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1) There are four members in each group.
2) Both groups survived plummeting from the sky.
3) Both strips were drawn by Jack Kirby.
From my point of view, the first two are superficial and are outweighed by the differences, which are...
1) The FF had superpowers, the Challengers didn't.
2) One of the FF was a woman, whereas the Challengers were all men.
3) The Challengers survived a plane crash which should have killed them, whereas the FF's rocket returned safely (if roughly) to earth once the automatic pilot took over.
4) The Challengers didn't know one another before the crash, whereas the FF were friends before undertaking their space flight.
Also, it was surviving a crash which should've killed them that motivated the Challs into undertaking their adventures; with the FF it was being transformed by cosmic ray-endowed superpowers which inspired them to band together as a team - not quite the same thing. There might be other similarities and differences, but that's enough to work with for now. My point being that I think any comparisons made between the FF and the Challengers in an attempt to ascribe total creative authorship to the same man are exaggerated and don't stand up to scrutiny.
Also, the FF came about because my publisher, Martin Goodman, tasked me with creating a group that would cash-in on the success of DC's Justice League Of America, which was proving to be a popular hit at the time, so there was a specific reason as to why they came to be. The FF mag wasn't just some casual creation, randomly churned out on a whim to see what might stick - it was a specific response intended to capture a slice of the relatively recent re-emerging market for comicbook superheroes.
The fact that a re-envisioned Human Torch was part of the group suggests that Martin Goodman (or myself) might have at first wanted to use some of our back catalogue of Timely's heroes. It may well be that Captain America (maybe Bucky as well) and Sub-Mariner were among those considered for inclusion before I (possibly with some input from Jack, possibly not) came up with the line-up as seen in the published mag. There had already been an attempt to revive the aforementioned wartime heroes only a few short years before which hadn't been the success we'd hoped for, hence, possibly, that idea being abandoned.
My synopsis (below - click to enlarge) for the first issue still exists (no surprise that some of my critics doubt its authenticity), but I simply can't recall whether or not I'd already talked things over with Jack before typing it. However, there are aspects of it that Jack changed at the drawing stage, and the Mole Man section may well have been entirely down to the Jolly one. Though again, we might have discussed it at some point prior to Jack drawing it, just can't remember. Things like that just didn't seem important at the time - we were all too busy doing it to dwell on it.
However, once the series was well under way, Jack assumed a more creative input into the plots with only minimal 'interference' from me, though I'd say my editing, scripting, and characterisation, along with occasional plot tweaks, were essential elements in why the mag became so popular. That's why, when divvying up the credits, it's in no way a disservice to either of us to regard myself and Jack as co-creators of 'The World's Greatest Comic Magazine!'
'Cos we were, and it was!
Excelsior!
15 comments:
The simple fact that Stan thought about some of the activities Sue and Johnny might pursue in their non-superhero lives-- even though neither "actress" nor "athlete" came to pass-- is also very different from Challengers of the Unknown. I read through all the Kirby COTU a while back, and not only do none of them HAVE private lives, I don't think Kirby and his writer ever explain how the heroes pay to keep the lights on at their base, fuel their plane, etc. Even Doc Savage had a convenient goldmine that he used to fund his adventures. I feel like Lee might've paid attention to those details, though I can't remember anything earlier than the infamous tale of how Reed loses all the group's money by betting on the stock market.
I think that's a prime example of just what Stan was trying to do with the FF at the time, GP, as in trying to write more than just simple kiddie-fare type stories, whereas Jack was just interested in action, not characters. The Challengers were typical of DC comics of the era, in that they pretty much all spoke with the same voice, and then only to advance the story, not for any other reason. Stan, on the other hand, had the Marvel characters indulge in chat and banter in order to demonstrate their personalities.
I heard somewhere (on Crivens maybe?) that Kirby originally imagined the Silver Surfer as a being of pure energy which sounds a lot more interesting than the moaning, self-pitying bore that we ended up with. Perhaps on that occasion Stan should have gone with Jack's original idea.
Kid, today (September 2nd) is the 50th anniversary of JRR Tolkien's death (and the 24th anniversary of my father's death). I first encountered 'The Hobbit' when I was 7 and it made a strong impression on me as the name Bilbo Baggins still conjures up images of dark, scary passages deep underground.
Jack envisaged the Surfer as a 'created being' with no backstory, brought into existence for the sole purpose of being the herald of Galactus, CJ. That's why he could lead Galactus to inhabited worlds to feed on, with no qualms or conscience about it. Stan preferred the idea of someone who'd made a huge sacrifice (the woman he loved, his home planet, his humanity) to stop the Big G from destroying Zenn-La - a Christ-like figure in effect. This, however, made it incongruous that Norrin could lead Galactus to other worlds knowing that billions of people would die as a result, so the readers (if it even occurred to them) had to assume that the Surfer's memory and conscience had been surreptitiously suppressed to enable him to, in effect, become a harbinger of doom and not be affected by it. It was through Alicia Masters that the Surfer's conscience was reawakened to a degree, leading him to rebel against his master. Later writers eventually incorporated the idea of the Surfer's memory being 'dulled', thereby 'officially' explaining how he could stand by and watch entire civilisations being wiped out without feeling guilty, until his memory was eventually restored because of his association with Alicia.
Oh, and meant to say, I forget exactly what age I was when I first read The Hobbit - anywhere between 10 and 12 - but I didn't read Lord Of The Rings until 1981, when I was 22. To be honest, I much prefer The Hobbit out of the two of them.
Kid, I didn't actually read The Hobbit myself but it was read aloud to the entire class in daily installments by our teacher Mr Selwood. When the Lord Of The Rings films came out I attempted to read the novels but I didn't get very far and, like you, I much prefer The Hobbit.
Yeah, I found LOTR a bit repetitive in places and just a tad too long-drawn out, CJ. It's still a good book though, but The Hobbit is the better of the two as a read.
When I look at SILVER SURFER #1, I can see all the ways in which Stan tried to modify the Surfer to make him appealing to comics readers. But despite any and all compromises, I think "Origin" is the best stand-alone Stan Lee story that he ever wrote without the input of the Usual Two Persons Credited for All the Creativity, if you know who I mean, and I think you probably do.
That said, though one or two other Stan's solo Surfer stories are also good none of them quite measure up to "Origin" IMO, which suggests that he just couldn't figure out how to make the character work commercially. Arguably, Stan also cut himself off from one of his best talents, that of the industry's best gag writers, because there was no room for humor in the series. And I don't know how he could worked more in. It's not like I think things would've been better if he had some comedy relief character like Pip the Troll tagging along after the Surfer on his adventures.
I think perhaps that the Surfer's own mag was adversely affected by the first 7 issues being 25 cents titles, GP, and it was probably too late when it was reduced to 15 cents (or whatever it was) to capture new readers. Also, maybe these early stories were just too long to sustain reader interest and I also think that Mephisto was a tad overused. Kirby's version of the Surfer (in FF Annual #5) and SS #18 weren't any better that Stan and John's version. Its initial failure will likely remain a mystery, but I seriously doubt it would've fared any better with Jack aboard instead of John.
Good point. The story in FF ANNUAL #5 follows the pattern in other SS stories in the FF cosmos, in that the Surfer falls victim to being a total naif about nearly everything. Over time, this too would have become as tiresome as the "whiney Surfer" that many, many fans have complained of (and not without justification). Yet it seems that the Englehart/Starlin Surfer of the 1980s-1990s enjoyed a measure of success with the humanized version of the hero, lasting 146 issues, so that might also be seen as a validation of Stan's approach.
Stan, of course, gave Norrin his 'voice' even when Jack was still involved, so there wasn't any real difference to the character's personality. It was only his backstory that was different (a transformed being, rather than a created-from-scratch being), so he'd still have been a soliloquizing, theorizing, agonizing, whiney Surfer had Jack drawn the mag instead of Big John B.
Funnily enough, I'm just writing about some of this stuff over on my own blog. I was researching a timeline for Jack Kirby's work from demob to the time he fetched up at Atlas/Marvel in 1958. What I hadn't realised was that Challengers of the Unknown was actually a Simon and Kirby project they developed for their Mainline Comics company in 1954 ... but the Comics Code indirectly finished Mainline off, and the completed first issue was shelved. Kirby then sold the project to DC a couple of years later. So assertions that Kirby recycled "his" Challengers ides to make the Fantastic Four are largely without merit. My take is that Simon was the concept man and salesperson and Kirby executed the ideas, adding his own touches, the (mostly) Simon did the dialoguing. But you'll never convince the Stan-haters of that ...
- Alan McK
I'm sure that'll be worth reading (as always), Al, so I have no hesitation in recommending that all Crivvies should check out your blog at the earliest opporchancity. Regarding Joe Simon, it also seems that he came up with Captain America with no initial input from Kirby, though obviously Jack will have added his own touches once the series was rolling. Jack took Marvel's side when Simon tried to reclaim copyright of the character in the '60s, no doubt encouraged by assurances that Marvel would look after him, but it really wasn't very nice of him to betray his erstwhile creative partner. Thanks for commenting, Al, always welcome.
Meh. It was Kirby. Case closed.
Can't close it 'til you've proved it, and that you have spectacularly failed to do.
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