But what about the rest of the list, you ask? Ok:
20-16
15-11
10-6

5. Black Panther

AFD: Slick and austere: that’s the design for the Black Panther, whose classy costume works best in Kirby’s refined all-black version. The only character on our list whose look, in old-school superhero fashion, is directly inspired by — and captures the nature of — their real-life namesake (although I like to think Devil Dinosaur actually existed), it’s Kirby’s subtle and effective touches to the get up that give the Black Panther his tangibly intense, mysterious, and intimidating edge: most noticeably, the bright white eyes and mouthless mask.

Steve: Though the Black Panther’s costume is an rather basic one, especially by typical Kirby standards, it’s also one of the King’s best. Simple and sleek, the only details Kirby opted to give it are the pinstriped boots and gloves and the ears on the mask. It’s stunning in it’s simplicity, really, and is completely befitting one of Marvel’s most regal characters. A master at customizing costumes to their owners roles and personalities, the costume was also given the optional mini-cape in keeping with the Panther’s role as king, making it look that much cooler.

4. Dr. Doom

AFD: The greatest and most charismatic villain Kirby ever designed. Marvel’s OG. The go-to template for maniacal, over-the-top supervillains then, now, and forever. Proving that at its best the Marvel Universe is grand opera, Doom’s appearance makes an immediate, overwhelming impression on the reader with a theatrical presence that perfectly fits Victor Von’s melodramatic, cartoonish, charismatic personality. The green tunic, cape, huge belt, baggy hood (which always has to be up) and vaguely medieval armor give him a kind of classic, 19th century, Jules Verne-by-way-of-Hammer-Studios thing happening. True to his role as one of the Marvel Universe’s great outsiders, Doom belongs to another time and place.

Steve: By all rights, Doom shouldn’t be in the top 5 Kirby designs, probably not in the top 25, if only because he has that ridiculous Renn-faire hood on his head. However, the incredibly emotable mask entirely trumps the hood – an iron mask that only allows us to see the insanely evil, sometimes noble, always self-serving eyes of Victor Von Doom. Doom’s costume itself provides the reader with the perfect visual description of the Latverian monarch, with the combination of the mechanical armor and medieval garb reflecting the character’s dual methodology which consists of both traditional gypsy magic as well as cutting edge technology. Tack on the character’s penchant for the dramatic, often shaking both fists high in the air while screaming his own name or that of Mr. Fantastic, and you’ve got the greatest villain Marvel’s ever seen.

3. The Thing

AFD: Ben Grimm’s first cosmic-ray-transformed self looked like a giant moving dollop of orange mashed potatoes. But once Kirby refined the concept into the powerful mass of hard, abstract shapes he is today, the Thing became one of Marvel’s most recognizable and widely beloved characters. A masterwork of near avant-garde form and detail, the amazing trick Kirby pulls off with the Thing is bestowing upon a rock the gifts of movement and expression. His art along with Lee’s writing showed Grimm had a vast core of humanity underneath that hard outer shell.

Steve: It took a little while for Ben Grimm to develop from a lumpy orange dude to the rock encrusted Thing we all know and love, but when Kirby hit on this classic look, man did it click. In many ways, the Thing is the polar opposite of Darkseid: the latter’s stony visage lends itself to being cold and emotionless while Ben Grimm’s unique and rocky hide is instrumental in conveying the wildly varying emotions of the character. Perhaps the truest testament to Kirby’s design is the fact that there were no creator-specific tricks necessary to do this – any other artist can convey the same range of emotions with Grimm’s amazingly malleable puss, a true testament to Aunt Petunia’s favorite nephew’s awesome design.

2. Silver Surfer

AFD: My actual pick for #1, but Steve made a better case for the top choice than I could for this guy, who in my opinion is just about as sublime a character design as you can get. The Silver Surfer is simplicity refined into pop transcendence. Endowed with the amorphously defined power cosmic and an infinite amount of loner cool, the elegant and statuesque Surfer – a marked contrast to the grotestque brutality and foreboding menace Kirby usually concentrated on – looks exactly like what he is: the perfect being who does the most awesome activity imaginable — surfs…IN OUTER SPACE.

Steve: Simple, simple, simple, and yet the Silver Surfer remains one of Kirby’s most enduring and popular designs. Even though Norrin Radd’s never truly set the world on fire with his solo adventures, the character manages to maintain an eerie hold over pop culture. Even people who never, ever read comics are as likely to recognize the character when they see him, with a number of them that would even go as far as to identify themselves as Surfer fans. Is it the simple sleekness of the character, the large, melancholy eyes or the latent desire that most of us have to surf? Whatever it is, the character has slowly but surely become an icon, transcending his comic book roots due solely to the look Kirby gave him.

1. Captain America

AFD: I’ll be completely honest right up front, I think Captain America is one of the dullest comic book characters ever created. However, I’ll acknowledge that Kirby’s striking, and, yes, iconic design is one of the most timeless and retcon proof. Only Superman’s pajamas have the same stubborn resistance to change, and Cap’s might in fact be more accomplished. The shield alone (the round one after Cap’s look was refined and polished) makes Kirby’s immortality a lock. The perfect balance, bold use of color, and eye-popping details — the red and white around the midsection, the big chest star, the forehead “A,” the exaggerated red gloves and boots — all add up to the consummate superhero look. If you need evidence why Kirby helped birth pop art, and in effect the entire Taking Pop Culture Seriously mentality, look no further.

Steve: When we were developing this list, it took a little lobbying on my part to get Captain America in the number one spot over the Surfer. However, once I pointed out that much like the Surfer, Kirby’s original design had remained virtually unchanged since it’s conception, Andrew had no choice bu to give it up to Cap. In addition to that, Cap’s costume has a good 20 years or so on the Kosmic Kahuna, proving it’s perfection through it’s longevity. The red, white and blue color combination could have easily been a corny one, but Kirby married the American flag to the character so perfectly that even today, some 60 years or so after he first appeared, Captain America remains amazingly and appropriately iconic. Even more importantly, aside from a few minor cosmetic evolutions, no artist has truly tried to “improve” upon the original design, Rob Liefeld’s ill-advised forehead eagle and The Ultimates’ other universe Cap aside.

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The rest of the list:
Numbers 20-16
Numbers 15-11

10. Devil Dinosaur

AFD: We can wax pretentious and philosophical about Kirby all we want, but sometimes the basic reason for his popularity and obvious visual brilliance can be best explained as this: he was really great at drawing huge dudes that like to destroy stuff. Essentially, here’s one of the very basic reasons I’ve always loved Kirby: Big dinosaur? Yawn. Big red, enraged dinosaur? Ok!

Also, this is kind of cheating, but I like to consider our inclusion of Devil Dinosaur, even though it was some time later, as representative of all of the fantastic monsters Kirby created for Marvel before (and a bit after) he landed the FF gig: Fin Fang Foom, Tim Boo Ba, Monsteroso, etc. If I remember correctly, he drew almost 200 of these stories, and in each and every one the monster is noticeably different and memorable. Amazing.

Steve: If Kirby had simply drawn a dinosaur, then good old DD wouldn’t have made this list at all, much less ranked in the top 10. However, Kirby drew a bright red T-Rex-type critter who would not only grab stuff with his mouth but was just as likely to somehow drop kick you into the next panel. I really don’t fully understand all of the science involved, but this automatically and incontrovertibly makes Devil Dinosaur awesome. The fact that Kirby actually devised an explanation for the character’s crimson hue (his family was burned alive and Devil Dinosaur survived, albeit somewhat lobsterized) just makes him even better.

9. Red Skull

AFD: The oldest Kirby character to make our list and one of the least complicated. Yet another example of Kirby finding sophistication in the straightforward, the pulp-inspired Red Skull is vaguely awe-inspiring in its Why Didn’t I Think Of That? simplicity. Devising a perfect foil for Captain America, Simon and Kirby had a scary sundae with the super Nazi concept — all they needed to complete the idea was the perfect cherry on top…so to speak. And so they devised a character that would become one of the Marvel Universe’s most menacing and recognizable (and underused) villains.

Steve: What – some guy in a green jumpsuit with a swastika on the sleeve made it onto the list? Hells yeah, he did – he’s got a head that’s shaped in the form of a bright red skull, after all! That’s the beautiful thing about Kirby – sometimes he’d go all out with the craziness like with Galactus, and other times he’d reign it in and go for simple and sweet like the Red Skull. The cigarette the Red Skull was always smoking with the ridiculously pretentious cigarette holder was the icing on the cake.

8. The Inhumans

AFD: Lee and Kirby were so full of go-for-broke nuttiness during their historic run on Fantastic Four that they could easily pull off throwing in something crazy like the Inhumans, a team of guest star superheroes immediately more captivating and engaging than the main characters…but obviously just too damn weird for their own title. All the Inhumans look the part — kind of eerie, supernatural, sleek, haunted, and very, very weird. They make the Fantastic Four (and every other hero in the Marvel Universe) seem normal. Obvious highlight: Lockjaw, the giant, cuddly teleporting dog with a moustache.

Steve: Essentially the older, less brightly attired brothers and sisters to Kirby’s New Gods over at DC and later the Eternals back at Marvel again, the Inhumans were created as back-up characters for the Fantastic Four. A lesser artist would have simply churned out a couple of decent designs and and rounded things out with half a dozen generic designs, but as always, Kirby actually designed an entire family of distinct and visually stunning heroes that he put genuine thought into. The best part was the fun Kirby obviously had designing this group of characters, from the beautiful Crystal to the goat legged Grogon to the oversized bulldog Lockjaw. Even as a kid, I got the visual pun of Black Bolt being unable to speak for fear of destroying everything around him while having a tuning fork on his forehead. Classic!

7. Darkseid

AFD: Kirby’s finest hour at DC was the creation of this character. Looking like the toughest, most evil guy you could ever carve out of solid rock, Darkseid became one of the DC Universe’s most threatening and imposing villains partially because Kirby’s design just oozes power, awe, and terror. The minute you see him you know Darkseid is a badass you don’t want to mess around with. No wonder he was one of the inspirations for Vader.

Steve: Darkseid is not only Kirby’s greatest DC creation, he’s a character that the entire company has at one time or another hung it’s collective hat on. It’s no surprise when you consider the fact that Darkseid may be Kirby’s most immediately menacing character design ever. Unlike many of his creations, Darkseid isn’t cut from brightly colored cloth. Kirby decided to literally make his visage reflect his name, with a dark granite colored face, deep blue outfit and glowing red eyes. In fact, the only downside to Darkseid at all is the spelling of his name, which is just confusing enough that to this day, I still encounter people who pronounce it “Dark-seed.” Ah well.

6. Galactus

AFD: Kirby only designed one better villain than Galactus, but none more purely impressive in terms of scope and awe. In my opinion, he’s the most frightening Marvel villain – if you can even consider him a villain. Every other Marvel baddie seems beatable somehow. But if Galactus shows up on your planet, what the hell are you going to do? Guy needs to eat, and he’s going to eat. Plus, he’s not just an alien, he’s COSMIC. His helmet, his armor, his ship: it’s otherworldly, but all looks like it could actually work; could actually do something. And that something is terrible and unstoppable. Part of Kirby’s magic is that he can make something like Galactus believable and dramatic.

Steve: Sure, the concept of a giant guy who ignores normal sized folk that are beating on his ankles isn’t a new one, but Galactus has that awesome helmet, which completely trumps the skirt Kirby originally had him wearing. The world devourer is basically an immense purple canvas Kirby used to paint his insane techno squiggles and zigzags all over, to the readers’ delight.

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15. Mr. Miracle

AFD: Kirby’s tenure at Marvel during the 60s was obviously his most groundbreaking and successful, but his 70s work at DC, when he was given relatively free reign to build worlds with the New Gods, is arguably just as intriguing…at least in theory. Mr. Miracle’s dry personality could use a dose of Stan Lee, but the character’s look is an absolute triumph of design. Although I honestly have no idea, I would hazard a guess that Kirby put a lot of effort into Mr. Miracle. There’s a striking use of bold color and perfect symmetry at work, which gives the character a sleek, economical, refined look that feels like the result of a long revision process. Mr. Miracle also shows once again Kirby’s genius for memorable visuals: you may not know this character, but once you see him, he’s locked in your brain for eternity.

Steve: Much like the Demon, Kirby’s use of bright yellow and red, along with a liberal use of bright green, should have left eyes nationwide weeping in pain. Again, like the Demon, Kirby not only pulled it off, avoiding any 3-D Man type disasters, but managed to create a singularly unique character in the process. Personally, the thing that always fascinated me the most about Mister Miracle’s look was the way his outfit bonded to his face as though it were a second skin. Rather than simply wearing a mask, it’s as though he’s been shrink wrapped in his costume’s material resulting in a subtle but throughly unique twist on the whole masked hero concept.

14. Magneto

AFD: THE HELMET. Although Kirby might be better known for being outlandishly elaborate and strange, he did know when something perfectly simple worked. Ninety-five percent of Magneto, one of Marvel’s five most popular and infamous villains, is actually pretty dull. He’s got a cape, he’s got a skin-tight suit, he’s got boots and whatever. Everything he’s wearing is a similar shade of purple. Oooh, scary. So why is Magneto imposing and frightening? THE HELMET. Said THE HELMET hides much of the character’s face, but leaves enough room for sneers and psycho bug eyes and open mouths yelling and anything else Kirby has in his Villainous Expression arsenal. And of course there’s that weird transmitter thing on the forehead. THE HELMET.

Steve: Andrew really didn’t leave a whole lot for me to add here – HELMET. When we were developing the list, one of my concerns about including Magneto was the simple fact that, helmet aside, he’s really boring. Then it dawned on me – the simple fact that I was even debating whether or not to ixnay the Master of Magnetism from the list rather than simply doing so was evidence enough that he belonged. As soon as I realized that Magneto’s helmet has become nearly as recognizable a symbol as Spider-Man’s chest emblem or the Punisher’s skull, there was no way I could knock him out of here.

13. Thor

AFD: Some of Kirby’s designs seem obviously timeless from first glance, others, not so much. Thor falls into that second category. How and why has Kirby’s original depiction of the character stubbornly stuck around for so long? How are those silly little wings on his hemet not completely stupid? Hard to say beyond mentioning Kirby’s ability to artfully depict movement, depth, mass, and anatomy. With Thor, Kirby keeps things simple again and, similar to The Demon and just about everything Kirby designed for Marvel’s wonderfully bonkers Thor-niverse, there’s an almost avant-garde pop spin to steretypical fantasy tropes happening. Seriously, check out the circles on Thor’s wife-beater. Who else would’ve included those? Who else would’ve known they’d actually work?

Steve: Even more impressive than a character whose basic look never changes over the course of decades and decades is one that is constantly updated and tweaked by later artists only to see the original creator’s design return time and time again. Everyone thinks they can make Thor look better than the King, but the god of thunder inevitably returns to his blonde, Kirby roots.

12. The Celestials

AFD: I would posit that although the Celestials aren’t Kirby’s best work, they may in fact be the most representative of his style. Kirby taking himself to the far reaches of his own aesthetic, maybe. Ultimate Kirby, perhaps. If you wanted to introduce someone to the power and outlandish imagination of Kirby’s art, it would be nice to have a multimedia presentation on the Celestials handy. The bottom line is these are huge, gigantical dudes without faces in crazy space armor and massive space machinery carrying space weapons with strange and precise designs all over everything and it looks utterly awesome. Nothing else is like the Celestials — they genuinely could be from beyond space and time.

Steve: Even though the Celestials have never headlined a comic on their own and rarely, if ever speak, they’re still one of Kiby’s most awesome creations. Giant space gods that are essentially hunks of Kirby machinery walking around with arms, legs and heads accented by copious amounts of Kirby Krackle? If you can’t see how cool that is, I don’t know what to tell you.

11. M.O.D.O.K.

AFD: Ah, MODOK. A giant squishy head in armor with little arms and legs hovering around in a super chair = sold. It didn’t really occur to me until I got older what a great sense of humor those 60s Marvel and DC guys (well, except for Ditko) had. Self-aware, anything goes silliness is an underrated aspect of Silver Age superhero comics that I think has contributed to the era’s timelessness, and MODOK is a phenomenal — maybe the best — representation of that whole ridiculous-but-wow-amazing style. M.O.D.O.K. 4. E.V.R.

Steve: Quite possibly the most grotesque character to ever be regularly and prominently featured in mainstream comics, Kirby channeled his horror and science fiction ideas together to create MODOK, one of the most memorable characters to ever grace a newsprinted page. The aptly and descriptively named Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing is meant to be the stuff nightmares are made of, and while no artist has ever made the mistake of trying to make him less hideous, nobody will ever match the sheer ugliness and power Kirby endowed this modern day Frankenstein’s monster with. “Ridiculous-but-wow-amazing,” yes, but MODOK’s creepier than hell, to boot.

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From the venerable Murray Roach comes this classic ad that Marvel would likely prefer to never think of again. Y’see, kids, back in the day, comic book artists didn’t get their original art back. For years they were cool with it, since they didn’t see any intinsic value in the original pages, but Kirby kind of did. He asked Marvel for his art, they said no, and years of namecalling (from Marvel towards The King) ensued. Marvel eventually gave in and returned the art they still had in their posession, creating another cottage industry with comic book art dealers and the like as a result, but before that happened, Marvel was publically shamed by various comic book companies and professionals. The ad below ran on the back cover of Eclipse comics in “celebration” of Marvel’s 25th year of publishing.

For more on the history between Kirby and Marvel, click here.

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To distract ourselves from the cinematic abominations of the heavily hyped Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer — a film where Jack Kirby’s influence looms larger than Galactus, but his lively creative spirit is nowhere to be found — we’ve decided to celebrate The King’s monumental contribution to pop culture by putting together a list of his twenty finest creations. The countdown starts below with numbers 20-16. Tune back in tomorrow for 15-11!

20. Adolf Hitler (Hate-Monger)

Steve: Face it – if you had no idea what a creep Hitler was and you stumbled across him at the supermarket, you’d feel kind of bad for the little, nerdy looking guy. Kirby’s Hitler, on the other hand, just oozed psychotic power while still being immediately recognizable as one the most reprehensible bastards of all time. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the Red Skull’s origin story, and using Hitler’s clone for the Hate Monger’s alter ego was a stroke of genius by Stan and Jack.

AFD: Kirby’s Hitler echoes most of the American media’s popular propaganda that depicted the German dictator/warmonger as a cartoonishly loud and frenzied psycho mad crazy man. But what’s also apparent in Kirby’s characterization is the canny and terrifying realization that here was an actual, real-life supervillain.

19. Etrigan the Demon

Steve: By all rights, Kirby’s Demon should be dismissed as a goofy looking guy due to the garish colors alone, but despite being a bright yellow character in a bright red suit, Etrigan manages to bring it. Huge, yet squat, with a face only a mother could bear to look at and not get queasy, The Demon is one of the few DC character designs from Kirby that’s managed to stand the test of time without appearing dated.

AFD: Although a minor character by all accounts, The Demon’s refusal to disappear into obscurity has a lot to do with Kirby’s strange but unforgettable design. The loud colors and short stature make a frightening character sympathetic, and as he did so well in Thor, Kirby crosses stereotypical fantasy tropes (Horns? Check. Pointy teeth? Check. Red beady eyes? Check.) with his own pop aesthetics (Cape? Check. Muscular and imposing? Check.) and accomplishes what most people would picture in their own minds if asked: what if a demon were a superhero?

18. The Skrulls

Steve: Even though Kirby modified these guys over the years, not unlike Star Trek’s Klingons, from the beginning these little green men from outer space were creepy buggers. Combine their shape shifting with their truly grotesque and utterly unique faces, and you have aliens I’d love to eventually see make it to the big screen in one of these Marvel adaptations.

AFD: One of the most compelling features of Kirby’s prolific canon is his fascination with the grotesque. Has a superhero artist ever rendered ugly characters in such a profoundly disturbing way? Certainly one of his most disquieting creations are the Skrull, perennial villains who with their big, mean eyes, huge pointy ears, green skin, and lithe build look like the scary Alien Invader out of everyone’s pulp nightmare — except Kirby adds that freaked out jaw and purple uniform and makes them infinitely more sinister.

17. Arnim Zola

Steve: Dude’s face is in the center of his chest. Sure, it’s set down below the neck area where any artist could have put it, but Zola is put together so specifically, you can tell he’s a Kirby creation no matter who’s drawing him. Plus, one has to think that he’s got one of the best reasons for being a super-villain ever. After all, if your head was planted in the middle of your freakin’ chest, you’d be pretty pissed off at the rest of the world too, right?

AFD: File under: bats*&t. It’s a testament to The King’s abilities that I’ve actually never read a comic with Arnim Zola in it, but I sure as hell know who the character is and what he looks like. The wide, malevolent face in the middle of the torso is the obvious selling point, but the addition of some Kirby Machinery and the mysterious, vaguely scientific design (symbolically?) placed over Zola’s crotch show the artist at his most playful.

16. Ego the Living Planet

Steve: Jim Starlin’s always been referred to as a cosmic storyteller, but the man ain’t got nothing on Kirby and Stan Lee. Not content enough with populating planets with superheroes, Lee and Kirby created a character that was a freaking planet. Ego remains one of the more insane concepts in comics, no matter how you slice it.

AFD: Here’s the first time Kirby’s wonderful cosmic fixation and colossal renderings of a vast, mythic, imaginary, terrifying universe appears on our list. So, as if a giant, telepathic living planet weren’t an awesome enough idea, Kirby gives Ego two menacing glowing eyes, a portruding nose, a mouth, and the piece de resistance: A BEARD. Because if a planet existed out there that was a living being, it would of course have a menacing, angry, psychedelic god face. I kind of like to think it’s Kirby’s criticism of the self-indulgent aspects of hippie culture, but either way, amazing.

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