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Post by profh0011 on Jan 3, 2021 16:30:01 GMT -5
It was a close choice but I picked Kamandi over the fourth world books. I feel that Kamandi gave you a different fresh adventure in each issue while discovering a bombed out world. It's annoying that I've never read a single issue of his run. One of these days...
On the other hand... "THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD" animated TV cartoon series did a "KAMANDI" episode (which featured Gorilla Grodd as the villain). I came away thinking that single half-hour cartoon was better than all the "PLANET OF THE APES" movies ever made.
Once someone decided to open things up and do a sequel in 1970, they could have, potentially, shown a different remnant of civilization in each area, which has been done in such series as "LOGAN'S RUN", "KAMANDI", "MIGHTY SAMSON", "THUNDARR THE BARBARIAN", and Gene Roddenberry's unsold pilots, "Genesis II" and its sequel "Planet Earth". But certain people involved (notably Charlton Heston, who REALLY didn't wanna do that damned sequel) derailed any potential and condemned it to a pointless exercise in excessive nihilism. (I really, really, HATE "BENEATH...")
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Post by tarkintino on Jan 3, 2021 18:05:17 GMT -5
I voted for Kamandi, even though it's genesis was as a Planet of the Apes clone. I honestly don't care that much for Kirby's later work. Kamandi was the best of the lot. Being a Planet of the Apes clone was the impossible-to-ignore problem with Kamandi, and frankly, that comic was never going to take the hard, particular sociopolitical roads like the original Apes films, which made the series a standout as much as the inventive fantasy.
Topic: New Gods. Without a doubt; its the only Kirby creation that fully lived up to its potential post-Marvel, and the one where its characters and concepts were eventually and successfully merged with the rest of the DC universe in numerous, memorable ways long after Kirby left the company.
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Post by berkley on Jan 3, 2021 20:49:42 GMT -5
I voted Eternals, since I have them on the brain right now, but it's really a tos-up between that and the Fourth World concept as a whole, including all three series.
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Post by tolworthy on Jan 4, 2021 6:16:34 GMT -5
This is easy! Three answers: Nostalgia? Fantastic Four. Love it. Best stories for first time readers? His early romance or police work. Just a pleasure from start to end. Those little pieces of fun are masterpieces: no wonder they outsold anything else he ever did (on first printing). IIRC, Captain America peaked at 900,000 but Young Romance hit a million and began a new genre. Best stories for repeat reading? For me it's Captain Victory, no question. I voted for CV, the elderly Kirby's reflections on victory over death. No hesitation. On first reading, Captain Victory is not as rewarding as the romance or police stories. The first time I read it I just saw old themes cranked up to absurd lengths, and Kirby's failing eyesight was obvious. Plus I though the stories took too long to get anywhere. Because there is so much talk. So it was back to the Fantastic Four for me! On second reading, I noticed that the art was better than I thought. Sure, faces were sometimes ten percent wrong, but so what? I know what faces look like, I can mentally filter that. But the layouts, the pacing, the scale of the concepts -no other artist could match that. I also started to notice that the writing was not just filler. The talk is the important part. The stories no longer felt that they took ages to get anywhere. They are full of stuff. On third reading I began to see CV as the crowning work of comics' greatest writer. At that point I made this web page: ten reason why CV is the greatest comic you've never read. zak-site.com/Great-American-Novel/Captain_Victory.html I wrote that years ago, when I was still new to the good Captain. Today of course I would write it differently. And spell "insectons" right! On fourth reading I began to see the characters as real people. I recall someone saying that Kirby's characters are interchangeable. That is like saying that Chinese people are interchangeable. As if Bruce Lee, Jack Ma and Mao Tse-tung are interchangeable. I disagree of course. The Captain, Klavus and Mr Mind are like real people to me. Every time I open the book it seems like they are having new arguments. For me, the book "Captain Victory" is like Hamlet: we can endlessly find different angles. (Personally I think CV is much better than Hamlet, but that is a very unpopular view. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, right?) Every time I re-read Captain Victory I find something new and more wonderful. I am currently on my fifth reading. Now I just dip into a page or two and enjoy the pleasure of discovering new things. One of the running themes of CV (and one of the running themes of Kirby's work from the beginning) is higher dimensions. Kirby's previous work dealt with the fourth dimension, and occasionally the fifth. This epic is Kirby's love affair with a woman of the eighth dimension. I hate to be a cultural snob (oh who am I kidding? You know I LOVE being a cultural snob) but look at the following image. If all that you see is stiff poses and bad lettering, then Captain Victory definitely isn't for you.
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Post by kirby101 on Jan 4, 2021 11:49:50 GMT -5
Thanks tolworthy, I think CV is under-appreciated and even mentioned when Kirby "didn't have it anymore". That is so wrong. Look at the page you posted. Who else could illustrate an extra-dimensional being like that.
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Post by MDG on Jan 4, 2021 12:45:43 GMT -5
Thanks tolworthy, I think CV is under-appreciated and even mentioned when Kirby "didn't have it anymore". That is so wrong. Look at the page you posted. Who else could illustrate an extra-dimensional being like that. Hmmm--I still see issues in junk bins. Maybe I'll pick some up.
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Post by kirby101 on Jan 4, 2021 12:57:13 GMT -5
Thanks tolworthy, I think CV is under-appreciated and even mentioned when Kirby "didn't have it anymore". That is so wrong. Look at the page you posted. Who else could illustrate an extra-dimensional being like that. Hmmm--I still see issues in junk bins. Maybe I'll pick some up. Try at least to get the first six issues. It is one story. But shows it doesn't get the love it should.
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Post by Icctrombone on Jan 4, 2021 13:40:52 GMT -5
I have the complete CV run and I'm going to have to read it. I don't know if I ever read all of it.
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,706
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Post by shaxper on Jan 4, 2021 16:53:04 GMT -5
I'll admit I didn't love Captain Victory, though I certainly wanted to.
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Post by dbutler69 on Jan 4, 2021 18:53:06 GMT -5
Tough call. New Gods, Eternals, Kamandi, Machine Man, Mister Miracle all good choices, but I voted for the Eternals. That series ended too soon!
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Post by mikelmidnight on Jan 5, 2021 13:30:56 GMT -5
It's a hard call, but I voted for Mister Miracle. The later issues weren't so good, but Barda and the Female Furies are some of my favorite characters, and "Young Scott Free" is some of the best evocation of adolescent angst I've ever seen in the medium.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 5, 2021 17:30:58 GMT -5
I went with Mister Miracle. Even with the stupid deus ex machina every issue, it was still tons of fun. I can't think of any other creator for whom I'd be willing to let those pulled-out-of-your-backside escapes slide.
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Post by profh0011 on Jan 5, 2021 18:05:26 GMT -5
A funny thing happened when I re-read MISTER MIRACLE a few years ago. The stories AFTER he & Barda escaped from Apokalips the 2nd time... were the ones I liked the most. I read somewhere that as originally conceived, MM was not supposed to be part of the Fourth World epic. Which means, the later issues-- the ones focusing more on various adventures and escape routines, was how the series would have gone if Kirby hadn't changed his mind at some point and decided to make Scott the son of Highfather.
Meanwhile... I'm not sure how accurate this was or not.. but at some point, somewhere, I read that Kirby initially conceived CAPTAIN VICTORY as the book to launch his own line of comics-- BEFORE he returned to Marvel in 1976. The initial story was going to be 3 double-size comics, and he got the first one done before whoever was planning to back the project backed out. If this is true, it means CAPTAIN VICTORY #1-2 was actually written & drawn BEFORE he did the "Madbomb" story in CAPTAIN AMERICA, etc.
That could go a long way to explaining (in addition to Mike Royer inking those 2 issues) why the art in CV #1-2 is SO DAMNED GOOD, compared to the rest of the run. Myself, looking back, I don't think the drop-off is entirely Kirby's fault. I'd lay a lot of the blame on Mike Thibodeaux, who always seemed to me like he was trying to learn on the job.
It's kinda like Kirby's late-70s CAPTAIN AMERICA run. The first couple issues, Frank Giacoia inked, and they looked great. The next couple, D. Bruce Berry inked, and they looked very stiff, mechanical and lifeless. Then Frank Giacoia came back, and IT LOOKED LIKE CRAP. Now... how is this possible, when AT THE SAME TIME, his run of THE ETERNALS and 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY looked so good? When later, BLACK PANTHER, DEVIL DINOSAUR and MACHINE MAN looked so damned good?
It's almost hilarous, but it took me decades to connect the dots. And it was an ALTER EGO interview with Joe Giella that filled in the blanks. Giella talked about his friend Frank Giacoia, who kept having problems with deadlines. Many times, Giella (or others) would inks books Giacoia had his name on, uncredited. Well, one of the guys who did a lot of this was Mike Esposito. And whatta ya know? At the SAME time those CAP issues looked like hell... Esposito was MURDERING Ross Andru's art on AMAZING SPIDER-MAN. it was so bad that, according to Dave Cockrum (who told this story during a store visit), Mike's editor (unnamed, but it had to have been Len Wein) called Esposito into his office and told him to "Start spending more time at his drawing board and less time at the race track".
Later on... it was Greg Theakston who was somehow MURDERING Kirby's art at the inks stage. I've seen side-by-side comparisons of pencils vs. inks. There was NOTHING wrong with Kirby's pencils when he did SUPER POWERS. But far, far too much was needlessly CHANGED at the ink stage. And it just threw things off WAY to much.
Inkers murdering Kirby's pencils was a recurring problem. But it was nowhere near as bad as other writers-- or EDITORS-- murdering Kirby's WRITING.
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Post by tarkintino on Jan 5, 2021 20:48:20 GMT -5
It's a hard call, but I voted for Mister Miracle. The later issues weren't so good, but Barda and the Female Furies are some of my favorite characters, and "Young Scott Free" is some of the best evocation of adolescent angst I've ever seen in the medium. I found Mister Miracle just so-so in the bigger picture of his DC work. Not bad, but not standing out as fresh as New Gods.
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Post by berkley on Jan 5, 2021 23:04:14 GMT -5
Though I think the Eternals have probably been the Kirby creation least appreciated and worst written by later writers, the New Gods haven't really fared much better at DC: they've pretty much taken Darkseid away from the character's original context to make him a major DC villain, while the rest of the characters and background have been left by the wayside. When they are occasionally brought back, it's usually to push some other agenda, not to come to grips with the Fourth World as a story concept itself. For example, Orion is often brought in to make some other hero look more heroic by contrast - as in various JLA stories or Tom King's Mister Miracle - which means mmaking him a very different character to what he was in Kirby's original. Actually, something similar happens repeatedly with the Eternals, but more as a group than as individuals, and in a less obvious way, which I'll get into in that thread, eventually.
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