In this, the
100th year of
JACK KIRBY's birth, the man has been getting a great deal of attention recently - and deservedly so. When Jack was good, he was excellent, and when he was great, he was sensational. However, reading online articles about what a creative genius Jack was, and how he was a prophetic visionary who influenced just about every aspect of popular culture - well, it leaves me feeling a little uneasy at times. I just can't help thinking that some of it goes just a little
too far. Admire the man if you want, recognise and respect his creative contributions throughout his cosmic career in comics, but remember that he was merely a 'king' and not a god. There's no need to 'deify' him, and some of the retrospective re-evaluations of Jack's work tend to paint a portrait that doesn't always faithfully resemble its subject. It removes the warts, refines the pores, and adds a few extra inches (if not feet) in stature; it turns plaster into marble, and polishes over cracks to give the impression that a solid bronze bust is a priceless gold statue. I'm speaking multi-metaphorically of course, but you get the idea.
When it came to action, Jack Kirby at his peak was unbeatable. His pages pulsated with life, and every panel flowed into the next with seamless ease, resulting in almost unparalleled sequential storytelling. Even when characters just stood around talking for a page, a sense of impending drama simply oozed from every picture. You'd get long shots, medium shots, close-ups, and views from the balcony. A page was a stage to Jack and he dressed it accordingly. Sure, his characters cast shadows that bore no resemblance to either them or reality, and sometimes they had two left hands or feet and the relative sizes of players weren't always proportionally consistent, but, boy - did his pages sing. Yeah, knees were square, fingers each had around six joints, eyes were often on a different level, and feet were the size of shoe boxes, but every panel made an impact that was nearly off-the-scale. There's no doubt that Jack was a major force to be reckoned with in comicbook storytelling, and there's no getting away from that fact.
But a Jack Kirby page was a Jack Kirby page, and if his abstract musculature and idiosyncratic anatomy didn't quite appeal to your artistic sensibilities, I can quite understand why. When measured against the contemporaneous artwork of NEAL ADAMS, JOE KUBERT, CURT SWAN, BERNIE WRIGHTSON, etc., Jack's '70s work had a distinctly cartoonish quality that seemed somewhat out-of-step with those around him. In my (not so) humble opinion, his CHALLENGERS Of The UNKNOWN pages inked by WALLY WOOD were far superior to anything he ever drew in KAMANDI, because they were much more illustrative and far less abstract. Sadly, over time, age and illness took their toll on Jack, and his later projects, like HUNGER DOGS, are best passed over with no more than a cursory glance. Those who would disagree with my seemingly harsh (though I'd say 'honest') assessment will point out, as evidence to the contrary, that most of Jack's work - even those mags which were regarded at the time as commercial failures (like the FOURTH WORLD series) - are currently available in expensive reprint volumes. Well, of course they are, but that's no surprise - the work has already been paid for and there's a hungry book market to feed.
And remember, over the years, a cult has been built-up around Jack, not only by those who truly respect him, but also by those who benefit from keeping his name alive and exploiting his legend and legacy. There's always been money in nostalgia from a publisher's point of view, and, that apart, it's completely understandable that many of today's comic creators, whose childhood was set against the tapestry of Jack's lesser DC work, are constantly reviving those concepts so that they can get to play in Jack's sandbox. Some people hail the Fourth World series as Jack's masterpiece, and who am I to tarnish the shine of their childhood joys? However, to me, Jack's DC work was mainly an interesting, mildly entertaining interlude, which pales into insignificance against his '60s MARVEL collaborations with STAN LEE. I say 'interlude', but, sadly, the truth is that 'act two' of Jack's career at Marvel never really took off, even if it was later shoehorned into Marvel continuity by those loath to jettison anything created by 'King' Kirby.
And now we get to the crux of the matter. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. You may think that even if some of the accolades currently being heaped on Jack's crown are prone to hyperbole, then so what? It's merely redressing many years of imbalance where Jack received what was perceived by many to be a detrimentally disproportionate share of the credit and glory for his role in co-creating the Marvel universe. And there's something in that, to be sure. Whatever it was that Stan did (which is not to be construed as Stan's contribution being a mystery), he probably wouldn't have got to do it had Jack not been part of the equation. Likewise, Jack's contribution probably wouldn't have been held in such awe at the time (and today), had it not been for Stan's significant input. Let's face the facts. Jack's art had always been what it was: dynamic, power-packed, well-composed, interesting - just about anything good you care to say about it. So what marks the difference between the strips he created and wrote by himself, and those he did with Stan Lee? The answer is staring you in the face - Stan Lee.
If, for the sake of discussion, we leave out Stan for a moment, and imagine that Jack had created, scripted and drawn all the Marvel characters he worked on - by himself - what would the difference have been? I'd suggest that there's a strong likelihood that most of those characters wouldn't be around today. Sure, the art would've looked just as dynamic, just as imposing, just as pleasing-to-the-eye as it had always done, but that alone was never enough to ensure the success or longevity of a Kirby comic. BOYS' RANCH, FIGHTING AMERICAN, The STRANGE WORLD Of YOUR DREAMS, and most of Jack's '70s DC and Marvel mags amply testify to that fact. What separated '60s Marvel books from their competitors was the characterisation, the dialogue, the humour, the irreverence, the continuity - most of which came from Stan in the early years (with notable contributions from LARRY LIEBER, and later, ROY THOMAS).
It should also be remembered that, if not for Stan promoting his collaborators and singing their praises, 'King' Kirby would likely never have been crowned, and his name might be even more obscure today among the general public than some claim it to be. (Sure, Jack had already enjoyed name-recognition with previous collaborator JOE SIMON, but the new wave of readers in the 1960s would have been largely unaware of his various past accomplishments.) Likewise, Stan would probably never have had the opportunity to show what he was capable of without Jack to inspire him to rise to the challenge. They both needed one another to bring out the best in each of them. Strawberries are nice, and cream is nice, but together they're sublime. 'Twas the same with Stan and Jack.
Then why, you might ask, did Stan make more money out of Marvel than Jack did? Well, Stan was a salaried employee of publisher MARTIN GOODMAN's company, whereas Jack was a freelancer - a position he preferred, it should be noted. And though, in the latter stages of their collaboration, it appears that Jack was mainly the 'ideas' man, when you get down to it (to a certain extent), ideas are ten a penny. It's not so much having ideas that counts, but what you do with them, and Stan often seems to have known what to do with them far better than Jack himself did. Jack had so many ideas (especially over at DC), that he often couldn't discern which ones were 'keepers' and which ones weren't. In an ideal world, Jack would have been better compensated for his Marvel work, but he took the 'king's shilling' (no pun intended) in order to make a living, and though he later came to consider himself underpaid, he did very well for himself by the standards of the day. He certainly made far more than the average wage of the time (though he also put in more than the average hours). I once read somewhere exactly what Jack earned, translated into what it would equate to today, and believe me, it wasn't insignificant.
And now we come to
MARK EVANIER. In the main, Mark Evanier strikes me as the kind of guy who, if he says it's Christmas, you hang up your stocking and decorate the tree, but I sometimes think he was too close to Jack to be entirely objective about him. He adores Jack, loves Jack, sees him as almost like a father figure (and the words 'almost like' may well be redundant there), and, out of all diehard Kirby fans, may well be the one who has been fairest to Stan Lee. (In print at least; he tends to play to the anti-Stan fans a bit at his Kirby panel discussions.) Mark has said (and I don't doubt his veracity or sincerity for a second) that Jack predicted back in the '60s that his characters would one day be the subjects of big-budget movies, and that he also knew his comics would eventually be reprinted in expensive collected editions in the future. Well, that future is now upon us, but does it prove that Jack was a prescient prophet, or that he merely recognised the inevitability of 'big business' (like
GODCORPS) mining everything around it in order to make a buck, regardless of any inherent worth - or lack of it?
Remember, modern movie-makers saw more potential in
HOWARD The DUCK as a big-screen outing before they ever detected any in the characters Jack created or co-created. And don't forget that the very first
CAPTAIN AMERICA movie from 1990 was a great big steaming pile of poo. The financial potential of a comicbook character is often realised not by any inherent worth in the original material, but by how well it is executed on screen by the creative-types behind the movie; it stands or falls on
their vision (and ability to deliver), often moreso than that of the character's creator. It would be theoretically possible to take a really lame character, seemingly devoid of any obvious promise, and make a successful movie franchise out of it - if those behind it had the imagination, the budget - and, of course, the required talent.
But, hey - I'm not trying to 'do down' Jack Kirby - certainly not in this, his centenary year. No, I'm merely trying to keep a more realistic sense of perspective about him. Never met the man, never saw him, never spoke with him, so I'm not as 'close' to him as those who knew, or worked, or lived with him are. (Though his name and artwork were almost a constant presence during my comics-buying youth.) However, one usually has a
better sense of perspective about something the farther away from it one is - simply because it can then be seen in a wider context. Sometimes that applies to people as well.
Happy 100th Birthday, Jack. Wherever you are, you can rest assured that you did us and yourself proud. You and Stan created something of lasting value in your Marvel characters, and, to my mind at least, you each deserve equal credit for them. They would never have been what they are without
both of you.
******
(Those, if any, who've read this post more than once may have noticed a few amendments between readings, as I've been refining the text where I feel it could be expressed in a more articulate, clearer, and smoother way. Oh, the power of being your own editor - it's intoxicating.)
