Daily Archives: December 5, 2004

Brave and the Bold Annual, No 1, 1969 Issue [2001] – The Invasion of America

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One of DC’s best reprint lines in recent years have been their 80 and 100-page Giant books, mixing in “replica” editions of actual giants from the 1960s and 1970s with “lost” editions, books designed to look like they could have been published back then. This book is designed to look like it could have been a 1969 BRAVE AND THE BOLD annual (although it contains a Captain Atom story from Charlton, which wouldn’t have been in there).

Among the contents is a 1943 Boy Commandos story by Simon&Kirby, reprinted from DETECTIVE COMICS #76. The logic of it being in a team-up title is that there are brief cameos by the other S&K stars of the time, Sandman and the Newsboy Legion (oddly, the cover of this issue bills it as a Newsboy Legion / Sandman crossover, not even mentioning the actual stars of the story) (also oddly, the credits have Kirby as writer and inker, with Simon as penciler, which doesn’t seem likely).

Anyway, the 12-page adventure has Rip Carter and the boys making a trip to New York for a goodwill tour, and finding themselves kidnapped by German spies. Along the way, the encounter their fan club, the Kid Commandos, led by Sally from Flatbush, who get around on a variety of go-carts, and in the end meet FDR. It’s a fast-moving adventure, a great example of the kid-gang genre and patriotic wartime comics. I did think the accents of the foreign characters (especially the Germans and the British Boy Commando Alfie) were a bit overdone and distracting, but other than that it was all fun.

Published 2001

–Link– 1977 Kirby con program art

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(for those who didn’t notice, on the previous post you can click on the picture to get a properly sorted image)

Meanwhile…

Over at the Comic Treadmill, some words about a 1977 convention in Philadelphia, featuring a page by Jack Kirby from the convention program.

http://www.comictreadmill.com/CTMBlogarchives/2004/2004_Individual/2004_12/000618.php

Our Love Story #12 [1971] – He Was Perfect – But I Lost Him

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This issue has a reprint of the 1960 Kirby story from MY OWN ROMANCE #74, a quick 5 pager. The story starts off nicely, with a good splash page featuring the female lead and the usual teaser lead-off, and the first page shown here works nicely to quickly get the story started. After that it’s a bit bland, with only three more pages the story is a bit straight-forward and a bit preachy, compared to the more complex, often byzantine plotting of the longer S&K romance stories.

ourlove

Worth taking a look at, as one of the handful of romance stories that Kirby did at Marvel to be reprinted.

Inks are by Colletta.

Published 1971

World’s Finest Comics #187 [1969] – The Green Arrow’s First Case

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This issue reprints the revamped origin of Green Arrow that Kirby did in ADVENTURE COMICS #256 (1959), during his brief 11-story run on the character. It’s a good functional origin about a man who gets washed up on an island, learns archery to survive, finds his rescue ship being hijacked and using his arrows to fight the hijackers. All of this in a framing sequence where he has to return to the island to protect his secret identity.

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I have to say, GA did become delightfully compulsive when it came to arrows on his stay on the island. “I quickly realized ingenious arrows could be used for almost any purpose”, he thinks, as he decides that would be the best way to get coconuts off a tree would be to use an arrow. Goes a long way to explaining why he’d eventually put a boxing glove on the end of an arrow. I was disappointed he didn’t come up with some sort of arrow-centric way to chisel his journal into the cave wall.

Kirby’s GA stories are pretty fun, although they leave you wondering what he would have done if he had a freer hand with them than DC was willing to allow.

This story was apparently inked by Kirby, with the help of his wife Roz, one of the last times he would do a substantial amount of inking of his own work.

Published 1969