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“Cap has been evil before and he’ll be evil again.”

Captain American has not been evil before. He’s been brainwashed, manipulated, impersonated and mistaken. He’s never been evil. Or least he never was when I was reading Marvel Comics, which admittedly stopped back in the early to mid 2000s. So I guess I can’t speak to much after that or about any continuity changes made that would explain how, for example, Hydra would even have been a thing in 1930s/40s America since it was actually created by Baron Strucker in World War II-era Japan.

And for anyone who doesn’t think this whole thing is stupid and lame, what do you think the reaction would be if “The Walking Dead” came out with an episode this fall where they revealed that Rick Grimes has secretly been the scientist responsible for the zombie plague all along?

If anything can happen, then nothing that happens can mean anything.

Mike

Totally agree with MIke’s comment (above)..

As a writer, I like to think that if I were given the awesome privilege of writing a story for a character who has been around for 70+ years or more, I wouldn’t take the opportunity to totally screw up who he is and what he’s about. That is what bothers me the most. They sacrificed Cap’s character and his legacy for the sake of a stupid story that will “get people talking!” and supposedly make them money.

“If anything can happen, then nothing that happens can mean anything.”

Nobody tell him about the magic time travel bullets.

Holy fuck, there is no sacrificing of legacy. It’s obviously going to be a fakeout. Have you brain donors read a comic before?

It’s ridiculous for people to get angry over what is obviously a gimmick designed to get media attention and (hopefully) beef up sales. Didn’t we learn from the “death of Superman” (and later the “death of Captain America”) not to take these “shocking” twists seriously?

Mike said: “Captain American has not been evil before. He’s been brainwashed, manipulated, impersonated and mistaken. He’s never been evil. Or least he never was when I was reading Marvel Comics, which admittedly stopped back in the early to mid 2000s.”

Mike is utterly correct. Cap was brainwashed in that Lee-Kirby story where he salutes Hitler. I stopped reading Captain America in 1996 (after Rob Liefeld’s first issue), so I can’t speak to the last 20 years of Cap. But the character was never evil when I was reading the book.

“There’ve been other stories where he’s been a Nazi/Hydra agent … those were not attempted at a time when racial hatred were already at a recent high, specificlly in the context of addressing that heightened racial hatred.”

Kirby’s Cap-as-Nazi story was drawn in 1965, in the middle of the Civil Rights movement, when racial hatred was at a much greater high than it is now, with much greater repercussion than there are now.

I’m not saying people shouldn’t be outraged by that recent panel if they want to be outraged, but why aren’t they equally (or more!) outraged by the Kirby panel? At that point the Holocaust was only slightly further in the past than 9/11 is to us now.

Heidi, I love this piece! You framed the discussion around this story so well.

In the 15ish years I’ve been a comic book internet human, I don’t remember seeing people incensed about a comic book while invoking so much… I dunno, ethical high ground? It’s a bit surreal. Fun to see people argue it, though!

I really love how Marvel’s marketing bit them on the ass this time. But it’s also one of those any press = good press sorta things, I guess.

Still, it’s been a while since they had this kind of backlash! Probably since the Jemas days, right? Or maybe Joe Q’s Spider-Divorce was like this too and I’m not remembering it well.

“You voted with your attention and hate won.”

For what it is worth (little?) we sold roughly 4x the copies of REBIRTH on Wednesday than we did of the new CAPTAIN AMERICA, so I’m not sure that this is an accurate hot take.

-B

^^^

I think the writer forgets that Captain America just had a worldwide blockbuster success in the cinemas, and people know him from not just the comic books – who have also been joining in this discussion. Of course it will seem like it’s more popular, when Rebirth only really effects long time DC fans.

I think what everyone else is forgetting is that the issue you’re all talking about with the Hitler salute panel, is in tales #67. The cover for that story SETS UP the premise, doesn’t leave it till the end, and the cliffhanger, so to speak, is not on the topic of HOW this could be the case, because it is completely explained within the pages of the book, but how Bucky is going to rescue Cap. A completely different problem. No one tricked anyone, in fact the COVER was the selling point – when covers were used to tease the inside of a book, not just look pretty.

I don’t buy DC’s love and optimism because I feel that their efforts are empty and hollow. It’s a show, and it’s a show that they aren’t even very earnest about.

I also don’t buy Marvel’s kayfabe in telling us “Yeah, Cap’s evil, always was,” but I don’t know why kayfabe is necessary at all.

I thought of writing an essay about Reisman’s own errors (Lee’s superheroines were “pugilistic?” Really?) However, most of those errors are piddling in nature, and don’t detract from the question he raises.

While I found the essay valuable for the wealth of quotes from industry professionals, I would say that the writer fails to set a proper standard for “legacy.” He remarks, correctly, that Lee’s Marvel success is one of the great second acts in American history. But as he relentlessly chronicles all of the unpopular or unfinished projects Lee did in his later years, it might’ve been proper to note that very few writers, high or low, have much of a “third act” in their careers. I’ve seen critics observe that Jack London was a bad businessman too, but nobody questions his legacy because of that. And how many writers continue to be productive past their 50s?

Reisman says something about how Lee might’ve been better off had he just rested on his laurels– but without Lee and his corny cameos, how likely is it that the mainstream public would even appreciate the presence of real comics-creators behind the projects that Hollywood tweaks for moviegoers?

Even if every post-70s project Lee worked on was pure dreck, being the “Walt Disney” of American comics may be a valuable legacy in and of itself.

Gene: “but without Lee and his corny cameos, how likely is it that the mainstream public would even appreciate the presence of real comics-creators behind the projects that Hollywood tweaks for moviegoers?”

The catch being that the mainstream public appreciates the presence of real comic-creators…if they’re named Stan Lee. His tendency lately to have large cameos in movies whose characters he had fuck all to do with (most recently Deadpool and Big Hero 6) only serves to further lift up the name of Stan Lee, to the detriment of the people who actually created them.

“And how many writers continue to be productive past their 50s?”

Bram Stoker did Dracula at 50, Laura Ingalls Wilder did Little House at 64, Raymond Chandler did The Big Sleep at 51, J.R.R. Tolkien did The Lord Of The Rings trilogy in his 60s. Nothing was stopping Stan Lee from finally writing that Great American Novel, except maybe whatever kept him from even being able to write either of his own memoirs.

People often ignore the fact that just like Kirby, Stan doesn’t own any of the Marvel characters he (co-)created either. While that’s no excuse for any false claims he’s made, he had just as much bitterness about the industry as Kirby and Ditko, with the benefit of power (nepotistically granted via cousin Martin Goodman) so as to never fear being axed. Again, this power doesn’t excuse his false claims, but it does demonstrate that even with money and power, Stan still lacked creative ownership and couldn’t even publish the stories he wanted to tell (he was dejected after Silver Surfer was canceled due to low sales).

People often paint The Man as THE MAN, but he was merely petty, not wicked.

“His tendency lately to have large cameos in movies whose characters he had fuck all to do with (most recently Deadpool and Big Hero 6) only serves to further lift up the name of Stan Lee, to the detriment of the people who actually created them.”

Er, you do realize Rob Liefeld was in the same scene as Stan in Deadpool, right? And it was Rob and Fabien, and not Stan, who were created at the end of the film? Your claim makes no sense.

Rob and Fabian were listed as “Special Thanks,” not as creators.

I spotted Rob for 2 seconds (slightly out of focus, walking past the camera) in the Hellhouse after his name was said…was he also in the strip bar? If he was, he must not have been very visible in that scene either, and he definitely didn’t have a speaking line. Stan got a series of speaking lines in both Deadpool and Big Hero 6, on top of his face being clearly seen.

The average theater-goer recognizes both the name and face of Stan Lee. If you asked the average theater-goer if they know who Rob Liefeld or Fabian Nicieza are, or if they recognized a photo of them, you’d get a lot of “no”s. Likewise Steven T. Seagle and Duncan Rouleau. Likewise Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko.

Or to give another example, a Tumblr user Photoshopped Deadpool and Stan Lee into an image together. What the Photoshopper discovered?:

“I’ve come to learn that WAY too many people are under the impression that Stan Lee created Deadpool”

http://artemuscain-gamingandbs.tumblr.com/post/127767987584/the-hoody-geek-thatthinginyourshoe

It’d make for an interesting survey to see if it’s true, but it does seem that if someone is a Marvel character, the general public assumes Stan Lee created said character.

And when the ‘Dr Strange’ movie comes out, people will assume Lee created him even though Lee said in writing he was Ditko’s idea!

Kate,
The point IMO is that Stan is there to communicate the fact of authorship at all, as opposed to the days when outsiders never gave a thought as to who created Superman and Batman. Even when Jerry Siegel tried to sue over ownership of Superman in the 70s, it took considerable time for wire services to even bother to cover the story, according to Larry Tye’s findings.

If you want to believe that Stan stole all the credit for the Marvel works, you’ve got a lot of company, because it’s a familiar knee-jerk response in fandom. But the question of authorship is one that anyone can investigate if they care to do so.I believe that while Lee’s claim to complete authorship is exaggerated, but I believe the claims of Ditko and Kirby are just as exaggerated. But why do fans only attack Lee for his exaggerated claims, but allow Ditko and Kirby to skate on by? (Reisman comes close to this as well; he just barely mentions any questionable aspects of these artists’ outsized claims.)

I know that mainstream audiences are not likely to investigate anyone’s claims in detail, just as they were willing for many years to think that Walt Disney created all the Disney projects. The important thing is not the masses, who will never remember such details. My concern is that at least some of the intelligentisa– genuine or would-be– can even grasp the fact of comics-book authorship. If THEY don’t do their bloody research, that’s not Lee’s fault.

“Rob and Fabian were listed as “Special Thanks,” not as creators.”

I wrote a typo. I meant “credited.” And they were.

“I spotted Rob for 2 seconds”

There you go.

“The average theater-goer recognizes both the name and face of Stan Lee. If you asked the average theater-goer if they know who Rob Liefeld or Fabian Nicieza are, or if they recognized a photo of them, you’d get a lot of “no”s. Likewise Steven T. Seagle and Duncan Rouleau. Likewise Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko.”

Therefore . . . what? Stan’s been in the public eye since he did the university rounds in the mid-’60s. Your whole “detriment” argument is still baseless.

“If you want to believe that Stan stole all the credit for the Marvel works, you’ve got a lot of company, because it’s a familiar knee-jerk response in fandom.”

Stan even said he had no intention to appear in GotG because they were not his creations and he never worked on the characters (which is actually not true – he co-created Groot). Is it his fault they people want him in their movies? Is he “taking credit” for anything outside of, you know, cameoing as himself?

You would think they could have a King-Cat themed party. I’m pretty sure that’s the same Hoffman Estates that John Porcellino grew up in.

“But now for the first time their collecting the King of Comics, Jack Kirby”

Ignoring the grammatical error there, it’s also not true. There are three Artist’s Editions collecting Jack Kirby: New Gods, Mister Miracle, and Kamandi.

I wish I could order mine with a different inker…..But I’m sure they will be gorgeous nonetheless.

Greg, if you’d continue reading it states his Marvel work.
“But now for the first time they’re collecting the King of Comics, Jack Kirby Marvel work”

It’s not just you, Heidi. I’m not really sure I can articulate it any better, but the color palette on the modeled coloring just doesn’t pop the way the original colors do. I think that the modeled coloring also changes some of the original storytelling choices, albeit in a subtle manner. For example, as I’m looking at the side-by-side you’ve posted from “The Meaning of Ragnarok,” the original colors make it pretty clear that Thor, Baldur, and… Fandrall? At any rate, the 3 figures on the left, stand apart and in front of the rest of the crowd, while the recolored version, by coloring EVERYONE, has them all sort of jumbled together. Anyway, that’s what struck me as I was looking at this. And after spending Saturday looking at so much of Jack’s original art at the CSU-Northridge exhibit, I’m struck by just how amazing his work looks in black & white…

I completely agree! What the original colorists understood was how to make things pop — to give the most important elements of the art separation in order for them to be emphasized and seen in a two-dimensional medium. You would think modeling would make objects seem more three-dimensional, but as your above illustrations have shown, it has instead reduced everything to a muddy mess.

In some cases, it’s simply understanding the composition and how best to give it clarity. For example, In the Tales of Asgard splash page, there are so many figures and so much lettering in the original art, the colorist understood that by leaving the background white, everything is easy to read. In the modern version, muddy colors on both the characters and the sky bleed together and emphasize nothing making it hard to read. *And* it makes the biggest mistake of most modern, modeled coloring like this — there is no main light source and corresponding back light.

If a colorist *is* to model the color for a greater sense of realism, then they must follow that process all the way. A light source must be decided on. In the Asgard panel it would be the cauldron, and it would hit the figures at appropriate angles for that source. (And for even more separation, edge lighting, from the sun or moon behind them would be added.) Instead, the foreground character is completely soft lit with no source, Odin is front lit and Thor and the other background characters are not lit and all (and at the same value as the sky to boot.) Even in ‘film noir’, which most people think of as being dark and shadowy, great cinematographers like James Wong Howe followed this source light/back light principle. In black and white darkness, their characters popped.

Now the bigger argument is, even if it is done correctly, should molded coloring be done at all. I think not. In the first place, the original art was designed for flat color. Black and white line drawing are not meant to be realistic, so laying realistic color on top of them creates a bizarre mash-up of two completely different styles. Back in the 50’s and 60’s, fine artists/thieves like Warhol and Litchinstein understood the graphic power of comics with line art and flat color. It’s a little amusing to think that colorists now, in an attempt to make old comics more sophisticated and arty, do so by dolling them up with fancy modeled coloring. Except that it’s usually done wrong.

A pox on this. It seems most people hate it when old work is messed with and ‘improved’ — be it colorized movies or George Lucas not being able to keep his hands off the original Star Wars. Let’s restore old comics for us and future generations in a condition as close to their original form as possible.

And give me the wonderful original coloring of the X-Men, New Gods and Thor covers any day of the week!

No offence to such talents as Steve Oliff et al, but the comics of Kirby’s era were never drawn with the expectation of finely-graduated colour or glossy paper.

(That said, I *did* enjoy the recoloured reprints of John Byrne’s original ‘Doomsday+1’ back in the day, if only because the pulpy printing of the Charlton series was woeful even by 70s standards.)

Recoloring old comics is not in itself a bad thing. It really depends on the original line art and how you redo the coloring. I agree that the modeled coloring above is pretty heinous. As Charlie Ryan says, part of that is lack of source light/back light, but part of it is also Kirby’s line art. It really does look best in black and white. Most comic art with a lot of weight to it does. The original Odin above looks like a child’s coloring book, and it’s part of why I have a hard time reading Golden Age books. But the modeled one destroys Kirby’s the pencil/ink work and I wouldn’t want to read that version either. I absolutely don’t mind if Marvel or anyone else wants to recolor old comics when reprinting them, but it needs to be done with care and attention. The first volume of recolored Gaiman’s Sandman was an improvement, but Kieth and Dringenberg are a far cry from Kirby. And I thought the giant hardcover of Simonson’s Thor looked mostly pretty good; there were some weird pages and bad choices, but mostly it made Simonson’s line pop more than before, instead of less.

I have so many thoughts on this, but the short version is:

1) I prefer having the original colors available for historical purposes, so we can see how they actually colored back then.

One of Marvel’s biggest art crimes was having the old comics recolored for the early Masterworks in flat limited-palette manner that made them appear to be the original colors, but that were actually wildly different (and much more restrained and *boring*) than the originals. Even worse, early on they actually tried passing these new colors off as vintage — remember those single issue reprints with the silver borders that included the original ads? And yet the colors were nowhere close to authentic.

2) Modeled color can work on artists like Kirby, but it takes someone who knows how to do it right. Many of the early Marvel covers were printed from airbrushed art, the trick is that the airbrush artists weren’t over-modeling.

Likewise, non-modeled isn’t necessarily superior — again, those early Masterworks that were recolored flat with a limited palette were just terrible (and unfortunately, some of those versions are still the ones on Marvel Unlimited. The FF colors are accurate, but the X-Men issues are so beyond terrible I’ve been tempted to do an article comparing different recolorings).

I consider re-color jobs to be disrespectful to the work of the original colorists. If publishers believe a “modern” (re: generally dull) color palette is what people who buy retro collections are looking for then they are mistaken.

It can also produce cut-rate work. I still remember that part of the Conan Dark Horse reprint where a river is colored green like the grassland around it so the art now shows a bridge just sitting in the middle of a field for no reason.

I’m a duffer at this illustration business, but I know that if I’m going to create inked art to be printed in black and white, I’m not going to do it the same as if I know it’s going to be flat-colored, and I’d do it still differently if I knew it was going to be colored-and-modeled. And I think it goes without saying that Kirby (and his cohort) understood this even better than I do. It’s like colorizing a black-and-white movie or 3D-izing a 2D movie: it might look more modern or exciting … but that means you’re changing it into something the original creator didn’t intend and didn’t envision.

Kate, I’d concur that the early Marvel Masterworks were garishly colored, but I wasn’t aware early Marvel covers were “printed from airbrushed art” (and by “early”, I’m assuming you mean the dawn of Marvel in the early 1960’s.) I always though they were colored with Doc Martin watercolors on production stats and the finished product was only used as a guide for mechanical separations.

The only experimenting with tonal work on covers that I know of was what DC’s Jack Adler did in the late 50’s and early 60’s with his tone wash covers. In those instances, the black and white artwork was shaded with ink wash (diluted indian ink) which was then combined with the standard color separations of the day. In other words, a tonal black and white base was overlaid with flat color. This achieved a much more modeled effect than the usual coloring on covers. It was also a bit muddy looking, but interesting and sometimes beautiful in its own way. Most important, the coloring was intended to be like that from the start of the process.

The problem is that the new coloring isn’t trying as hard as Kirby was to be striking and surreal, but rather to do a serviceable job, adding a grounded sense of realism that does not belong. I would enjoy seeing Kirby’s stuff colored in the manner of JH Williams III Kirby Tribute pages from Seven Soldiers number 1. That stuff was insane. Kirby’s own painted work is similar. Kirby’s art should look like it’s on acid, not like the color grade from a modern motion picture.

I liked quite a lot of the recolored Tales of Asgard Kirby stories, although I wished the browns were toned down a little.

I think the issue lies with who is doing the re/coloring. Coloring is truly an art form in to itself and I think it needs someone with a real affinity for Jack’s artwork as well as being a great colorist themselves.

Putting aside my own instincts to stay as true to Kirby’s own color choices, recoloring his, as well as other artists such as Steve Ditko, John Buscema, Jim Steranko, John Romita, and George Tuska would give fresh commercial life to Marvel’s back catalog. As long as they don’t overcharge for the material.

I’d love to join the Hero Initiative, but it’s AUGUST and it still isn’t offering 2015 memberships!!!

Come on, no one wants a “pet Galactus.”

A small version of Lockjaw, though…

I don’t know why new movies of the FF don’t make it the amateur space race, which is currently going on. They could win that, and because they’re amateurs Could be the reason why something goes wrong and they become the fantastic four

I saw “Fantastic4″ last night, and Sucktastic4ever was not worth it…

@Brian:
Why would a multinational corporation make a movie about anything like informing an ‘American’ populace about some modern day space race, while our daily lives have nothing to do with wanting to improve our way of life, or even be informed about something like a ‘space race’ that would require work ethic, education/training, and cooperation to accomplish?

Y’all think about it”:
Isn’t that a mark of today’s anti-culture, as we are consumers that pretend to be ‘Americans’ / ‘humans’, saying “…You’ll probably never see it. Thant’s reality though”? Here we are as everything is made to break down and take our money, instead of work and last, while we sit in traffic, and have our dignity chipped away so we can push ‘corporate policy’ for a paycheck that has diminishing returns on purchasing power, and the concept of making even a great movie for something like LEE/KIRBY’S Fantastic Four is more about “consumer” disappointment and wasting our money, than it is about entertainment that inspires the imagination, incites intelligent conversation, and urges the viewer to want to go out and learn more about science, being around a group of people who are different and working together to have fun and adventure, and of course -the Fantastic Four.

This goes for everyone from the people who walk around high school tracks and football fields for some charity cause to gain money and recognition for curing cancer (while companies like Monsanto have patents on genetic sequences, but will not use them as it is more profitable to treat than cure diseases, along with the congressmen they have in their pockets), to the lame corporate tools like us as we just sit in traffic, and have the nerve just to tell ourselves success is based on attitude, and ‘think positive’ (while we have no urge or idea as to how to enable cooperation and tolerance at work or in our neighborhoods, have no idea how to tell someone how to meet their city council members, how to have a peaceful non-violent protest against things like how we use gerrymandering or out-sourcing jobs instead of training Americans, or how to be involved in town hall meetings), to the ‘consumer’ that is willing to pay over $2.00 for a “comic book” that is mainly about “super heroes” band names (instead of cutting edge, and just plain quality sequential art / story telling) -Remember this when you make a decision fellow ‘Americans’, and overall Fantastic4 ticket buyers / ‘consumers’ / chumps :

Live like a consumer, then get treated like a ‘consumer’.
Yuuu-p, thaz riiii-ite, I said it and I’z says it agains, cuz it’s time to DRAXX THEM SKOUNST, as we treat these mammajamaz from Fox like sum kinda “terries” onz’tha wallet n $h!+ -I mean is get’n waaay too froggy, and we’z gotta be prepared to blast up on these wallet-terries know’msaynz… (youtube Key & Peele – Prepared for Terries):
Live like a consumer, then get treated like a ‘consumer’.

Thanks for this nice write-up and everything, Jeff! Glad you dug the exhibit!

For me, optimism consists of being sure that things will go badly for me (again), but recognizing that I might be wrong about that (too).

Jack certainly could be a snappy dresser, but this photo may be a bit misleading. I think a little historical research will prove that Jack was simply dropping off some Thor artwork at the Marvel offices that day, and was dressed up because he was going to take Roz out to dinner afterwards. As he turned to leave, however, Stan suddenly ran out of his office in a panic. Don Heck’s artwork had been mailed to DC by mistake! Lee was so upset he was almost weeping. Jack rolled up his sleeves and said, “Okay, I can do a fill-in, but I’ve got to meet Roz in twenty minutes.” “But – but – I don’t even remember anything about the story Dazzling Don was working on!” moaned Lee. “Mm, I think I can manage,” said Jack. It was a giant-sized annual, but yeah, he finished it in fifteen.

Fantastic work. I have read Heidi’s last paragraph 3 times in a row and it makes me smile from ear-to-ear.

There needs to be a way for parties to a case to agree to a settlement that will remain binding while allowing the case to proceed, to settle points of law that are, at a bare minimum, very likely to recur.

I’m pretty sure his name has been on Agents of SHIELD since the beginning.

Another sign that things are all sunshiney and birght btw Marvel and the Kirby heirs: Kirby’s son also appeared on last week’s “Marvel 75 Years” television special.

Marvel also published this, back in the day, in hardcover!
http://www.comics.org/issue/42312/

Did Jack Kirby ever create comics about his war experience?

Torsten,

If you mean. did he create comics that accurately matched his real-world experiences, no. I imagine that his war comics of the 1950s– which I haven’t read– draw upon those experiences. I’ve seen a review or two arguing that these are more realistic fare than, say, SGT. FURY, which was meant to be wild escapism from the get-go.

Also, Kirby’s ’70s run on DC’s Our Fighting Forces is a remarkable span of war comics. It includes the magnificent and brutal story “Ivan” (#160). Mind you, it also includes a stout lady smuggler called Panama Fattie because, well, he was The King. Tonally it is very playful but clearly informed by (bad) front line experience. DC collected all the issues between two covers as JACK KIRBY’S THE LOSERS – don’t ask, just buy! Hell of a book, Hell of a guy!

Wolverine created by Len Wein and John Romita, Sr.

Very good. Nice to know his family is getting paid too. Hopefully a lawsuit won’t be needed to secure the same courtesy for Don Heck and Steve Ditko.

Long-overdue, but unfortunately these creator credits aren’t given unless there’s the force of a lawsuit behind them.

Simon and Kirby have been credited for Captain America for a few years now, as a result of Marvel’s settlement with Joe Simon.

“While the FF and the X-Men are being cancelled or downplayed in the comics due to their movies being at other studios”

Every time I see this being bandied about, I think about how incredibly unrealistic (and unproven) this is.

Seeing the “Created by” byline in this week’s books was a pleasant surprise. Hopefully, this can carry over into non-Kirby creations, as well (Spider-Man created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, et al).

It’s smart to give it a rest for a while. Let it breathe until August 2015 and relaunch with a big creative team.

Lets be clear, people are upset the book is going away, NOT upset that Robinsons is going away. If it was about sales then they could get a new writer. I loved Hickmans Fantastic Four and couldn’t get enough. I couldn’t care less about Robinsons and dropped it. So yes… I will get on line and moan and complain about the book being canceled. Not because I read it at this time, but because it’s the Fantastic Four and should always be available from Marvel. Get a new writer and don’t let the publisher play games because they are upset with the movie.

This kind of announcement is where Perlmutter needs to come out from his hidden bunker since he doesn’t like to be seen by anyone and explain to the crowd his reasoning behind this whole thing and see how much they actually care about him being pissed off at Fox because they took a good deal when Marvel was at a desperate time in its existence.

I very much agree with both Chris and Spike. The book A) needs a rest and B) needs to not be written by James Robinson, who hasn’t displayed any talent since 2002.

Point of order: while not many people bought it, Robinson’s Shade 12-parter circa ’11 as just as good as anything he wrote in the 90s or 00s.

This same team with these same four characters, with only a few temporary variations, has been around for more than fifty years. It’s a stale dynamic, and would benefit from some permanent changes to its roster.

While the cancellation due to corporate politics bit could be true, I personally suspect it’s just a temporary cancellation that leads into a high profile relaunch.

Johnny, they just had the high profile relaunch. There’s no way to say they’re still looking for one.

@Nick Jones: Perma-nent…chan…ges?

I’m sorry, I’ve been reading DC and Marvel for decades and I have no idea what that series of letters you just typed means.

If you’re going to ruin the Fantastic Four with “permanent changes” then it does need to be put to rest so that Axel Alonso, Tom Brevoort and all the other Powers That Be at Marvel don’t turn it into something unrecognizable like they have the Avengers comic (Comics I guess if you count the different adjectives).

They should bring them back with switched genders so I can sit back and watch a million fedoras explode…

The cynic in me says that if The Fantastic Four were available for future films under the Marvel Studios rather than languishing within FOX Studios we’d see more FF presence in their monthly output of comics.

What would Ben Grimm do?

Enjoy his retirement — he’d be in his 80s by now if the comic had kept to the (approximate) real time kept, however unconsciously/reluctantly, by Lee and Kirby during its first decade.

Marvel have totally lost the plot, what changes are they going to make when
they relaunch the FF is anyone’s guess, the house of no ideas lack a unified direction, it’s just a bunch of clowns playing havoc with titles that they have no affinity or sense of history for, I’m fed up of these cabbages, they can do what they want, I’m reading other publishers.

Curious to see so much negativity about James Robinson here. To me, his run on Fantastic Four has been fun, charming and filled with a good degree of drama. The best thing he has written in the last years (aside maybe from The Shade mini-series).

And much better than the snooze-fest that was Matt Fraction’s run.

Finally, we’ll discover that Franklin’s been stretching space/time all along… http://zak-site.com/Great-American-Novel/ff_end.html

“While it seems unlikely from the outside that SCOTUS would ever have sided with the Kirby heirs, Marvel didn’t know, and a happy smiling settlement was vastly to everyone’s benefit”

When you have an uncertain outcome and a large amount of money on the line, it becomes a game of probabilities. Let’s say Disney stood to lose $500 million if it lost this suit (I made up this number out of thin air). And let’s say they calculated that they had an 80% chance of winning the case before the Supreme court. To calculate the cost of the lawsuit to them before taking it to court, they would multiply the 80% x $0 for the Kirbys and add 20% x $500 million for the Kirbys. The expected loss would be $100 million. Given this, any settlement they could make less than $100 million is worth taking. Obviously Disney’s calculus was more complex, and I have no idea how much they calculated they would lose in a worst case scenario. But I would not be at all surprised if some company risk managers did a similar valuation using probabilities to come up with an acceptable settlement price.

The other aspect is just the bad publicity the case would bring if it was heard by the supreme court. “Could court case prevent Avengers 2 and 3?” would be attention getting headlines. Even if 95% of the people don’t care, the 5% that does and stops buying the Marvel Brand (Movie tickets, DVDs, Video Games, Merchandising, etc..) adds up, especially over time across multiple products. Marvel has something Pixar like special going on with their brand in the mainstream marketplace and I don’t think they want to tarnish it. So just going to the supreme court would cost them money, possibly lots. Losing would have cost them a whole lot more. Having this go to court was a lose or LOSE situation. The settlement was the better option.

It’s not only Starlin and Mantlo, Marvel has apparently been recently making deals with practically all creators whose characters have appeared in movies, from Kev Hopgood (for War Machine) to Steve Gan (for Star-Lord).

The news that Marvel had reached an agreement with the Kirby Estate as well came as a pleasant surprise (I hadn’t been expecting it at all), but it makes sense given the context and can now be seen as part of a larger and smarter long-term strategy.

“Marvel has apparently been recently making deals with practically all creators whose characters have appeared in movies, from Kev Hopgood (for War Machine) to Steve Gan (for Star-Lord).”

That is great news.

Mike

Better late than never, but it’s amazing that Disney didn’t invite the Kirbys in for a meeting the day that they announced that they bought Marvel. Very happy for the Kirby family and for what this will hopefully mean to future mainstream comics creators.

“Better late than never, but it’s amazing that Disney didn’t invite the Kirbys in for a meeting the day that they announced that they bought Marvel. ”

I’m quite sure no one at Disney even knew they EXISTED then. And even now, few people besides the lawyers working on the case must know that.

I remember the press conference they did that day (there was – and must still be – a sound file of it available on the web). There was exactly ONE question about the comics – and the standard, noncompromising answer they gave shows that they had no idea of what they were talking about.

I suspect Disney lawyers had to do a lot of digging through four(?) different corporate owners’ paperwork (if it exists) to figure out what Kirby had signed, as well as all of the other creators working for Marvel. Disney really could sponsor a law school, just like they sponsored CalArts. They are masters of copyright and trademark law.

They had to straddle the Copyright Act of 1976. What existed (or didn’t) before then? After? How much of Marvel’s IP was in jeopardy? So yeah, I’m sure they’re working backwards with creators to shore up any legal questions. This is the biggest. (Stan Lee settled a few years ago.)

DC dealt with this early, amid the bad publicity for the Superman movie. They give credit readily, they pay royalties, Go read Stephen Bissette’s facebook feed… he is like Busiek, but more passionate. Marvel… doesn’t credit anyone in the books, Claremont received very little for “Days of Future Past”. Will this change? Perhaps.

As for the future of lawsuits… My money is on the musicians. Warners just made a huge deal with Prince over his catalog… he owns the rights to everything now, and Warners gets an exclusive deal with Prince. 1978 + 35 years… Van Halen, Billy Joel, Dire Straights…
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/16/arts/music/springsteen-and-others-soon-eligible-to-recover-song-rights.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
That will be a stronger case. Music fans follow the musicians, not the labels. Plus the record labels have made Billions on music sales (both recorded and in print).

As for the the fantasy…
Nope, not in Disneyland… no room. (Unless they bury the Toy Story parking lot and build on that land east of the convention center.)
Walt Disney World… yes, there are a few bits of real estate still left in Reedy Creek. (Most of it is swamp land, and slated for conservation.) Once the Universal license expires, or is purchased, or whatever, then you’ll see a Marvel Universe theme park, probably east of the speedway on World Drive (with a new monorail stop). Statues? Nah… unlikely. Maybe some “hidden Mickey” artwork with Stan and Jack creating the Marvel Universe.

But, yes, within five years, Disney will induct (induckt?) a large class of Marvel Legends, probably for the D23 expo in 2015.

There’s a statue of Walt Disney at Disneyland because he OWNED the company, its characters and its films. (Never mind that Ub Iwerks had as much to do with creating Mickey Mouse as Disney, if not more. It seems Disney came up with the basic idea for a cartoon mouse, and Iwerks did the “grunt” work of drawing and animating the early films, and giving Mickey a personality.)

Stan and Jack never owned Marvel or its characters. So don’t expect statues of them.

Its possible at least one top Disney exec was familiar with Kirby: CEO Bob Iger is the nephew of Jerry Iger, one of Kirby’s first employers. This may have given him the insight needed for Disney to pursue their current course of settling things with creators.

Good news for all involved. I’m glad Kirby’s family is getting something for the characters he Co-Created and I’m glad Marvel can finally start to put all that to rest. Would have been nice if this happened thirty years ago but still. It’s kind of sad to think about all the great interviews and great work we would have gotten if Marvel and Kirby had worked things out years ago.

Considering that the Kirby Estate didn’t seem to have anything to lose by going to the Supreme Court, but Marvel/Disney had a lot on the line, I’m thinking (or hoping, at least) that this was a decent settlement for the Estate. Given the timing — if the Supreme Court had chosen to hear the case, no settlement would then be possible — it virtually has to be a deal spurred on by the side that doesn’t want the case to go to the Court.

However unlikely onlookers think it might be that the Court would take up the case, and however corporate-friendly the Court may seem to be, the stakes are very high, and a settlement may have seemed a better plan than rolling the dice.

In any case, I hope it’s a good and happy outcome for both sides. If the Kirby Estate gets a share of the wealth Kirby helped Marvel earn, and Marvel gets out from under the negative publicity of having one of the three major architects of the Marvel Universe cut out its success (the third, Ditko, still doesn’t get a share, but he’s aggressively quiet about it), then that would seem like a win-win.

@Kurt, I recall reading an op-ed by Ditko years ago about Kirby vs. Marvel where Steve basically said that work for hire deals were fair, a deal was a deal, A is A, etc.

Jack is gone. This is just about people fighting over money.

His children had no more to do with his success than you or me… and we all know he did the work for hire, just like my job….

I’m happy to see this settled and happy for the Kirby estate.

Jack Kirby worked as hard as he did so that he could provide for his family. Anyone who says his heirs don’t deserve anything isn’t someone I want to know.

Marvel and Kirby settled; good for them but short of the victory for all creators which it could have been. Still, others could use the Kirby argument in negotiations with publishers. Haven’t heard about Superman which could get heard and win based on the same legal principals.

The chance of the United States Supreme Court taking the case was probably pretty slim. Toberoff was probably tired of getting his ass kicked and decided he needed to make some money of this case and thus a settlement was reached.

The Kirby family is undoubtedly getting some profit/revenue sharing deal in exchange for bringing the legal dispute to an end. And that really is the way to go when you think about it. Disney has the machine to make zillions with the characters that Kirby co-created whereas the Kirby family would not be able to do that even if they did get a significant share of the rights back.

Scott – I’m not sure you’re remembering that correctly; there’ve been other indications that Ditko’s thoughts on the subject don’t quite match such a stance. Either way, though, it’s true that Ditko does not get compensated for films and such, and does not make noise about it.

Tony – it’s good to know that the legal parameters of Kirby’s employment are just like your job, which we all know because you say so. Also because, apparently, you work at home, for multiple companies, buy your own supplies, get no vacation pay, sick pay or health insurance, and are entirely responsible for your own tax withholding. That’s not like most jobs, but hey, if Kirby’s was just like yours, it must get rough from time to time, but I’m sure you can soldier on.

Yes, as it is point out, Jack is gone. Yes, this is people just fighting about money. But then….why the hell not? It’s not like they are fighting with starving nuns. They are fighting a huge corporation, who’s main goal is to make money. They deserve part of that, as Kirby made real and lasting contributions which deserved real compensation, and his family should benefit from that, and Marvel should have stepped up on it years ago.

So, enough with the worship of corporations, thanks. Huzzah for creators and their kids.

so when is Ub Iwerks’ family going to get his cut of Mickey Mouse?

They are fighting a huge corporation, who’s main goal is to make money.

Exactly. The people who say “this is just people fighting about money” always then seem to follow it up by spitting on Kirby’s heirs by saying “they didn’t have anything to do with it”. Well, the execs and investors in Disney didn’t have anything to do with Kirby’s success either, yet they’ve made a ton of money on his ideas.

If the alternatives we were talking about were “Kirby’s heirs get money or the characters fall into the public domain and anyone can use them” then I could see taking a “this is just about money” stance. And heck I’d even agree with it. Because it would be a choice between money and something without monetary value but that would probably lead to better things in the long run. But this is literally taking the side that it’s all about money AND the suits at Disney deserve all the money. That’s just messed up. Unless you’re being paid to shill for Disney I suppose.

Jer,

There are always serfs that love the baron, who think a step up for anyone else is a step back for them. They may even hate the fact that Marvel stepped up and is helping with Bill Mantalo’s expenses as well.

Treat your artists and creators well, and the public will forgive a ton of stuff, be it Song of the South or….ok, not Song of the South. But…a lot.

Well, Mr. Busiek is here so he’s probably got it covered, but here’s the form post I usually toss up in threads where people start arguing the merits of Marvel v Kirby:

http://www.corporate-sellout.com/index.php/2010/04/05/kings-ransom/

I last updated it in June. I guess I should probably give it one more update and then, hopefully, never have to link anybody to it again.

People should keep in mind that what the Kirbys are getting could be as little as Marvel/Disney promising not to pursue them for reimbursement of legal expenses. We just don’t know, and we’re not likely to find out. On the most important point, though, Marvel/Disney prevailed. The instance-and-expense test for pre-1978 work-made-for-hire still stands.

Jer nailed it. Money is being made off the work and two parties want a share, but somehow, the non-corporate party is always the one painted as greedy. Yes, legally there’s the work-for-hire issue and (from what I’ve read), Kirby went in with his eyes open. But there’s what’s right and there’s what’s right. Sadly, the sense of what’s morally right seems to be dying off. It’s nice to see it get its due in this case, even if it is only because the corp got backed into a corner.

Does this decision also mean that we’ve also seen the last of dim-bulbs ambushing Stan Lee with questions as to Jack Kirby’s true desserts?

It’s pretty to think so, anyway.

And when did one or more Justices agree for this case to be on the docket for oral arguments? Could someone cite a reputable news source that confirms this?

As much as it’d social justice for Kirby himself to have gotten a better contract, his heirs haven’t shown any novel legal angle that’d make SCOTUS consider this as a case worth hearing.

Oh and does anyone know if Kirby expressed dissatisfaction with his work for hire status?

The Kirby case isn’t on the docket for oral agreements, at least not yet. The judges are still deciding whether or not to take it up.

A major reason the Supreme Court may hear the case is to clear up the controversy with CCNV v. Reid. While the substance of that ruling, which was unanimous, isn’t under dispute, a problem has arisen from a tangential passage in the decision’s text. .

The purpose of the CCNV decision was to affirm that the 1976 Copyright Act means what it says with regard to work-for-hire from 1978 onward, i.e., the relationship has to be agreed to in writing beforehand. (The work in question in the case was a sculpture that was done in the early 1980s.) However, Thurgood Marshall, who wrote the ruling, included a historical narrative in which he asserted at one point that the 1976 law implicitly made this retroactive to work created under the 1909 law. That assertion is the basis for much of the Kirbys’ appeal.

Now since that issue had no relevance to the CCNV case, lower-court judges up to now have refused to treat the assertion as having any precedental value. (One judge dismissed it as “mere dicta.”) They’re right to the extent that it’s a matter that probably shouldn’t have been discussed in the CCNV ruling, and needed to be adjudicated separately.

If SCOTUS is going to be deciding that the 1976 Copyright Act’s work-for-hire provisions were implicitly retroactive to work created under the 1909 law, it’s best to do that in a case involving work that was created under the 1909 law, with arguments being made from both sides of the issue. The Kirby case gives them that opportunity.

That should be “oral arguments,” not “oral agreements.” Sorry.

@NicholasWinter

“Oh and does anyone know if Kirby expressed dissatisfaction with his work for hire status?”

In the final decade or so of his life, Kirby expressed a metric shit-ton of dissatisfaction with all aspects of how he had been treated by Marvel. From their refusal to return thousands of pages of his original art to the lack of credit he received for essentially co-writing every story he ever did with Stan Lee to, yes, his spurious “work for hire” status. Seek out the interview Kirby did with Gary Groth fromTCJ — it’s a particularly rich vein of (justifiable) anger from Kirby, directed at the venerable House of Ideas (his, mostly). Kirby was never even close to properly remunerated for what he did. And I’m quite sure he would rather have his grandkids and their families rightfully share in the financial legacy he clawed out — instead of the now multi-billion dollar corporation that crapped on him. It would never have been hard for Marvel to “make this right” — they have chosen not to. Crooked, one-sided contracts signed under duress decades ago are far from iron-clad legal documents, despite what corporate apologists may wish. Viva Kirby, Gerber, Wolfman and all else who deserved a whole hell of a lot better than this industry gave them.

Zaragosa , I’d suggest people seek out earlier interviews. Not because TCJ isn’t a good example, but because it is often claimed Groth manipulated Kirby during the interview. There are numerous earlier interviews where Kirby says the same things he repeats in the interview with Groth, while he is being interviewed by people who seem interested in the idea of the “Happy Bullpen.” I’d recommend the interview with Mark Borax from AMAZING HEROES, The interview with Howard Zimmerman from COMICS SCENE (1982) or the interview with Leonard Pitts. The Howard Zimmerman interview is particularly good and predates the Groth interview by seven years.

http://asip-repro.org/lehman_bio.html

“Prior to entering private practice, Mr. Lehman worked for nine years in the U.S. House of Representatives as counsel to the Committee on the Judiciary and chief counsel to the Subcommittee on Courts, Civil Liberties, and the Administration of Justice. He was the Committee’s principal legal adviser in the drafting of the 1976 Copyright Act…”

Bruce “Ban Fair Use” Lehman, as some academic friends call him, is an enemy in neon to arts journalists, scholars of all stripes, and their readerships. If he had his way, sites such as this one and tcj.com would not be economically feasible, as they would be required to pay a licensing fee for every last piece of art they publish that isn’t in the public domain. In general, the man’s view of copyright law is as pro-corporate as can be. It is best described as fascist. Regardless of whether people like what he wrote in his amicus brief for the Kirbys, I really do not get the enthusiasm comics people have for him lending his support. Would civil libertarians jump for joy if Robert Bork came out in public support for one of their causes? Would human-rights advocates be so enthused if John Yoo or David Addington backed one of theirs?

“…The idea Kirby’s story changed is largely inaccurate. Kirby was saying as early as 1969 while he was still at Marvel that he created the characters. The idea Groth manipulated Kirby is even more inaccurate. There are interviews with Kirby by Leonard Pitts, Mark Borax, Howard Zimmerman, and many others from the same era where Kirby relates many of the same stories he told Groth.”

- Patrick Ford
TCJ Comments Thread:
Taking Back the Kirby Case
By Jeffrey Trexler
August 31, 2013
2:31PM

Patrick, your comment from last year quoted above appears to contradict the spirit of your recent comment to me on the issue of whether Groth manipulated Kirby in the famous TCJ interview. Not trying to play “Gotcha!”… But I am genuinely curious as to what may have caused your evolution of thought on this issue?

Zaragosa, I don’t see the contradiction. In both cases I’m saying Groth did not manipulate Kirby, and Kirby had told very much the same story in earlier interviews. I’m not sure what you see in the two comments which is contradictory. As far as I can tell they say the exact same thing.

Not sure if the Siegel case would have been a better choice. The Siegels actually won on the first tier and the reason the lost at a higher court was because a past agreement with DC that the publisher hadn’t followed on.

Seems to me a stronger case than the Kirby one. Note that if the Kirbys lose (very likely), it’ll become a reference case against creator rights in the future!

Two sidebars:
1) The Copyright Term Extension Act expires in 2019. That is, works created in 1923 will enter the public domain that year, unless Congress passes another law.

2) The music business is now starting to see the beginning of copyright reversion. Warners just settled with Prince. He gets his master recordings, Warner gets to re-release those recordings.
Of course, the RIAA is fighting this with the Work For Hire defense.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/16/arts/music/springsteen-and-others-soon-eligible-to-recover-song-rights.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

There are two copyrights in music: the actual printed composition (sheet music) and the recording. Generally, the sheet music is copyrighted by the musicians immediately, and licensed to whichever publisher issues the recordings. (Karaoke fans notice these lengthy copyright notices at the end of each video.)

It is also possible that a rock star, when extending a contract or moving to another publisher, can negotiate the rights for future works. (Comic strip artists have done this to escape from syndicate contracts.)

Pedro–

The legal issues in the Siegel case aren’t the same as the ones in the Kirby suit. The original Superman story in Action Comics #1 wasn’t produced on a work-for-hire basis. Siegel and Shuster had been shopping it around for years before DC took interest. DC purchased it from them; they didn’t commission it.

Another great resource for details of Kirby’s “dissatisfaction” (to put it mildly!) is Sean Howe’s book, “Marvel Comics: The Untold Story.” The interviews mentioned above are great, but Sean has the benefit of hindsight and impartiality; he puts each step of the dispute into a human context and it’s the only account I’ve found so far that gets to some of the emotional aspects of the situation. Like most bad things in life, the bitter end was the result of a long series of slights and misunderstandings, and Kirby and Lee seem to have spent their primary working years trying to resolve them with no success. Kirby may not have started off upset, but years of simmering some rage boiled over in that famous TCJ interview.

Kirby never tried to regain any ownership of the characters he created at Marvel, but his “work for hire status” is not as cut and dried as that sounds. No one at Marvel before the ’70s even thought about these terms; since no (or few) contracts were in place then, all of today’s legal decisions about Kirby and work-for-hire depend on a modern interpretation of circumstances fifty years ago.

[…] Tweet […]

Stan will be with me at MEGACON this weekend. I am hosting his panel. It’s always a fun gig for me.

Within his (perhaps common) standards, Lee may well have done everything he could possibly have done for Kirby and Ditko .. and that’s the problem.

History is written by the victors…and Kirby & Ditko lost a loooong time ago.

@Snikt Snakt:
Kirby & Ditko didn’t lose anything that matters – and if respect and influence are any standard of victory – then Jack and Steve are two of the biggest winners who ever lived.

The ones who really lost are those who stood for nothing.

Stan finally admits that he’s a millionaire, something he really never talks about much, but he was a millionaire as far back as the 1970s. I interviewed Mike Ploog in the early 1980s and he told me a story about going in to Stan in the 1970s to ask for a five dollar a page raise. Stan turned him down and then proceeded to show Mike pictures of Stan’s Rolls Royce collection. Rolls Royce, the full size car, not toys. Finally Mike couldn’t stand it any more and blurted out, “You can’t give me a $5.00 a page raise and you’re showing me pictures of your Rolls Royce collection?!” Stan paused, thought about it, did not get angry but instead stated, “You’re right. I will give you the $5.00 a page raise.”

No one can accuse Evanier from straying off-message. But to the OP: “truth?” These are the words of a 91 year old man reflecting on events 10, 20 to 40 years ago that he was intimately involved in at those times. Take them for what they are; no more, no less.

The truth certainly includes Lee’s perceptions as it does Ditko’s and Kirby’s, and even Evanier’s.

To repeat Lee, “can we get philosophical?”

It takes more than one to disagree. None of us, and not even any of them singularly, can know the (whole) truth. We can only know the collective of life experiences that the participants have been willing to share.

Silly but True

Comics and the people who create them are sometimes so different that it’s painful and sad. I long for a happy ending, with Stan recanting or doing some sort of noble act to help Kirby’s family, or to make peace with Ditko after all these years. It’s the sort of thing that happens in the imagination of comics, time after time, but it hardly ever happens in the real lives of the people who make those comics.

I also wish Stan could see that his legacy is so tarnished by the way this has all gone, and that it will never get better. Maybe Stan’s much tougher and meaner than we give him credit for being.

I find it pretty amazing that after all these years, people STILL blame Stan for the horrible crap Martin Goodman did to people in the 60′s.

Like him or not, this 91 year old is the only recognizable person the general public can associate with comic books. People know his name and his face. Stan Lee IS comic books. Who will speak to the public when Stan is gone? The Comic Book Men?

As it seems we have entered a new era of human history – one in which huge entities seem to be in the business of not so much owning everything as de-monitizing everything but what they do not own – the world needs some new paradigm (to compensate not only the rights of artists but any body making anything of value).

I would urge those interested in this issue to take a listen to Jaron Lanier and his ideas about tailoring algorithms for produce micro-payments. He was on Charlie Rose the other night:

http://www.charlierose.com/watch/60362672

He’s a real start.

I find it interesting that Stan’s truthfulness is being called into question in the headline of the article itself. A pity no one ever thought to headline any of Kirby’s ranting interviews that way–you know, the ones where Kirby asserted that he created Spider-Man or that Stan never wrote a single thing for any of his artists. Stuff that was demonstrably untrue and was in fact legally actionable under libel laws. (That old villain Stan Lee never took the matter to court though, even when lawyers advised him to.) But, that’s right–whenever Kirby outright lied, it was just his “faulty memory”. I guess Stan doesn’t get to use that excuse since inevitably his coverage on comic book related “news” sites is completely dependent on his popularity with the editor, rather than, you know, something as trite as journalistic standards.

Having read Sean Howe’s book on Marvel Comics, it’s clear to me that while Stan at some point obviously became a “suit,” he always saw himself as a creator and beholden to the powers that be, rather than a person with any influence on the corporate/financial side. Or at least that’s how he portrayed himself, using this as his justification to say “no” to people. His career has always shown he’s been more loyal to the company and the brand (even when he was suing them) than the creators. He was well compensated for this, so he certainly can afford to be loyal to the company.

I really wish comics journalism would grow beyond the fan-boy need to take sides and create heroes and villains.

“Comics and the people who create them are sometimes so different that it’s painful and sad. I long for a happy ending, with Stan recanting or doing some sort of noble act to help Kirby’s family, or to make peace with Ditko after all these years.”

So Stan should respond to years of hostility directed at him by Ditko, Kirby and the Kirby family by recanting and apologizing? Give me a break.

“I find it pretty amazing that after all these years, people STILL blame Stan for the horrible crap Martin Goodman did to people in the 60′s.”

I’ve stopped posting at the Comics Journal site because threads are constantly hijacked by the same handful of grumpy old men, who steer discussions to their favorite topic: How Stan Lee screwed over Jack Kirby in the 1960s. They are obsessed with that subject, and they post about it every day, all day long. I assume they don’t have full-time jobs outside their homes.

Stan is constantly accused of hogging the credit for creating the Marvel Universe, but, like Mark, I remember Kirby’s absurd claims that he created and “wrote” all of Marvel’s comics with no help from anyone. I’ve always wondered how Steve Ditko felt about Kirby’s “ranting interviews.”

Marvel in the Silver Age was a collaboration, although I know from experience that the Kirby-Ditko partisans don’t want to hear that.

Monster Massacre is not a “new” anthology. The co-publishing deal between Atomeka and Titan is, but Monster Massacre has been around for quite a while now. And I am glad to see it back in action!

Ah, thanks! I’ve updated accordingly

Here’s the cover on USA Today as it wasn’t too rude for them …

http://m.usatoday.com/article/news/1983613

Here’s the cover on USA Today as it wasn’t too rude for them…
http://m.usatoday.com/article/news/1983613

Sorry about the double posting, blame it on the iPhone’s Safari app.

As to female creators, yes, I would have liked some and I am talking to several about material for upcoming issues. I went with the creators who could commit to the time frame that was necessary to get this first book together. If it is any consolation I am the only white creator involved in MM book 2.

Gods bless you Mr Caldwell!

This was really cool! I like this feature!