This series of articles will track the early rise of all the elements (the recurrent alien beings and venues) that lay the foundation for what will later be known as Marvel Cosmic. So you know this will be a love letter to the wonder-working duo of Stan “the Man” Lee and Jack “the King” Kirby. We’ll focus on moments where some new critical element is added or significantly revised or retconned. We’ll also look at what was happening at the time in US society and global affairs, broadly speaking (obviously, we’ll have many references to and analogies with the [first] peak of the Cold War but also sci-fi and even the counterculture). Our aim is to simply create a chronological guide to this particular (but vast) aspect of Marvel comics that hopefully inspires a deeper appreciation of our favorite cosmic characters and settings as they pop up throughout the Marvel Universe.
With the introduction of each new significant cosmic player or element from the early ’60s on, we’ll look at just the original portrayal, but I’ll try to clarify to the best of my ability how readers of the time would likely have seen these Kirby wonders, distinguishing them from the way we read them now in the 2020s.
Again, we’ll mostly focus on the alien, but the progeny of Earth, humans and otherwise, will be included as they appear, even if they aren’t immediately cosmic players or take their sweet time getting off-planet (like Adam Warlock and the High Evolutionary). (Rick Jones, however, very much to your chagrin no doubt, must wait until he’s bound to Captain Marvel.)
(Also, a side piece on Jack Kirby’s Challengers of the Unknown at DC in the late 1950s might be of interest down the line. After all, it would prove, in retrospect, a trial run for exploring many of the zany sf elements he more successfully expanded on in FF—more grounded by Stan Lee’s character-focused melodrama, however much their contrary styles would see the creative team drift apart over time.)
Anyway, it’s going to be hella fun just salivating over some of that classic Kirby crackle and giant hat porn 😉 [Read more…] about The Evolution of Marvel Cosmic, Pt 1: Watchers and Skrulls