Greetings, Prisoners of Gravity. This is
Commander Rick cutting in with a comics
quiz. Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster are
famous for co-creating Superman. Bob Kane
is known for Batman. But who created or
co-created Captain America, the Avengers
the Fantastic Four, the Mighty Thor
Kamandi, the Demon the Forever People
Nick Fury, the New Gods, Mister Miracle and dozens of others. One man.
Jack Kirby. He's
the guy to blame if your kids or
yourself seem to have an unnatural
longing to turn on the TV set on a
Saturday morning and join the company of
some superheroes.
I am completely fascinated at the way that comics have
become the starting point for these huge
tentpole movies. There is an enormous
amount of really interesting source
material. You know that people tend to
forget... they'll talk about Stan Lee for
example, you know. Stan Lee was the
corporate face and Stan Lee wrote some
great dialogue, but so much of what is
magic came from Kirby. What do your
characters represent? Well, the characters
represent a sort of a transcendent
feeling that we we all have inside us
that we could do better, we want to do
better. We can be the people that we
lionize.
He was the most imaginative, inventive
guy I've ever met. I mean his
imagination was incredible, the things he
thought of. I would have been proud to
have said Jack and I did the Fantastic
Four and let it go with that but my gosh –
at the same time we were doing Thor and
we were doing the X-Men and we were
doing Nick Fury Agent of Shield.
Jack was equally good at every one of
them, every one of them.
My heroes didn't
merely walk, they ran. They had long
strides. They represented
the power of the individual. I've always
worshiped the individual. I see that
story first. I feel that story first. I
know those people first. When I put them
down, they've already lived.
The idea that comic book films could exist, could be
taken seriously, could be *good* was
heretical thirty-something years ago. Most
people will go, well, "nobody in comics
ever predicted this."
Jack Kirby knew that
this was going to happen.
He knew that at the point where your CGI special effects
VFX world could actually bring what was
on the page into the world, the
characters that he created were going to
become huge.
I sort of shot this in a very
similar way to how I shoot my other
films, but this particular scene and with
everything else we really
concentrate a lot on these sort of
Jack Kirby lines.
He was a huge influence on the design of the film.
[Kirby] 
I think the trend will continue and you'll
see good ones made and bad ones made.
The superhero has and always will be part of the American scene.
You know Jack changed
the world and I'm really relieved to see
Jack getting the credit now on the
movies and the credit for what he did
and being brought back into the fold.
Jack Kirby was an industry icon who
redefined comics not only with this
eye-popping artwork but with his bold
point of view of what comics could be
and it's really impossible to convey his
impact on the industry because his work
is still inspiring and influencing
artists today.
[Kirby]
If you look at my
characters you'll find me. No matter what
kind of character you create,
a lot of yourself must remain there
