"Ten Great Jack Kirby Characters"

"Ten Great Jack Kirby Characters" image gallery on Google+

A friend requested my ten favorite Jack Kirby characters and my detailed analysis on 'em! But I can't pick favorites, not exactly. And my mind is too distracted to go for thoughtful analysis and besides I'm supposed to be writing a review of a stirring production of a Mamet play I just saw and I can't even focus on that. So, some rambles and some pictures. (See the pictures for the rambles.) I'm excluding any Inhumans, because I recently wrote a post about how the Inhumans are actually my quintessential Kirby thing. (Note: some credit for my fondness for certain Marvel characters, at least their personality / characterization if not their looks or conception, goes to Kirby's collaborators and even those who followed. Yes Jack Kirby was the genius and Stan Lee was the office boy, but Stan's dialogue's probably due some credit for just why I like a certain pair of former college rivals / smartest humans in Marvel Universe so much. I credit Lee for characters from books which he scripted, whether or not his contribution to their creation should be recognized as minimal.) Like I said, these are just ten, no particular order. I even left off a signature Kirby creation: Ben Grimm, The Thing. Was it to let myself off the "top ten" hook? I can't rank favorites…