Reviewing Jack Kirby's work on the Black Panther and New Gods! Kirby Crackle!

In this episode, Andy and Mike for once talk almost exclusively about the actual book they decided on. Marvel's Black Panther by Jack Kirby is discussed and opinions were had. Did Andy come around? Did Mike point out how silly the story was? Find out this and more!

Transcript

Transcript

00:00:00 Speaker 1

Not meant for regular consumption, you know, it's just like they're just burning through them. And I'm thinking like, man, at one point, the wonder of having a computer and all that, you know, like, let's put a dust cover over it and let's, you know, it's like you almost had to sing it lullabies. You know, you really were. Everything was so protected about a laptop, and now it's just like.

00:00:22 Speaker 1

The you know the soundboard went bad, so I threw the whole thing out.

00:00:26 Speaker 2

You got all your stuff on the cloud, right?

00:00:30 Speaker 1

Yeah, it's like.

00:00:31 Speaker 1

What's the computer don't need it. It's just floating out there in the ether.

00:00:34 Speaker 2

Right. Well, I, you know, I spent $2000 on my first.

00:00:39 Speaker 2

Laptop you know.

00:00:40 Speaker 3

Ohh yeah, ridiculous.

00:00:40 Speaker 2

And it was. And it was, you know, not even as powerful as my Apple Watch. You know, it's.

00:00:48 Speaker 1

Yeah, there is an amazing amount of, like, technological advances. Now obviously, you know, we see our technological advances from our, you know, lifespan. It's really been just computers.

00:01:02 Speaker 1

But you think about people who?

00:01:03 Speaker 1

Was like I don't remember when the airplanes, you know, came into existence or whatever. It's like, you know, and the change. Yeah, the, the horseless carriage took over and.

00:01:14 Speaker 4

Remember when they lit up lamps with the guy going around lighter and.

00:01:20 Speaker 1

Yes. Yeah. You just kind of, you can't help but think of like now it's just like, well, I got rid of my.

00:01:28 Speaker 1

Old camera phone. You know this is smartphone because the the camera on it wasn't enough megapixels and it didn't have the night time filter.

00:01:37 Speaker 2

It's only 100 megapixels and now I want a 450 megapixel.

00:01:44 Speaker 1

It's like that's, that's where advances kick in now. That's basically it. We're all kind of around this thing. I was joking with a colleague at work about how you know.

00:01:57 Speaker 1

We have regular trips.

00:01:59 Speaker 1

That, you know, everybody would wind up taking to Hong Kong to tick factories or the Hong Kong toy fair or whatever.

00:02:08 Speaker 1

And at that time, with this particular guy, your flight would leave from LA to get over there. It was a 15 hour flight. Well, this dude was prestigious in his smoking. I mean, it was like world record smoking him or the the guy. He looked like a tobacco leaf.

00:02:28 Speaker 1

He just smoked all the time. He was talking about. Like, yeah, it was murder on those flights because it's like no smoking, 15 straight hours, no escape. You couldn't, like, just. I'll just sneak out to the back and right, smoking the bag. It's like, no, you're sucking in air.

00:02:43 Speaker 1

Thing and you talk about like all the things you'd.

00:02:45 Speaker 1

Have to do to prep himself for it and.

00:02:48 Speaker 1

And it's like going Dang. That would be terrible to be so addicted to something and.

00:02:52 Speaker 5

Then I got to thinking.

00:02:54 Speaker 1

If I put my phone down and walked away from it for 15 hours.

00:02:59 Speaker 5

Can I do that?

00:03:01 Speaker 1

Could I would I get withdrawals? Would I be?

00:03:03 Speaker 1

Like Dang, I need to get that hit off of whether or not I got a text, or did I get my my? Did anybody recognize my post on a Facebook or whatever and it's like.

00:03:14 Speaker 1

Ohh my gosh it it would be a world cage here just to see is like, you know, kind of joke about this person's addiction. It's like, yeah, we're all pretty well addicted now at this point to our.

00:03:25 Speaker 2

Let me get the checklist out. Yep. Curmudgeon in old men talking technology.

00:03:25

Our devices.

00:03:29 Speaker 2

Yep, got it. Check.

00:03:31 Speaker 5

Check check in check. Yep, exactly well.

00:03:35 Speaker 1

You know, we stand her. We're actually sitting in rocking chairs on the front porch.

00:03:39 Speaker 4

Back in my day.

00:03:41 Speaker 4

We used to get.

00:03:42 Speaker 4

Up to turn the channels on our TV.

00:03:44 Speaker 5

That's why you had kids, right? Change the channels they.

00:03:48 Speaker 1

Would turn the.

00:03:48 Speaker 5

Are you?

00:03:49 Speaker 4

Get the get that aluminum.

00:03:51 Speaker 4

Foil on the antenna and then move it around.

00:03:54 Speaker 3

Give it just.

00:03:55 Speaker 3

Just hold it there.

00:03:55 Speaker 6

Ohh that that's good.

00:03:56 Speaker 1

That's good. Just stand right there.

00:03:58 Speaker 5

Don't move, Lawrence.

00:04:00 Speaker 4

Welk is on don't, don't, don't talk.

00:04:02 Speaker 1

Yep, I gotta watch my stories.

00:04:05 Speaker 4

My Nando's on.

00:04:07 Speaker 1

Hopefully Hoss has.

00:04:09 Speaker 1

Got himself in it out of that.

00:04:10 Speaker 2

Pickle, right?

00:04:12 Speaker 4

Yeah, yeah, we're good old days. Uh.

00:04:15 Speaker 1

When things are easier.

00:04:18 Speaker 2

You're listening through and This is why I love comics.

00:04:43

This is why I love comics.

00:04:49 Speaker 2

And welcome to another episode of and This is why I Love Comics. I'm Andy.

00:04:53 Speaker 3

Then I might.

00:04:54 Speaker 2

And we are curmudgeon and old men talking comic books. We have some opinions, but sometimes we share them quite often and you know, welcome to the podcast if this is your first time. Hi, we. This is kind of how we do it. It's the third season.

00:05:16 Speaker 2

We pick a comic and we have an full intention of talking about said comic or series or.

00:05:23 Speaker 2

Artist or whatever. And then if we don't actually get around to it, that's just us being old and crunching. It seems to be the word.

00:05:32 Speaker 2

Of the day. And so this is what we do. This is, I think, episode 52, welcome. If you'd like to hear more. There's plenty of other episodes to hear.

00:05:44 Speaker 2

But thanks for choosing ours to listen to. Hopefully we will make you smile at least once during this episode. And yes.

00:05:52 Speaker 1

All your money back.

00:05:53 Speaker 2

Thank you for the Patreon members. We are going to add more soon.

00:06:01 Speaker 2

Temptation. Every temptation.

00:06:02 Speaker 1

Ohh yeah, always keeping that fully freshly stocked.

00:06:06 Speaker 2

I am in the midst of editing the last episode. It's a good episode. It'll be good, yeah.

00:06:13 Speaker 1

Yeah, that was. I mean, it was good, but the.

00:06:15 Speaker 1

Subject Matter was not necessarily the good.

00:06:18 Speaker 2

Yeah, you're talking about this episode.

00:06:29 Speaker 1

Yeah, yeah. So let's how do we wanna?

00:06:33 Speaker 1

I guess we have.

00:06:34 Speaker 1

To at least make the attempt to announce.

00:06:36 Speaker 1

What it is?

00:06:38 Speaker 2

Is it Richard Starks Parker, the complete collection by Darwin Cook? If it's, I got this baby in the mail today.

00:06:43 Speaker 1

Oh man, I'll be up.

00:06:47 Speaker 2

Just came out and I had ordered it enough to where I got it the.

00:06:53 Speaker 2

And it is massive. It was more expensive than I wanted, but it's worth every cent. I I haven't read it yet. I paged through it and it looks beautiful. I can't wait to read this like this is suddenly on top of everything we.

00:07:11 Speaker 2

Are reading. It's beautiful.

00:07:15 Speaker 2

I'm ready to talk about it and I haven't read.

00:07:17 Speaker 2

It yet yeah, I've read all of those.

00:07:19 Speaker 1

I've found them.

00:07:20 Speaker 1

You guys, when they came out of the Darren Cook and yeah, I would be more than happy to discuss. I had gone through the novels that Richard Stark Donald Westlake was an actual writer. He just used the pseudonym of Richard Stark, which is a brilliant.

00:07:36 Speaker 2

Is that really Stephen King or is?

00:07:36 Speaker 1

But yeah, I was Richard Bachman and Stephen King. But yeah, because Donald W, like, wrote a lot of the similar, like the crime noir stuff. But he also wrote it with more humor, kind of like this. I think this guy's name was.

00:07:52 Speaker 1

Like a dormand or dorm muncher. Or.

00:07:55 Speaker 1

Something like that or.

00:07:55 Speaker 2

I think it's Dormammu is how they.

00:07:57 Speaker 1

Yeah, was like this bumbling thief. Always wound up kind of down on his luck. Kind of a thing. It was good. But it was like that was West Lakes. Kind of like making fun with that genre. And then when he wanted to do true, gritty pulp era feeling.

00:08:16 Speaker 1

That's when he pulled.

00:08:18 Speaker 1

That Parker character and then created the character of Richard Stark as the author.

00:08:23 Speaker 1

For them and just fantastic. The downside though is that the first wave that he had written was brilliant as far as the novels go, but like with everything, the guy kind of decided to come back to writing.

00:08:41 Speaker 1

More Parker stories.

00:08:43 Speaker 1

But he put them in current day.

00:08:45 Speaker 1

And the character just didn't quite work. And obviously again going back to being very opinionated, I just didn't think it worked as.

00:08:53 Speaker 1

Well, I mean, it was all about.

00:08:55 Speaker 3

Bank heists.

00:08:56 Speaker 1

And it was like in current day, like banks really don't carry the money like they used to. There wasn't, like, payrolls that you could rob someone, you know, getting here's payday and.

00:09:05 Speaker 1

They would give out.

00:09:07 Speaker 1

You know, trucks.

00:09:08 Speaker 1

Yeah. Yeah, it's like that. Those days are gone. You know, it's kind of tough to kind of see how that would type of story would carry on.

00:09:16 Speaker 1

But I think.

00:09:16 Speaker 1

It was, what, four books he did.

00:09:19 Speaker 2

Uh, let's see. This one is the complete collection, so it must have all of them, right?

00:09:25

One would.

00:09:25 Speaker 2

Hope paging through it, paging through it. It probably doesn't have. Oh, it's so beautiful.

00:09:34 Speaker 3

The table of.

00:09:36 Speaker 2

Contents the hunter. The man with the getaway face the outfit. The 7th.

00:09:44 Speaker 2

The score and sleigh ground.

00:09:46 Speaker 1

Ohh so I guess it was more than I thought.

00:09:49 Speaker 1

I don't remember the 7th, or if that was like a short.

00:09:51 Speaker 1

Story or something?

00:09:52 Speaker 1

But even all, all fantastic, all absolutely exceptionally well done. And his art style captures that character exceptionally well.

00:10:01 Speaker 5

I was just.

00:10:01 Speaker 1

Going to say the only thing is that.

00:10:03 Speaker 1

They did attempt to.

00:10:04 Speaker 1

Put together a several movie adaptations of the character.

00:10:09 Speaker 1

And none of them worked.

00:10:11 Speaker 1

One had, I think it was.

00:10:14 Speaker 1

Oh crap, I just blanked on the old man's name.

00:10:17 Speaker 1

It's like 1.

00:10:18 Speaker 1

Of those classic actors from like The Dirty Dozen.

00:10:22 Speaker 2

Pierce Brosnan.

00:10:27 Speaker 2

Daniel Craig.

00:10:29 Speaker 1

But he he played Parker and he was probably the one that looked and probably carried the character the best. But even Mel Gibson in the movie.

00:10:37 Speaker 1

Payback tried to be Parker, but again modernized him and took him out of the era that he fits best in.

00:10:45 Speaker 1

Yeah. So there's, there's. And then I think James Coburn even tried, but you know the best was you know they never really were able to. Ohh the worst was Jason Statham and he tried it was just called Parker and it was a disaster.

00:11:02 Speaker 5

In my opinion, I.

00:11:03 Speaker 1

Mean it was just like it was just another.

00:11:05 Speaker 1

Jason Statham, you know Cookie cutter movie.

00:11:07 Speaker 2

Amazon does have to figure out how to send large books.

00:11:13 Speaker 2

So they stay flat.

00:11:14 Speaker 2

Cause I got it and it's got like a bulge, you know, around have other books.

00:11:20 Speaker 2

That have been laying on it trying to flatten it out. Come on, Amazon. You've been around a while and you started doing books. So you know you should have this down.

00:11:28 Speaker 2

Pat Yep.

00:11:32 Speaker 1

That's where you started. That's where you should still haven't mastered at this point, right?

00:11:36 Speaker 2

Right. We'll do whatever we're doing tonight and then the three heroes.

00:11:44 Speaker 2

Next and then Parker, how's that? So that'll be Marvel, DC independent. That's.

00:11:47 Speaker 1

Yep, I'm all for it, man.

00:11:51 Speaker 2

Like we're we have a schedule and we're actually keeping it.

00:11:56 Speaker 3

Sticking to it, that's our.

00:11:59 Speaker 2

Yeah, it's mid-october and we aren't really doing anything with the Halloween theme this year, but you know we've done a couple in.

00:12:06 Speaker 2

The past we'll just skip.

00:12:08 Speaker 2

It well, I plan on talking a lot more about the Legion stuff than I do tonight's book. This is a book I picked and was really looking forward to.

00:12:17 Speaker 5

Yeah, yeah, I thought you did.

00:12:21 Speaker 2

Talking about it back in in year one of the podcast, I was really looking forward to talking about it. It kept getting.

00:12:29 Speaker 2

Push back and push back and now I feel like we've already talked about it, but we haven't, you know, it's been so long since since I read it again. OK, let me start with this. Let me just start out knowing that our audience is old.

00:12:48 Speaker 2

Men who like comic books, OK?

00:12:50 Speaker 1

Yep, no, your audience. Yeah, proper demographic.

00:12:52 Speaker 2

I know.

00:12:54 Speaker 2

Not trying to offend any of you when I say I know Jack Kirby.

00:13:02 Speaker 2

The king and I know he is looked upon as royalty of the comic book world and renowned, and I don't disagree with any of that. When I say I was just like with this story.

00:13:22 Speaker 2

And I haven't even said the name of it yet. I'm I'm hoping you'll say it.

00:13:26 Speaker 5

Yeah, it's like jinx it.

00:13:28 Speaker 3

You know, somebody's gonna have to pull.

00:13:30 Speaker 1

The trigger.

00:13:30 Speaker 2

I get it. I get why people love it. I just.

00:13:34 Speaker 2

I don't know. It was a little dull, boring. Weird. I don't know. I it's hard to my. I know we're supposed to be opinionated, but my opinion is so.

00:13:46 Speaker 2

Not where I thought it was going to be about this story, and I really wanted to like it and I think I did. I mean, I mean, let's be honest, I think I liked the art a lot, and I thought the story was.

00:14:03 Speaker 2

Compared to what I was hoping for.

00:14:06 Speaker 1

It I don't. I think I started indicating it in the last episode, but yeah, well, it's Jack Kirby's run on the 1st.

00:14:15 Speaker 1

Solely his own. I think at that point because he was like jungle adventure prior to that, that he appeared in and then obviously prior to that was, you know, Fantastic Four.

00:14:23 Speaker 1

But this is he finally got.

00:14:25 Speaker 1

His own title under his own name and.

00:14:27 Speaker 1

It's the Black Panther from 1977.

00:14:33 Speaker 2

Marvel Comics? Yeah, so?

00:14:36 Speaker 2

I don't know.

00:14:37 Speaker 2

If you've ever heard of the black.

00:14:38 Speaker 2

Panther before Mike.

00:14:40 Speaker 3

Yeah, yeah, I've.

00:14:42 Speaker 1

Heard rumors of somebody mentioned it at one point, but I don't know if they've ever done anything with this character since.

00:14:49 Speaker 2

No. Yeah, I don't know. There's. I think they tried to pull.

00:14:52 Speaker 2

Off a movie or two.

00:14:53 Speaker 2

On it a few years ago and some, like the really cool actor, died. And then they for some reason didn't think to recast him. And I I disagree with that one too. But let's not talk about that.

00:15:13 Speaker 2

Yeah, I sound.

00:15:14 Speaker 2

Bitter tonight. I think I'm going to go full on Italian bitterness.

00:15:20 Speaker 3

That's a spicy meatball.

00:15:21 Speaker 2

That's right to me, Bob.

00:15:24 Speaker 1

Yeah, this is this is a very, very odd one having I will. I'm gonna throw my two cents in here and it kind of goes into the Raiders of the Lost Ark on many levels.

00:15:39 Speaker 1

This was not the storyline I thought, so we read issues one through 6.

00:15:45 Speaker 1

And we kind of stopped at six and as an arbitrary, it's usually, you know, like, hey, that's a good sampling, we get a good sense of the how the story is progressing and where it's heading and so forth. But unfortunately, issue six winds up ending part with you the next story arc.

00:16:02 Speaker 2

I didn't even notice.

00:16:04 Speaker 1

Two issues into it is and it isn't. You know, the first one is like the first four issues covers King Solomon.

00:16:13 Speaker 2

'S frog right?

00:16:15 Speaker 1

You know again, like there's lost Ark .1. It's a thing of mythic power and.

00:16:22 Speaker 1

And but this predates Raiders lost start by quite a bit.

00:16:27 Speaker 1

1977.

00:16:27 Speaker 2

King Solomon's frog he doesn't get. Doesn't he give power to Shazam?

00:16:32 Speaker 1

Yeah, yeah, Kiwis gives them courage, and King Salman's frog gives them an appetite for flies.

00:16:41 Speaker 3

Yeah, yeah, and if you.

00:16:43 Speaker 1

Lick the underside.

00:16:44 Speaker 5

Of it.

00:16:46 Speaker 1

You get other kinds of powers. The King Solomon's frog. In this case winds up being a time machine, which is really wacky, dude. Not I was not anticipating that at all.

00:17:00 Speaker 1

And we're introduced to not only Black Panther, but he. I mean, we just start out running. He is saying, you know, hand in hand or side by side with a character called Mr. Little.

00:17:16 Speaker 1

I've never heard of that character. I don't know if that character exists in any continuity beyond this run that Kirby created. I don't know if Kirby was into this whole thing, but you know, using little people as kind of punching bag.

00:17:31 Speaker 1

Eggs. But if you go back to his run he had done on Sandman, he had boot and glob. Glob, I believe was similar. There was just a lot of, you know, like this kind of somewhat an annoying character and the other going back to the Raiders lost Ark.

00:17:51 Speaker 1

Concept of not only is there an archaeological find.

00:17:55 Speaker 1

But there's in no way, shape or form. It does. The main character need.

00:18:00 Speaker 1

To be there.

00:18:01 Speaker 1

Events carry on with or without them, so and the you know the the joke with the Indiana.

00:18:07 Speaker 1

Jones is like.

00:18:08 Speaker 1

Everything he did actually ultimately came undone.

00:18:12 Speaker 1

Saves Marion gets married, captured, tries to stop the arc being opened, tries to send it off to another place. Everything gets undone that he's done. And so it's like at that point the joke is.

00:18:24 Speaker 1

Yeah, you know, whatever was going to happen was going to happen with or without Indiana Jones. Same thing.

00:18:30 Speaker 2

Right.

00:18:32 Speaker 5

Here you could have put any any.

00:18:36 Speaker 1

Hero in this role?

00:18:39 Speaker 1

It there was nothing in here that really spoke to being Black Panther. What? Why was this a Black Panther? So I I felt as if this was a story he had in mind for DC Comics.

00:18:52 Speaker 1

I don't know what character it may have been. It could have been the same man. It could have been Mr. Miracle. Yeah, I could see that. Probably more than anything. Cause about all the escapes he had to do.

00:19:03 Speaker 3

So it was probably.

00:19:03 Speaker 1

An unused story arc from Mr. Miracle. And then it's like, well, I'm off from DC and then he's like, well, what cars are not being used.

00:19:15 Speaker 1

You know, he came back.

00:19:16 Speaker 2

Mr. Little is not being used.

00:19:20 Speaker 3

Yeah, yeah, that should be.

00:19:23 Speaker 1

I'm surprised they haven't found a way like that. Seems like somebody that like Grant Morrison would find and go like, oh, I could do something with this.

00:19:31 Speaker 1

Character and make him.

00:19:31 Speaker 2

Ohh absolutely. I bet you there's a. There's a miniseries in the works, Sir. Has been.

00:19:36 Speaker 1

Bringing back Mr. Little. Yeah. And then I don't.

00:19:43 Speaker 1

I feel as if the collector, one of like those celestial type that celestial, the cosmic entity called the Collector, had already been introduced in Captain Marvel's Mr. Little was part of the collectors. Is that making any sense?

00:20:03 Speaker 1

So, Mr. Little, you know, for those who have not read this story and want to avoid reading this, Mr. little winds up being part of a larger group of eccentric multi millionaire people who go around collecting things.

00:20:20 Speaker 1

And obscure antiquities really, really random fictional gadgets or whatever, from obscure, you know, cultures and so forth. But.

00:20:35 Speaker 1

Black Panther why he got involved?

00:20:38 Speaker 1

There's zero reason. I mean, like I said, issue one starts off with them running.

00:20:43 Speaker 1

And there's no introduction of, like, why Mr. Little partnered with Black Panther or vice versa.

00:20:50 Speaker 1

There's no reason for Black Panther to be in it at all. I there's he never even shows up at Wakanda. There's, I mean it is.

00:20:59 Speaker 1

Absolutely. A Black Panther book without Black Panther. I mean, there's.

00:21:05 Speaker 2

Any protagonist could have been.

00:21:09 Speaker 2

Put in its place. This was written and drawn by Jack Kirby and edited by him, inked and lettered, by Mike Royer, colored by Petra Goldberg. Archie Goodwin was the consulting editor on my copy.

00:21:24 Speaker 2

Yeah, it reads even like the the intro comic book fans are pussycats compared to the insatiable collectors who roam this world like predators in search of priceless and forbidden artifacts. When the Black Panther becomes involved with the band of human sharks, he finds himself a horrified witness not only to death and destruction.

00:21:44 Speaker 2

To the ruthless tampering of objects that could well endanger the whole civilized world like a one man time machine, like the 6 billion year man, which sounds great. You know, I don't want to belittle this. It's weird and wonky. It could have been like a what if?

00:22:03 Speaker 2

Easily, and it was it was cosmic, more cosmic than I thought it would be. And I think that's maybe what threw me off because there's aliens and like you said, time travel and just not anything I was picturing that a Black Panther.

00:22:22 Speaker 2

Comic would contain in its first couple issues like I thought it would be more grounded and then it would branch out to whatever they want to do, but this like jumped right into.

00:22:34 Speaker 2

Weird, I don't know. Like really strange aliens and.

00:22:40 Speaker 1

Yeah, man from the 6th era of humanity, the 6th era of man.

00:22:44 Speaker 2

Right, yeah.

00:22:47 Speaker 2

Fed into, like. Yeah, like new gods kind of thing. And it's just you could tell he was he was just came from a cosmic background.

00:22:59 Speaker 2

Where anything it was, it did not read.

00:22:59 Speaker 1

You're trying to sneak her off there.

00:23:04 Speaker 2

Like current day, Black Panther comic would read, it was in a way it would. That made it refreshing because I didn't know what to expect and the art just kind of pops out the way Jack Kirby draws and the colorist helped immensely.

00:23:25 Speaker 2

But in a way, I was disappointed that it it didn't.

00:23:31 Speaker 2

Showcase anything that I expected it to showcase, which again sometimes is good, enthralled by the the the story that that did take place. I didn't know where it was going and I'm not sure I know where it's going after having read it.

00:23:48 Speaker 3

It was it. It was.

00:23:49 Speaker 1

I can't imagine anybody trying to come in and.

00:23:52 Speaker 1

Pick up this title after he left it.

00:23:56 Speaker 1

And it didn't seem like it it did after it was the total run of this series was 15 issues, right? So from there.

00:24:06 Speaker 1

It was like, yeah.

00:24:07 Speaker 1

He just didn't.

00:24:08 Speaker 1

After that it's like OK, it lasted another three. Done. Yeah. And it's like, yeah.

00:24:15 Speaker 2

Digitally, right? You did too. And.

00:24:20 Speaker 2

You know, I I got these all digitally, legally on Comixology and but when Chadwick Boseman died, cosmetology gave away all their Black Panther books for that month or whatever like that. And like a Dutch person from Michigan, I went in and got.

00:24:41 Speaker 2

Every single issue I could.

00:24:43 Speaker 2

Of all the free comics, you know the word free triggered, you know, instinct. And I went in and got pretty much every single thing that comics theology has, and I haven't read them all yet because it was. It was probably 100 issues.

00:25:03 Speaker 2

But I made sure to get this series. Looking back on it, I liked it more than I admit, but it, like you said and I think it captures it perfectly, it could have been any main character you throw in.

00:25:19 Speaker 2

Anybody. Batman. You know, you and it would have made as much sense like it had no ties.

00:25:26 Speaker 2

To the character other than you know, eventually a little but not still. You could you could throw in Captain America. You could throw in anything and it would have made as much sense as having Black Panther in it.

00:25:41 Speaker 1

It wasn't good to see him drawing Black Panther. It wasn't. It wasn't good to see that character in action.

00:25:46 Speaker 1

And so forth, but it's just.

00:25:49 Speaker 1

It didn't have his voice. It didn't have his connections. It didn't show his intellect as well as it could. I mean, there was a a lot.

00:25:58 Speaker 1

That was missing, yeah.

00:26:01 Speaker 1

I will say there is something.

00:26:03 Speaker 1

Having read these digitally.

00:26:05 Speaker 1

You know there is something about the news print talk about old crib Hudgens.

00:26:11 Speaker 1

You know the colors are a little bit more.

00:26:14 Speaker 1

You know desat or not desaturated, but they're.

00:26:18 Speaker 1

They're soaked into the paper a little bit more, so they're not so bombastic. They're not so in your face digitally. I mean, these are like, like, somebody just melted a bunch of Skittles and put them on a page. And it's like, holy crap, that's a lot of color. You know, it wasn't as strong when it was.

00:26:38 Speaker 1

News print because they understood that news print would have soaked up a lot of the ink, so those colors wouldn't have.

00:26:44 Speaker 1

Been as vibrant.

00:26:46 Speaker 1

And but then when they convert things to digital, you're looking right into direct light and it's like.

00:26:54 Speaker 1

Whoa, that is.

00:26:55 Speaker 1

Super bright colors and so that kind of threw me off a little bit as well in reading this is like, you know, I was fully anticipating it to be weird.

00:27:06 Speaker 1

A lot of the Kirby stuff was even his return to. I can't remember how this falls into the chronology of his return to Marvel in the 70s.

00:27:15 Speaker 1

But you know his return to Captain America was it was weird as well. And it's like, that's Captain American Falcon. And it was like the mad bomb and some of these other, you know, more out there stories. But this one was way, way out there.

00:27:35 Speaker 1

And it was just kind of like, I don't know if they just were like, we're we don't want to lose our the.

00:27:41 Speaker 1

Rights to this character.

00:27:43 Speaker 1

If we drop, you know, it's like we gotta have something with this character in it otherwise.

00:27:48 Speaker 1

You know, goes into, you know, somebody else can claim the name don't know, like how it, how he chose Black Panther to do his tail. And this is what he came up with.

00:27:59 Speaker 1

And it's like.

00:28:01 Speaker 1

But you know, there could be, you know, we do complain also just as much. And that's not more violently.

00:28:08 Speaker 1

And it's like, oh, this is just another story using the same as, like they're doing another Superman movie, and it's with Lex Luthor. Ohh, they're doing another Batman movie, and it's with the Joker. Come on. Something original. And now here they're doing something original. We're.

00:28:23 Speaker 5

Complaining about it too.

00:28:25 Speaker 2

You know that is in our, you know, bylaws.

00:28:30 Speaker 2

That we must complain about everything, good or bad.

00:28:34 Speaker 1

Feel like the obligation is there so the Princess Zanda gets introduced again. Another character that I do not believe I haven't looked in the Marvel database, you know, to see if these characters have done anything else after this.

00:28:49 Speaker 1

Or the whole?

00:28:50 Speaker 1

Group of collectors, some of them. There's a the British.

00:28:54 Speaker 1

Like Guy who's got like.

00:28:56 Speaker 1

No eyelids. It is interesting character design.

00:29:03 Speaker 1

And that guy that the full group of the collectors appear in issue I believe five or four then the four when they introduce they're looking for basically the water, skin of eternity or something like that.

00:29:21 Speaker 2

The foreskin of eternity? Yeah, it just goes.

00:29:29 Speaker 3

Wow, it was some ridiculous. I have to pull off.

00:29:37 Speaker 1

The the issues again.

00:29:39 Speaker 1

You know, again another fictional type contrivance as to whether he's going after, you know, like hundreds of years old Samurai still walking around showing that there is truly aspect. Yeah, it was the sacred water. Skin was a fountain of youth and these samurais.

00:29:58 Speaker 1

And lived for centuries because they continued to be moisturized with this water. They'll take it as nourishment and kept them alive.

00:30:07 Speaker 1

And so Black Panther and the other crew are off on another adventure, you know.

00:30:12 Speaker 2

It will make your skin look younger too.

00:30:15 Speaker 1

Yeah, Maybelline and the oil of Olay have nothing on the water skin that, Oh my gosh, it's just a ridiculous concept. But that's worse issue five starts.

00:30:31 Speaker 1

You know, with them making the trip, trying to find.

00:30:36 Speaker 1

They battle it out with a Yeti and samurai.

00:30:41 Speaker 1

But yeah, the quest for the sacred water.

00:30:43 Speaker 1

Skin. Yeah.

00:30:45 Speaker 2

And I mean later on, you know like issue 8 or 9, they do like introduce to Chili's family and a little more what kind of stuff.

00:30:55 Speaker 2

So I mean, eventually they get there. It's just so wacky the first six issues and and beyond, but it's it's just.

00:31:07 Speaker 2

You know this. I like. I love the idea of this golden frog that can time travel and stuff like that. Like, that's. But that's also like, hey, I just smoked a joint. And this is what came up in my head like.

00:31:21 Speaker 5

Would be cool.

00:31:22 Speaker 5

Hey, guys. Hey, guys. You know what? Hey, guys. You know. Hey, guys, you know what? Be cool. Yeah, OK.

00:31:28 Speaker 2

That's what gritos, you know would.

00:31:30 Speaker 4

Be cool.

00:31:32 Speaker 5

After we hit.

00:31:32 Speaker 5

Taco Bell. I know it's like 2 in the.

00:31:34 Speaker 1

Morning. But after we hit Taco.

00:31:36 Speaker 1

Well, I got a great idea to tell you I'd story on it and it it's carried over. So not only does he have to get King Solomon's frog, but it turns out there's not one but two frogs.

00:31:47 Speaker 1

One frog pulls from the future into the present and the other one pushes things from, you know, the present to the future. So when the man from the 6th era of humanity appears at 22 with amazing brain powers that could destroy.

00:32:08 Speaker 1

You know planet sized aliens, you get sucker punched.

00:32:13 Speaker 3

That's just like.

00:32:14 Speaker 1

His soft spot is this exposed brain.

00:32:17 Speaker 5

Yeah, no kidding.

00:32:18 Speaker 2

I found.

00:32:19

Them too.

00:32:23 Speaker 5

You know, it's just like, yeah, I think that's a pretty obvious target.

00:32:27 Speaker 2

Right.

00:32:27 Speaker 1

Biggest threat is him waking up because every time he's about to wake up, they knock him out again by some means. And that's like the the main threat and they do wind up, they find the twin frog after they.

00:32:42 Speaker 1

Kind of go back to King Solomon's mind.

00:32:44 Speaker 1

Things found his treasure trove and found the other.

00:32:51 Speaker 1

Frog in order to send them in the from the future back to the future.

00:32:57 Speaker 1

And save, you know everything.

00:33:01 Speaker 1

But then they didn't move right on.

00:33:03 Speaker 1

To the next story and it's like.

00:33:06 Speaker 3

Well, that was it.

00:33:06 Speaker 1

For that here, Kirby introduced the whole concept of what the world of the future was going to be like it's in Marvel's.

00:33:14 Speaker 1

Fruity. Yeah, that's a timeline. I mean, they bring other characters. Isn't Bishop technically from a future? Isn't cable from the future? And then Rachel Summers, a lot of mutants apparently come from the.

00:33:23 Speaker 2

Every other.

00:33:28 Speaker 1

Future, but it's.

00:33:29 Speaker 1

Like, let's let's bring this.

00:33:31 Speaker 1

Character back and then it's like.

00:33:34 Speaker 1

And you know, a deep, deep dive and it's like, holy crap, somebody.

00:33:39 Speaker 1

Had 22.

00:33:40 Speaker 5

You know back.

00:33:42 Speaker 1

And it's like ohh man, decimating the entire Marvel Universe. This is such an odd, odd story, but at the same point, you know you think about Jack Kirby's return to Marvel and what he was able to produce obviously is returned to Captain America was a great run.

00:33:58 Speaker 1

Very long run, very odd stories, and throughout that as well. But he brings back.

00:34:06 Speaker 1

Them machine man that he introduced in the 2001 comic book, he brings out Devil Dinosaur and it's like, well, that's a an interesting moon boy and Devil dinosaur.

00:34:20 Speaker 1

And then the Eternals, which is again another new gods, but for the Marvel Universe.

00:34:27 Speaker 1

And which is interesting because the new gods really didn't fit in the DC Universe, and they kind of you'd hoard them in and now you can't separate them.

00:34:38 Speaker 2

Very similar to what we talked about with Shazam, how the shoehorned you know other.

00:34:44 Speaker 2

Their other creations into their universe. I don't think new Gods or Shazam should have been.

00:34:52 Speaker 2

There it should. You know, it should be their own thing. Create their own with those you know you want to cross over. Then they go through dimensional warps or whatever. But it doesn't belong in the standard universe, it's.

00:35:07 Speaker 2

It's kind of what you have said about the X-Men. They belong in their own universe. I'm not sure I agree with that, but.

00:35:14 Speaker 2

But you know, in a way I see it and certainly the Eternals and the new gods.

00:35:14 Speaker 5

Well, yeah.

00:35:22 Speaker 2

And the Shazam family. They almost require their own own time, their own space to let them breathe and be unique on their own.

00:35:32 Speaker 1

Yeah, I mean, the stories can be stronger impact when there's less convoluted, going back again to the Incredibles, when everybody's special, nobody's special when.

00:35:43 Speaker 1

You have all these different people again going back to the X-Men, it's like mutants go home. We hate the mutants. So we do. You know, they're costume freaks and then yet when they.

00:35:53 Speaker 1

See, you know Thor, who was?

00:35:56 Speaker 1

Born with these powers like the X-Men were.

00:35:58 Speaker 1

Born with their.

00:35:59 Speaker 1

Powers. It's like, yeah, Thor, your costume guy.

00:36:03 Speaker 1

That's great.

00:36:04 Speaker 1

It's like how, as an average citizen, are you going to go like Thor is great, but that Wolverine? I don't like him. He's a mutant. It's like, how would you know? You know, it's like it's such a ridiculous concept, you know? And they, they've just been milking it for decades and doing successfully at that. But it's just tough to kind of.

00:36:25 Speaker 1

Have that concept. When you really boil it down to like this wouldn't really work at all. Either they would hate all costume vigilantes or they would embrace all of them, but they wouldn't be.

00:36:36 Speaker 1

Able to go. Ohh. Wait, wait.

00:36:39 Speaker 1

You gotta tell me you're ordering first.

00:36:42 Speaker 1

Ohh you were born OK you're ohh.

00:36:44 Speaker 1

I hate you then.

00:36:45 Speaker 4

Bitten by a spider. OK, that's all right.

00:36:47 Speaker 1

Ohh radioactive blast. All fine. You destroyed whole cities by yourself. Here you find the Hulk. It's not that bad. He's he's just not meant to be mean.

00:36:56 Speaker 2

This umm.

00:36:57 Speaker 1

But ohh he but he.

00:36:59 Speaker 1

Came about because of a.

00:36:59 Speaker 1

Nuclear. You know, gamma radiation.

00:37:02 Speaker 1

But you know Colossus.

00:37:04 Speaker 1

You know this guy? Tweets.

00:37:05 Speaker 1

Green and big and muscly. You turn into metal. Hate you. It's like doesn't make any sense.

00:37:13 Speaker 2

Right now, admittedly growing up as a youngster in the comics, I didn't really Jack Kirby was not on my radar.

00:37:24 Speaker 2

He was a little after my collection started.

00:37:27 Speaker 2

And I was much more into 80s comics and Jack Kirby was nowhere to be found, really.

00:37:34 Speaker 1

Moved into animation at that point.

00:37:35 Speaker 2

Right. And so until I probably hit my 40s, I didn't really know much about Jack Kirby, didn't really care to.

00:37:48 Speaker 4

Know much about Jack?

00:37:51 Speaker 2

Didn't know his historical importance or what he created, or you know who he helped create. And even now you know other people to me. I'm. I'm going to lose listeners here. We're more important to me.

00:38:11 Speaker 2

Or comics and stuff now, not the origin of comics. Sure, he was very influential, but in my lifetime he certainly doesn't play the role he does for a lot of other.

00:38:22 Speaker 2

People and I don't mean that as a cut or whatever. I just don't. I didn't grow up and I don't know enough about it, haven't gone back other than you know, I know he fought in the war and and everything he's created since then and him bouncing back and forth like I know all that but he never was prominent in my mind.

00:38:43 Speaker 2

In my own aspects of comics, was did.

00:38:48 Speaker 2

He ever what did?

00:38:48 Speaker 2

He show up on your radar, Mike.

00:38:51 Speaker 1

Yeah. So you're basically saying he's kind of like Henry Ford to the modern car?

00:38:56 Speaker 1

Yeah, just.

00:38:57 Speaker 2

Yeah, he's like a Dukakis.

00:39:00 Speaker 1

Yeah, was there to help. Got things going, got things instrumental. But, you know, things are so different now than when they got the the, you know, the invention and the.

00:39:16 Speaker 1

Mass production kicked in, so yeah.

00:39:19 Speaker 1

I see that a lot I as a.

00:39:21 Speaker 1

Kid was aware of.

00:39:24 Speaker 1

Kirby. But I despised Kirby as a kid.

00:39:28 Speaker 1

And it had to do with.

00:39:29 Speaker 1

Like I don't understand the square. What's that?

00:39:29 Speaker 2

Well, that's terrible. I'll forget it.

00:39:32 Speaker 2

Ohh forget it then you know you despised him? I I gave, right? I I just gained back the listeners.

00:39:38 Speaker 3

Yeah, they have now siding.

00:39:40 Speaker 3

With you this is like.

00:39:41 Speaker 1

A Dateline episode where they.

00:39:42 Speaker 5

Keep ping ponging.

00:39:43 Speaker 6

You he's guilty. He's.

00:39:45 Speaker 1

Not guilty. He's guilty. Ohh, he's.

00:39:46 Speaker 3

Very guilty. They just.

00:39:48 Speaker 1

And then, like you know, you've been watching this thing for 40 minutes, the same thing.

00:39:51 Speaker 1

Here it's like I I I just didn't like his anatomy, you know, I mean, I grew up with, like Gil Kane, idolizing Gil Kane, who just was a masterwork in anatomy and you know his characters were, you know, long, lean were kirbys were always blocky.

00:40:11 Speaker 1

And out of proportion and like and like Gil Kane had those distinctive fingers very, you know, ball this, you know, just anatomically correct things look.

00:40:23 Speaker 1

Right, but Kirby did those square chicklets his fingers and I just couldn't get around it.

00:40:33 Speaker 1

Because that was all I could see, you know, and then a lot of the other Marvel Comics had the Marvel Comics.

00:40:42 Speaker 1

Like how to draw Marvel Comics had John B Sima, who kind of.

00:40:47 Speaker 1

This is how the Marvel look is and if you wanted to work for Marvel, you gotta look like this and Kirby didn't.

00:40:55 Speaker 1

Fall into that in line with it didn't fall in.

00:41:00 Speaker 1

You know, didn't step in line with everybody else and that's what threw it off for me. And I would look at it. It's like, who is this Kirby guy? This is terrible.

00:41:12 Speaker 1

Obviously you know, then things kicked in later where it's like. Ohh wait, this guy. I mean, the experimental stuff he had done where he was like putting actual like photos.

00:41:24 Speaker 1

And into his artwork to help add this cosmic feel. His creativeness, his invention and all that. But again, like you said later in life you come back to a a stronger appreciation and a stronger understanding and it just it took a long time.

00:41:46 Speaker 1

Kind of bringing it around and like I said, I own is run on Captain America. I got, you know, his 2001 run.

00:41:58 Speaker 1

I'm looking to get the Devil dinosaur, so there's going back through and picking it up now, but at the time I was like, oh, this is garbage cause it just wasn't in keeping with what I knew. And obviously, you know, his run on, I did get his like his commanding that he was doing.

00:42:17 Speaker 5

And some.

00:42:18 Speaker 1

We'll also say one.

00:42:19 Speaker 1

Other thing, and this has nothing to do.

00:42:23 Speaker 1

With Herbies creations or anything but an association was built, we all got massively sick. One. I don't know what triggered it or what happened, but I just remember reading Sandman's number one.

00:42:44 Speaker 1

Well, violently ill and just the smell that news print in the comic the.

00:42:52 Speaker 1

Diarrhea. Yeah, it was. It was all just too much to take in because he was doing, like, really, their grotesque looking characters.

00:43:05 Speaker 1

And you know, even like, you know, the kid was getting abused, you know, the the, you know, the same I was trying to rescue and the kid had this yell yo as his weapon and.

00:43:15 Speaker 1

It was just.

00:43:16 Speaker 1

The artwork, everything and it's.

00:43:18 Speaker 1

Just I always associate being ill and having ill feelings.

00:43:24 Speaker 1

With the Sandman comic and then that also deterred me from having any interest in Jack Kirby. I cannot look at Sandman #1 without almost feeling I'm going to throw.

00:43:35 Speaker 3

Up to this day, I still can't.

00:43:39 Speaker 2

Yeah. And really, I mean.

00:43:42 Speaker 2

In February of 2018, DC came out with 100th year 100 year anniversary for Jack Kirby.

00:43:49 Speaker 2

And had a bunch of people create stories based on, you know, his characters that he created and stuff. And I happened to pick that up, but I haven't read it yet. And I think if I dive into more Jack Kirby, I will learn to love even this Black Panther stuff. I think I will learn to love it more and appreciate it.

00:44:10 Speaker 2

More, but I had, I admit to the listeners here and to you that my Jack Kirby Ness is very limited at the.

00:44:20 Speaker 2

I know other creators Aw, whole lot more than him. And again, I'm not trying to deemphasize his his place in the in the comic book hierarchy. And I know, I know he's important. I know all he did and.

00:44:33 Speaker 1

You have the pantheon.

00:44:40 Speaker 2

I appreciate what I do know. I it's just, you know, I've I've been blindsided by, yeah.

00:44:48 Speaker 2

Obvious early opinions. When I was a youngster and and all that stuff I just. I just don't know enough about it and I hope you know an episode like 100 or something. We can revisit Kirby or sooner, you know.

00:45:05 Speaker 2

I'm not saying we.

00:45:06 Speaker 2

Have to go another 50 before we do it, but.

00:45:09 Speaker 2

You know that you I will learn to.

00:45:13 Speaker 2

Have turned this around and appreciate him a lot more because I.

00:45:16 Speaker 2

Know I should.

00:45:19 Speaker 2

I just, I just not there yet.

00:45:21 Speaker 5

Yeah, it it.

00:45:22 Speaker 1

It's it's an acquired you kind of have to be in the right headspace. Gotta be in the right mindset cause like reading Omak.

00:45:31 Speaker 1

Is a far different experience than reading. You know it's 2001.

00:45:37 Speaker 2

And when you say stuff like that, like you say Ohh Mac, you say command and stuff and I have collections of all that like I've I I have that stuff and I have new gods and I've always loved the new gods except for, well, I mean, even Catholic. Honestly, I liked some of it.

00:45:43 Speaker 5

Ohh yeah.

00:45:57 Speaker 2

And so all his create Captain America, you know, one of my favorite characters, all his things that he's had a hand in. I've loved. So apparently it's just a gap in my old man brain.

00:46:11 Speaker 2

That I have.

00:46:13 Speaker 2

Rekindle this appreciation and connect it to Jack Kirby Moore. Because I'm already I love his creations already and I've loved stories that he's written and and his art has always fascinated me.

00:46:30 Speaker 2

You know, I just, I got to combine it all into this to appreciate it the way some people, you know, worship this, this, this guy, I just haven't spent that fuel, that energy to figure out what everybody else has already figured out and what I should have by now at age 52.

00:46:50 Speaker 2

But just disconnected because of my love for other characters or.

00:46:56 Speaker 2

Other other artists, Keith Giffin you know George Perez. You know Gil Kane, like you said, you know, just all these other character and creators that I've I've loved more just got in the way I think.

00:47:12 Speaker 1

Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of them out there.

00:47:14 Speaker 1

And without a doubt.

00:47:16 Speaker 1

You know the influence curvy hat on everything in the comics is, you know, without a question, but it's just not everything's going to be a winner, his Eternals.

00:47:28 Speaker 1

It's a great mythos, but it could not exist in the Marvel Universe. You know his new gods, they were able to get it to fit, but it's couldn't. It was just kind of like he wanted to tell the story, and he's gonna do it.

00:47:42 Speaker 5

He was.

00:47:43 Speaker 5

With, you know.

00:47:44 Speaker 1

Whoever was going to be willing to publish it.

00:47:47 Speaker 1

But you know, they're beholden to put it in whatever universe that publishing it, you know, it would be great if he had created the Eternals.

00:47:56 Speaker 1

For let's say like Image Comics where there is no crossover.

00:48:00 Speaker 1

Or or, you know, then it would be a lot more the freedom that comes with not being tied to a shared universe. The Eternals would have fit perfectly in that setting. You know, they came up with their own history as a result. But you know.

00:48:20 Speaker 1

Kirby's creations he brought in like the Celestials in there. I believe that came.

00:48:25 Speaker 1

About due to the Eternals.

00:48:28 Speaker 1

And these other, you know pivotal concept.

00:48:33 Speaker 1

That the Marvel Universe has continued to, you know, build upon. So for every Mr. Little and Princess Zanda that he put in there, there's the Hulk, Iron Man, Captain America, everybody else. You know, the X-Men that he created to basically.

00:48:53 Speaker 1

Offset any ill or ill conceived concept is far outweighed by his beneficial editions of the comics industry as a whole.

00:49:05 Speaker 2

Did you see the Eternals movie?

00:49:08 Speaker 1

No, I've I've. That's right up there with Captain Marvel. Won't see it.

00:49:13 Speaker 2

I did much much later after it, when it when it came on Disney plus, I eventually saw it and.

00:49:22 Speaker 2

While I didn't hate it, it was uneventful. And you know, if it, if it didn't exist, you wouldn't have missed anything in the in the MCU, you know it was just there. You know, I think they portrayed the characters, OK, they the actors were fine.

00:49:41 Speaker 2

And and this, even the story was OK, I just. It was uneventful. It was unnecessary. It didn't add anything.

00:49:52 Speaker 2

To the storyline that we all wanted to see, you know, with Thor and and the Infinity Gauntlet and you know, it added nothing of that celestial stuff was cool. You know, I always imagine that's how they're going to do Galactus, you know. And that was that's, you know, close enough.

00:50:11 Speaker 2

You know, he's not a.

00:50:11 Speaker 2

Storm of Bugs or whatever.

00:50:14 Speaker 3

Yeah, that was disastrous.

00:50:15 Speaker 2

So you know in.

00:50:16 Speaker 2

That aspect, they did a good job of it. But yeah, otherwise the Eternals, you could you could blink and miss it and you'd be fine. Having never seen a second of the advertisement or anything like that. I was just curious how if that was your favorite movie or not.

00:50:34 Speaker 1

There was. It just didn't look like there was any connection.

00:50:38 Speaker 1

And it's like they lost the concept of what made The Avengers work was that they built up these characters and there was no hint of these characters in any movie prior. And then to have them just show up all at once.

00:50:55 Speaker 2

Right. Yeah. It would have been great if you know, one of the characters who you didn't even, you know, say you didn't have to say they're an eternal, but, you know, just a powered character that eventually, you know, this is my background in origin. Yeah, that would have been great to tie it in a little bit more, but.

00:51:13 Speaker 2

You know, let's introduce this concept that no one ever knew about in the other previous movies, and all these characters who are immortal, who have been around forever, they weren't just created and, you know, they didn't do anything to stop Thanos because they didn't feel like it, you know.

00:51:31 Speaker 1

Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of like, whoops, how do we explain we'll just throw away line.

00:51:37 Speaker 3

You know, how about this? OK.

00:51:39 Speaker 1

That'll work. You know, the first X-Men Movie.

00:51:42 Speaker 1

Was kind of. If you're going to do a group, that's the way to do it, it's told through the eyes of one person and you start introducing the other characters in. I don't know if that's how they did it.

00:51:53 Speaker 1

This one but at.

00:51:55 Speaker 1

Least give you a sense of. OK, I'm going to.

00:51:57 Speaker 1

Follow I think in that the X-Men Movie was like Rogue. You saw her making a run for it then?

00:52:02 Speaker 1

He meets up with Wolverine, then Wolverine.

00:52:05 Speaker 1

Meets with.

00:52:05 Speaker 1

Other ones and then? Yeah, so they wound up being goes all way back to Tolkien's introduction to the dwarves. You know, it's like, here's a couple at a time. Not all 13 at once. Just here's two more. It's 3.

00:52:18 Speaker 1

More you know, it just makes it.

00:52:21 Speaker 1

More palatable but.

00:52:23 Speaker 2

For buffer bombard are C bailin Keely Keely Neely.

00:52:31 Speaker 2

And George?

00:52:33 Speaker 1

Totally. So it's it's tough to, you know, go back through what Kirby did in the 70s and discount any of it because every bit was complete radical departure from.

00:52:52 Speaker 1

Everything else he is putting out there, the Eternals. Nothing like devil Dinosaur, which was nothing like his Captain America, which is nothing like his Black Panther, which was nothing like his 2001 space oddity. Nothing like, you know, you could just see it, you know.

00:53:05 Speaker 1

He just kept kicking.

00:53:06 Speaker 1

Stuff out and it was.

00:53:07 Speaker 1

Such a random departure, my son.

00:53:12 Speaker 1

And I were talking about how the far side, you know, just showed you the brilliance of Gary Larson, because each comic.

00:53:21 Speaker 5

He didn't build off.

00:53:22 Speaker 1

The joke from the previous one, or he had a set of returning characters that you became family.

00:53:28 Speaker 1

With everyone was a complete standalone entity and the next, so you might be talking about, you know, some anthropomorphized, you know, Wolf talking to a sheep. The next one it's, you know, looking at amoebas under a microscope, the next one.

00:53:49 Speaker 1

It's Santa Claus and the next, you know, so it's just he's all over the place and this is very much.

00:53:55 Speaker 1

In that same vein of just the.

00:53:57 Speaker 1

How much creativity Kirby had?

00:54:01 Speaker 1

And it was just unparalleled. His his just.

00:54:05 Speaker 1

Brand new fresh concepts.

00:54:08 Speaker 1

Were they all winners? No. Going back to what you mentioned earlier about the DC celebrates Kirby.

00:54:17 Speaker 1

You know his man Hunter wasn't a good single issue that they had done his at.

00:54:24 Speaker 1

Wasn't really that good single issue he had done.

00:54:27 Speaker 1

In that.

00:54:28 Speaker 1

What was it called like?

00:54:29 Speaker 1

Fabulous first or something like that.

00:54:33 Speaker 1

This commandee, which is again very different than almac and even his fourth world stuff where it was like forever people not quite the same at all as as is Mr. Miracle or his new gods. Just an amazing creative talent, probably too creative in this case and.

00:54:52 Speaker 2

It's been four years time like.

00:54:52 Speaker 5

I think you know.

00:54:54

He would.

00:54:55 Speaker 1

I don't know if there.

00:54:56 Speaker 1

Would ever be a time for this particular.

00:54:58 Speaker 1

Story, but yeah.

00:54:59 Speaker 2

Yeah, certainly artistically way beyond what they were. Everybody else is doing, that's for sure. Whether it worked or not. You know, young me, like you, it wasn't really crazy about his artwork because it was so.

00:55:17 Speaker 2

Bizarre, but now I appreciate every line and you know curvy crackle and all that, you know.

00:55:25 Speaker 1

Mixed media.

00:55:25 Speaker 2

That's pretty something you said earlier, triggered a dream I had the other night, so I I had a dream where Pixar?

00:55:35 Speaker 2

Here's back to our Pixar talk, where they created a Calvin and Hobbes animated movie and it was terrific because it was early Pixar, you know.

00:55:44 Speaker 2

Like you know.

00:55:46 Speaker 1

The John Lassiter years.

00:55:48 Speaker 2

Last three years, Kelvin and Hobbs, true to form. Bill Watterson. You know just perfectly done. And you know, although I'm not sure where I'm going with this now, I just wanted to mention that Pixar, early, Pixar.

00:56:08 Speaker 2

Could do an amazing job with Calvin and Hobbs.

00:56:12 Speaker 2

Now I don't trust them, but you know, early on there'd be no agenda. Just simple. Anyway, back to Kirby. You know that that'll be for the Patreon. You know what did Andy dream about?

00:56:24 Speaker 1

Yeah, you want to know more?

00:56:25 Speaker 1

About Amy's dreams.

00:56:26 Speaker 2

So there was so interesting.

00:56:31

But it's not.

00:56:32 Speaker 1

Worth the price of admission?

00:56:34 Speaker 2

Yeah, right. What? Here's the pitch. It's a riff.

00:56:41 Speaker 1

Casey's up.

00:56:42 Speaker 6

At bat, right?

00:56:42 Speaker 2

It can't be all winners, but.

00:56:45 Speaker 2

Just just know that an alternative dimension.

00:56:47 Speaker 3

It's a living.

00:56:49 Speaker 2

It's. Yeah, it's a living.

00:56:53 Speaker 5

That's the.

00:56:55 Speaker 3

That's the.

00:56:55 Speaker 2

So Jack Kirby, what the heck?

00:57:00 Speaker 5

Yeah, yeah, I.

00:57:02 Speaker 1

Just not in the least what I expected and four issues of it.

00:57:09 Speaker 1

It just never seemed to.

00:57:11 Speaker 1

Like, oh, I'm. I'm still.

00:57:13 Speaker 1

Always felt like I was.

00:57:14 Speaker 1

Like 4 ideas behind in reading.

00:57:18 Speaker 1

This is like where is he going? What are we doing? Where?

00:57:21 Speaker 1

How did we get here?

00:57:22 Speaker 1

Here you know, it's like he's a villain, making things difficult for them then turns out to be an ally, and then it's just very odd, very weird storyline.

00:57:33 Speaker 1

And a huge departure from what I was thinking, you know, getting into getting into the serious thinking. Ohh, this is gonna be great. It's Black Panther and Kirby, the guy who helped create the character. Returning to a character he created. This is going to be fantastic and it's a little weird already on the cover, it shows him groping.

00:57:53 Speaker 1

For a this frog and you're.

00:57:57 Speaker 1

Well, OK, there's a frog on the cover that what is that? Don't know. But we'll find out. And then it's like.

00:58:05 Speaker 1

It just got weirder and weirder. Every issue just got, you know, I mean, fighting some sort of robot that's been trapped there since King Solomon's time.

00:58:15 Speaker 1

Inside of this treasure tune, just waiting. And it's like Indiana Jones, at least had.

00:58:22 Speaker 1

Somewhat believable booby traps, but a robot.

00:58:26 Speaker 1

Yeah, it was. It was a bizarre, bizarre run.

00:58:29 Speaker 2

Certainly had an imagination and it showed with every panel and I always I ever since I read this story, I wondered had they brought back the frog at all or, you know, has the storyline ever made a return? And I haven't read all the Black Panther.

00:58:48 Speaker 2

Issues that I've downloaded but.

00:58:51 Speaker 2

You know, was this ever brought up again? You know, all this weirdness or did the story turn to what I've what I imagined it did was more like?

00:59:03 Speaker 2

You know, a cultural, you know, kind of what the movies have portrayed Wakanda as, you know, cultural pinnacle of of society and advanced tech and.

00:59:17 Speaker 2

You know the the cause the the plight of black people, you know, throughout the rest of the world and how Wakanda is, is superior and has, you know, broken all those you know and and all that, you know, that's.

00:59:33 Speaker 1

Max potential we've.

00:59:37 Speaker 2

Kind of what I expected. I'm not sure if I expected that from Kirby, but that's kind of what I was prepared to read, something a little more St. level, a little more grounded with some with some high tech stuff of course, but.

00:59:52 Speaker 2

Not what I got when I read it with time traveling frogs and Mr. little and you know. Ohh, it's OK. He's armored. He prepared, he prepared himself. And he's the little guys. OK, you know, like. Yeah, it's unique, that's for sure.

01:00:07 Speaker 1

Just bizarre.

01:00:12 Speaker 1

Yeah, there was a article of publisher, but they were like 2 Morrows had interviewed Alex Toe.

01:00:20 Speaker 1

And years after he had more or less retired from doing that, all the connections he had in the, you know, comics and so forth, doing it on the regular.

01:00:33 Speaker 1

He, you know, was at a convention of some sort and he and crossed paths with Jack Kirby and it was kind of one of those things of were apparently, he said more or less like.

01:00:45 Speaker 1

They kind of looked at each other, nodded, and realized they got nothing in common. These Titans in the comic book industry and this like he Toth, was like I was trying to minimalize everything. Each line was reduced to its most basic form, its basic intent.

01:01:05 Speaker 1

And there's few lines to represent as much as.

01:01:10 Speaker 1

Whereas Kirby had taken his career and went the exact opposite, where it was like 1,000,000 lines for every you know like I want to feel the background with lines and circles and shapes and shadows and lights and there's like it's like, yeah.

01:01:14 Speaker 2

Flicking lines.

01:01:30 Speaker 1

Nothing in common, and it was just it was interesting and it's like you might be in the industry same industry doing the same thing for the same amount of time.

01:01:39 Speaker 1

Having the same, you know, influences and so forth, but having two completely different trajectories as far as like where you're taking the medium, where you're trying to push.

01:01:52 Speaker 2

Both influenced a lot of artists, I'm sure even you know, just talking about Keith Giffin, you know, even his later art style was very curvy. Ish was very.

01:02:04 Speaker 2

He, you know, he kind of morphed into thicker lines and action and curvy crackle and like he chat. Yeah, just darkness and shadows and certainly influenced later on in his art by Jack Kirby. And I'm sure there's 1000 artists that would say the same.

01:02:24 Speaker 2

So or Kirby, you know just how much they influenced the.

01:02:28 Speaker 3

Did you ever.

01:02:29 Speaker 1

Read a comic.

01:02:33 Speaker 1

Called Jersey gods.

01:02:36 Speaker 2

That sounds familiar. I don't think I've.

01:02:38 Speaker 2

Read it though.

01:02:40 Speaker 1

The reason why I'm bringing it up is that there was something about like the art was similar or akin to Kirby art, and then cable. I don't know if it's the same artist that was.

01:02:54 Speaker 1

I mean the cable stuff as well, but.

01:02:59 Speaker 2

Post life held right.

01:03:00 Speaker 1

Yeah, yeah, very much so. Later on in the original like volume one of cable, this other artist came in and had a very similar art style. And I feel like it's the same guy.

01:03:15 Speaker 1

Heavy, heavy into Kirby aesthetics. You know the curvy.

01:03:19 Speaker 1

Dots the squiggles.

01:03:20 Speaker 1

Up and down the legs anatomy kind of arbitrary. You know, you get a sense, but it's not.

01:03:28 Speaker 5

The look of things, but.

01:03:29 Speaker 1

Yeah, there's the.

01:03:30 Speaker 1

Gods did it and then I feel like it's the same dude that did the curvy sorry cable. Obviously Eric Larson has a lot of Kirby influence in his art. Yeah. So like you said, the influence is clearly there and it will always be there.

01:03:47 Speaker 1

And the storytelling, the explosions, the dynamics, you know, you look at a Kurt Swan page and then you put that.

01:03:55 Speaker 1

Next to the Jack Kirby page.

01:03:57 Speaker 1

Night and day difference. You know, Curt Swans kind of got more of a bland softness. Kirby, every page is exploding.

01:04:07 Speaker 2

Right, yeah.

01:04:09 Speaker 1

A friend of mine from college worked on a video game and for the It's called Freedom for.

01:04:18 Speaker 1

I don't know if you remember that at all.

01:04:20 Speaker 2

I played that thing to death.

01:04:24 Speaker 2

That was amazing.

01:04:26 Speaker 1

Yeah. Still my friend Rob Waters, he was the illustrator on Freedom Force and had a very.

01:04:27 Speaker 2

OK.

01:04:28

OK.

01:04:33 Speaker 2

Now we are going.

01:04:35 Speaker 1

Very strong Kirby influence on that as well.

01:04:41 Speaker 2

Yes, that was even freedom Force two. I played for a little bit and I wish they would make it so I could play it.

01:04:48 Speaker 2

And but it's the computers have surpassed that stuff.

01:04:53 Speaker 2

Yeah, overall recommendation you.

01:04:56 Speaker 2

I came coming into this podcast. I wouldn't have recommended it, but after talking to you, Mike about it and looking again at the wonderful art and story.

01:05:07 Speaker 2

I would recommend it to anybody who is over the age of 40.

01:05:13 Speaker 1

Yeah. Yeah, it definitely is that you need we take experience it, but you also kind of have to, you know, just know it's not what you think it's going to be, it's.

01:05:28 Speaker 1

You know Kirby.

01:05:30 Speaker 1

Just deciding to go as creative as he could and being as different as he could.

01:05:36 Speaker 1

And I think there's a part of it where.

01:05:38 Speaker 1

It's like he decided to carve out a section of the Marvel Universe that.

01:05:44 Speaker 1

He could only play in and that's what he did for Black Panther and these this particular run.

01:05:51 Speaker 2

Yep. So if you have an opinion on Jack Kirby and his work, especially on his Black Panther, let us know. Tell us where Andy is wrong and that is fine with me. I would love to hear from you.

01:06:07 Speaker 2

Our web pages at and the so I love comicspodcast.buzzsprout.com. We are on the e-mail it and This is why I love comics at Gmail.

01:06:15 Speaker 2

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01:06:26 Speaker 2

Support the show. We have a buzzsprout.com support button or you can become a Patreon member and get the exclusive behind the scenes conversations about interns and children calling people names and.

01:06:45 Speaker 2

We talked about the last Starfighter and let's see what else do we talk about? Lots. And we're adding to that all the time. I've got a bunch more to add as well and eventually we'll be on YouTube and have a bunch more Patreon stuff, but we're taking our time because.

01:07:04 Speaker 2

Andy doesn't have, I don't know why I'm suddenly talking to myself in the third person, but Andy doesn't like the YouTube at all. You know? Andy doesn't like the schedule, but.

01:07:18 Speaker 1

You know what happens when, Andy?

01:07:20 Speaker 1

Doesn't like a thing.

01:07:23 Speaker 2

But eventually we'll get all that exclusive content out. Thanks for everybody who supported us so far, and we hope that if you're a new listener, you'll go back and listen to some more and let us know what you like about it.

01:07:38 Speaker 2

We'd love to hear from more listeners. Uh, thanks to friends of the show, producer Tony co-host Matt 2.0, Kevin Jamie and Matt 10.0.

01:07:51 Speaker 2

And of course, thanks to Thunder chicken for all the music they let us use, they have a great spot on Spotify, which is a link in the show notes. Go check them out for and This is why I love comics.

01:08:06 Speaker 2

I'm Andy and I.

01:08:07 Speaker 2

Might, and we'll turn on the Thunder chicken.

01:08:12 Speaker 1

Because they turn us on salty sounds of Thunder kick in.

01:08:13

Right.

01:08:23 Speaker 6

Little boy, go back where you came from or we'll have to put you.

01:08:27 Speaker 6

Back where you.

01:08:28 Speaker 6

Came from little boy. Go back.

01:08:30 Speaker 6

Where you came from?

01:08:31 Speaker 6

Or happy put you back, little boy.

01:08:35 Speaker 6

Go back where you came from or I.

01:08:37 Speaker 6

Have to put you back where you came.

01:08:39 Speaker 6

From little boy, go back where you came.

01:08:41 Speaker 6

From all have.

01:08:43 Speaker 6

Chew bag, little boy, pull back from Ohi. Had to put you back where you came from, little boy. Go back.

01:09:30 Speaker 2

Uh, what am I going to do now?

01:09:33 Speaker 2

This question.

01:09:40 Speaker 2

Here's the last question. What character marries Luke Cage?

01:09:47 Speaker 2

Misty knight.

01:09:48 Speaker 2

Colleen wing.

01:09:50 Speaker 2

Natasha Romanov.

01:09:52 Speaker 2

Or Jessica Jones.

01:09:57 Speaker 5

You got the last question right.