Customer Reviews

Marvel Visionaries: Jack Kirby - Volume 2 (Vol 2)

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Where Elvis Presley was the King of RocknRoll, Jack Kirby was the King of Comics because of his endless creativity, vigorous storytelling and sense of reader appeal. His comics are a vital part of the visual language of comic books. It isn't surprising due to these accolades that Kirby earned two retrospective volumes of his work at Marvel Comics. Volume 2 is fun if not great and show off Kirby's amazing ability to compose superhero, western, adventure, romance and humor stories and to do them well. The package design is fantastic. The oversize pages and nice paper lend itself well to enjoying Kirby's art. The art restoration is nice and I couldn't detect any obvious problems.

Some of the stories though...well it's a mixed bag. I found the romance stories and the Vision adventure to be adequate if nonsensical in the latter. The four! Captain America stories are compelling in their layout and design. But certain elements like when Cap defeats the Human Torch with a really, really wet mop are either silly (if your charitable) or insulting (if you're not). One wonders why Doctor Doom never used a wet mop to take out the Torch. Speaking of the tyrant, he's featured in a lavish 4-part story that is the highlight of this book. Doctor Doom gains alien cosmic powers and defeats the Fantastic Four! It is followed by a hilarous spoof of the same story by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby almost worth the price of the whole book.

While the book didn't totally thrill me - The Thor vs. Mangog story felt repeative and dull - it did capture the attention of my children. This volume serves its purpose of sampling Kirby and honoring his contributions to Marvel comics. The stories aren't awful but adults may find them overrated if they're used to more contemporary stories. You might be better off sampling Kirby in one of the cheaper Essential books from Marvel Comics. Still, I have no regrets for purchasing this fun book.

Jack Kirby was the King. He was the greatest and most powerful of all comic book artists. If you love comics and don't know Kirby, you owe it to yourself to explore his work -- much of which, thankfully, is available between book covers. There have been other great artists, but there was only one Kirby.