Template:Did you know nominations/Jack Kirby

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The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Cwmhiraeth (talk) 05:33, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Jack Kirby[edit]

Jack Kirby by Susan Skaar
Jack Kirby by Susan Skaar
  • ... that Jack Kirby (pictured) created comic book characters including Captain America, the Avengers and the Black Panther? Source: " Punching Nazis was A-OK with the King – and 70 years on, critics of the alt-right have found powerful allies in Cap and his Jewish co-creator", "Kirby’s comics became superhero showcases, introducing a veritable who’s-who of characters on cinema screens today: Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, Ant-Man, the collective Avengers, Silver Surfer and the X-Men" ([1] "Created in 1966 by Lee and Kirby, Black Panther was revolutionary as the first African superhero in mainstream comics. Considered by Kirby as one of his most important creations for its message, T'Challa (Black Panther) was a black man with brawn, brains, wealth and advanced technology introduced in the middle of the civil rights movement." [2]

Improved to Good Article status by Tenebrae (talk) and Hiding (talk). Nominated by Hawkeye7 (talk) at 03:29, 10 June 2018 (UTC).

Review

General: Article is new enough and long enough

Policy compliance:

Hook eligibility:

  • Cited: Yes
  • Interesting: No - Too unsurprising and so does not do the subject justice
Image: Image is freely licensed, used in the article, and clear at 100px.
QPQ: Done.

Overall: The article was very readable – well done! But the hook needs more of that pizzazz. I suggest ALT1, which follows. Andrew D. (talk) 21:04, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

  • ALT1 ... that Jack Kirby (pictured) created many famous comic book characters, such as the Avengers, but his conception of Spider-Man was rejected for being too heroic?
    @Tenebrae and Hiding: Could somebody have a look at re-phrasing to remove the close paraphrase? Hawkeye7 (discuss) 02:20, 12 June 2018 (UTC)
    • @Hawkeye7: um, you guys are aware they appear to have copied our article. They have a published date of 12 Feb 2012. Our article as at 13 November 2011. [3] Why would we need to change our article, shouldn't we be reporting them? Hiding T 09:52, 12 June 2018 (UTC)
      @Hiding: That's a good point. I checked the source used for the WW2 details (Ronin Ro) and this checks out as the actual origin and was written in 2004. Some tweaks to our account might be needed but they are no big deal. I reckon that we just need to agree a hook now. Andrew D. (talk) 12:21, 12 June 2018 (UTC)
      My sincerest apologies Hiding. I have seen this happen before. I have been busy and didn't check. I have another hook suggestion, combining the two:
  • ALT3: ... that Jack Kirby (pictured) created comic book characters including Captain America, the Avengers and the Black Panther, but his conception of Spider-Man was rejected for being too heroic?
    I doubt if comic book fans could readily agree what Kirby is most renowned for, but I figured that the Avengers and the Black Panther would be best known to the rest in the wake of the recent blockbuster movies. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:25, 12 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment Don't have a concrete proposal for fixing it, but the selection of characters reeks of WP:RECENT and is not even entirely accurate. The choice of Black Panther is problematic, since before 2018 the character was more obscure than Iron Man was before 2008, still now is likely nowhere near as well-known as the latter, and while Kirby's role in the creation of Iron Man may be debatable, this is not the case with several other, arguably more long-term notable, characters like the Fantastic Four, who are not included. Furthermore, "the Avengers" is not a closed group of characters, and as of 2018 the characters most-associated with the name by the majority of our readers are probably the roster from the 2012 film, of whom the creation of two (Black Widow and Hawkeye) have nothing to do with Kirby but more with Don Heck, a third (Iron Man, definitely the best-known) is dubious as mentioned above, and a fourth (Captain America) is redundant as written. These problems probably need to be addressed because, precisely as a result of the recent success of films based on his work, Kirby himself has become an important topic of cultural history, and so accurate and due representation of his work, not cherry-picked based on what works were adapted into excellent and important films but which Kirby himself probably never regarded as anything more than day-to-day pay-check work, is important. Hijiri 88 (やや) 12:58, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
    There is no doubt that Kirby would regard Captain America as his greatest creation. It was his first major success, and sold a million copies a month for a time. As did the Boy Commandos, but they are not so well known today. He was very proud of the Black Panther, and returned to the character in the 1970s. Whereas the Fantastic Four was very influential in setting off Marvel's revival in the Silver Age, but was cancelled in 2015, and I don't know how well it is known today. I hadn't considered the Avengers roster in the movies; I was thinking of the original Avengers in the comic books. He created the team, and is always credited as its co-creator, and co-created all the characters in the original line up including Iron Man, and he drew the first eight issues before handing over to Don Heck. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:48, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
@Hawkeye7: There is no doubt that Kirby would regard Captain America as his greatest creation. I know that -- that's why if you read my comment carefully, Cap is the only one whose inclusion I didn't question -- I just said it was redundant with "the Avengers" if we are going by characters who are well known to the general non-comics-reading public in 2018. and co-created all the characters in the original line up including Iron Man Your mentioning Iron Man here highlights the problem -- why is he not listed, when he's probably more famous now than the entire rest of the original Avengers roster plus Black Panther combined? Yes, his role in the creation of Iron Man is more "dubious" than most others (he probably did little more than design the original in-costumed look of the character, which has hardly ever been used since except as a kind of rough preliminary costume designed by Stark while in captivity and quickly replaced after he escaped, as in the 2008 film), but even with Captain America and Black Panther he wasn't the sole creator of those characters (for whom credit is also conventionally given to Simon and Lee, respectively). As for I hadn't considered the Avengers roster in the movies; I was thinking of the original Avengers in the comic books and He was very proud of the Black Panther, and returned to the character in the 1970s, those contradict your explanation for not including the Fantastic Four, which is that they may not be as well-known today (relative to other characters) as they were when Kirby was still alive, which is due primarily to the very recent IP dispute between Fox and Disney-Marvel, with the former pumping out relatively cheap, underwhelming and severely undermarketed films for the sole purpose of keeping the rights from automatically reverting to the latter, and the latter deliberately cancelling the book so as not to promote a rival studio's films. Anyway, if the purpose of this DYK is to highlight our Jack Kirby article, and Kirby himself was really more associated with BP than FF, the latter would not be named 19 times in the article (excluding refs) while the former is only named three times. Hijiri 88 (やや) 00:18, 16 June 2018 (UTC)
BTW: The source's Kirby’s comics became superhero showcases, introducing a veritable who’s-who of characters on cinema screens today: Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, Ant-Man, the collective Avengers, Silver Surfer and the X-Men is actually totally wrong: Kirby was involved with the original X-Men, which was never popular and has little to do with the reason the characters are popular in film and television now (different roster, and he had apparently nothing to do with the creation of either Wolverine or Deadpool), Silver Surfer is not a popular film character, and claiming he created "the collective Avengers" is both redundant with the claim that he created Hulk, Thor, Iron Man and Ant-Man and not accurate if one considers "the collective Avengers" to be the ones who constitute "who’s-who of characters on cinema screens today" (the four named characters were clearly selected based on a cross-section of the "canon" Avengers roster in the films with the original Avengers from issue #1 in the comics), and the "Ant-Man" he created is not the one who is a popular film character today, having only appeared in one major motion picture released to date. Hijiri 88 (やや) 00:26, 16 June 2018 (UTC)
  • @Hawkeye7 and Andrew Davidson: It has been over a month since the last comments here, are there any updates that need to be noted? Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 11:06, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
    No. Move it on. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 03:20, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
    We seem to need more opinions to get a consensus about the hook. @Argento Surfer: may be able to help, as he has worked on related topics. Andrew D. (talk) 08:06, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
    • I think Alt 1 is the most interesting, but I agree with Hijiri88 about using the Avengers as an example. I suggest using Alt 1 and substituting Captain America. Argento Surfer (talk) 12:43, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Reviewer needed for ALT2 hook. BlueMoonset (talk) 03:58, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
  • ALT2 is good to go (I'd say "including" rather than "such as") › Mortee talk 15:33, 15 August 2018 (UTC)