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Post by Hoosier X on Jul 2, 2024 18:51:59 GMT -5
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Post by Cei-U! on Jul 4, 2024 3:04:34 GMT -5
Here is what Mark Evanier has to say about the creation of Spider-Man. It's pretty interesting and it makes a lot of sense, especially the part about changing Spidey's origin to avoid legal action by Archie. Cei-U! I summon the informed insight!
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Post by commond on Jul 4, 2024 16:22:42 GMT -5
I've been continuing to read the Atlas books, and I've gotta say, if Jack Kirby was the savior of Atlas then it didn't manifest itself that way in the actual books. Even if it was Kirby who persuaded Goodman and Lee to do sci-fi books, his input is limited and his stories are no better or worse than anyone else's. I suspect that's because he was still working as a freelancer at the time. It's not clear whether he's writing his own stories or working from a script from Lieber or one other staff writers. Knowing Jack and the way he felt about writers, if he was working from a script then he probably created his own version of the story. The most notable thing about his stories so far is that he doesn't really stick the landing in the way that a lot of the other stories do. He's starting to move into monster territory now, so things may change. Ditko is by far the most creative and imaginative of the artists. The books feature some really beautiful art from Don Heck, Al Williamson and John Buscema, but you can tell they're working from scripts. Ditko is the one guy who you feel is either plotting the stories himself or reworking old inventory stories into something new. I've been very impressed by the Ditko stories.
Even though the books were bimonthly, there's a lot of repetition. It's basically the same set of ideas over and over again. Common themes include time travel, alien invasions, invisibility, giant invaders, tiny invaders, and stories that touch on the cold war, nuclear war, and the civil rights movement, though for the latter they use prejudice against robots as an allegory for prejudice against black people. It's easy to get burnt out if you read too many issues in a row.
It did strike me that a lot of the stuff they did in the superhero comics wasn't that original since they'd done it all before in the sci-fi/monster books. I also have a raised eyebrow at the idea that only Kirby knew about science, etc., since he didn't write all of these stories and Stan had to have at least had some general knowledge of what was happening in the books.
The read through continues. I just wanted to touch base with myself for the sake of my own insanity.
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Post by berkley on Jul 4, 2024 17:33:17 GMT -5
I think everyone would acknowledge that Stan was a versatile writer who could produce competently written comics stories in pretty much any genre, including science fiction. But it doesn't appear to have been one of his personal over-riding interests. The books most people, on both sides of the controversy, cite as examples of what Stan could do when he took on most of the writing responsibilities himself seem to focus mostly on relationships, social issues, things like that. Even in the SF-based Silver Surfer he was more concerned with philosophical questions of justice, human rights, man's inhumanity to man, and similar moral issues. THat's all people are saying when it comes to Stan and science: not that he was ignorant or completely uninterested, just that it never seemed to be a personal focus of his.
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Post by kirby101 on Jul 4, 2024 18:04:19 GMT -5
I think (though I could be wrong) what people are saying about the Kirby and Ditko monster books helping keep Atlas going. Was not that they were Earth shattering, but they sold better than what Atlas was doing at the time. They were definitely fun as well. The creative aspect for both was to come up with so many different monsters, month after month. There was a similarity to the stories with a lot of the twist endings made popular by EC.
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Post by impulse on Jul 5, 2024 13:57:28 GMT -5
Tangentially, I was browsing the shelves at my local library while the kids played at some activity, and I stumbled on Jack Kirby's comic-illustrated biography, Jack Kirby: The Epic Life of the King of Comics . I almost grabbed it, and I may go back, but I figured there can't be much of interest this group doesn't already know. I just thought it was neat. |
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Post by Ricky Jackson on Jul 5, 2024 18:00:45 GMT -5
Tangentially, I was browsing the shelves at my local library while the kids played at some activity, and I stumbled on Jack Kirby's comic-illustrated biography, Jack Kirby: The Epic Life of the King of Comics . I almost grabbed it, and I may go back, but I figured there can't be much of interest this group doesn't already know. I just thought it was neat. I highly recommend that book. The creator, Tom Scioli, is one of the best in the biz and he did a great job with it |
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Post by princenamor on Jul 8, 2024 18:55:18 GMT -5
What’s your favorite Stan Lee story that he wrote before Kirby returned to Marvel in the late 1950s? I'm not sure that I have ever read any. I'm not terribly interested in Golden Age comics, to be honest, as I don't tend to enjoy reading them. I just find them a little too basic. Stan didn't write much in the Golden Age. But what he did write, wasn't successful. Jack Kirby's Golden Age career was huge, with multiple Million Copy sales of Captain America, Boy Commandos, Young Romance, etc. But if the inference of your question is to suggest that Lee didn't write any good stories before Kirby came back to Marvel in the late '50s, I would counter by saying that what I have read quite a lot of are Marvel's pre-Fantastic Four monster and sci-fi tales that Lee & Kirby put out. There are no Lee & Kirby Monster stories pre-Fantastic Four. Stan Lee signed everything he touched. He didn't sign a single Kirby Monster story from that era. As far as I'm concerned, the great and memorable Marvel comics didn't come along until Lee, supposedly on the brink of leaving comics, decided to shake things up for his own amusement, so that when Martin Goodman asked him to create a copy of Justice League of America, The Golf Game between Goodman and DC Comics has been proven to be a lie, as both Donenfeld and Liebowitz deny it ever happened. he created a dysfunctional group of bickering, flawed superheroes in the Fantastic Four. Obviously further greats followed like The Hulk, Thor etc, and Lee's best co-creation in my opinion, Spider-Man. But it was Lee and his idea to write flawed and more "realistic" superheroes that sparked the so-called Marvel Age of Comics on the '60s. No matter how much the artists may have also contributed to the success of those comics, without Lee's idea, Kirby, Ditko, Ayers, Wood et al would've likely continued to churn out forgettable monster and sci-fi tales. Jack Kirby had bickering heroes before the FF - Boy Commandos, Boy's Ranch, Race for the Moon, Challengers of the Unknown. Stan lee didn't. |
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Post by princenamor on Jul 8, 2024 19:09:14 GMT -5
I've been continuing to read the Atlas books, and I've gotta say, if Jack Kirby was the savior of Atlas then it didn't manifest itself that way in the actual books. Even if it was Kirby who persuaded Goodman and Lee to do sci-fi books, his input is limited and his stories are no better or worse than anyone else's. I suspect that's because he was still working as a freelancer at the time. It's not clear whether he's writing his own stories or working from a script from Lieber or one other staff writers. Knowing Jack and the way he felt about writers, if he was working from a script then he probably created his own version of the story. The most notable thing about his stories so far is that he doesn't really stick the landing in the way that a lot of the other stories do. He's starting to move into monster territory now, so things may change. Ditko is by far the most creative and imaginative of the artists. The books feature some really beautiful art from Don Heck, Al Williamson and John Buscema, but you can tell they're working from scripts. Ditko is the one guy who you feel is either plotting the stories himself or reworking old inventory stories into something new. I've been very impressed by the Ditko stories. Even though the books were bimonthly, there's a lot of repetition. It's basically the same set of ideas over and over again. Common themes include time travel, alien invasions, invisibility, giant invaders, tiny invaders, and stories that touch on the cold war, nuclear war, and the civil rights movement, though for the latter they use prejudice against robots as an allegory for prejudice against black people. It's easy to get burnt out if you read too many issues in a row. It did strike me that a lot of the stuff they did in the superhero comics wasn't that original since they'd done it all before in the sci-fi/monster books. I also have a raised eyebrow at the idea that only Kirby knew about science, etc., since he didn't write all of these stories and Stan had to have at least had some general knowledge of what was happening in the books. The read through continues. I just wanted to touch base with myself for the sake of my own insanity. Without Kirby's covers and lead stories - HIS was the lead story in over 90% of those books - Marvel would have closed down. Journey Into Mystery and Strange Tales had been around before Kirby came back. They weren't selling. And they weren't doing Science Fiction, a genre that Goodman didn't have much success with. It was Kirby who brought the monsters and aliens - something HE was already doing at DC when he came back to Marvel - and helped launch Tales of Suspense and Tales to Astonish. By 1960, the only monthly books Marvel had were ALL the Kirby lead story books. Kirby was doing 75% of ALL the cover for Marvel and 100% of the covers for the Monster books. Marvel whole Method of Operation was that the cover was THE most important aspect of things and Kirby was doing 100% of them for those books. AND they were monthly. They were the ONLY comics Marvel had that were selling consistently each month and they were Marvel's best sellers. To 'reward' Kirby, Goodman gave Kirby a FIFTH Monster book to do a cover and (at least) one lead feature for, Amazing Adventures. It was here that Kirby created Dr. Droom, the FIRST somewhat superhero of the Silver Age Marvel Universe. Stan Lee had no involvement - as he signed none of those stories - and recently, original artwork showed up, where we can SEE Jack's hand written dialogue in the word balloons that were lettered over. Stan, hoping to get on the bandwagon, green lit Kirby's FF idea in exchange for a) becoming the 'editor' of it (eventually changing his title to 'writer' or 'scripter' - of which he did neither) and b) taking over the 'Amazing Adventures' comic and making it 'Amazing Adult Fantasy' with issue #7. It doesn't matter what anyone's 'opinion' is of the stories or not - Stan's 'Sci-Fi' book - ALL Lee & Ditko - was slated to be canceled 8 issues later. |
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Post by princenamor on Jul 8, 2024 19:12:07 GMT -5
Stan Lee as an 'idea' man is silly. The dude went to Hollywood with ALL the Marvel heroes, huge publicity, and an endless budget and got zilch done while DC Comics made 4 Superman movies, and 4 Batman movies.
Only when others stepped in for Marvel (Avi and then Kevin Feige) did the company finally get some real movies made.
The 'idea' guy didn't have any worthy ideas for his last 50 years.
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Post by princenamor on Jul 8, 2024 19:25:55 GMT -5
In reality... you can see Lee's 'ideas' dry up after 1964. Without the FF or Thor, think about Marvel's creative output from 1964 to 1972 (when Stan finally stopped writing because no one was there to write the stories for him).
What was there?
Captain Marvel? (Orders by Goodman to keep the trademark name)
Western Ghost Rider? (Taken from the Golden Age trademark)
Stan had nothing. Without Kirby doing breakdowns for the artists, i.e writing the story and coming up with villains (he quit doing it when he realized he wasn't getting paid or credit), the 'creativity' suddenly died on those books. Who are the great bad guys from 1964-1972?
The Kingpin. Ok, that's a good one.
What else? Anything?
In the Kirby books, we still got plenty... Galactus, Silver Surfer, Inhumans, Black Panther, Ego the Living Planet, the Destroyer, etc.
But in the non-Kirby books, it all dried up.
The Owl? The Mimic? Leap Frog? Power Man? LOL
Yeah, Stan Lee, the idea man. LOL.
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Post by kirby101 on Jul 8, 2024 21:45:03 GMT -5
I will point out that everything that made the Kingpin unique was from Romita.
All Stan told him was he wanted a character who was The Kingpin of Crime. Which is similar to Ditko's Crime Lord.
But Romita then:
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Post by berkley on Jul 8, 2024 22:01:54 GMT -5
I will point out that everything that made the Kingpin unique was from Romita. All Stan told him was he wanted a character who was The Kingpin of Crime. Which is similar to Ditko's Crime Lord. But Romita then:
I'm not too knowledgeable about Little Orphan Annie, but is there a hint of Daddie Warbucks in there somewhere? The bald head, the sort of 20s or 30s style well-fed, well-dressed rich man visual image?
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Post by tarkintino on Jul 8, 2024 22:23:04 GMT -5
Real history is not an alien concept. In the 1970s, Lee successfully pitched and sold Marvel as live action properties, which did not come into existence in the 1990s as has been erroneously argued. Thanks to Lee, who knew how to sell his characters, Marvel was finally expised to larger, mainstream audiences (which comics or cartoons could not reach):
The Amazing Spider-Man, which, according the research found in TwoMorrows Publishing's Age of TV Heroes: "Spider-Man's first five episodes drew a large amount of viewers. The series scored an impressive 21.2 rating with a 34 share..." "These ratings made Spider-Man the number one children's program across all three networks.". Contrary to myth, "Spider-Man was cancelled not because of low ratings and not because of negative audience reaction..." but thanks to then-CBS president William Paley overreacting to his industry friends mocking CBS for having "too many" superhero series on the air, which would eventually lead to Wonder Woman's cancellation.
The Incredible Hulk--as opposed to the Reeve Superman movie--was the first time a superhero live action production was played seriously across the board, which was undoubtedly the template for serious characterizations of superheroes from that point forward. The series turned the Hulk into what he had never been up to that time: a proven pop-culture icon, with the TV series being, "...one of CBS' big consistent hits on Friday nights for four-and-a-half, five years.".
The Captain America TV movie was successful, leading to a sequel movie the same year, but did not go to series in part due to the William Paley overreaction to superhero series on CBS, not due to the films' qualities.
The point being that Marvel was well established to the public in live-action form in the 70s, thanks to [i[Lee[/i]. Without his aggressive efforts to expand the Marvel into a larger IP (in other words, beyond comic books alone) it was not going to happen out of thin air, wishes, revisionist history or anyone else, such as certain artists who did not have much or anything to do with the development of the live action programs & did not have Lee's clout with film studios.
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Post by Cei-U! on Jul 9, 2024 1:34:38 GMT -5
Jack Kirby had bickering heroes before the FF - Boy Commandos, Boy's Ranch, Race for the Moon, Challengers of the Unknown. Stan lee didn't. That last sentence is simply not true. Lee was using the bickering heroes trope at Timely in his earliest days at the company, particularly in his prose stories in the anthology books like Marvel Mystery and All-Winners. And the competition between Bucky and Toro for leadership of The Young Alllies was a big part of that series' appeal. I get that you hate Stan Lee, and many of your citations provide solid justification for your position, but you don't do yourself any favors when you misrepresent the facts.
Cei-U! I summon the historical accuracy!
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