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Jack Kirby's Fourth World Omnibus Vol 1
Posted 09 Jul 2007
Writer: Jack Kirby
Artist: Jack Kirby
Cover: Jack Kirby and Vince Colletta, color by Dave Stewart
Letters: John Costanza
Ink: Vince Colletta
Colors: Pacific Rim Graphics and Dave Tanguay with Drew R. Moore
Publisher: DC Comics
5.00 out of 5 Stars
Reviewed by Adam McGovern
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I hate collections. I hate their fetishization of the packaged object instead of appreciation of the assembled art. I hate their reselling of stuff you already bought and their cramming in of “bonus” material that disrupts and second-guesses what was good about the original. I hate collections — and I love this one.
“Kirby’s limitless
vision and uncontainable imagination, relived like a timeless
mythological canon or the endlessly looped destiny of the life of the
mind.”
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The epic that came out of Kirby at such a personal cost does not
come cheaply if you try to find it in its first editions, and none of
the repackagings have done it justice. This one, though, is a marvel
of postmodern preservation. The four titles of Kirby’s Fourth World
are assembled in the sequence that readers first found them on the
newsstand, at the tactile texture and subtle dinginess of the
newsprint these portable pulp master-canvases first appeared in. A
Lichtenstein-ish (not to mention Arlen Schumer-ish) treatment of the
covers and endpapers, with oversized images in mammoth Ben-Day dots,
brings the economical expression and boundless glory of an
experimental pop golden era to life.
The art and color reconstruction are impeccable (with one minor
quibble being the retconned silver of Orion’s helmet — what was
more Kirby than purple metal?), and Dave Stewart’s treatment of the
cover image is perfection, dappling the pigment in just the way Kirby
faceted form. A fire-and-brimstone foreword by Grant Morrison is worth
the price of admission, as is the reminiscence by Mark Evanier at the
end, one of the most eloquent and moving essays he’s ever done, boding
very well for his biographical work finally due later this year.
All that leaves is, of course, all there is: Kirby’s limitless
vision and uncontainable imagination, relived like a timeless
mythological canon or the endlessly looped destiny of the life of the
mind. This is the model for how his work should be presented —
and for what all collections should be.
—CCdC—
Cover image used without explicit permission in accordance with the "Fair Use" provision of US copyright law.
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