And so we continue in our visual exploration of the Fourth World Omnibus. Please see this article for the first half of the mighty list.

6) CRAZY HANDS! While not a device that was used too frequently, there are two instances of strangely powerful hands used in this first volume of the Omnibus, brimming with the pseudoscience and magic that makes Kirby comics so much fun.

First, we have the appropriately named Steel Hand, who happens to be some kind of scientist gangster. If I was going to combine two vastly different things to be, I’d probably choose ‘robot pirate’ or ‘wealthy artist’, personally. After punching his way through a giant block of titanium and armwrestling an expensive Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robot to a point of disrepair, Steel Hand uses his deadly steel hand to go after Miracle Man, who owes him money or something. I don’t exactly recall… I was distracted by the extracurricular possibilities of a steel hand, which aren’t nearly as sexy as Aquaman’s water hand.

The second instance of a crazy hand comes in when a marauding bad guy named Brola attacks Orion, boasting of his powerful stone hand. You know, ‘My stone hand’s gonna kill your face’ and all that other supervillian stuff. When you finally see the Dreaded Stone Hand, it’s ostensibly nothing more that a mutant club-fist permanently holding a generic brick. No, it’s not a hand that will turn you to stone, or even a hand-shaped appendage made of some kind of freaky biological stone substance… it’s a guy holding a brick. And it’s as hilarious as it is inhuman, and that’s why I love Jack Kirby.

7) CRAZY BROWS! You can tell that a guy is up to no good when Jack Kirby gives them wacky eyebrows. Sure, he draws plenty of jerks without sprawling brows that usurp most of their forehead real estate, but it’s a definite tell. While the geek in me is the one reading these comics, the ultra-geek in me wants to see a line of DC Comics action figures centered around the supporting Jack Kirby characters, who are every bit as interesting and visually experimental as the central heroes and villains - perhaps even moreso. Kirby did, after all, create MODOK and Arnim Zola, two of the greatest, most effed up supplementary characters in Marvel Comics. I mean, MODOK is just a giant, angry head stuck in what amounts to a floating wheelchair designed to support his giant, angry head. Which is also his body. That’s a thing of beauty.

Gangsters and evil space aliens alike, the Kirby Crazy Brow did not discriminate, be they delicately curving flourishes arcing across purple foreheads, harsh gashes cut into swollen and uncomfortable craniums, or simply unsettling tufts of Yeti fur glued to faces.

Jack Kirby was one of the writers responsible for bringing African American characters into mainstream comics as both heroes and villains during the end of the Silver Age. After creating the Wakandan prince and superhero Black Panther for Marvel Comics, Kirby brought the heroic Vykin the Black into the Forever People, as well as the mysterious Black Racer (pictured above) to DC Comics. If they had the word ‘black’ in their name, you could probably guess what race they were.

The Black Racer functioned as an ‘avatar of death’, coming from space and possessing the body of a paralyzed man, empowering it to relentlessly pursue whichever quarry was marked for death. One might think that a guy traversing the spaceways on skis is ridiculous beyond belief, and a rip-off of the Silver Surfer (who simply came to planets to tell them that they were doomed, but not to kill them himself), but Jack Kirby created the Silver Surfer also. And yes, you’re right about the ‘ridiculous’ thing. Racer was essentially a god, and had the powers that such a thing would entail - phasing through objects, a kind of omniscience, immortality and the ability to kill with a touch…. but he had to ride around on red cosmic skis all of the time, which is goofy no matter how you look at it… but no goofier than a surfboard, and slightly less goofy then a Segway. I’m just glad that Heelys hadn’t been invented yet.

“Death comes…. on sneakers with hidden wheels! And constantly bumping into people at the grocery store!”

9) Kirby also drew some great monsters, one of which can be seen in this Omnibus. This monster might seem kind of generic - who hasn’t seen a multi-armed, rock-based life form before in some kind of sci-fi? I mean, I see them every day. Usually at Wal-Mart. Not only that, but it bears more than a passing resemblance to another of Jack Kirby’s creations, The Thing.

It’s the way that Jack Kirby could take a foreign life form and animate it uniquely on a page that makes his monsters great. You can see a great deal of movement and personality in his human figures, and you’ll rarely find someone simply standing there in a panel - they’re always actively engaged in conversation, ready for the next move. This is never more apparent than when contrasting it with the movements of his lumbering, powerful, prowling monsters. While this volume of the Omnibus doesn’t deal with too many non-human things, it offers a glimpse into Kirby’s creative toolbox.

10) And finally, above all else, is Kirby’s bombastic sense of drama, matched only by the circus-like hyperbole of his creative friend, Stan Lee. This was still the era of comics where the heroes and villains would announce, or very loudly think, everything that they were going to do before they did it, and then congratulate themselves when their split-second decision making skills or physical prowess got them out of yet another jam. It’s a unique pacing in comic books that allows a hero to see that a ray gun is being fired at him, announce it, devise a plan to avoid it, and speak in complete sentences during the entire process, and it’s something that one must really learn to appreciate. Every character is an exposition unto itself, forever reminding us of their original plans, where they’re from, what they like to eat, the last time they brushed their teeth, and their marital problems. In every sentence.

It’s the equivalent of me leaving for work every day, throwing my fists in the air at the front door and proclaiming, “I shall now go to work! At the library in which the town has MANY books on various dark subjects! On my home planet — EARTH!”

While I’m not saying that I DON’T do this every day, it’s also something that you can find in many of Kirby’s panels. And it’s really a lot more entertaining than it is annoying - it’s that sense of ‘world-in-the-balance’ drama that needs to be embraced.

And these are the reasons that I enjoy Jack Kirby’s Fourth World Omnibus. Volume One is now available for the cover price of 50 bucks (often discounted to not much more than 30 bucks), and the second volume is due out on August 22nd, with the third being published on November 7th. If nothing else, it’s a trip back into a time when comics weren’t the Big Business that they are now, and creators had a lot more freedom to explore their stories and visuals. If you’re a comic fan, it’s a great place to start exploring where all the great stuff that we have today came from.

And it’s Jack Kirby. Like you need another reason.

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