Stan, Jack, and Steve - The 1960's (1962) Jack Kirby creates the Marvel Universe! 4 4

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS MARCH 1962

For Journey Into Mystery #80 - Stan Lee and Steve Ditko have a story in this issue, signed Stan Lee & S. Ditko on the cover. 

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS MARCH 1962

Incredible Hulk #1 burst upon the stands like a gamma bomb explosion. It may have been signed Stan Lee & J. Kirby on the splash, but anyone who'd read the last 4 years of Kirby written monster stories could easily see it was his work. One of the great Silver Age covers, Editor Lee seemed to have forgotten that Banner's hair is brown and not blonde...

Part ONE: 

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS MARCH 1962

Incredible Hulk #1 - What a great opening splash to Part Two! In many ways, THIS is just as much Kirby's early artistic masterpiece as FF #1 was!

Part TWO: 

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS MARCH 1962

Incredible Hulk #1 - The story is paced like a movie...

Part THREE: 

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS MARCH 1962

Incredible Hulk #1 - I love this panel. 

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS MARCH 1962

Incredible Hulk #1 - The Hulk of course is GREY in this first story...

Stan gives his reasons:

1. His original concept for the character was based on the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and, wanting to give the Hulk a creepy presence, he colored him gray. 

2. Stan Lee wanted Bruce Banner to turn into a monster akin to Quasimodo or Frankenstein. A monster that was misunderstood... Lee wanted the Hulk to have grey skin, so as to not have him be identified with any one ethnicity. Unfortunately, the colorist had trouble with the ink during the first few issues, resulting in the grey coloring appearing as green. However, Lee ended up liking the green and it stuck. 

3. The Hulk was originally planned to be gray and in the first issue he was, but then they realized that with the printing equipment at the time, it would be almost impossible to keep to a consistent shade of gray between pages. The solution was to change the Hulk’s skin color to green.

 

Stan told so many lies and different stories, who knows what the truth is? 

Part FOUR: 

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS MARCH 1962

Incredible Hulk #1 - Stan takes his most advertised and promoted title and puts a full page ad for his two newest, exciting comics in it. Which makes sense, right?

So what happened?

In less than a year, two of the three would be cancelled...

Edited January 7, 2023 by Prince Namor

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS MARCH 1962

Incredible Hulk #1 - Read this story carefully, True Believers! For the Hulk won't remain like this for long...

Part FIVE: 

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS MARCH 1962

Kirby also did the cover and a story for Gunsmoke Western #70 that is signed by inker D. Ayers (Kirby & Ayers) and Stan Lee, again separate places. It's very obviously a strange triangle - Jack is trying to make comics that sell and not a part of the battle. Ayers wants credit because he feels Jack is 'taking' away his chance at more work and he's annoyed with Stan for covering up the signatures. Stan wants the money and the credit for everything and sees Kirby's talent (and his own lack of) as the real obstacle and Ayers as the minor distraction that's unknowingly HELPING his real obstacle. 

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS MARCH 1962

Gunsmoke Western #70 - has the Statement of Ownership showing its not very good average monthly publication of 147,230. 

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS MARCH 1962

Kirby does 4 stories with Stan for Love Romances #99, and Al Hartley does Patsy & Hedy #82. 

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS MARCH 1962

For Strange Tales #97 - Jack Kirby does the cover (inked by Steve Ditko) and TWO stories, both inked by D. Ayers, WITH signatures. The one thing I've noticed about these signatures is that they appear to be smaller than before...

Story ONE: 

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS MARCH 1962

For Strange Tales #97 - Jack Kirby does the cover (inked by Steve Ditko) and TWO stories, both inked by D. Ayers, WITH signatures. The one thing I've noticed about these signatures is that they appear to be smaller than before...

Story TWO: 

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS MARCH 1962

For Strange Tales #97 - Stan Lee and Steve Ditko have a story as well, signed on the splash as Stan Lee & S. Ditko. In this story, we see Ditko's younger version of Aunt May and Uncle Ben.

[Prince Namor]

ANATOMY OF A STORY

The Stan Lee 'story' for this issue is another example of how he would 'borrow' (i.e. plagiarize) from someone else's story (here from Journey Into Unknown Worlds #43 (March 1956) and have the artist 're-tell' the story and then set himself up as the writer. Art by D. Ayers. 

[Mmehdy]

Hulk #1 observations

In 1961 a movie came out, I saw it twice as a kid called Voyage to the bottom of the sea".....It main actor and captain was Water Pidgeon.....I would bet Jack saw that very popular movie and framed General Ross after him. Page 3 panels  6 and 7 is what hooked me as as a kid, as well as the face of the gargoyle  in page 23 panel 3.

 This is as cinematic as a comic book can ever get, cut wise on page 3...and image its impact in 1962......to a 7 year old......who collected comic books as his #1 passion ( and still is here today). A fantastic book and story/art in just 24 pages...it is material like that..which creates a impression for life...about certain images/ emotions  and this book after I read it for the first. time..was put on my no trade list that first day!!!!!!

Edited January 8, 2023 by Mmehdy

[Prince Namor]

On 1/8/2023 at 3:55 PM, Mmehdy said:

 This is as cinematic as a comic book can ever get...

Without a doubt. Having read 7 years of Kirby writing and drawing his own stories, including the last 3+ at Marvel, this is him at the height of his powers! And to THINK... as good as this is... how he'd rise above his own previous peak of creativity a number of other times in the coming years!

This is most likely a 90+% Kirby production that Lee saw as a potential money maker, promoting the hell out of it... BUT, we're going to see over the next few issues though, as Stan asserts his involvement, how it would actually kill this book...

[Mmehdy]

On 1/8/2023 at 7:06 PM, Prince Namor said:

Without a doubt. Having read 7 years of Kirby writing and drawing his own stories, including the last 3+ at Marvel, this is him at the height of his powers! And to THINK... as good as this is... how he'd rise above his own previous peak of creativity a number of other times in the coming years!

This is most likely a 90+% Kirby production that Lee saw as a potential money maker, promoting the hell out of it... BUT, we're going to see over the next few issues though, as Stan asserts his involvement, how it would actually kill this book...

I really liked Hulk 1-3....but I could never understand the change in #6....it will be very interesting to find out your take on that as we book by book go over classic marvel history.....#1 was and still today a hard act to follow....

Edited January 9, 2023 by Mmehdy

[Dr. Haydn]

Some thought on Incredible Hulk #1:

It's amazing how quickly and efficiently Part 1 sets the story in motion. Modern comics would take six issues to cover what Jack did in six pages.

Does anyone think that page 1 originated as a presentation piece for the character? Jack Kirby's second signature at the bottom of the page is unique for 1962! 

There are some odd anomalies with the lettering. Pages 12-24 are lettered by Artie Simek, but pages 1-11 are in another handwriting. (Nick Caputo thinks it's Ray Holloway; I think it's Herb Cooper.) Simek did the display lettering on pages 1 and 7 (as he often did in the Atlas era of the 1950s). There is also a single panel (page 10, panel 1) lettered by Simek. Perhaps this is a replacement panel, or at least replacement dialogue, to lessen the violence of the scene?

 

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS APRIL 1962

For April, Marvel would release 12 titles to the newsstand (For 14 out of 16 months now they've put out more than the rumored 8 titles, and one of the months they didn't was when they shut down for the month). They now have 44 in 4 months (11 a month). 

Stan Lee would have at least one story in all 12. 

 

Amazing Adult Fantasy #14 - 5 stories with Steve Ditko.

Fantastic Four #5 - with Jack Kirby.

Journey Into Mystery #81 - 1 story with Steve Ditko.

Kathy #17 -  with Stan Goldberg.

Kid Colt Outlaw #105 - 3 stories with Jack Keller and 1 with Don Heck. 

Life With Millie #17 - with Stan Goldberg.

Linda Carter, Student Nurse #6 - with Al Hartley. 

Millie the Model #109 - with Stan Goldberg.

Patsy Walker #101  -  with Al Hartley art.

Strange Tales #98 - 1 story with Steve Ditko.

Tales of Suspense #31 - 1 story with Steve Ditko.

Tales to Astonish #33 - 1 story with Steve Ditko.