Monday, August 09, 2010

If I Had A Hammer

Kirby Special #19.

For a whule Kirby was in almost every issue of Tales of the Unexpected. There are two from that run I don't have. Issue #15 and issue #18. This is on eof the most famous and most discussed ones. The 'early Thor'. Did Kirby remember the Thor story he had done in the forties (and the Thos appearance in on eof his romance stories in the fifties) and does that support the idea that he suggested doing Greek Gods to Stan Lee as well?

From Tales of the Unexpected #16:





4 comments:

Smurfswacker said...

1957 and Jack already had his hammer-throwing poses down! Funny story...I notice the letterer forgot to "un-fantasy" the panel borders when our hero first meets Thor.

Unknown said...

Wow, that's amazing how could I have gone for so many years in the comic world and not been aware of this. Great find!

R.J. Luedke
www.headpress.info

Mike Mikulovsky said...

WOW! This very really cool & very interesting.Imagine if National/DC had brought back the original Capt.Marvel/Shazam back in the 50's. With Jack "KING" Kirby at the helm! What a wasted opportunity! What might have been, if Jack hadn't went back to Timely/Atlas/Marvel Comics. Marvel Comics probably would have never been after 1960/61!

Ger Apeldoorn said...

I am amazed that this stories is seen as a 'find' by most people linking here, as it was known among Kirby fans for years. My reason in posting this, was to show how little it has in common with Marvel's later Thor story (hammerswingpose notwithstanding) and I placed it in it's context of many many DC stories that did not lead to Marvel heroes. Instead it is seen as some sort of prove that Kirby took ideas and concepts from DC to Marvel and in some cases people even link it to his 'prototypes' of Dr. Doom and the like in the Marvel pre-hero stories. It is just this sort of importance of anecdotical evidence that I hoped to counter by showing there was not a pattern of this sort of thing. There are similarities, yes. But those in and of them self don't prove anything, however much we want it.