Kirby Created Spider-Man?

13 Comments

1. Man, will these feuds ever stop? Kirby didn’t do jack with the Spider-Man character.

2. While I’m not a fan of Kirby’s artwork, Spider-Man is the one character he could never draw right. And I’ve seen (somewhere online, but can’t remember exactly where now) where Dikto himself showed a comparison of his Spider-Man next to Kirby’s – Kirby’s looked like Captain America with a web gun or some-such; NOTHING like the Spider-Man we all know and love.

3. I just finished reading the article I linked to the other day (it’s a long one), and if half of what this researcher says is verifiable, then the Jack Kirby case is very strong. To summarize: 1) The origin of Spider-man is more consistent with Kirby’s work in terms of character, backstory, and the like than anything previous by Lee or Ditko. 2) Plots from the early issues of Spider-man are nearly identical to previosly plotted Kirby stories from multiple companies, and Ditko was known to assist Lee in plotting. At a certain point, the stories took on a different, less Kirby-like flavor (less pseudo-science, more internal struggles). 3) Ditko and Lee were inconsistent with each other and themselves when discussing the origin. 4) A publication released by Marvel in 1975 welcoming Kirby back to Marvel flatly states that Kirby designed the costume, and Ditko was known to have designed a number of heroes and villains costumes for other artists’ books.

   I have no way of knowing whether the article is factually accurate, but if it is, then Kirby (with assists by Joe Simon and editor Sid Jacobson) had a lot more to do with the creation of early Spider-man than has been publicly stated.

4. Did anyone else notice that Kirby went from saying that “Ditko is a withdrawn, silent type,” so saying that “[Ditko] was very sociable, and we socialized, and he’s very open with people now,” not two questions later? Sure, was probably just saying that Ditko USED to be a recluse, but now he’s not, but that’s not how he said it and it left me scratching my head… also, Ditko IS still reclusive isn’t he? He still doesn’t like to meet people or talk to people–except in his wordy, long-winded articles. So obviously Kirby was completely right in the head at the time.

5. Sorry, but Kirby while unique and more prolific, was never the genius that Ditko was. And he CERTAINLY didn’t come up with Spidey. He came up with a name and maybe the concept of a “web-shooter”. Ditko and (to a lesser extent) Lee did everything else.

6. Don’t know how reliable this information is, but http://www.adelaidecomicsandbooks.com/kirbycase.html claims some Kirby involvement. I seem to remember reading about the case on other websites but not being entirely convinced. If Ditko created or co-created the main cast, which is a huge part of what made Spider-man really connect, then the lion’s share of credit belongs with him. Bottom line, Kirby helped to create a Spider-man, but Spider-man as he was published is thanks to Ditko and Lee. And that’s the one we all love.

7. Yeah, he did claim to have created Superman, which we know is baloney. We have to appreciate that Kirby wasn’t a high functioning intellectual- he was a lot older when he gave these interviews and wasn’t, from what I can tell, completely together in his memory of the facts. I wouldn’t take his word incredibly seriously without any provenance- which we know doesn’t exist in the way he’s explained it.

   I think it’s less bitterness and just being old.

8. Didn’t he claim he created Superman at one point?

9. I’m gonna throw my own hat in the ring and claim I created Spider-Man too. With how insanely complicated it is to figure out just who exactly “created” these characters I figure I stand just as much chance of getting credit as anyone else that just decides one day that they created everything themselves.

10. Kirby created “a” Spider-Man, but not “the” Spider-Man that we’ve known for fifty years. The story of Kirby’s original interpretation being rejected by Lee and restarted from scratch by Ditko (most likely with none of Kirby’s version carried over) is well-known amongst comic fans/historians.

    I wouldn’t dare call Kirby a liar, but he seemed to be overstepping the boundaries by taking credit for so much here (Lee, of course, is infamous for doing that as well, saying he’d “take any credit that wasn’t nailed down!”).

11. There is some documentation out there that Kirby did create a ‘Spider-Man’ character that he claims to have been the Spidey that we all know. In truth, the character he created in the 1950s with Joe Simon was way different. He was a boy who got his powers from a magic ring. Kirby later on had a hand in the development of the actual Spider-man, but certainly not worthy of sole credit.

12. Don,
    Let’s discuss this on the podcast. It’s interesting to me.

13. I talked about this on a podcast a few months back, because I own this Comics Journal interview. This is all been long since debunked as fact from Kirby. After everything I’ve read, my conclusion is that in the last few years of his life he was insanely bitter and angry about how his career ended up with the New Gods failing and his Marvel stuff being attributed to Stan Lee, so he went for broke and claimed creatorship of everything, no matter how close or far it was from the truth.