Monthly Archives: November 2004

This short lived series from the early 1950s featured two Kirby stories in this issue. The first is “The Woman in the Tower”, which has been reprinted in DC’s BLACK MAGIC #9 and Pure Imagination’s JACK KIRBY READER v1.

Later in the book is a two page dramatization of a dream sent in by reader “Thomas R”, who has visions of coming to a tower with ladders going up the side, and climbing up as the rungs keep breaking beneath him. Apparently this has something to do with his lack of confidence despite his success.

But the Kirby highlight of this issue is probably the cover. Great images of a horned lion, eye-stalked plants and other weird beasts.

There is a story inside based on this cover, not by Kirby. Oddly, it does have the same images, though a bit less dramatic, but the script doesn’t mention them (ie, the art shows a horned lion, but the script doesn’t mention the horns. The art shows eyes on the plants, but the script just mentions that there are plants. Kind of makes you wonder if the art was spruced up, maybe to match the cover, after the story was finished?

Published 1952

Back in 1993, during one of their periodic attempts to flood the market, Marvel published a few reprint mini-series of their horror comics from various eras. The Atlas monster era was represented in MONSTER MENACE.

“Zzutak, The Thing That Shouldn’t Exist” is a 13-page Kirby/Ditko story reprinted from STRANGE TALES #88 (1961), featuring a comic book artist who specializes in monsters for books like STRANGE TALES, given a set of special paints which bring what’s painted to life. He’s drawn to a remote valley in Mexico, where he finds a giant canvas and paints Zzutak, who of course comes to life.

All part of a scheme from an Aztec chief to return his people to power. The artist paints another monster to come out and fight Zzutak, leading to some nice battling monster pages.

It’s a fun story, with some exceptionally nice inks by Steve Ditko, who brings some interesting textures to the monsters. Ditko’s also represented in this issue with a solo reprint, plus three new pieces: a cover, a pin-up and a funny spot illustration on the text page.

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-inked (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 seperated 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