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Mood: Happy ]
There have been rumors for decades of the existence of a “lost” Lee-Kirby Fantastic Four. Apparently Kirby had finished the pencils for #103, 102 being his last issue. Marvel is finally publishing the lost issue in February.
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| FANTASTIC FOUR: THE LOST ADVENTURE Written by STAN LEE Pencils & Cover by JACK KIRBY IT’S THE COMIC BOOK EQUIVALENT OF A LOST BEATLES TRACK! Together, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby produced 102 consecutive issues of FANTASTIC FOUR. But there was a 103rd story they’d begun in 1970, but never finished-until now! Working from copies of Jack’s penciled pages, Stan Lee and Joe Sinnott have reunited, to complete the work they started almost four decades ago! Plus, this super-sized issue includes reproductions of Kirby’s unlinked penciled pages, with border notes and analysis by John Morrow, and a complete reprint of FANTASTIC FOUR #108 by Stan Lee and John Buscema, which incorporated some of the material from the lost story as a flashback 64 PGS./Rated A …$4.99 |
The biggest shocker to me is the price. Marvel could have easily raked us over the coals on this one, but for once common sense won over greed. I’ll gladly fork over my $4.99.
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Newsarama had a very informative interview back in August with Marvel editor Tom Brevoort about the genesis of this project.
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| [T]he relationship between Stan and Jack had deteriorated pretty badly by the point this issue was being done. Apparently, Kirby was insisting that Stan provide him with an actual written plot if he was going to be listed as the writer. And apparently, that’s what was done with this story-though the actual plot document by Stan has never turned up. Supposedly, when the boards came in, Stan felt that Jack had gone off the rails a little bit with the story-he wasn’t satisfied with it-and he put it aside to try to deal with at a later date. |
And I was very pleased to learn this from the interview:
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| [W]e’re paying Lisa [Kirby] and the Kirby Estate for this job as though Jack penciled it today, at a rate commensurate with what a penciler of his caliber would receive in 2006. It’s certainly a greater amount of money than Jack was ever paid for any single issue in his career at Marvel. And like any other new book, if the Special sells well enough, the Kirby Estate will receive incentives based on the total sales. |
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FANTASTIC FOUR: THE LOST ADVENTURE was originally published on The Geek Curmudgeon