Daily Scans

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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "Daily Scans" journal:

November 9th, 2009
08:05 pm [dr_hermes] [Link]	Giant-Man cracks me up I seriously doubt if Stan Lee put all that much that into the dialogue back then, as he was batting out scripts as fast as he could type and he was working with whatever wild unexpected plot twists Jack Kirby handed in ("Black Bolt? I told Jack that this issue was going to guest-star the Silver Surfer! Oh, well..."). But it's interesting how Henry Pym was consistently shown as someone in over his head when dealing with other super-heroes. He was so outmatched in sheer strength or fighting ability that it wasn't even funny. Yet, right from the start even as Ant-Man, he took it for granted that his seat at the pantheon of godlike beings was secure.(In a way, he reminds of the original Atom. Al Pratt was just a short, tough-guy brawler but he sat down opposite the likes of the Spectre or Dr Fate with complete confidence he was their peer.) Take this panel from THE AVENGERS# 2, where the Space Phantom has got the Avengers fighting each other. Giant-Man runs up and seperates a brawling Iron Man and Hulk. Now, in the real world, someone who could disregard the cube-square law and function at a twelve-foot height, would be incredibly awesome. He could pick NBA players up and throw them to one side while dropping the basketball into the hoop from above. Yet, in the world of super-heroes, Giant-Man is messing with two guys who could each tear him apart without trouble. (In fact, later in the same issue, the Hulk mentions that he's "stronger than a dozen Giant-Men.) ( Read more... ) Tags: creator: jack kirby, creator: stan lee, era: silver age (20 comments \| Leave a comment)
October 31st, 2009
10:22 pm [dr_hermes] [Link]	So, what really happened when Dr Doom stole the Silver Surfer's power? The original story was one of the highpoints of the Silver Age, FANTASTIC FOUR# 57. It provided most of the plot for the second Fantastic Four movie, as well. But it was not until NOT BRAND ECCH# 1 in 1967 that Stan Lee and Jack Kirby let us in on the real events behind the legends. __ Worth checking at the higher size for the surfing cross medallion, the book BUTTERFLIES I HAVE LOVED and more. Tags: char: dr. doom/victor von doom, char: silver surfer/norrin radd, creator: jack kirby, creator: stan lee, era: silver age (10 comments \| Leave a comment)
October 29th, 2009
11:30 pm [dr_hermes] [Link]	Jack Kirby's favorite sci-fi flick? This first page is from THE FANTASTIC FOUR# 7, October 1962, the second from JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY# 101, February 1964. Let's see... the elements include a flying saucer from outer space landing, a strange occupant emerging, TWO giant robots appearing and one of them slowly opening its glowing eyes to shoot a disintegrative beam. Holy smoke. Did Jack Kirby really like THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL or what? (I didn't excavate another book, but in the first issue of THE X-MEN in 1963, Cyclops first displays his power by slowly raising his visor to reveal two glowing spots which suddenly shoot out an overwhelming force. I've always figured much of the inspiration for Cyclops came from Gort. __ And if this has brought back memories of the movie with Klaatu and Gort, here are some thoughts on THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL. ( Read more... ) Tags: char: thor, creator: jack kirby, creator: stan lee, era: silver age, group: fantastic four (6 comments \| Leave a comment)
October 25th, 2009
04:36 am [dr_hermes] [Link]	"I'm sorry, Dr Pym, but that helmet makes you look like, well an ant!" From 1963, TALES TO ASTONISH# 35. Plot by Stan Lee and script by Larry Lieber, pencils by Jack Kirby and inks by Dick Ayers. Here's another example of Jack Kirby's knack for designing whacky gadgets that seem plausible. Most of his gizmos have their own logic to them if you look at how they're supposed to work. Ant-Man's helmet looks like an ant's head, with the antennae and the part in front that resembles an ant's mandibles. As the diagram shows, it was functional and yet the design not only made Henry Pym recognizably Ant-Man, it may even have been supposed to have fooled the ants to a small exent. I don't know how much they rely on eyesight, but they do have large functional eyes after all. ( Read more... ) Tags: char: ant-man/wasp/hank pym, creator: jack kirby (9 comments \| Leave a comment)
October 22nd, 2009
01:00 am [xdoop] [Link]	Mr. Fantastic vs. Doctor Doom! ( Image behind the cut! ) Tags: char: dr. doom/victor von doom, char: mr. fantastic/reed richards, char: sub-mariner/namor mckenzie, creator: jack kirby, creator: stan lee, publisher: marvel comics, title: fantastic four (43 comments \| Leave a comment)
October 12th, 2009
11:56 pm [queenursula] [Link]	Tags: char: big barda/barda free, creator: jack kirby, in-joke: context is for the weak (16 comments \| Leave a comment)
September 28th, 2009
12:04 am [dr_hermes] [Link]	Some of those people on the Rainbow Bridge look awful familiar From the tenth of issue of NOT BRAND ECCH, Jack Kirby decides to throw in some celebrities from 1968. I imagine that, in a lot less than four decades, current hot numbers like Megan Fox or Will Smith will have become the answer to trivia questions. ("Who were the MEN IN BLACK?" "Oh, heck, I know that... Dan Ackroyd, Bill Murray and Harold Ramis, right?") (I believe the gorilla with the lollipop is not anyone in particular, just any of a number of lollipop gorillas you used to see on TV...) Tags: creator: jack kirby, era: silver age, publisher: marvel comics (23 comments \| Leave a comment)
September 20th, 2009
03:20 pm [dr_hermes] [Link]	The Scary Hulk The first two issues of THE INCREDIBLE HULK back in 1962 showed the character as a genuine monster right out of Universal horror movie. He was essentially a werewolf version of the Frankenstein Monster. Every night, Bruce Banner changed against his will into the Hulk. Jack Kirby drew the brute very much in the Karloff image; in the first issue, the Hulk even kept Banner's ripped suit jacket, a nice touch.(The torn shreds of white shirt were a great visual reminder of the transformation from a normal human, but which has long been abandoned.)The Hulk was hostile and murderous (he intended to kill Rick Jones at first ("As for you-- you are the only one who knows who I really am!") Adding to the terror that the Hulk inspired was that no one knew anything about him. He just appeared out of nowhere to cause destruction, and the fact he only came out at night made him seem scarier. I've wondered how the character would be remembered if he had stayed this way for a few issues before his title folded and then only made a few sporadic appearances to fight Marvel's heroes. It didn't turn out that way, of course. By the third issue, the Hulk had broadened out to be four feet across and had been turned into a mindless servant of Rick Jones. Then he changed so he had Bruce Banner's mind and was sort of a super-hero for a while (a rather crude and unpredictable one). He's been through dozens of phases since then, to the point where there doesn't seem to be a real Hulk, just whichever version is being used at the moment.Steve Ditko only inked Kirby two or three times when deadlines were tight-- why have him ink when he could be pencilling? -- but the results were a great combination of Kirby dynamics and Ditko mood. This Hulk seems genuinely menacing. ( Read more... ) creator: jack kirby, creator: stan lee, publisher: marvel, char: the incredible hulk Tags: char: hulk/bruce banner, creator: jack kirby, creator: stan lee, publisher: marvel comics (9 comments \| Leave a comment)
September 13th, 2009
09:28 pm [dr_hermes] [Link]	Rebus Time First, trying something ill-advised against the Hulk. Thirty seconds, GO! ( Read more... ) Tags: char: hulk/bruce banner, creator: jack kirby (32 comments \| Leave a comment)
September 4th, 2009
11:27 pm [dr_hermes] [Link]	The real source of the X-Men Every comic book, cartoon and movie featuring the X-Men should in all fairness have a credit on it somewhere, "Inspired by the 1945 'Baldy' stories of Henry Kuttner and Catherine L. Moore." I'd read some stories by Henry Kuttner that I thought were clever and amusing (the Hogbens series, the one about Gallagher the drunk inventor) and some that seemed tedious and lame (those uninspired Elak of Atlantis epics). But until I found myself lost in MUTANT, I didn't quite realize how astoundingly good Kuttner (and his wife Moore, usually collaborating to some degree, here as "Lewis Padgett") could be. This is the real stuff, genuine pulp style science fiction. It's full of inventive details and clever plot twists, with a strong premise that today seems to have a even stronger appeal for readers than it did back then.. Created by atomic radiation, a new race of bald telepaths fights a desperate secret war between their two factions of the sane and the paranoid mutants. The paranoids (who at one point are mockingly called "Homo Superior" as compared to Homo Sapiens) see themselves as godlike supermen inevitably destined to conquer and rule the pitiful normal humans. The sane mutants are struggling desperately to keep knowledge of even the existence of the paranoids from become known, fearing that vastly more numerous normals will massacre them all. It's not a simplistic struggle between pure good and evil, as even the sane Baldies resent being forced to submit and bow their heads, keeping a low profile in the hopes that their children will be fully assimilated. (Did Stan Lee ever mention in the letters columns that he and Jack Kirby had enjoyed the 'Baldy' stories by Kuttner? Certainly, they both had read a lot of pulps back in the 1940s, Kirby even illustrating some of them. As Jewish men alive during the Holocaust, did the 'Baldy' stories have special resonance for them?) All the mutants are born completely hairless, but in an attempt at blending in and going unnoticed, most of them wear fake eyebrows, eyelashes and wigs. At first, the more defiant and unruly mutants go around natural (I'm bald and I'm proud!), but widespread lynching dampens that trend. We as readers following the Baldies can see they are mostly honorable and discreet, would never use their telepathic abiities unfairly and in fact go out of their way to do useful constructive work in their careers. Still.... you can see how just knowing there are people out there who can literally read your mind without your knowledge or consent would be seen as threatening. And who doesn't have dirty little secrets and vices they want to keep hidden? (Put your hand down, you in the back. You're as bad as the rest of us.) Although they can communicate freely with each other, the Baldies can only read a normal human's surface thoughts; it's a real effort to put a thought into a person's mind, and there's no sign that Baldies can mentally coerce anyone, let alone brainwash or control someone's actions. This makes them still dangerous but much more vulnerable and recognizable than Marvel mutants who can blast destructive rays from their eyes or make Army tanks fly apart. In addition to the tension of the desperate underground war going on unsuspected by the normal humans, the "Baldy" series also has an intriguing backstory that is gradually revealed. [An incredibly lengthy review of the "Baldy" stories can be found over on my Retro-Scans site, for those who are interested. One more indication of how Lee and Kirby were deriving the X-Men from the "Baldies" is shown in how Magneto also had telepathic powers in the earliest issues. He was not as capable as Professor X, but he could scan minds and astral travel. This was quickly dropped, but it is an echo of Kuttner's vision of two groups of telepathic mutants warring with each other over humanity.) Tags: char: magneto/erik magnus lehnsherr, char: marvel girl/phoenix/jean grey, char: professor x/charles xavier, creator: jack kirby, creator: stan lee, publisher: marvel comics, title: uncanny x-men (29 comments \| Leave a comment)
September 2nd, 2009
10:02 pm [dr_hermes] [Link]	Teenage outlaw cowboys in love Lee and Kirby's RAWHIDE KID featured a lot of human interest plots. This was a trademark of TV Westerns of that era. In addition to all the shootouts and fistfights and galloping horses, much of the plotting involved the Kid getting involved with regular folks and their problems. (Of course, he usually solved their problems with more shootouts and fistfights and galloping horses but hey, this was a Silver Age comic book.) This is from RAWHIDE KID# 19, December 1960, well before those four got in the rocket ship or that student got bit by a spider. It's important to remember that the Rawhide Kid WAS a kid. He had just turned eighteen when his foster father was killed and he set out to roam the West. Being that age, with the chip on his shoulder of being noticeably short (5'3" or so) AND redhaired, his attempts to settle down incognito never came to much. And, once in a while, being human he felt the twinges of romance, whether he wanted them or not. The fact that he was on the run, with a price on his head (I forget if he was framed or what, but the general population thought he was a murderous criminal), which meant he had to move on whenver his identity was revealed. Being a short redhead teenager made him easy to identify, eh? ( text ) Tags: char: rawhide kid/johnny bart, creator: jack kirby, creator: stan lee, era: silver age, publisher: marvel comics, title: rawhide kid (16 comments \| Leave a comment)
11:36 am [seriousfic] [Link]	Jack Kirby will scare the hell out of you Of the three Fourth World titles, the Forever People was probably the least of them... basically a reworking of the Golden Guardian concept with space hippies replacing the Newsboy Legion. Still, Jack Kirby is like pizza. Even when there's space hippies, it's still pretty awesome. And one issue of the Forever People easily out-fucked-up anything the Saw ~~franchise~~ tiredness has ever come up with. ( Plus, Darkseid scares a small child! ) Tags: char: darkseid, creator: jack kirby, title: forever people (22 comments \| Leave a comment)
August 30th, 2009
11:55 pm [dr_hermes] [Link]	The shocking truth about Lee and Kirby Exactly what went on in the conferences where Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created so many of the Marvel Comics of the 1960s? Historians have fruitlessly wondered, but now we have the truth as presented by one of the creators. This document first appeared in FANTASTIC FOUR SPECIAL# 5 from 1967, which not only gave you a 30-page story about the Fantastic Four (guest-starring the Inhumans AND the Black Panther), but a 12-page back-up story starring the Silver Surfer, plus a dozen pin-up pages. You got your quarter's worth. ( Read more... ) Tags: creator: jack kirby, creator: stan lee, era: silver age (6 comments \| Leave a comment)
August 28th, 2009
08:57 pm [dr_hermes] [Link]	Who put the magnets in Captain America's shield (bee bop a lu bop) Cap was revived from comic book limbo in THE AVENGERS# 4, March 1964. Two issues later, the story opened with a surprising scene where he is making his shield fly around and change direction. It seems Iron Man decided to beef up the shield by putting "sub-miniature transistors" in it that Cap could operate through magnets attached to his glove. (Stan Lee had an interesting idea of what transistors were, that is he thought they were magic.) I'd guess that it was Jack Kirby who dreamed this up, he absolutely loved adding gadgets that were never seen again; the man's imagination was always in high gear. ( Read more... ) Tags: char: captain america/steve rogers, creator: jack kirby, creator: stan lee, era: silver age, publisher: marvel comics, title: avengers (15 comments \| Leave a comment)
August 22nd, 2009
02:45 am [jlroberson] [Link]	Golden Age Predecessor to BLACKEST NIGHT... This week--or rather, last week--at Mister Kitty's Stupid Comics, we see one of Hitler's many dastardly plans to destroy America. But unlike Nekron in Blackest Night, he goes for something much simpler and cost-effective than reviving superheroes: reviving the homeless. Remember that hobo you shot last week? Here he is, back again! Ah, the old days, when a cop could shoot an unarmed bum dead just for shouting. But as you see, Officer Friendly has a nasty surprise. More here. Current Location: Seattle Current Mood: crappy Tags: char: adolf hitler, char: captain america/steve rogers, creator: jack kirby, creator: joe simon, era: golden age (27 comments \| Leave a comment)
August 13th, 2009
01:40 pm [seriousfic] [Link]	Positive Moments Week, you say? Well, what could be more positive than the wedding of Scott Free and Big Barda? ( Don't answer 'Dick Grayson in bondage', it was a rhetorical question. ) Tags: char: big barda/barda free, char: mr. miracle/scott free, creator: jack kirby (28 comments \| Leave a comment)
August 9th, 2009
10:22 pm [xdoop] [Link]	Spongebob Squarepants/Fantastic Four parody ( Image behind the cut. ) Tags: char: galactus, char: human torch/johnny storm, char: invisible woman/susan storm, char: mr. fantastic/reed richards, char: silver surfer/norrin radd, char: the thing/ben grimm, creator: jack kirby, creator: paul conrad, creator: stan lee, genre: parody, publisher: marvel comics, title: fantastic four, title: spongebob squarepants (11 comments \| Leave a comment)
08:18 pm [volksjager] [Link]	The British are coming ! (back) It's 1976 , For America's bicentenial Jack Kirby decides to create a secret cabal bent on restoring the British aristocray to rule America !!! ( Read more... ) Tags: char: captain america/steve rogers, creator: jack kirby, group: the elite, publisher: marvel comics, title: captain america (36 comments \| Leave a comment)
06:41 pm [xdoop] [Link]	Harrummph! Tags: char: human torch/johnny storm, char: invisible woman/susan storm, char: mr. fantastic/reed richards, char: the thing/ben grimm, char: thunderbolt ross, creator: jack kirby, creator: stan lee, publisher: marvel comics, title: fantastic four (62 comments \| Leave a comment)
August 6th, 2009
11:36 pm [xdoop] [Link]	Sue tries out some new hairdos. In Fantastic Four #47, Sue feels that Reed isn't giving her enough attention. And what better way to get it than with a new hairdo? ( Images behind the cut. ) Tags: char: human torch/johnny storm, char: invisible woman/susan storm, char: mr. fantastic/reed richards, char: the thing/ben grimm, creator: jack kirby, creator: stan lee, publisher: marvel comics, title: fantastic four (55 comments \| Leave a comment)

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