The Jack Kirby plaque is no longer a promise. Twelve days after Disney announced it at D23, the finished bronze marker is in place at Avengers Campus, revealed in a video on the official Disney Parks Instagram account on August 28, the date that would have been Kirby’s 109th birthday. The reel, captioned “Off the page and into Avengers Campus,” shows the plaque mounted on stonework among the plantings at Disney California Adventure, and for the first time makes its full inscription public. Comics outlet Bleeding Cool separately reported the unveiling the same day, tying it to the birthday timing.
What The Plaque Says
The plaque carries the Avengers logo at its top and a bronze frame detailed with circuitry-style corner work, set against a black textured field. The inscription reads: “Avengers Campus owes much to your vision and storytelling. Jack Kirby. ‘If you look at my characters, you will find me. No matter what kind of character you create or assume, a little of yourself must remain there.’ The characters you created populate this campus as a living tribute to you, Jack.”
That center quote is the one Disney previewed at D23, a line from Kirby about how much of himself lives in the heroes he drew. The closing dedication, addressing him simply as Jack, is new, and it mirrors the personal tone of the Stan Lee plaque that has stood at the campus entrance since 2022.
The King Of Comics Joins Stan Lee
The plaque was announced during a D23 panel at the Imagineering: Horizons pavilion led by Imagineer Brent Strong and Marvel Experiences Development executive Brian Crosby, per LaughingPlace. Kirby, known as the King of Comics, co-created much of the foundation Avengers Campus is built on, including Captain America, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, Thor and the Hulk, most of it in partnership with Lee. Lee has had a plaque at the campus entrance since the land’s early days, and the pairing corrects a long-noted absence: the artist half of Marvel’s defining creative duo had no marker in the land his characters fill. At the time, Disney said only that the dedication would come relatively soon. Unveiling it on Kirby’s birthday, a date comic fans mark every year, answers that question with some intention behind it.
A Land In The Middle Of Doubling
The plaque lands at a campus in the middle of its biggest change since opening. The expansion currently under construction will double the size of the land, with Avengers Infinity Defense and Stark Flight Lab both opening in 2028 and the campus set to reconnect directly with Cars Land, per the Disney Parks Blog. Imagineers are also collaborating with local artists on more than 20 murals throughout the new area celebrating science, Spidey and the Avengers, which puts Kirby’s plaque at the front door of a land about to get far more artwork inspired by his own.
The resort has been staffing up for that expansion too, as we covered when Disneyland Resort assembled its test and adjust team for the project.
Kirby’s Long Road To The Parks
Kirby, born Jacob Kurtzberg in New York City on August 28, 1917, died in 1994, decades before Marvel characters became a Disney Parks pillar, and his estate’s relationship with Marvel was famously contentious before a 2014 settlement. He was posthumously named a Disney Legend in 2017, on the centennial of his birth. A dedicated marker in a Disney park, beside Lee’s, is the kind of institutional recognition that took the better part of a century to arrive. For the guests streaming past it into the land, the plaque is a quiet reminder that the campus full of heroes started as pencil lines from one man’s drawing table.
For the latest news and updates make sure to follow us on social media! Facebook | Twitter | Threads | Instagram | TikTok
