Let's say as our POD that in 1970, Marvel agrees to negotiate favorable changes to Kirby's contract. What effect does this have on the comics industry? For one thing, Kirby never introduces Marvel's signature style of complex characters that have issues in their secret identities as well as their superhero identities to DC ,leaving them the domain of archetypal four color characters aimed more at children. In addition, he either never creates his Fourth World New Gods characters or makes them for Marvel, both of which have massive butterflies. Your thoughts?
WI: Jack Kirby stays at Marvel
- Thread starter woweed
- Start date
Brainiac steps up to the plate more often, and the Guardians of the Universe and the Qwardians get more page time outside of Green Lantern titles.
Without Darkseid and The Source to rip off, Star Wars is very different (and so is Smallville's final season).
Heavy
Banned
I imagine Kirby would want either a book or even several books where he'd have complete creative control. I don't know if Lee would give it to him, because Lee was well into his "I AM MARVEL" thing by this point. If he could wrangle Thor, at least, that might have been enough, because the New Gods were essentially a sequel to his run on Thor (the "THERE CAME A TIME WHEN THE OLD GODS DIED!" splash panel at the start of New Gods #1 is implicitly what Ragnarok would have looked like at Marvel if Kirby had had his way, condensed into a single page). He might then have introduced the Eternals, or characters very much like them, to continue the cosmic explorations he was pursued with the Fourth World at DC; he might have been able to finish the story as he'd wanted to.
I could see Kirby asking for and receiving exclusive control of Warlock and the Magus, for instance, instead of Roy Thomas and Jim Starlin. Speaking of whom, I don't see how Starlin would be able to go ahead with Thanos if Kirby stays at Marvel and pursues more or less the same path he would have if he'd moved to DC.
I could see Kirby asking for and receiving exclusive control of Warlock and the Magus, for instance, instead of Roy Thomas and Jim Starlin. Speaking of whom, I don't see how Starlin would be able to go ahead with Thanos if Kirby stays at Marvel and pursues more or less the same path he would have if he'd moved to DC.
Heavy
Banned
In the 1960s, it was popularly perceived as having fallen behind Marvel on that front.
Of course, Kirby not going to work for them wouldn't have had an impact on that front, because the people who actually made that a big deal at DC were probably Dennis O'Neill and Neal Adams.
From what I've read elsewhere, Kirby really wanted control of the Silver Surfer too.
And wasn't Thanos basically an "adaptation" of Darkseid, anyway?
Heavy
Banned
Oh, yeah, I think the problem with the Surfer was that he was the favourite character of both Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, and they had very different ideas of how he should have been treated. Kirby was keen on the idea that he was created by Galactus ex nihilo and his character arc should have been his discovery of humanity; Lee preferred that he should be an alien pressed into Galactus's service.
Anyway, Lee got to write the Silver Surfer ongoing with Buscema on pencils, where he introduced the Norrin Radd and Zenn La backstory. In fact, I'm fairly sure that was also a factor in Kirby's decision to leave.
Starlin conceived Thanos as being an homage to Metron rather than Darkseid, but whoever was editing Iron Man at the time (Starlin introduced Thanos in a fill-in issue of Iron Man he wrote and pencilled; this was how a lot of his big cosmic mythology storyline was developed until he was given the Warlock and Captain Marvel books in the 1970s) persuaded him that if he was going to rip off a New God, he might as well go for the biggest one.
I suppose we have to include the prospect that the New Gods/Forever People/Mr Miracle titles would simply have been Marvel imprints.
And then DC's Mongul was allegedly inspired by Thanos, in return, so they wouldn't have him either...
Mr Miracle and Big Barda in the Avengers, eventually?
Oh, my god, just imagine Barda and She-Hulk (if her membership isn't butterflied-away, of course) going for a "Girls' Night Out"...
marathag
Banned
Not unheard of, at first.
Deathlok was outside of the traditional Marvel Universe when first created in 1974, so it's not that many years off
I was going to say, the Hard-Traveling Heroes run of Green Lantern/Green Arrow is of about that vintage.
Not only that, but the Eternals property was originally meant to be outside the MU -- early issues of The Eternals specifically confirm the fictional status of what we would now consider Earth-616 characters (though Alan Moore wouldn't bestow that number for a few more years). If Kirby does the Fourth World at Marvel, he probably never comes up with the Eternals. Let's all chew on that until our teeth start to wobble.