Susan Richards: The Invisible Women no more

In 1961, when Jack Kirby and Stan Lee developed the Fantastic Four, inadvertently they set off on one of the oddest adventures of feminism
that had ever been written in American fiction. For Kirby, this was not
the first time that he had developed a group like the Fantastic Four and
as odd as it might sound, had it not been for happenstance, The
Fantastic Four might well had been a DC title, with a little bit of luck
and foresight. After all, Kirby designed the Challengers of the Unknown
in 1956, and Kirby, in previous interviews had said that Challengers was
the template for the Fantastic Four. He credited Stan Lee with creating
the number 4 on the uniforms of the FF as his only major contribution to
the creation of the characters, when discussing the ongoing controversy
between him and Lee over who created the FF. The similarities can be
easily enough drawn between this Kirby creation at DC and the Fantastic
Four.

By the time that Kirby jumped to Atlas/Marvel after contract and
creative disputes with National Periodicals, he took with him the
experience and template of the Challengers and created the Fantastic
Four on similar creative principles. The major difference between the
two creations was that with the Fantastic Four, the main characters were
family and with that the addition of girlfriend/future wife of Reed
Richards, Susan Storm. Having a women character put the FF on a
different and much more successful track.

http://www.mrbrklyn.com/susan_richards.html

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