Gary Cundall wrote to ask…
Did Jack Kirby have a favorite character that he created, or a favorite character maybe that he didn't create? Was his current project always his favorite character?
Taking the middle question first: Jack's favorite character that he didn't create was unquestionably the original Captain Marvel — the one who appeared when young Billy Batson said, "Shazam!" Jack and his partner Joe Simon produced the first full issue of Captain Marvel in his own comic after the hero had debuted in stories by others but he certainly did not feel it was in any way "his" character. He did though think the Good Captain was the best super-hero of his era.
Something some people don't know: When DC Comics made a deal with Fawcett Publishing in 1972 to revive the then-defunct property, that was Kirby's suggestion. And he wanted to edit the comic but DC wouldn't let him. They gave it instead to one of their senior in-house editors, Julius Schwartz who didn't particularly like Captain Marvel and considered the comic perhaps the greatest failure of his career — both creatively and financially.
Some time after the book was canceled, I told Julie that Jack was still a little sore they hadn't let him edit it and that he felt if they had, he could have made the comic a tremendous hit. Schwartz replied, "I wish to God they'd let him do it too."
Jack did not really have a favorite among the characters he created or co-created. He kind of took the stance that if he could find a way to make it enjoyable for himself, it would be enjoyable to the readers. I think he was a bit partial to the more overtly autobiographical ones but he liked them all. The only one I ever heard him say he didn't like was Ant-Man, which he thought was just an uncommercial idea.
And yes, about 96% of the time, his favorite character was the one he was doing at the time. The 4% would include comics he didn't create and didn't want to work on like the Justice, Inc. comic or the 1975 version of Sandman, which he called the assignment he disliked the most of his entire career. Usually, if he disliked something he worked on, it was because of editorial interference, not the selection of character.
