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John Byrne
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Grumpy Old Guy

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Posted: 17 May 2018 at 4:42am | IP Logged | 1 post reply

You're mixing up the time periods. While Kirby early on was certainly doing what today would be called breakdowns -- most evident under Chic Stone's inks -- by the time Joe Sinnott returned Kirby had switched to full pencils.
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Eric Jansen
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Posted: 17 May 2018 at 10:29am | IP Logged | 2 post reply

Ah...I did not know that!  Thanks!
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Jason Czeskleba
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Posted: 17 May 2018 at 12:06pm | IP Logged | 3 post reply

 Eric Jansen wrote:

Roger Stern randomly finding that typed plot in Stan's old desk (complete with elements KIRBY didn't draw) is pretty conclusive to me.

I think there needs to be a differentiation between the act of CREATION and the (often extended) act of DEVELOPMENT.  I can create a new super-hero in five minutes (or less!) but it might take a week, a month, a year--ten years!--to actually do something with that character.  But without that initial act of creation, there would be nothing to develop.

The existence of the synopsis is not conclusive proof that Stan came up with the initial idea for the characters by himself, because the synopsis could have been typed up after a plot conference between Lee and Kirby.  According to Kirby, this is the way they always worked from the beginning... they would have a verbal plot conference, and then Stan would sometimes type up a written synopsis, sometimes not. 

The most telling fact in support of this is the similarity between the FF's origin and the origin of the Challengers.  It is extremely unlikely that Stan came up with such a similar storyline independently, or that he would deliberately plagiarize an old DC story.  The only plausible explanation is that Kirby was involved in the story development. 

Beyond that, the synopsis has a conversational tone, as though it's part of an ongoing dialogue between the two of them that started at some earlier point. 

 Matt Hawes wrote:
I always find it ironic that Stan Lee, the man responsible for standardizing the credits in comic book publications in a time where credits were rarely given is the same guy the detractors want to demonize as if he hogged all the credit.

It is unfortunate that the discussion is often reduced to extremes, with one side demonizing the other in simplistic terms.  Stan certainly deserves credit for the idea of credits, and he certainly didn't hog all the credit.  But the artists were generally co-writers of the stories, and they generally were not given credit for their contribution to the writing.  That is a valid concern.  Also, they were generally not paid for their contribution to the writing, which was probably a bigger issue for them than the credits.     


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John Byrne
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Posted: 17 May 2018 at 12:13pm | IP Logged | 4 post reply

The plane crash was not uncommon in fiction long before the Challengers. See LOST HORIZON as the one example.
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Dave Phelps
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Posted: 17 May 2018 at 1:25pm | IP Logged | 5 post reply

 Jason Czeskleba wrote:
The most telling fact iA n support of this is the similarity between the FF's origin and the origin of the Challengers. It is extremely unlikely that Stan came up with such a similar storyline independently, or that he would deliberately plagiarize an old DC story. The only plausible explanation is that Kirby was involved in the story development.


I'm not entirely disagreeing with you, but are the stories really THAT similar?

Story 1: Four experts in their chosen fields are on their way to a radio show to do an interview. They suffer what should have been a fatal airplane crash, decide they're "living on borrowed time" and decide to work together.

Story 2: A scientist is concerned that he's about to lose funding for his dream project and that the commies will beat the US to the moon. He, his fiancee, her brother and "a pilot they hired" (see an early FF fan page) break in and steal the completed ship and head for the moon. Unfortunately, as soon as they left the atmosphere they were bombarded by cosmic rays and become unable to continue operating the craft. The autopilot takes over and brings them in for a "rough, but non-fatal landing." As they emerge from the plan, they realize the cosmic rays have transformed them and given them incredible abilities. So, as one does, they decide to become heroic adventureres.

So as far as origin story similarities go, you have: "Decide to become adventurers," which is fairly standard; an air vehicle that doesn't land where/how it's supposed to; and the fact that there are four of them. Even if Kirby wasn't involved with the initial plotting (I think there's evidence to support either argument, unfortunately), I think you have a long way to go to reach "plagiarized." It's just as easy to assume two people came up with a similar solution to a similar problem ("How do you have a small group of people, and only that small group, go through a similar/traumatic experience?").
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John Byrne
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Posted: 17 May 2018 at 1:39pm | IP Logged | 6 post reply

Years ago, one writer tried to turn a typo in Stan's plot into "proof" he'd originally meant the FF for someone other than Kirby.

Incidentally -- READ THE PLOT. It doesn't "sound" as if Stan and Jack had talked it over beforehand.

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Greg Kirkman
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Posted: 17 May 2018 at 2:26pm | IP Logged | 7 post reply

The document in question, for anyone who hasn’t seen it:

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Jason Czeskleba
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Posted: 17 May 2018 at 2:42pm | IP Logged | 8 post reply

 Dave Phelps wrote:
So as far as origin story similarities go, you have: "Decide to become adventurers," which is fairly standard; an air vehicle that doesn't land where/how it's supposed to; and the fact that there are four of them.


It's not just the events but the sequence in which they occur:  four characters survive a crash of an air vehicle,  and they immediately decide on the spot to become a team of adventurers as a direct result of surviving that crash.  I don't think there's a plethora of previous stories besides the Challengers' origin which feature that exact sequence of events. 

It's also worth noting the story in Challengers #3 has a sequence in which Rocky is blasted into space, and when he lands and emerges from the capsule he has developed various super powers which (among others) include invisibility, super-strength, and the ability to shoot flames from his hands.

The stories are certainly far from identical, but to me these similarities in plot elements seem too much to be coincidental.  The idea that Stan would independently come up with a plot that has ideas similar to things in previous comics, and then just happen to give that plot to the guy who'd written and drawn those previous comics seems an implausible coincidence.  Particularly since Kirby himself said it was not a coincidence, and that he deliberately used elements from the Challengers.  Kirby had a history of reworking and re-using old plot ideas or character elements in new stories (there are lots of examples of this if one examines his output).  So we have the testimony of one of the participants, as well as the external evidence, to support the notion that the initial plot was a collaboration.

It's also worth considering the rejected Lee/Kirby Spider-Man origin story.  According to Ditko, this plot was quite similar to the origin of the Fly, and when he pointed this out Stan decided to scrap it.  It seems likely that the similarities to the Fly's origin were deliberately inserted by Kirby rather than coincidentally conceived by Stan, which means Kirby was involved in developing that plot.  If they were working together in that manner on Spider-Man, it seems likely they did the same thing on FF.

 John Byrne wrote:
READ THE PLOT. It doesn't "sound" as if Stan and Jack had talked it over beforehand.

At one point in the synopsis, Lee states that the FF's mission is to be the first humans to reach Mars.  Then he adds an entire side paragraph stating that "maybe we better make this a flight to the STARS" rather than Mars, because a the rate the Russian space program is progressing, he's concerned that Russians will reach Mars before the issue hits the stands.  This certainly seems suggestive that Stan and Jack had talked before and decided it would be a mission to Mars, but now Stan is thinking better of it, and initiating further discussion with Jack.  If that was not the case, why would he even bother with typing out his rationale for not making it a mission to Mars?  If he had second thoughts as he was typing, he likely would have just gone back and crossed out Mars and written in "the stars."  Why would he need to go into a lengthy explanation of the change if Jack was not even aware it was a change because they'd never discussed it before?



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Dave Phelps
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Posted: 17 May 2018 at 3:51pm | IP Logged | 9 post reply

 Jason Czeskleba wrote:
It's not just the events but the sequence in which they occur: four characters survive a crash of an air vehicle, and they immediately decide on the spot to become a team of adventurers as a direct result of surviving that crash. I don't think there's a plethora of previous stories besides the Challengers' origin which feature that exact sequence of events.


I dispute the "direct result of surviving that crash" comment. The FF got powers so they became super-heroes. No powers, Ben decks Reed for rushing into things, and they all move on with their lives (or go to jail for stealing a rocket). Surviving the crash was a necessity (difficult, albeit not impossible, to be a super team if they're all dead), not a motivation. For the Challengers, it was both. As for the similar timing, Silver Age comics/heroes generally got down to business quickly (Spider-Man being a notable exception) so that doesn't really mean anything.

See also the people saying that the FF having chapters like the early Challengers stories did as further "proof" that Jack wrote everything. Makes perfect sense if you ignore all the other Marvel comics that also used chapters for stories longer than five pages... But I digress.


 QUOTE:
It's also worth noting the story in Challengers #3 has a sequence in which Rocky is blasted into space, and when he lands and emerges from the capsule he has developed various super powers which (among others) include invisibility, super-strength, and the ability to shoot flames from his hands.


Hard to see Jack as the one who would pitch "let's revive the Human Torch" (although to be fair he had recently been involved with a Shield/Private Strong revival); giving the Thing strength is just a logical outcome of casting a monster as one of your heroes; and I can see how Kirby handled Rocky's invisibility informing how he ended up handling Sue's powers (i.e. Sue not having to take her clothes off and being able to turn visible again), but that doesn't mean the notion of an invisible character came from him in the first place. The initial write-up for the Invisible Girl owes more to HG Wells than Challengers of the Unknown.


 QUOTE:
The stories are certainly far from identical, but to me these similarities in plot elements seem too much to be coincidental.


But the similarities aren't specific enough that there's no way they couldn't have been coincidental.


 QUOTE:
This certainly seems suggestive that Stan and Jack had talked before and decided it would be a mission to Mars, but now Stan is thinking better of it, and initiating further discussion with Jack.


It's clear that future discussion was planned. But those sections could have easily turned out the same if Stan had done nothing more than decide that Jack was going to be the artist, and possibly told Jack that something was going to be coming.   

I've written emails, draft reports, message board posts, etc. where I say something and then follow it with a parenthetical "(although on second thought, maybe this instead)". Seeing an idle notion in print has a way of making you think about it some more. It's not hard for me to imagine Stan doing the same as a way to keep both options on the table, especially when using a typewriter.

Given how quickly comics were produced in those days, the synopsis seemed a little too "raw" to me to have been produced after a plotting session. OTOH, given that this was an attempt to do Something New, going through multiple iterations makes sense.

I'm not saying it's impossible that Stan and Jack had an initial plotting session, Stan typed up the synopsis and then kicked it back over to Jack for further discussion/evolution. I'm just saying I also don't find it impossible that Stan came up with the initial synopsis on his own and then Jack got involved with the process and further evolved it until we got what was published. Both seem equally plausible to me.


(edited because I screwed up a quote box)

Edited by Dave Phelps on 17 May 2018 at 3:54pm
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Michael Penn
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Posted: 17 May 2018 at 3:54pm | IP Logged | 10 post reply

If Stan Lee intended to present this synopsis to Jack Kirby, it makes sense Stan would include asides about his doubts and concerns etc. directly to Jack, e.g., asking him whether the Invisible Girl might not be too sexy. "Better talk to me about it, Jack" does not sound like summing up a conversation they already had or a sudden new doubt that struck Stan as he was writing this up.
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Jason Czeskleba
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Posted: 17 May 2018 at 6:50pm | IP Logged | 11 post reply

 Dave Phelps wrote:
But the similarities aren't specific enough that there's no way they couldn't have been coincidental.


True.  It is possible they were coincidental.  To me it seems much less likely though, given they are not merely similarities to some random previous story, but similarities to a previous Jack Kirby story.  So it would really be two coincidences:  that Stan independently came up with ideas similar to something done before, and that it happened to be similar to something done before by the very same person he was collaborating with on this new project. 

Beyond that, we have Evanier's testimony in the Kirby trial that Stan told him that that "he and Jack had sat down one day and figured out what the Fantastic Four would be."  And in Origins of Marvel Comics, Stan says that he wrote the synopis after "kicking around" ideas with Kirby and Martin Goodman.

This is a case where we have two conflicting accounts of what happened given by the people directly involved.  In such cases, we have to look to the external evidence to come up with a guess as to whose account is more accurate.  To me, it seems like the balance of evidence makes it more likely that the plot was a collaboration and that the synopsis was typed up after a plot conference between the two men. 

 Michael Penn wrote:
"Better talk to me about it, Jack" does not sound like summing up a conversation they already had or a sudden new doubt that struck Stan as he was writing this up.

What about the comments about Mars vs. "the stars"?  As I said, it seems more likely to me that he would spend a whole paragraph explaining his rationale for the change if it was something he and Kirby had discussed before.  It seems less likely that he would bother to write his rationale for making that change if it was not a change Kirby would even be aware of. 

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John Byrne
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Posted: 17 May 2018 at 7:22pm | IP Logged | 12 post reply

I'll consider getting the Kirby fanatics to tip slightly towards acknowledging COLLABORATION something of a major victory.
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