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.^[1]

Publication history

Newspaper comic strip

Willie Lumpkin in the 1959-61 comic strip. Art by Dan DeCarlo.

The character was originally created for a syndicated daily comic strip by writer Stan Lee and artist Dan DeCarlo. Lee recalled in a 1998 interview that,

Mel Lazarus had done a strip called Miss Peach, which used not panels but one long panel instead. I liked that idea very much, so when Harold Anderson, the head of Publishers Syndicate, asked me to do a strip, I came up with Barney's Beat, which was about a New York City cop and all the characters on his patrol who he'd meet every day and there would be a gag. I did some samples with Dan DeCarlo, and I thought it was wonderful. Harold said it was too "big city-ish" and they're not going to care for it in the small towns because they don't have cops on a beat out there. He wanted something that would appeal to the hinterland, something bucolic. He said, "You know what I want, Stan? I want a mailman! A friendly little mailman in a small town." I don't remember if I came up with the name Lumpkin or he did, but I hated it. I think I came up with the name as a joke and he said, "Yeah, that's it! Good idea!"^[2]

Willie Lumpkin drew humor from the people and situations Willie would encounter along his mail delivery route in the small town of Glenville. The daily strip ran from December 1959 to May 6, 1961. A Sunday strip ran through May 28.^[3]

Marvel Comics

Lee and artist Jack Kirby then introduced their comic book version of Willie Lumpkin in Fantastic Four #11 (Feb. 1963). The comic book Lumpkin is 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 placed in Nebraska.

In his first comic book appearance, Lumpkin is represented as having befriended the Fantastic Four, to whom he makes regular fan mail deliveries at their Baxter Building headquarters in New York City. He half-jokingly requests to join the team on the grounds that he has the "power" to wiggle his ears.

Lumpkin appeared in his own solo feature in Marvel Comics Presents #18 (May 1989). In this parody of A Christmas Carol, he is 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 concludes with the normally amiable postman deciding he hates Christmas.

Fictional character biography

In Marvel Comics, Willie Lumpkin serves as the postal worker mailman whose Manhattan route includes the joint home and office of the superhero group the Fantastic Four. On occasion he falls into the danger that typically surrounds the adventuring heroes. Examples include a story in which he is forced to spend Christmas Eve locked in a closet while the Fantastic Four fight the Super-Skrull, or when he helped to save the team from the Mad Thinker. This incident involved Reed's trust in Lumpkin; he had hired the mailman to manipulate the machinery as part of a safety routine.^[4] Later Lumpkin is mind-controlled into accessing Doctor Doom's time machine by a minion of Immortus. An alien Skrull also impersonates him in another story to infiltrate the Fantastic Four's headquarters.

He also briefly dated Peter Parker's Aunt May.^[5] When May briefly appeared to have died, Lumpkin grieved and was seen to befriend a new companion named Doreen Greenwald.^[6]

Lumpkin has since retired, and his niece Wilhemina "Billie" Lumpkin has taken his position as the Fantastic Four's mail carrier.^[7]

He was interviewed about the Fantastic Four on the news show Lateline,^[8] saying how though the group took on cosmic menaces, they always found time to greet him. Sometime later, the super-team, miniaturized, entered his body to remove an otherwise inoperable brain tumor.^[9]

Other versions

Marvels

Marvels is a "history" of the world of Marvel super-heroes painted by Alex Ross and which spans from the late 1930s to the 1960s. In one scene, main character Phil Sheldon, a journalist who observes the Marvel characters from a distance (and sometimes close-up), meets his ex-girlfriend in a movie theatre where she introduces him to her date, Bill Lumpkin. With a smile, Lumpkin tells Sheldon that they have met though he states that Sheldon will not remember where, causing the reporter a little embarrassment.^[10]

Ultimate Marvel

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. His first name is not mentioned. He is in his forties and overweight. He is initially shown recruiting Reed Richards.^[11] He has expressed a romantic interest in Grimm's mother. Lumpkin and three of his men assist the Four in confronting the Mad Thinker, a former Baxter Building student. The entire group is knocked out by tranquilizing chemicals. Reed saves everyone.^[12]

In other media

Stan Lee playing Lumpkin in Fantastic Four (2005)

Television

• Lumpkin appears in the Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes episode "My Neighbor was a Skrull" voiced by Colin Murdock.

Film

• Lumpkin appears in the 2005 Fantastic Four film portrayed by Stan Lee. He greets the Fantastic Four when they arrive at the Baxter Building. It was the first time in Lee's cameo appearance in a Marvel Comics-based film that he portrayed a character he created.

References

External links

• Willie Lupkin at Don Markstein's Toonopedia. Archived from the original on September 16, 2015.
• Willie Lumpkin at Marvel Wiki
• Willie Lumpkin at Comic Vine