The Jack Kirby Omnibus Vol. 1 [Hardcover]

Let me say up front that I had some involvement with this book. I provided one cover restoration and a handful of scans of covers. But I think this book is so important that I decided to provide a small review.

Much of this book has never been reprinted before, or at least in this country. There are a few pieces that Simon and Kirby did for Real Fact Comics upon their return from military service. Regrettably "Pirate Or Patriot?" was not included in this archive. This is surprising since the cover and another story from the same issue were reprinted. The largest part of the book is devoted to work that Jack Kirby did during his second period of working for DC from 1957 to 1959. Among this are reprints from titles like House of Secrets, House of Mystery and My Greatest Adventure. I usually refer to them as horror genre but of course this was done during the Comic Code period so perhaps mystery, fantasy or in some cases science fiction would be better descriptions. The only superhero genre included are some Green Arrow stories and there is also a single western story.

During his first period of working for DC with Joe Simon, Kirby had a lot freedom in plotting and rewriting scripts. Unfortunately during his return to DC that was not the case. Still Jack did manage at times to have some creative input into the writing most notably in the Green Arrow stories which were unlike any other superhero stories published by DC at that time.

Artistically the work Kirby did reprinted in this archive was just fantastic but that can be said about the art from any part of his long career. What really sets the work in this archive apart is the inking. Fans often argue about who was the best inker of Kirby's pencils. Personally I feel they almost always get it wrong. There was no better inker of Kirby art than Jack Kirby himself. Kirby was a master of the brush and of course he knew better than anyone what he was trying to achieve in his pencils. During his partnership with Joe Simon Kirby would often ink his own work but usually in collaboration with other inkers. In later years Jack's work was generally limited to pencils with the inking assigned to others. But during the late 50's Kirby did a lot of his own inking either alone or with some help from his wife Rosalind. The inking of the higher profile Challengers of the Unknown art was normally done by other artists but the horror and Green Arrow art was largely inked by Kirby himself so this volume has a lot of Kirby inking Kirby. Kirby inked it in a style that is just beautiful.

Of course many fans do not need to be convinced of Jack Kirby's talent. For them what is important is how well done is the reprint. There is a lot of disagreement on how restoration should be handled on material from older comic books. Reprinting from scans of the original comics is fraught with difficulties with results that are almost guaranteed not to please everyone. I am happy to say that is not an issue that needs to be addressed here. Most of the line art in this volume was taken from the original film. You just cannot get better than that and it shows. The work had to be recolored but that was all done in a manner faithful to the original comics. It is hard to believe anyone will be dissatisfied with the results. The only negative comment that can be made about this volume is the size of the book which requires that the art be reduced somewhat in size. Of course had the original size been maintained the volume's cost would have had to been higher.

To sum up; interesting stories, great Kirby art, Kirby inking Kirby, reproduced from the original film. As far as I am concerned this is a must have book.

This volume collects (apart from the Challengers of the Unknown) Jack Kirby's complete output for DC Comics in the 1950s. You also get three stories from `Real Fact Comics' from the 1940s that haven't made it into previous collections. Although this volume includes Jack's Green Arrow stories from the period (Adventure Comics and Worlds Finest), they only take up 68 pages out of 292. The other stories are from various mystery and adventure titles from House of Secrets, House of Mystery, Tales of the Unexpected, My Greatest Adventure, plus one western story from All Star Western. These are stories in the style you may be familiar with from Marvel's Atlas-Era Masterworks, and are every bit as interesting. I'm sure I've seen `The Stone Sentinels from Giant Island' reappear in one of their volumes... And `The Negative Man' from My Greatest Adventure looks familiar (but not 'that' Negative Man...). There is an as-always interesting Introduction from Mark Evanier, revealing a few skeletons in DC's closets (but not too many - see his Kirby: King of Comics for more). This is an excellent collection for Kirby fans, and fans of 1950's comics.

A very interesting and enjoyable collection of all of Kirby's late 50's DC work excluding the Challengers of the Unknown. A handful of Kirby oddities & filler pages from the 40's as well as a Mark Evanier intro round out the package. The 40's pages, really nothing special here but the rest is pure gold. Interesting mix of hero ( Green Arrow) & Horror(?)/Sci-Fi Tales from a pivotal time of Comic book evolution. In a day where often it takes 6 issues for a story to be told it's great to venture back to an era where 6-8 pages did the trick. The Arrow Mobile, Arrowplane as well as many trick arrows elevated this character to almost super powered status. Such a fun read compared to the character today that is almost a Batman knock-off, a trend in fact I don't partcularly get. All in all you don't have to be a Kirby fan to get this collection. If you like hero based comics & lets call them Sci-Fi Tales from the late 50's I think you will be more then pleased with what's presented here. Books like this really take you back, my highest recommendation!

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