Captain America by Jack Kirby: Part 2- Second Phase Assault

I know I always say this, but I am really behind with this blog at the moment. As much as I enjoy writing about comics, I enjoy reading them a lot more. To be fair, I read way more comics than I blog about because I only like to write about books that are of particular interest to me. But since Christmas I have a lot of good stuff sitting on my book shelf, all killer, no filler.

And this one is a Killer.

But first, a little background. Feel free to skip the next paragraph if you’re already familiar.

So, Marvel reintroduce Captain America into their Universe in Avengers #4 (I should re-read Kirby’s Avengers books when I have time, just for the sake of Cap completism) and of course, one of the original creators of the character, Jack Kirby, is drawing the book. The character is a success, people want to see more of him so they give him half of a split-book with Iron Man starting in Tales of Suspense #59. So far as I understand, the reason for Marvel producing a lot of split books is that, for reasons that I won’t go into, National/DC, Marvels main competitor, were the distributors of Marvels books and they limited the amount of Marvel books that they would put on the news stands, so if Marvel wanted to market more characters in solo stories they had to share books with other characters, hence the Cap/Iron Man split in Tales of Suspense (just to be clear, a split book has half the page count devoted to solo, unconnected stories of the characters, rather than a team up book which would feature the characters together in one story.). This continued from issue 59 to 99, when the comic was renamed Captain America with issue 100, and featured cover to cover Cap. Kirby’s run as artist continued unbroken from Tales of Suspense #59 until Captain America #109 and he returned for one issue, #112 and that is the entirety of Kirby’s involvement in Cap’s Silver Age solo adventures. (The Annuals from this period did have Kirby stories but they were reprints from the main title, nothing new.)

Background done. Read on, one and all.

The comics I’ll be talking about in this post are all collected in the Captain America Omnibus (2011) ISBN 9780785150787. The full compliment is Tales of Suspense 59-99 and Captain America 100-113, which includes a couple of issues not by Kirby.

The copy I have features the variant cover by Ron Garney, which looks like this:

What I wanted, but couldn’t find anywhere, was the one with the original cover of Captain America 100, by Jack Kirby, which looks like this:

I actually like Ron Garney, I have some of his Cap stories, but why would you want to see Ron Garney re-imaging a Jack Kirby cover, when you could just see the Jack Kirby cover?

It really annoyed me. Probably more than it should have, but still, Garney vs. Kirby is a no-contest for me, especially when this collection is, in essence a Jack Kirby Omnibus. Dang you Marvel.

The first thing that struck me when I was reading, bearing in mind that I read Golden Age Cap right before this, was the panel layout. As I mentioned in the last post, the Golden Age Cap layouts are very fluid and unusual in places, but these Silver Age panels are much more rigid and structured, often with a strict six panels per page format. This is purely guess work, but Kirby was producing a lot of pages per month in this period so I imagine this was one way to streamline the process, along with some relatively sparse backgrounds which also serve to speed up the pencilling but with the benefit of focusing the readers attention on the subjects, particularly for the high energy action sequences which Kirby excels at. Another possible reason for the rigid panel layout could have been the page count for the Tales of Suspense stories. Because Cap shared the book with Iron Man, the stories needed to be condensed into roughly ten pages, so the opportunity for flamboyance was perhaps limited by this. I have to say that I don’t think the stories suffered because of this, the one thing that this type of layout provides is an obvious progression from panel to panel, there is little room for ambiguity in regard to the flow of the story.

Scanned from original comic, not this volume.

One of the highlights of this run is the reintroduction of one of my favourite villains back into the Marvel Universe. Tales of Suspense #66 brings the Red Skull back into prominence as a major antagonist for Cap. This guy is just a perfect foil for Cap, he exudes evil. There’s no sympathetic element here at all, we are given an origin, but the truth is that Red Skull isn’t truly a character, Red Skull represents an idea, the most base elements of humanity distilled into an ugly avatar of hate. He doesn’t need a name, he doesn’t even need to operate in a manner that makes sense, all he needs to do is corrupt, subjugate and control and that is what we see. A totally self obsessed and arrogant embodiment of Baddyhood. Steranko says in the afterword that when he took on the book, he wanted to move away from Red Skull as he felt that the character and his ideals were dated. As much as I enjoy Steranko’s work, in this instance I have to disagree absolutely. The Red Skull and his Nazi origins are a perfect shorthand for establishing his threat to everything that Cap holds dear, he’s iconic, he’s an archetype in the Jungian sense and he’s here, in this book. Look out.

A perfect Red Skull quote:

Gruning: Was that not why we lost world war two, because we underestimated the skill and the courage of free men.

Red Skull: No! It was because the Fuehrer did not listen to me!

There is a run of stories early in this volume which are retconned tales of Cap and Bucky in WW2. As they disappeared after a few issues I can only assume that they weren’t particularly favoured by the readers at the time. Personally, I loved them, but I can understand why they may not have been too popular at the time. Readers were buying these books to see solo Cap stories and this was the only place to find them, so they possibly felt a little cheated to find that he was not interacting with the Marvel Universe in the way that pretty much every other book did at the time. As a modern reader, knowing that there are plenty of Cap stories to come that have a contemporary setting, I found these issues an interesting early experiment in retroactive continuity and satisfying stories to boot. The narrative of these stories explores the relationship between Cap and Bucky with the occasional knowing wink in regard to the audience being aware of the fate of Bucky, but, when all is said and done, these are primarily action driven tales, which is exactly what they should be.

What I wasn’t expecting to find in this volume were the original letter pages as printed in the issues. I thought this was a great addition, I’ve always enjoyed reading letter pages of older books, it’s a telling insight into how the books were received by the fans on their initial publication, which isn’t always the same outcome as when they are looked back on years later. I won’t spoil it for you but I was surprised at the number of letter writers in this volume that went on to have notable careers in the comic book industry.

In regard to the presentation of this volume, it’s nothing new in terms of Marvel. A satisfyingly heavy and solid volume, beautifully bound with a high quality printing. It is all done to a high standard (hence the price tag) but, on a purely personal level, I would rather have seen a non-glossy paper stock with a more muted colour palette. (Benday dots anyone?) But having seen some of the feedback on the DC volumes that have done exactly that, it’s obvious that Marvel are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. There’s no accounting for taste.

Mad Thinker Reads................
The Most Base Elements of Humanity Distilled Into an Ugly Avatar of Hate and Other Pretentious Musings.




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Thor by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby

Collected in and reviewed from Essential Thor Volumes 1-4

RE: Journey Into Mystery 83-125 & Thor 126-179, (Cover dates Aug ’62-Aug ’70.) Plus annuals from this period.

It’s taken a fair old time, but I’ve just finished the Kirby & Lee run on Thor, starting in Journey Into Mystery 83 and culminating in Thor 179, with the odd issue in this run by other creators.

Left: Colletta inks from Thor 133 - Right: Everett inks from Thor 171

As enjoyable as it was (and I do find pretty much all of the Silver Age Marvel to be worth a read) it takes a while for the strip to really find it’s feet. Thor has always been a difficult character to integrate wholly into the Marvel Universe. In general terms, although there are exceptions, the Marvel Universe is centred on science and technology, trying to include characters that are magic based has never been smooth sailing, Dr. Strange springs to mind, but at least with Thor, his is an overt physical prowess, which perhaps helped the character span the gulf from fantasy to super-heroics in a way that wasn’t available to Dr. Strange. And, as I said earlier, it takes a while to really find it’s niche, which I’ll get to later.

Like all of Kirby’s early Marvel work, it takes several issues for his style to evolve into his more mature renderings. His early Silver-Age work is fabulous, but as his workload increased, so did his level of detail decrease. This isn’t a bad thing in my opinion, for what was lost in refined pencil work was made up for with the patented Kirby Dynamism. Characters took on a heavier build, with blunter edges, design took the place of detail and so was born the much imitated Kirby idiosyncrasy that we all know and many love. In terms of design, he really gets to go to town on the wild Asgardian costumes, of particular note is Odin’s massive headgear, I’m sure ‘twould snap the neck of any mortal, should they think themselves befitted to don the OdinHat.



The Odin Hat



But then, I think Kirby had a bit of a hat fetish. (See Galactus)



Again 'tis a differing Odin Hat


OK, back to the serious stuff. For several issues it feels like nobody really knows where to take Thor, he takes on some pretty low level super-villains, that frankly, feel beneath his awesome powers. I can imagine Stan & Jack discussing this, so they must have said:

Stan: You think this isn’t as epic as it should be?

Jack: Damn right, whatcha gonna do about it?

Stan: Well, how about having Goldilocks fight Gangsters.

Jack: WHAAAAAT!!!

I’m pretty sure that that’s exactly what happened. But seriously, Thor versus Gangsters. So they tried that and, thankfully, decided that it wasn’t working either.

Don’t worry though. It didn’t take long to get Thor back on track. He’s soon battling Frost Giants and Trolls back in Asgard. But the best was yet to come.

When you have a character with the power of a God, there’s only so long you can confine him to Earth, particularly when he exists in a universe where the infinite space is so densely populated. So, at last, Thor goes Cosmic. Which is, ironically, exactly where he started when he battled the Stone Men of Saturn way back in Journey Into Mystery 83.

For my money, this is what Thor should be doing. Transported to deep space to battle the Colonizers, facing off against a Living Planet and standing against Galactus in the dark Bioverse. By this point in the strip everything has reached perfection.



Colleta inks for Thor 149 cover



At this point, it’s probably worth mentioning Vince Colletta. For those of you who don’t know the name, Colletta is not a particularly favoured inker, especially when it comes to his inking of Jack Kirby. No more of that here though. Should you wish to read more, a quick search of Google should have you well informed. When Colletta first starts to ink Kirby’s Thor he uses a very light touch, it lacks detail and fails to capture the immediacy which Kirby can create in every panel. But, for all the negative comments that Colletta generates, when his style matures and evolves along with Kirby’s the results are fantastic. Heavier inks, with bolder, bigger black areas used to make the figures and set pieces stand out. This technique is ideally suited to Kirby. As ever though, as great as his inking is for Thor, you can’t help but wonder how much of Kirby’s background was left uninked and therefore never seen by the likes of you and I.

However, as much as I enjoyed Colletta’s inking, the real standout issues for me were 170-175, inked incredibly well by Bill Everett. I don’t recall seeing Everett inking Kirby before and the results are amazing. Since reading those issues Everett is up there with Joe Sinnott and Mike Royer as one of the few, perfect inkers for Kirby’s pencils.



Thor 174, Bill Everett inks



Reading these comics as a single run reminded me just how many mainstay Marvel villains were created in the pages of Thor. If you can measure a man by his enemies Thor must be second only to the Fantastic Four. Radioactive Man, Mr. Hyde, Crusher Creel, Ego the Living Planet and High Evolutionary are a few that come to mind (ignoring the aforementioned Gangsters that is).

So when push comes to shove, there are several reasons that Thor didn’t make it to the all time top spot as my favourite Silver Age Marvel comic, but wild horses couldn’t stop me recommending it as a must read for anyone interested in either the creators, era or genre.

Mad Thinker Reads………………

Norse Gods Smashing Living Planets in the Face with a Hammer that has a Name.

Jack & Stan Do It Again For The First Time

Where is the future that was promised to us when we were kids?

Do any of you own flying cars, or even hoverboards?

How many of you have seen a gorilla fight a robot?

The closest thing to the future that I was expecting are those shoes that have tiny wheels on the soles. But I’m in my thirties, I can’t wear those. And frankly they’d be a poor substitute for the rocket powered roller skates that Santa didn’t buy for me.

Why do I have these expectations? I’ve suckled from the teat of many works of fiction over the years, some were forgettable, but some have had a long standing effect. In retrospect it’s not difficult to see why some have stayed with me: Believability.

Not a word that can often be attached to the outlandish stories that were produced in the Silver Age of Comics, but bear with me. What’s believable about a group of friends stealing a spaceship only to gain super-human powers in orbit? What about when they meet an entire race of inhuman allies that have secretly lived in the Himalayas for a jillion years? Not to mention Atlantean/Human Halflings, WW2 androids or the Living Fuhrer.

What about when this group are given distinct personal qualities that often clash, but are able to continue working together, as a team, because of the close relationships built on love, respect and shared responsibilities?

OK, now we’re getting somewhere.

I know It’s been said elsewhere, but really, there was nothing in comics like Fantastic Four before that incredible series began and it’s still one of the greatest runs of comics ever. Over 100 issues of perfection.

Fantastic Four 1-102 (Nov. 1961-Sep. 1970) and Annuals 1-6, by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and (mostly) Joe Sinnott had everything comics need and a lot more. Yes, there’s plenty of action, some of the best that you’re ever likely to read. Time travel, giant robot gorillas, dastardly inter-galactic plots and more. All of it expertly scripted, plotted and rendered in the Merry Marvel Way, but what really sets it apart is the humanity of the characters.

For every encounter with Dragon Man there’s an everyday occurrence which results in drama. Reed and Sue’s courtship, with the added interference of Namor is handled beautifully, one of the many themes that still impacts on the present day comics. The wedding issue, perfectly balanced with a super-human threat, the mundane and the absurd amalgamated into intense drama.

After the wedding and Sue’s announcement of her pregnancy we see Reed obsessing over Sue’s safety, taking her out of the team for the sake of their unborn child, ultimately showing Reed’s and the teams desperate struggle in the Negative Zone due to the possibility of a birth defect.

Compellingly human reactions regardless of the science-fiction cause.

We see the team move house, suffer financial instability, jape and joke at each others expense and even go their separate ways under the stress of it all, only to realise that their bonds as a family unit are stronger than the petty niggles that they see in the others. Real life, I’ve been through this and I’m sure you have too.

This is as much soap-opera as super-heroics.

One of my favourite moments, which is really just an off-hand comment by Reed, is when Ben is expressing his inability to understand even the most basic scientific principle, Reed remarks “You’re not fooling anyone Ben, remember I went to college with you and I know you’ve got a Degree.”

Compare Fantastic Four to other team books at the time. You'll see Super-Buddies working together flawlessly, slapping each other on the back and complementing their team-mates brilliance after defeating villain of the month. Those other books were often well structured, with solid art, but had essentially stagnated. They were offering nothing new and their sales had been stable but small. Of particular note in this area, albeit a few years earlier, is Challengers of the Unknown. A pleasurable read and Kirby's prototype Fantastic Four, but lacking the sharp and well paced dialogue of Stan Lee, it just doesn't quite hit the mark, as evidenced by it's patchy publication history.

Stan and Jack's precision character building is a staple of modern comics, often attempted but rarely achieved with the same level of success. But with so many other things, what was once the exception has now become the rule. It would be easy to see these comics as dated, because they are. They are undoubtedly a product of their time, but that is what makes them timeless, it was the sixties, every concept was given room to breathe, it was a time when innovation and experimentation was encouraged and when the first issue was published Stan and Jack had nothing to lose, the company was practically dead. Things turned around though.

The Heroic Age returns to modern Marvel, taking inspiration from the groundbreaking stories written nearly half a century ago by Stan, Jack, Steve and friends. The house style created by a select few, still having an impact on one of, if not the most influential publisher of comics today.

And The Fantastic Four is the book that started it all. Get the collected editions if you don’t already have them, and if you do own them, read them again. You’ll see the past, the present and I’m hopeful that they usher in a very bright future.

Mad Thinker Reads....The Fantastic Four by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby.

MT