Stan, Jack, and Steve - The 1960's. (1960) Showing Signs of Life! 2 2

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS FEBRUARY 1960

Jack also does the cover for Kid Colt Outlaw #91 - D. Ayers inks. 

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS FEBRUARY 1960

Jack also does the cover and lead story for Tales of Suspense #10, writing and penciling with D. Ayers inks.

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS FEBRUARY 1960

Jack also does the cover (inked by Ditko) and TWO stories for Tales to Astonish #10.

Story ONE is written and penciled by Jack, with inks by Joe Sinnott. 

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS FEBRUARY 1960

In Tales to Astonish #10, Story TWO (the final story) is written and penciled by Jack, with inks by Christopher Rule. This ending for a fountain of youth serum story, had probably been used somewhere before, and would certainly be used again, most notably in ASM #75. 

[Prince Namor]

LARRY LIEBER

Speaking of writing styles... retroactively, Stan Lee and Marvel would try to say that Stan plotted these Kirby monster stories (but didn't take credit, yeah right) and then Larry Lieber (his brother) would write the ---script to give to Kirby to do the art from. This has been a generally accepted explanation for some bizarre reason.

Even without the proof I'm going to lay out here, it seems implausible - a complete unknown, comes in and starts writing stories for a guy who has spent 20 years in the business writing his own stories, laying them out and drawing them? Not likely. 

These monster stories read like Kirby wrote them and that's exactly what they are.

Below, are examples of the first time Larry is CREDITED with scripting a Stan Lee 'plot', WITHOUT Kirby doing the art. The difference is night and day and 100% noticeable. It's from Journey Into Mystery #90 and #91(art by Al Hartley and then Joe Sinnott). 

If you can't tell the difference between Kirby's writing style and what Larry is doing below, you have to be blind. And this is from someone who has supposed to have been scripting for the last 3 years...

Some samples:

“In another second you will be eternally trapped in a block of unbreakable ice! This is the end of Mighty Thor!”

“I can’t budge! I’m frozen solid! And the Ice-Giant is coming nearer… nearer…”

The whole story reads like the type of superhero comic done by a knock off publisher…

“You clown! The way you’re always flying around… annoying people… you’re a public menace! You belong behind bars!”

Edited October 10, 2022 by Prince Namor

[Prince Namor]

LARRY LIEBER

The following issue, drawn by Joe Sinnott wasn't AS bad, but still lacked the polish of Kirby's dialogue. It certainly reads nothing like all of the monster issues that he's supposed to be credited for scripting. 

[Prince Namor]

LARRY LIEBER

In the following issue, #92, Robert Bernstein (listed here as R. Berns), famous for his work at EC and on DC's Superman, understands and has the flow of the dialogue for this book on his very first attempt! Did Stan take his brother off so that he could have someone show him how to do it? 

Bernstein would do 5 more issues of JIM (Thor) and the first one reads like a Jack Kirby story (The Mysterious Radio-Active Man!), but #94 has more of a DC touch to it (Thor and Loki Attack the Human Race!). Really he deserves some unheralded credit for giving the book the tone it would keep for the rest of it's classic run...

Yet somehow, Larry and Stan get all the credit for it. It's all right here in reading it...

 

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS FEBRUARY 1960

 

Steve Ditko only did 2 stories for Marvel in February. From Tales to Astonish #10. 

Penciled and inked by Steve Ditko. Writer unknown. NOT written by Stan Lee. 

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS FEBRUARY 1960

 

Steve Ditko only did 2 stories for Marvel in February. From Tales of Suspense #10. 

Penciled and inked by Steve Ditko. Writer unknown. NOT written by Stan Lee. 

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS FEBRUARY 1960

 

Steve Ditko did a story for Charlton in February. From Space War #4. 

Penciled and inked by Steve Ditko. Writer: Joe Gill. 

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS FEBRUARY 1960

In February, DC continued to add to their stable of characters, introducing Aqua Lad...

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS FEBRUARY 1960

Green Arrow and Speedy visit 'All Star Comics' publications...

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS FEBRUARY 1960

In Batman #131, we get a glimpse of what Batman's life might be like when he retires and settles down with Batwoman! Little does he know! The DC Universe is advanced enough that scenario's like this will start to be explored...

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS MARCH 1960

For March, Marvel would release 8 titles to the newsstand 

Stan Lee would write 4 of the titles for the month.

 

My Girl Pearl #7 - with art by Stan Goldberg.

Gunsmoke Western #59 - 2 stories with Jack Keller, 2 stories with Jack Kirby, and one with John Severin.

Patsy & Hedy #71 - with Al Hartley art 

Rawhide Kid #17 - with art by Jack Kirby

 

The other 4 were:

Love Romances #88 

My Own Romance #76 - becomes Teen-Age Romance with the next issue.

Journey Into Mystery #59

Strange Tales #76 

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS MARCH 1960

Kirby's first stories in Gunsmoke Western #59 bear Stan's signature, though Lee tries to keep it low key. He's feeling Kirby out to see if he complains. It's unknown if he does, but it won't make a difference, as Goodman owns the company and that's Stan's relative by law. From this point on Jack is going to have to accept the fact that if he wants more work, he'll have to accept Stan as the 'writer', regardless of how much involvement Lee actually has in the story. 

Neither of these stories are much to lay claim to, but they are the first examples of Lee latching on to Kirby's talent to benefit himself. 

The cover is Kirby's pencils and D. Ayers inks. The first story is inked by the multi-talented Sol Brodsky. 

Story ONE:

Edited October 10, 2022 by Prince Namor

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS MARCH 1960

Gunsmoke Western #59 - Jack Kirby pencils with D. Ayers inks (signed). Stan signs his name. 

Story TWO:

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS MARCH 1960

Rawhide Kid ran for 16 issues between March 1955 and Sept. 1957. During that time, Stan wrote the Western 'filler' stories, as he very noticeably avoided the 'character' stories in all of the Westerns at that time. This way, it made it easy to regurgitate stories without the messiness of trying to keep track of 'characters'. Don Rico did the writing for the series, and after Joe Maneely kick started it, and Bob Brown drew a few issues, D. Ayers took over the art.

It was cancelled in 1957 as a part of Marvel's implosion. This would be a complete reboot/revision of the character. 

Here, it's considered the first Lee and Kirby superhero prototype - an absolutely absurd notion for many reasons - when in reality it's probably the first real example of Lee (and/or Goodman) thinking Kirby could make something a hit series, and wanting to lay ownership/creative claim to it. 

Lee avoided character books throughout the 50's and only did them after there was no one else to write them. None of them stood out as anything special. Kirby had a long history of Westerns, most noticeably BOY'S RANCH and BULLSEYE and even the BLACK RIDER stories for Marvel. The Rawhide Kid fits TWO very specific Kirby-isms: The main hero's father/family is killed, and becomes an avenging gunfighter (with both Angel in BOYS RANCH and BULLSEYE) and his interest in doing Kid heroes (YOUNG ALLIES, BOYS RANCH, BOY COMMANDOS). 

The cover and all stories in this issue are inked by D. Ayers. 

Story ONE:

[Zonker]

Interesting first Lee/Kirby credits.  What is the theory here, that Kirby worked full -script from Lee?  Or that Kirby as usual created the pencils first, supplied dialogue in the margins of the artwork, and then Lee reworked or polished the dialogue and signed his name to it?

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS MARCH 1960

Sadly, and strangely, D. Ayers always felt that Kirby 'stole' this assignment from him. According to him, Stan promised him the book, only to take it away and give it to Kirby. How is Kirby to blame? Stan was the editor... he could assign whoever he wanted to the book. Odds are Goodman put Kirby on it due to his success with the monster books, and Lee let Jack take the blame.

Besides his sublime inking, Ayers would do a lot of really memorable work in his career, most notably on Sgt. Fury, though it would be Marvel who'd eventually screw him over on that as well. 

Story TWO:

[Prince Namor]

On 10/10/2022 at 8:57 AM, Zonker said:

Interesting first Lee/Kirby credits.  What is the theory here, that Kirby worked full --script from Lee?  Or that Kirby as usual created the pencils first, supplied dialogue in the margins of the artwork, and then Lee reworked or polished the dialogue and signed his name to it?

Kirby detectives have been on this case for years... Kirby's penciled dialogue is in every page ever discovered. There's no Lee -script (naturally), just Jack's handwritten -script in the story. And of course, the similarities to previous Kirby work.