The geek equivilant of the recently found Tennessee Williams plays

Jack "The King" Kirby. Stan "The Man" Lee. Two of the greats of comic book history.

We owe Superman to two boys from Cleveland, Siegel and Shuster. Batman wouldn't exist without Bob Kane and Bill Finger. But Stan Lee and Jack Kirby shaped the Marvel Universe as we know it.

As a team, they created The Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, the X-Men, and, of course, the Fantastic Four.

In 1970, Jack Kirby resigned from Marvel to create New Gods for DC comics. He turned in the pencils for Fantastic Four 102 along with the resignation letter. Some of that artwork appeared as flashbacks in Fantastic Four 108, but the original story was lost.

Lee apparently doesn't remember the original story, but a plot summary was available in Marvel's files. Lee is going to write a new story to go along with the pencils. Marvel is in talks to have the pencils inked by Joe Sinnott, a veteran inkist and longtime Kirby collaborator.

At the San Diego Comic-Con, Joe Quesada announced that Marvel is going to release the last Fantastic Four collaboration by Lee and Kirby this spring. Apparently Marvel has paid top dollar to the Kirby estate for the rights to the artwork.

I find this to be tremendously exiciting.