My Top 10 Jack Kirby Comics

One more Jack Kirby Top 10 List to close out Jack Kirby Day.  Here's my Top 10 Jack Kirby Comics Series.  This whole list should be pretty obvious (and a bit of a retread of the last list), but let's do it anyway.

10.  Devil Dinosaur- 
The Plot:  In the dawn of Prehistory, a primitive boy named Moon Boy, and his "brother" Devil, a red T-Rex, have crazy adventures. 
The Legacy:  Like most of Kirby's 70s series, Devil Dinosaur is not well received by critics or audiences, and is generally looked down upon by most.  Still, it's got a pretty strong cult following, and Devil seems to pop up every few years in a mini-series or guest appearance.  I also saw him on an episode of "The Super Hero Squad Show". 
Why I Love It:  It's a comic about a red T-Rex fighting other dinosaurs, giant men, giant spiders, giant ants, and aliens from outer frickin' space.  How is that not awesome?

9.  The Eternals-
The Plot:  At the dawn of time, giant, armored spacegods called the Celestials showed up on Earth and performed experiments on Primitive Man.  The end result was three races, Humans (that's Us!), Eternals, a race of immortal, god-like beings, and the Deviants, a race of genetically random monsters.  Flashforward to the present (well, the 70s anyways), and the Celestials have returned to observe and pass judgement on the planet.  If we are deemed unworthy, the Celestials will exterminate all life on Earth!
The Legacy:  The Celestials have become an essential part of Marvel's pantheon of cosmic gods, and Kirby's origin of humanity has become a part of Marvel's basic Mythology.  Also, a Celestial pops up in Guardians of the Galaxy.
Why I Love It:  Ahem.  Giant Armored Space Gods.  One of them has a code ON HIS THUMB that has the power to END ALL LIFE ON OUR PLANET!  After reading the Eternals, everything else not written by Kirby just seems boring.

8.  The Demon-
The Plot:  When Camelot falls, the only one to escape and protect the secrets of allmighty Merlin is Jason Blood, who, in reality, can transform into the monstrous Etrigan the Demon!  Let those who serve Evil Beware the Power of Merlin's Demon!
The Legacy:  Again, outside of Darkseid, the Demon is the most prominent and enduring character Jack Kirby created at DC, and has been revived numerous times.  The Demon has appeared in several DC Cartoons and there's been some toys of him.
Why I Love It:  It's not your typical Kirby book.  Kirby didn't feel comfortable doing Horror comics, so you get to see the King operating out of his wheelhouse.  So there's lots of crazy stuff going on in this series.  Plus, there's lots of monsters, and nobody does monsters better than Kirby did.  Not even me.

7.  Kamandi the Last Boy-
The Plot:  After the great disaster, mankind has been reduced to primitive animals, while the animals have become intelligent and replaced humankind.  In the midst of this chaos arises Kamandi, the last intelligent boy on earth.  Desperate to return humanity to its former glory, Kamandi wonders the insane wilderness, looking for a better tomorrow.
The Legacy:  Largely forgotten, but Kamandi has popped up here and there, most notably on the cartoon "Batman: The Brave and the Bold".
Why I Love It:  There's never a dull moment in Kamandi's world.  Every issue is a crazy, wild trip full of talking animal societies, mutant insects, robots, super intelligent dolphins, and so forth and so on.  You really don't know Fun Comix until you've read Kamandi.

6.  Thor-
The Plot:  Lame Dr. Donald Blake finds a walking stick that turns out to be the hammer of Thor.  Thanks to a mystic enchantment, the hammer turns Dr. Blake into the Mighty Thor.  Now, the thunder god fights evil and stuff.
The Legacy:  Three huge big budget movies that've made lots of moolah, more merchandise than you can shake a stick at, and a core character in the Marvel Universe.  Seriously, right now you can go to a Toys R Us anywhere and score a toy Mjlonr, which is pretty much identical to Kirby's original design.
Why I Love It:  Once Kirby got rolling on this series it was a hoot.  From Thor's brawls with Hercules to his showdowns with Loki, to the excellent "Tales of Asgard" back up stories, to the Magedon epic... man, those were some killer comics.
 
5.  Fantastic Four
The Plot:  After trying to beat the Ruskies into space, four intrepid would-be astronauts are exposed to cosmic rays and become... the Fantastic Four!  Now, Mr. Fantastic, the Invisible Woman, the Human Torch, and the ever loving blue eyed Thing do their best to protect the world from evil.  Because that's what you do, y'know?
 The Legacy:  A couple of kinda crummy movies.  Some toys and cartoons.  The best thing this series gave us (and Marvel) was a plethora of brilliant characters including Dr. Doom, the Inhumans, the Black Panther, Galactus, and, of course, the Silver Surfer.  Also, this essentially led to the birth of the Cosmic Comics Genre.
Why I Love It:  It introduced the Silver Surfer and Galactus.  It gave birth to the Cosmic Comics Genre.  It essentially put me on my Life Path.  Plus, the stories are awesome.  And it was Kirby's longest run on a comic to boot.

4.  Captain America
The Plot:  90 pound weakling Steve Rogers wants to beat up Nazis, but he's too big a weenie, so he volunteers for a special program where is injected with the Super Soldier Serum and becomes awesome Captain America and punches Nazis.  Then he gets frozen in ice and wakes up years later so he can punch more Nazis.

The Legacy:  Again, three big budget movies that've made lots of moolah, tons of merch, a central character of the Marvel Universe, the Iconic Shield, and, perhaps most importantly, the original Captain America completely redefined Action in Comics.

Why I Love It:  I love the whirlwind craziness and nonstop action of the original 1940s comics.  I love the brilliant action-movie coolness of the 1960s comics.  And I love the sheer weirdness of those crazy 1970s comics.

3.  OMAC
The Plot:  In the world that is to come, a single war could envelope the whole world in nuclear armageddon, so the World Peace Agency uses a giant satellite called Brother Eye to turn a loser named Buddy Blank into OMAC, the One Man Army Corps!

The Legacy:  Arguably even more obscure than Kamandi, OMAC was in an episode of Batman: Brave and the Bold, and that's really it.  Various revivals have been attempted, but none of them are anything like the original.  Not really anyway.

Why I LOVE It:  There are only two reactions to OMAC, instant revulsion or instant love.  Obviously, I loves it.  I mean, this series is so utterly, brilliantly, unrepenatantly INSANE... I don't even have the words to properly describe how beautiful this series is. 

2.  Mister Miracle
The Plot:  Born on peaceful New Genesis, but raised on nightmarish Apokalypse, daring Scott Free escapes to Earth and becomes Mister Miracle, the world's first super escape artist!  But the forces of Apokalypse don't wanna let Scott go, so our hero has to making death defying escape after death defying escape if he wants to keep his freedom.

The Legacy:  All of the 4th World books get revived every few years.  Mister Miracle appears in an episode of Justice League Unlimited and Batman the Brave and the Bold. 

Why I Love It:  Every issue has lots of crazy escapes, cool gadgets, and some crazy villain looking to kill Mr. Miracle.  Plus, there's Big Barda, Kirby's best female character, barreling through the book like a female freight train.  And then there's Mr. Miracle himself, who not only has the coolest costume ever, he's a fast thinking, hard working hero who solves his problems by having more guts and faster moves than his enemies.  Speaking of which, this series also gave us Granny Goodness, a truly terrifying villain who represents motherhood gone acidic.  "Himon" is my second favorite comic story of all time.

1.  New Gods
The Plot:  Peaceful New Genesis and dark Apokalypse stand on the brink of cosmic war.  Vile Darkseid has traveled to Earth in hopes of discovering the Anti-Life Equation, a powerful idea that will give Darkseid absolute control of all life in the Universe.  Yeah.  Opposing him is his son, Orion, who was raised on New Genesis, and is destined to meet his father in battle.

The Legacy:  The most important thing to come out of the New Gods is Darkseid, who has proven to be the greatest villain in the history of the DCU (yes, the Joker can suck it). 

Why I Love It:  Jeeeeeez.  "The Glory Boat"?  "The Pact"?  "The Deathwish of Terrible Turpin"?  BEST.  COMICS.  EVER.  MADE.  BY.  ANYONE.  EVER.

And with that, we close out Jack Kirby Day.  Night.