Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities What if there had never been a Marvel Age of Comics?

Once again, I have to give Eryk Davis Ester due credit and undying gratitude for making a casual observation that gave me a good idea!

Here's his post, made a couple days ago in this forum's "So when does the JLA get good?" thread:



And my reply:



Ergo, what I consider a fascinating alternate universe of possibilities.

My earliest thoughts:

- Jack Kirby would have gotten into animation about 20 years sooner than he did in This Universe. It's easy to forget that, at the beginning of the 60s, he was considered a pariah in the comic book industry (among other reasons, he was in a legal dispute with DC editor Jack Schiff,) and no one would give him work other than Stan Lee. I like to imagine that Kirby's accomplishments in mid-1960s animation would have rivaled those of Alex Toth.

- Stan Lee would have left comics and become a prose fiction writer. He probably would never have broken out of the paperback circuit, but he was a better writer than he gets credit for (I've said many time recently that I consider the first 11 issues of Silver Surfer a solid achievement,) and he'd at the very least have acquired a cult following.

- Steve Ditko would have struggled for a long while, but he was a tenacious sort, and would have hung in there until his more enterprising friends Wally Wood and Gil Kane had given him an opening for self-expression.

- Roy Thomas would have returned to being a schoolteacher after his legendarily unpleasant 2-week stint as Mort Weisinger's assistant, but remained active in fandom. He probably would have eventually broken into the biz sometime during the 1970s, not unlike Don Newton.

- John Romita would have become one of DC's best inkers (which was what he'd originally wanted to do by the mid-1960s. He has described himself as a reluctant, self-doubting penciller who sort of fell into the gig.)

- John Buscema...this is a bit of a stretch, but please bear with me -- for whatever reasons, DC turned him down in the late 1950s, even though he was really coming alive at that time with his work for Dell (the movie adaptations, the westerns.) If he had gotten in at DC right around the time the Silver Age of Superheroes was under way, I'd love to imagine that he'd have gotten plenty of work (even though he claimed to "hate" superheroes, he drew them beautifully.) Oh, the possibilities...

More thoughts to come.

One interesting question is whether some other company (Charlton, perhaps?) would've emerged as DC's major competitor.

Mr. Lee was also responsible, in the mid-7O's, of semi-popularizing underground comics (comix) a hitherto niche market. Or cult market. Or something.

It looked for awhile there that hippies might take over the political discourse... but that eventually ended up a dead end. The Opiate crowd won out over the pot-heads.

Would we have had Comix without the success of the Marvel Age?

EDE, Charlton might have been a contender, especially when Dick Giordano was their EiC. But it would've needed at least a couple extra people -- a showy Lee-style promoter and a hard-assed pragmatist (neither of which Giordano, for all his good qualities, was, which is also what I think contributed to the Post-Crisis malaise at DC under his watch.)

Klar, thank you for mentioning Lee's attempts at building a bridge between the mainstream and the underground. Denis Kitchen deserves mention too, as he did most of the real work. From what I've read, Kitchen and Lee were both up against a lot of resistance from both corporate executives and the older Marvel staffers. But I give them both an "A" for effort.

Just a note to say I'm enjoying everyone's thoughts on the thread without having a lot to add myself.

Thanks, Thoth. You are very kind.

Yeah, this is a super-interesting thread idea, but I can't think of much to contribute.

We really need Cobie.

I hear ya, EDE. I miss Legion World's resident pub-crawling, tough-talking Celt.

Here's hoping 2019 brings his return -- "Because We Demanded It!" And we did.

Bump.

Wow! I love the idea of this thread! I’ll take some time to mull over and be back.

A lot of thoughts in this thread already relate to some of what my dad and I always speculate about Charlton though in a different capacity (“what if Kirby left Silver Age Marvel and went to Charlton instead of DC?”).

Wow. Great thread! I’ll be back.

So, some of those aforementioned "possibilities" have finally coalesced in my head:

- 1959-60: After doing various one-shot stories for Julius Schwartz's stable of westerns and sci-fi books, Big John finally gets his first monthly gig, replacing Mike Sekowsky on the lead feature of "Mystery In Space" -- "Adam Strange," with Murphy Anderson as default inker, even though John doesn't feel they're well-matched.

- 1960: Big John narrowly beats out Sekowsky for the newly launched "Justice League of America" gig. Truth be told, nobody really *wanted* the gig, as team books were considered, at the time, to be more work for the same pay. Big John, true to form, would always claim *he himself* hated drawing the JLoA and only did it for the money. But that's just the kind of thing he would say. After various inkers come and go, Frank Giacoia settles in for a while (John actually did think very highly of Giacoia and considered him one of the few inkers whose work over John's pencils pleased him -- for the proof in the pudding, check out the first five issues of Marvel's 1968 launch "Sub-Mariner.")

- 1963-64: Big John replaces Gil Kane on "Green Lantern," starting with issue 26 -- featuring an early appearance by Star Sapphire (whom fans almost unanimously agree looks better drawn by John than by Gil) and the first appearance of Myrwhidden, the evil wizard who lives inside the ring. Gil, for his part, has been enjoying "Atom" far more than "Green Lantern" (this, too, is true.) So when the long-delayed launch of the "Hawkman" solo book finally happens, Gil is on pencils, with "Atom" inker Murphy Anderson in tow (a digression -- Hawkman had the weirdest behind-the-scenes arc of all the Silver Age relaunches; Joe Kubert's art on the tryout stories was loved by more discerning fans -- including future pros like Mike Vosburg -- but not by the mass audience, so in the end, Murphy became both penciler and inker on Hawkman, which I feel was a serious bit of "miscasting.")

- 1968: When Joe Kubert, whom John has always greatly admired, is promoted to editor of DC's war books, he begins slipping the occasional war story to John, and this gradually leads to John phasing himself out of Schwartz's stable, and into Kubert's.

- 1970: A very eventful year -- John leaves JLoA to draw a year's worth of "Superman" issues, written by Denny O'Neil. Though John will claim that Schwartz (who had just inherited Supes from the retiring Mort Weisinger) had to drag him kicking and screaming onto Supes's flagship book, the big old curmudgeon is secretly still in touch with his 12-year old self, who was briefly, but passionately, into Superman back when Supes was the newest pop-culture craze. Meanwhile, over on "Green Lantern", Schwartz and O'Neil bring in Green Arrow and "Social Relevance." John tires quickly of this new direction, mainly because he hates drawing buildings and cars and other "real world" stuff.

- 1972: John is relieved when GL/GA is cancelled, freeing him up to join the Kubert stable (which will soon also include the full range of Edgar Rice Burroughs licensed properties) full-time, and to replace Kubert on "Star Spangled War Stories" lead feature, "The Unknown Soldier."

- 1978: John makes a surprising, short-but-sweet return to superheroes when he pitches in at the last minute on the final three installments of Paul Levitz's "Earthwar" saga in "Legion of Superheroes" issues 243-245.

Superman explains that the reason they don't all look as though they're in their 50s, as they did in Sekowsky's Brave & Bold, is all down to the machinations of the nefarious Time Meddler.

Actually, I'm quite fond of Sekowsky's JLA work. As you said, no one wanted a team book where it was more work for the same pay. His quality, which was always solid on JLA, really shines on books with a normal workload attached to them. With Buscema taking over JLA, Sekowsky might never have got to do his take on Wonder Woman.

Indirectly, greedy manipulative scumbag editor Jack Schiff is responsible for the Marvel Age.

For the Marvel Age not to happen... there would have to have been no total falling-out between Schiff & Kirby.

Either Schiff would have to have NOT tried to screw even more money out of the "SKY MASTERS" deal than was already agreed... or Kirby would have to have said, "I'm sorry, this isn't working out. I think you have to get someone else on this strip."

What can I picture MIGHT have happened? Well let's see...

Left to his own devices, "CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN" might have become a HUGE hit, gone monthly, and been done throughout the entire 1960s by Jack Kirby (writer & artist) and Wally Wood (inker).

At some point, when things needed a shake-up on "LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES", instead of Curt Swan, George Klein and then Jim Shooter taking over... Kirby might have gotten a shot. Since science-fiction was his biggest love, he could have taken that series to heights UNDREAMED of.

Oh my Gods, I had forgotten about that JLA commission that John Buscema did in the last year of his life! Thanks for posting it, Thoth.

As for Sekowsky, I think he'd have made a good replacement for Infantino on Flash. Flash always benefits from having fast, spontaneous pencilers (i.e. Greg LaRocque during the Bill Loebs era) So that would've paid Sekowsky's bills instead of Wonder Woman. Problem solved.

Can the Legion stop the Devourer of Worlds?!

We'd not be sitting through Millennium either. Kirby created Kamandi and OMAC and would have had the timeline worked out. I don't see Schiff's Tommy Tomorrow being more than a footnote.

I wonder if Kirby would create new Legionnaires from all the ideas that never formed into Marvel concepts and who they would be?



Yay!

Re: Kirby on Legion, one does have to wonder if he could have found a way to work with Mort Weisinger? On a more positive note, Kirby Legion with John Romita inks would have been supercalifragalisticexpialadocious! Gentleman John once told me that Kirby invited him to leave Marvel and come with him to DC -- IIRC, Kirby wanted JR to draw Mr. Miracle's book; true to JR's nature, his reminiscing was not bitter but wistful.

Also, Eryk Davis Ester started a thread in the Legion forum about Kirby on Legion, albeit under different circumstances:


http://www.legionworld.net/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=963882

Thanks for the link Ann. I'd read (probably here) that at least some of the themes of the New Gods were continuations/ had similarities to what he wanted to try out with Thor? I was wondering if it was likely that he would combine old mythology, such as Norse, with that of the future, if there had been no Marvel. If so, what would be the strengths of Thor that would be likely to go across (as I've not read it)?

Given DC's propensity for buying up properties from defunct GA publishers, they could conceivably have ended up with Timely's roster. Maybe the All-Winner's Squad would have wound up on Earth-X rather than the Quality Characters.

The first post suggests no Marvel as there was no JLA. Since the JLA was launched on the back of the success of the Flash and the hopes of good Green Lantern sales, perhaps these never happened either. You could have gone into the '60s, with DC picking up the Timely catalogue before a revival occurred...

Barry Allen as the new Whizzer
Johnny Storm as The Human Torch
Diana as Wonder Woman
Arthur Curry as the Submariner
Joan Dale as Miss America
Warren Worthington as the gun toting' Angel
Sandra Knight as the black light wielding Blonde Phantom

Superman & Batman as honorary members

While the All-Winners was created by Bill Finger, the second issue of them was written by Otto Binder! Better yet, the story was titled "Menace from the Future World" I wonder if it was the 30th century

Good question.

Hopefully Kirby would have been able to work out a compromise wherein he could still edit and plot all the Fourth World books, and pencil one or two of them, while having someone else script the dialogue. Maybe a really exceptional writer who was also an exceptional human being -- of the writers active at the time, Archie Goodwin is the first that comes to my mind.

IIRC, Kirby actually did a Thor story during the 50s for a different publisher...can't remember ATM if he was still partners with Joe Simon or not. So clearly, he would appear to have had an abiding interest in Norse mythology. The fatalism of those particular myths would appeal to a creator who had seen firsthand the horrors of the Great Depression compounded by the horrors of World War Two.

More thoughts on the subject as they come to me.

As I think about it, there were definitely father figure-son parallels between Izaya-Orion and Odin-Thor, but while Thor could be impulsive, he was never as edgy as Orion could often get. So definitely more shades of grey there. Scott Free was Balder, Barda was Sif, cackling old DeSaad was Loki taken farther out on the edge, Kalibak was Ulik, and Darkseid was Mangog, or Surtur, or a bit of both...Lightray was maybe Fandral, Hogun the Grim's mien was similar to Orion's, which I guess makes Orion sort of a Thor-Hogun hybrid...can't really think of a Volstagg counterpart in the New Gods, which is a pity because a roly-poly comedy relief character might have given the Fourth World more commercial appeal...

Kirby's dialogue is UNIQUE and a personal expression, the same way his art is, and those who have problems with it tend to be STAN LEE fans who don't like anythinig "different".

I view it the same way I do when reading Edgar Allan Poe stories, or Arthur Conan Doyle. There are some writers you just don't F*** with.

The sad thing is how much effort over the decades has been been spent by editors trying to CHANGE Kirby's work into something else... like getting inkers who were actually encouraged to bring their own style and personality to the fore, instead of bringing out the best of what was already there. I know one Kirby fan online who's said that far more damage was done to Kirby's STORIES by his editor in the 60s than was done to his art. Not only changing the dialogue, but mutilating the personalities of his characters, and even worse, in some cases totally obscuring the detail and INTENT of his stories!

Or maybe both rosters could have been combined on Earth-X, some becoming mind-dominated, and others resisting. After the awful stuff Marvel has done with Captain America in the last few years, I'd love to see Uncle Sam kick his ass.

13 months and 2 days later, still waiting for his return.

I look forward to the scene where Ficklestand finds a bearded derelict in a decrepit flop house. Using her Burroughs containment lighter, she begins to burn off the beard... Read more in LMB Monthly #4: The Coming of Cobalt!

Thoth, LOL

Thanks, I needed a laugh!

Pfft, what if? What if I slipped on a bar of soap in the shower?

...OH MY GOD I'D BE KILLED