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Stan, Jack, and Steve - The 1950's. (1957) Jack Kirby's Marvel Age has already begun!
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331 posts in this topic

Jack Kirby had already played a part in two of the most important pre-Silver Age comic series' (Fighting American and Yellow Claw) and had now begun the MOST important series of the pre-Marvel Age in Challengers of the Unknown. For all the talk of his bad situation at his return to DC Comics, it would really come down to ONE editor, near the end of his time there. The two years leading up to it would be extremely productive and extremely beneficial for DC Comics and Jack. 

He was making better page rates than he could ever get at Atlas or Harvey and DC was happy to consistently give him work. He'd reward them with quality content.

Steve Ditko would see his Marvel assignments dry up and he would go back to Charlton - where he could always be assured of regular work. He'd reward them with quality content.

Stan Lee was about to go through the roughest patch of his career... he'd have no answers...

 

 

Edited by Prince Namor
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ON NEWSSTANDS JANUARY 1957

For January Stan Lee wrote:

Millie the Model #78 with Dan DeCarlo art 

Homer the Happy Ghost #14 with Dan DeCarlo art

A Date with Millie #5 with Dan DeCarlo art 

The Adventures of Homer the Ghost #1 with Dan DeCarlo art

Melvin the Monster #5 - with Joe Maneely

Outlaw Kid #17 - one Western filler story with Dick Ayers

Rawhide Kid #14 - one Western filler story with George Tuska

Kid Colt Outlaw #71 - one Western filler story with Mort Drucker

 

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ON NEWSSTANDS JANUARY 1957

January would start off with a bang for Jack Kirby as his Challengers of the Unknown got a 2nd straight feature in Showcase! Not only would it feature the first appearance of ULTIVAC (another of Kirby's huge robots), but also June Robbins who would soon become a member of the team!

PART ONE:

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Edited by Prince Namor
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Kirby was doing such a great job at DC that they let him walk.  Strange how only one editor was able to get him to work on a regular basis. 

Are you going to hump this post as well?  Strange how you harp on Stan fans not being able to take criticism of their guy when you hump the  button whenever someone takes you to task for your one sided agenda.

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ON NEWSSTANDS JANUARY 1957

World of Mystery #6 (Carl Burgos cover) - Steve Ditko would do one final story for Atlas before heading back to Charlton for the rest of the year, and an interesting story it is! It's included in the Marvel Masters of Suspense: Stan Lee & Steve Ditko Omnibus (2019), though Stan clearly didn't write it. What we see here is Ditko creating an Atlas/Marvel style villain...

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ON NEWSSTANDS JANUARY 1957

Patsy & Hedy #46 (Al Hartley cover) - This would be the year that Atlas would lose many of the artist and writers who helped keep it together. Harvey Kurtzman and Al Feldstein would play as big a part in this as the implosion would, as Jack Davis, and Wally Wood quickly departed Atlas and even long time writer/artist All Jaffee would as well. Jaffee had worked for Timely/Atlas since 1942, handling the Patsy Walker Universe of books, but he'd go on to a legendary career with Mad Magazine where he'd contribute to them for 65 years! In 1964, he would create the Mad Fold-In feature...

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On 7/20/2022 at 5:34 AM, Prince Namor said:

ON NEWSSTANDS JANUARY 1957

World of Mystery #6 (Carl Burgos cover) - Steve Ditko would do one final story for Atlas before heading back to Charlton for the rest of the year, and an interesting story it is! It's included in the Marvel Masters of Suspense: Stan Lee & Steve Ditko Omnibus (2019), though Stan clearly didn't write it. What we see here is Ditko creating an Atlas/Marvel style villain...

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These are some really interesting Ditko pages.  Though the faces do look Ditko-esque, and he clearly signed this work as his, most of the rest of it looks completely different than his immediately-following Charlton work that you posted later in the thread.  The Charlton pages are clearly Silver Age Ditko, but here he is using a lot more shading, more detailed backgrounds, drawing more as an illustrator than as a cartoonist.  I'm not using cartoonist as a pejorative at all, many of comics' greatest talents were cartoonists rather than conventional illustrators.  But it makes me wonder if this was an inventory story completed even earlier in his career, before he leaned out his style in order to work more quickly and maximize his output?

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On 7/19/2022 at 6:52 PM, Prince Namor said:

ON NEWSSTANDS JANUARY 1957

January would start off with a bang for Jack Kirby as his Challengers of the Unknown got a 2nd straight feature in Showcase! 

Worth noting that Showcase 6 & 7 would have been scheduled in the tryout series without the benefit of any sales numbers. It was likely a refinement of the concept of the series to see if DC could get repeat buyers. It was not a compliment to Kirby. Flash got a second appearance in Showcase 8 followed by back to back debut issues for Lois Lane in 9 & 10, a second back to back tryout of Challengers in 11 & 12, a back to back of Flash in 13 & 14, back to back debut of Space Ranger in 15 & 16, and then the format changed again with three and four successive issue debuts starting. Probably all dictated by DCs desire to get marketing data.

So the fact Challengers started with a back to back debut was no compliment to Kirby. Your hype on this is a homage to Stan Lee.

Also worth noting that Lois Lane got a new series sooner than Challengers, without four issues of tryout, despite having debuted second. My guess is that just shows DC’s confidence in the Superman franchise as Jimmy and Superboy already had gotten books before Showcase started.  Challengers was clearly a genre adventure / sf / monster type book like most of the early Showcase titles and some DC titles started earlier in the 50s. It was a known quantity and probably viewed as safe by DC (but not as safe as Superman).

It was Flash which broke the mold by starting a new universe of DC superhero revivals.

 

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On 7/19/2022 at 6:34 PM, Prince Namor said:

Jack Kirby had already played a part in two of the most important pre-Silver Age comic series' (Fighting American and Yellow Claw) and had now begun the MOST important series of the pre-Marvel Age in Challengers of the Unknown.

 

 

So much wrong here:

(1) Fighting America and Yellow Claw were by no means important "pre-Silver Age" or "pre-Marvel Age" series. Fighting American was not Marvel at all, it was mostly a superhero parody in response to the Atlas revival of CA (and HT and Subby) which was a far more important event for Marvel. Yellow Claw was not a superhero story, but a very short run 50s version of Fu Manchu. 

(2) Challengers was also not a superhero series. It did not usher in the superhero revivals which define the Silver Age. It was just another genre series (adventure / monsters / sf) like many of the tales in the Atlas books, and like many of the tryouts in DC's Showcase, and of the same tone as DC's 50s titles (Mystery in Space, Space Adventures). 

(3) The most important "pre-Marvel Age" series was the Flash. It was the superhero book which broke DC out of its fixation on Superman titles (Superboy, Jimmy and Lois were all started earlier in the 50s) and instead ushered in a revival of the previously cancelled DC superheroes. Unlike numerous failed attempts to bring superheroes back to their previous market dominance (Stan's Marvel Boy (1950-1951) and the subsequent Atlas revival (1954-1955); S&K's failed Fighting American parody superhero (1954) in response to Atlas' revival of Captain America; ME's introduction of the Avenger (1955); etc.), Flash stuck and spurred other DC revivals until a new universe of characters existed. Without Flash, there is no "Marvel Age." Prior to Flash, all of the successful action at DC on the superhero front was limited to expanding the number of Superman titles.

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On 7/20/2022 at 2:59 AM, Prince Namor said:

ON NEWSSTANDS JANUARY 1957

Patsy & Hedy #46 (Al Hartley cover) - This would be the year that Atlas would lose many of the artist and writers who helped keep it together. Harvey Kurtzman and Al Feldstein would play as big a part in this as the implosion would, as Jack Davis, and Wally Wood quickly departed Atlas and even long time writer/artist All Jaffee would as well. Jaffee had worked for Timely/Atlas since 1942, handling the Patsy Walker Universe of books, but he'd go on to a legendary career with Mad Magazine where he'd contribute to them for 65 years! In 1964, he would create the Mad Fold-In feature...

 

So much is wrong with this "history" it is astounding!  You have turned the real facts on their head.

1957 was actually the year of the legendary "Atlas implosion" caused by Martin Goodman's bad distributor deals. The implosion required Atlas to basically fire all of its creative talent. The did not "lose" those artists when the artists "departed". They were just not hired by Atlas anymore (remember those artists were independent contractors) because Atlas was scrambling to cut costs due to a lack of revenue resulting from being able to publish fewer comics.

Here's an objective view by someone who actually knows what they are talking about:

Quote

 

In 1957, Martin Goodman closed Atlas distribution to use the cheaper American News Distribution company. Unfortunately, American News Distribution subsequently went out of business (Due to many factors, but one of them was losing Dell comic book company as a client).

Goodman realized what a mistake this was and ended up having to use Independent News (IND) instead to distribute his comic books. IND was owned by what was later known as DC Comics and viciously limited Goodman from a heavy comic book load to a small fraction of its output [at] 8 monthly titles and [Atlas] lost 1-2 month of publication. Stan Lee the editor decided to make 16 bimonthly titles instead for diversity and used up inventory of already made comics [stories] putting many artists and writers out of work. This is called the “Atlas Implosion.” This explains why the Atlas logo ... on the top left changed to the initials IND. IND held this contract until 1968, but rising profits from the later Marvel [titles] caused IND to allow 11 monthly titles in 1963.

This was a huge fall for editor Stan Lee, but he did have some star artists like Joe Maneely and Matt Baker, as well as some inventory to use up. Unfortunately, both died in their thirties with Joe Maneely dying in a train incident in 1958 and Matt Baker dying of a heart attack in 1959.

 

The upshot was that by 1959, Stan was running out of the inventory of already made stories and was back to hiring artists. Kirby and Ditko both lept at the chance. 

Edited by sfcityduck
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On 7/20/2022 at 5:20 AM, AJD said:

I'd never noticed these threads before - thank you for putting the time in to produce them. I'm getting to read stuff I've never dipped into.

Aside from the copyright violations (hint: Yellow Claw, Challengers, Fighting American, Atlas books etc. are all available in archive formats), this thread is little more than inaccurate propaganda aimed at the single-minded goal of glorifying Kirby to a degree that puts even Stan Lee's over the top hype to shame. I really hope that no one views the "history" being told here seriously. It is far from fair or balanced.

The OP has buried his head in the sand using the "ignore" button to ensure he does not have to glimpse posts which raise facts contrary to his views. That in itself speaks volumes.

Edited by sfcityduck
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