In a way I envy you, Beardguy, to be just a few years older than me, and to have seen the Silver Age unfold before you as it happened from 1963 forward, in the "wonder years" of your pre-pubescence.

Beginning with "The Flash of Two Worlds" (FLASH 123, September 1961, the first Golden Age and Silver Age Flash crossover), and "Crisis on Earth One/Earth Two" (the first JLA/JSA crossover in JLA 21 and 22, August and September 1963, which began an annual event in that series) and the beginning of the "DC Universe" developing from that time as well.
Another great early crossover is in MYSTERY IN SPACE 90 (March 1964) "Planets in Peril" by Fox and Infantino, teaming Adam Strange, Hawkman and the JLA, a fun story that was one more step toward an increasingly cohesive DC universe of characters.
Another (recently collected in a trade paperback, titled ZATANNA'S SEARCH) is a loosely connected set of crossover stories, done over several years, from JLA, HAWKMAN, DETECTIVE COMICS, GREEN LANTERN and THE ATOM, from 1963 to 1966 or so.

While over at Marvel, their superhero age began with FANTASTIC FOUR # 1 in November 1961. And then gradually, the Hulk, Spiderman and Thor were slowly launched in 1962.
The Hulk made his first crossover guest appearance in FF # 12, in March 1963.
There was also an Spider-man/FF crossover in FANTASTIC FOUR ANNUAL # 1 (Sept 1963), where Spiderman visits the Baxter Building, and tries to join the FF.
And shortly after, AVENGERS 1 and X-MEN 1 were released in September 1963.
The first crossovers between the Avengers, FF, and X-Men began in 1964, with guest appearances by the Avengers in FF 25-26, and the X-men in a crossover appearance in FF 28.
The absolute best crossover ever was in AMAZING SPIDERMAN ANNUAL # 1 (1964), by Lee and Ditko, where every last Marvel hero made a guest appearance. Great story !

And from there things progressed, with introduction and expansion of a number of other characters, such as The Watcher, The Recorder, Galactus, the Silver Surfer, The Inhumans, Black Panther, and other characters who made the Marvel tapestry increasingly more cohesive, from 1963-1966.

DC's climb toward the Silver Age plateau had begun earlier with introduction of the new Silver Age Flash in 1956, and with the slow introduction over a period of years of Adam Strange(MYSTERY IN SPACE), and new Silver Age versions of GREEN LANTERN, THE ATOM, JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA, HAWKMAN and others, that all made a gradual crawl from scattered appearances in SHOWCASE and BRAVE AND THE BOLD, and over a period of years (1958-1964) slowly eased into their own regular series.
Very slowly.
And it was not until JLA 21 and 22 (the first JLA/JSA crossover, in 1963) that things began to really evolve on the DC side as well.











It must have been really exciting to watch things unfold at both DC and Marvel on a monthly basis throughout this era.

 Quote:
Originally posted by Beardguy57:

I wish I'd have met him. I've heard
he was a very nice man.



I had the good fortune to meet Jack Kirby in person at San Diego Con in July/August 1987.
He was in a conference room in a panel discussion with others, but it was as if the others didn't even exist, because all the questions were aimed at Jack. He was very personable. And it was funny, because he couldn't seem to remember what series he did in what order, he wasn't sure if he'd done NEW GODS or KAMANDI first.

Which is natural, because he did such a huge monthly output of work over so many decades. We're the ones who constantly re-read and index his stories, Kirby just wrote and drew them one at a time, and then moved on to create the next one, never looking back.

So it was interesting that even though he created them, it was obvious that, chronologically and analytically, we knew more about his stories than Kirby himself did.
It also made me feel like a comic geek, for knowing Kirby's continuity perhaps too well, more than the King himself did.

Although being in his 70's at the time, I'm sure Kirby's memory wasn't as sharp as it once was.

As fortune would have it, when I came in late to that conference room (a few minutes late) and took a chair up in one of the front rows that was open, I happened to pick the seat right next to Roz Kirby !!

She was very nice too, and in the mob of people who were trying to talk to Kirby during and after the panel discussion, I was actually able to talk to her much longer than Jack. I asked her to sign my 1987 San Diego Con book, and she seemed very surprised by this. She asked why I'd want her signature, and I told her "because you're Jack Kirby's wife ! You're the woman behind the man !" She blushed and signed my book. Both were extremely modest and nice, despite every one of us treating them like gods.

You can see Jack Kirby on Ken Viola's 60-minute video, THE MASTERS OF COMIC BOOK ART, produced in 1987, where Harlan Ellison hosts and gives 1-minute introductions for 10 different comic book artists, who are interviewed for about 5 minutes each. In the order they are interviewed, the artists are Will Eisner, Harvey Kurtzman, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko(who narrates, but is the only artist not seen), Neal Adams, Berni Wrightson, Moebius, Frank Miller, Dave Sim, and Art Spiegelman. A great little tape, that lets you see many of the masters of the field.
( Although I would like to have seen a second volume, featuring Joe Kubert, Al Williamson, Frank Frazetta, Carmine Infantino, Jim Steranko, Michael Kaluta, Barry Windsor-Smith, Jim Starlin, Michael Golden, and John Bolton ! )


But anyway, if you can find this video, it's a place where you can see Kirby talk about his work.
There was a book recently collecting the Comics Journal interviews of Jack Kirby, with his wife Roz speaking in the conversation as well.

( Below is a taste of that initial excitement I felt, when first seeing Kirby's Fourth World books advertised, in my own re-creation of DC's full-page house ad in JIMMY OLSEN 134, from when Kirby first left Marvel and arrived at DC in 1970: )

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THE MAGIC OF... KIRBY !!







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I first read these stories in 1979.

But through this ad in JIMMY OLSEN 134 (which issue I had the good fortune to stumble on in a used bookstore before I got the later Fourth World books, and was thus able to read them in order) I was able to experience the excitement as if I was there from the beginning:


http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_MNK0lQqf-vc/RvCAIL6ufJI/AAAAAAAAB6w/iLq8VuoEH5E/s1600/MagicOfKirbyAd.jpg