My friend and I had both just seen The Avengers. He isn't much of a comic book fan like myself, so he was asking me about how faithful the movie was to the comic. I got into all the minutiae and esoterica and brought up Jack Kirby. My friend had no idea who he was. And I figured not many of you who saw The Avengers this past weekend know who he is either. Allow me to rectify that if you would, dear reader. Let's talk about the King of Comics.
Jack Kirby, born Jacob Kurtzberg, is basically the premier superhero artist in the history of the medium. He created or co-created some of the most iconic superheroes ever. His art style and techniques influence people to this day. You can't call yourself a comic book fan if you don't know Kirby.
All right, so why's he such a big deal? Well let's start at the beginning. In 1940 Kirby was working as an artist for hire at comic book publisher Timely Comics and began a partnership with writer-artist Joe Simon. With World War II spreading throughout Europe and America remaining neutral, Simon pitched his editor the idea of an American-themed superhero who would fight the Nazi Menace. With Simon writing and Kirby drawing, Captain America premiered on comic stands in March 1941. That's right, he co-created Captain America.
Actually that cover of Cap punching Hitler in the face got Timely in trouble at the time. Like I said, America was still neutral at the time Captain America premiered and there were even public Pro-Nazi supporters. And some of these supporters actually rioted outside the Timely Offices in New York, calling for Simon and Kirby to be hung and burning the two in effigy. It got so bad that then-Mayor LaGuardia called in the cops to protect the two. Why? LaGuardia was a Captain America fan.
Once America entered the war, Kirby did his part and signed up. He was stationed over in Europe and utilized his artistic skills to draw up reconnaissance maps as a scout. Kirby survived severe frostbite and returned home honorably discharged.
After the war Kirby continued working in comics, jumping from publisher to publisher. Superheroes were on the wane after a public indictment courtesy of Fredric Wertham(google him) so Kirby actually worked in a variety of different genres at the time. In fact, his work on the Romance Comics of the era is considered as influential as his superhero work. At the same time, he re-teamed with Simon and created the Fighting American, a kind of 50's Captain America who the duo used to subversively parody the anti-communist feelings of the time.
Eventually Kirby ended up back at Timely, now called Atlas Comics, for his first teaming with a young writer-editor named Stan Lee. Together Lee and Kirby made monster comics, sort of proto-Godzilla tales about science gone wrong and giant monsters with names like Goom! and Groot! and the best of all, Fin Fang Foom! Yes, the exclamation points are part of their names.
Across town, rival publisher DC Comics had brought superheroes back in vogue with characters like The Flash, Green Lantern, and the Martian Manhunter. And their sales got even better when they put the characters together in a team called The Justice League of America. As the legend goes, the publisher of DC Jack Liebowitz was having a golf game with the publisher of Atlas, Martin Goodman. Liebowitz bragged to Goodman about how much DC was raking in on Justice League and when Goodman got back to the office he gave Lee and Kirby their assignment, create a team of superheroes for Atlas. The result? The Fantastic Four.
And that was the start. After the success of the Fantastic Four, Lee and Kirby went on to create a whole universe of new superheroes and villains. Atlas changed its name to Marvel and the rest is history. The Incredible Hulk, The Mighty Thor, the original X-Men, even the Avengers all sprang forth from Kirby's ink. He also did costume designs for Spider-Man, Iron Man, and Daredevil. Kirby became so synonymous with Marvel, that his style became their house style for a while.
Kirby's partnership with Stan Lee was fruitful for both of them. Seeing how he was writing basically every book at Marvel and was its Editor-in-chief, Lee was very busy and usually only gave his artists an outline of the story and had them fill in the details. This loose attitude allowed Kirby to experiment and explore some wild ideas. In Fantastic Four and Thor, the two titles he had art duties on, Kirby refined his style. His square-jawed muscled strongmen and curvaceous females struck out on the page in dynamic action, embodying the art with an energy and bombast lacking in earlier comics. Kirby's style also involved fantastic technologies, unlike anything seen on Earth. I can't describe it, just look
Unfortunately, this is where things started going downhill for Kirby. While he was paid and credited for his work, Kirby was denied any rights to the characters he created. Because he was only work-for-hire at Marvel, the company claimed he had no right to them and they were wholly owned by the company. Disgusted at their treatment, Kirby left Marvel with a lot of bad blood. Opinions vary as to how involved Stan Lee was, but Kirby had some negative feelings at Lee wen he left. Kirby even went so far as to create a Strawman Lee in his next comics series, showing Lee as a huckster out for himself who played up an image of a fun showman. Petty? Yes, but still kind of funny.
Kirby ended up at Marvel's rival across town, DC. DC gave him complete creative control and basically let him do what he would. And boy, look what we got out of that. At DC, Kirby created OMAC, the lone superhero in a psychedelic Orwellian future, Kamandi, the adventures of the last living human in a post-apocalyptic landscape of intelligent animals, and the Demon, about a demon from Hell summoned to Earth in the days of King Arthur and bonded to a human to fight evil. But by far, his most important work at DC is what many consider Kirby's magnum opus, The New Gods
The New Gods was the tale of a two races of super-advanced alien gods and their war on Earth. It was Kirby's attempt to create a mythology for the 20th Century, combining ancient archetypes with Judeo-Christian themes and science fiction. If any of you remember Darkseid from the '90s Superman and Justice League cartoons, this is where he came from. Like Kirby' work at Marvel, the New Gods and his other creations became cornerstones of the DC Universe and people are still using his creations to this day.
Despite the creativity and imagination on display, Kirby was not immune to bad sales. Readers failed to connect with his new characters and sales on the books tanked. All the titles were cancelled just when Kirby began to up the plot's ante. Out of work again and DC strangling the rights to the characters he made there, Kirby drifted and ended up back at Marvel. There he created The Eternals, a superhero retelling of the Ancient Astronauts theory. The gods, monsters, and heroes of ancient legend were actually primitive humans genetically augmented or mutated by super-advanced alien gods called the Celestials. Kirby liked super-advanced alien gods. Poetically, his final major comics work was a critically acclaimed run on the character that made him famous to begin with, Captain America.
Still dissatisfied with Marvel, Kirby left again and mostly retired from comics after that. He did some work in animation, doing character designs for Thundarr the Barbarian, and concept art for movies. Jack Kirby died in 1994.
Jack Kirby revolutionized comics. I can't emphasize enough how much he is engrained in the medium. He is the Da Vinci of superheroes. While Marvel and DC still refuse to pay him (well, his estate anyway) royalties for his creations, the people working at those companies have nothing but respect for him. There was even a Fantastic Four a few years back where the four go to Heaven (long story) and talk to God. And God is Jack Kirby. Without Jack Kirby, we wouldn't have the modern superhero. So if you go see The Avengers, or see it again, say a little thanks to Jack Kirby. Hail to the King baby.
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