The MCU has been around since 2008's Iron Man - 17 years at this point. And through it all, there's one thing I've practically been begging for: more of a presence for immortal comic creator Jack Kirby, one of the founders of the Marvel Universe, including more faithful renditions of some of his best designs. Now, finally, after nearly two decades and dozens of movies and series, Marvel Studios has finally given me what I've been wanting this whole time thanks to The Fantastic Four: First Steps, which has Jack Kirby's fingerprints all over it.
Along with perfectly capturing Kirby's art and storytelling vision, The Fantastic Four: First Steps also includes numerous nods to the legacy of the man known as the King of Comics, right down to the FF's home reality of Earth-828 taking its number from his birthday, August 28, and the movie's last words being a quote from Kirby himself. Natasha Lyonne's character, Rachel Rozman, is even a tribute to wife-guy Kirby's beloved spouse Roz Kirby.
It all gave me such a warm, beautiful sense of wonder and scope while watching the film that I was completely enraptured in a way that the MCU hasn't been able to accomplish in some time - and with a style and verve that it's almost never been able to capture.
The King of Comics
Don't get me wrong; it's not that the MCU has never paid attention to Kirby and his work as the artist that helped birth the entire concept of Marvel Comics. Captain America: The First Avenger's Red Skull is a shining example of Kirby's art being captured onscreen, though those bits are too few and far between for my liking.
I've been enamored by Jack Kirby's bombastic, energetic, meticulously weird and stylish art since I was a little kid stepping foot into comic stores for the first time. I was only 10 when he passed away in February 1994, and even then I felt the impact of Kirby's death - and his wonderfully imaginative life - throughout the community I was just discovering.
In a perfect world, Jack Kirby would have had as big a presence in the MCU as Stan Lee, his Fantastic Four co-creator who is considered the true godfather of Marvel Comics. Lee appeared in basically every Marvel movie project until his own death in 2018, something many consider a fitting tribute for the writer who brought Marvel to the masses.
Kirby and Lee had a long running creative partnership across numerous Marvel properties, co-creating not just the Fantastic Four, but the X-Men, the Avengers, and more, not to mention Kirby co-creating Captain America alongside writer Joe Simon.
However, in later years, Lee gained Kirby's ire by taking what the artist felt was too much credit for ideas that Kirby asserted initially came from him. Kirby was not the only artist of that era who accused Lee of self-aggrandizing and taking credit for their ideas, and in many cases, even stories and plots that artists had come up with on their own.
This led to disputes between Marvel and many of the artists, with multiple lawsuits, changes in credit, and just plain arguments about who created what over the decades, including a lawsuit from Kirby himself, which Marvel elected to settle.
And while it's impossible to sort out all the facts with essentially everyone involved now dead, it's well beyond time that the MCU fully embraced Kirby's legacy as a visionary talent whose work revolutionized the visual language of comics along with establishing the entire aesthetic of the early Marvel Universe.
Marvel's greatest visionary
In this, The Fantastic Four: First Steps excels, finally embracing Kirby's eccentric, epic sci-fi designs, especially for Galactus and Kirby's own de facto comic stand-in Ben Grimm/The Thing, whose cheerful but irascible demeanor is derived from Kirby's own sense of humor and stalwart defense of what is right, not to mention Kirby's Judaism (his birth name being Jacob Kurtzberg) which is also a major part of the Thing's identity.
After so many missed opportunities for the MCU to truly embody Kirby's work (I'm looking at you, grey and dismal Eternals), and to pay him tribute beyond a name among many in the credits, the lifelong comic fan in my heart is legitimately breathing a sigh of relief that the Fantastic Four of all characters, who held a particularly special and important place in Kirby's heart, are the characters who finally manage to capture the essence of his art and stories in the movies.
It's given me hope for what the MCU holds in store. And while I'm expecting Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars to be typical, if excitingly entertaining, MCU films, I have a renewed sense of hope that the sagging franchise can continue to reinvigorate itself by leaning more and more into the true legacy of Marvel Comics, and the filmmaking possibilities that come from embracing the comic book nature of superhero movies.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps is now in theaters, kicking off Marvel Phase 6. For more, check out our guides to upcoming Marvel movies and shows and how to watch the Marvel movies in order.
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