Saturday, April 21, 2007
Comic Art
We return this week to the alternating series on comic Omnipotents, considering this week the one and only High Evolutionary. Because this character starts as a mere mortal man, Herbert Edgar Wyndham, I might get some debate as to whether the guy is really omnipotent or not, but he built his own planet for crying out loud! In my book, that puts him up there somewhere.True to most omnipotant characters he is as much plot device as character, woven throughout the Marvel Universe. Most of the fan sites place him most squarely in the origin of Spider-Woman, but I remember him from long before that character was a dream in a writer's head for reasons to be examined later.
High Evolutionary was a guy that figured our how to accelerate evolution. (Wow, with that name, imagine!) This was the ability he used to fashion a race of genetically enhanced animal-men (Yes, Dr. Moreau fans - direct rip-off) - he set himself up as Lord of the New Men, and the rest as they say, is comic history.
But most notable to me is the art. This guy was the original conception of the master himself - Jack Kirby. The resemblance of his face mask to that of Doctor Doom is a natural result of the prototype for both coming from the same pencil. But while I never found Doom fascinating, I always found this guy incredible. Much of it has to do with his association with another character we will look at later in this series, Adam Warlock, but mostly it is the look.This page at right, particularly the top panel, is classic Kirby and is still, to my mind, the standard by which any comic image should be measured. The High Evolutionary, particularly here as he battles The Mighty Thor, is Kirby at his best. (I know, I know, the Silver Surfer, but I just love this Thor stuff, I can't help it.) Images like these have never left my memory since the pre-adolescent days when I first saw them. This alone makes High Evolutionary among my favorite omnipotents.
Related Tags: comics, comic books, comic art, Omnipotents, High Evolutionary, Thor, Adam Warlock
