The final two sections of Fantastic Four #1 find the team—back in their purple jumpsuits—tracking a mysterious threat to “Monster Isle.” There, they battle a flying three-headed monster, a giant rock monster, and various other gargoyles, including the green giant from the cover. Using Torch’s immense heat, they thwart Mole Man, ultimately entombing him and the monsters underneath Monster Isle. The team flies away in a private jet, grimly facing the future.
The Kirby-Lee partnership brought The Fantastic Four to life, but neither had grand expectations for its success. “Okay, that’s it,” Lee figured, “I’m going to get fired. I got that out of my system.”13
Lee was proud of the work and willing to go out on a limb, but neither he nor Kirby had the luxury of waiting to hear if The Fantastic Four would be successful. Comic books were actually released about three months prior to the month printed on the front of the book and it took another handful of months for the sales figures to trickle in. Plus, the writer and artist couldn’t really stop working, given the ten to twelve issues that had to be produced within the stipulations of Goodman’s punitive agreement with the DC Comics distribution arm, which included the next issue of The Fantastic Four.
As Lee and his team pushed to meet the tight printing and distribution deadlines, they experienced something totally new—fan mail started to arrive at Marvel headquarters, an avalanche of fan mail. Readers were crazy for the new superhero team. According to Lee, getting any mail at all was virtually unprecedented. Previously, fans only wrote in when an issue had some mechanical defect and a reader wanted a refund.
Rather than get the ax, Kirby and Lee had struck gold. “We were swamped with it,” Lee recalled, “and it just kept growing with each new issue.”14 The sales figures that came in months later reiterated the comic book’s popularity. The success took Lee by surprise: “I never realized it would sell that well.”15
In response to the mail, Lee started answering fan letters within the pages of the comic and writing up a chatty column that let readers in on insider information about Marvel and its staff. On the surface, the jokey, easygoing interaction with fans seemed frivolous. Over time, however, it became an important link in establishing Lee as the central public persona of not only Marvel, but the comic book industry. Lee seemed like every reader’s favorite uncle, always willing to share a wisecrack and some insider gossip going on behind the scenes at the company.
The play between reader and writer/editor turned many young people into lifelong fans. Readers felt as if they were there in New York City with Stan and his “bull-pen” collaborators, whom they imagined they knew based on the colorful nicknames the editor gave them and the way he touted both their skills and quirky personalities. A born showman, Lee used the space at the back of the comics to express his newfound happiness. His personal gamble in creating The Fantastic Four paid off.
Although The Fantastic Four sold extremely well, Marvel did not list the title among its 1961 sales figures, since it had been released so late in the year.16 If the comic was the company’s bestselling issue that year, though, one can infer its sales exceeded Tales to Astonish, which ranked fortieth with about one hundred eighty-five thousand issues sold. In comparison, Uncle Scrooge (published by Dell) ranked first in 1961 with more than eight hundred fifty thousand in paid circulation, while DC’s venerable Superman stood at eight hundred twenty thousand. Based on how publishers reported circulation, The Fantastic Four would not appear on the official roll until 1966, when it placed nineteenth for the year at three hundred twenty-nine thousand copies.
The combination of fan enthusiasm and the mountain of mail streaming into Marvel’s Madison Avenue offices served as an indication of the watershed moment in Lee’s career. In 1961, DC’s Justice League of America won the Academy of Comic Book Arts and Sciences (Alleys) comic book of the year award. The next year, however, The Fantastic Four won the award. The Marvel revolution had begun.
Although years later Kirby and Lee would contest who deserved credit for creating The Fantastic Four, thereby setting the Marvel Age ablaze, they each brought special talents to the process, like all great creative duos, whether musicians, film-makers, or athletes. Without Kirby’s inimitable artistry, the superhero team would not have burst off the page, generating so much energy and action that a reader could almost feel the void of deep space or what it felt like for a man’s arm to stretch hundreds of yards or another to burst into flames. Lee is all words. He delivered a distinct dialogue and narrative patter that left his own unique mark on the team and its thrilling collection of archenemies.
The fact of the matter is that by 1961 both men were seasoned professionals, having spent nearly their entire adult lives in the comic book business. Soon they would become legends. It is easy to forget, too, in the generations of praise they have received since they created The Fantastic Four, that Kirby and Lee each felt personally and professionally stuck at that time. Both had been deeply unsatisfied. They felt anxiety and fear regarding the future for themselves and the industry they had dedicated their careers to building. Later—particularly as Lee’s career shot sky-ward and Kirby felt jealous and used—a personal cold war enveloped the duo. But when The Fantastic Four hit newsstands for the first time, the two barely looked up . . . the writer from his one-finger, clickety-clacking typewriter and the artist from his worn-down drafting table. They did not realize that they were creating a masterpiece. For them, it was just another product, one among many that kept them chained to the business.
Headstrong and talented, Lee and Kirby were also intense workaholics and deeply driven. They had contrasting personalities, but the combo worked on a mix of fear, concern, pride, and passion It is clear that the Marvel Method perfected by Lee and Kirby worked, because of the talents each willingly put on the table. There are glimpses of how they worked that have had comic book historians arguing over who deserves credit for what for decades.
Years ago, Lee stumbled across his original two-page synopsis of The Fantastic Four #1 and shared it with Alter Ego magazine editor Roy Thomas, Lee’s onetime protégé and later replacement as Marvel editor-in-chief. One of the surprises the manuscript uncovered was that Lee had obviously run some parts of the story and its characters by the Comics Code Authority. Directly in the origin story, for example, Lee informs Kirby about the Human Torch character, passing along that the CCA warned that he “may never burn anyone with flames, he may only burn ropes, doors, etc.—never people.” Thomas speculated that Lee cleared the character prior to writing the overview, because he feared potential outcry that might delay the comic.17
This episode also reveals two sides of Lee’s work as writer/editor. While Lee experienced newfound joy in creating a new kind of superhero team, he had to be businesslike and strategic in getting the Code censors’ approval, particularly when time and deadlines played such an important role in his work. Talking to an early interviewer about “King” Kirby, Lee praised his partner for mixing storytelling and visualization like no one else in the business. He explained that Kirby often plotted the comics himself, admitting, “We’re practically both the writers on the things.”18 Kirby also took on the role of unofficial art director, training new artists in the company style, which really was just his own style applied to Marvel’s super-hero lineup.
Lee’s budding showmanship grew and his confidence increased as a result of the super team’s increasing popularity and sales. By the third issue, when the Fantastic Four took on the seemingly invincible Miracle Man, Lee took the brash step of tattooing the phrase: “The Greatest Comic Magazine in the World!!” just below the series title. From issue four on, a slightly altered slogan appeared above the title: “The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine!” No one could miss the blaring letters, essentially daring the reader to disagree. The publicity generated by the tagline increased the notoriety, which Lee anticipated. Always willing to go out on a limb to spark sales, the writer explained, “I figured a line like that would certainly get attention, if
only for its flagrant pretentiousness.”19 Lee knew that he took a risk, but no one could really prove or disprove his claim. Like a great fastball pitcher or rock and roll guitarist, the declaration drew a line in the sand and told competitors: “we’re the best comic book company in the world.”
The success of The Fantastic Four served as a hurricane-force wind thrusting Lee and Kirby deeper into the psyches of their hero team. Lee remembered that after ten issues, “we had both gained new insights into the FF and their ever-menacing antagonists.” These were more than comic book creations, Lee explained, “Reed, Sue, Ben and Johnny seemed like part of our own families by now.” For the longtime writer, “I felt comfortable writing their scenarios. It was increasingly easy to imagine what they would say or do in almost any given circumstance, for they had become as familiar to me as my own friends.”20 The family saga intensified as the Fantastic Four continued saving the world and dealing with the strains this effort caused them as individuals and a team.
For many fans, Ben Grimm/Thing was the group’s go-to hero. Kirby modeled the hero after himself and added many of the tough guy characteristics he had acquired himself as a kid on the Lower East Side battling among gang members. According to Lee, Grimm epitomized what he hoped to create: “I realized there was no monster, no funny, ugly guy who’s a hero. . . . When this guy becomes very powerful, he also becomes grotesque. It had a touch of pathos.”21
The creative duo also specialized in inventing super villains evil and nasty enough to cause the reader anxiety. For example, they brought back Bill Everett’s Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner, as a misunderstood, majestic villain who just wanted his underwater kingdom to be left alone—that is, until he determined that Sue should rule the seas by his side, thus giving Reed constant fits as Namor moved in on his fiancée.
Doctor Doom proved even more interesting and despicable, a criminal genius and physically powerful foe who caused global mayhem from his home base in Latveria, an imaginary Eastern European kingdom that Lee concocted. In one of their sometimes dazzling and often argumentative story conferences, Kirby and Lee talked about a villain that would put the FF to the test. Lee latched onto the name “Doom,” but Kirby was skeptical. Still, they found a way to work through their differences, despite having strong opinions. Lee recalled, “Whenever something is really right, it never takes long to put it all together. Each little idea led to another, more exciting one.”22
Making Doom as sinister as possible, Kirby sketched him in a suit of armor, with his face hidden behind a cold gray steel mask. The villain first appeared in Fantastic Four #5 with a short origin story that would later be given a fuller treatment. The issue begins with one of Lee’s soon-to-be famous in-jokes—Johnny Storm reading the new issue of The Hulk, which in reality had just reached the newsstands. Johnny teases Ben, “I’ll be doggoned if this monster doesn’t remind me of the Thing.” In dysfunctional family fashion, Ben sets off after Torch, resulting in a broken table. Reed and Sue have to intervene, dousing her little brother with a fire extinguisher, while Reed ties Ben into knots. Reed laments, “What’s the matter with the four of us? Whenever we’re not fighting some menace to mankind, we end up fighting among ourselves!” Lee’s heavy-handedness may be showing, but fans loved seeing the superheroes fight and bicker just like in their own living rooms.
After Doctor Doom ensnares the team in its skyscraper headquarters, Reed recognizes that their masked foe is actually his college classmate Victor Von Doom, “a brilliant science student . . . only interested in forbidden experiments” in “black magic.” Doom takes Sue hostage, and then whisks the whole team to his fortress. Using a time machine of his own devising, Doom sends the three male members back in time to capture “Blackbeard’s treasure.” The teammates draw on their superpowers to battle the overmatched pirates and seize the treasure. Instead of giving it to Doom, however, Reed realizes, “If Doctor Doom wanted it, there must be some dangerous power which it possesses, and we’ve got to see that he never gets it!”
Ben, whom the pirates believe is Blackbeard, decides he likes being the outlaw and orders his crew to turn on Reed and Johnny. Moments later, though, a tornado rips apart the ship, nearly causing Johnny to drown. Later, Reed and Johnny discover Ben washed up on shore. He apologizes, “I musta got carried away by being accepted—as a normal man—even if it was only by a band of cutthroat pirates! I—I just lost my dumb head for awhile!” Ben gives Lee a new way to tell stories in comic books. The monster who just wants to be human keeps the tension high because he always yearns to give up his superpowers. Ben’s internal struggle and how it plays out publicly when he appears as a monster adds to the pervasive sense of conflict at the heart of The Fantastic Four.
When Doom brings the men back to his castle through a time portal, he understands that they tricked him. Locking the team in a vault, the villain starts to cut off the oxygen. Sue, however, is able to turn invisible and stop the attack, thereby saving her teammates. The heroes escape Doom’s fortress, but they cannot capture him. He rockets away using a portable jetpack.
By allowing the villain to escape, Lee and Kirby veered from the traditional comic book plot, refusing to neatly wrap up the story by the end of the issue. Essentially, the creative duo invented a comic book that read like a serial or soap opera, revealing more about the protagonists in each episode, while also benefiting from the continuity that episodic entertainment provides. Using these methods, Kirby and Lee infused The Fantastic Four with context and a history that fueled future issues. The level of suspense would remain high.
As with the launch of FF #1, fan mail about Doctor Doom piled up in Lee’s office almost immediately. In short order, Lee and Kirby realized that Doom was “probably Marvel’s very top villain, in appearance, in power, personality, and plain sheer reader appeal.”23
The image of Reed angrily storming away and the seemingly incomprehensible notion of Doctor Doom as part of the team graced the cover of Fantastic Four #10. Despite this intriguing setup, what readers could not have overlooked is the appearance of Lee and Kirby in the lower left hand corner with their backs to the reader, actually commenting on the issue.
Inside, three team members have to deal with their growing celebrity, each avoiding fans who either want a piece of them or think they should be reined in somehow when they attempt to answer the Thing’s distress signal. When they arrive at the apartment of Ben’s blind girlfriend, Alicia, they realize that he is not in trouble. However, the mention of Sub-Mariner causes an argument between Reed and Sue. She blurts, “I’m not even sure of my own feelings.” Just then, the story cuts to Kirby and Lee at Marvel’s Madison Avenue offices, adorned with images of Hulk, Thor, and other superheroes, as the creative team attempts to create another super villain.
Suddenly, Doom walks into the office. He removes his mask, causing Lee and Kirby to recoil in horror. Doom then threatens their lives, saying, “You are searching for a story—well I shall give you one! Here, phone Mr. Fantastic—say what I tell you if you value your lives!” He shoots a ray out of his index finger, destroying Lee’s ashtray as a show of force. Doom waits for Reed to arrive, and then ambushes him with sleeping gas. Next, Doom teleports himself and Richards to his secret lab.
Using knowledge he acquired from an advanced race of space aliens called the Ovoids, Doom transports his brain into Richards’s body using telepathy, while Richards is stuck in the Doom armor. Tricking the Fantastic Four into helping him, Doom is able to lock Richards away in an underground chamber that only has an hour’s worth of air left. Ultimately, Reed escapes, but he is knocked unconscious by Sue at Alicia’s apartment. When the rest of the team (minus Doom in Reed’s body) shows up, they realize that he might actually be telling the truth. Johnny and the Thing trick Doom into showing his true colors and in a moment of weakness, the two men are transposed back into their own bodies. Doom is accidently hit with a shrinking ray that makes him so small that he vanishes. Thus, Doom is thwarted again.
Drawing the
mselves into the comic and actually playing a role in the story may have seemed like a farce, but the issue helped further establish that Marvel books would be categorically different than the competition, especially the staid do-gooder superheroes at DC Comics. Just as important, the issue introduced them to readers as heroic figures, able to engage with their creations at will, even being more than a little scared of Doom, just as one would be in real life. Suddenly, the names adorning the issues—“Stan Lee & J. Kirby”—had meaning. And, as Lee explained, fans called out for the distortion, which he called “perhaps the first super hero take in which our featured players are aware that they are characters in a comic book. It was produced in response to many, many letters requesting such a story, and it was a real hoot for me to script the yarn.”24 Blurring the line between real and imagined showed Marvel readers the playful nature of the company and its primary writer/artist duo.
Just shy of Lee’s thirty-ninth birthday, FF #1 appeared on newsstands. Created at a watershed moment in his life, as well as Kirby’s, The Fantastic Four seemed almost a last ditch effort, as if their careers really did hang in the balance. After the tumultuous 1950s and the public backlash against comic books, many people thought the entire industry might collapse, including Lee. The cyclical nature of the business made the possibility that it could fall apart a reality. How many more of these boom-and-bust periods could one take?
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