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Who plotted the Fantastic Four after Kirby left?
J David Spurlock 11 August 2016 Discussion on the Wally Wood's DAREDEVIL group about Stan using Romita as the go-to guy when he lost WOOD, DITKO then KIRBY, led to further discussion of why Romita stayed on FF so shortly. Thought my latest post (starting with the proposal that STERANKO would have followed Kirby better than Romita or Buscema) would be of interest here: From a creative standpoint I would agree but for mass market appeal, Buscema-Sinnott was the way to go as Steranko would not be able to keep up the pace, not for what they paid, and he and Stan would have constantly been arguing. Romita could not be FULL TIME Art Director AND do complete pencils on a monthly schedule (especially if he had to plot). What would have been interesting would be for Steranko to do layouts and Romita to have done finished art. The problem would be, who would write? I don't know if Steranko could write every single month, in a way Stan would approve. Also, Jack and Romita, were plotting their books with no credit. I don't think Steranko would have gone along with that much, after a few issues saying "A Lee - Steranko Production" BUT, back to my thought about Steranko layouts & Romita finishes -- that would be fun! Steranko is much more experimental but both Buscema and Romita had a firmer grasp of generalized Marvel (Kirby) dynamics which were discussed well in Buscema's How To Draw Comics The Marvel Way. So, though Steranko would have been the creative dynamo, Romita would polish it, make it a bit more mainstream, pretty, consistent... which could have worked (for a while) brilliantly. Though Steranko would have to fight his tendencies to blow-up every time Romita "fixed" something... he might, because A) that was Romita's job and they would have equal credit and B) Stan had Romita sit down with Jim a few times early-on, to give Jim pointers — and Jim actually appreciated it. Again, Kirby & Romita plotted without credit. Buscema helped plot on Silver Surfer but not from scratch like Kirby, Ditko, Wood, Romita. So, Buscema would not have been happy long on FF if Stan kept prodding him for plot ideas. Surprise-surprise, by FF 115 Archie Goodwin is scripting. The ODD thing is his 1st issue, Stan says he is substituting for Roy Thomas who is busy filling in for Stan elsewhere. BUT Thomas had not had any credit on FF so, I think this is an indication that Thomas was helping plot the early Buscema issues without credit because Buscema was not as open to plotting as Kirby, Ditko, Wood, Romita, Kane, etc. Patrick Ford: Kurt Busiek commented, on a Yahoo list I was on, that Archie Goodwin and others were plotting for Lee prior to Goodwin taking over the title.
Editor's note: Archie Goodwin was credited from Fantastic Four 115. Kirby's last issue of the Fantastic Four was 102. Issue 108 was an unpublished Kirby story, highly edited. This leaves 12 issues that could be plotted by Stan Lee, or we now discover, someone else. Lee was also credited with writing 120-125. However, there is strong evidence that 124-25 was written by Gerry Conway, a topic discussed in another thread. It does seem very likely that Lee at least gave the general direction for issues 103-125 because every single issue is clearly based on a previous Kirby issue. In contrast, where Kirby's name appears as "artist", every story was original. With issue 126 Roy Thomas takes over in a soft reboot of the series. From that point the plots, while still riffing on Kirby stories, have more original elements.
J David Spurlock: That helps, along with my note above, but all due respect to Busiek, the best would be to have a quote from the plotters (Thomas, Goodwin, etc) Patrick Ford: Correct. Busiek said he was told that by someone at Marvel. He would not have been there at the time. Richard Howell has said the same thing. Again with some person at Marvel being the source. Patrick Ford: I think it may have been Gerry Conway who told Busiek. Patrick Ford: BTW. Never having had an interest in the Fantastic Four whoever was working on the book was not at all important to me. The first issue of the FANTASTIC FOUR I ever read was one of the first Buscema issues. The only reason I bought the book was because it was drawn by Buscema whose work I was collecting at the time. Around the same time I began buying the Kirby reprints. I never warmed to the title. It contrasted very poorly when measured against Kirby's Fourth World work for DC. I didn't know a thing about Kirby or Lee at the time. I just knew that anything with Lee's name on it was not going to be worth reading. I always found Lee's style to be exceptionally campy and I have never enjoyed camp.

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