With the recent news o f the end of CBG closing, it brought to mind a thread they had on the boards back in the day about what the longest you have waited for a story. I was thinking about that a few weeks ago when I picked up several volumes of What If Classics. On the letters page of the last issue which was from 1984 (Issue # 47 I believe) they mentioned that there would be a bit of a delay on the upcoming issue with a story by Stan Lee & Butch Guice “What if Doctor Doom retained the Silver Surfer’s powers?” It is now 2013, TWENTY-NINE years after the fact. I THINK we may have a winner in that category. (For a while I was worried that JLA/Avengers would fall victim to the same) Seriously though, any other thoughts on the subject of uncompleted promises on a story or a storyline?
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It depends upon the poster in this thread but my intention was kind of "This is what we are planning to do" or "Next issue in..." where there is a stated intent to do something. Kind of like the plans that DC had ,& stated it in DC Nation, to continue with Brave and the Bold with Straczynski where they didn't outrightly cancel it but just let it fade away.
I think the last issue of the Stan Lee / John Buscema Silver Surfer was plotted (ie practically written) and drawn by Jack Kirby. In it we saw that the Surfer had taken about as much as he could stand of the Earth armies attacking him all the time and at the end he blew his top and declared war on Earth.
It really reads like Kirby letting rip with all the frustration and anger he had built up with working at Marvel. It may be one of the last things he did for them. Perhaps it's the closest Stan got to an explanation of how he felt, or why he was leaving? This blog states that the Bullpen Bulletin of this issue announced that Kirby was leaving Marvel.
Anyway, the storyline was never resolved until the late 90s, when we got a flashback in a Spider-man two-parter to what happened next. I think it was written/drawn by one of the less objectionable Image guys (Larsen?) or maybe Jurgens or Ordway or one of those 90s types. In it we learned that the Silver Surfer was actually being controlled by the perenially 'whacked out' Psycho Man and didn't really mean it.
I thought that was a negation of the genuine emotion and anger that Kirby put in there, and how the Surfer's fury was a very logical reaction to how the Surfer had been treated up to that point, rather than something out of character that had to be explained away.
So that took about 27-29 years to resolve. I forget when the Spider-man two-parter came out but probably sometime around 1997-99.
Yes, I meant that Kirby, being someone who expressed himself primarily through comics, could only really explain to Stan how he was feeling in a comic, just as he was leaving the company. Stan's on record as not knowing about Kirby's wish to leave Marvel until he received the phone call on the weekend Kirby left. Silver Surfer is as close to anything in writing that Stan ever got. ;-)
I'm never good at these fanboy minutae discussions, but things like Silver Surfer #18 stay with me, because of the amount of emotion in it, and factors like where it took place in Kirby's career. Even things like how it was at the end of a great run of comics that tried to push the envelope artistically.
Then there's the irony of Stan getting Jack to plot a new direction for a failing series when Stan had started that series by taking a character that Kirby had created and taken it in a direction that largely ignored how Kirby had handled the character.
I loved Busiek's Untold Tales of Spider-Man, and it wasn't one of them. Looking it up, I see that it was in Webspinners: Tales of Spider-man #4-6. Apparently written by Erik Stephenson and drawn by Keith Geffin. '90s types' indeed, as far as I'm concerned. It was April 1999, so may perhaps be in contention for longest gap ever!
Everywhere I look on the net says that Silver Surfer #18 was a Stan Lee story, but Kirby is all over it! The series was Stan's (to his immense credit, and in a way that his collaborations with Kirby and Ditko weren't) but that last issue is Kirby's!
I guess Brother Power, The Geek was a piker compared to the other examples mentioned here. It only took him about 21 years to come down from orbit after being shot into space in the second issue of his title in 1968.
BTW Wiki says that 1999 was a bit before Dan Slott's time as a superhero writer, although he was making his name on Marvel's Ren and Stimpy and Scooby Doo comics in the late 90s.
What WERE they thinking with that one, Craig? I remember it arriving on the stands and thinking WTF, as a kid....
Craig Boldman said:
I guess Brother Power, The Geek was a piker compared to the other examples mentioned here. It only took him about 21 years to come down from orbit after being shot into space in the second issue of his title in 1968.
Nothing can ever truly explain BROTHER POWER--THE GEEK! Nor should you try! It lasted only two issues and neither made any sense! A "hippie" super-hero, of course, published after the Summer of Love. Old(er) men trying to mimic counter-culture. It didn't work on Snapper Carr, Rick Jones or the Teen Titans so who would think it would work on a mannekin-that-comes-alive! Besides Joe Simon! ;-)
During Len Wein and Dave Gibbons's run on Green Lantern they had plans to introduce a new backup character called the Image. I know which characters he was going to have to do with (it's apparant from the run, and a contemporary article from Amazing Heroes confirms it, and also had an image of the character). But my recollection is he was described as "the most off-beat hero since Brother Power, the Geek", and I want to know what his gimmick was. I've been waiting to find out since 1984 or 1985.
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What about Superman dating Wonder Woman? Would that count? I think that's been speculated about going back to the Golden Age.
I think the last issue of the Stan Lee / John Buscema Silver Surfer was plotted (ie practically written) and drawn by Jack Kirby. In it we saw that the Surfer had taken about as much as he could stand of the Earth armies attacking him all the time and at the end he blew his top and declared war on Earth.
It really reads like Kirby letting rip with all the frustration and anger he had built up with working at Marvel. It may be one of the last things he did for them. Perhaps it's the closest Stan got to an explanation of how he felt, or why he was leaving? This blog states that the Bullpen Bulletin of this issue announced that Kirby was leaving Marvel.
Anyway, the storyline was never resolved until the late 90s, when we got a flashback in a Spider-man two-parter to what happened next. I think it was written/drawn by one of the less objectionable Image guys (Larsen?) or maybe Jurgens or Ordway or one of those 90s types. In it we learned that the Silver Surfer was actually being controlled by the perenially 'whacked out' Psycho Man and didn't really mean it.
I thought that was a negation of the genuine emotion and anger that Kirby put in there, and how the Surfer's fury was a very logical reaction to how the Surfer had been treated up to that point, rather than something out of character that had to be explained away.
So that took about 27-29 years to resolve. I forget when the Spider-man two-parter came out but probably sometime around 1997-99.
That resolution to the Silver Surfer cliffhanger was in Untold Spider-Man Stories...and I believe it was plotted either by Dan Slott or Kurt Busick.
And Figs, I feel certain that you have slipped in your second paragraph, second line, when you mistakenly say
"Perhaps it's the closest STAN got to an explaination of how he felt..."
You did mean to refer to JACK, there right? Or are you saying that Stan never got an explanation from Jack why he was quitting?
Yes, I meant that Kirby, being someone who expressed himself primarily through comics, could only really explain to Stan how he was feeling in a comic, just as he was leaving the company. Stan's on record as not knowing about Kirby's wish to leave Marvel until he received the phone call on the weekend Kirby left. Silver Surfer is as close to anything in writing that Stan ever got. ;-)
I'm never good at these fanboy minutae discussions, but things like Silver Surfer #18 stay with me, because of the amount of emotion in it, and factors like where it took place in Kirby's career. Even things like how it was at the end of a great run of comics that tried to push the envelope artistically.
Then there's the irony of Stan getting Jack to plot a new direction for a failing series when Stan had started that series by taking a character that Kirby had created and taken it in a direction that largely ignored how Kirby had handled the character.
I loved Busiek's Untold Tales of Spider-Man, and it wasn't one of them. Looking it up, I see that it was in Webspinners: Tales of Spider-man #4-6. Apparently written by Erik Stephenson and drawn by Keith Geffin. '90s types' indeed, as far as I'm concerned. It was April 1999, so may perhaps be in contention for longest gap ever!
Everywhere I look on the net says that Silver Surfer #18 was a Stan Lee story, but Kirby is all over it! The series was Stan's (to his immense credit, and in a way that his collaborations with Kirby and Ditko weren't) but that last issue is Kirby's!
I guess Brother Power, The Geek was a piker compared to the other examples mentioned here. It only took him about 21 years to come down from orbit after being shot into space in the second issue of his title in 1968.
BTW Wiki says that 1999 was a bit before Dan Slott's time as a superhero writer, although he was making his name on Marvel's Ren and Stimpy and Scooby Doo comics in the late 90s.
What WERE they thinking with that one, Craig? I remember it arriving on the stands and thinking WTF, as a kid....
Craig Boldman said:
Nothing can ever truly explain BROTHER POWER--THE GEEK! Nor should you try! It lasted only two issues and neither made any sense! A "hippie" super-hero, of course, published after the Summer of Love. Old(er) men trying to mimic counter-culture. It didn't work on Snapper Carr, Rick Jones or the Teen Titans so who would think it would work on a mannekin-that-comes-alive! Besides Joe Simon! ;-)
During Len Wein and Dave Gibbons's run on Green Lantern they had plans to introduce a new backup character called the Image. I know which characters he was going to have to do with (it's apparant from the run, and a contemporary article from Amazing Heroes confirms it, and also had an image of the character). But my recollection is he was described as "the most off-beat hero since Brother Power, the Geek", and I want to know what his gimmick was. I've been waiting to find out since 1984 or 1985.
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