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The pre-Marvel origin of Iron Man (and all the other Marvel characters) Chris Tolworthy 27 February 2017 The origins of Marvel characters: http://forbushman.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/the-discovery-of-golden-age-part-7-dc.html [Editor's note: this page uses the same material, and adds more http://zak-site.com/Great-American-Novel/ff_creation.html.] This has probably been discussed before, but I only just found it. It's an excellent way to very quickly compare the Marvel characters that Stan Lee claimed to create, and the same characters when they appeared years earlier. To be fair, there were some differences, but so what? Marvel characters have always changed and evolved. Of course we would expect a character idea to be shaken around in its first twenty years. Change is always greatest in the early days as ideas settle down. I love the comment that the book "Origins of Marvel Comics" should have collected the golden age original appearances. I think that book illustrates Stan Lee's approach: ideas have their origin at the point where Stan Lee gets involved. End of story. EDIT: the only Marvel character where I can't think of an obvious prior influence is Iron Man. The name is common enough (often used in sports, and for a 1940s Canadian aquatic supehero) but I can't believe that this was the first time an injured character used technology to keep himself alive, or the first time somebody wore an iron suit. But Googlng it reminds me of how a dominant narrative can push all the others out: every attempt to learn about old comic characters with iron suits just brings an avalanche of iron man references. Can anyone suggest precursors to Iron Man? Chris Tolworthy: re: Iron Man. Found it. He's basically Jack Kirby's Metallo from Tales of Suspense. http://www.comicbookhistorians.com/jack-kirby-co-creator-of-the-marvel-universe/ That link is another great guide to where the Marvel characters came from. Now officially Stan Lee was involved in the 1961 Metallo, so would claim credit. But an even closer match is DC's 1959 Metallo, who even looked like Stark. And you guessed it, Kirby was there. "There was an account where Robert Bernstein and Jack Kirby discussed this story together when Kirby was working at DC before leaving for Marvel, which could make Metallo a literary ancestor to Iron Man." And Kirby worked another iron-man like story for DC just before that: there is nothing in Iron Man's origin that was not in Kirby's head before he arrived at Marvel. Patrick Ford: Kirby's Green Arrow story "The War that Never Ended" contains almost the exact same plot elements which are found in the first Iron Man story. In short the hero is traveling in the South Pacific and is captured by an Oriental military commander who orders the hero to construct a weapon out of materials in a scrap pile. The hero builds the weapon and uses it to defeat his captor. Kirby was not credited for the story in any way in the published comic book which claims to have a plot by Stan Lee and a script by Lee's brother Larry Lieber. Patrick Ford: In 1966 Joe Simon sued Martin Goodman. Kirby wrote a deposition for Goodman in which Kirby casually mentioned he created the Destroyer back in 1940. Michael Hill: It's hard to know how to take Barry when he writes something that appears reasonable. You don't have to read far in the comments to get to the Kirby hatred. Patrick Ford: Michael, I think the comment: "Stan Lee's approach: ideas have their origin at the point where Stan Lee gets involved. End of story." is something Chris Tolworthy wrote. Patrick Ford: In a 1972 interview with Don Ricco and Steve Sherman Kirby offhandedly mentioned he created the Red Raven. Kirby brought up the character as an example of failure. David Lawrence: If looking for Iron Man antecedents you might want to consider Jerry Seigel's Robotman; the robot body kept alive his human brain. But more seminal might be L Frank Baum's Tin Man; like Tony Stark his weakness was the heart. Patrick Ford: For the purposes of the Lee/Kirby creatorship discussion it's most useful to look for direct antecedents in the work of Kirby and Lee. With Kirby the direct links are numerous and form a pattern over decades of work. With Lee they are scarce. Patrick Ford: There's a fellow named Mike Delisa who frequently shows up when the Spider-Man character is being discussed. He will begin posting a half dozen or more Spider-Spiderman characters from old films, novels, comic books and pulp magazines. None of which are remotely relevant to whether it was Kirby who brought a Spider-Man to Lee or Lee who assigned one to Kirby. Chris Tolworthy: I agree that this is not STRONG evidence. But it is clear from their writing in general that Kirby saw far more pop culture than Lee ever did. So if Delisa's only argument is "this stuff was in pop culture, who invented it?" then statistically we'd have to go for Kirby as most likely. It's like if you and I both claim we created this successful Star Trek fan comic. There's plenty of Star Trek out there, so it could be either of us. Except you are a nerd who owns every Star Trek episode on DVD, whereas I get it mixed up with Star Wars. Doesn't prove you wrote it, but if that's all we have to go on... Patrick Ford: It always seemed to me his argument was "Spider men are old hat. It does not matter who came up with the idea for a Spider-Man at Marvel." Patrick Ford Which is half right.

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