Daily Archives: August 27, 2005

Thor #252 [1976] – Cover

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Always a big fan of Ulik, he was a fun character in the 1960s stories, really cool looking, so it was nice to see him on a few Kirby covers in the 1970s.

Thor252_468.jpg
Verpoorten inks, with a bit of touch-up work credited to Romita in the Kirby checklist, but pretty minor compared to some.

Published 1976

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OMAC #6 [1975] – The Body Bank

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Following the events of the previous issue, OMAC heads down the subway in pursuit of kidnappers who steal young bodies to sell to the old rich. One of those non-stop action bits with a few weird concepts thrown in. I love that classic style Kirby tech in the medical equipment, and of course OMAC busting through a wall shaking off a crowd of villains is excellent (although the one exclaiming that “He’s a one-man army” seems a bit forced).

OMAC #6 [1975]

D. Bruce Berry inks the cover and the 18-page story. This was in the era of rapidly shrinking page counts at DC, so the two-page spread meant for pages 2/3 was shrunk down to a single panel on what was page 4. The original panel that was replaced appears in TJKC #17.

Published 1975

Blue Ribbon Comics #5 [1984]

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This Archie comic reprints most of the S&K content from DOUBLE LIFE OF PRIVATE STRONG #1 (1959), except for the Fly intro teaser. There’s also a new cover by Kirby and Rich Buckler (I’ve seen the pencils to this somewhere, does anyone remember off-hand where they were printed).

One intro page and four stories inside, a total of 25 pages from S&K, setting up the Lancelot Strong character, a revamp of the old Shield character. The character is an odd mix of things, a little bit of Captain America, mixed in with a bit of Superman’s origin, as we open with a scientist conducting experiments of questionable ethics on his own infant son to tap his full brainpower. When it looks like his experiments will be stopped, the scientist flees and crashes, leaving his son to be found by an old farm couple, who raise him as their own. He develops powers as a teen, just in time to stop an invasion from an alien monster very similar to the type that would soon be terrorizing Marvel in Kirby stories, and also finds a costume. Then he gets drafted, and his adventures as Private Strong begins.

More harkening back to earlier stories, “The Menace of the Micro-Men” has a lot in common with one of the YELLOW CLAW stories of a few years earlier.

So while this feature was far from the most original Kirby worked on, the artwork is a lot of fun, so this reprint of it is well worth picking up for some vintage Kirby at an affordable price.

Published 1984

Tomorrow