I'm not necessarily a big fan of Jack Kirby, in part because I suspect I've only seen snippets of his work and much of that black and white reproductions. His artwork often feels "chunky" to me, with very thick portions.

That being said, in reading this volume his work grew on me. It might be due to the fact I grew up on He-Man and I could see what obviously inspired the art style for that show.

If you're a comic fan, it's worth giving this a read through for the influences it had on later work. ( )

400 pages of undiluted Kirby weirdness, including super-powered space hippies, the Grim Reaper on skis, and a special guest appearance by Don Rickles. There is some great, great stuff in here! It's just unbelieveable how much potential there was in the Fourth World epic. ( )

DC has started a series of omnibi reprinting various series of comic books in large hardcover volumes-- something like over three hundred pages of comics in a volume. The first set of comics selected were the "Fourth World" titles Jack Kirby wrote for DC in the 1970s: Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen, The Forever People, Mister Miracle, and The New Gods. These had been collected before, but never in color and never in publication order. My only exposure to the Fourth World concepts-- such as Apokolips, New Genesis, Darkseid, Orion, the Source, the anti-life equation, &c.-- was the 1990s Superman cartoon, and I was eager to learn more. This first volume is dominated by issues of Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen, since Kirby started on that title first, and to my surprise I actually liked them. The stories featured a new boss at the Daily Planet, the return of the long-gone Newsboy Legion, the introduction of their fabulous Whiz Wagon, a trip to the "Wild Area" outside Metropolis, an assassination attempt on Clark Kent, roving gangs of bikers armed with kryptonite, Jimmy becoming a gang leader and turning on Superman, and a trip to a legendary mountain. And that's all in just the first issue! Kirby's strength (aside from his artwork, obviously) was definitely the many, many ideas he could generate, and that really shines here.

http://jmgold.blogspot.com/2007/07/fourth-world.html ( )