The Other Stan Lee: Not giving Credit where it’s due!

This is  the most difficult blog I have written because I am a fan of  the Marvel Age and everyone who was a part of it. Over the last few decades I have met with many of the artists and writers who worked with Stan and they genuinely like him. They describe a nice, even generous person.  But when you talked to them about “Stan, the Promoter,” they often smiled and rolled their eyes. It was as if you were talking about a different person. Forgive me for keeping a source confidential, but one famous artist told me that he liked Stan very much, he just wished he would not take credit for things he didn’t do.

Stan Lee changed comics for the better and forever and this is no way should be seen as diminishing his accomplishments.  The major point of this blog is that I just feel the credit for Marvel's success in the 1960s should be shared. It should not be seen as taking away from Stan's many accomplishments.  In the fifteen years between 1960 and 1975, Marvel’s sales increased from 13 million to over  70 million comics a year and Stan Lee, as editor, oversaw this rise in sales.  There is no question that we should also remember the work of Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and many others for the incredible creative work at Marvel during the 1960s.  When promoting Marvel Stan often did not mention his creative staff.

In the 1960s and 1970s, comic books were too often considered junk reading by parents and librarians and monitors of good taste. Reporters sent to get a story on the topic, didn’t read comics, and in their ignorance, their questions and conclusions often lacked depth and ignored the contributions of others.  Here are a few examples:

New York Herald Tribune, January 9th, 1966: … Stan Lee dreamed up the “Marvel Age of Comics in 1961.”

Dallas Times Herald, 1975: In the beginning was Stan Lee. And Stan Lee created the Fantastic Four. And he saw that it was good. And the Fantastic Four begat the Hulk and Spider-Man.

New York Times Magazine, May 2 1971: The turnabout came in 1961, when Stan Lee metamorphosed the Marvel line and very likely saved comic books from an untimely death.

Chicago Tribune: July 17, 1975 : STAN LEE, 53, is the great bard of the superhero epics, the creator of a modem mythology avidly devoured by 72 million readers a year.

The Press Telegram Newspaper of Long Beach Calif., Aug, 19, 1977: First, he begot The Fantastic Four, a cosmic powered quartet….AND THE Fantastic Four begot The Hulk and The Hulk begot Spider-Man, who begot a whole lot of success for Stan Lee, who is now 55, and the publisher of Marvel Comics, a definite cult hero and rich like you wouldn’t believe.

New York Newsday, June 8th, 1978: It was Lee’s fertile mind that created the many superheroes who were eventually to make Marvel mighty. Among them: “The Incredible Hulk,” “The Amazing Spider-Man,” “The Mighty Thor,” “Captain America,” “Ms. Marvel,” “The Fantastic Four,” “The Avengers,” “Dr. Strange” and “Daredevil.”

Time Magazine: Monday, Feb. 5, 1979: Marvels of The Mind: The man chiefly responsible for all the TV superdoing is Stan Lee, 56, the mustached and irrepressible publisher of Marvel Comics. Ideas pop in and out of his head so fast that Lee keeps a tape recorder by his bed to catch them late at night.

Even early Comic book fanzines gave Stan all the credit                                       
Super Star Heroes by Gene Wright, 1978: THE ORIGINS OF STAN LEE… he’s Super Stan!—inventor of the hung-up hero. “The result of Lee’s brainstorm was a 1961 comic book entitled The Fantastic Four.”

Stan  cannot be blamed for those  headlines. Those came from reporters and editors and  that was the playing field of that time. Marvel and Lee listed the creators of every story at a time when most comics did not. I learned their names from those credits.

Stan received criticism for his introductions to the Fireside series of reprints which started with Origins of Marvel Comics in 1974. Fans need to accept a few realities. Concerned with ownership and copyright issues, Stan, then a publisher, and a true company man, was not about to suggest that a single creator was responsible for a character’s creation. They all belonged to Marvel, so a creator’s role was often downplayed, and even sometimes ignored. When an artist left Marvel he was never referred to again. This is common among all media companies.  When someone leaves the Today show and joins the competition, they are never mentioned.  While Steve Ditko was drawing the Amazing Spider-Man letters were addressed to “Dear Stan and Steve.” Two issues before his last story was printed, in the spring of 1966, Steve’s name was removed from the greeting in the letters pages and they just read, “Dear Stan.”

We cannot lose sight of the fact that Stan was running a business. Just glance at any cover from that era. Every story was “the best” or “the greatest,” chock-full of “the most” thrills of any comic magazine.   So each artist was equally talented,  he was not about to promote one artist over another. With Jim Steranko replacing Jack Kirby on S.H.I.E.L.D. or John Romita replacing Kirby on the Fantastic Four, each was generating work that was described in superlatives in the Bullpen Bulletins or the letters pages.

Stan eventually began to understand what many of Marvel’s artists and writers were complaining about. He recognized the problem and admitted to it.  On the Today show (June 15, 2008) Stan said: “The artists felt that I was getting too much credit for everything so occasionally there would be a little dissatisfaction. But that was normal and we got over that.”

At a Caps Banquet in 2007: “Comic books is (sic) a collaborative medium. Had I not worked with artists like Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko … my stories would not have looked as good. These guys were writers themselves. But they would write with pictures.… And they really deserve as much credit as I ever get.” 

An example of self-promotion came in an article he wrote for the July/August 1977 issue of Quest magazine. For the record, I placed the entire article at the bottom of this blog.   It was entitled “How I Invented Spider-Man.” . The editor, not Stan, might have written the title.

The article begins with Lee discussing his own background: “I heard of a job opening at a comic book publishing company. In those days it was called Timely Comics.”  What Stan neglects to say is that Timely’s publisher was Martin Goodman and that Martin’s wife Jean was Stan’s cousin. 

Lee continues: “Not long afterward, the editor and the head artist left and I was asked if I thought I could fill in as editor until the publisher could find someone else.” The editor and artist were Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, creators of the very successful Captain America.  At  the N.Y. Comic Con in 2008 I was next to Stan when he said to Joe Simon “I have never had the chance to thank you. You taught me so much and I have used what you taught me throughout my entire career.”

A little later in the article, Stan writes: “In 1961… For the first time within memory there seemed to be no special trend in the comic book field. No single title or group of titles seemed to excite the readers.” That year, the Justice League of America was definitely exciting comic book readers it was outselling Superman! The rebooted Flash and Green Lantern were also gaining in popularity. When Goodman found out how successful the JLA was he asked Stan to create a super-powered group for Marvel. 

In displaying what Stan wrote in that 1977 article on Spider-Man, I will make some some comments.  I will also discuss, when necessary, two other titles: The Fantastic Four because they were the first of Marvel’s new line and Sgt. Fury because that was an unexpected success.

Stan Lee may not be scripted but he certainly is rehearsed, he knew how to entertain an audience. When he begins the version of his sole the creation of Spiderman he would say: “I’ve told the story so many times it must be true.” (which he did on Larry King Live, May 4, 2002; Barbara Bogave National Public Radio (2002); Comic Book Artist #2 (1998) and 60 Minutes (Oct. 13, 2002). 

Stan: “But most of all I wanted to do Spider-Man….in searching for a title for our newest superhero, I remembered [an] old pulp favorite [The Spider: Master of Men]—and the title Spider-Man instantly hit me.” 

Stan also has another version describing his searching for the character where he tries to look spontaneous. He will first mention that he saw a fly or insect walk up a wall...  “I thought what will I call him….it seemed to me that Fly-Man didn’t work; that Insect-Man didn’t sound good, Mosquito-Man was awful, and then it hit me: Spider-Man. It was an epiphany!” This was said on a CBS interview in 1992; The Overstreet Quarterly (April 1994), Interview, Maryland’s Fredrick News Post on May 2, 2002, National Educational Association, 2008 and National Public Radio 2002.

Stan: “Even the man I chose to illus­trate the web-spinner's adventures marked a departure from the usual superhero strip. Steve Ditko was as fine a draftsman and graphic conti­nuity artist as one could find.”  

It has been established, most notably by Joe Simon in 1990, that Stan Lee first gave the character to Jack Kirby, who provided six pages of a very different character than Ditko’s. In Comic Scene Spectacular #1 (1989), Stan says: “I think Ditko was tremendously responsible for the popularity (of Spider-Man)… Kirby did a few pages. When I saw them, I said, “No, no, this isn’t what I want.” I took him off the hook and gave it to Ditko. I felt Spider-Man should not look like the typical superhero. And Ditko’s style at the time was just perfect.”

There were great differences in the Ditko and Kirby versions.  Ditko told Comic Fan #2 (Summer 1965): "Stan Lee thought the name up. I did costume, web gimmick on wrist & spider signal." And in 2001, Ditko added the following: “So for 30-plus years, the ‘one and only creator’ theme continued to pollute various publication outlets. The subjective and intrinsic mentalities continued their unquestioning, unchallenging, and self-blinding support of the non-validated claims.”  Stan did say in 2007, "If Steve wants to be called co-creator, I think he deserves (it)." Note that he added the word “think” instead of stating explicitly he deserves it. Ditko noticed this and expressed his displeasure.

 In 2007, BBC host Jonathan Ross asked Lee,  “Do you, yourself, believe that (Ditko) co-created Spider-Man?” Lee, looking uncomfortable says, “I’m willing to say so. No, and that's the best answer I can give you. I really think the guy who dreams the thing up created it! You dream it up, and then you give it to anybody to draw it!” Ross then says, “But if it had been drawn differently, it might not have been successful or a hit.” Lee replies, “Then I would have created something that didn't succeed.”

In an interview published in Eye Magazine in 1966, Lee said: “I don’t plot Spider-Man any more. Steve Ditko, the artist, has been doing the stories.” But in the article, Stan takes credit for everything and does not mention Ditko again. Nor does he mention John Romita, who followed Ditko as artist on Spider-Man.

Again from the Quest article, Stan writes as if he was working solo: “The deeper I dug under Spidey's skin to see what made him tick, the more I realized how embarrassingly banal had been the comics of the past few decades in terms of character­ization; When­ever Spidey was in a tight spot, I'd only have to think of what I would say or do in the same predicament. I merely tried to imagine what would happen if someone with superhuman power really existed, and if he dwelled—for example—in Forest Hills, New York.”

In Comic Book Marketplace, Lee recalls the beginnings of Sgt. Fury. Lee, in 1963, says to publisher Goodman. “How about a book of war stories?” He said, “Nobody’s going to buy a war book. Point number two: Let’s call it Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos?” Martin said, “Are you joking? That’s the worst title... “I said, “I’ll bet I could do that book and make it sell.” I tried to concentrate on getting a platoon of soldiers that the readers would care about, I think it was one of the first multi-ethnic comic books ever done.”

In his biography of Jack Kirby (Tales to Astonish) Ronin Ro quotes respected artist John Severin as saying that in the late 1950s, Jack Kirby had wanted to do a war series “set in Europe during  World War Two; the hero would be a tough, cigar-chomping sergeant with a squad of oddball GIs — sort of an adult Boy Commandos." This doesn’t mean that Lee did not come up with the idea of a war comic with “Commandos” in the title, he just does not acknowledge the input Kirby must have had in its creation and execution. Kirby’s group would really not be unique in comics, the Blackhawks, created in 1941 for Quality Comics, which also featured a similar culturally diverse group of fighting men. And a nod of appreciation should also go to Milton Caniff’s Terry and the Pirates.

In 1999, in an interview with James Cangialosi for Comics Interview, Stan is asked the beginnings of the Fantastic Four: “I was sitting and I thought, “What powers would be interesting for these characters to have?” One thing I remembered was that when I was younger I loved the original Human Torch and I thought I would like to bring him back. I also liked the idea — and I don’t know how I particularly thought of the idea — of a scientist who was a little bit stuffy…. Then I wanted to have another guy on the team who was always bored.” In Stan’s 250-word answer Jack Kirby is never mentioned. On WFMU-FM radio in 1967 Stan says: “Jack is the greatest artist in the world. He also is a great story man. He does all the breakdowns and basic plots and I provide the dialogue.”

In the Quest article, Stan writes about how he created the various characters of the Fantastic Four, without mentioning Jack Kirby. “Improbable as they all sound, I was attempting to place these fantastic characters in the real world, trying to give them human traits and believable reactions, trying to com­bine fairy-tale concepts with down-to-earth reality, and the results really grabbed me. I was doing what Joanie (his wife) had suggested. I was writing stories for myself, trying for the kind of off­beat, irreverent feeling that had always attracted me to Mark Twain, Bernard Shaw, and yes, Woody Allen.”  In The Overstreet Lee says: “Jack was about the best. He was really the most creative artist of all, because he was more than an artist. I call him a great conceptualizer. He could conceive of stories and follow them through. All I would have to do with Jack is give him a very brief outline on what to do, and he would just do the whole story. After a while when we were rushed, I didn’t even give him an outline, he just did whatever story he wanted.”

In Quest, Lee continues: “To me, the most gratifying result of our new approach was a startling change in the comic book audience. The age range of our readers, previously six to about 13—suddenly zoomed to college age and beyond. In fact, the additional sales were corning mainly from older readers, and the beauty of it was that we were gaining those older readers without losing the younger ones.”

Jim Galton, former President of Marvel, says in Comic Scene #1 (1981): "When comics (in the 1960s and early 1970s) were at their height the average age was between 10 and 12." Galton said that the “average age of a Marvel reader was 11½ despite Marvel’s widely publicized popularity among college students.   

Stan was aware that he spoke to two different audiences. To those who knew comics, he often included comments about the artists who worked for him. But to a more general audience he often just spoke about himself.

One last time to the Quest article. Stan: “You'd be amazed at the range of queries that have been flung at me, questions ranging from “How can Spider-Man see through those obviously opaque eye panels in his mask?”  Beyond grownup language and drawing, there seems to be something about Peter Parker and his costumed alter ego that mesmerizes his millions of admirers, including myself.” These statements refer directly to Ditko’s creative costuming of Spider-Man, but he is not mentioned here.

Think what you like. Whether it was showing off or simply toeing the company line, by not giving credit where credit was due, it caused some heartache for the creators. Mark Evanier recalls the aftermath of the 1966 Herald Tribune story, briefly mentioned here. “That article did enormous damage to Jack, personally and professionally.” And Jack would never forget it. Stan did not write it or approve  it and it was a surprise to him too.  But some of  the tarnishing of Stan Lee’s reputation, among fans, is seen as self-inflicted.

If we accept that Stan may have come up with the original concept and the name of Spider-Man, but the actual character is a co-creation with Steve Ditko, then we must also accept that Stan is the co-creator of many concepts that Jack Kirby originated, such as the Silver Surfer and the Inhumans.

“How I Invented Spider-Man.” By Stan Lee

In case you've been living outside the solar system, and therefore haven't heard of Spider-Man, let me introduce him as painlessly as pos­sible. The Amazing Spider-Man, to use his full title, appears on the covers of six million comic books a year and plays starring roles in an additional 10 million. Beyond comic books, he shows up everywhere from toys to T-shirts to television. He's a celebrity not only in the United States but also in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Canada, Mexico, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Indochina, and most of South Amer­ica. He is, in fact, the world's most popular fantasy hero—and the best­selling as well.

Now that we've more or less established his fame, let's explore how it happened and, of far greater impor­tance, what it all means—mainly in order to learn a little more about ourselves.

To that end, I've been asked to tell you something about the guy who reputedly started the whole thing—namely me.

Unlike most New Yorkers, who come from somewhere else, I was born right in the middle of Manhattan. I attended De Witt Clinton High School and, in my spare time, was a member of the Washington Heights branch of the WPA Federal Theatre. I loved acting. I was always a ham. But acting didn't pay the rent, and since my father was one of the legions of unemployed at that time, I had to set my greedy little sights elsewhere.

While completing my senior year in high school, I became the world's most inept theater usher, whose great­est claim to fame was showing Elea­nor Roosevelt to a seat at the Rivoli Theatre and suffering the indignity of having her help mc to my feet solic­itously after I had tripped over some­one's outstretched kg in the aisle with the theater manager and half the nation's Secret Service force looking on. From that debacle, I went to a job writing obituaries of famous people for a news service, so they'd have the obit all ready to print when the notable finally went to his or her reward. I soon got depressed writing about living people in the past tense, so I abandoned what might have been the springboard for a glorious career in journalism. After other forgettable part-time stints, such as writing pub­licity releases for a hospital (I was never sure what I was supposed to publicize: "We'll cure you faster than other hospitals"? "Our doctors arc safer than theirs, I reached the turning point of my 161/2-year-old life.

 In those days the New York Herald-Tribune ran a weekly essay contest open to all high school students. It was called "The Biggest News of the Week Contest," and the purpose was, as you'd expect, to write the most spell­binding essay in so many words or less on what you considered the most momentous news event of the past week. Either no one else was enter­ing, or I was an embryonic Walter Cronkite (probably the former), but I won three weeks in a row. One of the editors called to ask me to stop submitting entries and "give someone else a chance." If I hadn't yet made a life's commitment, he said, I might consider becoming a writer.

  

At that point the long arm of coincidence took over. Within a matter of hours, I heard of a job opening at a comic book publishing company. In those days it was called Timely Comics. A "gofer" was needed to round out the tiny staff: a kid to do some proofreading, write copy, answer letters, and "gofer" the coffee and sandwiches. I applied and I got the job. Not long afterward, the editor and the head artist left and I was asked if I thought I could fill in as editor until the publisher could find someone else. I said sure. At the age of 17, I didn't know any better. Apparently no one else was ever found, and I've been there ever since.

In the past three decades, I've held the titles Editor, Art Director, and Head Writer. Then, in 1972, I was named Publisher of what is now called Marvel Comics. Although I never made it as a thespian, I've found enough temperament, talent, and theatrics in the way-out world of comic books to make it all worthwhile.

  

Now back to Spider-Man and the events that led to his creation.

 In their own simplistic way, comic books have usually mirrored the tenor of the times. In the late thirties and early forties, colorful pulp heroes like Captain America and Captain Marvel almost single-handedly decimated the forces of fascism between the multicolored covers of their monthly magazines. After World War II, when the public was satiated with tales of diabolical dictators, the comic books turned to Westerns, crime, and monster stories. For a brief period in the early fifties, when the nation enjoyed an illusory hiatus between crises, the biggest-selling comics dealt with the innocuous antics of the animated animals created by Walt Disney, Paul Terry, Walter Lantz, and their ilk.

In 1961, something happened. For the first time within memory there seemed to be no special trend in the comic book field. No single title or group of titles seemed to excite the readers. Oh, they were still buying the comics—kids always will—but with‑ out any discernible enthusiasm. Even the superhero titles, long the staple of the industry, were declining in sales and apparently going nowhere.

At first blush, it didn't make sense. Everyone said it was a time for heroes. The youth of America had been inspired by John Kennedy and the vision of Camelot; astronauts and cosmonauts performed incredible exploits as they raced for supremacy in space. It was a time for daring concepts, deeds far bigger than life—a time when comic book superheroes should have been selling better than ever. What was wrong?

Personally, I was bored. I had 20 years of writing and editing comics behind me. Twenty years of "Take that, you rat!" and "So, you wanna play, huh?" Twenty years of worrying whether a sentence or phrase might be over the head of an eight-year-old reader. Twenty years of trying to think like a child. And then an off‑ hand remark by my wife caused a revolution in comics tantamount to the invention of the wheel. Eighteen simple words, electrifying in their eloquence and their portent for the future. Each momentous syllable is engraved in my memory:

"When are you going to stop writing for kids and write stories that you yourself would enjoy reading?" It was a casual question, posed in a casual way, but it really rocked me. It made me suddenly realize that I had never actually written anything for myself. For two unsatisfying decades I'd been selling myself short, sublimating any literary ability I might have in a painful effort to write down to the level of drooling juveniles and semicretins.

"Nevermore!" I shouted. "Never‑ more will I fashion my tales for the nameless, faceless 'them' out there. Henceforth, I will write for an audience of one; an audience I should have no trouble pleasing, for I cer‑ tainly know what turns me on."

When the time came to create a teenaged hero for Marvel Comics, I decided to depict him as a bumbling,   real-life teenager who by some mir­acle had acquired a super power. He'd have to be bewildered, insecure, inept, ungainly, and often out of step with those around him. He'd be my kind of teenager. A loser. A schlepp. Just like I was when I was young. And I know if I had gotten a super power when I was a teenager, the only change would be—I'd simply have become a super-powered schlepp.

After all, who ever said that extra strength, or talent, or ability has to make a guy a winner? If you suddenly gained the muscle power of a hundred men, OK—so you'd be able to lift heavy weights and outwrestle King Kong; but that doesn't mean you still wouldn't have to worry about dan­druff, or acne, or hemorrhoids, right? And suppose you could crawl on walls and ceilings like a human spider. Wouldn't you still be concerned about postnasal drip, or warts, or the heartbreak of psoriasis? Wouldn't you still have trouble balancing your checkbook, or scoring with a girl who doesn't happen to dig costumed wall-crawlers?

The more I thought about it, the faster the ideas came to me. Sure, I was still writing comic book yarns about freaky, farfetched superheroes, but I suddenly realized I was begin­ning to enjoy it. An extra dimension had been added. I was now playing with characters like the Human Torch, a pushy extravert able to burst into flame and fly like a bird with his blazing lighter-than-air body; Mr. Fantastic, a stuffy, brilliant, ego­centric scientist with the ability to stretch his body like a piece of elastic; the Thing, a monstrous being with a temper to match whose superhuman strength is exceeded only by his popu­larity with our fans; and the Invisible Girl, Mr. Fantastic's fiancee, whose chief claim to fame is exactly what her name implies. In addition to the Fan­tastic Four, who battle for truth, jus­tice, and monetary compensation, there was the Incredible Hulk, the most powerful mortal on earth. His distinctions include a green skin and the fact that he weighs in at about 700 pounds. Improbable as they all sound, I was attempting to place these fantastic characters in the real world, trying to give them human traits and believable reactions, trying to com­bine fairy-tale concepts with down-to-earth reality, and the results really grabbed me. I was doing what Joanie had suggested. I was writing stories for myself, trying for the kind of off­beat, irreverent feeling that had always attracted me to Mark Twain, Bernard Shaw, and yes, Woody Allen.

But most of all I wanted to do Spider-Man.

When I was about 10 years old, I used to read a pulp magazine called The Spider and subtitled "Master of Men." Perhaps it was the Master of Men that got me, but to my impres­sionable, preteen way of thinking, the Spider was the most dramatic charac­ter I had ever encountered. He ranked right up there with Doc Savage and the Shadow. Even better, he wasn't as well known as the others, which gave mc the warm feeling that his fans belonged to an elite club. At any rate, in searching for a title for our newest superhero, I remembered my old pulp favorite—and the title Spider-Man instantly hit mc. I didn't mind bor­rowing the Spider part of his name because everything else about our new character would be completely different. I was determined to make our next production the most origi­nal, most unique comic book charac­ter ever to swoop down the pike.

Even the man I chose to illus­trate the web-spinner's adventures marked a departure from the usual superhero strip. Steve Ditko was as fine a draftsman and graphic conti­nuity artist as one could find. Instead of depicting unreal creatures, with muscles bulging on muscles, Steve's characters looked like the guy next door. Where the average superhero strip was exaggerated and overblown, his artwork was low-key and under­stated. It was just what I wanted. It was vitally important to me that Spi­der-Man be the kind of character with whom any ordinary Joe could iden­tify. I was certain that Steve's untypi­cal, uncliched artwork would help.

The deeper I dug under Spidey's skin to see what made him tick, the more I realized how embarrassingly banal had been the comics of the past kw decades in terms of character­ization. The so-called good guys were always invincible, infallible, and totally triumphant at the end of each story. The bad guys were always das­tardly, deadly, and irrevocably eradi­cated by the time the final curtain rang down. The good guys talked lyrically. The bad guys grunted. The good guys were pure at heart, proud, and passionately patriotic. The bad guys were cowards, cutthroats, and craven to the core. The heroes were one scant step removed from saint­hood, while nary a villain had a single redeeming feature. Nonsense: I'll bet that even Attila the Hun was good to his mother; Albert Schweitzer proba­bly snored in his sleep.

And so another mighty Marvel concept was born. Our villains would no longer necessarily be the epitome of evil incarnate; our heroes had not only feet of clay, but kneecaps and thighbones as well.

But how could the reader learn what motivated them? After all, their dialogue was usually limited to "I've got to stop him before he captures Buckey," or "Great Scott! It's a crea­ture from another planet!" The solu­tion was obvious: give the reader a chance to get inside our characters' heads—emphasize cogitation as well as conversation. Those of you who are steeped in Marvel lore, who have faithfully followed the adventures of our amazing arachnid, how well you know our penchant for thought bal­loons wherever we have the slightest millimeter of empty space within a panel. Our characters soliloquize enough to make Hamlet seem like a raging extravert. Never before have comic books exhibited such inter­minable soul-searching; such agoniz­ing reappraisals on the part of hero and villain alike; such a dogged quest for truth, understanding, and basic motivation, even while Spider-Man is getting his lumps.

Thus, for the first time, comic book stories began to be written with the same concern for human speech and characterization as movies, novels, and plays. I'm not trying to imply that the end result would have made Ibsen jealous. We were still writing for a mass market and grinding out doz­ens of pages a day. But we were trying—and we were on our way.

There were plenty of voices of doom out there. I can't tell you how many times I heard, from those who were "older, wiser, and we've been in the business far longer than you," how my innocent little crusade to upgrade comic books would bring about the total collapse of our valiant little com­pany, if not the entire industry itself. I can still hear the voices—wise, per­suasive, and unrelenting.

"Are you out of your mind? Comics are for kids. For little kids!"

"You can't produce comic books to suit your own tastes. You'll lose your entire audience!"

"They just wanna look at the pic­tures. Give 'em anything that requires real reading and you've had it!"

"Don't ruin what we've got goin' here. Don't be a jerk and mess up a good thing!"

We managed to stick to our guns. We kept writing and drawing Spider-Man stories that featured surprisingly realistic situations, carefully con­trived motivation, and the sharpest dialogue I could invent. One of my favorite devices was the old "What if . . . ?" ploy. What if Spider-Man, while fighting for his life against some deadly foe, is suddenly hit with an allergy attack? What if he has to rush out at midnight to don his hidden costume and save mankind, but his Aunt May won't let him go because of an impending snowstorm and he's just getting over a cold? What if Spidey receives a huge check as a reward for apprehending some deadly dastard, but he can't cash the check because it's made payable to Spider-Man, and he has no bank account under that name, nor does he have any way of identifying himself without revealing his secret identity? For the first time in years, comic books began to amuse me again.

After the first few stories of this type, I felt I really knew our friendly neighborhood web-spinner. Refer­ring to him as Spidey seemed as natu­ral to me as calling my wife Joanie. Writing his dialogue was ridiculously easy; I simply let him speak exactly as I would. Talk about empathy! When­ever Spidey was in a tight spot, I'd only have to think of what I would say or do in the same predicament, and presto—I had my dialogue as well as my course of action. But I've always tried to keep it in the right per­spective. I've never personally. attempted to shinny up a wall or cling to the nearest ceiling.

But what about the readers? What sort of impact did the widely heralded (mostly by us) "Marvel style" have on the hard-to-please hordes of Spider-dom Assembled? I'm glad you asked.

The Amazing Spider-Man first went on sale early in 1963. Prior to that time we were selling about 17 million comic books a year. In 1964, spear­headed by Spidey's phenomenal pop­ularity, we sold 28 million. By 1968 we were selling 49 million copies per year. Last year, still led by Spider-Man as our flagship character, Mar­vel Comics sold more than 70 million comic books and our sales arc still growing. Throughout the world, Spidey outsells even Superman by about 800,000 copies per year.

To me, the most gratifying result of our new approach was a startling change in the comic book audience. The age range of our readers previously six to about 13—suddenly zoomed to college age and beyond. In fact, the additional sales were corning mainly from older readers, and the beauty of it was that we were gaining those older readers without losing the younger ones.

It seems that Spider-Alan and other Marvel Comics titles were being accepted and enjoyed on two levels. For the younger reader, there were colorful costumes, action, excitement, fantasy, and bigger-than-life adven­tures. For the newly proselytized older reader, we offered unexpectedly sophisti­cated plots and subplots, a college  level vocabulary, satire, science fic­tion, and as many philosophical and sociological concepts as we could devise. In the beginning, the satire wasn't completely intentional. I merely tried to imagine what would happen if someone with superhuman power really existed, and if he dwelled—for example—in Forest Hills, New York. Then I tried to con­front him with real-life situations and problems. I thought I was being realis­tic; older readers thought I was wax­ing satirical. If they called it satire, who was I to contradict them?

I was also delighted to discover that our younger readers were not turned off by the college-level vocabulary we were dishing out. They seemed to absorb the meaning of words like cataclysmic, misanthropic, sub­liminal, phantasmagoric. We actually received hundreds of letters from bewildered parents telling us that "Johnny's reading ability has improved 100 percent, as has his schoolwork—especially gram mar and composition—since reading Marvel Comics"!

For the past decade, I've traveled around the country extolling the vir­tues of Spidermania on the campuses of virtually every college and univer­sity from Portland to Phoenix, from Seattle to Sarasota. You'd be amazed at the range of queries that have been flung at me, questions ranging from "How can Spider-Man see through those obviously opaque eye panels in his mask?" to "Philosophically, how do you equate Spidcy's guilt syn­drome with his hyper neurotic extra­version and manic-depressive tenden­cies?" And I'm not even laying the tough ones on you!

Beyond grownup language and drawing, there seems to be something about Peter Parker and his costumed alter ego that mesmerizes his millions of admirers, including myself. Let me venture a theory as to why Spider-Man has enjoyed such a vast and ever-growing popularity all these years.

It's a pretty safe bet that you and I have one thing in common with the whole human race. Cute, cuddly, and captivating though we may be, we all possess a certain degree of rotten-ness—just enough to make us inter­esting. We may be genuinely fond of our friends; we may respect and admire any number of people, wish­ing them success in all their endeav­ors; and yet, we never quite want them to succeed too much. If a close friend or relative does well, you rejoice for him. But if he does an awful lot better than you, it wouldn't really break your heart to have him stumble once in a while. We never really want anyone to be too much better, richer, handsomer, smarter, sexier, or luckier than we arc. Not too much. In fact, if a loved one can be something of a loser now and then, it's usually a lot easier for that love to flourish and grow. Nothing breeds genuine, long-lasting affection as much as the knowledge that the recipient is just a teensy bit—just slightly, mind you, just the merest soupcon—inferior to you!

Well, that's how it is with Spider-Man. For all his power, brains, and fame, the poor kid has far more prob­lems, far more hang-ups than a ster­ling soul like you. As you read his weird and wondrous adventures, even as you thrill to his superhuman prow­ess, you find yourself pitying the guy, sympathizing with anyone who can have as many tough breaks and as much crummy luck as he does. Sure, he's a superhero. Sure, he's a regular one-man army. Sure, he's practically indestructible. But you're a lot better off. You seem to handle life's little vicissitudes far better than he can. Even though he's a living legend, you can feel superior to him. Now, how can you help but love a guy like that?

And perhaps, when all is said and done, that's what Spider-Man is tell­ing us about ourselves and our time. Even though it is fashionable to lament our lack of heroes—the van­ishing of our Joe DiMaggios or Win­ston Churchills—it's just possible that the day of the bigger-than-life hero is gone forever. We've grown too sophis­ticated. We've become too cynical. The events of the past few decades have made us suspicious, have made us distrust our leading citizens, our public figures, our politicians. What­ever happened to the time when we could refer to a politician as a states­man without feeling foolish?

All our Vietnams, Kent States, and Watergates have taken their toll. It's not that we don't want heroes. It's not that we don't search for someone to emulate, to admire, to idolize. But until the shock waves of our recent past have worn off, and we're finally ready and able to believe once again, our heroes will have to be fashioned of a different mold. They'll be flaky, fallible, and fault-ridden. They'll be no better or worse than we ourselves. We've endured too much. We won't let ourselves be hurt anymore.

So here's to Spider-Man. Here's to the new breed of superhero. He'll never disillusion us because we'll never expect too much from him. We can understand him and sympathize with him. If his powers arc greater than ours, so arc his problems. He's our kind of guy.

Quest July/August 1977

Steve Ditko, Marvel and Beyond

“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view…until you climb in his skin and walk around in it.” Atticus Finch, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird.

One day a man will ring your doorbell and offer you CELEBRITY! He will offer you fame and fortune and recognition. He will fight your battles for you and gear up the troops to go after your perceived enemies.

And all you have to do is give him everything you have…your privacy, your intimate moments, your private thoughts, your old artwork, your new artwork and details from events fifty years old. You’ll be expected to show up at conventions and sit and autograph comics that someone will sell tomorrow on EBay and sit in on panel after panel examining your work from fifty years ago and dismissing what you are working on now.

There are those who accept the offer love the money and attention, but then complain about the lack of privacy and the wave of criticism.

Those who don’t take it are called eccentric, outsiders, has-beens and hard to work with. With their subject out of the limelight, people can write newspaper articles and books saying outrageous things that bring publicity onto themselves knowing their subject will not bother to respond. They will tell you that they tried to get Ditko to cooperate with them, but it is never unconditional. They want something from him: his opinions, his personality and most of all his approval. They will have people who never meet him, write about him, make claims about him and, by keeping him out of it, they seem to validate their own absurd remarks. This is not journalism; in fact, it is not even common sense.

Some people’s work speaks for itself. In the world of serious comic books no one’s works speak speaks more for itself than Steve Ditko’s.

The Marvel Age of comics was built on Jack Kirby’s creativity, Steve Ditko’s ingenuity and Stan Lee’s continuity. Jack Kirby gave wonder to the Marvel Universe. Steve Ditko gave it awe. Kirby externalized the quest for knowledge, Ditko internalized it. On a journey to the Infinite, Kirby took us to the outer reaches of the universe. On a journey to find Eternity, Ditko took us into the minds of the Ancient One and Doctor Strange. In Doctor Strange’s first adventure in Strange Tales #110, Ditko introduces us to Nightmare, a villain that personifies an anxiety that we all share. Ditko places us in another dimension, one that exists in all of us, where the laws of physics are not relevant or even observed. Soon, this will be developed into the intangible home of Dormammu and all that follow. The Hulk is a great example of Ditko recognizing what made a character work and what didn’t. When Kirby introduced him, his change was caused by external factors, dusk and dawn and later a machine. Ditko’s Hulk changed for an internal issue, uncontrollable anger. This made The Hulk unique among comic book characters and disturbingly compelling. In a small but meaningful way, we are made to examine the question of “control” and how its loss can lead to unwanted consequences. Ditko also changed the character of Bruce Banner. Kirby’s Banner worked for the government and built bombs; Ditko’s Banner ran away from the government and then tried to prove himself loyal.

The Rawhide Kid, in August 1960, had a similar origin to Spider-Man, which would come in August 1962. A teenager, Johnny Bart, was raised by his Uncle Ben and gained great ability as a marksman. Bad guys kill his uncle and Johnny adopts a new identity, Th­­­e Rawhide Kid, to track them down. Because the Kid is a vigilante, the good guys as well as the bad go after the new hero. The saga of Spider-Man also uses all these concepts. Heck, without Ditko Spider-Man could have turned out to be another Ant-Man!

T

o a child in and of the 1960s, at first glance, the sight of a human looking like an insect walking up walls did not seem unique. Simon and Kirby had presented The Fly, who could scale sheer vertical surfaces, for Archie Comics in 1958. To say that Spider-Man was connected in any way to the Fly is silly. But to say that Ditko didn’t learn from reading those stories would be just as misleading. Some of the poses that Spider-Man has in the early issues are not dissimilar from Kirby’s in The Fly.

I was introduced to Ditko by his short, five-page stories in Amazing Fantasy, Tales of Suspense and other Marvel anthology titles. I quickly learned that it did not bode well for someone if they were too rich or too greedy and appeared on a Ditko splash page. Of course, it was always to be their own actions that caused their bad endings. And we often saw their reaction to that.

Ditko, who never worked from a finished script at Marvel, took an outline by Stan Lee and created a unique mood, style and story line for one of the greatest characters in fiction. Not just in comic book fiction, but popular fiction. No one else created as much emotional impact in his an effect often due to his expert pacing.

Ditko made Spider-Man complex and compelling. It was truly a one-of-a-kind artistic achievement. Like Clark Kent, bespectacled Peter Parker worked for a great metropolitan newspaper and was interested in a co-worker. But that’s where the similarities end. Parker was a character no one had seen before. To Peter Parker it wasn’t a day-job. He didn’t punch in every day. Betty Brant was not a co-worker.  She worked at the place where Peter sold his pictures. The emotional threads that Ditko wove into the story arcs were powerful and unforgettable and you never, ever thought the stories were anything like Superman… or anything else. The interactions Parker had with the cast of characters Ditko introduced made the reader identify with him and have complete empathy for the character. That’s right; you rooted for a creation of pen and ink. When things seemed to work out with girlfriend Betty you felt good and when trouble arose between them you got concerned. When they broke up, it didn’t just break Peter’s heart, it broke yours, too.

Unique to the comics of that time, Peter Parker’s girlfriend, Betty, had a terrible family history. Her worthless, criminal brother, Bennett, owed money for gambling and Betty is forced to borrow money from the mob. She is first attacked by the Enforcers and later, confronted by Doctor Octopus.

J. Jonah Jameson also had a unique vendetta against Spider-Man. In issue #10, J.J.J. admits that although he has money and promotes causes he was jealous of Spider-Man, who risked his life to save people, getting nothing in return; he just wanted to do the right thing. This was complex thinking for a 1960s comic. These were mature concepts, not seen in comics since the Comics Code had been implemented in 1955.

I was too young when Doctor Strange debuted in Strange Tales #110 and I didn’t fully appreciate it. The world therein was askew and the characters didn’t look right. Then one rainy day years later, I reread all of his published adventures (midway through to the Eternity saga) and realized its brilliance. Ditko showed that comics were not just for kids but for adults. Doctor Strange’s powers did not come from cosmic rays, freak lightning bolts, or radioactive insects. His power was knowledge and how to use it. He read, he studied and he practiced his profession. Strange reads the book of Vishanti in Strange Tales #120 (May 1964) to find a solution. He then visits a haunted mansion to eliminate its ghosts. This is the last time a New York City doctor ever made a house call.

When Doctor Strange appeared in Strange Tales #110, I figured Ditko was reworking the magician idea that we had seen in comics with such as Mandrake and Zatarra. He  reimagined them just as he did with The Hulk and Iron Man. I just assumed that Ditko wanted to re-work Doctor Droom, the mystic hero that appeared in Amazing Adventures #1, who was drawn by Jack Kirby and inked by Ditko. I was wrong. We know now that Steve plotted and drew it out and then gave it to Stan. The series started off a bit slow, but interesting, as a five-page filler.

Stan Lee wrote (The Comic Reader #16, 1963) “Well, we have a new character in the works for Strange Tales, just a 5-page filler named Dr. Strange. Steve Ditko is gonna draw him. It has sort of a black magic theme. The first story is nothing great, but perhaps we can make something of him. T’was Steve’s idea; I figured we’d give it a chance, although again, we had to rush the first one too much.” 

Doctor Strange graduated from filler to being the first double feature of the Marvel Age because it was brilliantly done. When the segment grew to ten pages, it allowed stories to become more complex and characters to be developed.  In fact, the 170-page story (starting in Strange Tales #130) remains a highlight of complexity, emotion and storytelling of the Marvel Age. It became one of the most memorable story arcs of the era and it helped usher in the concept of longer stories, which has evolved into the graphic novel. Doctor Strange was a brilliant character, magical and mystical, with no real history. As his collections have been released in Masterworks and Essentials, I have suggested to people NOT to read Strange Tales #115, the Origin of Doctor Strange, until they have finished the other stories.

Unlike many other comics Doctor Strange does not have a backstory; no parents, friends and no baggage. Peter Parker had an uncle and aunt and had lost his parents, Superman came from another planet. Doctor Strange just showed up, just him and The Ancient One. They were just there. (Somehow, this seemed fitting for their world. Things just happened, there was no long and convoluted explanation, which comics often had.)

Throughout the years, there have been discussions, among comic book fans, on the influence of Stan Lee on the origin of Doctor Strange. In the origin story, the only glimpse we see of a history, we see that he was once a skilled but arrogant surgeon who injured his hands. He learns the mystic arts and seeks redemption for his past life and acts. Redemption was a very common theme in most of Stan Lee’s works. Daredevil, Thor, Iron Man and so many others sought redemption. This includes Peter Parker. Stan Lee mentions in the letter’s column in Strange Tales #115, that fans felt that an origin story was necessary. My only disappointment with Doctor Strange is that the final chapter of Ditko’s epic seventeen-issue story arc, in Strange Tales #146, “The End at Last!,” leaves one with the impression of having been rushed. He was leaving Marvel and must have felt that he owed the fans a conclusion and could not leave without one.

Ditko seemed to be the “go to” guy at Marvel. Ditko was aware of what comics were out there and what was working and what was not. It seemed to me that if something wasn’t working right, they brought it to him to fix. Ditko was able to understand the fundamental nature of the character and even if he changed things, Ditko kept its essence. Ditko took Iron Man out of a bulky, heavy costume and made him into the sleek, colorful jet-setting modern playboy.

Ditko’s work on The Hulk was frankly incredible. He took an character whose own book had failed and made him interesting and compelling. Jack Kirby had said that he had modeled The Hulk after the Frankenstein monster. The Hulk behaves very much like that monster and is treated very much the same: an innocent haunted and hunted by people. At first, the Hulk seemed more like the Wolf Man because he turned into an uncontrolled creature at night. The first five issues lacked consistency.

It was also hard to like Bruce Banner because, like Tony Stark, he was a weapons manufacturer, a brilliant bomb maker, and a bit of a dweeb. (Whereas Clark Kent and later Spider-Man pretended to be meek and mild, Banner was.) In Avengers #3, Banner turns into the Hulk when he is calm and sleeping and back to Banner when he gets upset. When Dick Ayers drew the Hulk (in Tales to Astonish #59, the issue preceding The Hulk series) we see that the cause of Banner’s transformation is simply high blood pressure. The heck with gamma rays… had he stayed away from salt he would have been okay.

Ditko gave the Hulk his anger management issues. By introducing Major Talbot he not only gave Banner an adversary but he also gave him a motivator. Talbot accuses Banner of being a communist or at least working with them. To prove that he is not, to prove that he is a loyal American, Banner now continues his research to make more weapons. We don’t feel that he is doing this absent of consequences, but he is doing it to show that he is loyal. Also he is showing himself that while part of him may be destructive, he is also a worthwhile person, not inventing anything for personal gain, but for the good of his country.

In contrast to Doctor Strange, Spider-Man had a detailed back story. This indicates that Strange’s lack of one was deliberate, for even when the stories became longer, his past was not addressed. Spidey suffered great consequences from not stopping that burglar. He lost his uncle and his aunt lost her husband. Their finances were destroyed for years.

In the era of Batman and Dick Tracy where villains were misshapen, grotesque, and often looked like their evil names, Ditko took a more unsettling route. His villains look like normal people, they weren’t overly ugly with distorted features although some did wear masks. Most of his villains, the Green Goblin, the Crime Master, Mysterio, Electro, the Sandman and even the Enforcers, looked human, but menacing. So the real villains in Spider-Man’s world could be your neighbors.

Steve Ditko kept a chart on his wall that clearly outlined the Spider-Man story line for the next three or four issues. To Steve Ditko, criminals were little men, almost faceless like Frederick Foswell, in Amazing Spider-Man. One of my favorite stories is the “Man in the Crime Master’s Mask!” (issues #27-28) This was a two-part story that had me guessing for 40 pages. It’s a brilliant concept: A whodunit with a high-powered villain being someone no one even knew, and therefore no one would suspect. Years later, when I would hear these strange rumors that Ditko left Marvel over a conflict about the identity of the Green Goblin, I would also be told that Ditko wanted it to be no one we had ever seen. Ditko would never do that. He would never repeat a theme that he had just done a year earlier. For example, in issue 36, Norman Osborn, while holding a rifle, threatens to go after some people. I think that was a clue

.

In Eye Magazine, 1966 Stan said:  “I don’t plot Spider-Man any more. Steve Ditko, the artist, has been doing the stories. I guess I’ll leave him alone until sales start to slip. Since Spidey got so popular, Ditko thinks he’s the genius of the world. We were arguing so much over plot lines I told him to start making up his own stories. He won’t let anybody else ink his drawings, either. He just drops off the finished pages with notes at the margins and I fill in the dialogue. I never know what he’ll come up with next, but it’s interesting to work that way.”

There have been many articles and references over the years regarding Ditko and his identification with Spider-Man and Doctor Strange. Well, he did name Doctor Strange, Stephen didn’t he? Many assume that Ditko identified with his heroes. If so, did J. Jonah Jameson, a cheap, penny-pinching publisher who insisted that all stories be written from his point of view, represent Martin Goodman or Stan Lee or an amalgam of both? Of course, if this is true, does that make Flo Steinberg the model for Betty Brant, J.J.J.’s secretary and Parker’s first girlfriend?

J.J.J. was to become a direct threat to Spider-Man. Earlier, J.J.J. worked in the background to encourage villains to stop Spidey. This changed with issue #25. This was the first time J.J.J. became the actual face of a villain when he manned the Spider-Man seeking robot. Perhaps Ditko felt that was just what Goodman and Lee were doing. But Stan Lee and Steve Ditko had stopped talking to each other about one year before Ditko left Marvel. Ditko would draw the pages and send, or bring, them in for Lee to add his dialogue.

By issue #35 (Apr 1966), Peter Parker is deserted by friends, threatened by unseen enemies and feeling isolated. Steve Ditko was plotting the books by himself and there is none of Lee’s exuberance or optimism in the character or the stories.

If there was any regret in Spider-Man for me, it was the way his graduation and entrance to college took place. It was common in comics to have change without really having change, to give the appearance that something is new and different but it kind of stays the same. When Parker went to college, it changed the scenery but it really didn’t change his environment. He still had Flash Thompson in his classroom, antagonistic as always and blonde Liz Allen was replaced by blonde Gwen Stacy. Ditko probably did not want this change because he did not want to lose his characters, so he kept them despite the change in locale from high school to college. What, for instance, was Flash Thompson, in college on an athletic scholarship, doing in the same science and chemistry classes as (science major) Peter Parker? No one held his ear to the ground to sense what the fans were thinking more than Stan Lee. Comic books had begun losing their adult male audience in 1945, when WWII ended. Now, on college campuses, Marvel was getting them back, as evidenced by Esquire’s choosing Spider-Man and the Hulk as two of the people who counted on campus in 1966 Stan Lee wanted to keep his characters relevant and popular in this new market.

In 2015, in the Robin Snyder/Steve Ditko Four-Page Publication, Mr. Ditko clearly explains why he left Marvel in Nov. 1965. It had nothing to do with The Green Goblin.

Steve Ditko: “I always picked up pages from Stan, he’d tell me about anything to change, add, etc.” Until one day, he continues, “I went to the Marvel office. Silent Sol (Brodsky) handed me the pages to ink… NO comment about anything. I left with the pages. I inked the pages, took them in, Sol again took the pages from me and into Stan’s office — came out saying nothing — and I left…. I always wrote down any ideas that came to me about the supporting characters, any possible, usable story idea. At some point after they had been dialogued and lettered, I got my original, penciled pages back and inked them. That became our working system on S-M and DS. One day I got a call from Sol. The next S-M annual is coming up.… I asked myself, “Why should I do it?” Why should I continue to do all these monthly issues, original story ideas, material, for a man who is too scared, too angry over something, to even see, talk to me?...at some point, I decided to quit Marvel.”

In 1975, Stan said in the Fantasy Advertiser:

"Steve was a very mysterious character. When he first started he was the easiest character we ever had to work with. I used to think that if everybody was as easy to work with as Steve, it would be great. I would call him in the middle of the night with an emergency ten-page script and Steve would bring it in the very next day without a complaint. He was just beautiful.  But, little by little, he became tougher and tougher to work with. After a while he’d say to me, “Gee, Stan, I don’t like those plots you are writing for Spider-Man.” So I’d say okay, because I couldn’t have cared less, Steve was so good at drawing stuff, I said, “Use your own plot, I’ll put the dialogue in.” So he’d do his own, and I’d switch them around, and I’d put the dialogue in and make them conform to what I wanted. Then he’d say “I don’t like the sound-effects you’re putting in.” So I told him to use his own, I didn’t mind. I’d bend over backwards to accommodate him, because he was so good and the strip was so successful. But it was like Chamberlain giving in to Hitler, the more I appeased him, the harder he got to work with. Finally, it reached the point where he didn’t even come up to the office with his artwork —he’d just mail it in. Then, one day, he said he was leaving. You now know as much about it as I do. What bothered him, I don’t know.... He’s another guy I’d take back in a minute, but I have a feeling he’d be impossible to work with."



Ditko influenced many artists, but none could ever recreate his world, try as they might. Ditko was an essential, irreplaceable part of the foundation of the Marvel Age. He was able to take a concept or character, new or old and develop it into something completely fresh and different, even unrecognizable from its first germ of an idea. I will remember him and miss him  for that. 

Harlan Ellison: His Marvel Age of Comics

As a child of the Marvel Age and the Silver Age of Comics the last few years have been difficult as we have lost so many of the people we so admired.

We have just lost Harlan Ellison, the writer on the edge of forever, on June 27, 2018. His association with Marvel during the Marvel Age produced some unforgettable stories. Now is a good time to share them.

In 1971 Harlan wrote an outline for a two part Avengers/Hulk tale. The story appeared in Avengers #88 and was continued Incredible Hulk #140. His outline for this tale was published in Marvelmania #4.  

Here is the complete outline of that story.

SPLASH PANEL shows the Hulk caught between the poles of a specially-rigged trap powered by the magneto generators of Boulder Dam. He is being bombarded by millions of volts of electricity. Thunderbolt Ross and his corps of army engineers have lured the green behemoth to the dam where they have pinned him in a barrage of current--[much in the manner the Thing was killed], in hopes the assault—enough to slaughter an army of rampaging Visigoths—will stun him long enough to put him in a newly-designed crypt filled with coma gas. Then, effectively immobilized, the Hulk will be transported to a testing ground where he will be kept unconscious until a cure has been effected to turn him back, once and for all, to Bruce Banner. The crypt was designed by Tony Stark and Reed Richards, working in conjunction with Professor Xavier.

It’s working! Screaming in impotent rage, the Hulk struggles feebly in the grip of raw energy cascading over him. And as Mr. Fantastic and Tony Stark look on with Professor X, gauging the possibilities of finally saving Bruce Banner from the living coffin of flesh wherein he has been trapped for so many years, we cut away to: The Avengers, hot on the trail of a menace so great they cannot even speak his name without fearing dread. They are stalking through swamp-land...shrouded in mist, eerie, compelling... on a nameless atoll near Easter Island. Looking for a decayed and ancient idol, an icon of a lost civilization: key to a subterranean strong-hold of the decimator whose very existence on the planet is more deadly than a thousand hydrogen bombs. They push onward and, finally, in the heart of the steaming night swamp they stumble on it—a statue so grotesque and monstrous it brings them to a halt. And we cut back to:

          The Hulk, pinned in a torrent of lightning. As the electricity takes its toll and the Hulk sinks down senseless, the great crane-machines move in, to lift him into the coma crypt. But as they lumber forward, as they wait for the instant the electricity ceases its crackling work, the Hulk suddenly becomes transparent, wavers in their sight, and... vanishes. Winks out of existence. Cut to the underground eyrie of a bizarre new villain, Syklop; half-human, half-creature of a long-dead race, he is the menace being even now stalked by The Avengers. And as we first see him, first dwell on the eldritch horror of his single bee-faceted ruby eye, his strangely structured body, we see the Hulk suddenly appears in the crystal receiving portal of a weird machine.

Syklop runs through his background and his purpose at this meaningful moment like a damned soul telling its beads for the final, agonizing time: his race had lived in the bowels of the Earth eons before even apes had walked the land. But they had fallen into disrepute with the dark gods they had worshipped, and they had been put to eternal sleep. For millennia they had dwelled in that starless night of empty dreams; until Syklop had been called up from slumber by the dark gods, who had promised him if he could tap a new source of power for their failing energy demands, they would release his race—who would then with ease recapture the world for themselves. And so, with the aid of ancient sciences and regimens even the most advanced human scientists would call sorcery, Syklop has located a source of power, limitless power, that if he can only tap, he can save his race from eternal sleep and certain destruction. That power source: The Hulk.

          Now, with the Hulk stunned, lying semi-conscious in the portal of the great machine he has used to disassemble the green giant’s atoms and reassemble them here...Syklop knows his theory was correct: the only way to uncover the secret of the Hulk’s incredible power is to compress the atoms of that green form so the molecular structure can be better studied under the analyzers of another of Syklop’s herculean machines.

          But to do this, the Hulk must be reduced in size and must be shrunk and compressed. He transfers the Hulk to the other machine, and the shrinking ray begins to bathe green behemoth in a ruby glow. Syklop knows he must be careful, and not shrink the creature too much.

 But even as he works his ancient science on The Hulk, The Avengers crash into the subterranean laboratory. A fight ensues, in which Syklop must struggle for his life against the massed power of The Avengers assembled. While so doing he is unable to watch the progress of the shrinkage of the Hulk, and in mere moments the Hulk has been reduced and compressed so much, he becomes invisible, shrinks down and down and down until he is hurled into a sub-atomic, sub molecular universe that exists in a mote of Down, down, down until he emerges, gigantic in another world. And is shrunk down more and more until he stands astraddle two continents, a Colossus of Rhodes from another universe. The shrinking continues rapidly and the Hulk soon becomes smaller than the average size of a creature in this sub-molecular universe, but...

          Cut back to Syklop’s subterranean laboratory, where the horror representative of that sleeping race of monsters manages to reach the machine used to assemble and disassemble atoms. He turns the ray on The Avengers and they blink out of existence-appearing suddenly... with their memories wiped clean of anything even remotely connected to Syklop...on the downtown express platform of the IRT 7th Avenue Subway... turning and looking and confused at how they got there as...Syklop dashes to close off the shrinking ray.

          Realizing he has sent his one hope of success to another universe, Syklop begins making preparations to follow the Hulk to that infinitesimal space. But to do that he has to revamp the ray so it will shrink him to a size larger than the size the Hulk must have now become, and bring them both back at a pre-set time. It will take time to make such changes, and while Syklop bends to his intricate chore...

          Now he is dwarfed by the feather-topped trees, he is smaller than the diamond rocks striated with onyx, he is tinier than the lumbering, lupine beast snuffling at him through the underbrush. But he is still the Hulk. And as the saber-fanged wild wolf-thing spies him and leaps at him, the Hulk grabs at one of the protruding razor-sharp teeth, rips it loose from the creature’s mouth, and impales the wolf-thing through the throat on its own tooth.

          He hears the shrieks of people in terror and gives one mighty leap that carries him above the waving feather-fronds of the trees. Casting about in mid-leap, he sees a city of pink and blue stone, and from that city comes the massed sound of a populace under siege. He hurls himself through the air and lands with a crash just outside the gates of the magical little city, where he sees a rabid pack of saber-toothed wolves like the one he has just slain, attacking the walls. And he sees that the people, who are small and green and quite beautiful are ill equipped to stave them off. He identifies with them: they are his size, they are his color, and he has no love for the wolves.

 He wades into the beasts, using his behemoth power to scatter them and frighten them. He grabs two of them by their tails and ties the tails together; then, using the wolves as a Gaucho would use a bola, he spins them overhead, around and around, finally hurling them far off across the horizon. One after another he crushes the wolves, hitting one so hard he drives him deep into the ground.

 Finally, when they are dispersed, the gates of the city open and the people stream out. They seem, at first, to be attacking (to the dim brain of the Hulk), but they are so lovely, so friendly, he holds his blows for a moment and they lift him to their shoulders, carry him into the city, and there they make the Hulk their king!

 The queen, Jarella, is obviously taken with the Hulk and she orders the Pantheon of Sorcerers to devise a way by which the Hulk can learn their language. Torla, the head sorcerer, a kind of Merlin-like man, works a spell (that in this universe is science, not magic) that not only gives the Hulk the gift of speech as they speak it, but somehow clears the befogged brain of the behemoth, and for the first time in many months he can think rationally, not as the rampaging killer he has been.

 The Hulk calls the court in session and confronts Visis with the charges, and the assassin turns evidence against his master. Everyone expects the Hulk to kill Visis right there in the throne room. But this is a new Hulk, one whose mind has been cleared by Torla’s magic/science. And he merely orders Visis to gather his goods and his supporters and leave. He is banished.

 The Queen and the court cheer the Hulk for his humanity, and they declare they want him to stay with them forever. The Hulk’s heart is full, for the first time he knows love and joy and...

 An enormous shadow falls across the glass dome of thr throne room. Then a monstrous hand crashes through the glass and huge fingers grab the Hulk in an unbreakable grip. He is lifted up, out of the castle, into the sky. In the grip of Syklop!

As Jarella and Torla and his subjects watch in horror, King Hulk is lifted away and up and up and up. Then, in the clutch of that ghastly eldritch creature who stands like a mountain above their land, they see Syklop laugh his terrifying laugh of triumph and... They both grow so enormous they vanish from the sub-molecular universe.

          Jarella is bereft of her love, and the people have lost their king. But what of the Hulk?

          He reappears in Syklop’s laboratory, but before the monster can sedate the Hulk, the effects of Torla’s sorcery wear off, and the Hulk goes on a rampage, demolishing the lab. Then, before Syklop can stop him, he batters his way through the very walls of the underground lab, through the earth, and leaps into the sky.

          Syklop’s equipment in ruined. He must start over again, if he can. But even before he can contemplate such an alternative, one of the Dark Gods appears to him, even more terrifying in its shadowy outlines than Syklop himself. And the Dark God intones, “You have failed”!

          For the first time in his existence, the Hulk is happy. He seems at home! These green people love him, want him, need him as their King. And for the first time a beautiful woman loves him, not Bruce Banner but him, the Hulk. Only Visis, the pretender to the throne, hates him, and plots to have him killed.

          One night the men of Visis descend on the Hulk as he sits staring out at the multi-colored star sky of this nameless little world in a dust mote. He is attacked but easily manages to drive them off, in the process grabbing one of the assassins who tells him it is Visis behind the plot.

          The Hulk calls the court in session and confronts Visis with the charges, and the assassin turns evidence against his master. Everyone expects the Hulk to kill Visis right there in the throne room. But this is a new Hulk, one whose mind has been cleared by Torla’s magic/science. And he merely orders Visis to gather his goods and his supporters and leave. He is banished. The Queen and the court cheer the Hulk for his humanity, and they declare they want him to stay with them forever. The Hulk’s heart is full, for the first time he knows love and joy and... An enormous shadow falls across the glass dome of the throne room. Then a monstrous hand crashes through the glass and huge fingers grab the Hulk in an unbreakable grip. He is lifted up, out of the castle, into the sky. In the grip of Syklop!

          As Jarella and Torla and his subjects watch in horror, King Hulk is lifted away and up and up and up. Then, in the clutch of that ghastly eldritch creature who stands like a mountain above their land, they see Syklop laugh his terrifying laugh of triumph and... They both grow so enormous they vanish from the sub-molecular universe.

          Jarella is bereft of her love, and the people have lost their king. But what of the Hulk?

          He reappears in Syklop’s laboratory, but before the monster can sedate the Hulk, the effects of Torla’s sorcery wear off, and the Hulk goes on a rampage, demolishing the lab. Then, before Syklop can stop him, he batters his way through the very walls of the underground lab, through the earth, and leaps into the sky.

          Syklop’s equipment in ruined. He must start over again, if he can. But even before he can contemplate such an alternative, one of the Dark Gods appears to him, even more terrifying in its shadowy outlines than Syklop himself. And the Dark God intones, “You have failed”!

         

          Syklop’s screams as the Dark God takes his revenge And what of the Hulk?

        

      Leaping through the sky, a dim memory of happiness still fading from his fogged brain, he remembers a tiny green Queen and a time of joy. And he soars away into the distance, trying to find a place he can never find again, not even understanding that the world and the life he seeks are forever denied him, locked in a mote of dust clinging to his garments.

          Once again he is the homeless, brutal Hulk.

Harlan was to contribute to the Avengers again, in issue #101, 1972.

The story begins with a chess match and the plot unfolds like one. One man becomes the focal point of all history and he inadvertently threatens the world. Leonard Tippit is given super-human powers by the Watcher to kill five people who would have been the parents of the children that will cause the end of life on Earth. The Avengers battle him and they are aided by the overseeing Watcher.

“Five Dooms to Save Tomorrow!” 

          In 1973 Marvel published two issues of a digest magazines under the title, Haunt of Horror. Harlan had a story entitled Nova published.

The artwork is by Walt Simonson.

OOPS! Marvel misprinted the last two pages and had to reprint them in the next issue, correctly!

Just a small postscript:
Harlan's characters were not forgotten and were used in some of the best Hulk stories of that era. Here is the splash to Incredible Hulk #172.