Who Are Your Favorite Jack Kirby Characters?

[chas]

Jack Kirby lives! With many of his classic works in reprint graphic novels, etc. younger folks can check them out today too! And many of his characters have inspired good handling by younger artists and writers, entering the mainstream of the Marvel and DC Universes, as they have been doing since World War II, when Kirby was a combat infantryman.

Here are a few Kirby related thoughts:

* My faves are Scott Free and Barda. Their relationship was based on JK's with his wife Ros. In the Justice League Unlimited animated episode with them, Artie Johnson voices the pseudo-Prussian villain Virman Vundabar, and gets to say "Ver-ry interesting!" I read Death of the New Gods and threw it away--it never happened...

*Thor and Norse myth are great. Check out Sherman Davies (Mr. Comic Store expert) and his version on his customs Marvel thread. Pow! I got some of the new Asgardian Heroclix figures this year from a wargame Con flea market.

*The Fantastic Four; I actually have an original Fantastic Four #2, the first appearance of Dr. Doom, (although with the cover off its probably not worth much). I also kept the epic two part battle between the FF/Avengers and The Hulk.

*Kirby's most recently inspired work by his assistant and his daughter is a grphic novel I have, called Jack Kirby's Galactic Bounty Hunters. Its pretty good.

*The Eternals have the old Kirby pizzaz too. His fun loving Sersi is reflected in the Circe shown in the hilarious and Greek myth-reference-filled Justice League Unlimited episode called This Little Piggy.

*I recently collected the X-Men: First Class graphic novels, which reflects the first days of the original X-Men, which are a lot of fun.

*Looking back to the Silver Age, I enjoyed the cameo appearance of the Challengers of the Unknown in Justice League: The New Frontier, in both the book and the animation, of the best animations of DC characters.

*Kirby Trivia: What comic featured the blooper line "What do you feed 'em--H Bombs?" And why was it a mistake?

Who are your favorites from the Kirby stable? What stuff you do have? What have you enjoyed of his tremendous output?

[RabSheila]

Man, there are so many.

Captain America (with Joe Simon). Thor. Galactus. Black Bolt.

And let us not forget the sentinel of the spaceways...The Silver Surfer (so cool they had to include him in 'scape)

Come to think about it Jack supplied quite a bit to MarvelScape: Dr. Doom, Cap, Surfer, Hulk, Red Skull and Iron Man. Thanks Jack! (Yeah, he had help, but c'mon!)

[lefton4ya]

Hello everyone! Darkseid & the other New Gods especially Orion, Kalibak, & Highfather are the best. I haven't read too many comics on them, but the Bruce Timm Superman/JL[U] animated series cartoons that featured them were my favorite episodes.

[Onacara]

Originally Posted by chas

Who Are Your Favorite Jack Kirby Characters?

*Kirby Trivia: What comic featured the blooper line "What do you feed 'em--H Bombs?" And why was it a mistake?

Answer to both is....

Sgt Fury and his Howling Commandos

Its a mistake because the Hydrogen Bomb wasnt around during World War II

[chas]

Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner! I'm impressed...

[kboleen]

I used to buy a comic when I was a teen called "What if..." with The Watcher. He's my favorite Kirby creation.

On a side note, did you see where the Kirby estate is suing Marvel to regain control of his creations. That might effect the Thor movie, the Captain America movie, and the Avengers movie. And if they succeed, it would probably open a flood gate of lawsuits from all sorts of creators. I suspect they will succeed as Bob Kane did with Batman.

[atmospro]

Originally Posted by kboleen

I used to buy a comic when I was a teen called "What if..." with The Watcher. He's my favorite Kirby creation.

On a side note, did you see where the Kirby estate is suing Marvel to regain control of his creations. That might effect the Thor movie, the Captain America movie, and the Avengers movie. And if they succeed, it would probably open a flood gate of lawsuits from all sorts of creators. I suspect they will succeed as Bob Kane did with Batman.

They don't really have a chance of winning, Jack tried twice when he was alive and lost. The two main issues is Stan Lee is the co-creator of most of the those Marvel characters and Jack signed an agreement with Marvel (as all of their talent did in those days) that all work was the property of Marvel. This included any IP that was used in those creations. Sad but true.

[Onacara]

Originally Posted by kboleen

I used to buy a comic when I was a teen called "What if..." with The Watcher. He's my favorite Kirby creation.

My favorite issue of "What If..." actually features Kirby as The Thing



PS If anyone is into reading legal court filings than here is the link to the actually suit filed.

http://reporter.blogs.com/files/cacd-03109783637.pdf

[chas]

Based on reading a book about Stan Lee and Marvel, I get the impression that the Kirby actions are to increase their piece of the pie, not actually stop projects or expect to take them over. This is part of the movment over the last 20 years of so to re-honor and re-compensate original comic creaters or their heirs, like Siegal and Schuster for Superman, who got truly shafted back in the old days at piece work rates. I always enjoy seeing at least a credit nod to the original creaters, as in the Wonder Woman episodes (Lynda Carter TV) I'm watching now.

Did you ever notice that Terry and the Pirates grew up to be Steve Canyon? That's because Milton Caniff's Terry was owned by its syndicate. After WWII, Caniff quit and started Canyon, which he owned. Its one of the reasons why I was glad to support the independently owned Elfquest (by the Pinis, up in Poughkeepsie, NY) in the Seventies and Eighties.

***

[Grishnakh]

There can be only one answer to this Chas:

Fin Fang Foom

It may be because he's green like Grishnakh, or that that character scared the ba-gee-bees out of me when I was a little kid.

[chas]

Griz, re Fin Fang Foom: They have a great huge figure of him in The Compleat Strategist (FLGS Manhattan). I'm not sure if he's a game piece or not!

[atmospro]

I had to take a couple of days to think about this and here what I came up with. For me Jack best creation have always been his more esoteric ones.

Captain Victory is the one character that I feel is Jack at his finest. The ultimate hero willing to sacrifice himself for the greater good.

Machine Man the sentience robot based on concept from t2001: Space Odyssey who just want to left lone to 'live' his life.

OMAC and Kamandi: The last boy on Earth, Jack's mid-seventies post apocalyptic series never reaaly paid the respect they deserved, Brother Eye anyone.

My favorite Jack artwork though comes from the fifty's before the rebirth of the superheroes, If you every get a chance checkout his western (romance to a lesser extent) books from that era for his best work.