Daily Archives: February 3, 2005

Astonishing Tales #1 [1970] – The Power of Ka-Zar

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Just before Kirby left Marvel, they launched a new pair of books giving solo features to some supporting characters, with Kirby doing a feature in each. ASTONISHING TALES featured Kirby drawing Ka-Zar. Sam Grainger inks the 10-page story, I think the only time he inked Kirby. Interesting look, very smooth and dark, I liked it.

Anyway, Kraven is brought in from Spider-Man as a villain for Ka-Zar, which is appropriate (and Kirby wasn’t creating too many new characters for Marvel at the time). Kraven decides that his most challenging hunt would be Ka-Zar’s pal, Zabu the sabretooth tiger. So he heads down to the Savage Land, manages to trap Ka-Zar in a pit and takes off with Zabu. Ka-Zar pursues and battles Kraven on his ship.

aston1

Despite his best efforts, Ka-Zar is defeated by a tranquilizer spray and tossed overboard. He quickly finds his way up to New York to rescue Zabu.

While a bit weak, especially compared to some of the work he’d soon be doing for DC, this was an interesting start, even though Kirby only lasted two half-issues on this feature. I thought his drawing of the Ditko designed Kraven worked surprisingly well, and I liked the various beasts and backgrounds he drew in the Savage Land in this issue.

Published 1970

Sgt. Fury Annual #5 [1969]

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This late-1960s annual collects two 1964 issues of SGT. FURY by Kirby, both inked by George Roussos (as George Bell). While I really preferred the Dick Ayers inked issues, Roussos does pretty good here, and suits the material much more than he did on FANTASTIC FOUR.

“The Fangs of the Desert Fox” from SGT. FURY #6 features the Howlers given a mission to kill Erwin Rommel, the Desert Fox in charge of the German campaign in North Africa. Unfortunately, Dino Manelli is injured in a practice jump, and replaced by George Stonewall, who turns out to be a bigot, with particular problems with the black and jewish members of the team, Gabe and Izzy. So of course those two are the ones who end up saving him during the mission. Stonewall is still cool towards them after they return, but quietly leaves his forwarding address to Gabe and Izzy.

A little preachy, but well-intentioned, and a great war comic, with lots of firefights, hand-to-hand combat, loving renditions of tanks and planes and more.

That story was also the SGT. FURY selection for the recent MARVEL VISIONARIES – JACK KIRBY

Some special features between the two reprints, one of them from Kirby, the single page “Weapons of War” from SGT. FURY #5, showing various machine guns used in WWII.

Next up is “The Court-Martial of Sgt. Fury”, from SGT. FURY #7. In France now, the Howlers are given a mission to help the French resistance attack a German ammo depot. The American lieutenant in charge turns out to be an old school-mate of Fury. Just as they’re about to attack, Fury tries to stop the attack, and they get caught in an explosion.

Sgt. Fury Annual #5 [1969]

Fury wakes up back in England, with no memory of why he tried to stop the attack, and is put on trial. This gives us some background on Fury from before the war. Some very interesting writing in there. On the sidelines, the Howlers of course wind up in the guard-house after defending Fury’s honour from slurs by rival Sgt. Bull McGiveney. Eventually Fury gets his memory back and realizes that he stopped the attack because it was a trap, as he knew from questioning a German prisoner earlier (but for some reason didn’t pass on the information at the time. Whatever).

The story works a lot better this issue than the other one, and the art is just as good, if a bit less action filled, with all the court-martial scenes. That does give a rare chance to see Sgt. Fury in his dress uniform.

There have been occasional rumours that we might see an ESSENTIAL SGT. FURY at some point for a while now. I certainly hope so, as they’re a lot of fun, with art as good or better than Kirby’s super-hero art of there era, with some really fun stories, and most haven’t been reprinted in well over 30 years.

Published 1969

New Kirby – Black Panther & Marvel Visionaries – Stan Lee

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Two Marvel releases featuring Kirby art now published

BLACK PANTHER BY JACK KIRBY v1 collects the first 7 issues of the 1970s series, with some nice stuff in the back like the unused cover and character design from the 1960s and some unused pencil pages.

MARVEL VISIONARIES – STAN LEE features a few stories drawn by Kirby, most notably the never before reprinted final Kirby issue of THOR.