Legends in Concert

This coming August 28th, Jack Kirby would have been 100 years old and many, many tributes are occurring to celebrate the man. A few of them seem a bit exploitive of the man, including a couple that might be well-intended but which suggest that some who respect his life and work do not respect his family's privacy or copyrights.

One of the tributes that I'm sure Jack would have appreciated greatly is that on July 14 at the D23 Expo in Anaheim, he will be formally designated as a "Disney Legend." The other honorees at that ceremony are Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Oprah Winfrey, Julie Taymor, Garry Marshall, Disney artists Manuel Gonzales and Clyde Geronimi, and Stan Lee. The D23 Expo is kind of like a big Comic-Con that is only about things that Disney owns.

Some Internet commenters have carped that while Jack is a legend, he is not a Disney legend; that he only worked once for the company, back when he drew a limited series newspaper strip of the movie, The Black Hole. That's true but this award is not based on that and the folks who decided to honor him probably didn't even know about it. He is being honored for being the creator or co-creator of so many characters and concepts that, with the sale of Marvel to Disney, became Disney properties.

I would like to suggest that these commenters are overlooking the fact that the Disney Company has the right and power to decide what qualifies someone to be a Disney Legend and to change the rules any time they choose. They can bestow that honor on a guy who sells churros in Frontierland if they like. They obviously decided in recent years that it can go to anyone who was important to anything that is now a Disney property, regardless of whose payroll they were on when they made their contribution.

If you think that's wrong, don't piss on Jack's honor. Write a letter to Disney CEO Robert Iger. I'm sure he'd be pleased to consider your complaint and write you a personal reply. Heck, he'll probably even send you some Disney Platinum Cards and invite you to have lunch with him at Club 33. If he does, try the Sustainable Fish of the Day and try not to wonder if it had a speaking part in The Little Mermaid.

(Interesting bit of lineage: Robert Iger is related to Jerry Iger, who was Will Eisner's partner in the early days of comic book publishing. When he was starting out, Jack Kirby briefly worked for the Eisner-Iger operation. If you want to plot the tree, Jerry Iger's brother Joe had a son named Arthur who became big in the world of book publishing. Robert Iger of Disney is Arthur's son.)

Yes, yes…originally the Disney Legends trophies went to people like the famous Nine Old Men of Disney animation and to people who actually worked with Walt or on the lot pre-The Rescuers. There aren't that many of them left so it's been redefined just as the company itself has been redefined greatly since back then. I suspect we will live to see the day when most of the public will not know that Captain America and the Hulk weren't Disney characters from their inception, just like Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Floyd Norman. Over at Time-Warner, there seems to be little recognition that Bugs Bunny, Tom & Jerry and Scooby Doo weren't all birthed at the same studio.

Jack is now being recognized as the co-creator of Fantastic Four, X-Men, Hulk, Thor, The Avengers, Silver Surfer and a couple of zillion more. For decades, a lot of us — starting with Jack and his family — were bothered that he was not so recognized; that it was often denied that he was a co-creator at all. While I think there could (and should) be more recognition that he contributed more than just the visuals, I am utterly delighted whenever I see him credited at all. If Disney is going to do that loudly and proudly, my mouse ears are off to them. Or they would be if I had any…