I was thumbing through an old copy of Jack Kirby's "second coming" of Manhunter and I thought, "Ya know, you could have given this guy any name besides Manhunter and it would still work." Manhunter was relegated to an issue of 1st Issue Special and then what happens, we readers only get the first part of what I would imagine was at least a two-parter! And then on top of that, Jack ups and goes back to Marvel Comics! Did I forget anything? Oh yes, I think right around the same time the great Walter Simonson did his revamp of the same character, probably to much better results and which allows me to segue to another subject......

A Few Words on (Jack's)Writing

What really jumps out at me, and I mean no disrespect, is that at that stage of Jack's tenure at DC I feel like his writing was firmly aimed at whatever 10-12 year old kids were out there reading comic books. This is not a bad thing mind you. Because back in the early-to-mid 70's there actually were young kids reading comics! Does anyone that young read comics any more? Now we're all in our 30's and even older!

But I digress. We'll get to Manhunter in a minute or two. Getting back to Jack's writing, maybe it was a DC thing, but that last tier of books: SandMan, Dingbats of Danger Street, a handful of others -- they were perfectly suited to someone not quite on the verge of puberty! But then a crazy thing happened: I noticed an ever-so-slight shift in the quality of Jack's writing when he came back to Marvel in that his books "read" a little bit older. The Madbomb Saga in Captain America, The Eternals. At least at the onset it seems like Jack knew who his audience was and they were a bit older than what he was dealing with at DC. This is not to say that Jack was not writing some awesome stuff early on at DC. The New Gods was not meant for kids! Neither was the Forever People or even the Demon! It's just that somewhere along the line Jack decided to go in the other direction and a lot of great stories (IMHO) suffered for it.

So What Happened?

Smarter heads than mine will figure it out. All I know is that about a year into Jack's stay at Marvel he again went retro and started writing for 10 year old kids again. Actually, if memory serves me correctly, after the Madbomb Saga - which zipped along for seven issues and got hammered by fans and pro alike, Jack did an about face and started churning out these turbo charged mini-chapters in Captain America and Black Panther. I don't think any story arc (if you can call it that) lasted more than two issues at most. And than Jack got hammered for that! My own theory: readers wanted stories that were immersed in the Marvel Universe and Jack didn't or couldn't or wouldn't go there. Personally, I think Jack could have taken all the books he was doing at the time and cross-pollinated them without any problem. He could have taken Captain America and stuck him in the Eternals, He could have taken Black Panther and guested him in CA. I think the fans would have jumped over the moon and everyone would have gone home happy.

Well it's all wishful thinking now. Heck, I enjoyed all of Jack's books. His writing never bothered me until he started putting everything in quotes ("  ") and even then it was just a minor annoyance!

Maybe one of these years when Mark Evanier publishes his ultimate Jack Kirby book, we'll all learn what Jack was thinking!