Kirby’s greatest helmets part 1
April 14th, 2008
Hello, Lactus here. I’m just sitting at home enjoying an Excelsior lager and thinking about The King’s Crowns.
No one in the history of comics has ever come up with such consistantly challenging head gear as Jack Kirby so I’ve trawled through a whole load of his stuff and identified the cream of the crop to share with you.
This chap is The Prime One from Kirby’s New Gods:
It’s a wonderful get-up reminiscent of Galactus’s but more rounded and less imposing yet a smidgeon more fancy. This whole outfit cries “ceremonial” with the sort of baroque stylings used by royalty to inspire admiration and awe in lesser beings like you.
This guy turns up in Mister Miracle #12:
Imagine you’d managed to give this happy chappy your phone number when you were drunk because you felt sorry for him and now he keeps phoning you but you’re too polite to tell him where to go. As Kirby helmets go it’s not the most daring or immediately exciting but wait…
A little man with a big head! Hooray! Perhaps you will meet up with him for a drink after all, just for the laughs.
Now here’s a jolly fellow…
He’s an unnamed New God. I love his ornate full-facial lattice-work crownoid thing. I also had to show you all this because it looks like he has a magical see-through scrotum filled with multi coloured balls which allows him to levitate. I suppose you’d need to levitate with a scrotum like that.
Well, I think that’s enough helmetry for the moment. It’s the final of America’s Next Top Model in a bit.
12 Responses to “Kirby’s greatest helmets part 1”
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April 14th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
This might be my favourite blog post ever
April 14th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
Right, come on when’s HE going to appear? You know who I’m talking about; Give me an M, give me an O, give me a D…
April 14th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
Careful, don’t say take his name in vain
April 14th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
This is a subject that has legs.
Kirby (and to a lesser extent Ditko) sure designed some wild and wooly head-gear.
Crack open any of their silver age nuggets and there’s good chance you’ll find a glorious bit of headgear.
They’re the creamy, nougat-filled centers to many of their sweet comic confections.
Oh. And the scrotum joke.
My first thought was “cosmic hippity-hop” but your explanation was MUCH better.
~P~
P-TOR
April 14th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
We call ‘em space-hoppers in the UK.
Such foresight
April 14th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
I too immediately thought Space Hopper but privates are funnier. MODOK has a headband and not a helmet so I’m not sure he’ll qualify for King Kirby’s Catwalk Of Crowns. As for this being the best blog post ever… it is! In the same way that Rocky 4 is the best film ever made.
April 14th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
Ever. Made.
But… but.. MODOK’s head is… well, it’s sort of like a helmet. An angry helmet.
April 14th, 2008 at 9:19 pm
That last guy, it appears he has shaved all the pubes from that elephantine undersac of his, and piled them all on top of his head, where they’re safe. Bearing that in mind, that isn’t a strange helmet at all, in fact the height of practicality.
April 17th, 2008 at 4:01 am
As informative as this was, and as much of a pleasure to read, so much so that i hesitate to say–i think it might have been perfect with just the opening sentence
“Lactus here…just thinking bout the King’s Crowns.”
I hate t-shirt sellers more than polygamists, but that, that my good sirs: that’s a t-shirt.
April 17th, 2008 at 8:49 am
Lactus has a history with t-shirts.
June 12th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
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