There Were Giants on the Earth, In Those Days. . . .

I grew up in a world of heroes and villains. As a child, I lived in a household inhabited by images of Thor and Batman, JFK and FDR, Adolf Hitler and Stalin, of a dialectic of good and evil. My late Mother was a skeptic on religion, but a believer nonetheless, in enlightenment, and music, and art, and the power of words and images. My Dad, who fought his way through life from an orphanage to World War II under Omar Bradley, the GI General, led a tempestuous life until he settled down at forty to have a family, adding to my Mother's instant family when I was born.

Shades of grey weren't entirely absent from our lives. My mother was an artist, with a keen appreciation for subtle tones and brushstrokes. Born left-handed, her superstitious, immigrant Mother forced her only to use her right hand. She overcame that radical rewiring to develop gifts at rendering, design, perspective, and composition. We theorized that it made her a little crazy, but she painted so beautifully, it seemed almost an even exchange, at least after I moved out of the house at 18, seldom to return.

I grew up hearing my parents' tales of heroes and villains. My Dad, who never got past the ninth grade, was a voracious reader of history with a terrific memory. He told me stories of Eugene V. Debs, Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal, of General Bradley, and the Ardennes Forest. My Mother skipped a grade, only to leave school before she got much past 10th Grade, marrying at 17 to get out of a house usurped by her mother's second husband, half-orphaned herself at 15. My mother's heroes were composers, opera singers, painters and sculptors, writers like S. J. Perelman and Saul Bellow, and Flannery O'Connor.

My early heroes were Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, and Joe Kubert and Robert Kanigher, Neal Adams and Denny O'Neil, who made my world bigger and clearer and gave it structure. I knew who the heroes and villains were, at 10. A little Roosevelt, a little JFK, some Spiderman, and a smatter of Sgt. Rock. I crafted an ideology of bravery, selflessness, sarcasm, and wonder. A hero was a little smarter, a little more courageous, with power and responsibility. He saw things others couldn't see, and he took hits others couldn't bear. My Dad's heroes were mine, and my Mom's heroes, too.

Joe Kubert died yesterday, at 85. His style was so unmistakeable, I could pick it out of a thousand pages of imitators. He called it a "realistic style of drawing, " but to me it was more than realistic. It cut like a laser through to the essence, the truth of his characters. His stories of war didn't glorify violence, they taught about human dignity, and courage, and fragility. There was a pathos and an ethic to his storytelling. When a talented writer like Bob Kanigher scripted a war story, Joe transformed that script into a vehicle to show the depths of despair, and the zenith of heroism. Every shadow, every expression, was crafted with such delicacy and deliberation, and yet was so natural and unforced.

G-d gifted Joe Kubert with many years to enrich all of us with his tales of Sgt. Rock, Yossel, and the Enemy Ace, of Prophesies and Faxes from Sarajevo. And G-d gifted those of us who knew his inimitable character with the feeling that there were still Giants on the Earth, who number fewer and fewer. He left wonderful children full of character and the bountiful life-force that made him a creative power in this world for more than seventy years. He left thousands of students who hold a spark of the G-d given gifts he displayed. And he left heroes for us all to read about, and wonder over, and villains to revile. We lost one hero yesterday, but we will share in his achievements for many, many years to come.