Kirby's Greatest Battle?

examined by and © Glen Gold

All characters ™ and © Marvel Entertainment, Inc.

In 1974, Stan Lee wrote Origins of Marvel Comics, a Simon and Schuster hardcover which re-packaged the initial adventures of the Fantastic Four, Hulk, Spider-Man, et. al., backed up with later stories to show how the characters had evolved over the dozen years or so that Marvel had been doing continued stories. He followed up with Son of Origins, The Superhero Women and Bring on the Bad Guys, all of which repeated the same format: Each tale was introduced with Stan Lee's jazzy, chatty text, indicating where the story ideas had come from and how they'd been received. In Origins, the intros ran five or six pages; by the later books, they were cut down to a page or two.

Recently, I purchased Jack Kirby's own copy of Marvel's Greatest Superhero Battles, from 1978. By this point in the series, Stan — and the concept — seemed to be getting a little tired. Ostensibly the most memorable clashes of hero against hero, this volume also reprints (for instance) the X-Men versus the Blob and Spider-Man fighting the Kingpin. It features a John Romita painted cover with the Hulk facing off against the Thing, Doctor Strange gesturing at someone off-stage, and Spider-Man and the Silver Surfer in (somewhat) their Silver Surfer #14 poses.

Page two is blank except for Simon and Schuster's logo—and here is where Jack Kirby drew the sketch that accompanies this article. I'm tempted to make some guesses about this sketch, as it seems to follow the order in which the stories appear. The Hulk and Thing, at center, fight in the opening reprint of Fantastic Four #25-26; Captain America also appears there. Next up is the Sub-Mariner versus Daredevil, from Daredevil #7. Kirby frequently drew Subby, but not Daredevil — hence the full-size Namor at the top of the page. The next story reprint is X-Men #3, and the Cyclops figure Kirby drew is very similar to the pose on the cover of X-Men #3 (repeated on page 15, panel 3 and page 23, panel 3 of the story).

The next reprint is Silver Surfer #4, an adventure featuring Thor, the final figure Kirby drew here. And who was Thor fighting? Right—the Silver Surfer, whom Kirby did not do a sketch of here (I'd like to add "darn it!" for my sake). I'm not sure why not. Did he go through the book, drawing characters he liked — until he came to the Surfer, which made him stop? Or did he just run out of room or find something else to do that day? I would love to find some evidence of how his creativity worked, but it's hard to tell.

A secondary feature of Kirby's copy of this book is equally hard to interpret (or, to be honest — it's hard to try not to interpret this): Large sections of Stan Lee's text have been excised with scissors or a razor blade. These aren't dainty cuts, and repeating the whole paragraphs missing requires more space than seems necessary. Generally speaking, any mention by Stan Lee of Kirby or his method of creating got cut.

"When Benjamin J. Grimm first made his appearance in the FF... Jack Kirby and I decided to make him one of the strongest, most powerful characters in all of comicdom." That's gone, along with all language describing how the FF and the Hulk were created—but the cuts leave intact all mention of what the fans wanted, i.e. "Virtually every letter contained the same demand: "Let the Hulk fight the Thing!"" And Stan's whole introduction to "The Avengers Take Over," FF #26, is ripped out.

The intro to the Sub-Mariner/Daredevil slugfest, which was penciled by Wally Wood, is untouched. In fact, all of the stories that Kirby didn't pencil feature intact introductions by Stan. The last cut is a three-paragraph appreciation by Stan of Jack's artistic abilities. Some sample lines that are now missing: "In working with Jack on the many, many super-hero tales we've produced over the years, I've only had to say to him, 'How about doing an offbeat fight scene in this part of the story?' and then stand back and let 'im go. Jack would dream up the action sequences and the many gimmicks that were so much a part of the widely heralded Marvel style..."

It's hard to say what the intent of these cuts was. Of course, it's tempting to look for evidence that Stan's language pissed him off; but I'm not so sure that's what's at play here. Since he also removed the table of contents and the word "preface," perhaps he just was looking for collage fodder. In any case, what he left behind is a very enjoyable sketch of many of his prime characters—and look, they're smiling.

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