Before Kirby Unleashed The Fourth World!

Those implacable faces above bespeak hearty warriors, hardened by battle who have little truck with more peaceful men. The untold story of these warriors has rumbled in my imagination for over five decades. As Jack "King" Kirby was preparing to make his way from Marvel to DC he and his assistants Steve Sherman and Mark Evanier cobbled together a little project to hopefully make a little scratch at conventions which were popping up here and there in the comic book community. 

Kirby Unleashed fired my young imagination I saw the ads in various DC comics. I had migrated from Marvel to DC with Kirby and here was a special book with a dynamite cover which I desperately wanted. But not enough to put together four bucks to order it. I rarely ordered things back in those days, partly due to lack of funds and partly a lack of confidence in the system. I have a hard time with delayed gratification and "six to eight weeks" seems a terribly long time to wait, at least it did when I was a youth. 

In years since I have overcome that problem (to a fault often) and somewhere in my journeys found a vintage copy of the totally awesome Kirby portfolio. It was not what I expected. 

While there was plenty of art featuring Kirby's newest and more famous creations, there was also quite a bit of material from his earliest days as a comic artist. The transformation of Kirby's style from his beginnings in the Golden Age to the height of the Silver are tremendous and are documented to some limited extent in this portfolio.

These stunning stylish images of Sigurd, Honir, Heimdall, and Balduur are apparent attempts by Jack Kirby to redesign the heroes of Asgard. Inked by his go-to man Don Heck, these were part of an art portfolio produced at about the same time that Kirby left Marvel for DC. The sleeve features an image of Galactus with is helmet redesigned to obscure his copyrighted origins at the "House of Ideas".  Again the goal was to have a product for the teeming fans who wanted to see the great man himself. 

I have also added to my Kirby collection the Twomorrows Kirby Unleashed portfolio which combines the two items above in a modern stylish effort to showcase vintage high-quality material. It's a true pleasure to have and to hold. 

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