Did DC Make Jack Kirby Go Back to Marvel by Forcing the King Out?

Welcome to the 922nd installment of Comic Book Legends Revealed, a column where we examine three comic book myths, rumors and legends and confirm or debunk them. In the second legend of this installment, we see whether Jack Kirby was forced to return to Marvel because DC pushed him out.

In 1970, one of the biggest moments in DC/Marvel history occurred, when Jack Kirby, following the creation of the Marvel Universe with Stan Lee at Marvel, left Marvel Comics for DC. Kirby launched the Fourth World line of comic books – three interconnected titles (Mister Miracle, New Gods, and The Forever People) telling an overall narrative, which was quite ambitious for the era. After the Fourth World line ended in 1973, Kirby did a number of other series for DC before returning to Marvel in 1975. Kirby would remain at Marvel until 1978, when he left to go work for Hanna-Barbera, which would be the end of his career as a monthly mainstream comic book creator (he would do some monthly creator-owned comic books in the 1980s when the direct market independent boom happened, and did some limited series work for DC, as well).

Kirby’s departure for DC has always garnered a great deal of attention, but his return to Marvel has been covered a bit less, and that has led to some legend about it over the years. I’ve covered a couple of them in the past, but my friend Ian G. wrote to me recently to ask about a legend that was enough of a variant on the idea that I thought it was worth covering as a legend in and of itself. He asked about a claim that he had seen that said that “Kirby was forced to return to Marvel after the Fourth World title were canceled,” but really, I think it speaks to a more general theme of “Did DC push Kirby out?”

Why did Kirby leave Marvel for DC in the first place?

An important part to remember about Kirby’s departure from Marvel to DC was that it wasn’t like DC gave Kirby some incredible contract. He certainly had HOPES to do new things at DC that could expand the comic book field. He didn’t want to do comic books PERIOD, at least not in the traditional sense. He wanted to try digests, magazines, graphic novels, all sorts of experimental ideas that he looked to this new move to DC as being the place where he could try out new ideas. DC did let him try SOME of those concepts out (before quickly canceling them), but in general, DC wanted him to do comic books, and as such, his deal with DC was just a general “Produce X amount of pages of comic books for Y salary.” It is very possible that Marvel might have even matched DC’s contract, but Kirby more wanted to leave Marvel, where he had been burned so many times, than he wanted to go TO DC.

It wasn’t like DC offered Kirby ownership of his characters that he created at DC, or even royalties on his work sold, it was just a general “you draw X, we give you Y” deal, with at least some nominal amount of freedom that Kirby obviously DID want. However, soon into his time at DC, Kirby realized that he wasn’t going to get a lot of what he hoped for from DC. Kirby wanted to “oversee” the Fourth World, with other artists drawing the books. DC wanted him to draw them all. Kirby wanted to do that same approach with the other comics that DC had him create, like Kamandi and The Demon, but, again, DC wanted him to draw them, and in fact, canceled the Fourth World books to make sure Kirby could draw other titles.

But while DC was certainly probably hoping for bigger sales than it received from Kirby, it did not force him out of the company.

Why did Jack Kirby leave DC for Marvel?

It is true that DC eliminated the writer/editor position after Jack Kirby left, but that didn’t happen until AFTER he was back at Marvel, so that wasn’t a reason for him to leave DC (could Kirby have known it was probably GOING to happen? Perhaps, but it doesn’t seem to be the reason he left).

Generally speaking, it is true that Kirby WAS irked at the cancelation of the Fourth World titles, and he probably started wanting to leave at that point, but it was really just an overall bad situation at DC. Mark Evanier, who knows more about Jack Kirby’s comic book career than pretty much anyone, explained the situation to me years ago:

Jack left DC because at the time his contract expired, he wasn’t getting along well with them. The company was in trouble — it was not long before the publisher was dismissed — and there was a general panic in the office. Jack thought they were giving up too quickly on almost everything they published, cancelling books upon receipt of the slightest poor sales reports. He didn’t feel he could work in that environment.

Marvel, meanwhile, offered Kirby at least as much freedom as he would ever have at DC. He would be his own editor, and he didn’t have to coordinate with the other titles, he could just write his books (some new, some characters that he had previously co-created, like Captain America and Black Panther)….

Kirby didn’t love his return to Marvel any more than his time at DC, but luckily, he made some connections in the animation world when a Fantastic Four cartoon was made, and so he was able to move into a field that paid him a lot more and gave him much-needed health insurance.

But yeah, DC didn’t push Kirby out, he WANTED out.

Thanks to Ian for the suggestion, and thanks to Mark for the answer from almost twenty years ago (I’ve been doing this column for a super long time, huh?).

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Feel free to send suggestions for future comic legends to me at either cronb01@aol.com or brianc@cbr.com.