All language subtitles for Slugfest.S01E03.WEBRip.x264-ION10

- NARRATOR: At the early
1970s, DC and Marvel had each
established

their own separate
superhero universes.

And although these characters
might have been house-hold
names,

little was known about
the artists behind them.

DC had a very specific visual
style that was clean and
anatomically correct.

And after many decades
and many books,

this style was employed by
a large number of artists

to help DC maintain
a consistent look.

Meanwhile, Marvel's
visual style

was largely due to one
man and one man only.

Illustrator
Jack Kirby.

[rock music playing]

Jack's specific look became
synonymous with Marvel.

But living in writer
and co-creator Stan Lee's
shadow

was about to force the
king to make an extraordinary
play.

- Yeah, you're gonna
love this, Stan.

You're gonna love this.

[triumphant music playing]

- Okay, you're ready for
this? - Unh...

- I'm gonna take one
from the top. Ready?

OK, out there in Marvel
Land. Face front. This is Stan
Lee speaking.

You probably never heard
a record like this before

because no one would
be nutty enough

to make one
with a bunch of offbeat artists,

so anything is liable to happen.

- Hey, who made you a disc
jockey, Lee? - Well, well...

- Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, it
was a very interesting
relationship.

- Stan had one set of
priorities which was pushing
comic books in general.

Marvel, in particular.
Maybe pushing Stan too, you
know, for that matter,

but somehow or the other,
their personalities

were just, you know,
quite different.

- I can't do this.

- Will you do it, come on?

It's important, if we do things
with a little pizzazz,

a little bit of showmanship,

we're gonna sell a
lot of comic books.

OK, again from the top.
- All right.

- MICHEAL: Jack was kind of
the rough and tumble lower East
Side

New Yorker.

Bright and funny,

and filled with energy.

Stan, he was
the PT Barnum.

He was the showman.

- And together they were
a creative dynamo.

- NARRATOR: In the
early '60s, Stan Lee and Jack
Kirby

completely reshaped
the comic book industry

and began to give the
biggest name in the business, C
Comics,

a run for their money.

Their first
collaboration, Fantastic
Four Number One,

might be the most
important single issue

in the history
of Marvel Comics.

Here was a superhero team
that was also a family.

It introduced
angst, emotion,

and real-world problems
to comic books.

And it was a smash hit.

- STEVE: Fantastic Four,
Spider-Man, X-Men, Thor, Hulk,

eventually they put those
together for the Avengers.

- Marvel has very
flawed, quirky

sort of left of center
characters with some baggage.

And they are dealing
with sort of real human issues

inside this big
superhero package.

And I think that is what
Marvel does so beautifully.

- STAN: We take these
bigger-than-life characters

and we give them
very life-like

qualities and problems.

And that had never been done

in comics before, you see.
- MAN: Uh-huh.

- MARK: Stan was very
good at publicity.

He was very good at establishing
a rapport with the readers.

- Everything he did
to promote Marvel in the '60s

played to his advantages.

- JEREMY: For my grandfather,
he's the guy,

unfortunately, kind of
in the background,

who's just as amazing with
coming up with these universes
of characters,

but he really just wanted his
work to speak for itself.

- I think it was inevitable that
Jack would kind of get sort of
the short shrift

when you're up against
a big ego and personality like
Stan Lee.

- Stan, how many comic books
have you written over the years?

- Well, for about 30 years, I've
never written less than two a
week.

So, if you're good
at multiplication,

I guess I've written more than
any person living.

[applause]

- MARK: Throughout the '60s,
Jack Kirby was well aware

that the value of
Marvel was going up.

It was become a bigger
company, a more profitable
company.

They would try to licence
their characters for T-shirts
and games and TV shows,

and none of the revenue
was driven back his way.

He would come up with the
plots, he would come up with nw
characters,

he would figure out what
happened in each panel of the
story.

And then he would
see magazine articles

that would say, "Oh,
yes, these are all Stan Lee's
ideas,

and this guy named
Kirby draws them up." If they
even mentioned Jack at all.

- JOHN: Stan was the
one that got all the
publicity.

Stan got all the
acclaim and Jack got almost
nothing.

And Jack was really getting
really resentful of that by the
late 1960s.

- MARK: He was so frustrated
that he accepted an offer

that he had had
for some time

to go over to DC Comics
and work for them.

- NARRATOR: DC's
editorial director Carmine
Infantino

made Jack an
unprecedented offer,

to come over to DC and have
complete creative control.

- BENJAMIN: The
Great One is coming.

There could have been no
more important get of an artist

than DC stealing Jack
Kirby away from Marvel.

He was the signature
house-style of that company.

- It would have been as if
John Lennon had quit the Beatles

and went and joined
the Rolling Stones.

- NARRATOR: Kirby wasted no
time in creating exciting new
titles for DC.

There is the New Gods,
the Forever People,
and Mister Miracle,

where Jack would introduce
an infamous new character.

Funky Flashman!
Villain or hero?

You decide!

- JOHN: Mister Miracle
was a super escape artist,

so Jack decided he
needed a manager

and kind of a shifty, shady
manager who's always getting te
hero in trouble.

- How're you doing, Jack?
- All right.

- What're you working on?

- MARK: Steve and I went
out to Jack's house to work.

Jack handed me the pencil pages
of Funky Flashman, the
whole story

to read. I looked
at it and went,

"Oh..."
- Uh...

Jack, are you sure you want to
do this?" - [laughing]

- STEVE: And Jack
starts laughing.

- And I'm going...
- You're not serious, are you?

- Oh, yeah. I'm serious.

- STEVE: I said,
"You can't do this."

He said, "Why not?
It's Funky Flashman."

I said "No, it's Stan Lee."
He said...

- "Whatever do you mean?"

[both laughing]

- JOHN: It was obvious, all
of this has to be Stan Lee.

He basically completely
copied the way he spoke,

the way he
promoted things.

It was just so obvious to
anybody that knew anything abot
comics that "Oh, wow,

this guy is making fun of Stan
and doing it

kind of viciously."

- ROY: One of the main things
was the fact that he was wearig
a toupee,

which, you know,
people knew

but that wasn't something
that would be known to the
general public.

So in... in a sense, it was,
like, sort of outing his toupee,
in a way.

- JOHN: He also had sort of
a toady, named House Roy,

which was obviously
Roy Thomas,

who was Stan Lee's second
in command at Marvel Comics.

- ROY: As much as I
hated the characters,

in a certain way I love
that name. I use it a lot.

Now, I think it's kind of funny,
I don't mind...

I never minded being
Stan's houseboy,

House Roy,
whatever they wanted to call it.

I... I did well by it.

But Stan was
really unhappy.

I mean, I think he was
really depressed about it.

He was a little angry, but he
was also kind of depressed.

'Cause, you know, he
said, "I..." You know,

he wouldn't have done
something like that to Jack.

I don't think the two men
ever really understood each
other that well.

They were just too different.

- MARK: Jack got a little
overboard on Funky Flashman.

I think he later regretted it. I
know he later regretted it a bit

because it wasn't taken in the
spirit he thought it should have
been taken in.

I cannot over emphasize how
genuinely kind, sweet, that man
was.

He was so benevolent
towards everybody else

that it was a little odd for
him to lash out at someone like
that.

- JEREMY: I think it was a
good opportunity for my
grandfather

to get his feelings out.

You know he wasn't a great
communicator, you know, with
people.

So, it was his way of
expressing himself.

And I think when you are an
artist, how are you gonna
express yourself?

You're gonna do it through art.

[rock music playing]

- NARRATOR: Kirby's
departure from Marvel

marked an end of a legendary
collaboration between Jack and
Stan,

not to mention the end of
an historic era at Marvel.

Their alliance brought us
the X-Men, Fantastic Four,
the Avengers,

the Hulk, Black Panther,
Thor and Iron Man,

titles that still
endure to this day.

But Jack and Stan represented
a bygone era within the
industry.

Times were changing and a new
group of writers and artists

were about to usher in a
period fueled by psychedelic
trips

and boundary-pushing
plots.

Whether Marvel was
comfortable with this new
direction,

that was another story.