J’Accuse!

Today com­pletes three weeks of this year’s Jack Kir­by Trib­ute Month (curat­ed by Howard Simp­son). The theme all month has been the Fan­tas­tic Four and relat­ed char­ac­ters, and today’s prompt is Ronan the Accuser.

As if the FF did­n’t have enough to deal with between Namor and the Skrulls, appar­ent­ly the Kree Empire also took issue with them! Because of the FF defeat­ing and destroy­ing the Kree Sen­try in FF #64, the Supreme Intel­li­gence of the Kree declares them guilty, and sends Ronan the Accuser to enact their sen­tence in issue #65.

Ronan is a for­mi­da­ble ene­my for the FF! He comes very close to suc­cess­ful­ly enact­ing the “extreme penal­ty.” (Per­haps because of the Comics Code, they weren’t quite able to just come out and say “Death.”). He presents a very strik­ing pres­ence, being about 8′ tall and wear­ing a unique uniform.

Ronan only made one appear­ance in the Fan­tas­tic Four com­ic, but he reap­peared lat­er in Avengers, Cap­tain Mar­vel and Ms. Mar­vel (books in which the Kree Empire was a presence).

It was fun to take a crack at draw­ing Ronan. Swing by tomor­row if you’d like to see who’s next on our hit parade!

2 thoughts on “J’Accuse!”

  1. Ronan isn’t Ronin nor is the Mole Man the Mole Men. But in name remind­ful for sure. This is a tale that needs to be reread. The head piece seems to be not only pro­tec­tive but also restric­tive. One can real­ly slip into “now what is the pur­pose or func­tion of this or that in some of Jack­’s ‘com­fort wear’ ” for char­ac­ters. The head piece/Helmet for Ronan has me inquir­ing how much periph­er­al vision he has? There I go over­think­ing things again. Your sullen-faced Ronan emanates the threat he is to the FF. Pow­er­ful stuff. Thanks

    1. You have a point about Ronan’s hel­met, but it actu­al­ly works with his char­ac­ter. It helps to com­mu­ni­cate his regal and rigid, unbend­ing char­ac­ter right off the bat, in how it forces him to hold him­self. It’s like an armored cer­e­mo­ni­al uni­form of office.

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