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| Images copyright MARVEL COMICS |
It's common knowledge that MARVEL's STAN (The Man) LEE sometimes rejected JACK (King) KIRBY's initial cover ideas and asked him to come up with another approach. Such was the case with FANTASTIC FOUR #20, perhaps on the grounds that the good ol' FF - being covered with a coating of plaster - were not quite as dynamic (or recognizable) as Stan felt they should have been. (And a stunted ALICIA MASTERS seemingly sprouting from the back of the menacing MOLECULE MAN wouldn't have helped.)
A few years back (1997 to be precise), The JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR printed a stat of the pencils of the unused cover, and I was consumed with a desire to see it in finished form. I enlarged The THING slightly (Jack often drew him too small, compared to his original towering stature in FF #1) and "fixed" Alicia's position in the background. I also decided to render the foursome without the plaster coating, the better to be able to see them. TJCK printed it in one of their issues, but I forget which number. Once again, there are a few areas which could stand improvement (The MOLECULE MAN lettering in the cover blurb for example) and maybe one day I'll eventually get around to doing it.
Anyway, I thought all you cavorting Criv-ites might like to see just how FF #20's cover could have looked. (And maybe even does, in an alternative reality somewhere.)
