So, Jack Kirby left DC after they pretty much reneged on every promise they gave him. His time there was filled with probably his last great explosion of creativity, one which took nearly 20 years for the rest of the industry to catch up to and strip-mine (see that recent JLA film). So, he was back at Marvel.   Had anything changed?  Well, Marv Wolfman was now Editor-in-Chief, having assumed full control (he was in charge of the magazines, before) after Len Wein handed the job off to him. He would last into the new year, the Bicentennial Year of 1976, before dumping it on Gerry Conway, who dumped it on Archie Goodwin, who dropped it in Jim Shooter's high lap. Promises were made by fans of Jack's work; but, as we will see, those promises proved hollow, as, among other things, Kirby wasn't given the freedom to create what he wanted (for long, anyway) and professional jealousies resulted in both poor promotion and even claims of sabotage (possibly some thread of truth in their, though more likely people happy to see him fail, rather than aid in the failure). A lot of wind had gone out of Jack's sails and he was far more guarded in what he offered Marvel. His big creative offering would be the previously covered Eternals, which carried on many of the themes of the 4th World, while adding a new ancient alien twist to it. As usual, to get the opportunity to do his own book, Kirby had to take on one of Marvel's. This would be his first breakout character (with Joe Simon), Captain America.

Cap had just come out of a storyline from Tony Isabella and Frank Robbins, where Sam Wilson is put on trial for narcotics trafficking, related to a previous street criminal alias "Snap" Wilson. That whole thing is generally regarded as regrettable, in hindsight, though, at the time, it was seen as an attempt to be relevant to the times, especially the Blaxploitation films that appealed to black audiences. The problem is that you had a bunch of white guys trying to do Blaxploitation and it sounded and looked like it. Now, me, I like Frank Robbins on Captain America; but, I seem to be in a minority there. The storyline itself? Not so much.... I did like the preceding issue (from Marv Wolfman and Robbins) with Dr Faustus. Jack was going to make a complete break from that and many would say "Fantastic! More power to you!" until they saw what Kirby offered.

I will say up front, I am looking at this run not as Kirby continuing Captain America, as the fans did (and the Marvel staff); but, as what I believe was Kirby's intent, to use Captain America to examine America, on its 200th Birthday (assuming you use July 4, 1776 as the dawn of the USA). So, with that in mind...

Captain America #193



Right off the bat, Kirby hits you with Cap leaping off the cover, with the Falcon close behind and a mob of people chasing them. The text tells us that the Madbomb can destroy the world. Immediately, the stakes are high.

The story begins at either Sam or his girlfriend Lila's apartment, where she is making coffee, while Sam and Cap compare genital sizes, I mean arm wrestle....



Kirby gives Lila dialogue that suggests he's no male chauvinist, as she is doing it as a favor; but don't make it a habit. Suddenly, Cap and Falc are hit by beams of energy and start throwing racially charged, aggressive threats at one another. The match starts turning violence, until Lila breaks the spell, only to come under it herself and grab a knife. Luckily, the duo stops her before she does a Lorena Bobbitt (as she grabs a carving knife). A brick shatters a window and Cap and the Falcon hear the rioting in the streets. Hordes of people are trying to kill one another.



Cap traces it down to a small device and must battle its signal until he can destroy it with his shield, ending its influence on the mob. The scene after is devastating...



A shadowy government type appears and draws Cap and Sam along for an explanation. They assume he is a SHIELD agent and follow. They are taken by plane and are partially briefed about the Madbombs, devices which have caused destruction in various parts of the US. They land at a top secret installation and are ushered inside, where they find themselves gassed and attacked with missiles, in a narrow corridor. They fight their way through and come to a dead end, before Cap triggers a switch that drops them to a floor below, where they meet up with the head of the operation...



HENRY KISSINGER??

"Henny briefs them about the Madbombs. A tiny one destroyed a small town, a slightly bigger one destroyed a city of 200,000 people. A bigger one could wipe out a major metropolis and Kissinger shows them a picture of one, called Big Daddy



(no, not the British wrestler...)



which is massive and designed to destroy the United States. Cap and the Falcon must find this bomb and destroy it before the US celebrates it's 200th and final birthday!

Okay, so let's look at things. In the first panel, Kirby dispenses with the previous storyline, saying everyone is trying to put it out of their mind (I suspect that was added by editorial); so, we have a clean break with past issues. Kirby shows two friends engaged in play, which turns violent and hateful. Just as they snap out we see Lila turn on the man she loves and then an entire city erupting in hatred and violence. These Madbombs don't destroy with explosives, they destroy by driving the populace insane with hatred and violence, so that it tears itself apart. The bombs are given names reminiscent of the earliest Atom Bombs, Fatman and Little Boy. Kirby is drawing a direct parallel between the destructive force seen unleashed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki and these bombs. However, these are more destructive as the populace is driven by base fear to destroy itself. This is not the power of the atom; but, the destructive nature of hatred and violence arising from hatred. I think this is Kirby's key point of this storyline.

Let's look at the timeframe. This issue was released in October, 1975. The Vietnam War, one of the most divisive events in US history (after the Civil War), has just come to a crashing end, as the US evacuated personnel from Saigon, as North Vietnamese forces take the city. Kirby had seen America torn apart by this war, with violence in support of the US' involvement and violence in protest of it. He had seen racial unrest turn violent in the Watts Riots of 1965. He had seen the Civil Rights marches be met with nightsticks, firehoses and attack dogs.  He had seen a president gunned down, his brother a few years later, and the leading civil rights leader, as well. He had seen the 1968 Democratic National Convention, in Chicago, disrupted by violent response by police to protesters of the war, leading to the Chicago 7 Trial. This is also a man who saw the isolationist/Bundist marches and rallies in New York City, been threatened by violence from their supporters, for having Cap punch Adolf Hitler) and fought through a war against Nazi aggression and murder. This was a man who knew better than most how destructive hatred and fear were, having seen it played out on a large scale. This is a man who grew up in the slums, where ethnic gangs fought one another. This is Kirby reflecting on how hatred and fear tears apart society. He does so by having an American symbol face that hatred and fear and try to put a stop to it.

Kirby tells us that our nuclear fears are really just an outgrowth of our own fears of the unknown and unfamiliar, which can fester into hatred, leading to violence. The nuclear weapon is really just a big club; it's the fear and hatred that arm the weapon. The United States' then-200 year history was filled with fear, hatred and violence, as much as it was longing for freedom and building a new land that would become a haven for generations of immigrants to come (though not so much for the natives who were there first). I think Kirby wanted us to look at where we came from and where we seemed to be heading and decide if we couldn't do better, which has always steered the nation towards the right path. Lincoln addressed this with the Gettysburgh Address and his goals for reconstruction and was killed for it. Roosevelt told us that the Depression was something we could defeat, as the only thing we needed to fear was fear itself. Martin Luther King had a dream that all men and women could experience the American Dream equally. That's where I think Kirby is going and what I take from this first issue. Kirby had gone beyond mere adventure in his stories; he was dealing in metaphor and he continues it here.

How successful he will be we will have to see. What is certain is his ear for dialogue isn't as good as Stan's or some of his other partners. However, his plotting is second to none and his ability to convey action is second to none. That is on display here, though in more abstract forms than in his older Marvel work. While Jack had moved from telling yarns to exploring myths, his figures had gone from sleek and athletic to mythological proportions. Kirby dealt in "BIG" and did it in big proportions. At the time, I couldn't get past that and wasn't as interested in these stories, though nothing stood out as much as an image we will see down the road, as Kirby shows he can create great characters that no one else could conceive; but will latch onto and beat into the ground afterward.

The story is abrupt and the scene shifts rapidly. the test of the "Panic Course," seems to have been shoehorned in to give the book some action in the second half and makes no logical sense. Why would a known quantity like Captain America need to be proven to Henry Kissinger? Also, the use of Kissinger is debatable. It sets things firmly in our world (at the time); but, also lends itself to caricature. I know Kirby hated Nixon, though I don't know about Kissinger. I suspect there was some guilt by association there. It does kind of push the story into political satire, though not as blatantly as Steve Englehart's Secret Empire storyline (which isn't quite satire, as much as commentary). There is definitely a generational gap here; though, as Mark Evanier has often said, you sometimes needed distance to understand what Jack was saying to you. More often, you find that it was more profound and wise than you thought, at the time.

Or maybe it's just me....

Cap and Falcon are given special treatments to fight off the mindwave weapons of the unseen enemy. While that goes on, we meet Sir William Taurey, descendant of loyalist landowners. He seeks to recreate America into a land where the noble elite rule over all, with birth a determination of the future. His mercenary soldier, General Heshin, has assembled an army of other mercenaries to launch a coup, on the Bicentennial.



Cap and Falcon head off in a "skimmer," which is knocked out of the sky by a deformed giant. The heroes are captured and brought to slave pens, to await testing. Cap wakes up and gets one of the guards talking, to gain intel. He and Falcon hear enough and bust loose.

Our heroes lead a breakout,



where they run into Cheer Chadwick (looking somewhat like Cher), daughter of one of Taurey's elites. She proves to be an agent of chaos, as she is prone to whims that work against the mercenary forces and Cap and Falcon. She shows them around and they don't like what they find: medical treatments that create monsters, brainwashing stations where people are taught to hate freedom, in a weird fascist twist on 1984. Finally, they run smack into Tonker Belle, a large black woman in an exo-skeleton.

Steve and Sam are dumped into a gladiatorial game, in Kirby's take on Rollerball, called the Kill-Derby. They fight their way through the mayhem, as Cheer speaks of the privileges of the elite. Meanwhile, the military is hunting for our duo and finally come across a sign of them.

Cap defeats an armored foe who is using his shield, though it boomerangs back on the foe, setting off a bomb that kills him. Cap tells off the crowd of the elites and his Kill-Derby teammates don't seem any happier. They want the gold they have been promised.



Meanwhile, the Army has found the entrances to the underground facility; but are met by high tech defenses. gen. Argyle Fist sends his men to attack; but, they are beaten back by a massive sonic cannon. Cap is able to destroy it, allowing the Army to get a beachhead into the facility, while Cheer and her father run off in an underground shuttle car.

Sam and Steve go off in search of Mason Harding, the genius behind the Madbomb. They trace him to an estate, where his daughter is recuperating from an operation. Cap talks to her, but has missed Mason. Cap inspires her to get out of bed and go outside, then meets up with her as Steve Rogers. This draws out the thugs guarding her, allowing the Falcon and some SHIELD agents to nab them, while they look for clues to the bomb's whereabouts.

With Carol's (the daughter), they find plans for Big Daddy, the ultimate Madbomb. Meanwhile, Taurey has Harding and is forcing him to help, in exchange for his daughter's care. Taurey orders a bomb-laden car be sent to blow up the estate house, where Carol, Cap and the Falcon are. harding objects but is restrained. Cap stops the car and finds an escaped Harding, who fills them in on the bomb.

Cap and Falcon lead the military on an assault on Taurey's stronghold.



They fight their way through Heshin's mercenaries and find the madbomb, which Falcon knocks out, while Cap goes to face Taurey.



He hears Taurey speak of the duel between Colonial Capt. Steven Rogers and Taurey's ancestor, about which he is obsessed.



The Army takes control and Cap confronts Taurey with two pistols, to fight their own duel. Taurey can have his revenge, yet he is too afraid of his own death and capitualates, as Cap rants about elites hiring underlings to do things they don't have the guts to do themselves. Taurey is taken away and America is saved to celebrate it's 200th birthday!

Okay, Kirby's dialogue is not the best and there are plenty of rough spots throughout this storyline. It even reads as corny; but, what Kirby is doing is creating an allegory of the Revolution, to illustrate where the country was and where we have come in 200 years. Kirby makes the mistake of playing up the American legend, that the Colonies were filled with oppression, which was hardly true. However, wealthy landlords did live in an elite world and courts were often controlled by them, keeping tenants under their leash. Many immigrants came here as indentured servants, paying back their masters for the costs of their voyage, for a specified term. However, there were instances of crooked landowners keeping immigrants beholding to them beyond the terms of the contract, adding further costs to their debts. Slaves were brought from Africa and sold to work as laborers on plantations and in other environments. The Falcon brings up his slave ancestors several times; but, he realizes he must lead the fight so that no one will ever again live in slavery, either racially motivated or economic. Cap is out to prove that the love of freedom and the opportunities it brings is eternal and fights against the odds, doing what he was created to do. Kirby is crafting his idea of what America aspires to be and warns against elitist forces who would like to turn back the clock and exploit the general populace, whether via economic exploitation or literal slavery. It may seem naive in that we still have a wealthy elite who are practically a law unto themselves; however, as the country evolved we have chipped away at the power of the elite and put more in the hands of the people. The people have to be involved, though and I think Kirby is trying to make his readers remember that. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Kirby fought a war to protect the freedoms of himself and others from fascist oppression and he sees little distinction between the Nazi forces and the elite landowners and Royalists who sought to control the Colonies. They didn't build a perfect nation, not did Kirby create a perfect story; but, it works.

I think a lot of this is why Kirby's return didn't go over well. A strong segment of the readership wanted action-adventure stories, like they were used to. Kirby wanted to explore myths and legends and create allegories and make people think about the ideas and situations that Kirby thought about. I saw a documentary where Kirby said he was a man with a lot of questions. I didn't really get what he was saying at the time, as it didn't seem to connect to the material that the documentary was covering. i think I understand it now. The Kirby of the 70s and beyond was looking beyond stories as escapist adventure. He was tackling the bigger questions of life, where we came from, where we are going. Sometimes, you have to get a bit of life experience under your belt to really look at the world around you and I think that is what Kirby was doing. I think the readers and much of the Marvel staff weren't quite ready for that or didn't understand where Jack was coming from. As Mark Twain is alleged to have said. "When I was 14, I thought my father was an idiot; when I was 21, I was amazed at how much he had learned in 7 years." Sometimes, you have to get a bit of life under your belt to understand where the previous generation is coming from.

Yeah, the more things change, the more they stay the same.  Remember that Kirby was writing in the post-Watergate and Vietnam period.  We'd come through horrible years, with some triumphs of the spirit, with the moon landings and other brighter things.  The Bicentennial was a moment to reflect on 200 years of history and look to making a better future.  Kirby brings up some of the bad that went along with that birth but showed how some of that grew better.  I think he understood about elites stille existing, manipulating government and society for their benefit and I think this was a warning, especially in light of Nixon and his cronies, who did much to set the stage for the later Reagan Revolution and the Neo-Conservative movement, which leads to our current president.  However, as Kirby tries to illustrate, there are always those willing to stand up and speak out against the elites and that the true strength of the country comes from the little people who toil and scrape by, to build a better future for their children.  Kirby's parents came from Europe, poor Jews trying to escape a hateful society.  They didn't immediately find a better life, living in tenements, young Jack fighting on the streets.  However, Jack was able to exploit his talent, free from prohibitions of being a Jew, and was able to make good money (not the great money he should have had) and provide for his family.  Jack was able to provide for his parents and build a family of his own.  His kids knew a better life, in their own home and eventually reaped some of the rewards their father didn't receive in life.  In Jack's story lies the hope of everyone, that their children will inherit a better world and life than they had.  However, Jack was active in his world, seeking that better future through action, via his work and by participating in the process.  Much of our current state is due to willful ignorance, neglect and acceptance.  The more people take part in the political process the less it can be manipulated by a self-serving minority, at the expense of the majority.  When 1% of the population are dictating the destiny of the other 99%, it's time to get off our collective butts and change things.  As Kirby showed, the way to stop a bully is to first stand up in defiance to him.

I had been away from comics for a few years as a young reader in the early 70s and thus missed the Englehart Captain America run: in fact, I don't think I read much CA after the end of Kirby's first run on the title, so his return to it in the 70s wasn't at all jarring for me. I haven't revisited it for decades but I know I liked it at the time. At this point I forget so much detail that I don't want to read Codystarbuck's reviews too closely because I'd like to come back to it fresh whenever I do get around to re-reading the Madbomb story. Love the artwork, though.

Thanks cody, this has been a wonderful thread (no surprise I would love it).
And a fine final summation.
One adendum, the reason Lee and Kirby rewrote the origin for the Silver Surfer is that they had a movie deal that did not include the FF and other Marvel characters. This graphic novel was to be the basis of the movie. It would have meant $$ for Kirby, which is why he agreed to do it. It's a very good stand aone piece, with some of Kirby's best late art with Sinnott on inks no less.

Yes indeed, a big thank you codystarbuck for the great Kirby reviews. These were honest, heartfelt and unbiased giving merit to Jack being crowned King. The man was way ahead of his time in many ways so it is nice to see such pure insights from you over much of what Kirby created. Many criticize or make jokes of Kirby but without him a lot of what makes comic books what they are wouldn't be around. So hail to the king Cody!