So, yea, Kirby Genesis… Any chance we could just skip to Revelation and be done with this thing?
I picked up Kirby Genesis #1, published by Dynamite Entertainment, last week, and I can pretty much summarize this issue in one word: BORING. The teaser issue that preceded this didn’t exactly build my hopes up. So I didn’t go into this expecting much, and sadly, it looks like I was right.
No offense to Alex Ross, but this should've been on the cover
Somehow, this issue has everything happen, and yet it’s like nothing happens at all. We’re introduced to Kirby Freeman, our everyman hero who attends college alongside his secret, lifelong crush, and then we see the mishmash of past Jack Kirby creations make their first appearances on earth. You’d think that would deliver something of interest, but it just doesn’t.
For starters, Kirby Freeman is painfully generic. We’ve seen the geek pining after the girl for quite a while now. They’re all over television. They’re all over modern movies. And in comics? Hell, we’ve seen them there since Marvel Comics delivered the first adventures of Spider-Man in the 60’s. There’s nothing unique about this kid, nothing that makes him a true individual rather than a cookie cutout. It’s like the writers tried so hard to make him relatable that he’s not relatable at all.
Moving on, the aliens just aren’t interesting at all. Much like Kirby Freeman, they’re all just so generic and dull. They feel more like photocopies of Red Sonja, Captain Marvel, and the New Gods rather than fascinating characters spawned from the legendary mind of the king Jack Kirby himself.
I’m starting to think there’s a reason these characters never saw the mainstream light until now.
Shut up, reviewer! We're awesome, dammit!
I did some checking online, because I started asking myself if I was just being too negative. Was I missing something important? Did I just not “get it?”
Well…maybe. Several online review sites seem pretty wowed by the whole thing. In fact, a lot of reviewers practically gushed over the fantastic characterization and re-imagining of Kirby’s greatness.
But there was one group that agreed with me. The folks at ComicBookResources.com pretty much echoed my feelings. They said, “It doesn’t fail so much because of an abundance of bad but rather because of a lack of good.” (Couldn’t have said it better myself!)
Issue #1 picks up decades after the launch of Pioneer 10 and chronicles our planet’s first contact with beings and entities initially encountered by NASA’s exploratory vessel. Told from the point of view of brilliant physics major Kirby Freeman, Genesis reintroduces the colorful pantheon of demigods first seen in issue 0.
Demigods, huh? Been there, done that...
This does feature some pretty impressive artwork, though. The cosmic beings’ arrival is nothing short of stellar, visually. Jack Herbert and Alex Ross did a really impressive job here.
It’s mostly the story (by Kurt Busiek) that falls short for me.
Judge for yourselves on this one. Maybe I just have my head up my ass, but at least the folks at Comic Book Resources are up there with me. Two out of five stars.
This will be my last review of the Kirby Genesis series. I just haven’t enjoyed it, and $3.99 is a pretty steep price for a single comic book issue.