Anonymous asked: Kirby Cosmic Character On a Surfboard: An inherently cool & classic design, that just works naturally and feels *Right*. Kirby Cosmic Character On Skies: An intrinsically clumsy and clunky design that verges on self-parody. Why do you think that is? Does the Black Racer's Mom even love Black Racer? & on a more serious note, do you think that if Kirby hadnt joined the Distinguished Competition, the New Gods would have fit better into the Marvel Universe? Would they make better Marvel characters?
To some degree, it’s all a matter of verisimilitude. I don’t know that the Surfer is any less silly than the Black Racer when you come right down to it. But given his context, the story that introduced him and the way he developed, and the way he was characterized, readers were able to move on past the silliness and simply accept it as a part of the character. Whereas the Black Racer never quite got that same amount of screen time or personality (at least in part because his human form was paralyzed and couldn’t speak), and so all people had to focus in on were the surface elements, including the silliness.
And I think that if Jack hadn’t left Marvel, the New Gods characters would have been completely different. By all accounts, while Kirby had all of those designs done (and a few more besides that he never got around to using), he hadn’t completely landed on who or what any of them were. It wasn’t until that DC deal that he sat down and committed to one approach for them. So, had he stayed at DC, Lightray might have become a foe of the Fantastic Four, Kanto might have been an ally of Thor, and Mister Miracle might have battled Captain America. It’s impossible to know.
It was my understanding that Kirby’s initial plan was for his run of Thor stories with Stan Lee to end in Ragnarok, leading to the birth of the (literally) New Gods. And incidentally, if that had been the case, I doubt the Black Race would have ever existed; Kirby may have simply used the Silver Surfer for that part of the story straight out.
In other news, thank you for such a well-thought out and succinct answer, Tom Brevoort!
