Mister Miracle #6

[iamrman]

It’s Funky Flashman! Excelsior!

Funky's negotiations with Mister Miracle get interrupted by the Female Furies, allowing him to make away with the Mother Box.

Comments

[scorntx]

Uh... Wow.

What did Roy Thomas do to piss Jack Kirby off so much?

[iamrman]

Maybe he thought Thomas was a yes-man?

[scorntx]

Hmm... perhaps... if only there was some way we could be certain...

(though going by the way Funky throws Houseroy away to save his own hide, looks like he saw him as a patsy as well.)

[superfangirl1]

“ The late Colonel Mockingbird is evidently intended to represent Marvel’s founder and publisher, Martin Goodman; Lee was related to Goodman by marriage, and had first gone to work for him when still a teenager. Kirby is implying here that Lee is completely dependent on Goodman for his financial security, as well as that his position has nothing to do with the quality of his work, or, indeed, with whether he works at all (“At least I don’t have to work for it, dope!!“). The Colonel’s having “passed away” is probably an allusion to Goodman having sold his company to the Perfect Film & Chemical Corporation in 1968, a move which put Lee’s own future at Marvel in some doubt. Why “Mockingbird”? That’s been construed as an allusion to Goodman’s well-known penchant for having Marvel jump on existing market trends, rather than innovating (prior to 1961, at least) — for copying other comics publishers, in other words, in the same way that a mockingbird mimics other birds’ songs.”

I head about this issue before from somewhere else.

This guy gives great insight into the issue.

https://50yearoldcomics.com/2021/11/17/mister-miracle-6-jan-feb-1972/

[agharta75]

Any relation between Funky Flashman and Harry Flashman?

[huntleyhaverstock]

I find it interesting that even back in the '70s, Kirby was not only pointing out how Funky's fortune came from enslavement, but calling that out as an explicit evil.

(Although he mighta just been making a point about Marvel's exploitation of work-for-hire artists, which ... definitely accurate, but markedly less cool.)

[zylly]

I know Jack and Stan had their conflicts (and I’m not drawing sides here, it’s a mess we’re never going to fully untangle), but even keeping that in mind, this seems especially mean spirited, especially to Roy Thomas.