accordingtokirby

Someone I used to know but lost touch with nearly four decades ago came to my attention on Facebook recently. They had moved to the States and become radicalized, and after they shared an offspring’s post canonizing Charlie Kirk, I blocked them. I am at a loss to know what journey took them to that point, but since as I understand it they were once trained in how to recognize cults, they would be deeply offended at the suggestion that Charlie Kirk idolatry is indicative of one.

In a Facebook group comment regarding my last blog post, I was taken to task for refusing to “look past often incremental differences of opinion.” The commenter went on to bemoan the “bias” in the Marvel Method group and the fact that he was “thrown off”: he had misrepresented what was said in a posted article in order to take issue with it. The article in question was by Elana Levin, and the accusation was that the claim was made, either in the article or in the post about it, that Glorious Gotfried [sic] was Donald Trump. (It wasn’t.)

The commenter’s misconceptions are that Marvel Method is a discussion group, and that the physical evidence is subject to opinion. Patrick Ford created the group as a place to park any evidence he came across, with the intention of opening it to NO participants, only readers. In other groups, discussions are hijacked by Lee proponents to create the idea that there are two sides to the story, Kirby’s and Lee’s. The evidence itself is not debatable, but the goal is to make enough noise that the “discussion” is seen as having two valid points of view.

Kirby’s history is evidence-based, and his own account agrees with it. There’s no room for “incremental differences of opinion” like those held by Roy Thomas. Thomas can’t win based on the evidence so he ignores it and spins bullshit to be accepted based on his credentials of having worked with Stan Lee. The purpose of those “incremental differences” is to introduce the idea that facts and evidence can have an element of uncertainty. Stan Lee was solely and exclusively the liar, but the goal is to create uncertainty among casual readers who will walk away saying, “yeah, they both lied.” The Cult of Lee is alive and well where debating the evidence is permitted.

The cult of Stan Lee is alive and well

I’m probably Jack’s biggest fan.¹

The first edition of my second book received a single Canadian review. The reviewer began with his credentials, that is, his fitness to have an opinion about Jack Kirby (always a bad sign). He wrote that he has been a Kirby fan for over 50 years, the sort of claim which generally means the next words out of his mouth will be designed to shit all over Jack Kirby. This technique was coined by the leader of the cult himself, Stan Lee, who would declare himself Jack’s Biggest Fan before taking away Kirby’s achievements. He did this while convincing his followers, who are easily misled, that he was praising Kirby. Some of Lee’s biggest fans pose as “Jack’s biggest fan” in order to perform the same maneuver.

My Canadian reviewer concluded that I was angry, and that I’m “biased and a Stan Lee hater.” It is beyond some people’s imagination that the truth could be written about Lee clinically rather than out of anger. They believe that Kirby would only reveal his personal experience with Lee out of bitterness. It’s not necessary to hate Stan Lee to understand who he was, and the idea that I or Jack Kirby could only tell the truth out of hatred comes from people with the propensity to hate.

Protect yourselves

Facebook is that fabulous place where you can catch up with people you knew decades ago, before you both moved away. It also has a useful feature called blocking for when you find out they grew up to be cultists. I didn’t know my commenter but I wasted no time blocking him, and for the same reason. He believes that if facts are open to debate, then any argument, even if rooted in Lee’s falsehoods, will be treated as a valid “side.” The same principle is applied by today’s mainstream media when they treat both sides of any discussion as though they are equally valid.

No, when we start from scratch with the evidence, everything shows that Kirby told the truth and what Lee said was almost entirely false. There is no truth on both sides. We only need to listen to the freelancers who were silenced by Lee’s preemptive strikes and his threat to deny them work.

Jack Kirby had something to say about cults

The Sect: Masked, Darkseid and Desaad infiltrate a secret society in The Forever People #8. Kirby’s dialogue speaks for itself.

Glorious Godfrey and the Justifiers from The Forever People #3.

Mark Evanier was the source of the information that Glorious Godfrey was based on Arthur Godfrey and Billy Graham. A photo of Graham exists that is close enough to one of the above Godfrey panels that it could have been used by Kirby as a photo reference.

What turned Kirby’s attention to Billy Graham? The caricature may have been triggered by an interview response from Stan Lee the year before.

Aaron Noble posted this in 2023: ²

I don’t think Funky Flashman was Jack’s first commentary on Stan in the Fourth World books. Glorious Godfrey preaches faith to true believers, but is himself a skeptic on the existence of the Anti-Life Equation. In Forever People 3, he says to Darkseid, “I believe in Anti-Life…but it can only be induced in others by means of inventive selling!”

Darkseid responds: “I like you Glorious Godfrey! You’re a shallow, precious child—the revelationist, happy with the sweeping sound of words!”

This was cover dated July, 1971. One year earlier, Stan himself had said this: “I love the rhythm of words. I’ve always been in love with the way words sound. Sometimes I’ll use words just because of the sound of one playing upon the other.” ³

And later in the same interview, astonishingly: “I may become the Billy Graham of comics.”

I would love to pick Bob Beerbohm’s brain right about now regarding his unofficial history of the term Marvel zombies.

Like Jasper Sitwell five years earlier, the Roy Thomas analogue puts in an appearance here.

That very issue of The Forever People contained this letter.
Eleven years after The Forever People #3, Stephen King may have held out some hope for us 40+ years in the future in his foreword to Ellison’s Stalking the Nightmare.

If the cult of celebrity sucks, it sucks because it’s as disposable a a Handi-wipe or a Glad Bag or the latest record by the latest Group of the Moment… You don’t make it over the long haul on the basis of your personality.

In 2025, King was called bitter by the Kirk idolaters when he pointed out that Kirk advocated for gays to be stoned to death.

Of course Glorious Godfrey was not Donald Trump; in her article, Elana Levin was simply noting Kirby’s remarkable prescience. What’s indisputable is that Desaad is a member of the current administration, although Kirby drew him with a toupée.

Footnotes

back ¹ Stan Lee to Ted White, 1966, printed in Castle of Frankenstein #12, 1968.

back ² Marvel Method, 4 June 2023.

back ³ Stan Lee: The Marvel Bard, An Interview with Mike Bourne, Changes v2#4, 15 April 1970, courtesy of Tom Brevoort’s blog.

Hi John,

It was nearly six years ago that I wrote to ask you if you knew what your Alter Ego editor was up to (calling Kirby advocates “***holes,” asterisks his, through a third party on the letters page right above my own letter). Instead of addressing my concern, you asked me to stop “insulting” you with criticism in your inbox. I’ve lost the compulsion to find nice things to say, so here we are.

For the purpose of this discussion, I’d like to introduce you to these mantras. I’ll come back to them later. The first one, if spoken out loud, gets you branded a Lee hater; “for starters” is implied after the third one.

1 Jack Kirby was a writer

2 Roy Thomas didn’t arrive on the scene until 1965

3 Stan Lee stole ten years of Kirby’s writing pay

In an earlier letter, I wrote to tell you that I thought it was inappropriate to include a Roy Thomas interview in the Kirby Collector. That was one issue after your “Big Boy Pants” editorial criticizing readers who refused to Learn to Love Stan Lee. (I can’t imagine you have many of those left.)

From your reply…

Your implication that we’re pandering to Lee fans to make sales is simply off-base. I don’t see things in the same black and white view as you. I respect your opinions and way of looking at things; I hope you’ll try to respect mine, even if you don’t agree with them, and aren’t interested in purchasing our publications.

Maybe the best example I can give you is a conversation I had with Roz Kirby before she died. I told her I was thinking of running an interview with Stan in TJKC, and asked if that would bother her. She thought about it for a few seconds, then said, “That’s fine. Just don’t let him say anything stupid.” Not a “Don’t you dare give that man a forum to badmouth my husband” or anything like that. If Roz was okay with it, and at a time when Jack really wasn’t getting a smidgen of the respect he’s getting now, I’m confident I’m doing okay by her, and the whole Kirby family.

I dealt with the Thomas interview in a three-part blog post starting here.

The very next issue was Stuf Said, in which Thomas was awarded the honoured position of Kirby expert.

Your magnum opus, an exploration of things said that demands a verdict but cops out, fails even to do justice to an actual court case, Marvel’s lawsuit against the Kirby family. You were an inside witness to the proceedings, having access (unlike nearly everyone else on the planet) to Lee’s unredacted depositions, but like Mark Evanier you incuriously passed at the chance.

In your Stuf Said account you seemed to have it in for Kirby family attorney Marc Toberoff, accusing him of Making Shit Up. When readers set you straight on the facts, you removed the last sentence in the paragraph.

Toberoff’s assertions in his opening appeal brief (below, see here for PDF) were backed up with citations . You characterized his early strategy as “dead in the water,” yet you failed to acknowledge he was playing the long game: he took the case to the steps of the Ginsberg Supreme Court, and he won.

You quote Lee’s May 2010 deposition but don’t mention that he was deposed again on December 8th. The excerpts you chose appear to be tailored to your conclusion, “I don’t think Lee is lying here, but to be fair, these are skillfully asked (and answered) questions. Read them closely…”

John, after you’ve wallowed in this stuff for nearly 30 years, I’m fairly certain you wouldn’t recognize a lie if it bit you on the ass: close reading is not necessary. The word perjury doesn’t appear once in either edition of Stuf Said, yet Lee claimed, one by one, that he created every property in question (here‘s my collection of excerpts from which not a single statement, made under oath, is true). Marvel’s lawyers couldn’t have written a more slanted account of the court proceedings than Stuf Said. Oh, wait…

The most important quote in Stuf Said, sadly drastically edited, came from Steve Sherman (full quote following). I considered it important enough to include in other blog posts and both of my books. It would have been better placed next to Lee’s testimony because it is central to the truth you studiously avoid in the book, and as integral to the story of Jack Kirby as Mantra #1.

It wasn’t the only time Kirby had told the story. ¹ Unlike Mark Evanier, Steve Sherman tended to take Kirby at his word.

The latest issue

TwoMorrows was instrumental in the spread of the Roy Thomas “received history,” giving it a platform in 1998 in issues of Comic Book Artist and Alter Ego under the same cover. Thomas had told Jim Amash just months earlier (and here keep Mantra #2 in mind) that his knowledge of events prior to his arrival at Marvel came from Stan Lee and Sol Brodsky. Both Lee and Brodsky were management to Kirby’s labour, giving Thomas the Company Man fuel for his preconceptions. (Yet Thomas was deeply embedded in the operation and knows better than anyone alive the magnitude of the lies he tells.)

That brings us to Kirby Collector #94.

Let’s start with the letters page. Thomas takes Richard Kolkman to task for suggesting Peter Parker was named after Peter Parr from an unused 1950s Kirby comic strip proposal. Thomas is spouting his usual wall of nonsense: ² the likely true answer is that Kirby named the character in his Spider-Man concept pages along with Uncle Ben. Steve Ditko later wrote that it was between Kirby and Lee to make the call as to which of them originated the concepts.

Next, Thomas suggests Kolkman had it wrong crediting Larry Lieber with “all the scripting,” and says Lee plotted, citing the GCD and “other authorities.” The GCD is an authority on nothing, having cynically farmed out its research to Marvel lawyers. After 2014 the site issued a blanket credit that says “Stan Lee ? (plot) Larry Lieber ? (script)” on all of Kirby’s “monster” stories.

The only places the site is to be trusted is where it says “Nick Caputo indexed this issue after holding the physical comic in his hands.”

Here Thomas creates a circular reference, citing a source that parrots the false narrative he helped bring into being in the late 1990s. When he asserts Larry Lieber had anything to do with Kirby’s monster stories, he’s repeating a lie invented in 1995. Stan Lee first took credit for a monster story in 1973 by adding a “script” credit to the reprint of “The Two-Headed Thing” in Monsters on the Prowl #26; he hadn’t signed the original story in 1962, or a single other instance of a Kirby monster story. His next mention was in Origins of Marvel Comics when he claimed he and Kirby were “having a ball doing the monster stories.” Lee maintained this charade through the early ’90s and Kirby’s death. With Kirby out of the picture, Lee enlisted his brother to claim he’d written the Kirby monster stories. This revelation came courtesy of the ever credulous Will Murray with his Lieber article in Comics Scene #52 in 1995.

Not only is there no physical evidence that Lieber had anything to do with a Kirby story before his first credits on stories cover dated December 1962, it’s provably false that he scripted at least two of those first-credited stories, which were scripted by Kirby. Lieber received a total of ten script credits on Kirby stories over three months before being fired as Kirby’s credited scripter. The action was likely demanded by Kirby when he learned that his writing pay was being redirected to not one but two freeloading Lieber brothers. We can probably safely round it up to an even zero that were legitimately “scripted” by Lieber before the fact (and Lieber insisted that he only ever worked full script rather than Marvel Method, adding dialogue after the fact).

Please do me this favour, John. While Will Murray is writing for the Kirby Collector, and Larry Lieber is still alive, have them reprise their 1995 interview. The key question to be asked is, “Larry, why did you never mention this while Kirby was alive?”

At the end of the Thomas letter, you direct readers to Evanier and Fingeroth discussing “Lieber’s early Marvel work” as though it’s a fact. Let’s take a look.

I’ve never seen it, and of course I would say that’s an outright lie.³

Danny Fingeroth is a Lee hagiographer, hence JAKD (Just Another Kirby Denier). He has no place in a Kirby publication, even as a guest, so of course he’s right at home in this particular Lee tribute issue of the Kirby Collector. In Fantastic Four #1 Panel by Panel, Evanier lent his imprimatur to the Lee narrative by insinuating Kirby’s TCJ declaration (above left) was a lie:

Perhaps no one informed Evanier that after allegedly being seen by Thomas in Lee’s office “late ’60s,” the alleged “synopsis” turned up in the Marvel offices “behind a drawer” in 1982.

In the panel transcript, Evanier actually had a couple of good things to say about Kirby, such as setting Fingeroth straight that Kirby never sued Marvel, and that Kirby and Lee never reconciled. Sadly he then chose to comment on the “monster” stories, making it obvious that he hasn’t read them. (In fact his entire body of writing makes it obvious he hasn’t read much of any of Kirby’s work from before 1961 or after 1978.)

At the end of the panel transcript, an excerpt from another Thomas interview is presented, this time with Alex Grand, just a couple of MAGA bros shooting the breeze. The two cults, MAGA and the MMMS, have many parallels.

Featured here is one of Thomas’ greatest hits. He tells the familiar drawn out story of how he was instrumental in the re-hiring of Kirby, but the punchline is always that Kirby’s hiring was presented to him by Lee as a fait accompli and he really had no say in the matter. The purpose of the anecdote is to make out that Kirby’s Funky Flashman story could have been a consideration in the decision (but wasn’t).

The moral of Funky Flashman is Mantra #3 (and Lee’s criming didn’t stop at wage theft, but more on that in the near future). With you as publisher and with your whole-hearted agreement, Thomas is permitted to repeatedly make the case that Kirby’s action was bitter and mean-spirited, yet nothing could be further from the truth. Kirby responded to a decade of wage theft by way of his craft, in a manner that was measured,  accurate, and brilliant. Thomas promotes the idea of Lee as victim who “didn’t know why they left,” when the reality is Lee drove them away one by one with malice aforethought when they wouldn’t willingly accede to his self-enrichment at their expense.

Jack Kirby accurately assessed Stan Lee as a man without empathy. ⁴ He also had something to say that applied to Roy Thomas, although not by name: “something is missing.” Thomas in the Kirby Collector #74 interview:

the thing I remember about it is Jack was very friendly, because I was still in awe of Jack, you know? Despite the fact that I had hit the wall with that New Gods stuff and everything.

Kirby in 1983: ⁵

Glorious Godfrey I felt was a parable. The New Gods were a parable. I’ve read interviews with other artists who say that, well, they try to figure out the New Gods and they don’t know what it’s really all about. And I think that’s sad, because they themselves lack something… they themselves lack something which keeps them from understanding what a parable is. It keeps them from understanding a relationship of this parable with our own times.

You’ve given Thomas a platform, and you look the other way while printing Lee’s propaganda. Because Roz Kirby didn’t tell you “don’t you dare give that man a forum to badmouth my husband,” you made it your goal to provide a forum for Kirby to be badmouthed at every turn with the repetition of their lies.

In your email response I quoted above, you told me Kirby Collector probably wasn’t for me because, in your words, I couldn’t muster even 1% credit for Lee in the “collaboration.” Re-characterizing my position so you can knock it down is a cheap rhetorical cheat favoured by MMMSers, so that tells me precisely where you stand. The truth is that Lee contributed a lot to the finished product, but nearly nothing in advance of Kirby the creator and master storyteller putting pencil to paper to write and draw completed stories.

The apparent purpose of the Kirby Collector, to quote a movie based on Dickens, is “to preserve a way of life that one knew and loved.” But like “America” when it was “great,” Marvel of the 1960s was not great for Kirby or the other freelancers. Thanks in part to Marvel itself, people are reading the stories and looking at the art, and unlike you and the writers you publish, they’re going to believe Jack Kirby and the physical evidence over the false narrative. You’re not going to succeed in MSGA, making Stan great again. The truth about Kirby will be known despite, not because of, The Jack Kirby Collector.

Mike

Footnotes

back ¹ I came in with presentations. Kirby to James Van Hise, “A Talk with the King,” Comics Feature #44, May 1986.

And I came up with this blitz. I came up with The Fantastic Four, I came up with Thor (I knew the Thor legends very well), and the Hulk, the X-Men, and The Avengers. Kirby to Gary Groth, The Comics Journal 134, February 1990.

The Sherman quote appears in my book, Kirby At Marvel:1956-1963, Second Edition as well as in Ferran Delgado’s Sky Masters of the Space Force: The Complete Sunday Strips in Color (1959-1960).

back ² The Roy Thomas Rebuttal Strategy is avoid responding to the physical evidence that was just presented and pontificate like he knows better simply by virtue of having worked with Lee in the ’60s. My own encounter is documented here.

back ³ Jack Kirby to Gary Groth, The Comics Journal 134, February 1990.

back ⁴ It takes a guy like Stan, without feeling, to realize a thing like that. If he hurts a guy, he also hurts his family. His wife is going ask questions. His children are going to ask questions.—Jack Kirby to Gary Groth, The Comics Journal 134, February 1990.

back ⁵ Jack Kirby video interview by Theakston and DiSpoto, 17 March 1983.

My favourite reviews of the FF movie have largely been on Facebook. Here are some samples.

…the most striking thing to me is how much less sophisticated it is than the original.

Aaron Noble

Worst zero-gravity natural childbirth sequence in cinema history.

Stephen Bissette

…I think for modern audiences the FF comic book is a bit like Citizen Kane in the sense that the innovations of the original have been strip-mined and absorbed into comic book and film culture… to the point where what once seemed groundbreaking and sophisticated now seems cliche and childish.

Bryan Munn

The new Fantastic Four movie leans into the Jack Kirby Fantastic Four, and jettisons most of the trash added by Stan Lee.

Daniel Greenberg

It’s got a lot of good points. Probably more than any MCU product to date it shows Jack Kirby proper respect… Nice to see Susan portrayed as the most powerful member of the team, which she clearly is.

The Surfer wasn’t terrible but I’m not a fan of this version of the character. By that I don’t mean the gender swap. Shalla Bal or Norrin Radd, the Zenn La origin cooked up by Stan Lee behind Kirby’s back is repulsive to me. Kirby’s version was, like the angels of the bible, created by his god. There’s no life before Galactus. That’s why his discovery of human feelings and his rebellion are so impactful. The Zenn La Surfer, whether Shalla or Norrin, is a mass murderer on a galactic scale who finally suffers an overdue attack of conscience.

David Lawrence

Four Color Sinners has the story on Marvel’s real motivation for switching the gender of the character here. I think Kirby, who created strong female characters based on his wife and daughter, would be fine with a female Surfer.

I agree with nearly everything in these reviews.

A thought for what never saw the light of day

Never let anyone accuse you of saying Stan Lee did nothing. The incurious and inept editor did a lot to Kirby’s stories, and all of it was damaging. Tom Scioli wrote a good assessment for TCJ of Lee’s appropriation and bastardization of Kirby’s Surfer.

Chris Tolworthy details  Kirby’s original intentions in The Lost Jack Kirby Stories, now an appendix to Volume 1 of the second edition of Jack Kirby’s History of the Future. Greatly expanded is the section covering issues 48 to 51.

The lost Galactus saga
(Fantastic Four #48-51, March-June 1966)
The original saga was much longer, and Galactus did not lose. Here are the clues.

Clue 1: The series reboots with FF #51
This is the biggest clue, and it is not obvious unless you read all of Kirby’s Fantastic Four. If you just dip into the odd issue then you don’t see the progression. But if you read from issue #1 to the end then you see that time passes and everything moves forward: Reed and Sue date, they get married, they have a child, they retire from the team to raise their family (or would have done, if the editor had allowed it). Johnny starts in high school at age 16, then graduates and starts college and visibly grows up…

Chris Tolworthy

It’s interesting to compare Kirby’s conception of Galactus to Lee’s. Kirby created a character who is not a villain. Kirby’s Galactus is simply going about his business.

Kirby’s Surfer is a blank slate, as opposed to the disjointed character seen in Lee’s rewrite where the Silver Surfer is somehow at the same time a sensitive man with a past and the person who marks worlds for slaughter.

It is likely Kirby intended Galactus and the Watcher to be not only of the same race but brothers who took different paths. One the warrior wearing the garb modeled after a Roman Centurion. The other the toga-wearing sophist.

Patrick Ford

It’s up to us to keep this information alive in the face of the endless reprints of the published (compromised) version. Even if the Jack Kirby Collector were so inclined (and they haven’t been for some 70 issues), the declining readership seems more interested in Stan Lee’s classical influences (having rejected the idea that he paid other people to do his reading).

My last post ended with this line…

…like Silver Age Marvel, the editorial content ignores Kirby’s writing and never lives up to its promise.

Mark Marderosian responded…

That’s why the Fantastic Four are unreadable for me. You can glimpse greater, more timeless stories straining to be realized, which makes it ultimately just an exercise in frustration to be avoided.

I am in no way invested in Kirby’s FF, which I only experienced in reprints. When Kirby left Marvel in 1970, he shook off the dust of Lee’s crummy little operation and went on to do better things. (That’s where I came in.) Kirby got over having his creations ripped away from him, and it costs me so much less to do the same. Kirby didn’t hate Stan Lee, but he understood him.

As Darrell Epp and Patrick Ford have been saying, this discussion is not for someone who believes “This Man, This Monster!” was the greatest comic ever. (Chris Tolworthy has that covered as well.) It’s a discussion for generations who aren’t invested in the original comics, who may be open to hearing what needs to be said about Jack Kirby.

Fantastic Four: First Steps was the best Marvel movie I’ve seen. The last one I saw (Avengers: Infinity War) was the worst, which for me makes it the worst in or out of the MCU. I dislike that the Surfer is Lee’s character rather than Kirby’s original, and it’s sad that Galactus started so well but was reduced to a regular-scale rampaging monster. But…

I love the futuristic New York of the 1960s. It’s just like Kirby imagined it: all the guys are wearing fedoras, and not everyone is white. The movie captures the enthusiasm of the space race as well as Kirby’s quiet moments and character interactions. An inordinate number of American characters (plus Galactus, who wasn’t American) are played by familiar UK actors, possibly a sign of things to come. The best part is that it honours Jack Kirby’s preference to be isolated from the rest of the Marvel universe, even if it’s only for this one movie.

It’s been a long time since a new issue of The Jack Kirby Collector was an event, or even an experience to be savoured (like the one above). The preview of #94 is online and it continues the trend. It includes a Kirby-Lee radio interview transcript previously printed in Stan Lee Universe, as well as the transcript of a Kirby-Lee convention panel featuring Mark Evanier and Danny Fingeroth. Here’s a rundown of the current cadre of the magazine’s contributors.

mark evanier

Evanier: Hey Jack, you know, we go back a long way.
Kirby: Wrong, a long time ago we knew each other for a short period of time.

Following the end of his professional relationship with Kirby, Evanier showed his willingness to read Stan Lee’s nonsense claims directly into the interview record without bothering to call Kirby for a fact check. ²

Three years before epic Kirby interview season began (Gary Groth’s self-contained interview and the beginning of Ray Wyman, Jr’s 40 hours of recordings over three years), Evanier had his own chance. His Kirby interview was published in Amazing Heroes #100, and although some nice sentiments were expressed by Kirby, Evanier simply didn’t have what it took to interview him.  Unlike Groth, he shied away from tough and timely questions about Marvel—he didn’t want to hear the answers. (Unknown to Evanier and everyone else, the Leonard Pitts, Jr interview conducted just a few months earlier covered the same ground as Groth’s, but it wouldn’t be made public for decades.)

The second edition of Kirby At Marvel is now live at Lulu.com and Amazon.

new content

At the end of each chapter I’ve added tables showing Kirby’s stories with known data including whether pages are known to exist as original art and what that tells us.

I have pulled assorted information from the Endnotes, and organized and expanded it under a number of topics in the Commentary section.

The book now weighs in at 343 pages and is fully indexed.

differences

I typeset this edition myself using free software. Lulu handled the published file with aplomb, and the result is perfect. The images I used have sufficient contrast in black and white to show what I need them to show.

The Amazon KDP process gave me a much harder time. Shown at the top is the cover as required by Amazon, with an extra border added in the bleed edge on the back cover because the process couldn’t find the edge when it was just white.

The initial upload of the manuscript got me the error that Amazon doesn’t accept output from the free software I used. A flattening procedure needed to be applied to deal with things like embedded fonts (Lulu does this automatically). I applied such a procedure to the file from the command line and the file was accepted. Alarmingly, the PDF was reduced to a quarter of its size, making me wonder what kind of information was filtered out.

Unlike the finished Lulu book, the pages of the book from Amazon are slightly less white. The book doesn’t lie flat while it’s resting: the pages of roughly the top half buckle to create a split that looks like the book has been stored down face down, open in the middle (even though the spine is still square and flat). The images are muddy and dim and show  far less contrast, so the all-important pencilled lettering in the panels is harder to make out. This may be a result of the flattening process; I’ll experiment.

Depending on where you place the order, the price of the book should be the same or similar at Lulu or Amazon. We cancelled our Prime account in March, and if you’re not particularly attached to free or smaller shipping charges, please consider getting it from Lulu. It’s a superior product.

See three earlier posts for details. Click links below for article or message.

Jack Kirby’s legacy is sufficiently diminished by the Lee (and Simon) slant of the Jack Kirby Collector. He doesn’t need a biography that subsumes his point of view in favour of theirs.

1. The Comics Journal #134, February 1990. ↩︎
2. The Art of Jack Kirby, Blue Rose Press, December 1992. ↩︎
3. The Jack Kirby Collector #25, August 1999. ↩︎
4. From Kirby-L. ↩︎
5. From Kirby-L. ↩︎

This would qualify as an excerpt from an upcoming book but was dropped in the final edit.

Jim Amash: You’re right about Roz not wanting to show Jack the Simon book. As a matter of fact, Roz even told me not to tell Jack I had read or even knew about it. That book really upset her.[1]

One person who didn’t get the memo from Roz about Joe Simon’s The Comic Book Makers was Mark Evanier. In 1998 he hosted a tribute panel for Simon at the San Diego Comic Con, and in its introduction[2] he detailed his machinations after Kirby’s death.

Mark Evanier: [Jack] gave some quoted interviews where he said some things about Joe that he regretted; and he said to me—one of the last times I saw him—that he wanted to call Joe and apologize to him or interview someplace else and make up for it. He passed away before that could happen. A couple of days after Jack passed away, I was with Roz and she asked me to please try to tidy up a couple of those little things that had not been done before Jack passed away—a couple of legal matters and a couple of things—outreach to people that I’m in touch with. I got in touch with Joe and it was really one of the most wonderful things in my life to know this man.

The idea that Kirby said regrettable things about Simon in interviews is itself a misrepresentation: Kirby was very careful with his words and more often than not demurred when asked about Simon’s contribution. Was Evanier really enlisted by Kirby to make things right? He wasted no time in casting Simon as the wronged party.

Worse, like Lee, Simon took advantage of Evanier’s gullibility to secure the “official” biographer’s endorsement for claiming certain of Kirby’s achievements as his own. Evanier is an unfortunate mixture: susceptibility to a smooth-talking interview subject, with no filter against being lied to. The question arises, how close was Evanier to the Kirby household toward the end if he’s still oblivious to the feelings of Roz regarding Joe Simon? Even Jim Steranko knew:

Jim Steranko: I had to fight to get paid for characters I created & wrote for him. He kept my presentation art without paying me, and later sold the material and kept the $$$. I once offered to pencil a series starring one of my characters and, in his infinite wisdom, he said, “YOU CAN’T DRAW!” Bottom line: swindler. Don’t believe me? Ask Kirby’s wife Roz![3]

Since she was alive at the time, did Roz approve Evanier’s overture to Simon? She wouldn’t have approved of the fruit of their liaison.

Why was Mark Evanier carrying water for, even fabricating on the spot, Joe Simon’s version of events after Kirby was no longer around to fact check it? Why did he aid and abet Simon by extrapolating from a legal document that doesn’t say what he said it did?

Mark Evanier: the very first thing Jack said to me about Joe was, “Joe could do everything! Joe could write ’em, he could pencil ’em, he could ink ’em, he could letter ’em.'”

Why wouldn’t Jack Kirby say nice things about Joe Simon, or exaggerate his talents? Kirby was a genuinely kind and generous human being. For Simon’s part, he rarely missed an opportunity to let his jealousy show by minimizing Kirby’s contributions or putting him down.

STEVE RINGGENBERG: How did you come to be inking over Kirby’s pencils on that “Race to the Moon” story?

AL WILLIAMSON: Well, Joe Simon gave me the job. Here’s something interesting: when I brought the first two or three jobs in, he said, “Now that you’ve inked it, what do you think?” And I said, “Oh, he’s great.” And he said, “Oh, don’t you think he’s not as good as you thought?” And I said, “No, I think he’s better than what I thought.” He was looking for me to say, “No, Jack Kirby can’t draw.” Sheesh. I loved doing those ink jobs. They were a lot of fun.

In the same interview,[4] Williamson describes Simon badmouthing him to Angelo Torres behind his back.

Mark Evanier: Now, as we all know Jack was not the greatest interview in the world and once or twice when he was interviewed people would get him mad—y’know you could push his hot buttons occasionally and make him mad about something; and sometimes he didn’t know the value of what he was getting mad at.

Here Evanier includes a put-down for Gary Groth’s TCJ interview.[5] This is the crux of his beef with Kirby: he resents him for giving an in-depth interview, not to him, but to Groth. To talk up his upcoming biography, Evanier touts epic exclusive interviews with Lee, Brodsky, and presumably as of 1996, Joe Simon, none of whom had reason to be remotely objective where Kirby’s concerned. Calling Kirby a lousy interview allows Evanier to dismiss what Kirby said while he was alive. The result is that Kirby’s former collaborators, who did grace Evanier with interviews, get to tell the Jack Kirby story.

What made Evanier disregard Kirby’s point of view while Kirby was alive? He was taken in by Lee’s heinous lie about plot credit, and committed it to print in his 1981 interview in Comics Interview #2:

Lee’s timing is off with this fictitious anecdote and Evanier didn’t bother to check it with Kirby or the published work. The “Produced by” credit appeared over a year after Ditko’s plot credit and subsequent departure.

Patrick Ford: In the interview, Evanier comments he had just had lunch with Lee “a couple of weeks ago.” This is apparently where Evanier got the information Ditko asked for writing credit and money. Aside from Lee telling Evanier Ditko asked for writing money Lee told a bald faced lie by saying nothing changed between Lee and Ditko after Ditko asked for money. That’s a lie where the basic fact isn’t even in dispute. No one believes nothing changed. Lee himself admitted that as far back as the Nat Freedland interview in 1966. Even Roy Thomas today says it was Lee who stopped speaking to Ditko.

Lee begins using the Ditko plot credit on Amazing Spider-Man #26 and says he offered Kirby the same. Issue #40 of the Fantastic Four was published the same month (April 8, 1965). Ditko began getting the plot credit Lee claims Kirby turned down in favor of a “Lee-Kirby Production” credit. FF #40 credits Kirby for “artwork,” Lee is credited with “script.” FF #55 credits Kirby with “penciling” and Lee with “script.” This a year and a half after Lee claims he offered Kirby the same plot credit he “gave” to Ditko. It wasn’t until August 9, 1966 (long after Ditko quit in November 1965) that the first “Co-” credit appears in FF #56. Within a few months Lee was using the same credit on just about everything. Needless to say these facts make Lee’s claim highly suspect and it’s disappointing that Evanier not only didn’t double check with Kirby but didn’t bother to look and see that it took Lee from April 8, 1965 (ASM #26) until August 9, 1966 (FF #56) for Lee to give Kirby the credit Lee claims Kirby asked for in lieu of a writing credit. A period of 16 months.

Ferran Delgado: And let’s not forget Amazing Spider-Man #100 [the credit box that reads “Created & Written by Stan Lee”].[6]

Altruism?

Mark Evanier: And the more I learn about what Joe did for Jack in his career, the more I learn about what he did for Jack during all the years they were together; when, later on, Joe protected the rights to a lot of things that Simon & Kirby co-owned, he gave Jack his share—things a lot of people wouldn’t touch at the time. He voluntarily took the expense and the trouble to legally protect those things.

Evanier was misled: these claims of Simon’s, uncritically relayed, are provably false. Simon potentially made deals with the work of Kirby (and others) for decades without cutting Kirby in. Evanier himself testified[7] as much:

Mark Evanier: I am at a loss to explain why there was a Foxhole #7 done by Charlton writers and artists. When I asked Jack about it, he said there was no such comic; that Charlton would have had no right to do that. Then I showed it to him and he was baffled how it could have come about. Simon didn’t recall, either, but said that maybe (because the company was in dire straits due to the flood) they gave permission to use the title… or something.

In the Bruce Hamilton interview,[8] Kirby admitted he was aware that a reprint deal had been arranged behind his back.

BRUCE: Are you familiar with this new publisher Skywald? Do you know the story behind some of the old comics they’re reprinting?
JACK: Well, it’s probably a simple story. I don’t know the story behind it, but I’ve done the same thing in the past myself. Purchasing old artwork cuts down on costs. I see they got hold of some of my old Bullseyes.  I don’t know how they did that, but I’m quite sure they bought it legitimately; but I don’t know from whom.

For The Art of Jack Kirby, Ray Wyman, Jr conducted an estimated 40 hours of interviews with Jack (and Roz) Kirby. Gary Groth figures the TCJ #134 interview, spread over two sessions, exceeded three hours. For whatever reason, Mark Evanier has no such repertoire of Kirby interviews on which to draw, so he resorts to dismissing Kirby as an interview subject and playing up his “exclusive” interviews with those who didn’t get enough of taking from Kirby while he was alive. In addition, the very vapourware announcement of his “official” biography nearly 30 years ago has prevented other efforts from being published. Wyman’s interviews are relegated to excerpts in the pages of the Kirby Collector.

The 1998 Simon panel intro was expanded by Evanier into a 14-page introduction to Abrams’ The Art of the Simon and Kirby Studio (2014).

Mark Evanier: Joe was better at designing covers and splash (opening) pages. His time spent in newspapers and advertising had taught him much about typefaces and designing so as to grab the reader’s attention. Joe was also better at inking…

Evanier, who doesn’t have a clue in discerning[9] Kirby’s (or others’) inking, is the last person who should be pontificating on who was S&K’s best inker. He gets it wrong, not based on what can be seen in the work, but based on what he was told after Kirby’s death.

Mark Evanier: Joe was better at designing covers and splash (opening) pages. His time spent in newspapers and advertising had taught him much about typefaces and designing so as to grab the reader’s attention. Joe was also better at inking…Joe Simon, though older, outlived his famous partner by nearly eighteen years. For much of that time, he did what he’d done so well since the day they met: He protected the interests of Simon and Kirby.

Mark Evanier clearly demonstrates here that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. His willful and spectacular ignorance regarding Kirby’s contribution is being used to perpetuate Simon’s myths. Simon’s forté was running the business, something at which on occasion he also proved to be inept.

It was Kirby who was the master inker at S&K, inking his own work and touching up pages inked by others in the studio. It needs to be noted that the Abrams book is comprised of original art belonging to Kirby and others that was retained by Simon until his death in 2011. Simon protected the interests of Joe Simon.

Evanier has used his position as Kirby expert to arrogate the telling of Kirby’s story to a pair of lifelong prevaricators while peddling disdain for Kirby’s more accurate account. Worse, the ghost of Jack Kirby that he channels can be made to deliver any words or attitudes that suit the Lee-Simon narrative.

ENDNOTES

[1] Jim Amash, Kirby-L mailing list, 29 January 2000.

[2] “More than your average Joe,” The Jack Kirby Collector #25, August 1999.

[3] Twitter, 15 July 2013.

[4] Al Williamson interviewed by Steve Ringgenberg, The Comics Journal #90, May 1984.

[5] The Comics Journal #134, February 1990.

[6] Marvel Method group, 27 December 2023.

[7] EC Yahoo Group, 8 March 2004.

[8] Rocket’s Blast Comicollector #81, 1971.

[9] A page on the Kirby Museum website about the New Gods #1 cover takes a sly dig at Evanier who insists Kirby’s Orion concept drawing was inked by Don Heck rather than Frank Giacoia. A quarter of a century after the UK’s Mike Lake made the call, Evanier was a lone holdout in accepting George Klein as the inker of the first two FF issues until he was given a personal consultation on the evidence by Michael Vassallo.

A Dramatic Shift in the Jack Kirby Story After His Death, Part Two

Where did Mark Evanier get his Challengers narrative, the one that evolved from post to post in 1996 and 1997? Kirby died in 1994, so only Simon was left to convince him that Kirby hadn’t said what he said. Jim Simon’s comment in Part One shows that discussions were underway between Evanier and the Simon camp, and Evanier wrote the definitive version in his letter/email ultimately read by Harry Mendryk.

In 1998 at SDCC, with Roz Kirby still in the picture, Evanier hosted a Joe Simon Tribute Panel during which Simon mentioned his involvement in pitching Challengers. Evanier’s intro (transcribed for TJKC #25—the panel without the intro is here) is a work of fiction, a monstrous betrayal of his one-time mentor. It contains his standard line, his motivation for outsourcing Kirby’s life to others.

Now, as we all know Jack was not the greatest interview in the world and once or twice when he was interviewed people would get him mad…

The reality was that the partnership ended with some acrimony and Kirby was reluctant ever to talk about it. Simon, the right kind of interview for Evanier, was only too happy to jump into the breach. Evanier brags about his exclusive interviews with Stan Lee, Simon, and Sol Brodsky, but did he ever sit down for an in-depth interview with Kirby? Apart from Evanier, Kirby had plenty of incisive interviewers, including Gary Groth, but Evanier’s comment above is probably a Lee-slanted dig at Groth specifically.

As early as 1981, Evanier was consorting with Stan Lee over lunch. Lee told him an easily refuted lie which Evanier proceeded to read into the historical record in Comics Interview #2. (This was the same interview where Evanier revealed his knowledge that Lee was paid for plotting.)

Did Evanier bother to run Lee’s claim past Kirby? No, he simply chose to believe Lee wouldn’t lie to him, rendering fact checks unnecessary. The actual history shows Lee was so incensed when Ditko demanded the plotting pay that he stripped him of 10 pages a month worth of assignments (The Hulk in Tales to Astonish) and stopped speaking to him. Kirby’s supposed response to Lee was “keep it ambiguous,” but Roz told Gary Groth in the TCJ interview exactly what they thought of the “Produced by” credit. Evanier disputes both of these facts. He needs to take it up with Roy Thomas, who confirmed it was Lee who stopped speaking to Ditko, and claimed for himself creatorship of the “Produced by” credit.

In 1990, Evanier must have been AWOL when Roz asked Kirby’s friends, including Jim Amash and David Schwartz, not to show him Simon’s book or mention they’d “read or even knew about it.” Amash noted, “That book really upset her.” How close was Evanier to Kirby between his departure from Kirby’s employ in 1972 and Kirby’s funeral?

Evanier’s intro to the 1998 Simon panel transfers nicely to his intro to The Art of the Simon and Kirby Studio, no facts necessary. He concludes, “Joe Simon, though older, outlived his famous partner by nearly eighteen years. For much of that time, he did what he’d done so well since the day they met. He protected the interests of Simon and Kirby.” To buy the “and Kirby” part of this claim, an explanation is required for why the guy looking out for the partnership left his partner behind in East Williston during his upward ascendancy from one exclusive neighbourhood to another, ultimately landing in an oceanfront mansion. Fifteen years after Simon’s departure, Kirby took a strings-attached loan from Martin Goodman to escape to the west coast.

The right kind of interview subject for Mark Evanier is a confident smooth talker who makes a show of taking him into their confidence. He should have approached every interview with a guard on his credulousness, but when I suggested in September 2019 (on a Steve Bissette post about Steve Ditko) that the proper approach to any pronouncement by Lee was to consider it a lie and then try to prove otherwise, Evanier replied that was a “dandy” way to not find the truth. (He has yet to convince me that anything Lee confided in him was the truth.) What did Kirby ever do to him to be designated an unreliable witness?

And having actually dealt with Stan Lee and worked for him and knowing lots and lots of other people who did, I do not buy into the premise that if you catch him lying about one thing, it’s fair to assume he’s lying about everything. If you’re interested in the truth, that’s a dandy way to not find it.

The facts aren’t in need of a smooth-talking interview subject, they are visible in the work. In The Lost Jack Kirby Stories, Chris Tolworthy demonstrated how to discern a Kirby story by applying ten tests. His example was one of S&K’s earliest collaborations, Blue Bolt. The first issue was strictly Simon, and when Kirby joined the mix, the result was strictly Kirby: the transition was dramatic. Test #7 is Elitism, and Tolworthy shows it to be common in Simon’s work, noting the thread through Prez, Brother Power the Geek, and The Green Team. By contrast, “Kirby’s passion was that all men are created equal… power inequality is a bad thing. With Blue Bolt, Kirby has to use the character he is given, but he removes all traces of elitism.”

Evanier is particularly bad at identifying inkers. His slight of Frank Giacoia when he insists the Orion presentation piece was inked by Don Heck is relatively minor compared to the attribution of Kirby’s inking to Simon throughout the partnership. When Kirby returned to DC after the war, he wrote, pencilled, inked, and even coloured an issue of Boy Commandos, #23. Examining this issue should enable any inking spotter to see Kirby’s inks in his subsequent work. A good rule of thumb is Kirby’s pencil jobs, from that point up to and including some of his late ’50s work at DC, were predominantly inked by Kirby; if he inked, he likely wrote. Joe Simon’s artistic efforts were often done away from the studio, and speak for themselves.

The most compelling argument against Simon’s involvement in Challengers of the Unknown is the lack of physical evidence. Simon kept nearly everything that was produced, whether it belonged to him or not: all of the art used in The Art of the Simon and Kirby Studio came from his estate before being sold by Heritage. No S&K studio production materials or concept sketches related to Challengers exist, or Simon would have produced them (as he’d done for anything else he claimed).

Any official Kirby biography will ultimately be written by those who gain by minimizing his achievements, without the benefit of his review or even rudimentary fact checking against his own version of events. Despite Evanier’s snide remark amidst a decades-long Stan Lee-instigated smear campaign, the 1989 Comics Journal interview by Gary Groth remains the most accurate account we have from the three men, Kirby and the two collaborator/biographers who outlived him.

A Dramatic Shift in the Jack Kirby Story After His Death, Part One

Jack Schiff’s 1959 affidavit in his lawsuit against Jack Kirby over Sky Masters is an interesting artifact. It has been cited for the past 30 years as evidence that Joe Simon helped Kirby create Challengers of the Unknown, but very few who made that claim had actually seen the document.

Jon B Cooke quoted Schiff at length from the affidavit in his Sky Masters article in Kirby Collector #15, April 1997. There was no mention of Challengers and he later recalled none in the original document. Harry Mendryk cited the document in a 2006 Simon & Kirby blog post for the Kirby Museum site. In 2004 the late Stan Taylor declared with authority on Kirby-L, the Jack Kirby mailing list, that the document said something it didn’t. Aside from the Cooke article, those claims appear to originate in a falsification of the history by Mark Evanier.

2006-7

From Harry Mendryk’s blog post.

In a legal deposition, Jack Schiff stated that the Challengers was pitched to DC by both Joe and Jack. If that is true, could some of the early Challengers stories actually be Simon and Kirby productions?

The following year (July 2007), Mendryk posted this on Kirby-L.

I am trying to locate the reference for the Schiff deposition where he talks about both Simon and Kirby pitching the Challengers to DC. Any body know where that was published?

It was an odd question if he’d already read it. Several posters suggested that Jon Cooke had mentioned the Challengers connection in his then-current article, but he hadn’t. I emailed Cooke in April 2022 and got this response.

Joe Simon actually mentioned the trial date in THE COMIC BOOK MAKERS and that prompted me to ask my brother to go to the White Plains courthouse and have copies made of all the available Court documents. I can’t recall any mention of Challengers.

I emailed Mendryk the same month. This was his response.

Yes I saw the deposition that I mentioned in my blog post. And yes I am pretty certain that it was the Kirby/Sky Masters case. However it has been over 15 years so I can recall no specifics about the deposition. The copy I read belong to Joe Simon and I have no idea what has happened to that copy or how he obtained it.

The problem paragraph in Schiff’s affidavit is this one.
Challengers is not mentioned. Can it be inferred from Schiff’s wording that Simon and Kirby pitched the property together? Several people have suggested that, but there’s more compelling evidence that they did not.

2004

In the 2004 Kirby-L discussion, Philip Railsback kicked things off by asking the tough questions about why Simon hadn’t mentioned any Challengers involvement in his 1990 autobiography, The Comic Book Makers. Stan Taylor shut him down with this post to Kirby-L, March 2004.

Yep, according to Jack Schiff, in his deposition for the trial against Kirby, he says that both Simon and Kirby came in and made the initial pitch. Sometime between that initial pitch, and DC accepting the project, Joe went back to Harvey as an editor, so Jack was left to do Challs on his own. Joe never really worked on an actual Challs comic, so he didn't remember much about the concept.

Taylor revealed during the discussion (as had Mendryk in his blog post) that his information was second hand when he said Schiff specified Challengers. What was the source of Mendryk’s and Taylor’s misinformation? Both tipped their hands in the Kirby-L thread, revealing it was the same source. Mendryk added this to the discussion.

Joe Simon recently showed me a letter (or email) to him from Mark Evanier. In it Mark states that Jack Kirby's recollection of events matched Joe's, that is that Joe and Jack created the Challengers.

In May 2004, Taylor added this.

Interestingly though, Joe didn't remember doing anything on the Challs, and it was either Mark Evanier, or someone else who had to prod his memory. At first he denied having anything to do with it. I believe it was when he was shown the Jack Schiff deposition, that it rekindled the memory. I doubt that Joe Simon was involved in the first complete story, at most, he probably worked up a proposal with Jack. Joe returned to Harvey as an editor right at this same period. The proposal to DC was actually done at least a year after the studio split up.

Simon didn’t remember any involvement in Challengers. Mark Evanier provided him with a compelling version of events by email, mentioning and possibly mischaracterizing the Schiff deposition. Simon lent a copy of the email to Mendryk, who then conflated Evanier’s email with the Schiff deposition in his blog post. Taylor turned second hand information based on an extrapolation into established fact.

1981

Mark Evanier once had a firm opinion which he wasn’t afraid to share. The Comics Journal #67, October 1981.

1996-7

On an earlier incarnation of Kirby-L in November 1996, Evanier posted this in response to a question from Bob Heer. (Evanier would leave the list in 1999.)

Tue Nov 19 00:31:08 1996
From: evanier@pagebbs.com (Mark Evanier)

ME: I'm not sure. The first SHOWCASE issue of CHALLENGERS was produced out of the Simon-Kirby studio, before it had a publisher, and as with many Joe/Jack projects, it's a little hard to tell where Simon leaves off and Kirby begins, at least with regard to the writing. Joe says he wrote it. Jack said he wrote it. My guess is they both wrote it. If you buy that, then it's a question of whether you think co-writing the issue is enough to entitle Simon to co-creator credit. I would think so but it's not as clear-cut as some other projects.

“Joe says he wrote it. Jack said he wrote it. My guess is they both wrote it.”

There it is, right off the bat. Although he accurately quotes Kirby on the subject (for the first and last time in this or any discussion), Evanier indicates Kirby’s truth needs to be tested against what other people may have to say about it. By elevating Simon’s claim, he calls Kirby a liar, although Kirby would turn out to be the only straight shooter in a world of credit takers.

Rich Morrissey joins the discussion in December to say “writing style expert Martin O’Hearn” believes the finished dialogue in Showcase #6, the first Challengers issue, to be Kirby’s. Joe Simon’s son Jim, who had earlier threatened the group with legal action, lectured Morrissey at length about minimizing Simon’s part. An aside to Evanier shows that there has been off-list communication between Evanier and the Simons: “Mark E., I believe you quoted Jack when he said Joe was the best layout/designer man he ever knew.” Did Kirby actually say that? Did Evanier actually say he did?

By two weeks later, Evanier’s take had begun to evolve.

Thu Dec 5 03:49:57 1996
From: evanier@pagebbs.com (Mark Evanier)

I believe the first CHALLENGERS was written by Joe and Jack.

Evanier, August 1997.

From: evanier@ix.netcom.com (Mark Evanier)
Date: Sat, 23 Aug 1997 23:06:04 GMT

ME: Simon says he wrote the first CHALLENGERS story and Jack remembered Joe as being involved in it, though not to the extent that Joe recalled. That is not the least bit unusual; they worked very closely together and often did not recall or agree on who'd done what on a given comic. Dave Wood also may have worked on the script.

This is not something that is likely to be proven definitively, but there are a couple of bits of evidence in favor of Simon's involvement. One is simply the way the story is formatted with chapter breakdowns and the fact that it was lettered by Ben Oda, who was then lettering for Simon and Kirby but not for DC. That would indicate to me a strong likelihood that it was birthed in the
Simon-Kirby shop.

Also: Simon recalls having worked on the first CHALLENGERS story, then leaving to take an editorial job at Harvey. In the SKY MASTERS lawsuit, Schiff stated that Simon and Kirby came back to work for DC "on or around July of 1957" and that Simon then left and Kirby worked for DC solo thereafter. Well, July of '57 would be right about when the first CHALLENGERS story would have been written and drawn, and there is no sign of any other possible Simon work in the period. So Schiff's timetable fits in perfectly with Simon's recollection.

At that point Stan Taylor popped in to say this idea was new to him.

From: anabelt@unix.cde.com (Stan Taylor)
Date: Thu, 21 Aug 1997 14:48:02 -0500

I had never heard of any connection between Joe and COTU, until I joined the list. I still have not read what the connection is. Was it a concept that was mentioned in a S/K book, or just a thread that was thrown around in a bull session? Anyone with more specifics, please write in.

In the 1996-7 threads it was Ken Penders playing the skeptic; he had read The Comic Book Makers and expressed his disbelief that Simon was ever involved and simply failed to mention it. Penders was writing a Challengers article that would be published in TJKC #17.

The Joe Simon Challengers narrative was introduced after The Comic Book Makers was published, with Evanier taking a hand in augmenting Simon’s memories. Simon then tried to hit DC up for compensation, but was denied. J David Spurlock, who published a new edition of Simon’s book in 2003, said this in an August 2022 Challengers discussion conducted by Bob Beerbohm.

I was around Joe when it became a topic of discussion; looong after his first book, and after my well-received revised edition but, before his Titan book. Looking for credit and pay, Joe tried to convince DC that he had a hand in Challengers. DC said they would look into it and get back to him. They did. They said, "There is absolutely nothing in our records to possibly lend any credence to such a claim." After that, Joe began talking it up in print.

In a series of late 1990s interviews, Harry Donenfeld told Beerbohm that Kirby’s Challengers was to his mind the start of the Silver Age, and inspired DC’s other team titles, including the Justice Society reboot. It’s clear to anyone who hasn’t drunk Lee’s Kool-Aid that Challengers was Kirby’s template for the Fantastic Four.

To cover the legal bases, Ken Penders spent a significant portion of his article detailing Simon’s claim, introducing it as “Recently,…” and concluding with this:

Since Simon doesn’t present any evidence regarding his contributions, I think it fairly safe to say his input was minimal at best. (Referring back to The Comic Book Makers, there isn’t one mention of Challengers. Considering Simon didn’t hesitate to point out who created what, especially his own contributions to any particular creation, this tends to lend further credence to Kirby being the primary, if not sole creator of COTU.)

There is no priesthood safeguarding the data and doling it out to people who prove their worthiness. The information is public. With that, here is the Schiff affidavit, with the Liebowitz affidavit and, for completeness, Kirby’s.

Part Two: Compromising the official biography

In a 31 July 2024 Substack post, Daniel Best posted Jack Kirby’s 1975 contract with Marvel.

Best: Anything Kirby delivered, if published, belonged to Marvel. Any new character he came up with, any storylines, any costume design — it all belonged to Marvel for all time. This clause, and the fact that Kirby signed the deal, shows that Kirby knew exactly what he was doing when it came to working for Marvel. He knew it was all work-for-hire and that Marvel owned it all.

Best feels compelled to make the 1975 contract into Kirby’s all-encompassing acquiescence to everything Marvel ever did to him: “knew exactly what he was doing” meant something different in 1958, since there were no contracts. Fact: Kirby’s 1975 contract had no bearing on earlier work, his original art, or his family’s attempt to revert the copyrights of that period as permitted by law.

Kirby never contested the contract’s terms.

The people who still vehemently deny Kirby’s accomplishments want him exposed as the malcontent whose claims were unfounded. They understand bitterness and resentment, so they accuse Kirby of bitterness and resentment. Kirby was not bitter, and the resentment at the core of this story belongs to someone else.

Playing the Funky card

Best: In 1972, DC Comics published Mister Miracle #6. In this issue, Kirby, as writer, artist and editor, introduced two new characters. Funky Flashman and Houseroy were based on Stan Lee and Roy Thomas. The caricatures were cruel and unfair, both then and now but, in context, it is how Kirby saw Lee and Thomas at the time. Superficial and fake. And he had good reason to think that. The nicknames stuck with Lee and Thomas and are still in use today.

Both Lee and Thomas said, years after the event, that they weren’t offended by the comic and the portrayals, but, in hindsight, it must have hurt, especially Lee.

Here Best takes a page from Roy Thomas, John Morrow, and Mark Evanier in making Lee the victim, assigning feelings to the man without providing evidence that he was capable of feelings.

In a terrific post, Daniel Greenberg explores Lee’s narcissistic personality disorder. Decades ago, it was Kirby who’d noted that Lee had no empathy.

Kirby to Gary Groth: And my wife was present when I created these damn characters. The only reason I would have any bad feelings against Stan is because my own wife had to suffer through that with me. It takes a guy like Stan, without feeling, to realize a thing like that. If he hurts a guy, he also hurts his family. His wife is going ask questions. His children are going to ask questions.

Best: Lee had not said a bad word about Kirby, even after he left. And although Lee still would praise Kirby…

This is nonsense. The inability to parse the words of a con man without a little bit of awareness is the hallmark of a cult.

Stan Lee never said a word about Kirby or the other creators without taking away from their achievements. He always attacked Kirby, Ditko, and Wood in print with jokes and passive aggressive asides to the reader. The first time he mentioned Kirby in print (the FF #3 letters page), he called Kirby greedy because he signed his name to everything. Project much? Later Lee said Kirby “tended toward hyperbole” and eventually settled on “he’s either lost his mind or he’s a very evil person.” EVERY accusation is a confession.

In reality, the Funky Flashman grievance myth is all about Roy Thomas, who always claims he took it in good humour but that it was Lee who was hurt by it.

Thomas: kind of mean-spirited and warped out of recognition.—Comic Book Artist #2

the Funky Flashman stuff bothered [Lee] a little bit, because it seemed, to Stan at least, somewhat mean-spirited.—Kirby Collector #18

it was such a nasty lampoon of Stan.—Kirby Collector #74

Lee himself had nothing to say about Funky Flashman. He was always being filtered through Thomas, who still uses the character to put himself at the centre of Kirby’s return to Marvel in 1975. The Kirbys may have run the idea past him at a convention, but when Thomas went to advise Lee on the conditions of Kirby’s return, the deal had already been done without him.

But suddenly, several months later… [Lee] says, “What do you think about it?” I said, “Well, have [Kirby] come back. Don’t let him write.”

Instead Thomas was informed by Lee it was a fait accompli; he had no say in the matter. Kirby had demanded and received writing and editing privileges. Clearly Thomas was hurt by being excluded.

Jon B. Cooke’s interview with Thomas from Comic Book Artist #2 contains the big lie regarding Kirby’s last tenure at Marvel.

CBA: When Jack came back in the ’70s, do you think he got a fair shake from the editorial staff? There was some talk of disparaging remarks written on xeroxes of his art taped to walls.

Thomas: I never saw any of that. Some doubted whether he should be writing these books. When Stan asked me what I thought of Jack coming back (he didn’t name specific names, but Stan knew that there were people who were not wild about Jack returning), I said, “First, I think it’s great; you should have Jack back under any circumstances. Second, don’t let him write.” Even though Jack had written good material back to the ’40s and up to The New Gods, I didn’t think it was going to work out from a sales viewpoint if he wrote. I didn’t think the readers would like it, but Stan said, “Part of the deal is that he is going to write.”

“I never saw any of that, but… here’s why it was justified.” It was Thomas who doubted whether Kirby should be “writing” these books. He wanted to play Lee’s part in a Marvel Method arrangement where Kirby would do all the plotting, writing, and pencilling, and Thomas would add the dialogue and collect the writing pay. Kirby told him to get stuffed. In addition to never forgiving Kirby for his insolence, Thomas mobilized Marvel’s editors and writers to sabotage him.

Jeet Heer: My interpretation of the 1970s bullpen was that there was a real Oedipal drama going on with Kirby. A lot of the editorial people had grown up on 1960s Marvel and dreamed of a being the next Stan Lee—i.e. getting an artist like Kirby to give the story and art, to which they would add their deathless dialogue. But Kirby didn’t want to do that anymore, insisted on either writing the material himself or being given full scripts. So Kirby became the Oedipal dad who had to be destroyed.

Thomas had felt Kirby’s deft satire at Marvel, years before Houseroy: just a few months after meeting Thomas for the first time, Kirby created a character in a Nick Fury story he’d been tasked with “laying out” (i.e. given to write so that Lee could take the full writing pay while another Marvel Method artist gave Kirby a percentage of his page rate).

It seems in this case the story, with a May 1966 cover date,  was one of those Lee passed along to a ghostwriter to dialogue, a practice that was becoming more common at that stage. The character was Jasper Sitwell. Since Lee, if he even noticed, wouldn’t have given a rat’s ass how Roy Thomas was portrayed in a parody, it’s safe to say Thomas was the ghostwriter doing damage control on behalf of his ego.

The original art to Strange Tales #144 bears the margin notes from Kirby’s layouts, which permit a comparison between the published story and Kirby’s. Patrick Ford did the honours.

It’s apparent from Kirby’s border notes that his Sitwell is a college educated buffoon who is seen by Fury as an annoying pest; a fuck-up who tries to cover his SNAFU by cheerily pointing out that things turned out okay, with Fury not buying his blather for one second. Sitwell continues to supply excuses for his mistake, while Fury and his friend mock him as he walks off in his private fantasy world.

The published version: Fury is a step behind Sitwell who comes off as intelligent, but not respected by Fury, highly competent and a potential rival to Fury. Fury continues to feel threatened by Sitwell.

Is there a disorder or syndrome that describes the one who aids and abets the narcissist for meagre or no reward (or even the narcissist’s contempt) by altering history to match the narcissist’s false narrative? Roy Thomas, with his insider knowledge of Lee’s actual capabilities, creative and vindictive, has chosen to be the world’s biggest Kirby denier. And John Morrow not only chooses to publish Thomas’ magazine, but calls him, despite being “loyal to Stan Lee,” nothing but “fair, professional, and honest.” Thomas moonlights as the TwoMorrows in-house Kirby expert.

Imagine conduct so heinous that your adversaries in a court case, after their testimony is tossed, are recruited to conceal it, and you’ve got what Lee did. How can it continue to go unspoken? Now imagine the recruits, we’ll call them Nikki and Lindsay, taking their lifelong hero’s dead-on portrayal of his antagonist and using it to make him out to be the mean one.

Thomas is motivated by resentment, but how do Morrow and Evanier arrive at their take on Funky? Since their stellar work on Kirby’s behalf in the Marvel v. Kirby case, they’ve both endeavoured to minimize discussion of Kirby’s abuse at the hands of Lee. Was that line of questioning eliminated by the settlement? Both have taken the “let’s all just get along” approach that overlooks the excesses of Lee in his nepo-position.

In Stuf Said, Morrow called Funky Flashman “uncharacteristically mean.” In his editorial in Kirby Collector #73, he concluded that mature people are able to reconcile the claims of Kirby and Lee and find the truth in the middle. In this telling, Lee’s abuse of the freelancers is overlooked, but Kirby’s quite brilliant response to the abuse is held against him as a moral failing.

The 2021 TV series Slugfest: DC vs Marvel gathered all of the Funky experts for Episode 3.

Thomas: Stan was really unhappy… I think he was really depressed about it. He was a little angry, but he was also kinda depressed, ’cause, you know, he wouldn’t have done something like that to Jack.

Thomas’ version of the tale grows with the telling.

Morrow: It was obvious, “Oh, this has to be Stan Lee.” He basically copied the way he spoke, the way he promoted things. It was just so obvious to anybody who knew anything about comics that oh wow, this guy is making fun of Stan and doing it kinda viciously.

Despite his Lee victimhood position, Morrow testifies to Kirby’s accuracy.

Evanier: Jack got a little overboard on Funky Flashman. I think he later regretted it… I KNOW he later regretted it a bit, because it wasn’t taken in the spirit he thought it should have been taken in.

Evanier likes to speak for Kirby, but the Kirby he speaks for is Disney Legend Kirby, a grinning action figure who stands and takes it while his collaborator steals his livelihood for ten years to finance his Rolls collection, and takes Kirby’s creator credits to his grave nearly a quarter century after Kirby’s own death. This artificial version of Kirby is informed by Evanier’s confidential discussions with Lee (as VP to President of SLMI) that took place when Kirby was no longer around to fact check. When he does speak for Kirby, Evanier should use Kirby’s words:

Jack Kirby: I like satire. At DC I satirized everybody. In Mister Miracle I did Houseroy and Funky Flashman. I thought they were great characters. I loved those characters. Satire to me is just having fun. It’s a little like mischief and that’s all it is. You’ll find that it never hurts anybody.

Through their professional relationship with him, three men knew Stan Lee the editor better than anyone else. One has chosen out of his resentment to create and promote the false version of history that erases Jack Kirby and awards his accomplishments to Lee.

The other two men told us exactly who Stan Lee was. Steve Ditko did it with his essays, particularly the ones in Avenging Mind (2008).

Ditko: Stan Lee started early with his self-serving, self-crediting writing and speaking style when dealing with the actual, real source of creative ideas and creative work published in Marvel comic book stories and art.

It’s Lee’s style (when not claiming all the creative idea credit) to give an artist some credit while undercutting, taking away and winding up claiming most or all of the creative credit for himself.

Lee gives, then Lee takes away.

Jack Kirby’s Funky Flashman perfectly captured Lee’s look and idiom, and threw in a comment about his attitude toward women. In the Fourth World version, Lee is put in his place by Barda, a character based on Kirby’s wife Roz.Let’s see what a couple of comics pros had to say about the character.

Marie Severin (who experienced first-hand the workplace Kirby was satirizing): I thought that was funny. It wasn’t as funny as it could have been. I don’t think he went as far as he could have. There wasn’t even enough satire in it.

Mike Royer: I loved working on this book, just loved it!

Tom Kraft: Did you laugh a lot?

Mike Royer: I just thought it was a hoot! It was a hoot because it was so damn true. There are some people that think it’s vicious and overdone. Well, I’m not one of them.

Jack Kirby was the adult in the room who took out his frustrations with workplace malfeasance using his pencil. Funky Flashman was far milder than the crimes committed to Kirby’s face by a “collaborator” wearing an expression daring him to do something about it.

Did Jack Kirby sign away the rights to his creations when he signed that 1975 contract? Not then, not in 1987 when he signed to get back a tiny fraction of his original art, and not in 1972 when Cadence had him sign away his rights (even though he was no longer selling work to the company). The law provides for creators or their heirs to apply for termination of copyrights, and that’s what Kirby’s heirs did in 2009. Kirby himself never sued Marvel, but Marvel sued the Kirby family to prevent the reassignment. On the steps of the Ginsberg Supreme Court, to the chagrin of Daniel Best and his fellow cult members, Marvel settled with Marc Toberoff and the Kirby family.

I previously wrote about Funky Flashman here and here. Most of the original art for Mister Miracle #6 is presented beautifully in IDW’s Mister Miracle Artist’s Edition.

Endnotes

Substack: Jack Kirby’s 1975 Marvel Contract, Daniel Best.

Daniel Greenberg: Marvel Method fb group, 6 August 2024.
When an extraordinarily brilliant page appeared by Kirby or Ditko, or any of the writer-artists that he was so jealous of, Stan Lee would take a big verbal crap on the page, desperately calling attention to his own ego.
Stan Lee was too petty a person to allow anyone else a moment. So he had to call attention to himself with his non-story bloviating–regardless of how much it harmed the flow of the story that he had falsely affixed his name to. This is another indication that Lee was not writing the stories. He does not know what slows or derails them.
Not once or twice, but constantly. It was not enough for him to be stealing their work, their credit, their pay, and their original art. He had to pointlessly distract steal reader focus and identification, too, even at the expense of the stories.

Kirby to Gary Groth: The Comics Journal #134, February 1990. Conducted in the summer of 1989.

signed his name: Considering that our artist signs the name JACK KIRBY
on everything he can get his greedy little fingers on, I think we can safely claim that that’s his name!—Stan Lee, letters page, Fantastic Four #3. Kirby never signed his own name at Atlas/Marvel. By the time of FF #3 (March 1962), Lee had been signing his name to Kirby’s newly-created Rawhide Kid for ten issues to take the writing pay without even rewriting Kirby’s dialogue (putting the lie to Lee’s claim that he “never put my name on anything that I didn’t write”).

warped: Interview with Roy Thomas by Jon B. Cooke, Comic Book Artist #2, Summer 1998.

mean-spirited: Roy Thomas interviewed by Jim Amash, conducted by phone in September 1997, published in The Jack Kirby Collector #18, January 1998.

nasty lampoon: Thomas interview, The Jack Kirby Collector #74, Spring 2018.

But suddenly: Thomas interview, The Jack Kirby Collector #74, Spring 2018.

Jeet Heer: fb comment, 5 August 2024.

Jasper Sitwell: Patrick Ford, Marvel Method group, 22 October 2021. Patrick initially presented the comparison as Lee’s version vs Kirby’s. James Robert Smith suggested it was ghostwritten. Subsequent evidence suggests it was an occurrence that was becoming more common.

insider knowledge: In his Comics Journal #61 interview, Thomas revealed that Lee, like the company, was capable of being vindictive. He also said Lee “pretty accurately outlined things, even though in hyperbolic terms” in Origins of Marvel Comics. In 1998 Thomas stepped up his game: the “Stan the Man and Roy the Boy” discussion in Comic Book Artist #2 is so chock full of narrative-establishing lies that on present day TV it would need to be fact checked in real time.

fair, professional, and honest: Stuf Said.

I like satire: interview with Jack Kirby, conducted by James Van Hise, Comics Feature #44, May 1986.

Avenging Mind: HE GIVETH AND HE TAKETH AWAY © 2008 S. Ditko
Stan Lee started early with his self-serving, self-crediting writing and speaking style when dealing with the actual, real source of creative ideas and creative work published in Marvel comic book stories and art.
It’s Lee’s style (when not claiming all the creative idea credit) to give an artist some credit while undercutting, taking away and winding up claiming most or all of the creative credit for himself.
Lee gives, then Lee takes away.
Lee’s smiling expression suggests he is kind and friendly and generous to everyone.
He projects the image of one who wouldn’t harm anyone or anything, of one who is no threat, danger.
It should be obvious by now even with Lee’s open confession of his intentions (in a light vein) “You know me, I’ll take any credit that isn’t nailed down.’ (“Stan Lee’s Soapbox’, various Marvel comics, May 1999)
That public disclosure had no moral effect, meaning, on others. They choose not to see, understand, anything wrong in Lee’s deliberate rejection of facts, truth, honesty which, in justice, rightfully belongs to others.
So Lee’s self-crediting, his violations, dishonesties, are not to be taken seriously. It’s all in good, morally harmless fun. Let’s all smile.
Lee’s actions, claims, remain unquestioned, unexamined, unchallenged by the comic fans, the comic press, public outlets. The public fan-minded are more than willing to accept Lee’s claims.
The actual (even confessed) evidence of his wrong doing does not matter.
Lee remains the benevolent creator.

REVEALING STYLES © 2008 S. Ditko
Stan Lee’s dominant writing/speaking style is designed to give the impression of being non-serious, of being playful, of having fun, to show that he is not mean-spirited, won’t harm, abuse, hurt anyone. No matter how serious the topic or issue, he is not going to get involved, not be controversial, judgmental. Lee’s style also means nothing is really important to him unless it affects his status, his “creator” claims, which must be reinforced and protected.
His goal is to create a friendly atmosphere with a little emotional twitter for a happy, friendly occasion. Lee has his humorous, friendly routine to put down others.
But a writer/speaker (actually everyone) in factual matters has to accept the burden of proof, to provide convincing evidence, material, to validate his beliefs, claims. In fiction, one is free to fantasize and others are free to not get involved. Lee has not accepted that burden of proof nor do most of his believers, supporters, care about proof or the truth. They are willing to accept the fallacy of truth by authority or by prestige. They mindlessly follow the feel-good illusions, sharing in the fantasies like many voters can share in the promises of political candidates. And so it is with the legal system where the laws can be changed to protect the guilty thereby punishing the innocent.
It has been said (and believed) that nothing sells better than the light touch, the non-serious, the “I’m just kidding…”, the “Don’t take me seriously” approach, the nothing-is-really-serious style of writing and speaking. That style is impressionable on the passive-minded as a safe truth to believe, to use, for oneself and with others: “I didn’t mean it so I can’t have done anything wrong.”

Marie Severin: “An Interview with Marie Severin,” Ragnarok #2, 1972.

Mike Royer: with Rand Hoppe and Tom Kraft, “Fourth World Summer, Special Episode,” The Jack Kirby Museum & Research Center YouTube channel, 4 June 2020.