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Elvis was never the King to me.
That title was reserved for a man who breathed life into four-colour archetypes, a man who created not only Captain America, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men and the New Gods, but who invented virtually the entire visual and mythological landscape of the American comic book.
Jack Kirby --Jack "King" Kirby as he was known in the early days of Marvel Comics-- died on Sunday, February 8 at the age of 76. I can't tell you how unbearably sad that makes me.
Jack was a like grandfather to those of us who followed in his footsteps. My own Northguard series was relatively restrained and realistic as comic books go, but working within the superhero genre and --even moreso-- the national hero sub- genre, I could no more escape Kirby's influence than I could Shakespeare's. I didn't try.
Even alternative and underground creators who rejected the commercial mainstream respected and honoured Kirby's achievements. He was never blamed for the hangers-on and copycats who appropriated his style, nor the corporate rigidity that locked it into place. The business of comics, in fact, often consisted of feeding upon Jack Kirby's legacy while locking out Jack Kirby the man.
Born into poverty in some of New York's roughest slums, the former Jack Kurtzberg brought a rough and powerful working class energy into a decidedly middle-class medium. In The Dreamer, his semi-fictionalized autobiography, comic book great Will Eisner depicts a thinly disguised Jack Kirby as a man living in the same black and white world as his characters. Who --in the dark period leading up to World War II and Holocaust-- tried to impose order and morality on an increasingly chaotic world with four-colour tales of unblemished heroism.
Fittingly, the first issue of Captain America depicts the title character punching Adolf Hitler in the mouth. This was in 1940, over a full year before Pearl Harbour and America's entry into the war. Jack Kirby continued to punch Hitler in the mouth --figuratively and literally-- for the rest of his life.
And it is was this implacable sense of morality, of resisting evil without becoming evil yourself --married to an awesomely powerful visual sense-- which will be remembered as Jack Kirby's greatest legacy.
"Their heroes were troubled," wrote comic book writer Jan Strnad about Jack and his Marvel Comics collaborator Stan Lee in a recent issue of Comics Buyers' Guide, "they had their problems, their human weaknesses. But at heart they were noble, the kind of people we wished we were, the kind of people we'd like to think we'd be, if we were stronger or could cling to walls or had a super-powered suit of armour hanging in the closet..."
The kind of person Jack Kirby was. The kind of person who deserved better treatment --both financial and personal-- from the comic book business he helped create and turn into a multi- billion dollar industry.
One of the greatest things about comics was its relative youth as a medium and the fact that --even as a young punk newcomer-- you could meet and talk to and learn from the Shakespeares and Picassos and D.W. Griffiths of the artform. I shook Jack Kirby's hand once, and told him how honoured I was to meet him. He laughed.
"It's you young guys who are doing all the important stuff," he said.
Comics are diminished now. One of the founding fathers is gone, and the ultimate popular-art medium of the 20th century is joining history.
Jack Kirby is dead. But Captain America and the Hulk and the New Gods live on.
As do Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, Indiana Jones, the crews of the starships Enterprise, and the cops of Hill Street station, all created in his shadow. Jack's touched you too, you see, whether you've heard of him or not.
The King is dead. Long live the King.