“In Marvel’s greatest comics, Lee and Kirby were full collaborators who, like Lennon and McCartney, really were more than the sum of their parts. Kirby always wanted to drag the Four into the negative zone – deeper and psychedelic science fiction and existential alienation – while Lee resolutely pulled them back into the morass of human lives, hormonal alienation, teenage dating problems, pregnancy and unfulfilled longings to be human and normal and not to have the Baxter Building repossessed by the City of New York.”
As a child, I suffered a nerdish fever for authenticity and origins of all kinds, one which led me into some very strange cultural places. Any time I heard that, say, David Bowie was only really imitating Anthony Newley, I immediately lost interest in David Bowie and went looking for the source, sometimes with the pitiable results that this example suggests.