He did some of the iconic characters sure (Although I have always maintained as looks go Galactus is a pretty stupid design, him and uatu with those Giant heads on to small bodies), but he didn't do them great. I don't look at any of his artwork and go wow, man, that is great. Other artists can make a badly told story interesting with just the art, while Kirby doesn't make a good story bad with his art, he can't make a bad one good. So I fall squarely in the meh camp when it comes to Kirby.

I guess Kirby is one of those love/hate tastes. For me, I like him. His art is very stylized, though, so I could see how it wouldn't work for some people. It reminds me a lot of Bruce Timm's art style, which makes sense as Timm was greatly influenced by Kirby.

For Heck, he's a very competent artist, I just find his work extremely boring. The action and composition just seem pedestrian.

Also, one of the things I love about Kirby is his character design. Think of Galactus, the Inhumans, the New Gods, etc. Don Heck gave us ... the Porcupine.

True, DD's art has never been bad. The stories yes, the art has been fine. Much better then early X-Men of FF art.

I really like Gene Colan. Say what you like about the writing on early Daredevil, but the art was consistently good.

I just want to throw Gene Colan's hat in the ring. Like Ditko, his style is somewhat unrefined but very expressive.

I was thinking the same thing. I liked Heck over Kirby, who the more I see of his art, the less it does for me.

None of them hold a flame to Adams or Steranko. But I don't dislike Hecks art, it seems ok to me.

I generally liked Tales of Suspense (Or at least the Iron Man part, early Silver Age Captain America solo comics were always throwbacks to WW2, not much interest to me really) and I've always enjoyed Avengers, which I think is primarily Mr. Heck throughout the 60s. I really like Ditko's style, it's not particularly polished but I think that gives it a lot of character.

Out of the three you've listed, I'd probably say (In descending order):

Ditko
Heck
Kirby

Kirby's art really doesn't click with me. I think it's the faces. I swear pretty much every male character looks like Mr. Fantastic when he draws them and the action panels just don't look that believable to me.

When I first started the Order, I rather liked him; his style is much more polished than early Kirby and Ditko, and his more lifelike characterizations almost reminded me of Prince Valiant.

But now that Kirby and Ditko are in the swing of things, I can't stand Don Heck. His panels lack the imagination the other artists have. I'm sure it's partly the writing, but I dread Tales of Suspense and Tales to Astonish when they come up.