WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.879 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we are opening 00:00:02.879 --> 00:00:07.360 up a file that is quite literally heavy. Hey, 00:00:07.400 --> 00:00:08.820 you're not kidding. And I don't just mean the 00:00:08.820 --> 00:00:11.259 physical weight of, you know, all the source 00:00:11.259 --> 00:00:13.720 material we have here, the biographies, the art 00:00:13.720 --> 00:00:15.919 books, the legal histories. I mean, the cultural 00:00:15.919 --> 00:00:18.239 weight. We're talking about a subject that defined 00:00:18.239 --> 00:00:20.839 the visual vocabulary of the 20th century and, 00:00:20.980 --> 00:00:23.420 well, arguably the 21st century so far. It's 00:00:23.420 --> 00:00:25.140 almost impossible to overstate the stakes here. 00:00:25.239 --> 00:00:26.980 I mean, if you've walked into a movie theater 00:00:26.980 --> 00:00:29.399 in the last 15 years, if you've streamed a blockbuster 00:00:29.399 --> 00:00:31.460 series. Right. Or even if you just recognize 00:00:31.460 --> 00:00:34.000 the iconography of pop culture, the shield, the 00:00:34.000 --> 00:00:37.060 hammer, the angry green giant. are living in 00:00:37.060 --> 00:00:39.579 a world that was, in the large part, designed 00:00:39.579 --> 00:00:42.140 by one man's pencil. We are talking about Jack 00:00:42.140 --> 00:00:44.920 Kirby. The king. But the fascinating thing about 00:00:44.920 --> 00:00:47.520 digging into these sources is that the king title, 00:00:47.640 --> 00:00:51.520 it feels almost ironic when you look at the reality 00:00:51.520 --> 00:00:54.320 of his life. Because this wasn't a coronation, 00:00:54.399 --> 00:00:57.380 it was a brawl. From day one, it was a fight 00:00:57.380 --> 00:00:59.420 against poverty, against the industry, against 00:00:59.420 --> 00:01:02.000 Nazis, and eventually against the very companies 00:01:02.000 --> 00:01:04.680 he helped build. That is the core tension we 00:01:04.680 --> 00:01:07.750 really need to explore today. The mission of 00:01:07.750 --> 00:01:10.370 this deep dive, you know, it isn't just to list 00:01:10.370 --> 00:01:12.269 the characters he created because we would be 00:01:12.269 --> 00:01:15.030 here for a week. Literally a week. The mission 00:01:15.030 --> 00:01:17.849 is to understand the engine that drove him. We 00:01:17.849 --> 00:01:19.650 want to look at how a kid from the Lower East 00:01:19.650 --> 00:01:23.129 Side of New York, a child of immigrants, used 00:01:23.129 --> 00:01:26.469 what he called a factory work ethic to manufacture 00:01:26.469 --> 00:01:29.250 a modern mythology. And manufacture is the key 00:01:29.250 --> 00:01:30.950 word there. We're going to get into the nuts 00:01:30.950 --> 00:01:34.909 and bolts of how he worked. The terrifying reality 00:01:34.909 --> 00:01:38.890 of his time in World War II and the legal battles 00:01:38.890 --> 00:01:41.189 for creator rights that are still rippling through 00:01:41.189 --> 00:01:43.109 the entertainment industry today. It's a story 00:01:43.109 --> 00:01:45.950 about art, yes, but it's also a story about labor. 00:01:46.150 --> 00:01:48.469 Exactly. It's about the difference between owning 00:01:48.469 --> 00:01:51.010 an idea and selling an idea. And it starts in 00:01:51.010 --> 00:01:53.510 a very specific place with a very specific smell 00:01:53.510 --> 00:01:56.450 and sound. Let's rewind to 1917, the Lower East 00:01:56.450 --> 00:01:59.150 Side. Jacob Kirchberg is born. To understand 00:01:59.150 --> 00:02:01.010 Kirby. You have to understand the environment 00:02:01.010 --> 00:02:03.329 of the Lower East Side in the early 20th century. 00:02:03.409 --> 00:02:06.409 It was crowded. It was loud. It was desperate. 00:02:06.670 --> 00:02:07.890 That's a pressure cooker. That's a great way 00:02:07.890 --> 00:02:10.289 to put it. It was a melting pot, but not in the 00:02:10.289 --> 00:02:13.310 gentle sense. It was a pressure cooker. Jacob, 00:02:13.610 --> 00:02:15.849 who we'll call Kirby, though he didn't take that 00:02:15.849 --> 00:02:18.310 name until later, was the son of Austrian Jewish 00:02:18.310 --> 00:02:21.169 immigrants Rose and Benjamin. And his father, 00:02:21.229 --> 00:02:23.610 Benjamin, he's a really pivotal figure in this 00:02:23.610 --> 00:02:25.569 psychological profile, isn't he? Absolutely. 00:02:26.090 --> 00:02:28.490 Benjamin Kurtzberg was a garment factory worker. 00:02:28.629 --> 00:02:31.969 And the sources all emphasize that Kirby grew 00:02:31.969 --> 00:02:34.849 up watching his father go to work, come home 00:02:34.849 --> 00:02:37.330 exhausted, and then do it all over again the 00:02:37.330 --> 00:02:39.610 next day. There was no romance in it. It was 00:02:39.610 --> 00:02:42.129 survival. But the interesting twist here is that 00:02:42.129 --> 00:02:44.830 Kirby didn't look at that factory work with disdain. 00:02:44.990 --> 00:02:47.289 He didn't say, I'm going to be an artist so I 00:02:47.289 --> 00:02:49.469 can escape that kind of labor. He actually absorbed 00:02:49.469 --> 00:02:51.729 the rhythm of it. That is the crucial insight. 00:02:52.009 --> 00:02:54.409 You know, many artists develop this sort of ivory 00:02:54.409 --> 00:02:56.770 tower view of creation. So you wait for the muse. 00:02:56.990 --> 00:02:58.610 You wait for the muse to whisper in your ear. 00:02:58.729 --> 00:03:01.629 You need the lighting to be perfect. Kirby viewed 00:03:01.629 --> 00:03:04.430 art as a trade. He viewed it through the lens 00:03:04.430 --> 00:03:06.889 of his father's garment factory. You clock in. 00:03:06.909 --> 00:03:10.039 You produce. You clock out. He literally described 00:03:10.039 --> 00:03:13.159 his work later in life as manufacturing pictures. 00:03:13.639 --> 00:03:16.840 Factory in a sense. That's a quote. And that 00:03:16.840 --> 00:03:20.080 mentality, it explains the sheer volume of his 00:03:20.080 --> 00:03:21.939 output later on. We're talking about over 20 00:03:21.939 --> 00:03:24.560 ,000 pages of published art. Wow. And that's 00:03:24.560 --> 00:03:26.439 just what made it to print. The actual number 00:03:26.439 --> 00:03:28.960 of drawings he produced is probably incalculable. 00:03:29.060 --> 00:03:30.719 But before he could become a one -man factory, 00:03:31.020 --> 00:03:33.620 he had to learn the machinery. And even as a 00:03:33.620 --> 00:03:36.719 kid, the sources say he was unusually fast. Too 00:03:36.719 --> 00:03:39.909 fast. That's the phrase that kept coming up. 00:03:39.969 --> 00:03:41.930 There's this telling anecdote about the Educational 00:03:41.930 --> 00:03:44.509 Alliance. This was a local settlement house that 00:03:44.509 --> 00:03:46.490 offered art classes to kids in the neighborhood. 00:03:47.270 --> 00:03:51.189 Kirby went there, eager to learn, and they rejected 00:03:51.189 --> 00:03:54.250 him. Rejected him? For being bad at it? No, for 00:03:54.250 --> 00:03:56.949 being disruptive because he drew too fast with 00:03:56.949 --> 00:03:58.949 charcoal. That is incredible. It's like kicking 00:03:58.949 --> 00:04:00.689 a runner off the track team for finishing the 00:04:00.689 --> 00:04:02.949 race before the coach blew the whistle. It disrupted 00:04:02.949 --> 00:04:06.020 the flow of the class. But it shows that his 00:04:06.020 --> 00:04:09.099 brain was just processing images faster than 00:04:09.099 --> 00:04:11.139 his hand could physically move. And his hand 00:04:11.139 --> 00:04:13.819 was moving pretty darn fast. He didn't have the 00:04:13.819 --> 00:04:16.740 patience for the slow academic study of art. 00:04:16.879 --> 00:04:19.240 He did try the formal route, though. He enrolled 00:04:19.240 --> 00:04:22.040 in the Pratt Institute, which is a massive deal. 00:04:22.139 --> 00:04:24.639 That is a prestigious art school. And he got 00:04:24.639 --> 00:04:28.139 in at age 14. And he lasted exactly one week. 00:04:28.720 --> 00:04:32.060 He walked out. And his reasoning for it is basically 00:04:32.060 --> 00:04:35.839 the mantra for his entire career. He said, I 00:04:35.839 --> 00:04:37.560 wasn't the kind of student that Pratt was looking 00:04:37.560 --> 00:04:39.540 for. They wanted people who would work on something 00:04:39.540 --> 00:04:41.980 forever. I didn't want to work on any project 00:04:41.980 --> 00:04:44.379 forever. I intended to get things done. I intended 00:04:44.379 --> 00:04:46.279 to get things done. That is the factory mindset 00:04:46.279 --> 00:04:48.779 versus the gallery mindset. Precisely. And you 00:04:48.779 --> 00:04:50.680 got to remember the timing here. This is the 00:04:50.680 --> 00:04:54.040 1930s. The Great Depression is in full swing. 00:04:54.300 --> 00:04:56.899 Getting things done wasn't just an artistic preference. 00:04:56.980 --> 00:04:59.100 It was an economic necessity. If you didn't finish 00:04:59.100 --> 00:05:01.100 the job, you didn't get paid and you didn't eat. 00:05:01.199 --> 00:05:03.730 So he drops out of Pratt. He hits the pavement, 00:05:03.889 --> 00:05:06.769 and he enters the workforce right as the visual 00:05:06.769 --> 00:05:09.129 medium is starting to shift. But he doesn't go 00:05:09.129 --> 00:05:11.290 straight to comic books, because comic books 00:05:11.290 --> 00:05:14.250 as we know them, they barely existed. Right. 00:05:14.350 --> 00:05:16.329 He starts at the Lincoln Newspaper Syndicate 00:05:16.329 --> 00:05:19.310 in 1936, doing strips and single -panel cartoons. 00:05:19.850 --> 00:05:22.009 But the real technical training in the Graduate 00:05:22.009 --> 00:05:25.629 School of the King happens in 1939 at Fleischer 00:05:25.629 --> 00:05:28.670 Studios. The animation house? The home of Popeye? 00:05:28.949 --> 00:05:32.300 Popeye Betty Boop. Now, Fleischer was a rival 00:05:32.300 --> 00:05:35.360 to Disney, but their style was grittier, more 00:05:35.360 --> 00:05:38.339 urban, and working there was essentially working 00:05:38.339 --> 00:05:41.079 on an assembly line. Kirby was hired as an in 00:05:41.079 --> 00:05:42.860 -betweener. Okay, for the listener who might 00:05:42.860 --> 00:05:44.720 not know the technical side of traditional animation, 00:05:45.040 --> 00:05:47.699 let's unpack in -betweener. Right, so in traditional 00:05:47.699 --> 00:05:50.639 hand -drawn animation, a lead animator draws 00:05:50.639 --> 00:05:53.279 the keyframes. Let's say Popeye winding up for 00:05:53.279 --> 00:05:55.720 a punch and then Popeye's fist connecting. Those 00:05:55.720 --> 00:05:58.269 are the two main beats. B and B. Exactly. The 00:05:58.269 --> 00:06:00.470 in -betweener has to draw every single frame 00:06:00.470 --> 00:06:02.350 between those two points to make the movement 00:06:02.350 --> 00:06:05.050 look fluid. It sounds incredibly tedious. It 00:06:05.050 --> 00:06:08.209 is grueling, repetitive, wrist -destroying work. 00:06:08.850 --> 00:06:11.069 You're drawing the same figure slightly moved, 00:06:11.230 --> 00:06:14.410 over and over, hundreds of times a day. And Kirby 00:06:14.410 --> 00:06:17.089 hated it. He compared it directly to his father's 00:06:17.089 --> 00:06:20.050 sweatshop. He said it was manufacturing pictures 00:06:20.050 --> 00:06:23.579 in the worst way. No creativity, just output. 00:06:23.759 --> 00:06:26.139 However, looking at his later work, you can see 00:06:26.139 --> 00:06:28.000 the fingerprints of this experience, can't you? 00:06:28.139 --> 00:06:30.420 Oh, absolutely. This is where he learned the 00:06:30.420 --> 00:06:32.899 physics of motion. He learned how bodies compress 00:06:32.899 --> 00:06:36.149 and extend. If you look at a Jack Kirby comic 00:06:36.149 --> 00:06:38.810 book panel from the 60s, the characters never 00:06:38.810 --> 00:06:40.910 look static. They look like compressed spring. 00:06:41.110 --> 00:06:43.449 They're about to explode off the page. Exactly. 00:06:43.649 --> 00:06:45.589 They look like they are mid -explosion, that 00:06:45.589 --> 00:06:48.029 kinetic energy. That comes from struggling through 00:06:48.029 --> 00:06:50.110 those in -between frames at Fleischer. So he 00:06:50.110 --> 00:06:52.230 takes the skill set from the animation factory, 00:06:52.329 --> 00:06:54.589 but he leaves the job. And around this time, 00:06:54.649 --> 00:06:57.269 we start to see the name game, because he wasn't 00:06:57.269 --> 00:07:00.709 signing his work, Jacob Kritzberg. No. Not at 00:07:00.709 --> 00:07:02.990 all. He was trying on identities like he was 00:07:02.990 --> 00:07:05.949 trying on clothes. He was working for a shop, 00:07:05.970 --> 00:07:08.870 a place called Eisner and Iger, which created 00:07:08.870 --> 00:07:11.410 comics on demand for publishers. And he used 00:07:11.410 --> 00:07:15.670 a phone book of pseudonyms. Jack Curtis. Kurt 00:07:15.670 --> 00:07:21.709 Davis. Fred Sandace. Ted Gray. Teddy. It's interesting. 00:07:21.769 --> 00:07:23.949 It feels like he's running from something. He 00:07:23.949 --> 00:07:26.600 was running from Jacob Kurtzberg. You have to 00:07:26.600 --> 00:07:28.959 remember, anti -Semitism was very real and very 00:07:28.959 --> 00:07:31.399 casual in America at this time. He wanted to 00:07:31.399 --> 00:07:33.759 sound American. He wanted to escape the ethnic 00:07:33.759 --> 00:07:36.060 sound of the Lower East Side. He wanted a name 00:07:36.060 --> 00:07:37.759 that sounded like the tough guys you saw in the 00:07:37.759 --> 00:07:40.019 movies. And eventually he lands on Jack Kirby. 00:07:40.220 --> 00:07:42.420 He chose it because it reminded him of the actor 00:07:42.420 --> 00:07:44.779 James Cagney. The ultimate tough guy. Exactly. 00:07:45.100 --> 00:07:47.779 Short, pugnacious, taking no guff from anyone. 00:07:48.269 --> 00:07:49.910 It was an act of assimilation, but it was also 00:07:49.910 --> 00:07:52.009 an act of self -creation. He wasn't just drawing 00:07:52.009 --> 00:07:54.329 heroes, he was sculpting himself into one. He 00:07:54.329 --> 00:07:56.370 wanted to be the American tough guy. So he has 00:07:56.370 --> 00:07:58.689 the name, he has the speed, he has the factory 00:07:58.689 --> 00:08:01.509 discipline. Now he needs the partner. And this 00:08:01.509 --> 00:08:03.509 brings us to one of the most significant partnerships 00:08:03.509 --> 00:08:06.029 in pop culture history. The Lennon and McCartney 00:08:06.029 --> 00:08:09.209 of the Golden Age. Simon and Kirby. Joe Simon. 00:08:09.290 --> 00:08:11.129 Joe Simon was an editor at a place called Fox 00:08:11.129 --> 00:08:14.149 Feature Syndicate. Kirby was working there, freelancing, 00:08:14.269 --> 00:08:17.199 making about 15 bucks a week. Which, to be fair, 00:08:17.259 --> 00:08:19.000 was okay money for a kid in the Depression, but 00:08:19.000 --> 00:08:22.019 it wasn't a fortune. Right. Simon recalls seeing 00:08:22.019 --> 00:08:24.339 Kirby's work for the first time and just being 00:08:24.339 --> 00:08:27.399 floored. He said, I love Jack's work, and the 00:08:27.399 --> 00:08:29.959 first time I saw it, I couldn't believe what 00:08:29.959 --> 00:08:32.279 I was seeing. It was that raw power, right? It 00:08:32.279 --> 00:08:34.519 didn't look like the stiff, polite illustrations 00:08:34.519 --> 00:08:36.720 in other books. It had violence. It had impact. 00:08:37.080 --> 00:08:39.899 So Simon, who was very business savvy, grabs 00:08:39.899 --> 00:08:42.679 Kirby. They start freelancing together as a team. 00:08:43.019 --> 00:08:46.440 And eventually, in 1940... They land at Timely 00:08:46.440 --> 00:08:49.080 Comics. Timely, which would eventually evolve 00:08:49.080 --> 00:08:51.720 into Marvel Comics. Correct. And the publisher 00:08:51.720 --> 00:08:53.779 there was a man named Martin Goodman. He hired 00:08:53.779 --> 00:08:56.220 Simon as an editor, and Simon brought Kirby along 00:08:56.220 --> 00:08:59.860 as the art director. And this is 1940. We have 00:08:59.860 --> 00:09:01.559 to set the political stage here. The world is 00:09:01.559 --> 00:09:04.379 on fire. Europe is, certainly. The Nazis are 00:09:04.379 --> 00:09:07.940 marching. France falls. But America, America 00:09:07.940 --> 00:09:11.820 is sleeping. The political stance is isolationism, 00:09:11.860 --> 00:09:15.580 not our war, but Simon and Kirby. They're two 00:09:15.580 --> 00:09:18.179 Jewish kids from New York. They have family in 00:09:18.179 --> 00:09:20.100 Europe. They know exactly what's happening. So 00:09:20.100 --> 00:09:22.200 they decide to make a statement. They create 00:09:22.200 --> 00:09:24.840 the ultimate interventionist fantasy, Captain 00:09:24.840 --> 00:09:27.340 America. And that first cover, I mean, even if 00:09:27.340 --> 00:09:29.120 you've never read a comic, you know that image. 00:09:29.340 --> 00:09:31.639 Captain America punching Adolf Hitler square 00:09:31.639 --> 00:09:34.940 in the jaw. This hits the newsstands in December 00:09:34.940 --> 00:09:38.440 1940, a full year before Pearl Harbor. It was. 00:09:39.089 --> 00:09:41.870 Incredibly bold. So provocative. It was a declaration 00:09:41.870 --> 00:09:44.169 of war by two comic book creators before the 00:09:44.169 --> 00:09:45.950 U .S. government had the courage to do the same. 00:09:46.049 --> 00:09:48.370 And the response was explosive. It was a smash. 00:09:48.649 --> 00:09:50.669 The first issue sold out in days. The second 00:09:50.669 --> 00:09:52.870 issue had a print run of over a million copies. 00:09:53.029 --> 00:09:54.549 We'll just pause on that number, a million copies. 00:09:54.649 --> 00:09:57.450 Today, if a comic sells 100 ,000 copies, they 00:09:57.450 --> 00:10:00.389 throw a parade. A million copies was astronomical. 00:10:00.750 --> 00:10:03.899 They were a moving product like crazy. But this 00:10:03.899 --> 00:10:06.419 success brings us to the first major conflict 00:10:06.419 --> 00:10:09.179 in Kirby's career regarding money and credit. 00:10:09.539 --> 00:10:13.240 We can call it the deal. Because Joe Simon, being 00:10:13.240 --> 00:10:15.379 the businessman, had negotiated a percentage. 00:10:15.740 --> 00:10:18.039 Right. Simon claimed he had an agreement with 00:10:18.039 --> 00:10:21.200 Martin Goodman for 25 % of the profits. Now, 00:10:21.220 --> 00:10:24.360 with a million copies selling, 25 % is a serious 00:10:24.360 --> 00:10:27.639 amount of cash. But as the sales skyrocketed, 00:10:27.679 --> 00:10:30.220 Simon and Kirby started to suspect that the checks 00:10:30.220 --> 00:10:32.409 they were getting were light. They suspected 00:10:32.409 --> 00:10:34.350 Goodman was cooking the books. It's the classic 00:10:34.350 --> 00:10:36.070 Hollywood accounting trick. Oh, the shipping 00:10:36.070 --> 00:10:38.070 costs were higher. Oh, the returns were high. 00:10:38.190 --> 00:10:40.610 They felt they were being robbed. So they decided 00:10:40.610 --> 00:10:43.490 to defect. They plotted a secret move to National 00:10:43.490 --> 00:10:46.169 Comics, the big rival. Which we know today as 00:10:46.169 --> 00:10:48.590 DC Comics. Now it's a Superman. They negotiated 00:10:48.590 --> 00:10:51.980 a deal for a combined $500 a week. Now, compare 00:10:51.980 --> 00:10:54.659 that to the $75 or $85 they were making at Timely. 00:10:54.740 --> 00:10:56.700 It was a massive upgrade. It was buy -a -house 00:10:56.700 --> 00:10:58.600 money. But they had to keep it a secret until 00:10:58.600 --> 00:11:00.440 they finished their contract work at Timely. 00:11:00.559 --> 00:11:02.519 They were working on Captain America Hashtag 00:11:02.519 --> 00:11:05.080 10. And this is where the story gets really spicy. 00:11:05.539 --> 00:11:08.259 It feels like a noir film. Because there's a 00:11:08.259 --> 00:11:11.340 third figure in the office. A young kid. The 00:11:11.340 --> 00:11:14.500 publisher's cousin. An editorial assistant who 00:11:14.500 --> 00:11:17.389 played the flute. And fill the inkwells. Stanley. 00:11:17.730 --> 00:11:20.070 Stanley Lieber at the time. Yeah. And Kirby was 00:11:20.070 --> 00:11:22.350 convinced, bitterly convinced until the day he 00:11:22.350 --> 00:11:24.409 died, that it was Stanley who found out about 00:11:24.409 --> 00:11:26.450 their secret deal and ratted them out to Martin 00:11:26.450 --> 00:11:29.110 Goodman. Is there any proof of that? There is 00:11:29.110 --> 00:11:31.769 no definitive proof. It's all he said, she said. 00:11:31.870 --> 00:11:34.210 Joe Simon actually gave Lee the benefit of the 00:11:34.210 --> 00:11:37.309 doubt later in life. Yeah. To Kirby. Never. He 00:11:37.309 --> 00:11:39.690 viewed it as the original betrayal. Wow. Goodman 00:11:39.690 --> 00:11:41.509 fired them after they finished issue hashtag 00:11:41.509 --> 00:11:45.210 10 and they moved to D .C. But that. Suspicion, 00:11:45.210 --> 00:11:47.289 that feeling that Stan Lee was a company man 00:11:47.289 --> 00:11:49.730 who would stab creators in the back, that seed 00:11:49.730 --> 00:11:52.669 was planted right there in 1941. So they go to 00:11:52.669 --> 00:11:54.990 D .C. They are the boy commandos guys now. They 00:11:54.990 --> 00:11:57.149 create hit after hit. They are a brand name, 00:11:57.230 --> 00:11:59.909 Simon and Kirby. Paul Levitz from D .C. compared 00:11:59.909 --> 00:12:02.090 them to Siegel and Schuster, the creators of 00:12:02.090 --> 00:12:04.330 Superman. They were that big. They were untouchable. 00:12:04.409 --> 00:12:06.870 They were the kings of the newsstand. But just 00:12:06.870 --> 00:12:10.190 as they're hitting this peak, reality comes crashing 00:12:10.190 --> 00:12:13.350 in. Uncle Sam comes calling. World War II. It's 00:12:13.350 --> 00:12:18.009 1943. Jack Kirby is drafted. Now, a lot of people 00:12:18.009 --> 00:12:20.029 might assume, oh, he's a famous artist. Surely 00:12:20.029 --> 00:12:22.490 the Army will put him in a nice office in Washington 00:12:22.490 --> 00:12:25.509 drawing propaganda posters. That is what usually 00:12:25.509 --> 00:12:28.850 happened with talent like that. But not for Kirby. 00:12:28.970 --> 00:12:30.870 He went into the infantry, the 11th Infantry 00:12:30.870 --> 00:12:33.529 Regiment. He lands on Omaha Beach in Normandy 00:12:33.529 --> 00:12:36.110 about two and a half months after D -Day. So 00:12:36.110 --> 00:12:37.789 he's in the thick of it. He's not in the rear. 00:12:37.970 --> 00:12:40.210 He is in the mud. And here's the part that is 00:12:40.210 --> 00:12:44.039 just... Chilling. A lieutenant finds out Kirby 00:12:44.039 --> 00:12:45.919 is an artist. And instead of saying, draw me 00:12:45.919 --> 00:12:47.700 a portrait, he says, great, you could be a scout. 00:12:47.860 --> 00:12:51.200 Scout sounds adventurous, but in WWII infantry 00:12:51.200 --> 00:12:53.740 terms, what does that actually mean? It means 00:12:53.740 --> 00:12:56.289 you are the target. The scout goes ahead of the 00:12:56.289 --> 00:12:58.129 unit into towns that might still be occupied 00:12:58.129 --> 00:13:01.210 by Nazis. You draw reconnaissance maps. You sketch 00:13:01.210 --> 00:13:03.909 the terrain. You spot the tank positions. You're 00:13:03.909 --> 00:13:06.649 advancing alone or in tiny groups. It was practically 00:13:06.649 --> 00:13:09.429 a suicide mission. He was literally risking his 00:13:09.429 --> 00:13:12.370 life to draw maps. He wrote later that he didn't 00:13:12.370 --> 00:13:15.049 think he would make it back. And he almost didn't. 00:13:15.409 --> 00:13:18.470 But not from a bullet. It was the cold. The winter 00:13:18.470 --> 00:13:22.450 of 1944. Near Metz, France. This was a brutal 00:13:22.450 --> 00:13:25.210 winter. Kirby suffered severe frostbite on his 00:13:25.210 --> 00:13:28.309 lower extremities. His legs turned black. It 00:13:28.309 --> 00:13:30.570 was so bad that when he was finally evacuated 00:13:30.570 --> 00:13:33.389 to a hospital in London, the doctors were seriously 00:13:33.389 --> 00:13:35.889 considering amputating his legs. Just pause for 00:13:35.889 --> 00:13:37.750 a second and imagine that alternate timeline. 00:13:38.110 --> 00:13:40.909 Jack Kirby, the man who drew characters leaping 00:13:40.909 --> 00:13:43.289 off skyscrapers, the man whose art is defined 00:13:43.289 --> 00:13:46.590 by movement, losing his legs at age 27. The Marvel 00:13:46.590 --> 00:13:48.669 Universe simply never happens. Never happens. 00:13:48.809 --> 00:13:51.110 It was incredibly close. Thankfully he recovered. 00:13:51.720 --> 00:13:53.899 He kept his legs. He was honorably discharged 00:13:53.899 --> 00:13:57.720 in 1945. But he came back to a different world. 00:13:57.840 --> 00:14:01.039 He came back to New York and the superhero craze. 00:14:01.879 --> 00:14:04.659 It was dying. The war was over. People were tired 00:14:04.659 --> 00:14:06.240 of fighting. They didn't want to see guys in 00:14:06.240 --> 00:14:08.440 costumes punching things anymore. Exactly. The 00:14:08.440 --> 00:14:11.100 cultural mood had shifted. So what does a factory 00:14:11.100 --> 00:14:13.340 do when the market changes? You retool the machinery. 00:14:13.720 --> 00:14:17.080 You pivot. And this is the genius of Simon and 00:14:17.080 --> 00:14:19.899 Kirby. They weren't just artists, they were market 00:14:19.899 --> 00:14:22.039 analysts. They looked at the magazine racks and 00:14:22.039 --> 00:14:24.840 saw that true story confession magazines were 00:14:24.840 --> 00:14:27.519 flying off the shelves. These were text stories 00:14:27.519 --> 00:14:30.379 about romance, heartbreak, betrayal. And they 00:14:30.379 --> 00:14:33.080 thought, why not do this in comics? It seems 00:14:33.080 --> 00:14:36.240 obvious now, but nobody was doing it. They pitched 00:14:36.240 --> 00:14:39.309 the idea of a romance comic. Young Romance. Young 00:14:39.309 --> 00:14:42.070 Romance, hashtag one, hits the stands in 1947. 00:14:42.350 --> 00:14:46.289 And it sold 92 % of its print run. 92 %! That's 00:14:46.289 --> 00:14:48.750 basically a sellout. It was a phenomenon. Between 00:14:48.750 --> 00:14:51.110 Young Romance and the spinoff Young Love, they 00:14:51.110 --> 00:14:53.330 were selling 2 million copies a month. 2 million 00:14:53.330 --> 00:14:55.830 a month! And here's the kicker. Because they 00:14:55.830 --> 00:14:57.850 had learned from the Captain America debacle 00:14:57.850 --> 00:15:00.029 with Martin Goodman, they made a very specific 00:15:00.029 --> 00:15:02.870 deal with their new publisher, Crestwood. They 00:15:02.870 --> 00:15:05.210 demanded a piece of the pie. A big piece. They 00:15:05.210 --> 00:15:08.169 negotiated 50 % of the profits. 50%. That is 00:15:08.169 --> 00:15:10.590 an incredible deal for creators even today, let 00:15:10.590 --> 00:15:13.549 alone in 1947. It was unheard of. They were making 00:15:13.549 --> 00:15:15.990 serious money. They bought big houses in the 00:15:15.990 --> 00:15:18.129 suburbs of Long Island. They were raising families. 00:15:18.330 --> 00:15:20.730 They were living the absolute American dream. 00:15:20.950 --> 00:15:22.970 They even started their own publishing company, 00:15:23.129 --> 00:15:26.110 Mainline Publications, in the mid -50s. They 00:15:26.110 --> 00:15:28.269 were trying to own the means of production. But 00:15:28.269 --> 00:15:30.799 as always seems to happen in this story. The 00:15:30.799 --> 00:15:33.580 business side got messy. The comic industry is 00:15:33.580 --> 00:15:36.379 volatile. In the mid -50s, the market took a 00:15:36.379 --> 00:15:39.600 nosedive. There was a lot of moral panic about 00:15:39.600 --> 00:15:42.759 comics claims that they caused juvenile delinquency. 00:15:42.820 --> 00:15:45.139 Right. The Comics Code Authority. Exactly. There 00:15:45.139 --> 00:15:46.799 were Senate hearings. Distribution companies 00:15:46.799 --> 00:15:49.639 collapsed. Mainline folded. Crestwood tried to 00:15:49.639 --> 00:15:51.440 stiff them on payments. Another legal battle. 00:15:51.679 --> 00:15:54.159 And eventually, the financial pressure broke 00:15:54.159 --> 00:15:56.750 the Simon and Kirby partnership. And this is 00:15:56.750 --> 00:15:58.909 the low point of the story. The partnership ends. 00:15:59.190 --> 00:16:01.590 Joe Simon goes into advertising. He leaves the 00:16:01.590 --> 00:16:04.370 field. But Kirby. Kirby couldn't leave. He had 00:16:04.370 --> 00:16:07.450 a wife, Roz, and kids to support. He had a mortgage. 00:16:07.690 --> 00:16:10.690 He said, I stuck with comics. He needed the work. 00:16:11.169 --> 00:16:14.289 So in the late 50s, humbled, he finds himself 00:16:14.289 --> 00:16:16.490 walking back into the offices of the company 00:16:16.490 --> 00:16:19.500 formerly known as Timely. Now it's called Atlas. 00:16:19.779 --> 00:16:22.320 And who is running the show at Atlas? Stan Lee. 00:16:22.440 --> 00:16:24.879 The cousin, the guy he suspected of betrayal. 00:16:25.320 --> 00:16:28.600 The dynamic had completely flipped. In the 40s, 00:16:28.620 --> 00:16:30.620 Kirby was the star and Lee was the assistant. 00:16:31.019 --> 00:16:34.059 Now Lee is the editor -in -chief and Kirby is 00:16:34.059 --> 00:16:37.100 the freelancer begging for page rates. It must 00:16:37.100 --> 00:16:38.960 have been a humiliating moment. And the work 00:16:38.960 --> 00:16:40.899 wasn't exactly glamorous either. This is what 00:16:40.899 --> 00:16:43.740 fans call the monster era. Right. It was quantity 00:16:43.740 --> 00:16:46.860 over quality. Kirby was working 12 to 14 hours 00:16:46.860 --> 00:16:48.720 a day at home in his basement, which he called 00:16:48.720 --> 00:16:51.379 the dungeon, cranking out stories about giant 00:16:51.379 --> 00:16:53.840 monsters with names like Groot. The Groot we 00:16:53.840 --> 00:16:56.000 know and love. A very early, very different version. 00:16:56.100 --> 00:16:59.440 And names like Fin Fang Foom and Zemnu. Basically 00:16:59.440 --> 00:17:02.779 drive -in movie stuff. Exactly. Monsters in underpants 00:17:02.779 --> 00:17:06.119 crushing cities. But, and this is key, even though 00:17:06.119 --> 00:17:08.519 the scripts were silly, Kirby was refining his 00:17:08.519 --> 00:17:11.319 style. He was drawing everything. Westerns, romance, 00:17:11.579 --> 00:17:13.720 monsters. He was keeping the factory running. 00:17:14.129 --> 00:17:18.150 And then 1961 hits. The year everything changed. 00:17:18.529 --> 00:17:21.170 The story goes that DC Comics was having huge 00:17:21.170 --> 00:17:23.690 success with a new teen book called The Justice 00:17:23.690 --> 00:17:26.710 League of America. Martin Goodman, the publisher, 00:17:26.910 --> 00:17:29.589 still the same guy, tells Stan Lee to rip it 00:17:29.589 --> 00:17:32.470 off, make a teen book. Stan was apparently bored 00:17:32.470 --> 00:17:34.250 at this point, right? He was thinking of quitting 00:17:34.250 --> 00:17:36.910 comics to write novels. He was fed up. But his 00:17:36.910 --> 00:17:39.069 wife, Joan, told him, if you're going to quit 00:17:39.069 --> 00:17:40.890 anyway, why not write the book you want to write? 00:17:40.950 --> 00:17:43.880 What can they do? Fire you. So he and Kirby put 00:17:43.880 --> 00:17:46.119 their heads together. And instead of a sleek, 00:17:46.240 --> 00:17:48.279 perfect team of heroes like the Justice League, 00:17:48.400 --> 00:17:50.839 they created a dysfunctional family. A fantastic 00:17:50.839 --> 00:17:53.079 four. It was revolutionary. They didn't have 00:17:53.079 --> 00:17:55.500 secret identities. They didn't get along. The 00:17:55.500 --> 00:17:59.079 thing was a monster who hated his powers. Johnny 00:17:59.079 --> 00:18:01.519 Storm was a hot -headed teenager. It felt real. 00:18:01.680 --> 00:18:03.740 It had the emotional grounding of the romance 00:18:03.740 --> 00:18:06.259 comics, but the visual scale of the monster books. 00:18:06.460 --> 00:18:10.039 And visually, it was pure Kirby Unleashed. This 00:18:10.039 --> 00:18:12.880 kicks off what we call the Marvel Age. And the 00:18:12.880 --> 00:18:15.000 list of co -creations in this period, roughly 00:18:15.000 --> 00:18:19.000 1961 to 1970, is just a laundry list of modern 00:18:19.000 --> 00:18:24.220 mythology. Hulk. Thor. Iron Man. X -Men. Silver 00:18:24.220 --> 00:18:28.819 Surfer. Black Panther. The Avengers. The Inhumans. 00:18:28.940 --> 00:18:33.160 Doctor Doom. it is relentless for a decade jack 00:18:33.160 --> 00:18:35.960 kirby was marvel gil kane another legendary artist 00:18:35.960 --> 00:18:38.460 said kirby was like holy scripture for the company 00:18:38.460 --> 00:18:40.839 he provided the breakdowns the rough layouts 00:18:40.839 --> 00:18:43.460 for other artists to teach them how to draw the 00:18:43.460 --> 00:18:46.019 marvel style i want to dig into the mechanics 00:18:46.019 --> 00:18:48.019 of this collaboration because this is where the 00:18:48.019 --> 00:18:50.960 controversy lies we see the credit Written by 00:18:50.960 --> 00:18:53.759 Stan Lee. Art by Jack Kirby. But that doesn't 00:18:53.759 --> 00:18:55.619 really explain how the work got done, does it? 00:18:55.759 --> 00:18:58.180 No. And this is the source of 50 years of arguments. 00:18:58.339 --> 00:19:00.160 It's called the Marvel method. Explain that for 00:19:00.160 --> 00:19:02.279 us. So usually a writer writes a full script. 00:19:02.579 --> 00:19:04.660 Panel one, Batman does this. Batman says this. 00:19:04.680 --> 00:19:07.619 Panel two, Joker does this. And the artist draws 00:19:07.619 --> 00:19:10.440 it. But Stan was writing too many books. He couldn't 00:19:10.440 --> 00:19:12.200 write full scripts for everything. He was the 00:19:12.200 --> 00:19:14.980 editor and the main writer. Exactly. So he would 00:19:14.980 --> 00:19:17.190 have a story conference with Kirby. Sometimes 00:19:17.190 --> 00:19:18.849 there's a long meeting. Sometimes there's a brief 00:19:18.849 --> 00:19:21.150 phone call. OK, let's have the fantastic four 00:19:21.150 --> 00:19:23.769 fight, Dr. Doom. And Doom has stolen the Silver 00:19:23.769 --> 00:19:26.609 Surfer's board. That's it. That's the script. 00:19:26.809 --> 00:19:30.009 That's the plot. Then Kirby goes home to Long 00:19:30.009 --> 00:19:33.029 Island. He sits at his table and he draws the 00:19:33.029 --> 00:19:35.509 entire 20 page story. But he's not just drawing. 00:19:35.710 --> 00:19:38.630 He is pacing the story. He is deciding the choreography 00:19:38.630 --> 00:19:41.109 of the fight. He's deciding that Dr. Doom has 00:19:41.109 --> 00:19:43.430 a hidden laser in his gauntlet. He is deciding 00:19:43.430 --> 00:19:46.000 the emotional beats. He's often writing notes 00:19:46.000 --> 00:19:48.579 in the margins, suggesting dialogue. He's effectively 00:19:48.579 --> 00:19:50.700 directing the movie. So the visual storytelling 00:19:50.700 --> 00:19:53.740 is the writing. Exactly. Then he brings the pages 00:19:53.740 --> 00:19:56.039 back to the office. Stan looks at them and adds 00:19:56.039 --> 00:19:58.480 the dialogue bubbles and captions. So Kirby does 00:19:58.480 --> 00:20:01.480 90 % of the heavy lifting, but Stan gets the 00:20:01.480 --> 00:20:03.900 writer credit. And the writers pay. And the editors 00:20:03.900 --> 00:20:06.759 pay. Kirby was paid a page rate for the art. 00:20:07.160 --> 00:20:10.339 He felt with significant justification that he 00:20:10.339 --> 00:20:11.960 was co -writing these stories with his pencil. 00:20:12.349 --> 00:20:14.650 But the credit and the royalties didn't reflect 00:20:14.650 --> 00:20:17.670 that. Yet, despite this frustration, the art 00:20:17.670 --> 00:20:19.890 itself was evolving into something transcendent. 00:20:20.410 --> 00:20:23.230 If you look at a Kirby panel from the mid -60s, 00:20:23.230 --> 00:20:26.150 it looks like nothing else on Earth. What are 00:20:26.150 --> 00:20:28.789 the trademarks we should look for? First, there's 00:20:28.789 --> 00:20:31.529 the energy. He said, I had to compete with the 00:20:31.529 --> 00:20:33.660 camera. He wanted his characters to jump off 00:20:33.660 --> 00:20:37.099 the page. So you see foreshortening where a fist 00:20:37.099 --> 00:20:40.240 or a foot is thrust out towards the reader, exaggerated 00:20:40.240 --> 00:20:43.500 to look huge, creating this 3D effect. It breaks 00:20:43.500 --> 00:20:45.779 the fourth wall physically. It does. And then 00:20:45.779 --> 00:20:47.539 there are the dots. The Kirby crackle. You've 00:20:47.539 --> 00:20:49.579 definitely seen this. Yeah. Those clusters of 00:20:49.579 --> 00:20:51.819 black pseudo -fractal dots he used to represent 00:20:51.819 --> 00:20:54.809 energy. He realized he couldn't paint glowing 00:20:54.809 --> 00:20:57.210 light with cheap four -color printing, so he 00:20:57.210 --> 00:20:59.789 used these dots to represent energy so intense 00:20:59.789 --> 00:21:02.509 it was disrupting the atoms of the air. It's 00:21:02.509 --> 00:21:04.730 a visual shorthand for cosmic power. And the 00:21:04.730 --> 00:21:07.069 technology, the Kirby tech. The technological 00:21:07.069 --> 00:21:10.009 sublime. He drew machines that made no engineering 00:21:10.009 --> 00:21:12.549 sense pipes going nowhere, heavy blocky shapes, 00:21:12.710 --> 00:21:15.750 weird squiddles. But they felt powerful. They 00:21:15.750 --> 00:21:17.990 felt organic and alien at the same time. It wasn't 00:21:17.990 --> 00:21:20.400 about function. It was about awe. This style 00:21:20.400 --> 00:21:22.500 really peaks with the Galactus trilogy, doesn't 00:21:22.500 --> 00:21:25.579 it? Fantastic Four issues, 48 through 50. This 00:21:25.579 --> 00:21:28.140 is widely considered the finest achievement of 00:21:28.140 --> 00:21:30.660 the Lee -Kirby partnership. They introduce Galactus, 00:21:30.859 --> 00:21:33.960 a godlike being who eats planets. This wasn't 00:21:33.960 --> 00:21:36.099 a bank robber, this was a whole new level. No, 00:21:36.240 --> 00:21:41.000 this moves comics from punching bad guys to philosophical 00:21:41.000 --> 00:21:44.700 cosmic horror. Galactus wasn't evil, he was just 00:21:44.700 --> 00:21:48.349 above us. We were ants to him. It resonated deeply 00:21:48.349 --> 00:21:51.410 with the college crowd in the 60s. It was metaphysical. 00:21:51.670 --> 00:21:54.289 Kirby was even using photo collages in the backgrounds 00:21:54.289 --> 00:21:56.630 to represent the negative zone. He was pushing 00:21:56.630 --> 00:21:58.730 the medium as far as ink and paper could go. 00:21:58.829 --> 00:22:00.849 But while the art was expanding to the cosmos, 00:22:01.049 --> 00:22:03.009 the relationship with management was shrinking. 00:22:03.250 --> 00:22:05.650 It was deteriorating rapidly. Stan Lee is becoming 00:22:05.650 --> 00:22:07.950 the face of Marvel. He's the man. He's giving 00:22:07.950 --> 00:22:10.289 the interviews. He's getting the fame. And Kirby 00:22:10.289 --> 00:22:13.509 is sitting in his basement feeling erased. And 00:22:13.509 --> 00:22:15.799 the credit issue was just gnawing at him. And 00:22:15.799 --> 00:22:18.640 finally, in 1970, it breaks. The contract came 00:22:18.640 --> 00:22:21.579 up for renewal. Marvel presented Kirby with a 00:22:21.579 --> 00:22:25.099 contract that was, frankly, insulting. It prohibited 00:22:25.099 --> 00:22:27.700 legal retaliation. It didn't give him the creator 00:22:27.700 --> 00:22:29.819 rights or royalties he wanted. It essentially 00:22:29.819 --> 00:22:32.000 tried to lock him down as a work -for -hire cog 00:22:32.000 --> 00:22:34.180 in the machine. So the factory worker went on 00:22:34.180 --> 00:22:37.180 strike? He walked. He called up Carmine Infantino, 00:22:37.259 --> 00:22:40.000 the publisher at DC Comics, and said, I'm coming 00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:43.460 over. It was seismic news in the industry. The 00:22:43.460 --> 00:22:46.019 architect of Marvel was defecting to the enemy. 00:22:46.200 --> 00:22:48.519 And he didn't just go to D .C. to draw Superman. 00:22:48.660 --> 00:22:50.680 He went there to build a whole new mythology 00:22:50.680 --> 00:22:53.220 from the ground up. The fourth world. This is 00:22:53.220 --> 00:22:55.380 my personal favorite era of Kirby because it 00:22:55.380 --> 00:22:57.240 is unfiltered. There's no Stan Lee to smooth 00:22:57.240 --> 00:22:59.640 out the dialogue. Kirby launched four interconnected 00:22:59.640 --> 00:23:02.779 titles. New Guys, Mr. Miracle, The Forever People, 00:23:02.920 --> 00:23:06.619 and a very weird twist. Superman's pal, Jimmy 00:23:06.619 --> 00:23:08.980 Olsen. That is such a strange choice. He could 00:23:08.980 --> 00:23:11.400 have had any book. Why Jimmy Olsen? It shows 00:23:11.400 --> 00:23:13.839 his character. He didn't want to take a job away 00:23:13.839 --> 00:23:16.339 from another working artist. Jimmy Olsen didn't 00:23:16.339 --> 00:23:18.920 have a stable creative team. So he took the lowest 00:23:18.920 --> 00:23:21.619 rung on the ladder. And what did he do? He used 00:23:21.619 --> 00:23:25.039 Jimmy Olsen to introduce Darkseid, the ultimate 00:23:25.039 --> 00:23:27.980 fascist god of evil. That is wild. That's like 00:23:27.980 --> 00:23:31.240 introducing Thanos in a sitcom. It is. But the 00:23:31.240 --> 00:23:33.240 fourth world was so ambitious. It was a saga 00:23:33.240 --> 00:23:35.880 about freedom versus control. Darkseid seeks 00:23:35.880 --> 00:23:38.619 the anti -life equation, a mathematical proof 00:23:38.619 --> 00:23:41.940 that free will is a lie. If he knows it, he can 00:23:41.940 --> 00:23:44.599 enslave the universe. That is heavy stuff for 00:23:44.599 --> 00:23:46.900 a comic book in the 70s. It was Shakespearean. 00:23:47.920 --> 00:23:51.880 And Mr. Miracle. That feels deeply personal. 00:23:52.119 --> 00:23:54.480 Mr. Miracle is the super escape artist. Right. 00:23:54.599 --> 00:23:57.740 Scott Free. He escapes from traps. Many critics, 00:23:57.819 --> 00:24:00.339 and I agree, see this as autobiographical. It's 00:24:00.339 --> 00:24:02.160 Kirby channeling his feeling of being trapped 00:24:02.160 --> 00:24:05.220 by Marvel, by contracts, by the industry. He's 00:24:05.220 --> 00:24:06.980 the artist who can escape any constraint. And 00:24:06.980 --> 00:24:09.400 speaking of personal, we have to talk about Funky 00:24:09.400 --> 00:24:13.420 Flashman. Oh, Funky Flashman. In the pages of 00:24:13.420 --> 00:24:15.779 Mr. Miracle, Kirby introduced a character named 00:24:15.779 --> 00:24:19.059 Funky Flashman. He's a charlatan. He lives in 00:24:19.059 --> 00:24:21.779 a decaying mansion, relying on the glory of a 00:24:21.779 --> 00:24:25.599 boy commando he used to know. He wears a bad 00:24:25.599 --> 00:24:28.880 toupee. He speaks in grand, empty alliterations. 00:24:29.000 --> 00:24:31.940 It's Stan Lee. It is a brutal, savage caricature. 00:24:32.460 --> 00:24:35.059 Kirby draws him as a coward who exploits others. 00:24:35.240 --> 00:24:38.529 It shows just how deep the hurt went. He viewed 00:24:38.529 --> 00:24:40.529 Lee as someone who cashed in on the work of others. 00:24:41.009 --> 00:24:43.910 It's funny, but it's also heartbreaking. So The 00:24:43.910 --> 00:24:46.170 Fourth World is a creative masterpiece, but was 00:24:46.170 --> 00:24:48.269 it a commercial hit? Not at the time. It was 00:24:48.269 --> 00:24:51.210 dense. It was weird. The dialogue was idiosyncratic. 00:24:51.210 --> 00:24:53.630 Readers were confused. And DC canceled the books 00:24:53.630 --> 00:24:55.210 one by one. That must have been devastating. 00:24:55.529 --> 00:24:58.269 It was. But here is the vindication. The characters 00:24:58.269 --> 00:25:02.799 stuck. Darkseid, Orion, Mr. Miracle. They became 00:25:02.799 --> 00:25:05.220 the bedrock of the DC Universe's cosmic side. 00:25:05.359 --> 00:25:07.500 Just like he built Marvel, he built the modern 00:25:07.500 --> 00:25:09.980 mythology of DC. But because the books were canceled, 00:25:10.119 --> 00:25:12.400 he was kind of adrift again. And in a twist that 00:25:12.400 --> 00:25:14.859 feels inevitable, he goes back to Marvel. In 00:25:14.859 --> 00:25:17.779 1976, Stan Lee announces it at a convention. 00:25:18.180 --> 00:25:21.359 The King is back. But it wasn't a happy reunion. 00:25:21.799 --> 00:25:24.299 Kirby came back on the condition that he write 00:25:24.299 --> 00:25:26.599 and edit his own books. He didn't want to collaborate 00:25:26.599 --> 00:25:28.740 with Lee. He wanted autonomy. And he produced 00:25:28.740 --> 00:25:30.900 some wild stuff. The Eternals. The Eternals, 00:25:30.900 --> 00:25:34.519 giants, space gods. Again, huge scope. Devil 00:25:34.519 --> 00:25:37.400 Dinosaur, a T -Rex, and a cave boy. Machine Man. 00:25:38.099 --> 00:25:40.619 But the atmosphere at Marvel was toxic for him. 00:25:40.680 --> 00:25:43.119 The younger editors, the new generation, they 00:25:43.119 --> 00:25:45.160 didn't get him. They thought his dialogue was 00:25:45.160 --> 00:25:46.880 old -fashioned. They started changing his art 00:25:46.880 --> 00:25:49.680 without telling him. redrawing faces. That is 00:25:49.680 --> 00:25:52.200 the ultimate insult to an artist. It drove him 00:25:52.200 --> 00:25:56.099 away again. By 1978, he left comics for the animation 00:25:56.099 --> 00:25:58.619 industry. He went to Hanna -Barbera and Ruby 00:25:58.619 --> 00:26:00.559 Spears. And this is where he works on things 00:26:00.559 --> 00:26:02.920 like Thundar the Barbarian. Which looks exactly 00:26:02.920 --> 00:26:05.579 like a Kirby comic. And honestly, he loved it. 00:26:05.619 --> 00:26:07.539 The pay was better, the benefits were better, 00:26:07.579 --> 00:26:10.000 health insurance, and the people treated him 00:26:10.000 --> 00:26:12.569 like a legend. He was happier there. Now we have 00:26:12.569 --> 00:26:14.349 to touch on one of the strangest stories in the 00:26:14.349 --> 00:26:16.250 source material. It sounds like an urban legend, 00:26:16.349 --> 00:26:18.569 but it's historical fact. The Argo connection. 00:26:18.990 --> 00:26:23.390 This is unbelievable. In 1979, Kirby was hired 00:26:23.390 --> 00:26:25.950 to draw concept art for a proposed theme park 00:26:25.950 --> 00:26:28.809 called Science Fiction Land and a movie adaptation 00:26:28.809 --> 00:26:33.220 of Lord of Light. He drew these massive psychedelic 00:26:33.220 --> 00:26:35.660 alien cities. The project fell apart and the 00:26:35.660 --> 00:26:38.759 art went into a drawer. Enter the CIA. The CIA 00:26:38.759 --> 00:26:41.680 needed a cover story to rescue six American diplomats 00:26:41.680 --> 00:26:44.180 who were hiding in Iran during the hostage crisis. 00:26:44.500 --> 00:26:46.480 They decided to pretend they were a film crew 00:26:46.480 --> 00:26:49.279 scouting locations for a massive sci -fi blockbuster. 00:26:49.460 --> 00:26:51.880 They needed art to sell the lie. So they used 00:26:51.880 --> 00:26:54.099 Kirby's drawings? They grabbed Kirby's concept 00:26:54.099 --> 00:26:57.319 art, slapped a new title on it, Argo, and flew 00:26:57.319 --> 00:26:59.900 to Tehran. They showed these drawings to the 00:26:59.900 --> 00:27:02.299 Iranian officials, and the drawings were so convincing, 00:27:02.380 --> 00:27:04.859 so grand, that the Iranians bought it. They said, 00:27:04.920 --> 00:27:07.339 yes, this looks like a big American movie. So 00:27:07.339 --> 00:27:10.200 Jack Kirby's imagination literally saved lives. 00:27:10.980 --> 00:27:13.380 Indirectly, yes. It's a testament to how convincing 00:27:13.380 --> 00:27:15.759 his worlds were. Even the Iranian Revolutionary 00:27:15.759 --> 00:27:17.319 Guard looked at them and believed a world like 00:27:17.319 --> 00:27:20.299 that could exist. That is incredible. But while 00:27:20.299 --> 00:27:23.119 his art was saving hostages abroad, he was fighting 00:27:23.119 --> 00:27:25.880 a war at home, the battle for his original art. 00:27:26.099 --> 00:27:28.519 This is the dark chapter that galvanized the 00:27:28.519 --> 00:27:32.180 industry. In the 1980s, copyright laws and industry 00:27:32.180 --> 00:27:34.960 standards changed. Publishers started returning 00:27:34.960 --> 00:27:38.059 original art pages to artists. Now, you have 00:27:38.059 --> 00:27:40.480 to understand, these pages were becoming valuable 00:27:40.480 --> 00:27:42.660 on the collector market. We're talking thousands 00:27:42.660 --> 00:27:45.480 of dollars a page. And Marvel had thousands of 00:27:45.480 --> 00:27:48.099 Kirby's pages. Estimates are around 13 ,000 pages, 00:27:48.220 --> 00:27:50.789 and Marvel... dragged its feet. They were holding 00:27:50.789 --> 00:27:53.490 the pages hostage. Defective blackmail. In 1985, 00:27:53.769 --> 00:27:56.589 Marvel finally made an offer. They would return 00:27:56.589 --> 00:28:01.410 88 pages. 88 out of 13 ,000. Less than 1%. And 00:28:01.410 --> 00:28:03.509 there was a catch. He could only have the 88 00:28:03.509 --> 00:28:05.630 pages if he signed a document affirming that 00:28:05.630 --> 00:28:08.150 his work was work for hire and signing away all 00:28:08.150 --> 00:28:10.799 future royalties and copyright claims. That is 00:28:10.799 --> 00:28:13.839 incredibly predatory. Kirby was furious. He refused 00:28:13.839 --> 00:28:15.579 to sign. He went public. He called them thugs. 00:28:15.839 --> 00:28:18.039 And for the first time, the entire comic book 00:28:18.039 --> 00:28:20.700 industry united. Artists from D .C., independent 00:28:20.700 --> 00:28:23.299 creators, fans, everyone rallied around Kirby. 00:28:23.480 --> 00:28:25.720 It was a PR nightmare for Marvel. Give the king 00:28:25.720 --> 00:28:28.339 his art back. Exactly. It took years of pressure, 00:28:28.460 --> 00:28:30.680 but eventually Marvel settled. They returned 00:28:30.680 --> 00:28:34.059 about 2 ,100 pages. Still a fraction of his output, 00:28:34.240 --> 00:28:37.160 but a victory nonetheless. And more importantly, 00:28:37.339 --> 00:28:40.180 it shone a spotlight on creator rights. It set 00:28:40.180 --> 00:28:42.839 the stage for the modern era where creators actually 00:28:42.839 --> 00:28:46.140 own their ideas. Absolutely. In his later years, 00:28:46.339 --> 00:28:48.940 Kirby worked with Pacific Comics on Captain Victory. 00:28:49.380 --> 00:28:51.579 This was an early deal where the creator owned 00:28:51.579 --> 00:28:53.720 the character. He helped break the monopoly of 00:28:53.720 --> 00:28:55.960 the work -for -hire system. He showed that you 00:28:55.960 --> 00:28:57.880 didn't have to be a serf on the factory floor. 00:28:58.079 --> 00:29:00.339 You could own the factory. It's poetic, isn't 00:29:00.339 --> 00:29:02.200 it? The guy who started with a factory mentality 00:29:02.200 --> 00:29:04.799 spent his last years fighting to prove he wasn't 00:29:04.799 --> 00:29:07.960 just a machine. And sadly, he passed away in 00:29:07.960 --> 00:29:12.839 1994. of heart failure. He was 76. He died with 00:29:12.839 --> 00:29:14.640 a pencil in his hand, metaphorically speaking. 00:29:14.920 --> 00:29:17.339 But the legacy, I mean, we started this by talking 00:29:17.339 --> 00:29:19.460 about the movies. The financial impact is in 00:29:19.460 --> 00:29:21.880 the billions. Disney named him a Disney legend 00:29:21.880 --> 00:29:25.119 in 2017. His family eventually settled with Marvel 00:29:25.119 --> 00:29:27.839 and Disney for a substantial sum. And now if 00:29:27.839 --> 00:29:29.440 you watch the movies, you see his name in the 00:29:29.440 --> 00:29:32.240 credits. But beyond the money, it's the sheer 00:29:32.240 --> 00:29:35.490 scope of the imagination. There is that beautiful 00:29:35.490 --> 00:29:38.509 image from a Fantastic Four comic, not drawn 00:29:38.509 --> 00:29:41.309 by Kirby, but by Mike Waringo, that really sums 00:29:41.309 --> 00:29:44.470 it up. Oh, I love that issue. It's a story where 00:29:44.470 --> 00:29:46.269 the Fantastic Four die and go to heaven. They 00:29:46.269 --> 00:29:47.750 make their way to the creator's office. They 00:29:47.750 --> 00:29:50.690 open the door, and God is sitting at a drawing 00:29:50.690 --> 00:29:54.230 board. He turns around. It's Jack Kirby. Pencil 00:29:54.230 --> 00:29:56.910 in hand, cigar in mouth. That gives me chills. 00:29:56.990 --> 00:30:00.029 It's the perfect tribute. It is. He is the creator 00:30:00.029 --> 00:30:03.089 with a capital C for that universe. He built 00:30:03.089 --> 00:30:06.730 it. So as we wrap up this deep dive, what is 00:30:06.730 --> 00:30:08.849 the big takeaway? What should we be thinking 00:30:08.849 --> 00:30:11.630 about when we see the next Marvel movie or pick 00:30:11.630 --> 00:30:14.250 up a graphic novel? I think we should think about 00:30:14.250 --> 00:30:16.230 the difference between cinematic and static. 00:30:16.650 --> 00:30:18.569 Kirby always said he was competing with the camera. 00:30:18.609 --> 00:30:20.470 He tried to make static images move. Now we have 00:30:20.470 --> 00:30:23.529 CGI cameras that can do anything. We've realized 00:30:23.529 --> 00:30:25.829 his vision on screen. But I want to leave you 00:30:25.829 --> 00:30:28.789 with a question. Does a $200 million movie frame 00:30:28.789 --> 00:30:31.269 have the same raw power as a Jack Kirby splash 00:30:31.269 --> 00:30:33.849 page drawn on a kitchen table in Long Island? 00:30:33.990 --> 00:30:36.069 That is a great question. I would argue that 00:30:36.069 --> 00:30:39.430 sometimes the drawing is still more powerful 00:30:39.430 --> 00:30:43.490 because the drawing requires the reader to participate. 00:30:43.809 --> 00:30:46.009 You have to connect the blows. You have to imagine 00:30:46.009 --> 00:30:48.809 the motion. The movie just shows it to you. Kirby 00:30:48.809 --> 00:30:51.289 made you a co -creator in the myth. He invited 00:30:51.289 --> 00:30:53.950 us into the factory to build the dream with him. 00:30:54.009 --> 00:30:56.430 Jack Kirby, the king. Thank you for walking us 00:30:56.430 --> 00:30:58.769 through this incredible life. Always a pleasure. 00:30:58.890 --> 00:31:00.769 Long live the king. And thank you for listening. 00:31:01.029 --> 00:31:02.529 We'll see you on the next deep dive.