The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

Remember back in the mid-sixties when the Marvel revolution not only appeared on the comic racks but invaded our own black and white comics?

Well, looking at them just recently I remembered only too well the thrill of it all. Thumbing through them, torn and yellowing now, I remembered something else that had affected me. Something that was… different. Quickly scanning the reprints and the relative sizes of each comic it became obvious to my (then) 12 year old mind – the British reprints were a different layout. To fit the bigger sized POW!, for example, the editors had ‘cut up’ the stats from America and ‘re-sized’ it to fit their pages. However, simply because American comics use more or less the same grid system and same sized panels every story, the editors had filled certain areas with different panels and usually the wrong ones. Continuity was not on their minds – for example:

(cover to Pow! #7 from 1967, borrowed from ComicsUk site, via Lew Stringer)

Fantastic Four issue 27 and POW! 53

The Cover of the original American comic, showing The Submariner holding Sue Richards away from Reed Richards whilst he restrained an angry Thing and Human Torch became the ‘Splash’ page. Then, to save us naive and impressionable teenagers the vision of (horror of horrors) the delectable Sue Richards in a bikini (changed days, now they shovel in scantily clad superwomen with improbably physiques – Joe), the POW! editors cut out the next THREE pages of the original (14 panels of Lee/Kirby magic depicting their particular brand of humour and Namor’s unrequited love for Sue) and went straight to the brooding Submariner, sat on his throne, alone and declaring his love for Reed Richards fiancé and his intention to marry her.

(the properly-sequenced page from Fantastic Four #27 with Namor showing us how to win a woman’s heart with a grand romantic gesture; art by Jack Kirby and (c) Marvel)

Then came the genius of the POW! editors. As if leaving out continuity altogether wasn’t bad enough they actually re-arranged the panels in the story: Namor breaks into the Baxter Building while the Thing is exercising (by pressing a giant spring connected to the wall – like one does!). Namor arrives, punches and breaks the spring, leaving the Thing pinned against the wall. Boiiing! Namor then fires a sleep pellet at the Thing and knocks him out.

Suddenly Johnny Storm arrives. Before he can ‘flame-on’ Namor fires a vacuum pellet (a pellet for every occasion?) at him and knocks him out, too. In their wisdom, the POW! editors decided to ignore the obvious thread of the story. They decided that Johnny would be knocked out before the Submariner fires the vacuum pellet at him and then he fires the ‘knock-out’ pellet at the Thing. The whole continuity, the trademark of Jack Kirby storytelling, is lost for no reason – I still can’t see why this happened – the panels fit okay in their correct order so maybe it was just a mistake. Check these editions out for yourself.

I can’t quite make up my mind whether it was the genius of the POW! editors who saw the stories in their own way, or the genius of Jack Kirby’s storytelling made the pages still work … methinks it lies with the illustrator if anywhere. No matter what they did with Kirby’s layouts, they still worked!

Check out all your Power Comics and original Marvels that correspond to these stories and see for yourself! Have fun!

Crikey! issue 6 will be on sale in July and available from your local, friendly, neighbourhood FPI store and via the official Crikey! site. Glenn is currently fiddling with his Thunderbird 2 model while telling kids “it’s not a toy, don’t touch it”.