home

How the Marvel Universe was created Chris Tolworthy 7 April 2017 How the Marvel Universe was created: http://zak-site.com/Great-American-Novel/ff_creation.html This is only a first draft, and nothing here is new. I've just gathered stuff into one handy place. I grow tired of blog pages that say "this particular character was like an early Kirby character, clearly Kirby helped Lee with the plotting." Because when we see them all in one place: they are ALL like early Kirby characters. At that point we have to sharpen Occam's razor and ask why Lee had to be involved at all. Chris Tolworthy: I just expanded the section on the creation of The Hulk, showing how Lee was not needed at any point: http://zak-site.com/Great-American-Novel/ff_creation.html#Hulk Chris Tolworthy: ...and a section on Doom Patrol, arguing that certain elements of the X-Men must have been added by Stan Lee. Which elements, you ask? The ones that were a shameless steal from Doom Patrol. As Arnold Drake pointed out, plenty of Marvel artists were moonlighting for Marvel, so Stan had inside information And you can bet Stan was interested in DC's attempt to create their own Fantastic Four. So, every detail of the X-Men can be found in Kirby's earlier work, except for the parts Lee blatantly stole from Doom Patrol. Which was itself a copy of Kirby's Fantastic Four. All roads lead to Kirby. http://zak-site.com/Great-American-Novel/ff_creation.html#Doom-Patrol Patrick Ford: Speaking of the Hulk this is an excerpt from Kirby's play THE FROG PRINCE. Aaron Noble: Chris Tolworthy, good article, but I take exception to parts of your Dr Droom section. First of all, I don't know of any reason to think Stan had anything to do with the scripting. Please correct me if I'm wrong! Your theory of changes to Kirby's story is interesting, and perhaps it is workable if we substitute Lieber. However, I must say the asian faces on Dr Droom in the last panels look HIGHLY Kirby-esque to me, in fact they are too striking to be the work of anyone else at Marvel in 1961. Michael Hill: Aaron, I will ask this on the Historians page, but do you think Lieber's repertoire was retroactively expanded to include any Kirby stories not nailed down around the same time as Droom was identified as a Strange prototype prompting Lee to remember creating it? Is there any evidence that that creative crediting happened before 1968? Patrick Ford: There are very high quality scans of two of the Ditko inked Kirby Dr. Droom pages at WHAT IF KIRBY. There is no indication any of the faces were changed (no white out). Of course it is possible that Ditko was ordered to change the faces as he inked them. The pages clearly show Kirby's penciled lettering in the balloons and captions. The story isn't signed by Lee (none of the Dr. Droom stories are). Aaron Noble: No scan of the last page though, which is the one with the asian transformation. I always found it striking that both Droom and Strange take on asian features after their initiations (quickly dropped in the Dr Strange series). To me it's most likely Kirby's idea and thus more evidence for Kirby's involvement in Dr. Strange. Aaron Noble: These two faces were drawn about ten years apart: Patrick Ford The second Dr. Droom page from WHAT IF KIRBY. Log on at the site to "Zoom" the image to a much larger size. The large size shows Kirby's penciled lettering on the pages. Michael Hill: The GCD says "Writer credit from Martin O'Hearn," and it consists of Lieber (script) ? and Lee (plot) ?. Aaron Noble: Somebody should ask Martin O'Hearn why he thinks that. I think it's just a default reflex to think Lee would plot a fantasy story, based on old discredited information. Michael Hill: Perhaps his baseline for comparison was stories everyone was certain were "scripted" by Lieber because published credits don't lie, like Iron Man and Thor origins. Chris Tolworthy: Whenever I see a writing credit I remember what Stan Lee said back in the 1940s: Michael Hill: This strip may really have been drawn by Stanley Martin Lieber. Patrick Ford: Although Kirby's lettering can be detected in the captions and balloons it can not be read. It's simply too obscured by the inked lettering. It is also likely at least partially erased in the balloon and caption areas when the letterer erased the lettering guidelines. The captions and dialogue don't read as obviously Kirby and that may be due to disinterest, Kirby copying a Lieber script, or Lee's rewriting some of the text. Unlike the '50s romance stories the "monster stories" are not text heavy and there would not be many places in them where Kirby would have reason to write the sort of introspective soul searching dialogue which is identifiable and was common in the romance books. Patrick Ford: Michael, You could write to O'Hearn. I think Steven Brower had some luck communicating with him. My guess is he just put down "Lee and Lieber" because that is the common assumption and the question marks he added because he can't identify the text as fitting Lee or Lieber.

home