Spending time with the King

 As chance would have it, I had no sooner finished writing about the fiftieth-anniversary edition of Origins of Marvel Comics than I came across Jack Kirby: The Epic Life of the King of Comics at my local Ollie's. Priced at $6.99, it was a steal—and an appropriate counterpoint to the Stan Lee-centric history presented in the former volume. 

Writer and artist Tom Scioli has compiled information from multiple sources, including The Jack Kirby Collector, the Jack Kirby Museum & Research Center, and various books, to tell the story of Kirby's life from birth to death. Along the way, he illuminates the King's formative years on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, his time in World War II, and, of course, his pivotal role in the creation of the comic book. 

Like many other early comic artists, Kirby spent much time trying to do something else. Specifically, he wanted to draw a syndicated comic strip, seen as a more distinguished job for cartoonists. Again and again, however, his attempts were rebuffed or stymied, sometimes by financial and legal considerations. Inky, "a comic strip artist who solves crimes" was a collaboration with Joe Simon that "went nowhere" (p. 73). Sky Masters, a syndicated collaboration with Wally Wood, cost Kirby money because he paid both Wood and a writer, Dave Wood (no relation to Wally), to assist. Dave, according to the book, was late with the scripts, so Kirby wrote the strip himself but continued to pay anyway. 

Readers with some modicum of knowledge about Kirby won't find much that's new, especially in the section about the birth of Marvel Comics and Kirby's eventual switch to DC and then back to Marvel. These are oft-told stories, but what gives them emotional heft is "hearing" them in the artist's voice, as Scioli chooses to have Kirby narrate his own story. The continual disappointment, the non-adherence to contracts, and the lack of payment as Kirby's work is reconstituted for animated cartoons, toys, and even Halloween costumes are reflected visually by Scioli's visual rendition of Kirby: He gets older and less vital, even as his work continues to define the aesthetic of mainstream comics. 

At one point—jarringly, in this reader's estimation—the point of view shifts to Stan Lee for several pages, demonstrating the famed editor/writer's perspective of the birth of Marvel. These pages cover Lee's time in the service, the death of artist Joe Maneely, and his reunion with Kirby (with whom he worked at Timely before the war) in the 1960s. Why Scioli thought a book about Kirby's life needed Lee's perspective is unknown. 

The book does a great job demonstrating how Kirby's view of writing is unique enough that both his and Lee's view of "who did what" during Marvel's formative years can be correct. Kirby equated writing with plotting (which it is, in part) and insisted that the notes he left in the margins of his pages were proof that he shaped much of what Lee took credit for. 

However, comparing this marginalia to the finished product indicates that Lee (or somebody else) expanded on these notes to create the finished dialogue and captions. Indeed, much of the charm of these early Marvel stories comes from the interplay among the characters—the playful banter, the differences in dialects, and the ruminating in thought balloons that gave the Kirby and Lee heroes feet of clay compared to DC's perfect deities. This takes nothing away from Kirby (or Steve Ditko, also mentioned in these pages), who undoubtedly choreographed the action, designed the visuals, and fleshed out the plots. Yet the finished work appears to owe something to Lee. 

Part of Scioli's brilliance here is that he makes us understand how Kirby could believe he was treated poorly by Lee and the various owners of Marvel (which he was) even as we recognize that Kirby's conclusions may not be entirely accurate. Few creative endeavors between two people are entirely fifty-fifty; one collaborator undoubtedly does more than the other. In Kirby's case, he was doing more, yet more shouldn't remove Lee entirely from the equation. 

Kirby was ahead of his time, and therein lies his genius and his tragedy. The genius is evident in his role in creating the visual language of comics. His tragedy is that he didn't live long enough to see his contributions honored fully. At least he experienced some of the recognition he so richly deserved via the return of his original art, convention appearances, and awards. Yet the full flowering of this appreciation would come after his passing in 1994, which Scioli effectively illustrates in the biography's final pages by having Kirby's voice go silent while the encomiums continue — media tributes, movie credits, and an out-of-court settlement between Marvel and Kirby's heirs. 

This panel encapsulates the advantages of comics over video games and movies. It's so appropriate that it comes from Kirby.

Fans of the Golden, Silver, and Bronze ages of comics will enjoy this book because it name-drops so many creators from these periods. Hardcore and even casual Kirby fans will love it, too. I paid a pittance for it, but it's worth much more. Scioli has made a significant contribution to comics scholarship. 

Who Did What? Marvel’s Attempt to Contextualize Stan Lee

Movie fans know Stan Lee as the old man with cameos in many Marvel films. A few may know him as a comics creator, and fewer still may be able to rattle off some of the characters he worked on. Longtime comic book fans, however, recognize Lee as one of the primary architects of contemporary pop culture. He is lionized not only because he helped to create dozens of well-known characters — the Fantastic Four, X-Men, Incredible Hulk, and Black Panther among them — but also because he promoted Marvel Comics through TV appearances, magazine interviews, and nonstop tours of college campuses. His hype-man persona turned the company into a cultural force. It also made him very rich.

In recent years, however, Lee’s credibility has taken a hit. Comics fans and not a few artists and writers have started to speak up about what they see as Lee’s attempts to claim all the creative credit for himself. They point out Lee’s famously fallible memory, citing instances where his version of events in the evolution of Marvel changed notably from one telling to the next. They mention the significant involvement of various artists who created not only the visual look of the characters but often contributed essential plot elements. Chief among these artists is Jack Kirby, a creative dynamo who worked in the comics industry from its inception in the 1930s until his death in 1994. His decades of work at Marvel was shadowed by disillusionment. He watched Lee grow wealthy from their shared creations while he toiled in obscurity, earning only a modest rate per page. For years after his passing, Kirby’s children fought for legal recognition and financial remuneration. Finally, in 2014, Disney, the new owner of Marvel, capitulated, offering the Kirby heirs a settlement estimated as low as $40-50 million or as high as $100 million.

Pressure to recognize the diverse hands involved in Marvel’s creation has left the company in a difficult position. On the one hand, Lee is still the much-beloved mascot of the company, even six years after his death. On the other, his single-author stumping is increasingly seen as a liability, especially when it obscures the involvement of Kirby and others, including Steve Ditko, Marie Severin, Joe Sinnott, and Dick Ayers. One hint as to how the company will move forward in managing Lee’s legacy can be found in the fiftieth-anniversary reissue of Origins of Marvel Comics, one of the first full-length books to reprint mainstream comics and one originally credited solely to Lee, despite reprinting work by all of the creative people mentioned above.

A deluxe edition of Origins offers 39 pages of introductory material, much devoted to a more equitable retelling of Marvel’s early years. In one piece, editor Chris Ryall bluntly states, “Within the pages of Origins, Stan’s text pieces offer both his mindset and his self-mythologizing during this time” (p. 6). This is followed by a lengthy essay from long-time Marvel editor Tom Brevoort, who exhaustively identifies the creators responsible for each reprinted story. He also offers an apology of sorts, noting that “nobody who was working on these stories in the 1960s thought that their efforts would continue to be scrutinized into the coming decades” (hence the lack of precise creator documentation at the time) and that a major goal of Origins was not to provide a historical document, but rather “to present these early efforts by Marvel as being significant stories worthy of being revisited and documented” (p. 26).

A third contributor, artist Alex Ross discusses the “Marvel Method” of comic creation, where the writer provides only a rough plot summary for the artist, who then expands it into the required number of pages and panels. The writer then returns to insert the captions and dialogue. Ross diplomatically terms the title of “writer” in this situation as “an incomplete representation of duties” (p. 30), pointing out the many narrative choices left to the artist. Complicating the issue, Lee, who was also busy serving as Marvel’s editor at the time, often shared his plot summaries through informal conversations, with no actual “writing” taking place.

Perhaps recognizing that the previous three contributors had pushed the debate too far against Lee, the book’s editor gives the last word to Larry Lieber, Stan’s brother and an early Marvel scripter, who says the “anecdotes in Stan’s books are comical exaggerations,” and readers who use them to make a case against Lee “are just plain wrong” (p. 38).

One vital aspect of Lee’s collaborations with Marvel artists is how much the dialogue enhances the enjoyment of the finished work. Origins of Marvel Comics reprints eleven early Marvel stories starring seminal characters—the Fantastic Four, the Hulk, Spider-Man, Thor, and Doctor Strange— and, in each, the writing adds a layer of sophistication that the art, as dynamic and powerful as it is, cannot. Much of the joy of Fantastic Four #55, for example, comes from the interplay between the characters. The Thing’s insecurity about his looks (he is a craggy, walking desert, after all) leads to some comic exchanges between him and his teammates and provides the primary reason for him to engage in fisticuffs with the Silver Surfer. Much of the audience’s enjoyment of that battle comes from the interplay between the Thing, who talks like a Bowery Boys’ reject, and the shiny spaceman of the stars, whose speech patterns are pseudo-Shakespearean. None of this is indicated by the art alone but is a consequence of Lee’s dialogue.

Lee, in an attempt to cement his legacy and immortalize Marvel Comics, overstated his involvement and contributions on multiple occasions, including in the pages of Origins of Marvel Comics. The decision by long-ago editors to include only his name on the cover, alongside a pair of typing hands that insinuate he was the sole creator, helped to cement this misconception. In recent years, the pendulum has swung more toward Lee’s various collaborators, especially the underappreciated Jack Kirby. However, it would be a mistake to overcompensate for Lee’s bluster by minimizing the man’s legitimate contributions. 

Some sixty years after the birth of Marvel Comics, the origins of the various characters and the universe they live in are more complex than originally reported, and the only people who know who did what with any certainty have long since passed on. Marvel’s attempts to set the record straight are laudable. Yet the truth may be as sticky as Spider-Man’s webs, as ephemeral as the smoke from Dr. Strange’s magic, and as unknowable as the cosmic power crackling from the Silver Surfer’s fingertips.