Jack Kirby is the indisputable king of comics. But what the new Image Comics one-shot The Man Who Dreamt the Impossible presupposes is: what if Jack Kirby was the indisputable king of comics? Oh, sorry, usually you’re supposed to present a differing take here, but the comic by writer Mário Freitas and artist Lucas Pereira instead offers a fictionalized tribute to the King, imagining if he had lived past age 76.
“This book is huge. In format. In scope. In ambition. Just like Jack did. But this is not a biography. It is more of a classic ‘what if?’ scenario: what if Jack Kirby had lived well beyond the age of 76? What if he had survived his Roz; if he had spent his last years in a care home, reunited with his old creative pals from the days of the ‘House of Ideas’ (a term so well spread by propaganda, as if American comics hadn’t been a house of ideas since the days of McCay, King, or Herriman),” said Freitas via a press release. “It is, above all, a narrative corollary to the great strengths of Kirby’s career: the complexity of human relations and the relentless pursuit of the impossible that lies hidden in the Cosmos. But different. Original. Just like Jack did.”
In the book, “Jack King” is in a care home, and “suffering from extreme fatigue and lack of motivation.” When Mike, a young orderly, enters his life, he’ll help Jack restore his library, and together they discover “the sinister pestilence lurking on its shelves.” Is it black mold? You’ll just have to read to find out.
Added Pereira, “A textual and visual exploration of what could have been—but also of what truly was. Kirby suffered greatly in real life from what was done to him and to his work, and this story is no different. We don’t sugarcoat what needs to be said or shy away from reflecting on what actually happened. Jack is a genius, but his creations were, over time, distorted and rearranged at the whim of a former caretaker at the nursing home. Now, with Mike’s help, Jack King will set everything back in its rightful place—where it never should have ceased to be.”
The Man Who Dreamt the Impossible hits comic book stores on August 27.

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