The most work in Marvel?

[marvelguy]

As Ultimate Spider-Man comes to a record run for Bendis and Bagley beating Lee and Kirby in FF. I believe it was 103 or so issues. That got me to thinking, who has drew the most books for Marvel? Is it Bagley, Kirby, or someone else? I know Bagley did New Warriors, Thunderbolts, Amazing Spider-Man, Ultimate Spiderman, and some more books. Kirby has done lots of stuff for Marvel. I'm pretty sure it's Kirby. Can someone confirms this?

[chaosus]

I've gotta think about this one a bit. I think it's Kirby based on sheer number of issues. Bag's hasn't been around long enough yet. But he's been doing monthly books for a while now and he's YOUNG.

As far as STORIES are concerned, it would take Bendis and Bagely about 12,000 issues to tell the same amout of STORIES.

And I'm a big Bendis / Bagely fan.



Gary

[slucas76]

It's just the nature of the game right now.

Got a story that could be told in 2-3 issues?

Stretch it out to 6-8 and get a TPB out of it.

I don't think it's wrong necessarily, but it's just the nature of the game.

[stupidman]

The man who has worked on one Marvel character the longest is:

Larry Lieber.

Stan's brother, who has worked on the Spider-Man comic strip for like 20 years or more.

Kind of a cheap answer, but I remember reading it as some comic trivia.

[stupidman]

And Sal Buscema has drawn a ton of books for Marvel over many years. He's gotta be up there.

[slucas76]

Both of the Romitas have been heavily involved in Marvel, too.

This is a tough question.

[jaeldubyoo]

I would think it pretty tough to beat Jack Kirby's volume of work for Marvel. Remember he was around during the Golden Age working on Captain America. He did a bunch of horror stories for Strange Tales, Tales of Suspense and Tales to Astonish. Then during the Marvel Age he worked on Fantastic Four, Avengers, Thor (JIM), Captain America, Hulk, Sgt. Fury, X-Men, etc, etc., etc. He worked on several books at the same time. Even after he left and worked for DC, he went back to Marvel and did a ton of work, much of it forgettable like Devil Dinosaur, Eternals, Machine Man. It hard to imagine anybody doing the same volume of work at Marvel. Bagley may have worked on one title longer, but I don't think he has matched Kirby's production.

One Marvel artist that I think is often overlooked is John Buscema. He helped fill a void when Kirby went to work for DC. He worked on nearly all the major Marvel books. His Marvel work included long runs on Avengers, Fantastic Four, Thor and Conan. And his Silver Surfer is classic.

[stupidman]

"Remember he was around during the Golden Age working on Captain America. He did a bunch of horror stories for Strange Tales, Tales of Suspense and Tales to Astonish."

Oh, are we counting those? I thought it was Marvel only. I didn't consider any Timely/Atlas books as part of the question. For me, Marvel didn't start until FF # 1, because, c'mon, the stories and art sucked in the old Capt. America, and the Atlas books were just cookie-cutter monster stories (some are cool though).
Romita Sr. and Ditko also worked on these earlier books.

[jaeldubyoo]

Even if you disregarded Kirby's work on Timely/Atlas comics, the sheer volume of work that Kirby did during the early days at Marvel was unsurpassed. And remember, a lot of the horror stuff he did was reprinted by Marvel later in the horror books. Kirby was very prolific and basically defined the early Marvel look. Many of the younger artists were encouraged to emulate Kirby's style. While Kirby worked on a lot of books, Ditko basically did Spiderman and Dr. Strange. Romita worked briefly on Daredevil and mostly on Spiderman after Ditko's run. While I'm not a big fan of Kirby's art (there are many other artists I like much more) I stand in awe of his staggering output during the early days of Marvel.