Willie Lumpkin
Encyclopedia : W : WI : WIL : Willie Lumpkin
Willie Lumpkin is a fictional supporting character in the Marvel Universe, who is best known as the mailman of the Fantastic Four in their self-titled comic book.
The character was originally created for a syndicated, daily comic strip by writer Stan Lee and artist Dan DeCarlo. Lee had initially submitted samples of a strip about a New York City beat cop, but was told by his editor that it was too "big city-ish" and that he wanted a friendly mailman to better appeal to mainstream America. Willie Lumpkin, which was only published in 1960, drew humor from the people and situations Willie Lumpkin would encounter along his mail delivery route in the small town of "Glenville."
Lee and artist Jack Kirby then introduced their comic book version of Willie Lumpkin in Fantastic Four #11 (February, 1963). The comic book Lumpkin was depicted as significantly older than in the comic strip, though the character's good nature was retained, as were references to his past as a mailman in Glenville, which the comic book located in Nebraska.
In his first comic book appearance, Lumpkin was represented as having befriended the Fantastic Four, to whom he made regular mail deliveries at their Baxter Building headquarters in New York City. He half-jokingly requested to join the team on the grounds that he had the "power" to wiggle his ears. He served as their mailman for many years, and would on occasion fall into the zone of danger that typically surrounded the adventuring heroes. Examples include a story in which he was forced to spend Christmas Eve locked in a closet while the Fantastic Four fought the Super-Skrull, or when he was mind-controlled into accessing Doctor Doom's time machine by a minion of Immortus, the future identity of Kang the Conqueror. An alien Skrull also impersonated him once to infiltrate the Fantastic Four's headquarters. Willie Lumpkin also crossed over into Spider-Man comics, when he briefly dated Spider-Man's Aunt May.
Willie Lumpkin appeared in his own solo feature in Marvel Comics Presents #18 (May, 1989). The fan-favorite story was a parody of A Christmas Carol in which Lumpkin was visited by the Ghost of Christmas Past, who had intended to haunt cantankerous Spider-Man nemesis J. Jonah Jameson but couldn't find his address. The story concluded with the normally amiable postman deciding that he hates Christmas.
In the 2005 Fantastic Four film adaptation, Willie Lumpkin was portrayed by his own creator, Stan Lee.
In the Ultimate Marvel Universe, there is a government agent named Lumpkin, who works for the agency that runs the think-tank/school in the Baxter Building. Although his first name is not mentioned, this is an obvious homage.
In the Amalgam Comics universe, a character named Tino Lumpkin was a member of the Challengers of the Fantastic, who worked as postman for that team. Though he had no on-panel appearances, Tino Lumpkin is the Amalgam Comics equivalent of Willie Lumpkin.
External links
- [A Conversation between Stan Lee and Roy Thomas], includes dialogue about the Willie Lumpkin comic strip
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.