This six page Kirby/Ditko story is reprinted from FANTASTIC FOUR ANNUAL #1 (1963) (not AMAZING SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL #1, as it’s mistakenly cited on the first page of this reprint). A bit of an oddity, as it retells a scene done in two pages in the first issue of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN earlier that year, with full Ditko art, where Spidey breaks into the Baxter Building, thinking he could get a job with them. He was a bit unclear on the concept early on, I guess. The Avengers might have been a better bet if they’d formed by then.

It does feel a bit stretched, with the attack from each FF member (taken straight from the original) being followed by another attack newly revealed for this telling. It’s still interesting, especially the way Kirby draws the Spider-Man / Mr. Fantastic battle.

Published 1986

For about a year in the mid-1970s, Marvel added a bunch of “Giant Size” specials to their schedule, with a mix of new and reprint contents. As the editorial in this one explains, the plans for the line were often in flux in terms of price and page counts, which is how this early one wound up with four reprints, three of them tied together with a new framing story.

Two Kirby stories made it in here. The first is “Banished to Outer Space”, the first half of INCREDIBLE HULK #3 from 1962, inked by Dick Ayers. It’s a fun story if you don’t think about it too much, since that early Marvel stuff is clearly very seat-of-the-pants type plotting, and especially with the Hulk, where they didn’t seem to know where they wanted to go during that short original run. I kind of like how charmingly stupid Rick Jones is as he’s tricked into luring the Hulk into a rocket, and the blank look on the Hulk’s face when he inexplicably falls under the mental control of Rick.

Later in the book, outside the framing story, is “The Peerless Power of the Silver Surfer”, from FF ANNUAL #5 (1967), inked by Frank Giacoia.

In this one, during his wandering days on Earth between major FF stories he comes across the Mad Thinker’s leftover construct from an earlier FF story, Quasimodo (Quasi-Motivational Destruct Organ). The Surfer uses his powers to give Quasimodo a body, not realizing that whole Destruct Organ thing, and eventually has to turn the rampaging Quasimodo into a statue.

A bit of an iffy story, I guess, but great art, with the Surfer looking as elegant as always, and Quasimodo being a great Kirby monster type, with his body or without.

Published 1974