Nick Owchar with the L.A. Times reviews the first Jack Kirby’s Fourth World Omnibus:

The work presented here shows why Kirby, who died in 1994, deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Will Eisner, say, or Alan Moore and Frank Miller. All these comics creators pushed and expanded the genre into new areas. In some ways, Kirby’s comics are a rich time capsule — not just for his tribute to the Flower Children of the ’60s with the Forever People, but in recurring themes about fallen father figures, the power of young people and youth movements, the tensions caused by unwinnable wars and the standoff between two major powers, New Genesis and Apokolips, which undoubtedly was inspired by the Cold War. “I hear you, Orion!” Darkseid yells as they first confront each other. “The battle begins!”

These Kirby creations came in the early 1970s, after his bitter departure from Marvel, where his style had set the tone and brand for that house. According to Morrison and Evanier, Kirby felt snubbed by Marvel’s management, that he was treated as a mere penciller while Stan Lee was given sole credit for some of their mutual creations. “They thought everything good on the pages had come from Stan,” writes Evanier, who had worked with Kirby. “One lawyer-type even told Jack he was delusional to think he was anything more than a dime-a-dozen pencil- pusher. It was enough to drive a person to rage. Or at least over to the competition.”

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