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Stan, Jack, and Steve - The 1950's. (1958) The Path of History
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Started by Prince Namor,

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Prince Namor

Prince Namor

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ON NEWSSTANDS AUGUST 1958

For August of 1958, there were ZERO comics released by Atlas.

This is the first clue that Goodman was planning to shut the comics division down. If Goodman signed a contract to only be able to do 8 books a month (a contract that no one has ever seen or provided proof of or even verified), then why would he short himself a month with ZERO titles? Atlas could’ve released 96 books for 1958, and instead only did 88.

Joe Maneely died June 7th. There's no new Maneely Interior work in the books for July (which would've been prepared in April. Early May at the very latest), other than possibly the covers. Yet Atlas still releases their regular schedule of books...

Joe has a splash page in Two Gun Kid #45 for September's work, but that's it...

Goodman wasn't shutting down because he no longer had Joe Maneely - for him it wouldn't have made a difference. He was shutting down because it wasn't successful... he didn't see it as necessary and it was what other publishers were doing. 

For Stan it was devastating because his good friend had died, his workhorse was gone, his partner on the syndicated newspaper strip had to be replaced (all of these were Joe!), and now he wouldn't have a regular job...

Until Jack Kirby walked in the door. 

Most people always point to the 1990 Comics Journal Interview with Gary Groth, but the truth is, Kirby had been telling his version of things for years previous to that:

 

“Marvel was going to close,” Kirby recalls. “When I broke up with Joe, comics everywhere were taking a beating. The ones with capital hung on. Martin Goodman [publisher of Marvel] had slick paper magazines, like Swank and the rest. It was just as easy for Martin to say, ‘Oh, what the hell. Why do comics at all?’ And he was about to—Stan Lee told me so. In fact, it looked like they were going to close the afternoon that I came up. But Goodman gave Marvel another chance.”

From “Kirby Takes on the Comics,” Comics Scene #2, March 1982.

 

“Okay, I came back to Marvel there. It was a sad day. I came back the afternoon they were going to close up. Stan Lee was already the editor there and things were in a bad way. I remember telling him not to close because I had some ideas. What had been done before, I felt, could be done again. I think it was the time when I really began to grow. I was married. I was a man with three children, obligations.”

From Shop Talk, Jack Kirby interviewed by Will Eisner, Will Eisner’s Spirit Magazine 39, July 1982.

 

“My version is simple: I saved Marvel’s . When I came up to Marvel, it was closing that same afternoon, Stan Lee had his head on the desk and was crying. It all looked very dramatic to me, but I needed the job. I was a guy with a wife and three kids and a house, and I wanted to keep it. And so, having no rapport with Martin Goodman, who was the publisher– Stan Lee was his cousin– I told Stan Lee that we could keep the place going. And I told him to try to tell Martin to keep it going, because we could possibly revive it.”

From Leonard Pitts, Jr., conducted in 1986 or 1987 for a book titled “Conversations With The Comic Book Creators”. Posted on The Kirby Effect: The Journal of the Jack Kirby Museum & Research Center.

“When I came up to Marvel in the late Fifties, they were just about to close up, that very afternoon! I told them not to do it. Marvel is a case of survival. I guaranteed them that I’d sell their magazines, and I did. I did the monster stories or whatever they had and they began to liven up a bit.”

From James Van Hise, “Superheroes: The Language That Jack Kirby Wrote,” Comics Feature #34, March-April 1985.

 

“The only thing I knew best was comics and I went back to Marvel and Marvel was in very poor straits–all comics were in poor straits–and boy I can tell you, when I went into Marvel they were crying–and Stanley was going into the publisher and lock up that very afternoon and I convinced him not to do it. And of course I didn’t change things in one day; but I knew that in a couple of months I could do it.”

From UCLA Daily Bruin. Conducted 4 Dec 1987, published 22 Jan 1988 (The Jack Kirby Collector 23, Feb 1999).

 

“Marvel was on its , literally, and when I came around, they were practically hauling out the furniture. They were literally moving out the furniture. They were beginning to move, and Stan Lee was sitting there crying. I told them to hold everything, and I pledged that I would give them the kind of books that would up their sales and keep them in business, and that was my big mistake.”

From The Comics Journal #134, February 1990.

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Prince Namor

Prince Namor

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ON NEWSSTANDS AUGUST 1958

Jack Kirby would WRITE, pencil and ink Challengers of the Unknown #4 for DC, and in this issue Wally Wood started as inker. The full length 24 page story would be split into four chapters. 

Note: Jack Kirby reused the Time Wizard’s costume for Immortus in his first appearance in The Avengers (Marvel, 1963 series) #10.

And: The Challenger’s yellow square shaped time travel portal is the same device Kirby uses for Dr Doom’s time travel machine in Fantastic Four #19.

Part ONE:

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Prince Namor

Prince Namor

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ON NEWSSTANDS AUGUST 1958

Jack Kirby would WRITE, pencil and ink Challengers of the Unknown #4 for DC, and in this issue Wally Wood started as inker. The full length 24 page story would be split into four chapters. 

The fate of the second time cube is revealed in Adventures of Superman #508 in 1994 - 36 years later!

Narrator's note in that issue: "Believe it or not, this story takes place between panels 1 and 2 on the last page of Challengers of the Unknown 4!"

Part FOUR:

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Prince Namor

Prince Namor

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ON NEWSSTANDS SEPTEMBER 1958

September 8, of 1958 brought the first of Sky Masters of the Space Force, an ongoing newspaper strip from Jack Kirby, with Wally Wood inking, and the brothers Dick and Dave Wood (no relation to Wally) writing. Later, Kirby would take over the writing as well and eventually Dick Ayers would take over inking. 

It would lead to big problems for Kirby, and cost him his job at DC Comics... Though it would run for 3 years, it's probably the least viewed work of Kirby's career by comic book fans. And I'm sure as hell not going to scan this whole book...

Here's the first 3...

1.jpeg

2.jpeg

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