Jack Kirby

Just the other day was the 100th anniversary of the birth of Jack Kirby (Jacob Kurtzberg, originally).

Jack "King" Kirby drew comics from the 1930's for various companies and co-created many characters for Timely Comics, notably Captain America (co-created with Joe Simon). Cap was one of the few Marvel characters to predate Marvel Comics.

My research also tells me that Kirby worked in the Western and Sci Fi genres, doing "monster movie" type science fiction comics that were very successful. He also created the Romance genre of comics.

When Timely became Marvel comics, Jack co-created The Fantastic Four, with Stan Lee, and with Fantastic Four #1, made comics history with characters who were much more human and complex than other comics characters of the time. The Marvel Universe was born!

Kirby and Lee co-created The Hulk, Iron Man, The Black Panther and The X-Men, among others, and they were the original architects of an connected comic universe (which much later would lead to the connected Marvel Cinematic Universe, of course).

Jack moved back to DC comics (he'd worked there before) and eventually came back to Marvel, as well as working on creator-owned projects and animation. Some of his lesser known characters are still bopping around the DC and Marvel Universes.

It's a bit sad that Jack Kirby passed away (in 1994) before seeing the massive success of his characters. Like Stan Lee, Jack did not have ownership of the characters he created. While Stan has stuck around long enough to find success as a result of his creations, Jack was not so fortunate.

The "Galactus Trilogy" story in the Fantastic Four #48-50 is considered the best work of Lee and Kirby. You know Galactus? That's another iconic character created by the greatest duo in comics! Hopefully we'll see that character in the movies at some point; the rights are a bit sticky. That's an article for another time.

My personal favorite work of Kirby's is the original X-Men title - I dug those yellow and black uniforms, and the humor and fun as well as more serious moments in those comics were utterly absorbing to me…and still are. They're some of the first comics I really loved. And at least half of that is because of Kirby's art.

In any case, Kirby will never be forgotten. His Marvel characters have stood the test of time, and were iconic even before the Marvel movies made them even more so.

Hail to the King!