A heart warming cartoon which made the rounds on Facebook last week. It’s signed but we could not identify the artist.

The world still mourns the passing of Marvel Comics legend Stan Lee. Stan was 95 years old and had some health issues the past year so it was not a big shock that he passed away. It was more or less expected but not something any of us was looking forward to of course. We had just lost Steve Ditko and Marie Severin a few months before, and Flo Steinberg last year. To those of us who grew up reading these guy’s work and admiring their art, this is a sad time. Jack Kirby, Sol Brodsky, John Buscema, Don Heck, Wally Wood, John Severin, Chic Stone, John Verpoorten, Gil Kane, Frank Giacoia, Mike Esposito, Gene Colan, Ross Andru, Bob Brown and Dan Adkins all passed on years ago. There may be others as well we can’t recall at the moment.  There are not many of the original Marvel Bullpen of the ’60’s and ’70’s left.  Our generation’s heroes are passing away and an era is coming to an end. 🙁

Roy Thomas and Stan Lee Together Again

Roy Thomas visited Stan Lee on November 10 just 2 days before Stan passed away. Long time Marvel fans will recall Roy was the first full time writer with the Bullpen Stan hired back in 1965. Roy worked on several fillers at first and had long stints on Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos, X-Men, Avengers and Conan. He later wrote nearly every series at one time or another for Marvel and succeeded Stan as the 2nd Editor In Chief over the Marvel line in 1972 once Stan became Publisher.

In an article on the HollwoodReporter.com Roy wrote:

 

This may be the last photo of Stan taken before he passed on 2 days later. It’s great that old friends Stan and Roy got to visit again one last time.

“I was just with Stan on Saturday. It was arranged a week earlier for me to come from back east. I was told Stan said he didn’t want to see anybody, but when they mentioned my name, he said, “I’d like to see Roy.” Which was very flattering. I was just with him for half an hour, less than 48 hours before he passed away. He was on the sofa, facing the swimming pool, had kind of a view. He was nattily dressed and so forth. He just didn’t have the energy that he had the last time I saw him. He looked frail, but he could get around when he needed to.”

Roy always complimented Stan’s style in his own writing and often ghosted for him on Bullpen Bulletin pages as well as the Spider-Man newspaper comic strips. As Editor-in-Chief Roy maintained the spirit of the Marvel Age of the ’60’s during his tenure. In short he came closer than any of the Chief Editors in doing it like Stan would have. It’s was good to know Roy got to see Stan again before he passed on.

Roy has another article on the HollwoodReporter.com: Roy Thomas on Life at Marvel in the 1960s you might enjoy.

The Marvel Creator Controversy

Who created what? Do the artists deserve more credit than Stan gave them?

Depending on just how much you know of the comic book industry history, you may or may not have ever heard of this controversy. For a number of years there has been a debate in fandom concerning how much of the Marvel Universe Stan Lee created and wrote as opposed to how much Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko contributed as well as other Marvel Bullpen members. Average fans would probably logically conclude it was a 50/50 split. However, there are those who say that is not so. Some very devoted Kirby fans say Jack wrote all the stories and Stan just did a little editing and put his name on it. Why would they say that? Because Jack was reported to have said similar things in several fanzines for several years, mainly in the ’80’s. Did Jack actually say these things? The interviewer may have merely exaggerated or else misunderstood what Jack was saying. That had happened on more than one occasion with Jack on various subjects. Jack was known to have an opinion about most things but he also had a strong sense of professionalism, so Jack giving an opinion in private or in what he thought was a private conversation was often different than what he would say publicly. This was fairly common practice in the World War II Generation. There were similar rumblings from fans of Steve Ditko over the years but we are not sure whether Steve ever made similar complaints to those of Jack. Steve Ditko was a very private man and as a rule didn’t give interviews. He did not often like to talk about past work, he was more interested in what was next.

A Good Article On the Subject

Daniel Best is a comics fan, writer, author, historian and public speaker. Daniel is a good friend of Bob Almond of The Inkwell Awards (see the ad to the right of this blog). Bob has also inked a lot of Marvel Comics and others for about the past 20 years. Daniel knows a lot of folks in the comics industry in addition to Bob. He has some great insight into all this he has shared in a great article on his blog regarding the controversy. Here’s a couple excepts:

“The Fantastic Four were the flagship of the Marvel line and clearly both Stan and Jack had a fondness for the characters. They were the first in a long line of super-heroes, and they marked the longest continuous collaboration that the two men had, as they worked on the title for 102 issues, plus a handful of annuals from its inception in 1961 through to 1970, creating a volume of work and characters that is still unmatched today.  The characters and concepts that were introduced make up the foundations of the Marvel Universe as we know it – the Silver Surfer, Galactus, The Black Panther, the Inhumans, Adam Warlock and countless others all had their introductions in the Lee/Kirby run.  Even so there is still conjecture as to who did what on the title.

“In one corner are those who firmly believe that Stan Lee had a strong hand in the writing and editing of the book.  This would also mean that Lee had the controlling say over the direction of the title and Lee also took more than an active hand in the creation of the characters.  In the other corner are those who equally believe that Jack Kirby did it all.  This means that Kirby wrote, or, at the very least, plotted every issue, suggested dialogue, created all of the characters alone and controlled the direction of the title.  While it’s true that there are strong arguments to be had for both sides of the fence, such as the fact that Stan Lee never created characters as strong away from Kirby as he did with him, and Jack Kirby’s dialogue left a bit to be desired without Lee’s editing, the absolute truth may never be known as Kirby and Lee were certainly at odds when it came to giving the other man credit for their efforts, although Lee has been more charitable when it comes to giving Kirby his due than Kirby did for Lee.”

You can read the rest of Daniel’s opinions on the research he has done at his blog: OhDannyBoy.blogspot.com

The Return of Jack Kirbys Original Art

An example of Jack Kirby’s pencil art. This was for a Marvel Calendar for, perhaps, 1978.

During the late ’70’s through the mid ’80’s the feud heated up as professionals and fans were taking sides. Lawyers were hired by Marvel and by Jack Kirby and a legal battle ensued. Beginning sometime in the ’70’s it became customary for publishers to return the original art of comic book artists after an issue was published. However  due to some copyright disputes regarding whether or not Jack retained some of the rights to some of the Marvel characters , Marvels legal department held hostage several hundred pages of Jacks original art. It was important to Jack to get his art back. A nice income could be had from the sale of those original art pages to the relative new original art collectors who began to surface in the ’70’s. Jim Shooter was the Marvel Editor In Chief at this time. He wrote on his blog concerning the return of the art:

 

Jim Shooter was the Editor In Chief of Marvel from 1978 until 1987.

“So then because he was suing Marvel, the lawyers felt that the artwork couldn’t be returned — it’s complicated, but doing so could tend to support his claims. In fact, they wouldn’t let me return artwork to anyone while the case was pending. Imagine the frustration of guys like Joe Sinnott and the Buscemas.

“The legal sparring went on a long time. Starting, as most lawsuits do, with a period of threats and legal maneuvering, in 1978 the Kirby side began an aggressive legal and PR attack on Marvel that ended (or lessened somewhat) in mid-1986 when the matter was settled. Though it was a complex case about who owned the characters the way it was pitched to the public by their side was that Marvel — and in particular, I wouldn’t give Kirby his art back.

“During this time, I’d run into Jack at conventions; he couldn’t have been nicer to me. If you look at what Jack said from the podium in those days, he’d acknowledge he had a dispute with Marvel, but he’d also say, “We’re trying to work it out.” He was very gracious about it. Some people around him would get pretty vicious. There was one time I was at a show; I’d sit in the back of the room if I ever went to a panel. Jack was on the panel so I went. There were some other people up there, some of the people who kind of gathered around him; some for genuinely noble reasons, some for self-serving reasons. I think it was Gary Groth who worked this crowd into a frenzy, shouting, “If you see anybody from Marvel, go after them with 2x4s!” I’m in the back of the room, and there’s 300 people between me and the door, and I thought, ‘Hmm, this is going to be interesting.’ “

So Jim Shooter was caught in the middle and took heat for something that was not really his fault. He had to do what the Marvel Legal Department told him got do to keep his job. But Jack did finally get his art back as Shooter recounts:

“So Jack, with his lawyer’s help, sent us a letter refusing to accept the artwork back unless he were given credit as sole creator on all the old stuff he and Stan worked on together. He specifically insisted that Stan would get no credit, and that Jack must get credit, or Jack would not accept his artwork back. That just blew my mind. Shortly after that, I met with Jack in San Diego, and I talked with him. I said, “Doesn’t Stan deserve some credit?” Jack said, “Yeah, he does.” And I said, “So you’d be okay if we put ‘Stan and Jack’?” He said yes. I said, “And another thing, Jack, in your letter you insist you created Spider-Man, and I know you developed a version of Spider-Man, but it wasn’t the one that was actually used. The one that was actually used was the one Steve did.” He said, “Yeah, you’re right, that’s his.” Jack was fine with it; he had no problem. So we settled, and he got his artwork back.

Another example of Jack Kirby’s original art. Thor # 154 form the late ’60’s.

“Finally, Kirby got his art back. But to this day, no one has a clue who Jim Galton was or his role in this. Very few people know the people behind the scenes who were calling the shots in this thing. To the average fan, Marvel was Jim Shooter, and why did he do this? I was in a position where, unless I was willing to get out there and badmouth one of our founding fathers, or badmouth the people who were paying my checks, what could I do? I wasn’t willing to talk bad about Jack certainly, and I felt honor-bound to represent Marvel as best I could, even though I disagreed; not with the legality of their stance, but with the intelligence of it. It was just an idiotic position. I kept hoping I could work something out. From my point of view, no one on this planet fought harder for Jack and his interests than me, ever. I’m the most vilified human being in the world when the subject of Jack Kirby comes up, and it wearies me. It really does. Probably no one will believe me, and at this point, so be it. I’m not interested in proving my case. I’m not interested in getting into a debate over it. I’ve said my piece. They can take it or leave it.”

This reckoning of these events does match other articles and books we’ve read of what really happened. There was a struggle over copyright and returning art which then evolved into who should get the credit for the creation of the characters.

Who Created What?

So did Stan create the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man or did Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko create them?  There is no way to know exactly. Outside of Stan, Jack and Steve there would only be a few others who would possibly know for sure. Some of those have already passed on as well, so the absolute truth in the matter may never be known. None of us were there so we only have second hand knowledge. It should be noted here many who claim they know, base their belief on second hand knowledge as well, so though their intentions may be honorable, their facts may or may not be completely accurate. It is with this in mind we examine the publicly known reports.

Conclusions

Jack Kirby and the Marvel Characters.

What have we learned? We have examined a few reports of the events which occurred leading up to the birth of the Marvel Age. So who created the Marvel Universe? As Daniel Best wrote there are strong arguments from both camps. Those who are ardent fans of Stan lee take his side while those who adore the work of Jack Kirby maintain he created it all. It’s remindful of some of the great Football Rivalries! Who’s the best? It depends on the fan viewpoint!