>Kirby was drafted into the U.S. Army on June 7, 1943. After basic training at Camp Stewart, near Savannah, Georgia, he was assigned to Company F of the 11th Infantry Regiment. He landed on Omaha Beach in Normandy on August 23, 1944, 2+1⁄2 months after D-Day, although Kirby's reminiscences would place his arrival just 10 days after. Kirby recalled that a lieutenant, learning that comics artist Kirby was in his command, made him a scout who would advance into towns and draw reconnaissance maps and pictures, an extremely dangerous duty.

I still remember the episode Superman: The Animated Series dedicated to his memory as if I watched it yesterday.

Long live the king.

shit, marvel should make that into a movie. Get chris evans to play kirby

No examples? Surely the National Archives would declassify some of this stuff.

then Stan Lee bankrupted his brothers tractor dealership

"You can draw comics? Shit then, son, you can draw a map". From cartoonist to cartographer. Military thinking, right there.

Edit: Re-reading my comment, I can't help but read the "quote" in Tommy Lee Jones's voice, and in the movie of this, TLJ is the officer that sends him on his map drawing mission.

He hated Nazis, like really hated Nazis.

Astonishing imagination the man had. Legend is chuckled about a lot these days but Kirby transcends even even that.

In other words:

Guy who created iconic character enthusiastically volunteering for highly dangerous mission to fight Nazis actually got drafted and ordered to do highly dangerous mission to fight Nazis.

That's why you keep your head down and don't volunteer for shit.

From his IMBD trivia page: https://m.imdb.com/name/nm0456158/trivia

Jack Kirby was famous for being as tough as his characters. For instance, when a gangster was shaking down Kirby's boss, Will Eisner, to take his towel service, Kirby charged in to throw the gangster out. When Kirby created Captain America with Joe Simon, Nazi sympathizers once gathered in the lobby of the office building where the pair worked to threaten them. However, when upon hearing that Kirby was heading down with his sleeves rolled up to physically confront them himself, they fled before he arrived.

It really would be a way better direction for the MCU movies rather than yet another Various Superheroes Save the Universe Again story arc. Kirby and Lee were Jewish-Americans watching for years as the Nazis came into power, created these Hitler-punching superheroes as a way to process their horror -- and then they themselves get drafted into that war to help fight it first hand.

EDIT: Accidentally wrote Ditko was Jewish and went to war (wrong on both counts), removed.

I wouldn’t be surprised if they were just never collected. He would pass the drawing to an officer who would then use it to devise strategies. They would then use it as a starting point for more detailed maps in the future and they would throw it away when it outlived its usefulness.

Source: I’m totally guessing based on conjecture

Steve Ditko wasn't Jewish.

That would be twisted in a nice way playing the role of the co-creator who created the role he played jn - would actually sort of fit the metaverse they are narrating as well haha

Ooops my bad.

I’m sure the animators origin stories are in phase 22

Especially when they had complete air control and could get up a reconaissance plane pretty much whenever they wanted.

Underrated comment, take my upvote!

Especially if he wasn't famous yet

Reminds me of the news story where some thug robbed a caricature artist who then drew a picture of the perp for police.

https://i.imgur.com/chQzb1A.png

https://abcnews.go.com/US/police-caricature-find-suspect-robbed-caricaturist-drawn/story?id=67797263

Didn't you see him at the end of Endgame? Dude's way too old now!

The reconnaissance plane then has to fly back to the UK, have the film unloaded from the rather bulky cameras, develop the film, turn it over to analysts, have the analysts create maps, get those maps across the English Channel by plane or boat, and get that map to the front lines. By which time the unit that wanted the map has already taken that bit of ground and moved on.

Kirby’s maps would be used within a day of their creation. If you want maps that fast of a particular tactical area, you use some guy on the ground, not aircraft. Photo-reconnaissance aircraft were used for grander strategic reconnaissance duties, including tracking German ships and factory outputs.

Please state his full name: Jack "The King" Kirby

Ohh what episode is that? I'd like to see it!

So you're saying Tarantino should have made The Bear Jew be Jack Kirby?

Captain America #1 came out in March 1941.

By December 1941 it was Marvel's #1 selling franchise. (Marvel was called Timely Comics back then, but it's the same company)

Whether he was "famous" or not is subject to the same niche problems people face today. Can you name the number one comic book writer of 2022-23?

Not a clue. I doubt many people expected comics to become as endearing as they did in the 1940s. It was probably just pop culture landfill at the time, not expected to evolve and become a classic.

Yes.

Apokalips Now, Parts 1 and 2. If you watch the series from the beginning, take note of Detective Dan Turpin and his likeness to Kirby.

They even threw a Stan Lee cameo into the original version of the 2nd episode's final scene. Unfortunately, they scrubbed it from subsequent re-releases.

Edit: they did put it back into the HBO Max and Blu-ray versions.