Of course, you knew it was coming. I didn’t, because sometimes I can’t see either the forest or the trees, but someone knew it was coming once it was announced that Disney was buying Marvel. Jack Kirby’s children have banded together, not unlike the countless groups their father created, to file motions of copyright termination to 45 of Kirby’s Marvel creations and co-creations.

Nikki Finke at Deadline Hollywood Daily and Rich Johnston at Bleeding Cool, weigh in with the details and analysis. Over at The Beat, Heidi McDonald also notes the news and has a very lively comments section (pay particular attention to the calm and rational ones by Nat Gertler and Kurt Busiek). Elsewhere, countless bloggers and message board attendees are posting about the shock and awe they feel. Their wild theories of how this is the end of everything—the equivalent of a comic book rapture—has them typing faster than they can down a box of Milk Duds.

Before everyone gets all Defcon Fanboy about it, I recommend reading up on the history—the continuity, if you will—of relations between Marvel and Jack Kirby.

You can start with reading about how when Marvel started returning original art to creators, they withheld Kirby’s artwork trying to force him to sign paperwork that gave away any and all rights he had to the characters he created, including the right to disagree with them.

The story was extensively covered by Gary Groth and Tom Heintjes in The Comics Journal back in the day and it’s must-reading. It remains to this day the best example of comic book journalism and activism.

Michael Dean lays out the compelling timeline of the events from back then and it’s worth a great deal of study before anybody starts taking sides.

I also recommend Gary Groth’s excellent editorial, House of No Shame, that talks about how Jack was treated by Marvel’s management.

The blogger Unca Cheeks has a rather breathless but compelling case for Jack’s contributions to the Marvel universe and how he was treated during the 1960s while at Marvel and in later years after he’d left the company. He has citations as needed, including some under oath testimony by Jim Shooter and quotes from Stan Lee that make it clear how corporate Marvel viewed Kirby’s contributions.

I seriously doubt this is about pulling the characters away from Marvel and leaving the company with only the characters not created or co-created by Jack. This is a legal maneuver about business, credit and proper remuneration. Taking the Marvel characters away from Marvel and running somewhere else with them is not good business for either side. That’s strictly a fan’s nightmare conjured up from inexperience.

I don’t profess to know the details of who signed what or who agreed to what over the past 40+ years, and I won’t speculate. I’m not that smart. I do know that if you create things and a corporation exploits them over the years and benefits to the tune of multiple billions of dollars while claiming it would be harmful and not beneficial to share any of that with said creator, well, I side with the creator. Every time. I also throw my hat in with Tom Spurgeon at Comics Reporter who says it better than anyone: “Anyone that types the words ‘whiny’ or ‘greedy’ near the name Kirby in the next few days should be ashamed of themselves.”

So to Jack’s heirs—I wish you nothing but the very best. I hope you get your day in court, or negotiate a settlement that satisfies you.

Some additional Kirby links:

Here’s Mark Evanier talking about his friend Jack.

From the Twomorrows website (publishers of the acclaimed The Jack Kirby Collector), here’s the transcript of an interview with Jack from 1986 at KPFK FM in LA. In addendance, aside from Kirby, were Evanier, Frank Miller, Steve Gerber and Arthur Byron Cover.

And here are some Kirby books you need to read to understand and appreciate how truly great Jack was.

Kirby: King of Comics by Mark Evanier

The Best of Simon and Kirby by Joe Simon, Jack Kirby and edited by Steve Saffel

The Comics Journal Library: Jack Kirby

[Artwork: Captain America by Jack Kirby and Barry Windsor Smith, pilfered from Dial B For Blog, another of my favorite websites]