2. The Marvel Universe -- the sprawling, endless multi-authored roman-fleuve -- was an ad hoc creation which expanded by fits and starts. One major transformative moment came when John F. Kennedy was assassinated.
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3. The Fantastic Four, launched in 1961, was Marvel's flagship title and very much a product of Kennedy Era new frontier Cold War liberalism: four adventurers who go into space in order to one-up the Soviets.
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4. Kirby, a classic New Dealer, made characters of FF analogues to parts of Democratic coalition. Mr. Fantastic (technocratic intellectual), the Thing (white ethnics), Johnny Storm (youth), Invisible Girl (pre-feminist suburban women).
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5. Mr. Fantastic & Thing were both war veterans, like Kirby and J.F.K. With trim hair (whitening on sides), Mr. Fantastic looks like one of those Kennedy era ramrod executives: Kennedy himself or McNamara.pic.twitter.com/3P4HgF7HWG
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6. Kirby once told his assistant (and future biographer) Mark Evanier that the Kennedy assassination had a big impact on his art.pic.twitter.com/HxzDD7RKN0
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7. How did JFK's assassination change Kirby's work? As Kevin Ainesworth argued in Jack Kirby Collector, it changed Kirby's narrative strategy. Pre-1963, Kirby's stories were tight, one-and-done. After, he moved to open-ended, sprawling stories.
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8. According to Evanier, this is likely the comic Kirby was working on when he heard JFK died. Notice plot point is Mr. Fantastic (JFK stand-in) wounded.pic.twitter.com/CclhyJloAp
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9. JFK's assassination seems to have turned Kirby away from classic beginning-middle-end narratives to open-ended, unresolved soap operas where it is just one-thing-after another. Life goes on narratives.
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10. In JFK's death was the seeds of what Sean Howe calls "the snowballing Marvel Universe, which expanded to become the most intricate fictional narrative in the history of the world: thousand upon thousands of interlocking characters & episodes."
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11. The smartest reviews of new Avengers flick (by
@aoscott &@tnyfrontrow) have keyed into the sprawling overstuffed nature of Marvel Universe, and demands it makes on audience comprehension & narrative coherence.Show this thread -
12. Of course, Kirby's narrative shift, a product of an artist reacting to the chaos of the 1960s, has now turned into a perfect tool for capitalist Hollywood to make endless films about the same characters; franchising.
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13. Opened ended narratives & universal franchising do pose problems for art, which I explore with my colleagues
@Jo_Livingstone &@alex_shephard here: https://newrepublic.com/article/148198/comics-killing-movies …Show this thread
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