Kirby’s Mind and Weird Mystery

The cover to Weird Mystery Tales #3 (Nov.-Dec. 1972) promises readers a conventional plot: a human in imminent danger from a non-human menace. Like the above image, many Weird Mystery Tales covers feature an attractive young woman in peril.

Yet Jack Kirby’s “The Burners,” the opening story in the issue, is more interesting than what the image (loosely ‘based’ on his tale) suggests. In fact, it fundamentally distorts Kirby's premise.

Rather than portray a typical comic book threat, it examines the physiology and psychology of despair. The cover (by Nick Cardy) sells Kirby’s story as a standard “villain of the month” plot. But “The Burners” has no villain. Rather, the blue flame (personified on the cover but not in the story) emerges internally, from the ‘victim’s’ own despondency. There’s no chase, no sexy blond -- only unattractive, lonely old men and women who have given up on life and spontaneously self-combust. One moment Clara, a rather masculine woman (unlike our cover girl) sits still, staring blankly, not running from anything:

The next moment she's gone. [Clara and the cover girl are ironic doubles: blonds wearing a red scarf and dress.] In another scene, a woman dances by herself in public; Kirby gives us very little information about her, but leads us to believe that she finds the sight of so many happy couples intolerable, and so combusts, engulfed in blue flame:


Why did she go to the dance? Was it a public suicide? Did she will herself to combust?

Kirby’s narrator, Dr. Maas (an allusion to The Crying of Lot 49?), notes that popular wisdom connects the blue flame to a material phenomenon -- UFOs. Kirby knows that comic readers want intense confrontations -- such as those that populate the kind of stories he was famous for -- and prefer fantastic explanation to ones closer to home. Perhaps in a nod to this desire, he visualizes the conventional explanation of the flame in the story’s most unusual panel: a full-page photo-montage of a UFO shooting blue rays:

And in this full-row panel:

The story is not a detailed psychological study; Kirby doesn’t stay with one character for more than a few panels, likely because he wants to show numerous dramatic scenes of combustion and its aftermath. We are left to imagine the kinds of lives that led to such profound despair:

Loneliness, it seems, is not visually interesting enough for many comic readers . . .

Perhaps the editors anticipated some disappointment on the part of readers, who might have felt they were sold one thing and received another; they note that the story was intended to be published elsewhere, in Spirit World, a short-lived magazine format comic. Unlike "The Burners," Kirby’s previous story in Weird Mystery Tales #2 “Toxl, The World Killer” was based on a more conventional concept and delivered non-stop action, with little psychological depth:

The disconnect between the cover of WMT #3 and Kirby’s story reveals a way in which mainstream editors lack faith in their readers, who might have appreciated a story about alienation, something teenager readers could certainly understand. And if the opening image of the old woman appeared on the comic (instead of a blond in a red dress), it would have made for a far weirder cover, one more in tune with the comic's title . . . I wonder if an editor had encouraged Kirby (who was 55 at the time, an age close to that of the despondent Otto) to change the pacing, to slow it down and stay longer with each character, what kind of story he might have created.

Kirby seems to have played a willing part, though, in misrepresenting "The Burners." The first words we see are:


This subtitle violates the premise of the story, directing attention away from the psychological dilemmas that drive the plot. There's no UFO, no devil, no blue flame outside the window, just deeply sad people.




Also: Here’s another post on a conflict between a comic's cover and its interior.