I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating again: there are some people in the pop cultural pantheon who are so deeply enshrined in our collective understanding of entertainment, that they are just as iconic as the characters they create for our enjoyment. These singularly talented individuals are as deeply treasured as actual family members we interact with on a daily basis and their passing is felt just as deeply.
And no, thankfully nobody’s died since our last tragic passing. Really, in its own way, this is a happy occurrence. Although he is no longer with us — hasn’t been for more than twenty years — the late comic legend Jack Kirby has just passed his hundredth birthday.
While the layperson may not be as familiar with his name as his prolific and influential body of work would warrant, he was just as responsible for the rise of the comic book as a pop cultural institution as his better-promoted partner, Stan Lee. In fact, in terms of the weight of his contribution to our greater shared entertainment culture, he is ranks right up there with the likes of Walt Disney and Nintendo icon Satoru Iwata.
Jack Kirby born a hundred years ago this last Monday, was perhaps the most singularly important comic book artist to work during the medium’s gold and silver age. He rose to prominence in the industry, under the banner of what would eventually become Marvel Comics, after creating Captain America with collaborator Joe Simon.
His best known artistic period undoubtedly began in the early 1960’s, when Marvel reinvented itself from the ground up in order to compete with rival publisher DC Comics’ incredibly popular superhero lineup. Alongside writer Stan Lee, the two men co-created many of the publisher’s most popular and generationally enduring characters, including the Fantastic Four, the X-Men , the Avengers, the Incredible Hulk, Black Panther and the Silver Surfer.
His true passion turned out to be all of the crazy, cosmic aliens and planets populating the Marvel Universe: pretty much everything Marvel wants the Guardians of the Galaxy to spin off into. It was from his cosmic imagination that Galactus, Uatu the Watcher, the Inhumans and Ego the Living Planet came to be.
Although society has trained us to imagine writers — such as Stan Lee — to be the sole, authoritative creator of a text, this simply wasn’t the case with Lee’s and Kirby’s relationship. Pioneering what eventually became known as “The Marvel Method,” the two men closely collaborated with one another, each co-creating and co-authoring their shared works from the ground up.
After leaving Marvel in 1970, he continued to work — particularly his cosmic worlds and characters — over at DC. There he created the New Gods and their villainous opposite, Darkseid: widely considered to be THE main villain in the comic publisher’s expansive roster of villains. He also co-created the Sandman with fellow Marvel defector Joe Simon: a cult, esoteric comic hero that was radically different from anything else published in mainstream comics at the time.
Although Kirby was sadly overlooked throughout his life — with many of his contributions becoming attributed to his collaborators — one thing that he never got enough credit for was just how much of a Nazi-stomping badass he was. Especially while working on Captain America, he was a frequent target of Nazi abuse. That doesn’t mean he ever shirked away from them, however. On one occasion he mentioned that “the only real politics I knew was that if a guy liked Hitler, I’d beat the stuffing out of him and that would be that.”
Another story frequently circulated about the man was that he once received a call while in Marvel’s offices. The voice on the other end of the line said “there are three of us down here in the lobby. We want to see the guy who does this disgusting comic book and show him what real Nazis would do to his Captain America.” Not one to pass up on his patriotic duty, he rolled up his sleeves and marched down to the lobby to face them in person. By the time he arrived in the lobby, however, the callers were gone.
Although he is no longer with us, his creations continue to be. In fact, there has never been a time when heroes like Captain America and Black Panther have been more necessary in the world. So cheers to you, Jack; the world wouldn’t have been the same without you.
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