This is a fun issue from the heart of the long Kirby/Sinnott collaboration on FF. In this issue, the boys of the FF return from their sub-atomic adventure of the previous few issues, while Sue is about to deliver her baby. Reed takes this opportunity to try out his latest cure for Ben, which works, but just in time for the Wizard to attack (which they should have seen coming, since the Daily Bugle headline reads “Wizard Released From Prison – Vows Vengeance on Fantastic 4” in huge letters usually reserved for Presidential assassinations, moon-landings and anti-Spider-Man articles).

This leads to a great long battle, which Ben leaps into despite his lack of powers, and which has some great images.

Of course they win in the end, and Ben’s in a position of wanting his powers back, but this variation of Reed’s cure is a one-way street, so he’d have to become the Thing forever. Boy, I wonder which it’ll be?

Very fun, fast moving, issues, with a good mix of the action and quiet moments and humour that made the FF so effective.

Published 1968

So, the story goes, Jim Steranko takes over CAPTAIN AMERICA from Kirby with #110. Shortly thereafter, for whatever reason, Kirby’s asked to draw #112 on an extremely tight deadline. He’s told the cliffhanger to #111 had Captain America dying. Did they want him to bring Cap back to life? No, they wanted him to keep Cap dead.

And thus was created the Kirby comic that most closely resembles modern Marvel comics, a full issue where almost nothing happens.

The story is pretty much that Cap’s mask is fished out of the water, and he’s presumed dead, so Iron Man is informed. Iron Man then goes over Cap’s file, so we get short vignettes of Cap’s original WWII adventures and villains, the classic retro-fitted “death of Bucky” bit with Zemo, Cap’s thawing out courtesy of Namor and scenes from his adventures of the previous few years. I have a soft spot for this particular page:

as it features Modok, one of the Kirbyest of the Kirby villains of the 1960s, and those wacky bee-keeper minions of AIM.

So the story is light, it does at least look really good. George Tuska inks, I think the only other work he did with Kirby was finishes on some Cap stories a few years before this, but he does a good job here, presumably on as tight a deadline as Kirby was. Frank Giacoia inks Kirby on the cover, which is unfortunately Modok-free.

Published 1969

The last new project Kirby initiated during his 1970s stay at DC was KOBRA (originally KING KOBRA). Unlike the trio of concepts thrown into FIRST ISSUE SPECIAL, this one was given an on-going book, with the first issue Kirby delivered (with Steve Sherman co-writing and D. Bruce Berry inking) re-scripted, re-arranged and partly re-drawn(the faces of some of the characters). It lasted an impressive six more issues post-Kirby.

Pretty much all set-up this issue. Kobra is the head of a criminal cult, and we find out that he was born with a conjoined twin, kidnapped by the Cobra Cult shortly after being separated and presumed dead, while his brother Jason Burr grew up unaware of his brother’s fate. Now, years later, they find that they have a psychic link to feel the other’s pain. Kobra attacks his brother, who’s also been contacted by the police.

It’s an okay start, nothing special. I’m sure that given a few issues and a free hand, Kirby could have done some interesting stuff with the concept, either as presented here or, ideally, as it was originally written, and Kobra does have a neat design.

THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #22 had several pages devoted to KOBRA, with an article by Steve Sherman on the evolution of the character (note that Sherman’s timeline doesn’t quite jibe with the version in the text page of #1), the original splash page and some some other unaltered pages (showing that the brother was originally a much older Philip Snow, Interpol agent, rather than Jason Burr, university student) and Sherman’s first tries at an outline and script for the first issue (not the script for the actual art Kirby drew).

Published 1976