Alter Ego #74 Preview

Roy Thomas’ STANdard Comics Fanzine

STAN LEE ’Nuff Said?

Well, If We’ve Really Gotta Drop A Few More Names To Hook You, How About— KIRBY! KIRBY! DITKO! DITKO! ROMITA! ROMITA! BUSCEMA! COLAN! HECK! AYERS! AYERS! KANE! SEVERIN! TRIMPE! TUSKA! WOOD! MANEELY! SHORES! EVERETT! BURGOS! (There! That Oughtta Hold Ya!) Characters TM & ©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

No. 74 December 2007

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Vol. 3, No. 74 / December 2007 Editor

Stan Lee’s 85th Birthday Special!

Roy Thomas

Associate Editors Bill Schelly Jim Amash

Design & Layout Christopher Day

Consulting Editor John Morrow

FCA Editor P.C. Hamerlinck

Comic Crypt Editor Michael T. Gilbert

Editorial Honor Roll Jerry G. Bails (founder) Ronn Foss, Biljo White Mike Friedrich

Production Assistant Chris Irving

Circulation Director Bob Brodsky, CookieSoup Periodical Distribution, LLC

Cover Artist

Writer/Editorial: He’s “The Man”!. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Stan Lee Meets [Castle Of] Frankenstein . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Jack Kirby

Cover Colorist

Ted White introduces his important 1968 interview with Marvel’s head honcho.

Tom Ziuko

With Special Thanks to: Gerry Acerno Heidi Amash Ger Apeldoorn Dick Ayers Bob Bailey Allen Bellman Jon Berk Al Bigley Dominic Bongo Mike Bourne Jerry K. Boyd Susan Burgos Mike Burkey Leslie Cabarga Nigel Cartwell Gene Colan Rich Donnelly Danny Fingeroth Shane Foley Ron Frenz Chris Fricke Janet Gilbert Ron Goulart Mike Grell Arnie Grieves Jennifer Hamerlinck David G. Hamilton Richard Howell Geof Isherwood Jay Kinney The Jack Kirby Estate Robert Klein David Anthony Kraft Stan & Joan & Joan Cecilia Lee Dominique Léonard Jay Maeder

Contents

Michel Maillot Nancy Maneely Don Mangus Mike Manley Norman Mark Jim McLauchlin Dr. Jeff McLaughlin Jean-Yves Mitton Brian K. Morris Frank Motler Will Murray Steve Ogden Barry Pearl John G. Pierce Rubén Procopio Richard Pryor John Romita Marie Severin Joe Simon Joe Sinnott Paul Smith Anthony Snyder Frank Springer Marc Swayze Stan Taylor Greg Theakston Art Thibert Dann Thomas Herb Trimpe Pete Tumlinson George Tuska Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr. Dr. Michael J. Vassallo Mike Wellman Ted White Mike Zeck

The New Super-Hero (Is A Pretty Kinky Guy) . . . . . . . . . . . 16 1968 Lee interview from the pages of Eye Magazine, conducted by Norman Mark.

Stan Lee, The Marvel Bard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 A 1970 talk—Smiling Stan and marveling Mike Bourne.

Stan Lee: 1974. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Jay Maeder’s classic conversation with Marvel’s master from Comics Feature.

Marvel Characters Meet Their Maker! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 The comic book cameos of Stan Lee, compiled by Jerry K. Boyd.

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt! Twice-Told Marvel Heroes (Part Two) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Michael T. Gilbert and Will Murray on the pre-Marvel Iron Man and Thor.

“Once [Stan Lee] Put Me On Staff...” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Jim Amash talks to Golden Age artist Pete Tumlinson.

FCA (Fawcett Collectors Of America) #133 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Marc Swayze’s Judi of the Jungle & John G. Pierce on Captain Marvel’s Christmas.

On Our Cover: There simply was no other choice for the cover artist of this issue celebrating Stan Lee’s 85th birthday! Jack Kirby was Marvel’s major artist (and artistic influence) from Fantastic Four #1 in 1961 until he split in 1970—and he was vitally important to Marvel both in 1940-41 and when he returned in the mid-’70s, to boot! This art was prepared on behalf of Toys for Tots, a charity Marvel supported every Christmas season for some years. With thanks to John Morrow and the Jack & Roz Kirby Estate. [©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.] Above: The legacy of Lee and Kirby was alive and well in the 1970s and early ’80s, which is probably when Marvel artist Ron Wilson penciled this powerful drawing—quite possibly for a Marvel-UK cover. Sorry a bit of it was missing from our photocopy, but we still think it’s great!

Thanks to Anthony Snyder. [The Thing & Absorbing Man TM & ©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.] Alter EgoTM is published 8 times a year by TwoMorrows, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. Phone: (919) 449-0344.

Roy Thomas, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Alter Ego Editorial Offices: 32 Bluebird Trail, St. Matthews, SC 29135, USA. Fax: (803) 826-6501; e-mail: roydann@ntinet.com. Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial offices.

Single issues: $9 US ($11.00 Canada, $16 elsewhere). Twelve-issue subscriptions: $78 US, $132 Canada, $180 elsewhere. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © Roy Thomas. Alter Ego is a TM of Roy & Dann Thomas. FCA is a TM of P.C. Hamerlinck. Printed in Canada. ISSN: 1932-6890 FIRST PRINTING.

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writer/editorial

He’s “The Man”!

Y

ou’d think that, for me, a guy who’s worked for him and/or with him for much of the past four decades, putting together an 85thbirthday tribute to Stan Lee would be as easy as falling of a log.

Wrong, Inedible Bulk-breath!

I have every bit as much of a problem doing a “Stan Lee issue” of a magazine as any other editor might, and for the same reason: Stan has been endlessly interviewed over the past several decades—and he tends to answer the same questions with similar words and phrases. (And how could he not? Unless you’re making up new “facts” as you go along, there are only so many ways you can spin what is basically the same story. It’s really the fault of the interviewers, who keep asking the same questions over and over—but, of course, for the most part they’re merely asking the queries they feel their readers will want to know the answers to. It’s only us jaded “experts” on things comicbooky—and that includes a goodly percentage of those reading these words— who sigh and say to ourselves, “We’ve heard all this before!”)

I’ll admit—for just a little while there, I dared hope I might be able to get a fresh new interview out of Stan. After all, a number of folks had told me they felt I’d been able to elicit some previously unknown information when we had the conversation recorded in Jon B. Cooke’s Comic Book Artist (Vol. 1) #2 way back at the turn of this century. But I’d pretty much shot my wad on that one—so my new idea (well, actually, it was A/E associate editor Jim Amash’s notion) was to do a Stan Lee interview that wasn’t about Stan Lee. I would ask him about all the writers and artists and editors and such-like that he’s worked with over the years, and see if I could mine a few anecdotal nuggets that way.

Sure, Stan’s memory is famously just this side of a mental sieve, but with a bit of nudging, I might have been able to come up with a few raw diamonds.

Stan, however, just didn’t feel he could devote time or energy to such a project, either over the phone or via e-mail. So that was that.

planned to get tributes from the usual suspects (and probably a few unexpected folks, as well)… the John Romitas and Joe Quesadas of the world… and to print a lot of rare stuff from the Stan Lee Archives, now safely stored at the University of Wyoming. So I decided to concentrate on a handful of previously published (but still hopefully rare) interviews with the Smiling One, and add a few anecdotes where I could in the captions.

Now, right before you plunge into Interview-Land (whose landscape will be lovingly littered, of course, with exciting and often rare artwork by the greats and near-greats of Timely, Atlas, and Marvel), here’s a short piece which I myself wrote in 1968, about three years after I came to work for Stan. It was scribbled hurriedly (overnight, I seem to recall) for the program book of the SCARPCon convention… and I felt thrilled and honored to be the guy asked to write it. It’s called, logically enough:

Stan Lee

by Roy Thomas What is a Stan Lee? Many things… not a few of them paradoxical, if not downright contradictory.

An editor much given to belittling his own editing skills... but who can deftly improve a Shakespearian turn-of-phrase written by an ex-English instructor, a couple of sometime journalists, and an experienced movie scripter… among others.

A writer who has long since disavowed any attempt to impose his special writing style on others… but whose style is so strong that it generally does its own imposing.

A bearded non-hippie who has been lauded by conservative publications for his firm anti-radical bias… and who has been toasted by more liberal scribes for his New Left leanings.

A dynamo of energy who doesn’t mind taking a short vacation trip… as long as it’s Somewhere along the line, I by train, so that he can write a few extra also learned that our pages of Spider-Man en route.

TwoMorrows sister publication Write Now! was going to do its A self-declared non-artist whose own Stan Lee issue, in honor of ability to draw even a straight line that selfsame 85th birthday—which falls has been hotly debated… but who on Dec. 28, 2007, just for can use a few scribbled the record. Now, you’d scrawls to show an artist Stan Lee Finds New Career As “Maskot”! think that would seem like something he should have competition—but, in point Believe it—there’ll be plenty of photos of Smiley in this issue! First, though, we decided— seen in the first place. with the help of artist Stan Foley—to draft Our Fearless Leader into duty as the super-hero of fact, it was a welcome called Alter Ego, who is also one of the “maskots” of this mag. The “Stan-face” is based, A devoted husband and relief! Editor Danny he says, on Marie Severin’s caricature in Fantastic Four #167 (1976). Thanks for making it father… who nonetheless Fingeroth had already happen, Shane! [Alter Ego TM & ©2007 Roy & Dann Thomas; art ©2007 Shane Foley.] manages to turn out more

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Stan Lee Meets [Castle Of ] Frankenstein Interview Conducted by Ted White A/E EDITOR’S NOTE: This is one of the earliest Stan Lee interviews of substance ever done—which is only to be expected, since the 1965 interviewer was Ted White, a sophisticated science-fiction and comics fan. Ted’s early-1950s oneshot fanzine The Facts behind Superman was, as Bill Schelly writes in his 1997 book The Golden Age of Comic Fandom, “one of the earliest known attempts to write an authoritative in-depth article about a comic book super-hero.” In 1960 he wrote the second installment of Xero’s innovative “All in Color for a Dime” series—and in the mid-1960s and after, he was becoming a published science-fiction author (Phoenix Prime, et al.) and would soon be the editor of the sf magazine

Titans In Triptych (Top right:) One of the most famous photos of Stan Lee is this one of Mighty Marvel’s hat-bedecked editor, which was taken in autumn of 1965 especially for the inside front cover of the new reprint mag Fantasy Masterpieces #1 (Feb. 1966)—and was spoofed by Shane Foley a couple of pages back. But nobody ever talks about who snapped this oft-reprinted pic! Though he was around at the time, Roy doesn’t recall, either, but he wonders—could it have been the one Marvel artist who then had his own photography studio—namely, inker Vince Colletta? Be that as it may, thanks to Bob Bailey for the scan. [©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.] (Right) Because virtually all Stan Lee’s major work from the ’60s and ’70s is back in print—in trade paperback, in hardcover, or both—this issue of A/E features relatively few images from the original comics. We’ll concentrate instead on drawings by major talents of some of Stan’s most famous co-creations—starting with this threesome done a few years back by the fine French comics artist Jean-Yves Mitton. It’s a commission sketch executed for Belgian collector Dominique Léonard, who kindly sent us numerous pieces of art that’ll be seen herein. [Thor, Spider-Man, & Daredevil TM & ©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.] (Above center:) Interviewer Ted White circa 1966, acting as auctioneer at an early comics convention. This photo originally appeared in Larry Ivie’s magazine Monsters and Heroes—later in A/E #58. [©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

And is the Castle of Frankenstein cover (above left) the issue in which Ted's interview with Stan appears? The cover, which says "Interview with Marvel Comics" and sports a pic of Spidey, was printed in the 1968 SCARP-Con program book. [Spider-Man TM & ©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

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1968 Interview Conducted By Ted White

Amazing. This interview has been reprinted a time or two, but since Ted was willing to write an introduction to give it added perspective, we’re happy to present it here yet again—with different art. Oh, and it was retyped for A/E by Brian K. Morris. And now—take it away, Ted….

I

met Stan Lee in 1965. We were both guests on an after-midnight radio show. The station belonged to New York’s Columbia University and the show was hosted by a former student there who was an acquaintance of mine. I’d been on his show several times. It was one of those shows where you talk for a while and then take calls from listeners. As I recall, there either weren’t too many listeners, or they weren’t in the habit of calling in. We’d get only a few calls. The phones were not lit up constantly.

When I was asked to be on this particular show, I was told Stan would be the other guest, and that delighted me. I’d been following Stan’s revitalization of Marvel since Amazing Fantasy #15 and Fantastic Four #1.

do a series of paperback “novelizations” of the Marvel characters. Coincidentally, I had, through my agent, been talking to Bantam about doing a Batman novel.

It was then a time of sudden pop-culture popularity for comic book superheroes.

Batman was going great guns on TV, and book publishers were interested in getting in on the action. But Bantam learned that rival publisher Signet Books had first refusal on all books resulting from DC’s comics characters (both Signet and DC Comics were then distributed by Independent News—which owned DC), which made Batman inaccessible to Bantam.

So Bantam had made a deal with Martin Goodman. They could do books using Marvel’s secondary characters—but not Spider-Man or the Fantastic Four. And Binder had gotten the contract to do a book featuring The Avengers.

When Stan heard about this, he was less than happy about it–and rightly so, as events proved. (Otto’s book was embarrassingly bad, and sold poorly.) So he insisted that the second book, featuring Captain America, be done by me. “Ted understands Marvel,” Stan told Bantam.

Our meeting was low-key, but friendly. Stan Ted, White, And Blue had not yet been lionized and turned into a The cover of the 1968 Ted White paperback novel college-campus celebrity. He had not yet Captain America: The Great Gold Steal was begun to wear a toupee. He was himself— evidently painted by Mitchell Hooks.

I got the contract to do the book after a naturally outgoing, gregarious, but pretty [©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.] half hour with a vice president and senior much a regular guy. I’d had a couple books editor at Bantam (we mostly talked about published by then, and I was an assistant editor Bantam author Ross Macdonald, whose work I’d admired for years) at The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, so we met as quasiand a handshake. My agent wrapped up the deal. equals, guys who both labored in the vineyards of the professional publishing industry.

Once I had the contract in hand, I sat down with Stan to discuss the book. My initial thought was to more or less rework my plot for the In the course of the next couple of hours, chatting on air and responding to several callers, we bonded a bit. I honestly admired what Batman book, but Stan talked me out of it. He didn’t tell me what to Stan was doing with super-hero comics, and I asked him knowlwrite—the eventual plot was entirely my own—but he pointed me in a edgeable and sensible questions on-air without fawning on him like a fresh direction, and helped me clarify my thinking. “Put Batman fanboy, so we got on well. At one point I showed him my Merry entirely out of your mind,” he told me, and I did. The Great Gold Marvel Marching Society card, which I carried in my wallet, and Stan Steal was a great deal of fun to write, and seemed to almost write itself. autographed it with an inscription which read, “I’m flattered, Ted.” (I was particularly fond of the scene in which Steve Rogers is That, of course, left me feeling flattered. unmasked—and the villains realize they have no idea who he is.)

That was the beginning of a relationship which lasted over the next several years. In that time several things happened, not least among them Roy Thomas’ move to New York City and Marvel, and my friendship with him.

In the course of that time Stan asked me to write for Marvel, but I turned him down because I had no confidence in myself as a comics scripter—even using the “Marvel method.” I had begun my professional writing career in jazz criticism and journalism and was still learning (on the job, as it were) to write fiction. I was, I felt, weakest at dialogue—and comics writing was mostly dialogue.

But I did two other things. One of them was the interview republished here. The other was my Captain America novel. The Captain America book came about largely because of Stan.

Otto Binder, a long-time science-fiction pulp writer and “Captain Marvel” scripter, had been turned down by Stan when he sought work at Marvel, so he made an end-run around Stan and set up a deal between Martin Goodman, Marvel’s publisher, and Bantam Books to

When the book was written and the manuscript delivered to Bantam, I gave a copy of it to Stan. To my surprise, he did not read it, but turned it over to Roy to be vetted. (Roy actually used my description of the Avengers mansion, credited to me, in the subsequent Avengers Annual.)

That was in the fall of 1966. The book was supposed to be published early in 1967. In January 1967 Bantam published Binder’s Avengers book. I bought a copy and checked it out. The first chapter was devoted entirely to tedious descriptions of each of the Avengers’ costumes! I read no further. Apparently I wasn’t the only one. The book sold very poorly—so poorly than Bantam held off on publishing mine, and decided not to do any further Marvel books.

The Captain America book was finally published in the late spring of 1968—almost a year and a half later. By then the bloom was off the comic book fad among book publishers. The moment for such books had come and gone, leaving The Great Gold Steal in the dust.

Nonetheless, the book sold much better, essentially selling out its print run with low returns—outselling the Avengers book by better than five

16

The New Super-Hero (Is A Pretty Kinky Guy) Spider-Men May Be OK For Fighting Crime, But Would You Want Your Sister To Marry One?

by Norman Mark [A/E EDITOR’S NOTE: This is one of the earlier articles that began to take comics, especially Marvel Comics, seriously in the postBatman-TV-craze, post-“camp” era, and we thought it worth reprinting almost exactly forty years later as an historical artifact— and a particularly lively one, at that. Reprinted from Eye Magazine (1968) by permission of author Norman Mark. With special thanks to Barry Pearl, Fearless Front Facer, for doing all the spadework on this one!]

S

ay comic book. Come on, say it. Comic book.

Feel silly, don’t you? You’ve got visions of all those cute animals jabbering and stealing carrots, of strange guys in tights and jockstraps flying through the air.

Read a comic book on a bus and people stare at you: “Look, Randolph, he’s reading a comic book, isn’t that stupid?” Mention them at a party, and you’re suddenly alone in a corner. Talk to a kid who

reads them and he thinks you’re trying to pass for an adolescent. But that’s all changing, brothers and sisters. No longer will you read your comics with a flashlight under the bedsheets, no longer will you wait for the cover of darkness to put down your 12 cents for a costumed crusader epic.

Comic books are surfacing, growing up, speaking out—maybe even becoming an art form!—and it’s time to take notice of them. One publisher at least, the Marvel Comics Group, is trying to raise this

Move Over, Gorgeous George And Honest Abe! Joe Sinnott, premier inker of the Lee-Kirby Fantastic Four and a fine artist in his own right, placed Stan the Man on Mount Rushmore in this gorgeous illustration. Hey, Joe—did you get that raise? (Just kidding! Joe’s one of the truly nice guys in the comic book field, as well as one of the most talented, and doesn’t need to kiss up to anybody! He still inks Alex Saviuk’s pencils on the Sunday Spider-Man newspaper strip, incidentally.) Thanks to Chris Fricke and Danny Fingeroth for the scan. Photo of Joe from 1969 FF Annual. [Human Torch TM & ©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.; other art ©2007 Joe Sinnott.]

The New Super-Hero (Is A Pretty Kinky Guy)

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Man, the Fantastic Four, Hulk, Silver Surfer, The X-Men—twenty-two in all and all with their own special peculiarities and hangups.

Stan Lee, the modern Aesop, is a tall, thin, bearded, bright-eyed, forty-five-year-old who lives on Long Island with his wife, 18-year-old daughter, and four dogs. He will feel his career in comics has been justified, he says, the day his wife “will go to a cocktail party and won’t be embarrassed when she’s asked what her husband does for a living.”

That’s a simple, humble wish, well known to hairdressers, ballet dancers, and second-story men.

But for Lee, it has not been easy to do. After graduating from DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx, he took a job writing obituaries for living celebrities at a news service. At seventeen [NOTE: Actually 18. —Roy], he went to work for Marvel Comics. An editor left and Lee took the job temporarily. He has been an editor ever since, except for service in World War II when he wrote training films and held the military classification of “playwright” (no kidding).

“I had always considered comics a stopgap until I could find time to do better writing,” he says. “Finally, about eight years ago I realized I would be here for a while and why not make out of comics something I would like to read?”

The problem was to create characters with some sort of superpowers—real comic book characters, no soap opera types. “If you had super-powers, how would you act in the real world. If you were young, wouldn’t you still have a case of acne, asthma, girl troubles, occasionally lose fights, or be broke?” So gut reality broke into funnies.

Consider, if you will, Spider-Man, personality kid of comics. In reality, he’s Peter Parker, a normal college student who was bitten by a radioactive spider of human proportions [sic] sometime before October 1962. Now Peter has the strength of a spider of human proportions, but he still acts with all the bumbling ineptitude that you or I would display if we were in his tights.

Taking Up A Collection (Continued) Earlier this year, TwoMorrows published John Romita… and All That Jazz!, edited by Roy Thomas and Jim Amash, showcasing three major (and lavishly illustrated) interviews with this artist with the golden touch— whose photo is seen above right, from that 1969 Fantastic Four Annual. One of the many art spots in the popular Romita volume was John’s pencils for an unused Amazing Spider-Man cover in which The Avengers’ old foe, The Collector, tries to add no less than President Abraham Lincoln to his interstellar trophy room. Just to bring things full circle, here’s the finished version of that never-published cover, as inked by Joe Rubinstein.

Retrieved for A/E by Dominic Bongo from the Heritage Comics Archives. [©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

media to the level of a James Bond movie, a Mission: Impossible television series, or a Perry Mason novel. That is not bad company for a form despised by parents and ignored by critics. It all started about seven years ago when Stan Lee, an editor at Marvel, decided to create a new line of super-heroes which would be more… relevant. For instance, Captain America (he, The Human Torch, and Sub-Mariner were earlier the company’s biggest sellers) changed from a simpleminded, patriotic do-gooder to a brooding super-hero who realizes his zeal for right is out of joint with the times. “He knows he’s an anachronism, but he can’t change,” says Lee. “He’s sort of a contemporary Hamlet.”

A whole new team of antiheroes subsequently was created—Spider-

The people of his hometown, New York, do not trust him (would you want a spider living in your neighborhood?), the newspapers hate him, and he simply cannot cope with his uniform, which is constantly being torn in the line of duty and he has to stop and mend it himself.

(What tailor could be trusted with his secret?) Also, his outfit is not drip-dry, and he is continually jumping into a wet suit, which gives him colds. He has trouble with his widowed Aunt May, who suffers a heart attack in nearly every issue. Sometimes Spider-Man has to give her a call in the midst of fighting bad guys.

All of these things contributed to an inferiority complex that Peter has only recently controlled. But he still shows signs of paranoia, often has traumatic identity crises (he can’t tell anybody who he really is), has severe fits of depression, and feels terribly alienated.

Spider-Man is the only comic book character in memory who has matured. Six years ago when Lee created him, he was a nudnick chemistry major with a skin problem; he was extremely unsuccessful with girls (who hate spiders) and bullied by other students. Today, he dates sharp blondes, he has become more muscular, and has a handsome, square-jawed face with no pimples.

Early on, Spider-Man created a secret formula for steel-like webbing that adheres to buildings and helps him thwip (comic book for swing) around town. The webbing is also his most powerful weapon; he has been known to run out of it at crucial moments.

Spider-Man’s chief nemesis is The Green Goblin, but he doesn’t [Continued on page 20]

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Would You Want Your Sister To Marry A Spider-Man?

Photo Interlude:

Stan The (Family) Man The Sept. 9, 2007, Sunday edition of The New York Times Real Estate Magazine, of all things, spotlighted a major feature on Marvel’s creative head honcho, with rare photos supplied by Stan and Joan Lee. Thanks to Stan & Joan for permission to print them here, and to Bob Bailey for sending us the scans. For more photos from the Lees’ personal life, pick up a copy of Stan’s autobiography Excelsior! The Amazing Life of Stan Lee, co-authored by George Mair and published by Fireside Books in 2002. [All photos on this two-page spread ©2007 Stan & Joan Lee.]

When Stan was 16, the Lieber family lived in this apartment house at 1729 University Avenue in the Bronx.

Young Stan on a pony. Any chance that its name was Marvel?

Stan and Joan Lee as newlyweds in their one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan’s East 90s, circa 1947-48. Stan married Joan Clayton Boocock on Dec. 5, 1947, just two weeks before his 25th birthday. In his autobiography, Stan’s co-writer scribes: “Stan always thought she was the best birthday or Christmas present he ever got.”

Stan prepares to carry Joan across the threshold of their new 3-bedroom home at 1084 W. Broadway, Woodmere, NY. The date on this picture is a rather vague “1949-52,” but we really doubt if it took Stan three years to carry her inside.

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Stan Lee, The Marvel Bard An Interview Conducted By Mike Bourne, 1970 [A/E EDITOR’S NOTE: This conversation is reprinted from Changes magazine for April 15, 1970… and was likewise located for us by Barry Pearl, FFF. It is reprinted with permission of Mike Bourne.]

M

arvel Comics spring from modest Madison Avenue offices randomly decorated by oversize drawings, copy, and other assorted fanciful diversions.

In several small cubicles, like freaky monks, a staff of artists variously evoke the next month’s adventures in all-brilliant color and style. While in his office, his complete Shakespeare close at hand, editor Stan Lee smiles broadly behind his cigar and beckons me enter his head.

MIKE BOURNE: With which super-hero do you personally most identify?

STAN LEE: Probably Homer the Happy Ghost. You know, I honestly don’t identify with any of them. Or maybe I identify with all of them.

But I’ve never thought of it. I’ve been asked this question before and I never know how to answer it, because I think I identify with whichever one I’m writing at the moment. If I’m writing Thor, I’m a Norse god at that moment. If I’m writing The Hulk, I have green skin and everyone hates me. And when I stop writing them, they’re sort of out of my mind. I’m not identifying with anyone.

MB: You’re like an actor when you write.

LEE: Yeah, I think more than anything. In fact, when I was young I thought I would be an actor, and I did act. And when I write now, my wife always makes fun of me. She says: “Stan, what did you say?” I say: “Nothing, I’m writing.” She says: “Well, you talk to yourself.” And I find very often I’m saying the lines out loud. And I’m acting! You know: “Take that, you rat!”

MB: Asking a writer where he gets his ideas is like asking an actor how he learned all those lines, but Marvel is known as the House of Ideas.

LEE: Only because I originally said we were the House of Ideas.

MB: All right, but obviously you have mythological influences. And Jim Steranko’s “House of Ravenlock” for SHIELD was very much from the Gothic novel. But what are your primary sources, or your favorite sources for material? Just out of your head, or where?

LEE: Mostly. I think it all has to do with things I read and learned and observed when I was young, because I don’t do as much reading or

Changes Are A-Coming—And A-Going!

The front and back covers of the April 15, 1970, issue of Changes tabloid magazine—as preserved by Barry Pearl, FFF. (See, Barry—we promised you we’d refer to you by your old MMMS title—and now we can’t seem to break the habit!) The back cover Hulk drawing was, of course, penciled by Jack Kirby.

[Art ©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.; other art ©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

movie-going or anything now as I would like.

I’m so busy writing all the time. But I was a voracious reader when I was a teenager.

And actually, I think my biggest influence was Shakespeare, who was my god. I mean, I loved Shakespeare because when he was dramatic; no one was more dramatic than he was. When he was humorous, the humor was so earthy and rich. To me he was the complete writer. I was just telling somebody this morning who was up here to try to do some writing for us to get as close to Shakespeare as possible. Because whatever Shakespeare did, he did it in the extreme. It’s almost like the Yiddish theatre. When they act, they act! Or the old silent movies where everything was exaggerated so the audience would know what the mood was because they couldn’t hear the voices. So, actually, as I say, I used to read Shakespeare. I love the rhythm of words. I’ve always been in love with the way words sound. Sometimes I’ll use words just because of the sound of one playing upon the other. And I know comic book writers aren’t supposed to talk this way. But I like to think I’m really writing when I write a comic, and not just putting a few balloons on a page.

MB: Do you consciously strive to catch the tenor of the times?

You’ve covered campus protest in Spider-Man. But what about other issues? Do you feel that it’s your responsibility as an artist—and I

Stan Lee, The Marvel Bard

Now It Can Be Told!

(Above:) The Marvel “super-hero” with whom Stan Lee most identifies (or at least did, back in 1970) is the title star of Homer the Happy Ghost, whose adventures were being reprinted in 1969-70. Seen here is Dan DeCarlo’s cover for issue #2 (May 1955).

(Top right:) Stan and DeCarlo (photo of Dan above courtesy of Joe Petrilak) also worked together on My Friend Irma, My Girl Pearl, Millie the Model— and the Willie Lumpkin newspaper comic strip, whose hero would one day become the mailman for the Baxter Building in New York City. Note that the postmark at top left bears the date of the Sunday strip: June 12, 1960. Thanks to Ger Apeldoorn. [©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

“Speak; Caesar Is Turned To Hear” Stan cut his eyeteeth writing “Shakespearean” (and related King James Bible/Arthurian) style in the first issue of Black Knight (May 1955), drawn by Joe Maneely—and perfected it in the mid/late 1960s and early 1970s in Thor. All the latter work is currently in print, so here’s a (wordless) drawing of the thunder god’s buddies Hogun, Fandral, and Volstagg, “Warriors Three,” reportedly by John Romita (pencils) and Jim Mooney (inks), done as a cover for a Marvel-UK mag—but Ye Editor isn’t at all certain that the Jazzy One actually penciled it. Thanks to Anthony Snyder. Photo courtesy of Nancy Maneely. [©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

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Interview Conducted By Mike Bourne, 1970

won’t say “comics” artist here, but obviously we can accept you as an artist with other kinds of artists—is it your duty to take a stand on issues?

LEE: I think it’s your duty to yourself, really, more than to the public. See, this is a very difficult field. For years my hands were tied. We thought we were just writing for kids, and we weren’t supposed to do anything to disturb them or upset their parents, or violate the Comics Code, and so forth. But over the years as I realized more and more adults were reading our books and people of college age (which is tremendously gratifying to me), I felt that now I can finally start saying some of the things I would like to say. And I don’t consciously try to keep up with the tempo or the temper of the times. What I try to do is say the things I’m interested in. I mean, I don’t want to write comics. I would love to be writing about drugs and about crime and about Vietnam and about colleges and about things that mean something. At least I can put a little of that in the stories. As I say, though, I’m really doing it for myself, not the reader. But everybody wants to say what he thinks. And if you’re in the arts, you want to show what you believe. I think that’s pretty natural.

MB: What do you consider your responsibility as a comics artist, then?

LEE: To entertain. I think comic books are basically an entertainment medium, and primarily people read them for escapist enjoyment. And I think the minute they stop being enjoyable they lose all their value. Now hopefully I can make them enjoyable and also beneficial in some way. This is a difficult trick, but I try within the limits of my own talent.

MB: Several years ago, Esquire published a collage of the “28 Who Count” on the Berkeley campus, and included were the Hulk and Spider-Man. What’s this great appeal of Marvel Comics to college students?

LEE: I don’t know. I would think the fact that there’s a sort of serendipity, there is surprise. You don’t expect to find a comic book being written as well as we try to write Marvel. You don’t expect to find a comic book that’s aimed at anyone above twelve years old. And I think a college kid might pick up a Marvel comic just to idly leaf through it and then a big word catches his eye. Or a flowery phrase or an interesting concept.

And before he knows it, not every college kid, but a good many of them are hooked. And I think it’s the fact that here is something which has always been thought .of as a children’s type of diversion. And they realize: “My God! I can enjoy this now!” This is kind of unusual.

MB: It’s like the end of the one Avengers story when you used [Percy Shelley’s poem] “Ozymandias” to reinforce the villain’s downfall.

“Life Is What Happens To You While You’re Making Other Plans” John Lennon said that—and Stan Lee, like everybody else, lives it. For example, Stan wanted to do comics outside the Code Authority, and his first effort, against publisher Martin Goodman’s “better judgment,” was Savage Tales #1 (May 1971). The “Conan,” "Femizons," "Ka-Zar," and "Man-Thing" stories therein have all been reprinted—but not "Black Brother!," the feature that started out as a conversation between Stan and Denny O’Neil over a notion of Smiley’s titled “M’Tumbu the Mighty.” (See A/E #50 for details.) Stan didn’t like the story that emerged—though not because of the art by Gene Colan & Tom Palmer or the quality of the writing—and Denny, unhappy with editorial changes, asked that his byline be changed to his familiar pseudonym “Sergius O’Shaughnessy,” taken from a character in a Norman Mailer novel. “Black Brother!” actually had possibilities as a series that were fated never to be realized, but Stan didn’t feel it was right for Marvel at that time. [©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

LEE: Wasn’t that great? That was Roy Thomas’ idea, one of the best he’s ever had. Beautiful ending that way.

MB: I’ve always wondered that perhaps the appeal is the catalog of neuroses in the super-heroes. That they’re all into the numbers people are going through now. Human fallibility, altruism, identity crises, these sorts of things. Even your arch-fiends like Dr. Doom and The Mandarin and Galactus are not really all bad. They’ve all been forced to be bad, to be misanthropes, by force of circumstances. But when’s sex going to come into Marvel Comics?

LEE: Unfortunately not until we get rid of the Comics Code, or put out a line strictly for adults (which I’ve been wanting to do). But I just

haven’t been able to convince the powers-that-be that the world is ready for them yet.

MB: Well, obviously you’ve broken some barriers by having heroes married and having children.

LEE: Hopefully, someday we’ll be able to put out a line—not that we want to do dirty books—but something that’s really significant and really on the level of the older reader.

MB: I recall one thing that wigged me in that regard: the beginning of a “Nick Fury” story where it was morning with a subtle hint of the previous night’s activities.

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Stan Lee: 1974 Re-Presenting A Classic Conversation With Marvel’s Master From Comics Feature Magazine Interview Conducted by Jay Maeder A/E EDITOR’S NOTE: Comics Feature was a professional magazine published for several years by the fabled Schuster brothers, Hal and Jack. Richard Howell and Carole Kalish, among others, cut their eyeteeth doing interviews for it, and even Ye Ed did a series for it for a time, since they’d let him write about anything he wanted to write about. This is one of several neglected Stan Lee interviews located for this issue by collector and archivist Barry Pearl, who contacted interviewer Jay Maeder. It is reprinted by permission—for which we thank Jay profusely. For his part, Barry says that the only thanks he wants for all his work on behalf Alter Ego #74 is to be recognized at last in print as an “FFF”—which stands, in the 1960s lingo of the Merry Marvel Marching Society, for “Fearless Front Facer.” You have now been duly recognized, Barry—please accept our sincerest gratitude for your Herculean efforts. Now on with the interview, in which Jay Maeder’s questions and comments were rendered in italics, with Stan’s responses in Arabic script—like so!….

T

here are probably worse things to be than the wildly celebrated king of the comics. I imagine you rather enjoy being Stan Lee.

And I must say I’m very happy that this has happened. It’s like achieving one of my goals, because I remember I wrote an editorial, it must have been a good fifteen years ago, and I said one of our main objectives would be bringing some additional measure of respect to comics, that I would consider myself and our company successful if we found a way before we were through this vale of tears to elevate comics in the minds of the public. So that if somebody said, I write comics, or I draw for comics, people would say, “Hey, really? Tell us about it.” And not say, “A grown man like you?” You know what I mean? So from that point of view I’m very happy now.

How did you get where you are?

The Uncanny Excelsior!-Man Jazzy Johnny Romita—who else?—painted the cover of Stan’s 2002 autobiography Excelsior! The Amazing Life of Stan Lee, which was co-written with George Mair for Fireside Books, a division of Simon & Schuster. While Ye Editor (and others) feel the book should’ve been longer, fleshed out with more anecdotes and hard information about the comics, and profusely illustrated with Marvel images, what was presented therein was definitely the closest look ever at Stan the man (small “m”). The book revealed far more about Stanley Martin Lieber’s personal life than had any previous article or interview or unauthorized volume, and included numerous private photos (few of which are reprinted in this issue of A/E)—and that alone would make it a “must” for the bookshelf of anyone interested in the history of comic books.

[Cover ©2007 Stan Lee & George Mair; super-heroes thereon TM & ©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

It wasn’t always this way, I must admit.

In the first fifteen years or so that I was the head writer and editor at Timely and Atlas, I remember, my wife and I would go to cocktail parties and somebody would say, “What do you do?” and I’d say, “Oh, I’m a writer.” “Really? What do you write?” And I’d start getting a little nervous and I’d say, “Uh, magazine stories.” “Really? What magazine?” And I knew there was no way of avoiding it, and I’d end up saying, “Comic books,” and suddenly the person’s expression would change… “Oh, isn’t that nice,” and they’d walk away, you know, looking for some television or radio or novelist celebrity. That’s all changed now. I go to places and I’m held up as one of the more interesting celebrities… and people go over to the playwrights, you know, and say “Hey, I want you to meet Stan Lee, he’s the head of Marvel Comics, he made up Spider-Man.”

Sheer accident. I never wanted to be a writer particularly. As a kid I joined the WPA Federal Theatre. I wanted to be an actor. But there wasn’t enough money… and I always loved advertising, and the closest I could get to it was, I found a job writing copy for a news service, and then I started writing obituaries for people who were still alive, and I was writing publicity releases for the National Jewish Tuberculosis Hospital in Denver. All of which was pretty depressing. A million things, you know. I was an office boy for a trousers company, I was an usher at the Rivoli Theatre. Anyway, they had a contest at the Herald-Tribune [newspaper], an essay contest, which I won three weeks running, and whoever the editor was at the time called me and asked me to stop entering the contest.

And he asked me what I intended to be.

I was just out of high school, you know, and I said, well, I don’t know, an advertising man or an actor or a lawyer or something, and he said why don’t you be a writer?

Coincidentally, I learned of a job that was opening up at Timely Comics. They needed a gofer. Timely Comics then had Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, and they had just sort-of created Captain America, and they were doing “The Human Torch” and “Sub-Mariner,” and I came in, and before I knew it, they had me writing “Captain America” and

Stan Lee: 1974

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Those Were The Days, My Friend (Left:) When Stan went to work for Timely Comics in 1941, Captain America was just under way and the company’s flagship title was Marvel Mystery Comics, starring “Human Torch” and “Sub-Mariner.” Marvel is currently reprinting the early issues of both mags, as well as Human Torch, Sub-Mariner, and other key titles—so we figured we’d toss in a design illustration a few years back by Sal Buscema (penciler) and Tim Townsend (inker) for a Universal theme park sculpture featuring Timely stars Torch, Namor, Cap & Bucky, The Vision, Miss America, The Angel, The Whizzer, and The Destroyer. The latter, incidentally, was the first major hero co-created by young Stan Lee. Repro’d from an image in a 2004 Heritage Comics catalog. Photo of Sal Buscema from 1969 FF Annual.

(Above:) These “Human Torch” panels ran in Marvel Mystery #32 (June 1942)—one of the last stories signed by creator Carl Burgos (photo below courtesy of daughter Susan) before he went into military service for the duration of World War II. Later-’40s “Sub-Mariner” art by Namor’s creator, Bill Everett, can be seen on p. 8. [©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

they had me doing some editing. Shortly thereafter, Joe and Jack left, and I was like the only guy there and the publisher asked me if I could fill in as editor until he found someone else. And he never found anyone and I’ve been there ever since.

I never thought of it as a permanent job. I never particularly wanted to be in the comic book business and I always figured, hey, this is great, I’ll stay here a year or two or three until I make some money and then I’ll write the Great American Novel. And for years and years I stayed in the job, never thinking of it as my permanent career. For years this went on. And I was too dumb to realize, hey, this is what you’re doing, Stan, this is it. I always had this feeling of temporariness.

And business got bad and we had to fire a lot of people… I was left with a skeleton crew, which consisted mostly of me. And we were living at Timely under the conditions where every few years there was a new trend. We’d be very big in Westerns and suddenly the Western field dried up and we had to find a new trend, and we’d be doing a lot of super-heroes and then there was a lack of interest in super-heroes so we had to find a new trend… and we’d do romances or mysteries or funny animals. Whatever. And there was no… I mean, I’d write one as well, or as badly, as another. It never made a difference to me what type of thing we were doing. The [Comics] Code was no problem to me. We never put out books that I felt were too violent or objectionable. They certainly weren’t sexy. I never had trouble putting out books that would be acceptable to whoever had to accept them. So when this period came around, it was just like another new trend. Okay, we’ve got to drop the so-called horror stories and now we’ve go to find something else to do. And we did. We came out with… I don’t even remember what we came out with, but I assume we found something.

The whole Atlas thing… this was not the greatest period the comics have ever known…

Yeah.

Atlas is into the journey into unknown world thing, you know, you and Kirby and Ditko are doing variations on the Japanese monster film, Fin Fang Foom and all this… and somewhere in here you start dreaming about a whole different approach, and what I’m asking is this: was this an accidental thing or did you guys sit down and very deliberately create a revolution. [NOTE: Actually, Maeder is referring to the post-Atlas period of the late 1950s and very early ’60s. —Roy.] Both. It was accidental and I did it deliberately. What happened was, like I say, I’d been thinking it was a temporary job, you know, I’m waiting till I’ve saved up enough money so I can quit and go do something else. And my wife said to me one day, “Stan, when are you gonna realize this is permanent? And instead of looking to do something sensational in some other field, why don’t you make something sensational about what you’re doing? I mean, you’re writing, you are creating… do something really good.”

Well, of course, up until then I had always done mostly what the publisher wanted. As you mentioned, it was not a glorious period for the comics. Certainly not for our company. And our publisher, who also published other types of books—movie books and crossword puzzle books and so on, the slicks—by this time he had left the comics pretty much in my hands. He didn’t have any tremendous interest.

They weren’t doing all that well and he wasn’t that much concerned, I suspect. And coincidentally my publisher walks in one day and he says, “You know, Stan, I just realized, I was looking at some sales figures, and I see that National Comics’ Justice League seems to be selling pretty good. That’s a bunch of super-heroes, Stan, maybe we ought to form a team of super-heroes. Maybe there’s a market for that now.”

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A Classic Conversation With Marvel’s Master

“Every Few Years There’d Be A New Trend” Stan’s point can be illustrated through the work of one artist—Syd Shores, for years a Timely mainstay, seen at top left in an overexposed photo printed in the early1970s Canadian fanzine The Satirists, surrounded by several decades of his art. (Clockwise from above:) When Simon & Kirby left Timely after doing the first ten issues of Captain America Comics, issue #11 (Feb. 1942) was penciled by Al Avison and inked by Shores—who’d soon become Cap’s major penciler for the rest of the 1940s.

When it was briefly thought super-heroines might save the industry, Syd became the primary artist of Blonde Phantom, as per this panel from #14 (Summer 1947).

Thanks to Dr. Michael J. Vassallo.

Syd also acquitted himself well, though rarely, in the burgeoning arena of horror comics, as seen in this splash page from Astonishing #16 (Aug. 1952).

Thanks to Jay Kinney & Frank Motler.

Of course, Shores also did Westerns and other genres during the 1950s— including Crusaderera derring-do in Black Knight #5 (April 1956).

When he returned to Marvel in the late ’60s, Syd Shores again inked Captain America—but he liked best when he could do full art, as per the cover of Gunhawks #2 (Dec. 1972). By this time, though, Stan and Marvel had staked out their claim as the industry leaders based on their super-heroes.

[All art in this montage ©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

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Marvel Characters Meet Their Maker!

STAN LEE’s Comic Book Cameos— Together Again For The First Time!

I

Written & Compiled by Jerry K. Boyd t’s always one of those movie moments you don’t want to miss: Stan Lee making a cameo in one of the films featuring Marvel super-heroes.

And, though Hollywood filmmakers may be patting themselves on their collective backs for these niceties, the genesis of these fun-filled filmic moments had its roots in the Marvel Age of Comics several decades ago.

Stan, allied in some instances with the likes of Jack Kirby, Dick Ayers, Carl Burgos, Stan Goldberg, and others, wrote himself (or was included by others) into the exploits of the Fantastic Four, Sgt. Fury and the Howlers, Daredevil, and even Forbush-Man and Millie the Model! Years later, as Stan the publisher relinquished his hands-on editing, writing, and art-directing chores, he still showed up in a few mags as tokens of respect from the new kids of the ’70s.

For this still-far-from-complete compilation, we largely excluded back-up tales about story conferences (even though they were a lot of fun!) and focused on The Man and his Marvel Age characters (whom he either co-created or revamped), so the result would be akin to… scenes you might see in the movies!

Some of them you’ve doubtless seen and savored before—while others may have eluded you. But we thought this 85th-birthday issue (have a good one, Stan!) might be just the place to gather a lot of these magical moments together.

The guided “Hollywood tour” begins here… in roughly chronological order… with those colorful cameos going further back than you might’ve thought…!

Stan And Friends (Above:) As per scanner Jerry Boyd’s notes, this is a photo of “Stan Lee, surrounded by some of the Marvel characters that made the House of Ideas such a wonderful place to visit, on the cover of [the house fanzine] Marvel Age #41 (Aug. 1986).” [©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.] (Below:) Jerry couldn’t resist doing his own drawing of Stan with our Marvel-ous “maskots” Alter Ego (in foreground) and Captain Ego (bkgd.), in the company of some of the heroes that you—and Stan—will be encountering on the next few pages. Even ForbushMan found time to show up for Stan’s birthday bash! JKB intended this as a heading for this issue’s letters section, but that got squeezed out this issue, so…. [Marvel heroes TM & ©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.; Alter Ego TM & ©2007 Roy & Dann Thomas; Captain Ego TM & ©2007 Roy Thomas & Bill Schelly.]

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Stan Lee’s Comic Book Cameos!

No, It Isn’t Stan Who’s “The Raving Maniac” —It’s The Other Guy! (Left:) This comic book editor in the above-titled story in Suspense #29 (March 1953) may or may not have been intended to be Stan— who apparently never smoked a cigarette except once as a prop on the cover of a 1947 issue of Writer’s Digest—but we’ve slipped it in anyway. Chances are that artist Joe Maneely meant it as a caricature of Stan, who in the final panel is even shown talking at home to his young daughter—at a time when his real daughter Joan Cecilia (see pp. 18-19) was about the same age. This excellent anti-censorship tale was reprinted in the 2005 hardcover Marvel Visionaries: Stan Lee. [©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Irma Gets Firma (Above:) Irma (as in My Friend Irma, popular 1940s-1950s radio & TV show) invades the Timely editorial offices in issue #41 of her own mag (coverdated March 1954) to see what writer/editor Stan Lee and artist Dan DeCarlo are up to in there! [©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Millie And Chili Get Silly (Left:) Millie and Chili likewise drop in on Stan and Dan, in Millie the Model #77 (April 1957), where the two creators—who apparently haven’t changed their duds since 1954—are engaged in business as usual… i.e., goofing off. [©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

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Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt!

Twice-Told Marvel Heroes!

(Part Two)

by Michael T. Gilbert

L

et’s face it. When you get right down to it, comics don’t have all that many original heroes. Mostly we have spin-offs (Superboy, Mary Marvel, and Kid Flash) or variations on a theme (super-speedsters like The Flash, Quicksilver, Mercury, Lightning, Johnny Quick, and The Whizzer).

Comic book writers often look to popular movies, comic strips, or pulp heroes for inspiration. By dipping from the same creative well, creators from different companies sometimes come up with similar super-heroes without even knowing it.

Which brings us to Stan Lee. In the 1960s, Stan co-created hundreds of heroes and villains for Marvel. Any writer that prolific is bound to re-invent the wheel on occasion. Last issue we discussed the Golden Age Daredevil, created in 1940 by Jack Cole for publisher Lev Gleason.

This time, we’re taking a look at some long-forgotten prototypes of Marvel’s most famous heroes. What better place to begin than Marvel’s first Silver Age super-hero group––The Avengers!

(Left & below:) Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s cover to the first “Iron Man” adventure in Tales of Suspense #39 (March 1963) looks remarkably similar to the cover to Quality’s Smash Comics #5 (Dec. 1939)! [Iron Man cover ©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.; Bozo art © the respective copyright holders.]

Let’s begin with the Avenger known as…

Iron Man! Long before Stan and his collaborators put Tony Stark in his metallic long-johns, another Iron Man roamed the pages of Quality’s Smash Comics. This “Iron Man” was actually not a man at all—but a robot named Bozo, controlled by his mad-scientist creator, Dr. Von Thorp.

In the origin story, Von Thorp orders his robot to terrorize the city.

Unable to stop the metal monster, the cops call on the one man with the moxie to take on the case—dashing adventurer Hugh Hazzard!

(Left:) And this “Iron Man” logo from Smash #1 (August 1939) reminds us of Marvel’s cover lettering, above. [©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

Twice-Told Marvel Heroes (Part Two)

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Who Slew Fox’s Thor?

by Will Murray Poor Victor Fox! He could do no right back in 1939-40, when the selfstyled King of Comics launched his doomed Golden Age comic book line, Fox Features. No sooner had he published the first issue of Wonder Comics, starring Will Eisner’s ill-fated “Wonder Man,” than DC Comics sued him, claiming copyright and trademark infringement on “Superman.” Fox lost that contest. End of “Wonder Man.” Wonder Comics became Wonderworld Comics.

Two months later, Fox’s Green Hornet clone, “The Blue Beetle,” first poked his feelers into the four-color forest in Mystery Men Comics #1 (Aug. 1939).

The next issue, patrolman Dan Garrett traded his trenchcoat and fedora for standard super-hero togs, not doubt avoiding an embarrassing date in court.

It didn’t stop there. When another new Fox hero, “Electro,” appeared in Science Comics #1 early in 1940, it was Timely Comics’ turn to stomp Fox. Their complaint: they had introduced a robot called (Above:) Twin Thors! The origin of Thor, God of Thunder, from Fox’s Weird Comics #1 (April 1940)—and Marvel’s from Journey into Mystery #83 (August 1962). The Jack Kirby/Joe Sinnott story inside the latter was plotted by Stan Lee and scripted by Larry Lieber. Kirby, of course, had drawn Thor before—first, a fake one in the Simon & Kirby “Sandman” story in Adventure Comics #75 (May 1942), then in DC’s Tales of the Unexpected #16 (Aug. 1957); these splashes are on display in Roy Thomas’ TwoMorrows trade paperback The All-Star Companion, Vol. 2. [Fox Thor ©2007 the respective copyright holders; Marvel Thor ©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Electro in Marvel Mystery Comics #4. Both Electros debuted in issues cover-dated Feb. 1940. Somehow Fox lost that particular horse race, and was forced to rename his hero. “Electro” became “Dynamo,” and soon ran out of power.

DC came back for another piece of Victor Fox when Jim Mooney’s “The Moth” fluttered to life in the April 1940 issue of Mystery Men Comics. Complaining that this was a thinly-disguised steal of “Batman,” DC insisted that “The Moth” cease and desist. Five issues later, he did—although Mooney later parleyed this credit into a longterm Batman gig. Editor Whit Ellsworth remembered “The Moth.”

He’d admired Mooney’s art.

Fox had no better luck with Fantastic Comics. While lead feature “Samson” continued unchallenged, “Flick Falcon” met a (Left:) As seen in Fox’s Weird Comics #1, a dejected Grant Farrel contemplates suicide after being dumped by his gal—right before blond, bearded Thor floats down amidst bolts of lightning to make him an offer he can’t refuse: “The lightning will be your servant. My magic hammer, your weapon!” Sounds a leetle familiar, eh? [©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

Of course, Marvel’s Dr. Don Blake didn’t do so well with the ladies, either!

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“Once [Stan Lee] Put Me On Staff, I Was Strictly With Timely Comics” Golden Age Timely Artist PETE TUMLINSON Talks About Timely And Others Interview Conducted by Jim Amash

Transcribed by Brian K. Morris

P

ete Tumlinson’s comic book career was relatively short, but I liked his work quite a bit in those old Timely comics of the late ’40s to the mid-1950s. Thus, I was always curious about him, and, though Pete’s recollections about those days are not extensive, I‘m just happy to share what I’ve learned about him— and about Timely (later Marvel) under Stan Lee in the postwar years through the coming of the Comics Code. —Jim.

“I Was A Flying Chauffeur For Eisenhower’s Headquarters” JIM AMASH: I’ll start with the basic question: when and where were you born?

PETE TUMLINSON: [laughs] Well, let’s see. That would be 1920 in Glasgow, Montana, June 7th.

JA: What got you interested in being an artist?

TUMLINSON: I don’t know. I’ve always done it from the very first.

JA: Did you copy newspaper strips or illustrations in magazines when you were young?

TUMLINSON: Yeah, but I didn’t stay with that exclusively. I went and dreamed up things of my own, sooner or later. I didn’t do much writing. Over the years, I had several classes in different things from figure drawing to painting.

I went to the University of Chicago one time when I was very young—high school, I think. And at one time I took illustration in Dallas. I can’t think of the name of the place right now. They called me cold on a Saturday morning. [mutual laughter] I got a B.A. in architecture at Texas A&M. JA: What years were you in college?

TUMLINSON: ’39 to ’42. I didn’t finish, though. I went off to the war and then I came back after the war and finished. I was in the Air Force.

I started out in the field artillery. I volunteered. You see, I started out in the ROTC in college, so I just continued. In the meantime, the war started.

I transferred to the Air Corps. It later became the [Army] Air Force[s]. They were enlarging at that time, so they were taking people from other branches. That’s how I got from field artillery to the Air Force. After I got my wings, I—it was a long time ago. I’m trying to

This Is Not Pete Tumlinson Alas, we were unable to obtain a photograph of Pete Tumlinson by presstime. So, to lead off his interview, we’ll showcase a splash page he drew starring one of the most famous features he worked on—“Kid Colt” from Wild Western #20 (Feb. 1952). Incidentally, except where otherwise noted below, all art accompanying this interview was provided by Dr. Michael J. Vassllo. [©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

get this in the right order. At one point there, I went overseas and I went to SHAEF headquarters. I was a flying chauffeur for

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Golden Age Timely Artist Pete Tumlinson

Eisenhower’s headquarters. [NOTE: General Dwight D. Eisenhower was Supreme Allied Commander in Europe from 1943-45; SHAEF stood for “Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces.

—Roy.] JA: Did you see any combat?

TUMLINSON: Not on a personal level. I was in the war theatre, all right. I had a buzz bomb go off under me one time. But that was a thousand feet in the air, so it didn’t hurt me. I was used to them by that time, so it didn’t scare me much then, but that was about the closest I came to one.

I was mainly a flying chauffeur. I flew back over from places like London to Paris and then, later on, Berlin. Actually, I didn’t go to Berlin. I went to Frankfurt.

JA: Were you flying dignitaries, men of state, that sort of thing?

TUMLINSON: All kinds, everything from secretaries to generals.

“I Started Off As A Freelancer” JA: When were you discharged?

TUMLINSON: In ’46, after the war. I got my degree and then went off to Dallas and worked for an advertising company for a while. Later on, I went up to New York and drew comic books. I’d always been interested in comics. I drew them in school and in college, so it was just a natural step.

JA: I don’t know if this is accurate, but you’ll tell me. I have you working for a company called “DS Publishing” before you started working for Timely.

TUMLINSON: That would be DC. DC was a comic book publisher.

A Question Of Identity Pete didn’t recall working for DS Publishing or Orbit Publications, possibly because those companies used other names in dealing with freelancers. But the everresearching Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr., sent Jim Amash the three above scans with this accompanying note, based on the artist’s own sketchy recollections: “It is certainly possible that Tumlinson didn’t do the story in [DS’s] Gangsters Can’t Win, Vol. 1, #1 (Feb-March 1948)… but take a good look at this sample page [above left]. And I’d bet dollars to doughnuts that he did these ‘Nuggets Nugent’ strips in Orbit’s The Westerner #32 & #34.” And that’s where we’ll have to let it stand, Jim—except to say that the two Orbit issues in question came out in late 1950 through early 1951.

[GCW cover ©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.; Westerner art ©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

JA: Okay, so you did not work for a company called DS, did you?

JA: Did you work for DC Comics?

TUMLINSON: No, I don’t remember anything with an “S” in it. In New York, I worked for Stan Lee at Timely.

TUMLINSON: I may have done one or two freelance jobs, but I didn’t have a steady job there. Most of the time, I was with Stan Lee.

JA: You’re listed as having worked for editor Ray Herman at Orbit.

Did you?

JA: What did you show Stan when you were looking for work? Did you make up some comic book samples?

TUMLINSON: I don’t think so.

TUMLINSON: Well, I already had plenty of samples of different things that I had done, and a lot of them were comic strips. Like I say, I

[Captain Marvel by Rubén Procopio. Shazam! characters art TM & ©2007 DC Comics.]

75

Oddly, in the title panel atop the first page, in the portraits of Judi and her canine friend Jango, more attention appears to have been paid to the rendering of the dog … than to the girl. It’s an inconsistency that prevails throughout the project. Jango was an opportunity to utilize something I was learning at the time … how to use the flexible ink pen.

By

[Art & logo ©2007 Marc Swayze; Captain Marvel © & TM 2007 DC Comics]

[FCA EDITORS NOTE: From 1941-53, Marcus D. Swayze was a top artist for Fawcett Publications. The very first Mary Marvel character sketches came from Marc’s drawing table, and he illustrated her earliest adventures, including the classic origin story, “Captain Marvel Introduces Mary Marvel (Captain Marvel Adventures #18, Dec. ’42); but he was primarily hired by Fawcett Publications to illustrate Captain Marvel stories and covers for Whiz Comics and Captain Marvel Adventures. He also wrote many Captain Marvel scripts, and continued to do so while in the military.

After leaving the service in 1944, he made an arrangement with Fawcett to produce art and stories for them on a freelance basis out of his Louisiana home. There he created both art and story for The Phantom Eagle in Wow Comics, in addition to drawing the Flyin’ Jenny newspaper strip for Bell Syndicate (created by his friend and mentor Russell Keaton). After the cancellation of Wow, Swayze produced artwork for Fawcett’s top-selling line of romance comics, including Sweethearts and Life Story. After the company ceased publishing comics, Marc moved over to Charlton Publications, where he ended his comics career in the mid-’50s. Marc’s ongoing professional memoirs have been a vital part of FCA since his first column appeared in FCA #54, 1996. Last issue Marc looked back at when he first began to work on Fawcett’s romance comics. In this installment he discusses his very first attempted syndicated comic strip, Judi the Jungle Girl. —P.C. Hamerlinck.]

I

t’s difficult to recall just what I was looking for recently when I came upon a mystifying packet of original art panels. It turned out to be Sunday page art that had been cut up and rearranged for tabloid newspaper proportion. Apparently there had been enough syndicate interest at some point to justify the laborious modification.

Whatever … there it was … the first comic strip I ever drew … wrote … attempted. Its title: Judi the Jungle Girl.

I was disappointed with what I saw. Immediate criticism was the scanty renderings of background foliage. For a strip with the word “jungle” in the title, there wasn’t enough “jungle” in the pictures. Not enough, that is, to provide an appropriate mood for the environment intended.

Of most concern, I thought, was the drawing … or lack of drawing … of the principal character. Judi, from head to toe, the figure, the costume, was done in simple, thin lines … with no shading. It left a feeling that a slight breeze from the nearest window might blow her from the page!

It’s possible that I could have been struggling at the time with a fear of shading … of any kind … on the flesh tone. Not until the fourth page, in a mid-panel close-up, does a lightly feathered halftone shadow appear, on the face of one of the bad guys.

I don’t know what prompted me to attempt a jungle girl feature. A detective would have been easier … or a cowboy. The work I held had been so obviously dominated by a mad urgency … a haste to do what I was not yet capable of doing … write and draw a comic strip. It’s doubtful that I was aware in 1939-40 that comic books existed, other than those with reprints of past newspaper strips. I would certainly have not known if a “jungle girl” was in print.

Influenced by Tarzan of the Apes? Of course, but not the movie … or the comic strip … the novel, by Edgar Rice Burroughs. It had been read to me as a kid, and I was still impressed by the way the author had made jungle life so plausible.

Hoping to find a favorable aspect or two in the Judi work, I went through it again. Not bad work, considering the professional experience behind it … none. And, in the business just long enough to know it was where I belonged, the impatience that characterized the project can be understood. There was distinction among the characters … and they weren’t afraid to use their hands and arms in expressing emotions.

The writing, particularly the first few pages, might be considered creditable. And, the first page, where the puppy Jingo is being sniffed at by a friendly dweller of the wilderness, leaves me pleased at not having discarded the Judi drawings.

[Following is Marc Swayze’s complete contingent of Judi of the Jungle sample strips prepared nearly 70 years ago. All art & story ©2007 Marc Swayze.]

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76

“We Didn’t Know... It Was The Golden Age!”

84

The Phantom Of The Department Store An Early Captain Marvel Yuletide Yarn

by John G. Pierce

C

aptain Marvel is pitted against a foe he can’t seem to see in “The Phantom of the Department Store,” a Christmas story from Fawcett’s Captain Marvel Adventures #19 (Jan. 1943).

The tale begins with Mr. Morris sending Billy and Steamboat (who is preoccupied with a camera he has) to Massey’s Department Store (obviously a thinly-disguised version of the real-life Macy’s) to pick up some items. Billy mentions to Steamboat during their trek down to the store that Massey’s seems to have more business than the city’s other large department store, Dunkel’s (not too close an approximation of the name of Macy’s then-rival Gimbel’s—“Does Macy’s tell Gimbel’s?” was a popular catch phrase of the day).

Also taking note of the success of Massey’s are Mr. Dunkel and one of his associates, but the former begins making plans to do something about it. Later, an already-costumed “Santa Claus” appears to apply for Massey’s advertised Santa job, and is summarily hired. “Your duties will be simply to walk up and down the store and add Christmas atmosphere.” “I’ll add plenty of atmosphere, never fear,” responds the newly-hired Kris Kringle.

A few minutes later, in the clothing department, a clerk is showing a prospective customer a suit and telling him to “just picture yourself in it, walking briskly,” when suddenly the suits starts walking—and talking—by itself. And, not content with simply walking, it starts into a Highland fling! The customer flees in panic, while the clerk hurriedly

Edited by P.C. Hamerlinck calls Mr. Massey. By the time the boss arrives on the scene, the suit is lying on the floor, leaving the clerk to defend himself from Mr. Massey’s charge that “You’ve been sampling spirits! From a bottle!”

But elsewhere, as a man is contemplating the purchase of a dress for his wife, with a female clerk’s assurance that “It will animate her,” the dress does indeed suddenly become animated, and even attempts to dance with the customer.

A cry of help reaches Billy’s ears, and a quick “Shazam!” brings Captain Marvel onto the scene. He punches the dress, while commenting that it is the “First time I ever fought a wire dummy.”

After finding nothing more than wire and metal, Cap changes back to Billy, who notes that the incident “seems to have scared most everyone out of the store, too, except this store Santa Claus,” who cheerfully wishes Billy a “Merry Christmas.” Customers flee the store, vowing never to come back, while Mr. Massey laments that “Business is being ruined! What is that phantom? How can it be stopped?”

Meanwhile, Billy continues trying to fill Mr. Morris’s shopping list in the hardware department, while Steamboat spots a dummy display and starts to snap a picture—when the dummy abruptly comes to life.

Steamboat calls out a warning to Billy as the dummy is about to hit him with a hammer, bringing forth another quick “Shazam!” from Billy and the return of Captain Marvel, who wonders aloud that

Well, Cap And Santa Do Wear Similar Color Schemes….

Splash of “Captain Marvel and the Phantom of the Department Store,” from Captain Marvel Adventures #19 (Jan. 1943). Art by the C.C. Beck art staff. [©2007 DC Comics.]