DC Hardcover Collected Editions Part 3

[coreycwheat]

I going to go full on blasphemy ... but Kirby - despite his incredible ideas - couldn’t write worth a ****. His stories are a bore to make it through.

Yeah, he has great ideas, he just needs someone like Stan Lee to liven them up.

[madave]

I think that for much of Kirby's best Marvel comics, Lee had a minimal role and its debateable whether he did anything substantive. I think Kirby has to be treated as of its time, and he struggled in the 70s to find his place (I struggled with his Cap return and his Black Panther run), and his plotting and dialogue is outdated compared to his contemporaries. Lee gets way too much credit for doing little, Kirby was just a man out of time in the 70s.

This will be the third DC Omnibus I have picked up (Planetary and New Teen Titans), there's not much DC that really grabs me, but seeing Kirby let rip is what's attracted me. Most of the DC characters I find more interesting seem to have debuted in the stories in this Omnibus. It may be a slog, but it will be worth it.

[Johnny Thunders!]

I am currently reading DC's The Jack Kirby Omnibus Volume 2 from a few years back and it has his Super Powers Comics collected. Darkseid, Desaad, and new New Gods all show up. I wonder if those issues will be in the collection? I recommend picking up that old book just to see what Kirby's Justice League looks like in action. The characters dialogue is all broad strokes but it is surprisingly an easy read. I think Kirby's best writing is probably in the New Gods title, but Mr. Miracle has some great issues as well. The Pact is well written, I think he does better when the dialogue is meant to be big and at the level of the story he's telling. Superman in Supertown also is really good. His dialogue seems more suited for black and white movies from the olden days. Well, with heavy doses of mescaline.

[coreycwheat]

I think that for much of Kirby's best Marvel comics, Lee had a minimal role and its debateable whether he did anything substantive. I think Kirby has to be treated as of its time, and he struggled in the 70s to find his place (I struggled with his Cap return and his Black Panther run), and his plotting and dialogue is outdated compared to his contemporaries. Lee gets way too much credit for doing little, Kirby was just a man out of time in the 70s.

This will be the third DC Omnibus I have picked up (Planetary and New Teen Titans), there's not much DC that really grabs me, but seeing Kirby let rip is what's attracted me. Most of the DC characters I find more interesting seem to have debuted in the stories in this Omnibus. It may be a slog, but it will be worth it.

I love the Fourth World stuff, but the flow of dialogue is better in his Marvel stuff, is that not Lee's influence?

[Vilynne]

Wonder Woman by Perez Omni Vol. 3?! I must've missed the Amazon fish for this one! Glad to see his run getting wrapped up in a reasonable amount of time...

Guh. So annoyed by the release of the War of the Gods trade and now the collection of this. The double dipping is strong.

[TomSlick]

I love the Fourth World stuff, but the flow of dialogue is better in his Marvel stuff, is that not Lee's influence?

More than likely, yes. Kirby had big, beautiful ideas. But, again, his writing was subpar (IMO). His was dialogue disjointed, even more so than his contemporaries.

[madave]

Lee's dialogue was just corny; take a look at Ditko's work on Doctor Strange, which progressively improves as Lee takes an increasingly minimal role. Even Lee admitted himself that the same happened with FF; I'd guess that at least half of Kirby's FF run was mainly written by Kirby with some editorial touches by Lee. I've read Amazing Adventures, which was credited to Kirby as writer/artist and there is no discernible difference with his FF work. Kirby's dialogue was infinitely better than Lee's (at least what I have seen so far). As I said before, Kirby was a writer who was out of time. Keep in mind that by the 70s, the role of the writer was mostly separate from artist, so comparing his writing to others when he was wearing two hats at once is a bit unfair. There are obviously artists who have combined both roles succesfully in the years since (Simonson, Miller, Starlin, some would say Byrne but I don't think he was a particularly great writer) but even so Kirby compares well to most other artist/writers. As I said above, I think his other 70s runs at Marvel were a bit ropy, and I haven't read this material, so it may be horrendous but my point is that I doubt Lee would have made it any better.

Some sources;
http://zak-site.com/Great-American-N...Lee-Kirby.html

http://www.tcj.com/jack-kirby-interview/

[Judge Dredd]

More than likely, yes. Kirby had big, beautiful ideas. But, again, his writing was subpar (IMO). His was dialogue disjointed, even more so than his contemporaries.

Yeah he is a big idea guy and great at concept and design. I do very much enjoy the cheesy dialogue of the Fourth World related books. I think that is part of why most uses of the New Gods do not live up to Kirby you need big ideas with the cheesy and weird writing style. Even when Morrison was writing Darkseid stuff he was not afraid to have him launch into cheesy monologue about himself.

[coreycwheat]

Yeah he is a big idea guy and great at concept and design. I do very much enjoy the cheesy dialogue of the Fourth World related books. I think that is part of why most uses of the New Gods do not live up to Kirby you need big ideas with the cheesy and weird writing style. Even when Morrison was writing Darkseid stuff he was not afraid to have him launch into cheesy monologue about himself.

True, that is part of the fun.

[ShooCat]

His was dialogue disjointed

Lol. :-) :-)

[TomSlick]

Lee's dialogue was just corny; take a look at Ditko's work on Doctor Strange, which progressively improves as Lee takes an increasingly minimal role. Even Lee admitted himself that the same happened with FF; I'd guess that at least half of Kirby's FF run was mainly written by Kirby with some editorial touches by Lee. I've read Amazing Adventures, which was credited to Kirby as writer/artist and there is no discernible difference with his FF work. Kirby's dialogue was infinitely better than Lee's (at least what I have seen so far). As I said before, Kirby was a writer who was out of time. Keep in mind that by the 70s, the role of the writer was mostly separate from artist, so comparing his writing to others when he was wearing two hats at once is a bit unfair. There are obviously artists who have combined both roles succesfully in the years since (Simonson, Miller, Starlin, some would say Byrne but I don't think he was a particularly great writer) but even so Kirby compares well to most other artist/writers. As I said above, I think his other 70s runs at Marvel were a bit ropy, and I haven't read this material, so it may be horrendous but my point is that I doubt Lee would have made it any better.

Some sources;
http://zak-site.com/Great-American-N...Lee-Kirby.html

http://www.tcj.com/jack-kirby-interview/

Yeah, Lee can be just as bad.

Lol. :-) :-)

Ha ha! I'm glad you noticed this. As I was reading through it, I saw this sentence and decided not to correct it because of the irony. I figured...what the heck.

[TomSlick]

I wrapped up the Justice League Darkseid omnibus last night. I read this monthly in floppies and felt it was somewhat hit or miss, mostly because it's a detailed and somewhat convoluted story.

I liked it a lot better binge reading it, but I still think it was overwritten or, rather, Johns just overthought the story. I think it would have been a better read if he eliminated the Grail character and the Amazon stuff and used another trigger design to get the Anti-Monitor and Darkseid after each other.

I think he was hoping to set all that up for something down the line but at this point I doubt we'll ever see what that was.

Either way, I would recommend this series but some prior knowledge of Crisis and the Forever Evil story line, which preceded this, is certainly helpful.

[Johnny Thunders!]

Maybe Kirby excels in Monologue rather than dialogue: " I tear off my armor! I reject this war-staff as a weapon!!! I reject the way of war!! Darkseids game is not mine!! Where is Izaya?!?". That stuff totally works for me and makes reading New Gods a real treat. Definitely stylized but really good stuff.

[coreycwheat]

Maybe Kirby excels in Monologue rather than dialogue: " I tear off my armor! I reject this war-staff as a weapon!!! I reject the way of war!! Darkseids game is not mine!! Where is Izaya?!?". That stuff totally works for me and makes reading New Gods a real treat. Definitely stylized but really good stuff.

Haha, you're totally right! I feel like if you're a god of sorts, why wouldn't you monologue? You're the most important being in the room!

[Dr. Jay]

I kind of like Kirby's writing in New Gods and Mr Miracle and later on in OMAC, Demon, and Kamandi--you just have to focus on the concepts rather than the clumsy dialogue. I find his Forever People horrible and basically unreadable from a modern standpoint.

I especially like what he was trying to do with the Hunger Dogs. In many ways I love that story as the "true" end of the New Gods and often wonder how it would have ended without editorial demands to have marketable ongoing characters. I felt that Kirby had a true epic with the New Gods and one of my greatest sadness in comics is that he didn't really tell his story the way he wanted. But what we did get was still very interesting--Orion rejecting prophecy and his destiny to go off with Becca, the New Gods finding a new world, and Darkseid ultimately unable to fight back his slaves who in their masses even overpower him. There's a lot of meta in that book.