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Stan, Jack, and Steve - The 1950's. (1959) The Uphill Climb
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Prince Namor

Prince Namor

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ON NEWSSTANDS SEPTEMBER 1959

Marvel was back for September, and Stan Lee would write 6 of the 8 titles for the month.

 

Millie the Model #94 - with art by Stan Goldberg and Henry Scarpelli, but the first story is one of the last DeCarlo must've done.

Date with Millie #2 - with art by Stan Goldberg.

Patsy Walker #86 -  with Al Hartley art 

Kathy #2 - with art by Stan Goldberg. 

Kid Colt Outlaw #88 - 3 stories with Jack Keller art and 1 with Al Williamson

Two Gun Kid #51 - 3 stories with John Severin art and 1 with Al Williamson art. 

 

Atlas released 8 titles in July. The other 2 were:

Tales of Suspense #7

Tales to Astonish #7

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Prince Namor

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ON NEWSSTANDS SEPTEMBER 1959

Joe Simon over at Archie continues the Fly without Kirby's input, utilizing Jack Davis (!) and Paul Reinman. The art actually looks good, and Joe Simon's cover is one of the more memorable ones from the series, but... the following issue would be his last...

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Prince Namor

Prince Namor

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ON NEWSSTANDS OCTOBER 1959

For October, Marvel would release 16 titles to the newsstand - a number that would end of giving them 104 releases for the month (or an average of 8.6 titles per month), which is NOT what the supposed 'agreement' was with DC. But hey, believe what you want, the numbers are there to see. 

Stan Lee would write 9 of the titles for the month.

 

Millie the Model #95 - with art by Stan Goldberg 

Date with Millie #3 - with art by Stan Goldberg.

Patsy Walker #87 -  with Al Hartley art 

Kathy #3 - with art by Stan Goldberg. 

Kid Colt Outlaw #89 - 4 stories with Jack Keller art and 1 with Al Williamson

Two Gun Kid #52 - 4 stories with John Severin art and 1 with Carl Burgos art. 

Wyatt Earp #27 - 5 stories with MR. Ayers and 1 with Doug Wildey

Gunsmoke Western #56 - 1 story each with Jack Keller, MR. Ayers, Doug Wildey, and Matt Baker (one of his last)

Patsy & Hedy #68 - with Al Hartley art 

 

Marvel released 16 titles in July. The other 7 were:

Battle #68 

Love Romances #85 

My Own Romance #73 

Journey Into Mystery #56

Tales of Suspense #8

Tales to Astonish #8

Strange Tales #73 

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Prince Namor

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ON NEWSSTANDS OCTOBER 1959

THIS would be the start of the Kirby Age of Marvel Comics... the battle would begin very soon for who would eventually get the credit.

JACK KIRBY would do TEN (10) of the covers for the month, steering clear of the 'dumb blonde' comics (5) and only missing out on Wyatt Earp #27 (though it's believed he may have penciled one of the figures on the cover). He had clearly made his decision to come on board fully for Marvel at this point, and try and make them some books that sell. 

 

He would do 8 stories in 7 different comics....

And this is where the Monster Books for Marvel really began:

From Journey Into Mystery #56 - Jack Kirby cover, story, and art with Christopher Rule inks. A classic Kirby type of story he'd been doing for years...

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ON NEWSSTANDS OCTOBER 1959

From Tales of Suspense #8 - Jack Kirby cover, story, and art with MR. Ayers inks! Another classic Kirby type of story he'd been doing for years... BUT....

This story is seen by some as the MISSING LINK between the Challengers of the Unknown and the Fantastic Four...

I'll copy and paste what comics historian Chris Tolworthy had to say about it:

Monstro (Tale of Suspense 8, March 1960) seems to me to be the missing link between the Challengers and Fantastic Four. I think it shows an important step in Lee forcing himself onto Kirby's work.
I could write a long essay comparing the Challengers, Monstro and the FF, but fortunately for longsuffering readers I can't spare the time. So here's the short version.
> Monstro and the Challengers:
Monstro is basically a Challengers story, bringing back the Kraken from Showcase 12. It features Ace (the blonde one) and Prof Haley (the ocean expert), but Haley now acts like Ace and looks like Reed Richards. The government phones them with a new death-cheating case. Reed/Prof jets off in a plane, and solves it without the use of powers.
> Monstro and the FF
Monstro is a mix of the two different monsters called Giganto in FF 1 and FF 5. Both are regular creatures (a mole thing and a deep sea creature) blown up to vast size after nuclear tests in the region. It is just as Kirby later recalled, his interest in "what's out there" was becoming specifically an interest in radiation. But most interesting for the Marvel Method is Lee's editing.
The opening lines in both stories are almost identical (see attached scan). Lee's style of commentary is the same as well: he merely comments on what is already obvious from the art, holding the reader's hand and reading it along with him: saying in effect "but what is happening now?" and "aha, this is not what we expected!" etc. The tone is very familiar. There is also some clumsy pasting of changed art: the speaking planet scene toward the end is surely not by Kirby. As with the diamonds in FF 1, the planet drawing is just too bad, and cannot be blamed on bad inking of Kirby's original pencils.
> Half way to FF 1
Until this point in the Monsterbus we seem to be getting Kirby's sober style. Or at least if anybody else is writing or editing the dialog they seem professional about it. But this is the first time I've seen the classic Lee "eight year old kid" style: where he over-exaggerates, merely states what you can already see, and comments along with you, indicating that he does not know what comes next any more than the reader does. We also get some ugly cutting and pasting (the talking planet).
But apart from the planet, Lee's fingerprints are only on the first two pages. Like a toddler he seems to lose interest half way through and wander away. By the end this is a sophisticated plot: I assume Lee could not think how to simplify it (did he even understand it?) so left it alone.
And I think Lee only changed the description boxes, not the spoken dialog. The writing in the boxes is awkward, overblown and repetitious (and largely redundant), whereas the spoken dialog is smoother and more efficient.
One year later, in FF 1, Lee lost all his inhibitions. He heavily edited (I think vandalised) throughout the book, and as a result decided he was effectively a co-creator, so put his name alongside Kirby's.
One year after that, in FF 9 (early issues were bimonthly, remember) the title had become a clear success. So Lee decided to take ownership of it. In a breathtaking (edit) lack of awareness (or dishonest calculation, take your pick) Lee decided that his changes were the secret to the title's success. So his rewriting of dialog on top of (what he saw as) his hireling's uninspired story meant HIS words, the words of Stan Lee, were the magic dust and therefore he should be called the writer.
> summary
1959: Lee did minimal editing on the monster stories.
1960: he tried sexing them up a bit.
1961 he was all over them, so he added his name as co-creator.
1962: he decided his "improvements" made him the writer.
> Caveat
These conclusions are only about the monster stories that I have read. I cannot speak for the westerns or other titles - possibly Lee was taking credit or editing those in a different way on other titles. I have only examined the monster stuff and the FF, and this is just how it seems to me.

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Prince Namor

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Which, if you'd like to read more from Chris Tolworthy, his book 'The Lost JACK KIRBY Stories' is available on Lulu. It's great!

https://www.lulu.com/shop/chris-tolworthy/the-lost-jack-kirby-stories/paperback/product-yed8q9.html?page=1&pageSize=4

More than forty of Jack Kirby's lost stories: ⬧ The first origin of Dr Doom ⬧ The lost Hulk #4 ⬧ Who really defeated Galactus? ⬧ The original Black Widow ⬧ Ragnarok ⬧ The first origin of Iron Man ⬧ Xavier before Cyclops ⬧ and many more. Jack Kirby wrote over 2000 comic books. But many of his stories ended up in the trash. Why did they end up in the trash? Because Jack's editor thought his stories were too difficult for young readers. So Kirby had to redraw some pages, and his editor changed the wording on the rest. But clues to the original stories survive. This book follows those clues, and tries to recover the lost Jack Kirby stories. Bonus chapters include: ⬧ How Kirby's stories all fit together ⬧ How to spot a Jack Kirby story

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