The fact is Jack Kirby’s greatest self -portrait

Marvel Studios’ The Fantastic Four: First Steps It is the long -awaited return of Marvel’s first family, and it was a real delight for fans of Jack Kirby. The film is a celebration of the “king of comics”, and no character represents him better than the thing. Ben Grimm is Jack Kirby.

Fantastic four n. 1 hit the shelves on August 8, 1961. Co-Creato da Stan Lee AND Jack KirbyHe kicked off the Marvel era of comics with a strange, chaotic punch, which blends the genre. It was partly a space adventure, in part a monster film and partly soap opera. But the magic was in the characters. Reed, Sue, Johnny and were not masked crusaders well, they were a family, a family full of quarrels, disordered and human. Especially Ben Grimm.

A working class brisser, with the working class with a sworish with a golden heart and a chip on the shoulder. And if you know something about Kirby, it was unmistakable.

“It is generally recognized … from which he based the thing Fantastic Four On himself, however, more based on his personality, “he said Neal KirbyJack’s son.

“I often describe my father as Leo Bracey’s escapeness in Without exit childrenThe Language of Damon Runyon and Jimmy Cagney’s attitude. Attack a cigar in the mouth of the thing and you have my father. “

Jack himself has not denied him. “Everyone I spoke with me compared to Ben Grimm,” he said. “Maybe I have his temperament, I have his stubbornness.”

Later, it would say: “If you notice the way it speaks and behaves, you will find that it really is Jack Kirby … it has my ways, it has my way of speech and thinks it is.

Parallelisms are deeper. Jack Kirby, born Jacob Kurtzberg, was a poor Jewish boy from the Lower East Side of New York. So it was Ben Grimm. Jack Corse with the Street Suffolk band, well with the imaginative street band. Jack saw a real fight in the Second World War. Ben became a war hero. And while Kirby rarely had the spotlight he deserved, Grimm always felt like the strange man next to Reed’s genius and his elegance.

His full name, Benjamin Jacob Grimm, was also a nod to Kirby himself. Ben for Jack’s father. Jacob for Jack’s birth name.

For decades, fans suspected that the thing was Jewish. It adapts perfectly to the Golem mold, a clay creature to protect people. Before everything became rocky, it seemed more a dark mud than the stone. His girlfriend Alicia Masters was a sculptor. His father, the master of puppets, used clay to control others. It is no coincidence.

In fact, Kirby once designed the thing he wore a yarmulke and a prayer shawl in a 1976 Hanukkah card. He kept him proudly on the wall of his study. When visitors asked, smiled and said: “It is a Jewish thing”.

Even Kirby’s religious roots made their way into his stories. In the documentary Masters of art of comicsHe explained: “I went to the Bible. Galactus came to mind. And there I was, in front of this terrible figure, which I knew very well because I always heard it … And of course, the silver surfers is the fallen angel.”

That mythical and biblical energy in the shape of The Four Fantastic And, in the end, the largest Marvel universe. But he has always returned to Kirby, the man behind the panels. “Nick Fury is how I wish others to see me,” he admitted once. “Ben Grimm is probably closer to the way they see me.”

Fantastic Four: first steps honors that inheritance. The film opens in Earth-828, a nod for Kirby’s birthday on August 28th. Giganto makes his appearance, pulling directly from the cover of Fantastic four n. 1. The designs of Kirby’s brands and the cosmic scale are everywhere, especially when Galactus enters the scene.

“We wanted to honor him,” said the director Matt Shakman. Kevin Feige Added, “there are lines directed by its pencil … in this film”.

And in a moment of beating of eyelashes and you, Kirby and Lee even cameo. While the silver surfist rises on Times Square, two comic creators who resemble the legendary duo look at their monstrous comics. It is a thin tribute.

This movie is the most Kirby thing that MCU has ever done. Kirby himself once said: “If you look at my characters, you will find me. It doesn’t matter which type of character you create or take, a little bit of yourself has to stay there.”

With the thing, that little of Kirby was not so small. It was all.