“People might look at Antonio, or me, and quietly wonder whether arrested development is still cute at our age.” The mysterious author of the KEEPING UP THE ACT salutes a fellow comic collector and thrill that is still the Fantastic Four comic books. 

Antonio Di Dio’s hyper-specific, passion-driven column (CN February 5) on Fantastic Four #51 really resonated with me.

Like entangled quantum particles, I found myself spookily in sync with what the hell he was on about.

What the hell he was on about, I suspect, probably eluded a lot of people. The sort of people who might look at Antonio, or me, and quietly wonder whether arrested development is still cute at our age.

But for those in the know, the 1960s run of Fantastic Four is a genuinely special work of art. It sprawls across epic, interlocking stories with character arcs that rival Middlemarch.

It offers sharp commentary on social and political issues. It packs punches and kapows! like billyo. And is chokers with heart, humour, and, importantly, hope.

Those are just words, though. A better way to picture the ’60s Fantastic Four is to visualise the Bayeux Tapestry, only louder, wilder and better drawn.

But the Fantastic Four is also the story of its creators, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby – the comic book equivalent of Lennon and McCartney. And like John and Paul, they also shared a rocky-and-rolling relationship. 

Which neatly brings us back to Antonio’s use of the Fantastic Four as a parable of understanding and kindness. When the comic soared, it did so because of teamwork – two very different men combining complementary skills to create something larger than each of them.

When they first met, Jack Kirby was a comic-book veteran – co-creator of Captain America in 1940, he was a cigar-chomping professional, prolifically turning out a whole slew of superhero and horror comics.

Lee arrived as a 17-year-old nepo-baby of publisher Martin Goodman. He couldn’t draw, didn’t especially like comics and was known more as a promoter than a creator.

But being the younger man, Lee, was picking up something blowing in the wind – the times they were a-changin’ and comics needed to change with them.

So, with Kirby’s comic book skills and Lee’s nose for where the ’60s zeitgeist was blowing, they co-created the Fantastic Four – a superhero title where the superheroes themselves, were often their own worst enemies.  

Every issue, Lee would workshop a basic plot and some character ideas and give them to Kirby to flesh out – what became known as the Marvel Method; a workstyle that became more dominant as Lee sought to expand the Marvel universe (currently numbering more than 80,000 characters).

How much of the resultant work was Lee and how much was Kirby, is a furiously debated topic in comic book circles. But what is clear is that it needed both of them to make it special.

Sadly, as the years passed, Lee would claim sole credit for the Fantastic Four, framing Kirby as simply an artist-for-hire. Kirby was deeply hurt and eventually left Marvel for DC. Fantastic Four continued under Lee and other artists, but the spark was gone.

Like Lennon and McCartney, the creative rift between Lee and Kirby was never fully resolved before their deaths. Which brings us back to Antonio’s characteristic question about kindness. How should two big egos work together?

While healthy to have, egos should never be left untempered. We know this since Renaissance times when the cloistered cathedrals of Europe interacted, often turbulently, with the polymathic Islamic world.

The resultant clash of egos and ethos, resulted in some of the world’s most sublime works of art. Ergo, the math – when it comes to competing egos, addition is always better than division. 

So, thank you, Antonio, for your love letter to Fantastic Four #51, an issue I also own and cherish. However, it is at this point that I hesitate to say how I got it. Not to needle you with jealous rage, but to illustrate another of life’s mysteries – glorious dumb luck.  

I was 16 and saw a classifieds ad for “a box of Marvel comics”. Travelling by train to Strathfield, I walked several blocks to be met by a guy who explained that his uncle (a single man) had died and that they were selling his house contents.

What emerged were, not one, but several boxes of comics – a complete run of Fantastic Four from issue 22 to 116, plus other ’60s Marvel titles, all in excellent condition.

I can’t remember exactly what I paid – perhaps $100, which was a lot for a 16-year-old at the time – but I do remember the crazed, Joker-like, grin on my face as I shoved a fistful of $20 notes into the seller’s hand. It took two arduous trips to get them home and they’ve been with me ever since.

When I look at them now, I like to imagine that dead uncle smiling at me from above, pleased that his collection is still being loved and read, rather than sealed in a vault, awaiting a Sotheby’s sale. Some pretty strange teamwork, that’s for sure, but the world works better with strange teams. 

Which is in no way a segue to my normal political milieu, to cheekily encourage a Greens/Liberals partnership. Mind you…

The KEEPING UP THE ACT comic strip returns to CityNews on the edition of February 26.