Jack "King" Kirby wrapped up his career at Marvel in 1978. He'd returned to the "House of Ideas" after an astonishing but ultimately dissatisfying turn at DC and found a publisher which while no longer dominated day-to-day by Stan "The Man" Lee was still ambivalent about the epic contributions of Kirby. Reports hummed that Kirby suffered some disrespect from staffers who had disdain for Kirby's accomplishments, little recognizing apparently that they owed their jobs to the success of his creations. It was mixed though and the slights might be overstated. Whatever the case, Kirby felt the need to move on and went into animation where he finally found some degree of financial freedom after decades of worry. Here are Kirby's final covers for the publisher, many of which are still quite impressive and as usual with his work quite memorable.
Rip Off
Thanks for this gallery , Rip! There were many covers I had never even seen. A special treat was the Thor cover where the Saturn baddies show up again. (I used to have a 1960s reprint of Journey into Mystery 83.)
ReplyDeleteI bought all of these at the time and even at that I was surprised at the little gems I'd forgotten about.
DeleteRip Off