The Captain and the King. Captain America © and TM Marvel Characters, Inc.
Art © Jack Kirby. Provided courtesy of The Jack Kirby Collector.
We're currently awaiting the coming of Invasion America, the first serious animated series from Steven Spielberg and Dreamworks. In the meantime, the networks have started announcing their schedules for the fall children's programming...and a trend is emerging.
Just as Spider-Man winds up production and joins X-Men as a weekday rerun, two new series from Marvel Comics pop up: Captain America and The Silver Surfer. The kids who are the intended audience for these cartoons won't recognize these characters. But adults may remember them from the Silver Age of Comics.
The Silver Age existed roughly from 1960 to 1976. It was a time when superheroes, long thought to be old-fashioned and uninteresting to kids, came back to prominence. The veteran artists and writers who had labored without creative freedom suddenly found new vistas open to them. The creators of DC Comics revived most of their classic heroes and placed them in fun, entertaining adventures. Meanwhile, Marvel Comics created new heroes with psychological complexity and emotional issues.
The Silver Age ended when comics disappeared from the corner stores, and kids chose video games over stacks of yellowing paper. Comics became a medium for collectors and fascinated adult fans, and ceased being a mass entertainment medium. At the same time, comics became overly serious and self-conscious. Sex, violence and other non-kid material began appearing in great quantities.
But the Silver Age still lives on TV. The DC and Marvel heroes on the Saturday animated shows are the Silver Age versions, without the angst and plot complications of their present-day versions. And both DC and Marvel shows demonstrate the influence of one man, perhaps the most important comic book creator that ever lived.
Although Marvel Comics would have you believe that chairman emeritus Stan Lee created Captain America and the Silver Surfer, the lion's share of the credit goes to Jack "King" Kirby. Kirby was one of the most influential men in the comic book world. He created many of the biggest Marvel comic characters, he practically co-invented the "romance" comic, and he wrote and drew nearly everything from Westerns to war to comedy comics.
Kirby created Captain America, "the living legend of World War II", back in 1941 with his partner Joe Simon. When revived by Marvel in 1962, "Cap" faced an America divided by teenage rebellion, Vietnam and racial conflict. But he found his beliefs in American ideals still held true in the present day, informed by a new consciousness.
Kirby also created the Silver Surfer as an incidental character in Fantastic Four. Once a mortal on another planet, he was turned into a chrome-skinned herald, who warned planets that his master Galactus was coming to destroy them. Moved by the nobility he found hidden in humanity, he became their defender against his master. He became a moody, tragic philosopher, who put his philosophy into action against cosmic menaces.
Kirby was a short and passionate man, who wrote and drew immense heroes and villains, vast landscapes and amazing worlds. He often turned in twelve to sixteen hour workdays, seven days a week, but for most of his years he turned out more than craftsmanlike work; he turned out art. When he moved to DC Comics in 1970, he worked on what he hoped would be his greatest epic, New Gods. He wasn't allowed to finish the job, but his epic lives on in the Superman series. Kirby's contribution to the Superman legend is Darkseid, lord of the brutal mechanized planet Apokolyps. (Yes, they were created before George Lucas's Star Wars - and incidentally, Darth Vader owes a lot to Kirby's Marvel villain in the armored suit, Doctor Doom.)
Kirby died in February 1994. Some say he took the comic book industry with him, and given their declining sales that may be true. He never got his own animated series, or anything close to the money or popular notice he deserved. But his work has inspired and driven writers and artists in every field.
I'll be watching the new Captain America and Silver Surfer series. If you watch too, check those teeny, tiny credits, squeezed into half the screen so Fox Kids can jam in more awful promos. You'll undoubtedly see the names Stan Lee and Haim Saban listed as "creators." But above them all, whether he's listed or not, place the name Jack Kirby. The King is dead. Long live the King.
Thomas E. Reed is a television engineer in Orlando, Florida. Most of the details of the comic book world offered in this column came from the book The Comic Book Heroes by Gerald Jones and Will Jacobs. It's a thorough, lively history of comic books and their creators from the Silver Age to the present. The lovely pictures came from The Jack Kirby Collector, http://www.fantasty.com/kirby, a continuing history of Kirby's life and works. Tom will be glad to tell you more if you E-mail him at tomreed@sundial.net .
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Page last updated 2/15/1998
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