come to shove in retrospect, I think probably Demon resonates with me. And he originally intended it to be—I have a copy of the original pencils and inks, which is on the banner at my table, and it says, “A new Fourth World shocker! Gone, gone, the form of man, enter Etrigan!”

EVANIER: All right, folks, will you join me in thanking [our panelists]? [applause] Would you join me in thanking the guy who organized the programming for this convention, Andy Mansell? [applause] Thank you very much. H 75

(previous page) Royer was actually working for Marvel in 1974, inking the first four issues of Ka-Zar while Jack was still at DC. Upon his 1975 return, Marvel had Kirby draw the cover of #12 (below, before John Romita alterations). (left and below) Kirby also drew these logo illos (inked by Frank Giacoia) for his own 1976 Captain America title at Marvel Comics.

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 5.99­ COLOR, it showcases Kirby’s art even better! $1.99-$

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KIRBY COLLECTOR #76

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KIRBY COLLECTOR #71

KIRBY COLLECTOR #73

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!

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!

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!

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(100-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $5.99

KIRBY COLLECTOR #77

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!

FATHERS & SONS! Odin/Thor, Zeus/ Hercules, Darkseid/Orion, Captain America/ Bucky, and other dysfunctional relationships, unpublished 1994 interview with GIL KANE eulogizing Kirby, tributes from Jack’s creative “sons” in comics (MUMY, PALMIOTTI, QUESADA, VALENTINO, McFARLANE, GAIMAN, & MILLER), MARK EVANIER, 2018 Kirby Tribute Panel, Kirby pencil art gallery, 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!

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(100-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $5.99

KIRBY COLLECTOR #78

SILVER ANNIVERSARY ISSUE! How Kirby kickstarted the Silver Age and revamped Golden Age characters for the 1960s, the Silver Surfer’s influence, pivotal decisions (good and bad) Jack made throughout his comics career, Kirby pencil art gallery, MARK EVANIER and our regular columnists, a classic 1950s story, KIRBY/STEVE RUDE cover (and deluxe silver sleeve) and more!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (DELUXE EDITION w/ silver sleeve) $12.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99

KIRBY COLLECTOR #79

See “THE BIG PICTURE” of how Kirby fits into the grand scheme of things! His creations’ lasting legacy, how his work fights illiteracy, a RARE KIRBY INTERVIEW, inconsistencies in his 1960s MARVEL WORK, editorial changes in his comics, big concepts in OMAC, best DOUBLE-PAGE SPREADS, MARK EVANIER’s 2019 Kirby Tribute Panel, PENCIL ART GALLERY, and a new cover based on OMAC #1!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99

More About Jack Kirby:

COMIC BOOK ARTIST BULLPEN COMIC BOOK ARTIST BULLPEN collects all seven

issues of the little-seen labor of love fanzine published in the early 2000s by JON B. COOKE (editor of today’s COMIC BOOK CREATOR magazine), just after the original CBA ended its TwoMorrows run. Featured are in-depth interviews with some of comics’ major league players, including GEORGE TUSKA, FRED HEMBECK, TERRY BEATTY, and FRANK BOLLE—and an amazing all-star tribute to Silver Age great JACK ABEL by the Marvel Comics Bullpen and others. That previously unpublished all-comics Abel appreciation (assembled

by RICK PARKER) includes strips by JOE KUBERT, ALTER EGO #170 WALTER SIMONSON, KYLE BAKER, MARIE SEVERIN, JACK KIRBY is showcased cover-to-cover behind a GRAY MORROW, ALAN WEISS, SERGIO ARAGONÉS, never-before-printed Kirby cover! WILL MURRAY MORT TODD, DICK AYERS, and many more! Includes on Kirby’s contributions to the creation of Iron the never-released CBA BULLPEN #7, a new bonus Man—FCA on his Captain Marvel/Mr. Scarlet feature on JACK KIRBY’s unknown 1960 baseball Fawcett work—Kirby sections by MICHAEL T. card art, and a 16-page full-color section, all behind a GILBERT & PETER NORMANTON—Kirby in 1960s KIRBY COVER! fanzines—STAN LEE’s colorful quotes about “The (176-page TRADE PAPERBACK with COLOR) $24.95 • King”, and ROY THOMAS on being a Kirby fan (and foil)! ALMOST SOLD OUT! (Digital Edition) $8.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-105-9 • NOW SHIPPING! (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99

BACK ISSUE #131

THE KIRBY LEGACY AT DC! Explores Jack Kirby’s post-Fourth World Bronze Age DC characters!

Demon, Kamandi, OMAC, Sandman, and Kirby’s Odd Jobs (Atlas, Manhunter, and more). Plus: the SIMON & KIRBY Reunion That Wasn’t! Featuring BISSETTE, BYRNE, CONWAY, GIBBONS, GOLDEN, GRANT, RUCKA, SEMEIKS, THOMAS, TIMM, WAGNER, and more. Demon cover by KIRBY and MIKE ROYER! NOW SHIPPING! (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99

Jack Kirby Books OLD GODS & NEW

For its 80th issue, the JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR presents a double-sized 50th anniversary celebration of Kirby’s magnum opus! This companion to that “FOURTH WORLD” series (NEW GODS, FOREVER PEOPLE, MISTER MIRACLE, and JIMMY OLSEN) looks back at JACK KIRBY’s own words, as well as those of assistants MARK EVANIER and STEVE SHERMAN, inker MIKE ROYER, and publisher CARMINE INFANTINO, to determine how it came about, where it was going, and how Kirby would’ve ended it before it was prematurely cancelled by DC Comics! It also examines Kirby’s use of gods in THOR and other strips prior to the Fourth World, how they influenced his DC epic, and affected later series like THE ETERNALS and CAPTAIN VICTORY. With an overview of hundreds of Kirby’s creations like BIG BARDA, BOOM TUBES and GRANNY GOODNESS, and postKirby uses of his concepts, no Fourth World fan will want to miss it! Compiled, researched, and edited by JOHN MORROW, with contributions by JON B. COOKE. (160-page FULL-COLOR paperback) $26.95 • (Ltd. Edition HARDCOVER) $35.95 (Digital Edition) $12.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-098-4 • NOW SHIPPING!

KIRBY & LEE: STUF’ SAID

This EXPANDED SECOND EDITION of JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #75 includes minor corrections, and 16 NEW PAGES of “Stuf’ Said” by the creators of the Marvel Universe! This first-of-its-kind examination, completed just days before STAN LEE’s passing, looks back at KIRBY & LEE’s own words, in chronological order, from fanzine, magazine, radio, and television interviews, to paint the most comprehensive and enlightening picture of their relationship ever done—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 them both. Compiled, researched, and edited by publisher JOHN MORROW. (176-page FULL-COLOR trade paperback) $26.95 • (Digital Edition) $12.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-094-6

JACK KIRBY’s

DINGBAT LOVE

COLLECTED KIRBY COLLECTOR VOL. 6

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

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

In cooperation with DC COMICS, TwoMorrows compiles a tempestuous trio of never-seen 1970s Kirby projects! These are the final complete, unpublished Jack ER Kirby stories in existence, presented here for the first time! Included are: Two EISN RD AWAINEE! unused DINGBATS OF DANGER STREET tales (Kirby’s final Kid Gang group, M O N 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 and STEVE SHERMAN! (176-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $43.95 • (Digital Edition) $14.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-091-5

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 270-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 LTD. EDITION HARDCOVER) $34.95 ISBN: 978-1-60549-083-0

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. ALMOST SOLD OUT! (168-page trade paperback) $24.95 (Digital Edition) $7.99 ISBN: 978-1-89390-589-4

TwoMorrows.

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COLLECTED KIRBY COLLECTOR VOL. 7

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

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

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Comments

(Don’t test us—write!)

[After finally finishing last issue’s double-size OLD GODS & NEW book/issue, I have to admit it was tough getting back into the swing of doing a regular issue this time out. I hope it meets with your approval, the way #80 apparently did, based on readers’ comments:] [OLD GODS & NEW] might be your best work.

I’m going through really slowly but think you’ve done an amazing job—the accumulation of all of Jack’s gods-related art is revelatory when you present it all together. I’ll keep reading for a long time.

Glen Gold, Los Angeles, CA Just passing on my compliments on your latest Jack Kirby masterpiece OLD GODS AND NEW! What can I say that probably hasn’t already been said (and no doubt more eloquently that I could express)? You keep raising the bar on your ongoing coverage of the life of the King of Comics! In my humble opinion this one needs to be reprinted in 11" x 17" format so all the art (and text) can really be appreciated!

Gary Picariello, Brindisi, Italy I finally finished the hardcover version of TJKC #80. What memories it brought of when Kirby moved to DC! I can remember like it was yesterday how un-Kirbylike Superman looked in Jack’s books at first. I knew it was Al Plastino’s inks, but I couldn’t figure out what he was doing there—just the opposite effect of what DC claimed that they were looking for.

Hindsight is 20-20, but one can’t help but wonder what would have happened if each of the books had been given even a little more time to find their audience. Carmine Infantino is a great artist (not one to my tastes), but his business decisions were definitely suspect.

I like the hardcover option that you offered on TJKC #80. $9 is a small price to pay for such a great upgrade! Thanks again for another great read.

Jim Long, Arlington, VA [The very modest hardcover price was intentional on my part. Just like when I published TJKC #6 back in 1995, I felt this would be the ultimate repository of Fourth World knowledge, and so I wanted to make sure the fans who loved it most could get a more permanent presentation of it, without cost being a barrier to them.]

No one but you could have put together such a craftily comprehensive examination of The Fourth World. OLD GODS & NEW is officially the definitive history of Jack’s magnum opus. It’s all there, in one place, at one time. Bravo! This is

YOUR magnum opus, John.

As a Kirby fanatic for nearly 60 years, I greatly appreciate all your hard work on this. And I have nothing to add, except for my long-held opinion that Scott Free was not only based on Jim Steranko, but his appearance—his “look,” if you will—was based on an obscure TV character from 1970. In September of that year (probably just before Jack starting penciling MISTER MIRACLE #1), a new science-fiction/ adventure series called THE IMMORTAL aired on ABC-TV. The leading character was named Ben Richards (how about THAT?), a man who was immune to every known disease, including old age.

Christopher George played Ben, and he looked very much like Scott. He also carried a satchel of sorts, which Scott carried in the first issue of MISTER MIRACLE. Moreover, Ben Richards was raised in an orphanage, the same as Scott Free.

Since we all know Jack used television as a source for ideas, I think my contention has merit.

Now here’s a spooky coincidence: Just after THE IMMORTAL was canceled (it lasted only 15 episodes), Christopher George actually played an escape artist in a TV-movie pilot called ESCAPE. Though the movie aired too late (April of 1971) to be an inspiration for Mister Miracle, there’s a panel in MM #2 (page 10, panel 2), which was published right around the same time ESCAPE aired, in which Scott Free looks EXACTLY like Chris George [above].

Fred Smith, Goose Creek, SC I received the hardcover version of OLD GODS & NEW and, man, what a beautiful book it is! The design, binding and paper are great. And having read half of it already, I have to say that it’s informative and entertaining.

But I have a nitpick. I think there should be more Kirby art reproduced full-page. Kirby’s art is what got ahold of our minds when we were young, and I can’t conceive of a book about him without lots of full-page art.

For instance, it was disappointing to see three illos on page 24 not reproduced full-page. Those are new gods concept art pages that should have been reproduced full-page too, like the rest. The same applies to the amazing Karnilla(?) concept art on page 44 or the wonderful 78

machinery spread on page 37—and to some of his wonderful collages, seen for the first time in color, like the ones on pages 88, 98 and 106. The fantastic Tribes Trilogy illustrations should have also been reproduced full-page—at least that’s what I think.

So yes, I love this book and I would buy it again with my eyes closed. But I wouldn’t have minded paying 10-15 bucks more to have some extra pages and enjoy more of those wonderful Kirby images as they should be enjoyed, fullpage. Keep up the great work!

Eduard Lopez Lafuente, SPAIN [While I know fans always prefer larger art reproductions (as do I, as well), there are many practical, editorial, financial, and legal considerations I have to take into account in producing a publication like this, which result in compromises. But as a big Kirby fan myself, I’m in tune with what other fans want, and always do my best to deliver whenever possible.]

Thanks so much for my copy of OLD GODS & NEW! It is a wonderful scholarly look at this vital part of Kirby’s artistic legacy. As always, you guys did a great job. The King would be proud!

Barry Alfonso [That’s high praise, coming from JIMMY OLSEN’s Barri-boy! And now, since he wrote the Hulk article in THIS issue, let’s hear from Will Murray about a previous Hulk piece we ran:] I agree with Ross Morrison’s premise in TJKC #79’s “Mystery of the Flying Hulk“ that Lee and Kirby intended for the Hulk to possess the power of flight beginning with issue #3. But he overlooks a significant proof that this was a conscious retooling.

When the Hulk was shot into outer space, he encountered the same radiation belt whose cosmic rays gave the Fantastic Four their powers.

What better means to repower the Hulk could be found? I think this exposure was meant to explain the character’s new abilities, including the telepathic connection with Rick Jones.

Otherwise, why bother sending him up into orbit, just to have him come crashing down? Note that two of Rick Jones’ word balloons were obviously relettered to have him worrying about dooming the Hulk. Originally, Rick might have been wondering how the Hulk would be affected by cosmic rays. Also note that after his return, the Hulk is briefly glowing.

Kirby once commented that THE INCREDIBLE HULK was nearly canceled with issue #3. I have no doubt that this issue marked a significant retooling.

It’s also interesting to recall the 1977 issues of THE ETERNALS which featured the “cosmicpowered” Hulk. Kirby might have dredged that idea from his memory of the retooling that didn’t work out.

As for Lee backing off the character actually

flying, I wonder if DC complained about the flying Hulk for the same reasons they objected to Kirby’s Shield, which they thought too similar to Superman.

More likely they objected to Marvel’s flying green character as being too similar to J’onn J’onzz, Manhunter from Mars!

Will Murray, Quincy, MA #79 was worth the wait. Loved all the coverage and visuals of OMAC and the ETERNALS. Both were terrific books that ended far too early. They’re “connected” with me in that, at the time, I was sad Jack was heading back to Marvel, meaning his runs on KAMANDI and OMAC were ending. Yet, afterwards, his ETERNALS title was a source of great anticipation and delight each month.

Jack’s OMAC #1 cover layout was the most typeheavy cover I’ve seen—particularly odd coming from an artist. I loved all the notes and rough plots Jack came up with on his second presentation sheet— possibilities he could later refine.

One thing I always thought clever: he didn’t tell us precisely what year it was. Instead, it was the intentionally vague but enticing “World That’s Coming.”

Here, he noted it was ten years in the future, so, for him, 1983. But, without stating that to readers, it was and is timeless. I never understood why they didn’t make OMAC a monthly.

That OMAC was a futuristic Captain America, since confirmed, was still brilliant. That weaklingto-powerhouse origin, plus the creator of the project dying, early on, and introduction of a potential sidekick, Buck Blue, means one didn’t have to be a private detective to find three huge clues. About the only aspect not a favorite at the time of release was his haircut. I thought, come on, hair can’t stand up like that. Then, ten years later, here are the Punks with their dinosaur-spike ’do.

Liked the alternate cover of ETERNALS #6. It’s not as attention-grabbing as the one they used but still interesting. The ETERNALS, with a tremendous ensemble cast, only required reading one book. I was and still am surprised it didn’t last longer. Other than the Cosmic Powered Hulk and Dromedan, each issue was a gem.

Really enjoyed the look at Marvel inconsistencies and seeming changes to storylines. Yes, the FF stories near the fifth SPECIAL, with Sue’s pregnancy announced, do seem to have exposition to cover the inconsistencies with Triton and Crystal’s sudden absences—or, even more impressive, five missing CAP stories where Jack could have gained time to produce the extra work.

As for the Hulk flying or changing operational procedure and personality virtually every issue, it seems like they were unsure, exactly, how to make a rampaging monster the beloved underdog readers would root for. Unfortunately, too many approaches made the stories wildly inconsistent.

I must disagree with the negative assessment of FF #73. I thought it was a riot; one of my favorites. What made it work so well for me is the spontaneous nature of the combatants: two acrobats and a Thunder God.

If a typical misunderstanding fight, it was set up to be just that. The interaction between a stoic Thor and sarcastic Spider-Man and comedic Thing were such a hilarious contrast. Plus, even art-wise, it was a treat to see Joe Sinnott back, over Jack, on Thor after the origin issue.

The look at the Watcher was welcome—a clever addition in FANTASTIC FOUR #13 as, with the Red Ghost his Super Apes, the FF already had opposition.

He was a surprise twist. Plus, he was a mature and different type of celestial being—not a traditional alien like the Skrulls, or a fun rendition like the thenrecent Impossible Man. An early cosmic character, with heavier themes, paving the way, years later, for Galactus, the Silver Surfer, Ego, and Orikal.

What’s intriguing in costumes by Kirby is many were so ornate, yet had to drawn multiple times. It wasn’t just a one-shot pose. He had to render the precise details each panel. That includes each of Odin’s outfits, Hela, Galactus, and Orion in his Astro-Harness—or even every rock of the Thing.

The comparison between the penciled and inked Asgardians (page 64) showed a particularly egregious example of inking shortcuts by the startling omission of the Thor figure. Nothing new for Vince Colletta, but did other inkers sometimes do that, too?

Finally, I’m following your discussion of the solo Torch strip possibly predating the FANTASTIC FOUR with great curiosity. It would explain a lot. The biggest mystery element, for me, is why they’d wait at least eleven months after FF #1 to publish the stories. Was it to gauge reaction or not to compete too early on? All conjecture, but so unexplored a topic.

For Christmas, my niece gave me a fifty dollar VISA gift card, telling me to buy something I’ll enjoy with it. I did: JACK KIRBY’S DINGBAT LOVE. I appreciated that you had background info regarding the original intention and what derailed the projects; also, some additional information about other Kirby titles, such as OMAC, FIRST ISSUE SPECIAL and MISTER MIRACLE. Plus—shades of JIMMY OLSEN—fiddling with the faces of brand-new one-shot characters in SOUL LOVE, rather than just the face of Superman? DC wanted revolutionary new ideas and approaches, supposedly, yet couldn’t wait to tinker. I was also surprised to read of other unrealized magazines such as DRACULA FOREVER and THE REAL FACE OF WAR. Like you, John, my parents also got divorced in 1976. It’d been coming for a while. Consequently, I don’t know how much I’d have welcomed the TRUE DIVORCE CASES subject matter as a teen. Yet, now, as an adult, I found it well done.

As a Caucasian guy, SOUL LOVE wasn’t aimed at me but still was entertaining. Had I read it back then, I’d simply have seen it as a romance book. No one race has a monopoly on emotions or dramatic behavior.

I’m grateful to have seen them—unpublished Kirby work, after all—but actually preferred both love titles to the DINGBATS. At least the other stories had real emotions, not just intentionally strange behavior from Bananas. It was a long wait for this collection and it was worth it, quibbles or not. Thanks, John.

Joe Frank, Scottsdale, AZ

Here’s a tentative list of upcoming themes, so start thinking, and get to writing!

GOT A THEME IDEA? LET US KNOW!

#81 Credits:

John Morrow, Editor/Designer/etc.

THANKS TO OUR CONTRIBUTORS: Jim Amash • Jerry Boyd Norris Burroughs • Nick Caputo Mark Evanier • Chris Fama Shane Foley • David Folkman Barry Forshaw • Michael T. Gilbert Glen Gold • Heritage Auctions Rand Hoppe • Larry Houston Jim Kingman • Sean Kleefeld Richard Kolkman • Tom Kraft Will Murray • Barry Pearl Mike Royer • Steve Sherman and of course The Kirby Estate The Jack Kirby Museum (www.kirbymuseum.org) and whatifkirby.com If we forgot anyone, please let us know!

Contribute!

The Jack Kirby Collector is put together with submissions from Jack’s fans around the world. We don’t pay for submissions, but if we print art or articles you submit, we’ll send you a free copy of the issue it appears in.

Submit art & articles by mail, or e-mail to: twomorrow@aol.com

NEXT ISSUE: “THE MANY WORLDS OF JACK KIRBY!” From SubAtomica to outer space, we boldly go where no Kirby publication has gone before, revisiting Kirby’s work from World War II, the Fourth World, and hidden worlds of Subterranea, Wakanda, Olympia, Lemuria, Atlantis, the Microverse, and others!

Plus, a 2021 Kirby panel featuring Jonathan Ross, Neil Gaiman, and Mark Evanier, a Kirby pencil art gallery from Machine Man, 2001, Devil Dinosaur, and more! TJKC #82 ships Winter 2022!

Coming in Spring 2022:

• KIRBY: ANIMATED - From his 1940s start on Popeye and Betty Boop and his work being used on the 1960s Marvel Super-Heroes show, to Fantastic Four, Super Friends, ScoobyDoo, Thundarr the Barbarian: it’s the ultimate look at Jack’s work in animation!

• THE MID-’70s - Covering everything from leaving DC, to joining Ruby-Spears.

79

KIRBY FIRSTS! (TJKC #83)

All the ways Jack was a pioneer in comics and life, by being the first to create or champion characters and concepts!

OUR ARTISTS AT WAR The first book ever published in the US that solely examines War Comics published in America! It covers the talented writers and artists who supplied the finest, most compelling stories in the War Comics genre, which has long been neglected in the annals of comics history. Through the critical analysis of authors RICHARD J. ARNDT and STEVEN FEARS, this overlooked treasure trove is explored in-depth, finally giving it the respect it deserves! Included are pivotal series from EC COMICS (TwoFisted Tales and Frontline Combat), DC COMICS (Enemy Ace and the Big Five war books: All American Men of War, G.I. Combat, Our Fighting Forces, Our Army at War, and Star-Spangled War Stories), WARREN PUBLISHING (Blazing Combat), CHARLTON (Willy Schultz and the Iron Corporal) and more! Featuring the work of HARVEY KURTZMAN, JOHN SEVERIN, JACK DAVIS, WALLACE WOOD, JOE KUBERT, SAM GLANZMAN, JACK KIRBY, WILL ELDER, GENE COLAN, RUSS HEATH, ALEX TOTH, MORT DRUCKER, and many others. Introduction by ROY THOMAS, Foreword by WILLI FRANZ. Cover by JOE KUBERT. (160-page FULL-COLOR TRADE PAPERBACK) $27.95 • (Digital Edition) $14.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-108-0 • SHIPS FALL 2021!

JOHN SEVERIN: TWO-FISTED COMIC BOOK ARTIST A spirited biography of the EC COMICS mainstay (working with HARVEY KURTZMAN on MAD and TWO-FISTED TALES) and co-creator of Western strip AMERICAN EAGLE. Covers his 40+ year association with CRACKED magazine, his pivotal Marvel Comics work inking HERB TRIMPE on THE HULK and teaming with sister MARIE SEVERIN on KING KULL, and more! With commentary by NEAL ADAMS, RICHARD CORBEN, JOHN BYRNE, RUSS HEATH, WALTER SIMONSON, and many others. By GREG BIGA and JON B. COOKE. SHIPS WINTER 2021!

(160-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 • (Digital Edition) $14.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-106-6

AMERICAN TV COMIC BOOKS (1940s-1980s)

Hot on the heels of Back Issue #128, AMERICAN TV COMIC BOOKS (1940s-1980s) takes you from the small screen to the printed page, offering a fascinating and detailed year-by-year history of over 300 television shows and their 2000+ comic book adaptations across five decades. Author PETER BOSCH has spent years researching and documenting this amazing area of comics history, tracking down the well-known series (Star Trek, The Munsters) and the lesser-known shows (Captain Gallant, Pinky Lee) to present the finest look ever taken at this unique genre of comic books. Included are hundreds of full-color covers and images, plus profiles of the artists who drew TV comics: GENE COLAN, ALEX TOTH, DAN SPIEGLE, RUSS MANNING, JOHN BUSCEMA, RUSS HEATH, and many more giants of the comic book world. Whether you loved watching The Lone Ranger, Rawhide, and Zorro from the 1950s—The Andy Griffith Show, The Monkees, and The Mod Squad in the 1960s— Adam-12, Battlestar Galactica, and The Bionic Woman in the 1970s—or Alf, Fraggle Rock, and “V” in the 1980s—there’s something here for fans of TV and comics alike!

(192-page FULL-COLOR TRADE PAPERBACK) $29.95 • (Digital Edition) $15.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-107-3 • SHIPS SPRING 2022!

New Magazines!

ALTER EGO #173

ALTER EGO #174

COMIC BOOK CREATOR #26

COMIC BOOK CREATOR #27

BLACK HEROES IN U.S. COMICS! Awesome overview by BARRY PEARL, from Voodah to Black Panther and beyond!

Interview with DR. WILLIAM FOSTER III (author of Looking for a Face Like Mine!), art/artifacts by BAKER, GRAHAM, McDUFFIE, COWAN, GREENE, HERRIMAN, JONES, ORMES, STELFREEZE, BARREAUX, STONER—plus FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT, and more! Edited by ROY THOMAS.

FCA [FAWCETT COLLECTORS OF AMERICA] issue—spearheaded by feisty and informative articles by Captain Marvel co-creator C.C. BECK—plus a fabulous feature on vintage cards created in Spain and starring The Marvel Family! In addition: DR. WILLIAM FOSTER III interview (conclusion)—MICHAEL T. GILBERT on the lost art of comicbook greats—the haunting of JOHN BROOME—and more! BECK cover!

Career-spanning interview with TERRY DODSON, and Terry’s wife (and go-to inker) RACHEL DODSON! Plus 1970s/’80s portfolio producer SAL QUARTUCCIO talks about his achievements with Phase and Hot Stuf’, R. CRUMB and DENIS KITCHEN discuss the history of underground comix character Pro Junior, WILL EISNER’s Valentines to his wife, HEMBECK, and more!

Extensive PAUL GULACY retrospective

by GREG BIGA that includes Paul himself, VAL MAYERIK, P. CRAIG RUSSELL, TIM TRUMAN, ROY THOMAS, and others. Plus a JOE SINNOTT MEMORIAL; BUD PLANT discusses his career as underground comix retailer, distributor, fledgling publisher of JACK KATZ’s FIRST KINGDOM, and mail-order bookseller; our regular columnists, and the latest from HEMBECK!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Now shipping!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Dec. 2021

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RETROFAN #17

RETROFAN #18

BACK ISSUE #132

BACK ISSUE #133

BACK ISSUE #134

Our BARBARA EDEN interview will keep you forever dreaming of Jeannie! Plus: The Invaders, the BILLIE JEAN KING/BOBBY RIGGS tennis battle of the sexes, HANNABARBERA’s Saturday morning super-heroes of the Sixties, THE MONSTER TIMES fanzine, and more fun, fab features! Featuring ERNEST FARINO, ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW!, and MICHAEL EURY.

1980s MARVEL LIMITED SERIES! CLAREMONT/MILLER’s Wolverine, Black Panther, Falcon, Punisher, Machine Man, Iceman, Magik, Fantastic Four vs. X-Men, Nick Fury vs. S.H.I.E.L.D., Wolfpack, and more! With BOGDANOVE, COWAN, DeFALCO, DeMATTEIS, GRANT, HAMA, MILGROM, NEARY, SMITH, WINDSORSMITH, and more. Cover by JOE RUBINSTEIN. Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

STARMEN ISSUE, headlined by JAMES ROBINSON and TONY HARRIS’s Jack Knight Starman! Plus: The StarSpangled Kid, Starjammers, the 1980s Starman, and Starstruck! Featuring DAVE COCKRUM, GERRY CONWAY, ROBERT GREENBERGER, ELAINE LEE, TOM LYLE, MICHAEL Wm. KALUTA, ROGER STERN, ROY THOMAS, and more. Jack Knight Starman cover by TONY HARRIS.

BRONZE AGE RARITIES & ODDITIES, spotlighting rare ‘80s European Superman comics! Plus: CURT SWAN’s Batman, JIM APARO’s Superman, DAVID ANTHONY KRAFT’s Marvel custom comics, MICHAEL USLAN’s unseen Earth-Two stories, Leaf’s DC Secret Origins, Marvel’s Evel Knievel, cover variants, and more! With EDUARDO BARRETO, PAUL KUPPERBERG, ALEX SAVIUK, and more. Cover by JOE KUBERT.

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Now shipping!

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2021

Dark Shadows’ Angelique, LARA PARKER, sinks her fangs into an exclusive interview.

Plus: Rankin-Bass’ Mad Monster Party, Aurora Monster model kits, a chat with Aurora painter JAMES BAMA, George of the Jungle, The Haunting, Jawsmania, Drak Pack, TV dads’ jobs, and more fun, fab features! Featuring columns by FARINO, MANGELS, MURRAY, SAAVEDRA, SHAW, and MICHAEL EURY.

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ALTER EGO #172

ALFREDO ALCALA is celebrated for his dreamscape work on Savage Sword of Conan and other work for Marvel, DC, and Warren, as well as his own barbarian creation Voltar, as RICH ARNDT interviews his sons Alfred and Christian! Also: FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America), MICHAEL T. GILBERT in Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, PETER NORMANTON’s horror history From The Tomb, JOHN BROOME, and more!

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