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Episode 1461 Talkback - Spotlight on the Fantastic Four in the Silver Age, Part One
Adam_Murdough
Posts: 506
Face Front, True Believers! Now begins a year-long exploration of the first family of Marvel Comics: the Fantastic Four! Adjunct professor of Marvel history Chris Eberle, teaching assistant Adam Murdough, and prize pupil Jamie D unite to bring you the reasonably complete lowdown on "The World's Greatest Comic Magazine" through all the ages of its existence! First up, the first half of the all-important Lee/Kirby run of the Silver Age, including everything from the team's first appearance through the Galactus Trilogy, plus a passel of pedagogical propaganda pertaining to the pulsatin' pre-history of Marvel Comics itself! (2:46:10)
Listen here.
Listen here.
Comments
As for my own early history with the FF, I think my first exposure to the characters was this Marvel Super Heroes card game I had when I was very little (oversized cards with great illustrations of many Marvel characters; I think it played like Old Maid... you didn't want to end up with the Dr. Doom card in your hand), and then beyond that the generally pretty terrible "Fred and Barney Meet the Thing" cartoon from Hanna-Barbera. The first comic I ever read with the FF was an issue of Marvel's Greatest Comics reprinting a John Buscema story where they met the Overmind. Weird story, but it imprinted to the point where although I worship at the altar of Kirby like so many others, Buscema's renditions of the characters is how I always seem them in my mind. I wish I could've told the man that myself, but I did get to say it to his granddaughter, artist Stephanie Buscema, at a con a year or two back and she was very happy to hear it, so at least there's that.
(The downside of which, of course, is that the movie rights to all of them are held by FOX now, and not Marvel :-) )
I am looking forward to more of this. I've only gotten the first 90 minutes completed so far. Lovin' it.
Like Brother D, my earliest experiences with Fantastic Four are Reed trapped in the Negative Zone. I was shocked as a wee lad watching Reed chew on some bat like creature he caught and roasted while floating on a rock.
Thanks again CGS. I am looking forward to this run and hoping it leads CGS to full coverage of the Marvel Cosmic...
To throw my 2 cents in: All told, I've read a little over half of the Lee/Kirby issues. For my reading sensibilities, I think the issues tend to get better midway through the run, around the Galactus trilogy, but that's not to say that the early issues aren't a) As awesome as awesome gets as far as Marvel historicity goes, and b) Often pretty damn fun in their own right. I just think that the storytelling seems to open up as the run goes on, and I especially think that Kirby's art really came into its own and developed into the big bombastic style that most Kirby fans (myself included) enjoy most. For his part, I think Stan Lee was at the top of his game all throughout the run in terms of dialogue.
A couple of comments/observations:
* I clicked on the "insightful" button on Murd's post in recognition of the truly great job you guys did in telling the Marvel/Timely story. I've heard it all before, but that was riveting nonetheless.
* There's a slight inconsistency about the creation of the Fantastic Four that I'd like for someone to help clarify for me if they can. The story is that Stan Lee, ready to quit Marvel, came up with the idea for the FF after his wife told him that before he leaves he should throw caution to the wind and do a comic the way he wants to do it. On the other hand, you've got the Martin Goodman went golfing and had to hear "Blah, blah, blah, Justice League this, and Justice League that" from those SOBs at DC, and that he then ordered Lee to create a super team. Are both of those stories collectively supposed to be the genesis of FF? Does Stan Lee acknowledge the Justice League angle at all?
* WTF ... no CGS theme song? You bastards. I look forward to getting that thing stuck in my head for a few hours and you robbed me of that. You made up for it a little bit by pulling out the 1960's FF cartoon intro at the end, so I'll give you a pass this time. Let's not let it happen again though, mmmkay?
* Regarding the Blackbeard story with Dr. Doom, my recollection is that The Thing actually ended up becoming the historic Blackbeard, and not that he got mistaken for him. I remember he put the fake beard on to try and appear human and by the end he had won over all the pirates, who were now chanting "BLACKBEARD! BLACKBEARD!" I think he even wanted to stay in the past because he felt accepted there, and Reed forced him back to the present? Does anyone else remember it that way?
* Wait, did I hear correct? A spotlight on Dr. Doom??? Make that happen. Doom commands.
Excelsior!
Okay, something else I'm looking for clarification on, as were the CGS boys ... what the hell is Lockjaw? Is he actually an animal with powers? Or is he an Inhuman who the Terrigen mist turned into the shape of a dog?
I've seen him referred to as "the King's dog" by other members of the Royal Family, so I tend to think he is actually a dog. How he got powers though? Hey, ya got me.
According to Marvel Wikia Lockjaw is a dog exposed to Terrigen Mist when still a child (pup).
I liked the discussion of his "weaknesses" ...
A few months ago I bought and read the Amazing Fantasy Omnibus. It was quite a lot of fun, and I particularly enjoyed reading the letter columns. One thing becomes very clear: Stan definitely had high hopes for this series, frequently characterizing it as "the thinking man's comic" or "the comic that the intelligent adult doesn't have to be embarrassed about reading in public". He published letters to this effect, from readers who cited the (supposedly) literary quality of the stories. I'm not saying that it was just a stupid kids' book -- it wasn't! -- but more often than not the stories seemed like second-rate Twilight Zone (which, second-rate Twilight Zone still isn't bad!) or else pretty standard monster comics fare (but that fare is worth the price of admission).
^Note: "The Magazine That Respects Your Intelligence!" . . . with something called "Tim Boo Ba"?? :-)
Anyway, I still have the second half of this episode left to listen to; it's a joy so far.
My take on Stan vs. Jack: Murd says Jack should get 2/3s of the credit; I'd say it should be more like 3/5s, because I don't think Kirby was *twice* as responsible for the FF's success as Stan was. I do think Kirby's contributions were clearer and easier to pick out, and even in the back of some Marvel Masterworks volumes you can see Kirby's pencilled pages, in which he basically directs Stan on how the dialogue should flow. But Stan was responsible for orchestrating, editing, and directing the whole enterprise, and the whole Marvel Universe in general. Nine times out of ten, I think the raw germs of these ideas were Stan's ("We need a team of sci-fi adventurers... Okay, those four look good... Now we need a 'Spider-Man'... No, Jack, your rendition looks like a circus strongman, so I'm giving this job to Ditko. I want the secret identity to be just some nerdy kid... Okay, now we need to have 'X-Men', heroes who are just BORN with powers...") and the personalities as shown through the dialogue were also Stan's. So it's almost like a "sandwich" in which Lee was responsible for the first and last layers. Everything else in the middle -- and there's a lot of it, from character-design to the flow of the stories themselves -- were mostly the purview of the artist, in this case Jack Kirby. I don't think there's any question that Kirby did more of the work than Lee did, but Lee's contributions were absolutely vital and without his initiative, decision-making skills, and editorial management, the Marvel Universe wouldn't've gotten off the ground nor would it have kept going in such a lasting, cohesive way. That's my take, anyway.
1) Chris said National was the top of the heap of the comics industry throughout the ’50s. Dell actually outsold them (thanks in large part to their Disney licensed comics) for most of the decade. But National was a very close second—not so much #2 as #1B to Dell’s #1A. The point of National being much more dominant than Atlas remains valid.
Interestingly, it was largely because of Dell that Marvel had to go to Independent News for distribution. Dell was very unhappy with American News Corporation’s distribution of their product at the time Atlas signed on with ANC. When Dell decided not only to cancel their deal with ANC (which was already losing a lot of business to the competition), but to sue them for restraint of trade, ANC decided to close its distribution branch, leaving Atlas out in the cold.
2) Joe Sinnott pronounces his name like “senate,” not like “sin-not.”
3) Crime Does Not Pay was not an EC title, but rather a Lev Gleason title. EC’s one crime title was Crime SuspenStories.
Mole Man...Skrulls...Namor...Dr. Doom...Puppet Master...Alicia MASTERS (!)...The Impossible Man....anyway...Like Jamie, I did like how the "chroniclers" Stan and Jack would show up sometimes (like at Reed and Sue's wedding) which lended a certain realism to the books. My first FF was #64, but I was able to get ragged copies of #12, #24-25, and a few issues in the #40's from my friends. All interesting and exciting reads!
So who gives him credence? The Fantastic Four, when Johnny skywrites a plea for help from him in FF 27. So, add that to the pile of FF contributions.
Also, Kirby drew a better Strange.
Great episode. Look forward to part II.
Chris proved himself again to not be a didactic dilettante with erudite synopsis of this critic run(after Murd).
Looking forward to the Bronze age discussion where the FF, in my opinion bottoms out in creativity.