Citizen Stan?

The illustration accompanying Michael
Chabon's story.

What if an elderly Stan Lee visited Jack Kirby in a nursing home, seeking forgiveness? In Michael Chabon's short story "Citizen Conn" (published in the February 13 - 20th New Yorker), Artie Conn certainly seems a lot like Stan Lee and Morton Feathers seems a lot like Jack Kirby.

For those who don't know, here's a little background. Stan Lee is a household name among comics fans, and he's well known by many non-comics fans. He spent decades as a writer and editor of the company variously known as Timely Comics, Atlas (not to be confused with the 1970s Atlas Comics), and most famously Marvel Comics. From the early 1940s-1961, he was a journeyman, following trends and not doing anything particularly innovative. By the late 1950s Atlas was reeling following the anti-comics crusade earlier in the decade and then a misguided change in distribution that turned disastrous. By 1961, Lee was ready to move on from the world of comics. Then according to the corporate version of history long promoted by Lee, Martin Goodman - Marvel's owner - was out playing golf with Jack Liebowitz co-owner of DC. (Michael Uslan challenged this version and said Goodman probably golfed with someone who worked for Independent News, a DC owned distributor which also distributed Marvel's comics rather than Liebowitz or Irwin Donenfeld, son of DC's other co-owner. Besides being Harry Donenfeld's son, Irwin was also a high ranking DC executive at the time.) Supposedly, Liebowitz bragged about the strong sales that The Justice League of America was enjoying. This prompted Goodman to order Stan Lee to put out a competing super hero team book. As Lee tells it in Excelsior, he reconsidered quitting. He decided he would stay on and do the book, but he was going to do it his way. What's the worst that could happen if he broke with tradition? He could get fired. So, what? He wanted to quit anyway. Rather than the cardboard two-dimensional characters who'd prevailed in comics, Lee wanted to do complex, three dimensional characters with everyday problems. He wanted to write heroes who didn't always agree with each other, who had conflicts. And thus the floodgates of creativity were opened and the Marvel Age dawned with Stan Lee revolutionizing comics forever, and oh by the way, he worked with some great artists like Jolly Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, and Jazzy John Romita.

Pressed for time at an understaffed Marvel and knowing that Kirby and Ditko were good at plotting stories, Lee eschewed the traditional full script method of writing comics. With a full script, the writer would write out what the artist was supposed to draw in every panel throughout the story. Plus the writer would write all of the dialogue and captions in advance. Lee turned to a different method. Instead of giving the artists a complete script, he gave them a synopsis, a short description of the plot and the artist fleshed it out into a full twenty-plus page story visually. When the artist was done, Lee then wrote the character dialogue and the other text. Lee said he did this to save time. Instead of Ditko and Kirby both having to wait while Lee scripted a story for Kirby, Lee could dash off a synopsis for Kirby. While Kirby was fleshing out the story and drawing, Lee could work on a synopsis for  Ditko, then dash off another synopsis for Kirby, and then add text for the first story while Kirby got to work on the new synopsis.  One innovative creation followed another starting with The Fantastic Four followed by Spider-man, The X-Men, The Hulk, Iron Man, The Avengers, and many others. Lee broke down the fourth wall, speaking directly to the readers. More than just a writer and editor, Lee became a spokesmen not just for Marvel, but for comic books themselves. In the 1970s in books like Origins of Marvel Comics and Son of Origins, Lee detailed how he came up with all the ideas for the Marvel Age characters. With the backing of corporate Marvel, and aided by his charming, loquacious personality, and his media savvy, Lee's version of events was the most widely publicized and embraced. But there was another lesser known version.

From The Fantastic Four #2 January 1962
(C) 2012 Marvel Comics

Long before working with Stan Lee in the 1960s, Jack Kirby had already established himself as one of the most important creators in the history of comic books. Although primarily known today as a penciler, Kirby was also a prolific story plotter and character creator. Long teamed with Joe Simon, Kirby had created or co-created myriads of characters before the Marvel Age dawned. The most famous of these is Captain America, but they also include the Challengers of the Unknown, the Boy Commandos, the Newsboy Legion, and many others. Simon and Kirby worked in many other genres besides super heroes. They worked in true crime, westerns, science fiction, horror, and they were even credited with starting the romance comics genre. In the late 1950s, Simon and Kirby went their separate ways as Joe Simon sought to branch out from comics while Kirby continued on in the industry. Although Kirby was sent scripts to draw, there are stories of him simply throwing out the scripts and making up his own story. After, a court battle with a DC editor over The Skymasters newspaper strip, Kirby felt unwelcome at DC and began to do more work for Atlas (Marvel) at a time when they were publishing lots of stories about giant monsters.

When Goodman demanded a super hero team book, Lee turned to Kirby. The result was The Fantastic Four and the rest is history. Their 102 consecutive issues together on The Fantastic Four included some of the best super hero comics ever published, contained a lot of ground breaking work, and set the foundation of the Marvel Universe. That alone was enough to make Lee and Kirby one of the greatest creative teams in the history of comics. However, they didn't stop with The Fantastic Four. They also created the Marvel version of Thor together, the X-Men, the Hulk, Iron Man (although Kirby wasn't the primary early artist on Iron Man, he was involved), the Avengers, and many others. They revived Captain America whom Kirby and Simon had created and who, prior to the Marvel Age, had been the company's most successful character. The company had stopped publishing Captain America in the late 1940s and there'd been a short-lived revival in the 1950s. According to Lee, Kirby was originally slated to draw Spider-man, but Kirby made Spider-man look too heroic while Lee wanted a scrawnier, less heroic look, so the job went to Steve Ditko although Kirby still drew the cover for Spider-man's first appearance, Amazing Fantasy #15. The comics often painted a picture of fun-loving camaradrie between Lee and Kirby. In fact, that image extended to all of Marvel's writers and artists. Lee and Kirby sometimes appeared in the comics themselves. Marvel's books contained credits at a time when artists at other companies had to content themselves with sneaking their signatures in somewhere. And those Marvel credits often contained colorful nicknames and playful banter. As Marvel grew and Lee was stretched thinner as a writer, editor, and spokesman and as Lee grew more comfortable with the new writing method, his synopses for Kirby became less detailed, leaving more for Kirby to supply. Instead of typewritten synopses, Lee would talk to Kirby in person or on the phone and they'd come up with the plot. Comics lore has it that Lee simply told Kirby that they should have the Fantastic Four meet God and the result was the Galactus triology. Lee once said that all he had to do was tell Kirby that this month's villain would be Dr. Doom and Kirby would come back with a fully drawn story and Lee would then think up dialogue and captions to go with it. When Lee got the art for the Galactus triology, he was surprised to see a strange character on a surf board in space. Lee asked Kirby who it was, and Kirby said that some one as powerful as Galactus should have a herald, so he gave him one. And that's how the Silver Surfer was created.

It came as a shock to fans in 1970 when Kirby abruptly left Marvel and went to DC where he created The New Gods, The Forever People, and Kamandi among others. Although Kirby would occasionally work with a writer after 1970, from then on, most comics he worked on listed him as Writer, Editor, and Artist. Kirby would return to Marvel in the mid-1970s, creating The Eternals, Devil Dinosaur, and Machine Man. Other than Captain America and the Black Panther, Kirby was reluctant to work on his old characters. He teamed with Lee on a Silver Surfter project, but other than that, he preferred to create new characters. After leaving Marvel for a final time, Kirby created Captain Victory and Silver Star at Pacific Comics. In this he helped pioneer creator owned work published by independent companies aiming at the emerging comic book stores which were beginning to replace newsstands and corner stores as the primary markets for comics. Kirby's dialogue wasn't as hip and witty as Lee's at Marvel. His books literally burst with ideas and creative energy, but he never again enjoyed the commercial success he'd had with either Stan Lee or Joe Simon.

For his part, Lee seemed to go into a creative rut after Kirby left, recycling old concepts in a tired way. After Ditko had left Spider-man, Lee continued to develop and build on the foundation he and Ditko established, delving deeper into the characters and their conflicts and their angst. By contrast, when Kirby left The Fantastic Four, the spark went out. Lee soon stopped writing and editing full time. He took the title of Publisher. Later, he went out to California where he began pitching Marvel's characters to Hollywood. (Kirby had earlier left New York for California). Lee remained the face of Marvel and its leading spokesmen. For years after he stopped writing regularly, every Marvel comic had the legend "Stan Lee Presents" on its first page. However, even as Lee told his version of Marvel history through the corporate megaphone, that other version circulated in the fan press.

From The Fantastic Four #79 October 1968
(C) 2012 Marvel Comics

This version painted Kirby and not Lee as the primary creative force behind Marvel. Kirby grew increasingly bitter as he heard Lee take the lion's share of the credit for years. At the height of his bitterness, Kirby even claimed that Lee didn't do anything except for messing with the words a little before they went into the dialogue balloons. For decades now while Lee has continued to be idolized by Marvel fans and the general public, the Lee vs Kirby controversy has raged among a certain segment of fandom. There are those who give Lee most of the credit, pointing out differences and perceived shortcomings in Kirby's dialogue writing and characterization. There are those who give Kirby the credit, pointing out that the house of ideas ran short of ideas when Kirby and Ditko weren't around. Then there those who think that the writing and character creation was a team effort with both men making essential contributions. Although he's less famous than Lee, Kirby is now acknowledged at least as the co-plotter of most Lee/Kirby stories and as the co-creator of many Marvel Age characters.

The splash page of Adventure Comics #75 as
reprinted in The Collected Jack Kirby Collector
Volume Three.

For those who totally dismiss the idea that Kirby had any hand in character creation, there are some things to consider. Take the case of Thor for instance. In Origins of Marvel Comics, Lee claimed that after creating the Fantastic Four, the Hulk, and Spider-man, the only thing he could think of to top those characters would be with Super-God. Only, Marvel couldn't publish a Super-God comic without offending almost everyone. Then during a radio interview, a talk-show host referred to Marvel's comics as twentieth century mythology. That made Lee realize that although he couldn't use God as a character, he could use a mythological god. Lee claimed that he had a big interest in Norse mythology, hence he decided Thor would be Marvel's newest character. While I can't claim familiarity with everything Lee wrote prior to the Marvel Age, I'm not aware of him using Norse mythology before. At that time Greco-Roman mythology was far better known to the general public. Norse mythology was more obscure especially outside of Wagner. Super hero comics had many references to mythology, but most often it was Greco-Roman. Wonder Woman is one example. Another example is Captain Marvel who with the exception of Solomon derives his powers from Greco-Roman mythological figures. He has the strength of Hercules, the endurance of Atlas, the power of Zeus, the courage of Achilles, and the speed of Mercury to go along with Solomon's wisdom. One place where Norse mythology did appear in comics was in Simon and Kirby comics. The first two issues of Captain America Comics had a back-up feature called Hurricane. The title character was the son of Thor. This is just before Stan Lee's comics career began, folks. After Simon and Kirby left DC, they used Thor himself in a Sandman story in Adventure Comics #75 (May 1942). In Boy Commandos #7 (Summer 1944) the character Brooklyn meets Thor in a dream. Although this story was written and drawn by someone other than Simon and Kirby, it came from their shop and the late Rich Morrissey, a terrific comics scholar, points out the possibility that Kirby may have supplied the plot as he often did. At DC in the late 1950s, Kirby, without Joe Simon, again used Thor, this time in a story called "The Magic Hammer" which appeared in Tales of the Unexpected #16 (August 1957). So while, Lee later claimed a fascination with Norse mythology, Kirby actually displayed an interest in it in work published over the two decades before the creation of the Marvel Thor. With Lee and Kirby each claiming they came up with the idea of doing a Thor comic, is it so hard to believe Kirby's version considering that he'd already used Thor in comics?

(I owe a debt to the articles of Richard Kolkman and Rich Morrissey from The Jack Kirby Collector #14 for the information in the preceding paragraph.)

Next time out, I'll discuss Chabon's story itself and the ways in which the Artie Conn and Morton Feathers resemble Lee and Kirby and the ways they don't. After that, I'll get back to my ongoing trek through The Year's Best Science Fiction 27

From The Fantastic Four #79 October 1968
(C) 2012 Marvel Comics