October 25, 2003

The Siegfried and Roy show in Las Vegas is apparently history now. For those of you who never saw it, trust me: It was odd. There was a certain self-adoration about it that I found excessive, especially considering how little Siegfried and Roy themselves did in the show. When you get to that scale of magic — huge effects that can be seen from the back row — the illusions are primarily performed by the folks who designed and built the equipment, and those who operate them backstage. Making the elephant appear is mostly a matter of the magician pointing at the prop. As I recall, the most impressive thing in the show was in Roy's handling of the big cats.

And there was one other moment I will not forget because it was worth every penny of the $100+ ticket price — or would have been, had I not been in on a comp. At one point in the show, a huge robotic dragon came out and lifted Siegfried (or what was allegedly Siegfried) in one hand and an apparent Roy in the other and held them high over its head. As I sat there, I could only think: "My God! It's a Jack Kirby cover, come to life!"

Actually, a lot of comic book artists over the years have drawn covers on which a huge monster holds the heroes aloft but Jack probably drew more than anyone. The classic example would be the cover of Fantastic Four #1 at left. (The reference books usually credit the artwork on that cover to "Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers" or "Jack Kirby and Christopher Rule." It definitely isn't Ayers and I don't think it's Rule, either. I think the inking was by longtime DC and Marvel inker George Klein. And Sol Brodsky designed the title logo, executed by Artie Simek.) It's a great cover and like many, the more you look at it, the more you see. I've known that cover since just after it first came out, which I believe occurred on August 8, 1961. Until the other day when I chanced to be reading an Internet message board, I never realized something very silly about it.

You may not be able to see it well in the cover repro above but at the bottom right, Reed "Mr. Fantastic" Richards is using his newly-acquired stretching powers to slither out of his bonds. He's saying, "It'll take more than ropes to keep Mr. Fantastic out of action!" And of course, he's right but this does raise an interesting question...

Here's the question: Who tied him up?

Nowhere in the story does anyone tie the man up. The monster depicted is an unlikely candidate to have done it. In fact, the only bad guy in the whole issue who has fingers is the Mole Man, who lives underground and is unable to see in daylight, and he just doesn't look the type. One might also ponder: If someone did tie up Mr. Fantastic, why did our hero wait until a monster had burst through the asphalt and grabbed his girl friend before he started getting out of those bonds? Reed is supposed to be a pretty smart guy.

Like I said, this never occurred to me before. But the other day, I read this message thread over on the discussion board for Comic Book Resources, and a fellow who goes by the name of Cei-U pointed it out. Next time I run into Stan Lee, I'm going to ask him about this. I will report back to you on the puzzled look on his face and the polite way in which he tells me that he doesn't remember and doesn't know (a) who tied up Mr. Fantastic or (b) why any of us care.