Fri 2 Feb 2007
Captain America #195 [1976] – 1984
Posted by Bob under Genre, Superhero
[6] Comments
Cap and the Falcon’s search for the “Big Daddy” Madbomb leads them to captivity in the underground lair of the New Society, where the traitors to the American way experiment in ways to rob people of their free will and make them workers for the rulers. There they meet the extremely creepy Cheer Chadwick, daughter of one of the leaders of the New Society.
Chadwick pulls rank on the soldiers and leads our heroes on a tour of the place, which culminates in a nightmarish vision out of Orwell (hence the title of the story) of a charismatic computer composite dictator on a screen whipping a crowd into a frenzy against freedom. She then tells Cap and the Falcon that they’ll have to participate in the Kill-Derby, although as a fight against the leader of one of the teams, Tinkerbell, shows, their obsolete notions of “fair play” won’t serve them well in the arena.
Definitely some crazy stuff, with Kirby exploring some of his favourite ideas in different ways while still keeping the action up there.
D. Bruce Berry inks the 17-page story and Frank Giacoia inks the cover.
Published 1976
February 2nd, 2007 at 11:55 pm
I just finished Kirby’s Madbomb trade. I hadn’t read it since I was a kid! Great,underrated and wild stuff! Giacoia was a fine inker for Kirby as well!
February 3rd, 2007 at 8:01 am
I liked Giacoia on Kirby, too. I never really figured out where Bruce Berry came from. He didn’t seem to have any sort of comics background whatsoever. The interview he did in “The Kirby Collector” didn’t really shed any light on how he wound up with the job, either.
February 3rd, 2007 at 7:28 pm
Hello there!! I’m a big fan of King’s work from Chile (look for a map of South America, we are right next to Argentina) and a comic writer and artist in a fanzine called “Futuro Comics” in which I try to recreate Kirby style mixing it with my other influences.
February 5th, 2007 at 4:15 pm
D. Bruce Berry’s work appeared in fanzines in the late 1960s-early 1970s. I believe he did a story for Graphic Story Magazine and probably others as well.
I liked Giacoia’s work over Kirby as well, although there Giacoia is incorrectly listed as inker on a few Cap’s that were either partially inked by him or inked by John Verpoorten (off the top of my head I think its Cap 207-208).
I’ve never been a big fan of either Royer or Berry over Kirby. I would have liked to have seen some of the “kids” of that period inking Kirby, particularly Steve Leialoha, Klaus Janson or Terry Austin.
Nick Caputo
February 6th, 2007 at 2:12 am
I liked Royer early on, but as time went on, I thought the workload just became to much for him. Ideally, there should have been a different inker for each book Kirby did – just to keep up with the pace.
February 6th, 2007 at 10:35 pm
I liked Royer better than Berry. I liked that Giacoia also inked Kirby’s Cap in the ’60s. However, I think both Berry and Royer were Kirby’s choices and Giacoia and Verpoorten wre Marvel’s choices.