Please help me dispel a Marvel Comics myth
Do you have easily accessible copies of Captain America 202, 203, 205-207, or Black Panther 2? Are they reading rather than slabbed copies? Would you be willing to scan the letters columns and send me .jpgs?
If so, you might be able to help me dispel a Marvel Comics myth.
Yesterday, I posted a response to Robert Steibel’s commentary on my post of last year in which I recoiled from Jack Kirby’s mid-’70s run on Captain America.
Though he didn’t bring up the following point in his essay, Steibel and I exchanged a few emails, and in one of them he claimed that Marvel staffers were weighting the letters columns against Kirby in an attempt to orchestrate a campaign within fandom to get The King kicked off the books he was writing at the time.
I’d never heard such an accusation before, but when I searched online, I found that he didn’t originate the concept, that it had been comics hearsay for quite awhile, and that some even claimed staffers were creating fraudulent letters to make the Kirby backlash seem even worse. For example, Jordan Raphael and Tom Spurgeon reported on this in their 2003 biography, Stan Lee and the Rise and Fall of the American Comic Book.
The thing is, though the charge of faking negative letters has been bandied about, it all seems to be vague rumor and speculation. I’ve yet to see anyone point at a specific column and say that such-and-such a letter was cobbled together by an Assistant Editor.
Since I only just heard the charge for the first time this weekend, it took a day for the idea to sink in, and for me to realize-
Wait a minute! I was the one who wrote many of the letters columns that appeared in Kirby’s books. I’m the one being accused of fakery!
How do I know for sure? Look around at the images surrounding these words. I kept all my Marvel invoices from my years working in the Bullpen, partially out of nostalgia, partially so I could keep track of which uncredited work was mine, such as letters columns and splash pages for the British reprint books.
So … if you do have copies of those comics I mentioned above, and would like to help tickle my memory by putting copies of the letters columns from those issues in front of me, I’d greatly appreciate it. I’d like to see these letters I supposedly cooked up to derail The King’s career.
Keep in mind, though-just because a letter was negative, doesn’t mean it was faked. I printed plenty of negative letters in the Captain Marvel columns when I was writing the book, because I’ve always believed all opinions should get fair representation, even when they diss me.
I’m intrigued by what those ancient columns might reveal.
Here’s how to get in touch with me.
Originally published at Scott Edelman. You can comment here or there.