Jack Kirby Collector #83 by TwoMorrows Publishing

82658 00460

EIGHTY-THREE

SPRING 2022

Fighting American TM & © Joe Simon & Jack Kirby Estates.

JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR

$10.95

Contents

THE

FAMOUS FIRSTS! OPENING SHOT Not so famous firsts. . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 JACK FAQs The 2020 Kirby Tribute Panel, featuring Alex Ross. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

ISSUE #83, SPRING 2022

C o l l e c t o r

KIRBY OBSCURA More monsters and stone men. . . . 22 RE-VIEWS The challenger of the Silver Age. . . 26 FOUNDATIONS More unseen Link Thorne. . . . . . . . 32 PUGILISTICAL Kirby’s 1950s feud with DC . . . . . . 40 GALLERY First issue specials. . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 KIRBY KINETICS Jack Kirby intention . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 INCIDENTAL ICONOGRAPHY All Atlas, no Charles. . . . . . . . . . . . 62 RETROSPECTIVE Kirby’s cosmic god concept . . . . . . . 64 COLLECTOR COMMENTS. . . . . . . . 78 Front cover inks: MIKE MACHLAN Front cover colors: TOM ZIUKO COPYRIGHTS: Ant-Man/Henry Pym, Atlas Monsters, Attuma, Avengers, Beast-Killer, Black Knight, Black Panther, Black Widow, Bucky, Captain America, Cobra, Cyclops, Devil Dinosaur, Dr. Doom, Dr. Strange, Enchantress, Executioner, Falcon, Fantastic Four, Gabe Jones, Galactus, Hawkeye, Hercules, Howard the Duck, Hulk, Human Torch, Iron Man, Ka-Zar, Kang, Loki, Luke Cage, Mad Thinker, Mandarin, Marvel Stone Men, Medusa, Melter, Mercury, Mole Man, Moonboy, Nick Fury, Odin, Princess Zanda, Quicksilver, Rawhide Kid, Red Skull, Rick Jones, Scarlet Witch, Silver Surfer, Spider-Man, Sub-Mariner, Super Skrull, Taboo, Thing, Thor, TwoGun Kid, Wizard, X-Men TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. • Aquaman, Arna, Atlas, Batman, Cave Carson, Challengers of the Unknown, Congo Bill, Congorilla, DC Stone Men, Demon, Doom Patrol, Flash, Green Arrow, Inferior Five, Jimmy Olsen, Justice League of America, Kamandi, Kingdom Come, Losers, Metal Men, Metallo, Metamorpho, Negative Man, Penguin, Riddler, Rip Hunter, Robin, Sandman, Sea Devils, Secret Six, Shazam/Captain Marvel, Suicide Squad, Superman, Teen Titans, Titano the Super-Ape TM & © DC Comics • Black Magic, Bulls-Eye, Captain 3-D, Fighting American, Link Thorne, Race for the Moon, Speedboy, Stuntman, Three Rocketeers TM & © Joe Simon & Jack Kirby Estates • The Fly, Private Strong, Silver Spider TM & © Joe Simon Estate • “Angel,” King Masters, Kirbyverse characters, Sky Masters TM & © Jack Kirby Estate • Cave Carson, Comet Pierce TM & © the respective owner • Thundarr the Barbarian, Ariel TM & © Ruby-Spears Productions or successor in interest • Terminator TM & © Skydance Media • Conan TM & © Conan Properties, a division of Cabinet Entertainment • The Avenger/ Justice Inc. TM & © Condé Nast Entertainment or successor in interest

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Believe It or Don’t! The K in g ’s Ea

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est Work Jack’s FIRST PUBL ISHED ART was in TH E BBR REPORTER (1933-36, the new sletter of his boys’ club The Boys Brotherho Republic). His FIRST od PROFESSIONAL JO in-betweener on PO B was as an PEYE CARTOONS (1935–1937) for the MAX FLEISCHER AN IMATION STUDIO, until Fleischer moved his shop to Florida (Kir by’s mom wouldn’t let young “Jakie” relocat because there were “na e ked women down the re”). IN THE NEWS

At the LINCOLN NE WSPAPER SYNDICA TE in 1936, he used differe nt styles and pseudo nyms on EDITORIAL AND AD VICE CARTOONS (such as “Your Health Comes First!”). The strip SOCKO THE SEAD OG (1936-39, signed “Teddy”) was his FIRST PUBLISH ED CONTINUITY ART (his POPEYE experie nce likely helped him land the job on SOCKO, a knockoff of E.C. Segar’s Spinac h-eating sailor).

DOWN FOR THE Co

un t

The British tabloid WA GS #64 (March 20 featured “The Count , 1938) of Monte Cristo”, TH E FIRST FULL-PAGE COMIC BOOK STOR Y BY KIRBY. It later ran in JUMBO COMICS #1 (Sept. 193 8), making it the FIR ST KIRBY ART PUBLISHED IN A U.S . COMIC BOOK.

Take CHAMPION COMIC S #9 Cover! (July 1940) sported KIRBY’S FIRST CO

VER ART.

(above) Believe it or don’t, here’s some fascinating facts about the King of Comics!

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The Jack Kirby Collector, Vol. 29, No. 83, Spring 2022. Published quarterly (supply-chain permitting!) by and © TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. 919-449-0344. John Morrow, Editor/Publisher. Single issues: $15 postpaid US ($19 elsewhere). Four-issue subscriptions: $49 Economy US, $72 International, $19 Digital. Editorial package © TwoMorrows Publishing, a division of TwoMorrows Inc. All characters are trademarks of their respective companies. All Kirby artwork is © Jack Kirby Estate unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter is © the respective authors. Views expressed here are those of the respective authors, and not necessarily those of TwoMorrows Publishing or the Jack Kirby Estate. First printing. PRINTED IN CHINA. ISSN 1932-6912

Opening Shot

s there really such thing as an original idea? Sure, somebody had to come up with it first, but how do we really know that for every person heralded for a novel concept, there weren’t a dozen more who had the same idea earlier, but didn’t get the publicity? Take the recent Marvel film Black Widow. In it, the Red Guardian complains that Captain America got all the fame (and the great costume), while he got bupkis. That immediately made me think of...

not so Famous Firsts Believe It or Don’t! WHAT’S IN A N A M

E RIDER strip E “KIRBY” was his LON ST USE OF THE NAM l RED RAVEN #1 unti t prin in ear Jacob Kurtzberg’s FIR app ’t KIRBY.” “Jack Kirby” didn (1939), signed “LANCE met Pierce” strip. (Aug. 1940) on the “Co lar Legion”, KIRBY” on the art for “So CK y 1940) had “JA e in June 1942.) nam his d CRASH COMICS #1 (Ma nge cha lly lega re publication. (Jack ART but it was removed befo FIRST SUPER-HERO strip (1940) was JACK’S TLE BEE E The BLU ). olas Nich rles Cha (ghosting for

A GUY NAMED

JOE

of comic art was the cover ON’S first PUBLISHED “The Fiery Mask” in Future Partner JOE SIM with g tiein 0, 194 n. S #2 (Ja SILVER STREAK COMIC WN FOR COMICS was #1). His FIRST ART DRA Daring Mystery Comics (Mar. 1940). #10 N MA NG “Ranch Dude” in AMAZI

NINGS SIMON & KIRBY’S BEGIN RATION was

BY COLLABO The FIRST SIMON & KIR work on #1. 1940), after Joe’s solo BLUE BOLT #2 (Ju ly #72 (1942) S MIC CO URE ENT “Sandman” in ADV r WORK, and #73 had thei was the FIRST S&K DC . DIT CRE VER CO R FIRST EVE

SH H CO-STARS & STRIPEr. 1941) was

TAIN AMERICA (#1, Ma S&K’s breakout hit CAP IN COMICS RIOTIC SUPER-HERO PAT H URT FO the actually t three were firs the 2— #4 ture Com ics ics #1, (tie ing with “US A” in Fea Com l iona Nat in ” “Uncle Sam “The Shield” in Pep #1, ster Com ics #11). and “Minute Man” in Ma COMICS WORK ’S FIRST PUBLISHED CAP #3 was STAN LEE S SCRIPT MIC CO ST FIR HIS (a text page) and #5 was ter” feature). (for the “Headline Hun .

SINTGERS MON JUMP OUT AT YOU

S COMICS #1 ics were in ALL WINNER y in The first zombies in com lf was in the “Vision” stor ewo wer t firs the and has (Su mmer 1941), 1941, a story that also n. (Ja #15 S MIC CO above). MARVEL MYSTERY figu re in motion, shown a by der bor el pan a the first violation of

...“Super Khakalovitch” from Simon & Kirby’s Fighting American #6 (February 1955), a Russian super-hero (with terrible body odor) who was jealous of Fighting A’s fabulous suit (which, as one of the nicest super-hero costumes ever designed, was certainly worthy of envy). Did the writers of that film lift that sequence from Jack’s past work? Or did they simply hit on a similar idea themselves? In the 1970s at DC Comics, Kirby even reused several of his own 1957 ideas from Alarming Tales #1 at Harvey Comics. But does evolving The Project from “The Cadmus Seed”, Metron from “Donnegan’s Daffy Chair,” and Kamandi from “The Last Enemy” constitute new

ideas, or just rehashes of old ones? We even think of Captain America as the first patriotic super-hero, but he ain’t even close—that’s largely because of his overwhelming popularity, compared to a few that came before him and have now languished in the history books. Thus, theming this issue “Famous Firsts” is a bit of a misnomer, because for the many great innovations Jack Kirby brought to comics (and modern pop culture, as it’s turned out), there may well have been an unsung entity somewhere who had the idea first. 2

by editor John Morrow

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT! We’ve just signed an agreement to produce a Best of Mainline Comics collection, that we’re actively working on now. It’s being lovingly restored by Chris Fama, and of a quality level comparable to the beautiful Simon & Kirby Library collections that Titan produced in the past decade. This new collection will also have an in-depth examination of what occurred historically during that 1954-1956 time period—look for it soon! (And if you have a copy of In Love #3 we can scan, please contact us!)

Kirby has so many accolades to his credit, that we don’t need to invent new ones. So this issue, I’m taking that idea of being “first” and expanding it along the lines of also being “best.” With apologies to cartoonist Robert Ripley, I’m interspersing a bunch of “Believe It or Don’t” strips throughout this issue, in an attempt to bring to light some of the truths and fallacies about Kirby’s legacy. I hope you’ll find them enlightening, and educational. The data presented on them (and much of the research in every issue of TJKC) wouldn’t be possible without the tireless work of Richard Kolkman, who’s been overseeing the Jack Kirby Checklist in all it renditions since the 1990s (working from Ray Wyman’s valuable listing in his Art of Jack Kirby book as a starting point). Richard also compiled a great article on Fourth World influences, which I pilfered (with his permission) for factoids to include in TJKC #80s “Old Gods & New” book, and I’ll be presenting his full article in a future issue. I consider the Fourth World one of Jack’s great “firsts” and deserving of coverage, but space limitations prohibited it from being included here. Prior to that groundbreaking series, Kirby was deeply entrenched in “cosmic” concepts at Marvel Comics in the 1960s, and even earlier. That work likewise was a first for the medium, and Will Murray shows how Jack developed the genre. He also provides a follow-up to his previous article on how influential the Challengers of the Unknown were to kick-starting the budding Silver Age of Comics. This issue, he presents even more conclusive evidence that Kirby’s work may’ve been what started that renaissance of the late 1950s. Add to that Mark Evanier’s 2020 online Kirby Tribute Panel (with Alex Ross as guest, and me as his interviewing sidekick, for lack of a better description), and it got me to thinking an awful lot about Kirby’s 1955-1960 period, about which relatively little has been documented. That led me to my own research work this issue, which will hopefully spark some other historians to dig a little deeper into that less popular era, and crystallize the history that is critical to understanding just how the Marvel Age was formed. That work isn’t as “famous” as what came immediately after it, but we must first understand it, to truly appreciate what it led to. H 3

(above) Fighting American, from Jack’s 1970s Valentine’s Day sketchbook for wife Roz.

Mark Evanier

JACK F.A.Q.s

A column answering Frequently Asked Questions about Kirby EVANIER: And there is no one else in the history of comics that you could do 79 issues about without even scratching the surface of all there is to say about the guy. It’s an amazing testimony to how fascinated we all are about Jack, and how much creativity there was there to write about.

The Annual Jack Kirby Tribute Panel

from Comic-Con@Home 2020 Posted online on July 24, 2020

(below) The issue that started the Marvel Universe, Fantastic Four #1. Shown on these pages is Alex Ross’ interpretation of that cover, in both pencil (from a 2018 variant cover) and paint (from the 1994 poster of it).

Featuring Alex Ross and John Morrow, and conducted by Mark Evanier Transcribed by Steven Thompson Copy-edited by John Morrow and Mark Evanier [Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Comic-Con International couldn’t take place as an in-person event in 2020, so panels such as this one were featured online at the virtual Comic-Con@Home event. You can view the panel at this link: https://youtu.be/qI0z4tUHe_s]

MARK EVANIER: [above] Good afternoon or whatever time it is where you are. I’m Mark Evanier and this is the annual Jack Kirby Tribute Panel. Since Jack passed away in February of 1994, I have demanded of every comic convention I’ve attended that I get to do a Jack Kirby tribute panel. This is because, first of all, I was fortunate enough to know Jack and work with him and I feel an obligation to share some of what I observed with the world. And secondly, it’s because when I go to a convention, everybody asks me questions about Jack and I answer some of the same questions over and over. It’s easier and a lot of fun to get everybody who loves Jack’s work together in a big room at some point in the convention, and discuss him. So, we do that every year in San Diego. We can’t do it at San Diego this year so we’re doing it online. So welcome. If you’re interested in Jack Kirby, this is the place you should be. I am joined this year by John Morrow, who is the publisher/editor, person behind The Jack Kirby Collector. It started out as a little newsletter about his favorite artist and now… how many issues is it, John?

We are also joined by Mr. Alex Ross. There’s nothing that Jack liked better than to see new talent emerge in the comic book field, particularly people who brought something new to the game. He was not that impressed by people who showed him imitation Jack Kirby artwork—and he saw a lot of it in his life. He was impressed by someone who came in with a new art style, a new approach, something that had not been seen in

JOHN MORROW: [right] Working on finalizing issue #79 right now. 4

comics before, but who was able to capture the same dynamism that he looked for in his work, the same humanity where humanity was appropriate, the same excitement where excitement was appropriate. And he saw Alex’s early work and loved it! I wish he could’ve seen what you’ve done in the last few years. Did I just say something wrong, Alex? ALEX ROSS: [right] Well, is that…? I wasn’t sure if your memory was accurate. We’ve talked about this before. He did actually see my work? EVANIER: Yes, he saw your work. He saw a replica you did of the cover of Fantastic Four #1. What year did you do that in? ROSS: [laughs] I thought I did it after he died!

high-profile project before his passing in February 1994. Ross’ Fantastic Four #1 poster was released in 1994.]

EVANIER: Well, he saw something of yours. I remember talking about it with him. [Editor’s Note: The publication date of the Marvels miniseries was January–April 1994, so Jack easily could’ve seen that

ROSS: Okay. I know that he died in ’94 and I can’t remember. I thought I did that piece in ’94 after I’d done all the Marvels issues, but my memory might be flawed. EVANIER: I think it is because I remember Jack at the previous San Diego Convention, which would have been in July of ’93… we were in the old Convention Center back then. This may have been the last time we were in the old Convention Center. I remember somebody had a print of that cover and I remember someone showing it to him and I was interested in his reaction to it. And now, having given you a compliment, I’m gonna take a little bit away by saying Jack loved almost every artwork he saw. He was very encouraging to everybody. And he liked creativity. The only two things you could do with your artwork that would have gotten a negative reaction out of him is if it looked like you were just copying somebody else, slavishly, or if you were lazy, if you hadn’t put much effort into it. Those were the two things that got a negative out of Jack. Everything else he praised, including some stuff that I thought was pretty awful, frankly. But he was so giving to new talent. There was no one who didn’t get his attention if they came up and said, “Mr. Kirby, I’d like you to look at my work.” There are some people who I think exploited that a lot, but he was very supportive of new people, in a way that not everybody in the industry was, because some of these guys felt like dinosaurs when the next species was arriving. They felt they were supposed to move aside for them, or be shoved aside, for the new kids coming in. He talked in a very unusual way, with his mind always racing. I tell people the average mind goes from A to B to C to D. Jack would start with A, then do R, then do W, then go back and pick up J, and at some point, he’d have you “on beyond zebra,” as in the Dr. Seuss book—all new letters. He jumped around a lot, and I think a lot of people didn’t always understand him. There were times when Jack said things to me and I would go, “Yeah, Jack! That’s great!” and I would have no idea what he was talking about. Then, a week later, a month later, even a decade later, I’d suddenly go, “Oh! I get it now!” He was taking part of this conversation and part of that conversation and jumping from place to place. And I have this overview of Jack’s work that a lot of his 5

(right) Kingdom Come #2 (1996) wraparound cover painting by Alex. Can you spot Kirby’s 1970s Sandman? (below) Sandman #1 pencils. This gorgeous ornate costume drew the editor’s attention, much the way Fighting American’s did at first glance—is Joe Simon the common link in both those designs? (next page) Classic Simon & Kirby unused Stuntman #3 page.

creativity was a case of putting two things together which no one else would think of combining. He would take this visual image, and this visual image, and merge them, and it didn’t resemble either, but there was an association there that he could see, the same way a lot of authors will read a mystery novel and a western novel and then they’ll write a romance novel. They’ll suddenly take a few words and concepts from the one and a few concepts from that, and all of a sudden, they have something that’s really a brand-new creation, even though the foundation of it was based on something pre-existing. Now, Alex, you have to answer the question for me. What was the first Kirby work that you were very conscious of that excited you? ROSS: I would always say—and I said it in John’s book [Kirby100] that he made a few years ago where we all recounted our first interactions with Jack’s work—the Sandman series that DC made in the early ’70s, I adored! And when I first saw it, it wasn’t even his work. It was Ernie Chan’s work, when he was filling in for Jack. So, I loved the character design, and then I got the issue that Jack… well, actually he drew most of the issues, obviously, but I got an issue that Jack actually drew and it was at that perfect kind of ’70s stage of his work being an abstraction of the human form of life in a way that was becoming much more of a kind of pop art artifact. And I adored it! It connected with me as a young kid. I’m sure I imitated it in a number of cases, but I particularly loved his design, and just [his] graphic sense. I was a Kirby fan from the first time I encountered him. EVANIER: That’s interesting, because Jack hated drawing that comic. And yet, enough Kirby came through anyway to excite you. I mean… that’s amazing. ROSS: It’s a beautiful character design. I mean, that’s a gorgeous costume. And as an adult, I tried to link back this thing I loved from ’75 I think, when it came out, when I was five years old… I was trying to link that with the history of the Sandman historical DC character by putting that same costume into Kingdom Come and saying, “Oh, by the way, the Sandman of the future is Kirby’s Sandman.” So, I was trying to always sort of draw it back in. I wanted it to be part of the DC mainstream in some way that it never got to be. 6

EVANIER: Is that your favorite all-time Kirby work, or were there other things you saw later that impressed you more? ROSS: Of course, there’s so much more that he did that he cared about, with so much more dedication and passion. I’m more connected in some ways to the work he did with the FF because I see the character of Reed Richards as an avatar for Jack, much more than, say, Ben Grimm is, because it’s sort of the soul of his creativity given form in a character who was both balancing the life of a husband, a father, and the leader of this group where everything that happens in the Fantastic Four is because of that character’s drive, creativity, all the inventions he would make. He’s the reason that all of that moves forward, and I saw that as Jack himself, channeling that into a lead character. The FF is Reed’s book more than anything else—but there’s a million different books and characters I’ve fallen in love with from Jack’s hand. EVANIER: John, you said, I believe, that Kamandi was the book that got you excited about Kirby. MORROW: Yes, much like Alex with Sandman; I don’t think that’s Jack’s finest work by any means, but that’s the one that initially hooked me and that I first started following. I remember the Sandman series as well, that Alex was talking about. At the time, I agree that, “Oh, wow! That costume!” You hadn’t really seen one like that anywhere else in comics, certainly not at DC. And you could tell Jack wasn’t quite as invested in that, I think probably because Michael Fleisher was writing some, or most, of those later. You made a comment the other day on a panel we were doing, Mark, that for me and a couple other people… our first exposure to Jack that we really got hooked on were series that Jack not only drew, but also wrote. I think that’s interesting. Kamandi… you could see Jack was involved in that, more so than Sandman for instance, particularly the first, what, fifteen to twenty issues? Despite past differences with DC, he was really trying to put his heart and soul into that book early on, as much as DC would let him. And I think maybe Sandman, not so much. You can kind of tell; like, it was a job. [Alex laughs] And he did a very fine job on it for what he had to work with. But yeah, Kamandi for me—seeing that unbridled imagination that he was putting in, especially those first few issues—just took comics for me to a different level, and at that point I knew I just had to figure out who this Jack Kirby guy is and what else he’s done. And wow, did I have no idea what I was getting into. [laughs]

by the same corporation, was helping DC out because the people upstairs at the corporation weren’t that happy with the direction of DC Comics. And indeed, it was not that long after that Mr. Infantino was relieved of duty there. And Gaines hearkened back, of course, to the late ’40s and ’50s and he kept saying to Carmine, “You’ve got Joe Simon doing books for you, and you’ve got Jack Kirby doing books for you. Why don’t you put them together?” Jack turned that down. Nothing against Joe—he wanted to do his own comics. He wanted to write and draw his own books without interference. Finally, Carmine beseeched him to do this one-shot, to take Simon’s script, revise it as necessary—which Jack thought it needed some revising—and they did this one-shot issue that was not intended to go anyplace else. It would just be a one-shot, and put it out. It did enormously well, some would say due to speculators, but whatever it was, it suddenly prompted a new Sandman series on the schedule, and Carmine gave it to Joe Orlando to edit, who then, in turn, hired his favorite writer, Michael Fleisher, to write it, and they tried to get Kirby to draw it. And Jack read the first script and said, “I’m not having anything to do with this. I can’t stand this.” Jack

EVANIER: Sandman was an interesting turning point in Jack’s life. It was the book that convinced him to go back to Marvel, when he did it at DC. He had done this one-shot with Joe Simon. Joe Simon had proposed to DC a new book version of Sandman and Joe had written it and Jerry Grandenetti had started drawing it. Carmine [Infantino] was not happy with the pages he saw. I’m not sure if Grandenetti drew the whole first issue or just drew the first part of it, but he drew some pages. In the meantime, Bill Gaines, of EC Comics fame, had become an advisor to DC. The publisher of Mad, which was also owned 7

(next page, top) Jerry Grandenetti’s original cover rough for Sandman #1, and Joe Simon’s inking interpretation of Jack’s pencils for it. (Frank Giacoia inked the published version of Jack’s cover.)

resented the fact that they hadn’t just given him the book because he had edited the one-shot and re-written it and drawn it, so why were they changing creative forces at that point? But he agreed to do the covers on it. Then they hired Ernie Chan to pencil in Kirby’s style, and Mike Royer—who, of course, we all know Mike Royer’s abilities—to ink it, and they put the name of “Jack Kirby” large on the cover, even though Jack did not do the insides. Jack said to them, “Well, how about taking it off the book I’m not drawing and putting it on Kamandi, which I am drawing?” and they wouldn’t do that. Instead, they finally forced Jack to draw Fleisher’s scripts; some sort of inter-politic thing which Jack resented. He didn’t like drawing the scripts. He didn’t like being turned into an artist, only. He didn’t see that

there was any future in it for him and he didn’t think the comic was gonna do well and he figured they’d blame him, which they did. So that’s what kinda drove him back to Marvel—one of the things. And I happen to think that the artwork in that book, as good as it was, I think Jack did his worst work when he wasn’t also the editor and writer of the comic. I have this theory—and we’re gonna talk about a lot of this stuff in the time we have here—[about] people who don’t like Jack’s dialogue; and we’ve all encoun(next page, bottom) tered those people that say, “Well, I wish Stan Lee or Early “Alexander” Ross someone else had dialogued the New Gods books.” My work for Now Comics’ belief is—and remember, I was on the premises watchTerminator comic. ing as those books were created—that if somebody else had been doing the dialogue, or had anything to do with the writing, those would not have been remotely the same comics. They would not have been the same issues with different dialogue in the balloons. They would have been completely different comics, about different things with different FIRST FORMATS themes, and probably not as good Kirby and Simon weren’t the first to use bombastic two-page spreads and full-page splashes. CRASH COMICS #3’s “Strongman” story artwork. There are certain traits (July 1940, at left) has the first full-page panel in comics, while the of artists that the industry always Ka-Zar story in MARVEL MYSTERY #11 (Sept. 1940, shown at right) denies. They want everybody to used the mag’s centerfold for a double-page image. work the same way too often. You So though S&K didn’t do them FIRST, they definitely did them BEST, know, “You write it, you pencil it, starting with CAPTAIN AMERICA COMICS #6 (Sept. 1941, below). this guy will letter it, and this guy ! f f will ink it.” And that’s not always u t Kid S the way to best deploy your people. Cap’s sidekick Bucky and the Human Torch’s pal Toro It’s like, Alex, if I came to you and headlined the first true “Kid Gang,” THE YOUNG ALLIES. told you, “Okay, you’re doing this S&K did some minor work on the comic, then left painting and I demand you do a Timely for DC Comics where they launched THE NEWSBOY LEGION, and then BOY COMMANDOS, complete pencil drawing of it, and which became a huge seller during WWII. then let me approve it,” and then Joe & Jack followed up with BOY EXPLORERS weeks later I’ll give it back to you (1946, with only one issue distributed, due to a post-war paper glut that crowded newsstands), with my notes, and you will adjust and later BOYS’ RANCH (1950, combining it the way I want it to, and then Westerns and Kid Gangs). we’re gonna give it to someone else The genre languished until Kirby resurrected to do the color correcting and… the Newsboys in JIMMY OLSEN in 1970, and created THE DINGBATS OF DANGER STREET in 1975. we’re inhibiting your skills. You are the best judge of how to deploy you best, and how to apply your talents best. There are some guys who are wonderful artists who couldn’t fit into that assembly line, only doing this little piece of the work, and Jack was one of ’em. You got your best work out of Jack if you just let him do what he wanted. It might not be the best work he ever did in his career, but it was the best work he could do at that period. So, people who say, “I thought Fantastic Four was better drawn than the New OTHER FORMATTING FIRSTS: Gods,” yeah, Fantastic Four was FANTASTIC FOUR #24 (1964): drawn a couple of years before New FIRST COLLAGE ART used by Kirby (above). Gods, and Jack’s eyes were failing TALES OF SUSPENSE #1 4 (1961): him all throughout the ’70s and Kirby’s first 18-page story. there were other problems inhibSPEAK-OUT SERIES (1970, new formats that Kirby iting his artwork. You got the best proposed, but were never realized). work that Jack was capable of at that point if you let him do it himself.

Believe It or Don’t!

ROSS: What age was Jack in this time period? Can you tell me? EVANIER: Well, he was born in, what, 1917? I should know this. I’m his biographer. I didn’t know there’d be any math in this quiz! [laughter] ROSS: Well, can you tell me, what would he have been in 1970? I mean… EVANIER: Well, if he was born in 1917, in 1970, he would’ve been 53. Which seemed old at the time and now it seems young to me somehow! [laughter] You know, age is a measure of years, not health, and Jack was having a lot of problems with his eyes during this period. A lot of what he did at DC, a lot of the career decisions he made vis-à-vis leaving Marvel, going to DC, the kind of deals he made, were trying to deal with the possibility that he might be unable to draw in the near future. He was very terrified of that. Although he was a highly paid artist, somehow the Kirby bank account was not overflowing with money. There were a lot of

family expenses. He had medical expenses. He didn’t have health insurance his entire life until he got into the animation business in the ’80s. There was that nightmare that a lot of people have at his age, Depression-era kids, of not being able to provide for your family. When Jack slept at night, he frequently had nightmares of two categories. One of them was being back in World War II and dealing with Nazis who were trying to kill him, and the other was of being out of work in the ’50s and not being able to provide for his family, because that was a driving force in Jack. If you don’t understand the extent to which this man took seriously the need to be a breadwinner and have a paycheck and pay for groceries and braces and health needs and such, you don’t understand Jack Kirby. That’s what motivated him from the moment he woke up in the morning until the moment he went [to bed] at night, and even during the night, he was thinking about that stuff. He took it very seriously, and when he resented not getting what he felt was his proper credit and payment for work, that was an anger at someone who was denying his family its income, and denying the family the possibility of exploiting his work after he passed and making some money off it. He was very serious about that. And I’m talking way too much in this, when we’ve got Alex here! Let’s talk to Alex! [Alex laughs] Alex, when you started doing comics, what were you doing before that as a profession? Before you did your first work in the comic book field, whether it was a cover or pin-up or a poster, whatever it was, what were you doing professionally? ROSS: Advertising. I was doing storyboards for a Chicago ad agency that I got into when I was 19. So, I had a quick two-year Associate Degree program at the art school that I followed my mother at, 40 years after her, but I completed the same exact education that she had and was able to get work here in Chicago. And while I had just started there, I was able to get my first commercial art jobs in comics within that first year, and pretty much always had my eye on the door to get from one to the other, to full-time employment in comics, which is never one hundred percent guaranteed. But when I quit that job to go to comics full-time, it was with the idea that, “Oh! I’m 9

EVANIER: And how much do you cringe now when someone asks you to sign a copy of that? [laughter] ROSS: I can live with the after-effect. I know it’s not my… it immediately affected me with a sense of, I knew I was a better illustrator than what I’d produced, so therefore the next jobs I do better prove that point. I knew I did better work in art school than I was able to muster in the time constraints of this 20-pages-a-month gig, and that was also when I had a 9-to-5 job. So, I went back to my apartment every day to do another six hours of work before I would cash out at the end of the evening, and then to get up in the morning and go to a job downtown. So, it was an exhaustive experience and I credit it for why I’m bald today. [laughter] EVANIER: What artists in comics impressed you at the time, besides Jack? ROSS: Well, at the time I was really affected by the… and it wasn’t my first inspiration for painting comics, but the guy who was on the peak of that, doing new work starting in ’89, was Dave McKean, with Black Orchid. Then, subsequently, I would see his Violent Cases graphic novel with Neil Gaiman, but he did that work, and I think by the end of ’89 they had the Arkham Asylum graphic novel out. For many years it proved to be the most successful, well-selling graphic novel, which Grant Morrison wrote with him. And there was something to the realism in that work that I wanted to emulate, and a lot of the storytelling qualities that he did. He used a lot of live models. That’s what I wanted to do, too. So, in a weird way, Dave McKean has a hand in how I would evolve as an artist. EVANIER: When you first did a drawing that was supposed to be a Kirby character or a Kirby influence, were you thrown by that? Did you feel challenged by it? ROSS: You get excited! [chuckles] EVANIER: But you had not done that kind of stuff in advertising. ROSS: No. But, y’know, half the time I was in advertising, I’m sitting in my office without a storyboard to do, so you spend a lot of your time doodling. My entire proposal for what would become Marvels, I worked on in 1990, when I was 20 years old. I used friends of mine who were other illustrators with me there, as models to base characters on to tell the story of the Human Torch and all the stuff that’s very well documented from how my career began. But I was doing a lot of that kind of artwork there, in-house, including character studies of things that Kirby had created, like Ben Grimm. I got a photo of an old friend who looked like Ben Grimm to me and it was a perfect thing of, I know a guy that is that guy! So, I could build off the reality I had. I wanted to get across a likeness of Ben Grimm, or the Thing, that would look like a little bit of Kirby, the man, was inside the character. There’s a lot there that I was excited to try and prove.

never gonna be out of work,” and it only dawns on me now, 30 years later, just how foolish that attitude was, because the bottom could drop out on you at any time and I always thought, “Oh well, I’ll just pitch this project and that project and… ”. Fortunately for me, it worked out that way, but it doesn’t always. EVANIER: What was the first thing you did of a comic book nature? ROSS: I worked on a comic for Now Comics called Terminator: The Burning Earth. So, it was a Terminator movies franchise and it was supposed to be the end of the license for them, back in 1989. They had this thing that they were basically offering around to different pencilers, and a guy I worked with named Jim Wisniewski had been offered this since he had done some fill-in issues of The Real Ghostbusters, and he said, “Hey! They offered me this, but you want to draw comics!” And he introduced me to them, I did samples, got the gig. And then, by the end of 1989, I was working on my first published work, and it was a five-issue series that I did, a sort of hodge-podge of painted work, but mostly colored pencil on color paper, to look like it had a painted aesthetic to it.

EVANIER: Was this like a guy with real bad psoriasis for the Thing? [laughter] How much help is a live model when you’re drawing the Thing, or the Human Torch? ROSS: Well, enormous! In the case of the very first pin-up that I did of the Thing, for one thing there’s a little shot of Ben Grimm, the man, in there, that is from this friend that I used the photo of, somebody I went to art school with. And then the actual body shot of 10

the Thing, he’s wearing his hat and the trench coat and everything, and that I did based upon, I think, a cover photo of Jack from The Comics Journal. I was studying his face, trying to get it in the eyes, trying to make sure that you saw a little bit of Jack inside that stony face. But when I worked with the character later in Marvels, I just happened to have a friend who made a foam costume of—really just the head and hands, that he had sculpted of the Thing. The photography of that was absolutely essential for getting the kind of shadows and surface kind of qualities that come from life, that your mind is gonna have a harder time manufacturing from just imagination, you know? You need to see something to kind of begin to understand how it works. EVANIER: Okay… you cut in here, John. MORROW: I’ve got a question for you. Your early work—and this is kind of a two-part question—that Terminator material you were talking about, was that you doing traditional penciling and someone else inked it? Did you ink yourself? That was not painted work, correct? ROSS: It was painted work, in the sense that some of the covers were full paintings, some of the pages were full paintings. But to speed the process along, I started working on black paper, so that I was drawing graphite of the whole page, and then going in with white paint to do the highlights of every area of form, and then embellishing the rest with colored pencil that would stand out on the black paper, so it would look a bit like

a rendered painting. But it was kind of a quickie way of getting something that was darker as an illustration that, if it was just a painting going from white to darker tones, would take a lot longer of a process to get to that final effect. MORROW: I’m curious, because I know you’ve got a great appreciation of Kirby’s work, and you did a painted version of a Kirby pencil drawing for The Jack Kirby Collector #19. It was that great World War II piece that Steranko ran in his History of Comics. And I remember when that painting arrived here, I was just blown away by it, but I was, like, “What does this guy see when he looks at Kirby’s work? Does he see soft-tone pencil and that’s what he appreciates of Kirby? Does he see Mike Royer’s very lush ink lines or brush lines or Sinnott’s very slick work?” What is it that speaks to you in Kirby’s art? Is it his raw pencil work? Is it a particular inker that you really prefer best, and that’s what you then translate into a painting? Because your work is obviously continuous-tone paint, and you have to see things differently than we dyed-in-the-wool comics fans that are used to seeing lines on white paper with some coloring in between them. ROSS: Well certainly, when I’m working with Jack’s characters in mind, mostly just translating them into my own drawings, I’m going to soften up the forms enough that it’s marrying up with reality more—but in the case of doing that one piece where I’m copying Jack’s linework exactly, I’ve got to get that rigidity to 11

(previous page) Alex’s variant cover painting for 2018’s Fantastic Four #5, featuring a plethora of Kirby creations. (above) Kirby’s cover (with John Romita inks and Spidey rework) for the 1977 Marvel Comics Memory Album calendar, featuring mostly Kirby characters.

Ross part was saying, “What is the lighting in the scene dictating?” If the lighting is coming from explosions behind Bucky and Captain America, it’s likely going to create cast shadows that are affecting everything. So, therefore, I shot a live model for Cap—my friend who always poses for Captain America—and I set the light source from below, kind of creating these interesting cast shadows going up the face. And then I applied those shadows onto Jack’s drawing, because, of course, I just photocopied the piece from Steranko’s History of Comics. You know, blew it up on a piece of paper, traced it all off exactly. I didn’t work on authentic Kirby pencils so I never ruined anything. But I was about as close to his hand as it felt like you could be, and then I’m giving this extra little shadow element that he didn’t plan for, but it seemed to fit the roughness. Because I kept all the other rough edges exactly as they were without losing a single one of them. I didn’t want to soften them; I didn’t want to correct them. The Nazi that’s really clear on the cover—I didn’t want to correct the way his cap was drawn or his luger. I wanted it to all be exact to the way Jack conceived those things, warts and all, because that’s his soul coming through. I wanted to preserve him. And I’ll have loads of other chances in my professional life, as I have, to go to his characters and then give them my own sort of physicality and limitations that will try and marry realism—realistic figure drawing—with Jack’s energy and sensibility. So, there would always be more chances for me to put more of myself into it, but in that particular case, doing that piece for you was a chance to really try and bow down to his inherent aesthetic. That was a long answer. [laughs] MORROW: Do you naturally gravitate toward Royer’s inking in your preference for Kirby because he’s more faithful to Kirby’s pencil line, or more to Sinnott who tends to stylize more? Because obviously you stylized that piece, even though you were very faithful to the core piece.

come across. So, I’m not wanting to rewrite the work. The oddity of that issue when you published it was, okay, there’s my cover. The back cover of the book was my painting, and inside is a pull-out poster of Dave Stevens inking the exact same piece! And it was a weird contrast between two people who were both painters—myself and Dave—approaching a guy who we had this enormous admiration [for] and dedication to, but both having an [approach] that was coming at [it in] different ways. It wasn’t about color or tone versus ink line. It’s about the way we saw to interpret the thing and I think that Dave began to soften, and curve, and correct the forms that Jack had done, so his inking was masterful, obviously. Dave was a distinctive individual as an inker, like many who are really talented inkers. But he was correcting, whereas I took Jack sort of warts and all because, of course, that was a pencil piece that I was recreating, not one that had been embellished by anybody yet. Jack’s natural pencil lines were rougher and he would block things in with a quick shading of a dark form, and I was trying to translate that into kind of a total form that didn’t soften him too much, that actually kept the hardness available in there. The part that would be the Alex

ROSS: Actually, I’ve always had a real soft spot for Dick Ayers. Because when Dick worked with him in ’59 through… I don’t know, whatever year in the ’60s, he kind of found this realism middle ground that I think was in those early monster stories and those early FF stories that just—I can look at that stuff and see what seems to me like as strong a figure drawing representation of a human being as possible. In fact, I think that Kirby’s exaggerations of form—the wide stances, the finger forms and hands coming out more towards the viewer, would almost be… it was a creative embellishment over time, but as the ’60s would wear on and greater artists would enter the field than had existed before—people like Buscema, and Adams, and Romita—they were bringing their particular skills and Jack was, in his own way I think, competing with them by pushing the extremes of what he could exaggerate to. But, before they arrived, I think he was almost reaching a certain apex of his own figure drawing ability, of just drawing the natural world as it was, and 12

EVANIER: Yeah. By the way, I feel sorry for the Oscars now because this is a very bad era to be a statue. Someone will come up and tear you down immediately. [laughs] Anyway, Alex mentioned we should talk a little about… ROSS: Shazam! [laughs] EVANIER: …misconceptions about Jack. You can talk about Shazam if you want, too. But misconceptions about Jack. You want to go first, Alex? ROSS: Well, I had this observation based upon a conversation you and I had, which is, you’ve got this repeated thing where people think Jack was a terrible writer once left to his own devices. And you’ve got certain people out there who worked in the business at that time in the ’70s, where he created that most famous body of work that he was writing, the New Gods, and subsequently the stuff he would go on to do for Marvel again, like the Eternals, and that clearly he wasn’t a guy who should have been holding all the pieces together himself. He needed help. That was the theory and that is the public perception of Jack, whereas there’s something to say—

Ayers aided in that execution. EVANIER: I was always impressed, Alex, when you brought a new era of lighting and form into Jack’s work when you were interpreting something like that drawing, or that piece from “The Glory Boat” you did that was in my book on Jack. You kept all the expression and emotion in the faces. And the people—I had never really seen anybody paint Captain America fully rendered without turning him into a statue. [Alex laughs] Usually, people would drain the emotion out of the characters by using photo references and such and, of course, photo reference is not gonna give you the hundred and ten percent expressions on the face of a Kirby character. And you kept all that. There was one year when Alex painted the official poster for the Academy Awards. He did this beautiful painting of an Oscar, and I went to cover it! [laughs] I was offered a press pass and I went to this thing at Hollywood and Highland where they unveiled the poster. I don’t know if you remember this, Alex, because you were being besieged with people there, but I went up to you and said, “Wow! What a waste. You’re painting a character with no face!” [laughter] I meant that as a compliment! It was like the dullest drawing ever of the Silver Surfer to me and it was the Oscar! It was not a human being and Alex does human beings so well, you know? ROSS: Well, I could lose myself in the chrome rendering. That’s where I got excited. 13

(these pages) As presented in TJKC #19, here are Dave Stevens’ inked, and Alex Ross’ painted, interpretations of an outstanding 1960s Kirby Captain America pencil drawing.

you can read the naked work and you can have a reaction that can be very critical of what you see there, whether it seems like dialect or slang or witticisms that seem very removed from where the culture was, or that he wasn’t quite getting where people were. What I wish people would understand is that he wasn’t being the exact writer he was always born and built to be, that he was this extremely talented person who had very strong work he was capable of doing as a writer that was blunted by the period of time he worked with Stan Lee. My point to this is aided by the issue of the Kirby Collector where John published this whole spotlight on “Tiger 21,” and in that, John didn’t translate the work that was written by Jack for this comic strip that he tried out in the ’50s. Is that right, John?

version of himself and Stan Lee, thinking, “Well, I can do that!” Like, he never really “got” the Stan Lee method—as well as that marriage worked for that period of time, it wasn’t something that really… it was never part of Jack, that approach, what Stan brought to things. I think the ’70s work is affected by trying to present something to people that was more what they expected of that, what they were telling him for years. You’ve gotta imagine that as soon as Jack started seeing the general public—not just the young men that showed up at his home like Steve [Sherman] and Mark did, but for all the conventions he went to—there was probably people telling him every five minutes, “Oh, I loved you and Stan working together. Why can’t you do that again? I loved Stan’s dialogue on your scripts,” and it probably… I think it drove him kooky.

MORROW: Yeah. [Editor’s Note: It was on the “B” side of TJKC #74.]

EVANIER: There’s something to that, yeah. I think one of the problems Jack had was that he discovered, at both DC and Marvel, there was no way to get paid for any part of the writing, or any credit, unless you did the whole dialogue. There was no such thing as payment for making up the story and figuring out what should go in each panel, and in fact, when he went to DC, a number of DC writers— young writers—went to Carmine and said, “Oh, let me be Jack’s writer,” and they meant, let him make everything up, let him figure out what goes on in every panel, I’ll go in and put in the copy, and I will take the writer credit and money. One or two of them went to Jack directly. Carmine said, “Jack’s the editor. You talk that up with him,” because Carmine wasn’t gonna say no to these guys. Make Jack the bad guy who did that. And they went to Jack and said, “I want to be the writer. Send me the first issue and I’ll write it.” And that offended the hell out of him because one of the things that happened when Jack went to DC was he suddenly got credit for anything he contributed to the plots, finally, and he got writer money. His income went way up because he was now getting paid as a writer, and recognized as a writer. And also, he had reached the point where he wanted his comics to come out the way he wanted them. His problem with Stan Lee’s dialogue wasn’t so much the style of it; it’s just that, he’d look at the finished book sometimes and go, “That’s not what was going on in that panel. That’s not what that panel was supposed to say.” And frequently, Stan would consciously change the whole thrust of the story, particularly in the late ’60s when Jack was feeling very public-conscious of the Vietnam war and the changes that were going down in the United States. It was a politically turbulent time then. Thank God it’s not like that today! [laughter] He wanted to inject his stories with themes about the real world, to do the kind of thing—to some extent—which, later, Denny O’Neil would take to the next level and we called it “relevance.” Stan was draining all that out. Now, you can argue whether that was good or bad and that’s not an argument any of us are equipped to have without being able to see more of Jack’s pencils and liner notes. But, what Stan did kept seeming wrong to him. It was the same way with certain inkers.

ROSS: And you put the artwork in there where if you look closely enough at it as I did, to see all the text, you can read the full story as Jack had written this science-fiction adventure out. And what blew my mind with it is it was extremely well-written! It was compelling! It was smart, there was no smart aleck kind of witticisms to it, because he didn’t think that way. That’s not who he was. He wasn’t a smart-alecky guy. So, I expressed this observation to Mark, and to my friend Kurt Busiek, where Kurt kinda brought me up to the sense of, yeah, that’s what… Stan kind of ruined that part of Jack that was this really solid writer, who could have done more. But since he spent that ten years with Stan—with his elaboration on top of Jack’s plots, the dialogue that Stan wrote that was extremely effective, very excellent of its time—[it] made Jack think, by other people’s comments to him, that this is what they want. They want this sort of attitude. They want this wit; they want this sort of angle on things. And that’s not who Jack was, but he ultimately tried to build a hybrid

Y’know, the penciler looks at what the inker does and goes, “He didn’t understand what I was drawing there. That’s not what I drew. That’s not what the character was supposed to do, that’s not the expression he was supposed to have. This guy interpreted it wrongly.” That it may have been better for the audience is a separate matter. ROSS: And, of course, the difference is, too, that Stan wasn’t his collaborator. He was his boss! So whatever Stan decides, goes. EVANIER: Yeah, including Stan often would want pages redrawn because he wanted to change the story. Jack would plot the whole story out, based on one sentence—not that Stan had given him but that they’d agreed upon. As Stan used to say, “I’ll just tell Jack, ‘Make the next issue have Dr. Doom,’ or sometimes he’ll tell me!” That was a plot, frequently, on those books. And Jack would draw 20 pages out and send it in and Stan would look at it and go, “I need these four pages redrawn. I want to have other things happen in the story.” So, Jack would do these redraws, for which he was not paid. He lost a couple days’ income by not being able to do work for which he’d be paid, and he felt he was harming the story tremendously. He did not agree with the changes, as sometimes happens. But the thing that was a problem for Jack in writing the comics at the time was he was getting all sorts of mixed signals from DC and then later at Marvel. I have been debating for years, since the ’70s, with people who came to me and they said, “Jack needed an editor.” And I say, “Okay, who should that have been?” “Oh, somebody… well, you know...” [laughs]. At DC, if they’d assigned someone else to be the editor of New Gods, and that person edited the way they edited their other comics, it would be the equivalent of when Sol Harrison, who was the head of the production department, sat me down—with Steve Sherman—and said, “You’ve gotta get Jack to draw more like Curt Swan. That’s what a comic should look like.” So, you’d be having some writer, some editor, saying to Jack, “You gotta write more like Leo Dorfman. You gotta write more like Bob Kanigher.” Which wasn’t Jack Kirby. What’s the point of even having Jack Kirby if he’s not gonna be Jack Kirby? I don’t think there was an editor in the business he could’ve worked with, at DC. And then the other people would say, “He should have had a different dialogue writer,” and I would say, “Okay, who should that person be?” And usually, the person that was telling me that would think it should’ve been him. And I don’t think that would’ve worked. MORROW: There’s a perfect example of where that actually took place. If you look at the last, what, six, seven issues of Kamandi? Let’s see… it was #33–36, I think? Gerry Conway took over as editor while Jack still continued to direct the stories and draw them and dialogue them, but Conway kind of interjected a little bit, and then the last four issues, #37–40, Conway was editor and writing those, and all Jack did was draw working from a script. And if you compare those to any other issues of Kamandi, you can see that the

(previous page) The back of the splash page art for X-Men #4 (March 1964) features Stan Lee’s handwriting, mixed with some of Jack’s, scribbling ideas for names for the Scarlet Witch (who debuted this issue): The Sorceress, Witchlady, Jinx, Miss Mystic, The Siren, Evil Eye, and others. Regardless of who came up with each suggestion, the art page existed before these were brainstormed, showing Jack wasn’t working from a full script—but instead brought this drawn page into the office and handed it off to Stan, after which these ideas were jotted down. Note that “The Brotherhood Of” is a photostat (probably covering something like “Attack of the”), added late in production. DC’s Doom Patrol #86 (also March 1964) featured the Brotherhood of Evil. While both issues went on sale at the same time, DC’s full script for Doom Patrol would’ve been plotted and written in October 1963 and drawn in November— whereas X-Men would’ve been plotted weeks later as Jack drew it in November. This extra month gave Marvel time to learn what DC was planning, and create something to directly compete with it—another advantage to the Marvel Method. Arnold Drake is on record with his assertion that Marvel deliberately copied the Doom Patrol with X-Men (both debuting at the same time), and here’s a rip-off by Stan Lee of Drake’s villainous Brotherhood’s name. (above) The full art for Kirby’s Cap solo series debut in Tales of Suspense #59 (Nov. 1964) just surfaced and is being auctioned for the first time this year. Who’s had it squirreled away all these years, and what other Kirby art is yet to surface?

heart and soul’s not there, that the verve that Kirby put in his work is not there. And it’s the same, too, of all that other kind of “forgotten Kirby work” from that era. There was one fill-in issue of Richard Dragon: Kung Fu Fighter and the Justice, Inc. issues that Denny O’Neil wrote—on the surface, it seems like [Justice, Inc. is] a great choice for Jack to do as a series, but all he’s doing is the art there. He had very limited actual creative input into it. And what a waste of the man’s talents, first of all.

he always was, but he was able to temper the other side of him because when he was working with Joe Simon, there were enormous advantages to working with Joe Simon. Joe Simon was a very strong force as a co-editor. He was a guy that Jack learned from. They were both young, they were making mistakes together and they were buddies and Joe was a good negotiator who protected Jack and got them real good deals, so Jack didn’t feel he had to have control of the work then. Then when he was at Marvel, Stan was gonna write the dialogue and Stan was gonna take the writer credit; regardless, Stan was the guy in charge. You worked for Marvel that way, or you didn’t work for Marvel, as Wally Wood found out. And then when Jack had the opportunity to do his own work, he grabbed it, and he didn’t want to go back because, for one thing, he didn’t see a collaborator anywhere that he felt compatible with, and he didn’t see that doing artwork where someone else was writing it would advance his career any. Jack had made his greatest leaps in stature and income by creating new comics. This is why when he went back to DC, he didn’t want to do the Challengers of the Unknown again. He’d done the Challengers of the Unknown. He wanted to create something new that would revolutionize the business or sell phenomenally well and he could get raises and he could get more control. And he could get anything that you would want as an artist and writer by creating something brand new that would sell. You didn’t really enhance your career by drawing existing books that much, and he needed that control. I found that when I was editing comics, I had to recognize that the sensibility of the artist mattered. You couldn’t just hand a guy a script or an assignment and say, “Just do this and hand it back.” I was always fascinated why some artists did great work on this comic and poor work on another comic, and the reason was, frequently, the atmosphere, the directives, the kind of editorial direction they were shoved in. I worked with two artists a lot, who were like this: Doug Wildey and Dan Spiegle. These were two guys who could not work the way some editors expected, the way Curt Swan or John Buscema worked, penciling the thing and then letting somebody else ink it. They just couldn’t do it. That’s not how they worked. They didn’t do their best work that way. They did their best work when they could just draw the comic themselves and have it lettered later, or have it lettered themselves rather than send it off to New York and ink it later. Doug Wildey did his best artwork that way and you wanted his best artwork. You wanted Dan Spiegle’s best artwork. And whenever these guys started working for DC or Marvel someone would say, “Okay, you just pencil it and we’ll have… y’know, Frank Giacoia ink it or we’ll have Vince Colletta ink it or we’ll have Murphy Anderson ink it,” and they were not guys who were suited for their skills that way. Jack had become kind of a one-man band. He had to kind of edit it himself, he had to kind of write it himself, he had to kind of pencil himself, and, if he had more time, or the business allowed it, he would probably have wanted to color it himself, because he was never that

EVANIER: The analogy I sometimes use… in the music field, there was this man named Irving Berlin, who some people thought was the greatest American songwriter of his century. And Irving Berlin always wrote the words and the music. People went to him occasionally and said, “Can I collaborate with you? Could I write the lyrics, you write the music, or vice-versa?” and he said, “No. I only do them as a set. I cannot collaborate. I just can’t work that way.” And I think that Jack had become that kind of person. I think to some extent

thrilled with the coloring he got, except in the early ’60s at Marvel. As long as it was Stan Goldberg and Marie Severin, he was happy with the coloring. He wasn’t happy with any of the coloring he got at DC and most of the coloring he got at Marvel after that. MORROW: I would like for Alex to comment on Jack’s coloring before we’re through here, [Alex laughs] and how he views coloring and how he sees Jack’s work. Because Jack’s sense of color, how he applied it to his work, was like no one else. It was just like his art style—it was totally idiosyncratic. No one else would apply color the way Jack did; but Alex, in some of your paintings that you’ve done which were Kirby-inspired, I see some of that coming through. I assume that’s consciously, right? ROSS: Absolutely. Yeah, and having worked with a bunch of the characters he created in portfolios, where there’s only like one image to go by, he would choose a rainbow of colors to throw in to a given character design, but they would often be almost counterintuitive to, I think, anybody else’s senses, y’know? He would sometimes have a sort of mirror reflective image or the chrome-like effect on a character be two different tones of completely contrasting colors, like, reds right next to greens, as if it existed in this reflective surface. And he would choose a lot of kind of earth-tone colors mixed with your bright colors. I enjoyed re-creating some of these things in paintings, working with the characters from his prototype New Gods portfolio or… what do you call the one that was Sigurd and the other Norse gods? MORROW: The four Gods plates? EVANIER: That was kind of like Asgard Alt! [laughter] ROSS: Yeah, there’s such interesting choices there and I love the nature of the way Jack’s instincts would take him, and also for the paintings he would do in the ’70s and early ’80s. You know, the things where he gave himself over to just his initial burst of creativity. In fact, [below] I’m wearing one of them right now! [laughter] I love this piece, by the way. But, you know, it would just be a smattering of different color choices, not to necessarily prove that he had the strongest color sense, but that he had an innovative color sense. EVANIER: Yeah. There was a lot of instinct in what Jack did. He worked very fast, as everyone knows. You know, if I said to Jack, “So why’d you do that?” he’d make up a reason then. He was not conscious of it at the time for the most part. I find a lot of comparisons to what Jack did with what I learned when I started study-

ing improv comedy. The idea of not thinking about it and saying it, but just doing it, as opposed to writing it in your head completely first and then replicating that on the paper. He was very spontaneous and he was right way more often than I think he had a right to be with these things. I’m still kind of agog at what came out of that man, and his abilities, and how fast I saw some of that stuff materialize, and without a lot of study. I mean, he was a deep thinker. He thought very deeply about issues, but the stories were kind of created by a seat-of-the-pants speed, and the energy translated to the page. A lot of people think that the best artwork Jack ever did at Marvel in the ’60s was that Captain America #112 which he kind of knocked out over a weekend. [chuckles] Twenty pages of Captain America, with Captain America dead! [laughter] It was quite a challenge! “We need a 20-page Captain America story and by the way, Captain America is dead throughout the story.” ROSS: I have a question for you based 17

(previous page, top) Pencils from Kirby’s final issue of Kamandi (#40), where he worked from Gerry Conway’s full script. (above) Kirby: Genesis is a total love-fest for Jack, where Alex and Kurt Busiek took every unused Kirby character they could get their hands on, and created a Kirbyverse where they all interacted together. Here’s Alex’s cover for issue #7 from 2012, where he uses a color palette that would’ve made Jack proud.

upon… you mentioned Captain America and you mentioned before about his wanting to respond to the times he lived in. When he first worked on Tales of Suspense, with the stories for Cap, right after he did… maybe it was before the revisitation to World War II stories with Bucky, but when he first got on that book, didn’t he automatically take Captain America right away into Vietnam? [Editor’s note: It was in Tales of Suspense #61.] EVANIER: Pretty close, yeah. I think there were lots of discussions whether Captain America should be set in the present day or in the past. During the time Jack was working for Marvel in the late ’70s, I was talking to Mark Gruenwald back then I think it was, and he was saying, “We’re having a problem. Jack’s stuff doesn’t tie in with the present-day Marvel Universe. Is there any way we can get him to tie his stuff in with all the other books?” I said, “No,” and I said, “Listen. Let me give you an idea. Throw this around the office. Why don’t you guys have Jack do a Captain America book set in the ’40s? Because he’d love it! He loved that era and he certainly has enough World War II stories to fill the book forever. And his dialogue wouldn’t bother you as much if the story was set in 1941. That might be a solution.” And nobody liked that idea because they really wanted Jack drawing stuff that they could dialogue. ROSS: Even in the time that he was not supposed to go into a certain subject matter, he actually wanted to approach the crux of our times, the new war we were entering in the 1960s, and he directed to go right there immediately with the character that would seem the most appropriate to do it. And if I remember correctly, he has Captain America go right in to deal with the Viet Cong, and then right in with their lead henchman and take him down in a fight, and he sort of wrote off Captain America solving Vietnam all in one issue.

(above) Courtesy of Heritage Auctions, here are a couple of sketches Kirby did at Comic-Con over the years.

EVANIER: Yeah, well, he also did it in Thor. There was also a Thor sequence set in Vietnam. But there were arguments at Marvel about that. It’s funny. Stan Lee was kind of in the middle. I may have said it, or somebody else may have said it and I quoted it, but at one point Stan’s problem was he was too conservative to work with Kirby and too liberal to work with Ditko. And Stan himself was kinda all over... according to other people, Stan was kind of all over the map, politically, trying to decide where he came down in the Vietnam War thing and who he felt should be President and such. It was like a tug of war going on at some point. Stan and Jack had a lot of fights on the early Sgt. Furys, based on the fact that they had very different views of how World War II should be depicted. Jack was very passionate about certain elements of it. Jack had seen combat. Stan was doing VD pamphlets during that time and such. Not to knock it or anything—he just wasn’t as emotionally invested in that war as Jack was. I don’t think anybody was. But Jack got off the Sgt. Fury book largely because the two of them were fighting too much about the way to depict the Jewish character, and the way to depict war at that time. These comics are a product of their time and they’re products of what the individual writers and artists were going through at that moment frequently, and some of it dates very well and some of it doesn’t. I am delighted with how well some of Jack’s stuff stands up today, whereas a lot of comics that were thought of as very relevant to their time in the ’70s, no one’s buying, no one’s reprinting. There’s no real call for them. There’s something very timeless about what Jack did, which pleases me greatly. You can see shelves behind me, the blue book there is the Kirby Omnibus. I just love that this is now in hardcovers. It’s being bought by a new audience. I kind of like, in a perverse way, the fact that it’s expensive and that people are still shelling out money for it. It’s just wonderful work that stands out. And we are running out of time, believe it or not, gentlemen, and we’ve barely scratched the surface here. ROSS: We’re not going to talk about the Shazam story you revealed to me? EVANIER: Well, okay. If you want to, we’ll go a little over and see if the Convention doesn’t object, okay? ROSS: Okay, I’ll just set it up really fast that I had approached you about whether or not the character of Captain Marvel—the original one—had been something that Jack had an involvement with, with Marvel, and then you said, 18

“Not quite the way you would think,” and then you brought up about how he is responsible for bringing Shazam back in the context of the DC book that would happen, by pitching it to Carmine, where you were there in person to witness it.

to watch this video at some point, who’ll remember me writing him and saying, “Can you give me C.C. Beck’s phone number?” and he got it for me. I called C.C. Beck, and he was interested in drawing it again, and we presented this as a package to DC… and Carmine said, “This is a great idea. We’ll do it!” Then, a week later he says, “We really kinda have to have it edited by the people back here,” and they took the project away from Jack. It was not the success they were hoping for. I’m not saying it would have been with Jack in control of it, but that’s how it started. And Jack was never credited for that. Nobody ever said that it was his idea. Mr. Beck was upset because he thought he was going to be working with Jack as his editor, and he did not get along with Julius Schwartz. Mr. Schwartz was a lovely man who did some great comic books, but he wasn’t a fan of Captain Marvel. There was this idea that DC had at that

EVANIER: Yes! This is something which other people deny, but I stand by my story. ROSS: Who denies it?

EVANIER: Other people who want to take credit for the idea of bringing Shazam back in the ’70s. Jack loved Captain Marvel, the original Captain Marvel, and not just because he did an issue of it, but he just thought that was one of the greatest comics ever done. If there was any comic book that he admired in the ’40s that was not Simon & Kirby, it was Captain Marvel. And you see traces of it all over the place in his work. The strip that never got published, The Silver Spider, which morphed into the Fly at Archie, which morphed into Spiderman, was a kid with a magic ring who turns into a giant super-hero. Thor has obvious overtones of Captain Marvel, and Jack did a number of stories over the years of that. When Jack was doing New Gods/Forever People/ Mister Miracle for DC, he wanted to edit comics that he would not write or draw. DC said, “Oh yeah, we’re open to that,” but they really weren’t. They wanted the books controlled editorially in New York and they just wanted Jack to do the page quota he had, which was roughly 15 pages a week of his own work, and hand it in. Comics by other people on the could be edited by other people. The FIRST MEDIA REPORT ics phenomenon was in the Com vel Mar Before Jack gave up on that, he 5). VILLAGE VOICE (April 1, 196 was trying to think of a comic that he could add to the DC T CREATOR Jack Kirby was THE FIRS 9) and still work lineup where he could supervise. to move to the West Coast (196 for East Coast publishers. Somebody else could write it, possibly me or Steve Sherman, IC-CON was held and somebody else could draw The first full SAN DIEGO COM Guest of Honor. the was y Kirb 0; 197 , 1–3 Aug. it—in this case, C.C. Beck. He y event until his ever at t gues lar regu a (He was to health issues.) said, “Why don’t you bring back due year one ing death, only miss Captain Marvel? You’re the only Y #8 (1977), company that can do it,” because In 2001: A SPACE ODYSSE E (later renamed the way Fawcett had settled the the robot MISTER MACHIN y classified Machine Man) was originall lawsuit, Fawcett agreed not to print. as X-50, not X-51 as it saw Man story in Tales of ever publish Captain Marvel again Iron first the lly, enta ncid (Coi ber of X-51.) without DC’s permission. We were Suspense #39 had a job num at a convention in downtown L.A. S Super-hero A CLARK BAR & MILK DUD Mr. Infantino was out there and Sweepstakes contest ran in he sat in a room. Steve Sherman Kirby’s 1978 Marvel comics, including DINOSAUR. was with me, Carmine, Carmine’s MACHINE MAN and DEVIL n as a character in their then-lady friend, and Jack and (The winner was to be draw Kirby’s contract ended Roz, and [Jack] told him this idea, favorite Marvel comic; since their 8, if either of those titles were 197 il Apr in “Let’s bring back Captain Marvel.” of luck.) favorite, they’d have been out Carmine was open to it. I contacted C.C. Beck. I had a friend named Gary Brown who is probably going

Believe It or Don!’t!

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vel There’s a tie for the first Mar FOUR #12 TIC TAS FAN r: sove cros ro super-he #1 and AMAZING SPIDER-MAN by Kirby)! (both March 1963, and both the NEW YORK The FIRST COMIC CON was mer 1964, with Kirby COMICS CONVENTION (Sum attending). and approximately 50 fans event organized by this ded atten also o Ditk e Stev and Len Wein Bernie Bubnis, Ron Fradkin, ic con”). “com term the ed coin nis (Bub

EVANIER: Yes! ROSS: So, there was expectation and certainly the support for it that led all the way to a television show—a couple television shows—and I grew up in an era where you saw that character on the top level of DC’s brand, on the same footing with Wonder Woman, Batman, Robin, and Superman. He was always that major character with them before the rest of anybody else you could name. So, I always absorbed him as a major part of comics history from just a DC angle. EVANIER: Well, anyway, that’s how it started and Jack didn’t get credit for a lot of things that he thought of or he suggested. There’s a lot of stories that are not really verifiable, but where Jack made suggestions to other writers and to other artists and things like that. There was a writer named Robert Bernstein, who wrote tons of comics for DC, Marvel, Archie—one of the most prolific guys from the mid-’50s on through the ’60s. He wrote for EC. The comic, Psychoanalysis, which EC produced, he wrote, and one of the characters in it was based on his own personal psychoanalysis. Bernstein lived near Jack and would frequently find him on the subway train into New York and they’d sit together and Bernstein would say, “I’ve gotta give Mort Weisinger a plot in 20 minutes for a Superman story,” and Jack would say, “Here’s an idea.” [laughter] Now, people have taken that fact—which is pretty much verified—and extrapolated from that, well, “This Robert Bernstein story was a little like this Kirby story someplace so obviously, that came from Jack.” That’s conjecture and speculative. But Jack was this fount of ideas. Anybody who met him, if you walked into Jack’s office, his studio, and said, “Here’s an idea I have for a new super-hero,” Jack would tell you more about your character than you’d figured out about it. He would say, “Why don’t you give him a sidekick like this? Why don’t you give him a villain like this? How about if he drives a car like this?” And you’d think, “Did I show this to Jack months ago and he’s been thinking about it all this time and I forgot it?” No. He came up with all that stuff on the spot, which is one of the things… seeing him do it over and over is why it was so credible to me when he would tell me that he invented this or that in some other comic.

point. “Well, since Captain Marvel’s like Superman, we should have it done by the same office that does Superman, so let’s get Denny O’Neil to write it,” and they were originally gonna have Bob Oksner draw it, and they were originally gonna have Julius Schwartz edit it, which I think he actually did. And Jack’s point was that Captain Marvel is not like Superman! It should be done by different people, have a different feel, and a different flair. Fortunately, there was this wonderful gentleman who worked for DC named Nelson Bridwell— who I think is an unsung hero of ’70s comics—who understood Captain Marvel and persuaded DC to get back… I gave Nelson Beck’s phone number, and Nelson wrote some of the better stories that were done of that character in that series, but was hampered by the fact that Julius Schwartz was not an editor who appreciated the old stories and therefore wasn’t interested in doing the old type of stories. That’s basically the story for that, and I don’t think Shazam has been successful for DC ever. There have been some merchandising deals that were very nice, that made him worth the purchase, but has there ever been a Shazam comic in print that was a huge seller? I don’t know. I don’t recall any.

ROSS: He also did tell you personally his reflection about having a concept for a Kree warrior gone rogue? EVANIER: Yeah, which ended up being the basis of Marvel’s Captain Marvel. ROSS: So, he’s responsible for both versions of Captain Marvel in the modern era. EVANIER: Well, he had a hand in them. He had the idea of the Kree warrior going rogue and they were gonna do it in Fantastic Four. It wound up being the basis of Marvel’s Captain Marvel. Now, I don’t know… ROSS: And he was never asked to participate with that. EVANIER: Well, he was asked. He turned it down because he said at that point, “If we’re gonna create a brand-new book, I should get a better deal.”

ROSS: Well, I don’t think it was a failure back then when it was launched. I mean, it had what was the initial fan reaction of everybody over-ordering this thing and getting it… you know, there were a lot of copies made of that first issue, I believe.

ROSS: Oh, right, because he was trying to get the deal with Goodman which never happened. EVANIER: Yeah, so he basically said at some point near the end at 20

Marvel, every time Stan said, “Martin wants new characters,” Jack said, “Yeah, I want a new deal.” [laughter] Let’s talk about the new deal before we talk about new characters.

And I’m gonna wrap this panel up, no matter what anybody says. John, thank you for joining us for this. I know you’re so tired of talking about Jack all the time, and… [laughter]

ROSS: And then his idea, that he offered to Stan, wound up showing up in that book in 1968.

MORROW: Strangely enough, never.

EVANIER: Well, I don’t know that he offered it to Stan for that Captain… ROSS: He described it. EVANIER: As an idea that he had for the sequence in Fantastic Four. ROSS: But for it to then show up as the basis for that first issue, scripted by Stan… that’s not good. EVANIER: Y’know, you don’t know about these things. The thing you’ve gotta remember here is that Jack just threw out these ideas left and right all over the place. I mean, the volume of his creativity was staggering to me. In 1970, Steve Sherman and I made a trip back to New York and we went to the DC offices and the Marvel offices. I’m afraid I’m telling a story that I told on the other Kirby panel we did that’s running in part of this Comic-Con series. But everybody I went up to, all these guys I met who had done the comics of my childhood— John Romita, and Bill Everett, and Don Heck, all these guys—when I said to them, “I’m Jack Kirby’s assistant,” they threw their arms around me and told me how brilliant Jack was, how he gave them all these ideas, and it kind of confirmed for me, yeah—Jack said he was giving everybody ideas for other books and Don Heck just said that to me, that a lot of the Iron Man villains were Jack’s idea, which I take to be a pretty good source. I got continually impressed by Jack over the years and I got impressed, also, by his influence on people. Alex, you are one example of many, of hundreds I could name, of people who, without penciling Fantastic Four for a living and being inked by someone imitating Joe Sinnott, brought some Kirby influence to your work. Not exclusively, because you do a lot of things that have no trace of Jack in them, or very minor. They have the sense that everybody you’ve seen has influenced you in some way. But there are certainly overt things you do where you go, “Wow! That’s the Kirby energy, but he’s not swiping Kirby hands, he’s not swiping Kirby poses necessarily. He’s got that excitement in the work.” Steve Rude is another example. Jack was really impressed with Steve’s work because Steve was achieving a lot of the same things Jack strove to achieve in his work without swiping, copying, imitating him. There’s a lot of guys that Jack loved—most of the Image guys. He was really enthused by them. The guys that did The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He was very enthused by them, too. He welcomed all these new people into the industry. You will not find a single story of anybody who took their work to Jack and was upset that he discouraged them from ever doing anything. He may have discouraged them for working for DC or Marvel for practical reasons, but he encouraged people to be artists, he encouraged people to be writers, he encouraged people to be creative, and it’s one of the reasons that I keep doing these silly panels where I keep telling people about Jack, because I think that’s the message you have to carry along to people.

EVANIER: No? No, it doesn’t get tiring. And Alex, thank you. You and I have had some fascinating conversations on the phone and it’s nice to let the world in on some of what we say, because you’re a good guy who carries on exactly what Jack was hoping other people in comics after him would carry on. ROSS: Well, thank you for indulging me. I was hoping to share some of this with the public. EVANIER: Okay, thank you all! We will try to do a Jack Kirby panel next year, hopefully at the convention, with actual human beings in attendance, and one of these days we will drag you out there, Alex, kicking and screaming to be part of it. Thank you very much everybody. H

(this spread) Since Alex really like Dick Ayers’ inking over Kirby, here’s a comparison of how Dick’s inking evolved with Jack’s style. The Strange Tales #108 Human Torch story has more brushwork that gave Kirby’s earlier pencils a softer feel. As Jack’s own work got more exaggerated and stylized, Ayers opted for more hard-edged pen lines, such as on Tales to Astonish #83 (below).

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.

The protagonist tells us he’s showing off to his girlfriend about his knowledge of art in an art gallery. In fact, he’s doing nothing of the sort: there is no criticism of painterly technique here, just the unpleasant hero trashing the stories that are illustrated in the paintings—and ill-advisedly dissing a portrait of the half-man/half-goat god, Pan. His mistake is not to notice that the museum guard defending Pan’s reputation is actually the god himself, as revealed in the final panel (but more on that later). In fact, despite the story’s brevity, it gives Kirby a chance to explore his abiding interest in mythology, with various demonstrations of Pan’s exploits, such as creating a magic horn that dispatches an invading group of Titans, or later turning the weapons of the Persian army to flowers. For his disrespect,

KUTTING KIRBY

Over my years of writing this column for John Morrow, I’ve often had to use the phrase “spoiler alert”—after all, it’s impossible to discuss panels in particular stories without actually talking about what is in the panels (i.e. Jack Kirby artwork). But my warning has rarely been more appropriate than it is in a discussion of “I Laughed at the Great God, Pan!” from Tales to Astonish #6 (Atlas/Marvel, November 1959). The story is really just a clever wisp of a fantasy idea, wrapped up in a brief four pages, but it’s a good example of the kind of imaginative tale that Kirby and Stan Lee were doing before gigantic monsters virtually took over all their late-fifties books (in fact, the cover of Tales to Astonish #6 demonstrates what is to come with marauding Kirby monsters in “I Saw the Invasion of the Stone Men” illustrating a Steve Ditko story in the issue).

[Editor’s Note: We interrupt this program to bring you an example of yet another re-use of Kirby’s “Stone Men” at Marvel, after first using them at DC Comics in House of Mystery #85. Though Ditko drew the interior story at right, Jack’s cover comes immediately after his own “Easter Island Statue” story in the previous issue of Astonish. Now, back to Barry...]

the bragging protagonist receives a very mild punishment—his mustache (which, we are told, is his pride and joy) disappears—and his hair won’t grow beyond a brief crewcut. Had the story been written in earlier decades, the punishment would undoubtedly have been fatal, but this was, after all, the era of the Comics Code, and such lethal solutions were no longer in the cards. You may have noticed that I called this section “Kutting Kirby,” and there’s a reason for this. British readers such as myself first encountered the story in one of its several reprints in British black-and-white 68-page magazines under various titles. We had no complaints—after all, Kirby’s clean and economical lines, particularly when rendered in Christopher Rule’s perfectly judged inking, worked beautifully in monochrome. What didn’t work, however, was the fact that the US art plates sent to Britain were often reproduced with a little of the artwork shaved off the bottom—absolutely ruinous in the case of “I Laughed at the Great God, Pan!”. The final panel shows the museum guard walking away, with his feet being revealed as Pan’s cloven hooves. (Incidentally, why did nobody in the art

Essentially, the piece focuses on one of Lee’s boastful heroes, about to be taken down a peg or two (something that happens very often in the moralistic stories of this era). 22

splash panel (also in TJKC #81)! The fact that Kirby has now opted to give it a more human shape, extending a menacing leg towards the terrified hero, renders it one of the more striking comics creatures of the 1960s, particularly in the excellent inks by Dick Ayers, always one of Kirby’s most sympathetic inkers. It should also be noted that the colouring here is the final touch in making the image work, with an extra colour finish defining the limbs and head of Taboo. The story itself is standard stuff for the era, but even here there are things which anticipate the dynamism of the super-hero era which was to follow. On page 4 [below], for instance, every panel is crammed with action, notably the last captionless panel in which the hero is grabbed bodily by the titular monster and pulled violently to the side. Regarding the paperthin story itself (written by either Stan Lee or his brother Larry Lieber), it doesn’t do to examine the plot too closely—the hero, in particular, is a bit on the stupid side and doesn’t anticipate just how dangerous the seemingly friendly Taboo is. But readers didn’t care. This, after all, was in a period when Kirby, Ditko and Lee were firing on all cylinders—and as long as comics buyers got their money’s worth in terms of visual impact, they were satisfied.

gallery notice this?) But when the bottom of the page with the final panel in the British reprints had a short section accidentally removed, the hooves were cut—and we were mystified as to how the chastened hero has learned that when he mocked the great god Pan, he was doing so to the god himself.

KIRBY BEATS KIRBY

The principal movers and shakers behind the legendary EC comics, publisher William Gaines and writer/editor Al Feldstein, would remark on the fact that in the EC bullpen, the artists’ reactions to each other’s work was positively inspirational, if not aspirational. The creators greatly admired what each was delivering, but would leave the offices after seeing a particularly impressive piece of artwork with a determination to top it with their own subsequent work. Feldstein (an artist himself) and Gaines noted this response, and they encouraged this sense of competition. After all, it was healthy, and it ensured that the company got the best illustration work in comics. Jack Kirby, sadly, never worked for EC comics (although such contemporaries of his as Joe Kubert did), but one wonders which of his artist colleagues would have inspired him to top his own work. Actually, there was one artist who did the trick: Jack Kirby himself! In the days of the big monster books at Atlas/Marvel, Kirby would routinely create eye-catching monstrosities to persuade punters to shell out their ten cents—and then would draw the creature in the accompanying tale in a quite different fashion, often very unlike the original concept. A prime example? Take the cover of Strange Tales #75 (June 1960, shown back in TJKC #81 in this very column), showcasing “Taboo! The Thing from the Murky Swamp!” The cover does the trick in terms of impact with its looming mud monster (from a period shortly after mud monsters had quite a reign in comics), but the grotesque entity is not, frankly, one of The King’s most memorable creations. However: open the book and take a look at the new version of Taboo in the in-your-face, full-page

MONOCULAR VISION

I’ve mentioned in these pages before a fact that changed the reading habits of UK comics aficionados. After the black-and-white reprints we had been obliged to read (as mentioned earlier in this piece), a quiet revolution took place in the early 1960s when the ban on American imports was ended and we could finally see the original US books in all their four-colour glory. Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive, as Wordsworth said! It was a revelatory moment, and the first books that made it over to British shores after the ending of the ban have an almost iconic status among those who remember them. 23

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JOIN THE KIRBY MUSEUM AND HELP OUR CONTINUING EFFORTS! 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:

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•i llustrating the scope of Kirby’s multi-faceted career, •c ommunicating the stories, inspirations and influences of Jack Kirby, •c elebrating the life of Jack Kirby and his creations, and •b uilding understanding of comic books and comic book creators.

One of the most memorable was Tales of Suspense #10 (1960), with a striking Steve Ditko-inked cover illustrating “I Brought Cyclops Back to Life,” showing a couple chipping a gigantic cyclopean figure out of the ice, while behind them the creature’s giant hand broke free. It was a memorable image, but not quite as memorable as the splash page [above] which showed the Cyclops lifting a gigantic rock in preparation to smashing a boat with three sailors. Once again, Jack Kirby opted to places his humongous monster dead centre in the panel, and the effect is suitably dramatic—in fact, in the entire run of monster books from Atlas/Marvel in this period, it’s one of the very best. And, once again, one has to praise the perfectly judged inking of Dick Ayers, bringing to fruition Kirby’s pencils. There is an interesting element to this one, not entirely typical of the monster era. Ayers uses very heavy black shadows to delineate the figure, producing an almost three-dimensional impact for the murderous Cyclops. And it’s not just the splash panel—the third page of the story is taken up with an almost full-page image of the creature frozen under the ice, with two smaller panels to either side of it. The page is a reminder that Stan Lee was well aware of the value of the artist he now had at his disposal, and was not going to complain about Kirby’s unorthodox use of the page. The hero of the story and his contemptuous girlfriend are another variation on the “hero proves himself” theme so beloved of Lee, and it’s inevitable that he will do so, his courage forged in a life-threatening situation. DC books of the period which also dabbled in giant monsters occasionally used the theme, but not as frequently as Lee—it was definitely one of his shopworn house plots. Nevertheless, who cared about the clichés when we had Jack Kirby art like this to relish? The Cyclops, incidentally, is the one from legend who attacked Ulysses—but he doesn’t appear to have been bloodily blinded by the warrior in this iteration. The Comics Code would never have permitted that! H

To this end, the Museum will sponsor and otherwise support study, teaching, conferences, discussion groups, exhibitions, displays, publications and cinematic, theatrical or multimedia productions.

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Jack Kirby Museum & Research Center PO Box 5236 Hoboken, NJ 07030 USA Telephone: (201) 204-0532 Board Of Trustees Tom Kraft: President Ra ndolph Hoppe: Treasurer/Acting Director Mike Cecchini: Secretary All characters TM © their respective owners.

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Re-Views (next page, top) Original art from Challengers of the Unknown #7, inked by Wallace Wood. (below) The Flash didn’t get his own magazine until the Challs solo mag was up to issue #6.

Challenger of the Silver

n Jack Kirby Collector #78, I made the bold assertion that Joe Simon and Jack Kirby’s “Challengers of the Unknown,” an unpublished feature that had been orphaned with the 1956 demise of Mainline comics, kickstarted the Silver Age of Comics by demonstrating that a team of adventure heroes could sell. Many before me noticed the obvious: that Kirby’s Fantastic Four was a super-powered version of his Challengers of the Unknown and not simply Marvel’s response to the sales success of the Justice League of America. Both groups took on the challenges of the Space Age— space travel, aliens, monsters, time travel, and advanced technology in the wrong hands––in book-length stories. Their parallel crash-landing origins and similar jumpsuit outfits make this undeniable. However, few picked up on the undeniable fact that the Challengers triggered a significant trend at DC/ National Comics, one that for some reason rival publishers failed to capitalize on. Case in point: I was given advance photocopies of Mark Evanier’s 2008 book, Jack Kirby: King of Comics, before interviewing him on the project. When I came to the section on Challengers of the

Unknown, I was surprised that Mark had placed little importance on the book. When I pointed out to him all the COTU imitators produced at DC in the wake of the title’s debut, Mark quickly saw my point. He was able to make a modest textual change to reflect his new understanding. The sales success of the 1957 Challengers’ Showcase tryout issues [#6, 7, 11, and 12] caused it to leapfrog ahead of The Flash, who had also been sales-tested in the pages of Showcase, so that the Challengers got their own title long before this new incarnation of the Scarlet Speedster was so honored. This takes nothing away from The Flash, or from editor Julie Schwartz, who spearheaded DC’s first successful super-hero revival of the post-Golden Age era. The debut Challengers story came two issues after Showcase #4. But four issues passed before The Flash’s second Showcase tryout. Challengers was the first experiment to appear in two consecutive issues of that title, which quickly began the norm for new features. Later, three consecutive issues became common, and whenever early sales reports were exceptional, a fourth appearance was scheduled––a certain sign that a feature was poised to migrate into a title of its own. But as I pointed out in my TJKC article, “How Simon and Kirby Kickstarted the Silver Age,” The Flash and Green Lantern were relative latecomers in the 1950s DC sales sweepstakes. By the time The Flash got its own title, Challengers of the Unknown was already up to issue #6, and that was after four Flash Showcase tryouts. FOLLOW THE NUMBERS Circulation always dictates a publisher’s decisions in the world of comic book magazines, as it does with any periodical house. Challengers was a breakout concept during a serious sales slump in the comics field, and led to DC duplicating that success with other action teams in their two tryout books, DC having shrugged off the Silent Knight/Viking Prince focus of The Brave and the Bold in 1959 after 24 issues in order to make it a sister to Showcase.

Age

by Will Murray

“Rip Hunter, Time Master” was the first test. It worked. After that came the original Suicide Squad in the first non-historical-hero issue of The Brave and the Bold. “It was done as a fill-in because things were so bad that they had to try three books of a title to see what would catch on,” Suicide Squad inker Mike Esposito told me. “So they’d do three months and that would be it. They put it out with The Brave and the Bold or Showcase under another banner before they’d give it its own title. I remember the one with the dinosaurs––the big monster that attacked Coney Island. We had a lot of fun with it.” Then came “Sea Devils,” followed by “Cave Carson, Adventures Inside the Earth.” No doubt Sea Devils was partially inspired by the high TV ratings of the syndicated Sea Hunt TV show, then in its second season. But in every case, DC was simply re-formulating the Challengers four-man team concept, but with different characters, backgrounds and franchises: Time travelers, skin divers, spelunkers—and a quasi-military scientific quartet of troubleshooters in the Suicide Squad. GOODMAN MISSES BADLY How Martin Goodman failed to pick up on this trend is beyond me. Maybe it was because each of these groups had such different backgrounds. The normally canny copycat publisher failed to realize that a trend had developed. The oft-told tale that during a golf game with DC’s Jack Liebowitz, Goodman learned of their huge circulation success with the Justice League of America comic book, has been fairly well debunked. But for years, it was believed that the Fantastic Four was a direct response to JLA’s soaring sales. A much more likely explanation is that when Jack Kirby pitched the Fantastic Four to Stan Lee, he revealed something that Lee may not have known: that Challengers of the Unknown was a breakout hit, and DC was busy reformulating it any way they could.

It was probably from Kirby, not Lee, that Goodman learned that the Challengers represented a major comic book trend––the adventure team pitted against super-scientific threats.

Kirby made no bones about the Challengers being a precursor to the Fantastic Four. In my previous article, I quoted some of his comments confirming his thinking. Here is another: “They were a team, and Americans think in terms of teams––baseball teams, football teams, hockey teams––and all that is reflected in comics,” Kirby explained. “In comics we have action teams. Now, an action team has a lot more leeway than, say, a hockey team. A hockey team can only play one game; an action team can play any kind of game, with any kind of villain. We have a broader field in which to tell a story and it gives enough room to tell very, very interesting stories...”

Contrary to prior interpretations, the Silver Age was not triggered by The Flash and the other super-hero revivals which followed, but by the Challengers of the Unknown pointing out that action-adventure heroes in general, and not only super-heroes, were in demand by young Baby Boomer readers.

...and book-length stories, which was another Kirby innovation. He had to convince the DC editors, who preferred three shorter stories in each issue.

Beerbohm wrote: “When I was interviewing Irwin Donenfeld, DC publisher 1953– 1968, over the course of 1997–2000, totaling some 18 audio-taped hours, one of the many topics we covered and talked extensively about was his idea of a new tryout comic book dubbed Showcase––and its impacts regarding Flash, Challengers of the Unknown, etc., covering most all the early issues—as well as when Irwin converted Brave and Bold into a similar vehicle. Being groomed by his father Harry Donenfeld to become DC publisher, Irwin was the one––only one––who green-lighted Challs almost right from the git-go.”

GOING HEAD TO HEAD In a legal deposition, Kirby’s son, Neal, recalled: “In discussions with my father, the Fantastic Four basically was a derivative of––from what he told me, basically he came up with the idea just as a derivative from the Challengers of the Unknown that he had done several years earlier.” Jack Kirby was a competitive guy. That he would do this in response to being booted off a book he had co-created and probably well paid for, makes perfect sense. Just as he later left Thor to produce the New Gods, it was Kirby’s instinct to create something that would go head-to-head with his old characters—head-to-head, but one-upping the Challengers by making their successors super-heroes. In my recent article, I was careful to not go overboard. I pointed out the Metal Men might conceivably have been part of this trend, but according to Robert Kanigher, who created them, it was a spur of the moment concept created to fill an unexpected hole in Showcase’s schedule. Kanigher had scripted the “Suicide Squad,” so he probably knew that DC’s action teams were a major trend. However, it turns out that I was being too conservative to limit COTA’s pervasive influence at DC. For the Metal Men project to move forward, someone in authority had to approve it. That person was DC publisher Irwin Donenfeld, who is the key to understanding how the unfolding fates of DC and Marvel Comics were entwined during the 1950s and early 1960s. Donenfeld became National’s de facto editorial director when Whitney Ellsworth, the prior one, transferred to California to verse the new Superman TV show. Posting on Facebook on December 1, 2021, comics historian Robert Beerbohm revealed that Irwin Donenfeld personally told him during numerous taped interviews that the Challengers of the Unknown were central to several critical decisions he made as publisher, which dictated the domino effect leading to what we now call the Silver Age of Comics.

Bob pointed out that Donenfeld had the last word on what DC published and which concepts did not go forward. This included the many experimental Showcase and Brave and the Bold strips. It was Donenfeld who green-lit the revival of the Flash, in spite of editorial reluctance to go in that direction—and who, a decade later, moved Julie Schwartz off his titles to save the faltering Batman line of titles. “From Irwin’s perspective he said to me, it was Kirby’s Challengers of the Unknown which showed the way via hard sales for super-heroic revivals to be possible,” Beerbohm revealed. “Jack Kirby had asked Joe Simon if it was okay to use their S&K Studio idea of Challengers of the Unknown. Joe said yes, and what follows next, is history. The real-life published facts ‘on the ground’ bear witness that Kirby’s Challengers of the Unknown had some six solo issues before Flash #105 hit the stands in 1959.” Although DC was quick to create spin-offs of the Challengers, Donenfeld was more cautious when it came to the parade of revived and revitalized super-heroes. But when he felt more confident that the public was ready, he plunged ahead, knowing that the risks of a Showcase tryout were much less than launching a solo book, which might sink after three or four issues. In his post, Bob dropped a bombshell:

“According to Irwin Donenfeld, Challengers of the Unknown led directly for Justice League of America to be tested in The Brave and the Bold. And the false corporate myth that JLA led to Fantastic Four is absurdly erroneous.”

Greg Theakston inadvertently confirmed Donenfeld’s belief when he asked how Kirby felt having to leave National under those humiliating circumstances. Kirby’s response: “I wanted to destroy DC.” 1 THE SILVER AGE BEGINS? Sky Masters [above], as well as Kirby’s 3 Rocketeers over at Harvey Comics [previous page], were space-based features which took the Challengers idea and spun it in a way DC never got around to doing: Making its heroes astronauts with the new US space program.

Specifically, it was the final sales figures on the five Wally Wood-inked issues of Challengers of the Unknown that convinced Donenfeld that the time was right to re-imagine the old Justice Society of America for a new generation of readers. Seeing the DC super-heroes as revivals, not innovations like the Challengers, I had not suspected this connection when I wrote my article. But given DC’s extreme caution about launching new titles during the circulation headwinds of the 1950s, it makes perfect sense. Their second-tier Golden Age super-heroes had all been retired less than a decade before. Reviving them was risky, even in a market where readership was assumed to turn over every three or four years. Equally interesting was the following insight over the fallout of Jack Kirby leaving DC after being forced off one of its hottest new books over the Sky Masters newspaper strip debacle.

Beerbohm recalled, “Irwin said if there is a Silver Age, from his perspective of energy unleashed, it was Kirby doing Challengers of the Unknown.” Until the time when Bob has his interviews transcribed, this is as definitive a statement as is required to certify Challengers of the Unknown as one of the most significant comics innovations of its time. Limiting its influence just to team books of the Silver Age, we have an impressive list [as shown below and on previous spread]: Rip Hunter, Time Master (1959) The Suicide Squad (1959) Justice League of America (1960) Sea Devils (1960) Cave Carson (1960) Fantastic Four (1961)

“Irwin was angry at Jack Schiff when that editor pushed Kirby away from DC,” Beerbohm added. “He tells me so on the tapes. Irwin thought Jack Schiff’s move filled Jack Kirby with terrible resolve to get revenge the only way it mattered: Make even better comics.”

Metal Men (1962) The Doom Patrol (1963) The X-Men (1963) The Avengers (1963) Teen Titans (1964) The Secret Six (1968)

(above) Second of Kirby’s two pages for Showcase #15 (Aug. 1958), documenting “Space Ships Of The Past.” (right) Archie’s Adventures of the Fly #1 was produced in March 1959—just as Double Life of Private Strong #1 hit newsstands, and drew a Cease and Desist letter from DC Comics, which resulted in Pvt. Strongs’s cancellation. That situation may well have played into why Kirby was taken off The Fly after issue #2, which he’d drawn in April 1959. He spent 1960–61 working for the publisher of Classics Illustrated, doing frustrating onepage features, including “The Challenge of Space” (next page, top) which he drew at the same time as Fantastic Four #1.

What is fascinating about this chronology is that the DC adventure teams were all released within a 13-month span. Beginning with “Rip Hunter” in May 1959 and concluding with “Cave Carson” in June 1960, most of these new strips debuted after Jack Kirby left the Challengers title. Note that the Justice League had their first adventure in the middle of that busy period, going on sale in December 1959. But if we accept Donenfeld’s assertions at face value, it was the Challengers more than The Flash that led to the revivals of multiple abandoned DC super-heroes such as Green Lantern, who showed up in Justice League of America’s tryout issues before he was awarded his own magazine, as well as The Atom, Hawkman, and others— not to mention the resurrection of the Golden Age versions of those characters. This new wave of heroes may have inspired Martin Goodman to reverse his tentative plans to fold the faltering Marvel Comics line, but it was Jack Kirby who brought the Challengers template 30

to Marvel, kicking off the Marvel Age of Comics—even though no one knew it at the time, including Lee, Kirby and Goodman. An important point is that Challengers was essentially a science-fiction strip, but grounded in the present and not set in the future. It wasn’t about robots, rocketships and rayguns, which was Goodman’s most despised format, but about modern American heroes taking on the challenges of the Space Age. In COTU, Jack Kirby introduced to comics the idea of the giant monster villain, an obvious reflection of The Beast from 10,000 Fathoms, Godzilla, Them! and similar creatures then emerging as a huge trend on world movie screens, reruns of which were proliferating on TV screens in the form of Creature Feature reruns. Before long, big brutish monsters were storming all over DC and Marvel comic books. This craze took hold at Marvel late in 1958 with the first Kirby giant monster covers on their fantasy titles. By the following Spring, it began proliferating at DC, and quickly dominated their covers. This was another significant trend whose four-color roots trace right back to Challengers of the Unknown. Kirby was drawing such stories for DC’s House of Secrets and House of Mystery at this time as part of his pioneering efforts to replicate the big-screen Technicolor movie experience in comics. The everyman heroes of DC’s My Greatest Adventure who confronted monsters and aliens and other science-fictional menaces might be seen as individual Challengers of the Unknown without exceptional skills. They fought back with the tools of their trades, or by using ordinary brain and brawn. Here, Martin Goodman did copy this trend. My Greatest Adventures yarns were usually told in the first person, a narrative style employed in the earliest issues of Strange Worlds, Tales of Suspense and Tales to Astonish in 1958. Of course, Goodman was familiar with this approach, being the publisher of innumerable “men’s sweat” magazines with their first-person point of view. Once again, we can point to Irwin Donenfeld as the trigger. Batman editor Jack Schiff recalled in later years that Donenfeld ordered him to introduce space aliens and assorted creatures into the pages of Batman, which previously had been a detective/ adventure strip. This took place in 1959, the same year

This emotional response might explain why Kirby later took his concept the Revolutionary-era Tomahawk began confronting of the unpublished Spiderman to Stan Lee in 1961. After having weird giant foes, including towering aliens. A year later, recycled the idea to launch The Fly for Radio Comics, Simon and Kirby were booted off the book in favor of artists who possessed more of Robert Kanigher began his long-running “War that Time a DC “House style.” When Lee was told by inker Steve Ditko that Forgot” series, which ran for eight years in DC’s Star Kirby’s Spiderman used the same core concept as The Fly—that of Spangled War Stories. Although this series concentrated a young boy who rubs a magic ring and becomes an adult superhero—Lee took Kirby off the book, and with Ditko reinvented Spideron US G.I.s fighting dinosaurs on the fictional Dinosaur Man from the ground up. The Jack Kirby Spiderman was intended to Island in the South Pacific, and recurring characters go head-to-head with The Fly in the same way that The Fantastic Four tended to be short-lived within the context of the series’ was designed to grab readers of Challengers of the Unknown. Kirby launched The Fly immediately after leaving DC, only to lose that regucontinuity, Kanigher re-teamed with his “Suicide Squad” lar assignment, too. artists, Ross Andru and Mike Esposito, and for several Works Cited: issues produced a new team of revolving expendable solAccording to Jack Kirby. Michael Hill. Lulu.com, 2021. diers designated as the Suicide Squad. They, too, might “Jack Kirby” Max Borax. Comics Interview #41, 1986. be considered as descendants of the COTU formula. Jack Magic: The Life and Art of Jack Kirby, Volume One. Although superficially an action team, The Secret Greg Theakston. Pure Imagination, 2011. Six, which popped up in 1968, was probably more “Partners for Life: Mike Esposito Remembers Ross Andru.” influenced by the hit TV series Mission: Impossible than Will Murray. Comic Book Marketplace #78, May 2000. Challengers of the Unknown. Since it debuted in the last year of Irwin Donenfeld’s editorial tenure, a late Challengers influence can’t be discounted. I’ve become convinced that we can also group the Metal Men with the other adventure teams, given that strip’s science-fiction flavor and the robotic group’s penchant for battling giant menaces of all sorts. As FUNNY BUSINESS if to prove that the formula was still Jack’s FIRST FUNNY ANIMAL WORK was on “Rover the Rascal” working in 1962, the Showcase issues in PUNCH & JUDY COMICS V2, #9 (1947), followed by “Lockjaw The Alligator” and “Earl the Rich Rabbit.” of Metal Men were such a hit with Straitlaced super-hero FIGHTING AMERICAN quickly turned readers that their one-shot appearsatirical with its second issue (in 1954, no doubt due to MAD’s ance was extended to three, and as runaway success), and S&K even produced a humor story for Charlton’s FROM HERE TO INSANITY #11 in 1955. sales figures came in, DC executives (By 1960, Joe Simon was out of comics, and launching Sick Magazine, were astounded. It was outselling while Kirby would later delve into humor and satire occasionally in Superman! Before rushing the strip Not Brand Echh and Destroyer Duck.) into its own book, a fourth Showcase adventure was scheduled. This is exactly what had happened with the Challengers in their first tryout. Love, Actually I am also convinced of this: Following their teen humor comic MY DATE, If DC had not taken a chance with Simon & Kirby created YOUNG ROMANCE in 1947, Challengers of the Unknown, a huge the FIRST TRUE CONTINUING ROMANCE COMIC number of DC and Marvel books and FIRST CREATOR-OWNED COMIC. It was a huge financial success, and spawned numerous imitators. that followed might in all probability never have existed. And if Kirby had remained with CRIME TIME DC, certainly the Marvel Universe GANG BUSTERS (1942) was the first crime comic, would never have materialized. well before Simon & Kirby tried that genre, but though Instead, Kirby would have gone on they didn’t take the first shot at it, S&K produced some of the best crime stories, starting with “Tomorrow’s to create entirely different original Murder” in TREASURE COMICS #10 (1947). properties for Irwin Donenfeld. Bob Beerbohm sees it the same way, and to him I give the last word: Oh, the Horror! 1

Believe It or Don’t!

a ny M s ’ K ir by n res Ge

“If one takes a guy who was in charge of the entire enchilada 1953– 1968 at face value, Irwin says Jack Kirby’s Challengers made a sea-lane change in his thinking about what might sell well. And Irwin knew Kirby full well from Boy Commandos #1 in 1942 onwards, [and] the creation of the romance genre, producing million-copy sellers. So he trusted Kirby to make winners.” H

S&K’s BLACK MAGIC comic contributed to the CORRUPTION OF AMERICAN YOUTH, according to a 1954 Senate Subcommittee!

WESTERN INFLUENCES

Kirby missed the 1937 debut of Western comics, but the popular TV Westerns in the late 1940s and 1950s led him to produce a 1955 DAVY CROCKETT newspaper strip, following the character’s success on the DISNEYLAND TV SERIES starring Fess Parker. (And Kirby’s work on Bulls-Eye, Rawhide Kid, and Two-Gun Kid brought a super-hero sensibility to wild west adventures.)

Foundations

Here’s still more of Simon & Kirby’s Link Thorne work, this time from Airboy Comics V4, #8 (Sept. 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 another installment of the complete Link Thorne stories next issue.

Pugilistical

Don’t Get Mad, Get Even The impact of Kirby’s feud with DC Comics in the late 1950s and early 1960s, by John Morrow

(right) Cap and Bucky are, as the title stated, back from the dead in Young Men #24 (Dec. 1953), as drawn by John Romita. (below) Mid-1980s drawing of Fighting American and Speedboy, alongside the duo’s debut in Fighting American #1 (May 1954).

“Yeah, I think anger will save your life. I think anger will give you a drive that will save your life and change it in some manner.” Jack Kirby, from The Spirit magazine #39 (1982)

hen Joe Simon and Jack Kirby saw Marvel (née Timely/Atlas) Comics’ Young Men #24 on newsstands in late 1953, they were livid. It resurrected Captain America, their most popular creation (which publisher Martin Goodman had cheated them out of profits on in the 1940s). So what did they do? They channeled their fury into creating their own new patriotic hero in Fighting American #1, which was drawn right after that rebirth of Cap hit the stands. The idea was to make a better version of the patriotic hero, and use it to hit Goodman where it hurt the most: In the marketplace. I guess you could argue that they got their revenge, since Young Men was cancelled with issue #28 (June 1954), and Timely’s relaunch of Captain America only made it three issues (#76–78, May–September 1954). Fighting American outlasted them both (#7, April 1955, was the final issue). But their gambit was inevitably futile, since by that point, all comics sales were heading South. Parents’ groups and the media were beginning to push back on the most lurid titles being produced, and it was spilling over to S&K’s relatively clean-cut work. Even EC’s successful humor comic Mad (no doubt the impetus for Fighting American switching from serious super-heroics to satire after only one issue) eventually had to move from comicto magazine-format to survive. Kirby’s anger and frustration swelled throughout that decade, following the April 19, 1954 release of Fredric Wertham’s book Seduction of the Innocent (and the subsequent April–June 1954 Senate hearings about comics being the cause of juvenile delinquency), the resulting 1956 demise of his and Joe Simon’s Mainline Comics company—and then, after hustling to get enough work to survive that tumultuous time, he lost a legal dispute with DC Comics editor Jack Schiff [above] over the Sky Masters newspaper strip (which led to his blacklisting at DC at the end of 1958). Regular readers of TJKC know many of the details of these events, but imagine going through all of that in a relatively short span of time—it’s safe to say Kirby was on the ropes at the start of 1959. The comics market was in decline and looked down upon, and Jack was forced to return with his tail between his legs to Marvel Comics and Martin Goodman, just to stay solvent. After reading Will Murray’s and Mark Evanier’s observations of that era in this issue, I felt it was time to examine the sparring that went on between Jack and DC in

that frustrating and historically nebulous period between Mainline Comics ending in 1956, and Jack spearheading the early 1960s Marvel Comics revolution which so defines the Silver Age of comic books. First of all, let me state at the outset (in case it wasn’t obvious): What I’m about to present here involves a fair amount of speculation—but is based on a very thoroughly researched timeline, so I think it’s a credible scenario. This is the kind of exploration that couldn’t be conducted without years of others’ accounts, and history slowly revealing itself. Much like how a conversation with Jack in person sometimes wouldn’t make total sense until much later, this historical analysis pulls together bits and pieces that only come from decades of studying Jack and hearing the remembrances of others (and of the credits offered by the experts at the Grand Comics Database [www.comics.org]). As a rule of thumb, I’m working from a timeline of stories being drawn two months prior (and DC plots formulated three months prior) to the actual publication date, not the cover date. It’s not a perfect system, but close enough for this exercise, I feel. So, how did Kirby’s brawl with DC evolve during the early Silver Age of comics? DOES BERNSTEIN BEAR SCRUTINY? We need to start with a documented account: that writer Robert Bernstein [left] did indeed at times take the train into New York City with Jack while they both worked for DC, and pick his brain for ideas. That prompts the question: Where might those Kirby ideas have appeared? One big pitfall of this speculative approach is that, you could probably sum up anyone else’s comic’s plot in one sentence, and imagine Kirby making a spectacular story from it—he could “plus” just about any basic story idea. Conversely, another writer could easily water down a great Kirby idea into something mundane. So we have to dig deeper to find work with his influence on it. Jack seemed to be physically incapable of not creating something all the time. Even when he wasn’t actively working on a paid project, his mind was racing with ideas, and he was finding any avenue to express them he could, as evidenced by his 1950s TV teleplay ideas, newspaper strip proposals, collages, etc. He literally couldn’t contain his creative energy. A telltale sign of Kirby’s involvement in a comics story is that very act of “creation”—inventing something new that wasn’t there previously. So a major supporting character, a new villain, an origin story—these are what I’d look for to determine if Jack might’ve injected some creative juice into another writer’s work. Kirby had landed on his feet at DC after Mainline collapsed, was already working on Challengers of the Unknown when Robert Bernstein came to prominence at DC, and Jack would soon revamp the “Green Arrow” strip in editor Mort Weisinger’s Adventure Comics, starting with issue #250’s “The Green Arrows Of The World” [below, drawn March 1958]. Weisinger [right] had a reputation for his bad temper and being difficult to get along with, so creators would undoubtedly commiserate about having to work for him. Kirby, having dealt with Mort, would be understandably prone to help out a fellow worker who was in the same boat. Bernstein was retained as the existing Blackhawk writer when Quality Comics’ line was absorbed by DC in 1956, and had worked on DC’s war comics before migrating to Weisinger’s Superman family line, starting with Action Comics #234 [plotted around June 1957]. That first job was a tale entitled “The Robot Animals” in the Congo Bill strip [left].

1956–1958

THE PATH TO DC’S DESTRUCTION

Let’s follow Jack’s tracks at DC in the 1950s, and what led up to his dispute with DC editor Jack Schiff, and his eventual return to Marvel Comics: • November 1956: “Challengers of the Unknown” debuts in Showcase #6, based on an unused Simon & Kirby Mainline idea (the story was drawn Sept. 1956, assuming Jack hadn’t already drawn the first story while Mainline was still in business). • April 1957: Kirby draws Thor and Loki as characters in Tales of the Unexpected #16. • Dec. 1957: Kirby draws Challengers of the Unknown #1, based on the success of the Challengers Showcase tryout issues. • January 1958: Talks begin for the Sky Masters of the Space Force newspaper strip. • April 1958: Kirby has Rocky exposed to cosmic rays in space, endowing him with temporary super-powers (including growing to giant-size, as well as manifesting flame powers and invisibility) as he draws Challengers of the Unknown #3 this month. • April 15, 1958: Kirby signs Schiff’s percentage contract for his involvement in negotiating the Sky Masters syndicate deal. • June 8, 1958: Timely/Atlas artist Joe Maneely dies, leaving Stan Lee without his go-to illustrator. Kirby receives his first Marvel assignments for Strange Worlds #1 and World of Fantasy #15 this month, taking up Maneely’s slack. • July 1958: Jack Schiff requests a higher percentage on Sky Masters, to which Kirby balks. • Sept. 1958: Kirby loses his Adventure Comics “Green Arrow” job after drawing #256 this month (because of the close association between editors Schiff and Mort Weisinger). As the tensions over the Sky Masters arrangement mount, Robert Bernstein’s revamp of “Congo Bill” into “Congorilla” would’ve formulated this month. • September 8, 1958: Sky Masters of the Space Force debuts in newspapers. Also in September, Aku-Aku: The Secret of Easter Island by Thor Heyerdahl is released, detailing the discovery of stone statues on Easter Island. • Oct. 1958: Kirby draws the “Negative Man” this month in House of Mystery #84 (edited by Jack Schiff). He also draws his final “Green Arrow” strip for World’s Finest #99 (Schiff was also the Managing Editor of that magazine). • Nov. 1958: Kirby draws “Stone Men” for Schiff’s House of Mystery #85, influenced by Aku-Aku. • Dec. 1958: If Kirby gave Bernstein the plot idea for Superman villain Metallo in Action Comics #252, it would’ve been here. • Dec. 11, 1958: Jack Schiff sues Kirby, and Kirby counter-sues Schiff, effectively ending his career at DC. He draws his last issue of Challengers of the Unknown (#8, with the story “The Prisoners Of Robot Planet”), and then is blacklisted at the company... ...and as Will Murray documented earlier this issue, in his anger, Jack sets out to “destroy DC.”

(below) Did Kirby feed Bernstein the idea for Congo Bill’s transformation into Congorilla (below from Action Comics #248), basing it on the magic ring from Mainline’s unpublished Silver Spider origin by Jack Oleck and C.C. Beck (right)?

Bernstein, being brought on for only this single story of Congo Bill (a stereotypical pith helmet-wearing character who fought crime in the jungle with his boy sidekick Janu), has the hero battle another hunter who challenges him with robot animals he’s created. That plot’s quite a departure from previous Congo Bill stories, adding a scientific element to jungle adventures. While it could simply be an inventive new writer taking over a moribund character, it does have the ring of a Kirby idea—interjecting something foreign into an established premise, and coming up with a novel idea. Speaking of something having a Kirby ring to it: take “The Amazing Congorilla!” from Action Comics #248 [plotted in August 1958]. Apparently the boring “Congo Bill” strip needed another shot in the arm, so Weisinger brought Bernstein back on board a year later. The result was a major revamp, wherein Congo Bill is gifted a magic ring by an African tribesman, and rubbing it causes Bill’s mind to be swapped with that of the tribe’s legendary Golden Gorilla, Congorilla. At this point, Kirby had already brought one unused Mainline concept to DC (Challengers of the Unknown), and he had other leftovers from the S&K breakup. Which previous concept also used a magic ring? The 1953 Silver Spider project by C.C. Beck and Jack Oleck [above], which Jack would put to good use himself later. Could

he have suggested a new take on Silver Spider’s magic ring idea to Bernstein, as a way to revamp Congo Bill? Either way, Bernstein hit on a unique twist to spice up a dull strip—just like Kirby did for “Green Arrow” during this same period. In fairness, Mort Weisinger himself, with his background as a science-fiction editor, could’ve conceivably come up with this revamp idea, and just assigned it to Bernstein. But if so, it seems like he would’ve kept the great ideas flowing. Instead, Bernstein’s ensuing “Congorilla” stories are lackluster tales with nothing remarkable taking place. It’s odd that after such an auspicious relaunch with Congorilla’s origin, there’s literally no other Bernstein episode worth seeking out. Then there’s Bernstein’s first Aquaman story, “The Copy Cat Creature” in Adventure Comics #244 [devised in August 1957]. The plot? A weird prehistoric beast encased in an iceberg is thawed out of suspended animation, and proceeds to wreak havoc for the King of the Seven Seas. Bernstein’s actual execution of this story (Aquaman names the beast “Myron”) is positively silly, but Jack could’ve taken that same one-line plot idea, assuming it was his, and made a remarkable story from it. (Of course, thawing a character out of an iceberg would be something Kirby became known for a few years later.) After one other (uneventful) Aquaman tale in Adventure Comics #249, Bernstein rebounded with “The Ocean of 1,000,000 B.C.” in #253 [below, plotted May 1958]. This is midway through Kirby’s own stint on his revitalized “Green Arrow” strip in the same issue, hitting a high point with the science-fiction infused “Prisoners of Dimension Zero!” [next page]. Similarly, this Bernstein Aquaman story is another departure from the norm, as the lead character enters an undersea time warp and travels back in time hundreds of centuries to battle dinosaurs and sea serpents. It’s full of nonstop action, with a twist last panel that would fit many Kirby sci-fi stories of this era. Again, there’s no conclusive proof Kirby offered this plot to Bernstein,

but one other artifact exists that points in that direction: An unused Jack Oleck script for another Silver Spider story, with the title “The Menace From One Million B.C.” [above]. So if Jack was giving ideas out, this is a credible candidate. Adventure #256’s “The Ordeal of Aquaman” [plotted August 1958] has the hero desperately trying to find water to survive, in a harrowing tale unlike the lighthearted nonsense of previous issues. Likewise, “The Imitation Aquaman” in #257 [plotted September 1958] has a much more serious tone, with an evil twin trying to kill the hero. Something here feels different. But the capper is “How Aquaman Got His Powers!” from Adventure #260 [below, formulated December 1958, just as Jack Schiff filed suit against Kirby over Sky Masters]. Out of the blue, Aquaman gets a proper reworking of his 1940s origin, and Bernstein is credited with the script. Aquaman’s father Tom Curry, a former sailor and lighthouse keeper, discovers Atlanna, an exiled beauty from Atlantis, washed up on shore. They marry and have a child, Arthur, who’s inherited much of Atlanna’s underwater prowess, including the ability to telepathically communicate with sea creatures. The tale ends with Aquaman wistfully surveying his mother’s former home of Atlantis, vowing to one day return to rule it. Kirby had, just four issues prior, finally given a very Robinson Crusoe-esque origin to Green Arrow (the first such story since his debut in 1941) in Adventure #256’s “The Green Arrow’s First Case” [above]. This Aquaman origin story’s plot feels more in that Kirby vein than anything Bernstein did for other strips, except for Congorilla’s origin. “Aquaman Duels the Animal-Master!” [Adventure #261, January 1959 plot] is the first Bernstein issue after Kirby departs DC. The plot has a nice twist: Since Aquaman can control sea creatures, the villain learns to control land animals, and they duke it out with their respective menageries. It’s a clever flip of the basic premise of Aquaman, and that turn

could’ve potentially come from Kirby’s gifted imagination, even as an offhand comment to Bernstein on his morning commute. But there’s no real “creation” going on here, and it would’ve come just after DC ousting Kirby, making it unlikely. Interestingly, Bernstein is suddenly credited with scripting Kirby’s final Green Arrow story “Crimes Under Glass” in World’s Finest Comics #99 [below, drawn in October 1958, just after Sky Masters debuts and Kirby’s dispute with Schiff came to a head], and it’s telling. Unlike Jack’s previous Green Arrow yarns (even just one issue prior), this one’s extremely lightweight, with nice enough art, but a plot (gangsters use giant magnifying glasses to burn through safes, and project giant images of themselves to scare the cops) that is pretty weak. The actual dialogue is sparse, as if this one was cranked out very hurriedly. It’s definitely not Kirby’s or Bernstein’s best work—to be expected in light of Jack’s situation with Schiff at the time, and knowing he was losing the assignment as payback from their dispute—and it’s nothing like Bernstein’s much wordier, non-Kirby “Green Arrow’s New Partner!” in Adventure Comics #260, just three months later. Bernstein is credited with stories in Superman’s Girl Friend, Lois Lane #5 and #7, both with convoluted plots, as were typical for

early Lois stories. But then comes his “Queen for a Day!” in Lois Lane #8 [left, plotted November 1958]— what a departure from the previous Bernstein stories for Lois, and especially from his other story in this same issue! Lois and Superman end up on an island inhabited by Amazons, who mistake Lois for Mars, the God of War when she pulls a centuries-old magic sword (which Superman had accidentally loosened) from a stone. This has all the mythological trappings of a Kirby plot idea to me. In Action Comics #251, we’ve got a very vanilla Bernstein Superman story (Supes drinks a Kryptoniteladen formula and ages overnight), and a flavorless Congorilla tale. But one issue later [Action #252, plotted December 1958, just as the Sky Masters lawsuit was filed], the Man of Steel suddenly gets a brand new Bernstein foe in the form of Metallo [right]. After a tragic auto accident, that protagonist is given a robotic body while maintaining his brain, but needs a Kryptonite heart to power his new life-saving form. This is the story most thought of by many fans to be one that Kirby offered ideas to Bernstein for. Once Kirby is kicked out of DC, it’s hard to find any really pivotal stories in the Green Arrow, Aquaman, Superman, Jimmy Olsen, or Lois Lane strips by Bernstein. Again, it’s open to interpretation different from my own, but Bernstein only seems to occasionally have a plot idea that’s rife with potential, and Weisinger was still there to offer ideas. To me, that’s a clear sign Kirby may’ve been involved on Bernstein’s more memorable work, even if only through a quickly tossed-out germ of an idea, on the way into Manhattan. Of course, what I’ve presented here is just circumstantial evidence. But even if only one of these instances had Kirby’s involvement, it would still have some bearing on Jack’s anger to follow.

and the Shield—looks to hold promise in this dawning age of super-hero resurgence. (The cover [left]— riffing on Superman’s iconic visual of ripping open his shirt to reveal his costume underneath— may not’ve been the wisest way to throw his hat into the ring, though.) It’s interesting that Kirby’s (and Simon’s) credit doesn’t appear anywhere on Private Strong. The top team in comics usually was billed as a selling point in their 1950s work, but not here. Was Archie comics not keen on allowing them creator credit, as the failed Mainline company—and Kirby’s own dismissal from DC—had tarnished their reputation? Or could this have been Joe and Jack keeping their guard up, fearing reprisals from DC if they drew too much attention to Jack’s new work for a competitor? While that’s unclear, a counterpunch would prove, to Kirby at least, that DC was coming after him. Following the March release of Private Strong, DC sends a “Cease And Desist” letter to Archie Comics, allegedly because of his similarity to Superman. Kirby had already finished drawing Private Strong #2, and Archie produced the completed issue before cancelling the series. But was this also a sucker punch by DC, to hit Kirby while he’s down, and deny him work? We can’t know for sure (the character did show superficial similarities to Superman), but Kirby’s blacklisting at the company would give that notion some credibility. Regardless, I think Jack would perceive it as such, and the cancellation obviously affected his ability to earn a living in an already difficult marketplace. In March, Kirby fights back with Adventures of the Fly #1 (which went on sale in May) for Joe Simon at Archie Comics, featuring a

1959: “LET’S GET READY TO RUMBLE!” One thing we know about Kirby is his Lower East Side of New York streetwise upbringing—he learned how to fight, and if someone hit him, he hit back. Another is, he was a devoted family man, who worked tirelessly to put bread on his family’s table—and if anyone got in the way of that, the gloves were off. Also, it’s clear the entire Jack Schiff/Sky Masters lawsuit was something very humiliating and painful for Kirby, about which he never spoke publicly. So while his WWII experiences may’ve matured him beyond punching back with his fists, he wouldn’t hesitate to channel his anger and beat his rivals in the marketplace. It’s also established fact that Kirby had previously taken issue with a former publisher using his ideas, and in a fit of pique, came out swinging with a competing character. Just look at Fighting American’s genesis, as a reaction to Martin Goodman resurrecting Captain America in the 1950s. With that in mind, here’s your ringside seat to the main event: DC vs. Kirby, winner take all. Ding-ding! TM

In January 1959, an irate Kirby’s first jab upon losing his DC income is to contact Joe Simon for work. Joe hooks Kirby up with drawing the first issue of Double Life of Private Strong this month, in what—as a cross between Captain America 44

character using a magic ring like Congorilla at DC (and directly based on the much earlier unused Silver Spider concept). Take that, DC! Also in March, and back at Marvel, Kirby reworks his former DC House of Mystery #85 living stone statues into “The Things on Easter Island!” for Tales to Astonish #5 [top]—though DC wouldn’t get wind of Jack’s onetwo punch till both saw print in May 1959. Jack was a creator, and not one to copy his own work—the obvious reason to rehash what he’d first done for DC, was to get at them for again denying him work. So nyahh! (Jack also drew the next TTA cover, for the Ditko-drawn story “I Saw the Invasion of the Stone Men.”) [See page 22.] DC wouldn’t take it lying down, and Batman #127, with Jack Schiff as editor, was sure to rub salt in Jack’s wounds. (Shown below left with a May 1959 plot, it times out as a response to Jack reusing DC ideas at Marvel). In it, the Dynamic Duo battle a scrawny mortal who becomes Thor when he touches a replica of Thor’s hammer. That hammer had been endowed with strange, cosmic powers after being struck by a meteorite, and it gave the holder great size and strength, and would magnetically return to him when he threw it. It looks to be their attempt at showing Kirby they could use his old ideas at will, with no regard for him whatsoever. That Batman issue would appear in late August, as a warning to Kirby, not to toy with his former employer. To make matters worse, on October 16, after some pre-trial discovery, the Sky Masters trial is held, and the court rules against Kirby on December 3, 1959. On December 21, he’s ordered by the court to pay Schiff a financial settlement. So like any street kid when backed into a blind alley, an even more enraged Kirby comes out swinging for another round with both Schiff and Weisinger. 1960–ON: THE GRUDGE MATCH What follows appears to be Jack and DC, duking it out, going toe-to-toe—especially when viewed from

a fuming Kirby’s corner—as, in hindsight, we know Jack wasn’t allowed back at DC until both Schiff and Weisinger had thrown in the towel and departed the company (and even then, others there still held animosity toward him). First, Tales to Astonish #10 [right, drawn December 1959] featured Kirby’s tale, “I Was Trapped By Titano, The Monster That Time Forgot.” Earlier at DC, Titano the Super-Ape’s debut in Weisinger’s Superman #127 would’ve been plotted in September 1958, just before Kirby was kicked off the Green Arrow strip in Schiff’s World’s Finest Comics. And though Bernstein isn’t credited with this story (Otto Binder is), I’m guessing either Jack was involved, or he just felt like taking a shot at DC’s penchant for using gorillas. To wit: Jack Schiff said in a 1983 interview for The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide that, in those days, the story editor usually came up with the “gimmick,” and one gimmick DC began using regularly was including apes on their covers, as on 1951’s Strange Adventures #8 [left]. Soon, gorillas were on the covers of most DC comics, regardless of genre—war, sci-fi, super-hero; it didn’t matter. Mort Weisinger had 18 ape covers to his credit, and Jack Schiff had 17 over the ensuing years. Ripping off the “Titano” name for Jack’s crab-creature smacks of Kirby sneakily poking the sleeping DC bear. Early on, Gorgilla debuted in Tales to Astonish #12 [above, conceptualized March 1960], and could be an early instance of Jack having some fun at DC’s (and Congorilla’s) expense. The character even had a return engagement in Astonish #18 [drawn November 1960]. Ouch! Then, Kirby’s Stone Men flagarantly reappear in his “Here Comes Thorr the Unbelievable” in Tales to Astonish #16 [right, drawn July 1960 for Marvel, and on sale in October]. This cover is almost visually identical to the one Kirby did for DC’s House of Mystery #85. Right in the kisser! DC’s Superman Annual #2 goes on sale in Fall 1960, reprinting Bernstein’s “The Menace Of Metallo” from Action Comics #252 (and Titano 45

the Super-Ape’s debut from Superman #127)—which, if Kirby had given him the idea for it, would explain why Tales of Suspense #16 [above, drawn November 1960] features “The Thing Called Metallo” by Kirby, when it goes on sale January 1961. K’pow! DC bobs and weaves by having Thor appear in Weisinger’s Jimmy Olsen #55 (left, drawn March 1961, on sale July 1961). Bernstein wrote this story; there’s no way Kirby would have offered this plot idea to him after leaving DC, and I’m guessing Schiff or Weisinger told him to reuse the earlier Kirby idea (Jack’s Thor from DC’s Tales of the Unexpected #16 [left]), rather than him coming up with it on his own. Viewing that Jimmy Olsen issue as DC thumbing their nose at him, two months after that appeared, in September, Kirby dreamed up “I Am The Gorilla-Man” for issue #28 of Tales to Astonish [below], while #30 had “The Return Of The Gorilla-Man,” which would be a double-slap in the face to DC’s “gorilla man” Weisinger and his pet Congorilla—and apeing DC’s love of gorillas on their covers. Sandwiched between those two issues, Kirby uses “Stone Men” for the fourth time [right] in Tales of Suspense #28 [drawn November 1961]. Throughout the early 1960s, the pattern continues, as Kirby keeps pounding on DC ideas, in order to exact revenge. 46

OTHER DC DOPPELGÄNGERS In the midst of these glancing blows, Kirby realized if he was adamant about putting DC on the mat, he had to stop pulling his punches. So he came out swinging in the final round with a series of knockouts, all conceptualized in rapid-fire succession across a period of just a little over two years. His most satisfying remix of a DC project was reworking the successful Challengers of the Unknown formula for Fantastic Four #1 (drawn May 1961). Here he creates a new team of four, with powers reminiscent of Rocky’s in Challengers #3 (including a “rocky” monster), and “Negative Man” from House of Mystery #84 [above]. Throwing in a new version of Plastic Man (a character DC had acquired from Quality Comics when Bernstein came to the company, but hadn’t yet used) was a cagey gut-punch. Since Kirby knew DC controlled Marvel’s distribution, their learning that FF #1 was a hit would’ve been equal to a contender pummeling the heavyweight champ into a standing eight count. Oooh, that had to hurt! If he’d given Bernstein any ideas for Aquaman, this would give a new motivation behind resurrecting SubMariner in Fantastic Four #4 (bubbling up through Jack’s imagination in December 1961), to show DC how to handle a underwater character properly. And the Hulk (conceived in January 1962) was just a rematch featuring one of his already competitive “Atlas Monsters,” and turning it to a

super-hero, looking to duplicate the success he’d scored with The Thing. Polishing up the magic ring concept once again, in March 1962, Jack presents Marvel with his Spiderman (no hyphen) concept, in one more attempt to knock DC out. Congorilla’s series was already cancelled, but having lost the Fly gig at Archie might’ve been reason enough to reuse the basic Silver Spider idea. When Steve Ditko noticed the Fly similarities while inking Jack’s first few pages, the project was handed off to him to re-envision— but Kirby immediately found another avenue to get DC’s dander up. I can just hear Jack yelling, “You wanna reuse my Thor idea? I’ll show you how to reuse Thor!” (Kirby had spent a frustrating 1961 at Gilberton Publications, where World Around Us #29 spotlighted Thor, Heimdall, Odin, and Loki—just in time for Jack to get a feel for what his new employer wanted for his debut in #30.) Soon, a super-hero Thor appears in Journey Into Mystery #83 [above, drawn April 1962], fighting Kirby’s fifth rendition of his Easter Island Stone Men, and re-using elements from Schiff’s Batman #127. The last panel of that origin story has the spelling “Thorr” [left] on the side of his hammer. Was this a subliminal taunt of DC by Kirby (or Stan Lee, working his corner), hinting at the provenance of the character’s evolution from the previous “Thorr” Stone Men tale? Or was Marvel initially afraid of a lawsuit for using “Thor”, and added the extra “r” across the entire story (the way they added a hyphen to Spider-Man prior to publication, to distinguish it from

Superman), but forgot to correct that last instance before publication? The delicious irony of this for Kirby would be that his super-hero Thor was technically another red-and-blue Superman—but as a mythological character, DC couldn’t claim infringement and shut it down (as they had on Private Strong). Instead of flying, Kirby brilliantly chose to have the character soar by throwing his hammer, making him even less of a carbon-copy of the Man of Steel, but just as powerful. Iron Man debuted in Tales of Suspense #39 [below, devised around October 1962]. Artist Don Heck is on record as saying Kirby was involved, and the hodge-podge cover looks to have been assembled using a Kirby concept drawing. The character is, in many ways, an updated version of DC’s Metallo. If Kirby did give the idea to Bernstein, he was again beating them with his creativity, expanding from his own earlier DC ideas. DC would no doubt find it galling for their fired creator to be making a competitive hit out of general ideas he’d first done for them. But how sweet would it be if Kirby knocked Marvel out with his take on ideas they came up with after he left DC? 47

BLATANT MUTANTS Doom Patrol creator Arnold Drake recalls that team’s genesis as an original idea, featuring the new characters Robotman, Negative Man, and Elasti-Girl (who could grow and shrink in size, like Kirby’s Ant-Man and GiantMan), all led by Chief Niles Caulder, and battling the Brotherhood of Evil. But Jack did have precursors in his DC portfolio. He created “Negative Man” in DC’s House of Mystery #84. “The Man Who Couldn’t Stop Growing” starred in House of Secrets #11 [below]. Challengers #8 featured “The Prisoners Of Robot Planet”— and more closely matching Drake’s new Robotman, Marvel’s World of Fantasy #18’s “To Build A Robot” [June 1959] featured a Kirby character [below] who’s a robot that can move and speak like a human. (Negative Man was also a test pilot, and Kirby drew “Test Pilot” in Marvel’s Strange Tales #68, April 1959.) With the possible exception of Negative Man, all of these tropes aren’t particularly original. But Kirby, of course, had put his own spin on them, so would’ve felt a personal investment. Thus, in April 1963, the Doom Patrol debuts in DC’s My Greatest Adventure #80, created by Arnold Drake, with an assist by Bob Haney. In later years, Drake made known his annoyance at the similarities between his creation and the subsequent X-Men, but focused his resentment on Stan Lee, as recounted in his October 2003 interview with Jon B. Cooke. He chided Stan for his “unacknowledged guilt about stealing my Doom Patrol and calling it The X-Men,” and took Lee to task for turning his “Brotherhood of Evil” into X-Men #4’s “Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.” [See page 14.] Interestingly, Drake was writing DC’s Challengers of the Unknown at the time the Doom Patrol first appeared. If Kirby was still following his hit DC title, perhaps he saw copying Drake’s new creation as another way to settle a score at the time. Whether or not DC consciously used Kirby’s prior ideas for the Doom Patrol, Jack may’ve felt they did. So if he saw My Greatest Adventure #80 when it went on sale (or Stan Lee got wind of it through cross-company creators he knew, who were working under pseudonyms at Marvel), just as he was about to draw X-Men #1, it should be no surprise that Professor X sits

in a wheelchair—just like the Doom Patrol’s “Chief” Niles Caulder. Unlike the Fantastic Four, The Avengers undoubtedly evolved as a response to DC’s Justice League of America, whether or not any alleged golf game discussion between Martin Goodman and Jack Liebowitz ever took place. Before bringing back Captain America in Avengers #4, a tentative step was first featuring him as a foil for the Human Torch in Strange Tales #114 [below, drawn June 1963]. Both instances would be sweet payback for DC squashing Private Strong. A WILLING ACCOMPLICE? From multiple stone men (five+ times!) to Thors, gorillas, archers, magic rings, underwater heroes, iron men, and identical character names at different companies, this all seems too much to be coincidence. Did Kirby go for the jugular by consciously reusing bits of his DC work at Marvel? Or was he an unknowing participant in some subterfuge by Marvel publisher Martin Goodman or Stan Lee? Jack, knowing he wasn’t welcome at DC as long as Schiff and Weisinger were there, surely thought he had nothing to lose by taking shots at his former employer. But we can’t dismiss Goodman’s track record of plagiarism. Starting in the 1930s, he’d built his empire on copying whatever comic or character was hot at a given time, and then flooding the market with imitations. Goodman was intimately involved in Marvel’s output, and had ways of finding out some of what DC was doing. He’d be only too happy to have a disgruntled ex-DC creator/genius, who he could egg-on to help him gain market share. Likewise, Lee was the one putting in the final copy, including cover and splash page blurbs. Both men couldn’t have been clueless to the competitiveness in Kirby, and were surely encouraging it, if not directing it outright. The early instances of copycatting strike me as Jack just blowing off steam on his own, and are fairly benign. As things progressed, Kirby pulled back from cheaper shots, and focused on delivering truly original ideas like Fantastic Four to compete against DC, rather than just tick them off. The difference there is, Kirby—as Bernstein may’ve done from those train encounters— added to a basic premise, and made something unique through his creative genius. 48

But the 1964 Doom Patrol mimicry appears to have gone far beyond Jack just making better versions of his DC ideas. This was outright thievery on an editorial LEADING HEROES level, and while Kirby didn’t Simon & Kirby’s CAPTAIN 3-D was the FIRST NEW SUPER-HERO OF have spies at DC to get advance THE 1950s (issue #1 was Steve Ditko’s first time inking Kirby). Ditko’s Captain Atom in Space Adventures #33 was the notice of what they were about first new super-hero of the 1960s, handily beating Kirby’s Dr. Droom in to publish, Goodman and/or Amazing Adventures #1 (1961), the first Marvel Age super-hero. Lee must’ve. So when Jack came up with an original idea about a school for mutants, Professor X’s wheelchair and the “Brotherhood of Evil” paste-over [see page 14] seem more like an editorial edict, not a creative decision by Kirby. As he slowly felt more and more bilked creatively since 1961, two things were becoming apparent to Kirby by 1965: 1) that his new takes on old ideas were making Marvel famous and Goodman BLACK IS richer, and 2) Stan Lee was getting BEAUTIFUL most of the credit, and Jack wasn’t Prior to GABRIEL “Gabe” JONES getting properly compensated for debuting as a major supporting character in SGT. FURY AND HIS HOWLING Marvel’s new-found success that COMMANDOS #1 (1963), he’d fostered. By the time of the there were plenty of black characters New York Herald Tribune debacle, in comics, though most embodied the worst racial stereotypes of their era... a slow, creeping feeling of being taken advantage of appears to have exploded, as Jack demanded better credit, and refused to create more big sellers for Marvel. Lee, having already lost Ditko, began bending over backward to mention Kirby in interviews, but it was too little, too late. From that point, Kirby turned his (Consider Whitewash Jones from Young Allies, and Ebony White from the anger away from DC and toward Spirit—although Ebony in particular was allowed to shine, exhibiting noble Goodman and Lee, eventually and heroic traits despite his roots. Even Fawcett’s Captain Marvel had Steamboat as a politically incorrect helper, and Timely’s speedster returning to DC after Schiff and The Whizzer brought in Slow-Motion Jones in USA Comics #6. Weisinger retired. This culminatKirby managed to avoid using such characters throughout his career.) ed in his 1971 creation of Funky ...but Kirby’s BLACK PANTHER debuting in Flashman—a Stan Lee/Goodman FANTASTIC FOUR #52 (1966) was a touchstone in parody egged on by Carmine comics history, as the FIRST BLACK SUPER-HERO. Infantino which, just like his early Marvel shots at DC, burned bridges with a past employer to get a little satisfaction. History has shown us that, whoever directed the doppelgänging, it was successful. As the Silver Age wore on, what appeared to fans as good-natured ribbing of Marvel by DC (such as in 1966, when DC took pot-shots at the Hulk in (left) These two 1966 Showcase #63’s “Inferior Five” story, and The Brave & The Bold #68), had an undercurrent of cutthroat competition as DC issues took aim at the then-current Marvel was gaining popularity in the 1960s at DC’s expense. Hulk series appearing Kirby was influential in those gains, by building off what he’d as half of Tales to begun at DC previously. Astonish, for which If my précis of his intentionally reusing DC ideas is accuKirby was doing plotting, layouts, rate, some might view this as Jack hitting below the belt. I see it and new character as an angry, dishonored man, channeling his fury into regaining designs. Hulk was also some self-respect after being wrongly treated by his former about to appear in employer—and yes, exacting vengeance to support his family. the September 1966 Whatever the case, there’s no doubt that Kirby, fueled with the Grantray-Lawrence Marvel Super Heroes desire to bury DC, poured all his efforts into that goal the best syndicated TV show. way he could: creating new and better comics at Marvel. And that led to Marvel becoming the new heavyweight champion in what we now call the Silver Age of Comics. H

Believe It or Don’t!

Gallery

1st Issue Specials

Commentary on pencil art for some of Kirby’s “first” issues, by Shane Foley

[right] The Demon #1 (Sept. 1972), page 11 A spectacularly plotted and visualized first issue for the Demon saw this stunning design for Morgaine LeFay for this one issue only. As of #2, the design is simplified. Glorious pencil work here. The detail in panel 1 of this page is stunning, yet clarity is never sacrificed, and the reader sees all the characters easily. Notice how the placement of the figures gently forces the eye in an arc from Morgaine around to the serfs below, and then the arc continues directly to the focus of the next panel. [next page] Kamandi #1 (Nov. 1972), page 10 What can we add? Beautiful, complete pencils, with spot-on storytelling and direction. Who would have thought Kirby could produce such stellar work as this, both here and on the Demon, in the midst of the traumatic termination of his Fourth World? Notice how Kirby is so adept at drawing vehicles that look authentic and appear to sit so solidly on the ground.

Twice-told Kirby covers, with commentary by Shane Foley

[previous page] Our Fighting Forces #151 (Nov. 1974), page 12 Another excellent example of Kirby’s straightforward yet evocative storytelling. Even if the top panel is accidentally read as two panels, the meaning is clear. When leaving panel two, there is a subliminal line between the two heads and along the pointing hand directly to the extended arm in the next panel, leading to the most important element there: the hands shaking. Then as the eye exits that panel across and downward to panel 4, it travels down that panel’s black shadow and along it to the two main heads that are speaking. If the reader doesn’t notice the third head at the front, it matters not at all. Then, when the eye travels out of that panel, it is directed by the eye lines and helped by Captain Storm’s hat, directly to panel 5’s Emma Klein and the men to the right where that panel’s action is happening. Superb directing by Kirby! [left] First Issue Special (Atlas) #1 (April 1975), page 9 Another lesson on effective, powerful storytelling, where Kirby leaves the reader in no doubt as to the emotion and depth of memory that Atlas is suddenly feeling. The black shadows on the extreme close-up in panel three help ‘darken’ the mood, as the childhood memory suddenly bursts onto the page. ‘KirbyKrackle’ is used to full effect in the final, crowded and action filled panel.

[left] Justice Inc. #2 (Aug. 1975), page 18 The dream is over at DC and Jack is drawing a comic simply to fulfill his quota. Despite this, again we see how devoted he was to solid storytelling and producing thoroughly complete pencils. It seems he was working from a Denny O’Neil full script, since he’s lettered the words in place. Textbook perfect direction for the villain’s demise as the camera moves from a close-up, to a medium shot, then a long shot followed by a bird’s eye view—all to clearly define the action and to maintain the interest of the reader. [right] Captain America #193 (Jan. 1976), page 14 Jack gets down to business as America’s Bicentennial approached—with Henry Kissinger front and center. Kirby was surprisingly good as likenesses, caricatured or otherwise. This page is a great example of Kirby’s completeness of his pencil work—with every black tightly filled in and every motion line clear. The published page was superbly inked by Frank Giacoia. [following 3 pages] 2001: A Space Odyssey #1 (Dec. 1976), page 1 As we all wondered “What can Kirby do with the premise of this strip?”, his first issue opens with a strong sense of turmoil and danger to come. Not only is the pre-human obviously a powerful hunter with his club ready for violence, but even the tree he clambers on is twisted and churning. And above is the Monolith—never drawn by Kirby with the smooth shiny surface as it appeared in the movie, but rough-hewn and with pulsating light flashes, symbolizing the strange interference that it is about to bring. Comparing this scan of pencils to the published page, we note much of the text is changed. Did Kirby edit himself? The new text still sounds Kirby-like. And that credit box lower left was not needed—so is that a Royer drawn beastie down there? He aped Kirby well if it is. that Kirby was drawing this issue as Jungle Action issue #25.

Black Panther #1 (Jan. 1977), page 14 Stamping his own mark on Black Panther, Kirby’s design for Princess Zanda was the second dynamic new uniform that appeared in his inaugural issue (after the armored Samurai in the opening sequence), giving proof positive that the creative wellspring in him was still boiling. It’s incredible how Kirby used the same motifs over and over for his costume designs, with circles, rectangles and wavy lines used more and more toward the end of the ’70s and beyond, yet still he usually managed to create a design that seemed unique. I wonder if Zanda was designed directly on this page, or whether there is a design drawing somewhere? I would guess the first. A stunning design! Note

Devil Dinosaur #1 (April 1978), page 10 Here, Jack is getting stuck into Devil’s origin story. From this first issue, he proves that he can draw all manner of dinosaur-ish creatures in action—twisting, kicking, falling, and cavorting convincingly. Probably their true anatomy would make much of what he draws impossible, but ‘true anatomy’, of course, has never been one of Kirby’s concerns. It’s storytelling that counts—and here, his genius for it comes through powerfully. Look at the action in Devil in the first three panels! So well realized. H

JACK KIRBY INTENTION t occurred to me at some point that one of the things that made Kirby’s artwork and storytelling so effective was the clear intention of the figures in the panel. Kirby always made sure that his images told the story with powerful visual cues, so it could be read and interpreted even before the addition of dialogue. 1 For instance, if one looks at this page from Rawhide Kid #19 [1960] below, you instantly know from his positioning, that the Kid is in danger and prepar-

ing to defend himself. His posture is tense, but he is centered and balanced. He is a trained gunman and although his back is to his opponent, he is trying to find a way to reposition himself to his advantage. His legs are flexed and set in a wide stance that he can quickly move out of. His hands hang loosely near his guns and his head is cocked slightly over his right shoulder to see his would-be attacker. In contrast, that attacker’s body language indicates that he is a braggart and a bully, shrill and probably a coward. He is off balance and possibly drunk. 1 His arms are lifted as if he is puffing himself up with bluster so that his adrenaline will overcome his fear. Although he seems a threat, you instinctively believe that he could easily lose his nerve. The angle of the Kid’s hat brings the viewer’s eye to the dancers in the upper right quadrant. They all shrink back with the sudden fear of potential violence. On stage, they occupy a realm of their own, but they are not immune. In front of them, two figures move away from the action. The larger figure in the green vest is ready to take off, his head and arms leading his bent legs. If we consider the concept of composition, we can actually suggest that the room itself has intent. The receding hallway behind the Kid is the space/time from which the threat emerges. The Kid is constrained by the boundaries of the room. The space in which the action takes place is an enclosed board upon which the game is played, and the actors within are defined by their place in the composition. We clearly see that the Kid is hemmed in. The edge of a table in front and to his right limits his movement. The curtains hanging at above right crowd him. The edge of the bar and the fallen chair are also barriers. The headline at the top tells us that the Kid must fight or crawl, but we can see that by the images. We are thus pulled into the scene and are anxious to see how it resolves. When considering intent, a figure’s stance is of primary importance, as is its size and positioning within the composition. We need only look at this image of Odin from Journey Into Mystery #123 [1965, next page] to see that he is a figure of supreme authority by his framing in relation to the canvas. Odin is pretty much at dead center of the frame, and we are looking up at his imposing three-quarter front pose. He stares at some distant point in space that only he can see. His stance exudes confidence and 2

4 Here, in the first issue of the Fantastic Four [1961] we see the group born in a dramatic sequence that perfectly illustrates the intentional dynamics between the various members. The last to realize his powers is the dynamic young Johnny Storm, who in three panels goes from terror to exultation as he bursts into flame and then discovers he is able to fly. The fourth panel shows the foursome framed by the blaze that the Torch had started. It is a figurative Baptism of Fire. Then in the central panel, the authoritative Reed Richards announces his intention that the group use its powers wisely to the betterment of mankind. In the final tier, we see only the hands of three members meet. Finally, in the next panel, we see the hand of the recalcitrant Ben Grimm join the other three to cement the bond between them. 5 Jack Kirby has often mentioned the great degree to which he identifies with the Thing. His enormous talent has always been an outlet for a tremendous life force and a degree of seething rage under the surface. Kirby’s life has also always been about the integrity of his allegiance to nation and family. You can feel his palpable belief in the importance of justice in a largely corrupt world. His colossal work ethic and boundless imagination have always seen him through the tribulations of life. He has also often mentioned how his superiors in the industry sometimes treated him as a second-class citizen. There are many instances in the King’s body of work when it is obvious that he is drawing a sequence that allows him to vent his frustrations with his lot on life. This page in Fantastic Four #40 [1965] is a superlative example of one. The FF’s Omega foe, Dr. Doom, is the epitome of smug high handedness. A

control. He is relaxed yet alert. Even without considering his elevated position, his suit of golden armor and horned helmet set him apart from his minions below. His decidedly forward gaze and intent are emphasized by the weight and the thrust of the soldier’s arm underneath the rock that Odin stands on. 3 Consider the same sort of awareness when any figure or group are placed within a panel as we study this page from Black Magic #1 [1950]. Here we see a character that is obviously a very unpleasant figure and who appears to be headed for a bad ending. In the first panel, the first object we see is his claw-like hand grasping toward the green clad man, with obvious intent to control. In the second panel, we see the baleful face of Matthew Crane, a man whose only desire is to outsmart death. His eyes are wide with the madness of his obsession, and his shadow looming behind him has taken on Jungian proportions. He will stop at nothing to achieve his goal. Every gesture he makes shows that in his desire to save his soul, he has already lost it. In panel five, when Berger, the man in green, attempts to bring him to his senses, Crane fells him with a savage blow. In the final panel, Crane, like a predatory bird, hovers over the dying girl, while his outstretched right arm holds the nurse at bay. Kirby consistently uses the angle, stance and position of the body, the gesture of arms, and particularly hands to indicate the intention of his characters.

3 60

(below) Examine the figure intention in these Kirby storyboards for 1978’s The New Fantastic Four animated series. Even if you cover up Jack’s simple handwritten notes, it’s undeniable what’s going on in each panel.

vain, pompous, strutting monarch, he sees Ben Grimm as beneath contempt. He fires blast after lethal blast at the oncoming Thing but to no avail. Doom’s foe has become the embodiment of the relentless will to endure past all calamity. In the third panel, after sustaining several massive hits, Ben is engulfed in an aura of raw, destructive energy, but a moment later he has broken through and has seized his enemy. This segment is about as clear an example of the Thing’s intent and indomitable will as one could hope to see, as well as an expression of Kirby’s will to endure hardship after hardship in order to retain his integrity as an artist and a man. H 61

Some Heavy...

...face lifting!

Incidental Iconography

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

or this installment, I’ll be looking at the first appearance of a character in the first issue of a title called First Issue Special: Atlas. Despite all the firsts going on here, though, Atlas has a long history in comics. So while I normally focus on just what Jack was doing visually with his characters, I think this particular character and his namesakes warrant a bit of backstory. The original Atlas comes from Greek mythology. He was a Titan who, in retribution/punishment

for his part in the war against the Olympians, was forced by Zeus to hold up the celestial spheres (i.e. the sky) on his shoulders. Centuries later, in 1595, Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator had his book Atlas, Sive Cosmographicae Meditationes De Fabrica Mundi posthumously published; it was a collection of maps not unlike the atlases we know of today. However, it was not named after the Greek Titan, but actually King Atlas of Mauretania, who allegedly made the first celestial globe. This is how the word “atlas” came to be used for collections of maps like this, and many included images of King Atlas on the cover or title page. A century later, however, Dutch merchants had begun using the original Atlas as a sort of patron saint—the Royal Palace in Amsterdam has a statue of him at the roof ’s apex to this day. It was regional map makers here that began including the Greek Atlas in their collections of maps, and a direct association began forming. It was easy, too, to replace the celestial spheres with the Earth to, intentionally or not, confuse the symbolism. This is where Martin Goodman first picked up the name. He began using the name Atlas News Company for his periodical distribution company in 1951 because he wanted to imply that he had a worldwide reach, borrowing the Greek’s celestial-spheres-turned-globe as a logo. While Goodman was forced to shut down Atlas News as a distributor in 1956, the globe logo remained on his comics until he was further forced to use DC’s Independent News beginning in 1957. Meanwhile, comics repeatedly mined classical mythology for their story ideas and Atlas was given the spotlight almost as soon as super-heroes began gaining popularity. He is, of course, directly referenced in Captain Marvel’s origin in Whiz Comics #2 (and indeed, every appearance of the character where the acronym “Shazam” is explained) and Superman begins sharing covers with him as early as Superman #28 circa 1944. (And it’s worth noting that Atlas here, and in most of this era’s comics depictions of him, is carrying the Earth, not the celestial spheres.) Jack himself even drew the legendary Titan into two panels of Journey Into Mystery #124 [next page, top], specifically calling him out by name in his margin notes. With plenty of interpretations of the character both in and out of comics, where does Jack’s First Issue Special version come from visually, and why am I writing about 62

the character’s evolution if he only lasted the one issue? Many of the classical depictions of Atlas would have been useless as inspiration for Jack since the character was frequently depicted in the nude. Even on the occasions where he is covered, it was then little more than some drapery that was pretty obviously included solely to keep his depiction G-rated, and not really even an article of clothing per se. This largely holds true for many of his comic book appearances as well; the cover to Captain Marvel Adventures #6 is a prime example of this. Within the context of simply holding aloft the Heavens and/ or Earth, the character naturally would have no need of protection; he existed almost outside of any physical plane so he didn’t even really have to worry about shielding himself from the elements. A naked hero running around in a DC comic in 1974 certainly wasn’t feasible, though, but Jack seemed to do what he could to give him a heroic outfit while still keeping most of his skin visible. In his initial presentation sketch for the character (dated May 7, 1974), Jack draws Atlas in a loincloth, fur-lined boots, fingerless gloves, and a cowl draped loosely over some kind of helmet. His arms, legs, and chest are left bare. When readers themselves first see Atlas on the cover of First Issue Special, the only real change is the addition of a wide belt. While the loincloth has also been replaced with more of a skirt, this distinction isn’t really discernible on the cover. What is interesting with Atlas’ visual development, though, is that Jack makes some costume changes throughout the issue’s flashbacks that are clearly very deliberate, accentuating Atlas’ own growth. When Jack shows him as a child, Atlas is only wearing a skirt and plain boots. As he grows to adulthood, Jack adds the fur lining to the boots, and gives him a pouch hanging near his waist. As the character further ages and begins taking part in tournaments, he’s expressly shown winning trophies and gifts like “the golden Helmet of Champions” which are added to his ensemble. By the time the flashback circles back to the present, we see Atlas in his “final” form.

This is the first time I’ve seen Jack consciously use a character’s costume evolution as a storytelling element. Jack is deliberately making costume additions so that readers could easily follow the character’s continuity—you could tell which and how many adventures he’d had at any point judging by what he was wearing. Aside from the noted helmet reference, though, Jack doesn’t comment on this in the captions or dialogue; the changes just happen and the reader is expected to follow along. Had Jack continued the story, it would have been fascinating to see if that were able to continue, with the character picking up more trophies like a chestplate or bracers. If DC had continued it as its own series, what would Atlas have looked like by 1980? As it is, though, there are only a few more known drawings Jack did of Atlas. Two appear to be a cover and opening splash for the next Atlas story, if there had been one, and the third is a sketchbook drawing for wife Roz. Jack includes an “A” on Atlas’ belt in the sketch, but they otherwise all show the same “classic” costume and can be seen in Kirby Collector #57. So while Jack didn’t have much time with the character, he created Atlas in such a way that an evolving visual was almost a design feature, making him possibly the least incidental looking character Jack ever created! H 63

Retrospective (next page, top left) Michael Griffith (aka Jack Kirby) does a bang-up early job in Science Comics #4 (May 1940). (next page, top right) A beautiful Mort Meskin penciled splash page for the never-published Captain 3-D #2 (circa 1954). (next page, bottom) A remarkable Kirby illo for Martin Goodman’s pulp magazine Marvel Stories Volume 2, #2 (Nov. 1940).

’ve been New Kirby stories appeared virtually a fan of every week. It was astounding. Jack Kirby Back then, he was simply J. for almost 60 Kirby, for that was all the signature years, ever since Stan Lee allowed him. Soon, Kirby I started reading comic books had a first name and he started at the tail end of 1961. My timtransitioning from monsters and ing was pretty good. I came in aliens to super-heroes. I brought just as the great Kirby Explosion Fantastic Four #4, then Incredible of Cosmic Creativity was about Hulk #1. Soon there was Thor and to commence. It was, let’s face an emerging legion of powerhouse it, the Big Bang of Comics for my protagonists. generation. I read other publishers, of While I don’t clearly recall course: DC. Charlton. Radio my first introduction to Jack Comics. But I never suspected that Kirby’s work other than it had DC’s Challengers of the Unknown to have been on one of Marvel’s had been created by Kirby, who many monster titles, I was able had abandoned it to other hands. to recreate it from memory and Nor did I recognize that emblemon-sale dates. It was “KRAGOOM! atic image of the Fly that decoThe Creature Who Caught an rated his cover logo was a Kirby Astronaut!” in Journey into drawing. Mystery #78, March 1962. Twenty years in the This was a creepy comics business, Jack little 7-pager inked by Kirby had saturated the Steve Ditko, Stan Lee’s field. He was about to favorite Kirby reclaim and re-energize it. inker, and The super-heroes one of mine. came tumbling out. Kirby “Kragoom” was was such a dominant one of the last of figure that even though the “Big Monster” tales he didn’t originate Iron Man, Kirby did. Lee was everyone assumed he did. phasing them In a way, they were corout in favor of rect. Kirby designed the shorter, spookoriginal clunky armor. ier stories. His cover for Daredevil A second #1 smacked of being Kirby tale, a concept sketch, but “The Sorcerer,” how much of the character backed up the design was Kirby and how first. My other favorite Kirby much Bill Everett will probably never be inker, Dick Ayers, embelknown. lished that one. It was a Even Spider-Man, the most un-Kirby by Will Murray perfect example of the type of fantasy tale hero in the growing Marvel firmament, Kirby had specialized turned out to have Kirby roots in a thing called the in since the days he Silver Spider via The Fly. produced Black Magic But the true wonder was not simply the new with Joe Simon (and super-heroes. Kirby had created a young army of them in fact, “Black Magic” in the two decades before the 1960s—although hardly is referenced on the any possessed true super-powers. It was in the expandcover). ing universe which these new Marvel heroes explored. Soon, I discovNot just on Earth and near-space, but in Atlantis and ered the companion Asgard and across other dimensions. Not content titles––Strange Tales, with fighting crime and super-criminals through his Tales to Astonish and super-heroes, Kirby pushed the frontiers of comic book Tales of Suspense. Kirby melodrama out beyond its farthest extensions. led off every issue with Comic books would never be the same again. They haunting tales like “The couldn’t, any more than a supernova could revert to Two-Headed Thing,” being just an ordinary sun. “The Martian Who Stole a City,” and “The I read it all and loved them all. To this day, I still Midnight Monster,” think the best era to grow up reading comic books was which led directly to in the 1960s. Jack Kirby was not the only genius at work The Incredible Hulk. in that incandescent decade, but he was the greatest

COSMIC Kirby & the

GOD Concept

genius. To this day, no other comic book talent created or co-created so many enduring heroes. Over time, my interest in Kirby the artist shifted to Kirby the man. His creativity intrigued me. Who was this guy who executed pages and pages of art at supernormal speeds? What made this creative dynamo tick? From whence sprang his unique genius? I don’t know if the answer will ever be known. Jack Kirby was a cigar-smoking human volcano of inspiration—a prolific absorber and regurgitator of ideas. Give him a weak concept—say, Ant-Man—and Kirby would make it seem inspired, if not brilliant. “An idea can come from anywhere,” he once declared. “The process of creation has no standards. You either think it out by yourself or talk it out with someone else or with a group... but eventually you come up with something. Ideas are everywhere.”

Although I met Jack Kirby a few times and interviewed him twice, I never got to know the man. But others who did know him described a fascinating figure. Artist Chuck Guidera first encountered him in 1940, when he applied to Fox Comics for work and met the newly-minted team of Jack Kirby and partner Joe Simon, who was art-directing at Fox. “Joe Simon hired me right on the spot and he said, ‘You’re going to be my assistant.’ The guy that was sitting in back of him was Jack Kirby. He was doing ‘Cosmic Carson.’ I still remember that. He used to talk to himself quite a bit. Nice guy. Real nice guy. Of course, Jack Kirby and Joe were getting ready to do Captain America.” DC editor Jack Schiff, who worked with the duo in the ’40s and ’50s, told me the following: “I would say that Jack was more creative, but wilder. Joe was the guy who would pull it together. We once had a sort of race in the front office. We had a big artist’s room. Jack and Mort Meskin were sitting next to each other and there was some copy we needed pretty quickly from both of them. Each of them turned out five pages of pencils. Beautifully. It was really something. After a while, people began to crowd around watching. And they would both go ahead undisturbed. Meskin was a more careful artist than Kirby, and that’s where Joe Simon came in, in a sense taming or correcting some of Jack’s stuff.” Gil Kane, who broke in with the Simon & Kirby studio: “I remember Mort Meskin saying that he just 65

hated Jack working up there because Jack would sit down, working on those 13" x 18" page sizes and he would simply draw five to seven pages a day––once I saw him do 10 pages in a day––just incredibly beautiful. I mean, he demoralized everybody he worked next to.” Kirby appeared to do it effortlessly. Meskin himself observed, “Jack never gave you the impression he was a fast artist. I’ve watched him pencil on a number of occasions, and I never got the impression of animated movement. Jack’s secret was he could concentrate very hard and drew at a steady rate. He started at one end of the story and work straight through, never going back… he could concentrate like nobody I ever knew. People were always running around, screaming, and there was Jack, drawing, smoking a cigar and never looking up.” Five pages a day was and still is considered the maximum number of comic book pages a professional artist can turn out without his work suffering. It’s believed to be the maximum limit of sus-

tained human capacity. Few can do it. Reportedly Kirby did it on a routine basis. For that reason, the five-page limit is called the “Kirby Barrier.” His approach seemed to be more trance than technique, according to Jerry Robinson. “I was doing pencil and ink on two pages a day, Jack did at least five or six pages a day, pencils only. He was after the movement, action, and energy. Keep it flowing. I tried to learn what he was doing, how he was doing it, why he was doing it. His pages were alive, they moved, he captured action, emotion. And of course, DC had a bunch of autocratic editors who didn’t.” Larry Lieber, who with Stan Lee and Joe Simon racked up the greatest number of Kirby collaborations during the days when he scripted Jack’s pre-hero Marvel monsters, recalled that Kirby drew so rapidly that Lieber was always in a rush to produce new scripts to feed the relentless artistic machine that was Jack Kirby. Lieber recounted, “When I was starting to draw—this is before the Rawhide Kid—Stan said, ‘Jack, maybe you could help Larry to draw. Show him something or other.’ And he sat down and he took a page that I had drawn, and he went over it to show me what he would have done it. I said, ‘How do you draw?’ And he showed me how LATTER-DAY GO DS to construct in a very simple way. Galactus debuted in FANTASTIC FOUR #48 He took a blank page and he made (1966), with a large “G” on his chest (for “Galactus”, or “God”?). a sketch. He set the figure and he This was Kirby’s first use of “Cosmic” concep did this and he did that. He was ts, which would spill over into the THOR comic for a doing it for me. I noticed he paid long run beginning with THOR #131 (1966 ). no attention to the anatomy of the figure at all. I said, ‘Jack, what about -B O O K R anatomy?’ He said to me, ‘Larry, U O F A ? ! if I had to worry about anatomy, Y Y G OG LO RIIL I couldn’t get my pages out.’ The T TR The 1970 FOURTH WORLD series (New page that I drew was a guy in a coat Gods, Forever People, Mister Miracle, and Jimmy Olsen) walking someplace. And what he was the first comics epic to run through a series of drew for me wasn’t anything. It was different comics titles, telling one story. just like bending a figure. Like an JIMMY OLSEN #135 (Jan. 1971) features the first mention of Darkseid’s evil planet “Apoko anatomy lesson, except there was no lips” in print—but it’s in the DIRECT CURRENTS anatomy!” text page, not the actual comics story! Kirby friend Richard Kyle, who The cover of JIMMY OLSEN #139 (July 1971, below) has the first use of commissioned “Street Code” for the term “Fourth World.” Argosy, told me that many people Though Kirby initially wasn’t able described Jack’s working method in to complete his Fourth World saga at DC Comics the identical way: “Jack would just (the series was cancelled in 1972), he later brought thinly-disguised versions of stare and stare at a blank sheet of the characters and their offspring into his 1981-1 983 paper as if projecting a mental image CAPTAIN VICTORY series for Pacific Comics , onto the paper. And then he would to continue the story. This led to him being allowed to create an draw what he saw.” official conclusion (of sorts) at DC in his 1985 Inker Mike Thibodeaux: “...the “Hunger Dogs” Graphic Novel. layouts he did were so rough, you CAPTAIN VICTORY was the FIRST DIREC T could hardly see the figures. And then MARKET COMIC BOOK. he’d start up in the lefthand corner. I remember... it was like the image was already there and he was tracing it. It’s quite amazing.” Stan Lee described it this way: “Most artists would draw a circle for the head and a circle for the body and then start filling it in. But Jack would just start with the head and he would draw it and every line was there right from the start. He didn’t make little rough drawings first... it was the most eerie feeling watching him draw—you felt he was tracing what was already in

Believe It or Don’t!

DC Comics had Kirby create SPOT ILLUSTRATIONS for many of the major characters he created for the company (particularly his Fourth World creations) to appear in their 26-volume encyclopedic comic WHO’S WHO (1985 -1987). (Jack was so prolific at DC over that years, that he had multiple characters represented in all but the first [“A”] and last [“XYZ”] alphabetical volumes!)

his head.” Sometimes, Kirby would start in the corner of the page, beginning with a foot and extrapolate from there, in flagrant violation of all the rules of composition. “When Jack had what he wanted in mind, he just drew it,” said Mark Evanier. “It was eerie.” “Mike [Thibodeaux] is wrong,” corrected Joe Simon. “The other guys are right. Jack did not sketch out lines or circles. He just put down the drawings where he wanted them. I have worked with Jack for over 25 years and never saw him roughing out a figure before he drew it. He didn’t outline figures, he just drew them. There was something very mysterious about the way he drew.” According to his son Neal, once Kirby started using the Marvel Method, he abandoned his rigid practice of drawing stories from beginning to end. “Starting with a clean piece of Bristol board,” Neal wrote, “he would first draw his panel lines with a T-square. Then the page would start to come alive. He told me that after he framed a story in his mind, he would start drawing at the middle, then go back to the beginning, and then finish up. Everything seemed to come naturally. He worked fast but smoothly.” Another who observed Kirby at work spoke of the artist at his drawing board going into what he called “an almost hypnotic fugue state of concentration.” Greg Theakston elaborated, “I would frequently watch as Kirby would pass through the genius-mirror. A still, distant look would come over him and you knew he was using his lifetime pass to Kirbyland, and he was on a ride, right then. It was kind of a fugue state that is often mistaken for senility, A.D.D., or genius.” Kirby’s peers were in awe of him. Some who watched him work whispered that he would draw his intricate pages while simultaneously holding extended conversations on wide-ranging topics. Whenever Jack looked away from the page, his intuitive drawing hand

automatically continued sketching, unmonitored, seemingly unguided by his brain. Larry Lieber thinks he understands how Jack Kirby worked. “First, he did see it in his mind a lot. And the more you see it in your mind, the easier it is, I think. The style in which he drew, it was easy to do it with that. There was something very simple about his drawing. It wasn’t very illustrative, like John Buscema. And he didn’t vary his emotions that much, for instance. Or his expressions on the faces. He had been doing it for so many years, and he just trained himself to do it. And he did it in a simple way. “I thought he was wonderful as a comic artist,” Lieber continued. “The best. But one of the things I envied was that he had a style that almost no inker could ruin. It was almost inker-proof. Not quite. Why? Because his work was so simple, in a way. There was nothing subtle in his drawing for an inker to go off. It was almost like doing an animated cartoon. Except he put millions of figures in and he turned and twisted them. But once he put his basic drawing down, you couldn’t ruin it unless you just didn’t want to follow the line. Yet the beauty was in the power of it.” Stan Lee told me much the same thing: “Nobody could 67

(above) Larry Lieber scripted, and Dick Ayers inked, the Jan. 1962 debut of future Ant-Man Henry Pym in Tales to Astonish #27. (left) Jacob Kurtzberg’s pseudonym “Jack Kirby” didn’t appear in print until Red Raven #1 (Aug. 1940) on this “Comet Pierce” strip. He legally changed his name in June 1942.

Kirby gave Ken Viola a more insightful answer. “I feel the story first. I know those people first, and I put them down as I’d like them to live on those pages. My stories are very sincere. My stories are people stories and there are elements that are very, very real.” It seems too simplistic an explanation, but Kirby also told Dorf, “I don’t know where it should go, but I feel that the medium leads the artist. I sometimes draw a line and I try to find out where the line goes. I don’t feel that you control the line; I feel that the line controls you. And you should follow the line, and probably come up with a very interesting form.” This sounds as if his subconscious was involved to the point of a phenomenon akin to automatic writing. And his approach to drawing a book-length story was eccentric, bordering on the bizarre. When working Marvel-style, Kirby would sometimes start in the middle, or even the end of the story, drawing his key scenes, and then go back to fill in the rest. This often led to compressed sequences in which Stan Lee, and later Kirby himself on his own, would be forced to cram in scripted exposition. Yet for the most part, it worked.

(above) Avengers #5 (May 1964) original art—with a great scene of normal humans interacting with a mythological (and soon to be cosmic) Thor. (next page) Thundarr the Barbarian concept drawing, inked by Alfredo Alcala (circa 1980).

hurt Jack’s stuff. The strange thing about it, I cared much more about who inked Kirby than Kirby did. We used to discuss in the office the fact that Kirby never seemed to care who inked him. This is a guess on my part because I never asked him, but I think Kirby felt his style was so strong that it just didn’t matter who inked him, that his own style would come through the way he wanted.” Shel Dorf once asked Kirby, “So when you draw, can you already see the image in your head?” “Yes,” Kirby replied. “I know what has to go where, and when it has begun, and when it is completed, and I won’t do any more than that. And if you look at my pictures there’s nothing else you can do to them.” 68

A COSMIC FEELING Still the questions linger. How did Kirby do it? At what point did he shift from being merely a prolific comic book artist to “Cosmic” Kirby, Imagineer of Universes? Searching through the many interviews he gave, some clues can be gleamed. “I did a strip called ‘Hurricane,’ which was a forerunner of the Thor mythology,” Kirby told Peter Hansen in 1976. “And ‘Hurricane’ became ‘Mercury’, and ‘Mercury’ became something else. I began to combine mythology with present-day action. And, bit by bit, the format for a lot of the stuff I do today was born at that time. And I can tell you I had a healthy interest in mythology…. A lot of the elements of my work today were present in the strips then.” Kirby also cited another Golden Age character. “I did a thing called ‘The Vision,’ because it was a mythic sort of character, and I sort of got a feeling in that direction.” A cosmic feeling. It was in “Tuk the Caveboy,” with its background of the mythic lost land called Attilan, later to resurface in the Inhumans. The 1940 Marvel Boy also had it—for the short-lived strip was as full of gods, good and bad, dwelling in a Valhalla belongings to no single mythology, as was its literary descendant, Thor. “My definition of the word ‘cosmic’ is ‘everywhere,’” Kirby once said. “Outside of Earth, we have

everywhere. They say there’s nothing out there. I say there is everything out there. We haven’t got the means or the money to reach it, but it’s out there!” In his work, Jack Kirby first started searching “out there” after World War II. The initial vehicle was the horror comic, Black Magic. “The war was still fresh in my mind,” he told Ray Wyman. “I couldn’t draw rotting corpses and limbs like that. I used the stories my mother told me, the ones her mother passed on to her. They were the same ones that inspired Frankenstein and Dracula in the movies. They were just old legends and stories about the supernatural, and they were very effective.” During this period, Kirby and partner Joe Simon had formed their own comics packaging company, co-plotting stories for their team of writers. Kirby’s pyrotechnic plotting skills often came to the fore, according to writer Kim Ammodt. “They’d be in there smoking big cigars, facing each other,” he told Jim Amash. “It looked like two fireflies mating. Cigar smoke covered the room and it was hilarious to watch them, because they ignited each other and developed a story between them. Then they’d say, ‘That’s the story, kids.’ Jack did more of the plotting than Joe. Jack’s face looked so energized when he was plotting that it seemed as if sparks were flying from him….” Decades in the future, when Kirby was hired to work on RubySpears’ Thundarr the Barbarian animated TV show, script writer Buzz Dixon described a similar phenomenon. “I went into the meeting and arrived before most of the other staff. John Dorman, head of R-S storyboard department, was already there talking to an elderly gentleman I’d never seen before. Now, when you hear people say ‘he had a twinkle in his eye’ they typically

don’t mean it literally, but in this case the older guy’s eyes literally were sparkling, almost crackling with energy. He was funny and quick and very perceptive and I took an immediate liking to him. “One by one the rest of the staff drifted in and, because they saw me already talking to John and the older man, they assumed we’d been introduced. The meeting started and I was floored by the incredibly sharp imagination the older man had, taking tossed off ideas from us and turning them around and expanding them into something much bigger and cooler. I didn’t know who he was, but I knew he was brilliant and I was delighted to have him on the team with us.” Dixon was shocked to learn that the elderly dynamo was Jack Kirby. Colleagues who for years worked closely with Jack Kirby were no less in awe of him. Jerry Robinson worked alongside Kirby at DC Comics in the 1940s. “Jack was unique. As I recall, he was very quiet, very self-contained, very unassuming. When I looked at his work, I thought, ‘Where does this come from?’ He looked like an ordinary mortal, but he did this fantastic work. It seemed like all his inner fires and energies that you didn’t see on the surface, came out on the page. He could take a piece of paper, and make––instead of two dimensions––ten dimensions. Dimensions that didn’t exist, perspectives that you couldn’t imagine; things that were impossible.” Stan Goldberg, who colored Kirby’s seminal Marvel work, related the following: “I get a cup of coffee in the morning and look at all that pencil art of Kirby’s in the Collector and just marvel at it. The pencil work is so amazing that it’s like he wasn’t human, but I know he’s human because I had lunch with him so many times. Sometimes at those lunches, Jack would serenade us with stories 69

couldn’t think of. The Challengers were us contending with these very strange people. Yes, they were always precursors to the Fantastic Four—except the Fantastic Four were mutations.” It’s increasingly clear to me that if Kirby hadn’t left DC, Challengers of the Unknown would have been the vehicle for his mature period. Instead, it was The Fantastic Four. WHAT’S OUT THERE? Could an answer be found in Kirby’s combat experiences in Europe? Cryptically, Kirby once said that he thought he saw God after he hit Omaha Beach ten days after D-Day. What did he mean by that? He didn’t say, over than to hint that it was more of a feeling than a sighting. Kirby often talked about his spiritual feelings as they related to his creative processes. “To me, it’s just a feeling,” he related in 1971. “Like religion is a feeling––the kind of feeling I have when, oh, a man can try to make contact with God. Personally, I believe in God. I have that feeling, but nothing more. I feel part of Him is in me, and I have that feeling. I’ve made contact. I’m my own church. I am my own synagogue, as a living thing. I feel contact with God because I’m alive. A building isn’t alive. A building is something built by me. And if it’s built by me, I have responsibility

and concepts that he would like to see or put in comics. He had an imagination! Sol Brodsky, who would have lunch with us, would say ‘I don’t know what goes on in that guy’s head.’ Jack was really an amazing man.” When the Space Age dawned, Challengers of the Unknown and Sky Masters were Kirby’s first probes into the new frontiers of the newest comic book genre. “Challengers of the Unknown came from their own particular time,” Kirby once explained. “They were post-war characters. What the Challengers of the Unknown were saying is, ‘Where are we going now?’ And that is a question I asked in all those stories. In the Challengers, I put in new gimmicks and the machines that we already had. I took them two to three stages ahead as to what we might have. I would take them five years ahead. If we had certain generators, I would make a super-generator of some kind, and have my story revolve around that. What would it do to human beings? Perhaps it would summon aliens from some foreign planet. It gives us the power to do that.” Eventually, Challengers and Sky Masters gave rise to the Fantastic Four, out of which the Marvel Universe would evolve. Elsewhere, Kirby observed, “Challengers was like a movie to me. The science-fiction pictures were beginning to break, and I felt the Challengers were a part of that genre. I began to think about three words which have always puzzled me: ‘What’s out there?’ I thought, ‘What’s really out there?’ Then I began to draw characters from outer space, characters from beneath the earth, characters from anywhere that we

for that contact.” In an obscure interview Jack Kirby gave to Warren Reece for Overstreet Comic Book Quarterly in 1994, he told the following life-changing tale: “I had a guy die on me once, during the war, and he looked up at me and he said, ‘What the hell happened? What happened?’ And here I was, just a schmo from the East Side of New York City, y’know, and how do you answer the guy? I told him, ‘You happened.’ See? And that was real. “It got me to think how valuable human beings are; and at that moment I discovered my own humanity. In that moment, I discovered everybody else’s. And when the man was hit and he asked me, ‘What happened’, I could only answer him–– here was a man who was slipping away—and I said, ‘You happened.’ I tried to tell this man what I really felt; and that’s what I felt. “I felt that he had happened, and that was the most important event in the world; and it set me to thinking. I said, ‘What the hell really happened?” I mean, they feed us a bunch of bull in a lot of various books. What the hell do these facts mean? See? And I sit down and it’s a privilege to have the time sometime, to sit down and just say, ‘What the hell really happened?’ Did Joshua really knock down the damned walls with 60 trumpets? That’s bull. Did our Creator send out angels all over the universe carrying his messages? What were they? Guys with feathered wings and night gowns? Horsefeathers! What happened? Of course, my designs probably don’t fit the real 70

(previous page, top) thing, but they’re a step on my part to find out what the place in the universe. I can feel the vastness of it inside Challengers of the real thing was. To me, storytelling is very real.” myself. I began to realize with each passing fact what a Unknown #7 original Here, Kirby sounds like a skeptic, but he wasn’t. wonderful and awesome place the universe is, and that art, inked by Wallace He was trying to discover the truth behind the mythhelped me in comics because I was looking for the aweWood. ological accounts that have come down to humanity some. I found it in Thor. I found it in Galactus... I felt from antiquity. that somewhere around the cosmos are powerful things (previous page, “I like reading all the legends,” he noted. “Yes, that we know nothing about, and from that came bottom) “Angel”, which was part of the there’s a religious part of me. That kind of thing is Galactus. He was almost like a god, and that’s where I Lord of Light presenalways based on truth. Whatever you read in my stories came up with the God Concept. There might be things tation art Kirby drew is a true reflection of what I really think about things. out there that are ultimates compared to us.” for a proposed theme I’ve never told fairy tales to the readers.” Elsewhere, Kirby claimed that Galactus was his park. That presentaKirby touched on this search for spiritual truth take on the Almighty. tion art was covertly used by the CIA to when he talked about his painting “Angel” in Ray “Galactus was God, and I was looking for God,” he rescue hostages from Wyman’s book The Art of Jack Kirby. once admitted. “When I first came up with Galactus, I Iran, and depicted in “I did ‘Angel’ because I wanted to portray my verwas very awed by him. I didn’t know what to do with the film Argo. sion of what an angel might have really looked like. All the character. Everybody talks about God, but what we have to go by is what somebody painted of what somebody else thought they saw. To the primitive people who might have witnessed an angel, the idea of flight without wings—feathered wings—was THE GODS MUST BE EARLY... incomprehensible. So a Godly “Mercury in the 20th Century” from creature, even if it did have wings, RED RAVEN #1 (1940) has would be interpreted very differKIRBY’S FIRST USE OF GODS, with Mercury, Jupiter, Minerva, Aeolus, Diana, Apollo, and Pluto. ently.” As his mind and craft matured, THOR POINTS super-heroes became the expression Hurricane (a 1941 Kirby back-up of the artist’s yearnings. in the first two issues of CAPTAIN AMERICA In 1992, Kirby told the COMICS ) was said to be Thor’s son. Canadian program Prisoners of BLUE BEETLE #6-8 (1941) featured a non-Kirby “Thor, God of Thunder” Gravity, “We all have a kind of by future Marvel staffer Sol Brodsky. feeling that I think we’ve had for POLICE COMICS #8 (1942) thousands of years, that there are had a non-S&K Manhunter character, higher beings somewhere. I think who had a crimefighting dog named Thor. all our spiritual feelings stem from Kirby first used Thor as a Sandman villain in DC’s ADVENTURE COMICS #75 that. The truth is that the Greeks (1942). He also drew a version of Thor in had Hercules, even as the Norsemen TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED #16 had Thor, and through the ages (1957) while at DC. we’ve had heroes similar to them. In ages past, we’ve had Samson, who’s September 1958 saw the publication of the best-selling book AKU-AKU: THE SECRET no more than a super-hero. And OF EASTER ISLAND by Thor Heyerdahl, today we have our super-heroes. We detailing the discovery of giant stone heads. believe in them because we believe Soon thereafter, Jack introduced “The Stone Men” in HOUSE OF MYSTERY #85 (1959), before leaving in ourselves.”

Believe It or Don’t!

DC Comics due to a legal dispute with editor Jack Schiff over the SKY MASTERS newspaper strip.

THE GOD CONCEPT In the final analysis, the forces that produced the cosmic-powered Jack Kirby of the ’60s was a combination of human and creative experience, a natural maturation of a man and his chosen field, and finally, the indefinable. Of them all, it’s the indefinable that most intrigues me. As it did Jack. “I don’t know what my spiritual beliefs are comprised of,” Kirby once admitted. “I only know that I have senses; I have whatever senses that I have. And I bring them all into play. I don’t know what my senses are... I can’t define them. All my senses are hidden from me. But they move me... I know our own

Perhaps as a jab at Schiff, Kirby had the Easter Island statues appear again at Marvel, in TALES TO ASTONISH #5 (also 1959). Later, Kirby grafted the Thor[r] name onto the Stone Men concept for “Here Comes Thorr the Unbelievable” in Marvel’s TALES TO ASTONISH #16 (Feb. 1961).

DC may have retaliated by having THOR appear in JIMMY OLSEN #55 (Sept. 1961). So Kirby reused the Stone Men concept yet again at Marvel, in TALES OF SUSPENSE #28 (Apr. 1962). All this resulted in the first appearance of the super-hero Thor in JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #83 (August 1962). The last panel of that origin story has the spelling “Thorr” on the side of his hammer. Stan Lee wasn’t involved in scripting Thor until over a year after his debut. JIM #97 (1963) was the first Lee/Kirby Thor story—Larry Lieber was the scripter prior to that.

the heck does he look like? Well, he’s supposed to be awesome, and Galactus is awesome to me. I drew him large and awesome. No one ever knew the extent of his powers or anything, and I think symbolically that’s our relationship [with God].” In some interviews, Kirby speaks of Galactus as if he were an actual being, not something that emerged from his imagination via a pencil. “I began looking for people other than gangsters. I got Galactus—where I suddenly found myself confronting God! Like, God! I’d never seen a character like that myself. Suddenly––there he was––I drew him. And he’s about three or four stories high. He’s standing on the Empire State Building.” The creation of Galactus marked a turning point in Kirby’s creative path. But at first, it stopped him cold. “When I created Galactus,” he told Shel Dorf, “I suddenly found myself confronted by God, and you can’t make a villain out of God, you’ve got to ease yourself out of it somehow. I had to treat Galactus, who is an omnipotent figure, in a manner befitting his stature. So there was a problem: How to get yourself out of that box, where you don’t have a villain, but you’re up against a figure so omnipotent and so awesome, that you’ve just got to back away from

him, and ease away from him, and let him go his own way. That was the first time I found myself where I didn’t have a black-and-white situation, where there wasn’t a villain to hiss at and degrade and denigrate, or put in jail. I was up against a figure of a different type; an opponent, but not a villain in the accepted style of a villain.” “Not only that,” Kirby revealed to interviewer Mike Hodel, “we felt it was disrespectful to Galactus to even destroy him in any manner, so we had to just respectfully find a way for him to leave and then go on to another adventure, because we couldn’t even touch him, I believe. And there might have been an outcry if we had.” But once he had resolved the problem of Galactus, Kirby’s mind opened, and his creativity probed in fresh directions. As Kirby told Sci-Fi TV in 1989, “They were the first gods in comics, and so I began thinking along those lines. I began to ask... everybody else, other societies, all had their gods, but what were ours? What was the state of our society, and where were our mythic figures?” This quest inevitably led to Kirby’s New Gods, which he considered his ultimate exploration of what he called the “God Concept.” “And, of course, from characters like Galactus and the Watcher, I evolved the Fourth World out of it, which was entirely Biblical, with New Genesis and Apokolips and the gods of New Genesis and Apokolips, the evil gods, the good gods, and gods that were trapped between good and evil, and, of course, frustrated.” In an extensive interview in Comic & Crypt back in 1971, Kirby gave perhaps his clearest explanation of why he abandoned Thor and the other gods of mythology––as well as Marvel Comics—to launch the Fourth World of the New Gods. “It’s not that I was cramped,” he explained, “but there were limitations which stopped me from going on. Over here I have the chance to go beyond them; I feel that whatever story there is to this ‘gods’ business, the ‘new’ gods or the ‘old’ gods, I feel that there is a story to them. I feel that there was an actual replacement of the ‘old’ gods by new ones which are relevant to what we see and hear. In other words, Thor may have been great in medieval times, but I feel, somehow, that we have transcended. Once it had a certain glamour, but now we need a new kind of glamour. Not that it isn’t fantastic, but we don’t see it in the same light anymore. I think we see things differently, the same things with an altered interpretation. You know what Thor looked like, what Mercury looked like, what Zeus looked like, and all the rest of them. It’s like everything that’s done and seen. What I’m trying to do is show the things that haven’t been done or seen.” Kirby’s New Gods were modern, and their power derived from a modern source. “We have our ‘new’ god today––technology. A new way of looking at things that I have got to represent. How do I represent that new technology? I’ve got Metron. How do I represent the kind of feelings we have today? Maybe some of us are analyzing ourselves, trying to find out why we’re a violent society and how we could be nonviolent, so we all become Orion. Why do these feelings live like that inside of us? Not only do we associate ourselves with them, but these are conflicts. But why do we have conflicts like that inside of us? So we try to analyze it, just like Orion does. That’s what the gods are. They are just representations of ourselves. “And the gods are nothing more than that,” Kirby continued. “They are making us see some value 72

in us and we have to have that value. So in order to express that value, we make ‘new’ gods. We can’t be Thor. We can’t be Odin, anymore. We’re not a bunch of guys running around in bear skins; we’re guys that wear spacesuits and surgeon’s masks. A surgeon is godlike because he handles life and death. If you want to idealize him, that’s the way to do it. A nuclear physicist is Metron. A mathematician is Metron. A guy who works a projection booth in a theater is Metron. He’s involved in technology. We’re trying to know everything and we’ve got the equipment to do it. That’s where Metron’s chair comes in. It’s one of our gadgets. That damn chair can do anything! “To bring this to a conclusion, I’d like to say that I felt the New Gods were our gods. They were not the gods of the medieval ages; not the Greek gods; nor the gods that came before them. The New Gods were the kind of people that made our own millennium. We live in the age of the New Gods, and the New Gods are still developing. So I felt they represented you and I, and the people we know; the people of our time. They represented the 1970s and they’ll probably go on from there.” In contrast to the primitive gods of mythology, these modern deities did not possess elemental super-powers, but rather scientific abilities. “I don’t classify gods as far as their power goes,” Kirby explained. “I classify them as far as their personality goes. A god, if he used his power right, could defeat another god. If I use my power right, I could defeat anyone on Earth if I wanted to... It’s the same way with the gods. If they use their super-powers right, they could defeat any other god.” Even when the New Gods series failed, Kirby continued to explore the theme. “And now I’m working on The Eternals,” he said in 1977, “which attacks the same theme from a different direction. The god theme is coming in from another direction. This is a takeoff on von Daniken’s theory about space gods being here in the past, and naturally I’m making a variation of that and elaborating on it. In other words, the intriguing question is, suppose they come back? What happens?” Kirby didn’t literally believe in these theories, any more than he worshiped Thor. He was a devout Jew, with the traditional beliefs of a person of that ancient faith. But the God Concept was something that fed and fired his imagination. “The Eternals are the gap that we can’t fill,” he explained to Leonard Pitts. “We don’t know what happened back in the Biblical days. We’ve killed a lot of people because of it, but we don’t know what happened back then. Did Joshua blow down Jericho with forty trumpets? I’d like to see someone do it. I feel that, from time to time, mankind has risen and destroyed itself and left something for the survivors….” Despite the shift back to ancient times for inspiration, Kirby was still mining the themes he took up in the New Gods. According to him, it was not that big a leap. “I relate religion to science because everyone I talk to, no matter what religion they have, when I ask them where their God is, they reply ‘up there’ and point to the sky.” In later life, Kirby drew a great many powerful personal works derived from his reading of the Bible, including a conceptualization of God Himself.

“The power come from the Bible itself,” he told Paul Duncan, “because the writing gives me that kind of vision. I don’t think the Bible gives us wisdom. I think it gives us vision. The Bible says that an angel appears, it doesn’t answer any practical questions as to what it looks like, which galaxy it came from and so on. We believe the Bible even though we don’t have all the details.” Tellingly, Kirby said in 1989, “The Silver Surfer is the way I feel when I read the Bible.” Earlier, he revealed to Max Borax in Comics Interview, “I got the Silver Surfer, and I suddenly realized there was the dramatic situation between God and the Devil! The Devil himself was the archangel. The Devil wasn’t ugly––he was a beautiful guy! He was the greatest of all the archangels. He was the guy that challenged God.” “Still thinking about it in the Biblical sense,” Kirby elaborated, “I began to think of a fallen angel, and the fallen angel was the Silver Surfer. In the story, Galactus confines him to the Earth, just like the fallen angel. So you can get characters from Biblical feelings.” Asked to explain how his fascination with creating printedpaper gods came about, Kirby replied frankly in 1973 to Jim Steranko, 73

(previous spread) A Thor #160 full-pager (June 1969), inked by Vince Colletta (yes, that Vince Colletta— beautiful work, huh?).

“It must be a hang-up of mine. I’m prone to my own environment and express it in terms of gods. Maybe I was oriented to some sort of mythology. I speak in terns of mythology. Another man will speak in terms of straight adventure, or in terms of romance. I’m communicating in my own way, and I try to make variations of it from time to time in order to be commercial. I have to make a living. I have a family. I’m oriented in that direction.”

powers and grand palaces and gardens to live in, but their actions were always human. The Greek and Egyptian legends were the same. Zeus would be angry all the time. He may split a mountain in two, or wipe out an entire continent, but he’d still be angry and feel love for a woman like every other spontaneous human And while probably not being. The difference was that his actions were superintended by Kirby, it’s human.” interesting to consider “To put it short,” he observed to Bruce Hannum the juxtaposition of the on another occasion, “the gods are giant reflections of Human Torch as a fiery “devil” against the BRINGING GODS DOWN TO EARTH ourselves.” Silver Surfer as a pure With exceptions such as Galactus and the Silver “I use them in comics because they are impressive, “angel.” Scenes from Surfer, Kirby kept his gods human and relatable. they are powerful,” he told another interviewer. “You Fantastic Four #72 “I’ve always thought it would be presumptuous don’t have to analyze them, but you can enjoy them by (March 1968). of me to go beyond people. I’ve given these gods great absorbing their exploits. They’re really superb images. And actually those are the things that you’d like to be doing, making a noise bigger than yourself, being an image bigger than yourself. I think people might have seen that in the first Superman.” It all seems to go back to that question posed by that nameless dying soldier on a European beachhead. True meaning lies in the questions— because the ultimate answers may be unknowable. “I didn’t mean to lead anybody onto any sort of religious path,” Kirby told FOOM in 1975. “I have no message myself. I feel that life is a series of very interesting questions, and very ESTABLISHING CREDIT poor answers. But I am willing JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #86 (Nov. 1962) to settle for the questions, if the was the FIRST TIME FULL STORY CREDITS ARE LISTED at Marvel (in this case, Plot: Stan Lee, questions are interesting. I feel Script: Larry Lieber, Art: Jack Kirby, Inks: Dick Ayers). I evoke them in what I do. I feel FANTASTIC FOUR #40 (July 1965) that should be good enough for is the first credit listed as Jack “KING” Kirby. everyone else. I know it sounds FANTASTIC FOUR #97 (Apr. 1970) contains pontifical just saying it, but I MARK EVANIER’S FIRST PRO PUBLISHED ART (drawing Johnny Storm’s hand on page 5, panel 4, above). usually don’t see anything but a WORLD OF FANTASY #19 (Aug. 1959) really interesting series of good features the FIRST MARVEL “HULK” CHARACTER questions to keep everybody (“The Iron Hulk,” drawn by Joe Sinnott). busy for the rest of their lives Kirby’s story for RAWHIDE KID #17 (Aug. 1960) and then let it go at that. So I has the FIRST DEATH OF AN “UNCLE BEN” (long before Spider-Man’s origin in Amazing Fantasy #15 in think the God Concept has these 1962—it was also the first Stan Lee-signed Kirby story). FIRST JOE SINNOTT INKS on Kirby: types of elements in it. In other BATTLE #69 (“Doom Under the Deep!”, April 1960) words—what happened; what or JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #58 was happening; what’s going to (“They Called Me A Witch”, May 1960). happen? Those are the essential FIRST BILL EVERETT INKS on Kirby: STRANGE TALES #73 (“Grottu”, Feb. 1960). questions for anybody, and FIRST DICK AYERS INKS on Kirby: that’s why we create gods, create “Chip Hardy” newspaper samples. myths. Because we say ‘These FIRST FRANK GIACOIA INKS on Kirby: people know what’s happening.’ “Career of King Masters” samples (1956, left). In other words, we need to justify FIRST CHIC STONE INKS on Kirby: ourselves, so we create gods. We JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #102 (March 1964). say, ‘These people are responsiFIRST WALLACE WOOD INKS on Kirby: “Sky Masters” comic strip (1957). ble for what’s happening. These FIRST VINCE COLLETTA INKS on Kirby: people are responsible for what’s LOVE ROMANCES #84 cover (Nov. 1959). going to happen.’ Of course, when we say things like that, we create a mystic element in our own thinking. And I think that’s what we see in it. We see some

Believe It or Don’t!

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sort of mysticism to explain the reason for our own environment, for our own psyche. There are reasons for many of the things we fail to understand, but just aren’t qualified to see them. I believe that’s why the God Concept is powerful—it involves us. It involves us inside. It involves us outside. And that’s the God Concept. So everybody thinks in that direction. I think everybody thinks about destiny—the forces that rule destiny. And, of course, those forces that we call God. That’s a powerful concept that rules us entirely.” In the four-color universe that he created, Jack Kirby was nothing less than a Creator God. “In the last analysis you face the universe by yourself,” Kirby observed. “You can’t face it for anybody else; you can’t face it in anybody else. The final analysis is what counts. That’s you. The ‘you’ business is involved in the God Concept, and that’s very strong. You’ll find out in the end, when everything gets wiped away and you stand in your underwear, all that’s left is you. And you find in that moment your feelings are very strong. And you’re all there is. So when we yearn for gods, we’re merely expressing that kind of feeling... I’m all there is; you’re all there is... I believe Marvel’s treatment of Thor is valid because it projects Thor as we’d like to see him. Thor is us... as a personal super-hero. And I think it’s true. I think that all of us see ourselves as super-heroes, and we try to justify it with mysticism. And it’s true because it works.” But what drove Jack Kirby into expressing himself on a cosmic, godlike scale? In 1989, he told a conference, “You’re born with a soul—God wants you to do something with it, not give it away. Nobody has the right to tell you what you should do with it. What I try to say is that you’ve been given a life, and you have to live that life. I couldn’t live it for you... and I can’t die for you either... when it’s time for you to die, you’re the one that has to go, not me.” Could it be Kirby’s relationship with his Creator? Maybe it goes back to that day in 1965, when he created the formidable figure with the big G on his chest plate. “I realized I had to find something new,” he explained to Sci-Fi TV. “I couldn’t depend on gangsters forever. And so for some reason I went to the Bible, and I came up with Galactus. And there I was, in front of this tremendous figure, who I knew very well, because I always felt him in my life, and I knew I certainly couldn’t treat him the same way I would have treated any ordinary mortal character… And I remember in my first story I had to back away from him, in order to resolve that story…”. Kirby here is describing a quasi-divine encounter. It’s as if, in conceiving Galactus, he touched a greater inspirational wellspring, confusing a god of his creation with a much higher being. I wonder if, in groping toward a new concept of paper gods, Jack Kirby didn’t make contact with the ultimate Source of all creativity….? In a 1969 interview with Shel Dorf, Kirby mused on his own creative process, saying, “I feel that whatever is coming out of here is a mystery to me. I don’t know why it’s coming out this way, but it’s coming out this way. That’s me. That’s the essence of what I feel is inside me, and I can’t interpret it. I’m not going to analyze it. I’m just not capable.” “Do you think it’s some higher power that’s guiding you?” asked Dorf. “I don’t know. That’s another question. Billy Graham might give you an answer, but I can’t.” In an interview conducted near the end of Kirby’s life, Paul Duncan suggested, “In some ways you’re acting like God in the stories.” “I suppose in some way I am––perhaps all storytellers are,” Kirby replied. “I don’t really think so. I’m not putting myself above the other fellow reading my story––I’m trying to communicate with him.” But on another occasion, a more reflective Kirby appeared to appreciate the power of his creativity. “I feel I’m God because these things are moving to my concepts,” he conceded. “Good or bad, that’s how they come out. I can even punish them by erasing them, but I’m not that mad yet. I like to make them as perfect as I can, and I feel now that’s what God is doing with us.” H 75

ETERNUS Jack Kirby was once asked, “If you could have one super-power, just one, what personal power would you like to have?” He responded with one word: “Love.” The interviewer—the late Greg Theakston––shot back with: “No, you’ve got that already! Give me something you don’t have. Would you like to fly, would you like to throw bolts from your fists, would you crawl walls? What would be fun for Jack Kirby?” Pressed for a better answer, he came up with this: “Oh, to be a eternal, and watch things develop.” “All right, that’s a better answer! What super-hero name would you give yourself?” “Eternus!” Sounds like Kirby’s first cosmic character, the Watcher, doesn’t it? I’d like to think Jack Kirby is looking down us on to this day, watching us mortals develop the universes of his imagination in ways he never got to witness in life… H

Bibliography: “Will Success Spoil Spider-Man?” Interview by Mike Hodel. March 3, 1967, WBAI. “Comic & Crypt Interviews Jack Kirby and Carmine Infantino!” Comic & Crypt #5, 1971. “Kirby Speaks.” FOOM #11. Scott Edelman, September 1975. “Kirby in the Golden Age.” James Van Hise. Comics Feature #34, March 1984. “The Gods Themselves”, Peter Dodds, Jr. Amazing Heroes #47, May 15, 1984. “The King and I”, Mark Evanier with Marv Wolfman. Amazing Heroes #100, August 1986. “Jack Kirby.” Mark Borax. Comics Interview #41, 1986. The Art of Jack Kirby. Ray Wyman. Blue Rose Press, 1992. “Jack ‘King’ Kirby.” William A. Christensen and Mark Seifert. Wizard #36, August 1994. “Jack Kirby—Master of Comic Art.” Ken Viola. Jack Kirby Collector #7, October 1995. “1972 Comic Art Convention Luncheon.” Transcribed by John Benson. Jack Kirby Collector #8, January 1996. “Jack Kirby Interview”, Steve Sherman. Jack Kirby Collector #8, January 1996. “Jack Kirby Interview”, Juanie Lane and Britt Wisenbaker. Jack Kirby Collector #16, July 1997. “Jack Kirby On: Storytelling, God, Man & Nazis.” Ray Wyman. Jack Kirby Collector #26, November 1999. “The Last Kirby Interview.” Annie Baron-Carvais. Jack Kirby Collector #32, July 2001. “We Create Images, and They Just Continue On.” Shel Dorf. Jack Kirby Collector #36, Summer 2002. “I Don’t Like to Draw Slingshots, I Like to Draw Cannons.” Shel Dorf. Jack Kirby Collector #37, February 2002 “Ghost Riders in the Sky.” Jim Amash. Alter Ego #30, November 2003. “Growing up Kirby.” Neal Kirby. Herocomplex.com, July 2012. “A Battle with the Camera.” Ray Zone. Jack Kirby Collector #45, Winter 2006. “Cleveland Rocks!” Bruce Hannum. Jack Kirby Collector #47, Autumn 2006. “Jack Kirby Interview.” Peter Hansen. Jack Kirby Collector #48, Spring 2007. “2008 Kirby Tribute Panel.” Jack Kirby Collector #53, Summer 2009. Jack Magic: The Life and Art of Jack Kirby by Greg Theakston. Pure Imagination, 2011. “The Ark Interview.” Paul Duncan. Jack Kirby Collector #61, Summer 2013. “Stan G’s True Colors.” Richard J. Arndt. Comic Book Creator #9, Summer 2015. “1986 Jack Kirby Interview.” Leonard Pitts, Jr. Jack Kirby Collector #66, Fall 2015. “May 1971 Kirby Interview.” Lee Falk and Steve DeJarnett. Jack Kirby Collector #67, Spring 2016. “The Old Master.” Mark Voger. Jack Kirby Collector #73, Winter 2018.

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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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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KIRBY COLLECTOR #71

KIRBY COLLECTOR #73

KIRBY COLLECTOR #74

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!

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!

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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

KIRBY COLLECTOR #81

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!

“KIRBY: BETA!” Jack’s experimental ideas, characters, and series (Fighting American, Jimmy Olsen, Kamandi, and others), Kirby interview, inspirations for his many “secret societies” (The Project, Habitat, Wakanda), non-superhero genres he explored, 2019 Heroes Con panel (with MARK EVANIER, MIKE ROYER, JIM AMASH, and RAND HOPPE), a pencil art gallery, UNUSED JIMMY OLSEN #141 COVER, and more!

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KIRBY COLLECTOR #82

“THE MANY WORLDS OF JACK KIRBY!” From Sub-Atomica to outer space, visit 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, & MARK EVANIER, a Kirby pencil art gallery from MACHINE MAN, 2001, DEVIL DINOSAUR, & more! (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99

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, WALTER SIMONSON, KYLE BAKER, MARIE SEVERIN, GRAY MORROW, ALAN WEISS, SERGIO ARAGONÉS, MORT TODD, DICK AYERS, and many more! Includes the never-released CBA BULLPEN #7, a new bonus feature on JACK KIRBY’s unknown 1960 baseball card art, and a 16-page full-color section, all behind a KIRBY COVER!

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, (176-page TRADE PAPERBACK with COLOR) $24.95 • WAGNER, and more. Demon cover by KIRBY and MIKE ROYER! NOW SHIPPING! (Digital Edition) $8.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-105-9 • 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

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

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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[Since last Fall, we’ve been having to deal with continuing freight delays worldwide, which are causing paper shortages at printers, and affecting the delivery times once we do get something off the press. TJKC #81 shipped over a month late due to this, but since #82 went to press on the normal schedule, there was only a little more than six weeks before it was in the mail. Before anyone gets too excited, I am still producing issues roughly three months apart, so any speed-up between issues (and slowdowns) are not planned. I can only guess whether this issue hits stores as planned, but I appreciate everyone’s understanding and patience.] I was dipping into your wonderful STUF’ SAID again (as I do so frequently) and I opened up to the page where you wonder why, on the cover of FANTASTIC FOUR #64, the blast that Johnny fired at the Sentry was changed to a fireball. You suggested maybe it was a Comics Code request. I think this is it: today we all know that the Sentry is a robot. But when readers picked up FF #64, they saw this imposing figure from behind. It could have been anybody/anything. The original cover reversed the angle and showed the front of the Sentry, giving away that it is a robot. So it’s OK for Johnny to be blasting him with fire, as he did on that original cover. I’m guessing Stan didn’t want to give away that The Sentry is a robot on the cover, so he asked Jack to reverse the angle. Jack did, but still drew Johnny blasting the Sentry. So Stan changed it to a fireball that could possibly be a warning shot, not a death sentence. Maybe this new character was a living being. Why not? From the back, you can’t really tell. Charles Santino, Wynantskill, NY In TJKC #81, we see a FIGHTING AMERICAN #8 cover color guide on page 49. I think it is a Joe Simon recent vintage painting/creation, like so many others! NOTICE: The date on this colored art paste-up mechanical is Oct.–Nov. 1954. That logo dates the paste-up being from FIGHTING AMERICAN #4, photostatted from that cover art. It would not have been used as a cover mechanical of FA #8 art (June–July 1955). Also notice it doesn’t have a CCA stamp like #8 would have at that point. Plus: Simon would have painted on a flat photostat, and not pasted-up art. This is a recent creation, or the color guide for the 1966 Harvey reprint. The numeric designations of color (ex: Y2) only reinforce this illusion. Richard Kolkman, Fort Wayne, IN I take issue in your conjecturing that the TALES OF SUSPENSE #78 unused cover layout

is anything but 100% 1966 Kirby. An example of the page, before it was cleaned of glue residue, clearly shows both Captain America and Fury at the same time in the layout. Also, if you examine Kirby covers subsequent to this layout, TALES OF SUSPENSE #82 and #84, you will see very similar body types for Cap. Also, Cap’s face in the layout is similar to Cap’s face on the cover to TOS #84. (Disclaimer: I own the original Kirby TOS #78 unused cover layout.) Bruce Hannum, St. Paul, MN (Actually, that was Shane Foley’s comment, not mine [and he said he’s “probably wrong”]. I tend to agree that it’s 1966 Kirby, and I remember seeing this piece in person at the San Diego Con many years ago. Shane obviously saw something I didn’t, but I don’t generally overrule our author’s opinions, unless they state something unequivocally that flies in the face of the evidence. I think his was a pretty measured comment.) Thanks to the ongoing supply-chain delays, when I saw #81 was available online, I didn’t waste two seconds in ordering it. Don’t care for pleasure reading on a computer, but as opposed to waiting an additional week or two, it suddenly has its charms. Already finished reading it and it contained lots of interesting tangents. Really enjoyed your tribute to Steve Sherman. He’d moved onward and upward from his days with Jack but still seemed interested and more than willing to discuss them. He wasn’t just an employee but a valued friend to Jack (and fandom as well). Never met him in person but did talk to him on the phone, once, in the ’90s. I called him, where he worked, with questions about Marvelmania merchandise. Instead of hanging up on me, he was informative and patient as can be. A quarter century later, I still remember him fondly for that. As always, old interviews with Jack (and Stan) are appreciated. Cracked up that you discovered a paperback book with two of Stan’s catchphrases together there on the cover: “Excelsior” and “True Believer.” First I’d heard of it. Also funny, Stan saying in ’64 that they wouldn’t be doing Captain Marvel because they don’t like to copy. Yet, grudgingly, three years later... He did have a revelation that I didn’t know: The Comics Code had a problem with MONSTERS TO LAUGH WITH and they couldn’t advertise it in the comics. What child would be traumatized by monster photos with funny captions? Smiled at the old ’66 MSH cartoon show ad, with all Kirby characters leaping from the TV (luckily, Jack had recently done the Iron Man/ Namor fight in TTA #82). For any flaws, the show was entertaining to kids like me, and promoted 78

the comics as well. I started reading them two months before the series premiered and realized, had I not already been aware, the shows would have sent me racing to the spinner rack. Liked the articles on Magneto and the Hulk. I had the feeling Jack was fonder of Magneto than was Stan. About the time Jack left fully penciling the title, Magneto was replaced for a while, by the Unearthly Stranger. It was like when Loki was banished from Thor later that year. Maybe Stan was fearing the villains were being played up too much? I don’t know why the Hulk, early on, was changed so often. His transformative trigger, personality, etc. was evolving virtually every issue. Hard to build momentum and interest when the premise and characterization were so inconsistent. One minute he’s a wild menace, seemingly capable of murder, the next he’s a wise guy like the Thing. I did laugh that the Western use of the Hulk name was Hulk Hogan, decades ahead of the wrestler. If the Hulk name was a favorite with Stan, so was the Hogan surname. The wrestler Spider-Man first fought, in AMAZING FANTASY #15, was Crusher Hogan. Likewise, Tony Stark’s valet/assistant was Happy Hogan. Of the cover comparisons, the one I actually liked better was that layout to TALES OF SUSPENSE #78 with that chemical-hurling robot. The published version is more at a distance shot and has type covering up his explosion. I wasn’t as wild about Jack’s ’70s redo covers. They seemed lesser efforts. Was Jack given rough layouts on these by others? Three of the ’66 FANTASY MASTERPIECES covers were absolute gems! Issues #3 and 5 had classic Kirby Cap poses. Plus, #4 had a rarity: Jack inking his own pencils. For other classic Kirby rendering, at his prime, there’s that ESQUIRE double-page spread. I was hoping you could use each side, much larger, as covers in upcoming issues. Cool that Glen Gold searched for ’60s surfing magazine photos that may’ve influenced Jack’s early rendition of the Silver Surfer. That’s some assignment! But those poses gave way, quickly enough, to more noble stance on the ’board. With KAMANDI, I didn’t notice a drop in quality during the UFO saga. Seemed the same as it had always been: fast action in changing locales. True, Jack’s imminent departure could have abruptly ended plans—but so could his desire to wrap things up and move onto the next storyline. He usually went no more than three issues per arc for KAMANDI. The Pyra story went five or six. Mark Evanier, in the convention conversation about favorite Kirby inkers, noted he enjoyed Bill Everett’s style over Jack. To my surprise, when Bill started inking THOR, I didn’t care for it. Bill was usually slick and smooth inking his own work. Over Jack, he seemed somewhat sketchy. Yet, I once heard Jack himself note how tremendous Bill was as an inker. I far preferred Joe Sinnott and Frank Giacoia. They captured

the charm of the pencils and improved on them. For those that added their own distinct style, changing things up a bit, I’d go with Wally Wood, Steve Ditko and Terry Austin (that astoundingly embellished MACHINE MAN #7 cover). I used to like Vince Colletta until I compared the pencil photocopies to the finished work. You had a number of those here. The most distressing was his THOR #145 effort where so many characters, to save time, were deleted. It reminds me of the old phrase, “You don’t know what you’re missing.” Now, we do. Finally, Jim Amash hit on something interesting; an aspect I hadn’t thought of. He was musing about how the DEMON comic changed, with “movie adaptations,” and thought it might be office-based rather than something Jack chose on his own to do. Hadn’t thought of that. Does anyone know? I far preferred Jack’s original approach in issues #14 and 15 with Klarion the Witchboy’s return. An amusing and original opponent, more intriguing for his personality than his powers. He and Teekl made those issues distinct and memorable—more so than reheated cinematic leftovers from forty years earlier. Anyway, lots to enjoy, John. I’m eagerly anticipating the shipping logjams ending where we can see the TwoMorrows magazines, especially this one, far more regularly once again. Joe Frank, Scottsdale, AZ Thank you for another great issue. I especially enjoyed seeing the pencils for the page from THOR #145. The picture for ESQUIRE on page 73 looks odd to me. It almost looks like a collage of Kirby drawings. There are bits, as well as the Spider-Man figure, that don’t look like Kirby to me. The Hulk’s head has some Everett involved, I suspect, and 1966 was a time he was drawing the character. I could easily be convinced the Sue Storm is Romita/Sinnott too. Angel’s dancing on pinheads to some. David Morris, Avon, UNITED KINGDOM [I’ll leave it to my pal David Schwartz to comment on that ESQUIRE illo shown above...] In issue #81, on page 73, you have that incredible 1966 drawing from ESQUIRE magazine by Jack. The caption indicates that the Spider-Man image was drawn by John Romita. When I first looked at the Here’s a tentative list of upcoming themes, so start thinking, and get to writing! SEND US YOUR THEME IDEAS! • VISUAL COMPARISONS - From before & after versions of altered stories and art, to Jack bringing new life to his older visuals, expect the unexpected to be revealed! • THE KIRBY COLLECTORS - Readers’ stories about what

drawing it seemed more like Jack himself drew that image. Then this morning I was going through Roy Thomas’ book, THE MARVEL AGE OF COMICS 19611978, which has a reprint of the ESQUIRE magazine artwork as it was published. Guess what? The SpiderMan drawing published in ESQUIRE was indeed redrawn by John Romita. However, the drawing you printed in TJKC #81 was Kirby’s version. David Schwartz, Los Angeles, California Darn if I didn’t find myself working Christmas Day and the day after, but I don’t entirely mind because I have the latest TJKC (#81—the Beta Issue) to keep me company! What can I say—another superlative effort by all involved! Of particular interest was the retrospective by Jim Kingman on the KAMANDI “UFO Saga.” A fun read back in the day and still fun today, but I could tell even then that something was up: Jack was in pure sci-fi mode on this one. I don’t recall if Jack had already put the wheels in motion to return to Marvel, but as soon as Joe Kubert started producing covers and Gerry Conway started writing, KAMANDI became a different animal (no pun intended). And come to think of it, I believe in Ray Wyman’s Kirby book, he presents a timeline revealing that Jack was already drawing CAPTAIN AMERICA while still producing the last handful of issues of Kamandi. The other item that jumped out at me was the Kirby Tribute Panel when Mark Evanier related that he was possibly going to collaborate on a book with Jack! Well, that to me was worth the price of admission right there! And naturally Mark devoted about two paragraphs to this like it was no big thing. Ugh! Like saying in passing, “Oh by the way, the Beatles are getting back together!” Anyway—these little tidbits keep me coming back to the TJKC issue after issue. Well, enough of my rambling! How about an “all Eternals” issue one of these months? Until then—all the best for a fantastic New Year and beyond! Gary Picariello, Brindisi, Italy [Since Gary’s writing from Italy, it reminds me to give a special shout-out to FEDERICO PAGLIUCHI of Vigonza, Italy for his lengthy, heartfelt letter, praising TJKC, and offering many of his personal insights into Jack and his work. Space didn’t allow it to run here, but I hope he, and all readers who don’t see their letters published, know that I read and enjoy every one of them. In these isolating days of COVID-19 and the inability to attend conventions, it’s great still having mail/email contact with my readers!] it means to them to be Kirby collectors—from their craziest original art and comics deals, to getting tattoos, Kirby inspired man-caves, and their Holy Grails of collecting! • LAW & ORDER - From Justice Traps the Guilty! and Police Trap to In the Days of The Mob, Terrible Turpin, and OMAC’s Global Peace Agency, we’ll assemble a lineup of Jack’s famous flatfoots and fuzz.

#83 Credits: John Morrow, Editor/Designer/ Proofreader/Art Curator/etc.

THANKS TO OUR CONTRIBUTORS: Norris Burroughs • Mark Evanier Chris Fama • Shane Foley Barry Forshaw Heritage Auctions Rand Hoppe • Larry Houston Sean Kleefeld Richard Kolkman Tom Kraft Mike Machlan Will Murray Alex Ross • Tom Ziuko and The Jack Kirby Museum (www.kirbymuseum.org) 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: STEVE SHERMAN TRIBUTE! Kirby family members, friends, comics creators, and the entertainment industry salute Jack’s assistant (and puppeteer on MEN IN BLACK, PEE WEE’S PLAYHOUSE, and others). MARK EVANIER and STEVE recall assisting Kirby, Steve discusses Jack’s Speak-Out Series, Kirby memorabilia from his collection, an interview with wife DIANA MERCER, and Steve’s unseen 1974 Kirby/Royer cover! TJKC #84 ships Summer 2022!

Fall 2022 (TJKC #85):

JACK KIRBY: ANIMATED!

TwoMorrows 2022 www.twomorrows.com • store@twomorrows.com

THE

CHARLTON COMPANION by JON B. COOKE

An ALL-NEW definitive history of Connecticut’s notorious all-in-one comic book company! Often disparaged as a second-rate funny-book outfit, Charlton produced a vast array of titles that span from the 1940s Golden Age to the Bronze Age of the ’70s in many genres, from Hot Rods to Haunted Love. The imprint experienced explosive bursts of creativity, most memorably the “Action Hero Line” edited by DICK GIORDANO in the 1960s, which featured the renowned talents of STEVE DITKO and a stellar team of creators, as well as the unforgettable ’70s “Bullseye” era that spawned E-Man and Doomsday +1, all helmed by veteran masters and talented newcomers—and serving as a training ground for an entire generation of comics creators thriving in an environment of complete creative freedom. From its beginnings with a handshake deal consummated in county jail, to the company’s accomplishments beyond comics, woven into this prose narrative are interviews with dozens of talented participants, including GIORDANO, DENNIS O’NEIL, ALEX TOTH, SANHO KIM, TOM SUTTON, PAT BOYETTE, NICK CUTI, JOHN BYRNE, MIKE ZECK, JOE STATON, SAM GLANZMAN, NEAL ADAMS, JOE GILL, and even some Derby residents who recall working in the sprawling company plant. Though it gave up the ghost over three decades ago, Charlton’s influence continues today with its Action Heroes serving as inspiration for ALAN MOORE’s cross-media graphic novel hit, WATCHMEN. By JON B. COOKE with MICHAEL AMBROSE & FRANK MOTLER. SHIPS OCTOBER 2022! (256-page COLOR SOFTCOVER) $39.95 • (Digital Edition) $15.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-111-0

THE

TEAM-UP COMPANION by MICHAEL EURY

THE TEAM-UP COMPANION examines team-up comic books of the Silver and Bronze Ages of Comics—DC’s THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD and DC COMICS PRESENTS, Marvel’s MARVEL TEAM-UP and MARVEL TWO-INONE, plus other team-up titles, treasuries, and treats—in a lushly illustrated selection of informative essays, special features, and trivia-loaded issue-by-issue indexes. Go behind the scenes of your favorite team-up comic books with specially curated and all-new creator recollections from NEAL ADAMS, JIM APARO, MIKE W. BARR, ELIOT R. BROWN, NICK CARDY, CHRIS CLAREMONT, GERRY CONWAY, STEVE ENGLEHART, STEVE GERBER, STEVEN GRANT, BOB HANEY, TONY ISABELLA, PAUL KUPPERBERG, PAUL LEVITZ, RALPH MACCHIO, DENNIS O’NEIL, MARTIN PASKO, JOE RUBINSTEIN, ROY THOMAS, LEN WEIN, MARV WOLFMAN, and other all-star writers and artists who produced the team-up tales that so captivated readers during the 1960s, ’70s, and early ’80s. By BACK ISSUE and RETROFAN editor MICHAEL EURY. (272-page SOFTCOVER) $36.95 • (Digital Edition) $15.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-112-7 • SHIPS AUGUST 2022!

THE LIFE & ART OF

DAVE COCKRUM

by GLEN CADIGAN

From the letters pages of Silver Age comics to his 2021 induction into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame, the career of DAVE COCKRUM started at the bottom and then rose to the top of the comic book industry. Beginning with his childhood obsession with comics and continuing through his years in the Navy, THE LIFE AND ART OF DAVE COCKRUM follows the rising star from fandom (where he was one of the “Big Three” fanzine artists) to pro-dom, where he helped revive two struggling comic book franchises: the LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES and the X-MEN. A prolific costume designer and character creator, his redesigns of the Legion and his introduction of X-Men characters Storm, Nightcrawler, Colossus, and Thunderbird (plus his design of Wolverine’s alter ego, Logan) laid the foundation for both titles to become best-sellers. His later work on his own property, THE FUTURIANS, as well as childhood favorite BLACKHAWK and T.H.U.N.D.E.R. AGENTS, plus his five years on SOULSEARCHERS AND COMPANY, cemented his position as an industry giant. Featuring artwork from fanzines, unused character designs, and other rare material, this is THE comprehensive biography of the legendary comic book artist, whose influence is still felt on the industry today! Written by GLEN CADIGAN (THE LEGION COMPANION, THE TITANS COMPANION Volumes 1 and 2, BEST OF THE LEGION OUTPOST) with an introduction by ALEX ROSS. (160-page COLOR SOFTCOVER) $27.95 • (LIMITED EDITION HARDCOVER) $36.95 • (Digital Edition) $14.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-113-4 • SHIPS JUNE 2022!

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The Golden Age comics of major pulp magazine publisher STREET & SMITH (THE SHADOW, DOC SAVAGE, RED DRAGON, SUPERSNIPE) examined in loving detail by MARK CARLSON-GHOST! Art by BOB POWELL, HOWARD NOSTRAND, and others, ANTHONY TOLLIN on “The Shadow/Batman Connection”, FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT, JOHN BROOME, PETER NORMANTON, and more!

SILVER ISSUE, starring the Silver Surfer in the Bronze Age! Plus: JACK KIRBY’s Silver Star, SCOTT HAMPTON’s Silverheels, Silver Sable, Silver Banshee, and more! Featuring KURT BUSIEK, STEVEN BUTLER, TOM DeFALCO, STEVE ENGLEHART, RON FRENZ, STERLING GATES, RON MARZ, FABIAN NICIEZA, ALEX ROSS, MARSHALL ROGERS, JOE RUBINSTEIN, ROGER STERN, and cover by FRENZ and SINNOTT.

BRONZE AGE COMICS STRIPS! SpiderMan, Friday Foster, DC’s World’s Greatest Superheroes starring Superman, Howard the Duck, Richie Rich, Star Hawks, Star Trek, MIKE GRELL’s Tarzan, and more! Plus Charlton’s comic strip tie-ins and the MENOMONEE FALLS GAZETTE. With COLAN, GOODWIN, GIL KANE, KREMER, STAN LEE, ROMITA, THOMAS, TUSKA, and more.

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MAD’s maddest artist, SERGIO ARAGONÉS, is profiled! Plus: TV’s Route 66 and an interview with star GEORGE MAHARIS, MOE HOWARD’s final years, singer B. J. THOMAS in one of his final interviews, LONE RANGER cartoons, G.I. JOE, and more! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

Meet JULIE NEWMAR, the purr-fect Catwoman! Plus: ASTRO BOY, TARZAN Saturday morning cartoons, the true history of PEBBLES CEREAL, TV’s THE UNTOUCHABLES and SEARCH, the MONKEEMOBILE, SOVIET EXPO ’77, and more fun, fab features! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

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STEVE BISSETTE career-spanning interview, from his Joe Kubert School days, Swamp Thing stint, publisher of Taboo and Tyrant, creator rights crusader, and more. Also, Part One of our MIKE GOLD interview on his Chicago youth, start in underground comix, and arrival at DC Comics, right in time for the implosion! Plus BUD PLANT on his publishing days, comic shop owner, and start in mail order—and all the usual fun stuff!

DON McGREGOR retrospective, from early ’70s Warren Publications scripter to his breakout work at Marvel Comics on BLACK PANTHER, KILLRAVEN, SABRE, DETECTIVES INC., RAGAMUFFINS, and others. Plus ROBERT MENZIES looks at HERB TRIMPE’s mid-’70s UK visit to work on Marvel’s British comics weeklies, MIKE GOLD Part Two, and CARtoons cartoonist SHAWN KERRIE! SANDY PLUNKETT cover!

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ALTER EGO #175

Spotlighting the artists of ROY THOMAS’ 1980s DC series ALL-STAR SQUADRON! Interviews with artists ARVELL JONES, RICHARD HOWELL, and JERRY ORDWAY, conducted by RICHARD ARNDT! Plus, the Squadron’s FINAL SECRETS, including previously unpublished art, & covers for issues that never existed! With FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT, and a wraparound cover by ARVELL JONES!

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