A while back I posted the first in a series of oral histories, by the people who were there, compiled from various sources, which detailed who did, or didn’t, create the Amazing Spider-Man. The reaction to the post was better than I expected, so I’ve decided to continue the concept as a series and cover as many of the Stan Lee/Jack Kirby creations as I possibly can. To that end, here’s part two, the Fantastic Four.

The Fantastic Four were the flagship of the Marvel line and clearly both Stan and Jack had a fondness for the characters. They were the first in a long line of super-heroes, and they marked the longest continuous collaboration that the two men had, as they worked on the title for 102 issues, plus a handful of annuals from its inception in 1961 through to 1970, creating a volume of work and characters that is still unmatched today. The characters and concepts that were introduced make up the foundations of the Marvel Universe as we know it – the Silver Surfer, Galactus, The Black Panther, the Inhumans, Adam Warlock and countless others all had their introductions in the Lee/Kirby run. Even so there is still conjecture as to who did what on the title.

In one corner are those who firmly believe that Stan Lee had a strong hand in the writing and editing of the book. This would also mean that Lee had the controlling say over the direction of the title and Lee also took more than an active hand in the creation of the characters. In the other corner are those who equally believe that Jack Kirby did it all. This means that Kirby wrote, or, at the very least, plotted every issue, suggested dialogue, created all of the characters alone and controlled the direction of the title. While it’s true that there are strong arguments to be had for both sides of the fence, such as the fact that Stan Lee never created characters as strong away from Kirby as he did with him, and Jack Kirby’s dialogue left a bit to be desired without Lee’s editing, the absolute truth may never be known as Kirby and Lee were certainly at odds when it came to giving the other man credit for their efforts, although Lee has been more charitable with it comes to giving Kirby his due than Kirby did for Lee.

Into the mix is a series of synopses that have come to light in recent times. These synopses, written by Stan Lee, allegedly show plot directions and were given to Jack Kirby. Kirby always said that he was never given any direction; however the documents came from the Kirby estate.

So, who did what and when? Who knows, these days the bulk of the people claiming to be experts who claim that they do know what happened and who created what, beyond any doubt, simply were not there and are going on the memories of others and their own suppositions, which are, at times, clouded by their own personal preferences and prejudices . As for the rest…well, we do have what Stan and Jack said, and it's well worth remembering that they were the only the two men who were there, so we can read what they two of them put on the record and decide for ourselves .



: I came in with presentations. I'm not gonna wait around for conferences. I said, 'This is what you have to do.' I came in with The Fantastic Four. I didn't fool around. I said you've got to do super-heroes

I had to fight for the superheroes. In other words, I was at the stage now where I had to fight for those things and I did. I had to regenerate the entire line

: Jack never pushed me to do superheroes. What happened was one day, Martin Goodman called me into the office - this is when Jack and I were doing all those monster stories “You know, Stan, I’ve just seen some sales figures for this DC (Justice League of America) magazine. It's doing pretty well. Maybe we ought to do some superheroes…Let’s do a team like the Justice League. And I said, “Fine.” I went home and wrote an outline a synopsis for The Fantastic Four. I called Jack, handed him the outline, and said; “Read this. It is something I want to do. And you should draw a team.” Jack, of course, contributed many, many ideas to it and I would venture to say Jack and I created The Fantastic Four, in a way, although the name was mine, the characters were mine and the concept was mine, originally. But he never pushed me to do superheroes. Jack was at home drawing these monster stories until the day I called him and said: "Let's do the Fantastic Four

JACK KIRBY : My inspirations were the fact that I had to make sales and come up with characters that were no longer stereotypes. In other words, I couldn't depend on gangsters; I had to get something new . [4]



I had to do something different. The monster stories have their limitations - you can just do so many of them. And then it becomes a monster book month after month, so there had to be a switch because the times weren’t exactly conducive to good sales. So I felt the idea was to come up with new stuff all the time - in other words there had to be a blitz. And I came up with this blitz. I came up with The Fantastic Four, I came up with Thor (I knew the Thor legends very well), and the Hulk, the X-Men, and The Avengers. I revived what I could and came up with what I could. I tried to blitz the stands with new stuff. The new stuff seemed to gain momentum [5]





STAN LEE : In the ‘60s, the ideas for the new characters originated with me because that was my responsibility. What would happen is the publisher, Martin Goodman, for example, with the Fantastic Four; he called me into his office one day and he said, "I understand that National Comics," which later changed its name to DC, "I understand that National Comics has a book called The Justice League. And it's selling very well. I want you to come up with a team of superheroes. Let's do something like that." It was my responsibility to come up with such a team, so I went home and I thought about it.





I wanted to make these different than the average comic book heroes. I didn't want them to have a secret identity. I figured I'm sick of stories of where the hero always wins and he's always one hundred percent good and the villain is one hundred percent bad and all that sort of thing. So I figured, this time I'm going to get a team of characters who don't hew to the mold. Fighting amongst themselves, and I wanted to make it as realistic as possible. Instead of them living in Gotham City or Metropolis I felt I will have them live in New York City. Instead of the obligatory teenager Johnny Storm driving a whiz bang V8, he would drive a Chevy Corvette.





JACK KIRBY : It was my idea. It was my idea to do it the way it was; my idea to develop it the way it was. I'm not saying that Stan had nothing to do with it. Of course he did. We talked things out . [6]





STAN LEE : I wanted everything real, and I wanted their relationship to be real. Instead of a girl who didn't know that the hero was really a superhero, not only did she know who he was, but they were engaged to be married, and she also had a superpower. I thought I would try that. They all got their superpowers by being in a spaceship that was hit by cosmic rays. I wanted them to be a team, but I wanted them to act like real people. So they didn't always get along well. We called one of them The Thing, a very powerful ugly guy who would be pathetic. Mr. Fantastic got the ability to stretch his limbs. The girl, Sue Storm had the ability to become invisible and surround herself with the force field, and the boy Johnny Storm, her brother, was able to burst into flame and fly. I took that from an old Marvel book, one of Timely Comics' first books called The Human Torch. I always loved that character that had been an android, a robot or something; I felt I'm going to give Johnny Storm that power. He can fly and burst into flame. So we had a guy who can stretch, a girl who could be invisible, and a man who was an ugly monster. And again, to go against type, I thought I'd make the ugly monster kind of a funny guy. He's pathetic, but he's also the comedy relief… And he was always arguing and fighting with The Human Torch, who was always trying to give him a hot foot… And he was always trying to grab him and throttle him.





JACK KIRBY : Super powers are a show gimmick. Why does a comedian decide to drop his pants on stage? Or why does a dancer come out and do a certain type of dance? Why break-dancing? The answer is attention. You want the reader's attention. If you can't get it with ordinary people, you get it with extraordinary people.





At the time, the big topic was radiation. We had recently exploded the bomb and I was looking to create supermen. In all my work, you'll see the times are reflected. I don't contrive stories. I don't give you B.S., and I'm not giving you fairy tales. At the time, radiation was the big topic and The Fantastic Four came out of those times. Hiroshima was still fresh. All the bomb experiments were still fresh.





The Invisible Girl represents something that we're looking for. Invisibility is a very powerful military conception. I can assure you that if invisibility became an actuality, that there would be a war. The nation that had invisibility would be at war the day that it made it practical. So in her own way, even then, she wielded a variety of powers. Because we don't know the connotations of invisibility.





Reed Richards was scholarly, but he was caught in an extraordinary situation. Of course he would react in a very scholarly way. He would use his powers as a brainy guy would because Reed Richards is a brain - a very cool character. Ben Grimm couldn't be cool. He had to handle an extreme position. He had a face that was certainly extraordinary. People react to that. You may be a very nice guy but if you have a monstrous face you're going to make a very poor first impression.





Reed was a well-adjusted guy. He could take it in stride. Ben had a different problem. If Reed Richards had been the monster, he might have behaved differently. It's like, I can't share your feelings, I can only feel my own. I can only project my own and hope that other people accept me.





Reed would react differently than Ben Grimm because he had a different problem. He might have almost poked fun at himself, being able to stretch almost a quarter mile - he might have found that amusing while Ben Grimm might have found that annoying.





The Thing was just an ordinary guy. He went to college, became a flyer and had a conventional background like anybody else. But now he was a Thing. He was a well-adjusted Thing but still, he had the problem of looking and being like a monster and he had to live with that. At times, of course, that would irritate him. How'd you like to go into a bowling alley and have the ball crumble in your hands? That would be irritating. If I were super-strong, it might not be all beneficial. So The Thing had that problem of looking like a monster and having this super-strength. Therefore you've got a good story problem. In that kind of atmosphere you can't fail because the person reading it will relate to it and understand immediately what the problem is. The problem sometimes isn't the super-villain; it's your own super-strength. It's your own irritability. The Thing would go berserk as much as the villain would. He'd smash everything up and I'd feel the same way.





It has to have time to grow. As you take that time you begin to think about the connotations of what you're doing. You try to make your story sales-effective. You've got to think of sales, not only of good stories. You have a duty to your publisher and you have a duty to your own prestige and credibility. I had that duty, just as in any job.





I used everything that was at hand. I would formulate the events of The Fantastic Four and I would formulate it in accordance with balance. In other words, if I had one type of story in one issue, I would see that it didn't remain static, that there was a change in the succeeding issues. So readers would always wait for the next issue and developments might not be what they expected. I think that was a sales value in the book [7]





STAN LEE : They all loved each other, but they never got along well. The more they fought amongst themselves, the more the readers loved it. The Torch wants to quit because he's not making enough money. The Thing wants to get out because he's not getting enough glory and he thinks Reed Richards is hogging all the headlines. Occasionally a crook gets away or beats them up. They're evicted from their skyscraper because they can't pay the rent because Reed Richards invests all their reward money in stocks and the market takes a nosedive.





I tried to do everything I could to take these super-powered characters and in some way to make them realistic and human and have them react the way normal men might react if those normal men happened to have super-hero powers. That was the way I envisioned them. I wrote up a very brief synopsis about that, and naturally I called Jack, because he was our best artist, and I asked him if he would do it. He seemed to like the idea. Took the synopsis, and he drew the story and put in his own touches, which were brilliant, he did a wonderful job on it. And it worked out beautifully. Books sold, and that was the start of the Marvel success, you might say.





JACK KIRBY : Stan didn’t know what a mutation was. I was studying that kind of stuff all the time. I would spot it in the newspapers and science magazines. I still buy magazines that are fanciful. I don’t read as much science fiction as I did at that time. I was a student of science fiction and I began to make up my own story patterns, my own type of people. Stan Lee doesn’t think the way I do. Stan Lee doesn’t think of people when he thinks of [characters]. I think of [characters] as real people. If I drew a war story it would be two guys caught in the war. The Fantastic Four to me are people who were in a jam - suddenly you find yourself invisible, suddenly you find yourself flexible.





I felt I should do something new with Ben Grimm. If you’ll notice, the beginnings of Ben Grimm, he was kind of lumpy. I felt he had the power of a dinosaur, and I began to think along those lines. I wanted his flesh to look like dinosaur hide. He kind of looks like your outside patio, or a close-up of dinosaur hide. People claim that The Thing is a lot like me, in terms of his personality, and as the series progressed, he became even more so. He was always at odds with the Yancy Street Gang, a bunch of tough kids from the Lower East Side. In fact, they’re a thinly-disguised version of the Delancy Street Gang guys I tumbled with on more than one occasion. He was a tragedy. Can you imagine yourself as a mutation, never knowing when you were going to change, and what you’d look like to your folks or people that you love. Everybody seemed to associate me with the Thing because he acted like a regular guy. No matter what he looked like the Thing never changed his personality - he was always a human being despite his physical change. Ben Grimm always remained Ben Grimm. I think that’s why the reader liked him - that touch of reality. You can’t really change a guy unless you injure his brain, or if he sustains some sort of injury in a situation. [8]





The Fantastic Four – Heroes Villains