Jack Kirby is a titan of the comic book industry, widely lauded by his contemporaries, peers and every subsequent generation as one of the most legendary, innovative and influential figures to have ever scribbled a superhero on paper.
His signature visual flourishes have had a great bearing on the Marvel Cinematic Universe, especially in the more psychedelic moments of Scott Derrickson’s Doctor Strange, but nobody has ever really used the iconic Kirby Krackle in either live-action or animation to its fullest extent.
The Kirby Krackle will be instantly recognizable to anybody that’s ever picked up a comic, being the unique dotted pattern largely used to showcase high level threats or massive amounts of damage within the context of his work. In a new interview with ComicBook, Marvel’s What If…? director Bryan Andrews revealed he was desperate to use it as part of the Season 1 finale’s climactic showdown.
“I just wanted to do it forever. And then I’ve always been bummed that they haven’t done Kirby Krackle on the live action movies, so I was like, ‘We’re doing it here, guys’, and everyone was like, ‘Yay!’. I think, now that we’ve done it and it looks amazing, I’m hoping that whatever weird thing that the visual effects people have been avoiding it for is over. I don’t know why they would. Come on guys. Bring it, bring it! So we’ll see. Maybe it’s a new era of visual effects.”
It was notably on display when the Watcher and Ultron were smacking each other across the multiverse, which is really the first time we’ve seen it used to any great extent on a major Marvel property. Based on Andrews’ comments, though, it definitely won’t be the last time we see it in What If…?.
