ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Jack Kirby and Joe Simon introduce America to their Star Spangled Hero punching Adolph Hitler in the face. But soon Kirby finds himself taking the fight against Nazis from the page into the real world.
Yes, Stan Lee/Stanley Lieber, according to several sources (particularly Simon), did actually play the flute in the office. ! !
The pro-Nazi threats against Timely were quite real, and it was Kirby, not Simon, who received the lamppost threat in particular (CJKC 1:181). According to Simon’s Comic Book Makers, the threats got so bad that Mayor Fiorello La Guardia had to provide Timely Comics with police protection for a time. ! !
The Goldsteins actually lived above the Kurtzbergs, not the other way around, but reversing it makes more sense visually for the audience.
When it comes to who ratted Simon & Kirby out to Martin Goodman, Simon said, in a 2000 interview, “Stan said he didn’t do it. Jack said, ‘The next time I see that little son-of-a-bitch, #113 I’m gonna kill him.’ And then, the next thing I knew, he went back to work for them, so what do what you gotta do, right?” (Jack Kirby Collector #25, downloaded from TwoMorrows web site 4/14/00.)
Patton’s complaints about Alsace-Lorraine come directly from a letter of his from The Patton Papers: 1940-1945 (Martin Blumenson, ed.) Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974.
By all accounts, Kirby loved his war stories. The meat of the ones dramatized here come from Ray Wyman, Jr. "Jack Kirby on: World War II Influences." The Jack Kirby Collector #27. February 2000: 16-23; 1989 Groth interview; Greg Theakston. "Kirby's War." Jack Kirby Quarterly. Spring 1999: 6-13.
For the German language assist, many thanks to Timothy McCown Reynolds and Professor Johanna Vandrey of Northern Illinois University. (Love ya, Auntie Jo!)!
