In June 1958, Lee put in calls to two artists that he had worked with in the past: Steve Ditko and his old boss, Jack Kirby. Both men needed work, especially Kirby, who had burned bridges while working for rival DC Comics and saw his partnership with Joe Simon evaporate in the industry downturn as Simon went off into the advertising business. There simply weren’t enough assignments to go around and many of the remaining ones were at a reduced page rate. Kirby had few options. Goodman, virtually ignoring Lee’s comic book work, barely noticed that his editor had hired back its former star artist, even if there might be some leftover resentment between the two about old Captain America profits.
Lee put them to work on science fiction and fantasy titles. Ditko’s fluid style and gripping sense of shapes and sizes worked perfectly in these genres. Kirby was less happy, but committed to the paycheck. From a similar background as Lee, yet more hardscrabble and poorer, Kirby had a manic drive to support his family. He drew the monster books that Lee requested, even though it didn’t require his best work.
Both Lee and Kirby had reservations about the comic book business, but they also needed the work, sharing a level of determination that few could match. Lee edited and wrote for Goodman’s magazines, but thought that the publisher purposely snubbed him because of the weakness of the comic book division. Lee remembered his boss/relative walking straight past him without saying a word. The silence was deafening and sent a clear message. Lee realized, “It’s like a ship sinking, and we’re the rats. And we’ve got to get off.”21 For his part, Kirby said that he felt “shipwrecked” at Goodman’s company.
Little did Lee, Kirby, and Ditko realize that they would soon revolutionize the comic book industry and popular culture forever.
CHAPTER 6
BIRTH OF THE NEW HERO
THE FANTASTIC FOUR
Barely looking at the road in front of him, Stan Lee barrels toward Long Island in a souped-up Buick convertible. Jack Kirby, chewing on a cigar, sits in the passenger seat to Lee’s right. John Romita, another one of Lee’s favorite artists, grips the back of Kirby’s seat. With one eye on the duo in the front and one on the traffic, Romita is a captive audience, fearing for his life.
Lee can’t stop talking. Over the onrush of air and booming sounds of the city, he barks out soliloquies about the intergalactic adventures of a quartet of superheroes. Shot through with gamma rays after crashing a spaceship back to Earth, each member has developed a superpower. With their newfound powers, they vow to battle evil together.
Kirby punctuates his ideas with a jab of his stogy. Even in the swirl of wind, he shifts the cigar from one side of his mouth to the other, waiting for Lee to pause. The arguments over plots and scenarios began as soon as Lee’s foot stomped on the gas.
Nonchalant, Lee swerves and jukes between passing vehicles. Kirby focuses on the plot, seemingly unfazed by Lee’s daredevil driving. As they bicker over how the stories should play out, each battling for his point of view, Romita realizes that neither is actually listening to the other. “They would both come in with their ideas,” he recalled, “they would both ignore each other. . . . I never really knew which way they would go because both of them had a different aspect on the story.”1
The bickering doesn’t end until Lee drops Kirby off at his house in East Willis-ton on Long Island, a bucolic little village of less than three thousand souls. The tiny hamlet is far removed from the great artist’s youth growing up on the crime-ridden streets of the Lower East Side.
Such story conferences, whether they took place in a whizzing convertible shooting toward Long Island, over the phone, or in Lee’s cramped office, came to define the way he and Kirby created superhero stories in the 1960s. Neither the writer nor the artist probably realized it at the time, but in these arguments and countless others they had actually reinvented the way comic books were created.
The new writing style mixed storytelling, plot, and visual representation (later dubbed the “Marvel Method”). Both the writer and artist had a say in how the final product unfolded, rather than the artist merely following a script, as had been done in the past. When readers went nuts for the new superhero team, Lee and Kirby realized that they were at the dawn of a new era.
It all began with those gamma rays and the Fantastic Four!
From the planet-smashing opening burst to the pistol shot and train churning headlong around a bend and nearly right at the viewer, The Adventures of Superman gave audiences chills up and down their spines. The orchestra blared, while the announcer proclaimed that the hero fought for “truth, justice, and the American way.” Tall, with dark slicked-back hair and a broad chest, actor George Reeves brought Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster’s character to life. The Adventures of Superman blazed across the 1950s, and television sets across the nation were tuned to the program.
Julius “Julie” Schwartz, the editorial director of DC Comics, Goodman’s chief competitor, realized The Adventures of Superman ’s success gave DC an opportunity to rekindle interest in superhero-driven comic books. He had been editing Wonder Woman, Flash, and Green Lantern since 1944. Despite the ongoing challenges with Wertham’s crusades and television’s lure, Schwartz figured that if the company focused on superheroes, their fortunes might be reversed.
Beginning in 1956, the editor gingerly pushed the company back into the superhero game, bringing out remodeled, updated versions of the Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, and The Atom, among others. One hit led to another. Then, the early success of the Flash led him to introduce a superhero team, modeled after the Justice Society of America, which had run its course in 1951. The new group, with the slightly different name of the Justice League of America, first appeared in The Brave and the Bold #28 (March 1960).2 Although Superman did not appear on the cover with the superhero team, both he and Batman were revealed as members. The combination of the Superman television show and his inclusion in the new super-hero lineup helped National Comics stay at the top of the industry.3
Schwartz wasn’t the only comic book insider to see the resurgence of Superman and its consequences. As usual, Martin Goodman smelled a trend in the making and wanted to pounce. Innovation did not interest him—he cared about profit. Goodman had a seemingly simple directive: move mountains of paper as fast as possible. Although he had a lifelong affinity for cowboy stories and some interest in science fiction, this was about as complex as he got about magazines and comic books. Both were merely products to be exploited.
Goodman’s fundamental business acumen centered on watching to see what worked for his competitors and then brazenly copying them, whether this meant setting up a series of shell corporations to prevent any one piece of his publication empire from toppling the rest or latching onto a hot genre being pushed by a competitor and riding it until the next fad appeared. It seemed as if much of the industry ran on this notion of watching the market leader and then following along. Many of the men who ran comic book houses knew each other well, playing cards and drinking, dining at the same high-end restaurants, golfing, and even vacationing near one another in Miami Beach. Though they attempted to outdo one another on the newsstands, they shared the commonality of comic books and publishing, which made them a kind of odd tribe, since comic books and magazines were hardly seen as reputable concerns.4
From the mid-1940s through the early 1960s, Goodman cut every corner possible to make money. Often, he dipped into rather seedy and unscrupulous tactics and content in search of sales. Titles like For Men Only and Stag appealed to people’s most sordid interests, essentially soft-core porno graphy, horrific crime scene photos, and pirated movie stills of famous Hollywood stars to heighten the sensationalistic content. Goodman even urged employees of his magazine business and freelance staffers to pose as models for the magazines, which saved him hiring real models or actors.5 The bonus for Goodman was that Stag and other lascivious magazines were sold for twenty-five cents versus the comic books at just ten cents.
In the cutthroat publishing business, profitabi
lity meant keeping costs down and averting risk at all turns. Goodman believed that the people buying comic books consisted primarily of preteen and teenage boys, simply interested in rock ’em, sock ’em stories with excessive fight scenes and action-filled pictures, and a large base of dimwitted adults. According to Goodman, they did not give a hoot about quality. Instead, he had his editorial staff push conventionality. The publisher famously followed in the wake of competitors who launched new trends and genres, exclaiming, “If you get a title that catches on, then add a few more, you’re in for a nice profit.”6
Stan Lee did not have notions of high artistry. At one time, he dreamed of writing a great novel or getting into movies, but years of work for Goodman knocked those ideas on their ear. He knew the reality—publishing was a moneymaking venture. His number one priority centered on creating products that would sell. Yet Lee also realized that there might be more to it than simply generating profits. He understood that comic books could play a more significant role in young people’s lives, such as helping youngsters learn to read, or sparking their imaginations in ways that would help them later in life.
These impulses warred inside Lee. The monotony of writing and editing comic books at the relentless pace essential to make Goodman’s strategy work pulled at his conscience. He served as the comic book division’s editor, writer, and art director, but felt like he was spinning his wheels. Am I wasting my life on comic books? he wondered. “I felt we were merely doing the same type of thing, over and over again with no hope of either greater financial rewards or creative satisfaction.”7 In 1960, approaching two decades in the business, Lee hung at the end of his rope. Depressed and desperate, he thought he should travel some other career path—anything, really, to get away from the banal topics, plots, and characters that filled comics.
Still a couple years removed from forty years old, Lee considered other options, his usual optimistic outlook curtailed by thoughts of his own family history. After living through his father’s fight with internal demons brought on by chronic unemployment during the Depression, the mere thought of leaving his job demonstrated Lee’s deep-rooted despair. Jacob Lieber had been just a little older than Stan was now when he lost his job and the resulting fallout left his small family in tatters. Stan never forgot how his father’s chronic unemployment sparked tense fights between his parents and left their marriage shattered.
Lee had a decision to make. He balanced two conflicting notions: a regular paycheck that provided a stable, happy life for his family, on one hand, and the relentless despondency he experienced by grinding out uninspiring comics, on the other. As the primary writer and editorial director, Lee spent long days scripting and editing teen romance and humor comics such as Teen-Age Romance and Life with Millie, and perennial westerns, such as Rawhide Kid, Wyatt Earp, and Two-Gun Kid. Monster stories featuring surprise or twist endings, including Strange Tales and Journey into Mystery, also took up much of Lee’s time.
Lee added up the pieces and realized that the comic book business seemed doomed. Sales figures that had taken off in the 1950s plummeted at the end of the decade. Public outcry had hurt the industry, which added to Lee’s unhappiness. “There we were blithely grinding out our merry little monster yarns,” Lee said. “We were turning out comics by the carload, but nothing much was happening.”8 No matter which way he turned, Lee felt pressure: Stay in comics and continue his malaise for a regular paycheck, keep churning out derivative characters to satiate Goodman’s demands, or leave behind the only career he had ever known.
In the summer of 1961, Lee took action. He decided to create a superhero team that would put the consistently second-rate publishing house on the map. He immediately got to work piecing the team together. Contrary to the Justice Society and the Justice League, which were formed by disparate individuals, Lee determined that his team would be a family, and like a regular family, would confront the challenges people faced in the real world. The only difference, Lee thought, is that these seemingly typical people would have to deal with gaining superpowers that they never asked for. Lee wondered: How would people who lived next door or down the street react to living through a rocket crash to find that they had abilities that could enrich or destroy the world?
I wanted to “make the unreal real,” Lee said. “Take extraordinary people, put them in extraordinary circumstances, and then have them behave like ordinary people. No audience of ordinary people could resist.” He thought back to what attracted him to books he had read and radio programs he had listened to in his youth and mirrored the kind of storytelling that attracted him. “Plop an earthly superhero into a familiar setting, and you’ve got some classic pulp fiction.”9
Like a compelling dramatic film (and just like at the heart of most families), Lee began with the love story between the central characters Reed Richards and Susan Storm. Then, he upped the drama and family dynamic by adding her hot-tempered younger brother Johnny. Lee rounded out the new team with Ben Grimm, the group’s everyman. When Grimm became the Thing, the group gained both comedic relief and a sense of humanity. The monster’s exterior concealed a sensitive soul. The team’s interactions—both as superheroes and individuals coping with a new world and one another—served as the jet fuel to send the comic racing. Lee saw that action as the central facet, explaining, “I like to have characters to work with as though it’s a movie or a soap opera, where the characters’ own personal lives would help write the dialogue and come up with situations.”10 The quartet would be a loving, but dys-functional family, held together by affection, but dealing with a myriad of challenges brought on by their newfound might.
Lee pulled from current events to give the origin story context. The team took a risky spaceflight “to the stars” in an attempt to beat the Soviet Union into space, referred to as “commies,” in the parlance of the day. The Russians had actually beaten the United States into space, initially with the launch of Sputnik (the first satellite), then in 1960, sending the dogs Belka and Strelka into orbit, so Lee’s plot served as a kind of revisionist history.
When the group battled Mole Man, its first super villain, they were on red alert because the evildoer struck an “atomic plant behind the iron curtain” and a French facility in Africa. These references to reality—even keeping the team unmasked in a nod to the burgeoning celebrity culture of the age—made the team more interesting. The familiar territory and use of common lingo helped readers relate to the plight the heroes faced.
Finding an artist to draw the epic was Lee’s easiest decision. Jack Kirby had been dutifully crafting covers and stories for Lee for years, essentially creating a house style for the company. Kirby excelled at space epics and illustrating action scenes that made readers feel the force of a roundhouse punch or the ground shake as an enormous intergalactic monster shambled through a cityscape. “I didn’t discuss it with Jack first,” Lee explained. “I wrote it first, after telling Jack it was for him because I knew he was the best guy to draw it.”11 Kirby, according to his cocreator, “has the uncanny ability to visualize unforgettable scenes so clearly in his mind’s eye that all he has to do is put down on paper what already exists in his incredible imagination.”12
A horrifying green monster pushes up through the city pavement, clutching a half-invisible blond as a human flame circles in flight. A handful of citizens react in horror. The reader sees another character from behind, a kind of monster, while the fourth seems to have limbs that stretch, loosening ropes that entangle him. A call-out box tells us their names and announces that they are “Together for the first time in one mighty magazine!”
The Fantastic Four have arrived!
The scene is dramatic and intense, but what really draws the reader’s eye is the bold red, fanciful script used to title the comic book. It leaps from the page, a representation of the atomic age in the early Cold War. Next to the title is a tiny box with a capital “M” atop a smaller “c.” Already, Lee and Kirby were thinking “Marvel Comics” as a way to differ
entiate this book from the company’s other titles.
Inside, the Fantastic Four comic is a four-part story that Lee decided to tell in a nonlinear narrative. Although we know from the cover that the heroes will battle a monster, the reader doesn’t reach this event until the third act. The first two sections introduce the team and tell its origin story.
Initially, when Richards uses a “4” smoke signal to assemble his teammates, citizens and the police react with terror. The Thing is viewed as a monster, and the police wonder if this being portends “an alien invasion.” They try to shoot him before he uses the city’s sewer system to evade a further confrontation. Later, the government launches jetfighters against the Torch, shooting at him with nuclear missiles. Mister Fantastic saves Johnny—and the city—as he “hurls the mighty missile far from shore where it explodes harmlessly over the sea.”
The next section begins with an argument between Reed and Ben over the safety of the experimental rocket and the possible consequences of flying through “cosmic rays.” Although he doesn’t want to pilot an unsafe ship, Ben is manipulated by Susan, who invokes the dreaded “Commies” as rationale for the danger. Then, she infers that Ben is a “coward.” Soon after, decked out in dark plum-colored spacesuits and blue helmets, the team sneaks past a guard and into the rocket. In what might be Kirby’s strongest panels in the entire book, the rays pulse through the ship, causing Ben to collapse and Johnny to combust. You can almost smell the teen’s flight suit go up in flames.
After the ship crashes back to safety, the team emerges from the wreckage dazed and angry. Susan is the first to be impacted, slowly turning invisible as the others look on in horror. “Wha—What if she never gets visible again?” her brother asks in amazement. Next, as Ben and Reed start to get angry, the former turns into the Thing, an orange-skinned monster, like a giant rock pile gone amuck. He reveals his secret longing for Susan, exclaiming, “I’ll prove to you that you love the wrong man, Susan,” and swings a tree trunk at Richards. The latter eludes the violent burst by stretching his body and neck. Then, using his newfound ability, he wraps Ben up using his arms as ropes. Finally, Johnny bursts into flames, which starts a brush fire. They collectively think, “We’ve changed! All of us! We’re more than just human.” Speaking for the group, Ben declares that they “gotta use that power to help mankind.” They band together under the “Fantastic Four” moniker.
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