FANTASTIC FOUR 14
cover by Jack Kirby & Steve Ditko
STRANGE TALES 107
cover by Jack Kirby & Sol Brodsky (April 1963)
TALES TO ASTONISH 43
cover by Jack Kirby & Sol Brodsky
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2
cover by STEVE DITKO
JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY 92
cover by JACK KIRBY (w/ Dick Ayers)
from the GCD: "Synopsis: Loki magically diverts Thor's hammer to free himself from his chains. Thor returns to Asgard to find the hammer, and Loki tries to kill him with magical traps, but Thor overcomes them all to find his hammer and catch Loki."
Well, now the series is falling into a rut-- or simply narrowing the field a bit too much. This is the 2nd episode in a row to feature Loki and his endless vendetta against his adoptive brother.
As last time, apparently Jack Kirby supplied the story, Robert Bernstein the dialogue (and possibly fleshed out the story full-script, it's impossible to say), while JOE SINNOTT provided full art.
The cover appears to be by Kirby & Dick Ayers-- except, the figure of Loki also appeared on a "Masterworks" pin-up page, which suggests it may have been a piece of art reused here and compositted by the production department. Nick Caputo suggests the possibility of Jack Kirby inks, and while I believe the Thor figure was inked by Ayers, there's a good chance the figure of Loki (done separately) was all Kirby.
(1-28-2014)
STRANGE TALES 108
cover by Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers
Synopsis:
Johnny captures a gang of truck hijackers, and a gang robbing a costume party. Meanwhile, gang leader "Scar" Tobin is visited by counterfeiter Wilhelm Van Vile, a painter notorious for his carelessness, which causes Tobin to fear he's been followed by the cops, and tells him to hit the road! But Van Vile demonstrates his new "talent"-- the ability to quickly make paintings which come magically to life, and follow his telepathic commands! These include a 3-headed gorilla, a gun that wears tons, and a flying carpet. While zooming over the city, Van Vile tells Tobin's gang how he found the paints, left behind by aliens from space, in an underground cavern while tunneling out of jail. His ambition is to create an army of crime, and he feels beating The Human Torch (who helped send him to jail) will be a good test-case. But despite sending painting-images of Reed, Sue & Ben to kill him, Johnny triumphs, destroys the alien paints and rounds up the gang.
Indexer notes:
"Scar" Tobin-- apparently-- makes a one-panel cameo appearance in the Iron Man story in this month's TALES OF SUSPENSE #41 (May 1963)
(2007)
TALES OF SUSPENSE 41
cover by JACK KIRBY
This is the story I believe was the first IRON MAN story actually produced, from Jack Kirby, Robert Bernstein & Dick Ayers. The villain of that story, I believe, was originally intended to be THE YELLOW CLAW, returning from the late-50's. I'm guessing the "editor" nixed it because he wanted to distance the new "Marvel" from the old one.
(1-28-2014)
And now, something really "controversial"................
This is a real fucking insult. Wikipedia does it again....... from their page on DON HECK.
"During the period fans and historians call the Silver Age of Comic Books, Iron Man premiered in Tales of Suspense #39 (March 1963) as a collaboration among editor and story-plotter Lee, scriptwriter Larry Lieber, story-artist Heck, and Kirby, who provided the cover pencils and designed the first Iron Man armor.[14] Kirby "designed the costume," Heck recalled, "because he was doing the cover. The covers were always done first. But I created the look of the characters, like Tony Stark and his secretary Pepper Potts."[15] Comics historian and former Kirby assistant Mark Evanier, investigating claims of Kirby's involvement in the creation of both Iron Man and Daredevil, interviewed Kirby and Heck on the subject, years before their deaths, and concluded that Kirby
...definitely did not do full breakdowns as has been erroneously reported about ... the first 'Iron Man'. [In the early 1970s], Jack claimed to have laid out those stories, and I repeated his claim in print — though not before checking with Heck, who said, in effect, 'Oh, yeah. I remember that. Jack did the layouts'. We all later realized he was mistaken. ... Both also believed that Jack had contributed to the plots of those debut appearances — recollections that do not match those of Stan Lee. (Larry Lieber did the script for the first Iron Man story from a plot that Stan gave him.) Also, in both cases, Jack had already drawn the covers of those issues and done some amount of design work. He came up with the initial look of Iron Man's armor ..."
Now, let's see JUST HOW MUCH is wrong with this...
"story-plotter Lee"
WRONG!
"scriptwriter Larry Lieber, story-artist Heck, and Kirby, who provided the cover pencils and designed the first Iron Man armor"
They make it sound as if Kirby came along at the end, as an afterhought, and ONLY designed the costume, NOTHING ELSE.
"Mark Evanier, investigating claims of Kirby's involvement in the creation of both Iron Man and Daredevil, interviewed Kirby and Heck on the subject, years before their deaths, and concluded that Kirby definitely did not do full breakdowns as has been erroneously reported about ... the first 'Iron Man'. [In the early 1970s], Jack claimed to have laid out those stories, and I repeated his claim in print — though not before checking with Heck, who said, in effect, 'Oh, yeah. I remember that. Jack did the layouts'. We all later realized he was mistaken. ... Both also believed that Jack had contributed to the plots of those debut appearances — recollections that do not match those of Stan Lee."
It should be obvious why I eventually had to BLOCK Mark Evanier on FB, as he became INSUFFERABLE, going out of his way to attack my comments almost as much as that other insufferable egotist, Kurt Busiek.
There are 3 IRON MAN stories pencilled by JACK KIRBY. If you read the one in TALES OF SUSPENSE #41, it's pretty obvious the whole thing is structured as an INTRODUCTORY story. The origin in Viet Nam was done AFTERWARDS, but published FIRST. So when people say Kirby didn't do layouts on the first story, they're talking about the first PUBLISHED story. It's all a big fucking CON GAME, to separate IRON MAN from the guy who actually CREATED the character in the first place.
As for S*** FUCKING L**, I have no interest in anything he says or "remembers", since he's one of the most consistent SERIAL LIERS in history.
For the entire DON HECK run of IRON MAN, I see there being 3 writers on the book-- 3 !!
1 - Jack Kirby -- he did the covers & came up with the story ideas.
2 - Don Heck -- he WROTE the stories Kirby supplied at the art stage, something that should NEVER be forgotten or under-valued.
3 - whoever wrote the dialogue. Whether it's Larry Lieber, Robert Bernstein, Don Rico, Al Hartley, or "ye editor", NONE of these guys deserves to be thought of simply as "the writer".
One thing that is CONSISTENT with the "origins" of comics-book character whenever "ye editor" is involved-- his explanations for "where" he got his ideas never make any sense, and the stories about how the books came to be almost always seem to be EXCESSIVELY complex and convoluted. This is what happens when you're trying to LIE hard enough to cover up the actual truth.
Michael Hill:
"It is outrageous that the guy who's considered THE authority on Kirby decides that recollections that don't match those of Stan Lee are erroneous. Stan Lee, who is physically incapable of telling the truth."
For 10-15 years, I tried to be polite whenever I dealt with Mark Evanier. After all, I liked his work with Dan Spiegle on "BLACKHAWK".
But then he got REALLY SNIDE about "my behavior" concerning Jack Kirby... so I just took the long-missing Patrick Ford's advice, and BLOCKED the sonofabitch.
"physically incapable of telling the truth."
I have a city councilman-- BRIAN COLEMAN-- who has the same problem.
It is ridiculous that that Wikipedia article goes on FOR SO LONG just to "debunk" Jack Kirby's claims that he "laid out" the first story.
See, they're talking about the origin. KIRBY was talking about the first 3 episodes of the series. The 3 that JACK KIRBY did the art on. And remember-- if Kirby DREW if, Kirby WROTE it. WITH ZERO INPUT from his alleged so-called "editor".
And incidentally (NOT REALLY), as has been pointed out to me MULTIPLE times-- the Iron Man origin-- is actually a REMAKE of a JACK KIRBY Green Arrow story from several years earlier.
Wikipedia would have people believe that S*** FUCKING L** wrote a story that ripped off a JACK KIRBY story... instead of JACK KIRBY ripping off HIMSELF... which creative types do all the time.
Anthony Wayne Pettus:
"Well, Evanier apparently blocked me. He didn't like it when I told off his buddy Shaw years ago when he was trying to name call and bully us on the old, now nothing, Kirby group. Can't sit on the fence on Kirby trying to appease Lee. Reminds me of the Fred MacMurray character in the Caine Mutiny."
One thing blatently missing from that Wikipedia SMEAR of Kirby's comments was the KNOWN FACT that Iron Man's debut was "DELAYED" by several months for reasons that have NEVER BEEN specified by L** or his cronies.
Isn't it OBVIOUS why it was delayed?
So they could STOCKPILE stories and the publish them out of sequence with SOMEONE ELSE on the art, to make it look like, hey, THIS time, Kirby had "nothing" to do with its creation.
There's also my own personal suspicion that Kirby fully intended for Iron Man to have an ASIAN arch-enemy from the series' inception. GO LOOK at "The Stronghold of Dr. Strange" and tell me if every fibre of that story doesn't look like Kirby was bringing back THE YELLOW CLAW, who he worked on in the 1950s.
Also for reasons that have NEVER been specified, L** seems to have had a dislike (allegedly) for The Yellow Claw. Witness what I strongly believe to be the LAST-MINUTE substitution of The Yellow Claw at the end of Jim Steranko's "NICK FURY" storyline with Dr. Doom, a change which makes NO sense in the context of the story itself, and which makes an outright confusing FARCE of the entire storyline. J. David Spurlock published a detailed article explaining how the first 2 chapters of that, a prologue titled "Project Blackout", was NOT a flashback when Steranko wrote it, but was turned into a flashback-- AWKWARDLY-- at the last minute, creating MULTIPLE plot-holes and continuity problems in one go. It struck me that if L** could go so far out of his way to FUCK over Steranko's storyline once, WHY NOT twice?
The previous "Hydra" storyline was ALL Jack Kirby's idea, though you never seem to hear people discussing that when they talk about the "NICK FURY" series. Because L** had dropped off the series one episode before Kirby left, when Steranko arrived, Roy Thomas saw no point in writing dialogue over someone else's stories. As a result, Steranko was "allowed" to write dialogue for HIS OWN STORIES, and within 6 months, became something of a sensation in the business, something ego-maniac L** could not abide.
Steranko essentially polished off JACK KIRBY's epic storyline, but when he started HIS OWN story, that was when his editor decided to step in and SCREW with his work.
And why would he do this? That's simple. Apart from removing The Yellow Claw's actually presence by suiggesting he was NEVER involved at all, it was also a move to show this young upstart who was getting SO MUCH attention among the fans WHO WAS BOSS. L** was always having to come up with convoluted, non-sensical "explanations" for his editorial INTERFERENCE, but it usually came down to trying to prove who was in charge.
I mean, look what he did to John Buscema on SILVER SURFER #4. Damn near destroyed the poor guy's self-confidence.
When it comes down to it, L** is one really miserable hate-filled BASTARD.
(3-18-2018)
My fantasy version of TALES OF SUSPENSE #41:
SGT. FURY 1
cover by Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers
(Continued in June 1963)
All Text (C) Henry R. Kujawa
Artwork (C) Marvel Comics
Restorations by Henry R. Kujawa
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