The Human Torch and the Thing get close to the end of their run in STRANGE TALES.  Not one of the more exciting covers of the era, but interesting that less than three years after the Torch was given the solo spin-off from the Fantastic Four, here he was not only sharing his feature (and in this cover definitely playing second fiddle) to the Thing, it’s also the Thing who gets to be spokesman for the MMMS fan club.  Wonder if they considered doing a Thing solo feature instead of Nick Fury for the book?  Might have been interesting, if Kirby was doing full pencils for a good while at the beginning.

Mike Esposito, who was briefly doing some work for Marvel as Mickey Demeo, inks the cover.

A change of pace visually in this issue of THOR as Bill Everett handles the inking on the interiors for a single issue, both the main story and the Tales of Asgard back-up (though a few pages seem to have some work by regular inker Vincent Colletta). Everett would come back for a longer run two years later.

The 16-page “–And, Soon Shall Come: The Enchanters!”, to give the story its full over-punctuated title, opens up with the memorable scene of Thor sipping on a soda and attracting a large crowd of young admirers. After explaining his lack of money for the drink and getting it comped (I’m sure the advertising value paid for it) Thor regales his fans with tales of the land of Asgard, allowing for a few pages of eye-candy before departing for some important business as Don Blake.

The action quota for this issue is filled by Balder and Sif, who have been sent by Odin to Ringsfjord to assess the threat of the Three Enchanters. They find them, and they turn out to be decked outed in insanely elaborate Kirby costumes and ready to threaten Asgard. Balder and Sif are forced to retreat to Earth, and find Don Blake just as two of the Enchanters follow.

A gorgeous looking story, with a several elaborate full page images. The “Thor at the soda fountain” thing is a cute and memorable visual, and a scene later where Balder and Sif are holding up traffic when they arrive in New York is nicely done. The Enchanters are largely throwaway villains, but remarkably well rendered in the two panels we see them clearly.

The 5-page Tales of Asgard story “To The Death” continues the adventures of Thor and his compatriots in the Mystic Mountains, this time with most of the focus being on Volstagg, which means a lot of jokes about him being fat, cowardly and clumsy, but not letting any of that get in the way of his bragging. Volstagg is always good for a laugh, and Everett’s inks are even better in this story, a shame he only inked one of them.

The cover is inked by Colletta, who would be back the next issue.

Kirby writes and draws the 17-page story in this issue, “Mad, Mad Dimension”, the middle of the “Night People” storyline.  Cap’s search for the missing Falcon and Leila leads him to the boisterous Texas Jack Muldoon, who saw the Falcon disappear last issue. Muldoon’s been doing his own investigations, leading them to the missing “Zero Street” and the tale of a scientist who had a breakdown but continued his research into interdimensional travel from the asylum.

Meanwhile, in another dimension…

Sam Wison has been brainwashed by the “Night People”, and at their bidding is battling a giant monster trying to attack the asylum, which is now located on top of an asteroid.  He manages to knock the creature into space, but the Night People plan to open the gateway to Earth and send all the other monsters in the dimension to Earth.  They open up the gateway and Cap leaps through, followed by Texas Jack.

Kirby’s long final run on Cap is pretty fun.  The Falcon’s fight with the monster in this issue is a nice bit of action, but the Cap side of the story is mostly getting characters in place for the big conclusion, and the phone call he has with Sharon Carter is kind of strange.

Kirby also draws the cover, and both the cover and story are inked by Frank Giacoia.

This whole story, and much more, is available in Captain America: Bicentennial Battles.

Here’s one of the covers being reprinted in one of Marvel’s new books this week. During this period, there would usually be three or four Marvel comics with just Kirby covers every month, in addition to the three new comics he drew.  And a few Kirby reprints on top of that.

This one is inked by Al Milgrom, who does a really good job on the covers he inked in this period, sort of half-way between Royer and Sinnott, two of my favourite Kirby inkers.  Would have been interesting to see him do a full story.

As I get back into the regular posting here, I’ll just re-introduce this particular feature that I started a while back.  During his long career, Jack Kirby did the covers to well over 400 comics for which he didn’t do any interiors.  And that’s not even counting reprints, which add over another 50 to the list.  Hard to blame publishers for that, I’m sure Kirby covers sold. Anyway, I’ll eventually try to get all of those Kirby covers up on this weblog.

In the 1960s, Kirby would keep doing the covers to many of the features he created long after handing off the interiors to others.  That was definitely the case with Giant-Man and the Wasp in TALES TO ASTONISH, which he had last drawn inside the book in #51.  Marvel’s cross-over machine was in full swing by this point, with this month also including the Hulk appearing in SPIDER-MAN, the X-Men appearing in FANTASTIC FOUR, the Sub-Mariner in X-MEN and a villain named Zemo fighting both SGT. FURY and THE AVENGERS twenty years apart.

Really nice Chic Stone inks on this cover, which has a pretty decent rendition of Spider-Man, although the swinging dynamic and the webbing are quite a departure from Ditko’s style.  And boy, the Wasp really gets lost on these covers, which already have to be proportioned to emphasize Giant-Man’s size.