Like so many great Kirby joints, this one begins with a cover. He intended this to be one of his greatest joints–probably because he’d been waiting for years to come back to the character who had served as the foundation for his work. I wish it were better though.
Kirby is the writer, artist and editor for this comeback story, and he quickly dissociates his story from all the stuff that had come before. He drops Falcon from the title page and starts creating his own side characters, eschewing Cap continuity (and greater Marvel continuity as well). (Falcon gets his title billing back in #194.)
No, Madbomb’s not a great story. It’s about a bomb that makes people go mad. It’s basically a Golden Age story–full of craziness and action, big and full of fists.
Also: Henry Kissinger.
And proving that Kirby didn’t need Stan Lee. This was written, drawn and edited all by Jack.
The art is great, even if the writing and story are just average. Plus, sentimentally, it’s a lot of fun.
“It’s basically a Golden Age story–full of craziness and action, big and full of fists.”
bullshit. maybe read something that isn’t a comic book for once. maybe take a look at the fucking world around you and realize how prescient this storyline is, how much genuine insight there is in jack kirby’s work in general.
as much of a master as he was sometimes it seems like kirby was in the wrong medium. the lack of any real appreciation for the man from the average (ignorant) comic book reader is infuriating. nothing but superficial praise and backhanded compliments at best. they’re still programmed to view comics, especially those older than them, as something completely childish and nothing more, and when it comes to kirby, that his ideas and themes are just wacky nonsense. that it couldn’t possibly hold any deeper meaning.
certain comic book fanatics that want the medium to be looked in a respectful way frequently shun anything in it that doesn’t bare any “realism”, that is too exaggerated, too cartoonish in their eyes. they’re embarrassed by the thing they supposedly love for all of the wrong reasons. they praise corporations and con artists and lust after meaningless facts over these characters while taking whatever chance they get to degrade the real artists and creators that made this shit to begin with. ingrates.
Thanks for your polite disagreement with my reading of this story. I like how you make your points without resorting to personal attacks, because it shows how your arguments can stand on their own. Blessings be upon you.
Well, as they say, one man’s treasure is another man’s trash. Personally, I would have been mortified as a comics fan if Jack Kirby’s 1970’s stuff ( whether Marvel or DC ) had represented the state of the art. As of the time of these Kirby “Captain America” comics, the state of the art was being represented by Steve Englehart and George Perez’s “Avengers”, Roy Thomas and George Perez’s “Fantastic Four”, Gerry Conway and Ross Andru’s “Amazing Spider-Man”, Steve Gerber and Sal Buscema’s “Defenders”, and Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum’s “Uncanny X-Men”. I am one of those comics people whom Mr. Matt here refers to in his third paragraph as “want ( ing ) the medium to be looked at in a respectful way, frequently shunning anything in it that doesn’t ( bear ) any realism, that is too exaggerated, too cartoonish in their eyes.” Yep- that’s me, all the way. Kirby was undoubtedly and undeniably one of the great architects of the Marvel Universe in particular, and the comic-book industry in general, but, folks, as much as a lot of people out there don’t want to hear this, by the 1970’s, Kirby was washed-up. His unfortunate decision to leave Marvel in 1970 to go to DC following a professional falling-out with his co-collaborator Stan Lee was right up there in the “suicidal career moves” with Mclean Stevenson’s decision to leave ‘M*A*S*H’ five years later, in 1975. Kirby’s second biggest mistake was his grossly-erroneous belief that the comic-book people of the world shared his obvious fascination/obsession with ‘gods’ from outer space. Apparently a fan of Erich Von Daniken’s “Chariots of the Gods” works, ( as well as Pierre Boulle’s “Planet of the Apes”- see his stuff with “Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth” ) Kirby had convinced himself that comics series about space ‘gods’ were comic’s next big thing, whether it was “The New Gods”, or “The Forever People”, or “The Eternals”. I feel that a proper treatment of these concepts COULD have worked, given the right talent, ( almost ANYBODY besides Kirby ) but, by 1975, DC could not even GIVE away Kirby’s Koncepts, and, even after immediately crawling back to Marvel, ( how galling ) even the legendary ‘House of Ideas’ couldn’t successfully re-package Kirby’s ‘space gods’ material. ( as “The Eternals” ) So, after Kirby is given shots at both ‘Captain America’ and ‘The Black Panther’- two concepts he co-invented-and promptly running both series into the ground with his dated takes on these excellent characters, Kirby’s career with Marvel is also likewise done, and poor ol’ “King” Kirby must head West to Hollywood to finish out his career in cartoon animation- perhaps a more fitting field for Kirby’s talent by that time. He did the layouts and storyboards for DePatie-Freeleng’s miserable late Seventies “Fantastic Four” cartoon, and got pulled under by the debacle that was ‘Herbie the Robot’, which, in forty-six years of existence has yet to produce a single fan that I am aware of. Jack “King” Kirby- one of the comic-books field’s founding fathers- finishes out his career in the same manner as a professional prize-fighter who did not have the good sense to get out of the game before he got too old to be there. And that is a damn shame.