Tuesday, April 13, 2010

New Jack Kirby-created Superheroes

SciFiWire.com has a post concerning new creations from the late legendary co-creator of much of the Marvel Comics universe Jack Kirby.

Well, they're sorta new.

Kirby left the four-color funny books for a time to work in Saturday morning animation for producers Ruby-Spears. His designs and concepts made it into such series as Space Star and most notably Thundarr the Barbarian. Apparently there is a treasure trove of artwork and concepts that Kirby made that never saw the animation table.

Now it's being shopped around Hollywood.

I think Kirby's best work was with Stan Lee, although his solo turns with The Eternals for Marvel and the Fourth World/New Gods series for DC are both interesting and continue to pop up today (especially Darkseid and Apokalips from the New Gods).

But most of his other solo work was just weird, including Silver Star, Secret City, and Captain Victory and the Galactic Rangers. They seemed to be rehashes of his previous co-creations, complete with some of the weirdest costumes ever.

It will be interesting to see if anything comes of this, but I think animation might be the best arena for Kirby's colorful crazy characters and imagination.

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