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Contents

THE

KIRBY CONSPIRACIES! CONSPIRATORIAL. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 INNERVIEW. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 part two of James Van Hise’s 1984 interview with Jack

ISSUE #89, SPRING 2024

C o l l e c t o r

ANALYSEZ. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 the MCU’s failed TV/film projects JACK FAQs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Mark Evanier’s 2023 Comic-Con Kirby Tribute Panel, with Jeremy Kirby, Bruce Simon, Mark Badger, Jon B. Cooke, and Paul S. Levine ONOMASTICAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 the name game GALLERY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Kirby’s co-conspirators, in pencil INCIDENTAL ICONOGRAPHY. . . . . 34 Sean Kleefeld pictures Joe & Jack in the 1950s PROBLEM CHILD. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Will Murray goes muy Loki FACE-OFF. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41 WAR STAR. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 FOUNDATIONS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 a never-reprinted S&K crime story KIRBY KINETICS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Norris Burroughs takes A.I.M. KIRBY OBSCURA. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 cat people abound 5-4-3-2-1-G-BOMB. . . . . . . . . . . . 58 was the Hulk’s a Freemason? TIME KILLER. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 the Kang conundrum COLLECTOR COMMENTS. . . . . . . . 78 Cover marker/inks: JACK KIRBY Cover color: GLENN WHITMORE COPYRIGHTS: Challengers of the Unknown, Darkseid, Demon, Desaad, Forever People, Gilotina, Goody Rickels, Kamandi, Lashina, Mad Harriet, Misfit, Morticoccus, OMAC, Stompa, Superman TM & © DC Comics • Adaptoid, AIM, Alicia Masters, Avengers, Batroc, Black Bolt, Bruce Banner, Bucky, Captain America, Crystal, Dr. Bloom, Dr. Doom, Eternals, Fantastic Four, Giant-Man, Gorgon, Growing Man, Hate Monger, Hawkeye, Hulk, Ikaris, Inhumans, Iron Man, Kang, Karnak, Karnilla, Lockjaw, Loki, Maximus, Modok, Nick Fury, Odin, Quicksilver, Rama-Tut, Red Skull, Rick Jones, Scarlet Witch, Sgt. Fury, Sharon Carter/Agent 13, SHIELD, Silver Burper, Silver Surfer, Spider-Man, Sub-Mariner, Super Adaptoid, Thing, Thor, Thunderbolt Ross, Wasp TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. • Black Magic, Fighting American, Foxhole, Speedboy, Strange World of Your Dreams TM & © Joe Simon & Jack Kirby Estates • Conan TM & © Conan Properties International LLC • Captain Victory, Collages, Comet Feldman, Comet Feldmeyer, Darius Drumm, Elves, Galaxy Green, Secret City Saga, Silver Star TM & © Jack Kirby Estate • Lord of Light © Roger Zelazny • Mandrake the Magician TM & © King Features Syndicate, Inc. • Dr. Mortalis TM & © Empire International Pictures • Roxie’s Raiders, other animation presentation pieces TM & © Ruby Spears Productions

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[above] Illo of Darkseid, created at 1984’s San Diego Comic-Con. Courtesy of Heritage Auctions. The Jack Kirby Collector, Vol. 30, No. 89, Spring 2024. Published quarterly (or is it?) by and © TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. 919-449-0344. John Morrow, Editor/Publisher. Single issues: $15 postpaid US ($19 elsewhere). Four-issue subscriptions: $53 Economy US, $78 International, $19 Digital. Editorial package © TwoMorrows Publishing, a division of TwoMorrows Inc. All characters are trademarks of their respective companies. All Kirby artwork is © Jack Kirby Estate unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter is © the respective authors. Views expressed here are those of the respective authors, and not necessarily those of TwoMorrows Publishing or the Jack Kirby Estate. First printing. PRINTED IN CHINA. ISSN 1932-6912

Conspiratorial

Secrets Admirer

Editor John Morrow co-conspired with Richard Kolkman to write this... or did he?

Joseph Heller, in his book Catch-22, famously wrote, “Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.” That can oddly describe the fine line we walk in comics history, trying to ferret out the behind-the-scene secrets of our favorite comics and creators. I try to stay open to new information as it comes to light, but we all should still keep a skeptical view of explosive new details that seem to fall out of the sky. So if sensationalism is what you were looking for this issue... well, you came to the wrong place. Instead, I’m taking a softer approach (sort of like how Darkseid on this issue’s cover is Jack’s “kinder, gentler” 1980s version, compared to his more sinister, craggy debut in 1971). Instead of reallife intrigue, this issue’s more about admiring the secrets that Jack worked into his own comics stories, even if they’re unproven, and just in the realm of fan theory. Nothing sparked my curiosity on this as much at Robert Guffey’s “G-Bomb” article on... well, just read it, and you’ll see what I mean. I don’t want to spill the beans. Secret Societies permeate Jack’s work—groups like Hydra, A.I.M. (a division of THEM, as was the Secret Empire), and even the Ninth Men of the Secret City Saga (which has the word “secret” right in its title!). Then there’s the Prisoner, which is exactly the kind of conspiracy I’m talking about—but we’ve covered that series in-depth previously, and it was only one unpublished issue. Weren’t the original X-Men operating in secret from Professor Xavier’s school? And The Inhumans were said to be hidden from mankind in the Himalayas/Andes—do they qualify? What about the Sect of “Billion Dollars Bates” in Forever People #8, or Morgaine le Fay’s mystic army in Demon #1? And the Taurey group from the “Madbomb” saga in Captain America #193–200 was organized, secret, and definitely conspiring! The Global Peace Agency from OMAC worked in public, presumably for the greater good, but their identities were completely hidden. Richard Kolkman clued me in to John Lennon’s 1969 art concept “bagism.” Related to his and Yoko’s bed-ins, their satirical stance was that by living completely inside a bag, a person could not be judged by their skin color or physical appearance: only ideas would matter. Was this Jack’s inspiration for the GPA? As you can see, there’s a lot of room for theorizing in this issue, and that’s a big part of the fun of reading Kirby comics. Slowly learning the secrets Jack reveals, as he leads up to a climatic battle or story ending, is almost as good as seeing his bombastic art play out on a page. And reexamining his work to find new “evidence” is what this issue’s about. So enjoy this exercise, and do your part to spread the word about Jack’s genius—remember, you’re not sworn to secrecy! H

onsidering the sensationalistic sound of this issue’s theme, I wouldn’t be surprised if you came here expecting the 411 on how Timely Comics cheated Simon & Kirby out of their royalties on Captain America Comics, and Prize/ Crestwood cooked its books to keep from paying Joe and Jack money, and the “Marvel Method” was a secret conspiracy to scam artists out of cash and credit, and who in the 1970s Marvel offices plotted to make Jack’s books fail, and the identity of a forger who once created fake originals of key Marvel Comics covers... I could go on and on. As Mark Evanier says in this issue’s Kirby Tribute Panel, “There’s such a thing as history,” and there’s certainly no shortage of dirt to dig up about nefarious dealings surrounding Jack’s career. The amount of knowledge that’s come to light since I published the first issue of TJKC is staggering, but there’s still a lot more to learn about all those topics, and they’ll continue to be covered in future issues. So much of what we know is still in the realm of hearsay, that I hesitated to even mention those here, since there are already so many theories floating around fandom about all of the above... ...which begs the question: When does a theory cross over into being a “conspiracy theory”? A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that relies on the belief that there’s a secret plan by a group behind it all. It’s usually based on incomplete or inaccurate information, replaced by what someone “feels” instead of what is proven. Take the Lord of Light film/theme park fiasco. We first covered that project back in TJKC #11 in 1996, when it looked like it was just a failed business opportunity that Jack drew artwork for. There was a hint of some criminal dealings behind it, and one of the principals was found guilty of embezzling production funds—which led to all kinds of speculation of other unscrupulous events that contributed to the project’s collapse. But as Mark Twain noted, “Truth is stranger than fiction,” and it wasn’t until a 2007 Wired magazine article was published, that we learned the CIA used the movie’s production materials in 1979 as a cover to get into Iran to rescue Americans trapped in the Canadian embassy there. Ben Affleck bought the rights to that Wired article, and made the 2012 film Argo based on it, which went on to win three Academy Awards, including Best Picture. That’s a crazy story, and as far as we know now, it’s true. But if you’d have pitched that notion to me back in 1996, I would have laughed it off as a conspiracy theory—and at that point, without the evidence we have now, it would’ve been just that. It took another decade before we Kirby fans discovered there was a lot more to the Lord of Light story, and now, almost thirty years later, we may not know it all yet.

[left] Kirby’s rendition (inked by Mike Royer) of “Sam” for the 1978 Lord of Light project.

Innerview

Kirby Interview, Part 2

Conducted by James Van Hise for his article in Comics Feature #34 (1985) • Part 1 appeared in TJKC #87 Thanks to James, and to Jim Van Heuklon for his assistance in facilitating the original transcript

[Based on Jack’s comments herein, this interview took place in late 1984, between his work on Super Powers I #5 and Hunger Dogs.]

those books, I created another army of characters, which is still popular today. VAN HISE: Why did you leave DC before it was actually completed? Because you just now came back. KIRBY: Let’s say there’s a dark side to comics. It involves personalities, differences, a lot of things. It has nothing to do with creating characters and stories. And those things can develop, so you’ve got to meet those things head-on, and I did. I made decisions about those things about as easily as I made decisions about a story.

JAMES VAN HISE: How much were you involved with the creation of a lot of the Marvel heroes. Were you in on... ? JACK KIRBY: When I came up to Marvel, they were just about closing up. I had them all. It was a kind of last gasp of the DC thing. When I came up there, I came up there after Classics [Illustrated]. There was nowhere else to go but Marvel. And I found that they were gonna close that very afternoon. I told them not to do it. Marvel was a VAN HISE: When you case of survival. Initially came back to Marvel I did the monster stories after working with DC, or whatever they had. other than doing the I guaranteed them that Eternals, were there I’d sell their magazines. other goals you wanted Detail of Jack’s pencils from Eternals #14 (Aug. 1977), sort of featuring the Hulk. And I did. They began to to achieve besides doing liven up a bit, I suppose. I knew they were lacking the super-heroes. your own characters? Nobody had done [them] in many, many a year. After the war, the KIRBY: No. My goals had been achieved. I’m not out to achieve super-heroes kind of faded. And of course, Spiderman is mine. The goals. I’m a guy with a job. Doing my own books wasn’t a goal; I Hulk is mine. They’re all mine. With Spiderman, I couldn’t handle just wanted to do something different. I knew that if I did the same that. I was handling everything else. I was handling the entire line. old thing, that it wouldn’t help DC. My job was to help DC. That’s Spiderman was give to Ditko, who did a wonderful job on it. I develwhat I was there for. In fact, they came out to California to see me. It oped Spiderman. Ditko’s style sold Spider-Man. Ditko’s stories, would certainly have been stupid of me to disappoint them. I didn’t which were wonderful, developed Spider-Man. Ditko did the Spiderwant to disappoint them. I wanted to give them something beyond Man that’s popular with everybody today. It’s Ditko in Spider-Man the stuff they had. The stuff they had wasn’t making it. I had to give that does it. them something different in order to make it, and I had to make it. That’s a tough thing to do. And so I did it. VAN HISE: He left Marvel. Did you ever consider taking on the book yourself? VAN HISE: What chance did they offer you by doing the New Gods KIRBY: No, I got involved in other things. I got involved with the that you couldn’t have accomplished by doing the New Gods at New Gods. I wanted to do something different. I’m an experimenter, Marvel? basically. I wanted to do the first novel in comics. And I did it in KIRBY: There’s a whole ’nother story that I’m not telling you. All I’m the New Gods. In four books, I did the New Gods, the Forever People, telling you is just what I do, editorially. And that whole ’nother story Jimmy Olsen, and Mister Miracle. The DC people came to me here in is a different kind of a story. So... California. I was still with Marvel. And they said, “Well, Superman is VAN HISE: Is that the story about people basically taking credit for dying, Time magazine says Superman can’t carry the line. Would you work you had done? like to do a Superman?” I says, ‘No, I don’t want to do Superman.’ KIRBY: It’s part of that. When other people interfere with your work, The guy said, “But you’re doing a good job.” I said, ‘I like to do my you apply at another company. own books. I like to do my own writing. I’d like to do something new.’ I says, ‘What’s your worst book?’ It was Jimmy Olsen. I says, VAN HISE: When you did the Eternals, was there a reason why the ‘Give me Jimmy Olsen.’ I took Jimmy Olsen and incorporated Jimmy only established Marvel character you used in it was Nick Fury? Olsen with the god books. And of course, Jimmy Olsen sold very Because even when the Hulk appeared, it was actually a robot Hulk. well. All the books connected with the New Gods sold well. And from KIRBY: Well, it was a gimmick. It was the Hulk because I felt it was 3

Mark Evanier

JACK F.A.Q.s

A column answering Frequently Asked Questions about Kirby

2023 Comic-Con International Kirby Tribute Panel Held on Sunday, July 23, 2023 at Comic-Con International: San Diego Featuring [left to right] moderator Mark Evanier, Jeremy Kirby, Bruce Simon, Mark Badger, Jon B. Cooke, and (not shown) Paul S. Levine Transcribed by S.E. Dogaru, and copyedited by Mark Evanier and John Morrow • Photos by Chris Ng and John Morrow

[above] The 9th volume of Fantagraphics’ complete Pogo reprints goes on sale Summer 2024, edited by Mark Evanier. [right] Mark Evanier’s two-part biography of Jack, published in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1059–1060 (March 4 and 11, 1994). [next page, top] The program book for Jack’s surprise 70th birthday party at the 1987 Comic-Con International. [next page, bottom] While some ComicCon attendees could be considered strange desert people, these aren’t them—but instead, a 1980s animation concept by Jack.

MARK EVANIER: I look forward to this more than any panel at this convention. This is panel number ten for me at this convention; I’ve got four more after this one. [applause] This is my favorite because, first of all, it’s nice to be in a room full of people who appreciate Jack Kirby. People who appreciate Jack Kirby are some of the smartest, brightest people in the world. [applause] As many of you know, I spent twenty years of my life with Walt Kelly’s daughter. And when Roz Kirby passed away and I went to the funeral, I brought Carolyn Kelly with me. I introduced Carolyn to [Jack’s daughter] Lisa Kirby. So we had the DNA of the greatest funny animal artist in the world meeting the DNA of the greatest super-hero adventure artist in the world. And I was thinking, if you could somehow clone these two things and cross-pollinate them, we’d grow a new Wally Wood. [laughter] So we are going to talk about Jack for as long as they let us have this room. Let me introduce you to the panel here, folks: this is Jeremy Kirby, Jack’s grandson. [applause] This is my longtime friend, and cartoonist, and Kirby expert, Mr. Bruce Simon. [applause] Another great artist, and another Kirby scholar, Mr. Mark Badger. [applause] This is the great comics historian and the author of probably the best book I’ve seen on comic book history—if you haven’t seen the Charlton Companion, get that book. That is one of the best researched books I have ever seen about comics. This is Jon Cooke. [applause] And the attorney who represented Jack for a while, and later 10

represented the Rosalind Kirby Trust, and full disclosure, represents me, Mr. Paul S. Levine. [applause] We will be joined shortly by Tom King, who’s off somewhere polishing his many Eisner awards. [laughter] I will try to keep my opening remarks fairly brief, because we’ve got a lot of panelists here, but I want to read you—I got an e-mail this morning from Jim Van Hise. Is Jim here by any chance? Okay. I need my glasses to read the incredibly tiny type on this. “Over on Bob Beerbohm’s Facebook page, I mentioned your [Comics Buyer’s Guide] obituary for Jack, and we talked about how Timely screwed Simon and Kirby out of their royalties on Captain America. Someone posted he doesn’t believe that story because Jack never mentioned it in any interview, and claims it was just something Joe Simon made up. Perhaps something for your Jack Kirby tribute panel today?” Joe Simon did not make that up. The fact that Jack never said it in an interview does not mean it didn’t happen. There’s lots of stuff about Jack Kirby that he never said in interviews. There were a bunch of quotes that I was fortunate enough to be present for, and was able to remember. One was his prediction for the future

the fact that some kid who was reading comics didn’t know what he’d done—that mattered a little bit, but what mattered more was his income, his ability to provide for his family that was harmed by the fact that he was not able to get the kind of deal that he felt he was entitled to, and that a lot of people later at Marvel would’ve given him gladly, if they’d been in charge at the time. Remember that the last straw that drove Jack away from Marvel in 1969, was a lawyer who basically said, “We don’t need you, anybody can do what you do. All you do is just draw what Stan told you to draw.” That lawyer not understanding what Jack did, was damaging to Jack and was also damaging to Marvel. Jack didn’t really care that much about people saying he was a great artist. He wanted people to recognize that he created properties, which at that time, he predicted would be worth billions of dollars. People laughed at him, and guess what they’re worth now? Anyway, we have with us Jeremy Kirby. Jeremy, would you like to say anything about recent documentaries that are around? JEREMY KIRBY: Yeah, absolutely. I would like to thank every single person in this room, obviously, for being here. You guys are awesome, and it really inspires us to keep my grandfather’s legacy alive.

of the San Diego con. You know that one, right? And the story when he read in some fanzine of some kid who was taking over a Kirby comic like Captain America, and he wanted to do stories “in the Kirby tradition.” And Jack said, “The kid doesn’t get it. The Kirby Tradition is to create a new comic.” [laughter] And so I was there for that. I sometimes see people say, “Well, we can’t possibly know what happened between Lee and Kirby in those rooms, because it’s just those two men were there, and nobody else was there.” In the same way, “We can’t possibly know who shot Abraham Lincoln. You can’t possibly know, you weren’t there when Adolf Hitler allegedly did all those terrible things.” There’s such a thing as history. If you don’t trust observers and scholars and data and things that were written contemporaneously, you’re more or less giving up the whole concept of history. One of the reasons that I have some of the viewpoints I have on Stan Lee and Jack Kirby—which I am finishing soon—is that I think I’m the only person alive who ever worked for both men. I spent an awful lot of time talking to them. And both of them were different men when they didn’t have a tape recorder running and a microphone shoved in their face in public. Stan Lee, when he was interviewed in public, was trying to project a certain image, not just so much for the fans, but for whoever owned Marvel at the time and would buy it next. This is an important thing to remember. People sometimes say, “What do you mean Stan never gave Jack his credit? In those Bullpen pages, he said Jack was a brilliant artist.” Yeah, but the people who ran Marvel at the time, the people who Jack counted on for a fair deal in his employment, did not understand what Jack had done, and what he had contributed to that company. And that was the thing that pissed Jack off. That was the issue, it was not 11

[above] Jack’s pencil makes some magic in this Mandrake the Magician animation concept for Ruby-Spears. [below] The San Diego con may not be the biggest party in the galaxy, but it’s pretty close! A 1981 Kirby promo piece for the event.

BRUCE: Right, and then people who weren’t Kirby fans would say, “Oh, he’s the guy who draws the blocky fingers,” you know? But Mark is right, Jack could do sensitive line drawings—beautifully observed line drawings too, he could do it.

about that stuff, and he didn’t want to lead you in a different direction than your mind was going. COOKE: Do you think he knew, or was it just—? EVANIER: I think a lot of it was very instinctual. Jack liked to give people answers even if he had to figure them out on the spot. And someone went up to him one time and asked, “What’s Captain America’s shield made out of?” Jack made up this whole story on the spot, with a story of a meteorite.

BADGER: Artists want to know what pen it is. Because you ask Craig Russell what pen he draws with, because you think, “If I draw with this pen, I’m gonna get good.” What pencil did Jack draw with? That’s not going to help. COOKE: I would ask about the allegories, if you want to really dig in to the Fourth World. I wonder, is there a relationship between Apokolips and the Warsaw Ghetto? I mean, just these—he just seemed to be talking about the great escape from the Lower East Side. Was he talking about the great escape from the Lower East Side? You know, was it the freedom to jump over to New Genesis? And I would just say, “Tell me the allegory.” Would he answer, do you think?

BRUCE: And they would never get the same story [twice]. [laughter] COOKE: Was Desaad [based on the Nazi Joseph] Goebbels? EVANIER: Yes and no. I think one of the parts of Jack’s genius was taking this, this, this, and this, that nobody else had combined, and [go to town with it]. Anyway, the question I would have asked him is, “Where the hell is Tom King?” [laughter] And why are we out of time? Folks, will you thank Mr. Paul Levine, Mr. Jon Cooke, Mr. Bruce Simon, Mr. Mark Badger, and Mr. Jeremy Kirby? H

EVANIER: You know, when people asked him that kind of question, it was kind of like he wanted to give you the answer you wanted to be hear—and I don’t mean that in a bad way. He liked that you thought 22

Onomastical

The Name Game Sample Headline A Partial Taxonomy of Jack Kirby’s Names, by Mark Peters

hen looking at the work of Jack Kirby, many aspects jump out—some of them literally. His foreshortened figures are the ultimate 3-D. His mythic storytelling is propulsive 20th century religion. His cosmic perspective could turn an atheist into a believer. But there’s an easily overlooked aspect of Kirby’s work that is of a piece with comics history, while also displaying his penchant for storytelling and power: names. I’m drawn to this topic because I am a Namor—er, namer.

where it’s hard to know who came up with what. So, all these names will be from the 1970s, especially from Kirby’s early ’70s work at DC, when he created the Fourth World, a group of comics consisting of The New Gods, Mister Miracle, The Forever People, and Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen, plus other comics such as The Demon, OMAC, and Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth. Some names will also come from Kirby’s return to Marvel in the mid-seventies, when he created The Eternals, Devil Dinosaur, and Machine Man, returned to his creations Black Panther and Captain America, and did a mind-blowing adaptation of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Kirby wrote, penciled, and edited these comics, too. I originally planned to look at all of Kirby’s names from this period—for characters, places, concepts, and gizmos. But that would have involved thousands of names, and I’m no hero. So I’m going to stick to names for characters, which is somewhat manageable. And I’m going to focus on some specific types of Kirby names that recur through the ’70s: names that spotlight character or appearance, respellings, allusions, alliterative names, and names packed with multiple meanings.

Gouldian Names

[above] Female Furies from Mister Miracle #10 (Oct. 1972). Left to right are Mad Harriet, Stompa, and Lashina. [next page] In addition to more Stompa from issue #10 [top], there’s Gilotina from Mister Miracle #8 (June 1972).

I name products, services, events, campaigns, etc. for companies that need a word nerd’s help cooking up the right moniker. As naming became one of the primary streams of my so-called freelance career, and then a full-time job, and then freelance again, I started thinking about Kirby’s names and how they can be understood. For the sake of simplicity, I’m focusing on Kirby’s work in the 1970s. After co-creating the Marvel Universe in the ’60s, Kirby was naturally upset at not being given the credit and money that went to Stan Lee, a great editor and hype man who was hardly hands-on in doing the actual comics. So Kirby went to DC Comics and began writing, penciling, and editing his own work. For this period, and the return to Marvel that followed, Kirby was pretty close to a one-man band, so we know the names came from him, unlike the Lee/Kirby stuff, 23

The most common category of Kirby names might be those that reveal character or describe that character’s appearance; names Kirby himself identified as in the Dickensian tradition of Oliver Twist and the Artful Dodger. Of course, such names have a tradition in comic strips and books as well, primarily due to Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy, which Kirby surely read and enjoyed. Gould’s characters—such as Tess Trueheart, Sam Catchem, Pruneface, Flattop, and Breathless Mahoney, are precursors to all that follows. Many 1970s Kirby characters are named with creative accuracy. Dr. Bedlam, foe of Mister Miracle, is an evil doctor who creates bedlam. Mad Harriet of Mister Miracle’s Female Furies is a wild-haired warrior who is crazy. New Gods protagonist Orion’s pal Lightray is almost literally a ray of light—he’s based on Balder from Norse mythology, and is cheerful and friendly, where Orion is conflicted and grumpy. Mister Little from Black Panther is a little person, while Stanga from New Gods #6’s back-up is a hermit. You get the idea. On the stereotypical villain side of things, Albert Von Killowitz is a Nazi war criminal. Ugly Mannheim is self-explanatory, as is Baron Von Evilstein. You can definitely see the influence of Kirby’s war experience in some of these names. It’s hard to blame a Jewish man who helped liberate a concentration camp for some stereotypically evil German names.

Kringey Creetins and Other Respellings

In the omniverse of brands, this is a common method of distinguishing a product and making a name clear while also trademarkable. Think about Lyft, Flickr, Reddit, Getir, and Krispy Kreme. Two minor Machine Man characters are examples:

Gallery

Conspired Art

Conspiracies in Kirby’s work, with commentary by Shane Foley [right] Fantastic Four #66, page 4 (Sept. 1967) In a comic universe jam-packed with secret societies and conspiring cabals, Kirby here added yet another one with ‘the Bee-Hive’. Unbelievably complete pencils begin with the evocatively designed ‘Transfer Grid’ (which I presume has steps on the far side for poor Alicia to descend), then reveal the masterminds. Dominating personalities are represented by Kirby with powerful physical frames. It’s interesting to follow Kirby’s plot notes—how things important to him (why Hamilton wore a helmet, how Alicia was affected by the hum of the place) are ignored by scripter Lee, who instead pushes the drama and mystery of these scientists, who had conspired to seem, to the world, to be dead. [next page] Strange Tales #141, page 10 (Feb. 1966) This sequence is so over-the-top, it would do Macgyver proud. Far less complete pencils than the previous page, superbly inked by Frank Giacoia; who would know Kirby was drawing and plotting quickly when he thought this jail escape through? Or had he watched something recently—a movie or TV show—which got his creative juices going? Even with The Fixer (eventually revealed to be working for THEM/Hydra) getting sheeted up to look like a blob, Kirby gets movement and action into his body. And aren’t those gadgets convincing? [page 28] Tales of Suspense #93, page 8 (Sept. 1967) More very complete pencils from the same month as the FF page above. Note how perfectly the angle of the baddie in panel two not only gets great emotional turmoil into the character, but that angle leads the reader’s eye, when he’s ready to go to the next panel, perfectly to the face in the screen there. The AIM agents in panel three are clearly seen, but act as buffers for the eye, refocussing attention onto the screen. Panel five foreshadows one of those times when Lee’s scripting was at odds with Kirby’s intention, and to my mind, it doesn’t work. Kirby clearly wants Cap and Agent 13 caught short by the baddie behind them in panel five, whereas Lee had Cap ‘hearing’ the baddie and... take a look at page 9, first panel. It comes across as really silly. (That page was shown in TJKC #43.)

problem child

The Two Faces of Loki by Will Murray

[right] Detail from Avengers #1 (Sept. 1963). [below] Splash page from Journey Into Mystery #88 (Jan. 1963). [next page, bottom] A newer, longer-lasting look for Loki from the “Trial of the Gods” in Journey Into Mystery #116 (May 1963).

hanks to the Marvel Cinematic Universe films, Loki has become popular in a way that neither Stan Lee nor Jack Kirby could ever have imagined back in the early 1960s when they dredged him up from Norse mythology and made him the perennial arch-foe of their version of Thor. Give actor Tom Hiddleston credit for that. As a personality, Loki has evolved far beyond the one-dimensional trickster god he was when the God of Mischief debuted in 1962. I was reading Journey into Mystery back in the days when Marvel’s Thor debuted. Although Loki was an intriguing and appropriate villain with an unique costume design, I must confess that I quickly grew tired of him. He was simply overused. If he wasn’t battling Thor directly, he was indirectly antagonizing him by motivating or tricking various and sundry lesser villains into going at the God of Thunder at his behest. When Lee and Kirby depicted him, Loki was interesting, but for a period in 1963 and into ’64, under Lee’s editorship, other writer and artist teams resorted to him more often than not. It got so that every other issue, and sometimes several consecutive issues, involved the sly and sneaky provocateur. I was as excited as any ten-year-old baby boomer in the Summer of 1963 when The Avengers and The X-Men simultaneously debuted. They came out on the same day, so it was quite a feast of Lee/Kirby superheroics. While the X-Men debuted with a never-before-seen nemesis, Magneto, the Avengers were brought into being when an exiled Loki, up to his usual tricks, telepathically influenced the events causing the individual future members into hunting the Incredible Hulk. Logically, Thor, Iron Man, Ant-Man, and the Wasp really didn’t need any excuse to pursue the Hulk. He was a known menace. But since their efforts were meant to culminate in recruiting the Hulk to the newly-formed team, he had to remain somehow blameless. At the time, I remember being disappointed that the Avengers did not also introduce a cool new super-villain. Even though Loki had only been around for a year or so by the Summer of 1963, I was already thoroughly sick of the god of mischief. With the benefit of hindsight, I can now see the wisdom of the Lee/Kirby choice of Loki to kick off the Avengers series. If you were a reader of Marvel Comics, he needed no introduction, and his motivations were well-established. In that sense, he was the perfect instigator.

Muy Loki

In reviewing the chronology of Loki appearances, I was surprised to discover that when Kirby drew him in Avengers #1, it was during the period where Joe Sinnott was using him in the regular “Thor” stories. Other than drawing the covers, Kirby hadn’t been associated with 36

the strip in nearly a year. So it’s not surprising that when Kirby brought him back for The Avengers, he simplified Loki’s helmet, removing the ridge of reptilian scales running from brow to nape, along with certain other costume details. A continuity error resulted from Kirby’s unfamiliarity with the Joe Sinnott “Thor” stories. Odin had him chained to a stone wall in chains of unbreakable Uru metal. Kirby depicted him unfettered, in exile in the hitherto-unseen Isle of Silence. Not long after that, Kirby returned to the “Thor” strip on a regular basis, and once again Loki was up to his old tricks, stirring up the Lava Man and perpetrating all manner of mischief, usually through surrogates. Jack Kirby’s Loki costume design was not a bad one. Loki’s helmet horns may have been extreme, but they added a sinister touch to a character who rarely engaged in physical combat. In certain panels, I think I detect Kirby’s model for Loki’s narrow countenance––actor Peter Mark Richman [above], who had starred in the short-lived TV series Cain’s Hundred, in 1961–62. Then something unexpected happened in 1964. I picked up Journey into Mystery #114 to read the first chapter of the introduction of a dramatic new opponent for the God of Thunder, the Absorbing Man, which revealed Loki wearing an entirely new outfit [above]. Gone were the ridiculous horns. In their place was a set of artificial wings on his helmeted head that resembled ferns. Instead of his old green tights with their chest stripe and trunks of yellow (or were they gold?) chain mail, Loki wore a light green harness and gauntlets over darker green togs––an elaborate ensemble suggesting a Norse knight. Gone also was the ponytail attached to the back of his helmet, which I imagine was made of a horse’s tail. Was that Kirby’s way of saying Loki was a horse’s ass? Whatever. The ponytail was obviously artificial since it was not the same color as Loki’s black hair. Over the next three issues, culminating in #116’s “Trial of the Gods,” [right] Thor and Loki came into conflict on an entirely new plane. After the God of Thunder had dispensed with the self-styled Prince of Evil’s latest puppet (Crusher Creel, the Absorbing Man), Thor goes to Asgard and he and Loki have a face-to-face duel. This time, Loki wields a previously unseen magic sword. The sword does Loki no good. After the struggle, both sons of Odin are summoned to Asgard to undergo the “Trial of the Gods”. It was a dramatic turn of events in what had previously been a kind of super-hero strip with occasional detours into Asgardian intrigues. But now, the conflict between Odin, his natural son, and his adopted son was culminating in a contest of survival between

the two. As a young reader of Marvel Comics, I was intrigued by Loki’s new ensemble. But I was also puzzled by it. What happened to the horned helmet? The horsehair ponytail? The familiar medieval outfit that Jack Kirby usually drew consistently, but sometimes slipped up in minor details? I can’t say that the new ensemble was superior to the old, only that it was a welcome change in a character who had been repeating the same schemes issue after issue for what seemed like forever, but was actually about three years. By the time the storyline got to the “Trial of the Gods,” Kirby had modified Loki’s helmet wings into a set of metallic bars, gave him an emerald cloak, and made other modifications until he arrived at a version that lasted for years. He also gave Loki a personal weapon, a bewitched sword. Leading up to the “Trial of the Gods” issue, Loki’s boyhood was being explored in the “Tales of Asgard” feature in Journey into Mystery. As an adult, he wore his horned outfit in issue #111’s “The Secret of Sigurd.” Two issues later, the development of Loki resumed with a story called “A Viper in Our Midst,” in which the wicked half-brother of Thor is shown attired in a slimmer version of the new green armor which had just debuted in the lead Thor tales. He also brandished the bewitched blade seen in next issue’s “Trial of the Gods.” Where it was in the intervening years was never explained. I have wondered if maybe the green armor wasn’t created for “Tales of Asgard” and subsequently found its way into the main Thor strip. I wouldn’t be surprised if Kirby knocked out a bunch of “Tales of Asgard” installments far in advance of publication, came up with the Loki armor there, and decided it should be the inspiration for his new permanent look. But I am merely speculating. The “Tales of Asgard” armor with its purple cape was never seen again. After a few appearances, even Loki’s green cape vanishes from the lead feature, never to be seen again.

But Why, Jack?

For literally decades, I wondered what prompted Jack Kirby to redo Loki. Sure, other Marvel super-heroes were redesigned periodically: Ant-Man to Giant-Man to Goliath. Daredevil is another obvious example. But those were the stars of their individual strips, and such re-imaginings were usually the result of the search for bigger and better sales. I very much doubt if the sales of Journey into Mystery depended upon Loki. So why the abrupt change? Stan Lee didn’t comment on it. Usually, when a Marvel character altered his outfit, at least a little bit of an event was made of it. I’m thinking of when Iron Man spray-painted his original gray armor gold, or when Paste-Pot Pete turned into the Trapster. Kirby drew the change and Lee explained it in dialogue. 37

THE CONVOLUTED SAGA OF A.I.M. ne of the less well known, but more significant comics of the Marvel Silver Age, was Sgt. Fury #13, 1 because it established a relationship between Nick Fury and Captain America as far back as World War II. This issue was published in December 1964, several months after Captain America was rescued from a frozen state of suspended animation in The Avengers #4, dated March 1964. Shortly thereafter, Captain America would be featured in his own ongoing series begin3 ning in Tales of Suspense #59. Nick Fury was brought into the modern Silver Age timeline in Fantastic Four #21 dated Dec. 1963, 2 and got his own series in 1965 in Strange Tales #135. 3 Now a colonel, Fury was the head of SHIELD, an origination inspired by the popularity of the James Bond films. SHIELD, of course, had to have an adversary similar to Bond’s nemesis SPECTRE. This would be Hydra, whose serpent-like green clad minion shares the space of Kirby’s Strange Tales cover illustration along with Nick Fury. The malevolent Hydra agent dominates the artwork, and though we do not know who is operating the scanner that exposes Nick Fury’s anatomy, we immediately get the sense that Kirby will take us on a journey of futuristic hi-tech action. Initially, Hydra was said to be a creation of a nondescript businessman named Arnold Brown, but when Brown is killed, we would eventually discover that organization reemerging under the leadership of Nick Fury’s WWII enemy Baron Strucker, with the help of Captain America’s diabolical foe, the Red Skull. Over the next several months we would see various plots and subplots weave and interweave between issues of Strange Tales and Tales of Suspense. I will focus mostly on Tales of Suspense because Kirby was consistently handling the plotting and art

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[right and next page] Kirby pencil art from Demon #2 (Oct. 1972). “Hermetic” is defined as something relating to an ancient occult tradition encompassing alchemy, astrology, and theosophy, which would seem to apply here. [next page, bottom] Splash page from Tales of Suspense #92 (Aug. 1967). [below] Robert’s stained glass window, based on the Kirby/Sinnott art from the cover of Jack Kirby Collector #43.

Masonic and Hermetic Symbolism in The Incredible Hulk, by Robert Guffey

“We are entering savage new times.” —David Cronenberg’s Videodrome, 1983

1. Jack Kirby’s Secular Gods

n my kitchen hangs a stained glass window of Jack Kirby’s Silver Surfer. The window was created for me by a California artist named Christine Monteath a few years ago. When the early morning light hits the window in just the right way, you might (for a moment) think you were sitting in a church pew beneath a stained glass representation of the archangel Gabriel from Christian mythology. Once I had seen what wonders Monteath could create out of stained glass in her attic studio, it occurred to me that the Silver Surfer would be the ideal subject for a project like this. A stained glass window would, of course, be the perfect recognition of Jack Kirby’s original intent: to create a pantheon of “new gods,” a phrase considered heretical by some (a phrase that, five years after Kirby dreamed up the Silver Surfer in a modest basement studio on Long Island, became the title of Kirby’s greatest creation of all, the New Gods, the cornerstone of his groundbreaking Fourth World series). In this third decade of the 21st century, Kirby has at last succeeded in his audacious goal. After all, the most popular and lucrative films of the past two decades have featured mythological beings created (or co-created) by Kirby: Ant-Man and the Wasp, The Avengers, The Black Panther, Captain America, The Eternals, Groot of The Guardians of the Galaxy, The Hulk, Iron Man, Nick Fury and the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Spider-Man, Thor, and The X-Men—an unlikely pantheon of secular god-heroes re-imagined as multi-billion dollar blockbuster franchises. Considering that Kirby’s phantasmagoric creations have become the backdrop of our Novus ordo seclorum, known and loved across disparate cultures all over the globe, I sincerely felt that Kirby’s posthumous success should be memorialized in an appropriate manner: the aforementioned stained glass window, which represents the ascension of Kirby’s characters into the realm of pure mythology. As a Freemason, I’ve always been intensely interested in the power of secular myths. One of Masonry’s main purposes, historically, has been to act as a bridge between numerous cultures and religions. No organized religious group has control of any recognized Masonic Lodge, within the walls of which no theology is consid58

ered more valid than any other. This is one of the central reasons Freemasonry has been demonized for so long by the Catholic Church and other organized religions. Wild horror stories about Masonry’s nefarious occult agenda still abound—on the Internet, on photocopied flyers stapled to telephone poles, on crude pamphlets left on the windshields of cars bearing Masonic bumper stickers, and on church bulletin

boards. Secularism can be a scary prospect for a strict system based on autocratic theology. All theocracies are ruled by spreading fear of The Other among their followers. When the devotees of the world’s major religions at last realize how much they have in common, the less power the theocrats will hold over the minds and spirits of the masses. Membership in Freemasonry requires a belief in a “Supreme Being,” but even an atheist can “agree to an energetic force that permeates the universe,” a “force [that] is not sentient or involved in the lives of men in a conscious manner,” as succinctly stated by a pseudonymous Freemason on a blog called The Burning Taper,

to create an entire comic book story without a script or any preliminary sketches whatsoever. In the 2007 documentary Jack Kirby: Storyteller, comic book writers Len Wein and Marv Wolfman described watching Jack Kirby work: WOLFMAN: Len and I, when we were kids, went to Jack’s house and we watched him draw… I think it was the end of the Galactus storyline [in The Fantastic Four]. WEIN: The most astonishing natural artist I’ve ever seen in my life! He projected it from his head. WOLFMAN: It was all there. The whole page was there. WEIN: I always tell this story, because to this day it blows my mind. There’s a famous issue of Tales of Suspense, a splash page for a Captain America story... [in #92, below] Steve Rogers is in an airport. He’s not in costume. He’s standing there with his portfolio the shield is hidden in, and there are people walking in front of him in several layers, people walking past him and behind him. He’s waiting for someone to pick him up. Behind that is this huge panoramic window. You can see planes taking off and coming in. I watched Jack draw that. He didn’t lay anything out. He started drawing in the upper lefthand corner and drew that page to the bottom right. I’ve never seen anything like that in my life! Kirby biographer Mark Evanier, author of Kirby: King of Comics, elaborates further on Kirby’s creative process: “He wouldn’t, like a lot of other artists, plan out the whole thing and figure out his perspective. At the end he would spend some time balancing his darks, his dark areas, his black areas, and tweaking little parts of the drawing, but the basic structure of the drawing just came out of nowhere.” Kirby’s son, Neal, succinctly describes his father’s working method as follows: “He would just start drawing. It’d be like somebody who, writing a novel, immediately went to a final draft without doing a rough draft.”2 James Joyce (no stranger to esoteric symbolism, as evidenced by his 1939 mythological masterpiece Finnegans Wake) once referred to himself as an “amanuensis,” i.e., “one who takes dictation.”3 Joyce’s implication was that his literary output resulted from a source of knowledge much higher than his own meager consciousness (it might even be fair to describe this source as “an energetic force that permeates the universe,” not unlike The Source that features so prominently in Kirby’s Fourth World series). I would not be surprised if Kirby approached his creative process in the same way as Joyce. By all accounts, Kirby’s method of producing

which is dedicated to examining Masonic issues facing the 21st century.1 Accepting this definition, an atheist could feasibly swear to the oaths of Freemasonry; therefore, even the “godless,” even those not dominated by organized religion, can pursue a spiritual life. For this reason, the concept of “secular mythologies” holds special interest for many Freemasons. As I’ve written in the past (e.g., in my first book, Cryptoscatology: Conspiracy Theory As Art Form), a great many influential works of literature are imbued with Masonic and hermetic symbolism. Such symbolism can be found in the plays of William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Samuel Beckett; the novels and short stories of Jonathan Swift and Herman Melville, Edgar Allan Poe and Bram Stoker; the films of Luis Buñuel and John Huston, Stanley Kubrick and George Lucas; the graphic novels of Alejandro Jodorowsky and Hugo Pratt, Alan Moore and Grant Morrison; the international bestsellers of Thomas Pynchon and Umberto Eco, Dan Brown and J.K. Rowling. The psychologist Carl Jung might say that the power of such symbolism has a great deal to do with the unwavering hold these works continue to exert upon the consciousness of the mass audience. Perhaps it should not be a surprise, therefore, that these symbols are also inextricably linked with Jack Kirby’s modern pantheon of secular deities.

2. Kirby As Amanuensis

I’ve touched upon Kirby’s lifelong obsession with occult matters in past articles such as “The Morning of the Mutants,” which was published in Fortean Times #277 (July 2011). Kirby’s knowledge of esoteric symbolism was the result of either devoted, post-graduate level scholarship or a powerful imagination unconsciously—effortlessly?—plugged into a free-floating multiverse of primal symbols. Many of Kirby’s colleagues have commented on his uncanny ability 59

Jack Kirby Collector #89