Book Review: Kirby: King of Comics

I'm not entirely convinced Evanier succeeded, because trying to peel away the many layers of Jack Kirby -- surely the comic book industry's most prodigious talent -- in a mere 224 pages is a formidable task, ranking right up there with trying to figure out Spiderman's true identity or Superman's Achilles' heel. But that does nothing to take away from this thoroughly enjoyable coffee-table book on Kirby -- more often than not referred to as "The King" due to his prolific and creative talent in the four-color medium of comic books.

In a nutshell, Jack Kirby started drawing comics beginning in the industry's infancy and lasting all the way until he cold barely hold a pencil (Kirby died in 1994 at age 74). Along the way -- that's a career of about 50 years for those of you with an abacus -- Jack Kirby created pretty much every character that Marvel Comics now makes mega-millions on, to include the Silver Surfer, Fantastic Four, the Hulk, Captain America, the X-Men and scores of others. And that's only at Marvel. I haven't even mentioned all the other studios he headlined for.

And that is perhaps the main problem with Kirby: King of Comics: Kirby's career spanned so many decades and so many genres that it would take about 10 books of the same length and size to adequately document Kirby's many contributions and impacts to the industry. In the 1940's it was Captain America, in the 50's it was romance and war comics, in the 60's it the birth of Marvel Comics, in the 1970's it was Kirby's creation of the so-called "Fourth World", in the 80's it was creator-owned concepts like Silver Star or Captain Victory.

With so much work to choose from, Evanier had the lofty task of deciding exactly what work from which period would showcase Jack Kirby's talents.

For hard-core Jack Kirby fans, King of Comics -- although lovingly produced -- barely scratches the surface of Kirby's long and storied career. Major milestones in Kirby's life -- specifically his fight to regain ownership of thousands of pages of his original artwork or Kirby's arguments with Marvel Comics and the company's writer/editor-in-chief Stan Lee about co-creator credit and ownership of his creations -- are given only cursory treatment, presumably because a follow-up volume (some years away) is still in the works.

But that is all minutiae for the fan more concerned with what type of pencil Kirby drew with or even what kind of coffee he drank. For the rest of us mere mortals, Kirby: King of Comics shines a much needed spotlight on this talented individual who spent most of his career (And the time since his passing) being relegated to the shadow cast by Stan Lee and others being referred to as just "the artist" when in fact he was so much more.

The truth is -- Stan Lee and Marvel Comics owe a great deal of their livelihood to Jack Kirby. Maybe this volume will help bring that truth to light.