In 1975, Jack Kirby found himself at a crossroads. His five-year contract with DC Comics was coming to an end. It had been an intensely creative and frustrating period for the artist and Kirby made the difficult decision to return to Marvel, the company he helped make famous in the 1960s. Kirby signed a three-year contract with Marvel as a writer-artist, also editing his own work, which included Captain America, Black Panther, and his new creations 2001, The Eternals, Devil Dinosaur, and Machine Man, plus he illustrated his last collaboration with Stan Lee, the Silver Surfer graphic novel published in 1978. But Kirby’s homecoming at Marvel was not a happy one and it turned out to be the end of his work for the company.
This new video, “1975-1978: Kirby’s Last Stand at Marvel,” covers Kirby’s final three years at Marvel and is based on my San Diego Comic-Con 2026 panel presentation with Kirby experts Mark Evanier (author, Kirby: King of Comics) and John Morrow, editor-publisher of Jack Kirby Collector magazine and author of the upcoming book, MarvelMation: Jack Kirby’s Final Act in Comics and Animation. It’s NOT a recording of the actual panel, but it does include quotes from both Evanier and Morrow on what they had to say on Kirby’s final stint at Marvel and is—as usual—a graphics-filled video in the Tales From My Spinner Rack! tradition. Sadly, this is not a happy story, but the King of Comics does go on from Marvel to a new career as a storyboard and conceptual artist in animation, and returns to comics once again with creator-owned projects and the big finish to his New Gods storyline at DC in the 1980s.
You can watch Episode 33 right here, right now or click on the video below and see it in all its full-screen glory on the official Tales From My Spinner Rack channel on YouTube! Please subscribe on YouTube, where you’ll get my latest episodes a day earlier than here on my blog! And while you’re there, check out all of our other numbered episodes of Tales From My Spinner Rack, collected in the “Complete” playlist.
Tales From My Spinner Rack! Episode 34: “1975-1978: Kirby’s Last Stand at Marvel”
Click here for more than 30 Tales From My Spinner Rack! posts featuring nostalgic essays loaded with art and info about the comics I loved growing up in the 1960s and ‘70s!
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