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Lee weakened Kirby's stories
(Kirby's stories made sense. Lee's changes did not make sense.)
[In the image, Doom wants revenge for Ben injuring Doom's hands. Lee removed that motive.]
Patrick Ford
12 December 2016 ·
There is a problem with disjointed narratives in the Marvel books. It is a result of the working method.
Kirby can not reasonably be said to have collaborated with Lee. Both Kirby and Lee say they did not collaborate in plotting the stories. Kirby said (Mark Herbert interview) as early as 1969 he was creating all the characters and the plots. Kirby has said he did not care to speak to Lee and was in and out of the office as quickly as possible. Marie Severin commented:
“Jack was not one to hang around the office.”
The reason the Marvel era plots are such a mess is not because Kirby lost track of what the story he was telling, it was because of the tremendous amount of rewriting Lee did over-top of Kirby’s already complete story. The two men did not bounce ideas back and forth and settle on one story. Instead Kirby gave Lee a story, and then Lee wrote a different story based on the story Kirby gave him.
Martin Goodman was rarely quoted but turned up in a 1970 NYT story being quoted as saying:
“I’ve tried reading some of our stories. I can’t understand them.”
One thing Lee did invent was the “no-prize” a means he developed of laughing off the many gaping plot holes and continuity errors resulting from Lee’s “method.” My own view is Lee ‘collaborated with Kirby in the same way British Petroleum collaborated with the Gulf of Mexico. Oil and water don’t mix.
Mike Gartland, Mark Evanier, and Kirby himself have all documented what went on. It isn’t that Lee would tweak the stories; he would turn them upside down. The relationship between The Watcher, Galactus, and the Silver Surfer is one of the best and most complex examples of how Kirby’s intent was completely destroyed. There are several issues of the FF and Thor involving those charters which were so heavily rewritten by Lee that Kirby had to redraw or rework whole issues of both those titles.
Kirby’s narrative structure on The Fourth World is pretty seamless as far as I’m aware. If there are many lapses I’ve missed them in my readings. One example is in Mister Miracle #1 Thadeus Brown mentions his son was killed in Vietnam. Much later the son shows up and becomes a regular character, but by those issues of Mister Miracle it may as well have been a different comic book, the connection to the Fourth World was dampened by editorial edict from NY.
Editorial pressures sometimes affected the published comic books. The very first comic book story Kirby produced for DC was Forever People #1. The reason Frank Giacoia inked the cover is because he was going to be the regular inker. In the first story Jimmy Olsen appears in his “cub-reporter” bow-tie and sweater vest, something we never see again. There is no mention of Morgan Edge, and Olsen and Kent are working at the Daily Planet rather than as television reporters working for Edge. What happened is DC decided they liked what Kirby had done with the Superman character based on the first issue of Forever People. Forever People #1 was put on the shelf until and didn’t show up until after Kirby was assigned to Jimmy Olsen and produced the first three issues of that title. So right there is an awkward fit not because Kirby forgot what he’d done in Jimmy Olsen 133-135, but because Forever People #1 was printed out of sequence, and there was really no way to make it fit the continuity without tearing it up. And of course while Forever People #1 was waiting it’s turn Vince Colletta offered DC a package price they couldn’t refuse, and Giacoia never got to ink Forever People #1.
There are some narrative issues with EVEN GODS MUST DIE and THE HUNGER DOGS, but once again that is due to editorial interference. Kirby produced a masterful 22 page story called THE ROAD TO ARMAGETTO
wherein characters DC wanted to market ended up dead. DC had Kirby rework the pages into a graphic novel and then decided they wanted Kirby to create a prequel to THE HUNGER DOGS which is how EVEN DOGS MUST DIE came about. Although the whole is not seamless it’s an excellent example of how Kirby was able to make something largely cohesive (and there are no major snafus I know of) while having to do a major rewrite on what was also a tight deadline. If people will recall the News Gods was being reprinted in a Baxter format. Two issue of the original comic book were collected in each issue of the Baxter edition. Since there were nine issues of the original comic book DC needed extra material to fill issue #5 of the Baxter edition, and Kirby created THE ROAD TO ARMAGETTO to fill out issue #5. When it was rejected Kirby transformed it into the HUNGER DOGS graphic novel and created EVEN GODS MUST DIE to fill out issue #5. And unless I’m mistaken Kirby was able to do all that with issue #5 shipping on time.
One last thing on this. The reason Captain Victory was going along nicely with tightly plotted stories and then ended up with the very compressed final issue is Kirby got the offer from DC and dropped Captain Victory, but wanted to finish the origin of Captain Victory (He’s clearly Orion’s son) story he’d been telling over the past couple of issues of that title. Since he wanted to complete the story Kirby compressed two or three issues worth of plot into the final issue, and it would probably be incomprehensible to most people if they hadn’t been following along.
Michael Hill
The common refrain that "Kirby needed an editor," based on the Marvel work, is an obscenity because the problems with the Marvel work were caused by the editor.
Patrick Ford
It's ridiculous. Lee himself frequently took to the letters pages to admit stories made no sense to him and were unlikely to make sense to the readers. The magazines are so full of errors that Lee turned the errors into a running joke.
Aaron Noble
And of course, Kirby was essentially his own, and others, story editor for two decades prior to his unfortunate recourse of working for Stan. There are numerous accounts of Kirby's expertise with story structure in the '40s and '50s.
Patrick Ford
Yeah, There are quotes from S&K studio writers who describe exactly how good at story structure Kirby was.
Kim Aamodt (Alter-Ego Magazine) : I really sweated out plots, unlike Jack Kirby. Jack just ignited and came out with ideas, and Joe’d just kind of nod his head in agreement. Jack’s face looked so energized when he was plotting that it seemed as if sparks were flying off him.Joe was on the ground, and Jack was on cloud nine. Jack was more of the artist type; he had great instincts.
Walter Geier (Alter-Ego Magazine) : Jack Kirby was great about that; he always came up with the plots. Jack had a fertile mind. Joe used to sit there when the writers came in for conferences. They sat there and made up the plots for the writers. Jack did most of that. Joe would say something once in a while, but Jack was the idea man. Joe didn’t talk much. He could come up with decent plots, but it was usually very sketchy stuff. A lot of times Joe would say, ” Awww…you figure out the ending.” Jack would give me the ending, because he was good at figuring out stories. It was not hard to work with Jack. They were Jack’s plots. I just supplied the dialogue.
Aaron Noble
I'd say this is a settled point!
Patrick Ford
Look at Kirby's 14-16 page romance stories. They contain enough plot for a feature film. And yet the never seem rushed. The pacing and beats are superbly crafted. The guy is like a master cabinet maker. It's only when people started tampering with his stuff that you see problems.
Of course there are fans of Lee who insist the romance stuff is strong because Simon either wrote or edited it. I say bullshit. Simon wasn't even around. God knows what he was off doing. Probably over at Harvey talking to Al Harvey about how he was hiding income streams from Kirby to fatten his bank account.
Chris Tolworthy
There are so many examples of Stan changing (destroying) an FF story:
* FF 108 - so complete mangled that they were able to use Kirby's notes for a separate "lost Fantastic Four" story. (Which still wasn't what Kirby wrote! But was at least closer.)
* FF 66-67: such a fundamental mauling that it caused Kirby to start holding back his best ideas.
* FF 15, where Lee obviously didn't know what DNA was, so missed the whole point of the story (it's about DNA, not computers, those are just a side topic)
* FF 23: similarly, Stan had no idea what the solar wind is (did Kirby call it the "solar wave" or did Stan?) and created a thoroughly mixed up and disjointed result.
* FF 8: I am convinced that the Puppet Master was not intended to be human. Just look at the face - has Kirby forgotten how to draw humans? (I'm currently reading the Challengers, and it's clear that non-humans were common in these early stories.) That and other changes make me think the famous issue 8 "synopsis" was Lee putting his changes in writing, to keep Kirby on a shorter leash from that point.
* FF 31 - as we discussed elsewhere, rejecting the page where Sue confronts her father both changes the story and weakens it, and definitely weakens Sue as a character.
* FF 1- the Mole Man story is clearly redrawn and rewritten, but we can only speculate as to why
There are probably dozens of other major examples, if only we had access to all the original marginal notes and changes. And minor examples are in practically every issue: the added monolog near the start of issue 3 comes to mind. Every one of these changes dumbs down the story, which maybe is useful for younger readers, but as an adult they drive me crazy. I now just accept that there are two different Fantastic Fours. Kirby's original,.and Lee's dumbed down version.
Patrick Ford
You're right Chris. And those are only stories where we know the extent of the changes because high quality stats or a complete issue with all margin notes exists. It is highly likely that it was the rule and not the exception that Lee made large scale changes to Kirby's story.
an example from a romance comic - removing the bicycle
June 10 2017
Patrick Ford
I think Lee's note reads: "Jack, Young couple behind her possibly walking by. Who needs this kid on a bike."
The reason for the kid on the bike would be to play up the fact the girl is leaving her home town. It's a personal touch a connection to the town as a place where she once was a child riding a bike through the same park. [Ed: the eyes were looking sadly at the girl cycling past.] The revision makes things more cold and impersonal. The girl looks more like an out of town girl just off the bus and walking through Central Park.
Tim Bateman
Lee is as clueless as ever here. An editor with no understanding of storytelling.
Aaron Noble
The foliage at left is very strange. Did Colletta screw up her hand and awkwardly cover it up? Old news, I know, but I'm still taken aback by how badly inked this page is.
Patrick Ford
I think all the foliage is Colletta. And the sparrow that is as big as a beagle. Kirby's background had a lot of masonry in it. The bricks are pretty large. I think Kirby had her walking on a sidewalk with the young girl on a bike passing close by and looking back at her.
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