jack kirby | the m0vie blog

Batman: The Dark Knight Archives, Vol. 1 (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on July 2, 2012 by Darren

To celebrate the release of The Dark Knight Rises, July is “Batman month” here at the m0vie blog. Check back daily for comics, movies and television reviews and discussion of the Caped Crusader.

I figured, what with Christopher Nolan releasing the final part of his Batman trilogy this month, it might be worth going back and taking a look at the early days of the Dark Knight. DC have done a rather wonderful job collecting classic material featuring their iconic heroes as part of their “Archives” line, a line that seemed to have died last year, but I am very glad to see undergoing a resurgence. The idea is that each archive edition collects roughly a year’s worth of classic comics. The premium format pays for the restoration of the material, with DC then making it available in more cost-effective packaging, like their paperback “Chronicles” line that collects every appearance in order, or their “Omnibus” line, which collects larger chunks.

Batman: The Dark Knight Archives, Vol. 1 doesn’t collect Batman’s very first appearance in Detective Comics. However, it does collect the first four quarterly publications of his self-titled Batman comic book in 1940, each collecting several stories of Batman’s crusade against crime.

Batman Begins in six panels…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Amazing Spider-Man, batman, Batman: Dark Detective, Bob Kane, Bruce, Christopher Nolan, ChristopherNolan, dark knight, dark knight returns, Dark Knight Rises, detective comics, gotham city, Harley Quinn, jack kirby, joker, Kane, Lego, murder, Oliver Twist, Recreation, robin, Spirit, stan lee, United States, Will Eisner | 3 Comments »

The Avengers: The Kree-Skrull War (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on June 13, 2012 by Darren

The Kree-Skrull War is perhaps the grandaddy of great Avengers story. A series of interconnected one-shots with subplots congealing into an arc, it allowed writer Roy Thomas to really define the Avengers. Written towards the start of the seventies, the saga feels like something of a transition from the innocence of the classic Silver Age superhero sci-fi zaniness and a more sombre and mature Bronze Age. Despite its age, the adventure still holds up remarkably well, partially because Thomas has some very clever ideas that are still reverberating around modern comics, and also because Neal Adams’ artwork hasn’t aged a day.

Thomas had quite a Vision for the title…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Adams, Avenger, captain marvel, Henry Pym, jack kirby, Kree-Skrull War, Mandroid, marvel, Neal Adams, nick fury, Rick Jones, Roy Thomas, Sal Buscema, Supreme Intelligence, Thomas | 7 Comments »

X-Men by Jim Lee and Chris Claremont (and Whilce Portacio) Omnibus, Vol. 2 (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on May 23, 2012 by Darren

With our month looking at Avengers comics officially over, we thought it might be fun to dig into that other iconic Marvel property, the X-Men. Join us for a month of X-Men related reviews and discussion.

Gotta say this for the man — he knows how to make an exit.

– Archangel, X-Men #3 (Claremont’s last issue)

And so, this is the end. The end of Claremont’s quite simply epic run on the X-Men books. It’s amazing to look back on the writer’s output today, and simply try to consider the size of his contribution to the franchise. While he departed the books as they were at the height of their appeal (X-Men #1 famously being the best-selling comic book of all time), it’s hard to argue that X-Men ever would have reached that height without Claremont’s vision and style. While the writer undoubtedly had his weaknesses, I think his contributions to the medium are rather undervalued. While writers like Alan Moore and Frank Miller reinvented comic books, I think that Claremont was an expert at incorporating those radical changes into his work, and a writer who managed to secure the support of his fans by giving the X-Men a sense of pop culture resonance that a lot of subsequent writers tried and failed to capture.

Through X-tremes…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: alan moore, chris claremont, Claremont, collected edition, crossroads, cyclops, Gulf War, Iceman, jack kirby, Jean Grey, jim lee, Louise Simonson, magneto, magneto was right, marvel omnibus, mutant massacre, Professor X, rubicon, Savage Land, Shadow King, stan lee, Starjammer, Storm, x-men, x-men #1, x-men omnibus, Zaladane | 5 Comments »

Fall of the Mutants: X-Factor (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on May 10, 2012 by Darren

I’ll freely concede that I’m generally wary of Louise Simonson’s X-Factor. Her contributions to the Mutant Massacre were the weakest part of the crossover, and she didn’t exactly make Inferno an exceptionally readable event. While I can understand why some fans are fond of her writing, I’ve found the X-Factor I’ve read to generally be an awkward and heavy-handed attempt to emulate Chris Claremont’s patented soap opera stylings.

However, I will concede when I’m impressed, and Simonson has more than impressed me here. While I respect Claremont’s Uncanny X-Men tie-in to Fall of the Mutants more than I enjoy it, Simonson’s X-Factor feels like a much stronger offering, feeling like the book is really firing on all cylinders. Fall of the Mutants allows Simonson to bring all manner of plotlines to a head, tying together years of build-up into a fascinating, exciting and compelling pay-off. I have no qualms in suggesting that Simonson’s X-Factor is the highlight of this gigantic collection.

A wing and a prayer…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: chris claremont, cyclops, fall of the mutants, fall of the mutants: x-factor, jack kirby, Jean Grey, Louise Simonson, mutant massacre, Simonson, stan lee, uncanny x-men, x-factor, x-men | Leave a comment »

Uncanny X-Men by Chris Claremont Omnibus, Vol. 1 (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on May 7, 2012 by Darren

Chris Claremont wrote Uncanny X-Men for seventeen years, which is really quite a run in mainstream American comics, especially for a writer who didn’t create the property that he was working on. Over the course of a defining run that lasted almost two decades, the creator shaped the franchise from the forgotten stepchild of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby – cancelled and reduced to reprints – into Marvel’s biggest and most successful comic book franchise. While the book hadn’t quite made it to the top of the sales charts by the end of this omnibus collection, it was well on its way – and you can see Claremont gradually moulding the team into the iconic collection of mutants that we’d see across a myriad of mediums.

Marvel had a smash hit on their hands…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: chris claremont, comic book review, jack kirby, joss whedon, marvel comics, marvel omnibus, review, stan lee, uncanny x-men, uncanny x-men omnibus, United States, x-men | 4 Comments »

“I Want to Read Comics After Seeing the Avengers”: Post-Avengers Comic Book Recommendations…

Posted on May 1, 2012 by Darren

The Avengers opened in a lot of major markets this weekend. It is opening in the United States this Friday. It’s set to be huge and has been quite well received by critics and audiences. Now, I know that this massive blockbuster movie won’t convert the millions of avid movie-watchers into comic book fans, if only because other comic books have failed to see that appreciable a gain from success in other media. However, on the off chance that somebody comes out of the cinema thinking “hey, I really like that and would like to check out the source material”, I’ve compiled a handy list of recommendations that should be readily available and easy to find for would-be fans looking to get a taste for the iconic characters in their original media.

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: arts, Avenger, captain america, Collecting, comic book, Comics, Henry Pym, iron man, jack kirby, kurt busiek, mark millar, marvel, marvel comics, stan lee, thor, United States | Leave a comment »

Captain America by Jack Kirby Omnibus (Review)

Posted on April 23, 2012 by Darren

April (and a little bit of May) are “Avengers month” at the m0vie blog. In anticipation of Joss Whedon’s superhero epic, we’ll have a variety of articles and reviews published looking at various aspects of “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.” Today, I’m focusing on one in particular, Captain America.

“All the years of combat against forces of overwhelming power have done little to prepare Cap for the terrifying experience of being thrust under the Klieg Lights amid an undulating sea of precision dancers…”

– Oh no! Cap’s fatal weakness! Precision dancers!

It seemed like a bit of a no-brainer. With America’s bicentennial celebrations approaching, Marvel decided to put comic book legend (and co-creator) Jack Kirby on the comic book. Publishing two annuals, twenty-two issues of the on-going Captain America and Falcon book, and the iconic Captain America’s Bicentennial Battles, Kirby celebrated two centuries of the United States in style, crafting Captain America stories that were at once anchored in the past, yet boldly forging forward. He also seemed to embrace the crazy and energetic potential of the medium he helped define, producing a run on the character that was borderline surreal, occasionally crazy, but never boring.

The most awesome comic panel ever…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Benjamin Franklin, captain america, doctor doom, ed brubaker, Falcon, grant morrison, Henry Kissinger, jack kirby, Joe Simon, joss whedon, Kirby, Klieg light, marvel comics, nick fury, Rolling Stones, stan lee, United States | 2 Comments »

John Carter: Warlord of Mars Omnibus (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on March 8, 2012 by Darren

I have to admit, I have a huge amount of respect for Marvel’s Collected Editions department. Their superb “Omnibus” line, aimed at collecting giant volumes featuring entire runs on particular characters or series, hasn’t just been reserved for their iconic stable of heroes. For example, we’ve seen a three-volume set of Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan’s Tomb of Dracula, along with complete runs of Jack Kirby’s Eternals and Devil Dinosaur. In celebration of the release of John Carter, Marvel has produced a single hardcover collection of their twenty-eight issue (and three annual) series John Carter: Warlord of Mars, from the mid-seventies. Featuring an all-star group of creative talents, it’s an interesting look at a classic comic book that doesn’t involve tights or spandex, instead offering pulpy old-fashioned adventure.

An alien adventure...

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Barsoom, Burroughs, carmen infantino, chris claremont, dave cockrum, disney, Edgar Rice Burroughs, frank miller, gene colan, gil kane, Gods of Mars, jack kirby, John Carter, John Carter (comics), John Carter Omnibus, John Carter: Warlord of Mars, John Carter: Warlord of Mars (comics), mars, Marv Wolfman, marvel, marvel comics, Princess of Mars, The Walt Disney Company, Warlord of Mars | 2 Comments »

Absolute Crisis on Infinite Earths (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on January 25, 2012 by Darren

This January, I’m going to take a look at some of DC’s biggest “events.” This week I’ll be taking at the event that started it all, Marv Wolfman and George Pérez’s Crisis on Infinite Earths, reprinted in DC’s oversized and slipcased Absolute line.

It’s interesting to reflect on Crisis on Infinite Earths, more than a quarter of a century after the twelve-issue maxi-series was published. In the time since, it seems like the editorial purpose driving the event – the desire to “simplify” DC’s tangled and messed continuity into one single and unified history by abolishing the myriad of alternate continuities – has been somewhat undone with the return of the multiverse in 52 and Final Crisis, but this arguably allows Wolfman and Pérez’s epic to be considered on its own merit. Although the series might not be as important as it once was in explaining the sometimes bizarre way that all of DC’s published line fit together, I think you can still see a huge influence of this crossover in the stories that the authors at DC are telling, and how they approach them.

Holding out for some heroes...

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: barry allen, batman, crisis on infinite earths, dc comic, dc universe, final crisis, flash, flashpoint, geoff johns, george perez, grant morrison, Grantmorrison, green lantern: rebirth, jack kirby, joe quesada, John, kamandi, lex luthor, Marv Wolfman, marvel, power ring, seven soldiers | 2 Comments »

Grant Morrison’s Seven Soldiers of Victory: Mister Miracle (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on December 15, 2011 by Darren

December is “Grant Morrison month” here at the m0vie blog, as we take the month to consider and reflect on one of the most critically acclaimed (and polarising) authors working in the medium. We’ve got a special treat for you this week, which is “Seven Soldiers Week”, so check back each day for a review of one of the Seven Soldier miniseries that Morrison put together.

Morrison’s fascination with Jack Kirby creations continues. The author also reworked the Newsboy Legion and Klarion the Witch-Boy as part of Seven Soldiers, but Mister Miracle allows Morrison to play with perhaps the most iconic additions that Kirby made to the DC pantheon, dating back to his return from Marvel in the seventies, the New Gods. It goes without saying that this four-issue series actually serves as more of a lead-in to Final Crisis than an exploration of the Seven Soldiers mythology, but it’s still an absolutely fascinating look at some of Morrison’s big ideas.