Six Degrees

Jack Kirby, "The King of the Comics," creator or co-creator of The Fantastic Four, Captain America, The X-Men, and The Incredible Hulk, grew up with terrorist victim Leon Klinghoffer. He talked about it here in this old interview with, of all people, metal rocker Glenn Danzig (though really it's no surprise to learn he's a comic fan):

[At this point, there is a break in the recording, and it resumes with a discussion of the Achille Lauro incident. In October 1985, members of the Palestine Liberation Front, a member-organization of the PLO, hijacked the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro while it was at anchor in Port Said, Egypt in the Mediterranean Sea, and held its passengers hostage. Many American tourists were on-board, including elderly, wheelchair-bound Leon Klinghoffer, who was a boyhood friend of Kirby's. The terrorists shot Klinghoffer in cold blood and threw his body overboard. To rub further salt into the wound, PLO officials repeatedly mocked the victims, declaring at the United Nations that Mrs. Klinghoffer had probably murdered her husband "for the insurance money." Abu Abbas, head of the PLF and mastermind of the hijacking, when asked about the killing of Klinghoffer, replied, "Maybe he was trying to swim for it."]

GLENN: The guy who jumped on the terrorists was in a wheelchair?

JACK: He was in a wheelchair, yeah. When I knew him, his folks owned the mini-store on my block. He was the only one that went after the terrorists.

ROZ KIRBY: He went after them verbally. He talked back to them.

MIKE: They shot him in the head.

JACK: Nobody said a word to the terrorists; they did as they willed. Klinghoffer was the only one who talked back to them. He died. They threw him overboard and he died. A guy from my block would do it. He wouldn't stand for it because there were women on board and he felt that...

GLENN: Where was that? In Brooklyn? Bronx?

JACK: No, Lower East Side. And that's why I say they turned on him. [People on my block] were people that were just becoming Americans. I felt I was an American because I was born here. All the guys felt that. And, of course, Captain America came out of that kind of a feeling.

[Hat tip, Amritas]