I enjoyed the 1963 comics at face value, fun stories overall.

I cringe at recent attempts to reinterpret the Silver Age for 'modern' audiences in certain books.

I think that more books with well-written single issue stories would certainly be more accessible to new readers, unlike the current bloated, multi-issue storylines by the Big Two.

I didn't care for 1963, I loved Marvel: The Lost Generation.

I'm sympathetic to Jack Kirby and the struggles that he endured later in life, but after reading much material about "The Man", I'm of the opinion that he was entirely too trusting of some institutions/individuals and that he was his own worst enemy in many respects.

What did you fellas think of DC's "Silver Age" series from a few years back?

I read the Doom Patrol ish, but the art was "eh". I read some reviews of these books not long ago. Seems there was a lot of effort to tie them all together. I don't know if that makes sense, since DC didn't participate in a lot of that crossover nonsense.

But what about it? And which issues are definitely worth picking up?

As Ed notes, this is more parody than homage. The seams show, people very much uneasy with the quirks of the period, and not able to take it all straight as did the original writers.

Do you give it to him?

I think we need to separate "legal" from "moral & ethical" here.

Kirby (or any other comic creator) certainly wasn't entitled to any additional payment from Marvel. He voluntarily agreed to work for whatever he was paid at the time. If he didn't like the terms, he didn't have to do the work - case closed.

However, I think you can make a separate ethical argument that paying royalties on future earnings would have been the morally right thing to do.

For example, Dave Cockrum, who helped create the revamped X-Men franchise, died relatively penniless last year. He was paid a fair rate for his work in 1975, when the X-Men were largely unknown and the only money to be made was in selling comic books.

However, no one could have forseen at the time that the X-Men would spawn a series of films that grossed more than $1 billion, not to mention videogames, DVDs, toys, t-shirts, etc. Surely, that vast fortune wouldn't have been made without the contributions of Dave Cockrum (or John Byrne, for that matter). Would Marvel have even missed, say, a $50,000 or $100,000 annual pension that would've allowed Mr. Cockrum to live out his days in comfort?

So in my mind, the morally right thing to do would be to pay these creators something that recognizes their role in building this franchise. Again, the law may not require it, but it would be the right thing to do.

A friend who talked to him told me Marv Wolfman had expressed surprise that Marvel did not simply settle out of court when he sued over the rights to Blade. Same point missed here as above. Corporations must protect themselves, or they can very quickly be run right out of business fighting off spurious claims. We may not like that picture, but it is how the world works.

Very true. When it comes to characters who have been published continuously for many decades, where would the line be drawn? Sure, it would be nice to see Steve Ditko get a ton of money from the success of the Spider-Man films, but then what's to stop Todd McFarlane from claiming that the success of the films is due to the large numbers of people who grew up reading his version of the character? Throw Gerry Conway, Tom De Falco, Roger Stern, Ron Frenz, John Romita, and all the others into that equation and we have a HUGE mess!