Worst. Cover. Ever. (Part 18)

Confession time:  I've often gone on record about how much I love the work of the late Jack Kirby...but what I haven't put on the record is the qualifier to that statement. Yeah, I know...it's borderline blasphemy to openly dislike anything by one of comics' most influential and prolific creators...but as they say, confession is good for the soul, right?

The Jack Kirby work that I adore is (and always will be) the stuff he did for Marvel Comics during the 1960's, which I regard as Kirby's artistic high point (both conceptually and visually).  However, after Kirby left Marvel in the early 70's (and for the remainder of his professional career) he lost me.  No longer working with a strong collaborator (such as Stan Lee) and largely freed from editorial constraint, Kirby's exploding imagination and frenetic attention span made for some spectacularly incoherent and campy storytelling.  At the same time, the quality of his artwork began to slip...as an increasingly caricatured or flat-out grotesque version of his dynamic 60's work became the norm.

After a brief return to Marvel in the mid-70's (following a mutually alienating experience with DC Comics), Kirby left the Big Two behind for an independent publisher named Pacific Comics.  As with all the creator-owned titles of Pacific Comics (and other indy publishers), creators like Kirby had complete creative freedom and zero editorial "interference" to do whatever the heck he wanted to do...and (unfortunately) it showed.

When Captain Victory and the Galaxy Rangers #1 hit the new phenomenon of "comic specialty shops" in the late summer of 1981, it was greeted with equal amounts of laughter and apathy from a maturing comics scene more interested in Frank Miller's gritty Daredevil comics than yet another cosmic fever dream from Kirby.  Lasting only thirteen issues, it contained many of the standard Kirby cliches, yet featured artwork that was more "phoned-in" than anything of his ever published.

One of the best (worst?) examples of Kirby's disappointing decline in quality was the cover of Captain Victory #9 (1983):

Now, everyone knows that holding Jack Kirby to standards of "real" anatomy (even at his artistic pinnacle) misses the point, and would be as silly as expecting non-biased reporting from the New York Times. After all, for much of his career, Kirby defied the conventional wisdom of how figures should be drawn and move...often to great success...but towards the end of his career? Man, it got sloppy...even for Jack. 

Captain Victory doesn't look so much like a human as he does an unbalanced stack of blocks, or a hastily-assembled mannequin. Shortcuts with foreshortening and perspective that worked in the past for Kirby aren't working here, as Cap's upraised left arm and the positioning of the gun in his right hand are in positions no human body (exaggerated or otherwise) could convincingly pull off (and still appear human).

Captain Victory's head, squished between his shoulders like Quasimodo, looks more like Arlene the 50-something truck stop waitress than the macho space hero he's supposed to be. And what is it with Kirby and lead characters sporting Buster Brown hair-dos?

The background monsters look like little more than notebook doodles, while the umpteenth big-headed freak ensconced in Kirby-Tech machinery does little to up the "wow" factor.

Oh, I can hear the torch and pitchfork crowd coming for me now.  Yeah, I know...it's unusual to see anyone slamming anything Kirby did, but hey....sometimes it's an "Emperor's New Clothes" kind of thing that really needs to be said.  After all, the lousy Kirby stuff makes the glorious stuff shine all the brighter by comparison...and its a distinction I wish more people were willing to make.

Comments

[Matthew Rees]

Tend to agree with you on the Captain Victory cover but I did like much of the stuff that he did at DC and was planning to write something myself soon about Kamandi and to use the cover of issue #26 to illustrate this.

[stephen]

the cover is hideous but the blurb on the top is sheer genius did kirby write it "a good commander can beat the odd, a great one can beat the gods!

[Joel Kelly]

Being a Kirby religionist myself Captain Victory is a source of consternation for me. I tend to think Jack could do no wrong but then, theres Captain Victory. While there are some flashes of genius in the book, I tend to agree that this wasnt his best - though interesting to note JK intended Capt. Vic to be the son of Orion? Something like that.

But at the same time, he produced Silver Star, which I think is one of his best. So go figger.

[Siskoid]

I've gone on record as a Kirby enthusiast (if a late-comer).

I've also gone on record saying Captain Victory is awful.

In other words, it's a fair cop.

Almost looks like an assistant cut up some Cap Victory poses and pasted the limbs in a new pose.

[Mark Engblom]

Anyone remember that old Saturday Night Live sketch where Jon Lovitz plays Picasso, who walks around scribbling crap on napkins and then selling it for money (or a restaurant meal, etc), then exclaiming "I'm Picasso!"

Well, I think there may have been a little bit of this happening with Kirby's later work. Perhaps Kirby had begun to believe all the "legendary" qualities everyone was ascribing to him, to the point where anything he put to paper was good to go...when it's obvious much of the later work wasn't fit to print. But, by that time, who was going to tell KIRBY that it wasn't?

Now...let me clarify.....I don't for a minute think Kirby consciously thought of himself as God's Gift to Comics, or that he lorded it over people like Lovitz as Picasso...but at the same time, I think Kirby reached a sort of "lionized" status that made him immune to outside critique and, worse yet, self-critique. The "Should I publish this? Is is really good enough?" filter may have diminshed after so many years of fawning acolytes telling him everything he did was pure genius.

[Wes C]

Wow! You are brave Mark. I assume you and your family are in the witness protection program by now.

While Kirby is by far my favorite artist, I certainly agree that Capt. Victory isn't his strongest work. It's been about 12 years since I read the entire series. I do remember getting a very creeped out feeling by the end. There seemed to be a pessimistic and cynical feel that ran throughout the books. He really seemed to be the proverbial "bitter old man" at this point.

Your selection of this cover hits home though. This was the very first issue of
Captain Victory that I ever owned, so I'm more inclined to like it (warts and all).

I have become increasingly uncomfortable with the status that Kirby has achieved in fandom.
I love his work, but this idolatry of him does nothing to increase his legacy and only hurts any serious consideration of his work.

Oh yeah, your right about the "Buster Brown" hair, it usually made him look either creepy or silly.

[Mark Engblom]

"Wow! You are brave Mark. I assume you and your family are in the witness protection program by now."

LOL! Yeah, it's a risk....but one I'm willing to take! The guys who publish The Jack Kirby Collector magazine and Mark Evanier are probably hiring a goon squad as we speak, so if you don't hear from me for a period of several days, you'll know what happened.

[Guy DiBorneo]

I also both love Kirby and agree with some of what you said about Captain Victory (the cover in particular), but I have to join the crowd standing up for Kirby's 1970s DC stuff. I really dig the 4th World stuff with Royer, as well as Kamandi and the Demon. The writing is a little clunky in places on those, but the art is beautiful and I would say that one has to understand the stories that he did in the 70s as being very different animals from what he and (especially) Stan were trying to do in the 60s. Understood for its own merits, I would say that OMAC stands with the best of what Jack did in the 60s at Marvel.

[Brian]

Great post, and thanks for doing it. I love Kirby's work, too, but also get a little creeped out/annoyed by the religious qualities that sometimes (probably unintentionally, to be fair, but still) come through the fandom with regards to his work. And I think mentioning when he fails doesn't hurt his rep-- if anything, it makes the 60s stuff that much more amazing.

[Pat Curley]

I never really "got" Kirby, so I won't be leading the peasant brigade up to your castle. I can understand his importance as a creator of many famed characters, and I'm willing to accept that sequentially his art was extraordinary. But his individual drawings always left me a little cold, and he certainly pioneered the concept of fewer and fewer panels per page which tended to shortchange the readers.

And yes, that left arm looks amateurish.

[Mark Engblom]

All good comments, guys. As for Kirby's Fourth World stuff, I'm generally not much of a fan. There are aspects of it I think showed potential, and certainly some memorable characters (such as Darkseid), but most of it seems rudderless and, at times, unbearably campy ("Vermin Vundabar" anyone?). It's obvious Kirby was making this stuff up as he went along....which isn't necessarily a bad thing (it happens all the time in comics)...but at the same time, I don't ascribe "masterwork" status to a story that even loyal supporters (and creative "junior partners") like Mark Evanier, et al, had trouble seeing where it was all going (if anywhere).

Like the New Gods, Kirby's other DC work had aspects I liked, but...again...the execution often fell far short of expectations. Yeah, it's appealing on that "set the volume to 11" campy, cornball action level the "kick to the face" faction of comics fandom thrives on, but beyond that....I don't get it. I wish I did...but I don't.

[Ivan Wolfe]

Fair warning Mark -

we're only minutes away...........

[Ivan Wolfe]

Oh - wait.

Never mind. We've all dislocated our right shoulders.

The angry Kirby mob shall reconvene in a few days.

[Mark Engblom]

LOL! Whew! That was a close one!

[Captain Average]

Jack Kirby walking around like Lovitz,"I'm Kirby!". Hilarious! You continue to amaze me with the awfulness that actually gets printed. Capt.V looks like a broken, slightly melted out of shape, action figure with a bad surfer girl head.Yeeesh.

[Mark Engblom]

Yeah, unfortunately there's no shortage of bad covers...so expect more in the months to come, even from Kirby's "fellow legends" (the tail end of a comic book career is seldom a pretty thing).

[Joe Lewallen]

Mark, you are a brave, brave man. And right. 1960's Kirby = Beatles. 70's Kirby = Wings. Not that Wings didn't do some decent stuff, but not up to the standards of the previous decade. So does that make Stan the Man John Lennon? Or maybe Ringo?

[James Meeley]

The only positive I'll give Kirby for this is... it's still a damn sight better than any Liefeld cover you could name. Even a "crappy" Kirby is better than that.

[dmstarz]

Hey. Great feature. I'm running down my favourite covers over at my own blog (click on name below). None of your covers has made my list... yet. Phew!

[Mark Engblom]

Fun site! I've already added you to my links! Hey, what are you going to do when you reach your 200th cover? Keep going? (say "yes")