Jack Kirby has a legacy like no other — and considering one of his most beloved creations, The Fantastic Four, is getting an all-new film revamp later this month, the city of New York saw fit to honor the prolific Marvel comic artist in a major way.
NYC renamed the corner of Essex Street and Delancey Street on the Lower East Side to Jack Kirby Way and Yancy Street, highlighting the New York native’s contributions to his home neighborhood. Kirby was born on that corner and lived at 147 Essex Street, a place he later paid homage to by inventing the iconic Yancy Street, the home of Ben Grimm AKA The Thing.
Marvel’s Editor-In-Chief C.B. Cebulski took to social media to gush over the ceremony, in which the city unveiled two brand new street signs corresponding with the new names. Kirby’s family and Marvel friends and family attended the milestone moment.
“Honored to have been a part of this morning’s ceremony honoring Jack Kirby by renaming Delancey St… Jack Kirby Way/Yancy St,” Cebulski wrote on Instagram. “Thanks to everyone at Marvel who helped make this happen, to the city of New York for working with us on the project, and to the Kirby family who flew in to be a part of this special day.”
Kirby created Captain America in 1940, which put him on the map in the comic book scene. By the 1960s, he’d gone on to create many of the characters we know and love today, like the Avengers, Iron Man, Thor, Ant-Man, Black Panther, Hulk, Silver Surfer, and the X-Men. Basically, no one deserves a street named after him more than this guy. The beloved artist died of heart failure in 1994.
In 2023, Jack Kirby’s son, Neal, accused Disney’s Stan Lee documentary of minimizing his father’s contributions to Marvel. Kirby’s granddaughter, Jillian, shared Neal’s statement on Twitter, and he began by discussing how the documentary fed into the legend of Stan Lee, who passed away at the age of 95 in 2018, that was built upon him having the “fortunate circumstance to have access to the corporate megaphone and media.”
“I understand that, as a ‘documentary about Stan Lee,’ most of the narrative is in his voice, literally and figuratively,” Neal Kirby wrote. “It’s not any big secret that there has always been controversy over the parts that were played in the creation and success of Marvel’s characters.
“Stan Lee had the fortunate circumstance to have access to the corporate megaphone and media, and he used these to create his own mythos as to the creation of the Marvel character pantheon. He made himself the voice of Marvel. So, for several decades he was the ‘only’ man standing, and blessed with a long life, the last man standing (my father died in 1994).”
For more, check out our look at the influence of Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko on the MCU and the cosmic side of things. The Fantastic Four: First Steps, meanwhile, comes out July 25 and kicks off Phase 6 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Last month, a new trailer revealed The Thing’s rock beard and Silver Surfer’s metallic voice.
Image credit: @Kirby4Heroes / X.
Lex Briscuso is a film and television critic and a freelance entertainment writer for IGN. You can follow her on Twitter at @nikonamerica.
