You know what the mushroom soup means. Going to be busy for the next few days or weeks, might show up with a few quick entries or cover galleries if possible, but don’t bet on it.
I’m going to be updating an old Kirby FAQ that I had to add to the sidebar. Anyone have any suggestions for questions that should be on it? Also, I’m curious, what’s the favourite Kirby era of regular visitors here? The early golden age with Simon at Marvel and DC? The later S&K for various publishers? The post-Simon stuff at DC and Marvel? Early Marvel silver age heroes? Later silver age? 1970-1975 at DC? 1976-1978 at Marvel? The 1980s stuff? (those are, by the way, roughly how I divide the eras when deciding what to post, trying to keep at least one representitive of each era on the “recent posts” list)
“Victory is Sacrifice”. Truer words were never spoke. It can be quite a sacrifice to read Captain Victory sometimes. While obviously I’m a big fan of Jack Kirby (for those of you who haven’t picked up on that yet), no one can do 25,000+ pages of comics and hit every time, and I’d say this special is one of those rare mis-steps (I do like some other CV stuff, of course).
Normally I’d recount the plot of this issue here, but I’m not sure that’s possible. Something about PFC Egghead inventing a time-travel device that takes some of the crew back to an Dumas-inspired France where there’s a bomb of some sort. There’s also something about Egghead playing the Hunchback of Notre Dame. I dunno, look at the art.
That is a pretty cool gargoyle, and some of the other art in here is nice. It’s just all very strange. Plus it’s the first issue printed on upscale paper stock, and there were still some bugs in the system, so that looks weird.
25-page lead story plus three pin-up/profile pages on different Ranger sections and how they might have inspired Earth myths. All that and the cover inked by Mike Thibodeaux. The text page by the publisher mentions the unpublished MIDNIGHT MEN book that Kirby was working on with Roger McKenzie (Kirby was supposed to do the 48 page first issue before another artist took over the series).
Published 1983
The second in the new series of Marvel Milestone one-shots has been released, MARVEL MILESTONES: VENOM & HERCULES. The Hercules half of the book is the first Thor/Hercules story from JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY ANNUAL #1 (1965), along with the cover and map of Asgard from that issue. The cover was really badly reprinted, but the story looked okay. The other half of the book is an out of context chapter from a 1980s mini-series and various 1980s Spider-Man covers.
Harvey comics published a single issue of FIGHTING AMERICAN in 1966, with a few reprints of the mid-1950s series as well as a few unused stories from that time by Simon & Kirby, including a new cover.
Bit pressedfor time, so I’ll write more on this later. For now here’s a page from “The Secret of Yafata’s Moustache”.
Published 1966
Another cover gallery, this time scattered genres by S&K published by Prize in the early 1950s.
PRIZE COMICS WESTERN #83, 1950. A very nice detailed cover, with a nice dynamic layout.
JUSTICE TRAPS THE GUILTY #22, 1951. And some good violent fun on this one, with some nice inking.
BLACK MAGIC #12[v2n6], 1952. Sorry the scan isn’t so good for this one, but still a nice cover, especially with the typical Kirby scientist type.
