My Clashes With Kirby!

By Jim Kingman

This time around I’m starting off with a couple of confessions:

Confession #1: When I first started collecting DC comics in 1972 I did not like Jack Kirby’s work. I know, I know...but it just didn’t do anything for me. In fact, I was quite repelled by it. I remember opening up Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #148 and thinking, “Yikes, this isn’t Neal Adams!” (Adams did the cover, Kirby did the interior story.) Jack’s artwork was too powerful, too big; the lines too thick, the lettering too splashy, the narration just too loud. I wanted to be enthralled and entertained, not overpowered. The artists I enjoyed at that time had different styles, but more realism: Neal Adams on Green Lantern and Green Arrow, Irv Novick on Batman, Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson on Superman, and Dick Dillin and Joe Giella on the Justice League of America. But Kirby...oh, avoiding him almost made me criminal.

Confession #2: It was late afternoon, early April, still 1972. I was looking for new comics on the funny book spinner rack at Thrifty’s Drug Store. When I saw the cover of Kirby’s The Forever People #9, I didn’t want any part of it. My problem was, it was in one of those plastic 2-comics-for-49-cents bags, along with Justice League of America #99. I really wanted to buy only JLA #99. So I tore the bag open, took it out, and left FP #9 on the comics rack in the open bag. I was ten-years-old at the time; I knew better, but I didn’t know better. Boy, did that stunt get me in trouble with the cashier at Thrifty’s, not to mention stuck with purchasing Forever People #9. Enjoyed the heck out of JLA #99, though!

A few months later I bought Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth #1 because I had no choice, it was sandwiched between Action Comics and Detective Comics in a 3-comics-for-59-cents bag. I had learned my lesson from the prior incident and purchased the entire package. The cover was intriguing. I also liked the spectacular 2-page spread of Kamandi, possibly the last reasoning man on Earth, alone in a raft, paddling his way through a ravaged New York City, which for the most part was now at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. I didn’t read the comic, but I didn’t throw it away, either. When I saw Kamandi #2 on the stands, I didn’t buy it, but I thought about it. I just wasn’t there yet. What turned things around? Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth #4 (March, 1973).

What turned my opinion around was the two-page spread on pages 2 and 3. It was a panoramic depiction of three men walking down a street, but what a street! A shopping center in the town of Henderson, Nevada looked like it had been devastated by an earthquake. Buildings were cracked and abandoned, on the verge of toppling, and all about was the renowned Kirby rubble. Three men – Kamandi and his two mutant colleagues, Ben Boxer and Renzi -- were gathering food and supplies.

This was Earth A.D. -- After Disaster. The human race was now at the low end of the intelligence/survival pole, while animals, from gorillas and tigers to wolves and rats, were now kings and conquerors.

I had to read more! As Kamandi and his friends were about to leave town, they were attacked by tigers! Suddenly, the tigers were attacked by gorillas! Kamandi was captured and treated like, well, an animal! He was able to escape and stumbled onto another prisoner, Tuftan, Prince of Tigers, son of Great Caesar. Kamandi soon learned that the tigers and gorillas were at war with one another to claim possession of a nuclear warplane housed in an underground military installation.

This was rousing adventure, and meant to be big, loud, and powerful! Since I had never seen a Planet of the Apes movie before, the story concept was completely original to me. With this one story, Jack Kirby won me over. I finally understood why he was considered the King of comics.

Kamandi became and remains my favorite adventure comic. It was Kirby’s best-selling title of the 1970s. I went on to read all of Kirby’s comics for DC: Mister Miracle, The Demon, OMAC: One Man Army Corps, Our Fighting Forces, and a few others that got started and ended in First Issue Special. The Forever People and New Gods came later when I discovered the concept of buying back issues. When Kirby left DC for Marvel in 1975, Gerry Conway took over the writing and editing of the book. The quality of Kamandi then had its ups and downs, yet it continued publication until the Summer of 1978 when it was snuffed out by the DC Implosion.

While all the Kirby issues receive my highest recommendation, I also recommend many of the non-Kirby issues: issue 50, for the OMAC tie-in; issue 51, written by Steve Englehart; and issues 52-59, written by Jack C. Harris. In the mid-1980s, Kamandi’s future storyline was erased from the DC Universe during the fallout from Crisis On Infinite Earths; he would emerge from the Command D bunker and become Tommy Tomorrow. But in my imagination I know his adventures really happened. The spirit of Kirby’s Kamandi lives on today in the pages of the recent Justice League Adventures #30 and in the just released Jack Kirby Collector #40!